1900 C.E. to Present - SAT Subject Test in World History

The United States-led coalition invasion of Afghanistan began in October 2001 and only ended recently in December of 2014. The war began in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on American soil less than a month earlier. The publicly stated goals of the American forces were to defeat and dismantle Al-Qaeda and to remove the Taliban government from power.

The "Axis of Evil" was a term created by the government of George W. Bush to try and provide support for American military involvement in Iraq and other countries. Iran, Iraq, and North Korea were identified as "evil" countries that sponsored terrorism and were trying to pursue the ownership of nuclear weapons.

During and immediately after the Gulf War, the Kurdish people (along with a loose coalition of other groups) rebelled against the forces of Saddam Hussein and the Sunni-led government. Although they achieved many initial victories, the government reprisal was swift and brutal. Chemical weapons were used, and mass genocide was encouraged. Almost two million Kurds fled Iraq during this time period.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was one of the last conflicts of the Cold War. The United States funded the Mujahadeen resistance fighters who were resisting Soviet occupation. This decision would have long-lasting consequences for the United States, as the weapons were used against the country in later conflicts.

Saddam Hussein was a Sunni Muslim in a country (Iraq) where the population distribution of Shia and Sunni Muslims is roughly even. Sectarian differences between Sunni and Shia have been the cause of much conflict in the Middle East for hundreds of years and are especially relevant today.

Haile Selassie was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He is notable for his defense of Ethiopia against Mussolini's Italian invasion and for modernizing Ethiopia into the twentieth century.

The Second Boer War was fought between the British Empire and Afrikaner settlers of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic. It ended in victory for the British Empire, but did little to change the social, political, or economic situation in South Africa.

The Union of South Africa was a direct result of the conclusion of the Second Boer War, in which the British Empire defeated the Afrikaner settlers of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic. The Union of South Africa would later become the Republic of South Africa and would be dominated by apartheid policies and racial disorder until the early 1990s.

Leader Dr Kwame Nkrumah eventually named himself President for Life in Ghana a few years after independence. Ghana was a former-British colony, and European powers had mixed feelings about their imperial holdings and were not often eager to let them go (see, for instance: Algeria and Kenya). America played less of a role in Ghanan independence, but they did send congratulations to Ghana once they achieved it.

Ghana was the first of the European African colonies to gain independence in the era of decolonization that began after World War II.

Gavrilo Princip assassinated Franz Ferdinand and his wife on July 28th, 1914. Princip was a member of the Black Hand, an organization dedicated to the liberation of the Yugoslav people from the rule of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Austrian empire used the assassination as a pretext to invade Serbia and thus committed the first act of aggression of the First World War.

World War I ended with the capitulation of the Germans and a victory for the allied powers. The treaty was called the Treaty of Versailles, and it is very important for understanding what would happen next in the history of Europe. The treaty essentially blamed Germany for the entirety of World War I and established harsh, almost impossible, conditions and debts for the Germans to try and pay off. This led, directly, to the rise of Hitler and Nazism and the outbreak of World War II.

The main reason why large-scale conflict broke out in World War I was the series of entangling alliances that existed before the war. In the pre-war years, all the nations of Europe were heavily nationalistic and heavily militarized. They all feared the strength of each other and sought to ensure their protection by signing treaties. So, the Germans, surrounded on all sides by possible enemies, signed alliances with Austria-Hungary and Italy. The French, fearing the threat posed by the Germans, signed treaties with Russia and Great Britain. The Triple Entente was signed between France, Britain, and Russia to provide for their mutual protection.

The Triple Alliance, designed to counter the threat of the Triple Entente (the alliance between Britain, France, and Russia) involved an alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.

The League of Nations was the brainchild of American President Woodrow Wilson who put forth the suggestion as part of his Fourteen Points at the Paris Peace Conference. Although the League was approved and formed by the international powers, when Wilson returned to America, he found that Congress was unwilling to immerse America so fully in the global experience. Congress rejected the peace treaty and American involvement in the League of Nations. This ensured that from the very beginning the League was without one of the preeminent world powers.

During the early twentieth century, Germany and France heavily disputed the status of Morocco. This was one of the primary sources of tension between the two nations in the buildup to World War One.

The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalist forces in 1914 was the direct inciting incident that led to the outbreak of World War One. In the years leading up to World War One the major powers of Europe signed extensive alliances with one another that ensured that if one country declared war on another country all the rest would be dragged into the conflict like falling dominoes. The Triple Entente between Britain, France, and Russia made the Germans and Austro-Hungarians feel threatened; the British promised to protect Belgian sovereignty; the Russians promised to fight for Serbian autonomy and so on.

Communism was not yet a major factor in international affairs in the period leading up to World War I, as the Russian Revolution had not yet happened. Nationalism and pan-slavism led to the increased ethnic tensions in Europe, especially in the Balkans, and they ultimately provided immediate catalysts for the war, namely the Serbian murder of Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand and Russia's alliance with Serbia. Imperialism and militarism both contributed to growing rivalry and tension among the major European powers, namely Germany, Britain, and France. Imperialist ambitions, in particular, led to diplomatic incidents (such as the Agadir Crisis of 1911) that heightened tensions among these nations, especially due to British and French fears of German aggression.

The Treaty of Versailles ended World War One, but it imposed a series of strict regulations on German recovery and encumbered the already-struggling German nation with an almost unpayable debt. This caused Germany to feel as if the terms were too harsh and to resent them, and contributed to the rise of Hitler and Nazism.

The various options given that were battles or attacks (Iwo Jima, Pearl Harbor, and Midway) cannot possibly have occurred after the war was over, so they can be ruled out. V-E Day is the day when victory was secured for the allied forces in Europe. This came a couple of months before V-J Day—"Victory over Japan" Day. V-J Day was August 15th, 1945.