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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSjDe9_jZk8

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Italian and German Unification: Crash Course European History #27

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjFscoiE8eI

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Ten Minute History - The Unification of Italy (Short Documentary)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A_o-nU5s2U

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Haitian Revolutions: Crash Course World History #30

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/bismarck_otto_von.shtml

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Bismarck was responsible for transforming a collection of small German states into the German empire, and was its first chancellor.

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born into an aristocratic family at Schönhausen, northwest of Berlin, on 1 April 1815. He attended a prestigious school in Berlin followed by the University of Göttingen. He then entered the Prussian civil service but was bored by his job and in 1838 resigned. For nearly a decade, he helped his father manage the family estates.

In 1847, Bismarck married Johanna von Puttkamer, who provided him with stability. It was a year of significant change in his life, when he also embraced the Christian tradition of Lutheranism, and began his political career in the Prussian legislature, where he gained a reputation as an ultra-conservative royalist. In 1851, King Frederick Wilhelm IV appointed Bismarck as Prussian representative to the German Confederation. He then served as ambassador to Russia and France. In 1862, he returned to Prussia and was appointed prime minister by the new king, Wilhelm I.

Bismarck was now determined to unite the German states into a single empire, with Prussia at its core. With Austrian support, he used the expanded Prussian army to capture the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark. He then escalated a quarrel with Austria and its German allies over the administration of these provinces into a war, in which Prussia was the victor. Prussia then annexed further territory in Germany.

Unable to persuade the southern German states to join with his North German Confederation, he provoked hostilities with France as a way of uniting the German states together. The German victory in the Franco-Prussian War won over the southern German states, and in 1871 they agreed to join a German empire. Wilhelm I of Prussia became emperor.

As 'chancellor' of the new Germany, Bismarck concentrated on building a powerful state with a unified national identity. One of his targets was the Catholic Church, which he believed had too much influence, particularly in southern Germany. He also worked to prevent the spread of socialism, partly by introducing health insurance and pensions.

Abroad, Bismarck aimed to make the German empire the most powerful in Europe. In 1879, he negotiated an alliance with Austria-Hungary to counteract France and Russia. Italy later joined the alliance. To avoid alienating Britain, Bismarck arranged the two Mediterranean Agreements of 1887, designed to preserve the status quo against a Russian threat.

In 1890, Bismarck resigned after disagreeing with the new emperor, Wilhelm II. He retired to his estate near Hamburg and died there on 30 July 1898.

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Read a biography of Otto von Bismarck - the first chancellor of united Germany.

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Otto von Bismarck was a Prussian politician who became Germany's first ever chancellor, a position in which he served from 1871 to 1890. Through a series of wars, he unified 39 individual states into one German nation in 1871.

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https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giovanni-Lanza

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Giovanni Lanza, Italian statesman and political activist of the Risorgimento who was premier in 1870 when Rome became the capital of a united Italy and who helped organize the political forces of the centre-left. After graduating from the University of Turin as a doctor of medicine, Lanza

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Lanza was born in the Piedmontese city of Casale Monferrato.  He was an Italian politician and the eighth prime minister of Italy from 1869 to 1873.

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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Toussaint Louverture (ca. 1743-1803) was a Haitian general and leader of the Haitian Revolution.

Toussaint Louverture is thought to have been born enslaved around 1739-1746 on the plantation of Bréda at Haut de Cap on the northern coast of Saint-Domingue, present day Haiti. His father, Gaou Guinou was the son of the king of Benin in West Africa and his mother, Pauline, was Guinou's second wife. Louverture was likely well-educated throughout his youth, as his letters demonstrated knowledge of both French and Creole and a familiarity with Greek, Italian, and French philosophers.

In 1776, at the age of 33, Louverture was freed and the following year, he married Suzanne Simone Baptiste. The couple remained in Bréda, where Louverture amassed a small fortune through the exploitation of enslaved individuals on his leased coffee plantation.

The spark of the French Revolution in 1789 inspired free people or color in Saint-Domingue to seek addition rights under the law. However, in August 1791, a Vodou ceremony marked the beginning of the rebellion amongst Saint-Domingue's enslaved population. As an enslaver, Louverture left Bréda and removed his overseers from his coffee plantation. After joining the Spanish-allied military forces of Georges Biassou, he took on a leadership role in the rebellion, discussing strategy and negotiating supplies with the Spanish. In a late 1791 prisoner of war negotiation, Louverture made successions to the enslaved population in Saint-Domingue, banning the use of the whip, allowing an extra day off, and emancipating some of the rebellion's leaders. In the years following, he earned notoriety as a significant military leader and skilled negotiator.

In the early 1790s, he adopted the surname Louverture and shifted his viewpoints on slavery and abolition. Instead of fighting for more humane treatment of enslaved individuals, he instead campaigned for the complete abolition of slavery. When the French revolutionary government first outlawed slavery on February 4, 1794, Louverture switched his allegiance to the French. The July 1796 Treaty of Basel formally ended hostilities between the French and Spanish.

Throughout his years in power, Louverture worked to improve the economy and security of Saint-Domingue. He restored the plantation system using paid labor, negotiated trade treaties with Britain and the United States, and maintained a large and well-disciplined army. He was promoted to Saint-Domingue's highest-ranking officer in 1797.

By 1801, Louverture had conquered the whole island, extending abolition to the Spanish Santo Domingo, and embarked on a program of modernization. In 1802, when Louverture promulgated an autonomist constitution for the colony, instating himself as governor for life over the whole of "Hispaniola," Napoleon Bonaparte took this as an affront to French control of the island and Louverture was arrested and deported to France. He died in prison in 1803.

The Haitian Revolution continued under his lieutenant, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who declared independence for the sovereign nation of Haiti in early 1804. The Haitian Revolution and the actions of Toussaint Louverture led to the establishment of the first sovereign state in Latin America, challenging the European colonial order. The Haitian Revolution inspired other national and Creole revolutions across Latin America.
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Toussaint Louverture (ca. 1743-1803) was a Haitian general and leader of the Haitian Revolution.

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François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution.  Louverture fought against the French, then for them, and then finally against France again for the cause of Haitian independence.