Age of Anxiety Timeline Project SV by Summer Ventura

KEY

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:24:38 UTC

Red: Political

Orange: Social

Blue: Cultural

Green: Economic

1918 🇬🇧 - British Women Win the Vote

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:24:48 UTC

In 1918 under the Representation of the People Act, British women over thirty who owned property were granted the right to vote after a century long struggle. Younger women were considered too “flighty” to have voting rights. This limited victory was a long time coming, partially made possible by women’s participation in work outside the home during WWI. After the war, some politicians thought it trivial not to give women the right to vote. Another asset to the movement was the brief coming together of working and middle class women for the same cause, a rare partnership. For middle class women especially, watching their husbands gain more voting rights made them eager to earn those same rights. For some women, the labour party gave women a platform that the liberal party different, and the choice of different political groups with different strategies made it possible for a wider array of women to participate. Notable groups included the NUWSS and the WSPU, the latter lead by suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst. Media publications also made a difference in the suffrage, including novels like Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, published in 1925. 1918 was a pivotal year for the suffragettes, yet considering 60% of women still couldn’t vote and the franchise act was passed largely for the benefit of men who were disqualified from voting due to the war, the movement still had a long way to go.

1919

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:26:44 UTC

1920

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:48:06 UTC

1921 🇷🇺 - Lenin's New Economic Policy

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:48:11 UTC

Vladimir Lenin seized control of Russia during the October Revolution of 1917 in which he lead the Bolsheviks in peacefully abolishing the Provisional Government, giving power to the Soviets. Once in power, Lenin instituted economic reforms. His New Economic Policy of 1921 represented a shift away from the war communism of the previous decade, which antagonized the Russian peasants and caused a great famine. Instead, he attempted to restore stability and compromise with capitalism by having the state control basic industries while also allowing for some private trade and private profit. In doing so, he restored trade between the peasants and the country, as the peasants would only feed the city if they could trade, and the city would only trade if the people were fed. This created a new city commercial class and kulaks, big individualist farmers in the countryside. However, although the damages of the war and the Russian Revolution were repaired, there was no significant progress in production.

October 28, 1922 🇮🇹 - March on Rome

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:48:16 UTC

In October 1922, Mussolini’s fascist party planned a coup in which thousands of fascist Blackshirts (armed bands) would march to Rome in an attempt to bring him to power. On October 28, the liberal-democratic cabinet of recently resigned Prime minister Luigi Facta ordered a siege to stop the military threat, but King Victor Emmanuel III refused to declare martial law, preventing the military from intervening. The result was not a coup but rather a transfer of power, with the government resigning and Mussolini being named Prime Minister of Italy on October 29, all legally. Italy initially remained a constitutional monarchy, but quickly descended into a fascist totalitarian dictatorship, remaining fascist until 1943.

1923

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:49:55 UTC

August 16, 1924 🇩🇪 - Dawes Plan

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:01 UTC

In 1923 when Germany defaulted on reparations payments to France, the French occupied the industrial sites of the Ruhr valley. The German workers in the valley proceeded to go on strike and the German government had to sustain them by printing more money, which lead to great inflation in which four million papers was equal to one dollar. Chicago Banker Charles G. Dawes formed a committee and presented a proposal in April 1924 in order to improve the situation. Under his plan, France would evacuate the Ruhr, Germany’s reparation payments would be cut down, and they could borrow money abroad. This lead to the U.S. essentially bailing Germany out by investing private capital, which gave Germany a new surge of prosperity, but in foreign loans. Once the Great Depression hit and the U.S. halted loans, Germany was left in a precarious economic position, which was later used as reasoning by Hitler to harness control over the nervous German population.

July 18, 1925 🇩🇪 - Mein Kampf Published

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:07 UTC

On November 8, 1923, Adolf Hitler attempted to overthrow the German government and replace it with a German Reich that defined citizenship based on race. Hitler and the stormtroopers’ march on Berlin, inspired by Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome, came to be known as the Beer Hall Putsch because it began at a beer hall in Munich. However, the insurrection was unsuccessful and Hitler was tried and sentenced to prison for five years. After serving only nine months of his sentence, Hitler published Mein Kampf (meaning "my struggle"), attempting to use his conviction to spread Nazi propaganda. The book sold 230,000 copies by 1932, when the Nazis became the largest party represented in the Reichstag. 850,000 copies were sold in 1933 alone when Hitler was named Chancellor of Germany. Mein Kampf was highly significant to the coming of WWII as Hitler laid out his argument that the Aryan race was superior and made glaringly clear his strategy to use Jewish people as a scapegoat for Germany’s problems. The book not only spread his ideas to the general public, fueling Nazi-ism and racism among Germans, but also made Hitler a multi-millionaire and provided an all access look into his plans. It provides evidence that it was impossible for Germans to deny knowing about Hitler’s antisemitism because in widely publishing Mein Kampf, he made it obvious.

1926

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:12 UTC

1927

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:18 UTC

1928

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:22 UTC

1929–1938 🇫🇷 - Maginot Line

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:27 UTC

The Maginot Line was a permanent defensive front on the Eastern side of France facing Germany from the Belgian to the Swiss border. The line sprung up after the first World War due to France’s reluctance to fight another war with so many mass casualties. Therefore, its strategy became defensive, backed by elaborate fortifications. The Maginot Line was also considered more advanced and more comfortable than previous constructions, with air conditioning, thick concrete walls, heavy guns, recreation areas, and underground railways. With the class and fascist conflict occurring in France in the nineteen-twenties, it was impossible to construct a uniform foreign policy, so social and political groups across the board took false comfort in the complex construction of the Maginot Line. However, the line proved useless in 1940 as the Germans simply bypassed it by invading through Belgium with tanks and planes.

1930

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:31 UTC

1931 🇬🇧 - Great Britain Abandons the Gold Standard

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:41 UTC

Under the gold standard, a fixed amount of paper currency could be traded in for a fixed amount of gold. After WWI throughout the nineteen-twenties, various nations began to restore the gold standard, however in 1931, Britain abruptly abandoned it after returning to it in 1925. The standard was inflexible and caused a run on Britain’s gold reserves as people rapidly traded in their money for gold. This decision was unexpectedly important in helping Britain recover from the Great Depression faster than nations who kept the gold standard, because nations who devalued early enjoyed benefits in the international economy and increased industrial production. Its devaluation marked a decisive turning point in Britain’s economic recovery from the Depression.

1932–1933 🇷🇺 - Голодомор

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:46 UTC

The Holodomor in Ukraine, a mass famine in the Soviet Union created by Joseph Stalin, killed about 3.9 million people. It has been recognized as a genocide by sixteen countries. Stalin engineered the famine because he was threatened by Ukraine’s cultural autonomy and the supposed threat of Ukrainian independence. His 1929 system of collectivization under the government’s Five Year Plan forced peasants to give up their land and livestock and work on collective farms, and the property of those who resisted was liquidated. Tens of thousands of farmers were arrested, shot, or sent to labor camps for protesting collectivization. Wealthy farmers were declared “kulaks” and were considered enemies of the Soviet Union, systematically killed by the government. In order to suppress the Ukrainian people, Stalin set ridiculously high grain quotas and passed the “Five Stalks of Grain” law, declaring anyone who took grain from a collective field was stealing Soviet property and executing 2000 “perpetrators”. Once a village didn’t mean grain quotas, they were put on a “blacklist”, guaranteeing the death of one third of Ukrainian villages. The famine was purposefully created by the Russian government in order to eliminate the Ukrainian people, as there was enough food to feed the starving population. Today, the Russian government still denies that the Holodomor was a genocide, and in Ukraine it is illegal to deny the existence of the Holodomor in public.

1934 🇷🇺 - Socialist Realism

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:50:56 UTC

Socialist realism was an art style developed in the Soviet Union in the nineteen-thirties that was meant to establish an optimistic viewpoint with simple imagery. It exemplified Stalin’s control of Soviet art, playing a role in establishing his cult of personality. When Stalin became General Secretary of the Communist party in 1922, he tightened Lenin’s social and cultural controls. He believed art should be “true-to-life” and accessible to the workers, also using it to spread self-benefiting propaganda. Through art, he made himself into a national father figure. The main goal of Socialist Realism was to idolize daily life in the Soviet Union and portray Stalin in a warm, positive light, despite his cruel policies and perpetration of genocide. Aside from visual art, Socialist Realism was also present in literary works, similar to previous realism in that it portrayed daily Russian life, but was optimistic rather than critical. A classless socialist society was embraced.

September 15, 1935 🇩🇪 - Nuremberg Laws

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:51:01 UTC

The Nuremberg laws legally separated Jewish and non-Jewish people, depriving Jewish people of their citizenship rights and forbidding sexual relations between Jewish and non-Jewish people. These laws put into effect the Nazi party’s beliefs about the “superior Aryan race”, the first step in realizing their goals for the future of Germany. The laws were comprised of the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. The Reich Citizenship Law defined a citizen as someone who had “German blood”, excluding Jewish people, and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor banned sexual relations between Jewish and non-Jewish people in order to prevent “mixed-raced children”, ensuring a future German population with completely “German blood”. The laws defined Jewish people as those who had three or four grandparents who practiced the Jewish religion, and the laws also applied to the Roma and Black populations. The Nuremberg Laws ushered in an era of extreme discrimination against Jewish people and genocide.

August 19, 1936 – November 17, 1938 🇷🇺 - Purges

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:51:06 UTC

The Soviet political Purge was known as the Great Terror, in which Stalin violently eliminated “opponents” of Communism. Lenin didn’t want Stalin to be the leader of the Soviet Union, but after Lenin’s death he took power anyway. Once he established control, he went about removing any of the “Old Bolsheviks” who were associated with Lenin’s government. One third of the Party’s members were expelled and 16 Old Bolsheviks who participated in the 1917 Russian Revolution were brought to trial. All were put to death. Stalin was encouraged to strengthen the Soviet Union against Nazi threats in the West and military threats in the East, choosing the Purge as his method of doing so. The Purge began with the death of Sergei Kirov, believed to have been ordered dead by Stalin himself. This was followed by a series of staged Moscow trials in which defendants were tortured to elicit a confession and declared guilty on the spot. 30,000 members of the Red Army were also executed by Stalin for supposedly planning a coup. Even Leon Trotsky was killed during the Moscow Trials. In conducting the Purge, Stalin ensured his power over the Russian people, eliminated possible enemies, and, importantly, made Russia completely dependent on the state.

1937 🇪🇸 - Picasso Paints Guernica

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:51:10 UTC

Picasso painted Guernica as a response to the Nazis’ bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, in which the Nazis tested out “saturation bombing” on civilians in order to practice for WWII. The painting depicts the brutal violence and horrors of the civil war, preserving these awful memories for future generations to look back on and remember how fascism destroyed Spain, also serving as a premonition for the World War that was to follow. The terror of the painting is found in the details of its complexity. On the left, a devastated mother holds her dead baby. In the middle, a figure is being trampled by a wild horse. On the right a figure reaches up towards the sky in agony. As well as men and women the painting also features horses and bulls, sending the message that man is beast, reflecting the brutality of war by any means necessary.

May 12, 1938 🇦🇹 - Anschluss

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:51:14 UTC

The Anschluss was the Union of Austria and Nazi Germany, considered the Nazis’ first aggressive foreign policy decision and leading to the incorporation of millions of Jewish people under the regime, who were subject to violent discrimination. In doing so, Germany clearly violated the Treaty of Versailles. The annexation of Austria was an instrumental step in instituting discriminatory laws against the Jewish population and eventually lead to the genocide of the Austrian Jewish people. Although in 1934 Hitler failed to enact a coup in Austria, in 1938 Hitler forced the Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to let the Nazis do whatever they wanted. This was followed by Schuschnigg being pressured to cancel his plebiscite and resign. Germany invaded on May 12 and the annexation occurred on the thirteenth. 99.7% approval was reached by a new plebiscite in April.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:51:38 UTC

BBC. “Germany and the Depression, 1929-1933 - Weimar Germany Overview - AQA - GCSE History Revision - AQA.” BBC Bitesize, 2022, www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zcwxrdm/revision/3.
Beyer, Greg . “The Rise of Vladimir Lenin: The Birth of the USSR.” TheCollector, 2 Oct. 2022, www.thecollector.com/the-rise-of-vladimir-lenin-ussr/.
Bosworth, RJB. “The March on Rome 1922: How Benito Mussolini Turned Italy into the First Fascist State.” HistoryExtra, 14 Feb. 2023, www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/march-on-rome-mussolini/.
Britannica. “Ireland - Independent Ireland to 1959.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, www.britannica.com/place/Ireland/Independent-Ireland-to-1959.
“Emily Davison Laid to Rest | Century Ireland.” Www.rte.ie, 2023, www.rte.ie/centuryireland/articles/emily-davison-laid-to-rest.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Pact of Locarno | European History.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, www.britannica.com/event/Pact-of-Locarno.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Socialist Realism | Art.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 2019, www.britannica.com/art/Socialist-Realism.
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Anschluss | German History.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 6 Mar. 2019, www.britannica.com/event/Anschluss.
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Maginot Line | French Fortification, Europe.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 16 May 2012, www.britannica.com/topic/Maginot-Line.
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “March on Rome | Italian History.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 21 Oct. 2018, www.britannica.com/event/March-on-Rome.
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “Sergei Kirov | Biography, Assassination, & Facts.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 Nov. 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Sergei-Kirov .
“The End of the Gold Standard and the Beginning of the Recovery from the Great Depression.” CEPR, 7 Apr. 2024, cepr.org/voxeu/columns/end-gold-standard-and-beginning-recovery-great-depression.
History.com Editors. “Great Terror: 1937, Stalin & Russia | HISTORY.” HISTORY, 15 Mar. 2018, www.history.com/articles/great-purge.
“Hitler’s Appointment as Chancellor, 1933 - Hitler into Power, 1929-1934 - AQA - GCSE History Revision - AQA.” BBC Bitesize, www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zckbmnb/revision/3.
Holborn, Margaret. “Women’s Suffrage - February 1918, First Women Gain Right to Vote.” The Guardian, 5 Feb. 2018, www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre/2018/feb/05/womens-suffrage-february-1918-first-women-gain-right-to-vote-in-parliamentary-elections.
Holocaust Encyclopedia. “The Nuremberg Race Laws.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2 July 2021, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nuremberg-race-laws.
“Italo-Ethiopian War | Causes, Summary, & Facts.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 26 Apr. 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Italo-Ethiopian-War-1935-1936.
Lohnes, Kate. “Mrs. Dalloway | Summary, Context, & Interpretation.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 July 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/Mrs-Dalloway-novel-by-Woolf.
Nelsson, Richard. “The March on Rome and Mussolini’s Ascent to Power – Archive, October 1922.” The Guardian, 19 Oct. 2022, www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/19/march-on-rome-and-coming-to-power-of-mussolini-1922.

October 3, 1935 🇮🇹 - Invasion of Ethiopia

summerventura — 2025-04-03 13:57:15 UTC

At Adowa in 1896, Ethiopia blocked Italy’s attempt at invasion, putting a stop to Italy’s imperialist ambitions and leaving Ethiopia as the only independent Black African nation besides Liberia. Along with Italy’s disappointment on the outcomes of the Treaty of Versailles, Mussolini took advantage of Italy’s humiliating defeats in order to convince the people of his power. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia and the League of Nations sanctioned Italy. Even though the nations in the League of Nations were supposed to deny Italy arms and raw materials, France was sympathetic to Mussolini and England was reluctant to provoke another war, meaning Mussolini was easily able to defeat Ethiopia. The invasion was important to international relations as it showed that the League of Nations couldn’t effectively discipline wayward Great Powers. Its ineffectiveness was key in the development of WWII.

July 17, 1936 – April 1, 1939 🇪🇸 - Spanish Civil War

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:01:27 UTC

The nineteen-twenties were a decade of turmoil for Spain. General Miguel Primo de Rivera tried to overthrow the government and create a fascist state but failed miserably. Then, another military government was attempted, but the Republicans and Socialists won in the 1931 elections, and King Alfonso fled. The new government was inconsistent with its reforms, quickly angering peasants and landowners with its lack of land reform and repressing Catalonian calls for independence. The only thing really holding Spain together was the Catholic faith, so when the government secularized education it caused another outcry. Meanwhile, fascism was spreading. The Falange, created by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, was a fascist political party that copied the Italian fascists’ salute and bundle of sticks, replacing them with arrows. The civil war between the fascists and the Republicans began with a military insurrection, General Francisco Franco of the Nationalists taking over Spain from the south. The Republicans on the other hand were an unorganized diverse group, all fighting against fascism, joined by international volunteers. Other nations fueled fascism, only the Soviet union giving temporary aid to the Republicans, while Western nations stayed neutral. Their neutrality gave more power to the fascists and some governments still sent them ammunition. It was the deadliest war in Spanish history with over 600,000 deaths and gave Hitler practice in causing mass casualties, as he tested out new bombing techniques on the civilians of Guernica. This would be significant in WWII. The Nationalists invaded Madrid in 1939 and Italy remained a fascist dictatorship until 1975.

1922 🇮🇪 - Creation of the Irish Free State

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:02:34 UTC

The Easter Rebellion was a nationalist uprising that although suppressed by the British, lead to the creation of the political party Sinn Fein. In 1918, Sinn Fein won all parliament seats besides Ulster and decided to boycott the British, creating their own Irish parliament called Dail Eireann. After declaring independence from Britain, Dail Eireann established the Irish Republican Army and a guerilla war began against the British. A civil war was sparked by the subsequent creation of the Irish Free State due to private negotiations between Dail Eireann and the British, declaring all of Ireland independent except for Ulster. The civil war was brutal brother-vs-brother fighting between those who supported the Free State within the current boundaries and those who thought Ulster should be included as part of Ireland. The war ended with the treaty being confirmed and Northern Ireland remaining under British control, leaving the Irish people with lasting resentment towards the British.

June 4, 1913 🇬🇧 - Emily Wilding Davison Killed by the King’s Horse

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:09:26 UTC

On June 4, 1913, English suffragette Emily Wilding Davison intentionally walked onto the track at the Epsom derby and was subsequently trampled to death by King George V’s horse. Her death was publicized in newspapers such as The Suffragette, immortalizing her as a martyr for the militant cause. Born 1872, Davison led the Women’s Social and Political Union, endured arrests for “obstruction”, “stone throwing” and “breaking windows”, suffered force feeding, and was so invested in the movement that she gave her life to it. Although her exact motives for crossing the barricade have been questioned, her sacrifice was undoubtedly on behalf of her dedication to “Votes for Women” and it made readily apparent the desperation and stubbornness of British suffragettes, highlighting their increasingly militant methods of protest. At her funeral procession, thousands of women marched the streets of London, remembering her as a brave, beloved asset to the suffrage movement.

1914

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:09:31 UTC

1915

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:09:35 UTC

1916-1918 🇨🇭 - Dada Begins

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:09:39 UTC

Around 1916 in the throws of WW1, Dada emerged out of the conceptual art movement in Zürich, Switzerland and quickly spread throughout Europe and the U.S. It was a reaction to the Great War, rejecting Bourgeois and capitalist culture. Dada included painting, sculpture, and writing, among other mediums. Instead of creating pieces that were aesthetically beautiful, conceptual artists used their art to ask complex questions about society and to challenge the very definition of art itself. Dada placed focus less on the importance of each individual piece and more on art as a lifestyle and art as it interacts with society. “Readymades” (or everyday objects artists minimally changed and put on display) which were popular in the Dada movement, challenged notions that good art had to take time and skill to create, questioning if real meaning lay in the relationship between the piece and the audience: in other words, creativity was celebrated more than mastery of any given medium. The lack of planning behind a lot of Dada works and the emphasis on chance as a collaborator directly opposed the norms of Bourgeois culture, as the artist wasn’t nearly as involved in the “art” itself. Dada artists were so determined to explore difficult questions about art that they were hesitant to try to describe the movement as a singular entity at all, often calling it “nothing”.

1917

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:09:44 UTC

November 9, 1938 🇩🇪 - Kristallnacht

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:14:28 UTC

Meaning “night of broken glass”, Kristallnacht occurred when seventeen year old Jewish Polish student Herschel Grynszpan shot German diplomatic officer Ernst vom Rath on November 7 and Nazi troops proceeded to smash Jewish shop windows and beat thousands on the streets. In response to the shooting, Nazis launched pogroms (violent attacks) against German Jewish people and Jewish people in acquired territories. Synagogues were burned and Hitler Youth patrolled the streets killing Jewish people. 30,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps following the pogroms, and the series of attacks lead to the passing of numerous antisemitic laws. The financial impact of the pogroms was felt by the Jewish population who were blamed for the brutality, forced to pay one billion Reichsmark, and considered responsible for the insurance payments due after the destruction of their shops. These attacks la

May 14, 1925 🇬🇧 - Virginia Woolf Publishes Mrs. Dalloway

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:20:19 UTC

In 1925 Virginia Woolf published her groundbreaking novel Mrs. Dalloway. The book described a day in the life of an upper-class women named Clarissa living in London and was virtually plot-less, instead written in a stream-of-consciousness style similar to James Joyce’s Ulysses. The novel was unconventional for the time in that it examined PTSD and shell shock from WWI, included interwoven narratives, and challenged the social constraints placed on women. The significance of time in Mrs. Dalloway is also notable for the period, considering the entire story takes place in a single day.

1929 🇩🇪 - Great Depression Hits Germany

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:21:36 UTC

The Great Depression hitting Germany greatly contributed to the instability of the Weimar Republic and later provided the groundwork for Hitler and the Nazis to rise to power. The Depression began with the U.S. stock market crash on October 24, 1929 and the effects eventually reached Europe as America ceased to invest abroad and the Austrian bank Creditanstalt collapsed. Germany was largely dependent on U.S. loans by this point in order to pay remaining reparations from WWI, so the revocation of these loans resulted in widespread poverty. Additionally, the situation had a role in causing the following world war, as Hitler used Jewish people as a scapegoat for the German Depression and took advantage of mass unemployment and economic insecurity to present himself as a practical political leader.

December 1, 1925 🌎 - Locarno Treaties

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:26:35 UTC

In the mid-nineteen-twenties, a group of moderate, peace loving leaders mainly shaped international relations.The League of Nations provided sanctions against aggressors and protected peace treaties without force, for the time being. The 1925 Locarno treaties were a point of international goodwill in the tumultuous decade, a series of post-war agreements that supposedly guaranteed peace between Germany, France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Italy. Treaties now existed between Germany, France, and Belgium, and Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia over frontiers, as well as between France, Poland and Czechoslovakia promising military aid against potential German attack. The main results were France fortifying its policy of balancing German power in the East, and Britain promising aid against German attack, however not in the key Czechoslovakian area where WWII was to break out. If Britain had promised aid in that region, the second world war may have looked very different. Although the gains were short lived, Locarno fostered a sense of peace and stability in Western Europe during a scary decade when threats of fascism and totalitarian rule loomed, ushering in the “spirit of Locarno”.

January 30, 1933 🇩🇪 - Hitler Becomes Chancellor of Germany

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:28:08 UTC

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party, was named Chancellor of the Coalition Cabinet by President Hindenburg. The government believed they could control Hitler, trying to use him to restore order. However, Hitler quickly rose to power and became Führer in 1934 following Hindenberg’s death through Nazi propaganda, the scapegoating of Jewish people, and taking advantage of the Great Depression and instability of the previous Republic. He created a totalitarian regime, leading to World War II and the Holocaust. Although up to this point in his life Hitler was essentially a failure, his position as Chancellor was key in giving him the power to establish Nazi Germany.

November 11, 1918 - WWI Ends

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:29:29 UTC

The armistice officially ended combat on the Western Front at 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918.

September 1, 1939 - WWII Begins

summerventura — 2025-04-03 14:30:25 UTC

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. War was declared on Germany by Britain and France on September 3.

summerventura — 2025-04-06 20:07:31 UTC

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Ray, Michael. “New Economic Policy.” Www.britannica.com, 19 Jan. 2024, www.britannica.com/money/New-Economic-Policy-Soviet-history.
Resis, Albert. “Vladimir Lenin | Biography, Facts, & Ideology.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 Apr. 2018, www.britannica.com/biography/Vladimir-Lenin.
Sedberry, Allison. “Emily Wilding Davison (1872-1913) | towards Emancipation?” Hist259.Web.unc.edu, 2018, hist259.web.unc.edu/emily-wilding-davison-1872-1913/.
Smith, Chris. “Bank of England: The Gold Standard.” House of Lords Library, 27 Jan. 2020, lordslibrary.parliament.uk/bank-of-england-the-gold-standard/.
“Spanish Civil War | Definition, Causes, Summary, & Facts.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 31 Jan. 2019, www.britannica.com/event/Spanish-Civil-War.
Trachtman, Paul. “A Brief History of Dada.” Smithsonian, May 2006, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/dada-115169154/.
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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . “Beer Hall Putsch (Munich Putsch).” Ushmm.org, 3 Nov. 2019, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/beer-hall-putsch-munich-putsch.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. “Kristallnacht.” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 18 Oct. 2019, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/kristallnacht.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Mein Kampf.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2025, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/mein-kampf.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Nazi Territorial Aggression: The Anschluss.” Encyclopedia.ushmm.org, 2018, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-territorial-aggression-the-anschluss.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Great Depression.” Ushmm.org, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2019, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-great-depression.
University of Minnesota. “Holodomor.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies | College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, 2018, cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor.
“Голодомор на Украине. 10 главных фактов о трагедии 1930-х годов - BBC News Русская служба.” BBC News Русская служба, www.bbc.com/russian/features-55101316.

Age of Anxiety Timeline Project *SV* by Summer Ventura

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