Syndrome K was a neurological illness "that began with convulsions and dementia and led to paralysis and death from asphyxia." This ailment, which terrified the Nazi soldiers occupying the city, reportedly saved anywhere from 20 to over 100 Jews who were destined for the Auschwitz concentration camp. But how was this possible during an epidemic of such a lethal sickness?
The 20th century was one filled with significant change within the European continent, including the Russian Revolution of 1917, which consisted of two pivotal rebellions in March and November of that year. While the latter November Revolution led to the rise of a group of communists known as the Bolsheviks to power, it was the initial March Revolution that ended centuries of imperial rule in Russia. Though several distinct causes precipitated the spring revolution, it was the social, political, and economic structure of the country and the effects of World War I that terminated the Romanov dynasty, instituted a democratic republic, and launched a civil war.
After having established the colony of Roanoke in July 1587, Englishman John White wouldn't return until three years later, in August of 1590. He was heartened to see "a great smoke rise in the Ile Roanoak neere the place where I left our Colony in the yeere 1587." But what he found upon docking was nothing less than shocking: the site had apparently been fortified, but everyone was gone - not a single soul remained.
"In the vast majority of cases, Jews who survived the Holocaust in Italy did so in one (or more) of three ways: by blending in with the non-Jewish population; by fleeing over the border into Switzerland; or by taking refuge in private homes, church dormitories or convents, or medical institutions."
The infamous Cold War of the mid-twentieth century sprung from the discord between the Soviet Union and the United States following World War II in 1945. This conflict led to several significances such as a second "Red Scare," containment, a nuclear arms race, and the "Space Race."
While consumerism began in several countries across the global as early as the seventeenth century, it boomed in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was this American model that was explicitly exported to the rest of the world in the 1900s, particularly Europe, as evidenced in postwar reconstruction programs such as the Marshall Plan.
The crash of the United States stock market on October 29, 1929 triggered a global depression in which extremist groups such as fascists and Nazis were allowed to thrive. Between the years of 1929 and 1933 prices would fall, output shrank, and unemployment soared as the world economy collapsed. The U.S. market lost two-thirds of its value, the British market one-fifth, and the German an astounding one-half.
World War II was unquestionably the largest and most significant armed conflict in human history. While it may have officially begun when Adolf Hitler's Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, roots of conflict stemmed from the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and the resulting Treaty of Versailles.
In what ways did the failures of both the treaties and the League aggravate the unresolved problems of the war? What were the primary internal causes of the Russian Revolutions (March and November), and what role did the war play in these two revolutions?
While class differences have arguably always existed, the industrial revolution and urban development of the nineteenth century "made society less unified and more diverse" in Europe, widening the gap between the upper, middle, and lower classes.