Study Guide for Unit 2 The History of Europe

1. Why did the Portuguese want to find a route around Africa to

Asia??

To get spices from India

2. What is the significance of Prince Henry the Navigator?

He helped Portugal take

an early lead in exploration by

providing money towards

exploration

3. Explain 3 reasons why explorers wanted to go to

new lands.

God (to spread their religion)Gold (wealth)Glory (fame)

4. What happened at the Berlin Conference in 1884?

European leaders met to

discuss the division of Africa into

colonies for the

European countries.

5. How did nationalism play a part in Europe’s competition to colonize

Africa and Asia?

Having colonies made countries feel more

important and successful than other countries.

6. Who colonized Australia? Why?

Great Britain: a prisoner’s colony

7. During the Time of colonization, which country

had the most colonies?

Great Britain

8. What country had colonies all over North and South

America?

Spain

9. What were the four causes of WWI?

•Militarism•Alliances•Imperialism•Nationalism

10. What caused the Russian Revolution?

Food shortages and a poor economy

11. Why did Russia stop fighting in WWI?

They had started fighting their own civil war, called the

Russian Revolution

12. Who is Vladimir Lenin?

He started communism in what was later called the Soviet Union.

13. Who was Karl Marx?

A German philosopher who wrote

about Communism.

14. What was the Treaty of Versailles and what did it

say about Germany?

A document signed by Germany which formally ended WWI. Germany was forced to take full responsibility for the war. Germany had to pay for war damage.

15. The creation of what peace keeping body was a part of Wilson’s 14 points?

The League

of Nations

16. Explain 2 reasons why WWII took place.

Treaty of Versailles > resentment > economic

problems > rise of Nazism

17. What is the name given to the ‘murder of millions of Jews and others’ in the early

1940’s?

The Holocaust

18. What happened that caused WWII to officially end?

The U.S. bombed the

Japanese cities of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

19. Why was the Berlin Wall built?

To keep people from East Berlin

from escaping into West

Berlin

20. Which side of the Wall had graffiti on it and how do

you know?

The West side, the free side, had graffiti. Freedoms allowed for the graffiti to occur on the West. The East side did not have those

freedoms.

21. What was the Cold War and who were the two

Superpowers?

A war without actual fighting. The USSR

(one of the superpowers)

supported communism and the

US (the other superpower) encouraged democracy.

22. Why was the Cold War “cold”?

Neither side mobilized their armies in an official war

23. What marked the end of the Cold War?

The fall of the Berlin Wall

24. Who was the Soviet leader when communism

started to fall?

Mikhail Gorbachev

25. Why were several Eastern European

Communists governments overthrown in 1989?

Many people in Eastern Europe wanted better

consumer goods and more freedoms