1.
Geneva Conventions
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The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment in war. The treaties of 1949 were ratified, in whole or with reservations, the Swiss businessman Henry Dunant went to visit wounded soldiers after the Battle of Solferino in 1859. He was shocked by the lack of facilities, personnel, as a result, he published his book, A Memory of Solferino, in 1862, on the horrors of war. The latter led to the 1864 Geneva Convention, the first codified international treaty that covered the sick, for both of these accomplishments, Henry Dunant became corecipient of the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. The ten articles of this first treaty were initially adopted on 22 August 1864 by twelve nations, on 20 October 1868 the first, unsuccessful, attempt to expand the 1864 treaty was undertaken. With the Additional Articles relating to the Condition of the Wounded in War an attempt was undertaken to clarify some rules of the 1864 convention, the Articles were signed but never ratified by all parties. Only the Netherlands and the United States ratified the Articles, the Netherlands later withdrew their ratification. The protection of the victims of warfare would later be realized by the third Hague Convention of 1899. In 1906 thirty-five states attended a conference convened by the Swiss government and it remained into force until 1970 when Costa Rica acceded to the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The 1929 conference yielded two conventions that were signed on July 27th 1929, one, the Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field, was the third version to replace the original convention of 1864. The other was adopted after experiences in World War I had shown the deficiencies in the protection of prisoners of war under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. The Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War was not to replace these earlier conventions signed at The Hague, the Second Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea replaced the Hague Convention of 1907. It was the first Geneva Convention on the protection of the victims of warfare and mimicked the structure. The Third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War replaced the 1929 Geneva Convention that dealt with prisoners of war. In addition to these three conventions, the conference added a new elaborate Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. It was the first Geneva Convention not to deal with combatants, the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions had already contained some provisions on the protection of civilians and occupied territory. Article 154 specifically provides that the Fourth Geneva Convention is supplementary to these provisions in the Hague Conventions, despite the length of these documents, they were found over time to be incomplete. In light of developments, two Protocols were adopted in 1977 that extended the terms of the 1949 Conventions with additional protections
2.
French Indochina
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French Indochina, officially known as the Indochinese Union after 1887 and the Indochinese Federation after 1947, was a grouping of French colonial territories in Southeast Asia. A grouping of the three Vietnamese regions of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina with Cambodia was formed in 1887, Laos was added in 1893 and the leased Chinese territory of Guangzhouwan in 1898. The capital was moved from Saigon to Hanoi in 1902 and again to Da Lat in 1939, in 1945 it was moved back to Hanoi. After the Fall of France during World War II, the colony was administered by the Vichy government and was under Japanese occupation until March 1945, beginning in May 1941, the Viet Minh, a communist army led by Hồ Chí Minh, began a revolt against the Japanese. In August 1945 they declared Vietnamese independence and extended the war, known as the First Indochina War, in Saigon, the anti-Communist State of Vietnam, led by former Emperor Bảo Đại, was granted independence in 1949. On 9 November 1953, the Kingdom of Laos and the Kingdom of Cambodia became independent, following the Geneva Accord of 1954, the French evacuated Vietnam and French Indochina came to an end. France–Vietnam relations started as early as the 17th century with the mission of the Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes, at this time, Vietnam was only just beginning to occupy the Mekong Delta, former territory of the Indianised kingdom of Champa which they had defeated in 1471. European involvement in Vietnam was confined to trade during the 18th century, pigneau died in Vietnam but his troops fought on until 1802 in the French assistance to Nguyễn Ánh. France was heavily involved in Vietnam in the 19th century, protecting the work of the Paris Foreign Missions Society in the country was presented as a justification. In 1858, the period of unification under the Nguyễn dynasty ended with a successful attack on Da Nang by French Admiral Charles Rigault de Genouilly under the orders of Napoleon III. Diplomat Charles de Montignys mission having failed, Genouillys mission was to stop attempts to expel Catholic missionaries and his orders were to stop the persecution of missionaries and assure the unimpeded propagation of the faith. In September 1858, fourteen French gunships,3,000 men and 300 Filipino troops provided by the Spanish attacked the port of Tourane, causing significant damage, after a few months, Rigault had to leave the city due to supply issues and illnesses. Sailing south, de Genouilly then captured the poorly defended city of Saigon on 18 February 1859, on 13 April 1862, the Vietnamese government was forced to cede the three provinces of Biên Hòa, Gia Định and Định Tường to France. French policy four years saw a reversal, with the French continuing to accumulate territory. In 1862, France obtained concessions from Emperor Tự Đức, ceding three treaty ports in Annam and Tonkin, and all of Cochinchina, the latter being formally declared a French territory in 1864. In 1867 the provinces of Châu Đốc, Hà Tiên and Vĩnh Long were added to French-controlled territory, in 1863, the Cambodian king Norodom had requested the establishment of a French protectorate over his country. France obtained control over northern Vietnam following its victory over China in the Sino-French War, French Indochina was formed on 17 October 1887 from Annam, Tonkin, Cochinchina and the Kingdom of Cambodia, Laos was added after the Franco-Siamese War in 1893. The federation lasted until 21 July 1954, French troops landed in Vietnam in 1858 and by the mid-1880s they had established a firm grip over the northern region
3.
Kingdom of Laos
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The Kingdom of Laos was a constitutional monarchy that ruled Laos beginning with its independence on 9 November 1953. The Kingdom of Laos was officially proclaimed when the new Constitution was promulgated in 1947, as part of the colonial French Union, following the Franco-Lao Treaty of 1953, which gave Laos independence, the Royal Lao Government took control of the country. This treaty established a monarchy, with Sisavang Vong as King. Many attempts were made by the Three Princes and King Sisavang Vatthana to establish a coalition government, the First Government of National Unity was established in 1958 under Prince Souvanna Phouma, but collapsed after two months. The Prime Minister, who under the constitution appointed his ministers and received advice from the King, Souvanna Phouma gave the Communists two seats in the Cabinet, and in return Souphanouvong would integrate 1,500 of his 6,000 Communist troops into the royal army. Prince Souphanouvong was given the post of Minister of Planning, Reconstruction and Urbanization, while member of the Communist Party was named Minister of Religion. The Kingdom of Laos was divided into five military regions, the United States supplied the Royal Lao Navy with twenty river patrol boats and sixteen amphibious landing craft. Between 1962 and 1971, the United States provided Laos with an estimated US$500 million in military assistance. The Royal Lao Government had close relations with the United States, which gave the country aid and assisted it in the campaign against the Pathet Lao, during 1957, the United States spent more per capita on foreign aid for Laos than it had on any other nation. That worked out as US$150 per Laotian, twice the average annual income. Some of the went to support pro-American candidates in an election, while other money went to a program to support the local currency. King Savang Vatthana visited the United States in 1963 to meet with President Kennedy, Laos was also supported by France, Australia, Burma, Thailand and Japan. The Pathet Lao were backed militarily by the NVA and Vietcong, Laos was also dragged into the Vietnam War since parts of Laos were invaded and occupied by North Vietnam for use as a supply route for its war against the South. It also provided supplies, training and funding to the central government, in 1968, the North Vietnamese Army launched a multi-division attack to help the Pathet Lao fight the Royal Lao Army. The attack resulted in the army largely demobilizing, leaving the conflict to irregular forces raised by the United States, massive aerial bombardment against Pathet Lao and NVA forces was carried out by the United States. It has been reported that Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 bombload every eight minutes,24 hours a day, US bombers dropped more ordnance on Laos in this period than was dropped during the whole of the Second World War. Of the 260 million bombs that rained down, particularly on Xiangkhouang Province on the Plain of Jars, some 80 million failed to explode, Laos is the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the world. In 1975, the Pathet Lao, along with Vietnam Peoples Army and backed by the Soviet Union, overthrew the royalist Lao government, a ceasefire was finally attained in February 1973, following the Paris Peace Accords between the United States and North Vietnam
4.
North Vietnam
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North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was a state in Southeast Asia which existed from 1945 to 1976. Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh declared independence from France on 2 September 1945, France reasserted its colonial dominance and a war ensued between France and the Viet Minh, led by Ho. The Viet Minh was a coalition of nationalist groups, mostly led by communists, in February 1951, the communists announced the creation of the Lao Động Party, gradually marginalizing non-communists in the Viet Minh. Between 1946 and 1954, the Viet Minh captured and controlled most of the areas of Vietnam. In 1954, after the French were defeated, the negotiation of the Geneva Accords ended the war between France and the Viet Minh and granted Vietnam independence. The Geneva Accords divided the country provisionally into northern and southern zones, the northern zone was commonly called North Vietnam and the southern zone South Vietnam, or, formally, the Republic of Vietnam. Supervision of the implementation of the Geneva Accords was the responsibility of an International Commission consisting of India, Canada, and Poland. In July 1955, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem and he said that South Vietnam had not signed the Geneva accords and was not bound by it. With the failure to reunify Vietnam by elections, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam attempted to unify the country by force in the Vietnam War, North Vietnam also supported indigenous communist rebels in Cambodia and Laos against their respective U. S, -backed governments. The war ended when Democratic Republic of Vietnam forces and the Viet Cong defeated the Republic of Vietnam, Viet Minh leader Hồ Chí Minh became head of the government. U. S. President Franklin Roosevelt had spoken against French rule in Indochina, the Hanoi government of Ho Chi Minh claimed dominion over all of Vietnam, but during this time South Vietnam was in profound political disorder. The successive collapse of French, then Japanese power, followed by the dissension among the factions in Saigon had been accompanied by widespread violence in the countryside. On September 12,1945, the first British troops arrived in Saigon, on September 23,28 days after the people of Saigon seized political power, French troops occupied the police stations, the post office, and other public buildings. In June 1946, Chinese Nationalist troops evacuated Hanoi, and on the 15th of June, after the departure of the British in 1946, the French controlled a part of Cochinchina, South Central Coast, Central Highlands since the end Southern Resistance War. In January 1946, the Viet Minh held an election to establish a National Assembly, when France declared Cochinchina, the southern third of Vietnam, a separate state as the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina in June 1946, Vietnamese nationalists reacted with fury. In November, the National Assembly adopted the first Constitution of the Republic, the French reoccupied Hanoi and the First Indochina War followed. Following the Chinese Communist Revolution, Chinese communist forces arrived on the border in 1949, Chinese aid revived the fortunes of the Viet Minh and transformed it from a guerrilla militia into a standing army. The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 transformed what had been a struggle into a Cold War battleground
5.
Ho Chi Minh
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He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945, as well as the Peoples Army of Vietnam and the Việt Cộng during the Vietnam War. After the war, Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City. Ho Chi Minh was born Nguyễn Sinh Cung, in 1890 in the village of Hoàng Trù, from 1895, he grew up in his father Nguyễn Sinh Sắc s village of Làng Sen, Kim Liên, Nam Đàn, Nghệ An Province. He had three siblings, his sister Bạch Liên, a clerk in the French Army, his brother Nguyễn Sinh Khiêm, a geomancer and traditional herbalist, as a young child, Cung studied with his father before more formal classes with a scholar named Vuong Thuc Do. Cung quickly mastered Chinese writing, a prerequisite for any study of Confucianism. In addition to his studious endeavors, he was fond of adventure, following Confucian tradition, at the age of 10, his father gave him a new name, Nguyễn Tất Thành. Thànhs father was a Confucian scholar and teacher, and later a magistrate in the small remote district of Binh Khe. This exposed Thành to rebellion at an age and seemed to be the norm for the province where Thành came of age. The province was known for its resistance to foreign rule, in deference to his father, Thành received a French education, attended lycée in Huế, the alma mater of his later disciples, Phạm Văn Đồng and Võ Nguyên Giáp and his later enemy, Ngô Đình Diệm. Previously, it was believed that Thành was involved in a demonstration of poor peasants in Huế in May 1908. However, a document from the Centre des archives dOutre-mer in France shows that he was admitted to Collège Quốc học on August 8,1908, which was several months after the anti-corvée demonstration. The exaggeration of revolutionary credentials was common among Vietnamese communist leaders and he chose to leave school in order to find a chance to go abroad. Thành worked as a helper on a French steamer, the Amirale de Latouche-Tréville, while using the alias Văn Ba. The steamer departed on 5 June 1911 and arrived in Marseille, the ship then left for Le Havre and Dunkirk, returning to Marseille in mid-September. There he applied for the French Colonial Administrative School but his application was rejected, instead, he decided to begin traveling the world by working on ships and visited many countries from 1911 to 1917. In 1912, while working as the cooks helper on a ship, from 1912–13, he may have lived in New York City and Boston, where he claimed to have worked as a baker at the Parker House Hotel. Inquiries to the Parker House management revealed no records of his ever having worked there, among a series of menial jobs, he claimed to have worked for a wealthy family in Brooklyn between 1917–18, and for General Motors as a line manager. At various points between 1913 and 1919, Thành claimed to have lived in West Ealing, and later in Crouch End and he reportedly worked as either a chef or dish washer at the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing
6.
State of Vietnam
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The State of Vietnam was a state that claimed authority over all of Vietnam during the First Indochina War although part of its territory was actually controlled by the communist Viet Minh. The state was created in 1949 and was recognized in 1950. Former emperor Bảo Đại was chief of state, after the 1954 Geneva Agreements, the State of Vietnam had to abandon the Northern part of the country to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ngô Đình Diệm was appointed prime minister that same year, and after ousting Bảo Đại in 1955, since the August Revolution, Viet Minh had seized all of the territories of Vietnam. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam was established by Viet Minh on September 2,1945, by February 1947, following the pacification of Tonkin, the Tonkinese capital, Hanoi, and the main traffic axis returned under French control. The Việt Minh partisans were forced to retreat into the jungle, bao Dai had voluntarily abdicated on August 25,1945, after the fall of the short-lived Empire of Vietnam, a puppet state of the Empire of Japan. However, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had declared the independence of Vietnam and had control almost Vietnams territory since September 2,1945, besides that, the DRV had also hosted the 1946 Vietnamese National Assembly election with the participation of 89% voter in Vietnam. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, had become the constitutional representatives of Vietnam in 1946. On May 20,1949, the French National Assembly approved the reunification of Cochinchina with the rest of Vietnam, on decision took effect on June 14 and the State of Vietnam was officially proclaimed on July 2. From 1949 to 1954, reunification with Cochinchina, the State of Vietnam had partial autonomy from France as a state within the French Union. The State of Vietnam found support in the French Fourth Republic and the United States while Hồ Chí Minh was backed by the Peoples Republic of China, despite French support, roughly 60% of Vietnamese territory was under Việt Minh control in 1952. The massive voluntary migration of anti-Communist north Vietnamese, essentially Roman Catholic people, on June 14,1949, Bảo Đại was appointed Chief of State of the State of Vietnam, he was concurrently Prime Minister for a short while. On October 26,1955, the Republic of Vietnam was established, the State of Vietnam referendum of 1955 determined the future regime of the country. Following the signing of the 1949 Élysée Accords in Paris, Bảo Đại was able to create a National Army for defense purposes and it fought under the State of Vietnams banner and leadership and was commanded by General Nguyễn Văn Hinh. The currency used within the French Union was the French Indochinese piastre, notes were issued and managed by the Issue Institute of the States of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. First Indochina War French Indochinese piastre Vietnamese National Army French Indochina History of Vietnam
7.
Geneva
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Geneva is the second most populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic, the municipality has a population of 198,072, and the canton has 484,736 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France, within Swiss territory, the commuter area named Métropole lémanique contains a population of 1.25 million. This area is essentially spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, Geneva was ranked as the worlds ninth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Frankfurt, and third in Europe behind London and Zürich. A2009 survey by Mercer found that Geneva has the third-highest quality of life of any city in the world, the city has been referred to as the worlds most compact metropolis and the Peace Capital. In 2009 and 2011, Geneva was ranked as, respectively, the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava, probably from a Celtic toponym *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis, the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva /dʒᵻˈniːvə/ in English, French, Genève, German, Genf, Italian, Ginevra, and Romansh, Genevra. The city in origin shares its name, *genawa estuary, with the Italian port city of Genoa, Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC. It became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, and acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, around this time the House of Savoy came to dominate the city. In the 15th century, a republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In 1541, with Protestantism in the ascendancy, John Calvin, by the 18th century, however, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France also tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, in 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, in 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12 North, 6°09 East, at the end of Lake Geneva. It is surrounded by two chains, the Alps and the Jura
8.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
9.
Korean War
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The Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave some assistance. Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, U. S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments, both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union, on that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire. On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83, Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation, twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing 88% of the UNs military personnel. After the first two months of war, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter, in September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many North Korean troops. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, at this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951, after these reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate, North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in combat for the first time in history. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed, the agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. Periodic clashes, many of which are deadly, continue to the present, in the U. S. the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a police action as it was an undeclared military action, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. In South Korea, the war is referred to as 625 or the 6–2–5 Upheaval. In North Korea, the war is referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War or alternatively the Chosǒn War. In China, the war is called the War to Resist U. S
10.
First Indochina War
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The First Indochina War began in French Indochina on 19 December 1946 and lasted until 1 August 1954. Fighting between French forces and their Viet Minh opponents in the South dated from September 1945, Japanese forces located south of that line surrendered to him and those to the north surrendered to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. In September 1945, Chinese forces entered Tonkin and a small British task force landed at Saigon, the Chinese accepted the Vietnamese government under Ho Chi Minh, then in power in Hanoi. The British refused to do likewise in Saigon, and deferred to the French there from the outset, on V-J Day, September 2, Ho Chi Minh had proclaimed in Hanoi the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. On 23 September 1945, with the knowledge of the British Commander in Saigon, French forces overthrew the local DRV government, guerrilla warfare began around Saigon immediately. The first few years of the war involved a low-level rural insurgency against the French, French Union forces included colonial troops from the whole former empire, French professional troops and units of the French Foreign Legion. The use of metropolitan recruits was forbidden by the government to prevent the war from becoming more unpopular at home. It was called the dirty war by leftists in France, the strategy of pushing the Viet Minh into attacking well-defended bases in remote parts of the country at the end of their logistical trails was validated at the Battle of Nà Sản. However, this base was relatively weak because of a lack of concrete and this combination proved fatal for this base defenses, culminating in a decisive French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The south continued under Emperor Bảo Đại, a year later, Bảo Đại would be deposed by his prime minister, Ngô Đình Diệm, creating the Republic of Vietnam. Soon an insurgency, backed by the North, developed against Diệms government, the conflict gradually escalated into the Vietnam War. Vietnam was absorbed into French Indochina in stages between 1858 and 1887, nationalism grew until World War II provided a break in French control. Early Vietnamese resistance centered on the intellectual Phan Bội Châu, Châu looked to Japan, which had modernized and was one of the few Asian nations to successfully resist European colonization. With Prince Cường Để, Châu started two organizations in Japan, the Duy Tân hội and Vietnam Cong Hien Hoi, due to French pressure, Japan deported Phan Bội Châu to China. Witnessing Sun Yat-sens 1911 nationalist revolution, Châu was inspired to commence the Viet Nam Quang Phục Hội movement in Guangzhou, from 1914 to 1917, he was imprisoned by Yuan Shikais counterrevolutionary government. In 1925, he was captured by French agents in Shanghai, due to his popularity, Châu was spared from execution and placed under house arrest until his death in 1940. In September 1940, shortly after Phan Bội Châus death, Japan launched its invasion of French Indochina, keeping the French colonial administration, the Japanese ruled from behind the scenes in a parallel of Vichy France. As far as Vietnamese nationalists were concerned, this was a double-puppet government, Emperor Bảo Đại collaborated with the Japanese, just as he had with the French, ensuring his lifestyle could continue
11.
French colonial empire
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The French colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. The second empire came to an end after the loss of bitter wars in Vietnam and Algeria, competing with Spain, Portugal, the United Provinces, and later Britain, France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean, and India in the 17th century. A series of wars with Great Britain and other European major powers during the 18th century, France rebuilt a new empire mostly after 1850, concentrating chiefly in Africa, as well as Indochina and the South Pacific. Republicans, at first hostile to empire, only became supportive when Germany started to build her own colonial empire and it also provided manpower in the World Wars. It became a mission to lift the world up to French standards by bringing Christianity. In 1884 the leading proponent of colonialism, Jules Ferry declared, The higher races have a right over the lower races, full citizenship rights – assimilation – were offered, although in reality assimilation was always receding the colonial populations treated like subjects not citizens. At its apex, it was one of the largest empires in history, including metropolitan France, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached 11,500,000 km2 in 1920, with a population of 110 million people in 1939. In World War II, Charles de Gaulle and the Free French used the colonies as bases from which they fought to liberate France. However, after 1945 anti-colonial movements began to challenge European authority, the French constitution of October 27,1946, established the French Union which endured until 1958. Newer remnants of the empire were integrated into France as overseas departments. These now total altogether 119,394 km², which amounts to only 1% of the pre-1939 French colonial empires area, by the 1970s, says Robert Aldrich, the last vestiges of empire held little interest for the French. He argues, Except for the decolonization of Algeria, however. During the 16th century, the French colonization of the Americas began, the story of Frances colonial empire truly began on 27 July 1605, with the foundation of Port Royal in the colony of Acadia in North America, in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. A few years later, in 1608, Samuel De Champlain founded Quebec, which was to become the capital of the enormous, New France had a rather small population, which resulted from more emphasis being placed on the fur trade rather than agricultural settlements. Due to this emphasis, the French relied heavily on creating friendly contacts with the local First Nations community and these became the most enduring alliances between the French and the First Nation community. The French were, however, under pressure from religious orders to them to Catholicism. Through alliances with various Native American tribes, the French were able to exert a loose control over much of the North American continent, areas of French settlement were generally limited to the St. Lawrence River Valley. Prior to the establishment of the 1663 Sovereign Council, the territories of New France were developed as mercantile colonies
12.
South Vietnam
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South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam, was a state governing the southern half of Vietnam from 1955 to 1975. It received international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam, the term South Vietnam became common usage in 1954, when the Geneva Conference provisionally partitioned Vietnam into communist and non-communist parts. The Republic of Vietnam was proclaimed on 26 October 1955, with Ngô Đình Diệm as its first president and its sovereignty was recognized by the United States and eighty-seven other nations. It had membership in several committees of the United Nations. After the Second World War, the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, in 1949, anti-communist Vietnamese politicians formed a rival government in Saigon led by former emperor Bảo Đại. Bảo Đại was deposed by Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm in 1955, after Diệm was killed in a military coup led by general Dương Văn Minh in 1963, there was a series of short-lived military governments. General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu led the country from 1967 until 1975, the Vietnam War began in 1959 with an uprising by Viet Cong forces armed and controlled by Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Fighting reached a climax during the Tet Offensive of 1968, when there were over 1.5 million South Vietnamese soldiers and 500,000 U. S. soldiers in South Vietnam. Despite a peace treaty concluded in January 1973, fighting continued until the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong armies overran Saigon on 30 April 1975, the creation of this republic, during the Indochina War, allowed France to evade a promise to recognise Vietnam as independent. This pre-Vietnam government prepared for a unified Vietnamese state, but the countrys full reunification was delayed for a year because of the problems posed by Cochinchinas legal status, Nguyễn Văn Xuân 1949–55 State of Vietnam. Roughly 60% of Vietnamese territory was controlled by the communist Việt Minh. Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel in 1954, once highly lauded by America, he was ousted and assassinated in a U. S. -backed coup. In 1963–65, there were numerous coups and short-lived governments, several of which were headed by Dương Văn Minh or Nguyễn Khánh, Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ was the top leader in 1965–67. Surrendered to Communists when others abandoned their posts, 1975–76 Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. Huỳnh Tấn Phát Before World War II, the third of Vietnam was the concession of Cochinchina. Between Tonkin in the north and Cochinchina in the south was the protectorate of Annam, Cochinchina had been annexed by France in 1862 and even elected a deputy to the French National Assembly. It was more evolved, and French interests were stronger than in parts of Indochina. During World War II, Indochina was administered by Vichy France, japanese troops overthrew the French administration on 9 March 1945, Emperor Bảo Đại proclaimed Vietnam independent
13.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
14.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
15.
Palace of Nations
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The Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, was built between 1929 and 1938 to serve as the headquarters of the League of Nations. In 2012 alone, the Palace of Nations hosted more than 10,000 intergovernmental meetings, a jury of architects was selected to choose a final design from among three-hundred and thirty-seven entries but was unable to decide on a winner. Donations from League members were used in the interior, the Palace constituted at the time of completion, volume wise, the second-largest building complex in Europe after Versailles. After its transfer to the United Nations, two extensions were added to the building, which increased the size of the usable area of the building. Between 1950-1952, three floors were added to the K building, and the D building was constructed to house temporarily the World Health Organization, the E building was added between 1968-1973 as a conference facility, with bringing the total of conference rooms to 34. The park also contains a 1668 chalet, a medal showing the Palace of Nations with the Jura Mountains in the background was struck in silvered bronze. The building overlooks Lake Geneva and has a view of the French Alps. List of United Nations organizations by location United Nations System Joëlle Kuntz, Geneva, a History, éditions Zoé,2011,96 pages. Jean-Claude Pallas, Histoire et architecture du Palais des Nations, Nations Unies,2001,431 pages United Nations Office at Geneva Palais des Nations
16.
Korean Armistice Agreement
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The Korean Armistice Agreement is the armistice which ended the Korean War. The armistice was signed on July 27,1953, and was designed to insure a complete cessation of hostilities, No final peaceful settlement has been achieved yet. The signed armistice established the Korean Demilitarized Zone, put into force a cease-fire, the Demilitarized Zone runs not far from the 38th parallel, which separated North and South Korea before the Korean War. By mid-December 1950, the United States was discussing terms for an agreement to end the Korean War, the desired agreement would end the fighting, provide assurances against its resumption, and protect the future security of UNC forces. The United States asked there needed to be a military commission of mixed membership that would supervise all agreements. Both sides would need to agree to cease the introduction into Korea of any reinforcing air, and to refrain from increasing the level of war equipment and material existing in Korea. The U. S. also desired to make a demilitarized zone that would be roughly 20 miles wide, the agreement would address the issue of prisoners of war which the U. S. believed should be exchanged on a one-for-one basis. While talks of an armistice agreement were circulating, in late May and early June 1951. He believed the ROK should continue to expand its army in order to all the way to the Yalu River. The UNC did not endorse Rhee’s position, even without UNC support, Rhee and the South Korean government launched a massive effort to mobilize the public to resist any halt in the fighting short of the Yalu River. Other ROK officials supported Rhee’s ambitions and the National Assembly of South Korea unanimously passed a resolution endorsing a continued fight for an “independent and unified country. ”At the end of June, however, like Syngman Rhee, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung also sought complete unification. North Korea was pressured to support armistice talks by allies the Peoples Republic of China, talks concerning an armistice started July 10,1951, in Kaesŏng, a city occupied by North Korea in North Hwanghae Province near the South Korean border. The two primary negotiators were Chief of Army Staff General Nam Il, a North Korean Deputy Premier, and United States Vice Admiral Charles Turner Joy. After a period of two weeks, on June 26,1951, an agenda was agreed upon and this guided talks until signing of the armistice on July 27,1953. The items to be discussed were, Adoption of agenda, fixing a military demarcation line between both sides so as to establish a demilitarized zone as a basic condition for cessation of hostilities in Korea. Arrangements relating to prisoners of war, recommendations to the governments of the countries concerned on both sides. After the agenda was decided, talks proceeded slowly with off, the longest gap between discussions started on August 23,1951, during the morning before sunrise, when North Korea and its allies claimed the conference site in Kaesŏng had been bombed. North Korea requested the UNC conduct an investigation, which concluded there was evidence a UNC aircraft had attacked the conference site
17.
Guerrilla warfare
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The term, the diminutive form of war in Spanish, is usually translated as little war, and the word, guerrilla, has been used to refer to the concept since the 18th century, and perhaps earlier. In correct Spanish usage, a person who is a member of a guerrilla is a guerrillero if male, the term guerrilla was used in English as early as 1809, to refer to the fighters, and also to denote a group or band of such fighters. However, in most languages guerrilla still denotes the style of warfare. The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, guerrillas usually carries positive connotations, and is often used by such fighters themselves and by their sympathizers, while their foes in many cases call them terrorists. Making an objective definition of the difference between a guerrilla and a terrorist has proven a difficult task, the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a larger, more unwieldy one. The Guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, depending on the support of the local population, tactically, the guerrilla army would avoid any confrontation with large units of enemy troops, but seek and eliminate small groups of soldiers to minimize losses and exhaust the opposing force. Not limiting their targets to personnel, enemy resources are preferred targets. All of that is to weaken the strength, to cause the enemy eventually to be unable to prosecute the war any longer. It is often misunderstood that guerrilla warfare must involve disguising as civilians to cause enemy troops to fail in telling friend from foe, however, this is not a primary feature of a guerrilla war. This type of war can be practiced anywhere there are places for combatants to cover themselves, at least one author credits the ancient Chinese work The Art of War with providing instruction in such tactics to Mao. The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War or 600 BC to 501 BC, was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare and this directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla tactics were employed by prehistoric tribal warriors against enemy tribes. Evidence of conventional warfare, on the hand, did not emerge until 3100 BC in Egypt. Since the Enlightenment, ideologies such as nationalism, liberalism, socialism, because of the innovative tactics he used during his command, he made himself the name of Terror Romanorum. A counter-insurgency or counterinsurgency operation involves actions taken by the government of a nation to contain or quell an insurgency taken up against it. Counter-insurgency operations are common during war, occupation and armed rebellions, the two most influential of scholars of counter-insurgency have been Westerners whose job it had been to fight insurgents. Robert Thompson fought during the Malayan Emergency and David Galula fought during the Algerian War, together these officers advocated multi-pronged strategies to win over the civilian population to the side of the counter-insurgent. The widely distributed and influential work of Sir Robert Thompson, counter-insurgency expert of the Malayan Emergency, thompsons underlying assumption was that the counter-insurgent was committed to improving the rule of law and bettering local governance
18.
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
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It was, from the French view before the event, a set piece battle to draw out the Vietnamese and destroy them with superior firepower. The battle occurred between March and May 1954 and culminated in a comprehensive French defeat that influenced negotiations underway at Geneva among several nations over the future of Indochina. As a result of blunders in French decision-making, the French began an operation to insert, then support the soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the hills of northwestern Vietnam. Its purpose was to cut off Viet Minh supply lines into the neighboring Kingdom of Laos, a French ally, the plan was to resupply the French position by air, and was based on the belief that the Viet Minh had no anti-aircraft capability. The Viet Minh, however, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, the Viet Minh brought in vast amounts of heavy artillery. This positioning of the artillery made it nearly impervious to French counter-battery fire, the Viet Minh opened fire with a massive artillery bombardment in March. After several days the French artillery commander, Charles Piroth, unable to respond with any effective counterbattery fire, the Viet Minh occupied the highlands around Điện Biên Phủ and bombarded the French positions. Tenacious fighting on the ground ensued, reminiscent of the warfare of World War I. The French repeatedly repulsed Viet Minh assaults on their positions, as the Viet Minh antiaircraft fire took its toll, fewer and fewer of those supplies reached the French. The garrison was overrun in May after a siege. A few of them escaped to Laos, the French government then resigned, and the new Prime Minister, the left-of-centre Pierre Mendès France, supported French withdrawal from Indochina. The war ended shortly after the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the refusal of Ngô Đình Diệm to allow elections in 1956, as had been stipulated by the Geneva Conference, eventually led to the first phase of the Second Indochina War. This is better known as the Vietnam War, which was waged largely by the United States after 1963, by 1953, the First Indochina War was not going well for France. During their 1952–53 campaign, the Viet Minh had overrun vast swathes of Laos, a French ally and Vietnams western neighbor, advancing as far as Luang Prabang, the French were unable to slow the Viet Minh advance, who fell back only after outrunning their always-tenuous supply lines. In 1953, the French had begun to strengthen their defenses in the Hanoi delta region to prepare for a series of offensives against Viet Minh staging areas in northwest Vietnam. They set up fortified towns and outposts in the area, including Lai Châu near the Chinese border to the north, Nà Sản to the west of Hanoi, and the Plain of Jars in northern Laos. In May 1953, French Premier René Mayer appointed Henri Navarre, Mayer had given Navarre a single order—to create military conditions that would lead to an honorable political solution. According to military scholar Phillip Davidson, On arrival, Navarre was shocked by what he found, there had been no long-range plan since de Lattres departure
19.
Communism
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Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchism, and the political ideologies grouped around both. The primary element which will enable this transformation, according to analysis, is the social ownership of the means of production. Likewise, some communists defend both theory and practice, while others argue that historical practice diverged from communist principles to a greater or lesser degree, according to Richard Pipes, the idea of a classless, egalitarian society first emerged in Ancient Greece. At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, in the medieval Christian church, for example, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and their other property. Communist thought has also traced back to the works of the 16th-century English writer Thomas More. In his treatise Utopia, More portrayed a society based on ownership of property. In the 17th century, communist thought surfaced again in England, criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as Jean Jacques Rousseau in France. Later, following the upheaval of the French Revolution, communism emerged as a political doctrine, in the early 19th century, Various social reformers founded communities based on common ownership. But unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the emphasis with a rational. Notable among them were Robert Owen, who founded New Harmony in Indiana, in its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels, in 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet The Communist Manifesto. The 1917 October Revolution in Russia set the conditions for the rise to power of Lenins Bolsheviks. The revolution transferred power to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in which the Bolsheviks had a majority, the event generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement. Marx predicted that socialism and communism would be built upon foundations laid by the most advanced capitalist development, Russia, however, was one of the poorest countries in Europe with an enormous, largely illiterate peasantry and a minority of industrial workers. Marx had explicitly stated that Russia might be able to skip the stage of bourgeois rule, the moderate Mensheviks opposed Lenins Bolshevik plan for socialist revolution before capitalism was more fully developed. The Great Purge of 1937–1938 was Stalins attempt to destroy any possible opposition within the Communist Party and its leading role in the Second World War saw the emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower, with strong influence over Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. The European and Japanese empires were shattered and Communist parties played a role in many independence movements
20.
Domino effect
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A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a chain of similar events. The term is best known as an effect, and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a sequence of events where the time between successive events is relatively small. It can be used literally or metaphorically, impact Mechanics, W. J. Stronge, Cambridge University Press,2004, ISBN 0-521-60289-0, ISBN 978-0-521-60289-1
21.
Charles de Gaulle
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Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman. He was the leader of Free France and the head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, in 1958, he founded the Fifth Republic and was elected as the 18th President of France, a position he held until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the Cold War era, born in Lille, he graduated from Saint-Cyr in 1912. He was an officer of the First World War, wounded several times. During the interwar period, he advocated mobile armoured divisions, during the German invasion of May 1940, he led an armoured division which counterattacked the invaders, he was then appointed Under-Secretary for War. Refusing to accept his governments armistice with Nazi Germany, de Gaulle exhorted the French population to resist occupation and he led a government in exile and the Free French Forces against the Axis. Despite frosty relations with Britain and especially the United States, he emerged as the leader of the French resistance. He became Head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic in June 1944, frustrated by the return of petty partisanship in the new Fourth Republic, he resigned in early 1946 but continued to be politically active as founder of the RPF party. He retired in the early 1950s and wrote his War Memoirs, when the Algerian War was ripping apart the unstable Fourth Republic, the National Assembly brought him back to power during the May 1958 crisis. De Gaulle founded the Fifth Republic with a presidency. He granted independence to Algeria and progressively to other French colonies and he restored cordial Franco-German relations to create a European counterweight between the Anglo-American and Soviet spheres of influence. However, he opposed any development of a supranational Europe, favouring a Europe of sovereign nations, De Gaulle openly criticised the US intervention in Vietnam and the exorbitant privilege of the US dollar. In his later years, his support for an independent Quebec, De Gaulle resigned in 1969 after losing a referendum in which he proposed more decentralization. He died a year later at his residence in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, leaving his Presidential memoirs unfinished, many French political parties and figures claim the Gaullist legacy. De Gaulle was ranked as Le Plus Grand Français de tous les temps, De Gaulle was born in the industrial region of Lille in the Nord departement, the third of five children. He was raised in a devoutly Catholic and traditional family and his father, Henri de Gaulle, was a professor of history and literature at a Jesuit college who eventually founded his own school. Henri de Gaulle came from a line of parliamentary gentry from Normandy and Burgundy. De Gaulles mother, Jeanne, descended from a family of entrepreneurs from Lille
22.
Anthony Eden
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Achieving rapid promotion as a young Member of Parliament, he was Foreign Secretary at the age of 38, before resigning in protest at Neville Chamberlains appeasement policy towards Mussolinis Italy. He again held that position for most of the Second World War, having been Winston Churchills deputy for almost 15 years, he succeeded him as Prime Minister in 1955, and a month later won a general election. Most historians argue that he made a series of blunders, especially not realising the depth of U. S. opposition to military action. Eden is generally ranked among the least successful British Prime Ministers of the 20th century, thorpe says the Suez Crisis was a truly tragic end to his premiership, and one that came to assume a disproportionate importance in any assessment of his career. Eden was born at Windlestone Hall, County Durham, England and he was born into a very conservative family of landed gentry. He was a son of Sir William Eden, 7th and 5th Baronet. Sir William, an eccentric and often foul-tempered man, was a talented watercolourist, Edens mother, Sybil Frances Grey, was a member of the famous Grey family of Northumberland. She had wanted to marry Francis Knollys, later an important Royal adviser, although she was a popular figure locally, she had a strained relationship with her children, and her profligacy ruined the family fortunes. Eden’s older brother Tim had to sell Windlestone in 1936, Rab Butler would later quip that Eden—a handsome but ill-tempered man—was half mad baronet, half beautiful woman. Edens great-grandfather was William Iremonger who commanded the 2nd Regiment of Foot during the Peninsular War, fighting under Wellington at Vimiero. He was also descended from Governor Sir Robert Eden, 1st Baronet, of Maryland, the Calvert Family of Maryland, the Schaffalitzky de Muckadell family of Denmark, and Bie family of Norway. Eden was once amused to learn one of his ancestors had, like Churchill’s ancestor the Duke of Marlborough. His mother was rumoured to have had an affair with Wyndham, Eden was educated at two independent schools. The first was Sandroyd School in Cobham from 1907 to 1910 and he then started at Eton College in January 1911. There he won a Divinity prize and excelled at cricket, rugby, Eden learned French and German on continental holidays and, at one stage, as a child spoke French better than English. g. When he met Hitler in February 1934, although Eden later claimed to have had no interest in politics until the early 1920s, his teenage letters and diaries show him to have been obsessed with the subject. By 1914 he was a member of the Eton Society, during the First World War, Edens older brother John was killed on 17 October 1914 whilst serving with the 17th Lancers. His uncle Robin was later shot down and captured whilst serving with the RFC and he was commissioned a temporary second lieutenant on 2 November 1915
23.
Georges Bidault
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Georges-Augustin Bidault was a French politician. During World War II, he was active in the French Resistance, after the war, he served as foreign minister and prime minister on several occasions before he joined the Organisation armée secrète. Bidault was born in Moulins, Allier and he studied in the Sorbonne and became a college history teacher. In 1932 he helped to found the Catholic Association of French Youth and he had a column in the paper and, among other things, protested against the Munich Agreement in 1938. After the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the French army and he was captured during the Fall of France and was briefly imprisoned. After his release in July 1941, he became a teacher at the Lycée du Parc in Lyon, jean Moulin recruited him to organize an underground press and the Combat underground newspaper. In his work in the resistance, he was helped by his administrative assistant Laure Diebold. Bidault participated in the forming of the Conseil National de la Résistance and, after the Gestapo captured Moulin, in 1944 he formed a Resistance Charter that recommended an extensive post-war reform program. After the liberation of Paris he represented the Resistance in the victory parade, charles de Gaulle appointed him as a foreign minister of his provisional government on 25 August. He was the founder of the Mouvement Républicain Populaire and he was head of the French delegation to the San Francisco Conference, which established the UN, from April to June 1945. At the conference, France succeeded in gaining a permanent seat on the Security Council, on 4 January 1946, Bidault married Suzanne Borel, the first French woman to be employed as a diplomat. The same year he served as minister in Félix Gouins provisional government. On 19 June 1946 the National Constituent Assembly elected him as president of the provisional government and his government, formed on 15 June, was composed of socialists, communists and Bidaults own MRP. In social policy, Bidaults government was notable for passing important pension, in addition, an Act was passed on 11 October 1946 that introduced occupational medical services. Bidault later became foreign minister once again, the government held elections to the National Assembly on 29 November after which Bidault resigned. Bidault served in various French governments, first as minister under Paul Ramadier. In April 1947 he supported Ramadiers decision to expel the Communists from his government, Bidault had recently been to Moscow and was disturbed by the Soviet regime, he believed an agreement with Stalin was impossible. In 1949 he became the President of the Council of Ministers, during his last term as prime minister, a law of February 1950 that regulated collective bargaining, and contained a guarantee of the right of workers to strike
24.
Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower
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The presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower began on January 20,1953 at noon Eastern Standard Time, when he was inaugurated as the 34th President of the United States, and ended on January 20,1961. Eisenhower, a Republican, took office as president following a win over Democrat Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 presidential election. This victory upended the New Deal Coalition that had kept the presidency in the hands of the Democratic Party for 20 years, four years later, in the 1956 presidential election, he defeated Stevenson in a landslide again, winning a second term in office. Eisenhower was the first U. S. president to be limited to two terms in office under the 22nd Amendment. He was succeeded in office by Democrat John F. Kennedy, the nation experienced considerable economic prosperity during the Eisenhower Presidency, except for a sharp recession in 1958–59. It was also, following the conclusion of the Korean War in the summer of 1953, at peace, the Presidents main goals in office were to keep pressure on the Soviet Union and reduce federal deficits. A self-described progressive conservative, he continued New Deal programs and expanded Social Security and he also spurred development of the Interstate Highway System, and after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, authorized the establishment of NASA. Voted Gallups most admired man twelve times, he achieved widespread popular esteem both in and out of office, since the late 20th century, consensus among Western scholars has consistently held Eisenhower as one of the greatest U. S. Presidents. Eisenhower had been a favorite of the New Dealers during the war, especially Franklin D. Roosevelt, rejecting Democratic efforts to nominate him in 1948 and 1952, Eisenhower instead chose to run for the Republican Party nomination in 1952. His goal was to prevent Robert A. Tafts non-interventionism—such as opposition to NATO—from becoming public policy, on domestic issues they were in general agreement, and a compromise was reached after Eisenhower won the nomination that Taft would be dominant in domestic affairs and stay out of foreign affairs. Ike crusaded against Korea—Communism—Corruption, identifying these as failures of the Truman administration and he electrified the country just before the election by promising to personally go to Korea and end that stalemated conflict. Eisenhowers choice for vice-president on his ticket was Richard Nixon and he saw Nixons strong vocal opposition against communism as an asset to his campaign. When Nixons Checkers scandal was revealed to the public, Eisenhower still kept Nixon on the ticket, in the 1952 U. S. presidential election, Eisenhower easily defeated Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II and became the first career soldier since Ulysses S. Grant to be elected president. Although many presidents have served in the military, Eisenhower was the general to serve as president in the 20th century. The United States presidential election of 1956 was held on November 6,1956, Eisenhower, the popular incumbent, successfully ran for re-election. The election was a re-match of 1952, as his opponent in 1956 was Adlai Stevenson, a former Illinois governor, compared to the 1952 election, Eisenhower gained Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia from Stevenson, while losing Missouri. This was the last presidential election before the admissions of Alaska and Hawaii, Eisenhower created the positions of White House Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor. He expanded the role of the National Security Council and was the first president to conduct televised press conferences, reporters of that time have said that Eisenhower was the first president to employ the non-answer during these events
25.
Yalta Conference
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The conference convened in the Livadia Palace near Yalta in Crimea, USSR. The goal of conference was to shape a post-war peace that represented not just a collective security order, the meeting was intended mainly to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe. Within a few years, with the Cold War dividing the continent, to a degree, it has remained controversial. Yalta was the second of three wartime conferences among the Big Three and it had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and was followed by the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, which was attended by Stalin, Churchill and Harry S. Truman, Roosevelts successor. All three leaders were attempting to establish an agenda for governing post-war Germany and they wanted to keep peace between post-world war countries. On the Eastern Front, the front line at the end of December 1943 remained in the Soviet Union but, by August 1944, Soviet forces were inside Poland, by the time of the Conference, Red Army Marshal Georgy Zhukovs forces were 65 km from Berlin. Stalins position at the conference was one which he felt was so strong that he could dictate terms. According to U. S. delegation member and future Secretary of State James F. Byrnes, t was not a question of what we would let the Russians do, moreover, Roosevelt hoped for a commitment from Stalin to participate in the United Nations. Stalin, insisting that his doctors opposed any long trips, rejected Roosevelts suggestion to meet at the Mediterranean and he offered instead to meet at the Black Sea resort of Yalta, in the Crimea. Stalins fear of flying also was a factor in this decision. Each leader had an agenda for the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt wanted Soviet support in the U. S, Poland was the first item on the Soviet agenda. Stalin stated that For the Soviet government, the question of Poland was one of honor, in addition, Stalin stated regarding history that because the Russians had greatly sinned against Poland, the Soviet government was trying to atone for those sins. Stalin concluded that Poland must be strong and that the Soviet Union is interested in the creation of a mighty, free, Roosevelt wanted the USSR to enter the Pacific War with the Allies. Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany, Stalin pledged to Truman to keep the nationality of the Korean Peninsula intact as Soviet Union entered the war against Japan. At the time, the Red Army had occupied Poland completely, the Declaration of Liberated Europe did little to dispel the sphere of influence agreements that had been incorporated into armistice agreements. They also agreed to give France a zone of occupation, carved out of the U. S. also, the Big Three agreed that all original governments would be restored to the invaded countries and that all civilians would be repatriated. The Declaration of Liberated Europe is a declaration that was created by Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and it was a promise that allowed the people of Europe to create democratic institutions of their own choice. The declaration pledged, the earliest possible establishment through free elections governments responsive to the will of the people and this is similar to the statements of the Atlantic Charter, which says, the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live
26.
Presidency of Harry S. Truman
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The presidency of Harry S. Truman began on April 12,1945, when Harry S. Truman became President of the United States upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20,1953. He had been Vice President of the United States for only 82 days when he succeeded to the presidency, a Democrat, he ran for and won a full four–year term in the 1948 election. His victory in that election, over Republican Thomas E. Dewey, was one of the greatest upsets in presidential electoral history, following the 1952 election, Truman was succeeded in office by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower. In domestic affairs, his proposals were a continuation of Franklin Roosevelts New Deal. He used presidential authority to mandate equal treatment for blacks in the military, Trumans presidency was a turning point in foreign affairs, as the United States engaged in an internationalist foreign policy and renounced isolationism. In mid-1945, Truman helped establish the United Nations as Roosevelt had planned it, when relations with the Soviet Union turned hostile in 1947, he issued the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to contain Communism, it is often used to mark the start of the Cold War. In 1948 he got the $13 billion Marshall Plan enacted to rebuild Western Europe, fears of Soviet espionage led to a Red Scare and the rise of McCarthyism. Truman oversaw the Berlin Airlift of 1948 and the creation of NATO in 1949, when communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, he sent U. S. troops and gained UN approval for seizing North Korea in the Korean War. After initial successes, however, American/UN forces were back by Chinese intervention in late 1950. The bloody war was stalemated throughout the years of Trumans presidency. During his administration, the experienced a unexpected surge in prosperity as economic growth surged following many long years of depression. His political coalition was based on the white South, labor unions, farmers, ethnic groups, Truman rallied them to win election in his own right in 1948. His domestic agenda, known as the Fair Deal, was defeated by a conservative Congress dominated by the Southern legislators. Despite wave after wave of strikes in 1946, he at times took a line against his labor union allies. He holds the record for vetoes at 180, and saw 12 overridden by Congress, Truman put civil rights on the national agenda as a moral priority in 1948. He made it an issue, appointed study groups, and issued Executive Orders to end racial discrimination in the military. Scholars typically rank Trumans presidency about #7 from the top and his reputation in textbooks was favorable from the 1950s onward. However revisionist historians in the 1960s attacked his foreign policy as too hostile to Communism and that revisionism largely faded after the collapse of the Soviet empire around 1990
27.
Walter Lippmann
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Lippmann was also a notable author for the Council on Foreign Relations, until he had an affair with the editor Hamilton Fish Armstrongs wife, which led to a falling out between the two men. Lippmann also played a role in Woodrow Wilsons post World War I board of inquiry. His views regarding the role of journalism in a democracy were contrasted with the writings of John Dewey in what has been retrospectively named the Lippmann-Dewey debate. Lippmann won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his newspaper column Today and Tomorrow and one for his 1961 interview of Nikita Khruschev. He has also highly praised with titles ranging anywhere from most influential journalist of the 20th century. Michael Schudson writes that James W. Carey considered Walter Lippmanns book Public Opinion as the book of modern journalism. Walter Lippmann was born in New York City, to Jacob and Daisy Baum Lippmann, at some time, Lippmann became a member, alongside Sinclair Lewis, of the New York Socialist Party. In 1913, Lippmann, Herbert Croly, and Walter Weyl became the editors of The New Republic magazine. Walter Lippmann was one of the foremost hawks among the New Republic intellectuals and he had pushed Croly into backing Woodrow Wilson and then collaborated with Edward M. House in pushing Wilson into entering World War I. Soon, Lippmann, an enthusiast for conscription, had to confront the fact that he himself, only 27 years old and in fine health, was eminently eligible for the draft. Felix Frankfurter, progressive Harvard Law Professor and an associate of the New Republic editorial staff, had just been selected as a special assistant to Secretary of War Baker. Lippmann felt that his own inestimable services could be better used planning the postwar world than battling in the trenches, and so he wrote to Frankfurter asking for a job in Bakers office. What I want to do, he pleaded, is to all my time to studying and speculating on the approaches to peace. Do you think you can get me an exemption on such grounds and he then rushed to reassure Frankfurter that there was nothing personal in the request. Frankfurter having paved the way, Lippmann wrote to Secretary Baker and he assured Baker that he was only applying for a job and draft exemption on the pleading of others and in stern submission to the national interest. As Lippmann put it in a demonstration of cant, I have consulted all the people whose advice I value. During the war, Lippmann was commissioned a captain in the Army on June 28,1918 and he was assigned to the staff of House in October and attached to the American Commission to negotiate peace in December. He returned to the United States in February 1919 and was immediately discharged, through his connection to House, he became an adviser to Wilson and assisted in the drafting of Wilsons Fourteen Points speech
28.
United States Secretary of State
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Secretary of State is a Level I position in the Executive Schedule and thus earns the salary prescribed for that level. The current Secretary of State is former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson and those that remain include storage and use of the Great Seal of the United States, performance of protocol functions for the White House, and the drafting of certain proclamations. The Secretary also negotiates with the individual States over the extradition of fugitives to foreign countries, under Federal Law, the resignation of a President or of a Vice President is only valid if declared in writing, in an instrument delivered to the office of the Secretary of State. Accordingly, the resignations of President Nixon and of Vice-President Spiro Agnew, domestic issues, were formalized in instruments delivered to the Secretary of State, six Secretaries of State have gone on to be elected President. Former Secretaries of State retain the right to add the title Secretary to their surnames, as the head of the United States Foreign Service, the Secretary of State is responsible for management of the diplomatic service of the United States. The foreign service employs about 12,000 people domestically and internationally, the U. S. Secretary of State has the power to remove any foreign diplomat from U. S. soil for any reason. The nature of the means that Secretaries of State engage in travel around the world. The record for most countries visited in a secretarys tenure is 112, second is Madeleine Albright with 96. The record for most air miles traveled in a secretarys tenure is 1.380 million miles, second is Condoleezza Rices 1.059 million miles and third is Clintons 956,733 miles. S
29.
John Foster Dulles
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John Foster Dulles served as U. S. Secretary of State under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era and he negotiated numerous treaties and alliances that reflected this point of view. Born in Washington, D. C. he was one of five children and his paternal grandfather, John Welsh Dulles, had been a Presbyterian missionary in India. His maternal grandfather, John W. Foster doted on Dulles and his brother Allen, the brothers attended public schools in Watertown, New York. Dulles attended Princeton University and graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1908, at Princeton, Dulles competed on the American Whig-Cliosophic Society debate team. He then attended the George Washington University Law School in Washington, both his grandfather Foster and his uncle Robert Lansing, the husband of Eleanor Foster, had held the position of Secretary of State. On June 26,1912, Dulles married Janet Pomeroy Avery and their older son John W. F. Dulles was a professor of history and specialist in Brazil at the University of Texas at Austin. Their daughter Lillias Dulles Hinshaw became a Presbyterian minister and their son Avery Dulles converted to Roman Catholicism, entered the Jesuit order, and became the first American theologian to be appointed a Cardinal. Upon graduating from law school and passing the bar examination, Dulles joined the New York City law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, after the start of World War I, Dulles tried to join the United States Army, but was rejected because of poor eyesight. Instead, Dulles received an Army commission as Major on the War Industries Board, Dulles later returned to Sullivan & Cromwell and became a partner with an international practice. In 1915, Dulles uncle, Robert Lansing, then the U. S, in Panama, Dulles offered waiver of the US tax on the annual Canal fee, so long as Panama declared war on Germany. Dulles made an impression as a junior diplomat by clearly and forcefully arguing against imposing crushing reparations on Germany. Afterwards, he served as a member of the War Reparations Committee at Wilsons request, as a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell, Dulles expanded upon his late grandfather Fosters expertise, specializing in international finance. Under that compromise, the money was invested and the profits sent as reparations to Britain and France, in the 1920s Dulles was involved in setting up a billion dollars worth of these loans. Dulles, a religious man, attended numerous international conferences of churchmen during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1924, he was the counsel in the church trial of Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick. The case settled when Fosdick, a liberal Baptist, resigned his pulpit in the Presbyterian Church congregation, after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Dulles previous practice brokering and documenting international loans ended. After 1931 Germany stopped making some of its scheduled payments, in 1934 Germany unilaterally stopped payments on private debts of the sort that Dulles was handling
30.
Zhou Enlai
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Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the Peoples Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. Zhou served under Chairman Mao Zedong and was instrumental in the Communist Partys rise to power, and later in consolidating its control, forming foreign policy, a skilled and able diplomat, Zhou served as the Chinese foreign minister from 1949 to 1958. He helped devise policies regarding the disputes with the U. S. Taiwan. Zhou survived the purges of other top officials during the Cultural Revolution, while Mao dedicated most of his later years to political struggle and ideological work, Zhou was the main driving force behind the affairs of state during much of the Cultural Revolution. His attempts at mitigating the Red Guards damage and his efforts to protect others from their wrath made him popular in the Cultural Revolutions later stages. As Mao Zedongs health began to decline in 1971 and 1972, Zhous health was also failing, however, and he died eight months before Mao on 8 January 1976. The massive public outpouring of grief in Beijing turned to anger towards the Gang of Four, although succeeded by Hua Guofeng, it was Deng Xiaoping, Zhous ally, who was able to outmaneuver the Gang of Four politically and eventually take Maos place as paramount leader by 1978. Zhou Enlai was born in Huaian, Jiangsu province on 5 March 1898, the Zhou family was originally from Shaoxing in Zhejiang province. During the late Qing dynasty, Shaoxing was famous as the home of such as Zhous. To move up the ladder in civil service, the men in these often had to be transferred. Even after the move, however, the continued to view Shaoxing as its ancestral home. Zhous grandfather, Zhou Panlong, and his granduncle, Zhou Junang, were the first members of the family to move to Huaian, Panlong apparently passed the provincial examinations, and Zhou Enlai later claimed that Panlong served as magistrate governing Huaian county. Zhous father, Zhou Yineng, was the second of Zhou Panlongs four sons, Zhous birth mother, surnamed Wan, was the daughter of a prominent Jiangsu official. Like many others, the fortunes of Zhous large family of scholar-officials were decimated by a great economic recession that China suffered in the late 19th century. Zhou Yineng had a reputation for honesty, gentleness, intelligence and concern for others and he was unsuccessful in his personal life, and drifted across China doing various occupations, working in Beijing, Shandong, Anhui, Shenyang, Inner Mongolia and Sichuan. Zhou Enlai later remembered his father as being away from home. Soon after birth, Zhou Enlai was adopted by his fathers youngest brother, Zhou Yigan, apparently the adoption was arranged because the family feared Yigan would die without an heir. Zhou Yigan died soon after the adoption, and Zhou Enlai was raised by Yigans widow, madame Chen was also from a scholarly family and received a traditional literary education
31.
Walter Bedell Smith
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He was Eisenhowers chief of staff at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in the campaign in Western Europe from 1944 through 1945. Smith enlisted as a private in the Indiana Army National Guard in 1911, in 1917, during World War I, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was wounded in the Aisne-Marne Offensive in 1918, after World War I, he was a staff officer and instructor at the U. S. Army Infantry School. In 1941, he became Secretary of the General Staff, and his duties involved taking part in discussions of war plans at the highest level, and Smith often briefed President Franklin D. Roosevelt on strategic matters. Smith became chief of staff to Eisenhower at AFHQ in September 1942 and he acquired a reputation as Eisenhowers hatchet man for his brusque and demanding manner. However, he was capable of representing Eisenhower in sensitive missions requiring diplomatic skill. Smith was involved in negotiating the armistice between Italy and the Allies, which he signed on behalf of Eisenhower, in 1944, he became the Chief of Staff of SHAEF, again under Eisenhower. After World War II, he served as the U. S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1948, then in 1950, Smith became the Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies in the United States. Smith reorganized the CIA, redefined its structure and its mission and he made the CIA the arm of government primarily responsible for covert operations. He left the CIA in 1953 to become an Under Secretary of State, after retiring from the State Department in 1954, Smith continued to serve the Eisenhower Administration in various posts for several years, until his retirement and his death in 1961. Smith was called Bedell from his boyhood, from an early age he was nicknamed Beetle, or occasionally Beedle or Boodle. He was educated at St. Peter and Paul School, public schools #10 and #29, Oliver Perry Morton School, and Emmerich Manual High School, while still there, he took a job at the National Motor Vehicle Company, and eventually left high school without graduating. Smith enrolled at Butler University, but his father developed serious health problems, in 1911, at the age of 16, Smith enlisted as a private in Company D of the 2nd Indiana Infantry of the Indiana National Guard. The Indiana National Guard was called out twice in 1913, for the Ohio River flood, Smith was promoted to corporal and then sergeant. During the Pancho Villa Expedition he served on the staff of the Indiana National Guard, in 1913, Smith met Mary Eleanor Cline, who was born in 1893 and died in 1963, and they were married in a traditional Roman Catholic wedding ceremony on 1 July 1917. Their marriage was of long duration but childless, Smiths work during the Ohio River flood of 1913 led to his nomination for officer training in 1917, and he was sent to the Officer Candidate Training Camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana. Upon his graduation on 27 November 1917, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and he was then assigned to the newly formed Company A, 1st Battalion, 39th Infantry, part of the 4th Infantry Division at Camp Greene, North Carolina. The 4th Infantry Division embarked for Europe, then embroiled in World War I, from Hoboken, New Jersey, on 9 May 1918, reaching Brest, France, on the 23rd of May
32.
Pathet Lao
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The Pathet Lao was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century. The group was successful in assuming political power in 1975. The Pathet Lao were always associated with Vietnamese communists. During the civil war, it was organized, equipped. They fought against the anti-communist forces in the Vietnam War, eventually, the term became the generic name for Laotian communists. The political movement of the Pathet Lao was called first the Lao Peoples Party, key Pathet Lao leaders include Prince Souphanouvong, Kaysone Phomvihane, Phoumi Vongvichit, Nouhak Phoumsavanh and Khamtay Siphandone. The political wing of the Pathet Lao, called the Lao Patriotic Front served in multiple coalition governments, through the 1960s and 1970s the Pathet Lao battled the Royal Lao government during the Laotian Civil War, gaining control of the north and east of Laos. The Pathet Lao gained power throughout the country by the spring of 1975, in December, the US-backed Vientiane government fell and the Lao Peoples Revolutionary Party formed a new government. The organization can trace its roots from the Second World War just as the Khmer Issarak in Cambodia and the Viet Minh and Vietnam Peoples Army in Vietnam did in the war as well. In August 1950, Souphanouvong joined the Viet Minh in their headquarters north of Hanoi, Vietnam, the Pathet Lao founded resistance government with members, Souphanouvong, Kaysone Phomvihane, Nouhak Phoumsavanh, Phoumi Vongvichit, Souk Vongsak, Sithon Kommadam, and Faydang Lobliayao. This was an attempt to give a front of authority to the Lao communist movement by claiming to represent a united non-partisan effort. Two of its most important founders were members of the Indochinese Communist Party, in 1953, Pathet Lao fighters accompanied an invasion of Laos from Vietnam led by Viet Minh forces, they established a government at Viengxay in Houaphan province in northeast Laos. The communists began to make incursions into central Laos with the support of the Viet Minh, and a war erupted. The 1954 Geneva Conference agreements required the withdrawal of foreign forces, two months after the conference, the Viet Minh-North Vietnamese formed the unit Group 100 with headquarters at Ban Nameo. The unit effectively controlled and directed the Pathet Lao movement and it was formed into an official party, the Lao Patriotic Front, in 1956. Its stated goal was to wage the communist struggle against capitalism, unstated was its subordination to the Communist Party of Vietnam. A coalition government was established in 1957 between the monarchists and communists, but it collapsed in 1959, bringing about a resumption of fighting, by the late 1950s, North Vietnam had occupied areas of eastern Laos. The area was used as a route for men and supplies destined for the insurgency in South Vietnam
33.
Khmer Issarak
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The Khmer Issarak was a loosely structured anti-French and anti-colonial independent movement. Besides, the movement was labelled as “amorphous”, the Issarak was formed around 1945 and composed of several factions each with its own leader. Most of the Issarak bands fought actively between 1945, at the end of the Second World War to 1953, Cambodia’s independence, initial objectives of the Khmer Issarak was to fight against the French in order to gain independence. Later, overthrowing the Cambodian government became some Issarak bands agenda, moreover, the term Issarak originally referred to non-communist, but in the early 1950s the Việt Minh guided-guerrillas called themselves Issaraks for the sake of unifying other non-communist forces. Poc Khun, a highborn Khmer founded a movement in Bangkok in 1944 and it is the first time that the term Khmer Issarak was used. Some of the early founded Issaraks were backed by the Thai authoritative government, among those groups which were aided by Thailand, some of the members later established right-wing and left-wing bands, including Son Ngoc Minh, Sieu Heng and Tou Samouth. These guerrillas formed a government in exile in Bangkok in 1945, after 1948, several of the Thai sponsored Issaraks dissolved or cooperated with the Phnom Penh government, which led by Prince Sihanouk. Soon afterwards, the Vietnamese guided-Issaraks formed the Khmer Issarak Association, in the 1950s, the Viet Minh controlled-Issarak groups eventually transformed into communist organizations, for instance, the Khmer People’s Revolution Party. Several significant figures in the Democratic Kampuchea who participated in the Cambodian Civil War, were related to the Viet Minh influenced-Issaraks. During the first decade of armed struggles, there was some coordination between factions, however, in most cases, different bands fought independently. Even in 1953, a year when Cambodia gained independence, the war was still led by disparate leaders. After the Geneva Conference in 1954, due to the agreement, most of the Viet Minh guided-Issaraks exiled to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam or turned underground and formed communist organizations. At the same time, as Cambodia had already gained independence from the French, most of the nationalist Issaraks, several powerful Issarak leaders such as Dap Chhuon and Prince Norodom Chantaraingsey allied with the Sihanouk government in different periods of time. The Khmer Issarak movement faded eventually, during the independence movement, non-communist Issaraks that were based in the northwest dominated the anti-French war which lasted for around 10 years. Those Issarak groups fought throughout the entire state, the non-communist guerrillas often coordinated battles with the Viet Minh-led Issarak forces. Among the non-communist bands, Poc Khun, Dap Chhuon, Prince Chantaraingsey’s were the most prominent, furthermore, short-term goal of the Thai-supported Issarak movement was to conduct propaganda against French colonialism in the ceded provinces, which under Thai control from 1941-1946. Nevertheless, the purpose of the movement was to gain full independence for the French Indochina colony. There were two consequences of the return of Thai Prime Minister Phibun, First of all, with Thailand cutting its assistance the Viet Minh became one of the few sources that the Issarak groups could rely on
34.
Red River Delta
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The Red River Delta is the flat low-lying plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries merging with the Thái Binh River in northern Vietnam. The delta has the smallest area but highest population and population density of all regions, the region measuring some 15,000 square km is well protected by a network of dikes. It is a rich area and densely populated. Most of the land is devoted to rice cultivation, eight provinces together with two municipalities, the capital Hanoi and the port Haiphong form the delta. It has a population of almost 19 million, the Red River Delta is the cradle of the Vietnamese nation. Water puppetry originated in the rice paddies here, the region was bombed by United States warplanes during the Vietnam War. The region was designated as the Red River Delta Biosphere Reserve as part of UNESCOs Man, quảng Ninh Province is sometimes included as a province of the Red River Delta. Alternatively, it is seen as part of the Northeast region, hà Tây Province was merged into Hanoi in 2008. Spanning some 150 km in width, the Red River Delta is located in the coastal zone of the Gulf of Tonkin. The Red River is the second largest river in Vietnam and one of the five largest rivers on the East Asia coast and its catchment covers parts of China and Vietnam and its water and sediment discharges greatly influence the hydrology in the Gulf of Tonkin. By the rich resources and favorable natural conditions, the delta has become an area of active economic development. In 2003, of the 78 million people in Vietnam, almost a third live in the Red River basin, there are many large industrial zones in the Red River delta clustering in Viet Tri, Hanoi, Haiphong and Nam Dinh. Agriculturally the Red River Delta is the second most important rice-producing area in Vietnam, additionally the delta region hosts other important economic activities such as fisheries, aquaculture, land reclamation for agriculture, harbor construction, mangrove forestry, etc. With these developmental pressures the estuarine environment and ecosystem face degradation due to threats of pollution, over-fishing, the socio-economic development in the delta is also affected by seasonal storms, flooding, coastal erosion, silting, salt water intrusion, etc. Researches in estuarine environment and ecosystem of red river, An overview on activities, researches in estuarine environment and ecosystem of red river, An overview on activities and results
35.
Ho Chi Minh City
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Ho Chi Minh City, formerly named and still often known as Saigon, is the largest city in Vietnam by population. It was once known as Prey Nokor prior to annexation by the Vietnamese in the 17th century, under the name Saigon, it was the capital of the French colony of Cochinchina and later of the independent republic of South Vietnam 1955–75. On 2 July 1976, Saigon merged with the surrounding Gia Định Province and was officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City after revolutionary leader Hồ Chí Minh, the citys population is expected to grow to 13.9 million by 2025. Ho Chi Minh City has gone by different names during its history, reflecting settlement by different ethnic. In the 1690s, Nguyễn Hữu Cảnh, a Vietnamese noble, was sent by the Nguyễn rulers of Huế to establish Vietnamese administrative structures in the Mekong Delta and its surroundings. Control of the city and the passed to the Vietnamese. Immediately after the communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975, a provisional government renamed the city after Hồ Chí Minh, even today, however, the informal name of Sài Gòn/Saigon remains in daily speech both domestically and internationally, especially among the Vietnamese diaspora. In particular, Sài Gòn is still used to refer to District 1. This name may refer to the many plants that the Khmer people had planted around Prey Nokor. It may also refer to the dense and tall forest that existed around the city. Other proposed etymologies draw parallels from Tai-Ngon, the Cantonese name of Cholon, which means embankment, and Vietnamese Sai Côn, a translation of the Khmer Prey Nokor. Prey means forest or jungle, and nokor is a Khmer word of Sanskrit origin meaning city or kingdom, the current official name, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, adopted in 1976 and abbreviated Tp. HCM, is translated as Ho Chi Minh City, abbreviated HCMC, the name commemorates Hồ Chí Minh, the first leader of North Vietnam. This name, though not his name, was one he favored throughout his later years. It combines a common Vietnamese surname with a name meaning enlightened will, in essence. Ho Chi Minh City began as a fishing village likely known as Prey Nokor, Forest City, or perhaps Preah Reach Nokor which. The area that the city now occupies was originally swampland, and was inhabited by Khmer people for centuries before the arrival of the Vietnamese. In 1623, King Chey Chettha II of Cambodia allowed Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Trịnh–Nguyễn civil war in Vietnam to settle in the area of Prey Nokor and to set up a custom house there
36.
Annam (French protectorate)
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Annam was a French protectorate encompassing the central region of Vietnam. Before the protectorates establishment, the name Annam was used in the West to refer to Vietnam as a whole, Vietnamese were referred to as Annamites. The protectorate of Annam became in 1887 a part of French Indochina, two other Vietnamese regions, Cochinchina in the South and Tonkin in the North, were also units of French Indochina. The region had a system of French and Vietnamese administration. The Nguyễn Dynasty still nominally ruled Annam, with a puppet emperor residing in Huế, in 1948, the protectorate was merged in the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam, which was replaced the next year by the newly established State of Vietnam. The region was divided between communist North Vietnam and anti-communist South Vietnam under the terms of the Geneva Accord of 1954, Annam means Pacified South in Sino-Vietnamese, the toponym being derived from the Chinese An Nan. The name has also applied to the Annamite Range, a 1,100 km mountain range with a height ranging up to 2,958 metres that divides Vietnam. An Nam is usually considered offensively demeaning to Vietnamese people, Trung Kì or Trung Kỳ is instead used in formal contexts. Before this, in 1787, Gia Long had concluded a treaty with Louis XVI, whereby in return for a promise of aid he ceded Tourane and that treaty marks the beginning of French influence in Indochina. After conquering Cochinchina in 1858–1862, the French resumed in 1883 their expansion in Southern Asia, the first protectorate treaty was signed in 1883, although it was replaced the next year by a slightly milder treaty. With the treaty of Tientsin, China recognised the French protectorate over Annam and Tonkin, Annam and Tonkin became part of French Indochina in 1887. On 9 May 1889, they were split in two Résidences supérieures, each subordinated to the Governor-General of French Indochina, the Nguyễn dynasty still nominally ruled over both protectorates. Tonkin was de facto ruled directly by the French, while the government maintained some degree of authority over Annam. On 27 September 1897, the Vietnamese imperial council in Annam was replaced by a council of ministers, Annam comprised a sinuous strip of territory measuring between 750 and 800 miles in length, with an approximate area of 52,000 square miles. It had a rich, well-watered soil which yields tropical crops, the country consisted chiefly of a range of plateaus and wooded mountains, running north and south and declining on the coast to a narrow band of plains varying between 12 and 50 miles in breadth. The mountains are cut transversely by short narrow valleys, through which run rivers, most of which are dry in summer and torrential in winter. The Song Ma and the Song Ca in the north, the chief harbour is that afforded by the bay of Tourane at the centre of the coastline. South of this point, the coast curves outwards and is broken by peninsulas and indentations, to the north it is concave and bordered in places by dunes
37.
Tonkin
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Tonkin, also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is in the Red River Delta Region of northern Vietnam. Tonkin is a corruption of Đông Kinh, the name of Hanoi during the Lê Dynasty, locally, Tonkin is known as Bắc Kỳ, meaning Northern Region. The name was used in 1883 for the French colonial Tonkin protectorate and it is south of the Northeast Region of Vietnam, and of Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces of China, east of northern Laos, and west of the Gulf of Tonkin. Located in the delta area of the Red River, Tonkin is rich in rice production. The area was called Văn Lang by Vietnamese ancestors from around 2000−100 BCE, evidence of the earliest established society in northern Vietnam, along with the Đông Sơn culture, was discovered in the Cổ Loa Citadel area, the core of the ancient city of Cổ Loa. Its site is located near the city of Hà Nội and present-day Hanoi. According to Vietnamese myths the first Vietnamese peoples descended from the Dragon Lord Lạc Long Quân, Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ had 100 sons before they decided to part ways. 50 of the children went with their mother to the mountains, the eldest son became the first in a line of earliest Vietnamese kings, collectively known as the Hùng kings. The Hùng kings called the country, which was located on the Red River delta in present-day northern Vietnam. The people of Văn Lang were referred to as the Lạc Việt, Lê Lợi, a notable land owner in the Lam Kinh region, had a following of more than 1,000 people before rising up against the Chinese Ming dynasty. Following his victory he mounted the throne and established himself in the city of Thang Long, Thang Long was also called Đông Kinh, meaning Eastern Capital. During the 18th and 19th century, Westerners commonly used the name Tonkin to refer to northern Vietnam, then ruled by the Trịnh lords was used to refer to Vietnam as a whole). During in the Sino-French War, Tonkin, then considered a crucial foothold in Southeast Asia and it was colonized as the French protectorate of Tonkin, and was gradually separated from the French protectorate of Annam, with Vietnam being effectively separated into three parts. During French colonial rule within French Indochina, Hanoi was the capital of Tonkin protectorate, French colonial administration ruled until 9 March 1945, with 1941-1945 during the World War II Japanese occupation of Vietnam. French administration was allowed by the Japanese as a puppet government, japan briefly took full control of Vietnam in March 1945, as the Empire of Vietnam. Tonkin became a site of the Vietnamese Famine of 1945 during this period, after the end of World War II, French rule returned over French Indochina. Northern Vietnam became a stronghold for the communist Viet Minh, Hanoi was later reoccupied by the French and conflict between the Viet Minh and France broke out into the First Indochina War. In 1949 it came under the authority of the State of Vietnam, after the French defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in western Tonkin in 1954, the communist nation of North Vietnam was formed, consisting of Tonkin and northern Annam
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Hanoi
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Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and the countrys second largest city by population. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts and 7 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction, the population in 2015 was estimated at 7.7 million people. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam and it was eclipsed by Huế, the imperial capital of Vietnam during the Nguyễn Dynasty, but Hanoi served as the capital of French Indochina from 1902 to 1954. From 1954 to 1976, it was the capital of North Vietnam, the city lies on the right bank of the Red River. Hanoi is 1,760 km north of Ho Chi Minh City and 120 km west of Hai Phong city, October 2010 officially marked 1000 years since the establishment of the city. The Hanoi Ceramic Mosaic Mural is a 4 km ceramic mosaic mural created to mark the occasion, Hanoi has had many official and unofficial names throughout history. During the Chinese occupation of Vietnam, it was known first as Long Biên, then Tống Bình, in 866, it was turned into a citadel and named Đại La. This gives it the nickname La Thành, when Lý Thái Tổ established the capital in the area in 1010, it was named Thăng Long. During the Hồ dynasty, it was called Đông Đô, during the Ming Chinese occupation, it was called Đông Quan. During the Lê dynasty, Hanoi was known as Đông Kinh and this gave the name to Tonkin and Gulf of Tonkin. Minh Mạng renamed the city Hà Nội in 1831 and this has remained its official name until modern time. Several unofficial names of Hanoi include, Kẻ Chợ, Tràng An, Hà Thành, Thủ Đô In modern tourism, it is sometimes nicknamed Paris of the Orient, Hanoi has been inhabited since at least 3000 BC. The Cổ Loa Citadel in Dong Anh district served as the capital of the Âu Lạc kingdom founded by the Shu emigrant Thục Phán after his 258 BC conquest of the native Văn Lang. In 197 BC, Âu Lạc Kingdom was annexed by Nanyue, by the year 679, the Tang dynasty changed the regions name into Annan, with Songping as its capital. In order to defeat the people’s uprisings, in the half of the 8th century, Zhang Boyi. In the earlier half of the 9th century, it was built up. In 866, Gao Pian, the Chinese Jiedushi, consolidated and named it Daluocheng, in 1010, Lý Thái Tổ, the first ruler of the Lý Dynasty, moved the capital of Đại Việt to the site of the Đại La Citadel. Claiming to have seen a dragon ascending the Red River, he renamed the site Thăng Long - a name still used poetically to this day
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Haiphong
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Haiphong is the third largest city of Vietnam with a population of over two million people. The citys name means coastal defense and it is nicknamed the Flamboyant City because of the many trees planted throughout it. Haiphong is Northern Vietnams most important seaport and has industrial parks invested by multinational corporations. In Vietnam, only Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are larger than Haiphong, Haiphong is a major economic center of the North in particular and Vietnam in general both. Under French domination, Haiphong was level 1 city, equal to Saigon, the last years of the 19th century, the French had proposed to build Haiphong into the economic capital of Indochina. Today, Haiphong is still one of the most important economic centers of Vietnam, in 2009, Haiphong state budget revenue reached 34,000 billion Vnd. In 2011, budget revenues in the city reached 47,725 billion, in 2015, total revenues of the city reached 56288 billion. Government plans that to 2020, Haiphongs revenues will be over 80,000 billion, in the ranking of the Provincial Competitiveness Index 2013 of Vietnam, Haiphong city ranked at No. Haiphong has relationship of trading goods with more than 40 countries and territories around the world, Haiphong is striving to become one of the largest commercial centers of the country. Industry is a key sector in Haiphong including food processing, light industries, most of these industries have been growing significantly between 2000 and 2007, with the exceptions of the cigarette and pharmaceutical industries. Shipbuilding, steel pipes, plastic pipes and textiles are among the industries with the most rapid growth, there are also growing industries supplying products used by existing industries in the city. PetroVietnam set up a joint-venture PVTex with textile manufacturer Vinatex to build Vietnams first polyester fiber plant in Haiphong, the factory will use by-products from oil-refining and reduce reliance on imported materials. 270,600 people were employed in Haiphongs industry,112,600 industrial jobs were created between 2000 and 2007. Despite its status as a city, around one third of Haiphongs area or 52,300 ha are used for agriculture, rice is the most important crop, taking up around 80% of the agricultural land with an output of 463,100 tons in 2007. Other agricultural products include maize, sugar and peanuts, Haiphong has a relatively large fishing sector with an output of 79,705 tons. Gross output has almost doubled between 2000 and 2007, mostly due to fast growth in aquaculture, which made up 60% of gross output in 2007, despite its coastal location, sea fish contribute relatively little to the sector. Nam Định Province and Thái Bình Province have much larger fishing sectors, as of 2007,315,500 were employed in agriculture and fishery, a significant decrease from 396,300 in 2000. However, these sectors still account for almost a third of employment in Haiphong
40.
Matthew Ridgway
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General Matthew Bunker Ridgway was a senior United States Army officer. He held several major commands after the war and was most famous for resurrecting the United Nations war effort during the Korean War, several historians have credited Ridgway for turning the war around in favor of the UN side. Ridgway was born March 3,1895 in Fort Monroe, Virginia, to Colonel Thomas Ridgway, an artillery officer and he lived in various military bases all throughout his childhood. He graduated in 1912 from English High School in Boston and applied to West Point because he thought that would please his father, Ridgway failed the entrance exam the first time due to his inexperience with mathematics, but after intensive self-study he succeeded the second time. At West Point he served as a manager of the football team, in 1917, he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U. S. Army. The same year he married Julia Caroline Blount and they had two daughters, Constance and Shirley, and divorced in 1930. Shortly after his divorce, Ridgway married Margaret Wilson Dabney, the widow of a West Point graduate, Ridgway and Peggy divorced in June,1947. Later that year he married Mary Princess Anthony Long, who was nicknamed Penny and they remained married until his death. He was disappointed that he was not assigned to duty during the war. This was followed by a posting to Nicaragua, where he helped supervise free elections in 1927, in 1930, he became an advisor to the Governor-General of the Philippines. He graduated from the U. S. Army Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1935 and from the U. S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, in 1937. During the 1930s he served as Assistant Chief of Staff of VI Corps, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Second Army, and Assistant Chief of Staff of the Fourth Army. General George Marshall, the U. S. Army Chief of Staff and he served in the War Plans Division until January 1942, and was promoted to the one-star general officer rank of brigadier general that month. The division was under the command of Major General Omar Bradley, the two men trained the thousands of men joining the division over the next few months. In August, two months after Bradleys reassignment to command of the 28th Infantry Division, Ridgway was promoted to the rank of major general and was given command of the 82nd Division. The 82nd, having finished all of its training and already established an excellent combat record in World War I, had earlier been chosen to become one of the armys five new airborne divisions. The conversion of an infantry division to airborne status was an unprecedented step for the U. S. Army, and required much training, testing. Thus the division was, on August 15,1942, redesignated as the 82nd Airborne Division, unlike his men, Ridgway did not first go through airborne jump school before joining the division
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Vyacheslav Molotov
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Molotov served as Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars from 1930 to 1941, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1939 to 1949 and from 1953 to 1956. He served as First Deputy Premier from 1942 to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev, Molotov retired in 1961 after several years of obscurity. He was aware of the Katyn massacre committed by the Soviet authorities during this period, after World War II, Molotov was involved in negotiations with the Western allies, in which he became noted for his diplomatic skills. He retained his place as a leading Soviet diplomat and politician until March 1949, Molotovs relationship with Stalin deteriorated further, with Stalin criticising Molotov in a speech to the 19th Party Congress. However, after Stalins death in 1953, Molotov was staunchly opposed to Khrushchevs de-Stalinisation policy, Molotov defended Stalins policies and legacy until his death in 1986, and harshly criticised Stalins successors, especially Khrushchev. Molotov was born Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin in the village of Kukarka, Yaransk Uyezd, Vyatka Governorate, contrary to a commonly repeated error, he was not related to the composer Alexander Scriabin. Throughout his teen years, he was described as shy and quiet and he was educated at a secondary school in Kazan, and joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1906, soon gravitating toward that organisations radical Bolshevik faction, headed by V. I. Skryabin took the pseudonym Molotov, derived from the Russian word молот molot for his political work owing to the names vaguely industrial ring and he was arrested in 1909 and spent two years in exile in Vologda. In 1911 he enrolled at St Petersburg Polytechnic, Molotov joined the editorial staff of a new underground Bolshevik newspaper called Pravda, meeting Joseph Stalin for the first time in association with the project. This first association between the two future Soviet leaders proved to be brief, however, and did not lead to a close political association. Molotov worked as a professional revolutionary for the next several years, writing for the party press. He moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1914 at the time of the outbreak of World War I and it was in Moscow the following year that Molotov was again arrested for his party activity, this time being deported to Irkutsk in eastern Siberia. In 1916 he escaped from his Siberian exile and returned to the city, now called Petrograd by the Tsarist regime. Molotov became a member of the Bolshevik Partys committee in Petrograd in 1916, when the February Revolution occurred in 1917, he was one of the few Bolsheviks of any standing in the capital. Under his direction Pravda took to the left to oppose the Provisional Government formed after the revolution, when Joseph Stalin returned to the capital, he reversed Molotovs line, but when the party leader Lenin arrived, he overruled Stalin. Despite this, Molotov became a protégé of and close adherent to Stalin, Molotov became a member of the Military Revolutionary Committee which planned the October Revolution, which effectively brought the Bolsheviks to power. In 1918, Molotov was sent to Ukraine to take part in the war then breaking out. Since he was not a man, he took no part in the fighting
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India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
