1.
1975
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It was also declared the International Womens Year by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Altair 8800 is released, sparking the microcomputer revolution, Volkswagen introduces the Golf, its new front-wheel-drive economy car, in the United States and Canada as the Volkswagen Rabbit. January 1 Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham join Fleetwood Mac, Watergate scandal, John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up. Malawi changes its capital city from Zomba to Lilongwe, january 2 The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by the United States Congress. Bangladesh revolutionary leader Siraj Sikder is killed by police while in custody, january 5 – Tasman Bridge disaster, The Tasman Bridge in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier MV Lake Illawarra, killing 12 people. January 6 – United States television debuts, Game show Wheel of Fortune premieres on NBC, AM America makes its television debut on ABC. January 7 – OPEC agrees to raise oil prices by 10%. January 8 Ella Grasso becomes Governor of Connecticut, the first female U. S. governor who does not succeed her husband, U. S. President Gerald Ford appoints Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to head a special commission looking into alleged domestic abuses by the CIA. January 14 – Heiress Lesley Whittle,17, is kidnapped from her home in Shropshire, january 15 Alvor Agreement, Portugal announces that it will grant independence to Angola on November 11. International Womens Year is launched in Britain by Princess Alexandra and Barbara Castle, steel roller coaster Space Mountain opens at Walt Disney World in Florida, becoming one of the parks most popular attractions into the 21st century. January 19 –1975 Kinnaur earthquake, An earthquake strikes Himachal Pradesh, january 20 In Hanoi, North Vietnam, the Politburo approves the final military offensive against South Vietnam. American talent agent Michael Ovitz founds the Creative Artists Agency, work is abandoned on the British end of the Channel Tunnel. January 24 – Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett plays the solo improvisation The Köln Concert at the Cologne Opera, january 26 – Immaculata University defeats the University of Maryland 80-48 in the first nationally televised womens basketball game in the United States. January 29 – The Weather Underground radical student group bombs the United States Department of State main office in Washington, february 1 – The Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation is launched in the Philippines. February 4 – The Haicheng earthquake, the first successfully predicted earthquake, kills 2,041 and injures 27,538 in Haicheng, Liaoning, february 6 – A crucial by-election is held in Kankesanthurai, Sri Lanka. February 9 – The Soyuz 17 crew returns to Earth after 1 month aboard the Salyut 4 space station, february 11 Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for the leadership of the opposition UK Conservative Party. Thatcher,49, is Britains first female leader of any political party, colonel Richard Ratsimandrava, President of Madagascar, is assassinated. February 13 A Turkish Federated State of North Cyprus is declared as an unsuccessful first step to recognition of a Turkish Cypriot separatist state in Cyprus
2.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
3.
Monarch
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A monarch is the sovereign head of state in a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority and power in the state, alternatively, an individual may become monarch by conquest, acclamation or a combination of means. A monarch usually reigns for life or until abdication, if a young child is crowned the monarch, a regent is often appointed to govern until the monarch reaches the requisite adult age to rule. A monarch can reign in multiple monarchies simultaneously, for example, the monarchy of Canada and the monarchy of the United Kingdom are separate states, but they share the same monarch through personal union. Monarchs, as such, bear a variety of titles — king or queen, prince or princess, emperor or empress, archduke, duke or grand duke, Prince is sometimes used as a generic term to refer to any monarch regardless of title, especially in older texts. A king can also be a husband and a queen can be a kings wife. If both people in a reign, neither person is generally considered to be a consort. Monarchy is political or sociocultural in nature, and is associated with hereditary rule. Most monarchs, both historically and in the present day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, agnatic seniority, Salic law, etc. In an elective monarchy, the monarch is elected but otherwise serves as any other monarch, historical examples of elective monarchy include the Holy Roman Emperors and the free election of kings of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In recent centuries, many states have abolished the monarchy and become republics, advocacy of government by a republic is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchy is called monarchism. A principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of national leadership. In cases where the monarch serves mostly as a ceremonial figure real leadership does not depend on the monarch, a form of government may in fact be hereditary without being considered monarchy, such as a family dictatorship. Monarchies take a variety of forms, such as the two co-princes of Andorra, positions held simultaneously by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgel and the elected President of France. Similarly, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia is considered a monarch despite only holding the position for five years at a time, hereditary succession within one patrilineal family has been most common, with preference for children over siblings, sons over daughters. Other European realms practice one form or another of primogeniture, whereunder a lord was succeeded by his eldest son or, if he had none, by his brother, the system of tanistry was semi-elective and gave weight also to ability and merit. The Salic law, practiced in France and in the Italian territories of the House of Savoy, in most fiefs, in the event of the demise of all legitimate male members of the patrilineage, a female of the family could succeed. Spain today continues this model of succession law, in the form of cognatic primogeniture, in more complex medieval cases, the sometimes conflicting principles of proximity and primogeniture battled, and outcomes were often idiosyncratic
4.
Elizabeth II
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Elizabeth II has been Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand since 6 February 1952. Elizabeth was born in London as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake duties during the Second World War. Elizabeths many historic visits and meetings include a visit to the Republic of Ireland. She has seen major changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation. She has reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of her realms and she is the worlds oldest reigning monarch as well as Britains longest-lived. In October 2016, she became the longest currently reigning monarch, in 2017 she became the first British monarch to commemorate a Sapphire Jubilee. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and press criticism of the family, however, support for the monarchy remains high. Elizabeth was born at 02,40 on 21 April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather and her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York, was the second son of the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and she was delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfathers London house,17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. Elizabeths only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930, the two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford, who was casually known as Crawfie. Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and music, Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margarets childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family. The book describes Elizabeths love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, others echoed such observations, Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant and her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved. During her grandfathers reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, the Duke of York. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, many people believed that he would marry and have children of his own. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, later that year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeths father became king, and she became heir presumptive, if her parents had had a later son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession
5.
Governor-general
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Governor-General or governor general, in modern usage, is the title of an office-holder appointed to represent the monarch of a sovereign state in the governing of an independent realm. Governors-General have also previously been appointed in respect of major colonial states or other territories held by either a monarchy or republic, in modern usage, the term governor-general originated in those British colonies which became self-governing within the British Empire. In these cases, the Crowns representative in the federated Dominion was given the title of governor general. Another non-federal state, Newfoundland, was a Dominion for 16 years with the Kings representative retaining the title of governor throughout this time, since 2016, the title governor-general has been given to all representatives of the sovereign in independent Commonwealth realms. In these countries the governor-general acts as the representative, performing the ceremonial and constitutional functions of a head of state. The only other nation which uses the designation is Iran. In Iran, the authority is headed by a governor general. As such they held the prerogative powers of the monarch. The monarch or imperial government could overrule any governor-general, though this could often be cumbersome, the governors-general are entitled to wear a unique uniform, which are not generally worn today. If of the rank of general, equivalent or above. The report resulting from the 1926 Imperial Conference stated, in other words, the political reality of a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire with a governor-general answerable to the sovereign became clear. British interference in the Dominion was not acceptable and independent country status was clearly displayed, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were clearly not controlled by the United Kingdom. The governor-general, however, is appointed by the monarch. Executive authority is vested in the monarch, though much of it can be exercisable only by the governor-general on behalf of the sovereign of the independent realm. Except in rare cases, the only acts in accordance with constitutional convention and upon the advice of the national prime minister. The governor-general is still the representative of the sovereign and performs the same duties as they carried out historically. In some realms, the monarch could in principle overrule a governor-general, in Australia the present Queen is generally assumed to be head of state, since the governor-general and the state governors are defined as her representatives. However, since the governor-general performs almost all national regal functions, to a lesser extent, uncertainty has been expressed in Canada as to which officeholder—the monarch, the governor general, or both—can be considered the head of state
6.
John Kerr (governor-general)
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Sir John Robert Kerr AK, GCMG, GCVO, QC was the 18th Governor-General of Australia. He dismissed the Labor government of Gough Whitlam on 11 November 1975 and he had previously been the 13th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Kerr was born in Balmain, a suburb of Sydney. At Fort Street he met H. V. Evatt, who later became Leader of the Australian Labor Party and then a judge of the High Court of Australia, in 1938 Kerr married Alison Peggy Worstead, with whom he had three children. In 1946 he became principal of the Australian School of Pacific Administration, Kerr returned to the bar in 1948, becoming a prominent lawyer representing trade union clients and a member of the Australian Labor Party. He intended to seek Labor endorsement for a seat at the 1951 election. After the Labor split of 1955, however, he became disillusioned with party politics and he disliked what he saw as the leftward trend of the Australian Labor Party under Evatts leadership, but was not attracted to the breakaway group, the Democratic Labor Party. During the decade of the 1950s, he joined the anti-communist advocacy group established by the United States CIA, in the 1960s Kerr became one of Sydneys leading industrial lawyers. In the 1950s he had become a QC, in 1964 he was one of a group of lawyers who lent their expertise to the defence of the publishers of the satirical magazine Oz when they were prosecuted for obscenity. In 1966 Kerr was appointed a judge of the Commonwealth Industrial Court and, later, during this period his political views became more conservative. He became a friend of Sir Garfield Barwick, the Liberal Attorney-General who became Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia in 1964. Kerr was the first chairman of the Law Association for Asia, Kerr served as chairman of that organisation until 1970. Kerr was appointed Chief Justice of New South Wales in 1972, Sir Paul Hasluck was due to retire as Governor-General in July 1974, and the Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, needed to find a suitable replacement. These discussions commenced in September 1973, Kerr was announced as Governor-General-designate on 27 February 1974, by which time he had become Sir John Kerr. Kerrs wife Peggy was a student of Margaret Whitlam during university days. The Whitlam Government had won a term in May 1974 following a double dissolution, but failed to win control of the Senate. The new parliament was opened by Sir Paul Hasluck on 9 July, the disputed bills that had led to the double dissolution were reintroduced, and, as expected, were again rejected. The conditions for a joint sitting of the parliament had now been met, on 30 July, Kerr signed a proclamation convening the historic Joint Sitting of the Australian Parliament on 6 and 7 August
7.
Prime minister
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A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss members of the cabinet. In most systems, the minister is the presiding member. In parliamentary systems fashioned after the Westminster system, the minister is the presiding and actual head of government. In such systems, the head of state or the head of states official representative usually holds a ceremonial position. The prime minister is often, but not always, a member of the Legislature or the Lower House thereof and is expected with other ministers to ensure the passage of bills through the legislature. In some monarchies the monarch may also exercise powers that are constitutionally vested in the crown. The first actual usage of the prime minister or Premier Ministre was used by Cardinal Richelieu when in 1625 he was named to head the royal council as prime minister of France. Louis XIV and his descendants generally attempted to avoid giving this title to their chief ministers, the term prime minister in the sense that we know it originated in the 18th century in the United Kingdom when members of parliament disparagingly used the title in reference to Sir Robert Walpole. Over time, however, the title became honorific and remains so in the 21st century, the monarchs of England and the United Kingdom had ministers in whom they placed special trust and who were regarded as the head of the government. Examples were Thomas Cromwell under Henry VIII, William Cecil, Lord Burghley under Elizabeth I, Clarendon under Charles II and these ministers held a variety of formal posts, but were commonly known as the minister, the chief minister, the first minister and finally the prime minister. The power of ministers depended entirely on the personal favour of the monarch. Although managing the parliament was among the skills of holding high office. Although there was a cabinet, it was appointed entirely by the monarch, when the monarch grew tired of a first minister, he or she could be dismissed, or worse, Cromwell was executed and Clarendon driven into exile when they lost favour. Kings sometimes divided power equally between two or more ministers to prevent one minister from becoming too powerful, late in Annes reign, for example, the Tory ministers Harley and St John shared power. The monarch could no longer any law or impose any tax without its permission. It is at point that a modern style of prime minister begins to emerge. A tipping point in the evolution of the prime ministership came with the death of Anne in 1714, George spoke no English, spent much of his time at his home in Hanover, and had neither knowledge of, nor interest in, the details of English government
8.
Gough Whitlam
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Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC was the 21st Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975. The Leader of the Labor Party from 1967 to 1977, Whitlam led his party to power for the first time in 23 years at the 1972 election. He won the 1974 election before being dismissed by the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr. Whitlam remains the only Australian prime minister to have his commission terminated in that manner, Whitlam served in the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II for four years as airforce navigator in the Pacific and worked as a barrister following the war. He was first elected to Parliament in 1952, representing Werriwa in the House of Representatives, Whitlam became Deputy Leader of the Labor Party in 1960, and in 1967, after the retirement of Arthur Calwell, was elected Leader and became the Leader of the Opposition. After narrowly losing the 1969 election, Whitlam led Labor to victory at the 1972 election after 23 years of continuous Liberal-Country Coalition Government. The government and the opposition then had equal numbers in the Senate where they voted against the six trigger bills which had formed the basis for the 1974 double dissolution. The Whitlam government then instituted the first and only 1974 joint sitting enabled under s.57 of the Constitution as part of the dissolution process. All six of the bills were then passed at the Joint Sitting in August 1974. Whitlam refused to back down, arguing that his government, which held a majority in the House of Representatives, was being held to ransom by the Senate. The crisis ended on 11 November, when Whitlam arrived at a meeting with the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. Kerr had agreed to the documents and the date for the half-Senate election—13 December—with Whitlam over the preceding days. Whitlam described it as the greatest shock I had ever experienced when Kerr instead dismissed him without warning and commissioned the opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, as prime minister. Later that afternoon, the House of Representatives passed a motion of no confidence in Fraser, Kerr refused to see the Speaker of the House or receive the motion of the House of Representatives and prorogued parliament with Fraser still in office. Labor lost the subsequent election by a landslide, Whitlam stepped down after losing again at the 1977 election, and retired from parliament in 1978. Upon the election of the Hawke Government in 1983, he was appointed as Ambassador to UNESCO, a position he filled with distinction and he remained active into his nineties. The circumstances of his dismissal and the legacy of his government remain a part of Australian political discourse. Edward Gough Whitlam was born on 11 July 1916 at the family home Ngara,46 Rowland Street, Kew and he was the older of two children born to Martha and Fred Whitlam
9.
Malcolm Fraser
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John Malcolm Fraser AC, CH, GCL was an Australian politician who was the 22nd Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1975 to 1983. Elected to the Australian Parliament seat of Wannon in 1955 at the age of 25, Fraser was appointed to the Cabinet in 1966. After rising to become Minister for Defence in 1969, he was regarded as a contender for the leadership of the Liberal Party following their defeat in 1972, Fraser challenged Snedden in 1975 and was elected Leader of the Liberal Party, becoming the Leader of the Opposition. He went on to win the largest parliamentary majority as a proportion of seats in Australian political history at the subsequent election, after two further election victories in 1977 and 1980, he was defeated by the Bob Hawke-led Australian Labor Party in 1983 and left parliament shortly after. Fraser was the last Liberal Party Prime Minister to practise Keynesian economics, in retirement, Fraser became involved in international relief and humanitarian aid issues and, domestically, as a forthright liberal voice for human rights. Shortly after Tony Abbott won the 2009 Liberal Party leadership spill, Fraser ended his Liberal Party membership, stating the party was no longer a liberal party, on 20 March 2015, Fraser died at the age of 84 after a brief illness. John Malcolm Fraser was born on 21 May 1930 in Toorak, Victoria, to a family with a history of involvement in politics, Frasers mother, Una Woolf, was of Jewish descent on her own fathers side, which Fraser did not discover until he was an adult. While at Oxford, Fraser was a classmate and friend of future Canadian Prime Minister John Turner, upon returning to Australia from Oxford, Fraser contested the seat of Wannon in 1954 for the Liberal Party, losing to Labor incumbent Don McLeod by just 17 votes. However, a redistribution made Wannon a notionally Liberal seat, Fraser subsequently won the seat with a majority of more than 5,000 on a swing of 8.5 per cent. Aged just 25, he was the youngest Member of Parliament, after more than a decade on the backbench, Fraser was appointed to the Cabinet by the prime minister, Harold Holt, in 1966. As Minister for the Army he presided over the controversial Vietnam War conscription program, in March 1971, Fraser abruptly resigned from the Cabinet in protest at what he called Gortons interference in ministerial responsibilities. This precipitated a series of events eventually led to the downfall of Gorton. Gorton never forgave Fraser for the role he played in his downfall, McMahon immediately reappointed Fraser to the Cabinet, returning him to his old position of Minister for Education and Science. When the Liberals were defeated at the 1972 election by the Labor Party under Gough Whitlam, McMahon resigned, after Snedden was defeated in 1974, Fraser unsuccessfully challenged him for the leadership of the Liberal Party in November. Despite surviving the challenge, Sneddens position in opinion polls continued to decline, Fraser again challenged Snedden on 21 March 1975, this time succeeding and becoming Leader of the Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition. Fraser was immediately sworn in as prime minister on the condition that he end the political deadlock. On 19 November 1975, shortly after the election had been called, a bomb was sent to Fraser. Similar devices were sent to the governor-general and the Premier of Queensland, at the 1975 election, Fraser led the Liberal-Country Party Coalition to a landslide victory
10.
Election
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An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century, Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is used in many other private and business organizations. Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not in place, psephology is the study of results and other statistics relating to elections. To elect means to choose or make a decision, and so other forms of ballot such as referendums are referred to as elections. Elections were used as early in history as ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and throughout the Medieval period to select rulers such as the Holy Roman Emperor, in Vedic period of India, the raja of a gana was apparently elected by the gana. The raja belonged to the noble Kshatriya varna, and was typically a son of the previous raja, however, the gana members had the final say in his elections. The Pala king Gopala in early medieval Bengal was elected by a group of feudal chieftains, such elections were quite common in contemporary societies of the region. In Chola Empire, around 920 CE, in Uthiramerur, palm leaves were used for selecting the village committee members, the leaves, with candidate names written on them, were put inside a mud pot. To select the members, a young boy was asked to take out as many leaves as the number of positions available. This was known as the Kudavolai system, ancient Arabs also used election to choose their caliph, Uthman and Ali, in the early medieval Rashidun Caliphate. Questions of suffrage, especially suffrage for minority groups, have dominated the history of elections, males, the dominate cultural group in North America and Europe, often dominated the electorate and continue to do so in many countries. Early elections in such as the United Kingdom and the United States were dominated by landed or ruling class males. However, by 1920 all Western European and North American democracies had universal male suffrage. Despite legally mandated universal suffrage for males, political barriers were sometimes erected to prevent fair access to elections. The question of who may vote is an issue in elections. In Australia Aboriginal people were not given the right to vote until 1962, suffrage is typically only for citizens of the country, though further limits may be imposed. However, in the European Union, one can vote in municipal elections if one lives in the municipality and is an EU citizen, the nationality of the country of residence is not required
