1.
Triple Entente
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Historians continue to debate the importance of the alliance system in igniting the Great War. At the start of World War I in 1914, all three Triple Entente members entered it as Allies of World War I against the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The situation in the Balkans and the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, in an attempt to stop Russia from allying with France, Bismarck signed the secret Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1887. It assured that both parties would remain neutral toward each other if war broke out, after the Reinsurance Treaty was not renewed in 1890, Russias leaders grew alarmed at the countrys diplomatic isolation and entered into the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894. In 1904 Britain and France signed a series of agreements, the Entente cordiale, the Entente heralded the end of British neutrality in Europe. It was partly a response to growing German antagonism, as expressed in the expansion of the Kaiserliche Marine into a fleet that could threaten the supremacy of the Royal Navy. The Entente, in contrast to the Triple Alliance or the Franco-Russian Alliance, was not an alliance of mutual defence, as British Foreign Office Official Eyre Crowe minuted, The fundamental fact of course is that the Entente is not an alliance. For purposes of ultimate emergencies it may be found to have no substance at all. For the Entente is nothing more than a frame of mind, in 1907 Britain and Russia signed an agreement called the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 to stop both countries rivalry in Central Asia, The Great Game. In the last decade of the century, Britain continued its policy of splendid isolation. However, by the early 1900s the German threat increased dramatically, some in Britain thought it was in need of allies. The Tangier Crisis later encouraged co-operation between the two countries from their fear of apparent German expansionism. Russia was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War, which resulted in concern over Russian imperialism. France was already allied to Russia in the Dual Alliance, Britain was frightened about the rising threat of German imperialism. Kaiser Wilhelm II had announced to the world his intentions to create a global German empire, Britain, traditionally having control of the seas, saw this as a serious threat to its own empire and navy. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, Prussia defeated the Second French Empire, in the Treaty of Frankfurt, Prussia forced France to cede Alsace-Lorraine to the new German Empire. Ever since, relations had been at an all time low, France, worried about the escalating military development of Germany, began building up its own war industries and army to deter to German aggression. As another measure, France developed a bond with Russia by ratifying the Franco-Russian Alliance
2.
Entente Cordiale
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Credit for the success of the negotiation belongs chiefly to Paul Cambon, Frances ambassador in London, and to the British foreign secretary Lord Lansdowne. The most important feature of the agreement was that it granted freedom of action to the UK in Egypt, arrangements were also made to allay the rivalry between British and French colonists in the New Hebrides. By the Entente Cordiale both powers reduced the isolation into which they had withdrawn—France involuntarily, the UK complacently—while they had eyed each other over African affairs. The UK had no ally but Japan, of use if war should break out in European waters, France had none but Russia. The agreement was upsetting to Germany, whose policy had long been to rely on Franco-British antagonism, a German attempt to check the French in Morocco in 1905, and thus upset the Entente, served only to strengthen it. Military discussions between the French and the British general staffs were soon initiated, Franco-British solidarity was confirmed at the Algeciras Conference and reconfirmed in the Second Moroccan Crisis. This was translated into French as Entente Cordiale and used by Louis Philippe I in the French Chamber that year. When used today the term almost always denotes the second Entente Cordiale, that is to say, the agreement was a change for both countries. The situation for both countries changed in the last decade of the 19th century, the change had its roots in a British loss of confidence after the Second Boer War, and a growing fear that the country was isolated in the face of a potentially aggressive Germany. As early as March 1881, the French statesman Léon Gambetta, the Scramble for Africa prevented the countries from coming to terms, however. On the initiative of Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, there were three rounds of British-German talks between 1898 and 1901, the UK decided not to join the Triple Alliance, broke off the negotiations with Berlin, and revived the idea of a British-French alliance. When the Russo-Japanese War was about to erupt, France and the UK found themselves on the verge of being dragged into the conflict on the side of their respective allies, France was firmly allied with Russia, while the UK had recently signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. In order to avoid going to war, both powers shucked off their ancient rivalry and resolved their differences in Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Entente was composed of three documents, The first and most important document was the Declaration respecting Egypt and Morocco. In return for the French promising not to obstruct British actions in Egypt, free passage through the Suez Canal was guaranteed, finally putting the Convention of Constantinople into force, and the erection of fortifications on part of the Moroccan coast forbidden. The treaty contained a secret annex dealing with the possibility of changed circumstances in the administration of either of the two countries, the second document dealt with Newfoundland and portions of West and Central Africa. The French gave up their rights over the western coast of Newfoundland, in return, the British gave the French the town of Yarbutenda and the Iles de Los. An additional provision deals with the border between French and British possessions east of the River Niger, the final declaration concerned Siam, Madagascar and the New Hebrides. In Siam, the British recognised a French sphere of influence to the east of the River Menams basin, in turn, both parties disclaimed any idea of annexing Siamese territory
3.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare
4.
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
5.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
6.
Richard Nixon
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Richard Milhous Nixon was an American politician who served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until 1974, when he became the only U. S. president to resign from office. He had previously served as a U. S, Representative and Senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California, after completing his undergraduate studies at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law. He and his wife Pat moved to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government and he subsequently served on active duty in the U. S. Navy Reserve during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950 and his pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist, and elevated him to national prominence. He was the mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as vice president and he waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, and lost a race for Governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962. In 1968, he ran for the presidency again and was elected by defeating incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Nixon ended American involvement in the war in Vietnam in 1973 and brought the American POWs home, and ended the military draft. His administration generally transferred power from Washington D. C. to the states and he imposed wage and price controls for a period of ninety days, enforced desegregation of Southern schools and established the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon also presided over the Apollo 11 moon landing, which signaled the end of the moon race and he was reelected in one of the largest electoral landslides in U. S. history in 1972, when he defeated George McGovern. The year 1973 saw an Arab oil embargo, gasoline rationing, the scandal escalated, costing Nixon much of his political support, and on August 9,1974, he resigned in the face of almost certain impeachment and removal from office. After his resignation, he was issued a pardon by his successor, in retirement, Nixons work writing several books and undertaking of many foreign trips helped to rehabilitate his image. He suffered a stroke on April 18,1994. Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9,1913 in Yorba Linda, California and his parents were Hannah Nixon and Francis A. Nixon. His mother was a Quaker and his father converted from Methodism to the Quaker faith, Nixons upbringing was marked by evangelical Quaker observances of the time, such as refraining from alcohol, dancing, and swearing. Nixon had four brothers, Harold, Donald, Arthur, four of the five Nixon boys were named after kings who had ruled in historical or legendary England, Richard, for example, was named after Richard the Lionheart. Nixons early life was marked by hardship, and he quoted a saying of Eisenhower to describe his boyhood, We were poor. The Nixon family ranch failed in 1922, and the moved to Whittier
7.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
8.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
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The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II. Negotiations commenced in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969, SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries. Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979, the United States Senate chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Soviet legislature also did not ratify it. The agreement expired on December 31,1985 and was not renewed, a successor to START I, New START, was proposed and was eventually ratified in February 2011. SALT I is the name for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement signed on May 26,1972. SALT I also limited land-based ICBMs that were in range from the border of the continental United States to the northwestern border of the continental USSR. In addition to that, SALT I limited the number of SLBM capable submarines that NATO, if the United States or NATO were to increase that number, the USSR could respond with increasing their arsenal by the same amount. The strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union and the United States were changing in character in 1968, MIRVs carried multiple nuclear warheads, often with dummies, to confuse ABM systems, making MIRV defense by ABM systems increasingly difficult and expensive. One clause of the treaty required both countries to limit the number of sites protected by a missile system to two each. The Soviet Union had deployed such a system around Moscow in 1966, a modified two-tier Moscow ABM system is still used. The United States built only one ABM site to protect a Minuteman base in North Dakota where the Safeguard Program was deployed, due to the systems expense and limited effectiveness, the Pentagon disbanded Safeguard in 1975. Negotiations lasted from November 17,1969, until May 1972 in a series of meetings beginning in Helsinki, Smith, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Subsequent sessions alternated between Vienna and Helsinki, after a long deadlock, the first results of SALT I came in May 1971, when an agreement was reached over ABM systems. A number of agreed statements were also made and this helped improve relations between the United States and the USSR. SALT II was a series of talks between United States and Soviet negotiators from 1972 to 1979 which sought to curtail the manufacture of nuclear weapons. It was a continuation of the SALT I talks and was led by representatives from both countries, SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both sides. SALT II helped the United States to discourage the Soviets from arming their third-generation ICBMs of SS-17, SS-19, in the late 1970s the USSRs missile design bureaus had developed experimental versions of these missiles equipped with anywhere from 10 to 38 warheads each. Additionally, the Soviets secretly agreed to reduce Tu-22M production to thirty aircraft per year and it was particularly important for the United States to limit Soviet efforts in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces rearmament area
9.
Helsinki Accords
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Thirty-five states, including the USA, Canada, and all European states except Albania and Andorra, signed the declaration in an attempt to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West. The Helsinki Accords, however, were not binding as they did not have treaty status, although the USSR was looking for a rapid resolution, none of the parties were quick to make concessions, particularly on human rights points. Throughout much of the negotiations, U. S. leaders were disengaged and uninterested with the process, T is meaningless—it is just a grandstand play to the left. We are going along with it, President Ford was concerned about this as well and sought clarification on this issue from the U. S. National Security Council. The U. S. Senate was also worried about the fate of the Baltic States, several Senators wrote to President Ford requesting that the final summit stage be delayed until all matters had been settled, and in a way favorable to the West. Shortly before President Ford departed for Helsinki, he held a meeting with a group of Americans of Eastern European background, according to Ford, The Helsinki documents involve political and moral commitments aimed at lessening tension and opening further the lines of communication between peoples of East and West. If it all fails, Europe will be no worse off than it is now, if even a part of it succeeds, the lot the people in Eastern Europe will be that much better, and the cause of freedom will advance at least that far. The speech, however, did not have much effect, the volume of mail against the Helsinki agreement continued to grow. The American public was unconvinced that U. S. policy on the incorporation of the Baltic States would not be changed by the Helsinki Final Act. Despite protests from all around, Ford decided to move forward, soon after the return from Helsinki, A. Denis Clift of the National Security Council urged Secretary Kissinger to support the creation of a report by the NSC Under Secretaries Committee on Helsinki Final Act compliance. Clift believed that the administration needed to be prepared for criticism from American Eastern European ethnic groups, Kissinger and President Ford agreed and an order was issued to the committee. Considering objections from Canada, Spain, Ireland and other states, U. S. President Gerald Ford also reaffirmed that US non-recognition policy of the Baltic states forced incorporation into the Soviet Union had not changed. Leaders of other NATO member states made similar statements, Soviet propaganda presented the Final Act as a great triumph for Soviet diplomacy and for Brezhnev personally. According to the Cold War scholar John Lewis Gaddis in his book The Cold War, A New History, Leonid Brezhnev had looked forward, Anatoly Dobrynin recalls, when the Soviet public learned of the final settlement of the postwar boundaries for which they had sacrificed so much. Gradually became a manifesto of the dissident and liberal movement, what this meant was that the people who lived under these systems — at least the more courageous — could claim official permission to say what they thought. The Helsinki Accords served as the groundwork for the later Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, established under the Paris Charter
10.
START II
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START II was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. Hence, it is cited as the De-MIRV-ing Agreement. It was ratified by the U. S. Senate on 26 January 1996 with a vote of 87-4, Russia ratified START II on 14 April 2000, but on 14 June 2002, withdrew from the treaty in response to U. S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. Instead, SORT came into effect, reducing strategic warheads count per country to 1,700 -2,200, mIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. A MIRV missile is able to carry 3-12 warheads and deliver them to separate targets, thereby, if it is used in a first strike, it possibly destroys many of the enemys missile sites. Thus the destruction capability is greatly multiplied by MIRV, when the number of enemy silos does not significantly increase, both Soviet R-36M and the US LGM-118 Peacekeeper missiles were capable of carrying up to 10 MIRVs. The historic agreement started on 17 June 1992 with the signing of a Joint Understanding by the presidents, the official signing of the treaty by the presidents took place on 3 January 1993. It was ratified by the U. S. Senate on 26 January 1996 with a vote of 87-4, however, Russian ratification was stalled in the Duma for many years. It was postponed a number of times to protest American military actions in Kosovo, as the years passed, the treaty became less relevant and both sides started to lose interest in it. For the Americans, the issue became the ABM Treaty. The United States withdrew from the ABM Treaty in June 2002, START II did not enter into force. Neither of these occurred because of U. S. Senate opposition, however, in 2001, President George W. Bush set a plan in motion to reduce the country’s missile forces from 6,000 to between 1,700 and 2,200. Both sides agreed to reduce operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,700 from 2,200 by 2012. On 13 June 2002, the U. S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty, the United States developed Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system to protect from small-scale ICBM attack. In October 2002 United States began unilateral withdrawal of MIRV and completed it by 19 September 2005, the Minuteman III is, as of 2011, the only United States land-based operational ICBM. It can potentially carry up to only 3 RVs, START I START III New START SALT I and II INF Treaty Information on FAS website U. S. / Russian Treaties and Agreements
11.
Cuban Missile Crisis
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The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. An agreement was reached during a meeting between Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962 and construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer. The 1962 midterm elections were under way in the United States and these missile preparations were confirmed when an Air Force U-2 spy plane produced clear photographic evidence of medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missile facilities. The United States established a blockade to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba. It announced that they would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba, after a long period of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between U. S. President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev. Secretly, the United States also agreed that it would dismantle all U. S. -built Jupiter MRBMs, when all offensive missiles and Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers had been withdrawn from Cuba, the blockade was formally ended on November 20,1962. The negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union pointed out the necessity of a quick, clear, as a result, the Moscow–Washington hotline was established. A series of sharply reduced U. S. –Soviet tensions during the following years. The United States had been embarrassed publicly by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961, afterward, former President Eisenhower told Kennedy that the failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do. U. S. covert operations against Cuba continued in 1961 with the similarly unsuccessful Operation Mongoose, in addition, Khrushchevs impression of Kennedys weakness was confirmed by the Presidents response during the Berlin Crisis of 1961, particularly to the building of the Berlin Wall. He also told his son Sergei that on Cuba, Kennedy would make a fuss, make more of a fuss, CIA agents or pathfinders from the Special Activities Division were to be infiltrated into Cuba to carry out sabotage and organization, including radio broadcasts. When Kennedy ran for president in 1960, one of his key election issues was a missile gap with the Soviets leading. In fact, the U. S. led the Soviets by a margin that would only increase. In 1961, the Soviets had only four intercontinental ballistic missiles, by October 1962, they may have had a few dozen, with some intelligence estimates as high as 75. The U. S. on the hand, had 170 ICBMs and was quickly building more. It also had eight George Washington– and Ethan Allen–class ballistic missile submarines with the capability to launch 16 Polaris missiles each, the Soviet Union did have medium-range ballistic missiles in quantity, about 700 of them, however, these were very unreliable and inaccurate. The U. S. had an advantage in total number of nuclear warheads at the time. The U. S. also led in missile defensive capabilities, naval and air power, Khrushchev faced a strategic situation where the U. S. was perceived to have a splendid first strike capability that put the Soviet Union at a huge disadvantage
12.
1980 Summer Olympics boycott
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The 1980 Summer Olympics boycott was one part of a number of actions initiated by the United States to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet Union, which hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics, on January 26,1980, Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark announced that like the US, Canada would boycott the Olympics if the Soviets didnt leave Afghanistan by February 20,1980. Lord Killanin insisted that the Games should continue as scheduled, several interventions at the late April 1980 Bilderberg meeting in Aachen included discussion of the implications of the boycott. It was forcefully argued the world would perceive a boycott as little more than a sentimental protest, the Carter administration brought considerable pressure to bear on other NATO member-States to support the boycott. German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said that the American attitude that the allies should simply do as they are told was unacceptable, boxer Muhammad Ali was dispatched by the US administration to Tanzania, Nigeria, and Senegal to convince their leaders to join the boycott. It was widely said in the US domestic press that reactions to Alis public comments in Tanzania supported the view that his mission was a failure. Certain countries ultimately joined the US in a boycott of the Games. These included Japan and West Germany where Chancellor Schmidt was able to convince the National Olympic Committee to support the boycott by a narrow margin, China, the Philippines, Argentina and Canada also boycotted the Games entirely. Some of these countries competed at the alternative Liberty Bell Classic or Olympic Boycott Games held in Philadelphia that same year, the United Kingdom and France sent a much smaller athletic delegation than would have originally been possible. The British associations that governed equestrian sports, hockey, and yachting completely boycotted the 1980 summer Olympics, nevertheless, the United Kingdom sent 170 sportsmen and women to compete, the largest team of athletes from among West European countries. Spain, Italy, Sweden, Iceland and Finland were other principal nations representing western Europe at the Games, italian athletes serving in its military corps could not attend the Games, however, because of the national governments official support of the boycott. Many events were affected by the loss of participants and some US-born athletes who were citizens of countries, such as Italy and Australia. Independently of the United States, the Islamic Conference urged a boycott of Moscow after the invasion, many teams were avoided by Soviet television at the Games during the opening and closing ceremonies because their national governments officially supported the boycott. Their national colors could not be flown nor could their anthems be played, four sportspeople from New Zealand competed independently and marched under their NOC flag because the government officially supported the boycott. The athletes of 16 countries did not fly their national flags, instead NOC flags were raised and the Olympic Anthem replaced their national anthems at the medal ceremonies. There was one awards ceremony where three NOC flags were raised, other modifications were made in the Games activities, such as when the Boycott prevented Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau from attending the Moscow Games. The Antwerp flag was received by an IOC member from the USA instead of the mayor of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley, there was no handover to Los Angeles ceremony at the closing. On May 24,1980, Gary Fanelli wore a shirt that read The Road to Moscow Ends Here for the time trial in response to the boycott of the Moscow Olympics
13.
Ronald Reagan
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Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who was the 40th President of the United States, from 1981 to 1989. Before his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975, after a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader. Raised in a family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932. After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he became an actor, Reagan was twice elected President of the Screen Actors Guild, the labor union for actors, where he worked to root out Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a speaker at General Electric factories. Having been a lifelong Democrat, his views changed and he became a conservative and in 1962 switched to the Republican Party. In 1964, Reagans speech, A Time for Choosing, in support of Barry Goldwaters foundering presidential campaign, Building a network of supporters, he was elected Governor of California in 1966. Entering the presidency in 1981, Reagan implemented sweeping new political, in his first term he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. During his re-election bid, Reagan campaigned on the notion that it was Morning in America, foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the Iran–Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an empire, and during his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Jack, a salesman and storyteller, was the grandson of Irish Catholic immigrants from County Tipperary, Reagan had one older brother, John Neil Reagan, who became an advertising executive. As a boy, Reagans father nicknamed his son Dutch, due to his fat little Dutchman-like appearance and Dutchboy haircut, Reagans family briefly lived in several towns and cities in Illinois, including Monmouth, Galesburg, and Chicago. In 1919, they returned to Tampico and lived above the H. C, Pitney Variety Store until finally settling in Dixon. After his election as president, residing in the upstairs White House private quarters, for the time, Reagan was unusual in his opposition to racial discrimination, and recalled a time in Dixon when the local inn would not allow black people to stay there. Reagan brought them back to his house, where his mother invited them to stay the night and have breakfast the next morning, after the closure of the Pitney Store in late 1920 and the familys move to Dixon, the midwestern small universe had a lasting impression on Reagan. Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports and his first job was as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park in 1927. Over a six-year period, Reagan reportedly performed 77 rescues as a lifeguard and he attended Eureka College, a Disciples-oriented liberal arts school, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, a cheerleader, and studied economics and sociology. While involved, the Miller Center of Public Affairs described him as an indifferent student and he majored in economics and sociology, and graduated with a C grade
14.
United States presidential election, 1980
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The United States presidential election of 1980 was the 49th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4,1980. W, Bush, a former Congressman and CIA Director from Texas who would eventually win the presidency eight years later, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent, aged 69 at the time, Reagan became the oldest person to ever take the oval office, a record that was later surpassed by Republican Donald Trump, aged 70,35 years later. Carter, after defeating Edward M. Ted Kennedy, the long-time U. S, Senator from Massachusetts and brother of former president John F. Kennedy for the Democratic nomination, attacked Reagan as a dangerous right-wing extremist. This election marked the beginning of what is called the Reagan Revolution or Reagan Era, throughout the 1970s, the United States underwent a wrenching period of low economic growth, high inflation and interest rates, and intermittent energy crises. In the spring and summer of 1979 inflation was on the rise, Carter left for the presidential retreat of Camp David. For more than a week, a veil of secrecy enveloped the proceedings, dozens of prominent Democratic Party leaders—members of Congress, governors, labor leaders, academics and clergy—were summoned to the mountaintop retreat to confer with the beleaguered president. On July 15,1979, Carter gave a televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a crisis of confidence among the American people. This came to be known as his speech, although Carter never used the word in the speech. Many expected Senator Ted Kennedy to successfully challenge Carter in the upcoming Democratic Primary, kennedys official announcement was scheduled for early November. A television interview with Roger Mudd of CBS a few days before the announcement went badly, however. Kennedy gave an incoherent and repetitive answer to the question of why he was running, and the polls, embassy in Tehran on November 4,1979. Carters calm approach towards handling this crisis resulted in his approval ratings jump in the 60-percent range in some polls, by the beginning of the election season, the prolonged Iran hostage crisis had sharpened public perceptions of a national crisis. Carters critics saw him as a leader who had failed to solve the worsening economic problems at home. His supporters defended the president as a decent, well-intentioned man being unfairly criticized for problems that had been building for years, Democratic candidates, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States Ted Kennedy, U. S. Brown withdrew on April 2. Carter and Kennedy faced off in 34 primaries and this was the most tumultuous primary race that an elected incumbent president had encountered since President Taft, during the highly contentious election of 1912. During the summer of 1980, there was a short-lived Draft Muskie movement, one poll showed that Muskie would be a more popular alternative to Carter than Kennedy, implying that the attraction was not so much to Kennedy as to the fact that he was not Carter. Muskie was polling even with Ronald Reagan at the time, while Carter was seven points behind, although the underground Draft Muskie campaign failed, it became a political legend
15.
Alexei Kosygin
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Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin was a Soviet-Russian statesman during the Cold War. Kosygin was born in the city of Saint Petersburg in 1904 to a Russian working-class family and he was conscripted into the labour army during the Russian Civil War, and after the Red Armys demobilisation in 1921, he worked in Siberia as an industrial manager. Kosygin returned to Leningrad in the early 1930s and worked his way up the Soviet hierarchy, during the Great Patriotic War, Kosygin was a member of the State Defence Committee and was tasked with moving Soviet industry out of territories soon to be overrun by the German Army. He served as Minister of Finance for a year before becoming Minister of Light Industry and later, Stalin removed Kosygin from the Politburo one year before his own death in 1953, intentionally weakening Kosygins position within the Soviet hierarchy. After the power struggle triggered by Stalins death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev became the new leader, on 20 March 1959, Kosygin was appointed to the position of Chairman of the State Planning Committee, a post he would hold for little more than a year. Kosygin next became First Deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, when Khrushchev was replaced in 1964, Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev became Premier and First Secretary respectively. Kosygin, along with Brezhnev and Nikolai Podgorny, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, was a member of the newly established collective leadership. This reform, along with his open stance on solving the Prague Spring. More conservative members of the top leadership saw some of Kosygins policies as too radical, by the 1970s, Brezhnev had consolidated enough power to stop any radical reform-minded attempts by Kosygin. In 1980, Kosygin retired from due to bad health. Kosygin was born into a Russian working-class family consisting of his father and mother, Nikolai Ilyich and Matrona Alexandrovna, the family lived in Saint Petersburg. Kosygin was baptised one month after his birth on 7 March and he was conscripted into a labour army on the Bolshevik side during the Russian Civil War. After the Red Armys demobilisation in 1921, Kosygin attended the Leningrad Co-operative Technical School and found work in the system of consumer co-operatives in Novosibirsk, Siberia. When asked why he worked in the sector of the economy, Kosygin replied, quoting a slogan of Vladimir Lenin. Kosygin stayed there for six years and he applied for a membership in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1927 and returned to Leningrad in 1930 to study at the Leningrad Textile Institute, he graduated in 1935. After finishing his studies, Kosygin was employed as a textile mill director, in 1940 Kosygin became a Deputy chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars, and was appointed in 1943 as Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars of the Russian SFSR. Kosygin worked for the State Defence Committee during the Great Patriotic War, as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Evacuation, his task was to evacuate industry from territories soon to be overrun by the Germans. He broke the Leningrad Blockade by organising the construction of a supply route, Kosygin was a candidate member of the Politburo from 1946 to 1949, and became a full member toward the end of Joseph Stalins rule, he lost his seat in 1952
16.
Lyndon B. Johnson
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A Democrat from Texas, he previously served as a United States Representative from 1937 to 1949 and then as a United States Senator from 1949 to 1961. He spent six years as Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader, and two more as Senate Majority Whip, Johnson ran for the Democratic nomination in the 1960 presidential election. Although unsuccessful, he was chosen by then-Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts to be his running mate and they went on to win a close election over Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Johnson was sworn in as Vice President on January 20,1961. Two years and ten months later, on November 22,1963 and he successfully ran for a full term in the 1964 election, winning by a landslide over Republican opponent Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. He is one of four people who have served as President, Vice President, Senator. Johnson was renowned for his personality and the Johnson treatment. Assisted in part by an economy, the War on Poverty helped millions of Americans rise above the poverty line during his administration. With the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, Johnson escalated American involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted Johnson the power to use force in Southeast Asia without having to ask for an official declaration of war. The number of American military personnel in Vietnam increased dramatically, from 16,000 advisors in non-combat roles in 1963 to 550,000 in early 1968, American casualties soared and the peace process bogged down. Growing unease with the war stimulated a large, angry antiwar movement based especially on university campuses in the U. S. and abroad. Johnson faced further troubles when summer riots broke out in most major cities after 1965, while he began his presidency with widespread approval, support for Johnson declined as the public became upset with both the war and the growing violence at home. In 1968, the Democratic Party factionalized as antiwar elements denounced Johnson, Republican Richard Nixon was elected to succeed him, as the New Deal coalition that had dominated presidential politics for 36 years collapsed. After he left office in January 1969, Johnson returned to his Texas ranch, historians argue that Johnsons presidency marked the peak of modern liberalism in the United States after the New Deal era. Johnson is ranked favorably by some historians because of his policies and the passage of many major laws, affecting civil rights, gun control, wilderness preservation. Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27,1908, near Stonewall, Texas, in a farmhouse on the Pedernales River. Johnson had one brother, Sam Houston Johnson, and three sisters, Rebekah, Josefa, and Lucia, the nearby small town of Johnson City, Texas, was named after LBJs cousin, James Polk Johnson, whose forebears had moved west from Oglethorpe County, Georgia. Johnson had English, German, and Ulster Scots ancestry and he was maternally descended from pioneer Baptist clergyman George Washington Baines, who pastored eight churches in Texas, as well as others in Arkansas and Louisiana
17.
Glassboro Summit Conference
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During the Israeli-Arab Six Days War diplomatic contact and cooperation increased, leading some to hope for an improvement in the two countries relations. Some even hoped for joint cooperation on the Vietnam War, with the United States gradually losing ground in the Vietnam War, the administration was looking for other solutions to the conflict. On 5 June 1967 the Six-Day War began between Israel and the Arab states, the war led to an increase in Soviet-US diplomatic contact and cooperation, there were some who hoped this could continue to help the US solve the Vietnam war and other pressing international issues. On June 10,1967 Premier Alexei Kosygin wrote a letter to contact President Lyndon B. Johnson, the “hot line” message arrived at the White House to seek communication between the United States and the Soviet Union. Alexei Kosygin gives an explanation of what the Soviet Union. In the message Alexei Kosygin writes, To The White House To President Lyndon B. Johnson Dear Mr. President, as the situation shows, the resolutions of the Security Council are invalid. A very crucial moment has now arrived which forces us, if military actions are not stopped in the few hours. However, these actions may bring us into a clash, which lead to a grave catastrophe. Obviously in the world there are powers to whom this would be advantageous and we purpose that you demand from Israel that it unconditionally cease military action in the next few hours. On our part, we will do the same and we purpose to warn Israel that, if this is not fulfilled, necessary actions will be taken, including military. A. Kosygin Several days later the Soviet Union sent Premier Alexei Kosygin to New York City to deliver a speech on the then-ongoing Middle Eastern crisis at the United Nations headquarters. When the United States government was informed of this the Americans gladly welcomed Kosygin to a meeting between him and President Lyndon B. Johnson, on 13 June 1967 Johnson sought out J. William Fulbright, a Senator, at a White House reception. Llewellyn Thompson, then US ambassador to the USSR, believed that a conference could start the process of moving toward an understanding with the Soviets, Fulbright even believed that Johnson was reconsidering his Vietnam strategy. Later Fulbright wrote two letters to Johnson about the importance of a summit between the two nations, Johnson agreed, and wrote a letter in return, which said they were waiting for a Soviet response for US invitation. The Soviet Political Bureau were divided over the usefulness of the summit, andrei Gromyko, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time and still not a member of the Politburo, was able to win support for it. Gromyko noted that Soviet-US dialogue which had suspended in 1963 should be reactivated. Kosygin had agreed to address the United Nations and as such, Johnson, wary of encountering protesters against the war in Vietnam, preferred to meet in Washington, D. C. Roughly equidistant, Hollybush was selected as a compromise, the summit took place at Glassboro State College in Glassboro, New Jersey
18.
Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
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The impetus for the test ban was provided by rising public anxiety over the magnitude of nuclear tests, particularly tests of new thermonuclear weapons, and the resulting nuclear fallout. A test ban was also seen as a means of slowing nuclear proliferation, though the PTBT did not halt proliferation or the arms race, its enactment did coincide with a substantial decline in the concentration of radioactive particles in the atmosphere. The PTBT was signed by the governments of the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, the treaty formally went into effect on 10 October 1963. Since then,123 other states have become party to the treaty, ten states have signed but not ratified the treaty. In 1952–53, the US and Soviet Union detonated their first thermonuclear weapons, in 1954, the US Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll had a yield of 15 megatons of TNT, more than doubling the expected yield. In the same year, a Soviet test sent radioactive particles over Japan, around the same time, victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima visited the US for medical care, which attracted significant public attention. Between 1951 and 1958, the US conducted 166 atmospheric tests, the Soviet Union conducted 82, in 1945, Britain and Canada made an early call for an international discussion on controlling atomic power. At the time, the US had yet to formulate a policy or strategy on nuclear weapons. Taking advantage of this was Vannevar Bush, who had initiated and administered the Manhattan Project, as a first step in this direction, Bush proposed an international agency dedicated to nuclear control. Truman to help construct US nuclear weapons policy, a version of the Acheson-Lilienthal plan was presented to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission as the Baruch Plan in June 1946. The Baruch Plan proposed that an International Atomic Development Authority would control all research on and material, the Soviet Union dismissed the Baruch Plan as a US attempt to secure its nuclear dominance, and called for the US to halt weapons production and release technical information on its program. The Acheson–Lilienthal paper and Baruch Plan would serve as the basis for US policy into the 1950s, between 1947 and 1954, the US and Soviet Union discussed their demands within the United Nations Commission for Conventional Disarmament. A series of events in 1954, including the Castle Bravo test and spread of fallout from a Soviet test over Japan, additionally, by 1954, both US and Soviet Union had assembled large nuclear stockpiles, reducing hopes of complete disarmament. Interest in nuclear control and efforts to stall proliferation of weapons to other states grew as the Soviet Unions nuclear capabilities increased, in the same year, the British Labour Party, then led by Clement Attlee, called on the UN to ban testing of thermonuclear weapons. 1955 marks the beginning of negotiations, as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev first proposed talks on the subject in February 1955. On 10 May 1955, the Soviet Union proposed a test ban before the UN Disarmament Commissions Committee of Five, the May 1955 proposal is now seen evidence of Khrushchevs new approach to foreign policy, as Khrushchev sought to mend relations with the West. The proposal would serve as the basis of the Soviet negotiating position through 1957, Eisenhower had supported nuclear testing after World War II. In 1947, he rejected arguments by Stafford L. Warrens arguments were lent credence in the scientific community, everybody seems to think that were skunks, saber-rattlers and warmongers
19.
Outer Space Treaty
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The treaty was opened for signature in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union on 27 January 1967, and entered into force on 10 October 1967. As of January 2017,105 countries are parties to the treaty, the Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of international space law. However, the Treaty does not prohibit the placement of weapons in orbit. The treaty also states that the exploration of outer space shall be done to all countries. The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet, however, the State that launches a space object retains jurisdiction and control over that object. The State is also liable for damages caused by their space object, the Space Liability Convention of 1972. The Moon Treaty of 1979 was meant to be the follow-up to the Outer Space Treaty, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space oversees these treaties and other questions of space jurisdiction. The Outer Space Treaty was opened for signature in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union on 27 January 1967, as of January 2017,105 countries are parties to the treaty, while another 24 have signed the treaty but have not completed ratification. Multiple dates indicate the different days in which states submitted their signature or deposition and this location is noted by, for London, for Moscow, and for Washington, DC. When the PRC subsequently ratified the treaty, they described the Republic of Chinas ratification as illegal, the ROC has committed itself to continue to adhere to the requirements of the treaty, and the United States has declared that they still consider them to be bound by its obligations
20.
Presidency of Richard Nixon
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He was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford, who had become vice president nine months earlier, following Spiro Agnews resignation from office. A Republican, Nixon took office after the 1968 presidential election, in which he defeated Hubert Humphrey, four years later, in 1972, Nixon won reelection in a landslide victory over George McGovern. Overall, he won 60. 7% of the popular vote, Nixon, the 37th United States president, succeeded Lyndon B. Johnson, who had launched the Great Society, a set of domestic programs financed, in contrast, Nixon advocated a New Federalism domestic program model, one in which certain powers would devolve back to the states. Nixons primary focus while in office was on foreign affairs, Nixon pursued a detente with the Peoples Republic of China, taking advantage of the Sino-Soviet split and significantly altering the nature of the Cold War. Nixons many accomplishments as president were however, largely overshadowed by the scandals that enveloped his administration, regarding his lasting legacy, historian Stephen Ambrose wrote, Nixon wanted to be judged by what he accomplished. What he will be remembered for is the nightmare he put the country through in his second term, Nixon was inaugurated as president on January 20,1969, sworn in by his onetime political rival, Chief Justice Earl Warren. Pat Nixon held the family Bibles open at Isaiah 2,4, which reads, They shall beat their swords into plowshares, in his inaugural address, which received almost uniformly positive reviews, Nixon remarked that the greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker. Nixon made fifteen international trips during his presidency and his first was an eight-day European visit starting in Brussels on February 23,1969. He met with Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Wilson in London and Frances President Charles de Gaulle in Paris and he also stopped in Bonn, Berlin and Rome and met with Pope Paul VI in Vatican City. He also made groundbreaking trips to several Eastern European Communist nations, including, Romania, Yugoslavia, even those who hated Nixons presidency occasionally praise his work in China. The extent to which his visit had any consequences of note, however. Assisting him in this venture was his National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, with whom the President worked closely, bypassing Cabinet officials. A breakthrough came in early 1971, when Chairman Mao invited a team of American table tennis players to visit China, Nixon followed up by sending Kissinger to China for clandestine meetings with Chinese officials. On July 15,1971, it was announced by Beijing. The secrecy allowed both sets of time to prepare the political climate in their countries for the contact. In February 1972, Nixon and his wife traveled to China, Kissinger briefed Nixon for over 40 hours in preparation. Upon touching down, the President and First Lady emerged from Air Force One, Nixon made a point of shaking Zhous hand, something which then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had refused to do in 1954 when the two met in Geneva
21.
Warsaw Pact
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The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO, instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and its largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than a month later. The Pact began to unravel in its entirety with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland, East Germany and Poland withdrew from the Pact in 1990. On 25 February 1991, the Pact was declared at an end at a meeting of defence, the USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991, although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. Throughout the following 20 years, the seven Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO, in the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance—abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces, the strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviets wanted to keep their part of Europe theirs and not let the Americans take it from them and this policy was driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism, geostrategic principles also drove the Soviet Union to prevent invasion of its territory by Western European powers. Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and these states protested strongly against the re-militarization of West Germany. The Warsaw Pact was primarily put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO, Soviet leaders, like many European countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain, feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The terrible consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets, previously, in March 1954, the USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, requested admission to NATO. The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. James Dunn, who met in Paris with Eden, Adenauer and Robert Schuman, affirmed that the object should be to avoid discussion with the Russians, according to John Gaddis there was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer from USSR. But Eden, Dulles and Bidault opposed the proposal, the Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the USA, UK and France to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed General European Agreement. Again all proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay, supporter of NATO expansion, who said that NATO must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella. He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force, in April 1954 Adenauer made his first visit to the USA meeting Nixon, Eisenhower and Dulles. Ratification of EDC was delaying but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that EDC would have to become a part of NATO, memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too
22.
SALT I
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The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II. Negotiations commenced in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969, SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries. Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979, the United States Senate chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Soviet legislature also did not ratify it. The agreement expired on December 31,1985 and was not renewed, a successor to START I, New START, was proposed and was eventually ratified in February 2011. SALT I is the name for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement signed on May 26,1972. SALT I also limited land-based ICBMs that were in range from the border of the continental United States to the northwestern border of the continental USSR. In addition to that, SALT I limited the number of SLBM capable submarines that NATO, if the United States or NATO were to increase that number, the USSR could respond with increasing their arsenal by the same amount. The strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union and the United States were changing in character in 1968, MIRVs carried multiple nuclear warheads, often with dummies, to confuse ABM systems, making MIRV defense by ABM systems increasingly difficult and expensive. One clause of the treaty required both countries to limit the number of sites protected by a missile system to two each. The Soviet Union had deployed such a system around Moscow in 1966, a modified two-tier Moscow ABM system is still used. The United States built only one ABM site to protect a Minuteman base in North Dakota where the Safeguard Program was deployed, due to the systems expense and limited effectiveness, the Pentagon disbanded Safeguard in 1975. Negotiations lasted from November 17,1969, until May 1972 in a series of meetings beginning in Helsinki, Smith, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Subsequent sessions alternated between Vienna and Helsinki, after a long deadlock, the first results of SALT I came in May 1971, when an agreement was reached over ABM systems. A number of agreed statements were also made and this helped improve relations between the United States and the USSR. SALT II was a series of talks between United States and Soviet negotiators from 1972 to 1979 which sought to curtail the manufacture of nuclear weapons. It was a continuation of the SALT I talks and was led by representatives from both countries, SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both sides. SALT II helped the United States to discourage the Soviets from arming their third-generation ICBMs of SS-17, SS-19, in the late 1970s the USSRs missile design bureaus had developed experimental versions of these missiles equipped with anywhere from 10 to 38 warheads each. Additionally, the Soviets secretly agreed to reduce Tu-22M production to thirty aircraft per year and it was particularly important for the United States to limit Soviet efforts in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces rearmament area
23.
Multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle
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A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle is a ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit one of a group of targets. By contrast a unitary warhead is a single warhead on a single missile, an intermediate case is the multiple reentry vehicle missile which carries several warheads which are dispersed but not individually aimed. Only the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, the military purpose of a MIRV is fourfold, Enhance first-strike proficiency for strategic forces. Providing greater target damage for a given thermonuclear weapon payload, several small warheads cause much more target damage area than a single warhead alone. This in turn reduces the number of missiles and launch facilities required for a destruction level - much the same as the purpose of a cluster munition. With single warhead missiles, one missile must be launched for each target, by contrast with a MIRV warhead, the post-boost stage can dispense the warheads against multiple targets across a broad area. Reduces the effectiveness of a missile system that relies on intercepting individual warheads. While a MIRV attacking missile can have multiple warheads, interceptors may have only one warhead per missile, decoy reentry vehicles can be used alongside actual warheads to minimize the chances of the actual warheads being intercepted before they reach their targets. A system that destroys the missile earlier in its trajectory is not affected by this but is more difficult, MIRV land-based ICBMs were considered destabilizing because they tended to put a premium on striking first. Later on the US feared the Soviets MIRVs because Soviet missiles had a greater throw-weight, for example, the US MIRVs might have increased their warhead per missile count by a factor of 6 while the Soviets increased theirs by a factor of 10. Furthermore, the US had a smaller proportion of its nuclear arsenal in ICBMs than the Soviets. Bombers could not be outfitted with MIRVs so their capacity would not be multiplied, thus the US did not seem to have as much potential for MIRV usage as the Soviets. However, the US had a number of Submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which could be outfitted with MIRVs. It is because of their first-strike capability that land-based MIRVs were banned under the START II agreement, START II was ratified by the Russian Duma on 14 April 2000, but Russia withdrew from the treaty in 2002 after the US withdrew from the ABM treaty. In a MIRV, the rocket motor pushes a bus into a free-flight suborbital ballistic flight path. After the boost phase the bus maneuvers using small on-board rocket motors and it takes up a ballistic trajectory that will deliver a reentry vehicle containing a warhead to a target, and then releases a warhead on that trajectory. It then maneuvers to a different trajectory, releasing another warhead, the precise technical details are closely guarded military secrets, to hinder any development of enemy counter-measures. The bus on-board propellant limits the distances between targets of individual warheads to perhaps a few hundred kilometers, some warheads may use small hypersonic airfoils during the descent to gain additional cross-range distance
24.
Biological Weapons Convention
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The Convention was the result of prolonged efforts by the international community to establish a new instrument that would supplement the 1925 Geneva Protocol. The Geneva Protocol prohibits use but not possession or development of chemical and biological weapons and it commits the 178 states which are party to it as of December 2016 to prohibit the development, production, and stockpiling of biological and toxin weapons. However, the absence of any formal verification regime to monitor compliance has limited the effectiveness of the Convention, an additional six states have signed the BWC but have yet to ratify the treaty. The scope of the BWCs prohibition is defined in Article 1 and this includes all microbial and other biological agents or toxins and their means of delivery. Subsequent Review Conferences have reaffirmed that the general purpose criterion encompasses all future scientific and it is not the objects themselves, but rather certain purposes for which they may be employed which are prohibited, similar to Art. II,1 in the Chemical Weapons Convention. Permitted purposes under the BWC are defined as prophylactic, protective, the objects may not be retained in quantities that have no justification or which are inconsistent with the permitted purposes. The United States Congress passed the Bioweapons Anti-Terrorism Act in 1989 to implement the Convention, the law applies the Conventions convent to countries and private citizens, and criminalizes violations of the Convention. Article I, Never under any circumstances to acquire or retain biological weapons, Article II, To destroy or divert to peaceful purposes biological weapons and associated resources prior to joining. Article III, Not to transfer, or in any way assist, Article IV, To take any national measures necessary to implement the provisions of the BWC domestically. Article V, To consult bilaterally and multilaterally to solve any problems with the implementation of the BWC, Article VI, To request the UN Security Council to investigate alleged breaches of the BWC and to comply with its subsequent decisions. Article VII, To assist States which have exposed to a danger as a result of a violation of the BWC. Article X, To do all of the above in a way that encourages the peaceful uses of biological science, the BWC has 178 States Parties as of November 2016, with Guinea the most recent to become a party. The Republic of China had deposited an instrument of ratification before the changeover of the United Nations seat to the Peoples Republic of China. Of the UN member states which are not a party to the treaty, six have signed, a long process of negotiation to add a verification mechanism began in the 1990s. Previously, at the second Review Conference of State Parties in 1986, the following Review Conference in 1991 established a group of government experts. Negotiations towards an internationally binding verification protocol to the BWC took place between 1995 and 2001 in a known as the Ad Hoc Group. On 25 July 2001, the Bush administration, after conducting a review of policy on biological weapons, States Parties have formally reviewed the operation of the BWC at quinquennial review conferences held in 1980,1986,1991,1996, 2001/02,2006,2011, and 2016. These additional understandings are contained in the Final Declarations of the Review Conferences, there has been an increase in the percentage of delegates from States Parties who have been women since the first review conference, with just 7 percent in 1980 to 26 percent in 2011
25.
SALT II
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The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II. Negotiations commenced in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969, SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries. Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979, the United States Senate chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Soviet legislature also did not ratify it. The agreement expired on December 31,1985 and was not renewed, a successor to START I, New START, was proposed and was eventually ratified in February 2011. SALT I is the name for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement signed on May 26,1972. SALT I also limited land-based ICBMs that were in range from the border of the continental United States to the northwestern border of the continental USSR. In addition to that, SALT I limited the number of SLBM capable submarines that NATO, if the United States or NATO were to increase that number, the USSR could respond with increasing their arsenal by the same amount. The strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union and the United States were changing in character in 1968, MIRVs carried multiple nuclear warheads, often with dummies, to confuse ABM systems, making MIRV defense by ABM systems increasingly difficult and expensive. One clause of the treaty required both countries to limit the number of sites protected by a missile system to two each. The Soviet Union had deployed such a system around Moscow in 1966, a modified two-tier Moscow ABM system is still used. The United States built only one ABM site to protect a Minuteman base in North Dakota where the Safeguard Program was deployed, due to the systems expense and limited effectiveness, the Pentagon disbanded Safeguard in 1975. Negotiations lasted from November 17,1969, until May 1972 in a series of meetings beginning in Helsinki, Smith, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Subsequent sessions alternated between Vienna and Helsinki, after a long deadlock, the first results of SALT I came in May 1971, when an agreement was reached over ABM systems. A number of agreed statements were also made and this helped improve relations between the United States and the USSR. SALT II was a series of talks between United States and Soviet negotiators from 1972 to 1979 which sought to curtail the manufacture of nuclear weapons. It was a continuation of the SALT I talks and was led by representatives from both countries, SALT II was the first nuclear arms treaty which assumed real reductions in strategic forces to 2,250 of all categories of delivery vehicles on both sides. SALT II helped the United States to discourage the Soviets from arming their third-generation ICBMs of SS-17, SS-19, in the late 1970s the USSRs missile design bureaus had developed experimental versions of these missiles equipped with anywhere from 10 to 38 warheads each. Additionally, the Soviets secretly agreed to reduce Tu-22M production to thirty aircraft per year and it was particularly important for the United States to limit Soviet efforts in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces rearmament area
26.
Politburo
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A politburo /ˈpɒlɪtˌbjʊəroʊ/ or political bureau is the executive committee for a number of Communist Parties. The term politburo in English comes from the Russian Politbyuro, itself a contraction of Politicheskoye Byuro, the Spanish term Politburó is directly loaned from Russian, as is the German Politbüro. Chinese uses a calque, from which the Vietnamese, and Korean terms derive, the first politburo was created in Russia by the Bolshevik Party in 1917 to provide strong and continuous leadership during the Russian Revolution occurring during the same year. The first Politburo had seven members, Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Stalin, except for Lenin, who died in 1924, Stalin had all the original members of the Politburo executed from 1937–1940. During the 20th century, nations that had a politburo included the USSR, East Germany, Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia and China, today, there are five countries that have a politburo system. In Marxist–Leninist states, the party is seen as the vanguard of the people, in that way, the party officials in the Politburo informally lead the state. Officially, the Party Congress elects a Central Committee which, in turn, elects the Politburo, the Politburo was theoretically answerable to the Central Committee. Under Stalin this model was reversed, and it was the General Secretary who determined the composition of the Politburo and this tendency decreased to some extent after Stalins death, though in practice the Politburo remained a self-perpetuating body whose decisions de facto had the force of law. In Trotskyist parties, the Politburo is a bureau of the Central Committee tasked with making political decisions. It is appointed by the Central Committee from among its members, the post of General Secretary carries far less weight in this model. See, for example, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party
27.
Human rights
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Human rights are moral principles or norms, which describe certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. They are applicable everywhere and at time in the sense of being universal. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on circumstances, for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture. The doctrine of human rights has been influential within international law. Actions by states and non-governmental organizations form a basis of public policy worldwide, the idea of human rights suggests that if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights. The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature, ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family is the foundation of freedom. All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. According to Jack Donnelly, in the ancient world, traditional societies typically have had elaborate systems of duties, conceptions of justice, political legitimacy, and human flourishing that sought to realize human dignity, flourishing, or well-being entirely independent of human rights. These institutions and practices are alternative to, rather than different formulations of, one theory is that human rights were developed during the early Modern period, alongside the European secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics. The most commonly held view is that the concept of human rights evolved in the West, for example, McIntyre argues there is no word for right in any language before 1400. One of the oldest records of rights is the statute of Kalisz, giving privileges to the Jewish minority in the Kingdom of Poland such as protection from discrimination. Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept of rights is intertwined with the modern sense of citizenship. The earliest conceptualization of human rights is credited to ideas about natural rights emanating from natural law, in particular, the issue of universal rights was introduced by the examination of extending rights to indigenous peoples by Spanish clerics, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions, additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms. These were followed by developments in philosophy of human rights by philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, hegel during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the term had been used by at least one author as early as 1742, in the 19th century, human rights became a central concern over the issue of slavery
28.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris. The full text is available on the United Nations website, in 1966, the General Assembly adopted the two detailed Covenants, which complete the International Bill of Human Rights. In 1976, after the Covenants had been ratified by a sufficient number of individual nations, during World War II, the Allies adopted the Four Freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want—as their basic war aims. A universal declaration that specified the rights of individuals was necessary to effect to the Charters provisions on human rights. In June 1946, the UN Economic and Social Council established the Commission on Human Rights, the Commission on Human Rights, a standing body of the United Nations, was constituted to undertake the work of preparing what was initially conceived as an International Bill of Rights. The commission established a special Universal Declaration of Human Rights Drafting Committee, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, the committee met in two sessions over the course of two years. At the time, Humphrey was newly appointed as Director of the Division of Human Rights within the United Nations Secretariat, other well-known members of the drafting committee included René Cassin of France, Charles Malik of Lebanon, P. C. Chang of the Republic of China, Humphrey provided the initial draft which became the working text of the Commission. According to Allan Carlson in Globalizing Family Values, the Declarations pro-family phrases were the result of the Christian Democratic movements influence on Cassin, during these discussions many amendments and propositions were made by UN Member States. British representatives were extremely frustrated that the proposal had moral but no legal obligation, a On 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly by a vote of 48 in favor, none against, and eight abstentions. Honduras and Yemen—both members of UN at the time—failed to vote or abstain, south Africas position can be seen as an attempt to protect its system of apartheid, which clearly violated any number of articles in the Declaration. The six communist nations abstentions centred around the view that the Declaration did not go far enough in condemning fascism and Nazism, Eleanor Roosevelt attributed the abstention of the Soviet bloc nations to Article 13, which provided the right of citizens to leave their countries. 48 countries voted in favour of the Declaration, a.8 countries abstained, Later on, the underlying structure of the Universal Declaration was introduced in its second draft, which was prepared by René Cassin. Cassin worked from a first draft, which was prepared by John Peters Humphrey, the structure was influenced by the Code Napoléon, including a preamble and introductory general principles. Cassin compared the Declaration to the portico of a Greek temple, with a foundation, steps, four columns, articles 1 and 2 are the foundation blocks, with their principles of dignity, liberty, equality, and brotherhood. The seven paragraphs of the out the reasons for the Declaration—represent the steps. The main body of the Declaration forms the four columns, the first column constitutes rights of the individual such as the right to life and the prohibition of slavery. Articles 6 through 11 refer to the legality of human rights with specific remedies cited for their defense when violated
29.
United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General
30.
Jimmy Carter
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James Earl Jimmy Carter Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Carter Center, Carter was a Democrat who was raised in rural Georgia. He was a farmer who served two terms as a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967, and one as the Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. He was elected President in 1976, defeating incumbent President Gerald Ford in a close election. On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all evaders of the Vietnam War drafts, during Carters term as President, two new cabinet-level departments, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, were established. He established an energy policy that included conservation, price control. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. On the economic front he confronted persistent stagflation, a combination of inflation, high unemployment. The end of his tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. In response to the Soviet move he ended détente, escalated the Cold War, Carter won the 1980 primary with 51. 13% of the vote but lost the general election in an electoral landslide to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan, who won 44 of 50 states. His presidency has drawn medium-low responses from historians, with many considering him to have accomplished more with his post-presidency work and he set up the Carter Center in 1982 as his base for advancing human rights. He has also traveled extensively to conduct negotiations, observe elections. Additionally, Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project, since surpassing Herbert Hoover in September 2012, he has been the longest-retired president in American history. He is also the first president to mark the 40th anniversary of his election and inauguration, in reference to current political views, he has criticized some of Israels actions and policies in regards to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and has advocated for a two-state solution. James Earl Carter, Jr. was born on October 1,1924, at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains and he is a descendant of English immigrant Thomas Carter, who settled in Virginia in 1635. Numerous generations of Carters lived as farmers in Georgia. Carter is also a descendant of Thomas Cornell, an ancestor of Cornell Universitys founder and of Richard Nixon, Plains was a boomtown of 600 people at the time of Carters birth. His father, James Earl Carter, Sr. was a local businessman who ran a general store and had begun to invest in farmland
31.
Leonid Brezhnev
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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in duration, during Brezhnevs rule, the global influence of the Soviet Union grew dramatically, in part because of the expansion of the Soviet military during this time. His tenure as leader was marked by the beginning of an era of economic, Brezhnev was born in Kamenskoye into a Russian workers family in 1906. After graduating from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum, he became an engineer in the iron and steel industry. He joined Komsomol in 1923, and in 1929 became a member of the CPSU. He was drafted into military service during World War II. While at the helm of the USSR, Brezhnev pushed for détente between the Eastern and Western countries. However, in December 1981 he decided not to intervene in Poland, instead allowing the countrys government to impose martial law. After years of declining health, Brezhnev died on 10 November 1982 and was succeeded in his post as General Secretary by Yuri Andropov. Brezhnev had fostered a cult of personality, although not nearly to the degree as Stalin. Mikhail Gorbachev, who would lead the USSR from 1985 to 1991, denounced his legacy, in spite of this, opinion polls in Russia show Brezhnev to be the most popular Russian leader of the 20th century. Brezhnev was born on 19 December 1906 in Kamianske in Ukraine, to metalworker Ilya Yakovlevich Brezhnev and his wife and his parents used to live in Brezhnevo before moving to Kamenskoe. Brezhnevs ethnicity was specified as Ukrainian in some documents, including his passport, like many youths in the years after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he received a technical education, at first in land management where he started as a land surveyor and then in metallurgy. He graduated from the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum in 1935 and became an engineer in the iron. Brezhnev joined the Communist Party youth organisation, the Komsomol, in 1923, in 1935 and 1936, Brezhnev served his compulsory military service, and after taking courses at a tank school, he served as a political commissar in a tank factory. Later in 1936, he director of the Dniprodzerzhynsk Metallurgical Technicum. In 1936, he was transferred to the center of Dnipropetrovsk and, in 1939, he became Party Secretary in Dnipropetrovsk. As a survivor of Stalins Great Purge of 1937–39, he was able to quickly as the purges created numerous openings in the senior and middle ranks of the Party
32.
Democracy
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Democracy, in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament. Democracy is sometimes referred to as rule of the majority, Democracy was originally conceived in Classical Greece, where political representatives were chosen by a jury from amongst the male citizens, rich and poor. The English word dates to the 16th century, from the older Middle French, in the 5th century BC, to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens, the term is an antonym to aristocracy, meaning rule of an elite. While theoretically these definitions are in opposition, in practice the distinction has been blurred historically, the political system of Classical Athens, for example, granted democratic citizenship to free men and excluded slaves and women from political participation. In 1906, Finland became the first government to harald a more inclusive democracy at the national level. Democracy contrasts with forms of government where power is held by an individual, as in an absolute monarchy, or where power is held by a small number of individuals. Nevertheless, these oppositions, inherited from Greek philosophy, are now ambiguous because contemporary governments have mixed democratic, oligarchic, and monarchic elements. Karl Popper defined democracy in contrast to dictatorship or tyranny, thus focusing on opportunities for the people to control their leaders, No consensus exists on how to define democracy, but legal equality, political freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics. These principles are reflected in all eligible citizens being equal before the law, other uses of democracy include that of direct democracy. In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom which originated the Westminster system, in the United States, separation of powers is often cited as a central attribute. In India, parliamentary sovereignty is subject to the Constitution of India which includes judicial review, though the term democracy is typically used in the context of a political state, the principles also are applicable to private organisations. Majority rule is listed as a characteristic of democracy. Hence, democracy allows for political minorities to be oppressed by the tyranny of the majority in the absence of legal protections of individual or group rights. An essential part of a representative democracy is competitive elections that are substantively and procedurally fair, i. e. just. It has also suggested that a basic feature of democracy is the capacity of all voters to participate freely and fully in the life of their society. While representative democracy is sometimes equated with the form of government. Many democracies are constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom, the term democracy first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. The word comes from demos, common people and kratos, strength, led by Cleisthenes, Athenians established what is generally held as the first democracy in 508–507 BC
33.
South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
34.
Chile
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Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a South American country occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres of Antarctica, the arid Atacama Desert in northern Chile contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes, the southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic, in the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South Americas most stable and prosperous nations and it leads Latin American nations in rankings of human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, state of peace, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. It also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, Chile is a founding member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile, another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a locally known as trile. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas, ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such. The older spelling Chili was in use in English until at least 1900 before switching over to Chile, stone tool evidence indicates humans sporadically frequented the Monte Verde valley area as long as 18,500 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in fertile valleys, settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Craters lava tube. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army, the result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river. The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, the Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting. The conquest of Chile began in earnest in 1540 and was carried out by Pedro de Valdivia, one of Francisco Pizarros lieutenants, who founded the city of Santiago on 12 February 1541. Although the Spanish did not find the gold and silver they sought, they recognized the agricultural potential of Chiles central valley
35.
Cosmonaut
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An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists. Starting in the 1950s up to 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, with the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created, the commercial astronaut. The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed an altitude of 100 kilometers. In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 miles are awarded astronaut wings. As of 17 November 2016, a total of 552 people from 36 countries have reached 100 km or more in altitude, of which 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond. Of these,24 people have traveled beyond Low Earth orbit, to either lunar or trans-lunar orbit or to the surface of the moon, the three astronauts who have not reached low Earth orbit are spaceplane pilots Joe Walker, Mike Melvill, and Brian Binnie. As of 17 November 2016, under the U. S. definition 558 people qualify as having reached space, of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 miles in altitude, only one exceeded 100 kilometers. Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days in space, as of 2016, the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Gennady Padalka, who has spent 879 days in space. Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman,377 days, dryden preferred cosmonaut, on the grounds that flights would occur in the cosmos, while the astro prefix suggested flight to the stars. Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred astronaut, which survived by common usage as the preferred American term, when the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to cosmonaut. In English-speaking nations, a space traveler is called an astronaut. The term derives from the Greek words ástron, meaning star, the first known use of the term astronaut in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his short story The Deaths Head Meteor in 1930. The word itself had been known earlier, for example, in Percy Gregs 1880 book Across the Zodiac, astronaut referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de lInfini of J. -H, rosny aîné, the word astronautique was used. The word may have inspired by aeronaut, an older term for an air traveler first applied to balloonists. An early use in a publication is Eric Frank Russells poem The Astronaut in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society. NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond, NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps
36.
Cereal
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A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year
37.
Kolkhoz
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A kolkhoz was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz, the 1920s were characterized by spontaneous emergence of collective farms, under influence of traveling propaganda workers. Initially a collective farm resembled a version of the traditional Russian commune, the generic farming association, the association for joint cultivation of land. This gradual shift to farming in the first 15 years after the October Revolution was turned into a violent stampede during the forced collectivization campaign that began in 1928. The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, suggesting collective ownership, on the other hand, sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство, suggesting state ownership. As a collective farm, a kolkhoz was legally organized as a production cooperative, the Standard Charter of a kolkhoz, which since the early 1930s had the force of law in the USSR, is a model of cooperative principles in print. It speaks of the kolkhoz as a form of agricultural cooperative of peasants that voluntarily unite for the purpose of joint agricultural production based on collective labor. Importantly, remuneration had always been in proportion to labor and not from residual profits, implying that members were treated as employees and they imposed detailed work programs and nominated their preferred managerial candidates. Since the mid-1930s, the kolkhozes had been in effect an offshoot of the state sector, nevertheless, in locations with particularly good land or if it happened to have capable management, some kolkhozes accumulated substantial sums of money in their bank accounts. Subsequently, numerous kolkhozes were formally nationalized by changing their status to sovkhozes, essentially, his administration recognized their status as hired hands rather than authentic cooperative members. The guaranteed wage provision was incorporated in the 1969 version of the Standard Charter, the question of internal organization was important in the new kolkhozes. The most basic measure was to divide the workforce into a number of groups, generally known as brigades, by July 1929 it was already normal practice for the large kolkhoz of 200-400 households to be divided into temporary or permanent work units of 15-30 households. The brigade was headed by a brigade leader and this was usually a local man. After the kolkhoz amalgamations of 1950 the territorial successor of the old village kolkhoz was the complex brigade, brigades could be subdivided into smaller units called zvenos for carrying out some or all of their tasks. See collectivisation in the USSR and agriculture in the Soviet Union for general discussion of Soviet agriculture. In a kolkhoz, a member, called a kolkhoznik, received a share of the product and profit according to the number of days worked. In practice, most kolkhozy did not pay their members in cash at all. In 1946,30 percent of kolkhozy paid no cash for labor at all,10.6 paid no grain, in addition the kolkhoz was required to sell its grain crop and other products to the State at fixed prices
38.
Collective farming
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Collective farming and communal farming are various types of agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise. This type of collective is often an agricultural cooperative in which member-owners engage jointly in farming activities, the process by which farmland is aggregated is called collectivization. In some countries, there have been state-run and cooperative-run variants, for example, the Soviet Union had both kolkhozy and sovkhozy, often denoted in English as collective farms and state farms, respectively. In general, collective farming is contrasted with family farming and with arrangements in which land was owned by landlords or aristocrats. Notable examples of collective farming include the kolkhozy that dominated Soviet agriculture between 1930 and 1991 and the Israeli kibbutzim, both are collective farms based on common ownership of resources and on pooling of labour and income in accordance with the theoretical principles of cooperative organizations. They differ radically, however, in the application of the cooperative principles relative to freedom of choice, a small group of farming or herding families living together on a jointly-managed piece of land is surely one of the most common living arrangements in all of human history. This has co-existed with, and competed with, more forms of ownership. Private ownership came to predominate in much of the Western world, the process by which Western Europes communal land became private is a fundamental question behind views of property, is it the legacy of historical injustices and crimes. Karl Marx believed that what he called primitive communism was ended by exploitative means he called primitive accumulation, by contrast Libertarian thinkers say that by the homestead principle, whoever is first to work on the land is the rightful owner. A calpulli consisted of a number of extended families with a presumed common ancestor. Each calpulli owned the land and granted the individual families the right to farm parts of it, the Huron had an essentially communal system of land ownership. The French Catholic missionary Gabriel Sagard described the fundamentals, the Huron had as much land as they need. As a result, the Huron could give families their own land, any Huron was free to clear the land and farm on the basis of usufruct. He maintained possession of the land as long as he continued to actively cultivate, once he abandoned the land, it reverted to communal ownership, and anyone could take it up for themselves. The Iroquois had a communal system of land distribution. The tribe owned all lands but gave out tracts to the different clans for further distribution among households for cultivation, the land would be redistributed among the households every few years, and a clan could request a redistribution of tracts when the Clan Mothers Council gathered. Those clans that abused their allocated land or otherwise did not take care of it would be warned, land property was really only the concern of the women, since it was the womens job to cultivate food and not the mens. The Clan Mothers Council also reserved certain areas of land to be worked by the women of all the different clans, food from such lands, called kěndiǔgwǎge hodiyěntho, would be used at festivals and large council gatherings
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United States Code
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The Code of Laws of the United States of America is the official compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal statutes of the United States. It contains 52 titles, and a further three titles have been proposed, the main edition is published every six years by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives, and cumulative supplements are published annually. The official version of those laws not codified in the United States Code can be found in United States Statutes at Large, the official text of an Act of Congress is that of the enrolled bill presented to the President for his signature or disapproval. Upon enactment of a law, the bill is delivered to the Office of the Federal Register within the National Archives. After authorization from the OFR, copies are distributed as slip laws by the Government Printing Office, the Archivist assembles annual volumes of the enacted laws and publishes them as the United States Statutes at Large. By law, the text of the Statutes at Large is legal evidence of the laws enacted by Congress, slip laws are also competent evidence. The Statutes at Large, however, is not a convenient tool for legal research and it is arranged strictly in chronological order so that statutes addressing related topics may be scattered across many volumes. Statutes often repeal or amend laws, and extensive cross-referencing is required to determine what laws are in force at any given time. The United States Code is the result of an effort to make finding relevant and effective statutes simpler by reorganizing them by subject matter, the Code is maintained by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U. S. House of Representatives. The LRC updates the Code accordingly, because of this codification approach, a single named statute may or may not appear in a single place in the Code. Often, complex legislation bundles a series of provisions together as a means of addressing a social or governmental problem, for example, an Act providing relief for family farms might affect items in Title 7, Title 26, and Title 43. When the Act is codified, its various provisions might well be placed in different parts of those various Titles, usually, the individual sections of a statute are incorporated into the Code exactly as enacted, however, sometimes editorial changes are made by the LRC. Though authorized by statute, these changes do not constitute positive law, the authority for the material in the United States Code comes from its enactment through the legislative process and not from its presentation in the Code. For example, the United States Code omitted 12 U. S. C. §92 for decades, apparently because it was thought to have been repealed. In its 1993 ruling in U. S. National Bank of Oregon v. Independent Insurance Agents of America, by law, those titles of the United States Code that have not been enacted into positive law are prima facie evidence of the law in effect. The United States Statutes at Large remains the ultimate authority, if a dispute arises as to the accuracy or completeness of the codification of an unenacted title, the courts will turn to the language in the United States Statutes at Large. This process makes that title of the United States Code legal evidence of the law in force, where a title has been enacted into positive law, a court may neither permit nor require proof of the underlying original Acts of Congress. The distinction between enacted and unenacted titles is largely academic because the Code is nearly always accurate, the United States Code is routinely cited by the Supreme Court and other federal courts without mentioning this theoretical caveat
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Gerald Ford
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Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. was an American politician who served as the 38th President of the United States from 1974 to 1977, following the resignation of Richard Nixon. Prior to this he served eight months as the 40th Vice President of the United States, before his appointment to the vice presidency, Ford served 25 years as U. S. Representative from Michigans 5th congressional district, the nine of them as the House Minority Leader. As President, Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, marking a move toward détente in the Cold War, with the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U. S. involvement in Vietnam essentially ended. Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation, one of his most controversial acts was to grant a presidential pardon to President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. During Fords presidency, foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, in the Republican presidential primary campaign of 1976, Ford defeated former California Governor Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination. Arthur not to be elected in his own right, following his years as President, Ford remained active in the Republican Party. After experiencing health problems, he died at home on December 26,2006, Ford lived longer than any other U. S. president –93 years and 165 days – while his 895-day presidency was the shortest of all presidents who did not die in office. Gerald Rudolph Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14,1913, at 3202 Woolworth Avenue in Omaha, Nebraska, where his parents lived with his paternal grandparents. His mother was Dorothy Ayer Gardner and his father was Leslie Lynch King Sr. a wool trader, Dorothy separated from King just sixteen days after her sons birth. She took her son with her to the Oak Park, Illinois, home of her sister Tannisse and brother-in-law, from there, she moved to the home of her parents, Levi Addison Gardner and Adele Augusta Ayer, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dorothy and King divorced in December 1913, she gained custody of her son. Fords paternal grandfather Charles Henry King paid child support until shortly before his death in 1930, Ford later said his biological father had a history of hitting his mother. James M. Ford later told confidantes that his father had first hit his mother on their honeymoon for smiling at another man. After two and a half years with her parents, on February 1,1916, Dorothy married Gerald Rudolff Ford and they then called her son Gerald Rudolff Ford, Jr. The future president was never adopted, and did not legally change his name until December 3,1935. He was raised in Grand Rapids with his three half-brothers from his mothers marriage, Thomas Gardner Tom Ford, Richard Addison Dick Ford. Ford also had three half-siblings from the marriage of Leslie King, Sr. his biological father, Marjorie King, Leslie Henry King
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United States Congress
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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D. C, both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, Congress has 535 voting members,435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members in addition to its 435 voting members and these members can, however, sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a single constituency, known as a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by using the United States Census results. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two senators, currently, there are 100 senators representing the 50 states. Each senator is elected at-large in their state for a term, with terms staggered. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process—legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers, however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate ratifies treaties and approves presidential appointments while the House initiates revenue-raising bills, the House initiates impeachment cases, while the Senate decides impeachment cases. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required before a person can be forcibly removed from office. The term Congress can also refer to a meeting of the legislature. A Congress covers two years, the current one, the 115th Congress, began on January 3,2017, the Congress starts and ends on the third day of January of every odd-numbered year. Members of the Senate are referred to as senators, members of the House of Representatives are referred to as representatives, congressmen, or congresswomen. One analyst argues that it is not a solely reactive institution but has played a role in shaping government policy and is extraordinarily sensitive to public pressure. Several academics described Congress, Congress reflects us in all our strengths, Congress is the governments most representative body. Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the public policy issues of the day. —Smith, Roberts, and Wielen Congress is constantly changing and is constantly in flux, most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent
