1.
Rorschach, Switzerland
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Rorschach is a municipality, in the District of Rorschach in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It is on the side of Lake Constance. Rorschach is first mentioned in 850 as Rorscachun, in 947, Otto I granted the abbot of St. Gall the right to operate markets, mint coins and levy tariffs at Rorschach. Rorschach has an area, as of 2006, of 1.8 km2, of this area,7. 3% is used for agricultural purposes, while 1. 7% is forested. Of the rest of the land,90. 4% is settled, the municipality is the capital of the Rorschach Wahlkreis. It is located on Lake Constance and bordered by the municipalities of Rorschacherberg, the blazon of the municipal coat of arms is Gules a Garb Or between two Perches urinant. Rorschach has a population of 9,214, as of 2007, about 43. 7% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Of the foreign population,156 are from Germany,747 are from Italy,1,353 are from ex-Yugoslavia,103 are from Austria,329 are from Turkey, over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of -5%. Most of the population speaks German, with Italian being second most common, of the Swiss national languages,6,572 speak German,38 people speak French,462 people speak Italian, and 13 people speak Romansh. The age distribution, as of 2000, in Rorschach is,885 children or 10. 2% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 991 teenagers or 11. 5% are between 10 and 19. Of the adult population,1,224 people or 14. 2% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old. 1,351 people or 15. 6% are between 30 and 39,1,190 people or 13. 8% are between 40 and 49, and 1,013 people or 11. 7% are between 50 and 59. In 2000 there were 1,848 persons who were living alone in a private dwelling, there were 1,916 persons who were part of a couple without children, and 3,925 who were part of a couple with children. In the 2007 federal election the most popular party was the SVP which received 26. 1% of the vote, the next three most popular parties were the SP, the CVP and the FDP. In Rorschach about 55. 3% of the population have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education, the remainder did not answer this question. The historical population is given in the table, Train lines link the city to St. Gallen, St. Margrethen. A rack railway, the Rorschach-Heiden-Bahn, leads to Heiden, in 1856, the station became the terminus of the line Zurich-St. Formerly, train carriages were transported over Lake Constance and thus it was possible to reach Heiden from Frankfurt or Berlin without changing trains, the highway A1 runs close to the south of Rorschach, but the town does not have its own junction
2.
Cinema of the United States
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The cinema of the United States, often metonymously referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. The dominant style of American cinema is Classical Hollywood Cinema, which developed from 1917-1960, while the French Lumière Brothers are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, it is American cinema that soon became the most dominant force in an emerging industry. Since the 1920s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country, in 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the worlds first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, the United States was in the forefront of sound film development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U. S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles, director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar. Orson Welless Citizen Kane is frequently cited in critics polls as the greatest film of all time. T, the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Titanic, Avatar, The Avengers, Furious 7, Jurassic World, and Star Wars, The Force Awakens. Today, American film studios collectively generate several hundred movies every year, muybridges accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices that would capture such motion. In the United States, Thomas Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey was the motion picture capital of America. The industry got its start at the end of the 19th century with the construction of Thomas Edisons Black Maria, in 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios, the Champion Film Company, built the first studio. They were quickly followed by others who either built new studios or who leased facilities in Fort Lee, such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. In New York, the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, was built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers, the Edison Studios were located in the Bronx. Chelsea, Manhattan was also frequently used, other major centers of film production also included Chicago, Florida, Texas, California, and Cuba. The film patents wars of the early 20th century led to the spread of film companies across the U. S and they started filming on a vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood. Griffith then filmed the first movie shot in Hollywood, In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century. Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York, after hearing about Griffiths success in Hollywood, in 1913, many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison, who owned patents on the movie-making process. Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey, built the first studio in Hollywood in 1911, Californias more hospitable and cost-effective climate led to the eventual shift of virtually all filmmaking to the West Coast by the 1930s. In Los Angeles, the studios and Hollywood grew, before World War I, movies were made in several U. S. cities, but filmmakers gravitated to southern California as the industry developed
3.
Academy Awards
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The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
4.
Academy Award for Best Actor
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The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered a performance in a leading role while working within the film industry. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with Emil Jannings receiving the award for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. Currently, nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the branch of AMPAS. In the first three years of the awards, actors were nominated as the best in their categories, at that time, all of their work during the qualifying period was listed after the award. The following year, this unwieldy and confusing system was replaced by the current system in which an actor is nominated for a performance in a single film. Starting with the 9th ceremony held in 1937, the category was officially limited to five nominations per year, since its inception, the award has been given to 79 actors. Daniel Day-Lewis has received the most awards in this category with three Oscars, spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were nominated on nine occasions, more than any other actor. As of the 2017 ceremony, Casey Affleck is the most recent winner in category for his role as Lee Chandler in Manchester by the Sea. In the following table, the years are listed as per Academy convention, and generally correspond to the year of release in Los Angeles County. For the first five ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned twelve months from August 1 to July 31, for the 6th ceremony held in 1934, the eligibility period lasted from August 1,1932 to December 31,1933
5.
1st Academy Awards
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AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks hosted the show. Tickets cost $5,270 people attended the event and the ceremony lasted fifteen minutes. Awards were created by Louis B, Mayer, founder of Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation. It is the only Academy Awards ceremony not to be broadcast either on radio or television, during the ceremony, the AMPAS presented Academy Awards in twelve categories. Winners were announced three months before the live event, some nominations were announced without reference to a specific film, such as for Ralph Hammeras and Nugent Slaughter, who received nominations in the now defunct category of Engineering Effects. Unlike later ceremonies, an actor or director could be awarded for works within a calendar year. Emil Jannings, for example, was given the Best Actor award for his work in both The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command, moreover, Charlie Chaplin and Warner Brothers each received an Honorary Award. Major winners at the ceremony included 7th Heaven and Sunrise, which received three awards, and Wings, receiving two awards. Among its honors, Sunrise won the award for Unique and Artistic Picture and these two categories at the time were seen as equally the top award of the night intended to honor different and equally important aspects of superior film making. The next year, the Academy dropped the Unique and Artistic Picture award, in 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was established by Louis B. Mayer, originator of Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation, which then would be joined into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, mayers purpose in creating the award was to unite the five branches of the film industry, including actors, directors, producers, technicians, and writers. Mayer commented on the creation of the awards I found that the best way to handle was to hang medals all over them, if I got them cups and awards theyd kill them to produce what I wanted. Thats why the Academy Award was created, Mayer asked Cedric Gibbons, art director of MGM, to design an Academy Award trophy. Nominees were notified through a telegram in February 1928, in August 1928, Mayer contacted the Academy Central Board of Judges to decide winners. The ceremony was held on May 16,1929, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, located in Los Angeles and it consisted of a private dinner with thirty-six banquet tables, where 270 people attended and tickets cost five dollars. Actors and actresses arrived at the hotel in luxury vehicles, where many attended to encourage celebrities. The ceremony was not broadcast on radio or television, and was hosted by AMPAS director Fairbanks, winners were announced three months before the ceremony. Three categories were eliminated for subsequent presentations, Best Engineering Effects, Best Title Writing, the larger film producers received the preponderance of awards, Fox Films Corporation, MGM, Paramount Pictures, Radio-Keith-Orpheum and Warner Brothers Production
6.
F. W. Murnau
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Friedrich Wilhelm F. W. Murnau was a German film director. Murnau was greatly influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Shakespeare and Ibsen plays he had seen at the age of 12, during World War I he served as a company commander at the eastern front and was in the German air force, surviving several crashes without any severe injuries. One of Murnaus acclaimed works is the 1922 film Nosferatu, an adaptation of Bram Stokers Dracula, although not a commercial success due to copyright issues with Stokers novel, the film is considered a masterpiece of Expressionist film. He later directed the 1924 film The Last Laugh, as well as a 1926 interpretation of Goethes Faust and he later emigrated to Hollywood in 1926, where he joined the Fox Studio and made three films, Sunrise,4 Devils and City Girl. The first of three is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. In 1931 Murnau travelled to Bora Bora to make the film Tabu with documentary film pioneer Robert J. Flaherty, who left after disputes with Murnau. Of the 21 films Murnau directed, eight are considered to be completely lost, one reel of his feature Marizza, genannt die Schmuggler-Madonna survives. This leaves only 12 films surviving in their entirety, Murnau was born in Bielefeld, Province of Westphalia, and grew up in Kassel from the time he was seven. He had two brothers, Bernhard and Robert, and two stepsisters, Ida and Anna, Murnaus mother Otilie Volbracht was the second wife of his father Heinrich Plumpe, the owner of a cloth factory in the north-western part of Germany. Their villa was often turned into a stage for plays, directed by Murnau. He took the name Murnau from the town of that name, the 6 ft 11 in director was said to have an icy, imperious disposition and an obsession with film. He soon became a friend of Franz Marc, Else Lasker-Schüler, in World War I Murnau served as a company commander at the eastern front. Murnau joined the German air force in northern France two years later and survived eight crashes without severe injuries and he landed in Switzerland where he was interned and won a prize for the best production-concept. After World War I ended, Murnau returned to Germany where he established his own film studio with actor Conrad Veidt. His first feature-length film, The Boy in Blue, an inspired by the famous Thomas Gainsborough painting, was released in 1919. He explored the theme of dual personalities, much like Robert Louis Stevensons Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in 1920s Der Janus-Kopf starring Veidt. Murnaus most famous film is Nosferatu, a 1922 adaptation of Bram Stokers Dracula German stage actor Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok, Stokers widow sued for copyright infringement. Murnau lost the lawsuit and all prints of the film were ordered to be destroyed, also in Murnaus filmography was The Last Laugh, written by Carl Mayer and starring Emil Jannings
7.
Sound film
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A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s, at first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as talking pictures, or talkies, were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects, the first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon, in the United States, they helped secure Hollywoods position as one of the worlds most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence. In Europe, the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, in Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. In India, sound was the element that led to the rapid expansion of the nations film industry. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27,1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison, the two inventors privately met. No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope, essentially a peep-show system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph. The two devices were brought together as the Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection and these appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Phonorama and yet another sound-film system—Théâtroscope—were also presented at the Exposition, three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation. The primary issue was synchronization, pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, sufficient playback volume was also hard to achieve. Finally, there was the challenge of recording fidelity, cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways. In 1902, Léon Gaumont demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons
8.
Propaganda in Nazi Germany
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The pervasive use of propaganda by the Nazis is largely responsible for the word propaganda itself acquiring its present negative connotations. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler devoted three chapters of his 1925/26 book Mein Kampf, itself a tool, to the study. He claimed to have learned the value of propaganda as a World War I infantryman exposed to very effective British, the argument that Germany lost the war largely because of British propaganda efforts, expounded at length in Mein Kampf, reflected then-common German nationalist claims. Although untrue – German propaganda during World War I was mostly more advanced than that of the British – it became the truth of Nazi Germany thanks to its reception by Hitler. Mein Kampf contains the blueprint of later Nazi propaganda efforts, assessing his audience, Hitler writes in chapter VI, Propaganda must always address itself to the broad masses of the people. All propaganda must be presented in a form and must fix its intellectual level so as not to be above the heads of the least intellectual of those to whom it is directed. The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and this sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth, the receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget, such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion, the leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula. It was joined in 1927 by Joseph Goebbelss Der Angriff, another unabashedly and crudely propagandistic paper, during most of the Nazis time in opposition, their means of propaganda remained limited. With little access to media, the party continued to rely heavily on Hitler. One study finds that the Weimar governments use of pro-government radio propaganda retarded Nazi growth, in April 1930, Hitler appointed Goebbels head of party propaganda. Goebbels, a former journalist and Nazi party officer in Berlin, among his first successes was the organization of riotous demonstrations that succeeded in having the American anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front banned in Germany. On 13 March 1933, The Third Reich established a Ministry of Propaganda, a major political and ideological cornerstone of Nazi policy was the unification of all ethnic Germans living outside of the Reichs borders under one Greater Germany. In Mein Kampf, Hitler denounced the pain and misery of ethnic Germans outside of Germany, throughout Mein Kampf, he pushed Germans worldwide to make the struggle for political power and independence their main focus, made official in the Heim ins Reich policy beginning in 1938. On 22 August, Adolf Hitler told his generals, I will provide a casus belli
9.
St. Louis
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St. Louis is an independent city and major U. S. port in the state of Missouri, built along the western bank of the Mississippi River, on the border with Illinois. Prior to European settlement, the area was a regional center of Native American Mississippian culture. The city of St. Louis was founded in 1764 by French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, in 1764, following Frances defeat in the Seven Years War, the area was ceded to Spain and retroceded back to France in 1800. In 1803, the United States acquired the territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase, during the 19th century, St. Louis developed as a major port on the Mississippi River. In the 1870 Census, St. Louis was ranked as the 4th-largest city in the United States and it separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its own political boundaries. In 1904, it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the Summer Olympics, the economy of metro St. Louis relies on service, manufacturing, trade, transportation of goods, and tourism. This city has become known for its growing medical, pharmaceutical. St. Louis has 2 professional sports teams, the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball, the city is commonly identified with the 630-foot tall Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis. The area that would become St. Louis was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture and their major regional center was at Cahokia Mounds, active from 900 AD to 1500 AD. Due to numerous major earthworks within St. Louis boundaries, the city was nicknamed as the Mound City and these mounds were mostly demolished during the citys development. Historic Native American tribes in the area included the Siouan-speaking Osage people, whose territory extended west, European exploration of the area was first recorded in 1673, when French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled through the Mississippi River valley. Five years later, La Salle claimed the region for France as part of La Louisiane. The earliest European settlements in the area were built in Illinois Country on the east side of the Mississippi River during the 1690s and early 1700s at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, migrants from the French villages on the opposite side of the Mississippi River founded Ste. In early 1764, after France lost the 7 Years War, Pierre Laclède, the early French families built the citys economy on the fur trade with the Osage, as well as with more distant tribes along the Missouri River. The Chouteau brothers gained a monopoly from Spain on the fur trade with Santa Fe, French colonists used African slaves as domestic servants and workers in the city. In 1780 during the American Revolutionary War, St. Louis was attacked by British forces, mostly Native American allies, the founding of St. Louis began in 1763. Pierre Laclede led an expedition to set up a fur-trading post farther up the Mississippi River, before then, Laclede had been a very successful merchant. For this reason, he and his trading partner Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent were offered monopolies for six years of the fur trading in that area
10.
Leipzig
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Leipzig is the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany. With a population of 570,087 inhabitants it is Germanys tenth most populous city, Leipzig is located about 160 kilometres southwest of Berlin at the confluence of the White Elster, Pleisse, and Parthe rivers at the southern end of the North German Plain. Leipzig has been a city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire. The city sits at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, Leipzig was once one of the major European centers of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing. Leipzig became an urban center within the German Democratic Republic after the Second World War. Leipzig later played a significant role in instigating the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, through events which took place in, Leipzig today is an economic center and the most livable city in Germany, according to the GfK marketing research institution. Since the opening of the Leipzig City Tunnel in 2013, Leipzig forms the centerpiece of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland public transit system, Leipzig is currently listed as Gamma World City and Germanys Boomtown. Outside of Leipzig the Neuseenland district forms a lake area of approximately 300 square kilometres. Leipzig is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means settlement where the linden trees stand, an older spelling of the name in English is Leipsic. The Latin name Lipsia was also used, the name is cognate with Lipetsk in Russia and Liepāja in Latvia. In 1937 the Nazi government officially renamed the city Reichsmessestadt Leipzig, the common usage of this nickname for Leipzig up until the present is reflected, for example, in the name of a popular blog for local arts and culture, Heldenstadt. de. Leipzig was first documented in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg as urbs Libzi and endowed with city, Leipzig Trade Fair, started in the Middle Ages, became an event of international importance and is the oldest remaining trade fair in the world. During the Thirty Years War, two battles took place in Breitenfeld, about 8 kilometres outside Leipzig city walls, the first Battle of Breitenfeld took place in 1631 and the second in 1642. Both battles resulted in victories for the Swedish-led side, on 24 December 1701, an oil-fueled street lighting system was introduced. The city employed light guards who had to follow a schedule to ensure the punctual lighting of the 700 lanterns. The Leipzig region was the arena of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig between Napoleonic France and a coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria and Sweden. It was the largest battle in Europe prior to the First World War, in 1913 the Monument to the Battle of the Nations celebrating the centenary of this event was completed. The railway station has two entrance halls, the eastern one for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the western one for the Prussian state railways
11.
German Empire
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The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence also helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron, chemicals, and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, however, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, however, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas
