Politics

World War 1 1914-1918

WW1 General Transcript (PDF)

• The causes are still murky, scholars still debate
• The initial trigger point was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian national in Sarajevo
• Optional link about the assassination that started the war   – https://www.firstworldwar.com/source/harrachmemoir.htm

The Allies

The Players Transcript (PDF)

Russia, France, Britain
VS.
The Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey (Ottoman Empire)

By the end of the war 24 countries were involved including Australia, Japan and South Africa. Over 15 million dead.

WW1 considered the first Modern War

Modern War Transcript (PDF)

Modern Weaponry

Optional link to weapons that were developed to effectively kill more people at a distance.

• Machine Guns
• Airplanes
• Tanks
• Grenades
• Poison Gas

In the end, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungarian Empire ceased to exist and the Soviet Union was born out of the Russian Empire. The League of Nations was created in order to prevent the outbreak of another global conflict. The way the end of the war was addressed actually created situations that ultimately led to World War II.

End of the War Transcript (PDF)

The Great Depression 1929—33

16 Nov 1930, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Great Depression Transcript (PDF)

• The longest and most severe Depression
• Started in the United States
• Impacts were felt in all of the industrialized world, particularly
• Germany and Great Britain
• The stock market was reduced to 20% of it’s 1929 value

The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal – Optional

• Taxes
• Social Insurance
• Social Welfare programs
• Industrial Regulation
• Public Works
• Deficit Spending

The Works Progress Administration – Optional

Really important lecture below on the WPA and art

WPA Transcript (PDF)

Meet the Fascists Leaders

Benito Mussolini – Italian

• Invented fascism
• Opposed to socialism and labor unions
• Created a dictatorship
• Dissenters were eliminated

Adolf Hitler

Hitler Transcript (PDF)

• Germany’s economy was in ruins after WW1
• Workers earned practically nothing, and bread prices kept rising
• 1921 — Hitler creates the National Socialist Party of the German Workers — Nazi Party for short
• 1934 Hitler becomes the president and chancellor of Germany
• Convinced that the Bolsheviks were responsible for Germany’s terrible economy
• Jews became the primary target to eradicate the economic problems
• Nazi Party created the justification for geographic expansion to make room for the superior Aryan race

Francisco Franco (Spanish)

Franco Transcript (PDF)

• Spain’s king was overthrown in 1931
• A new coalition government was established in 1936
• Franco formed a group — “Falange’ to overthrow the new government
• The Spanish Civil War ensued
• The Soviet Union supported the new government
• Hitler and Mussolini supported Franco

Picasso’s Guernica was an artistic response to a German attack on the town of Guernica which killed thousands of innocent civilians. More optional information at this site:  https://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/guernica/gmain.html  

Religion

Early Modern Religion Transcript (PDF)

Industrialization led to immigration from non-industrialized countries.
In predominately Protestant America there was an influx of Catholics
Other world religions were introduced through immigrant populations
America and Europe

This inspired a Christian fundamentalism movement

Science

Science Talk Transcript (PDF)

1900-1910 3 Inventions dominated the first decade

Optional posts below for further research on important inventions of the early 20th cen.:

1. The Airplane In 1903 the Wright Brothers made their first powered flight in North Carolina
2. Radio Broadcasting 1906
3. Automobile 1908 the development of assembly line production

1920’s

1. Television — 1925
2. Talking Movies — 1928
3. Penicillin — 1928

1930’s

1. Jet engine — 1930
2. Electron microscope — 1933
3. Electric guitar — 1935
4. Helicopter — 1939

Architecture

Antoni Gaudi (Spanish) 1852-1926  Optional link

Gaudi Transcript (PDF)

Casa Mila – Barcelona, Spain
Antoni Gaudi – 1906-1912

• Art Noveau extended — innovative use of concrete

Optional video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpu091Ue0zA (Video has musical accompaniment with no words spoken)

International Style and Bauhaus

Bauhaus Transcript (PDF)

A style that was embraced in the first half of the 20th Century, that had wide acceptance by Western architects. The style relies upon slender steel posts and beams and concrete reinforced by steel.

Walter Gropius (Germany) 1883-1969
Directed the Bauhaus, An art school in Dessau, Germany
Bahaus Style and Walter Gropius  – optional
Optional video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UEWw8eCH20

Hitler closed the Bauhaus, Gropius moves to America to the Architecture Department at Harvard

Influence on America Transcript (PDF)

The Bauhaus ideal was to interconnect art, science and technology so that no divisions between art, architecture and functional objects exists. Bauhaus artists were known for their furniture designs.

Le Corbusier (French) 1867-1959

Le Corbusier Transcript (PDF)

• Called his houses, “Machines for living’
• Started a revolution in domestic architecture
• Savoye House

Optional video looking at Savoye House in detail
Optional video — a tour of Le Corbusier’s many works

Frank Lloyd Wright (American) 1867-1959

Frank Lloyd Wright Transcript (PDF)

Houses should blend with the terrain. Wrights houses are more personal, less sterile and more organic.
Fallingwater  – optional
Optional video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZmEizHhrG8 (Video has nature sounds (water flowng, birds, etc.) with no words spoken)