Course Readings – HS 2321 World History to 1500 – Dr. Whitener
World War and the Peace1920s-1930sWorld War IICold War & DecolonizationEnd of Cold War Europe
What Motivated Kaiser Wilhelm II to go to War With Russia, France, and Serbia?
Antonio Holverstott
04/23/2020
n the summer of 1914, the European continent entered a new and significant era of its history: the Great War. Scholars have discussed the factors that motivated the German state to enter the Great War, with many scholars attributing this event to the behavior of
For a moment there was peace: The Christmas Day Truce of 1914
Edgar Ramon
04/08/2018
The chilling cold was inescapable and constant along the trenches. This was only worsened by the rain-water flooding the muddy walls and floors. Some months had passed since the beginning of World War I, and it was now December of the year 1914. Being “home
Triumph and Tragedy: The Loss of the Lusitania
Christopher Hohman
09/21/2018
The 1890s was a remarkable time for transatlantic travel. For the better part of a century, the British had ruled the waves both militarily and commercially. All this, however, changed in the blink of an eye. In September of 1897, the German vessel Kaiser Wilhelm
The Silent Killer: Chemical Weapons in WWI
Regina De La Parra
05/07/2018
It was April 22, 1915. It was World War I and thousands of soldiers from Germany and France were fighting each other to win what many believed would be an easy war. It had been a long day, but the fight was barely beginning. Suddenly,
Manfred von Richthofen: Der Roten Baron
Seth Roen
05/06/2020
Imagine the western front during the spring of 1917. The sound of the whistleblowing indicated the start of an assault. Masses of soldiers crawled out of their trenches and into No Man’s Land. They rushed across the field full of mud, craters, and remnants of
The Failed “Beer Hall Putsch” of 1923 in Bavaria
Dayna Valdez
10/19/2017
On November 8, 1923, at around 8:30 pm, Adolf Hitler and his armed bodyguards of the SA surrounded the Bürgerbräukeller Beer Hall in Munich, Germany. Along with his bodyguards, when Hitler barged into the Beer Hall, he immediately fired his gun into the ceiling and
Fighting Soviet Socialism With Music: Shostakovich
Amanda Uribe
11/02/2019
What really happened on December 11, 1936 will forever be a mystery to the music world. At the height of Soviet oppression of the arts, Dmitri Shostakovich, a very influential composer in the early twentieth century, took a strong stance against the Soviet Union and
Cold. Red. Fear. Death: Holodomor
Madeline Chandler
04/18/2021
Crunch: the sound of cracking frozen ground underneath one’s foot walking in subzero temperatures. Burning wood: the smell escaping chimneys in the distance where people struggle to keep warm. White clouds around anyone who dares to step outside when their breath freezes in the air
The Man Who Would Not Be King: The Abdication of Edward VIII of Great Britain
Christopher Hohman
02/21/2019
Winner of the Spring 2019 StMU History Media Award for Best Article in the Category of “World History” As the year 1936 dawned in the United Kingdom, a dark cloud hung over the British people. Their king, George V, the man that embodied British stoicism
Guernica 1937
Daniel Gimena
11/04/2020
It was 4pm in the Spanish city of Guernica. It was another day in that Spanish civil war that seemed to not have an end. Suddenly, the noise of airplanes approaching from the north, hopefully only war planes crossing the city on their way to
A Dreaded Nightmare: Reinhard Heydrich and the Start of the Holocaust
Amelia Hew
11/12/2019
Winner of the Fall 2019 StMU History Media Award for Best Article in the Category of “World History” In the evening of November 9, 1938, the state-sponsored pogrom on the German-Jewish community occurred throughout Germany that would subsequently be called Kristallnacht. It occurred under the
The Drive to Survive: Eva and Miriam Mozes
Rylie Kieny
10/10/2018
At ten years of age, most children are running outside playing with dolls and with the neighborhood kids, while their parents are supporting their imagination and naïve dreams. Such a normal world changed overnight for ten-year-old twins, Eva and Miriam Mozes, when the Hungarian Army
“I’m No Hero”: The Life Saving Acts of Irena Sendler
Auroara-Juhl Nikkels
02/06/2018
Winner of the Spring 2018 StMU History Media Award for Best Article in the Category of “Political History” Best Article in the Category of “World History” At the age of twenty-nine, Irena Sendler was a social worker with the Polish welfare department when Hitler invaded
Eisenhower’s Yes: Operation Overlord
Antonio Coffee
04/06/2019
General Dwight D. Eisenhower knew he was fast approaching a crucial moment in the Western theater of the Second World War. In the early morning hours of June 5, 1944, Eisenhower was faced with one of the hardest decisions of his life, and one of
A Company of Heroes: The Story of the Band of Brothers
Amanda Gutierrez
11/30/2020
World War II began in September of 1939 when Britain and France declared war on Nazi Germany after its invasion of Poland. Although other allied nations, such as Canada and Australia, joined Britain and France in their battle against Germany, the United States remained uninvolved.
Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech
Victoria Sanchez
05/01/2017
“…From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent…”1 Winston Churchill, Britain’s fearless Prime Minister during World War II, was an influential and inspiring leader who was reluctant to let any sort of obstacle prevent
The Candy Bombers of the Berlin Airlift
Tyler Sleeter
04/21/2017
“Remember us children and we will remember you our whole life” -ten year old Helma Lurch 1 Near the end of World War II, the Allied Powers had to decide what to do with Germany and its largest city, Berlin. At the Potsdam Conference in
The Olympic Rivalry between the Dassler Brothers
Pedro Lugo Borges
11/22/2020
“Never be satisfied with your accomplishments; always continue to learn”—Adolf Dassler1 If you were a wandering traveler taking a stroll down the misty cobblestone streets of a relatively small German town in 1965, you wouldn’t know it, but you would be walking into the middle
He Would Have Killed Me: The Story of Jennifer Teege, Granddaughter of Nazi commandant Amon Goeth
Maria Esquivel
04/21/2018
“I am dreaming: I am swimming in a dark lake, the water as thick as tar. Suddenly corpses appear all around me: spindly figures, skeletons almost, that have had everything humane taken from them.”1 rom an outside perspective, her life appeared perfect. Not the slightest
Words from the other side of the wall: Did socialism really destroy the Soviet Union?
Josemaria Soriano
12/07/2017
December 25, 1991. It is not a usual Christmas day. That day would be a Christmas that no history book could forget. There it is, the red flag, waving in the middle of the cold winter over the Russian capital, and suddenly, it has fallen.
“Ab Sofort”: The Fall of the Berlin Wall
Eduardo Foster
10/19/2017
The evening of November 9, 1989 quickly became a historical one as Günter Schabowski, an official of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany, announced in a press conference that the inhabitants of East Germany could now travel to the West German side of the