The twentieth-century world

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

提示The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, shot by a Bosnian Serb nationalist.

为什么One murder became a European war because of the alliance system: Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia, Russia backed Serbia, Germany backed Austria-Hungary, and France and Britain were pulled in.

No man's land

提示Cratered, wired and swept by machine guns, it belonged to neither side.

为什么It could be a few hundred metres wide or barely thirty. Attacking meant crossing it in the open against machine guns and artillery, which is why the front line barely moved for years.

Versailles

提示It was signed in the hall of mirrors at a French palace just outside Paris.

为什么Germany lost territory, was held to an army of 100,000 men, and had to accept blame and pay reparations. Historians still argue whether it was too harsh, too soft or simply unenforceable.

1918

提示It came right at the end of the First World War, and only women over thirty who met a property test qualified.

为什么The same Act gave the vote to all men over 21. Women got it on equal terms with men ten years later, in 1928.

1933

提示He was appointed to the post rather than elected to it, weeks before the Reichstag fire.

为什么The Nazis were the largest party but never won a majority in a free election. President Hindenburg appointed him, and the Enabling Act soon afterwards let him rule by decree.

It gave the damaged airfields and squadrons time to recover

提示Fighter Command was close to breaking; the pressure came off the one target it could not afford to lose.

为什么Raids on the sector stations in late August and early September 1940 were wearing Fighter Command down faster than it could replace pilots. After a German raid strayed onto London and the RAF bombed Berlin in reply, the Luftwaffe turned on the capital from 7 September. The stations were repaired, squadrons rested, and on 15 September the RAF broke up the daylight raids. Hitler postponed the invasion two days later.

The films were censored propaganda made to sustain morale

提示Ask who chose what the camera pointed at, and what they needed the audience at home to believe.

为什么Ministry of Information film and photographs were checked before release, and reporting of panic, looting or nightly trekking out of the cities was suppressed. Mass Observation diaries and the government’s own Home Intelligence reports give a more mixed picture: real courage and endurance, but also fear, exhaustion and anger at the shortage of deep shelters.

Six million

提示About two thirds of the Jewish population of Europe was killed.

为什么Roma people, disabled people, political prisoners and others were murdered too. Historians study the early stages closely because persecution escalated in steps rather than all at once.

1948

提示Three years after the war ended, Aneurin Bevan launched it on 5 July.

为什么It grew out of the Beveridge Report and its promise of care from cradle to grave: free at the point of use, paid for through taxation.

curtain

提示Something heavy you draw across a window so that nobody can see through.

为什么The wartime allies had fallen out over the future of eastern Europe. Because both sides came to hold nuclear weapons, the Cold War was fought through arms races, spying and proxy wars instead.

Windrush

提示It docked at Tilbury carrying hundreds of Caribbean passengers who had answered a call for workers.

为什么It docked at Tilbury on 21 June 1948. Its passengers were already British subjects, free to settle here because no immigration control applied to them until 1962. The British Nationality Act, passed that July and in force from January 1949, recast that status as citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies. Many came for work in transport, building and the new NHS, and met colour bars in housing and jobs when they arrived.

India

提示Its first prime minister was Jawaharlal Nehru, and Gandhi had led the long non-violent campaign for its freedom.

为什么Partition created Pakistan alongside it and displaced perhaps 15 million people. Most of the rest of the empire followed within twenty-five years, especially across Africa after 1957.