the European powers used the event to begin a war they had spent the last two decades preparing to fight. Russia and France had established a defensive alliance to counter the threat of Germany and Austria-Hungary in the Balkan region as the Ottoman Empire’s power declined.

When Wilhelm’s ally and personal friend, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were assassinated on June 28, 1914 by a Serbian revolutionary named Gavrilo Princip,

In the first two decades of the twentieth century, Germany surpassed Britain to become the largest economy in Europe and second in the world, behind the U.S. German scientists won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation. The German navy was second only to the British Royal Navy.

Twenty-six kingdoms, grand duchies, principalities, and free cities were merged into a nation that thought of itself as an empire

Women had always made up a majority of church memberships in the United States, but ministers believed they were gaining too much influence.

The need to protect working-class women was starkly illustrated in 1911 when the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Manhattan caught fire. The doors of the factory had been chained shut to prevent women employees from taking unauthorized breaks. The managers who held the keys had saved themselves when the fire broke out, but they left over two hundred women locked in the factory. A rickety fire escape ladder on the side of the building collapsed immediately. Women lined the rooftop and crowded the windows of the ten-story building to avoid the flames and smoke. Many jumped, landing in what newspaper reports described as a “mangled, bloody pulp”. Life nets held by firemen tore at the impact of the falling bodies. Among the onlookers, “women were hysterical, scores fainted; men wept [and] hurled themselves against the police lines.” By the time the fire burned itself out, 71 workers were injured and 146 had died.

The WCTU called alcohol a “home wrecker.”

Drunkenness was blamed for domestic abuse, poverty, crime, and disease.

The Great White Fleet, sixteen all-white battleships, sailed around the world between 1907 and 1909, announcing America’s new power.

Accused of killing his white employer and raping the man’s wife, twenty-four-year old Sam Hose was taken by a mob from the Newnan town jail where he was being held before trial. Word of the impending lynching quickly spread and specially chartered passenger trains brought thousands of visitors from Atlanta to witness the lynching. Members of the mob tortured Hose for about an hour. They sliced off the young man’s ears, fingers, genitals, and cut the skin off his face as he screamed in agony. Then they poured a can of kerosene over his body, burned him alive, and sold his body parts as souvenirs.

When Reconstruction had attempted to grant freedpeople full citizenship rights, whites had lashed out in fear, anger, and resentment.

In August 1882, Congress passed the Immigration Act, denying admission to people who were not able to support themselves, to people with mental illnesses, and to convicted criminals.

The Democrats were able to siphon off a large part of the Populists’ political support, but were unable to beat McKinley.

William Jennings Bryan was among the most influential losers in American political history.

He believed that reissuing silver dollars, by inflating American currency, could alleviate farmers’ debts.

Debs ran for president again while in prison and again received nearly a million votes.