Study notes for History 122 C.L.E.P. Age of enlightenment 18th century in European and American philosophy. Age of reason Truth about universe, often linked with Scientific revolution, reason, science, rationality High baroque and classical eras in music, neo-classical style Enlightenmenent was followed by Romanticism Peace of Westphalia and English civil war Spinoza’s book ETHICS Solar system discovered by Newton Divine right and natural law
The Enlightenment brought a new vision of the future, which forecast the end of absolute monarchy. Philosophers of the Enlightenment thought they had discovered a simple formula for perpetual human happiness. They sought to deliver individuals from restraints so that they could act freely in accordance with their natures. On the one hand, the formula promised that pursuit of self-interest would benefit society; on the other, it promised that a free human reason would produce sound moral judgments. In other words, individual freedom permitted the operation of natural laws. Believing they had learned these laws, eighteenth-century rationalists thought they had found the secret of never-ending progress.
Scientific Revolution The philosopher Descartes presented the notion of deductive reasoning - that is, to start with a premise and to then discard evidence that doesn't support the premise. However, Sir Francis Bacon introduced a new method of thought. He suggested that instead of using deductive reasoning, people should use inductive reasoning - in other words, they should gather evidence and then reach a conclusion based on the evidence. This line of thought also became known as the Scientific Method. [edit] Nicolaus Copernicus [edit] Johannes Kepler Galileo Galilei The enlightenment of Philosophies and despots Enlightened despots rejected the concept of absolutism and the divine right to rule. They justified their position based on their usefulness to the state. These despots based their decisions upon their reason, and they stressed religious toleration and the importance of education. They enacted codified, uniform laws, repressed local authority, nobles, and the church, and often acted impulsively and instilled change at an incredibly fast rate. American revolution
Causes and Early Troubles
By the middle of the , differences in life, thought, and interests had developed between the mother country and the growing colonies. Local political institutions and practice diverged significantly from English ways, while social customs, religious beliefs, and economic interests added to the potential sources of conflict. The British government, like other imperial powers in the 18th century, favored a policy of mercantilism; the
18th century
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Acts were intended to regulate commerce in the British interest. These were only loosely
enforced, however, and the colonies were by and large allowed to develop freely with little interference from England.
Treaty of Paris in that year ended the French and Indian Wars and removed a long-standing threat to the colonies. At
Conditions changed abruptly in 1763. The the same time the ministry (1763-65) of George Grenville in Great Britain undertook a new colonial policy intended to tighten political control over the colonies and to make them pay for their defense and return revenue to the mother country. The tax levied on molasses and sugar in 1764 caused some consternation among New England merchants and makers of rum; the tax itself was smaller than the one already on the books, but the promise of stringent enforcement was novel and ominous.
Aftermath
The
and seeking not too successfully to meet its administrative problems under the
Treaty of Paris formally recognized the new nation in 1783, although many questions were left unsettled. The United States was floundering through a postwar depression Articles of Confederation. Constitution of the
The leaders in the new country were those prominent either in the council halls or on the fields of the Revolution, and the f irst three Presidents after the
United States was adopted were Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. Some of the more radical Revolutionary leaders were disappointed in the turn
toward conservatism when the Revolution was over, but liberty and democracy had been fixed as the highest ideals of the United States. The American Revolution had a great influence on liberal thought throughout Europe. The struggles and successes of the youthf ul democracy were much in the minds of those who brought about the French Revolution, and most assuredly later helped to inspire revolutionists in Spain's American colonies.
French Revolution The French Revolution was a period of major political and social change in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based around Enlightenment ideals of democracy, citizenship, and inalienable rights. These changes were accompanied by violent turmoil, including mass executions and repression during the Reign of Terror, and warfare involving every other major European power. The French Revolution as a historical period is considered to have begun in 1789 and ended around 1799. For the next 75 years, France would be governed as a republic, a dictatorship, a constitutional monarchy and an empire. The French Revolution was strikingly similar to the Russian Revolution a century later.
A poor economic situation and an unmanageable national debt, both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation, the massive spending of Louis XVI and the many wars of the 18th century High unemployment and high bread prices causing more money to be spent on food and less in other areas of the economy Food scarcity in the months immediately before the revolution. (a recent study of El Niño patterns suggests that the poor crop yields of 1788-89 in Europe resulted from an unusually strong El-Niño effect between 1789-93.[1])
On the other hand, there were social and political factors, many of them involving resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals:
Resentment of royal absolutism A resentment of noble privilege and dominance in public life by the ambitious professional classes Resentment of manorialism (seigneurialism) by peasants, wage-earners, and, to a lesser extent, the bourgeoisie Resentment of clerical privilege (anti-clericalism) and aspirations for freedom of religion Aspirations for liberty and (especially as the revolution progressed) republicanism
Finally, perhaps above all, was the almost total failure of Louis XVI and his advisors to deal effectively with any of these problems
End of the French empire
The rise of neighbouring Prussia during the 1860's caused a great deal of unease within the National Assembly, culminating in the July Crisis of 1870. On July 15th, the government of Emile Ollivier declared war on Prussia, nominally over the Hohenzollern candidature for the throne of Spain, the pretext for France to declare war in order to satisfy France's increasing unease and desire to halt Prussian expansion in Europe. During July and August of 1870, the
Imperial French Army suffered a series of defeats which culminated in the Battle of Sedan. At Sedan, the remnants of the French field army, and Napoleon III himself, surrendered to the Prussians on September 1st. News of Sedan reached Paris on September 4th. The National Assembly was invaded by a mob and during the afternoon of September 4th, Parisian deputies formed a new government. At the Hôtel de Ville, Republican deputy Léon Gambetta declared the fall of the Empire and the establishment of the Third Republic. Empress Eugénie fled the Tuileries for Great Britain, effectively ending the Empire, which was officially declared defunct and replaced with the Government of National Defence. Industrial revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period of of the 18th century marked by social and technological change in which manufacturing began to rely on steam power, fueled primarily by coal, rather than on water or wind; and by a shift from artisans who made complete products to factories in which each worker completed a single stage in the manufacturing process. Improvements in transportation encouraged the rapid pace of change. The causes of the Industrial Revolution remain a topic for debate with some historians seeing it as an outgrowth from the social changes of the Enlightenment and the colonial expansion of the 17th century.
Capitalism-Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which land and the means of production are mostly privately [1] owned and operated for profit and in which distribution, production and pricing of goods and services are determined in a largely free market. Marxism-Marxism refers to the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marx's work on one hand, and to the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand (namely, parts of the First International during Marx's time, communist parties and later states). Marxism describes the race towards communism in a number of stages, the first stage being feudalism, followed by capitalism and socialism, and the final stage being communism. Romantic movement-Romanticism is an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. In part a revolt against aristocratic, social, and political norms of the Enlightenment period and a reaction against the rationalization of nature, in art and literature it stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror, and the awe experienced in confronting the sublimity of nature. Vienna system The Congress of Vienna was a conference between ambassadors from the major powers in Europe that was chaired by the Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and held on the way to Vienna, Austria, from October 1, 1814, to June 9, 1815. Its purpose was to redraw the continent's political map after the defeat of Napoleonic France the previous spring. The discussions continued despite the ex-Emperor Napoleon I's return from exile and resumption of power in France in March 1815, and the Congress's Final Act was signed nine days before his final defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815. Technically, one might note that the "Congress of Vienna" never actually occurred, as the Congress never met in plenary session, with most of the discussions occurring in informal sessions among the Great Powers. The Congress was concerned with determining the entire shape of Europe after the Napoleonic wars, with the exception of the terms of peace with France, which had already been decided by the Treaty of Paris, signed a few months earlier, on May 30, 1814. Until 1789, no one had earnestly contested the rule of kings on the Continent. In 1815, after Napoleon, a close semblance of the Ancien Régime was restored at the Congress of Vienna. This
was no sooner established when the monarchies, the church, and the aristocracy were again threatened. There had been revolutions or civil wars in England (1640s-1650s), France (1789 and after), Ireland (1798), and the born-of-revolution United States, which seceded in 1776 from Great Britain, as well as Mexico, having split from Spain. A revolution against the Netherlands produced the seceding country of Belgium in 1830, a year that also saw another revolution in France. Unrest was in the air. "Dangerous" ideas kept upwelling, despite forceful and often violent efforts of established powers to keep them down: democracy, liberalism, nationalism, and socialism. In short, democracy meant universal male suffrage. Liberalism fundamentally meant consent of the governed and the restriction of church and state power, republican government, freedom of the press and the individual. Nationalism believed in uniting people bound by (some mix of) common languages, culture, religion, shared history, and of course immediate geography; there were also irredentist movements. At this time, what are now Germany and Italy were collections of small states. Socialism was a then-fuzzy term with no solid definition, meaning different things to different persons, but it roughly meant more rights for workers in a typically collectivist system. Crimean war The Crimean War (1854–1856) was fought between Imperial Russia on one side and an alliance of France, the United Kingdom, and the Ottoman Empire on the other. The majority of the conflict took place on the Crimean peninsula, with additional actions occurring in western Turkey, the Baltic Sea region, and in the Russian Far East. The war is generally seen as the first modern conflict and "introduced technical changes which affected the future course of warfare."[1] Peace negotiations began in 1856 under Nicholas I's successor, Alexander II. Furthermore, the Tsar and the Sultan agreed not to establish any naval or military arsenal on the Black Sea coast. The Black Sea clauses came at a tremendous disadvantage to Russia, for it greatly diminished the naval threat it posed to the Turks. Moreover, all the Great Powers pledged to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Paris stood until 1871, when France was crushed by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Whilst Prussia and several other German states united to form a powerful German Empire, the Emperor of the French, Napoleon III, was deposed to permit the formation of a French Republic. During his reign (which began in 1852), Napoleon III, eager for the support of Great Britain, had opposed Russia over the Eastern Question. Russian interference in the Ottoman Empire, however, did not in any significant manner threaten the interests of France. Thus, France abandoned its opposition to Russia after the establishment of a Republic. Encouraged by the decision of the French, and supported by the German minister Otto, Fürst von Bismarck, Russia denounced the Black Sea clauses of the treaty agreed to in 1856. As Great Britain alone could not enforce the clauses, Russia once again established a fleet in the Black Sea. Having abandoned its alliance with Russia, Austria was diplomatically isolated following the war. This led to its defeat in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War and loss of influence in most German-speaking lands. Soon after, Austria would ally with Prussia as it became the new state of Germany, creating the conditions that would lead to World War I. Unification of Italy
At the end of the 18th century, Italy was almost in the same political conditions as in the 16th century; the main differences were that Austria had replaced Spain as the dominant foreign power (and that too was not true with regards to Naples and Sicily), and that the dukes of Savoy (a mountainous region between Italy and France) had become kings of Sardinia by increasing their Italian possessions, which now included Sardinia and the north-western region of Piedmont. This situation was shaken in 1796, when French armies led by Napoleon invaded Italy; even if the states they created (e.g., Cisalpine Republic) were just satellites of France, they sparked a nationalist movement. The Cisalpine Republic was converted into the Italian Republic in 1802, under the presidency of Napoleon; a Kingdom of Italy was later set up. A second satellite state, the Ligurian Republic (successor to the old Republic of Genoa), was pressured into merging with France in 1805. The Congress of Vienna (1814) restored a situation close to that of 1795, dividing Italy between Austria (in the north-east and Lombardy), the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (in the south and in Sicily), and Tuscany, the Papal States and other minor states in the centre. However, some of the old republics such as Venice and Genoa were not recreated (Venice went to Austria, and Genoa went to the Kingdom of Sardinia). For the transformation of the peninsula into the Kingdom of Italy see the main article on Italian unification. Unification of Germany The evolution of the German Empire is somewhat parallel to developments in Italy and Japan. Similarly to Bismarck, Count Camillo Benso di Cavour in Italy used diplomacy and war to achieve his objectives: he allied with France before attacking Austria, securing the unification of Italy (except for the Papal States and Austrian Venice) by 1861 as a kingdom under the Piemontese dynasty. In the interests of Piedmont-Sardinia, Cavour, hostile to the more revolutionary romantic nationalism of liberal republicans such as Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, sought to unify of Italy along conservative lines. Japan followed a similar course of conservative modernization from the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration to 1918. Japan issued a commission in 1882 to study various governmental structures throughout the world and were particularly impressed by Bismarck's Germany, issuing a constitution in 1889 that formed a premiership with powers analogous to Bismarck's position as chancellor with a cabinet responsible to the emperor alone. One factor in the social anatomy of these governments had been the retention of a very substantial share in political power by landed elites—in Germany's case the the Prussian Junkers—due to the absence of a revolutionary breakthrough by the peasants in combination with urban workers. Victorian England The Victorian Era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British industrial revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians—actually begins with the passage of the Reform Act 1832. The era was preceded by the Regency era and succeeded by the Edwardian period. Third French republic The French Third Republic (in French, La Troisième République, sometimes written as La IIIe République) (1870/75-10 July 1940) was the governing body of France between the Second
French Empire and the Vichy Regime. It was a republican parliamentary democracy that was created on 4 September 1870 following the collapse of the Empire of Napoleon III in the FrancoPrussian War. It survived until the invasion of France by the German Third Reich in 1940. One of the most surprising aspects of the Third Republic is that it was the first stable republican government in French history, and the first to win the support of the majority of the population, yet it was intended as an interim, temporary government The Hapsburg Monarchy The Habsburg Monarchy included the territories ruled by the Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg, and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine, between 1526 and 1867/1918. The capital was Vienna. The monarchy from 1804 to 1867 is usually referred to as the Austrian Empire and from 1867 to 1918 as Austro-Hungarian Empire. The monarchy developed from the Habsburg Hereditary Lands (mostly modern Austria and Slovenia), which the Habsburgs had accumulated since 1278. The Habsburg Monarchy grew to European prominence in 1526, when Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the younger brother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was elected King of Bohemia and Hungary following the death of Louis II, the King of those two countries, in battle against the Turks at Mohacs. From this point the Monarchy grew to a size where at times it ruled over more than half of Europe. Imperial Russia The Russian Empire formed from Muscovite Russia, which was ruled by the successors of Ivan IV as Tsars. Though the empire was only officially proclaimed late in 1721 by Tsar Peter I, it was truly born when Peter became Tsar in early 1682. Peter was disgusted by what he saw as the backwardness of his kingdom, and so, after his gaining the throne, he travelled about Europe, working in various jobs and gaining the experience necessary to bring Muscovy into the thenpresent. Following a war in the Baltic in the early 1700s, Peter gained a foothold along the coastline, and founded the city that would be the capital of his empire for almost 200 years, Saint Petersburg Ottoman Empire The Empire faced military challenges in defending itself against foreign invasion and occupation: Egypt, for instance, was occupied by the French in 1798, while Cyprus was loaned to the British in 1878 in exchange of Britain's favours at the Congress of Berlin following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. In a significant shift in military and diplomatic policy, the empire ceased to enter conflicts on its own and began to forge alliances with European countries. There were a series of such alliances with France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Russia. As an example, in the Crimean War the Ottomans united with the British, French, and others against Russia. Economically, the empire had difficulty in repaying its loans to European banks; at the same time, despite the empire's label as the "Sick man of Europe", from an economic perspective, the empire's actual weakness did not reside in its developing economy, but the cultural gap which separated it from the European powers. During this time Baghdad Railway under German control became a source of international tension (economical power tool) and played some role in the origins of the First World War [5]. The empire's problems were, in fact, the result of an inability to deal with the new problems created by the conflict between external imperialism and rising internal nationalism. (See socioeconomics during the Ottoman reformation era.) First world war
The first world war began in August 1914. It was directly triggered by the assassination of the Austrian archduke, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, on 28th June 1914 by Bosnian revolutionary, Gavrilo Princip.
World War I, also known as WWI (abbreviation), the First World War, the Great War, and "The War to End All Wars", was a global military conflict that took place mostly in Europe between 1914 and 1918. It left millions dead and re-shaped the modern world. The Allied Powers, led by France, Russia, the British Empire, and later, Italy and the US, defeated the Central Powers: Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. The war caused the disintegration of four empires: the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman, and Russian. Germany lost its overseas empire, and new states such as Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Yugoslavia were created, and in the cases of Lithuania and Poland, recreated. World War I created a decisive break with the old world order that had emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, which was modified by the mid-19th century’s nationalistic revolutions. The outcomes of World War I would be important factors in the development of World War II 21 years later. After the war, the allies imposed a series of peace treaties on the defeated Central Powers. The 1919 Versailles Treaty ended the war with Germany. Germany was kept under a food blockade until it signed the treaty, which declared that Germany (and Austria) were responsible for the war and therefore had to pay all its costs. The treaty required Germany to pay enormous annual cash reparations, based on factors including the value of a soldier's life, which it did by borrowing from the United States, until reparations were suspended in 1931. The ―Guilt Thesis‖ became controversial in Britain and the United States. It caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which nationalist movements, especially the Nazis, exploited in the 1920s. (See Dolchstosslegende). Due to this treaty, one of the worst economic collapses in history took place in Germany, resulting in widespread famine, and inflation. The Ottoman Empire was to have been partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 but the treaty was never ratified by the sultan and was rejected by the Turkish republican movement. This led to the Turkish Independence War and ultimately the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Austria-Hungary was also partitioned, largely along ethnic lines. The details were contained in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon.
Russian revolution The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a series of political and social upheavals in Russia, involving first the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, and then the overthrow of the liberal and moderate-socialist Provisional Government, resulting in the establishment of Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party. This eventually led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which lasted until its dissolution in 1991. The Revolution occurred in phases:
The February Revolution of 1917, which displaced the autocracy of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last Tsar of Russia, and sought to establish in its place a democratic republic. A period of dual power, in which the Provisional Government held state power and the national network of Soviets, led by socialists, had the allegiance of the lower-classes and the political Left. The October Revolution, in which the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' Soviets, overthrew the Provisional Government. While many notable historical events occurred in Moscow and St. Petersburg, there was also a broadly based movement in cities throughout the country, among national minorities throughout the empire, in the rural areas, where peasants seized and redistributed land[citation needed].
Lenin’s takeover The October Revolution was led by Vladimir Lenin and was based upon Lenin's writing on the ideas of Karl Marx, a political ideology often known as Marxism-Leninism. It marked the beginning of the spread of communism in the twentieth century. It was far less sporadic than the revolution of February and came about as the result of deliberate planning and coordinated activity to that end. Though Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Party, it has been argued that since Lenin wasn't present during the actual takeover of the Winter Palace, it was really Trotsky's organization and direction that led the revolution, spurred by the motivation Lenin instigated within his party. Critics on the Right have long argued that the financial and logistical assistance of German intelligence via their key agent, Alexander Parvus was a key component as well, though historians are divided, for the evidence is sparse. On November 7, 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin led his leftist revolutionaries in a revolt against the ineffective Provisional Government (Russia was still using the Julian Calendar at the time, so period references show an October 25 date). The October Revolution ended the phase of the revolution instigated in February, replacing Russia's short-lived provisional government with a Soviet one. Although many Bolsheviks supported a soviet democracy, the 'revolution from above' model gained definitive power when Lenin died and Stalin gained control of the USSR. Trotsky and his supporters, as well as a number of other democratically-minded communists, were persecuted and eventually imprisoned or killed. Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (1919) was the peace treaty which officially ended World War I between the Allied and Central Powers and the German Empire. After six months of negotiations, which took place at the Paris Peace Conference, the treaty was signed as a followup to the armistice signed in November 11, 1918 in the Compiègne Forest (which had put an end to the actual fighting). Although there were many provisions in the treaty, one of the more important and recognized provisions required Germany to accept full responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of articles 231-248, make reparations to certain countries that had formed the Allies. Totalitarianism Totalitarianism is a term employed by political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior. The most influential scholars of totalitarianism, such as Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Carl Friedrich, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Juan Linz have each described totalitarianism in a slightly different way. Common to all definitions is the attempt to mobilize entire populations in support of the state and a political or religious ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, such as involvement with labour unions, non-sanctioned
churches or opposition political parties. Totalitarian regimes maintain themselves in political power by means of single-party state, secret police, propaganda disseminated through the statecontrolled mass media, personality cult, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics (political purges and persecution of specific groups of people). Stalin Joseph Stalin (alternatively transliterated Josef Stalin), was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until 1953. Despite his formal position being originally without significant influence, and his office being nominally but one of several Central Committee Secretaryships, Stalin's increasing control of the Party from 1928 onwards led to him becoming the de facto party leader and the dictator of his country Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (July 29, 1883 – April 28, 1945) was the prime minister and dictator of Italy from 1922 until 1943, when he was overthrown. He established a repressive fascist regime that valued nationalism, militarism, anti-liberalism and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda. Mussolini became a close ally of German dictator Adolf Hitler, whom he influenced. Mussolini entered World War II in June, 1940 on the side of Nazi Germany. Three years later, the Allies invaded Italy. In April 1945 Mussolini attempted to escape to German-controlled Austria, only to be captured and shot near Lake Como by Communist Resistance units. Rise of Hitler Nazi Germany or the Third Reich, officially called the German Reich (Deutsches Reich), and later the Greater German Reich (Großdeutsches Reich), refers to Germany in the years 1933 to 1945, when it was governed by the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), with Führer Adolf Hitler as chancellor and, from 1934, head of state. The foreign policy pursued by Nazi Germany, based on the concept of Lebensraum, was among the leading causes of the Second World War. In addition to Weimar-era Germany proper, the Reich came to include areas with ethnic German populations such as Austria, the Sudetenland and the territory of Memel in the years leading up to the war. Other regions were acquired only after the outbreak of conflict, but had been part of Imperial Germany prior to the Treaty of Versailles and had varying German populations: Luxemburg, Eupen-et-Malmédy, Alsace-Lorraine, Danzig and parts of Poland. Other regions, particularly the rest of Poland, had never been part of a German state. Rise of Japan The Empire of Japan (Kyūjitai: 大 本 國 Shinjitai: 大 本 国 pronounced Dai Nippon 日 帝 ; 日 帝 ; Teikoku), officially Empire of Greater Japan also known as Imperial Japan and the Japanese Empire refer to Japan during the period it was governed by the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, from November 29, 1889 to September 2, 1945. The Emperors during this time, which spanned the Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa eras, are now known by their posthumous names which coincide with those era names: Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito), Emperor Taishō (Yoshihito) and Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito). After World War II the empire dissolved and became modern Japan. Notable events during this imperial period were the return of power to the Emperor (大 奉 Tai政 還 sei Hou-kan?) on November 9, 1867, the Abolition of the Han system (廃 置 Hai-han Chi藩 県
ken?) on July 14, 1871, the country's rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyohei (Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Military) , leading to its emergence as a world power, the expansion of the Empire into Southeast Asia and the Pacific, including China and Korea, and its participation in the Axis Powers alliance. The Empire of Japan surrendered to the Allies on September 2, 1945 after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after a long Pacific War against the Allies (mostly the United States) of World War II. A period known as Occupied Japan followed the surrender and dissolution of the Empire and a new constitution was created with multinational input. The American occupation and reconstruction of the country continued well into the 1950s. Events leading to ww2