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Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945)was an Austrian-born German politician who was the leader of theNazi Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei(NSDAP); National Socialist German Workers Party). He wasChancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Führer ("leader") ofNazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. As effective dictator of NaziGermany, Hitler was at the centre of World War II in Europe and theHolocaust.Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. He joined theprecursor of the NSDAP, the German Workers' Party, in 1919 andbecame leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923 he attempted a coup inMunich to seize power. The failed coup resulted in Hitler'simprisonment, during which time he wrote his autobiography andpolitical manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). After his releasein 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty ofVersailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism, andanti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. Hitlerfrequently denounced international capitalism and communism asbeing part of a Jewish conspiracy.Hitler's Nazi Party became the largest elected party in theGerman Reichstag, leading to his appointment as chancellor in 1933.Following fresh elections won by his coalition, the Reichstagpassed the Enabling Act, which began the process of transformingthe Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-partydictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology ofNational Socialism. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany andestablish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice ofthe post-World War I international order dominated by Britain andFrance. His first six years in power resulted in rapid economicrecovery from the Great Depression, the denunciation ofrestrictions imposed on Germany after World War I, and theannexation of territories that were home to millions of ethnicGermans—actions which gave him significant popular support.Hitler sought Lebensraum ("living space") for the German people.His aggressive foreign policy is considered to be the primary causeof the outbreak of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scalerearmament and on 1 September 1939 invaded Poland, resulting inBritish and French declarations of war on Germany. In June 1941,Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europeand North Africa. Failure to defeat the Soviets and the entry ofthe United States into the war forced Germany onto the defensiveand it suffered a series of escalating defeats. In the final daysof the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married hislong-time lover, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945, less than two dayslater, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army,and their corpses were burned.Under Hitler's leadership and racially motivated ideology, theNazi regime was responsible for the genocide of at least 5.5million Jews and millions of other victims whom he and hisfollowers deemed Untermenschen ("sub-humans") and sociallyundesirable. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible forthe killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners ofwar. In addition, 29 million soldiers and civilians died as aresult of military action in the European Theatre of World War II.The number of civilians killed during the Second World War wasunprecedented in warfare, and constitutes the deadliest conflict inhuman history.

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was aGerman-borntheoretical physicist. He developed the general theoryofrelativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics(alongsidequantum mechanics).:274 Einstein's work is also known foritsinfluence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best knowninpopular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E =mc2(which has been dubbed "the world's most famousequation").Hereceived the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his"services totheoretical physics", in particular his discovery ofthe law of thephotoelectric effect, a pivotal step in the evolutionof quantumtheory.Near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought thatNewtonianmechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws ofclassicalmechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field.This led tothe development of his special theory of relativity. Herealized,however, that the principle of relativity could also beextended togravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory ofgravitationin 1916, he published a paper on general relativity. Hecontinued todeal with problems of statistical mechanics andquantum theory,which led to his explanations of particle theoryand the motion ofmolecules. He also investigated the thermalproperties of lightwhich laid the foundation of the photon theoryof light. In 1917,Einstein applied the general theory ofrelativity to model thelarge-scale structure of the universe.He was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler came topowerin 1933 and, being Jewish, did not go back to Germany, wherehe hadbeen a professor at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Hesettled inthe U.S., becoming an American citizen in 1940. On theeve of WorldWar II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D.Rooseveltalerting him to the potential development of "extremelypowerfulbombs of a new type" and recommending that the U.S. beginsimilarresearch. This eventually led to what would become theManhattanProject. Einstein supported defending the Allied forces,but largelydenounced the idea of using the newly discoverednuclear fission asa weapon. Later, with the British philosopherBertrand Russell,Einstein signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto,which highlightedthe danger of nuclear weapons. Einstein wasaffiliated with theInstitute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NewJersey, until hisdeath in 1955.Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers alongwithover 150 non-scientific works.On 5 December 2014, universitiesandarchives announced the release of Einstein's papers,comprisingmore than 30,000 unique documents.Einstein'sintellectualachievements and originality have made the word"Einstein"synonymous with "genius".

Mesopotamia (/ˌmɛsəpəˈteɪmiə/, from theAncient Greek: Μεσοποταμία "[land] between rivers"; Arabic: بلادالرافدين‎ bilād ar-rāfidayn; Persian: میان‌رودان‎ miyān rodān;Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢ Beth Nahrain "land of rivers") is a name for thearea of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, corresponding tomodern-day Iraq, Kuwait, the northeastern section of Syria and to amuch lesser extent southeastern Turkey and smaller parts ofsouthwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization by theWestern world, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and theAkkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires, all native to theterritory of modern-day Iraq. In the Iron Age, it was controlled bythe Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. The indigenousSumerians and Akkadians (including Assyrians and Babylonians)dominated Mesopotamia from the beginning of written history (c.3100 BC) to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC, when it was conquered bythe Achaemenid Empire. It fell to Alexander the Great in 332 BC,and after his death, it became part of the Greek SeleucidEmpire.Around 150 BC, Mesopotamia was under the control of the ParthianEmpire. Mesopotamia became a battleground between the Romans andParthians, with parts of Mesopotamia coming under ephemeral Romancontrol. In AD 226, it fell to the Sassanid Persians and remainedunder Persian rule until the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persiaof the Sasanian Empire. A number of primarily neo-Assyrian andChristian native Mesopotamian states existed between the 1stcentury BCE and 3rd century CE, including Adiabene, Osroene, andHatra.

Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 BC –10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great was aKing (Basileus) of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and amember of the Argead dynasty. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexandersucceeded his father, Philip II, to the throne at the age oftwenty. He spent most of his ruling years on an unprecedentedmilitary campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, until by theage of thirty he had created one of the largest empires of theancient world, stretching from Greece to Egypt and into northwestIndia. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one ofhistory's most successful military commanders.During his youth, Alexander was tutored by the philosopherAristotle until the age of 16. After Philip was assassinated in 336BC, Alexander succeeded his father to the throne and inherited astrong kingdom and an experienced army. He had been awarded thegeneralship of Greece and used this authority to launch hisfather's Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest ofPersia.In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire, ruled AsiaMinor, and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years.Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisivebattles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. Hesubsequently overthrew the Persian King Darius III and conqueredthe Achaemenid Empire in its entirety.At that point, his empirestretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.Seeking to reach the "ends of the world and the Great OuterSea", he invaded India in 326 BC, but was eventually forced to turnback at the demand of his troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323BC, the city he planned to establish as his capital, withoutexecuting a series of planned campaigns that would have begun withan invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a seriesof civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in several statesruled by the Diadochi, Alexander's surviving generals andheirs.Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion his conquestsengendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty citiesthat bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt. Alexander'ssettlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greekculture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization,aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of theByzantine Empire in the mid-15th century and the presence of Greekspeakers in central and far eastern Anatolia until the 1920s.Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold ofAchilles, and he features prominently in the history and myth ofGreek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against whichmilitary leaders compared themselves, and military academiesthroughout the world still teach his tactics.He is often rankedamong the world's most influential people of all time, along withhis teacher Aristotle.

Israel and Judah were related Iron Agekingdoms of the ancient Levant. The Kingdom of Israel emerged as animportant local power by the 9th century BCE before falling to theNeo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE. Israel's southern neighbor, theKingdom of Judah, emerged in the 8th century BCE[1] and enjoyed aperiod of prosperity as a client-state of first Assyria and thenBabylon before a revolt against the Neo-Babylonian Empire led toits destruction in 586 BCE. Following the fall of Babylon to thePersian king Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE, some Judean exilesreturned to Jerusalem, inaugurating the formative period in thedevelopment of a distinctive Judahite identity in the Persianprovince of Yehud. Yehud was absorbed into the subsequentHellenistic kingdoms that followed the conquests of Alexander theGreat, but in the 2nd century BCE the Judaeans revolted against theHellenist Seleucid Empire and created the Hasmonean kingdom. This,the last nominally independent Judean kingdom, came to an end in 63BCE with its conquest by Pompey of Rome. With the installation ofclient kingdoms under the Herodian Dynasty, the Kingdom of Israelwas wracked by civil disturbances which culminated in the FirstJewish–Roman War, the destruction of the Temple, the emergence ofRabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity.

The American Revolution was a politicalupheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during whichcolonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the Britishmonarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain,and founded the United States of America.Starting in 1765, members of American colonial society rejectedthe authority of the British Parliament to tax them without anyrepresentatives in the government. During the following decade,protests by colonists—known as Patriots—continued to escalate, asin the Boston Tea Party in 1773 during which patriots destroyed aconsignment of taxed tea from the East India Company.The Britishresponded by imposing punitive laws—the Coercive Acts—onMassachusetts in 1774 until the tea had been paid for, followingwhich Patriots in the other colonies rallied behind Massachusetts.In late 1774 the Patriots set up their own alternative governmentto better coordinate their resistance efforts against Britain,while other colonists, known as Loyalists, preferred to remainsubjects of the British Crown.Tensions escalated to the outbreak of fighting between Patriotmilitia and British regulars at Lexington and Concord in April1775, after which the Patriot Suffolk Resolves effectively replacedthe Royal government of Massachusetts, and confined the British tocontrol of the city of Boston. The conflict then evolved into aglobal war, during which the Patriots (and later their French,Spanish and Dutch allies) fought the British and Loyalists in whatbecame known as the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).Patriots in each of the thirteen colonies formed a ProvincialCongress that assumed power from the old colonial governments andsuppressed Loyalism. Claiming King George III's rule to betyrannical and infringing the colonists' "rights as Englishmen",the Continental Congress declared the colonies free and independentstates in July 1776. The Patriot leadership professed the politicalphilosophies of liberalism and republicanism to reject monarchy andaristocracy, and proclaimed that all men are created equal.Congress rejected British proposals requiring allegiance to themonarchy and abandonment of independence.The British were forced out of Boston in 1776, but then capturedand held New York City for the duration of the war, nearlycapturing General Washington and his army. The British blockadedthe ports and captured other cities for brief periods, but failedto defeat Washington's forces. In early 1778, following a failedpatriot invasion of Canada, a British army was captured by apatriot army at the Battle of Saratoga, following which the Frenchentered the war as allies of the United States. The war laterturned to the American South, where the British captured an army atSouth Carolina, but failed to enlist enough volunteers fromLoyalist civilians to take effective control. A combinedAmerican–French force captured a second British army at Yorktown in1781, effectively ending the war in the United States. A peacetreaty in 1783 confirmed the new nation's complete separation fromthe British Empire. The United States took possession of nearly allthe territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the GreatLakes, with the British retaining control of Canada and Spaintaking Florida.In the period after the peace treaty in 1783, Loyalists weresubjected to extreme suppression and acts of arbitrary violence,including murder by lynching, despite a promise by patriot leadersto British negotiators that Loyalist rights would be respected. Alarge proportion were driven off their land and forced to flee asrefugees to Canada.

Ancient Carthage was the Phoenician city-stateof Carthage. During the 7th to 3rd centuries BC, its sphere ofinfluence, the so-called Carthaginian Empire, extended over much ofthe coast of North Africa as well as substantial parts of coastalIberia and the islands of the western Mediterranean.The city, called Qart-ḥadašt (New City)in the Phoenicianlanguage, was founded in 814 BC. A dependency of the Phoenicianstate of Tyre at the time, Carthage gained independence around 650BC and established its political hegemony over other Phoeniciansettlements throughout the western Mediterranean, this lastinguntil the end of the 3rd century BC. At the height of the city'sprominence, it was a major hub of trade with trading stationsextending throughout the region.For much of its history, Carthage was on hostile terms with theGreeks in Sicily and the Roman Republic, leading to a series ofarmed conflicts known as the Greek-Punic Wars and Punic Wars. Thecity also had to deal with the potentially hostile Berbers, theindigenous inhabitants of the area where Carthage was built. In 146BC, after the third and final Punic War, Carthage was destroyed andthen occupied by Roman forces. Nearly all of the other Phoeniciancity-states and former Carthaginian dependencies subsequently fellinto Roman hands.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republicsorshortened to the Soviet Union , was a Marxist–Leninist state ontheEurasian continent that existed between 1922 and 1991. A unionofmultiple subnational Soviet republics, its government andeconomywere highly centralized. The Soviet Union was a one-partystate,governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital.The Soviet Union had its roots in 1917 when theBolsheviks,headed by Vladimir Lenin, led the October Revolutionwhichoverthrew the provisional government that had replaced theTsar.They established the Russian Socialist Federative SovietRepublic(renamed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in1936),beginning a civil war between pro-revolution Redsandcounter-revolution Whites. The Red Army entered severalterritoriesof the former Russian Empire and helped local Communiststake powerthrough soviets, which nominally acted on behalf ofworkers andpeasants. In 1922, the Communists were victorious,forming theSoviet Union with the unification of the Russian,Transcaucasian,Ukrainian, and Byelorussian republics. FollowingLenin's death in1924, a troika and a brief power struggle, JosephStalin came topower in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed politicalopposition tohim, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism(which hecreated) and initiated a centrally planned economy. As aresult,the country underwent a period of rapid industrializationandcollectivization which laid the foundation for its victory inWorldWar II and post-war dominance. Stalin also fomentedpoliticalparanoia, and conducted the Great Purge to removeopponents of hisfrom the Communist Party through the mass arbitraryarrest of manypeople (military leaders, Communist Party members,and ordinarycitizens alike) who were then sent to correctionallabour camps orsentenced to death.In the beginning of World War II, Stalin signed anon-aggressionpact with Hitler's Germany; the treaty delayedconfrontationbetween the two countries. In June 1941 the Germansinvaded,opening the largest and bloodiest theatre of war inhistory. Sovietwar casualties accounted for the highest proportionof the conflictin the cost of acquiring the upper hand over Axisforces at intensebattles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forceseventually capturedBerlin in 1945. The territory overtaken by theRed Army becamesatellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold Waremerged in 1947as the Soviet bloc formed the Warsaw Pact andconfronted theWestern states that united in the North AtlanticTreatyOrganization in 1949. However the USSR did not itself engagein anyso-called "hot wars."

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783),theAmerican War of Independence,or simply the Revolutionary War intheUnited States, was the armed conflict between the Kingdom ofGreatBritain and thirteen of its former North American colonies,whichhad declared themselves the independent United StatesofAmerica.Early fighting took place primarily on the NorthAmericancontinent. In 1778 France, eager for revenge after itsdefeat inthe Seven Years' War, signed an alliance with the newnation. Theconflict then escalated into a world war with BritaincombatingFrance, Spain, and the Netherlands. Contemporaneousfighting alsobroke out in India between the British East IndiaCompany and theFrench allied Kingdom of Mysore.The war had its origins in the resistance of many Americanstotaxes imposed by the British parliament, which they claimedwereunconstitutional. Patriot protests escalated into boycotts andthedestruction of a shipment of tea at the Boston Tea Party.TheBritish government punished Massachusetts by closing the portofBoston and taking away self-government. The Patriots respondedbysetting up a shadow government that took control of theprovinceoutside of Boston. Twelve other colonies supportedMassachusetts,formed a Continental Congress to coordinate theirresistance, andset up committees and conventions which effectivelyseized powerfrom the royal governments. In April 1775 fightingbroke outbetween Massachusetts militia units and British regularsatLexington and Concord. The Continental Congress appointedGeneralGeorge Washington to take charge of militia units besiegingBritishforces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March1776.Congress supervised the war, giving Washington command of thenewContinental Army; he also coordinated state militia units.In July 1776, the Continental Congress formallydeclaredindependence. The British were meanwhile mustering forcestosuppress the revolt. Sir William Howe outmaneuvered anddefeatedWashington, capturing New York City and New Jersey.Washington wasable to capture a Hessian detachment at Trenton anddrive theBritish out of most of New Jersey. In 1777 Howe's armylaunched acampaign against the national capital at Philadelphia,failing toaid Burgoyne's separate invasion force from Canada.Burgoyne's armywas trapped and surrendered after the Battles ofSaratoga inOctober 1777. This American victory encouraged France toenter thewar in 1778, followed by its ally Spain in 1779.In 1778, having failed in the northern states, theBritishshifted strategy toward the southern colonies, where theyplannedto enlist many Loyalist regiments. British forces hadinitialsuccess in bringing Georgia and South Carolina under controlin1779 and 1780, but the Loyalist surge was far weaker thanexpected.In 1781 British forces moved through Virginia, but theirescape wasblocked by a French naval victory. Washington tookcontrol of aFranco-American siege at Yorktown and captured theentire Britishforce of over 7,000 men. The defeat at Yorktownfinally turned theBritish Parliament against the war, and in early1782 voted to endoffensive operations in North America. The waragainst France andSpain continued however, with the Britishdefending Gibraltaragainst a long running Franco-Spanish siege,whilst the Britishnavy scored key victories, especially the Battleof the Saintes in1782. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the warand recognized thesovereignty of the United States over theterritory bounded roughlyby what is now Canada to the north,Florida to the south, and theMississippi River to the west. Francegained its revenge and littleelse except a heavy national debt,while Spain acquired Britain'sFlorida colonies.