•  Catch-22 is a 1961 novel by American novelist Joseph Heller. Although primarily classified as an anti-war novel, Catch-22 is also a critique of bureaucracy in general. The phrase "catch-22" has come into common use to mean a cyclical conundrum, or "no-win situation" based on its meaning in the book as described below. A Catch-22 situation is also inherently self-defeating: the very act of performing it prevents it from happening.

•  The Axis Powers is a term for those participants in World War II opposed to the Allies. The 3 major Axis powers, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the Empire of Japan, referred to themselves as the "Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis". The Axis powers ruled empires that dominated large portions of Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, but they were ultimately defeated in the end of World War II. Like the Allies, membership of the Axis was fluid, and some nations entered and later left the Axis during the course of the war.

•  There were two Boer wars , one from December 16, 1880-March 23, 1881 and the second from October 11, 1899-May 31, 1902 both between the British and the settlers of Dutch, French and German origin (called Boers, Afrikaners or Voortrekkers) in South Africa that put an end to the two independent republics that they had founded.

•  The Battle of Britain is the name for the attempt by Germany's Luftwaffe to gain air superiority of British airspace and destroy the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World war II. Neither Hitler or the German Wehrmacht perceived it possible to carry out a successful amphibious assault on the British Isles until the RAF had been knocked out. Secondary objectives were to destroy aircraft production and to terrorize the British people with the intent of intimidating them into seeking an armistice or surrender. The campaign was launched as preparation for a planned invasion of Great Britain called Operation Sea Lion.

•  Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (December 19 ( O.S. December 6 ) 1906 – November 10, 1982) was effective ruler of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, though at first in partnership with others. He was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, and was twice Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (head of state), from 1960 to 1964 and from 1977 to 1982. Brezhnev ruled the Soviet Union longer than any man except Stalin, but his posthumous reputation is very low, both in Russia and among historians. He is blamed for a prolonged "era of stagnation", in which fundamental economic problems were ignored and the Soviet political system was allowed to decline.

•  “Crossing the Rubicon” is a phrase connoting the passage of a point of no return. The phrase refers to Julius Caesar's invasion of Ancient Rome, when, on January 10, 49 BC, he led his army across the Rubicon river in violation of law, hence making conflict inevitable. The point of no return or the Rubicon is the point at which someone, or some group of people, must continue on their current course of action. Either they physically cannot turn back, or doing so would be prohibitively expensive or dangerous.

•  The Cuban Missile Crisis was a tense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis began on October 14, 1962 and lasted for 38 days until November 20, 1962. It is regarded as the moment when the Cold War was closest to becoming nuclear war, and which could have turned into World War III. Russians refer to the Cuban Missile Crisis as the "Caribbean Crisis" and Cubans refer to it as the "October Crisis".

•  Dien Bien Phu is a small town in northwestern Vietnam in the province of Dien Bien. It is best known as the site of the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, fought between the Viet Minh (led by Ho Chi Minh) and France. The battle is significant in that it ended major French involvement in Indochina, and led to the accords which partitioned Vietnam into North and South.

•  Friedrich Engels (November 28, 1820–August 5, 1895) was a 19th-century German political philosopher. With his partner, the better known Karl Marx, Engels developed communist theory, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto (1848). Engels also edited several volumes of Das Kapital after Marx's death.

•  Glorious Revolution refers to the generally popular overthrow of James II of England in 1688. The event is sometimes referred to as the "Bloodless Revolution", but this name is not accurate; some modern historians prefer the more neutral "Revolution of 1688".The Revolution of 1688 was one of the most important events in the long evolution of powers possessed by Parliament and by the Crown in England. With the passage of the Bill of Rights, it stamped out any final possibility of a Catholic monarchy, and ended moves towards monarchical absolutism in the British Isles by circumscribing the monarch's powers. Since 1689, England, and later the United Kingdom, has been governed under a system of constitutional monarchy, which has been uninterrupted.The success of the revolution came three years after the failure of the Monmouth Rebellion to overthrow the king.