• Mutual assured destruction ( MAD ) is the doctrine of military strategy in which a full scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the very same weapons.
• Joseph Stalin (Josef Vissarionovich Stalin), (Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli), Georgian: (Ioseb Jughashvili); December 6 (OS)/December 18 (NS), 1878 – March 5, 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953), a position which had later become that of party leader.Stalin became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1922 and following the death of Vladimir Lenin, he prevailed over Leon Trotsky in a power struggle during the 1920s. In the 1930s Stalin eliminated effective political opposition both within the Party and among the population and consolidated his authority with the Great Purge, a period of widespread arrests and executions which reached its peak in 1937, remaining in power through World War II and until his death..Stalin's cult of personality, his concentration of power and the means of its execution has led to a common characterization of him as a dictator and to an opinion that he was personally responsible, directly or indirectly, via his policies, for millions or tens of millions of deaths and unjust imprisonments in the Soviet Union.
• A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more persons nonviolently occupying an area for protest, often political, social, or economic change. Sit-ins were first employed by Mahatma Gandhi in Indian independence movement and were later expanded on by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others during the American Civil Rights Movement. In the 1960s students used this method of protest during the student movements such as the protests in Germany.In a sit-in, protesters seat themselves and remain seated until they are evicted, usually by force, or until their requests have been met. Sit-ins have been a highly successful form of protest because they cause disruption that draws attention to the protest and by proxy the protesters' cause. The forced removal of protesters and sometimes the answer of non-violence with violence often arouses sympathy from the public, increasing the chances of the demonstrators reaching their goal. Sit-ins usually occur indoors at businesses or government offices but they have also occurred in plazas, parks, and even streets.A sit-in is similar to a sitdown strike. However, whereas a sit-in involves protesters, a sitdown strike involves striking workers occupying the area in which they would be working and refusing to leave so they can not be replaced with scabs. The sitdown strike was the precursor to the sit-in. Sit-ins were an integral part of the non-violent strategy of civil disobedience that ultimately ended racial segregation in the United States. The Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Congress of Racial Equality and FOR conducted sit-ins as early as the 1940s, but the first nationally publicized sit-in was at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960 .
• Nicola Sacco (April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were two Italian anarchists, who were arrested, tried, and electrocuted in Massachusetts in 1927 on charges of murder of a shoe factory paymaster named Frederick Parmenter and a security guard named Alessandro Berardelli, and of robbery of $15,766.51 from the factory's payroll, although there was much doubt regarding their guilt. The murders and robbery occurred in April of 1920, with three robbers. Both Sacco and Vanzetti had alibis, but they were the only people accused of the crime. Judge Webster Thayer, who heard the case, allegedly described the two as "anarchist bastards".
"And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support."
Richard M. Nixon, November 3, 1969
• "Silent Majority" is a term used by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a 1969 speech. It refers to the large number of people in a country or group who do not express their opinions publicly. Specifically, when Nixon used it for the first time, it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time, who did not engage in riots, and who did not join in the counterculture; who did not enthusiastically participate in public discourse or the media but expressed their devotion to the conservative conception of the American Way of Life through silently voting for Nixon. The unstated intention was to squelch political dissent that threatened Nixon by casting the dissenters as somewhat un-American.
• William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801–October 10, 1872) was United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. As Secretary of State, he fought for the U.S. purchase of Alaska which he finally negotiated to acquire from Russia for $7,200,000 on March 30, 1867. He had claimed that the United States must move westward. This translated into approximately 2 cents per acre ($4.94 per km²) for 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km²) of territory, more than twice the size of Texas. The purchase of this frontier land ("Seward's Icebox") was mocked as "Seward's Folly" and Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden". Currently, Alaska celebrates the purchase on Seward's Day, the last Monday of March.
• coup d'état (pronounced /ku de 'ta/), or simply a coup , is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures. It is different from a revolution, which is staged by a larger group and radically changes the political system. The term is French for "(a sudden) blow (or stroke) to a state". The term coup can also be used in a casual sense to mean a gain in advantage of one nation or entity over another; e.g. an intelligence coup . By analogy, the term is also applied to corporations, etc; e.g. a boardroom coup .
• Communism refers to a theoretical system of social organization and a political movement based on common ownership of the means of production. As a political movement, communism seeks to overthrow capitalism through a workers' revolution and establish a classless society. A major force in world politics since the early 20th century, modern communism is generally associated with The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, according to which the capitalist profit-based system of private ownership is replaced by a communist society in which the means of production are communally owned. This process, initiated by the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie, passes through a transitional period marked by the preparatory stage of socialism ( see Leninism). Communism is now mainly understood to refer to the political, economic, and social theory of Marxist thinkers, or life in conditions of Communist party rule.
• The Internationale ( L'Internationale in French) is the most famous socialist (and anarchist) song and one of the most widely recognized songs in the world. The original (French) words were written in 1870 by Eugène Pottier (1816–1887, later a member of the Paris Commune). Pierre Degeyter (1848–1932) set the poem to music in 1888. (It was originally intended to be sung to the tune of La Marseillaise .)The Internationale became the anthem of international revolutionary socialism. Its refrain: C'est la lutte finale/Groupons-nous et demain/L'Internationale/Sera le genre humain. (Freely translated, this means: "This is the final struggle/Let us join together and tomorrow/The International/Will embrace all the human race.") The Internationale has been translated into scores of languages. Traditionally it is sung with the right hand raised in a clenched-fist salute.In many European countries, the song was illegal around the beginning of the 20th century because of its communist image and government-undermining lyrics.
• Guernica is one of the most famous paintings by Pablo Picasso, depicting the consequences of the bombing of Guernica. Picasso, commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to paint a picture to decorate the Spanish Pavilion during the Paris International Exposition (the 1937 World's Fair in Paris), created this massive Cubist work. The bombing of Guernica was an aerial attack on April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War by the German Luftwaffe squadron known as the Condor Legion against the Basque city of Guernica. It was the first aerial bombardment in history in which a civilian population was attacked with the apparent intent of producing total destruction.
