European Events

1800’s-Early 1900’s

Victorian Era• Queen Victoria was the

symbol of British life from 1837-1901.

• She ruled longer than anyone in British history.

• In reality, she had little to do with politics but she did set the tone for what is today known as the Victorian Era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era

Victorian Ideals

• Victorian ideals included duty, thrift, honesty, hard work and above all respectability.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.koshka-the-cat.com/queen/1873/queen1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://

Queen Victoria’s England• When Victoria ascended to the throne, England

was essentially agrarian and rural; upon her death, the country was highly industrialized and connected by a massive railway network.

• Such a transition was not smooth by any stretch of the imagination, nor were the early decades of the period without incident.

• The first decades of Victoria's reign witnessed a series of epidemics (typhus and cholera, most notably), crop failures and economic collapses.

Victorian Images

• What do you notice about the following images?

http://www.cshouse.org/Images/vic.jpg

Queen Victoria

1837-1901

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0762409150.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

http://www.ruscelli.com/images/Image116.jpg

http://www.terragalleria.com/images/us-ca/usca9921.jpeg

http://www.cl.utoledo.edu/canaday/quackery/wom5.gif

The Great HungerThe Irish Potato Famine

The Great Hunger 1845-1849

• The Famine was due to the appearance of "the Blight" – the potato fungus that almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for the majority population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine

Impact

• Much is unrecorded, and various estimates suggest that between 500,000 and more than one million people died in the five years from 1846 to 1851 as a result of hunger or disease.

• Some two million refugees are attributed to the Great Hunger and much the same number of people emigrated to Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia. = The Irish Diaspora

Genocide

• The deliberate attempt to eliminate a race or ethnic group.

An Act of Genocide• 1. The potato was diseased.

• 2. The British took the other crops/grains that could have been consumed as a substitute for the potato.

• 3. The British took and sold the crops/grains for a profit leaving little to no food for the Irish.

• 4. The act is considered by many to be an intentional act of genocide on the Irish by the British.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Famine#Suggestions_of_genocide

Famine Memorial in Dublin

Irish Demands

• Irish demands for self rule (home rule) increased.

• The debate dragged on for years.

• In 1914 Parliament passed a home rule bill.

• It was delayed however due to the outbreak of WWI.

Division in France

The Dreyfus Affair

Alfred Dreyfus

• Captain in the French Army

• Has access to many military secrets

• Jewish

• Scapegoat

• In 1894 Dreyfus was arrested on charges of spying for Germany.

• The French government claimed to have much evidence against him but could not share it in court as it was “top secret”.

• The real problem was that Dreyfus was disliked due to high rank in the military. He was the first Jew to reach such a high ranking position.

• Dreyfus was condemned to Devils Island.• He left proclaiming his innocence.• Eventually a novelist (Emile Zola) uncovered

the real spy.

• Dreyfus was eventually cleared of all charges and was issued the French Medal of Valor.

• The real spy had so much political power that he was cleared of all charges and then fled the country. http://www.fengshui88.co.nz/images/

devisle.jpg

Impact of the Dreyfus Affair

• Dreyfus Affair = Rise of Anti-Semitism

Demands for a Jewish State

• The Dreyfus Affair in France and the Pogroms in Russia stirred Jewish leaders into action.

• In 1896, Herzl a journalist published The Jewish State. It called for Jews to form their own separate state, where they would have rights and freedoms denied to them in European countries.

= ZIONISM