Imperialism Basics
This is the term for when a stronger nation takes control of a weaker nation's political, economic, and social life.
Answer: What is imperialism?
$100 — These were zones carved out of China by foreign powers, each of which had exclusive trading and legal rights in a specific region.
Answer: What are Spheres of Influence?
$100 — During World War I, Britain made this promise to Arab leaders, pledging support for Arab independence in exchange for their help fighting the Ottoman Empire.
Answer: What is the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence (1915–1916)?
$100 — These Indian soldiers were employed by the British East India Company and served as the backbone of British military power in India.
Answer: Who are Sepoys?
$100 — For over 200 years, Japan maintained a strict policy of isolation from the Western world under this feudal military government.
Answer: What is the Tokugawa Shogunate?
This belief of racial superiority was among the key reasons Western nations pursued imperial expansion.
Answer: What is Social Darwinism/"White Man's Burder"?
$200 — Great Britain began importing this addictive substance into China in order to correct a major trade imbalance in China's favor.
Answer: What is opium?
$200 — In this 1917 letter, the British government expressed support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, a direct contradiction to promises made to Arab leaders.
Answer: What is the Balfour Declaration?
$200 — This was one of the most significant triggers of the Sepoy Mutiny, as soldiers were ordered to use rifles tainted with these materials, offensive to both Hindu and Muslim soldiers.
Answer: What is the inclusion of pork and beef fat in the gunpowder cartridges?
$200 — This American naval officer arrived in Japan in 1853 with a fleet of heavily armed steamships, demanding that Japan open its ports to American trade.
Answer: Who is Commodore Matthew Perry?
This is the term for the process by which colonized nations broke free from the control of their colonial rulers and gained independence.
Answer: What is decolonization?
$300 — This company acted as Great Britain's main commercial and political arm in Asia during the 19th century.
Answer: What is the British East India Company?
$300 — This secret 1916 agreement between Britain and France secretly divided the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire between the two European powers, contradicting promises of Arab independence.
Answer: What is the Sykes-Picot Agreement?
$300 — Following the Sepoy Mutiny, Britain dissolved the British East India Company and established this government.
Answer: What is the establishment of the British Raj (direct Crown rule)?
$300 — Victory in these two wars demonstrated the rapid improvement of Japanese military technologies
Answer: what are the Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War?
How did the Industrial Revolution lead to imperialism?
Answer: New technologies and need for raw materials
$400 — Signed after China's defeat in the First Opium War, this treaty forced China to give up Hong Kong and open several ports to British trade.
Answer: What is the Treaty of Nanking (1842)?
$400 — These conflicting British promises created lasting tension because both Jewish Zionists and Arab nationalists believed they had been promised control over this same territory.
Answer: What is Palestine?
$400 — Gandhi called for this kind of protest
Answer: What is nonviolent protest?
$400 — This period of rapid modernization and industrialization, beginning in 1868, transformed Japan from a feudal society into a modern imperial power modeled after the West.
Answer: What is the Meiji Restoration?
An imperial power takes over these two aspects of society.
Answer: What is the economy and the political structure?
$500 — The Opium Wars resulted in these types of unfair agreements being forced upon China by European powers. [HINT: direct translation of unfair agreements]
Answer: What are unequal treaties?
$500 — Britain's inability to resolve these conflicting promises eventually led it to hand this ongoing dispute over to this newly formed international organization in 1947, which then voted to partition Palestine.
Answer: What is the United Nations (UN)?
$500 — This 1930 act of civil disobedience, in which Gandhi and his followers marched 240 miles to the sea to make their own salt, became one of the most iconic moments of the Indian independence movement.
Answer: What is the Salt March (Dandi March)?
$500 — The Meiji Restoration caused Japan to abandon this specific aspect of the Tokugawa period entirely, transforming its social structure by abolishing the traditional feudal class system, including the powerful warrior class that had dominated Japanese society for centuries.
Answer: What is the samurai/feudal class system (abolition of the samurai)?