European Economic Community - an international organization of European countries formed after World War II to reduce trade barriers and increase cooperation among its members

Marshall Plan - a United States program of economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe

Great Leap Forward - the campaign undertaken by the Chinese communists between 1958 and early 1960 to organize its vast population

Cultural Revolution - China's Communist leader Mao Zedong launched what became known as the Cultural Revolution in order to reassert his authority

Cold war - a state of political conflict using means short of armed warfare

North Atlantic Treaty Organization - an international organization created in 1949 by the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of collective security

Warsaw Pact - a political and military alliance established on May 14, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries

Cuban Missile Crisis - A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba

Decolonization - the action of changing from colonial to independent status

Indian National Congress - broadly based political party of India

Mohandas Gandhi - an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethicist

Muslim League - political group that led the movement calling for a separate Muslim nation to be created

Globalization of Democracy - a social movement towards an institutional system of global democracy

Deng Xiaoping - Chinese communist statesman (1904-1997)

Mikhail Gorbachev - Soviet statesman whose foreign policy brought an end to the Cold War and whose domestic policy introduced major reforms

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians that began in the mid-20th century amidst the greater Arab–Israeli conflict

Iranian Revolution - popular uprising in 1978–79 that resulted in the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty and the establishment of an Islamic republic

Syrian Civil War - an ongoing violent conflict in Syria between pro-democratic insurgents and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's long-standing dynastic regime