International Tension, Quickening Change
1911 China Becomes a Republic
1908 Henry Ford Produces Model T
1880–1900 European Imperialism Subdivides Africa
Imperialism has been defined as the extension of control, whether direct or indirect, territorial or commercial, political, economic, or social, by one group over another. This practice is as old as humans, but it came strongly into play in the European expansionism of the early modern era (1500 –1790). Subsequently, in the final decades of the 19th century and spurred by the needs of industrialization for assured raw materials and guaranteed markets, it led to the partition and eventual conquest of Africa by European powers. Political and military factors also played an important role because of the inter-European struggles among Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Though African societies fought against European designs and invasions, they were repeatedly defeated. By 1900, most of Africa was governed by seven European nations.
1905 Albert Einstein Publishes “Special Relativity” Theory
1903 Wright Brothers Invent Airplane
1901-1917 Progressive Reform Era in the United States
Figure 24. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders plant the American flag atop Cuba’s San Juan Hill. Image courtesy of William Dinwiddie.
1901 U.S. Steel Syndicate Formed
1898 Spanish-American War
A fierce depression from 1893 –1897 set the Unted States on a path toward war with Spain over Cuba. Persuaded that the depression’s cause was overproduction and lack of overseas markets, President William McKinley declared in 1895: “No worthier cause than the expansion of trade can engage our energies.” From this point of view, the Cuban resistance to Spanish colonialism that broke into open rebellion in 1895 constituted an excellent opportunity to increase American commerce. It also gave the United States a chance to destroy one of the last remnants of European empire in the New World and remove an affront to the Monroe Doctrine of continental independence. Unlike Europe’s experience in India or Africa, American success in Cuba generated no occupying military force or colonial administration. Moreover, with victory in the Spanish-American War, United States investment in the Caribbean region soared. In 1900 American investments in the Caribbean amounted to $100 million. A decade later they had reached $1.5 billion. Supplemented by the provisional annexation of the Philippines, America’s invisible empire stretched halfway around the globe. SEE FIGURE 24
1889 Orange County Formed
1900–1915 California Impressionists Enrich Art
During the 1870s and 1880s local residents often voiced a desire to form a new administrative area south of Los Angeles. In 1889, after years of entreaty by Max Strobel, first mayor of Anaheim, and in response to pressure from merchants and landowners in the Santa Ana Valley, Republican E. E. Edwards of Santa Ana, the region’s lone assemblyman, introduced a bill in the California legislature to create Orange County. After intensive lobbying by Santa Ana’s founder, Democrat William H. Spurgeon, and by a Republican leader, James McFadden of Newport, the bill passed both houses and was signed into law in March 1889. It called for a vote of residents and required a two-thirds majority for the new county to be established. Despite scattered opposition, the measure passed 2,500 to 500 in a special election of June 1889. At its founding, there were only three incorporated cities in Orange County — Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Orange — and a total population of 15,000.
1898 Spanish-American War
1889 Orange County Formed
1880–1900 European Imperialism Subdivides Africa
INTERNATIONAL TENSION, QUICKENING CHANGE
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