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| | Marie Curie, a brilliant female Polish scientist who moved to Paris, discovered radioactivity along with her less talented husband Pierre. Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, put together the periodic table of elements that is still taught today. British physician Joseph Lister applied Pasteur’s germ theory of disease and implemented an antibacterial cleaning technique for hospital tools and facilities, greatly reducing the number of infections. | | Marie Curie, a brilliant female Polish scientist who moved to Paris, discovered radioactivity along with her less talented husband Pierre. Dmitri Mendeleev, a Russian chemist, put together the periodic table of elements that is still taught today. British physician Joseph Lister applied Pasteur’s germ theory of disease and implemented an antibacterial cleaning technique for hospital tools and facilities, greatly reducing the number of infections. |
| | + | ==Nationalism== |
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| | + | Nationalism was a concept that arose around the same time as Romanticism. Nationalists believed loyalty to one’s nation was of utmost importance. They felt that society should be viewed as a whole, rather than as being made up of individuals. In Germany and Italy, nationalism inspired unification, where only loose connections had existed before (recall that Germany and Italy became nations much later than France and England). |
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| | + | The Congress of Vienna had left the independent city-states of Italy under Austrian control in the north and Spanish control in the south and had established Germany as a weak confederation of 39 states. But nationalism in the 19th century (1800s) changed all this. |
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| | + | ===Italy=== |
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| | + | In Italy, a prominent nationalist named Giuseppe Mazzini began to argue strongly for the unification of Italy as one nation, and formed the “Brotherhood of Young Italy” in 1831. Mazzini’s call for unification was premature, however; the rulers of the various Italian states were not ready to unite. But Mazzini’s efforts were not in vain. Twenty years later, a fierce patriot and former member of the Brotherhood of Young Italy named Giuseppe Garibaldi led a revolution in Southern Italy, while King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont and his prime minister Count Cavour led one in northern Italy. Garibaldi zealously rallied an army (composed entirely of volunteers) in Sicily and successfully overthrew the Spanish Bourbon king of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Count Cavour eliminated Austrian control in northern Italy and the Italian people voted to unite their country in 1861. Venice and Rome were both added to the union by 1870. |
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| | + | ===Germany=== |
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| | + | Germans were dissatisfied with the Confederation established by the Vienna settlement, and the Frankfurt Assembly attempted unsuccessfully to unify in 1848. Prussia, the strongest “German” state, established a “Customs Union” — which resembled a national market system — and parliament. King Wilhelm I of Prussia chose Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck in 1862. Fiercely patriotic to his native Prussia, Bismarck believed in “Realpolitik” (translation: “reality politics”) and sought to unify Germany under Prussian control. He believed the only way this could be done was by creating a war with a foreign adversary, which would have the effect of unifying the German people against the common enemy. |
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| | + | Bismarck’s motto by which he waged this war was “by blood and iron.” Lacking Parliament’s approval, Bismarck forced the northern states to join the Northern German Confederation. When the southern states would not also join, Bismarck tricked France into declaring the Franco-Prussian War, which Prussia won. This accomplished Bismarck’s goal of creating southern Germany, which was now willing to accept Prussian rule. Then, in 1871, the North and South were united into the new German Empire, the “Second Reich,” and Wilhelm was made “kaiser” (A German word for “Caesar” or emperor, used primarily between 1871 to 1918). Hence Germany became a nation. |
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| | == Imperialism == | | == Imperialism == |