During the second half of the nineteenth century Britain was able to avoid much of the revolution and instability that was so rife on the continent by addressing the reforming movement gradually. The two political parties at the time were the Whigs and the Tories. The Whigs were the liberal party who generally benefitted from any enlargement of the electorate, but the Tories wanted to control the reforming process nonetheless (probably to score political points with the electorate). The Whigs were led by William Gladstone and the Tories were led by Benjamin Disraeli, collectively the two men would serve as Prime Minister for more than twenty years.

The Peasant’s War took place in Germany between 1524 and 1525. It began when a large proportion of the rural peasant population rose up to demand an end to manorialism, the economic and social hierarchy of feudalism that made the peasants the subjects of the lord who owned the land on which they lived and worked. It famously appalled Martin Luther, who supported the German princes in their violent repression of the rebellion.

Cardinal Richelieu was the chief advisor to King Louis XIII, one of the most important French monarchs. Richelieu and Louis XIII undertook a massive project to strengthen the French economy and centralize power under the monarchy. One of the steps taken by Richelieu was the institution of what is called the “intendant system.” Under this system, the administration of France’s various provinces was taken out of the hands of the nobility and given to bourgeois officials who owed allegiance only to the king.

The French Wars of the Fronde were fought during the early years of the reign of King Louis XIV (the Sun King). The Frondeurs were noblemen who were frustrated by the centralizing mission of the French monarchy. They wanted to destabilize and decentralize government to reduce the power of the monarchy and increase their own influence. They were defeated by the monarchy, who were aided by the bourgeoise and the peasantry.

In 1628, Parliament and the British King, Charles I, were engaged in a power struggle. Charles wanted Parliament to raise money to fund wars being fought on the continent, but Parliament refused to do so unless Charles signed the Petition of Rights, which included all of the listed answer choices except the demand for freedom of speech for members of Parliament; this would come later with the Glorious Revolution. Charles dismissed Parliament, but was forced to recall them after defeat in another war.

After the dictatorship of Cromwell came to an end, the Stuart family was restored to the throne in Britain. The Tories and the Whigs quickly emerged as the two dominant political parties in Parliament. The Tories were composed of noblemen and lower gentry, favored the supremacy of the monarchy over Parliament, and wanted to make Anglicanism the state religion of Britain. They were therefore not in favor of religious tolerance.

As Napoleon and the Grand Army marched across Europe conquering country after country, they also spread the ideals that had begotten the Napoleonic Era in the first place: liberalism, republicanism, and perhaps most importantly, nationalism. In Germany and Austria, Napoleon consolidated the several hundred princely German states into twenty or so confederations and in doing so roused nationalist sentiments in Germany and Austria.

According to Karl Marx, the class-based and economic progression of society was inevitable. It begins with communalism, where everyone worked the fields and shared in the agricultural bounty. It then proceeds to slavery, autocracy, and feudalism. Following feudalism is commercialism (the rise of the middle class and mercantilism), followed shortly thereafter by capitalism. Capitalism then creates an entrenched working class (the proletariat) who become more and more disenfranchised in society until they affect revolution and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, or socialism. This is then finally replaced by communism whereby everyone has an equal share in the production and consumption of everything.

Robert Owen owned a mill and factories in Scotland and attempted to demonstrate that the Industrial Revolution did not have to exploit the workers in order to be profitable. He limited working days to ten hours, provided education for the children of his workers, made his factories safe and sanitary, and established paid leave for sick workers. His innovations inspired many (as did the fact that his factory continued to be profitable), but his ideas of utopian socialism never spread to mainstream British society.

The Nuremberg Laws were anti-Semitic legislation passed by the Nazis which, among other things, forbade marriage and sexual relations between Jews and Germans and invalidated any already existing marriages between Jews and Germans. The Nuremberg trials were proceedings held after World War II in which Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes.