Curated category
Totalitarian states
- Vichy FranceVichy France began on the 10th of July 1940, the day the French National Assembly voted by 569 votes to 80 to hand absolute power to an 84-year-old military…
- North KoreaNorth Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is a country that Amnesty International considers to hold the worst human rights record in…
- Slovak Republic (1939–1945)On the 14th of March 1939, the Slovak parliament gathered in Bratislava and voted unanimously to break away from Czechoslovakia.
- Socialist Republic of RomaniaOn the 25th of December 1989, Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad moments after a drumhead court-martial delivered its verdict.
- Fascist ItalyFascist Italy is the name given to the period from 1922 to 1943, when Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party ruled the Kingdom of Italy.
- Hungarian People's RepublicThe Hungarian People's Republic was born on the 20th of August 1949, when a newly elected parliament passed a constitution that was, by most accounts, a…
- Protectorate of Bohemia and MoraviaOn the 16th of March 1939, Adolf Hitler stood at Prague Castle and proclaimed that for a thousand years the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia had formed part…
- TurkmenistanTurkmenistan sits at the center of one of history's great crossroads. Bordered by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and the Caspian Sea, this…
- Empire of JapanThe Empire of Japan lasted 79 years, beginning with the Meiji Restoration on the 3rd of January 1868 and ending with the ratification of the Constitution of…
- Ba'athist IraqBa'athist Iraq came to power on the 17th of July 1968, when a small number of military units and civilian Ba'athists seized key government buildings in…
- AfghanistanAfghanistan has been called the graveyard of empires, and that nickname was not chosen lightly. Persians, Macedonians, Mongols, British, Soviets, and…
- Nazi GermanyNazi Germany lasted just twelve years, from 1933 to 1945, yet in that span it launched the deadliest war in human history and carried out the systematic…
- ManchukuoManchukuo lasted just thirteen years, from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945, yet it carried the grand title of empire and the trappings of a brand new…
- Italian Social RepublicThe Italian Social Republic existed for just 19 months, yet its name carries a weight that still shapes Italian politics today.
- Polish People's RepublicThe Polish People's Republic was born out of the ruins of a country that had lost nearly a third of its population in six years of war.
- Mongolian People's RepublicThe Mongolian People's Republic began with a renaming. In 1924, the ancient capital of Mongolia was rechristened Ulaanbaatar, meaning "red hero", and a new…
- People's Republic of BulgariaThe People's Republic of Bulgaria was born on the night of the 9th of September 1944, when communist guerrillas launched a coup that ended a monarchy and…
- People's Socialist Republic of AlbaniaOn the 10th of January 1946, a small Balkan nation declared itself a people's republic, and began one of the most isolated and doctrinaire communist…
- Soviet UnionOn the 26th of December 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev officially recognized the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ending nearly seven decades of Soviet rule.