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1867 CE

This year falls in the Age of revolutions and empire (1789–1914). Revolutions in France, Haiti and Latin America overturn old regimes, and industry, beginning in Britain, changes work, cities and war. European powers and the United States expand their reach, and by 1914 much of Africa and Asia is under colonial rule.

Dated to 1867 CE

Country · CanadaCanada1867–Canada is the second largest country in the world, stretching across northern North America. The British North America Act of 1867 created the Dominion of Canada. It is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy.

Within fifteen years

Ruler · Twentieth century · ChinaSun Yat-sen1866–1925Founder of the Republic of China, 1866 to 1925, called the father of modern China in both Taiwan and the mainland. His Revolutionary Alliance overthrew the Qing dynasty in the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, and he served briefly as provisional president in 1912. He founded the Kuomintang and allied it with the Soviet Union before his death.

Ruler · Twentieth century · RussiaVladimir Lenin1870–1924Leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, 1870 to 1924, born Vladimir Ulyanov, who created the first communist state. He seized power in Russia in October 1917, pulled Russia out of World War I, and won the civil war that followed. His New Economic Policy of 1921 retreated from full communism to save the economy.

Philosopher · Twentieth century · EnglandBertrand Russell1872–1970English logician, philosopher, and public campaigner who co wrote Principia Mathematica and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950. He moved from logic to pacifism to nuclear disarmament across a 98 year life, 1872 to 1970.

Country · ItalyItaly1861–Italy is a peninsula in southern Europe, heir to ancient Rome and the Renaissance. It was unified as a kingdom in 1861 after centuries of division. The modern republic was founded in 1946, after the fall of Mussolini.

Ruler · Twentieth century · United KingdomWinston Churchill1874–1965British prime minister for most of World War II, 1874 to 1965, who led Britain through its darkest years. His speeches in 1940 rallied the country after the fall of France. Voted out in 1945, he returned as prime minister from 1951 to 1955 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.

Philosopher · Age of revolutions and empire · CzechiaEdmund Husserl1859–1938Moravian born German thinker who founded phenomenology, the study of things as they appear to consciousness. His motto was back to the things themselves. He lived 1859 to 1938, stripped of his posts by the Nazis.

Ruler · Twentieth century · RussiaJoseph Stalin1878–1953General secretary of the Soviet Communist Party from 1922 and dominant ruler of the USSR until 1953. Forced collectivization, famine, and the mass operations of 1937–1938 were carried out under his authority.

Country · RomaniaRomania1878–Romania is a Balkan country on the Black Sea, heir to the Roman province of Dacia. Two principalities united in 1859, and full independence from the Ottoman Empire came in 1878. It is a semi presidential republic.

Ruler · Twentieth century · TurkeyMustafa Kemal Ataturk1881–1938Founder of the Republic of Turkey, 1881 to 1938, who built a modern secular state from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. His victory in the Turkish War of Independence ended the Allied partition of Anatolia. As president from 1923 he abolished the caliphate, replaced Arabic script with Latin, and remade Turkish law and education.

Ruler · Twentieth century · United StatesFranklin D. Roosevelt1882–1945Thirty second president of the United States, 1933 to 1945, born in 1882, the only president elected four times. His New Deal programs fought the Great Depression, and he led America through nearly all of World War II. He died in office in April 1945, weeks before Germany's surrender.

Ruler · Age of revolutions and empire · JapanMeiji1852–1912Emperor of Japan from 1867 to 1912, born Mutsuhito in 1852, in whose name Japan was transformed from a feudal state into a modern power. The Meiji Restoration abolished the shogunate, built railways, schools and a conscript army, and wrote a constitution. Japan defeated China in 1895 and Russia in 1905 under his reign.