Armenian Genocide

Also know as the Great Calamity and the Armenian Massacre, the Armenian Genocide is the mass killing of over one and a half million Armenians from 1915 to 1923. To this day the Turkish Government denies that any atrocities ever took place; no murders, no rapes, no deportations. But despite the controversy, history still accounts the Armenian Genocide as the first Genocide of the 20th century. The ones responsible for this massacre are known as the "Young Turks" whose primary goal at the time was to get the Armenians out of the Ottoman Empire. What may have started as just a deportation of these people, relocating them elsewhere, soon turned much worse. Those who were forced to move from their homes in Armenia to Syria, not only faced starvation but cruel acts of violence and torture. It wasn't long before the walks of this "deportation" became death marches, women and children were being abducted, raped, and murdered along the way.

Women During WWI

 

Women were typically "homemakers" before World War 1; cleaning, cooking, sewing. But women all over the world experienced an extreme transition in their lifestyle during the war years. With men going off to war, there were hundreds of thousands of jobs that needed to be filled. In many industries the number of women employed increased greatly. In Britain almost two million women took the jobs of men that were off fighting and in Austria a million women joined the workforce. Some of the most common roles of women during WWI were nurses, factory workers, sewing bandages, and building ships. Plus many more other positions in engineering and industries. A survey in 1917 actually found that 68% of women had different jobs than when the war started. However some places like Germany opposed women joining into the workforce, seeing as they were more willing to work for less pay and possibly more hours than men, many feared women would take their jobs. The job opportunities women were given during WWI showed the world that women were capable of much more than what was previously thought of them.