117. General strike

Estonia, a small country in northern Europe had a population of about 1.325 million people in 2012. When Estonia joined the European Union in 2004, healthcare workers began leaving Estonia for other countries with better pay and working conditions, such as Finland, where physician salaries were as much as four times greater. The ageing and shrinking healthcare force had become increasingly overburdened with the country’s healthcare demands.

The 1960’s saw a surge in activism on college campuses in the United States. One of the fights occurring on college campuses was demands for ethnic studies programs and the admission of more students of color. Brooklyn College students joined this fight in 1969.

Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia has spent almost two decades as a quasi-authoritarian state with the ruling Republican Party controlling most of its political, economic, and social institutions. Serzh Sargsyan became President in 2008 and under his rule, Armenia endured slow economic growth, high unemployment rates, and corruption.

World War I broke out on 28 July 1914, pitting an alliance spearheaded by Germany and Austria-Hungary against the forces of the United Kingdom (UK), France, Russia, and their allies. Due to paradigm shifts in military technology, the war quickly turned continental Europe into a charnel house. Nations soon found themselves requiring more manpower than ever before to maintain their war efforts.