HISTORICAL PERIOD 6: 1900-TODAY!
WWI, WWII and THE COLD WAR
AP LINGO: WWI, WWII AND THE COLD WAR:
The 20th century, at least up until 1990, was really based on 3
things:
1. WWI
2. WWII
3. The Cold War between Russia and America (The Cold War then
gave us Vietnam and the Korean War)
AP calls WWI and WWII TOTAL WARS. Why?
a. They involved the WHOLE WORLD
b. Also, the WHOLE country got involved; all of OUR resources
were used
For example: Coca Cola actually started making bullets and
General Motors started making tanks.
c. WOMEN took jobs the soldiers couldnt do at home. We even
started a womens baseball league cuz the Yankees went to war. This
is the movie League of Their Own
d. Both wars had THE DRAFT!!!
e. Armies used NUCLEAR and CHEMICAL weapons.
f. Japan, the Nazis etc. attacked other countries for power,
$$$, or natural resources.
g. Also, all of their African and Asian colonies got
involved
Actually, WWI and WWII are really simple and we will NOT spend
too much time on them. After all, u learned about them in Middle
School and Elementary School. If u get any question on the 20th
century, all of it applies.
WORLD WAR ONE (1914-1918)
The Good Guys:
France, England, Russia and The good ol US of A
The Bad Guys:
Germany, Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman
Empire
WORLD WAR 2: 1939-1945
Hitler kills himself: April 30th, 1945
July, 1945: we drop 2 atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
THE GOOD GUYS: THE ALLIED POWERS
America, England and Russia
THE BAD GUYS: THE AXIS POWERS
Germany (AGAIN), Italy and Japan
WWI Casualties: 30 MILLION DEAD/30 MILLION WOUNDED
WWII Casualties: 60 MILLION DEAD/60 MILLION WOUNDED
Definitions: Governments ideologies (NOT EVERYONE IS A
CAPITALIST LIBERAL DEMOCRACY)
1. Nationalism: When you love your country MORE than all other
countries.
And ya know what countries use to rile up their populations?
PROPAGANDA; art, posters, cartoons, movies, songs etc. Heres great
one from America. They were positive and helpful, but u get the
idea.
2. Fascism: The Nazis were fascists, meaning that they were
dictators AND racist. Very bad dudes.
*Remember, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis thought they were the
uber-race, better then everyone else. The Nazis didnt just kill
Jews, they killed gypsies, gays, African-Americans, the mentally
ill, the physically disabled etc.
3. Communism vs. Capitalism: Well learn about this in the pages
below
4. Liberalism: Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion
5. Socialism: The government owns everything! Kind of like
Communism but not exactly
]One of the worst consequences of WWI AND causes of WWII was the
GREAT DEPRESSION
AMERICA-1930S
The GREAT DEPRESSION was one of the main reasons WWII started.
After WWI, England and France were broke, the US had the great
Stock Market crash of 1929, and the Treaty of Versailles blamed
Germany for all of WWI. As a result, they were broke too. This
leads directly to WWII and Adolf Hitler.
The Great Depression was in the 1930s.
In America, unemployment was at 25%!!!!!!
When Obama took office in 2008 it was at 10%, now its at 5% but
for teenagers its at 30%
DONT 4GET WWII really started when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor
(Dec. 7th, 1941) and FDR declared WAR on the Axis Powers. B4 that,
of course, Hitler attacked Poland, Austria and France, and was
really close to defeating England and Winston Churchill. Hitler
made the stupid mistake of attacking Russia in 1942 as well.
And DONT 4GET that WWI kind of all started with the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (This is not AP Us
History after all)
WWI was the first industrialized war where we used tanks,
airplanes, machine guns and the flamethrower for the first time
ever. This time Germany was basically blamed as well and we made
them pay HUGE amounts of $$$ in the Treaty of Versailles.
Unfortunately, we made Germany so poor, and the Great Depression
was so bad, that we got Hitler and the Nazis instead (Well watch 2
short documentaries on WWI and WWII so you could take notes
then)
Of course, WWII ended with us dropping 2 nuclear bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
The consequences of either wars are more complicated:
The League of Nations----The United Nations
Women getting the right to vote (1920)
Russia becoming communist.
PART 2: THE COLD WAR
When WWII ended the world entered a period known as the COLD
WAR. It was America (the good guys) vs. the Soviet Union (the bad
guys). A battle of the 2 SUPERPOWERS!! Of course the situation was
a bit more complex but this is enough for our purposes. Also, if u
are interested in either SL or HL History Senior year, this is
where the class begins. It will be the COLD WAR that gives us
Vietnam and the Korean War.
You see, America was CAPITALIST while the Soviet Union (Russia)
was COMMUNIST.
CAPITALISM: Based on having a lot of money and the idea of
private property (American and French Revolutions)
COMMUNISM: No one is rich and no one is poor but the state owns
everything. Also, there is no Freedom of Speech and no Freedom of
the Press.
Capitalism is based on the writings of Adam Smith and John
Stuart Mill
Money is good Competition is good Greed is good
Freedom of Speech Freedom of Religion
The FREE MARKET: The idea that government should leave
businesses alone (economic liberalization) and let them do whatever
they want.
PROBLEM: we will have too many poor people, no minimum wage, and
children working in factories.
COMMUNIST COUNTRIES
1. RUSSIA TRUNS INTO THE SOVIET UNION
2. CHINA
3. VIETNAM
4. CUBA
5. NORTH KOREA
6. Some in Africa
7. Some in Latin America
8. My classroom where I am the dictator
CAPITALISM VS. COMMUNISM
Should education be free?
Should Health care be free?
Should there be a Minimum Wage?
Should men and women be treated equally?
How much should we pay in taxes?
We learned in Chapter 16: The Industrial Revolution that
unfettered capitalism gave us Child Labor, poverty, disease etc.
Thats why America got the 40 hr. work week, the Minimum Wage and
then some other stuff.
Communism was a response to the economic inequality of
Capitalism. The problem was that all throughout history you had a
few really rich peopleAND A LOT OF VERY POOR PEOPLE. So there were
a lot of countries that felt that capitalism as we knew it wouldnt
solve the RICH/POOR problem: 1% were rich/99% were poor.
This was basically kind of why the French Revolution started
also. I mean, the King and Queen had everything while the regular
people had nothing.
1. UNFORTUNATE FACT #1: The richest 85 people in the world have
more money than the bottom 3.5 billion/
2. UNFORTUNATE FACT #2: The Middle Class in America fell below
50% for the fisrt time since Vietnam in early 2016. (It was only on
the news for one hr. before being replaced by the Golden Globes
information)
3. UNFORTUNATE FACT #3: In America, 15% of us live below the
POVERTY LINE. Thats 45,000,000 people..
Communism was based on the writings of Karl Marx who said:
Communism would solve everything by making MONEY and PRIVATE
PROPERTY illegal. Theoretically everything would be owned by the
state. That way there would be NO RICH AND BE NO POOR. The world
would be a PERFECT UTOPIA (perfect world), like my classroom
There is a PROBLEM with this, however: Not everyone WANTS $$$$$
to be illegal, so in countries like Russia, China, North Korea and
Cuba, the leaders became dictators who took away peoples freedom of
speech and freedom of the press and freedom to travel.
***The ONLY reason my family was allowed to leave the Soviet
Union in 1979 when I was 2 years old is because my mom is Jewish
and communists hate religion.
So the Cold War lasted from 1945 (end of WWII) to 1991 when the
Soviet Union collapsed. I will give you a little history on Russia
at the end of the packet.
The Cold War gave us 2 other wars: 1) the Vietnam War and the
Korean War
We learned in the last chapter that some colonies achieved their
independence through non-violence (Mahatma Gandhi in India). Now we
will learn about one that achieved it through ARMED STRUGGLE;
Vietnam.
Remember how European countries took over smaller countries in
Africa? Well, they did the same in Asia. And the French had 3
countries in SE Asia (French Indo-China; Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia). After WWII we saved the French and they wanted their
colonies back. They wanted to STAY an imperialist power and the
United States actually supported the French even though we had just
defeated Adolf Hitler, another guy who was basically an
imperialist. It was the ultimate act of hypocrisy. And guess what,
the people of Vietnam wanted to be FREE just like the French wanted
to be FREE when the Germans attacked!!!
We wanted the French to take over Vietnam because we were
worried they would become communist. And when they DID become
communist the US fought a war to stop them even though they WANTED
to become communist.
The Vietnamese were led by a guy named HO CHI MINH, and he
couldnt BELIEVE that the US would support a colonial power (French)
and then not let them decide whether or not they wanted to become
capitalist or communist. Whatever happened to the Freedom of Speech
and stuff.
THE VIETNAM WAR
The Vietnam War was the most controversial war in American
History. It lasted from 1954-1975 and cost 50,000 American boys
their lives. It also cost millions of Vietnamese their loves.
It was also the first time we had THE DRAFT since WWII. In 1968
we sent 568,000 American teenagers all the way.across the world.
And Im talking the jungle here (cobras, tigers, jaguars etc.)
CASUALTIES:
American troops:
50,000 dead
150,000 wounded
5000 MIA!!!!!
Vietnam: 533,000
Cambodia: 200,000-300,000
Laos: 20,000-200,000 (who knows really)
You see, the Vietnamese people WANTED to become Communist, but
the United States wouldnt let them. Thats why we cancelled
Vietnamese elections in 1958. We thought that Russia was so evil,
that communism was so bad, and that the Cold War was so important
that we needed to WIN AT ALL COSTS
The Vietnam War was a PROXY WAR. That means it was an INBETWEEN
OR SUBSTITUTE WAR between the US and Russia. This is because BOTH
America and Russia had NUCLEAR WEAPOSN and nobody wanted to start
WWIII
OTHER CASUALTIES OF THE VIETNAM WAR
Agent Orange: 400,000 deaths.500,000
DEFORMITIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Agent Orange is a chemical spray filled with a deadly toxin
called dioxin which acts as an organic pollutant. That is, it kills
plants and trees. We would spray it from our airplanes with the
hope of killing all the trees in Vietnam so we could shoot the bad
guys! Great military strategy, huh!?
You see, the United States couldnt find the Vietcong in the
trees and the jungle so.their strategy was literally to kill all
the plants. Brilliant!
And then we were surprised when we found that that same spray
actually killed humans and animals as well?! And who it didnt kill
it deformed forever.
They say that we killed 400,000 civilians using Agent Orange and
caused over 500,000 birth defects. It also fell on our own
people.
** I dare you to go online and see what JFK and Agent Orange did
to the people of Vietnam. Warning: These images ARE graphic but
they are TRUE! Have fun!
*After WWII, American troops left a lot of women pregnant in the
Philippines. Nobody really knows who the dads are and the kids will
never see US shores.
** We have just started cleaning up many of the landmines in
Cambodia and Laos. Kids and farmers get killed all the time. (Vice:
Season 4 Episode 12)
So after 1945 we get Gandhi in India, Nelson Mandela in South
Africa, and now the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The 20th century moves
on.
PART 3:
HISTOR OF HOW RUSSIA GOT SO BAD
HISTORY OF HOW CHINA GOT SO BAD
RUSSIA
**DONT 4GET that Russia is 3X BIGGER than the United States
1. If you remember correctly, Russia was taken over by the
Mongols in the 1200s.
The Mongols were BRUTAL, destroying livestock, enslaving men,
and raping women. This is also the time that Moscow became the
capital.
2. Then the Byzantine Empire kind of moved in and helped create
the Russian language.
3. They also made Russian Eastern Orthodox Christian and thats
why my Grandmother has their cross on her grave
RUSSIAN: (Sophomores) ,
ENGLISH TRANSLATION: Ill never tell!
4. Then in the 1600s-1800s Russia started to industrialize. The
only country to do it not through Capitalism but through the
State.
Peter the Great- 1600s
Started the first Russian navy
Created the beautiful city of St. Petersburg near Finland (I was
there in the summer during White Nights when the sun never sets so
it was like dawn at 3:00 a.m.)
Made all the nobles learn French (Thats why my dad made me take
French in college even though I already spoke Russian)
Catherine the Great: The 1700s
Really ugly Queen of Russia (Kings are called czars and Queens
are called czarinas). This comes from the Latin word Ceasar.
Other czars: Alexander II, Nicholas I, Shtrakhman the
Superlord!
Unfortunately, Russia remained a backwards nation where 99% of
the population have nothing and 1%, the King and Queens have, have
everything. The people were poor, illiterate and hungry. This is
where COMMUNISM comes in and Russia becomes known asTHE SOVIET
UNION!! Again, we have the 1%/99% phenomenon.
Fast forward to THE YEAR 1917:
Russia is in the middle of WWI and losing MILLIONS of people to
war, poverty and famine.
A man named Vladimir Lenin starts a Communist Revolution THE
SOVIET UNION (1917-1991 when the Soviet Union finally collapses and
we win the Cold War).
And then in comes Josef Stalin. Stalin is SO BAD that America
and Russia will be in the Cold War
Stalin is a maniac who kills 7,000,000 in a famine
Executes 1000 per day with a bullet to the head
Sends 10,000,000 to the freezing priosns of Siberia
Drinks hot chocolate every single day!
Lenin and Stalin also take over the following countries of
Eastern Europe:
1. Romania4. Hungary7.Ukriane
2. Yugoslavia 5. Czechoslovakia8. Kazakstan
3. Poland 6. East Germany9. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
The only potentially positive aspects of communism are
a) They treat women and men THE SAME
b) They view ALL religions the SAMEalthough they HATE all of
them
The Cold War will bring us VERY CLOSE to WWIII because both
America and the Soviet Union will have about 10,000 NUCLEAR WEAPONS
EACH!!!
There are only 9 countries in the world with nukes. See if you
can name them:
1. 6.
2.7.
3.India 8.
4.Pakistan 9. (Unofficially)
AP LANG: The Cold War also produced new military alliances,
including NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and promoted proxy wars in
Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
A. Proxy wars: The Korean War, the Vietnam War
B. NATO Stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
It includes all the countries on the north Atlantic: USA,
Canada, England, Scandinavia, France etc. (It was our geographic
buffer against Russia)
C. THE WARSAW PACT: Russias response to NATO. It included all of
the countries of Eastern Europe Russia took over. It was kind of
like a FORCED NATO
D. NON-ALIGNED NATIONS Some countries never took sides in the
Cold war and remained non-aligned.
Luckily the Cold War ends in 1990 when the Soviet Union
collapses. Today it is once again known as Russia. Im afraid
communism just really cant work in the real word. Cuba is suffering
and China is basically capitalist but a dictatorship. Lets take a
look at China today.
HISTORY OF HOW CHINA GOT SO BAD
OK, if u remember correctly, China was the strongest country in
the world for like 2000 years. They gave us silk, the Silk Road,
gunpowder, Confucianism, Taoism, the Great Wall, wooden printing
blocks, great art, calligraphy, the first University, a very
sophisticated vocabulary etc. China was THE MAN!!!
Then, in the 1800s Europe and America started to take advantage
of her. Especially England with the Opium Wars and America with
Catholicism and Christianity.
ALSO DONT 4GET that China was essentially yet another country
plagued by 1000s of years of inequality, poverty, emperors,
patriarchy and pain. For 4000 years they had DYNASTY AFTER DYNASTY
and EMPEROR AFTER EMPEROR. They were the PERFECT EXAMPLE of the
1%/99% phenomenon.
Finally, in 1949 all that comes to an end and they became
Communist.
No more Emperors
No more dynasties
No more patriarchy (communism treats women the same)
No more religion (communism HATES religion)
And lets not even get into foot binding:
The MOST important person in Chinese history AFTER 1949 is
Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)
MAO IS IMPORTANT FOR TWO MAIN REASONS (BESIDES HAVING A HUGE
WART ON HIS FACE)
*Its true, communism treated women WAY BETTER than China, Japan,
Europe or any other historically patriarchal society.
**They also hated religion and felt that ALL OF THEM fooled
people: CHRISTIANITY,BUDDHISM, CONFUCIANISM, TAOISM, ISLAM, JUDAISM
ETC.
But MAO did 2 realllyyyyyyyyyy BAD THINGS
1. The Great Leap Forward : A disastrous farm policy that that
led to a FAMINE that killed 40 million people!!!!
2. The Cultural Revolution : A social cleansing that killed 5
million lawyers, teachers, writers, artists, students, and whoever
else was labelled a Capitalist pig. Led by Communist teenagers.like
U!)
If u remember correctly, communism hates the idea of PRIVATE
PROPERTY, so Mao made all the farmers give all their land and all
their animals to the Communist party. As a result, China had a
famine in the 1950s that killed 40,000,000 people!!! (The Great
Leap Forward)
You see, In China peasants never really owned the land: it all
belonged either to the Emperor or the local warlords. So one of the
things COMMUNISTS want to do is re-distribute the land. This
happened in ALL communist nations: Cuba, Vietnam, Latin America,
Asia, Africa etc. Either we all owned it, or no one owned it.
In some countries the communist leader would take ALL the land
and give each peasant a LITTLE. This was also known as land
re-distribution. This was true for communism or socialism which are
essentially the same thing: group or state ownership of
everything.
The problem is this doesnt always work because the individual
farmers want to keep their own stuff and their own animals. So
sometimes we get a massive famine: there was also a famine in
Russia in the 1930s that killed 7,000,000
And we kind of have this here in the United States too. See if u
can find any examples.
The communists also felt that anyone with an education (not 1st,
2nd or 5th hour) was a threat to communism cuz they could read.
They killed 5,000,000 writers, businessmen, artists, teachers,
doctors, lawyers etc. Business people were especially hated because
communism is the opposite of capitalism. This was the CULTURAL
REVOLUTION
Eventually Mao dies of Parkinsons Disease in 1976. This is when
China becomes the capitalist powerhouse it is today. Of course,
there is still no freedom fo speech, freedom of the press, or
actual elections. The following terms are outlawed on Chinese
internet:
1. Democracy
2. Human Rights
3. The Dalai Lama
4. Justine Bieber
HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS:
A. How were WWI and WII Total Wars?
B. What was the Great Depression and when did it happen?
C. What is the CONNECTION between WWI and WWII
D. What was the Cold War fundamentally about:
E. What is this 1%/99% phenomenon and how does it apply to BOTH
China and Russia?
F. Whats the DIFFERENCE between CAPITALISM/COMMUNISM?
G. GREAT QUESTION: What was so theoretically appealing about
communism?
H. HOW WAS THE VIETNAM WAR ACTUALLY A REVERSAL OF THE THINGS
AMERICA STANDS FOR?
I. LONG RESPONSE QUESTION #1: DO YOU THINK EVERYONE IN AMERICA
SHOULD HAVE HEALTH CARE EVEN IF THEY CANT AFFORD IT ?
________________________________________________________
J. LONG RESPONSE QUESTION #2: WAS IT RIGHT TO DROP THE ATOMIC
BOMB ON JAPAN EVEN THOUGH WE KILLED 100,000 CIVILIANS?
ASSIGNMENT #2: COMPLETE THE CROSSWORD PUZZLE
(DONT CHEAT!!!! UR ONLY CHEATING YOURSELVES )
ASSIGNMENT #3- MAP ASSIGNMENT
Grab a blank map of Europe and fill in/ color in the following
countries and their capitals. Use the purple textbooks as
before.
(CROSSWORD PUZZLE/OR VOCABULARY QUIZ WILL FOLLOW!!)
EUROPE:
1. ENGLAND: LONDON
2. FRANCE: PARIS
3. ITALY: ROME
4. GREECE: ATHENS
5. BELGIUM: BRUSSELS
6. HOLLAND: AMSTERDAM
7. NORWAY: OSLO
8. SWEDEN: STOCKHOLM
9. FINLAND: HELSINKI
10. DENMARK: COPENHAGEN
11. SPAIN: MADRID
12. PORTUGAL: LISBON
13. GERMANY: BERLIN
14. AUSTRIA: VIENNA
15. SWITZERLAND: BERN
16. POLAND-WARSAW
17. ROMANIA-BUCHAREST (PRONOUNCED BUHA-REST)
18. HUNGARY BUDAPEST (PRONOUNCED BUDA-PESHT)
PLEASE PICK UP THE
LAST CHAPTER: THE 21 CENTURY!!!
YEAY!!!!
