4th Nine Weeks Notes

World War II
1930 - 1945

The Path to War
Japan’s Expansion in Asia – Japan wanted to acquire resources to fuel the growth of the Empire. In 1931, Japan took over Manchuria and later invaded many cities in China.
Italy’s Conquest of Ethiopia – In 1936, Italy invaded and took over Ethiopia.
Spanish Civil War – The transition between a monarch and a republic caused the civil war in Spain.
Hitler on the Offensive – Hitler would invade the Rhineland, then take over Austria, and finally would take over Czechoslovakia. In an effort to prevent war, the Munich agreement was reached. This agreement stated that Hitler would not seek any more territory in Europe.
Hitler would later sign a non-aggression pact with Russia that said the two countries would not attack each other.
War in Europe
In 1939, Germany introduced a new type of war to the world called “blitzkrieg,” which means lightning war. England and France could not react fast enough to prevent the capture of Poland.
A few months later, Hitler would take over Denmark and Norway and secure an outlet to the Atlantic Ocean.
England elected a new Prime Minister by the name of Winston Churchill.
In a matter of weeks, Germany would capture Belgium and France and force a massive evacuation of troops at Dunkirk.
The Battle of Britain was a 4 month air battle to gain air supremacy over the English channel.
After Dunkirk, Churchill appealed to America for help. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the British 50 old destroyers and set up a cash-and-carry policy. England would pay for all goods before they where shipped. After England ran out of cash, Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act in which war equipment was leased to other nations.
A Global Conflict
In 1941, Hitler launched an attack on the Soviet Union. Stalin appealed to his people to use scorched-earth policy or burn everything the enemy could use. The German’s defeat came at the hands of a cold Russian winter.
In 1941, Hilter started the Holocaust. This was the murder of more than 6 million Jews. In 1942, the Nazi plan a campaign of genocide, or killing of an entire group of people based on race, politics or culture.
In order to expand its empire, Japan decided to go to war with the United States and attack Pearl Harbor.
By December 11, 1941, the United States would be at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy.
Turning Points
The turning point in the Atlantic was the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. With this victory, Germany no longer had a surface threat.
In January 1942, the Allied forces began to gain ground in Africa. By November 1942, the Allies would drive the Germans out of Africa. By July 1943, the Allies would capture Sicily and invade Italy.
Allied Victories
On June 6, 1944, D-day invasion in the French providence of Normandy. The invasion was successful and allowed the Allies to gain a foothold in Europe. In August, American and Free French forces would enter Paris.
On the East, the Soviet Union pushed the German’s out of Soviet territory and back into Germany.
On May 7, Germany surrendered unconditionally.
In May 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met and Yalta. They agreed to form a international organization to maintain peace in the world (United Nations) and divide Germany and Berlin into 4 zones of occupations.
Months later, Roosevelt would die and Harry S. Truman would become the President.

The Cold War
1945 - 1979

The East-West Split
The United States and Soviet Union emerged from World War II as the world’s two superpowers. No other countries were equal to them in the military power or political influence.
In April 1945, representatives from 50 nations drafted the Charter of the United Nations. The UN resolved many problems but was powerless to resolve disputes between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Roosevelt believed that postwar cooperation with Stalin was possible, but he changed his mind toward the end of the war. By 1947, most of Eastern Europe had become Soviet satellites, or controlled by the Soviet Union.
Iron Curtain – referred to the Soviet-made barrier that split Europe into non-Communist and Communist.
The Truman Doctrine was the policy to contain the spread of communism and was first used in 1947 in Greece. This provided American military aid to any country threaten by communism. Now the United States had taken on international responsibility as the leader of the Western world.
Later, the Marshall Plan was an European aid program that helped restore the economies of Western Europe after the war.
The Western Allies (US, Britain, France) and the Soviets could not reach an agreement on a finial peace treaty. The Allies agreed to combined their zones and formed the city of West Berlin and West Germany. The Soviets formed East Germany and set it up as a Soviet satellite.
In order to block the merger, the Soviet cut off all routes into West Berlin. For the next year, the Allies would airlift the supplies to keep the city running. This would become known as the Berlin Airlift.
The United State, Britain, Canada and other Western European counties would create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This was a military alliance that if one member was attack, all members where attack. The Soviets countered this by setting up the Warsaw Pact.
International tension further increased as the two superpowers engaged in an arms race or a competition to strengthen their armed forces.
The Communist Bloc
Stalin would die in March 1953 and he would be succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev.
In an effort to reduce the cold war tensions, Khrushchev called for a policy of peaceful coexistence. The Soviets would compete with the West but would avoid war.
Each country successful built intercontinental ballistic missiles by the late 1950s.
The Soviet Union and the United States came to the brink of nuclear war in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In order to prevent such a crisis again, a “hot line” was established between Washington and Moscow.
Khrushchev would lose power in the 1970s and be replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. Brezhnev continued the arms race while Soviet farmers equipment was 20 years out of date.
Brezhnev started a policy of détente or relaxation with the US. This slowed down the pace of the arms race.
This period ended with the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets in 1979.
The Soviet began to follow the Brezhnev Doctrine. This policy declared that the Soviets could intervene in Communist states to counter any opposition that threatened communism or the unity of the Soviet bloc.
Western Europe
Great Britain took on a reduced role as a world power after World War II. Due to financial cutbacks and a slow recovering economy caused Britain to pass many of their international roles on to the United States.
Because of this, the British could no longer support a vast global empire. During the 1950s and 1960s, many of the colonies of Britain became independent countries.
It took several years for the French government to recovery from the war. After the threat of civil war in 1958, France established a strong government.
West Germany would become Europe’s most industrial nation after World War II. West Germany would become one of the worlds most stable democracies during the 1960s.
After World War II and the invention of atomic warfare, many European countries began to work together to prevent future wars. Many coordinated economic polices and ending trade barriers, these nations began to create successful economies. This would lead to the creation of the European Union in the late 1990s.
The United States and Canada
After World War II, the United States entered an era of economic growth that brought material wealth to a large group of Americans. The postwar “baby boom,” or soaring birth rates add many more consumers and promised economic growth.
Automation, a technique for operating a production system, increase the goods produced by factories.
By the 1950s, the “space race” had begun between the United States and the Soviets. The growth of America moved to the suburbs and the Highway Act of 1956 created thousands of miles of interstates. So the automobile and the TV would be the symbol of American prosperity.
Many people still feared communism. Julius and Ethel Rosenburg were tried, convicted, and executed for spying for Russia. In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy charged that Communist were conspiring in the federal government. This would bring about the term, McCarthyism.
The United States entered into many different treaty organization (NATO, CENTO, SEATO, OAS) to counter balance that of the Soviets.
Canada thrived after World War II. It changed from a primarily agricultural country to on of the world’s most important industrialized nations.
With the completion of the St. Lawerance Seaway, a system of locks and canals that allowed ships to travel between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, can became a worldwide industrial power.
Canada became a founding member of NATO. This would bring the United States and Canada into a close partnership during the cold war.
Canada became a middle power, one that is strong economically, if not militarily.

Korean and Vietnam Wars
1950 - 1970

Korean War
In 1910, the Korean Peninsula was annexed by the Japanese, who ruled it as a colony until the end of World War II.
At the end of the war, Russian troops occupied the area north of the 38th parallel and the United States occupied the area to the south. The two countries could not settle the difference for holding elections. Instead they formed 2 separate countries.
In June 1950, North Korea hoped to united Korea under a communist government invaded South Korea. The United Nations Security Council immediately condemned the invasion and organized an army to oppose it. Over 90% of the soldiers came from the United States.
In September 1950, the UN troops, led by United States General Douglas MacArthur launched a surprise invasion and push the North Koreans out of South Korea and almost into China.
At this point, Communist China came to the aid of the North and pushed the UN forces back to the 38th parallel. At this point the fighting had reached a stalemate, a situation in which two opponents are unable to move significantly.
After 2 years of peace talks and 5 million dead, the war ended with a divided Korea.
Vietnam War
In the late 1950s, American officials had accepted the domino theory – that if one Southeast Asian land fell to communism, its neighbor would fall as well.
By 1963, more than 16,000 American advisors were in Vietnam. The US approved secret South Vietnamese raids against North Vietnam. North Vietnam would attack two American destroyers off the coast of Vietnam.
President Lyndon Johnson used this to get Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which gave the President broad war powers. By March 1965, the first ground troops would arrive in Vietnam
Chain and the Soviets would send weapons but no troops to help the North. The US had more troops and greater technology but could not defeat the Communist.
Antiwar attitudes spread within the United States and around the rest of the world.
Johnson decided not to run for reelection due to the war. Richard Nixon would be elected President in 1968.
Soon, the United States began withdrawing troops and by 1973 a cease-fire was in place between the North and the South.
The war would resume in 1975 and the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong would defeat the South and reunite Vietnam as a communist state.

The World of Transition
1980 - Present

The End of the Cold War
In the 1980s, the United States had problems with a budget deficit, the government spent more money that it took in. In 1980, Ronald Regan was elect President and began to cut spending on social programs and lower taxes. This would slow inflation and the economy would improve.
In the mid-1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union. Under his policy of glasnost, openness, he allowed freedom of expression and eased harsh measures against critics. He made a move toward limited free enterprise to improve the Soviet economy.
He reduced the number of troops and encouraged other communist nations to make reforms. This would lead to the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
The End of the Cold War
In 1991, hardliners in the military and secret police staged a coup to remove Gorbachev from power and restore the old order. Boris Yelstin became the heroic leader that ended the coup.
By September, all the Soviet republics had announced their independence from the Soviet Union.
With the mounting disorder in Russia increased, Western concerns about foreign dictators and terrorists buying and stealing Soviet-era nuclear technology.
The Crumbling Wall
In 1989, Communist governments in Eastern Europe crumbled under the weight of staggering problems. All the satellite countries had ruined economies, environmental damage, and internal ethnic conflicts.
On November 9, 1989, the gates to the Berlin Wall were opened. The fall of the Berlin Wall is considered as the event that started the fall of Communism.
The post-Communist era not only brought economic but political instability and wide spread violence to countries in southern Europe.
War in the Balkan area of Eastern Europe erupted in the 1990s between many different ethnic groups that lasted until the turn of the century.
Toward the European Union
During the 1980s and 1990s, the Common Market broadened its activities to include political and financial affairs and became known as the European Community. In 1992, the European Community members met in Maasricht and signed the treat to set up the European Union.
This Union organized Europe under one currency and allowed all members to travel freely between member countries.
National and Ethnic Conflicts
The most serious ethnic fighting in Europe took place in Bosina-Herzegovina. The Serbs ruthlessly expelled rival ethnic groups from areas by any means possible. This is known as ethnic cleansing. The Croats and Muslims carried out atrocities or cruel actions against the Serbs.
A NATO force of 60,000 was sent to keep the peace.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, fierce ethnic hatred boiled to the surface in Russia and other former republics. Each republic has a large and small ethnic group.
The Chechens are a small ethnic group in southern Russia and they declared their independence. To prevent this, Yeltsin sent troops into Chechnya. In 1996, the Chechens signed a peace treaty with Russia that allowed for their independence.
Worldwide Conflicts
After many years of war with Iran, Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi forces into Kuwait, to claim the country’s historic past. Western nations imposed embargos or ban on exported goods, but to no avail.
In January 1991, after a UN deadline for Iraqi withdrawal had passed, the Persian Gulf War began. The ground war lasted just over 100 hours.