1.

The Colonial Period Of American History

During the Earth’s last ice age, about 50,000 years ago there was a bridge of ice joined Asia
to America across what is now the Bering Strait. Hunters from Siberia crossed this bridge into
Alaska. From Alaska the hunters moved south and east across America, following herds of
caribou and buffalo as the animals went from one feeding ground to the next.

For many years Amerindians lived as wandering hunters and gathers of food. The tribes were
formed at that time. And later people living in highlands areas of what is now Mexico found a
wild grass with tiny seeds that were good to eat. This was the Indian corn. These people
became America´s first farmers.

The Pueblo people of present day Arizona and New Mexico were the best organized of the
Amerindians farming peoples. They were building networks of canals to irrigate their fields.
The Apache never became settled farmers, they were hunting and gathering wild plants. They
were warlike.
Dakota. (Sioux) – Between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. They were
hunting for buffalo. They lived in tepees.
The Iroquois were skilled farmers. Permanent villages. Northeastern part of North America.

In 1492 an Italian adventurer, named Christopher Columbus set sail from Spain to find a new
way from Europe to Asia. He stepped ashore on the beach of an ireland. He named the ireland
San Salvador. He believed that he had landed in the Indies. When Columbus returned to Spain
with his jewerly thousands of treasure-hungrySpanish crossed the Atlantic Ocean to search for
more gold. The growing wealth of Spain made other European nations envious. By the 17
century plenty of people in Europe were ready to settle in America. Some hoped to become
rich, others hoped to find safety from religious or political persecution.

1. The first permanent English settlement in America was a trading post founded in 1607 at
Jamestown /in Virginia/. The settlers had been sent to Jamestown by a group of rich London
investors. Virginia Company (But 20 years earlier Sir Walther Raleigh had sent ships to find
in the New World where English people might settle. He nemed the land they visited
Virginia, in honor of Elizabeth I.) So, it was a business investment.

2. Puritans are people who make a journey for religious reasons. They wanted freedom. They
wanted the Church of England to become more simple and pure. First they went to Holland
then went to America with a trading vessel, the Mayflower. On November 9, 1620 they
reached Cape Code, but they did not have enough food and water and many were sick. But
the Pilgrims were determinded to succeed. They learned how to fish and hunt. Friendly
Amerindians gave them seed corn - Thanksgiving day! Mayflower Compact!

Later between 1600-1700s permanent settlements were rapidly established all along the
eastern cost. Most of the settlers were British. German farmers settled in Pennsylvania.
(Dutch) Swedes founded the colony of Delaware. The Dutch settled in New York /called New
Amsterdam/

Many immigrants tried to preserve the traditions, religion and culture. Salem – Witch trials
(Naval Acts – Wool Acts -)

2. The War of Independence

In 1756 Britain and France began fighting the Seven Years War. It is known in America as
the French and Indian War. The war was ended by the Peace of Paris which was signed in
1763, France gave up its claim to Canada and to all of North America east of the Mississippi
River. Samuel de Champlain; René La Salle; Prime Minister William Pitt
The victory led England directly to conflict with its American colonies. Even before the final
defeat of the French, colonists began to move into the Ohio valley. To prevent the war with
the Amerindian tribes who lived in that area, the English king, George III, issued a
proclamation in 1763. It forbade colonists to settle west of the Appalachians. The
proclamation angered the colonists, and they became angrier when the British government
told them that they must pay new taxes on imports of sugar, coffee, textiles, etc. And the
colonists must feed and find shelter for British soldiers. Colonial merchants believed that they
could not make bigger profit, and they also feared that if British troops stayed in America,
they might be used to force them to obey the British government.
In 1765 the British parliament passed another new law, called the Stamp Act. (to pay for the
defense of the colonies,) Ever since the early years of the Virginia settlement Americans had
claimed the right to elect representatives to decide the taxes they payed.
In 1765 representatives from nine colonies met in New York, opposition the Stamp Act. But
the British government passed another law, called the Declaratory Act. This stated that the
British government had full of power and authority over the colonies.
In 1767 the British placed new taxes on tea, paper etc., that the colonies imported from
abroad. The colonists refused to pay, riots broke out in Boston - Boston Massacre - 5 March
1770
The British removed all the dutíes except for the one on tea. In December 1773, a group of
Massachusetts colonist disguised themselves as Amerindians and boarded British merchant
ships in Boston harbour an threw 342 cases of tea into the sea. – Boston Tea Party
The British reply was to pass a set of laws to punish Massachusetts. – Intolerable Acts
On 5 September 1774 a group of colonial leaders came together in Philadelphia. They formed
the First Continental Congress to oppose the British oppression. They declared their loyalty to
the British king. But it called upon all Americans to refuse buying British goods.
(the liberals – Benjamin Franklin /the American ambassador to France/; democrats – Thomas
Jefferson /landowner and lawyer in Virginia/; boycott – George Washington /Virginia landowner,
surveyor – French and Indian War/; Proclamation of Human Rights)
Fight between the Minutemen and British soldiers at Lexington and Concorde in April 1775 –
the begining of the war. In May, 1775, the second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia
and began to act as an American national government. It set up an army under the command
of G. Washingtonand sent representatives to seek aid from friendly European nations,
especially from France.
On July 2, 1776, cut all the political ties with Britain and declared the independance of the
united colonies. Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, by Thomas Jefferson /natural
right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness/. The borning of the United States of America.
By the following year the fighting had spread beyond Massachusetts. After some early
successes, the Americans did badly in the war. Washington had to train his army, but this took
time, so the British captured New York in September 1776. In October 1777, Americans
trapped a British army of almost 6,000 men at Saratoga in Northern New York. In February
1778, the French king, Louis XVI, signed an alliance with the Americans, and sent ships,
soldiers and money to America. Spain 1779; Holland 1780 From 1778 most of the fighting
took place in the southern colonies. On October 17, 1781, Cornwallis surrended his army to
Washington at Yorktown.
In the Treaty Of Paris, which was signed in September 1783, Britain officially recognized her
former colonies as an independent nation. Prime Minister Lord North; the Marquis de
Lafayette
3. The Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution
In the late 18th century Philadelphia was America’s most important city where the two most significant decisions
in American history were made.
In May 1775, representatives of the thirteen colonies met in Philadelphia to decide wheter to remain with Britain
or fight for independence. Three groups emerged there: the radicals who wanted independence, the moderates
who favoured reconciliationwith Britain and those who wanted to find a middle ground between these views.
The compromise solution was the Olive Branch Petition, which was rejected by the British. Many Americans
decidedthat independence would be a solution to the outstanding problems with Britain. Fighting had already
begun, but many people still hoped for peace with Britain.
In 1776 Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called Common Sense. It contributed to the spread of the demand for
independence to a large degree. It called for immediate separation from Britain. On July4, 1776 the Declaration
of Independence was unanimously approved by the Continental Congress. The Declaration says independence is
a basic human right. All men are created equal and have unalienable natural rights to life, liberty and the persuit
of happiness.

During the War of Independence the states had agreed to work together in the Congressto which each state sent
representatives. The agreement that set up this plan for the states to cooperate with one another was called the
Articles of Confederation. It had begun to operate in 1781. Thecentral government was very weak. It was given
certain rights, but it had no power to make those rights effective. After the War of Independence individual states
began to behave like independent nations. Som eset up tax barriers against others. Some states even began
fighting one another to decide the ownership of particular pieces of frontier land.
In May 1787 delegates from all states met in Philadelphia to discuss the problems and revise the Articles of
Confederation. But they decided soon that a new system of government was needed. They set out the plan for
this government in a document called the Constitution of the United States. It consists of seven articles with
sections and numerous amendments.

The Constitution gave the United States a federal system of government in which the power to rule is shared. It
is shared between the central, or federal authority and the local authorities. It is based on voting-system.
The Constitution gave the central government the power to collect taxes, to organize armed forces, to make
treaties with foreign countries and to controll trade of all kind. The Constitution shared the power between the
three branches of the government: the legislative branch, the executive branch and the judicial branch.
- The law-making,or lagislative powers of the federal government were given to a Congress. This was
made u pof representatives elected by the people. Congress was to consist of two parts, the Senate and the House
of Representatives. In the Senate each state would be equally represented, with two members, whatever the size
of its population. The number of representatives a state in the House of Representatives would depend upon its
population.
- The national leader became the President to take charge of the federal government. He would hade the
’executive’ side of the government. His job is tor un the country’s everyday affairs and to see that people obeyed
the laws.
- The Supreme Court is to control the ’judicial’ part of the government and to make decisions in any
disagreements. It has the right to decide that any low is ’repugnant to the Constitution’ or not.
The constitution went into effect in March 1789. In 1791 ten amendments were made to it. Together these
additionsare called the Bill of Rights. (freedom of religion, a free press, free speech, the right to carry arms, a
right to a fair trial by jury, and protection against ’cruel’ and unusual punishments.’)

4. The Institution of Slavery: the Road to the Civil War

In the year 1810 there were 7,2 million people inthe United States. 1,2 million of these people were black slaves.
In the Southern States such as Virginia they were working on plantations of tobacco, rice, cotton etc. The
economy was based on their strength.
In the north of the United States farms were smaller and the climate was cooler. Farmers there didn’t need slaves
to work the land for them. By the early 19th century many northern states had passed laws abolishing slavery
inside their own boundaries.
In 1808 abolitionists persuaded Congress to make it illegal for ships to bring any new slaves from Africa into the
United States.
By the 1820s southern and northern politicians were arguing about slavery should be permitted in the new
western territories.
Missouri Compromise: Slavery would be permitted in the Missouri and Arkansas territories (Lousiana) but
banned in lands to the west and north of Missouri.
’States’ rights doctrine’: A southern political leader John C. Calhoun claimed that a state had the right to
disobey any federal law if the state believed that the law would harm its interests. (By the early 1830s another
angry arguement began over inport duties. Northern states favoured because they protected their young
industries. South states opposed them, because they relied upon foreign manufactured goods and import duties
would raise the prices. Senator Daniel Webster strongly denied this doctrine.)
In the next twenty years the United States grew much bigger. (Oregon, Southwest, California, Utah, New
Mexico)
Fugitive Slave Act: This was a law to make it easier for southerners to to recapture slaves who escaped from
their masters and fled for safety to free states. (Congress – 1850; bounty hunters; Underground Railroad
/stockholder, conductor, depot/; Dred Scott)
In 1854 Congress voted to let Kansas people decide whether to permit slavery there. Pro-slavery immigrants
poured in from the South and anti-slavery immigrants from the North. Soon fighting and killing began.
(Lawrence town; John Brown abolitionist,’bleeding Kansas’; William Lloyd Garrison Boston writer – The
Liberator 1831)
Republican Party: opponents of slavery formed it. In 1860 the Republicans chose Abraham Lincoln (16;
1861-65) in presidental election. He won the election, but in February 1861, eleven states seceded from the
United States and formed the Confederate States Of America, the Confederacy.

The Civil War (…preserve, protect and defend…)

On April 12 Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina. The beginning of the
American Civil War. Jefferson Davies was the newly elected President of the Confederacy.
From the first months of the war Union warships blockaded the ports of the South. They did it to prevent the
Confederacy from selling its cotton abroad and from abtaining forreign supplies. In both men and material
resources the North was much stronger than the South. It had a population of twenty-two million people. The
South had only nine million people and 3,5 million of them were slaves. The North grew more food crops than
the South. It had morethan five times the manufacturing capacity, including weapon factories.
The only way North could win the war was to invade the South and occupy irs land. But many of the best
officers in the pre-war army were southerners. They returned to the Confederacy to organize its armies. Almost
all the war’s fighting took plave in the South meant that Confederate soldiers were defending their own homes.
Southerns denied that they were fighting mainly to preserve slavery. The South was fighting for its independence
from the North.

The war was fought in two main areas – in Virginia and in the Mississippi valley.
In Virginia the Union forces suffered defeatsin the first year of the war. They tried to capture Richmond, the
Confederate capital, but they were thrown back each time.
Confederate leaders: General Robert E. Lee
General Thomas J. ’Stonewall’ Jackson
But in the Mississippi valley Union forces had more success. In 1862 New Orleans, the largest Confederate city
was captured by David Farragut. At the same time other Union forces were fighting their way down the
Mississippi from the North. In 1863 Vicksburg surrendered to a Union army led by General Ulysses S. Grant.
Union forces now controlled the whole lenght of the Mississippi. They had torn the Confederacy in two.
In June 1863, Lee marched his army north into Pennsylvania. At a small town named Gettysburg a Union army
blocked his way. On the fouth day of the fighting Lee broke off the battle.

By 1864 The Confederacy was running out of almost everything. On December 22 General William T. Sherman
occupied the city of Savannah and than he turned north. He marched through the Carolinas, burning and
destroying and he split the Confederacy again, this time from east to west.
By March 1865, Grant had almost encircled Richmond. On April 9, 1865 Lee met Grant in a village called
Appomattox and surrendered his army.

In 1865 slavery was abolished everywhere in the United States by the 13th Amendmentto the Constitution. The
number of dead on both sides totaled 635,000.
5. Reconstruction and the Gilded Age

Lincoln was killed on the night of April 13, 1865. Before his death he intended to punish only some quilty
individuals and to let he rest of the South’s people play a full part in the nation’s life again. President Andrew
Johnson (17, 1865-69) had similar ideas. When a state voted to accept the 13th Amendment to the Constitution,
Johnson intended that it should be accepted back into the Unionas a full and equal member. But the
whiteSoutherners were horrified at the idea of giving equal right to their black slaves. All their assemblies passed
laws to keep blacks ina n inferior position. Black Codes: refused blacks the vote, said that they could not
serveon juries, forbade them to give evidence in court against a white man. In Mississippi blacks were not
allowed to buy or rent farm land.
A group in the United States Congress, called Radical Republicans believed that the most important reason for
fighting the Civil War had been to free the blacks. They demanded harder treatment with the Southerners. In
1866 Congress passed a Civil Right Act and set up an organization called Freemen’s Bureau. Congress then
introduced the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave blacks full rights of citizenship, including the
right to vote.
All the former Confederate states except Tennessee refused to accept the 14th Amendment. In 1867 Congress
replied by passing the Reconstruction Act. This dismissed the white governments of the southern states and
placed them under military rule. They were told that that they could again have elected governments when they
accepted the 14th Amendment and gave all black men the vote. By 1870 all the southern states had new
’Reconstruction’governments. (blacks, carpetbaggers, scalawags)
Most white southerners supported the Democratic political party. Reconstruction aimed to give blacks the same
rights that whites had. Southern whites organized terrorist groups to threaten and frighten black people. (secret
society of KuKlux Klan, burning wooden cross, was dismissed in 1871, buti t was reorganized in 1915)
This use of violence helped white racists to win back control of the state governments in 1877, when Congress
withdraw federal troops from the South. Reconstruction was over. (poll tax; ’Grandfather clauses’) All the
southern states passed laws to enforce strict racial separation, or segregation. (Civil Rights movements in the
1950s and 1960s, Martin Luther King)

Gold rush in California – 1849. White people settled on the Great Plains (Prairie) and new states formed there in
the 1880s and 1890s. (railroads to the west, Promontory Point-Utah)
American investions: typewriter, telephone, hammering-, sewing-, printing-machines. American industries grew
quickly, especially the production of coal and iron. These were the most important raw materials in the 19 th
century. By 1900 ten times more coal was being produced in the U.S. than in 1860. By 1913 more than one third
of the whole world’s industrial production was pouring from the mines and factories of the U.S. (Andrew
Carnegie – iron and steel; John D. Rockefeller – oil)

The immigrants: 1845-60 Irish immigrants - starving

1860 German immigrants – to be soldier for land
1880 immigrants from eastern Europe

6. The United States in World War I

In August 1914, a war started in Europe. It was the beginning of a struggle that lasted for more than 4 years and
changed the history of the world.

On one side there were Francem Great Britain and Russia. They were the Allies.
On the other side there were Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. They were the Central Powers.

Most Americans wanted to keep out of the war. They found it difficult to stay impartial for long. In the first days
of the war the German government sent its armies marching into neutral Belgium (gas-attack at Ypern). This
shocked many Americans. From the very beginning of the war the strong British navy prevented German ships
from trading with the U.S. American factories were making vast quantities of weapons and munitions and selling
them to Britain and France.
A big British passanger ship called Lusitania was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine. 128 of those
passangers were Americans. The sinking of the Lusitania made Americans very angry.
In the autumn of 1916 American voters re-elected Wilson as a President (Woodrow Wilson 28, 1913-21), mainly
because he had kept them out of the war. Wiklson wanted to make a peace without victory. But by that time
American bankers had lent a lot of money to the Aliies. In the next few weeks German submarines sank five
American ships. Wilson felt that he had no choise. Wilson saw the war as a great crusade to ensure the future
peace of the world. (total submarine war)

In October the German government asked for peace and on 11th of November, 1918 the war was over.
By January 1919, President Wilson was in Europe. He was there to sign the peace treaty. They called it the
Versailles Treaty. (Trianon – 1920; Prime Minister Lloyd George)
League of Nations – an organization where representatives of the world’s nations would meet and solve the
problems. In March 1920, the Senate voted against the U.S. joining the League of Nations.

7. The United States as a Word Power; The ’Roaring Twenties’

Good times, wild times.

In the 1920s the United States was vwry rich, because of the First World War, other countries owed it a lot of
money. The national income was much higher, than that of Britain, France, Germany and Japan put together.
American factories produced more goods every year. (motor industry, electrical industry) Assembly lines
worked in the big factories. (mass production) They doubled their output between 1919 and 1929. The growth of
industry made many Americans well off. (instalment plan – ’Live now, pay tomorrow.’)
Businessmen became popular heroes (Henry Ford)
The governments were controlled by the Republican Party. President Warren G. Harding (29, 1921-1923)
President Calvin Coolidge (30, 1923-1929) Republicans believed that ifthe governmnet looked after the
interests of the businessmen, everybody would become richer. To help businessmen Congress placed high
import taxes on goods from abroad. The aim was to make imported goods more expensive, so that American
manufacturers would have less competition from foreign rivals. At the same time Congress reduced taxes on
high incomes and company profits. But a survey in 1929 showed that half the American people had hardly
enough money to buy sufficent food and clothing. (immigrant workers in the industrial cities of the North;
sharecroppers) The landowner farmest couldn’t sell their wheat, because Europe no longer needed so much
American food. By 1924, around 600,000 of them were bankrupt. In 1928 the American people elected a new
President, Herbert Hoover (31, 1929-33 – ’…a chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage.’) He was
sure that American prosperity would go on growing.

In 1919 the American people voted in favor of a new amendment to the Constitution. The Eighteenth
Amendment prohibited the making and selling of alcoholic drinks in the U.S. But many Americans were not
willing to give up alcoholic drinks. The illegal drinking places (speakeasies) obtained their alcoholic drinks from
criminals called ’bootleggers’. They worked in gang sor mobs. (’Scarface’ Al Capone; machine gun, armored
car, corruption) Prohibition was finally given up in 1933.

(Hollywood, movie, stars, Charlie Chaplin – the beginning of Americanization)

8. Depression and the New Deal

October 24, 1929 – Black Thursday. This collapse of American share prices was known as the wall Street Crash.
It marked the end of the prosperity of the 1920s. American factories were already making more goods than they
could sell. The crash affected their sales to foreing countries, too. Employers stopped employing workers and
reduced production.
Hoower believed that he can do two things to end the Depression. The first was to ’balance the budget’ and the
second was to restore businessmen’s confidence inthe future, so that they would begin to take on workers again.
In 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Dr. Win-the-War) was elected to be the President. He was the governor of
the state of New York. (Democratic Party)
His main idea was that the federal governmenst should take the lead in the fight against the Depression. (the
bonus army)

’NEW DEAL’

’Hundred Days’
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) found work for many thousands of young men. The Federal Emergency
Relief Administration (FERA) gave individual states government money to help their unemployed. The
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) set out to rise crop prices by paying farmers to produce less. The
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built a network of dams to make electricity and stop floods. The National
Recovery Administration (NRA) worked to make sure that bisinesses paid faif wages and charged fair prices.
Works Progress Administration (WPA) in 1935. (Useful community jobs – building roads, schools and hospitals
– food, shelter and one dollar a day.)
Roosevellt help industrial workers by persuading Congress to pass a law to protect their right to join labor unions
(the Wagner Act – National Labor Board).
In 1935 he brought in a law called the Social Security Act (gave government pensions to people)
9. The United States in World War II

Isolationist ideas were very strong in Congress during the 1930s. It passed a number of laws called Neutrality
Acts. These acts said that American citizens would not be allowed to sell military equipment, or lend money to
any nations at war.
In 1939 war broke out in Europe. By the summer of 1940, Hitler’s armies had overrun all of western Europe.
German had form an alliance with Japan – these countries were the Axis.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (32, 1933-45) had persuaded the Congress to suspend the Neutrality Acts and
spent military equipments into Britain. In 1941 – when the British ran out of money – the Congress passed the
Lend Lease Plan which gave Roosevelt the right tosupply military equipment and goods to Britain without
payment. When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. Roosevelt used the Lend Lease Plan to send aid
to the Russians, too.
Japan captured Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937. In July 1941, they occupied the French colony of
Indochina. The United States reduced its export to Japan and stopped all shipments of oil. Japan industy was
based on the oil from the U.S. In October General Hideki Tojo (the Razor) became Japan’s Prime Minister. He
decided that Japan must get the oil of Southeast Asia and make it impossible for the Americans to use their
Pacific battle fleet to stop them. On December 7, 1941 Japanese warplanes bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, The
American navy’s main base in the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. declared war on December 8, 1941.
(Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States – Allies)
The U.S. government organized the whole American economy. Controls on prices, high income taxes.
(Manhattan Project – the world’s first atomic bomb – Oppenheimer, Szilárd)
In November 1942 American and British forces landed in North Africa and defeted the German general
Rommel’s Afrika Korps. In 1943 they invaded Sicily and the mainland of Italy. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day -
Deliverance), Allied troops invaded Normandy. (Supreme Commander general Eisenhower – Operation
Overlord)
On May 5, 1945 Germany surrendered.

(Battle of the Coral Sea; Midway Islands – 1942) Pacific Offensive against Japan in 1943.
In August 6, 1945 an American bomber (Enola Gay) dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima and on August 9
on Nagasaki. (200,000 civilians were killed) On August 14 the Japanese government surrendered.
10. The Years of the Cold War

The USA was the strongest country on earth in 1945. Its factories produced half the word’s manufactured goods.
It had the world’s biggest air force and navy and it was the only nation armed with atomic bomb. After the USA
came the Soviet Union. They helped comunists to take over the governments in the occupied countries. In 1946
Britain’s wartime leader, Winston Churchill, spoke o fan ’Iron Curtain’ across Europe, separating the
communist-ruled nations from the countries of the west (Fulton; Prime Minister Clement Attlee–Labour Party ).
The Americans and the Russians were allies in the Second World War, but they became enemies at the and of
the war. Truman suspected that Stalin’s action in eastern Europe were the first steps to convert the world to
communism. President Harry Truman (33; 1945-53)decided to use American power and money to stop the
Soviet influence. In 1947 he sent money and supplies to help the government of Greece to beat communist
forces in a civil war.
Containing communism became the main aim of the United States in dealing with the rest of the world. Truman
Doctrine
Europe’s recovery was very slow. In France and Italy communist parties won lots of support. President Truman
was worried about it. In 1947 the government worked out a plan to help Europe’s people and break down the
popularity of the communists. This was the Marshall Plan, after General George Marshall, the Secretary of State
who announced it. Stalin and the communist-ruled countries refused the help. By the time the Marshall Plan
ended in 1952, western Europe was back on its feet and beginning to prosper with the help of American food,
raw materials and machinery.
In November 1952 American scientists had exploded the first H-bomb. By 1953 the Russians had made an H-
bomb, too. (1957 – British H-bomb) The first satelitte (Sputnik) was sent into space by the Russians (1957). The
beginning of the Space Race and the Arms Race. (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile, Polaris) Nikita
Khrushchev realised the ’balance of terror’ and he suggested ’peaceful coexistence’. Eisenhower invited
Khrushchev ti visit the United States and they planned a meeting in Paris. But in 1960 a Russian missile shot
down an American U-2 Spy plane over the Soviet Union, so the meeting was over.

GERMANY – At the end of the war Germany was divided into four zones: Russian,English, French and
American. Allies intended the whole country to be ruled by one government, but each wanted to be sure that this
united Germany would be friendly with them. Stalin wanted Germany to be ruled by a communist government.
By 1946 it was already clear that Germany would be divided into two parts. Berlin, the old capital was deep
inside the Russian zone, so the allies divided it into four sectors. (Potsdam Conference – 1945; Molotov –
Foreign Minister)
By 1948 the Western Allies wanted to rebuild the German economy. In June 1948 they changed the old marks
for new ones. On June 24 the Russians stopped all traffic between west Germany and west Berlin to persuade the
Western Allies to change their economic policies. Soon, they blocked all the ways between Berlin and the
western zones of Germany. They hoped that the blocade would force the Western troops to leave the city to tha
Russians. (airlift 1948-49; Kennedy – ’I am a Berliner.’)
The foundation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Washington – April 1949)
The foundation of the Federal German Republic (September 1949) and the German Democratic Republik
(October 1949). The Berlin Wall had been borned in 1961. (Kennedy)

KOREA – Before the Second World War it had been ruled by Japan. After the war it was occupied by the Soviet
and the American forces. The boundary was the earth’s 38th parallel of latitude. In June 1950 the soldiers of
North Korea attacked the South. Truman sent soldiers for the South. (General Douglas MacArthur; United
Nations Organization) American aim was to unite all of Korea. In China Chiang Kaishek was driving out by
Mao Zedong in 1949. Mao feared that Korea came under American control and could be a base for Chiang
Kaishek. So he spent Chinese soldiers to Korea. War between the Americans and China. The War ended in July
1953. (the daeth of Stalin; President Eisenhower /34; 1953-61/ hinted that they might use atomic weapons)

CUBA – In 1959 Fidel Castro took over the government (Batista dictatorship). Castro needed money to make
changes, so he tokk over the American-owned business. On April 17, 1961, a force of refugees landed at the Bay
of Pigs with weapons and the support of President Kennedy. But they were defeated by the troops of Castro.
Castro asked the Soviet Union for help. Khrushchev sent him weapons. In October 1962, an American U-2 spy
plane found Russian missile bases in Cuba. Kennedy ordered nearly a thousand long-range missiles and tipped
the ’balance of terror’ in favour of the U.S. Then he ordered American ships and aircraft to set up a blockade and
told Khrushchev to take away the Soviet Missiles and destroy the bases. Khrushchev ordered the missiles back.
This was the most dangerous crisis of the Cold War.
11. The Vietnam War

Vietnam is in Southeast Asia. It was part of the French colony. After the Second World War, the northern part of
the country got under the rule of a communist government. The French army tried to take back the northern part
of the country, but they were defeated at Dien Bien Phu by the soldiers of a communist leader Ho Chi Minh in
1954. In the Treaty Of Geneva the country had been divide in two at the 17 th parallel of letitude. Communist
ruled the North, and an america-friend government the South. The next step was supposed to be the election of
one government for the whole country. But the election never took place – mainly because the government of
South Vietnam feared that the communists would win.

Ho set out to unite Vietnam by war and ordered sabotage and terrorism against South Vietnam. Americans had
already helped the French against Ho, so they sent weapons and advisers to the government of South Vietnam.
Presence was very important for the Americans in Vietnam, because of an ideathat President Eisenhower (34;
1953-61) called the ’domino theory’: Asia has a lot of unsettled countries. If one of them, for example Vietnam,
fell under communist rule, others would follow. They would be knocked over one by one, like a line of falling
dominoes. Americans were afraid that communist China might try to take control in Southeast Asia as the Soviet
Union had done it in Eastern Europe. So, in the 1950s and early 1960s Eisenhower and Kennedy, J. F. (35;
1961-63) sent money, weapons and soldiers to South Vietnam, not to fight, but to advise and train the local
forces.

By the early 1960s ho had a guerilla army of 100,000 men fighting in South Vietnam. They were called the
Vietcong. By 1965 the Vietcong controlled large areas of South Vietnam and the government was close to
collapse. The new president Lyndon B. Johnson (36.; 1963-69) had to decide and he sent American soldiers to
Vietnam and ordered American aircraft to bomb North Vietnam. By 1968 over 500,000 men were fighting in
South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was equipped with soviet and chinese weapons. The Vietcong troops used the
guerilla style of war, so the Americans had great casualties. They had to learn the new tactic, and to use special
material, especially chemicals in the war (napalm). But the American soldiers were tired, angry and frustrated

Film riports of the suffering in Vietnam were shown all over the world on television and the public opinion had
changed in the USA. The war was destroying the country’s good name. In 1968 Johnson stopped the bombing of
North Vietnam and started to look for ways of making peace. In 1969 Richard Nixon (37; 1969-1974) wanted
to end the Vietnam War and worked out a plan, which was the ’Vietnamization’ of the war. He set out to
strengthen the South Vietnamese army to make it strong enough to defend itself. This gave him an excuse to start
withdrawing the American troops.
Nixon then sent Henry Kissinger, his adviser on foreign affairs, to secret talks with North Vietnamese and
Russian leaders in Moscow.
In 1973 Henry Kissinger signed the Trety Of Paris and the last American soldier had left Vietnam. But the real
end of the Vietnam War came in May 1975 when the communists captured Saigon.

Kent State University (1970) – students were fired on by soldiers

demonstration against the war – hippy movement – Bob Dylan: Blowin’ in the Wind
Films: Apocalypse Now, M.A.S.H., Hair, Born On the 4th of July, Platoon, Good Morning, Vietnam, Forest
Gump,