Lesson 23: The New Millennium and Modern American Geography

Recent Events: A Quick Look Less than a year into George W. Bush's presidency, a tragedy struck that made the conflicts over the 2000 election seem pale by comparison. On September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the United States. Four planes were hijacked by fundamentalist Muslims who were part of Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization led by Osama Bin Laden, a member of a prominent family in Saudi Arabia. Two planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York causing the buildings to collapse within a few hours. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers revolted. The World Trade Center was completely demolished and one side of the Pentagon was severely damaged (the side closest to the highway at left in the photo below). More than 3000 people died in the attacks. September 11th was the first time the United States had been attacked on its own soil since Pearl Harbor. For the first time in a long time, Americans felt truly vulnerable. The event led to a shift in foreign policy as America declared a "War on Terror." The Pentagon from above Before September 11, the economy had slipped into a recession, ending the period of prosperity under Clinton. Almost immediately following the attacks, Congress passed legislation called the USA PATRIOT Act - which stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The legislation was designed to help the "war on terror" and bring terrorists to justice, but to achieve the level of protection desired by American citizens, it also had the unfortunate side effect of limiting some civil liberties of American citizens. The World Trade Center Towers One of accompanying tragedies of the September 11 attacks was the response by some Americans to turn their anger on Muslims in the United States. Muslims--American citizens and non-citizens alike--have been subjected to discrimination and acts of violence by some who claim to be patriots. The United States and President Bush have tried hard to limit the persecution of Muslims across the country , but incidents of harassment and attacks occur as the U.S. continues to look for Osama bin Laden and those responsible for the September 11 attacks. Soon after September 11, the United States went to war in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden was reported to be hiding. As of the third anniversary of 9/11, he has not been found, but the repressive Taliban regime that was in power at the time of the attacks and that had provided support and refuge to Al Qaeda has been replaced by a democratic government. In March, 2003, the United States went to war again with Iraq, under the suspicion that Saddam Hussein was in collaboration with Osama bin Laden and that he was preparing to attack the United States. Operation Iraqi Freedom, as this war was called, represented a shift in previous American military policy because the U.S. declared war on another country that was seen as a threat, before it attacked the U.S. first.; this new policy is called "preemptive strike." The administration presented evidence to Congress that said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical weapons, and was developing nuclear weapons with the intent of attacking its neighbors as well as the U.S. Without United Nations backing and with very few allies, the United States carried out its first bombing on March 19, 2003. The collapse of Saddam Hussein's tyrannical government came swiftly, and soon after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein went into hiding. President Bush proclaimed "Mission Accomplished" just six weeks Though proven to be an oppressive and violent dictator, Saddam Hussein has not been directly linked to Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda, even though it is likely that members of Al Qaeda lived in Iraq. Hussein was captured in December 2003 and is currently awaiting trial for war crimes, but the weapons that triggered the invasion have been found not to exist. Still, the fight for Iraqi freedom continues. As that country struggles to define itself as a new nation without the repressive Hussein dictatorship, violence racks the country. A year and a half following the president's victory announcement, the number of American lives lost had risen to nearly 1,100 while coalition deaths stood at nearly 200. Almost 8,000 additional U.S. troops had been wounded. The Iraqi death toll in October 2004 was estimated between 13,000 and 15,000. History will judge the wisdom of the policy leading to the second war with Iraq.

The map of the United States is, of course, familiar to all students; however, the details and placement of states often get confused. The ability to identify regional characteristics adds greater understanding to both historical and current events so it is important that you have a sense of how the country is laid out. There are many ways to approach the geography of the United States. One map might mark off sections of the nation based upon its climate or physical traits, including time zones; another might outline common economic interests or population compositions; and still another might identify the political tendencies of various sections or states. For statistical purposes, the government, typically, divides the nation into four major regions. These are the Northeast, South, Midwest, and West. Looking at the map above, you can trace a general outline of these divisions. The Northeast, the smallest geographic section, uses Pennsylvania as the southern and western border and runs north and east up through Maine. The South begins with Maryland and the District of Columbia, goes southward along the Atlantic coast to Florida, and westward to include Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and all of the states within that cluster. Ohio and Michigan represent the beginning of the Midwest, which dips as far south as Missouri, west to Kansas, and north to the Dakotas. The West starts with Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico and sweeps across the continent to the Pacific Coast. Hawaii and Alaska are also part of the West. The vast continental U.S. (that is, all of the states excluding Hawaii and Alaska) extends nearly 3,000 miles from east to west and nearly 2,000 miles from north to south. While a thorough study of United States geography would require a full course, there are a few key points that you should understand about the major regions: The Northeast has served as the hub of industry over the course of the nation's history and remains the region most densely populated. The region's many rivers and waterways made it a good place to set up factories and then transport the goods to other locations. Because manufacturing requires a large labor force, from the mid-1800s the Northeast has drawn thousands of workers from other parts of the United states and other countries. As a result of that increased population and the outward growth of the cities, the Northeast has been called a megalopolis, or "very large city." Both the climate and the soil in the South made it much better suited to agriculture than its Northeast counterpart. The warmer temperatures and the greater rainfall provide longer and more productive growing periods for many different crops. The South has a wide variety of plant and animal life because of the subtropical climate and the rich soils of the coastal plain. Early Native Americans grew corn; early settlers grew cotton and rice; and modern-day farmers grow citrus fruits, like oranges. Industry, although coming to the South later than other regions, has transformed many aspects of southern society, as more and more people move there. The American Midwest, also called the country's heartland, provides a great place to grow crops. The climate, soil quality, and length of the growing season all affect the number of days per year that different regions can grow crops. Throughout the Midwest, a variety of crops are grown: oats, wheat, corn, and soybeans. Many farmers raise livestock, too, such as hogs and cattle. The Midwest provides an abundance of food for the United States, with more than enough to export to other countries around the world. There are extensive railroad lines and super highways sprawling the Midwest to get food to the markets. The West, a long time symbol of freedom and beauty, is made of tall mountains, large deserts, and other various types of climate. One major problem in living in the West is the scarcity of water, but because of its other attractions, in recent decades there has been a rapid rise in the population of states like Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. To serve this growing population, many dams have been constructed along the major rivers in the West to create reservoirs of water, such as Lake Meade, just outside of Las Vega, Nevada. The reservoirs satisfy the immediate need but also jeopardize the delicate ecosystem of those arid territories. In contrast to the desert states, the far western states offer two of the country's most valuable resources: forestry and fishing. The Pacific Northwest supplies almost half of the lumber needed by the nation, and the commercial fishing off the Pacific Coast represents billions of dollars annually. The diversity of the land contributes in large part to the uniqueness of the United States' prosperity and national character.

Lesson 22: The Eighties and the Nineties

In 1980, President Carter ran for reelection, but was defeated by the Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan, a former actor and governor of California. In addition, the Republicans gained control of the Senate for the first time since 1952. During Reagan's presidency, inflation was largely held in check, but unemployment remained high. Increased military spending, coupled with American involvement in Lebanon and Latin America, lessened Reagan's popularity. Reagan's first term was dominated by efforts to carry out his economic program. "Reaganomics," as the program was called by the media, consisted of reductions in federal programs, reduced restrictions on business activities, increased defense spending, and substantial tax cuts for individuals and businesses. The policy's goal was to give money back to big businesses to create jobs, which would in turn give money to Americans who would spend it, thereby creating more jobs. The administration called this "trickle-down economics" and the hope was that economic growth would make its way to the whole of American society. The administration's economic policies had mixed results. Unemployment rose initially, but declined by 1988. Inflation gradually fell over the decade, in large part because of Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker's decision to raise interest rates sharply. Tax cuts, defense spending, and other economic factors led to a massive federal deficit by the end of the decade. In the election of 1984, President Reagan won against Democratic candidate Walter Mondale and his vice presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro. Ferraro was the first woman to be nominated for vice president. For most of Ronald Reagan’s first term as president, he was successful at moving his legislative initiatives through Congress. During his second term, however, the Democratic Party gradually gained control of Congress. This, combined with the president’s sinking popularity resulting from mounting criticism over the Iran-Contra Affair, made his legislation increasingly difficult to pass. In Reagan's first term, the U.S. moved away from the policy of détente that had characterized its relations with communist countries, particularly the Soviet Union, for the past decade. As part of this shift in policy, Reagan began a build-up of the military and nuclear arms. During the 1980s, government foreign policy focused on fighting Communist influences. The U.S. supported anti-communist groups, or anti-Marxist regimes, in Latin America, the Caribbean, North Africa, and the Middle East. The Reagan administration intensified American support for the Contras, a guerrilla group fighting the Marxist Sandinistas, who had taken over the government of Nicaragua after overthrowing the U.S.-supported dictator Anastasio Somoza. In the Middle East, U.S. troops became involved in fighting in Lebanon, and as tensions mounted, there were numerous kidnappings of Americans and other westerners.

Iran-Contra Affair In November of 1986, word leaked that the U.S. government had sold arms to Iran, which was then engaged in a bitter war with Iraq. Iran had influence over the militant groups holding American hostages in Lebanon. The American government hoped that the secretly sold weapons would coax Iran in helping with the release of the hostages. The profits from these weapon sales, about $30 million, were then diverted to help the Contras in Nicaragua. This scandal became known as the Iran-Contra Affair. The investigation into the affair continued through the end of Reagan’s presidency and into his successor’s. Although no evidence surfaced that President Reagan was aware of the diversion of funds to the Contras, people involved in the scandal testified that he had approved of the weapons for the hostages swap. Because Congress had passed Acts prohibiting both the sale of weapons to Iran and funding the Contras in Nicaragua, revelations about Iran-Contra triggered a very serious problem for the administration. A Space Shuttle Launch Another event marring President Reagan’s second term was the Challenger disaster. On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its flight, killing all aboard. The shuttle held seven astronauts, including the first civilian, a teacher, to be sent into space. Following this incident, shuttle missions were halted for three years while experts investigated and modified shuttle safety protocol. In 1988, Vice President George H. W. Bush won the presidential election and took office in January 1989. Bush believed that the United States should change its policy towards the Soviet Union, making it an ally, which in turn would end the Cold War. If peace occurred, taxpayers would be relieved of the burden of financing such a large military. President Bush carefully eased Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev towards a more democratic style of government. One of the most important events marking the beginning of Bush’s presidential career occurred in November 1989 when the Berlin Wall - which had separated West Berlin from Communist East Berlin since 1961 - was torn down.

The Nineties The early 1990s were a turbulent time in world events. Soon after the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed economically. As a result, communist governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe also collapsed. After the collapse, Russia remained under the leadership of elected President Boris Yeltsin. For the most part, President Bush focused on foreign affairs, largely ignoring domestic matters or new legislation. The main reason for this was the mounting tension in the Middle East, which drew all of the President’s attention.

Operation Desert Storm In August 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein launched an attack on a neighboring country, Kuwait. Though one of the smallest of the Middle Eastern countries, Kuwait held 10 percent of the world’s oil supply, making it an extremely attractive target. President Bush led a broad alliance in an attempt to force Hussein to withdraw. In part, this was to protect the defenseless nation, but it was also an effort to deter future Iraqi hostilities against other Middle Eastern countries with large oil reserves. Despite attempts by numerous world leaders, both within and apart from the United Nations, diplomacy did not resolve anything. Saudi Arabia, another neighbor to Iraq and home of 25 percent of the world’s oil supply, allowed the U.S. to establish a military presence on its soil. The military presence established a guard against an Iraqi attack. It also provided a Middle Eastern base of operations should events escalate. President Bush directed the U.N. allied coalition which was joined by most other Arab countries and the USSR, a long-standing ally of Iraq. When Saddam Hussein failed to withdraw his troops by the January 15, 1991 deadline, the response was quick. On January 17, the United States led a multinational invasion of Kuwait, called Operation Desert Storm. After the initial Allied bombing, Iraq responded by launching missile attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, two major cities in Israel - a country which has traditionally been an ally of the United States, but had rocky relations with many Middle Eastern states. These attacks were an attempt to fracture the delicate balance of the coalition. President Bush managed to hold the Allied forces together. The battle involved both air and ground troops, with over 500,000 Americans deployed at the height of the war. The Allied forces suffered fairly low losses — 175 dead and 550 wounded. Iraq’s casualties were much higher, with over 100,000 dead and over 300,000 wounded. The Gulf War was over in six weeks. On February 27, Allied forces entered Kuwait City and President Bush declared Kuwait liberated. On February 28, a cease-fire was called by President Bush, and on April 11, the U.N. Security Council called for a formal cease-fire, officially ending the Gulf War. Following the war, Bush’s popularity levels were at an all time high of about 90 percent; however, as the 1992 election grew closer, his popularity fell as Americans became increasingly frustrated at his lack of initiative on domestic issues, namely the economy. The economy suffered in the early 1990s as America went through a recession that took a hard toll on workers and families and was perceived as the president's failure to acknowledge the problem or offer solutions. Bush was also hurt when he broke his campaign promise of “Read my lips: No new taxes!” The Democratic Party chose Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton - a "New Democrat" who was more moderate than past Democratic nominees - as its candidate to challenge the incumbent president. The 1992 presidential race was complicated by the decision of Ross Perot, a Texas business executive and billionaire, to enter the race as an independent. Perot advocated balancing the budget and opposed free trade initiatives like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Capitalizing on widespread economic dissatisfaction, Perot ultimately garnered 19% of the popular vote, the most for a third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Bill Clinton's campaign focused on the economy, and he bested both Perot and Bush to become the first Democratic president in twelve years.

The Clinton Years William Jefferson Clinton was sworn into office January, 1993 along with Vice President Al Gore. True to his campaign promises, Clinton focused on economic reform as a main goal of his administration. He also appointed more women and minorities to high government posts than any previous administration. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton held an active role in the administration as she led the campaign for health care reform. In his first two years, Clinton experienced a number of legislative successes, including passing the ban on assault weapons and the final approval for NAFTA. Like several presidents before him, however, Clinton failed in his efforts to pass a bill providing health insurance for all Americans. Dissatisfaction with Clinton's performance, along with long-term shifts in party allegiances, resulted in the momentous midterm election of 1994. In that election, Congressman Newt Gingrich led the Republican Party to a sweeping victory, taking control of both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years. Gingrich became Speaker of the House, and Bob Dole, a longtime Republican senator from Kansas, became Senate Majority Leader. After 1994, Clinton and Congress were often at odds in budget planning. In 1996, the divisions were so deep that the federal government had two partial shutdowns before a budget compromise was reached. Despite these difficulties, Clinton’s various economic reforms and budget plans wiped out the record-high federal deficit inherited from the Reagan administration and even created a surplus during his presidency. Unfortunately, Clinton’s presidency was interspersed with crises, both beyond the President’s control and of his own making. The first major incident of his term occurred in 1993, when a bomb went off underneath the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six people and injuring over 1000. Terrorism continued to take its toll. In April 1995, a car bomb exploded outside a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing over 168 people. At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, GA, a pipe bomb exploded in an outdoor park. In 1996, Ted Kaczynski, the “Unabomber,” who had been sending bombs through the mail for almost 20 years, was caught. Each of these added to the public's growing discomfort about security. Terrorism continued to grow over the decade as a threat. During his second term, Clinton’s presidency was marred by scandal. Questions arose regarding the First Couple’s actions in the Whitewater Development Corporation in various real estate deals in Arkansas during Clinton’s governorship. Another scandal arose when Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, filed a sexual harassment suit against Clinton. This case continued until 1999 when a settlement was reached. During the case, a deposition was taken in which the president testified that he had never had sexual relations with a former White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. Unaware of Clinton's testimony, Monica Lewinsky confided in her presumed friend, Linda Tripp, about her relationship with Clinton, and Tripp illegally recorded their telephone conversations. Tripp turned the tapes over to the independent counsel investigating Clinton, Kenneth Starr, and made clear her intent to aid the Republican prosecution of Clinton. This, combined with physical evidence pointing towards an extramarital affair with Lewinsky, made it increasingly difficult for the president to maintain his innocence. Clinton eventually changed his sworn testimony, admitting to having had an “inappropriate relationship” with Lewinsky, who later testified to the Grand Jury that she had had a relationship with Clinton. The House of Representatives beganimpeachment proceedings based on the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Although neither of those charges are considered "impeachable" under the Constitution's Articles of Impeachment, and the fact that Clinton was not convicted of either charge in other courts, he was successfully brought to trial by the Senate, which means that he was impeached. As a backlash of this scandal, many Republican House members who had fervently fought for Clinton's removal lost their seats, and Newt Gingrich, who had been Speaker of the House, resigned amid rumors of his own extramarital affair. In March 1999, President Clinton, along with NATO allies, was forced to intervene in Kosovo, a Yugoslav province. For several years prior, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic had used the Serbian army to exterminate and drive out ethnic Albanian citizens from the province. The U.S. and Britain led an intensive bombing campaign of Serbian forces. By June, the Yugoslavian government pulled out its troops and agreed to let a 50,000 multinational peacekeeping troops come into the province. This was a big success for U.S. foreign policy. A big domestic success of the Clinton presidency was his efforts to help Native Americans. On August 6, 1998, President Clinton signed the Executive Order on American Indian and Alaska Native Education. The goals were to improve overall academic performance and reduce the dropout rate among Native American students. Another goal was to bridge the Digital Divide, which is the growing technological gap between impoverished and richer school districts. As a result, the Internet and computers have made their way into the educational life of many Native Americans living on reservations. In 1999, President Clinton made history as the first President since Franklin Roosevelt to visit an Indian Reservation, touring the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota. He also visited the Navajo Nation in April 2000.

A New Millennium: 2000 The 2000 presidential election was one of the most interesting in American history. The race, between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush, son of former President Bush, was very close. The candidacy of Green Party nominee Ralph Nader further complicated the election. Nader has made a career of being a tireless crusader for consumer's rights, and he ran on the Green Party platform of social democracy. Many believe that Nader's votes would have gone to Gore had Nader not been on the ballot. Though he received only a fraction of the number of votes garnered by Ross Perot, Nader's 2.7% of the total may have changed the result of the extremely close election. On election night, the major-party candidates’ leads switched back and forth. First, the networks called the election for Gore, but then named Bush the winner. Gore even called to concede the race. It was determined, however, that the outcome was still unclear as the race was too close in the state of Florida, which had become the swing vote. Even after all the votes were in, the results were contentious. Because the race was so close – Gore had slightly more popular votes, but Bush had more electoral votes (271 of the 270 needed to win a presidency) - every aspect of the Florida vote was scrutinized. Amid allegations of voting irregularities, Gore pushed heavily for a recount, while Bush fought just as hard to let the votes stand. In the end, the Supreme Court ruled that Florida had reached the deadline to certify their votes and that no further recounts would take place. This ruling essentially named George W. Bush president. Some independent studies of the results of the election have cast doubt on whether Bush would have won if all the votes in Florida had been recounted. One fact is for sure: the margin of victory in Florida was so tiny (just 537 votes) and the number of irregularities so numerous that the election could easily have turned out differently than it did. The controversy spurred states across the country to examine their voting procedures out of worry that such problems could be repeated.

Lesson 20: The 1960s: Years of Idealism and Change

Objectives: Determine factors leading to the Cuban Revolution and Missile Crisis Learn about the Civil Rights Movement and Legislation Understand President John F. Kennedy's policies and events surrounding his assassination Recognize how Lyndon Johnson picked up where Kennedy left off Extend learning about counterculture Learn about the women's movement

The Sixties During the 1950's, times were good for most Americans. President Eisenhower had kept his promise to end the war in Korea and America was finally at peace. The 1960 election pitted the vice president of the United States, Richard Nixon, against a young Democratic senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy tried to balance his liberal label and lack of experience by choosing Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas as his running mate. Since Eisenhower had been such a popular president, most people expected Vice President Nixon to win. The combination of intellect, charisma, and good looks of the junior senator from Massachusetts made the race much closer than people expected. The 1960 campaign featured the first televised debate between candidates. Many historians feel it was this debate that turned the election in Kennedy’s favor: while Kennedy appeared calm and in control throughout the debate, Nixon seemed nervous and unsure of himself. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected President. President John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy was the first president to be born in the twentieth century. Kennedy won the election of 1960 over Vice President Richard Nixon by only a very small margin. His good looks, charm, and zest for life appealed to many people, particularly young Americans. He attracted much support with his appeal to get the country moving. When Kennedy took office, unemployment was high, economic growth was sluggish, and minorities were discriminated against. The young president took steps to correct these problems, as well as to counteract the fast-developing threat of Communism in Cuba and Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, Kennedy did not live to see the outcome of most of what he initiated. Tragically, he was assassinated before he was able to carry out his ideas for a better America.

Cuban Missile Crisis At the beginning of 1959, Fidel Castro's revolution overthrew the corrupt Cuban president Fulgencio Batista. Despite problems with Batista, the United States never endorsed Castro’s coup because it feared that his socialist leanings were linked to Communism. Fidel Castro's system of government was based on the Soviet model of communism - a system of government in which the state, run by a single authoritarian party, plans and controls the economy, owns all means of production, and distributes goods to the population. When Cuba seemed to be moving towards a communistic from of government, tensions rose between Cuba and the U.S. In early 1961, the United States broke diplomatic relations and trade with Cuba, forcing the small island to turn to other markets. This move drove Cuba further towards Communism, as the Soviet Union willingly provided assistance, offering protection and trade in exchange for an opportunity to establish a foothold in America’s “backyard," for Cuba is only 90 miles off the southern coast of Florida. Fearing Communism and a Soviet presence so close to its borders, the U.S. government supported several secret plans to oust Castro. With President Kennedy’s approval, on April 19, 1961, about 1500 Cuban refugees, trained and armed by the U.S., landed at the Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) to launch an attack against the government of Cuba. After being discovered by the Cuban Army, 90 were killed and the rest were taken prisoner. This failure became a public embarrassment to the Kennedy administration, which had denied that it was giving support to plans to overthrow the Cuban government. Tensions mounted over the next year as U.S. reconnaissance planes discovered the construction of a Soviet military base on the island. Castro, fearful of another U.S. invasion, had invited the Soviets to establish a military presence on Cuban soil. In October 1962, photographs were taken of ballistic missiles. Outraged, Kennedy demanded the immediate removal of the missiles and set up a naval blockade of the small country. The blockade intercepted and inspected all ships to ensure no other missiles arrived. From October 18th through the 29th, America was involved in what came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. With the threat of a nuclear war hanging over the world, President Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev met to try to resolve the matter through diplomatic channels. In the end, the Soviets agreed to withdraw the missiles and allow the U.S. to inspect the site in return for a U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba, the lifting of the naval blockade, and the removal of missiles from Turkey. Although the promised inspection never took place because Cuba was angry at what it saw as the Soviet submission, aerial photography showed that the bases were being dismantled.

Kennedy's Policies and Johnson's Efforts Kennedy's presidency and life had a great impact on the second half of our twentieth century. At 43, Kennedy was one of the youngest presidents ever to serve and the first Roman Catholic president. He proposed sweeping changes to the country through his vision of a “New Frontier” based on the idea that every single person could make a difference. Kennedy believed that focuses on volunteerism, freedom, equality, and technological achievement were very important. As part of the New Frontier, Kennedy pledged that the U.S. would put a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Kennedy poured money into the U.S. space agency, NASA, to reach this goal before the Soviet Union. The United States and the U.S.S.R. were in the "Space Race" to be the first nation to put a man into orbit. The Soviets' Sputnik program launched the first satellite, Sputnik I, in 1957, and the first living creature, a dog named Laika, was launched a few months later. These successes led to American fears of Soviet technological superiority, prompting greater U.S. investment in space and science. In May 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to make a rocket flight and one year later, John Glenn orbited the earth. On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin fulfilled John F. Kennedy’s hopes for the space program when they landed on and explored the moon’s surface. It was on this mission that Armstrong spoke the often-quoted: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." He even hit a golf ball into space when he and Aldrin spent over twenty-one hours on the moon. On November 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, President Kennedy was assassinated. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for shooting the president, but Oswald was killed before he could be brought to trial when he himself was shot while in custody in the Dallas jail. Among the officials, reporters and other bystanders in the jail at that moment was Jack Ruby, a local bar owner and suggested gangster. As Oswald was moved through the jail, Ruby pulled out a gun and shot the accused assassin. The facts of Oswald's motivation or involvement with other groups who might have wanted the president killed remain unclear as are the facts about Ruby's motivation. Conspiracy theories abound about whether or not Oswald acted alone or was really the killer, but several investigations have concluded that he was. Jack Ruby professed that he shot Oswald out of a love for the president and concern for the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy. He was sentenced for Oswald's murder and died in a Dallas jail cell in January 1967 without ever offering another explanation for his action. Kennedy was succeeded by his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, who, with his Texas drawl and earthy ways, offered quite a contrast to his polished predecessor. Johnson, long experienced in government service, was better prepared for the presidency than any other president in the twentieth century. He was a masterful politician in the Senate and attempted to use the same methods that had served him there so well. Taking up the reins of government after Kennedy's untimely death, Johnson proved very skilled at enlisting the support of Congress in passing numerous important pieces of legislation. President Johnson attempted to carry out the goals of Kennedy's "New Frontier" and tried to establish his own domestic program, which he called the "Great Society." Johnson called for massive government efforts to fight poverty, sickness, and inequality. His initiatives included training for disadvantaged youths, health care for low income families and senior citizens through Medicaid and Medicare, and the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Throughout his presidency, Johnson continued to pursue Kennedy’s goal of equality, pushing significant civil rights legislation, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, through Congress. Johnson also appointed the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, formerly chief counsel of the NAACP. For a short time, Johnson had great success in promoting legislation designed to remedy the nation's ills, such as the war on poverty and in the field of civil rights. But his great domestic program was hindered by the United States' increasing involvement in the war in Vietnam. The bitter war in Southeast Asia overshadowed all other foreign and domestic problems after the U.S. became involved on a large scale in 1966. President Johnson's political career was ruined by the war because he was criticized for continuing the war by one side, and for not winning it by the other. The war created such bitterness that Mr. Johnson was vilified and ridiculed as no other president since Herbert Hoover. On top of these political problems, the enormous cost of the war and of Johnson's "Great Society" initiatives caused inflation and damaged the government's fiscal health. Law and order, Vietnam, and racial strife were the three main issues in the extremely close election of 1968. Dissatisfaction over Vietnam caused the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey, a lot of trouble with his campaign. Richard Nixon was able to defeat him and became president in 1968. Ending the war in Vietnam occupied much of Nixon's time during his first term in office, but inflation and the beginnings of the energy crisis were also significant problems. A major highlight of the period was the landing of American astronauts on the moon in 1969.

Civil Rights Actions Civil rights are the non-political rights of a citizen, especially the rights of personal liberty guaranteed by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. President Kennedy believed in these rights and in equality for all. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act which promised equal wages without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. Also in 1963, President Kennedy proposed the Civil Rights Act, which banned discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, or national origin. That legislation protects the rights of blacks, women, and other minority groups. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964 under Lyndon Johnson. A main focus of the Kennedy administration was the desegregation of America. During the late fifties and early sixties, African Americans radically increased their demands for equal rights in all areas of American society. This has become known as the Civil Rights Movement. Though Brown v. Board of Education (of Topeka, Kansas) had declared the doctrine of “separate but equal” to be a violation of the Constitution in 1954, America was still a largely segregated nation. Segregation is the separation or isolation of groups by class, race, or ethnic group. Led by African-American leaders such as Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., black citizens rose up against segregation. These activists and many other protesters believed that African Americans should have the same rights as whites in America. Jim Crow laws, still in place in most states, mandated that blacks had to ride in the back of buses or separate cars in trains, eat in designated areas of restaurants, and attend separate and inferior schools. The Civil Rights Movement sought to change that. While these ideas spread rapidly among the African-American population, changes did not come quickly or easily. When black students tried to enter the University of Alabama, the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, personally blocked the entrance to the school. President Kennedy was forced to send out the National Guard to gain the students’ admittance. The most famous of the Civil Rights Movement leaders was the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a founder and the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group which was instrumental in the successes of the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King, who organized bus boycotts in Montgomery, Alabama in the mid 1950s in support of Rosa Parks, believed in non-violent protest and he convinced millions of people, of all races, to join the cause for equal rights for all people. In August 1963, King organized the March on Washington. During this march he delivered the famous “I have a Dream" speech, in which he spoke of a day when his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This address helped catapult the civil rights movement into the forefront of America’s consciousness. As a result of his work, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In 1964, the ratification of the 24th Amendment finally outlawed the use of poll taxes to prevent voting. In 1965, the SCLC launched a voter registration drive that sparked a nationwide effort to register black voters. Until this time, many blacks who were legally eligible to vote had not registered to do so because of the intimidation they faced. On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray. Despite calls for non-violence by the country’s leaders in the aftermath of this tragedy, riots broke out in cities across the country. Many of America’s inner cities experienced a week of looting, burning, and rioting. Ray was convicted of the killing in 1969 and died in prison in 1998. On the power of the messages of such leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, another leader of the SCLC; and Dorothy Height, an early activist for the rights of black women, the Civil Rights Movement is closely identified with African Americans. However, they were not the only minority group to demand equality during the ‘60s. Migrant workers - workers who moved with the season to harvest different crops - also began to make demands for civil rights. Cesar Chavez, a member of the migrant community since childhood, became a leader for the labor movement among migrant workers. Chavez was the original founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and fought to gain better wages, hours, and working conditions for migrants, who were often immigrants. Chavez realized that migrant workers were frequently marginalized in society and had difficulties participating in communities as a result of their low income, frequent moves, and language barrier. His actions and organization helped migrant workers to become more publicly visible and gained them many rights. The Native American civil rights movement began to pick up steam in the 1950s, too. A medicine man and prophet named Wallace Mad Bear Anderson was an activist for Native American rights who led Iroquois protests against state income taxes in 1957. In 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis to gain more rights for Native Americans. Leonard Peltier was one of the more controversial leaders of AIM. In 1977, Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents and is currently serving two life sentences although there are numerous individuals and groups who question his guilt in the incident. Another AIM leader, Vernon Belcourt, who has fought for indigenous rights worldwide, was arrested in 1997 for burning the Cleveland Indians' mascot in effigy. He was trying to make a political statement about the use of Native Americans as mascots by sports teams. AIM's most dramatic action was its takeover of Alcatraz prison in November 1969. The protesters occupied the prison until June 1971, for a total of 18 months, contributing to the rise of modern Native American activism. The protest brought Indian rights issues to the attention of the government and the American people and changed the views of Native people about themselves, their culture, and their right to self-determination.

Women's Liberation Movement Women were an active social group in the 1960s and early 1970s, although they had been campaigning for equal rights dating back to the founding of the nation. Abigail Adams is known to have admonished her husband John - who would become the second president of the United States - to be certain that "in the new code of laws, remember the ladies and do not put such unlimited power in the hands of the husbands." Unfortunately, Mrs. Adams's plea remained a relatively quiet dissent among women until the mid-nineteenth century when Elizabeth Stanton Cady and Lucretia Mott called for the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY. The two women were active in the abolitionist movement and were as passionate about undoing what they saw as injustices toward women as they were about eliminating the injustices of slavery. An important first step, the Declaration of Sentiments and numerous other resolutions presented at the convention met with enthusiastic support from the 300 women and men participants. However, even noted speaker Frederick Douglass had difficulty in convincing those gathered to also pass a proposal for women's suffrage. The right to vote, he argued, was the right by which all others could be secured. Outside the convention hall, the battle was even harder. At the end of the Civil War, the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were passed to provide equal rights to former slaves. Despite all efforts to have women included under the new laws, the amendments precluded women when, for the first time, the Constitution specifically stated these rights pertained to "males." Lobbying, petitions, and protests followed over the next half century, but it was not until 1919 that legislation granting women the right vote was sent to the states for ratification. Finally,, in August 1920, Tennessee, the last state needed for approval gave the nod and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution became law, proclaiming "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." The first big wave of activism that began in the late 1910s and led to the 19th Amendment gave impetus to the fight by women for further legislation that would protect their rights. The Equal Rights Amendment, for example, was originally proposed in 1923, but was not passed in Congress until 1972. More than forty years later, the amendment still has not been ratified by the required 38 states—it is shy of the mark with 35 states. Extensions for ratification and reintroductions of the amendment in each Congressional session keep the possibility alive that the amendment will become law. In the late 1960s, as in earlier movements, those who advocated for women’s rights were also concerned with reproductive rights, which deal with a woman’s ability to make decisions about when and how many children to have. In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first oral contraceptive. In 1965, the Supreme Court overturned Connecticut's law prohibiting the prescription to or use of contraceptives by married couples in Griswold v. Connecticut. While access to birth control was becoming more widespread, due in part to the activism of the 1910s and 1920s, abortion was illegal in the United States at that time. “Pro-choice” advocates argued that every woman should have the right to decide whether to end a pregnancy and make choices about her own body. “Pro-life” proponents argued that “life” begins at conception and should be protected by the state, even before birth. In 1973, the issue made its way to the Supreme Court. In Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the Court ruled that a woman's decision to have an abortion fell under the right to privacy derived from the 5th Amendment and the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. The Court said that, during the first trimester, access to abortion should be unlimited, but that states can pass laws restricting second and third trimester abortion. The ruling did not end the controversy. Pro-life advocates, religious groups, and political conservatives denounced the decision, and today, abortion remains a topic of heated debate today. Emblematic of the small steps toward equality for women was the 1973 prohibition by the Supreme Court against sex-segregated "Help Wanted" ads, which had, until then, been divided into sections for jobs for women and jobs for men. The quest for equality for all citizens in housing, jobs, education, and every other facet of American life continues.

Lesson 19: The Fabulous Fifties

Objectives:

• Learn about American life after World War II
• Analyze international cooperation and competition
• Explore conflicts in Asia
• Discuss changes in the role of government
• Examine fifties-era culture and the rise of TV
• Analyze the fear of communism and McCarthyism
• Learn about Civil Rights victories and challenges

Post-War Life

The United States emerged from World War II as the richest and strongest nation on earth. Americans realized that the good old days of isolation from world responsibilities were gone. In contrast to its disillusionment and withdrawal in the wake of WWI, this time the U.S. was firmly committed to playing an active role in shaping the post-war international scene and confronting the challenges of a radically changed world.

Even before the United States entered WWII, the Allies were making plans for the kind of world they wanted after the shooting stopped. In 1941, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill drew up the Atlantic Charter, outlining their vision of the peace they hoped to see established. The principle of the charter served as the basis of discussion at the Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta conferences of 1944 and 1945. The result was the San Francisco conference of 1945, which created a new international organization to promote world peace, called the United Nations. The United Nations was based upon the model of the old League of Nations, but was much more effective because the United States was a key founder and active participant.

Despite these noble efforts, the peace that followed the great Allied victory was just as troubled as the peace that followed WWI. The victorious Allies soon abandoned their wartime unity and split into opposing camps, each headed by one of the two new "superpowers": the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union. Their global rivalry, which lasted almost a half a century, was called the "Cold War" because unlike the recently concluded "hot war" of WWII, the hostility between the two countries did not into outright warfare.

Entering the Atomic Age

Despite the absence of outright fighting, the tensions of the Cold War were just as dangerous because of the constant threat of nuclear warfare. The American decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan at the end of WWII had ushered in the “Atomic Age.” Initially, the United States was the only nation in the world with nuclear weapons, but the Soviet Union soon developed a nuclear capacity. The unprecedented destructive capacity of nuclear weapons gave humans the power not only to destroy entire nations, but ultimately the entire world. Every international struggle for land and resources became loaded with the danger of total annihilation. Because of this danger, many nations hastened to sign treaties and alliances to lower the possibility of nuclear attack.

The United Nations

In 1944, the U.S., China, Britain, and the Soviet Union agreed to establish a multinational organization with the goal of preventing war and promoting social progress. The following year, representatives of fifty nations met in San Francisco to draw up the Charter of the United Nations (UN). Every nation in the world was invited to be represented in the UN General Assembly, with rotating seats on the UN Security Council, which is responsible for finding peaceful solutions to threats to international peace and security. Five especially powerful nations - the U.S., France, Britain, China, and the U.S.S.R. - were given vetoes and permanent seats on the UN Security Council.

The first UN-Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, was convinced that the UN could be an essential and effective means of promoting peace. His conviction would be tested in the coming years, as the UN attempted to deal with growing tensions between the nations of the world.

The increasingly strained relationship between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led to ongoing tension over control of the atomic bomb. In 1946, a new agency of the UN, called the International Atomic Energy Commission, was created for the purpose of controlling atomic energy and creating inspection teams to monitor world atomic weapon activity. Bernard Baruch was the first U.S. representative who presented the commission with an international atomic control plan that would allow one agency control over atomic energy. The United States agreed to destroy its atomic bombs if this agency’s plans were carried out. But the Soviet Union, insisting that the destruction of these weapons should take place before the details of the plan were worked out, effectively sabotaged the idea.

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union occupied the eastern half of Europe, and the Western democracies--France, Britain, and the United States--controlled the western half. Germany itself was split into two zones, East and West Germany. East Germany, occupied by Soviet troops, became communist like the rest of Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe, while West Germany became capitalist and democratic. The Eastern European nations conquered by Soviet communists were called “Soviet satellites.” Soviet Leaders believed that maintaining a buffer zone of subservient nations on its borders would prevent another surprise attack like Hitler's. The Americans believed that the Soviet military occupation of Eastern Europe threatened the freedom and security of the entire continent.

Primary Source

On March 5, 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave a speech in the small Missouri town of Fulton. In this speech, he coined the term Iron Curtain to describe the division of Europe into two separate, armed camps.

A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies....From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone--Greece with its immortal glories--is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control.
R. R. James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, Volume VII: 1943-1949, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974, p. 7285-7293.

Churchill saw the "Iron Curtain" and the rise of Communism as a serious threat, perhaps even more serious than Fascism.

The Widening Divide Between East and West

As it became clear that the split between East and West Germany would become permanent, tensions increased, particularly in the old German capital Berlin, which had been divided into communist and capitalist sections. In 1948, the Soviets decided to pressure the Americans and their allies by cutting Berlin off from contact with West. Truman responded to the Soviet blockade by ordering a massive airlift - called the Berlin Airlift - to get food and supplies into West Berlin, ultimately causing the Soviets to back down.

The Berlin Airlift was part of President Truman's policy, called the Truman Doctrine, of aiding countries who were under threat from communism. This policy of "containing" communism was first applied in Greece and Turkey, which received American military and economic aid to help them oppose communist insurgencies in their countries. The Marshall Plan, proposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, was another integral component of the Truman Doctrine. The plan called for enormous economic aid for war-torn Europe, on the assumption that a prosperous Europe would be more likely to remain at peace and resist communism. The Marshall Plan helped Europeans get their transportation, farms, and factories running again and was a tremendous success. Truman also extended the reach of the United States in other beneficial ways. Under his so-called "Point Four Program" of 1949, Truman declared the U.S. interest of providing technological skills, knowledge, and equipment to poor nations throughout the world. The program also helped encourage private investment in these developing nations.

As the lines hardened between the Soviet Bloc and the American-led West, two new organizations came into existence. In 1949, the United States, Canada, and ten Western European nations signed the Washington Treaty. The treaty created theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which united the countries together for common defense. The purpose of the organization was to forge a permanent alliance between free and independent countries to create a collective security system. An attack on one of the members would be considered an attack on all of them. Over the years, as more countries became stable, they were invited to join NATO.

In 1955, the Soviets responded to the perceived threat of NATO by creating the Warsaw Pact, a similar organization composed of its allies. The two opposing blocs of NATO, led by the U.S., and the Warsaw Pact, led by the U.S.S.R., teetered on the brink of overt war for many years.

The Communist Threat At Home

In the years before World War II, communism had gained a number of supporters in the United States, in large part because of the activities of the Soviet-sponsored organization Communist International (Comintern). The ideology was particularly popular among artists, intellectuals, and some activists in the labor movement.

As relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated, anti-communist sentiment grew in the United States. Americans became increasingly fearful of communist infiltration. This fear was exacerbated by high-profile cases, like those of Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethyl Rosenberg, in which Americans gave important secrets to the Soviets.

In the late forties, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), originally designed as a monitor for all political groups, began to focus almost exclusively on investigating subversive communist movements. In one notorious investigation, HUAC attempted to root out supposed communist infiltration in Hollywood by forcing hundreds of actors, screenwriters, and directors to name which of their colleagues held leftist views. Hundreds of people, including many who refused to tell on their friends, were blacklisted and lost their jobs.

The most well-known anti-communist crusader of this period was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. In early 1950, Senator McCarthy claimed to have a list of over 200 people in the State Department who were known to be members of the American Communist Party. McCarthy’s accusations touched off a communist witch-hunt. Capitalizing on the public’s fear of internal subversion, McCarthy led a series of investigations into various government departments as he searched out any connection to leftist ideologies. The anti-communist hysteria McCarthy unleashed became known as "McCarthyism."

As the hysteria grew, McCarthy branched beyond investigating government departments to essentially accusing anyone who opposed him of holding anti-American views. He also began a campaign to remove any books deemed anti-American. Over 30,000 books were named and removed from library shelves. It was not until 1954 that the government, realizing McCarthy was out of control, took steps to reign him in.

President Eisenhower instructed Vice- President Richard Nixon, who had come to political prominence as a member of HUAC, to attack McCarthy in speeches and slowly they stemmed the tide of hysteria. Once others realized they didn’t have to be scared of speaking out against McCarthy, his opponents grew. McCarthyism died as McCarthy lost his political support and the media stopped printing stories of communist conspiracies.

Conflict in Asia

The issue of communism dominated America’s relations with Eastern European countries, and was also a major source of conflict in Asian countries. In China, the founder and leader of the Communist Party was Mao Tsetung (or Zedong). His opponent in the struggle for control of China was Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the anti-communist Kuomintang Party. After a long struggle, the Communists under Mao finally drove the Kuomintang off the mainland of China in 1949. Chiang Kai-shek and his followers took refuge on the island of Taiwan, where they founded the anti-communist Republic of China.

Middle Eastern countries were also affected by the spread of communism. In the mid-1940s, the Soviets had withdrawn their troops from Iran, but conflict soon emerged from another source - the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 after a UN plan partitioned Palestine into Jewish and Palestinian halves. The subsequent war pitted the new Israeli nation against Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and the Republic of Egypt, led by its first president, Gamal Nasser.

The Israelis were able to hold onto the Jewish territories and even expanded into UN-designated Palestinian land. With the help of Nobel Prize laureate Dr. Ralph Bunche (the grandson of a former slave and Under Secretary of the United Nations for many years), an armistice was signed, though the remnants of this conflict continue to the present day.

The role of the United States in occupying part of Korea illustrated the Cold War policy of containment. At the end of WWII, the Americans had occupied the southern half of Korea and the Soviets the north because Korea was divided in the same manner as Germany had been. Syngman Rhee became the first President of South Korea in 1948. The Korean War broke out in 1950 when North Korea, with the assistance of the U.S.S.R. and newly communist China, attacked the South. The Soviets were boycotting the UN at the time and China's Security Council seat was still controlled by the Nationalists, so the U.S. was able to organize a UN resolution to aid South Korea.

Map of North and South Korea

The UN forces, under the command of the American General Douglas MacArthur, succeeded in driving back the North Korean advance. The UN forces were on the verge of driving the North Koreans over the border into China when the Chinese army poured over the border. The Soviets did not commit ground troops, but did supply Soviet pilots and planes.

After three long years of brutal fighting, the battle line stabilized around the original dividing line between the North and South, the 38th parallel. An armistice was signed in 1953, but no peace treaty. The battle line is still defended to this day by North Korean troops on one side and South Koreans on the other. The Korean War was the first so-called "proxy war" between the United States and the Soviet Union, in which the two superpowers fought each other indirectly, without allowing the conflict to escalate into a nuclear war.

The Eisenhower Years

In 1953, former Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first Republican president in twenty years. Two decades of Democratic control had resulted in an enormous expansion of the role of the federal government through social programs, as well as modest action on civil rights, like when Truman integrated the U.S. Army.

Eisenhower generally favored more aggressive tactics against the Soviets and a smaller role for the federal government. But he embraced the policy of containment and did not radically overturn the social programs that had been implemented under his Democratic predecessors. While Eisenhower was not an activist president on civil rights issues, several important civil rights milestones occurred during his presidency. Eisenhower also bought an end to the Korean War in July 1953.

A few months later, Joseph Stalin, the longtime dictator of the Soviet Union, died - leading to hope that Cold War tensions would diminish. In 1957, Nikita Khrushchev became the Premier of the Soviet Union and was very critical of Stalin. Khrushchev granted concessions to the Poles as a way to rebel against Stalin’s way of doing things and gave Poland a little more freedom, loosening the grip (a little) of communism in Eastern Europe.

Although the fear of communism seems to have permeated the minds of Americans during the post-WWII period, life was good. Social legislation, like social security, rent controls, and the minimum wage, had improved the lives of working people. Although the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 weakened union protections and the power of organized labor, postwar economic prosperity led to rising wages and low unemployment. As men returned from the war to a prosperous economy, marriages mushroomed, resulting in a large increase in the birth rate, called the "Baby Boom."

Other domestic legislation dealt with civil rights, the basic rights of the citizen, and labor issues directly. One big win for the labor movement happened when General Motors signed a contract with an escalator clause. The escalator clause said that wages would increase based upon increases in productivity and in the cost of living.

Another success came from the Employment Act of 1946. It required the president to submit an annual economic report and create policies to help retain high employment. One aim of the act was to help the president and Congress keep a closer eye on the nation's economy.

Domestic legislation of the postwar period included a new Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, and it helped do just that—help servicemen readjust financially to living a non-military life. Under the provisions of this act, Congress attempted to compensate returning veterans for their service to the country. Some members of the Senate attempted more changes with employment laws, but were unsuccessful.

In 1946, the Senate rejected pleas by minority leaders to establish a bill for a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee. The action against it disappointed minority leaders. Between 1949 and 1952, Congress:

• Extended Social Security benefits to include 10 million more people, in the form of old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and help for the handicapped
• Raised the minimum wage for workers in interstate industries
• Authorized the federal government to clear slums and to build 810,000 units of low-income housing, or housing subsidized by the federal government for people earning small incomes
• Continued rent control
• Established farm price supports, federal payments to keep the prices that farmers receive for their crops from dropping below a minimum level, with a new Agricultural Act
• Brought more federal employees under civil service, meaning government employees as a group
• Worked, through the Reclamation Bureau on irrigation projects, hydroelectric plants, and flood control—the building of dikes, dams, and other structures to reduce the chance that streams and rivers will overflow their banks

Also, the National Security Act of 1947 created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to gather knowledge abroad. The United States wanted advanced kn owledge of political and military events in other countries.

Cultural Developments In the 1950s

Have you ever heard of Leave it to Beaver, rock-and-roll, Chuck Berry, or hula-hooping? Welcome to the fifties! This is the period of the generation of people called “baby boomers." This generation resulted from the Baby Boom, or postwar population explosion.

The Baby Boom occurred after WWII. During the Depression, the American population increased by only 9 million, and only by 19 million during the 1940s. In the 1950s the population exploded with an unprecedented 28 million babies born. During and after World War II, men and women married earlier and had larger families, resulting in what we now call The Baby Boom.

The fifties helped pave the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1963, the first such law passed since Reconstruction. This act secured votes for black citizens following the integration of schools and public buildings.

The fifties witnessed the birth of the suburbs, areas people began to move to right outside of a city's boundaries. Because of this suburban growth, cities began to dwindle and urban renewal programs were instituted. Urban renewal programs grew in direct response to the decay of central cities in the 1950s.

Suburban growth greatly contributed to the economy in the 1950s because so many homes were built. Home ownership rose drastically during this growth. The invention of TV into everyday life helped create an outlet for sales. Thus, we ended up with an economy of abundance, a system that produces more goods and services than citizens can consume. People were bombarded with consumerism every minute of the day.

Not only did the fifties bring about a population explosion and the growth of suburbs, it also was host to a “knowledge explosion.” The amount of information available to each individual was growing at a remarkable rate.

The booming economy and labor legislation of the 1950s created more leisure time for the American middle class than ever before. Between 1940 and 1960, the average workweek decreased from 44 to 40 hours, and paid vacation was more common. More families owned cars and had disposable income. Americans took to the mountains, beaches, and country like never before. Fast food chains and motels (which used to be called "Motor Hotels") became booming businesses along highways that vacationers traveled.

Civil Rights

After many debates in the political arena, the Supreme Court, in the 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, declared the “separate but equal” rule of racially segregated schools unconstitutional. Segregated schools conflicted with the “separate but equal” concept because in that phrase, the values underlying equality and segregation are in conflict. The previous Supreme Court precedent held that as long as equal facilities were provided, it was legal to separate the races. But, the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision actually solved the conflict by declaring “separate but equal” unconstitutional based on the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that education was the most important focus of state and local government. Moreover, he said that it was important because it is the foundation of good citizenship and helps people succeed in life.

In 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress, chose to sit in a seat in the front of a bus, which at the time was designated for whites only; blacks were forced to sit at the back of the bus. The bus Rosa rode on was empty, and she refused to sit in the back. The driver demanded that she move to the back of the bus, but she would not. The police arrested her.

Within a day, Martin Luther King, Jr., who was 26 at the time, organized 50,000 blacks to boycott the entire Montgomery, Alabama bus system. Blacks constituted 70% of the system's passengers, and they boycotted the Montgomery busses for 364 days. The bus system was dangerously close to going bankrupt and King and other boycott leaders faced arrest. In 1956 the Supreme Court banned segregation on public transit.

The victory of the Montgomery boycott inspired black leaders. In 1957 Martin Luther King called a conference of southern leaders and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was formed. The organization's intent was to battle discrimination all over the nation by nonviolent, direct action. The first test of Brown v. Board of Education occurred in 1957, when the Arkansas governor, Orval Faubus, ordered the National Guard to prevent a group of black students from integrating Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower broke the crisis when he gave the federal government control of the National Guard and ordered them to enforce desegregation.

Lesson 18: World War II

Objectives: learn about the events that led up to WWII learn about Hitler, the Nazis, and the Holocaust understand international cooperation in war know about the United States in wartime

WWII The last thing the United States desired was to become involved in another war. A war would lead to financial difficulties, loss of life, and detract time and energy from solving problems within America. However, America had become a world power that other countries relied upon. By the end of the 1930s, the world was becoming a much darker and harsher place. As time passed, more and more problems resulted from the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended WWI. The treaty had stripped Germany of its military and weapons and established a democratic government. Germany had no previous experience with democracy and many problems arose. At the same time, the Russian Revolution gave rise to non-democratic governments. Communism and fascism became increasingly popular in Russia, Germany, and Italy. The League of Nations, established under the Treaty of Versailles, was essentially powerless in its peacekeeping efforts throughout Europe, due to the requirement of unanimous votes and its inability to enforce decisions. Because of these main factors, the seeds of discontent were sown in Europe. The Beginnings: German and Italian Discontent In Germany, the Nationalist Socialist (NAZI) Party was gaining power. The party was initially formed by a radial group of WWI veterans, who blamed communism and German Jews for their defeat. Germany was growing increasingly discontented with the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, which they had been forced to sign. The German president, Paul von Hindenburg, was growing old, while an extremely antidemocratic radical, a man named Adolf Hitler, began to gain power. In January of 1933, Hitler rose to the chancellorship (head of the German parliament). Within three months he seized complete power, creating a dictatorship, on the pretext of protecting the nation from threats – threats that the Nazis created themselves. A dictator is an individual who has absolute power over all aspects of governing a country. Like many dictators before him, Hitler eliminated the competing political parties by having them executed, keeping the people under control through fear. Extreme censorship took place and anything containing beliefs contrary to those of the Nazis was burned. Secret police terrorized and eliminated people who opposed Hitler’s ideas. In August 1934, Hitler completely cemented his authority when, opon the death of the German President, his government declared that the office of the president was now combined with the office of chancellor. Hitler held all of the power in Germany. In 1936, Germany formed an alliance with Fascist Italy and its leader Benito Mussolini. Fascism is a form of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, strict social and economic controls, and suppression of the opposition through censorship and terror tactics. Fascist governments are generally anti-democratic, aggressively nationalistic, and racist. In a fascist government, the nation and race are of higher importance than the individual. The only activities of worth involve service to the state. The alliance between Germany and Italy was called the Rome-Berlin Axis. The Empire of Japan joined with Germany and Italy for the stated purpose of fighting communism. These three countries were known as the Axis Powers. In actuality, the fight against communism was simply the excuse these countries needed to extend their borders and gain as much power as they could. The Holocaust Hitler had several goals in attacking his neighboring countries. Certainly, he wanted to gain more power and territory for Germany, but Hitler also had another goal - the elimination of the Jewish race. In 1941, Hitler decided to implement a plan he called the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." It called for the extermination of all Jews. Hitler's desire to exterminate all "undesirables" from the Aryan race was rooted in the principles of Eugenics - a theory taken from Darwin's "Survival of the Fittest." Some thought that the human race could be evolved and perfected if "problem" peoples such as Africans, Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, and the handicapped were eliminated from the collective gene pool. While Hitler was the only person in history to effect a large-scale eugenics program, this theory was popular in the United States and Western Europe. Hitler's program, which lasted for the duration of the war, sought to "cleanse" the human race to create a pure, non-Jewish, Caucasian master race. Nazi Germany instituted a calculated program to eliminate all Jews from Europe. This program has been referred to in history as the Holocaust. Hitler began by limiting the civil rights of all Jews and people of Jewish heritage. Jews could not marry non-Jews, practice law or medicine, hold any government positions, or even attend German universities. Jews had to wear yellow stars on their clothing to designate them as Jewish. Eventually, Hitler began rounding up Jews and other "undesirables," including gypsies and the handicapped, and sending them to concentration camps. His feared police force, the Gestapo, was devoted entirely to dealing with Jews. They hunted down hidden Jews to carry off to the camps. The most famous story of this is captured in the The Diary of Anne Frank, the story of a 13 year old girl who hid with her family during WWII. In the book, those that were able to work were sent to labor camps, where they built roads and did other manual labor until they died of exhaustion and starvation. The rest were sent to the numerous concentration camps. In the camps, the prisoners were forced to live in horrible conditions, became the unwilling subjects of medical experiments, and were under the watch of the cruel and brutal guards. Many prisoners were sent into the gas chambers to be executed. Hitler was attempting to kill off the entire Jewish race. The exact numbers are unknown, but the best estimates are that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.

Stirrings of War In 1936, Italy and Germany began taking aggressive measures against other nations. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1936, and in 1938, Germany annexed Austria, announcing its “union” with Germany. In March of 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, placing them under German rule. Then, Italy took over Albania and German tanks rolled into Poland, quickly defeating its army. Great Britain, a Polish ally, and France, Germany’s only neighbor not yet under German rule or attack, could no longer remain uninvolved as German aggression continued. They joined together as allies to fight the Germans and the Italians. World War II had begun. Within a few years, Nazi Germany would control almost every European country. Hitler went so far as to offer Russia, led by Joseph Stalin, part of Poland at the end of the war and signed a non-aggression pact with them - even though he secretly planned to invade their country. The pact simply kept Russia out of the war until Germany decided to attack.

War World War II officially began on September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. Despite pleas by Great Britain to deal with Hitler through appeasement (giving in to an aggressor’s demands), international leaders believed armed protection was the only way to deal with the aggressive attacks from the Axis Powers. Fearing further aggression from Germany, Great Britain and France mobilized their troops. Their efforts, however, were not enough. On April 9, 1940, German troops invaded Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Northern France. On June 14, 1940, the Germans entered Paris. British and French troops tried to prevent the overthrow of the French government, but were unsuccessful. British troops barely had enough time to escape back to Great Britain as France fell to Germany. Hitler looked towards England as his next target. From July to October of 1940, Germany and Britain fought a vicious aerial war, known as the Battle of Britain. Finally, Hitler gave up his plans to invade England and turned to fighting British forces elsewhere in the world. By this time, Italy had declared war on France and Great Britain and was attacking their colonies in North Africa. Turning away from England, Germany sent troops to aid the Italians in North Africa.

America: War on Two Fronts World War II took place in two different regions of the world: Europe and Asia. In Asia, fighting first began in 1931 when Japanese troops invaded Chinese Manchuria. Hostilities broke out again in 1937 with a Japanese attack along the Manchurian border with China. The Japanese had blatantly violated numerous world policies by attacking China. The League of Nations met to decide what action to take against Japan. The world powers could not come to an agreement and nothing was done. War continued between the two Asian nations. In 1939, Japan occupied French Indo-China. In response, the U.S. placed a trade embargo - a government order to stop trade - on Japan in an effort to force them to end their hostilities. The U.S., Japan’s main supplier of oil, cut off supplies to Japan through the embargo. In 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the only president to serve more than two terms. Roosevelt was concerned about the war in Europe, but isolationists fought to prevent the U.S. from entering the war. Roosevelt did everything he could to aid the Allies, while retaining an official U.S. stance of neutrality. Despite Roosevelt’s efforts to rally support, Americans were reluctant to stray from their stance of neutrality and become embroiled in the war. However, throughout 1940 and 1941, there was growing public support to aid the Allies. In March 1941, Congress passed legislation - the Lend-Lease Act - allowing the President to sell, transfer, or lease arms to any country the U.S. thought needed them. The president could still not directly enter the war. In Japan, as the U.S. trade embargo tightened, the government began to look for other ways to gain the resources it needed. To its south, there were several countries that could provide natural and strategic resources. The only thing that stood in Japan's way was the power of the U.S. Navy, with bases in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Guam. Japan developed a plan for a surprise attack on the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. It would be followed by attacks on American bases in Guam and the Philippines. Japan was confident that once the United States became involved in the war in Europe, it would be eager to negotiate a quick peace with Japan, leaving them with their expanded empire. The attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into WWII.

A Nation at War On December 7, 1941, early Sunday morning, Japan attacked the American fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. The attack crippled almost all of the battleships. The battleship Arizona exploded and sank, sending 1,117 men of her crew to the bottom of the harbor. Two American aircraft carriers, the Lexington and the Enterprise, escaped damage because they were out at sea. These two ships became important in the later part of the war. America reacted swiftly and on December 8, 1941, Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war on Japan. Three days later, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. During the early months following the attack on Pearl Harbor, emotions ran high in the United States. Fearing that Japanese living in the United States would help Japan, the government gathered up almost 120,000 Japanese-Americans and resident Japanese aliens and placed them in internment camps. Some people remained in the camps for over three years. The only way to leave was to sign a strict loyalty oath to the United States and then join the U.S. military. WWII involved a broad cross-section of Americans – more than had been involved in any previous war. Native Americans, African Americans, and women were all involved in the conflict. This was the last war in which African Americans served in segregated units. As many as 250,000 women enlisted in the military, working behind the front as drivers, cooks, radio operators, nurses, etc. They served in female auxiliary units of the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Army. Minority participation in World War II was significant. The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of 1,000 black pilots trained in Tuskegee, Alabama. Of the group, 445 of the pilots went to fight in Europe and North Africa, flying "bomber escort," one of the most dangerous and undesirable missions a fighter pilot could fly in. Their valor led to the eventual desegregation of the U.S. Air Force and the recognition that black pilots were as capable as white pilots. The Navajo Code Talkers made a tremendous contribution in the Pacific theater in the fight against the Japanese. The U.S. military needed a code that the enemy could not decipher. They recruited young Navajo males to be radio operators using a code developed by the Army based on the Navajo language. The code was never broken. The original Code Talkers were eventually awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2001. Minority participation in World War II was important.

The Tide Turns In the early stages of the war, events did not go well for the Allies. Great Britain fought a savage aerial battle for control over British airspace and German soldiers occupied France. Japan was expanding in the Pacific, winning victory after victory, and Italy and Germany captured parts of North Africa. Hitler was expanding throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe and gained control of Greece, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Yugoslavia. There was continual fighting for control of the Middle East. On June 22, 1941, Hitler made what many think was his biggest mistake - he invaded the Soviet Union. Hitler now had to fight on two fronts, exhausting his army and air force. By late 1942, the war started to turn in favor of the Allies. The leaders of the three strongest Allied nations were known as the “Big Three” – Winston Churchill for Great Britain, Franklin D. Roosevelt for the United States, and Joseph Stalin for the Soviet Union. They met to make joint decisions on how to deploy the Allied forces against the Axis Powers. In the South Pacific, Allied forces were able to halt Japan’s expansion. The U.S. won massive carrier battles in the middle of the Pacific along crucial supply lines. The United States and Australian forces won a six month battle on a small Pacific island called Guadalcanal. The Allies prevailed in another key battle on the eastern peninsula of New Guinea. Halfway around the world in North Africa, the British, with Allied support, gained ground and pushed the German troops back across the desert and defeated them. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, said of this period, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Hitler’s eastern offensive into the Soviet Union led to some of the most difficult and drawn out battles of the war. The Siege of Leningrad began in September of 1941 and did not end until January 1944. German forces almost advanced all the way to Moscow, but were not able to take the capital city. By mid-1943, the tide was beginning to turn. Germany had not taken into account the vastness of the Soviet Union, the large Russian army, or the harshness of the Soviet winter. Russian forces made significant progress in counterattacks to push the Germans out of Eastern Europe. Allied leaders Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met late in 1943 to coordinate a massive assault in 1944. They agreed that when the Western Allies invaded occupied France in June 1944, the USSR would launch a similar offensive on the Eastern front. Over the course of 1943 and 1944, the Allies slowly gained control of the war by working together under the Allied Supreme Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower. This, paired with the tremendous war production effort in the United States and Europe, helped tip the balance. Supplies and equipment for the Allied forces were produced at a pace never seen before and Americans rationed items at home. Gradually, the Allies won control of the seas and the air, while British and American shipyards turned out new “Liberty” ships and submarines. New devices, such as sonar, were developed to detect German submarines. In 1942, German submarines sank 585 Allied ships. By 1943 that number was reduced to 110. Meanwhile, British and American bombers were battering the Germans. During the last years of the war, Allied planes were dropping tons of bombs on targets all the time. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day) all the planning was complete for a final invasion of Germany. The Allies, using more than 13,000 planes and 4,000 troop carriers, launched an invasion across the English Channel landing on the beaches of Normandy, France. Germany had prepared for years for such a landing, but was caught off guard by the location of the invasion. Still, German troops put up a ferocious battle. Despite high losses, the Allies prevailed and started their march into Paris, and onward to the German capital of Berlin. The Fourth Time Around While the British and Americans were planning and fighting, political life went on in the United States. In 1944, Roosevelt, though suffering from hypertension, heart disease, and cardiac failure, stood for reelection for a fourth term. His advisors, fearing he would not live out his term, supported a little known senator from Missouri named Harry S. Truman for vice president. Roosevelt won the election and immediately returned to the war effort.

War in Europe Comes to an End By February 1945, the Allied forces of Britain and the United States had crossed the Rhine River and encircled the Nazi forces. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was moving through the Ukraine towards the German capital. As it became clear that victory was only a matter of time, the “Big Three” met in the USSR in Yalta, Crimea to discuss the post-war future. At the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin laid out plans for Germany’s surrender, the division of Germany and Berlin into four zones of occupation (American, British, French, and Soviet), war crimes trials, and the future establishment of the United Nations (an international peace-keeping organization). Tragically, the Yalta Conference would be President Roosevelt’s final contribution. On April 12, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died. The man who had spent a large part of his presidency dealing with the war did not live to see the final victory. His death was a shock to Americans and the world. The job of reshaping Europe and defeating Japan in the Pacific fell to Harry S. Truman. In late April 1945, the USSR took Berlin. As Berlin fell around them, Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide on April 30. Representing Germany, Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz signed a full and unconditional surrender by Germany on May 7. The treaty went into effect at 12:01 am on May 8, 1945. This day is known as V-E Day – short for Victory in Europe. War ends in the Pacific While the war in Europe drew to a close, American and Allied forces still fought fierce battles against the Japanese in the Pacific. After Berlin fell, President Truman met with Stalin and Clement Atlee, the new British Prime Minister, at Potsdam, Germany in July. The three leaders called for Japan to surrender immediately, a call which Japan rejected. When increased bombing raids on industrial and residential sectors did not convince the Japanese to surrender, the new president, Harry Truman, turned to more extreme measures to end the war. Scientists in the United States had been working to develop the most powerful bomb the world had ever seen, known as the atomic bomb, or A-bomb. Once it was developed, Truman again asked the Japanese to surrender. When they again refused, the first A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Still, Japan would not surrender. Three days later, on August 9, a second bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki. On August 10, 1945, Japan called for peace and on September 2 signed a peace treaty. World War II had officially ended. The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima Aftershock One of the most significant effects of WWII was the shift in world power, the effects of which would be felt over the next forty-plus years. Britain and France (Allied countries) and Germany and Japan (Axis powers) were all ravaged by war and ceased to be world powers. This left the United States and the Soviet Union as the only major players. Prior to the final victory in Berlin, both Churchill and Roosevelt had become suspicious of the Soviet Union’s intentions after the war. At the Yalta Conference, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin had agreed that they would support free elections in the Eastern and Central European Countries that had been occupied by Germany. Stalin, however, disregarded this agreement and sponsored communism in these countries. No one knew at the time, but the division of Berlin, as laid out at Yalta, was the beginning of a long confrontation between the free democratic governments of the West and the communist governments in Eastern Europe. After the war, the portion of Berlin occupied by France, Britain, and the United States became known as West Berlin, and the part occupied by the Soviets was known as East Berlin. However, it wasn’t until 1961 that a physical barrier – the Berlin Wall - was erected to prevent free access to both sides. By 1950, Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Albania had formed communist governments. The tension in Europe and the United States between free democratic countries and communist countries became known as the “Cold War.” The Cold War would be unlike any other war. There was no open fighting as in WWII, but rather the constant threat of war as each side tried to gain control. The former Allies faced off, each seeking to tip the balance and become the more powerful country. In 1949, the Soviet Union had developed its own atomic bomb, like the A-bomb used in WWII. In response, the United States developed a Hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s. The H-bomb was 500 times more powerful than the Atomic bomb dropped on Japan. This cycle of continual threat and response was to continue for the next 20 plus years.

Chronology of Events in World War II by Year
1937	Japan attacks China
1938	Germany takes over Austria
1939	Germany takes over Czechoslovakia; Germany attacks Poland; Britain and France declare war on Germany
1940	Germany conquers Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France; Japan, Germany, and Italy form an alliance; Germany attacks Britain in the Battle of Britain; United States remains neutral, but supports Allies behind the scenes
1941	U.S. starts lend-lease program giving military arms to Russia and Britain; Germany invades Russia; Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
1942	Japan forces U.S. to surrender in Philippines; U.S. lands in North Africa; U.S. fights Japanese Battle of Coral Sea and at Midway, U.S. halts Japanese expansion; Russia and Germany fight in Stalingrad
1943	U.S. and British forces invade Italy, forcing Italy to pull out of war; Marines land at Tarawa, marks the beginning of island-hopping campaign
1944	U.S. and allies land at Normandy to invade France; U.S. and Japan have large naval battles in the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf, U.S. destroys Japanese naval power; Germany attacks Allies in the Battle of the Bulge
1945	Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin meet in Yalta; U.S. invades Iwo Jima and Okinawa; Roosevelt dies, Truman becomes president; Germany surrenders; U.S. drops two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing the Japanese to surrender