Post-World War II
McFarland
I. Postwar America / Europe:
• Yalta Conference – Feb. 1945 – attended
by the “Big 3”:
1) Franklin Roosevelt – U.S.
2) Winston Churchill – G.B.
3) Joseph Stalin – U.S.S.R.
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-meeting of the 3 major Allied countries
-met to plan for the peace that would follow
the war
-decided to establish the United Nations
(U.N.) – purpose was to keep peace and
prevent future wars throughout the world
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-also decided to divide Germany into 4
occupational zones controlled by the Allies
(West Germany would be controlled by the
U.S., Great Britain, and France and East
Germany would be controlled by the
U.S.S.R.)
I. Postwar America / Europe:
• Cold War – U.S. vs. U.S.S.R (1945-1989)
-cold war – conflict between countries
without actual warfare
-Allies agreed to allow democratic elections
in every country freed from German
control – U.S.S.R. didn’t keep this
agreement and by 1948 the gov’t of every
eastern European country was under
communist rule
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-7 Eastern European countries became
Soviet satellites (satellite nation – officially
independent but controlled by a foreign
power)
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Soviet satellite nations included:
1) Poland
5) Hungary
2) Romania
6) Albania
3) Bulgaria
7) East Germany
4) Czechoslovakia
-Yugoslavia also became a communist
country but was not controlled by the
U.S.S.R
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were also
annexed by the Soviet Union
-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
said in a speech in March 1946 that “an
iron curtain has descended across the
continent” (Europe)
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Truman Doctrine – issued because
communist were trying to take over the
gov’t in Greece and Turkey – the doctrine
said the U.S. would help any country resist
communist aggression – led to the
containment policy (policy of stopping
communist expansion by diplomatic or
military means)
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Marshall Plan – presented by Sec. of State
George Marshall in 1948 – the U.S. sent
$13 billion in aid to western European
countries – wanted to protect those
countries from communism (governments
are usually overthrown when the economy
is weak) – lasted 5 years
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Berlin Airlift – June 1948-May 1949 – Berlin,
a city in East Germany was divided into 4
occupation zones at the end of the war –
the U.S.S.R. controlled East Berlin but
Stalin wanted all of the city – he began a
blockade of West Berlin by blocking all
roads, railroads, and rivers into the city –
the U.S. and G.B. used cargo planes to fly
in supplies to West Berlin – Stalin couldn’t
stop them without starting a war – the
blockade was lifted
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) –
a military alliance formed in 1949 –
promised to defend each other during an
attack – original members included:
1) Belgium
7) Luxembourg
2) G.B.
8) Netherlands
3) Denmark
9) Norway
4) France
10) U.S.
5) Portugal
11) Canada
6) Italy
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-3 more countries joined in the early 1950s:
12)Greece
13)Turkey
14)West Germany
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Warsaw Pact – a military alliance formed in
1955 between the communist countries
of Eastern Europe – members included:
1) U.S.S.R
5) Hungary
2) Poland
6) Romania
3) East Germany 7) Bulgaria
4) Czechoslovakia 8) Albania
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-communists also took control of China in
1949 – this meant the world’s largest
country in land area (USSR) and the
world’s most populated country (China)
were both communist nations
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Second Red Scare (1st was after WWI) –
caused by Sen. Joe McCarthy’s comments
on how there were communists within the
federal gov’t – 3 million federal employees
were investigated – many were convicted
and fired despite proof – he also accused
the U.S. Army of being controlled by
communists (led to his downfall)
I. Postwar America / Europe:
• The Korean War (1950-1953):
-Japan ruled Korea from 1910 to 1945
-U.S. and U.S.S.R. troops moved in during
WWII and neither wanted to remove their
troops when the war ended (U.S. wanted it
to be a democratic nation and the
U.S.S.R. wanted it to be a communist
nation)
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-the Allies agreed to divide Korea into 2
zones at the 38th parallel – North Korea
controlled by U.S.S.R. and South Korea
controlled by U.S.
-North Korea, led by Kim Il-Sung, became a
communist nation and a Soviet satellite
-South Korea, led by Syngman Rhee, was
ruled by a dictator appointed by the U.S.
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-June 20, 1950 - North Korea attacked
South Korea
-June 27, 1950 - Pres. Truman ordered air
strikes against North Korea and sent arms
to South Korea
-June 30, 1950 - Pres. Truman ordered UN
troops (including U.S. troops) to South
Korea – Gen. Douglas MacArthur was
appointed the commander of the UN
forces
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-North Korean troops pushed the UN troops
all the way back to Pusan (southern tip of
South Korea)
-MacArthur gambled by attacking the North
Korean troops from behind at Inchon - the
North Korean troops were trapped - U.N.
troops then marched to Seoul (capital of
South Korea) and retook the city
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Truman gave MacArthur the green light to
invade North Korea
-Nov. 1950 – U.N. planes bombed bridges
on the Yalu River (border between North
Korea and China) – the Chinese
threatened to enter the war if the bombing
continued - MacArthur ignored them
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Thanksgiving Day 1950 – 300,000 Chinese
troops hit the U.N. lines and pushed them
all the way back to South Korea –
MacArthur wanted to bomb China but
Truman refused – MacArthur then
criticized the President publicly
-April 11, 1951 – Truman fired MacArthur –
he returned home a hero
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-Dwight D. Eisenhower (Rep.) defeated
Adlai Stevenson (Dem.) in the 1952
election (Truman had chosen not to run for
re-election) - Eisenhower threatened to
use nuclear weapons on North Korea and
China and a cease-fire was signed
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-the 38th parallel was established as the
border between North and South Korea –
North Korea remains communist even to
this day
-the U.S. lost 58,000 soldiers in the war
I. Postwar America / Europe:
• The Nuclear Age:
-the USSR developed an atomic bomb in
1949 - they had spies (though not really)
working on the Manhattan Project
(remember they were our ally)
-an arms race began in the early 1950s
between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. – they
were competing to see who could
accumulate the most nuclear weapons
and the most powerful nuclear weapons
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-the U.S. tested the first H-bomb (hydrogen
bomb) in 1952 - up to 700 times more
destructive than the atomic bombs
dropped on Japan – the island where the
H-bomb was tested totally disappeared
-the USSR developed the H-bomb less than
a year later
I. Postwar America / Europe:
-How did the U.S. prepare for a nuclear
holocaust?
1) air raid drills – schools practiced “duck
and cover” drills
2) emergency bomb shelters – filled with
supplies
3) metal name tags to identify bodies
4) hundreds of books were written about
how to survive a nuclear attack
I. Postwar America / Europe:
- Massive Retaliation – the U.S. would
punish the Soviets with an all out nuclear
attack if they threatened the U.S. or any
other nation
I. Postwar America / Europe:
• Stalin died in 1953 and was replaced by
Nikita Khrushchev (didn’t like Stalin – too
mean!) – a summit (conference) was set
up between Eisenhower and Khrushchevhowever, it was canceled after an
American U-2 spy plane was shot down
over the USSR (1960) – the cold war
would last 29 more years
II. Life in the 1950s:
• Suburban growth – almost all new
houses built from 1945 to 1960 were built
outside the cities – Why?
1) Demand for housing – very few houses
built during the Great Depression years
and WWII
2) Growth of population – during the “baby
boom” families with 3 or 4 children
became the norm – pop. increased from
140 million in 1945 to 180 million in 1960
II. Life in the 1950s:
3) Highway Act of 1956 – gov’t constructed
41,000 miles of new highways – allowed
people to commute longer distances to
their jobs – also established the
interstate highway system (for military
and evacuation purposes)
4) Cleaner, quieter neighborhoods
II. Life in the 1950s:
• Age of Television - the 1st TV sets made
in the late 1940s - very expensive – $500600 (equals around $2500 today – as
technology improved the number of sets
increased from 1 million in 1949 to 44
million in 1959 – popular TV shows in the
50s included:
-I Love Lucy
-Father Knows Best
-Leave it to Beaver -The Honeymooners
II. Life in the 1950s:
•
Revival of Religion – aided by TV - Why
was there a national revival?
1) fear of the cold war and the nuclear age
2) charismatic (dynamic) preachers - used
the radio and TV – ex: Billy Graham and
Oral Roberts
-in 1954, “Under God” was added to the
Pledge of Alliance
II. Life in the 1950s:
• Rock ‘n’ Roll – evolved out of AfricanAmerican blues and gospel, and white
country music – music was rhythmic and
loud - the new dances were offensive to
some adults (remember the 20s?) – the
most famous rock ‘n’ roll star of the 50s
was Elvis - other famous rock ‘n’ roll stars
of the 50s included:
-Chuck Berry
-Little Richard
-Buddy Holly
-Jerry Lee Lewis
II. Life in the 1950s:
• Early Civil Rights Movement:
1) Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
KA (1954) – ended segregation (the
separation of whites and AfricanAmericans in society) in public schools
II. Life in the 1950s:
-many school systems refused to integrate
(bringing together of the races) – ex: Gov.
Faubus of Arkansas called in the National
Guard to prevent African-American
students (they were called the “Little Rock
Nine”) from attending a “white” high school
in Little Rock - Pres. Eisenhower
eventually sent in federal marshals and
the 101st Airborne Division to help and
protect those students
II. Life in the 1950s:
2) Emmett Till Case (1955) – a 14 year old
African-American boy who was beaten to
death in Money, Mississippi for saying
“Bye Baby” to a white woman – he was
from Chicago and was visiting his uncle –
gained national attention when his mother
had an open casket during the funeral
II. Life in the 1950s:
3) Montgomery Buss Boycott (1955-1956) –
in Alabama – Rosa Parks (a wellrespected African-American lady) broke a
city law by refusing to give up her seat on
a bus to a white man – she was arrested about 75% of the bus company’s
customers in Montgomery were AfricanAmerican – a boycott was organized and a
young preacher named Martin Luther
King, Jr. was chosen to lead it – eventually
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
segregation in public transportation was
unconstitutional
II. Life in the 1950s:
• Other Events of the 50s:
-Polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk in
1953
-Sputnik - the first space satellite – launched
by the Soviets (1957)
-Explorer I - the first U.S. satellite launched
in 1958
-NASA (National Aeronautics and Space
Adm.) organized in 1958
III. Life in the 1960s:
• Election of 1960:
-the candidates were John F. Kennedy
(Dem.) and Richard Nixon (Rep.)
-both were WWII veterans
-both entered Congress in 1946
-Nixon was Eisenhower’s Vice President
-Kennedy was the son of a wealthy family
from Massachusetts
III. Life in the 1960s:
-Nixon was not from a wealthy family – in
fact he was poor while growing up
-the campaign included the first televised
debates – Nixon’s physical appearance on
the camera may have cost him the
election (looked old, wore no makeup,
etc.)
III. Life in the 1960s:
-JFK won the election by only 120,000 votes
and became the youngest President ever
elected at the age of 43 (Teddy Roosevelt
was 42 when he replaced McKinley but
McKinley was assassinated)
-JFK’s famous quote from his 1961
Inaugural Address:
“Ask not what your country can do for you,
ask what you can do for your country.”
III. Life in the 1960s:
• The Legacy of JFK:
-established the Peace Corps (1961) – sent
young Americans to do volunteer work in
developing (poor) countries
III. Life in the 1960s:
-Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961) – Fidel Castro
became the dictator of Cuba in 1959 –
Americans supported him at first –
Eisenhower put the CIA to work on a
secret plan to overthrow Castro – the plan
was to train and equip a group of AntiCastro Cuban exiles living in the U.S. –
they would land in Cuba and inspire the
Cuban people to “rise up” against Castro -
III. Life in the 1960s:
when JFK took office he continued to
support this plan – on April 17, 1961
Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs –
the invasion was a complete disaster –
JFK considered an air strike to help the
rebels, but decided against it – within 2
days most of the 1,400 invaders were
killed or captured – made JFK look weak
and foolish
III. Life in the 1960s:
-Berlin Wall – built during JFK administration
by the communists of East Germany in
Aug. 1961 – became a symbol of the cold
war’s division of Europe
III. Life in the 1960s:
-Cuban Missile Crisis (Oct. 1962) – photos
taken by a U-2 plane showed 65 sites in
Cuba containing ballistic missiles – Cuba
is only 90 miles from Florida – missiles
were supplied by the USSR – JFK’s
advisors favored an air strike on the
missile sites – he refused and instead
went on national TV to tell the public about
the Soviet missiles in Cuba
III. Life in the 1960s:
-he also announced the U.S. was
blockading Cuba – he told the Soviets to
dismantle the missile sites and turn back
their incoming ships or face U.S.
retaliation – on Oct. 24, 1962, as the world
held it’s breath, the Soviet ships turned
back – a deal was made:
III. Life in the 1960s:
1) Soviets would withdraw its missiles from
Cuba
2) U.S. would withdraw its missiles from
Turkey
-this was the closest the U.S. and the
Soviets ever got to nuclear war
III. Life in the 1960s:
• Space Race
-the USSR were the first to put a man in
space (April 1961) – his name was Yuri
Gagarin – in May 1961, JFK asked for $9
billion for the space program – his goal
was to put a man on the moon by the end
of the decade (1960s) – the first American
in space was Alan Sheppard (May 1961) -
III. Life in the 1960s:
-the first American to orbit the earth was
John Glenn (Feb. 1962) – on July 20,
1969 Apollo 11 landed on the surface of
the moon and Neil Armstrong became the
first to walk on the moon saying, “That’s
one small step for man, one giant leap for
mankind” – more than 500 million people
around the world watched the landing on
the moon on TV
III. Life in the 1960s:
• Early Involvement in Vietnam:
-JFK did not want to get involved in a major
war in Asia – he also didn’t want to be
blamed for “losing” South Vietnam to the
communists (being “soft” on communism
was a bad thing during the 50s and 60s) –
under JFK, American military personnel in
South Vietnam rose from 1,500 to 16,000
– the Am. people were told these were
“only advisors” and not involved in combat
III. Life in the 1960s:
• The Assassination of JFK (Nov. 22, 1963):
-he was campaigning in Texas for the 1964
election
-he rode through the streets of Dallas in the
back of an open limousine
-the suspected assassin was Lee Harvey
Oswald – Oswald was murdered 2 days
after Kennedy’s death, while being
transferred to another jail, by a Dallas
nightclub owner named Jack Ruby (a
known member of the mafia)
III. Life in the 1960s:
-With Oswald dead, many questioned were
left unanswered:
1) Was Oswald the assassin?
2) Had he acted alone?
3) Had there been a conspiracy to kill the
President?
III. Life in the 1960s:
-on the plane carrying JFK’s body back to
Washington DC, Vice President Lyndon B.
Johnson was sworn in as President
-one of Johnson’s first acts as President was
to appoint a commission, led by Chief
Justice Earl Warren, to investigate JFK’s
death
III. Life in the 1960s:
-the Warren Commission concluded that
Oswald had been the assassin and that he
acted on his own (although, not everyone
believed it)
-Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District
Attorney, was the only person to bring to
trial a possible conspiracy in the
assassination of JFK – he blamed the CIA,
the mafia, Anti-Castro Cubans, and even
President Johnson
III. Life in the 1960s:
-In 1978, a Congressional Committee said,
“It was possible that two people killed John
F. Kennedy, but there was no proof” – they
also said that the Justice Dept. should
investigate the possibility of a conspiracy –
they have not even to this day