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SECTION TWO:

SOCIAL STUDIES

Part One

AMERICAN HISTORY

American History

Early Viking Exploration

Until around 1000 AD, the native inhabitants living in the Americas were the Indians of various tribes. It was around that time that the first of the Europeans sailed to America. The Vikings from Greenland, led by a man named Lief Ericson, sailed to North America. They failed to establish settlements and as a result, it is an often overlooked fact that they were the first Europeans who discovered America and not Columbus who made his journey to the “New World” almost five-hundred years later.

Columbus Discovers the New World

Actual settlement of the Americas began after Christopher Columbus, an Italian navigator who sought to prove that the earth was round in shape and not flat as was popularly believed at the time, set sail from Spain with a crew and three ships named the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria on August 3rd, 1492. A little more than two months later, on October 12th, Columbus arrived on the shores of a small island that lay southeast of the North American mainland; the Caribbean Island is known as San Salvador.

Columbus believed that he had succeeded in discovering an unknown land in the Far East and he referred to the natives of this island as Indians, believing that he had simply found a previously unknown part of India. That name still exists to this day to describe the indigenous populations of the Americas. Columbus died in 1506 still believing that he had found some unknown part of the Far East. Other Europeans called it “The New World” and credited Columbus with its discovery.

The Settlers

Over the period of the next two hundred years following Columbus’ discovery of the New World, people from several European countries sailed across the Atlantic to settle in different parts of North and South America. The area of North America, which today is the United States, was first populated by the British, who sought to colonize the lands in which they were settling. They settled along the Eastern coast of North America from the northernmost point of today’s US mainland - the state of Maine, all the way south to the state of Georgia.

Colonists Under British Rule

Though their objective was to establish permanent settlements in America, the colonists’ first attempt to do so failed. This happened in 1585 when Sir Walter Raleigh sent 108 men to Roanoke Island, located of the North Carolina coast, to establish a port for British warships, but failed because they discovered that the waters around the island were too shallow to serve as a port for the warships, and they were not able to grow enough food to live.

It was not until 1607 that the first permanent British settlement was established near Chesapeake Bay, in what is now Virginia. It was named Jamestown. Conditions were difficult early on for the new settlers as they struggled to produce enough food and many died of starvation and sickness. Eventually, however, they learned how to raise their own food and create their own supplies.

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The Search for Religious Freedom

The second permanent English settlement was established by the Pilgrims; a group of people who sought religious freedom to escape the persecution that was imposed on them by the Church of England. In 1620, the Pilgrims landed in what is now the state of Massachusetts and the settlement came to be known as Plymouth. The Pilgrims encountered the same hardships as the Jamestown colonists. By the first winter, half of the Pilgrims’ group died of disease.

Soon, however, with the help of the native Indians in the area, they learned how to properly cultivate the land and successfully harvest their crops. Their first harvest after the help from the Indians was abundant and they shared a feast with them to show their gratitude. The event is celebrated to this day as one of the most important national holidays of the year - Thanksgiving Day.

Another group of people that left England because they disagreed with the philosophies and teachings of the Church of England was the Puritans. The Puritans sought to simplify and purify the ways of worship though still remain as members of the church. In 1500, early groups of Puritans had formed, but it was not until 1566 that they were recognized as a legitimate religious group. Puritan laws were very strict; everyone had to attend all church services and pay taxes to support the church.

Another religious group called the Quakers also wanted to establish a settlement in the New World. William Penn, an Englishman and a Quaker, founded the state of Pennsylvania. Quakers sought freedom from the rules imposed by the Church of England.

They preferred to worship in plain rooms with no music or minister and pray and talk quietly among themselves about their beliefs. They led their lives guided by what they called “the inner light”, their own consciences. Their capital was Philadelphia, “the city of brotherly love”.

The Founding of the Thirteen Colonies

Over the next one hundred and fifty years, more and more immigrants arrived at the shores of America in search of better lives. The settlements became well established and together made up the “Thirteen Original Colonies”. These 13 colonies included; Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

Colonial governments were patterned after the English government. Each colony chose its own governor; in Rhode Island and Connecticut, the voters elected their own governor. In the colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware, the proprietor of that colony selected the governor. In the rest of the eight colonies, the King of England appointed the governors.

The Growth of the Colonies

During the 1600s and 1700s, America’s colonist population grew rapidly as thousands of people made the journey across the ocean from Europe to the New World. During this period of time, the British government tightened its control over the colonies; but as new generations were being born in America and increasing numbers of people left Europe to find a better life in America, the ties to their home lands began to weaken.

Laws that were being created an ocean away began to have less meaning to the colonists in their new home. The colonists wanted to govern themselves and make their own policies. Eventually this desire for independence led to revolution in America.

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British Parliamentary Acts imposed upon the American Colonies

Among the many laws that were imposed upon the colonists in America under British rule were the following:

The Navigation Acts in 1651 required colonists to transport goods only on British ships. Certain of the colonists’ exports were permitted to only go to England. Imported goods had to be bought only from England; otherwise the colonists had to pay import taxes on them.

The Writs of Assistance in 1662 permitted British customs officers to invade homes, stores and warehouses to search for goods illegally brought into the country.

The Proclamation of 1763 by King George of England prohibited white settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains in order to pacify the native Indian population of that area and prevent further expansion of the colonies in America.

The Sugar Act in 1764 required colonists to pay import taxes on molasses, used to make rum, which the colonists purchased from countries outside of the British Empire.

The Stamp Act of 1765 required colonists to pay a tax for documentation stamps used on printed materials such as wills, deeds and death certificates.

The Quartering Act of 1765 required colonists to provide quarters for British troops, which meant feeding and housing them. The British government claimed that the presence of their troops was necessary in order to protect the frontier from Indian uprisings.

The Townshend Acts of 1767. Imposed import tariffs on goods such as tea, paper, glass and paint.

The Tea Act of 1773. After the Townshend Acts were passed, colonists sought to avoid paying the import taxes on tea and began smuggling it in from the Netherlands. The Tea Act allowed the British East India Company to sell tea at a price that was lower than that which the colonists paid for the smuggled tea.

Events Leading to the American Revolution

In 1765, New England colonists organized themselves to enforce colonial measures in opposition to EnglishParliamentary laws placed on them. They tried to force Parliament to repeal measures designed to govern colonies. They were known as the Sons of Liberty.

In 1770, a mob of colonists gathered in the streets of Boston to protest against the presence of British troops there since 1768. The mob was fired upon by the troops killing five men. This event was recorded in history as the Boston Massacre.

In 1772, colonists led by a man named John Brown, attacked and burned a British Customs cutter named Gaspee which was aground off Providence, Rhode Island. This was in protest to the import duties that the British had levied against the colonists. This event was noted in history as the Gaspee Affair.

In 1773, the famous Boston Tea Party occurred. Boston citizens, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded the British East India Company ship Dartmouth and destroyed 342 cartons of tea in protest of the British parliament’s import duties and monopoly on tea.

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In 1774, five British laws were passed, mainly to punish the people of Boston in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party. These were: (1) The closing of the Port of Boston until Bostonians paid for the tea that was destroyed.

(2) British officers or soldiers accused of murder would be tried in England instead of America. (3) The people could not hold town meetings without the Governor’s permission.

(4) Colonists had to provide food and housing for British troops. (5) The Quebec Act was passed which placed the Ohio Valley under Canadian rule and off limits to the colonists.

Collectively, this group of Acts came to be known as the Five Intolerable Acts. This event marked the birth of discontent that led to the American Revolution.

Organizing the Colonies

In order to get organized against the Intolerable Acts, the colonists met in Philadelphia on September 5th, 1774 at The First Continental Congress. Delegates were sent from each of the colonies except Georgia. Among those who attended were Samuel Adams, George Washington and Patrick Henry.

The objective of the First Continental Congress was not to seek independence from Britain, but rather to seek fair tax and trade policies. In hopes of gaining cooperation from Britain, the delegates decided to stop trade with Britain until such time as Britain abolished the Intolerable Acts.

The British government simply ignored the delegates’ demands, and as tensions began to rise between the colonists and the British, fighting broke out in April 1775 in Lexington, Massachusetts. The following month, May 1775, the Second Continental Congress was held. There were several new delegates appointed by the colonists. Among those were Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. Their intent was to organize the colonies to fight for independence. George Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army and Thomas Jefferson was assigned the task of drafting a Declaration of Independencefrom the British. This document was eventually approved, along with the Articles of Confederation. Together they served as the first constitution for the combined colonies.

The Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson was appointed the task of drafting the declaration. In the Declaration of Independence it is stated, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Reaction to the Declaration of Independence was mixed. It is estimated that about one-third of the entire colonist population remained loyal to Great Britain and they were referred to as Loyalists or Tories.Thousands left their new land to return to England, travel to Canada or to the British West Indies. Those who supported the war were known as Patriots.

The French Indian War

The French Indian War, which began in 1754 and concluded in 1763, did not directly involve the new Americans, but played a significant part in America’s history. Both France and Britain had taken possession of lands in North America and, now, both sought domination of the New World.

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Britain was successful in defeating France; and as a result, acquired the North American lands occupied by the French, which included large parts of Canada and also Florida - then occupied by Spain, an ally of France.

Britain’s victory came at a hefty price and brought about large debts that had to be repaid. The British Parliament began collecting the various taxes and tariffs from the colonists. The growing dissatisfaction gave rise to the colonists’ revolt.

The American Revolutionary War

Although the Second Continental Congress convened in May of 1775 and produced the Declaration of Independence, it was a few weeks earlier, on April 19th that the American Revolution began. The Colonists, led by the patriots, realized the need to organize themselves into military groups.

Many members of these groups had some military training; however, trained and untrained soldiers alike fought the war. Many men volunteered to fight for their freedom. By the time the war started, they too had some training behind them, but because their goal was inspired by the unstoppable desire for freedom, these volunteers prepared well so that they were combat ready when called for at any minute. They came to be known as the “minutemen.” Most famous among these bands of soldiers were the minutemen of Massachusetts who fought in the battles of Lexington and Concord alongside the Massachusetts’ militia. The colonists declared their independence from Britain on July 4th, 1776 when the Second Continental Congress decided to adopt the Declaration of Independence. The Revolutionary war, however, did not end until 1783.

After the war had begun, George Washington and other military leaders realized that a more organized army was needed, so they began to put together the Continental Army. At the time America’s naval power was far from adequate, with only 50 ships, but these were supplemented by privately owned Commercial vessels that had been commissioned to help in time of war.

These private ships came to be known as the “privateers,” The number of privateers totaled 2,000. Eventually, France, Spain and the Netherlands became the patriots’ allies and also assisted in the war effort.

The British military forces included the loyalists, the British troops, who were called Redcoats, named after the color of their uniforms and hired soldiers or mercenaries. These mercenaries were called Hessiansnamed after Hesse-Kassell, Germany. King George III of England paid a large sum of money to the German government to hire 20,000 well-trained soldiers to assist in the war effort.

Early in 1776 when the British engaged in war against the colonists, who sought independence, they thought they could easily win. Their population, which included the people of England, Scotland and Wales, totaled nearly nine million compared with the colonists population of two and a half million.

Also, the British had plenty of resources, including the money to hire additional troops as mentioned in the previous paragraph. About twenty percent of the colonists were made up loyalists and a large number ofthe native Indian population because the British were trying to halt further expansion of the colonies into Indian lands.

However, the Americans were fighting on their own territory and had come to know the terrain well enough to devise effective strategies. They were highly motivated by their fierce desire for independence. The following section will chronicle the decisive events of the American Revolution, its various battles and the eventual outcome of the war.

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Events of the American Revolution

April 1775: The first battles in the war of Independence took place in Lexington and Concord. American militias defeated British troops.

May 1775: American troops captured Fort Ticonderoga. This began the war in New York.

June 1775: After the British defeated the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill, George Washington was commissioned by the Continental Congress to lead its army.

July 1776: The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence (July 4th).

September 1777: British troops captured Philadelphia, home of the Continental Congress.

October 1777: British troops were defeated at Saratoga and failed to cut-off New England from the rest of the colonies.

February 1778: The Continental Congress formed an official alliance with France, which provided money, weapons and troops to the Continental army.

December 1778: With the support of the remaining loyalists in the Southern colonies, the British captured Savannah, Georgia in order to implement their Southern Strategy of capturing all the southern colonies.

February 1779: American colonial troops seized a British fort at Vicennes, thereby taking control of the war in the west.

September 1779: The colonial ship Bonhomme Richard, forced the surrender of the British naval vessel Serapis.

May 1780: As part of their Southern Strategy, the British captured Charleston, South Carolina.

March 1781: Americans defeated the British at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, and the British soon realized that their Southern Strategy was likely to fail.

October 1781: The British surrendered at Yorktown, Pennsylvania; bringing an end to most of the fighting in North America.

September 1783: The Treaty of Paris was signed, bringing an end to the war. The British conceded by recognizing the independence of the United States. September 1787: The Constitution of the United States was signed, and two years later, became effective.

The Louisiana Purchase

In 1803 the largest area of territory ever added to the United States at one time took place in the form of the Louisiana Purchase. The area of land covered nearly 800,000 square miles and was purchased by the United States from France, which then occupied and had settled parts of the area.

The Americans paid $15 million for the land which spanned across the following states: Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, nearly all of Kansas, portions of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.

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Also included was the state of Louisiana, of course, in which was located the port of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans had grown, under French occupation, to become the major shipping port used by France for exports and imports between the two countries.

The Texas Revolution and the Mexican War

The Texas revolution took place between 1835 and 1836. The residents of the area were mostly Anglo-Americans but lived under the rule of the Mexican government. The residents, who tired of the growing restrictions imposed by the Mexicans, sought liberation from their rule and the war ensued, with rebels fighting the Mexican government and military. Victory by the Americans led to the establishment of the Independent State of Texas. This independent state was short lived due to the US annexation of the state to include it in the Union in 1845, making Texas a new state in the Union.

This among other events led to the Mexican War: (1846-1848). Once again the Americans were victorious in their battles and as a result, Mexico relinquished all of its claims to the state of Texas, and much of the present day’s Southwestern United States, including New Mexico, large parts of California and Utah.

The American Civil WarOverview

This war was also known as the “War Between the States”, the “War of Rebellion” and the “War for Southern Independence”. The chief factor that caused it was slavery and the ever-widening differences in view between the Northern and Southern states concerning slavery.

The war was fought between the northern states, or United States of America, also referred to as the Union; and the southern states or Confederate States of America, also referred to as the Confederacy.

A total of nearly 600,000 lives were lost to this war and the estimated value of the property that was destroyed totaled $5 billion. Slavery played a central role in forming today’s United States of America in that the Union, having eventually defeated the Confederacy, assisted in uniting all the states into the Union through the plan that was enacted known as Reconstruction. A total of nearly 4 million black slaves were emancipated (given their freedom). The war lasted from 1861 to 1865.

Slavery and its role in the Civil War

There were a total of eleven Southern states that formed the Confederacy. They relied heavily on slave labor for their economy which was mainly cotton and tobacco. By the early 1800s, cotton made up 57% of all U.S. exports. The need to maintain this prosperity for the southern states contributed to the differences of opinion on the slavery issue between Northern and Southern states.

Slavery in America began in the early seventeenth century and lasted until 1865. The issue of slavery began to meet with opposition early on; and in 1818, when the state of Missouri sought admission into the union, it was agreed that a compromise would be made. As Missouri’s location was towards the north, but their population still favored slavery, The Missouri Compromise allowed that state to continue its practice of using slave labor. However, at the same time, it was declared that the state of Maine would become the first free state, in which former slaves could live as free men.

The Cessation of Southern States and the Forming of the Confederacy

Immediately after the confirmation of the election to presidency of Abraham Lincoln, on December 20th, 1860, the Southern states that perceived Lincoln as a threat to the end of slavery vowed to secede from the Union. The first state to actually secede was South Carolina.

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In February 1861, six other Southern states also threatening to secede sent representatives to a meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, then the capital of the Confederacy. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas joined South Carolina in seceding from the Union.

The convention was presided over by Howell Cobb of Georgia who adopted a provisional constitution that chose Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as provisional president of the Confederacy and Alexander Hamilton Stephens of Georgia as vice president. Although this constitution closely resembled the US Constitution, it differed on the slavery issue. It no longer condoned the continuation of the slave trade: it did permit the interstate commerce of slavery.

The provisional Confederate Congress convened a total of four times between February 2nd, 1861 and February 17th, 1862. On May 24th, 1861, the Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia. On November 6th, the Confederate Congress officially elected Jefferson Davis as their president and Stephens of Georgia as their vice president. The provisional Confederate government was replaced by permanent legislature on February 18th, 1862.

In his inaugural address on March 4th, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln rejected the secession of the Southern states. Although he tried to negotiate with their leaders, he did not succeed.Consequently, Southern rebel troops bombarded Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay, South Carolina. Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard led the assault. Following the attack on Ft. Sumter, the four remaining Southern states joined in seceding from the Union: Virginia in April of 1861 followed by Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina in the following month.

Fighting the Civil War

The North responded to this attack with shock and anger; and on April 15th, 1861, President Lincoln issued a proclamation to call up a total of 75,000 militia from the states. On April 9th, a second proclamation was issued that blockaded the Southern ports and a third proclamation issued on May 3rd called for 42,000 volunteers to serve 3 years in the Army and 18,000 volunteers to serve between one and three years in the Navy.

The South also began to mobilize troops, beginning with the secession of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina. A line had been drawn to separate the North from the South. Along the southern boundary of the North lay four border states, which did not secede from the Union. These were Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware. Several thousand men from Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland did, however, volunteer to fight for the Confederacy.

The most prominent military figure in the spring of 1861 was United States Army’s General-in-Chief Winfield Scott. Though physically frail, this man had a brilliant mind and devised a long-term war strategy that would prove to ensure victory for the North. It was later named the Anaconda Plan, named after the South American snake that squeezes its victims to death. In much the same fashion, the plan called for themobilization of Army and Navy troops to literally surround Confederate territories from all sides and attack.

Initially, Union troops swept down the Mississippi River, dividing the Confederacy’s western and eastern states. Additionally, the United States Navy set up blockades along the Southern ports, preventing in-coming shipments of European manufactured goods.

Scott calculated that should the South continue its resistance, even after the loss of the Mississippi and the closing of its ports, the Union Army would then lead an invasion into the heart of the Confederacy.The Navy increased its pressure along the Confederate coasts and Union troops took control of the Mississippi River by the middle of 1863. Then, large Union Army units marched into Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas, eventually forcing the South to surrender in the spring of 1865.

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World War I: An American Historical Perspective

Overview

The First World War; (1914-1918), was initially a European conflict that did not involve the United States. She chose to remain neutral in this conflict until events escalated to the point that the US intervened to attempt to negotiate for peace.

The war, which began as a local war between the unified nation of Austria/Hungary and Serbia, gradually evolved into a global war that included 32 of the world’s nations. Twenty-eight of these, including the U.S., Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia were known as the Allies. They opposed the Central powers, consisting of Germany, Austria/Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria.

The U.S. President’s Attempts at a Peaceful Resolution

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, which at the time remained a neutral nation in the conflict, attempted to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the war without either side claiming victory, with as few casualties as possible.

A number of important breakthroughs seemed to be resulting from America’s attempts to negotiate peace at various conferences held in Europe. At one point, the Germans claimed they stood ready to make peace; however, because their terms remained unspecified, Great Britain rejected Germany’s advances for peace.

Entrance of the United States into the War

In January 1917, the Germans announced that beginning on February 1st, they would wage unrestricted submarine warfare on shipments in and out of Great Britain. The Germans calculated that this measure would assure them of victory over Great Britain, which depended on shipments for its basic essentials such as food.

After numerous attacks on American ships sailing into Britain, on April 6th, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. This involved raising and transporting troops from the US to Europe. By June 17th, more than 175,000 American troops were stationed and training in France, with one of America’s military units already on the frontline of the Allied sector. The American force was a formidable one and played a key role in defeating the Central Powers. It was known as the AEF - American Expeditionary Force.

The End of World War I

The Allied forces eventually defeated the Germans, despite considerable damage to the Allied nations and various battle victories and the war was brought to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

The treaty, which was signed during the Paris Peace Conference, held in Versailles, France, included the formation of the League of Nations. The League of Nations’ primary duty was to execute the terms of all treaties written after World War I. The League of Nations became the world’s first peacekeeping body. Although the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28th, 1919 declared the war over, the U.S. did not ratify it.

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The Great Depression in the United States

Causes for the Economic Depression in the U.S.

Lasting from 1929 until the early 1940’s, the great depression was the worst and longest economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world. Although it began in the United States, the depression spread to most of the industrial countries in the world. The cause of the depression was not the stock market crash in October 1929. Although the “crash” and the depression were closely related, both were the result of problems in the economy that developed through the “prosperity decade” of the 1920’s.

On the surface, the 1920’s appeared to be a very prosperous time for America but income was unevenly distributed. The wealthy made large profits, but increasingly, more Americans were spending more than they earned. Modern industry was capable of producing vast amounts of consumer goods to meet the needs of the new consumers who were wooed by clever advertising to purchase new automobiles, new household appliances and brand new inventions such as the radio.

This created a fundamental problem. Americans were being taunted to depart from their traditional values of frugality - spending only when absolutely necessary, and instead joining in the spending spree. The situation was further complicated by the invention of “credit” - the system of buying now and paying later. The self-centered attitudes of the 1920’s seemed to fit well with the needs of the economy.

A further complication of the depression was international lending of money by American bankers. With the post war need for Europe to rebuild after the war, most nations turned to America for help. Along with the extensive loans being made available were also extensive risks in the inability of some nations to repay what they borrowed. Among these, in particular, was Germany.

Back home in the U.S., consumers found themselves spending freely with their newly gained credit system, with little or no thought of the day that would come when they were simply not able to get out from under overwhelming debts. All these factors came to a head in 1929.

The disastrous crash of the US stock market in October of 1929 ruined thousands of investors and destroyed confidence in the economy. By 1933, the worst point in the depression, nearly a quarter of the country’s population was unemployed as a result of the closure of businesses, factories and farms. The depression continued throughout most of the 1930’s, ending only when massive spending for World War IIbegan.

The End of Depression, FDR and the “NEW Deal”

The depression had lasting effects on America, some of which are still apparent today, more than half a century later. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a series of programs to hedge against such economic disaster in the future, known as the “New Deal”.

The New Deal changed the relationship between the people and the Federal government. It allowed for the government to play a much larger role in the lives of the people and the economy. Several social-assistance programs were developed to counter against the devastating effects of economic depression.

President Roosevelt was hailed as a hero by the working class of America. His “New Deal” brought about a new liberal political alliance in the United States. His programs won the support of labor unions, blacks, people who received government relief, some farmers, ethnic and religious minorities and intellectuals, who became the backbone of the Democratic Party.

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World War IIOverview

The Second World War was the most devastating war in human history. It began in 1939 as a European conflict between Germany and an Anglo-French coalition and ended six years later in 1945 to include the involvement of most of the world’s nations. The result of the war was world dominance by the United States and the USSR. More than any other war, it demanded and depended upon the entire human and economic resources of each nation involved.

The Rise of Fascism and the Formation of the Axis Powers

Three major economic powers were left dissatisfied with the outcome of the First World War. Germany, the country which lost the most in terms of territory and was deepest in debt because of borrowed funds for reconstruction, was extremely bitter over the compromises dictated by the Treaty of Versailles.

Italy, though a victor in the First World War, was dissatisfied with the territorial gains it had made which were not enough to meet its ambitions. Japan; also a victor in the war was unhappy with its failure to take over China. These three nations went on to form their own coalition; and, as a result of treaties between the three in the years 1936-1937, the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis was born. Axis became the collective term for those countries and their allies.

Britain, France and the U.S. did realize their wartime objectives: to reduce the military capability of Germany and to politically reorganize Europe and the world as they saw fit. However, the burden of maintaining peace in Europe during the post war years fell upon the British and the French who frequently disagreed on Peace Settlement policy and subsequently grew unsure of how to adequately defend the Peace Settlement.

However, the wave of the future was a system of nationalistic, militaristic totalitarianism that came to be known by its Italian name: Fascism. Fascism presented itself as a system better able to minister to the needs of the people and better able to defend itself against communism. Benito Mussolini established the first fascist dictatorship in Italy in 1922.

Adolf Hitler, then leader of the German National Socialist Party, also referred to as the Nazi party, was very vocal in expressing his desires to overturn the Treaty of Versailles and regain additional territories to suit the growth of a nation whose people were a “superior race”.

In the early 1930’s, the depression hit Germany. Its people were swayed towards the Nazi party as well as communism. In 1933, Hitler became chancellor of Germany and established himself as dictator.

In Japan, no one person emerged and established himself as a fascist dictator. The Japanese armed forces were prominently positioned in the government and used their power and influence to impose a type of totalitarianism similar to the other Axis powers.

The Japanese used a minor skirmish with Chinese troops near Mukden in 1931 as a pretext to wield their power by taking over the entire Manchurian province of China. During the years 1936-7, the Japanese seized and occupied all major Chinese ports. In terms of disrupting the world’s status quo, the Japanese were far ahead of Hitler.

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German Aggression in Europe

Hitler had formally denounced the disarmament orders written in the Treaty of Versailles, had created a new air force, had reintroduced the mandatory drafting of personnel into the military and had decided to try out his new military might by way of involvement in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

Hitler deployed his military on the side of the right-wing military rebels. Benito Mussolini was also involved with this war and supported the same side. This venture led the two leaders into collaboration with each other. Hitler started to mount aggressions in Europe with the annexation of Austria, followed by Czechoslovakia and then threatened to invade Poland.

By the summer of 1940, Hitler invaded and occupied Poland, Belgium, Holland, and the strategic Atlantic ports of Norway. Even France had fallen to the Nazis. The defeat of France shocked the United States, who began its first peacetime draft effort to build up its military in the event of its involvement in the war. The only remaining nation resisting the Nazis was Britain, who by then had a new Prime Minister; Winston Churchill.

United States begins its Involvement in the War

In March of 1941, the United States Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which appropriated $7 billion in weapons and other aid to any country involved in the war. By implementing this method of involvement, the US hoped to ensure victory over the Axis powers without the involvement of its own troops.

By late summer 1941, the U.S. was in a state of undeclared war against Germany. US Marines were stationed in Iceland, which Britain had occupied since May of 1940, and were assigned to escort shipments west of the island in the north Atlantic. In September 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the use of military force against any Axis war vessels traveling in the area.

By late July, 1941 the Japanese had invaded and occupied southern Indochina, then a territory belonging to the French. Britain, the Netherlands and the United States froze Japanese assets in an effort to prevent it from purchasing oil, which would gradually cripple its army and render its navy and air force useless.

The United States demanded that Japan withdraw from China and Indochina as a condition of lifting the embargo, however, the Japanese held fast to their ambitions of expansion and instead, devised further strategies involving rapid sweeps through Burma, Malaya, the East Indies and the Philippines.

Their greatest concern was the US naval fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor which could react quickly to stop further incursions into the Southeast and Pacific island nations by Japan. So, the Japanese devised a plan that involved a surprise attack upon the US Naval fleet docked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Pearl Harbor and the Entrance of the United States into World War II

Just before eight o’clock in the morning of December 7th, 1941, the Japanese used several carrier-based aircraft to conduct a surprise-bombing raid on the US Naval fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor.

The raid lasted less than two hours and the Japanese succeeded in destroying or seriously damaging eight US battleships as well as thirteen other naval vessels. The attack on Pearl Harbor counted as brilliant stroke on the side of the Japanese. The US entered the war with the fiercest determination to fight to the finish.

Over the next two years there were many battles fought on all fronts, with both advances and setbacks for the Allies. The war had entered into North Africa, where the British came to its defense and succeeded.

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Hitler targeted Russia for its prized oil reserves and launched offensives that succeeded. This resulted indeep excursions into the country, with Moscow and Stalingrad both under the threat of takeover by the Nazis.

Meanwhile, the Japanese continued their expansion, but were now proceeding towards the Southwestern Pacific nations. They suffered a tremendous loss against US forces in the battle of Midway, where US dive-bombers managed to destroy three out the four Japanese aircraft carriers deployed in the area in one five minute raid. It was not until later in the day that the US forces succeeded in destroying the fourth Japanese carrier. The Japanese sank the US Navy’s aircraft carrier; USS Yorktown.

Another setback that American forces suffered was on April 9th, 1942 April 9th, 1942 when both American and Philippine troops surrendered at Bataan.

The US Air Force, in conjunction with Britain’s Royal Air Force, carried out bombing raids over Germany and succeeded in causing great destruction to its cities. However, the USAF lost 25% of their planes from Nazi anti-aircraft artillery.

On July 7th, 1943, British and US troops landed on Sicily to invade Italy. They defeated the defending Nazi and Italian divisions stationed there and overcame the final Axis resistance on August 17th.

Mussolini was stripped of power on July 25th, and the Italian government negotiated a secretly signed armistice (a temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement between opponents) on September 3rd andmade public on September 8th.

Meanwhile, Russia was defending herself adequately enough to stave off continuous attacks by Hitler. It was the vast expanses of land in the USSR that appealed to Hitler, as it seemed to fit well with his plans of providing enough living space for his people.

The Beginnings of Allied Victory

At the end of November 1943, the Tehran Conference was held. President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill traveled to Tehran, Iran to meet for the first time, Josef Stalin, the Soviet Union’s leader. The leaders met to plan strategies that involved their cooperative efforts to defeat the Axis powers.

They approved a war plan that called for attacks launched from Britain, across the English Channel into France, where they planned to attack Hitler’s occupied territories of northwest Europe. The operation was given the code name Overlord and was scheduled for early in 1944 if the weather would permit. It was rescheduled for May of 1944. June 6th, 1944 marked the day of the Normandy Invasion or the beginning of Overlord when British and American troops landed on the beachheads of Normandy, on the northern coast of France.

The day is remembered as D-Day and signifies the beginning of the Allies’ victory over the Axis in the world’s greatest war.

In the end, British and American armies proceeded east from France, which by now had been liberated, towards Germany; while the USSR advanced west towards Germany. Hitler decided to wait in Berlin, his command center. Upon hearing the news of the Allies inevitable march into Berlin, he committed suicide.

The Germans signed an unconditional surrender of all German armed forces at US Army General Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims, France on May 7th, 1945. The British and American governments declared May 8th V-E Day, which stood for Victory in Europe. The full unconditional surrender took place one minute past midnight after a second signing in Berlin with Soviet participation. The USSR occupied Berlin with their conquered territories spreading east across the Balkans and other eastern European nations all the way to the Russian mainland.

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The Defeat of Japan

By early 1945, it was apparent that Japan’s position had been severely weakened, leaving it with little hope to win the war. However, the end of the war was not near. Although Japan’s navy had been rendered useless, its army was still intact and remained deployed in its own country and in China.

The US Navy suffered in terms of ships lost or damaged because the Japanese hastily trained their pilots to fly kamikaze missions (suicide missions involving the pilots flying their armament-laden aircraft directly into their targets). On April 13th the Japanese succeeded in destroying 17 US ships and damaging another 50 in their attempt to defend their position in the Philippines.

Prior to that mission while waiting for reinforcements from Europe to launch a final attack on Japanese positions, US troops continued their attacks on the home islands of Japan. They first landed on the island of Iwo Jima on February 9th, but suffered the loss of 6,000 US Marines’ lives before securing the island on March 16th.

On April 1st, four US Army divisions and four US Marine divisions landed on the Japanese Island of Okinawa. Again, the Japanese put up a formidable defense and it was not until June 21st that US troops finally secured the island.

During the invasion of the two home islands, the US Navy suffered the destruction of 15 ships and damage to an additional 200 ships. As it turned out; though tentatively planned, the invasion of Kyushu by US troops was never to take place.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Throughout the war, the United States and Britain undertook a massive scientific project; the development of the atomic bomb, believing that Germany was doing the same. Having successfully completed the project, the US tested its first bomb in the deserts of New Mexico on July 16th, 1945.

Two more bombs had been built and President Harry S. Truman decided to use them in order to convince the Japanese to surrender. He justified his decision by stating his belief that it would save thousand of American lives.

The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen as targets and, for maximum psychological impact, both bombs were ordered dropped in rapid succession. The world had never seen such extensive damage. Hiroshima was bombed on August 6th and Nagasaki on August 9th. The estimated number of lives lost, according to the US, was between 105,000 and 117,000. According to Japanese estimates, the number totaled 240,000.

Between the two bombing campaigns, on August 8th, the USSR declared war on Japan and marched into the Chinese province of Manchuria, Japan’s first incursion in the war and in which it still held its position. On August 14th, Japan announced its surrender. The formal surrender; which was not entirely unconditional in that the Allies permitted Japan to retain its emperor, took place on September 2nd, 1945, in Tokyo Bay

aboard the US Navy ship, USS Missouri.

The Birth of United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank

During the last stages of war, the Allies made preparations for peace in political, economic and humanitarian terms. The Anglo-American passion for spreading democracy and providing humanitarian aid to needy countries intensified, culminating in the convening of forty-four of the world’s nations at a conference held in Virginia in May 1943. Their purpose was to form the Food and Agricultural Organization,mandated to combat world hunger.

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In his last days, President Roosevelt sought to use the cooperation of these participating nations to form a union whose purpose would be to prevent another global conflict. On June 26, 1945, the United Nationswas established. A year earlier, at an international economic conference, participating nations established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to stabilize the currencies of the world. This led to the formation of the World Bank whose sole purpose was to provide direct loans to nations torn and ravaged by the war in order to assist them in their reconstruction efforts.

Post WWII America and the beginning of the Cold War

America entered the post war era powerful and prosperous, recognized as the leader of the Western (free) world. As such, the nation’s continued manufacture of weaponry was considered essential against the threat of the other superpower, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and especially against its doctrine of communism now beginning to spread beyond its already occupied territories.

The Rise of Communism and the Arms Race

In 1946, Czechoslovakia voted to elect a communist government, which gradually led to the USSR’s takeover of the country in 1949. This event, coupled with USSR’s blockade of Berlin, sparked the fire of the anti-Communist sentiment that was to sweep over America. Also, in 1949 President Truman announced that US intelligence sources had gathered information about an atomic bomb that had been exploded in the Soviet Union. It was assumed that this was a test similar to the US test carried out in 1946 in New Mexico. Suddenly, the US no longer held a monopoly on Nuclear Warfare.

The momentum of weapons manufacture that began during World War II continued under the new threat of communism and the fact that the other superpower now also had similar destructive capabilities. With the manufacture of weapons came the economic prosperity through the numerous jobs the industry created.

As the rift between the United States and the USSR; capitalism and communism widened, the competitiveness and conflicts also grew to encompass not only the arms race at the frenetic pace it took, but also the race to space. Computer technology was now being widely used and advancing rapidly, space exploration became a growing industry, increasing in its sophistication, and weapons of mass destruction grew smarter.

The NATO Alliance and the Division of Berlin and Germany

As a counter measure to Soviet expansionism, western European nations along with the U.S. and Canada united to resist any further incursions by the Soviet Union into that area of the world. The treaty was signed on April 4th 1949 and was named the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Its purpose was to form a defense alliance to ensure the stability and well being of its member nations.

The original members of NATO were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United States. Greece and Turkey were later admitted into the Alliance in 1952, West Germany in 1955 and Spain in 1982. Once Germany unified in 1990, its membership as a single nation replaced that of West Germany.

The Expansion of Communism, and the Growing Threat to the U.S.

The “Red Threat” as it came to be known had also seeded in China. Back in the 1920’s, a political faction inspired by the socialist philosophy of Karl Marx; a German born 19th century philosopher credited with the founding of modern communism adopted by the Soviet Union, came into being. It was the CCP - Chinese Communist Party and among its founding fathers was one Mao Zedong.

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Mao was born to a peasant family and always felt that the desperate changes needed to reform China would come from a peasant revolt. He was easily able to garner support from the peasants who, by and large, made up the majority of the country’s population and gradually ascended to power. Mao led the People’s Revolution and on October 1st, 1949 overthrew the existing government and founded The People’s Republic of China. Mao adopted a similar form of government modeled after the Soviet Union and thus, the expansion of communism continued.

The Korean WarThe Start of the War

The threat of communism suddenly loomed large in the face of the U.S. when Soviet-backed North Korean troops attacked their fellow countrymen to the South in the U.S. supported Republic of Korea. After the Second World War, the Korean peninsula, considered strategically crucial, was divided at the 38th parallel with the North controlled by a communist government, and the South, by a U.S. backed dictator.

Committing US Troops to the War

As a result of the attack, President Truman called an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council in which North Korea was branded as an international aggressor. That evening, Truman ordered US Army General Douglas MacArthur to begin supplying South Korea with war materials. When MacArthur reported back to his president that supplies alone would not be enough to fend off the invasion from the North, Truman authorized the eager General to use all the forces at his disposal.

At first, the war went badly for the U.S. and the South Koreans, but on September 15, 1950, General MacArthur launched a brilliantly conceived and executed war plan that called for an amphibious landing at Inchon, on the western coast of North Korea, trapping a large North Korean military force.

The End of the War

President Eisenhower, elected in 1952, ended the Korean Was in July, 1953. Although the United Nations General Assembly’s war objective was to unify North and South Korea into one free and democratic nation, the stalemate between the North and South persisted and still does to this day.

The Civil Rights MovementOverview

It is popularly believed that the American Civil Rights Movement began in 1955 with Rosa Parks, whom you will learn about, and ended in 1965 with the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

The Civil Rights Movement’s primary objective was to put an end to segregation; a systematic approach used by white Southerners to control the black population after the abolition of slavery in 1860. As early as the late 1800s blacks attempted to resist segregation and filed a series of lawsuits claiming its unconstitutionality. 1909 blacks had formed a union to protect and promote their rights. The organization was named the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; (NAACP).

The US Supreme Court Ruling to Order Desegregation

After a series of legal battles, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of desegregation of American schools. Up until that time, and to an isolated extent, even after that decision; blacks and whites in Southern states lived entirely separate lives. They went to separate schools, lived in separate suburbs or sections of cities, ate and drank at separate places and though they traveled in the same public transportation buses; were seated in separate sections.

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Before the Supreme Court ruling in 1954, President Truman, in 1950 had already begun the process of integration within the armed forces, which became the first officially integrated US Armed Forces to engage in conflict during the Korean War. Truman’s successor; Dwight Eisenhower in his efforts to combat segregation on a national level established a Government Contract Compliance Committee to ensure that firms with discriminatory hiring practices would be excluded from federal grants or contracts.

The Beginnings of Implementing Desegregation

The new law requiring school desegregation, resulting from the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Department of Education in 1954, was slowly becoming implemented but met with much resistance in the South. This came to a head in Arkansas in 1957 when a number of black students were to enroll in Little Rock Central High School. Parents of white students attending the school won the Governor’s sympathy and he, in turn, ordered the state’s National Guard to supposedly keep order. However, the actual purpose of the state’s National Guard was to bar the entrance of the black students into the school.

President Eisenhower obtained an injunction against the state of Arkansas’ governor; Orval Faubus and sent federal troops into the city who nationalized the Arkansas National Guard and enabled the black students to attend classes. The event sparked violent outbursts in 50 other school districts in the South, including the dynamiting of an integrated school in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Leadership of Martin Luther King Jr.

By the time of the civil unrest surrounding the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, the growing Civil Rights Movement had found a new leader in Martin Luther King Jr., a twenty-eight year old Baptist preacher from Montgomery Alabama.

King first became prominent in December 1955, when Rosa Parks, a forty-three year old seamstress had refused to give up her seat to a white man and move to the segregated back of a public bus in Montgomery, for which she was arrested for her brazenness. Rosa Parks was a member of the NAACP in Montgomery and in support of her actions; the city’s blacks staged a boycott of the city’s bus services and broadened the objectives of the civil rights movement after selecting Martin Luther King Jr. to lead it.

President Eisenhower’s response to the Little Rock, Arkansas incident alienated him from Southern whites and his slow and reluctant response to the situation cost him the goodwill of the civil rights workers. King was there in time to fill the gap in national leadership of the movement’s cause. King’s way of combating the injustices of racism was through nonviolent demonstrations. “Nonviolence”, King wrote, “is a powerful and just weapon. It is a sword that heals.”

Thurgood Marshall

In the 1960s, with the Kennedy era, the Civil Rights Movement gained considerable momentum. John F. Kennedy, an Irish-American democrat from Massachusetts became the youngest ever and first Roman Catholic to be elected to the White House.

The dismantling of segregation took on monumental proportions. The legal battles continued and the victories kept coming. The person credited for winning these battles, including the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka - 1954, was one Thurgood Marshall. Marshall won other important legal victories, which led to the overturning of Supreme Court rulings.

Marshall was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1908 and graduated law school at the top of his class. With the civil rights movement in its early stages, Marshall felt compelled to leave his private practice and work where his talents would count for the good of all the oppressed people of this nation.

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Marshall became director and chief counsel for the Legal Defense Fund, the legal arm of the NAACP. Throughout his long, varied career, Marshall was a highly energized and tireless advocate for the rights of minorities and the poor. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed him as a federal judge with jurisdiction over federal circuit courts in New York, Connecticut and Vermont. In 1965, he was appointed as solicitor general for the United States by then President Lyndon B. Johnson, who two years later nominated him to the Supreme Court. Two months later, Marshall was confirmed and became the first ever black man to serve as Supreme Court Justice.

The Kennedy Era and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s

The Election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Although he struggled to influence Congress, JFK was more successful at taking the lead in the fight for black civil rights. It was in these hopeful years of his administration that the nation’s civil rights organizations began pursuing the matter of compliance with federal court orders more aggressively, as the resistance to desegregate by the white Southerners continued.

Civil Rights Sit-ins and Freedom Riders

The civil rights movement began to implement new methods of protest such as sit-ins and the freedom riders. On February 1st, 1960, at a lunch counter at the Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, four black college students sat at the “whites only” section and waited to be served.

This form of protest caught on quickly and within days, sit-ins were being conducted throughout North Carolina, and within weeks, spread across segregated lunch counters and restaurants in the South. The sit-in movement demonstrated to the nation that young blacks were determined to openly reject segregation. As a result, it found new supporters from northern whites, particularly college students.

Due to the success of getting the nation’s attention, black students formed an organization after the sit-ins, called The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1961, the Congress for Racial Equality or CORE, another civil rights organization, organized a method to test the effectiveness of a 1960 Supreme Court Ruling, making segregation illegal in bus stations that were open to interstate travel.

The Freedom Riders consisted of both blacks and whites including members of SNCC, who traveled on buses through the southern states. They set out from Washington, DC, and except for some violence in Rock Hill, South Carolina, they encountered a peaceful trip southward until they reached Alabama where the violence erupted. At Anniston, a mob set fire to one of the buses and several riders were beaten. At Birmingham, riders were attacked by a mob as they got off the bus. In Montgomery the beatings were even more severe.

The violence brought national attention to the Freedom Riders; and President Kennedy, at first reluctant to act, was persuaded to intervene by his younger brother Robert F. Kennedy, whom he had appointed to serve as US Attorney General. Robert Kennedy immediately got his brother’s permission to send in 400 federal marshals to restrain the white mobs and protect the freedom riders who continued on their journey to Jackson, Mississippi where they were arrested and imprisoned at the state penitentiary, ending the protest.

Though the efforts of the freedom riders did result in the desegregation of some bus stations, more importantly, it once again demonstrated to the nation how far members of the civil rights movement would go to promote their cause.

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The Kennedy Administration’s Support of the Civil Rights Movement

The events in Alabama and other incidents proved JFK was thoroughly sympathetic to the civil rights movement; however, it was through Robert F. Kennedy that action aided the movement’s cause.

For example; in September 1962, it was Robert Kennedy who forced Mississippi governor Ross Barnett to allow registered black student James Meredith into his dormitory at the University of Mississippi. Although the University had been issued a federal court order to desegregate, the governor of the state resisted.

Again, Robert F. Kennedy brought federal marshals. It took several hundred U.S. marshals, two deaths and 375 injuries, to accomplish the task; Meredith was finally admitted into his dormitory.

In 1963, Robert Kennedy assisted Martin Luther King in his stand against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, at the cost of the White House Administration’s alienation from Governor George C. Wallace. Martin Luther King was arrested for civil disobedience and jailed after leading the protest in Birmingham that gained national and worldwide attention.

SCLC Campaigns

Martin Luther King had formed the organization, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), in 1957 after the Montgomery bus boycott. The organization served as a platform for him to gain massive support for the civil rights movement through nonviolence and peaceful protest demonstrations.

The first of the “direct-action” campaigns was staged in Albany, Georgia, which, despite the national attention it received, failed. Albany’s police chief continued to jail protestors without police violence. The second direct-action campaign staged by King was in Birmingham, Alabama in the spring of 1963. It was the one in which Robert Kennedy assisted King in making the campaign a possibility.

The peaceful protest marches were met with severe violence ordered by Birmingham Police Chief Eugene “Bull” Connor. He directed his police force to set attack dogs on

the protesters and firefighters to blast them with high pressure hoses. The scenes of this event were shown throughout the nation and the world in newspapers, magazines and on television. Much of the world was shocked and horrified by the events in Birmingham because among the protestors were young school children. Reaction to the violence served to muster increased support for black civil rights. Local white leaders promised an end to some segregation practices; but ultimately, the campaign succeeded by supporting national legislation against segregation.

Leader Emerges in Support of Segregation

Also in 1963, Alabama’s Governor Wallace defied the Kennedy administration’s federal court order to desegregate the University if Alabama. The Kennedy administration responded with all its might by engaging the full force of the federal government, including the US army, to prevent violence and enforce desegregation.

Wallace had now emerged as the leader of the white Southerners who opposed desegregation. His defiance of the government’s federal court order pushed JFK from a somewhat tentative support of the civil rights movement to a full commitment to put an end to segregation. Up until that time, JFK, unlike his brother, did not want to push the various laws and measures against segregation through Congressbecause although the laws were already on the books, he feared losing the support of the powerful Southern democrats like Wallace, which he needed in order to ensure passage of various other bills through Congress.

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The March to Washington and King’s Historic Speech

National civil rights leaders took advantage of the worldwide attention they had now received to continue applying pressure on Congress and the White House to pass civil rights legislation. The black leaders, who by now had the support from many factions among America’s white population, organized a march to the Capitol in Washington DC on August 28th 1963.

The event marked the high point of Martin Luther King’s career. It is estimated that a crowd of a quarter ofa million people gathered at the Lincoln memorial to hear folk-rock protest songs by human and civil rights activists Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. They listened to the now celebrated keynote address delivered by the charismatic Baptist preacher from Montgomery, Alabama.

In a speech that elaborated upon the tenets of the Declaration of Independence, and in words that would have even made its author, Thomas Jefferson, proud; Martin Luther King eloquently delivered the historic “I have a dream” speech.

In his rich, baritone voice, King proclaimed; “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character… And when we allow freedom to ring… we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

The Assassination of Kennedy and Historic Events of his Presidency

Following the March to Washington, Kennedy proposed a new civil rights law, which gradually did pass Congress, but only after his death. On the morning of November 22nd, 1963, while riding in a motorcade on a politicking trip through the streets of Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by an assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist supporter who was caught that afternoon and murdered two days later by Jack Ruby. Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s Vice-President, was sworn into the office of Presidency upon confirmation that Kennedy had died in a Dallas hospital.

Passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

He is credited with being one of the most assertive Presidents in US history, managing to pass a considerable amount of new legislation, including the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Though it continued to meet with staunch resistance from the South, Johnson appealed to Congress to pass the measure that ended segregation, in memory of John F. Kennedy. The law passed, finally giving blacks their hard fought justice, which made segregation illegal and gave federal law enforcement authorization to enforce the laws of desegregation.

New Frontier Legislation

A very unique piece of legislation that Kennedy managed to pass into law was the founding of the Peace Corps as part of his wish of establishing a new frontier where America would use its strength to combat both domestic and international ills. The Peace Corps is an agency, which was established to aid in the development of third world countries. Its existence thrives to this day with many thousands of volunteers serving an enlistment within its ranks to serve the noble purpose for which it was established.

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The End of the Civil Rights Movement

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) took its commitment to civil rights activism to the community level. Beginning in 1961, the SNCC and CORE organized voter registration campaigns in the rural areas of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, predominantly populated by blacks. They helped the poorer, less educated to overcome the obstacles that stood in their way of voting, such as reading, writing and filling out the registration forms correctly.

In early 1965, the SNCC organized a march that led from Selma, Alabama to the state capitol of Montgomery. The SCLC, Dr. King’s organization, also joined in. The objective of the march was to rally national support for blacks to gain the right to vote in that state which still restricted them from doing so. The day came to be known as Bloody Sunday. The marchers met violence when police beat and tear-gassed them. The ensuing outrage of the nation served to support continuation of the march.

Two weeks later, through a commitment of federal protection that the SCLC had obtained, the march resumed. As a result, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law in August 1965.

After the signing of the Voting Rights Act, many blacks felt that they had accomplished their goal; and even the support for the civil rights movement from America’s white population grew weary and distracted by another crisis that now focused their attention; the Vietnam War.

Martin Luther King turned his attention to fighting for equal economic opportunity for the African-American population. It was highly evident to King that, even though a law had been passed making racial discrimination illegal, racism was highly prevalent in America. His fight for economic rights took him to Memphis, Tennessee to support a strike by black garbage workers. On April 4, 1968 while on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, Martin Luther King was shot by an assassin and killed.

The Crisis in Southeast Asia

Since the end of the Second World War, conditions in much of Southeast Asia were chaotic as the US and the USSR competed to establish governments favorable to their own policies in the countries of that region. The French colonial empire of Indochina, which included Vietnam, had broken up and both Laos and South Vietnam were threatened by Communist rebellions.

The dictator, who was both selected and supported by the US, was Ngo Dinh Diem. As president of the South Vietnamese nation, he had faced the threat of a communist uprising within his own boundaries since 1954. In 1961, Kennedy decided to increase the number of US troops stationed in South Vietnam from 700 to 15,000 to serve strictly as military advisers.

The faction within South Vietnam causing the conflict was a communist dominated guerrilla movement called the National Liberation Front, mainly made up of peasants who were oppressed under the Diem regime and established ties to their fellow countrymen to the north who lived under communism.

It soon became apparent to Kennedy that Diem was more interested in holding on to power than supporting democracy in his nation or defeating the communist uprising within its boundaries. In an internal coup that intended to overthrow Diem’s ineffective government, Diem was killed and a new government was installed; however, it too was not able to keep the guerilla war from spreading.

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The Vietnam War

Overview

The US became involved in the conflict, believing that the “domino theory” would take place. If the South fell to communism, soon all of Southeast Asia would be powerless to fend off the “red threat.” In 1965, the US sent in troops to prevent the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. The National Liberation Front (NLF) was gaining more ground with its guerrilla warfare, assisted by its close ties to the communist North.

Ultimately, the war failed to keep South Vietnam free from the spread of communism; and in 1975, the country reunified as one nation under communist rule. In 1976, it officially became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

During the conflict, approximately 3-4 million Vietnamese, from both the North and South; another 1.5 - 2 million Laotians and Cambodians who were drawn into the war, and more than 58,000 American troops also lost their lives.

US Military Build-up in Southeast Asia

After Lyndon Johnson took over the presidency, he sought to take a forceful stance in Southeast Asia and to prove America’s resolve in the conflict. As it happened, just before his assassination, Kennedy was resolved to remove the US from the Asian conflict and was preparing to withdraw troops from Vietnam, starting with 1,000 soldiers.

By mid 1964, the number of US troops in South Vietnam totaled 27,000. Even though reports to President Johnson indicated that the NLF, the aggressors from the North, were being supported by the South Vietnamese due to being alienated by their previous dictator; he continued to believe it was the North that was perpetrating southern aggression.

As tensions mounted, hostilities and battles followed, his advisers informed Johnson that only a full-scale air war against North Vietnam would succeed in depressing the NLF’s morale.

On March 8, 1965, 3,500 US Marines were dispatched to the area and by the end of April, 56,000 additional combat troops had joined them. The total number of US troops now stationed in South Vietnam was 74,000. US Army General William Westmoreland’s strategy was for America to establish a large combat force and unleash it in big sweeps, thereby eliminating or wearing down the enemy by inflicting the highest possible number of enemy casualties. By 1969, at the peak of American involvement in the Vietnam War, a total of 534,000 American troops had amassed in the region.

The War Reaches a Stalemate

The DRV and the NLF cooperated in mounting offensives against US troops and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) created by the US and consisting of South Vietnamese troops loyal to the alliance between their nation and the US. The US, in turn, retaliated by increasing their offensive maneuvers on the ground.

When the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division arrived in the area, it fought one of the largest battles of the Vietnam War in the la Drang Valley. This conflict inflicted a serious defeat on the North Vietnamese forces and the NLF, who decided to change their military tactics as a result.

By 1967, the war on the ground had reached a stalemate with each side launching their offensives and suffering their share of casualties. This led Johnson to increase the air war. In 1966, the bombing of North Vietnam’s oil facilities succeeded in destroying 70 percent of their fuel reserves, but did not affect the DRV’s ability to continue the war.

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Tet Offensive

In 1967, North Vietnam and the NLF decided to take advantage of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration known as Tet to mount an all-out offensive aimed at inflicting serious losses to both the ARVN and US forces. It was usually during this holiday that there was a break in fighting.

In December of 1967, when the holiday began, the communist forces staged a successful takeover of a US Marine base at Khe Sanh, placing it under siege. Just as the North Vietnamese strategists had predicted, the US would not allow their base to be overrun. Gen. Westmoreland dispatched 50,000 US Marines and Army troops to the area, thereby weakening their position in the south.

On January 31, 1968 that the main thrust of the Tet Offensive began. Most ARVN troops had been given leave for the Tet holiday and went home and US troops were on stand-down in many areas. Over 85,000 NLF soldiers simultaneously attacked every major city in South Vietnam. Even the US Embassy in Saigon was taken.

The embassy was retaken by American troops within eight hours, but it took three weeks for them to force 1,000 NLF fighters to retreat from Saigon. By the time the offensive, which as a whole lasted into the fall of 1968, was finally over, both the North Vietnamese and the NLF had suffered massive casualties.

After Tet, General Westmoreland requested 206,000 additional troops to finish the job, claiming that the enemy had almost been conquered. President Johnson denied his request and replaced him because the American public had now reached a psychological breaking point. The general consensus among the American public was that it despised America’s involvement in the war. 1968 was an election year and Richard M. Nixon was elected to the White House.

The Ending of the War in Vietnam

During his campaign for the presidency, Nixon promised to end the war if elected, and backed up his assertion with a claim that he had a secret weapon with which to end the war. He called it Vietnamization, a plan that entailed the withdrawal of American troops while fortifying the ranks of the ARVN, leaving the Vietnamese to fight their own war.

Because of his campaign promise, Nixon narrowly won the election and now came the pressing problem of ending the war, while still attempting to keep South Vietnam free from communist rule. This meant that the war had to continue. Nixon’s policy of Vietnamization came to be known as the Nixon Doctrine, stating that US troops would no longer be directly involved in Asian wars.

He immediately ordered the withdrawal of 25,000 American troops and stepped up the CIA operation known as Phoenix in which 20,000 suspected NLF guerrillas were assassinated, many of whom were innocent civilians. Nixon’s doctrine also called for additional funding for the ARVN and intensified the bombing of North Vietnam. Nixon reasoned that in order to ensure the safe withdrawal of American troops, it was also necessary to bomb the enemy’s sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia.

Invasion of Cambodia

In 1969, Nixon ordered a secret bombing campaign of Cambodia along its border with South Vietnam in attempts to wipe out enemy base camps located there and in order to provide time for the military build up of the ARVN. The campaign was an utter failure. Lasting for four years, with more bombing than any campaign over Vietnam, it caused great destruction and upheaval in a country which had not known war for centuries, killing 100,000 peasants and leaving more than 2 million people homeless.

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Three months later, Nixon ordered the withdrawal of troops from Cambodia, but in the aftermath of the bombings and the invasion, Cambodian life was thoroughly disrupted and in disarray and Cambodians placed blame on the US supported right wing government of their country.

They flocked in droves toward the communist opposition group in Cambodia known as the Khmer Rouge, which, after a grisly civil war, took over as the ruling party and established a communist government in Cambodia in 1975.

The Invasion of Laos

Secret bombing campaigns of Laos began as early as 1964, intending to target North Vietnamese troops and the Communist guerrillas known as the Pathet Lao, who controlled the northern part of the country. In the five years that followed the start of these campaigns, approximately 150,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Laos. By 1970, at least one-quarter of the country’s population was refugees and 750,000 of its people had been killed.

On the advice of his chief military advisor in the area, Nixon ordered the invasion of Laos. Prevented from using US troops by the Cooper-Church Amendment, the invasion called for 21,000 ARVN troops to lead the invasion on February 8, 1971. US B-52 bombers, intending to disrupt any North Vietnamese and NLF offensives and to test the strength of the newly fortified ARVN, supported the mission. The invasion resulted in a failure equal to that of the one in Cambodia and ended with a communist takeover and an established government in 1975.

The Bombing of North Vietnam

By the spring of 1972, with US withdrawal from South Vietnam actively underway, there were only 6,000 US combat troops remaining in South Vietnam. The DRV decided that it was the optimal time to launch a final assault and crush the ARVN. On March 30, 1972, they succeeded by leading an invasion of 30,000 North Vietnamese troops and another 150,000 PRG fighters.

Fearing the risk of success in the upcoming Moscow summit by the appearance of a weakened military position resulting from failures of both the Laos and Cambodia campaigns, Nixon decided to order a sustained bombing raid over North Vietnam. The US conducted 41,000 sorties between April and October of 1972, killing 100,000 communist troops and forcing the North Vietnamese government back to the negotiating table.

Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s National Security Advisor, held further negotiations in Paris, desperately seeking an end to the war before the November US presidential elections. He made remarkable concessions toward that end, including recognizing the political legitimacy of the PRG. South Vietnam’s President Nguyen van Thieu accused the US of selling him out and Nixon refused to sign the agreement.

Kissinger revised the terms of the agreement after the 1972 elections, which Nixon won by a landslide; however, North Vietnam refused to consider the revisions, even against Kissinger’s threat of renewed air assaults.

Following this, on Christmas, Nixon unleashed the final and most intense bombing of the war over Hanoi and Haipong.

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US Withdrawal, Nixon’s Resignation and a Final End to the War

Although an overwhelming majority re-elected Nixon, the base of his political life was about to shatter amid revelations of his involvement in the Watergate scandal. The president’s campaign officials had allegedly masterminded the burglary of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters and Nixon tried to cover itup by lying to the public about his role.

On March 29, 1973, all four of the parties involved in the Vietnam conflict, the US, South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the Provincial Revolutionary Government, signed the Treaty of Paris. On that day, the last of the US troops left Vietnam.

The terms of the treaty provided for the release of all American prisoners of war from North Vietnam, the withdrawal of all US troops from South Vietnam and the end of all military operations in Laos and Cambodia. It also provided for a cease-fire between North and South Vietnam and the formation of National Council of Reconciliation to help South Vietnam form a new government, with continued economic and military aid to South Vietnam.

South Vietnam’s President Thieu immediately and openly violated the terms of the agreement by ordering the people of South Vietnam to shoot on sight any North Vietnamese soldier that entered their villages. Thieu claimed that the presence of North Vietnamese soldiers on South Vietnamese soil was a threat to South Vietnam’s existence.

Meanwhile, the gradual mass exodus of American troops from South Vietnam resulted in a collapse of the country’s economy, which had come to rely heavily on money spent by Americans in Vietnam. Though the ARVN continued to receive US funding, morale was low and a total of 200,000 ARVN troops deserted in order to be with their families.

Back on US soil, domestic pressures caught up with the nation’s president concerning his role in the Watergate scandal; and on August 9th, 1974, Richard Milhouse Nixon resigned from the office of the President of the United States, succeeded by his Vice-President Gerald Ford.

The North Vietnamese had no faith that the terms of the Paris Treaty would be enforced and decided to take advantage of the situation by planning a final offensive, intending to take over the south. In 1975, the assault began.

Having no foreknowledge of the devastated and drastically reduced ranks of the ARVN, their planners estimated that the mission would take two years. To their surprise, they easily defeated the ARVN. On April 30, 1975, the newly installed president of South Vietnam issued his unconditional surrender to the PRG. The war finally came to an end; Vietnam was once again a unified country, ruled by a communist regime.

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