Monday, May 6th

[6Jacob]

Gorbachov
-first and last president of the USSR
-main goal: de-Stalinization

Cold War
-lasted about 45 years
-not really a conflict
-USSR went to 3^rd world countries and tried to get them to become communistic

5 present day communist countries: China, North Korea, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam

-Soviets were the first to send up a satellite, named Sputnik

Bay of Pigs- invaded Cuba to try and get Castro out of power, failed miserably

Cuban Missile Crisis- Cuba threatened to launch missiles at the US, compromise was when Cuba took their missiles out, we took our missiles out of Turkey



Ancient Russia

-early Russia started as a land of migrating peoples and ancient kingdoms
-soon, groups of cities merged together to create an empire
-a group of Scandinavian people (Varangians) crossed the Baltic Sea and landed in Eastern Europe
-the leader of the Varangians was Rurik

-by 989, Vladimir I was ruler of a kingdom that extended to as far south as the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, and the lower reaches of the Volga River
-he established a state religion
-he carefully considered a number of available faiths and decided on Greek Orthodoxy, thus allying himself with Constantinople and the West
-he didn’t want Islamic because he didn’t want to prohibit hard liquor