Essentials for US History--Semester 2
1. Students will understand the causes and effects of the Great Depression.
-Stock market crash: overpriced, buying on margin, little regulation, overproduction, speculation
-No one had money
-Banks and businesses closed, so people lost money and jobs
-Lack of government intervention, high tariffs and low foreign trade
-Great Depression Cycle: Businesses don’t make money –> Lay people off/close down -> People don’t spend money -> [Repeat]
-People lost their jobs in factories, no one was buying things, many people lived in poverty, people would stand in breadlines and go to soup kitchens to get food, many kids dropped out of school, crop prices were low and farmers couldn’t make money, farmers couldn’t pay off their loans and moved to cities (where it was actually worse)
2. Students will understand the impact the Great Depression and New Deal had on the US.
-People lost jobs and had no money
-New Deal tried to help get young people and unemployed back to work, social security for the elderly, helped people buy their own homes, FDIC (bank pays you back your money if it shuts down), helped start up banks again and repair the stock market, Wagner Act allowed factory workers to join labor unions, soil conservation
3. Students will understand the causes, effects and major events of WWII.
-Treaty of Versailles: Germany lost land and islands, Rhineland was set up between Germany and France, had to pay for and take full responsibility of WWI, set up the League of Nations
-Hitler got rid of the Weimer government right away when he came to power, and wanted to get rid of Jews and other undesirables, turned into a dictatorship
-Hitler’s Goals: To discriminate against the Jews, Undo the Treaty of Versailles, Lebensraum (Living Space), create an Arian race
-Nuremburg Laws 1935: took away German citizenship from Jews, anyone who had Jewish grandparents were a Jew, Jews could only marry Jews, no sexual relations between non-Jewish Germans and Jews
-Kristallnacht: Nazis broke windows and set fires to Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes
-Munich Conference 1938: held because Hitler wanted Sudentenland and the countries gave it to him if he promised not to take any more land
-Main Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan
-Main Allied Powers: Great Britain, United States, Soviet Union, France
-Operation Barbarossa: Germany invaded Soviet Union to take over Leningrad/Stalingrad/Moscow (Hitler’s most wanted) and use to Soviet Union for Lebensraum; failed and Germany was pushed back
-D-Day: June 6, 1944: airborne and amphibious attack on Nazi-controlled France by Allied forces
-Battle of the Bulge: last major offensive of the Germans, felt if they could get the sea they could split up Allied forces and take over France
-VE Day: May 8, 1945
-Pearl Harbor: December 7, 1941, Japan attack
-Doolittle’s Raid led to the Battle of Midway, moral boost for US
-Battle of Midway: June 4-7, 1942: Japan wanted to get rid of the US Navy but instead the US Navy defeated them and they never fully recovered
-Iwo Jima and Okinawa: We were getting closer to Japan and bombing them more
-Manhattan Project was the code name for the development of atomic bombs, headed by Leslie Groves and Robert Oppenheim
-Uranium bomb “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima
-“Fat Man” was dropped on Nagasaki
-VJ Day: August 14, 1945
-Yalta Conference decided Germany would be broken into four zones, Stalin promised free elections in Europe, Stalin would join in the war against Japan, and the United Nations would be set up
-Nuremburg Trials: Nazi war crime trials after WWII
4. Students will understand how/why the Allies won WWII.
-Many ships were made, also people on the homefront were making goods and supplies, more than all the other countries combined
-Ultra and Magic could locate submarines, we knew what the enemy was doing and they didn’t know what we were doing
-Navajo code talkers
-National War Labor Board (Work together)/Production Board (Make as many products as possible)
-Office of Price Administration rationing good likes food/gas, only getting so much per week
-Propaganda films
5. Students will understand the causes, effects and major events of the Cold War.
-Democracy (Freedom) Communism (Control). America was afraid the Soviet Union would attack
-Stalin was upset the US didn’t join the League of Nations, delayed D-Day, helped Germany rebuild after the war
-US wanted to Stop communism, Soviet Union wanted to spread it
-Policy of Containment: US used economic and military strategy to slow the spread of Communism
-Domino Effect: Something bad starts, knocks down an area, and keeps effecting others
-Iron Curtain Speech: Winston Churchill described the differences and separation between the areas controlled by the Soviet Union and Western Powers
-Marshall Plan: Made during George Marshall’s speech to make a difference in the economy between 1947-1951 and help European countries make their economies stronger and not be taken over by Communists
-Berlin Blockade: Soviet Union tried to blockade Berlin and failed
-Mao Zedong and the Communist Party took over China
-NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (North Atlantic Alliance), goal was no Communism, more Democracy, and make sure no world wars happen
-Soviet Union and United States built up their nuclear weapons during the Nuclear Arms Race
-Bay of Pigs was an unsuccessful attack on Cuba by the CIA
-Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union had missiles in Cuba, closest the world has ever been to a nuclear war, Soviet Union withdrew weapons in Cuba and we withdrew weapons in Turkey
-East Germany (Soviet Union) West Germany (Free), Soviet Union felt all of Berlin should be theirs, Berlin was split by a 87 mile long wall, East Germans escaped to West Germany through Hungary and Austria, wall officially came down in the end of 1989
-Nixon visited China and opened the door to the trade we have today
-Soviet Union tried to keep Communism in power in Afghanistan, US supported the Mujahids with money and weapons, Soviet Union got tired and gave up
-INF Treaty: INF Treaty; Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, eliminated intermediate range and short range missiles/nuclear weapons
-Regan and Gorbachev were tough on Communism, Gorbachev wanted to be more democratic
-Glasnost: openness, greater willingness to allow western ideas and goods into the Soviet Union
-Perestroika: allowed limited market incentives to Soviet citizens
-Former Soviet countries elected non-Communist governments and declared independence
-CIS: Commonwealth of Independent States, organization of many former Soviet countries
6. Students will understand the causes, effects and major events of the Korean Conflict.
-June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953
-Communist North Korea invaded South Korea (US supported South)
-United Nations pushed the North to the border of North Korea and China, and China got involved in the war helping the North
-North wanted to unite the country as Communist
7. Students will understand the causes, effects and major events of the Vietnam Conflict.
-We never declared war
-First we sent military advisors, then combat forces
-President Johnson could do whatever he wanted in Vietnam, but didn’t have the power to declare war
-1968 was the peak of the war, escalation
-Tet Offensive, every city in the South was attacked
-My Lai Massacre, American soldiers killed hundreds of children and elderly
-Many war protestors, people fled the country/got married/said they were homosexual just to get out of the draft
-“Vietnamization”: pull forces out of the war and let Vietnam fight it themselves
-US pulled out in 1973, and all of Vietnam was Communist by 1975
8. Students will understand the causes and effects of Afghanistan and Iraq.
--Afghanistan-
-Went to war in 2001 after 9/11 attacks
-Al Quada, led by Osama Bin Laden, was responsible
-Taliban in Afghanistan was allowing Al Quada to train in their country
-Captured Bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011
-In the process of pulling troops out
--Iraq-
-Went to war in 2003 because we thought they had weapons of mass destruction, but they didn’t
-Stayed to capture Saddam Hussein, and we did in 2003, he was put to trial by the Iraqi government and sentenced to death
-Established a democratic government, and we only have advisors there as of August 2010
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