Semester Test Blog

1. What were the causes of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression?

Stock Market

Over speculation- They are in it for a shorter term; they want a quick profit from buying stock. They drive stock prices up. They weren’t
Overproduction of goods
Buying on margin- caused more common people to get into the stock market
Uneven distribution of wealth
Too much borrowing from banks
Stock prices were grossly inflated, didn’t have real value
Federal Reserve increased interest rates- set up 12 federal banks around the country. It backs up banks when they lose money. Right at the end of the 20’s, they started raising interest rates and it led to people stop borrowing and buying and it crashed.
Lack of government regulation

Great Depression:

Overproduction of goods
Under consumptions of goods by consumer
Agricultural slump due to overproduction
High protective tariff
Taxes benefiting the rich- rich got richer and the poor got poorer
Stock market crash

2. What impact did the stock market crash and Great Depression have on the lives of people in the United States?

Stock Market Crash:

People lose money
Banks fail
Businesses close
Unemployment increases- people quit spending money
Spreads to other countries

Great Depression:

New Deal programs start- the government gets much larger
Deficit spending starts- government started spending more money than we took in; nobody wants to cut people of work or raise taxes.
The new deal creates many organizations that are still around today-social security, welfare, FDIC, SEC
It brought about the military dictators like Hitler
Older generations lost trust in banks and don’t spend as much
Fascist, military and communist dictators come to power throughout the world.

3. What did the United States government do to help alleviate the problems the Great Depression brought to our country?

During the Hoover presidency

He initiated the Hoover Dam. Made several attempts to end GD but they all failed.
Hoover dam= made many jobs, prevented floods, provide electricity that the government could tax and make money on, helped prevent floods to help farmers.
He stopped immigrants and kind of kicked them out so that more Americans could have jobs.
He lowered taxes

4. What long lasting impact did the Great Depression have on the US and world?

Families = marriages were put off or divorces were put off because it was too expensive. Birth rates dropped because it was too expensive. Family income lowered. Some families responded positively and grew stronger but others fell apart and separated.
The Greatest Generation = generation of people who suffered during the depression and then many right after had to go fight in WWII. Lived during two very tough times.
Living Conditions = homeless were worse off than Hoovervilles; just lived on newspapers and benches etc.
Jobs= women were fired because it was believed they were taking jobs away from the men. Jobs were extremely essential.

5. What were the causes of WWII?

Germany Invades Poland in 1939
Pearl Harbor is what got the U.S involved
Nationalism
Imperialism
Militarism
Alliances

6. What impact did the United States have on WWII?

They made more supplies for the war than any other country
We had a stronger army.
The war ended just months after we entered.
The sleeping giant was awoken

7. What were the goals for the US during the Cold War?

The goals of the United States during the Cold War included wanting to promote open markets for US goods to prevent another depression and promote democracy throughout the world, especially in Asia and Africa. The US also wanted to stop the spread of communism because it could cause a domino effect.

8. What were some of the major events that took place during the Cold War?

-Berlin Blockade/airlift- Soviet Union blockaded west berlin so they couldnt get food, or leave because they were democracy so we flew supplies to west berlin so the people could survive. We did this for over a year.

Germany put up a blockade so the US couldn't enter
We sent a lot of planes and dropped goods in Berlin
- dropped food and supplies
if they shot down airplanes would have started war
ended in May of 49
communism failed
planes flew from West Germany

Cuban Missile Crisis-The soviet union was placing missals in cuba and we only new about them because we had spy planes flying over cuba.

Soviets had nuclear missiles in Cuba. Closer range to attack us possibly and because of the Bay of Pigs invasion just happened. They were worried about a future invasion by the US. They invite USSR to Cuba. We found out by spy planes that took photographs.
After this happened: a 13 day crisis. We panicked. There was a compromise reached-Soviets pull missiles out of Cuba, we promise to never invade Cuba, we pledge in secret to remove our missiles from turkey in 6 months. This is the closest we ever came to nuclear war.

Red Scare/McCarthyism-

HUAC-House on Un-American activities committee went after Hollywood.
McCarthy was popular
- had a short rise and fall
- ruining careers
- Senate censored him after he accused high ranked military officers. 1951-1957

Space Race

race between US and Russia to get to space
Russia was ahead at first- with Sputnik (unmaned satellite)
- US thought they could use it to spy on us, US felt vulnerable because they beat us in something
- Education- science and math became majorly pushed so we got engineers and scientist out of schools in US
- Yuri Gagarin- USSR- first person in space
- Explorer 1- US Satellite
- 1960- Moonshot speech- JFK
- NASA
- 1969- US reached the moon
  - Neil Armstrong/ Buzz Aldrin
  - Space Shuttle technology in the 70s- now retired
    - 1985- Challenger explosion
    - 1st time they had taken a civilian up- school teacher
  - Mir- Int. Space Station
  - Hubble Space Telescope

Bay of Pigs- under Kennedy the CIA trained people from Cuba to overthrow Castro, the leader, and it failed miserably and was a huge embarrassment for Kennedy.

Berlin Wall- Berlin was separated into 4 sections after world war 2 and East was communist and the west was democratic and people were leaving east to go to the west and so they put up the berlin wall so people couldn't leave and if people tried to leave they were killed or shot down. Then one day The soviet union made a speech how they werent going to interfere with the european countries anymore so people took the wall down.

End of the Cold War

9. Why did the US go to war in Korea and Vietnam and what were outcome of those wars?

Vietnam

US Goal

stop communism
stop the domino effect
Nixon called for the "vietnamization" of the war
- means we did to pull out of Vietnam and allow the vietnamese people to fight for themselves now
"Peace with honor" - we want peace to insure and we want honor when we leave
Gradually pulled US troops out and train the ARVN to take our place in fighting the north
13 days later, on January 27, The Paris Peace Accords were signed which officially ended US involvement in the Vietnam conflict

Korea

Korea was split after WW2. The Soviets were given the north.
Before war broke out there was going to be an election held to unite the country. War broke out
We pulled troops out of S Korea, the door was opened for North Korea to invade South Korea.
Kim il Sung(the grangfather of Kim Jong Un) -went to Stalin and Mao (leader of communist China) and asked for support in the invasion. Eventually they said yes.
North invades the South. South Korea isn't doing well. North pushes to the southern tip.
The UN steps in-wage war, help South Korea. MacArthur
South Koreans are not prepared
China gets involved-they think we were going to invade
When China gets involved they push us down, we stop them and push them back
For the next three years the fighting took place along the 38th parallel.
They are still "at war"
We have troops along the 38th parallel. 30,000 US soldiers and Korean guard the DMZ zone.
Now, if they invade south Korea, we would go to war.
It's called the forgotten war. 1950-1953. It was between two major wars (ww2 and Vietnam)
Still officially at war today

UN Security Council- declares war; includes US, USSR, G.B., France, China-Tawain

US Goal

stop communism
stop the domino effect

10. How did the Cold War come to an end?

Reagan called the Soviets the Evil Empire; supported any anti-communist movements worldwide
met a lot with soviet leader
we had close ties with our Allies and the USSR didn't
China started siding with us after 1972
Soviets economy was in shambles whereas the US's was flourishing
- huge deficit
- high inflation
- corruption
- social problems
- shortage of basic needs (food,housing)
the strong anti-communist presidency of reagan
Gorbachev's willingness for change and reform
- glasnost and perestroika- more democracy & capitalism
- admitted Soviet mistakes
- took blame for the Cold War
- communist system had failed
- allowed Eastern Europe to do what they wanted
Arms Reduction Talks
- SALT, INF, Reagan- Gorbachev meetings
He opposed detente (worldwide peace); upset the balance of "leave-each-there-alone"
He spent tons of money on the military; he started the missile defensive set-up to protect us from nuclear bombs
He had many meetings with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev which helped bring an end to the Cold War
Soviet mistakes
- invasion of Afghanistan
- ignoring social concerns
- spent everything on military

11. Know these major major post-Cold War Events:

-JFK Assassination-

November 22, 1963 In Dallas, Texas in the Elite Plaza on a campaign trip
was traveling in a parade with his wife, texas governor and his wife, going to make a speech at a luncheon- went to fix fighting between democratic party in Texas
shot from TSBD- abraham zapruder was the only one filming
Assinator= Lee Harvery Oswald by a rifle- took 10 month investigation
Govenor of Texas and secret service man were wounded
Kennedy was pronounced dead in Parkland Hospital shortly after brought there
- oswald was infatuated with communism
- defected to the USSR
- felt we should keep hands off Cuba- worked at Texas school Book Depositry- was on 6th floor
- put rifle down, bought coca cola as he left- gets bypassed, went to 2nd home and grabbed his pistol- shot and killed JD Tippet- arrested in Texas Theatre
- Later Oswald was killed people going into court by Ruby
- Harvey was in the marines (sharp shooter)

-Watergate

Watergate was an office/hotel complex in D.C. - home to the democratic national headquarters (for election campaigns)
5 people were arrested for breaking and entering and then Nixon said he didn't know anything about this; said they were getting dirt on the democrats- were trying to bug the phones
Caught the 2nd time, put tape in the door the wrong way
Two Washington Post reporters investigated it; why were they wearing suits? why were they bugging the phones? why did they have 100 dollars in their pocket?
criminals were Nixon's former employees

-Iran Hostage Crisis

Between the U.S. and Iran; on November 4, 1979 the Iran took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
Before this in 1977, there was an Iran Revolution
- Islamic government over threw the pro-US government and Ayatollah Khomeini overtook as leader
- this was the group that caused problems/dislikes with the United States and took the Americans hostage
We attempted to rescue them, but it failed miserably with 8 American deaths, one Iran civilian dead, and destruction of 2 aircraft's
Purpose: we had "The Shaw" (their previous pro-U.S. leader) in our country so Iran wanted him back, so they wanted a trade. They would give us the hostages if we give them their previous leader (we didn't make this trade)
We got them back when Iraq invaded Iran and they were desperate and made a trade
Got them back January 20, 1981

-Persian Gulf War(1991)-

began when Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990 (Sudam Husan was the Iraq leader)
Purpose: Iraq felt Kuwait was stealing their oil and they wanted better access to the Persian Gulf
United Nations then ordered Iraq to pull out of Kuwait (they refused)
Operation Desert Shield- we send 1000 of troops to Saudia Arabia in order to prevent an invasion their and to threaten Sudan Husein- 1990
- we never too out troops so this may have led to 9/11
- bombed them repeatedly
Operation Desert Storm (after they still didn't pull out) = we started bombing their troops and they invaded Kuwait so we were trying to free them
won within a month
most of the world against Iraq
Results: Coalition Force Victory, Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, destruction of Iraqi/ Kuwait infrastructure
Coalition- US- 482 dead, Iraq- 20,000-35,000
Easy victory; Iraq pulled out; we never pulled out of Saudi Arabia
The Islamic people felt we were invading their area and Al Qaeda etc starts seeing us as the enemy not as liberators; this kind of fueled 9/11
During 1990's-2003: put a no-fly zone on Iraq in certain areas, sent in weapons inspectors into Iraq (Weapons of Mass Destruction WMD)
Mainly went to war in 2003 because Bush was tired of the cat and mouse games

-9-11-

Al-Quaeda hijacked 2 planes and flew them into the twin towers and they eventually fell down. Another plane was flew into the pentagon and its a flat building so damage was done to one side. Another was going somewhere not sure where and the people on board took over and flew it into a field. The man in charge was Osama Bin Laden. We called a war on terror. September 11, 2001. Positive thing that happened was we were brought back to one country and we were very patriotic.

-War in Afghanistan

October 2001 we attack Afghanistan. The Taliban government was who said go ahead with 911 is in control in Afghanistan. We hope to be out of Afghanistan by 2014. (The Taliban said we cant go in to afghanistan so we invaded. the Taliban was gone about a month later.) OBAMA SENT MORE FORCES

-War in Iraq

The CIA was getting info that Saddam Hussein was getting WMD (weapons of mass destruction) We had weapon inspectors there. in 2003 they weren't allowed into IRAQ and bush said let them in by this date and if not we will come invade. so we invaded. We needed to set up a democratic government. We finally got Saddam Hussein and the Iraq new government put him on an american like trial and then they hung him. They they struggled to stay together like this because they had 3 groups that hate each other and then had a civil war. Obama pulled out in 2011. we struggled to get out because there were a lot of other terrorist groups in iraq.

-Civil Rights Issues(African Americans, Women)

Affirmative Action Laws = ultimate it forces businesses and colleges to accept (mostly) the African Americans.
Equal Employment Opportunity Act - enforces laws against workplace discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence and disability

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