Week of 5/4-5/8

Monday - finished cold war, started 9/11

Tuesday - notes

Wednesday - notes

Thursday - notes

Friday - notes

Cold War

Perestroika - reconstruction of soviet economic and political system
Glasnost - opening
Boris Yeltsin - president of Russia
Why US won the war
- close allies
- China started siding with US after 1972
- Soviet economy was in shambles whereas the US was flourishing
  - Huge deficit
  - High inflation
  - Corruption
  - Social problems
  - Shortage of basic needs
- Strong anti-communist presidency of Reagan
- Gorbachev's willingness for change and reform
  - glasnost and perestroika
  - admitted Soviet mistakes
  - took blame for cold war
  - communist system had failed
  - allowed eastern Europe to do what they wanted***
- Arms Reduction Talks
  - SALT, INF, Reagan-Gorbachev meetings
- Soviet mistakes
  - invasion of Afghanistan
  - ignoring social concerns
  - spent everything on military
Post cold war
- world seemed to be a much more peaceful place
- president Clinton closed down military bases
Impact the Fall of Soviet Union and Communism have on Europe and the world
- new countries
  - Estonia
  - Lithuania
  - Ukraine
- East and West Germany re-unified in 1990
- rise of democracy and capitalism throughout Europe
- wars and ethnic cleansing
- world became more unified and interdependent
- rise of radical Islamic groups
- US emerged as the singular major power in the world

9/11

New York City
- four commercial airlines were hijacked
- 8:46 am - American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of World Trade Center
- 17 minutes later US flight 175 crashed into south tower - caught of camera
- 2,600 were killed
Arlington, Virginia - DC
- flight 77 crashed into the pentagon
Shanksville Pennsylvania
- United Airlines Flight 93, expected to head toward Capital building
- passengers prevented it from happening
- plane crashed in a field killing all 44 people on board
Effects
- people lost loved ones
- 20% of Americans knew someone that died
- 150,000 jobs were lost
- 1 year later, 7 in 10 Americans had depression since the attacks
- sporting events were postponed
- National parks and landmarks closed for a while
- movies, TV shows, video games were delayed and changed or cancelled
- airports were closed for a few days and became more secured
- Department of Homeland Security was set up
- Patriot act was passed
- War in Afghanistan
Bush Doctrine
- US had the right to secure itself against countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups
- US should depose foreign governments that represented a potential threat to the security of US

Civil Rights

national effort made by African American people and their supporters in the 1950's and 1960's to eliminate segregation
100 years after Emancipation Proclamation
segregation in schools and businesses
not allowed to vote
Martin Luther King Jr
- assassinated by James Earl Ray
- Baptist minister
- co-founded SCLC
- organized Montgomery bus boycott
- organized march on Selma and Washington
- spoke for inequality
Rosa Parks
- Women civil rights activist
- "first lady of civil rights"
- refusal to give up her seat - arrested
Malcolm X
- assassinated by Hagan
- American Muslim minister and human rights activist
- forced inequality
Bayard Rustin
- co-founded SCLC
- MLK's right hand man
Selma to Montgomery marches
- protest rights
- 3 attempts
- met by white police force who brutally assaulted unarmed protesters
March on Washington
- MLK gave his "I have a Dream" speech
- shed light on political and social problems faced by African Americans
Montgomery Bus Boycott
- first large scale protest of racism in US
- started with Rosa Parks
- lasted 381 days
- walked - didn't ride the buses
Central High School
- first integrated school in the south
- 9 African American students
- National Guard blocked entrance to school
- Dwight D. Eisenhower sent 1,200 troops to escort the students
Acts and Laws
- Brown vs. Board of Education
  - ended legal segregation of schools
- Bailey vs. Patterson
  - banned segregation of public transportation
- Civil Rights act
  - voting
  - public accommodations
  - public facilities
  - public education
  - employment
- Voting rights
- Loving vs. Virginia
  - legalized interracial marriage

Kennedy Assassination

right after Cuba and Bay of pigs
November 22,1963
- presidential campaign
  - confident about re-election
Shot in head
Lee Harvey Oswald
Magic Bullet
- 3 cm bullet
- passed through President Kennedy's neck and Connally's chest, wrist, and thigh
- theory - most people think it was more than one
Zapruder's Film
- shows the assassination of Kennedy
Top 5 conspiracies
- Soviets did it
  - obvious - cold war
- Mafia did it
  - Heavily invested in casinos and bars
- Cubans did it
  - tried to kill Cuban president several times
- Lyndon Johnson
  - had the most gain from Kennedy's death
- CIA
  - agents are a secret
  - rumor that Oswald was working for CIA

al-Qaeda and terrorism

"the base"
worldwide terrorist organization
led and financed by Osama bin Laden
now led by someone else
started in Afghanistan when Soviet Union invaded
Bin Laden and Arab Afghans fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan
- we helped fight the Soviets
Desert Storm (Gulf War I)
- Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait
- US feared Saddam would invade Saudi Arabia too
- US asked Saudis for permission to establish military bases in their country
- Saudis chose US
- Bin laden leaves Saudis and goes to Sudan
- wrote "letter to America"
  - western support for attacking Muslims in Somalia
  - supporting Russian atrocities against Muslims
  - supporting the Indian oppression against Muslims
  - Supporting the Jewish aggression against Muslims in Lebanon
  - presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia due to Iraq invading Kuwait
  - US support of Israel
  - Economic Sanctions against Iraq
US in Somalia
- Dec 4, 1992, Bush sent 28,000 American troops to Somalia
- Bush wanted to help the Somali people since all attempts to sent foods to then were intercepted by war lords
- Black Hawk Down
  - 1993, 18 Americans died when the plane was shot down in Somalia
1st world trade center bombing
- 1993
- killed 6, injured over 1000
Sudan expels bin Laden and he returns to Afghanistan - 1996
Taliban wins civil war
- "seekers of knowledge"
- harsh and repressive government
- radical Muslims
- Drug trade (heroin) famine
  - extreme poverty
- Did not plan 9/11 attacks, but let bin laden operate in in Afghanistan and refused to turn him over to the US
Fatwa
- Al Qaeda declared war on us
  - August 1998
Embassy Bombings 1998
- 2 american embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed simultaneously
- US sends missiles against Qaeda training camps in Sedan and Afghanistan
USS Cole Attack - Oct 2000
- in Yemen, Al Qaeda sent suicide bomber in a small ship
- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
  - planned 9/11
Bush Doctrine
- US had the right to secure itself against countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist
Invading Afghanistan - Oct 7, 2001
- Mission
  - capture Osama bin Laden
  - Destroy Al-Qaeda network
  - Remove Taliban Regime

Iraq war

- Iraq gained independence from Britain in 1932
- Monarchy was overthrown and Republic of Iraq was created
- Iraq was controlled by the Ba'ath Party from 1968 until 2003
- new government of Iraq was elected
- US because the last member of the coalition to crease combat operations in Iraq - 2010
- Last US troops left the country in Dec 2011
Persian Gulf War
- code named Operation Desert Storm
- Iraq invaded Kuwait over oil disputes
- Consequences on Iraq
  - economic sanctions remained
  - weapons inspectors
  - no fly zone
Iraq War 2003-2011
- Called operation Iraqi Freedom by US military
- Main causes
  - we believe Iraq was getting weapons of mass destruction
  - They were trying to get weapons from Africa
  - Invasion of Iraq led to an occupation and the eventual capture of President Hussein
  - Hussein was later tried in an Iraqi court of law and executed by the new Iraqi government
  - took down Hussein
- Issues in Iraq after Invasions
  - violence against coalition forces
  - civil war and sectarian violence
  - emergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq (ISIS)
  - Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse - 2004
- Bush's policies
  - started war in 2003
  - war supported at first but no WMDs found led to war becoming unpopular
  - Abu Ghraib
  - accused of not having an exit strategy
  - helped establish a new democratic government
  - the Surge helped get violence under control in Iraq in 2007
  - Started troop reduction in 2008
- Obama's polices
  - opposed of war
  - switched focus on Afghanistan
  - pulled combat troops out in Aug 2010
  - pulled all US troops out in Dec 2011

Blogs

Week of 5/4-5/8

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