Download The Good Ole` 50`s

Politics in the
1950’s
The End of WW2
• 33rd President of the
United States
• Became president on
April 12, 1945 when
President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt
died.
• Forced Japanese
surrender during
WWII, by ordering the
drop of the atomic
bomb on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki.
President Harry
Truman
Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met in the
German city of Potsdam in July of 1945 to discuss the future of
Europe. Although the US and the USSR had been allies in the
war against Nazi Germany, at the Potsdam Conference they
could not agree on how to reconstruct postwar Europe.
Dropping the Bomb
Shortly after the Potsdam Conference, the
United States dropped the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (August 6, 1945)
Though this forced Japanese surrender and
effectively ended WWII, it added to Soviet
distrust of the United States.
The Berlin Wall
Following the Allied victory in May, the Soviets
occupied Eastern Europe and the U.S. occupied
much of Western Europe. The city of Berlin was
divided between East (Communist) and West by
the Berlin Wall until the early 1990s.
United Nations
The UN was founded in 1945
after the end of WWII by the
victorious Allied Powers in the
hope that it would intervene in
conflicts between nations and
avoid future wars.
• The five permanent members of the UN
Council are the main victors of WWII:
People’s Republic of China, France, the Soviet
Union, the United Kingdom, and the United
States.
• It is an international organization whose goal
is to facilitate cooperation in international
laws, international security, economic
development, social progress, and human
rights issues.
The Cold War
The Cold War Files
The Cold War was the period of conflict,
tension, and competition between the United
States, the Soviet Union and their allies from the
mid 1940s until the early 1990s. The main U.S.
allies were Western Europe, Turkey, Japan, and
Canada. The main Soviet allies were Eastern
Europe and China.
VS.
The Cold War Files
• Never direct military engagement between the
US and the USSR, rivalry between the two
superpowers played out in multiple arenas over
the next fifty years: military buildup and
espionage, political ideas, industrial and
technological developments, and proxy wars.
• A proxy war is when two powers use third parties
as a substitute for fighting each other directly.
The Korean War
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/g420000/g420926.jpg
The Korean War has often been called “The
Forgotten War” because of it’s placement
between WWII and the Vietnam War.
On June 25, 1950, the
Communist North
Korean People's Army
under the command of
dictator Kim II Sung
invaded South Korea,
causing the outbreak of
the Korean War. Poorly
trained and ill equipped,
the South Korean Army
was rapidly pushed back,
quickly losing it’s capital
of Seoul.
Upon news of the invasion, Truman
called for a naval blockade in Korea and
promptly urged the United Nations to
intervene.
It did, authorizing armed defense for the
first time in its history. Truman sent full
military resources to Japan.
• MacArthur oversaw the
occupation of Japan from
1945 to 1951.
• After North Korea’s invasion
into South Korea, General
Douglas MacArthur was
named Commander of all
United Nations forces in
Korea in 1950-1951.
• United Nations forces
crushed the North Korean
invasion in 90 days.
MacArthur was a war hero
during WWII. Receiving the
highest military award, the
Medal of Honor, for his
leadership.
Communist China supported North Korea with troops
and supplies. MacArthur wanted to bomb their supply
bridges and bases in Manchuria, but military leaders in
Washington restricted him to Korea, which he said was
“the most indefensible and ill-conceived
decision ever forced on a field
commander in our nation's history."
MacArthur was relieved of his command by
President Truman in April 1951.
In closing, during his farewell address to the
United States Congress, General MacArthur
said:
“I am closing my 52 years of military service.
When I joined the Army, even before the turn of
the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my
boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned
over many times since I took the oath on the
plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams
have long since vanished, but I still remember the
refrain of one of the most popular barrack
ballads of that day which proclaimed most
proudly that "old soldiers never die; they just
fade away."
And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close
my military career and just fade away, an old
soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him
the light to see that duty. Good Bye.”
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President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower's campaign
attacked Truman's policies
regarding “Korea,
Communism, and
Corruption.“ He promised
to go to Korea himself to
end the war, maintain a
strong stand abroad
against Communism, and
a corruption-free frugal
administration at home.
• On November 29,
1952, Eisenhower
fulfilled his campaign
promise by going to
Korea to find out
what could be done
to end the conflict
and a cease fire was
established on July
29, 1953.
• A demilitarized zone (DMZ) was created at the
38th parallel.
• No peace treaty has been signed to date. It is still
defended by North Korean troops on one side and South
Korean and American troops on the other. It is the most
heavily armed border in the world.
The Cuban
Revolution
The purpose of
the Cuban
Revolution was
to overthrow
Cuban dictator
Fulgencio
Batista, and to
establish a new
Cuban
government led
by Fidel Castro.
• On July 26, 1953, a group of poorly armed
guerrillas attacked the Moncada Barracks in
Santiago de Cuba. Among them were Fidel
Castro Ruz and his brother Raul Castro.
• Though the attack was unsuccessful, this
event marked the beginning of the Cuban
Revolution.
Moncada barracks shortly after the attack
http://www.answers.com/topic/moncada-barracks
• Fidel Castro was
sentenced to 15 years
in prison, but due to
pressure from civil
leaders, was released
in 1955.
• He was exiled to
Mexico, where he
again plotted to
overthrow Batista.
Fidel returned to Cuba, leading the 26th of July
Movement (named for the failed attack on the Moncada
Barracks), and succeeded in driving Batista out of Cuba.
Castro's forces took over on January 2, 1959.
Flag of the 26th of July Movement
Castro was sworn in as Prime
Minister of Cuba on February
16, 1959.
In his older years he had
periodic health problems that
required his brother, Raul
Castro, to stand in as acting
Prime Minister.
Fidel Castro · Died Nov 25, 2016 of
Diverticulitis – a disease of the colon –
and Raul Castro became the new Prime
Minister of Cuba.
The Space Race
• The Cold War also sparked the Space
Race between the United States and the
Soviet Union.
• The Space Race was an informal
competition between the United States
and the Soviet Union lasting roughly
from 1957 to 1975. Both countries
sought to establish dominance in space.
The Space Race began when the Soviets
launched Sputnik 1 into the “October Sky”
on October 4, 1957.
• Sputnik 1 was launched from Baikonur
Cosmodrome (the world's oldest and
largest space launch facility) in
Kazakhstan, then part of the Soviet
Union. The Russian word "Sputnik"
means "travel companion."
• Sputnik 2 was the second
spacecraft launched into Earth
orbit, on November 3, 1957,
and the first to carry a living
animal - a dog. It was a coneshaped capsule with several
compartments for radio
transmitters, a temperature
control system, and other
scientific instruments. A
separate sealed cabin contained
the experimental dog, Laika.
Laika
Laika died a few hours after launch from
stress and overheating, perhaps due to a
malfunction in the thermal control system.
The true cause of her death was not made
public until decades after the flight. Some
former Soviet scientists have since
expressed regret that Laika was allowed to
die.
• Sputnik 3 was a Soviet
satellite launched on May 15,
1958.
• It was a research satellite to
explore the upper
atmosphere and near space.
• The spacecraft remained in
orbit until April 6, 1960,
when the orbit degraded and
caused the satellite to reenter the atmosphere.
Sputnik 3
The American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
refers to events and reform movements in the
United States aimed at abolishing racial
discrimination against African Americans.
Brown vs. the Board of
Education
On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme
Court outlawed racial segregation of public
schools.
On December 1,
1955, Rosa Parks
(later named the
"mother of the
Civil Rights
Movement")
refused to get up
out of her seat on a
public bus in
Montgomery,
Alabama, to make
room for white
passengers.
Parks was arrested, tried, and convicted for
disorderly conduct and violating a local
ordinance.
When word of this
incident reached the
black community, 50
African-American
leaders gathered and
organized the
“Montgomery Bus
Boycott” to protest the
segregation of blacks
and whites on public
buses.
The boycott lasted for 382 days, until the local
ordinance segregating African-Americans and
whites on public buses was lifted.
Through her role in
sparking the boycott,
Rosa Parks played an
important part in
internationalizing the
awareness of the plight
of African Americans
and the civil rights
struggle. Rosa Parks
died on October 24,
2005.