Download The Cold War

50 Years of “Not-Fighting”
“It was a Cold War of words - a time when nations were
rallied by stirring speeches
and trembled by ominous
warnings.”
Billy Joel condenses the Cold War in under five minutes
“We Didn’t Start the Fire”
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Joel explained that he wrote this song
due to his interest in history. He
commented that he would have wanted
to be a history teacher had he not
become a rock and roll singer.
1949
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Harry S. Truman
Doris Day
Red China
Johnny Ray
South Pacific
Walter Winchell
Joe Dimaggio
1950
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Joe McCarthy
Richard Nixon
Studebaker
Television
North Korea
South Korea
Marilyn Monroe
1951
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Rosenburg
H-Bomb
Sugar Ray
Panmunjom
Brando
The King and I
The Catcher in the
Rye
1952
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Eisenhower
Vaccine
England’s got a new
Queen
Marciano
Liberace
Santayana goodbye
Chorus
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
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1953
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Joseph Stalin
Malenkov
Nasser
Prokofiev
Rockefeller
Campanella
Communist Bloc
1954
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Roy Cohn
Juan Peron
Tosconini
Dacron
Dien Ben Phu falls
Rock Around the
Clock
1955
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Einstein
James Dean
Brooklyn’s got a
winning team
Davy Crockett
Peter Pan
Elvis Presley
Disneyland
1956
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Bardot
Budapest
Alabama
Kruschehev
Princess Grace
Peyton’s Place
Trouble in the Suez
Chorus
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
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1957
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Little Rock
Pasternok
Mickey Mantle
Kerouac
Sputnik
Chou En-Lai
Bridge on the River
Kwai
1958
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Lebanon
Charles de Gaulle
California Baseball
Starkweather
Homicide
Children of the
Thalidomide
1959
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Buddy Holly
Ben Hur
Space Monkeys
Mafia
Hula Hoops
Castro
Edsel is a no go
1960
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U-2
Syngman Rhee
Payola
Kennedy
Chubby Checker
Psycho
Belgians in Congo
Chorus
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
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1961
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Hemingway
Eichmann
Stranger in a
Strange Land
Dylan
Berlin
Bay of Pigs
Invasion
1962
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Lawrence of
Arabia
British
Beatlemania
Ole Miss
John Glenn
Liston beats
Patterson
1963
Pope Paul
 Malcolm X
 British Politician
Sex
 JFK blown away
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Chorus
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning,
Since the world's been turning.
We didn't start the fire
Well we didn't light it,
But we tried to fight it.
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1964-1989
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Birth Control
Ho Chi-Minh
Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot
Woodstock
Watergate
Punk Rock
Begin
Reagan
Palestine
Terror on the airlines
Ayatollahs in Iran
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Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune
Sally Ride
Heavy Metal Suicide
Foreign debt
Homeless vets
AIDS
Crack
Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore
China’s under Martial Law
Rock and Roller Cola Wars
Truman v Stalin
The Cold War was an economic, political, technological, scientific
and military confrontation and competition between the United
States and the Soviet Union.
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Capitalism: An economic
system in which money
is invested with the goal
of making profit.
Adam Smith’s The
Wealth of Nations - 1776
 Free-market Capitalism
 Laissez-faire – gov’t
hands-off
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Democracy: Government
system in which the
ultimate power rests with
the people.
An economic system
in which all means of
production are owned
by the government,
private property does
not exist, and all
goods and services
are shared equally.
 Eventually a complete
form of Socialism
would arise
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 No private property
 A classless society
Yalta Conference
USSR, U.S., Britain & France would each occupy a
part of Germany but would allow for German
reunification once she was no longer a threat.
 Soviets dominated their Eastern German zone Germany was to pay heavy reparations to USSR in
form of agricultural and industrial goods.
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Division of Germany
The U.S., Great
Britain, and France
decided to merge their
zones and allow the
Germans to have their
own govt.
 West Berlin was also
merged and became
part of West Germany.
 The Soviets still
controlled what
became known as
East Germany.
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By 1948, pro-Soviet
governments were
set in Poland,
Romania, Bulgaria,
Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia.
 These countries were
called satellite
nations.
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“From Stettin in the Baltic to
Trieste in the Adriatic an iron
curtain has descended
across the Continent. Behind
that line lie all the capitals of
the ancient states of Central
and Eastern Europe. Warsaw,
Berlin, Prague, Vienna,
Budapest, Belgrade,
Bucharest and Sofia; all
these famous cities and the
populations around them lie
in what I must call the Soviet
sphere, and all are subject, in
one form or another, not only
to Soviet influence but to a
very high and in some cases
increasing measure of control
from Moscow.”
~Winston Churchill
Containment and the Long
Telegram
 The U.S. ambassador in
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Moscow, George Kennan,
analyzed the situation: if
the U.S. could prevent the
Soviets from expanding,
their system would
eventually fall apart.
He described this idea in
what became known as
the Long Telegram
“containment policy”: keep
communism from
spreading by diplomatic,
economic, and military
force.
Remember Greasy
Turkey
In August of 1946, the Soviets were trying to
establish communist governments in Greece
and Turkey.
 Truman asked congress for $400 million to help
fight communist aggressions via military and
economic aid.
 In the long run, it pledged the U.S. to fight
communism worldwide.
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Marshall Plan
1947: Massive aid package
to help war-torn Europe
recover from the war
 Purpose: prevent
communism from spreading
into economically
devastated regions
 Result: Western and Central
Europe recovered
economically -- the
"economic miracle"
 Soviets refused to allow U.S.
aid to countries in eastern
Europe
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In June of 1948, the
Soviets closed all
access to W. Berlin.
For the next 11
months, Truman sent
cargo planes to drop
food, supplies,
medicine, etc. Stalin
lifted the blockade in
May of 1949.
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In April of 1949, the U.S. formed a military alliance with W.
Europe: North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
NATO members agreed to aid any member that was
attacked.
This organization originally had 12 countries. Today NATO
has 26 members, with the goal of protecting democracy.
The Eastern Bloc
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Changes went forward at slow & uneven
pace; came to almost a halt by the mid1960s.
Five-year plans in USSR reintroduced to
tackle massive economic reconstruction.
Stalin’s new foe, the U.S., provided an
excuse for re-establishing harsh
dictatorship.
Stalin revived many forced labor camps,
which had accounted for roughly 1/6 of all
new construction in Soviet Union before
the war.
Culture and art were also purged.
Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact: A mutual defense treaty between
eight communist states of Central and Eastern
Europe; created to counter NATO.
The Warsaw Treaty’s organization was two-fold:
the Political Consultative Committee handled
political matters, and the Combined Command
of Pact Armed Forces controlled the multinational armed forces.
The Nuclear Arms Race
The Arms Race: Beginnings
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Nuclear arms race: A competition for supremacy in
nuclear warfare between the United States and the
Soviet Union during the Cold War.
In the years immediately after World War II, the United
States had a monopoly on nuclear weaponry. American
leaders this would be enough to draw concessions from
the Soviet Union but this proved ineffective.
The first Soviet bomb was detonated on August 29,
1949, shocking the entire world. The bomb, named "Joe
One" by the West, was more or less a copy of "Fat Man".
The Arms Race: Politics
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Brinkmanship: Willing to go to the brink of nuclear war to
maintain peace.
U.S. vows to destroy USSR with nuclear weapons if it
tries to expand.
U.S. maintained a policy of "massive retaliation" between
1953-55. This resulted in a cut in military spending and
an increase in America’s nuclear arsenal.
Mutually assured destruction: Both sides knew that any
attack upon the other would be devastating to
themselves, thus in theory restraining them from
attacking the other.
The Arms Race: Technology
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The B-52 bomber could fly across continents and drop
nuclear bombs anywhere in the world.
Submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles were
also created.
ICBMs: Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles – allowed for
nuclear bombs to be delivered without threat to human
life
H-Bomb – “Ivy Mike” was detonated by the United States
on November 1, 1952
 It created a cloud 100 miles wide and 25 miles high, killing all life
on the surrounding islands.
Little Boy: 15 kilotons
Fat Man: 21 kilotons
Ivy King: 500 kilotons
B53: 9,000 kilotons
Castle Bravo: 15,000 kilotons
Tzar Bomba: 50,000
kilotons
Living Under the Threat of the Bomb
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The threat of an atomic attack against the
United States forced Americans to
prepare themselves for a surprise attack.
Although Americans tried to protect
themselves, experts realized that for
every person killed instantly by a nuclear
blast, four more would later die from
nuclear fallout (the radiation left over after
the blast).
Some families built fallout shelters in their
backyards and stocked them with canned
food. Schools performed air raid drills in
an effort to prepare children for an attack.
We can survive anything
those dirty commies
throw at us in our nifty
new bomb shelter!
1. Keep an eye on
the news.
2. Consider evacuation
(if possible).
3. Seek shelter
immediately.
If within the vicinity of the blast (or ground zero), your chances of survival are virtually nonexistent
unless you are in a shelter that provides a very (VERY) good blast protection. If you are a few miles
out, you will have about 10-15 seconds until the heat wave hits you, and maybe 20-30 seconds until the
shock wave does. Under no circumstances should you look directly at the fireball.
If you can't find shelter, seek a depressed area nearby and lay face down, exposing as little skin as
possible. Even at 5 miles away, the heat can burn the skin off your body
Failing the above options, get indoors, if, and only if, you can be sure that the building will not suffer
significant blast and heat damage. This will, at least, provide some protection against radiation. Stay
well away from any windows, preferably in a room without one.
4. Beware radiation
exposure.
Once you have survived the
blast and the initial radiation
(for now at least; radiation
symptoms have an incubation
period), you must find
protection against the
burning black soot that will
rain down from the sky
Avoid exposure to Gamma
radiation. Try not to spend
more than 5 minutes exposed
to avoid irreparable damage
to the internal organs.
5. Plan on staying in your
shelter for a minimum of
200 hours (8-9 days).
Under no circumstances leave
the shelter in the first fortyeight hours.
6. Ration your supplies
7. Be prepared for
another attack!