Download World War II - Euroakadeemia

World War II
Neutrality Acts in 1935, 1936
and 1937
No sale of war goods, no loans,
no Americans sailing on the
fighting ships
Freedom of the seas
Japan invaded China in 1937
Sept 1, 1939
Germany, Italy, Japan – the Axis
France, England, the Soviet
Union, the U.S. – the Allied
countries
1939 – buy war goods from the
U.S. (pay cash and pick up the
goods)
1940 – Americans began to
favour intervention
The Selective Service Act
1941 – England – lend-lease
Shipments of war materials to
Japan stopped
Sunday, Dec 7, 1941 – Pearl
Harbor
The day “which will in infamy”
Dec 8 – declared war on Japan
A few days later – Germany and
Italy declared war on the U.S.
First focus on Germany, then Japan
the Soviets - counteroffensive
Sept 1943 – Italy surrendered
unconditionally
The Soviets asked for a second
front
June 1944 – D-Day invasion at
Normandy, France
General Dwight D.
(Ike)Eisenhower
May 1945 – Germany
surrendered unconditionally
Japan
Less successful
Japan – the Philippines, Malay
States, Dutch East Indies
May and June 1942 – Battles of
the Coral Sea and Midway
General Douglas A. MacArthur
Harry S Truman
August 6 1945 – Hiroshima –
70,000
August 9 – Nagasaki
August 10 – Japan surrendered
Effects of the war
Industrial centres and military
targets bombed
Economies – provide goods to
fight the war
Gov – borrowed billions of $s
Everyone went to work
First steps in support of civil rights
No discrimination on the basis of
“race, creed, colour or national
origin”
22 mil people died, 34 mil
wounded
After World War II
Allied powers – UN
Discuss and try to resolve world
problems and to preserve peace
Trade and tariff agreements
Cold War
The Soviet Union – influence
Eastern Europe
The United States –Western
Europe
Different political systems
1949 - NATO
1955 – the Warsaw Pact with
Eastern Europe – promote
peaceful coexistence of the 2
different systems and defend
each other if attacked
The Truman Doctrine – “it must
be the policy of the United States
to support free peoples” against
direct and indirect Soviet
influence
The Cold War – economic
The U.S. – high productivity/vast
resources
The Marshall Plan
IMF/the World Bank – loan/grant
money to developing countries to
help their economies
Korean War, 1950-1953
Korea – Soviet and U.S. troops
The Soviets – north of the 38th
parallel
The U.S. – south of it
North Korea – Communist
South Korea – anti-Communist
June 1950 – North Korean
Communist forces attack South
Korea
The UN army – General
Douglas MacArthur – smaller
and less well-trained
Reinforcements – helped to
expel the North Koreans and
Chinese
Civil Rights Movement
Discrimination of blacks:
- restrictions on voting
- segregated schools
- limited access to jobs
The Fair Employment Practices
Committee - Roosevelt
Discrimination against anyone
because of “race, creed, color, or
national origin” in the defence
industries
Committee on Civil Rights
American ideal of democracy
1954 – Brown vs. the Board of
Education of Topeka (Kansas)
“seperate educational facilities
are inherently unequal”
1955 – court order to
desegregate public schools
1957 – Little Rock, Arkansas,
Orval E. Faubus
President Eisenhower
Montgomery, Alabama – public
buses were segregated
Boycotts – 60’s – lunch counters,
drinking fountains
Martin Luther King, Jr.
March on Washington in 1963
Non-violence
Civil Rights Acts in 1957, 1960,
1964, 1968
The Voting Rights Act in 1970
King, Jr. Was shot and killed in
1968
Nobel Peace Prize
Third Monday in January
President John F. Kennedy
Civil rights measures, housing,
funding for education, measures
to rid the country of poverty –
the New Frontier programs
“We stand today on the edge of a
new frontier”
The Peace Corps
President Lyndon Johnson
The Great Society
Department of Housing,Urban
Development, the Fair Labour
Standards Act
Vietnam War
1960’s – time of turmoil
Vietnam – part of France’s
Indochinese colony
Issue of independence
2 parties
Ho Chi Minh – northern part of
Vietnam – communistic and
nationalistic
Ngo Dinh Diem – southern part
– against communism, wanted to
cooperate with the West
1964 – North Vietnamese
torpedo boats were said to have
attacked 2 American destroyers
President Johnson – North
Vietnamese naval bases
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
1964 – 1973
Americans divided on the issue
Help keep communism out vs.
Immoral
1968 – Nixon – Republican
Withdraw from Vietnam
1973 – Paris Peace Agreement
Lasted until 1975
Vietnam was forcibly reunited
The U.S. took no action