Download 7th grade Text- Major Events of the 20th century Introduction World

7th grade Text- Major Events of the 20th century
Introduction
World
The hundred year span of the 20th century represents just one percent of the ten thousand year history of
agriculture. Yet it brought more far-reaching developments than any previous century.
The 20th century reflected all the extremes of human nature. It was scarred by some of history's most horrific
examples of brutality and violence. But it also demonstrated humanity's optimism, inventiveness, and
humanitarianism. It was the most technologically advanced century; it was also the most ideological and most
destructive.
The 20th century witnessed unparalleled growth in knowledge, wealth, nutrition, and health. But it was also a
century of unimaginable savagery. More than 150 million people perished in war, in concentration and re-education
camps, in government-induced famines, or in genocides,( mass murder).
It was a century of mass production, mass consumption, mass media, and mass entertainment--but also of mass
murder. It was a century marked by searing images of: trenches, the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the death camps.
U.S.
Life expectancy for white Americans was just 48 years and just 33 years for African Americans--about the same as
a peasant in early 19th century India. Today, Americans' average life expectancy is 74 years for men and 79 for
women. The gap in life expectancy between whites and non-whites has narrowed from 15 years to 7 years.
In 1900, if a mother had four children, there was a fifty-fifty chance that one would die before the age of 5. At the
same time, half of all young people lost a parent before they reached the age of 21.
In 1900, the average family had an annual income of $3,000 (in today's dollars). The family had no indoor
plumbing, no phone, and no car. About half of all American children lived in poverty. Most teens did not attend
school; instead, they labored in factories or fields.
The nation's population shifted from the Northeast to the Sunbelt. In 1900, Toledo was bigger than Los Angeles.
California’s population was the size of the population in Arkansas or Alabama. Today, Sunbelt cities like Houston,
Phoenix, and San Diego have replaced Boston, Cleveland, and St. Louis. In 1900, about 60 percent of the
population lived on farms or in rural areas. Today, one in four lives in rural areas; more than half live in suburbs.
The top five names in 1900 for boys were John, William, James, George and Charles; for girls they were Mary,
Helen, Anna, Margaret, and Ruth--almost entirely traditional biblical and Anglo-Saxon names. The top five names
today: Michael, Jacob, Matthew, Christopher, and Joshua for boys; Emily, Samantha, Madison, Ashley, and Sarah
for girls. These names still reflect the strong influence of the Bible on naming-patterns but also the growing
influence of entertainment. Florence and Bertha no longer even make the top 10,000 list of names.
Two of America's ten biggest industries were boot making and malt liquor production. There were only 8,000 cars
in the country--none west of the Mississippi River. Dot-com communication still meant the telegraph.
Theme I- Wars of the 20th Century
Unit WWII
Intro-WWI
Just about everything that happened in the remainder of the century was, in one way or another, a result of World
War I, including the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, World War II, the Holocaust, and the development of the
atomic bomb. The Great Depression ( economic weakness), the Cold War, and the collapse of European power can
also be traced, at least indirectly, to the First World War. But that is another story……..but we need to understand
the following to set us up to best understand the big events of WWII.
World War I killed more people (more than 9 million soldiers, sailors, and flyers and another 5 million civilians),
involved more countries (28 nations), and cost more money than any previous war in history. It was the first war
to use airplanes, tanks, long-range artillery, submarines, and poison gas. It left at least 7 million men permanently
disabled.
World War I probably had more far-reaching consequences than any other preceding war. Politically, it resulted in
the downfall of four monarchies--in Russia in 1917, in Austria-Hungary and Germany in 1918, and in Turkey in
1922. It contributed to the Bolshevik rise to power in Russia in 1917 and the triumph of fascism in Italy in 1922. It
ignited colonial revolts in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia.
Few events better reveal the utter unpredictability of the future. At the dawn of the 20th century, most Europeans
anticipated a future of peace and prosperity. Europe had not fought a major war for 100 years. But a belief in
human progress was shattered by World War I, a war few wanted or expected. At any point during the five weeks
leading up to the outbreak of fighting, the conflict might have been averted. World War I was a product of
miscalculation, misunderstanding, and miscommunication.
No one expected a war of such magnitude or duration as World War I. At first, the armies relied on outdated
methods of communication, such as carrier pigeons. The great powers used more than a million horses. However,
by the time the conflict was over, tanks, submarines, airplane-dropped bombs, machine guns, and poison gas had
transformed the nature of modern warfare. In 1918, the Germans fired shells containing both tear gas and lethal
chlorine. The tear gas forced the British to remove their gas masks; the chlorine then scarred their faces and killed
them.
In a single day at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, some 100,000 British troops plodded across no-man's land into
steady machine gunfire from German trenches a few yards away. Some 60,000 soldiers were killed or wounded. At
the end of the battle, 419,654 British men were killed, missing, or wounded.
Four years of war killed a million troops from the British Empire; 1.5 million troops from the Hapsburg Empire; 1.7
million French troops; 1.7 million Russians; and 2 million German troops. The war left a legacy of bitterness that
contributed to World War II some 21 years later.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us35.cfm
War in the Pacific/Battle of Midway
On December 7, 1941, Japan had launched an offensive incredible in its scale. A thousand Japanese warships
attacked an area comprising one-third of the earth's surface, including Guam, Hong Kong, Malaya, Midway Island,
the Philippine Islands, and Wake Island. The offensive was a stunning success. Hong Kong was overrun in 18 days;
Wake Island in two weeks; Singapore held out for two months. By May, the Japanese had also captured the islands
of Borneo, Bali, Sumatra, and Timor. In addition, Japan had taken Rangoon, Burma's main port, and seized control
of the rich tin, oil, and rubber resources of Southeast Asia.
By mid-summer of 1942, however, American forces had halted the Japanese advance. In May, a Japanese troop
convoy was intercepted and destroyed by the U.S. Navy at Coral Sea, preventing a Japanese attack on Australia. In
early June, at Midway Island in the Central Pacific, the Japanese launched an aircraft carrier offensive to cut
American communications and to isolate Hawaii to the east. In a three-day naval battle, the Japanese lost three
destroyers, a heavy cruiser, and four carriers. The Battle of Midway broke the back of Japan's navy.
To defeat Japan, Allied forces pursued two strategies. General Douglas MacArthur pushed northward from Australia
through New Guinea and from the Philippines towards Japan. Meanwhile, Admiral Chester Nimitz advanced on
Japan by attacking Japanese-held islands in the Central Pacific in a leap-frog fashion--invading strategic islands and
bypassing others. By late 1944, the United States was able to bomb the Japanese islands.
Propaganda
President Roosevelt hoped to avoid the crude propaganda campaigns that had stirred ethnic hatred during World
War I. Nevertheless, anti-Japanese propaganda was intense. Movies, comic strips, newspapers, books, and
advertisements caricatured Japanese by portraying them with thick glasses and huge buck teeth.
Motion pictures emerged as the most important instrument of propaganda during World War II. After Pearl Harbor,
Hollywood quickly enlisted in the war cause. The studios quickly copyrighted movie titles like Yellow Peril and V for
Victory. Hollywood's greatest contribution to the war effort was morale. Combat films produced during the war
emphasized patriotism, group effort, and the value of sacrifice for a larger cause. The films portrayed World War II
as a peoples' war, typically featuring a group of men from diverse ethnic backgrounds thrown together, tested on
the battlefield, and molded into a dedicated fighting unit. Wartime films also featured women serving as combat
nurses, riveters, welders, and long-suffering mothers who kept the home fires burning.
Off-screen, leading actors and actresses led recruitment and bond drives and entertained the troops. Leading
directors like Frank Capra and John Huston made documentaries to explain "why we fight" and to show civilians
what actual combat looked like.
War Begins With Japan/ Japanese-American Internment-Farewell to Manzanar
At 7:02 a.m., December 7, 1941, an army mobile radar unit set up on Oahu Island in Hawaii picked up the tell-tale
blips of approaching aircraft. The two privates operating the radar contacted the Army's General Information
Center, but the duty officer there told them to remain calm; the planes were probably American B-17s flying in
from California. In fact, they were Japanese aircraft that had been launched from six aircraft carriers 200 miles
north of Hawaii.
At 7:55 a.m., the first Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, the main base of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Moored in the
harbor were more than 70 warships, including eight of the fleet's nine battleships. There were also 2 heavy
cruisers, 29 destroyers, and 5 submarines. Four hundred airplanes were stationed nearby.
Japanese torpedo bombers, flying just 50 feet above the water, launched torpedoes at the docked American
warships. Japanese dive bombers strafed the ships' decks with machine gun fire, while Japanese fighters dropped
high explosive bombs on the aircraft sitting on the ground. Within half an hour, the U.S. Pacific Fleet was virtually
destroyed. The U.S. battleship Arizona was a burning hulk. Three other large ships--the Oklahoma, the West
Virginia, and the California--were sinking.
A second attack took place at 9 a.m., but the damage had been done. Seven of the eight battleships were sunk or
severely damaged. Out of the 400 aircraft, 188 had been destroyed and 159 were severely damaged. The worst
damage occurred to the Arizona; a thousand of the ship's sailors drowned or burned to death. Altogether, 2,403
Americans died during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; another 1,178 were wounded. Japan lost just 55 men.
It was not a total disaster, however. Japan had failed to destroy Pearl Harbor's ship repair facilities, the base's
power plant, or its fuel tanks. Even more important, three U.S. aircraft carriers, which had been on routine
maneuvers, escaped destruction. But it had been a devastating blow nonetheless. Later in the day on December 7,
Japanese forces launched attacks throughout the Pacific, striking Guam, Hong Kong, Malaya, Midway Island, the
Philippine Islands, and Wake Island.
The next day, President Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war. He
began his address with these famous words: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date that will live in infamy--the
United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."
Congress declared war on Japan with but one dissenting vote.
Japanese-American Internment-Farewell to Manzanar
The Immigration Act of 1924 barred the Japanese from migrating to the United States. Consequently, the Japanese
comprised a tiny portion of the population in 1941--totaling no more than 260,000 people. Of this number,
150,000 lived in Hawaii. The remaining 110,000 Japanese concentrated on the West Coast where they worked
mostly as small farmers or business-people serving the Japanese community. After Pearl Harbor, rumors spread
about Japanese troops preparing to land in California. Allegedly, they planned to link-up with Japanese Americans
and Japanese aliens poised to strike as a fifth column for the invasion.
On February 19, 1942, Roosevelt authorized the Department of War to designate military areas and to exclude any
or all persons from them. Armed with this power, military authorities immediately moved against Japanese aliens.
In Hawaii, the military did not force Japanese Americans to relocate because a large portion of the population was
of Japanese ancestry and the local economy depended on their labor. On the West Coast, however, military
authorities ordered the Japanese to leave, drawing no distinction between aliens and citizens. Forced to sell their
property for pennies on the dollar, most Japanese Americans suffered severe financial losses. Relocation proved
next to impossible as no other states would take them. The governor of Idaho opposed any migration, declaring:
"The Japs live like rats, breed like rats and act like rats. We don't want them."
Roosevelt created the War Relocation Authority when voluntary measures failed. It resettled 100,000 Japanese
Americans in ten isolated internment camps scattered across seven western states. Called relocation camps, they
resembled minimum security prisons. In these concentration camps, American citizens who had committed no
crimes were locked behind barbed wire and crowded into ramshackle wooden barracks. The families lived one
family to a room that was furnished with nothing but cots and bare light bulbs. They were forced to endure bad
food, inadequate medical care, and poorly equipped schools.
Nearly 18,000 Japanese American men won release from those camps to fight for the United States Army. Most
served with the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. In Italy, the 442nd sustained
nearly 10,000 casualties, with 3,600 Purple Hearts, 810 Bronze Stars, 342 Silver Stars, 123 divisional citations, 47
Distinguished Service Crosses, 17 Legions of Merit, 7 Presidential Unit Citations, and 1 Congressional Medal of
Honor. In short, they fought heroically, emerging as the most decorated military unit in World War II. In one of the
most painful scenes in American history, Japanese American parents, still locked inside concentration camps,
received posthumous Purple Hearts for their sons.
Japanese Americans protested their treatment in court. Citing national security considerations, the Supreme Court
upheld the internment order by a six to three vote in the case, Korematsu v. U.S. (1944). In a dissenting opinion,
however, Frank Murphy admitted that federal policy had fallen "into the ugly abyss of racism." On December 18,
1944, in the Endo case, the Supreme Court ruled that a civilian agency (the War Relocation Authority) had no right
to incarcerate law-abiding citizens. Two weeks later, the federal government began closing down the camps,
ending one of the most shameful chapters in American history.
Nuclear bombing
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us36.cfm
Unit 2- Cold war
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/us37.cfm
Theme II- Revolutions of the 20th Century
The 20th century was a century of revolutions. We usually think of revolutions in terms of banners and barricades,
and the 20th century certainly witnessed social and political upheavals, including the Russian and Chinese
Revolutions. But many of the century's most lasting revolutions took place without violence. There was the sexual
revolution, the women's liberation movement, and the rise of the giant corporation, big labor, and big government.
Revolutions in technology, science, and medicine utterly transformed the way people lived.
The scientific revolution is perhaps the most obvious development. During the 1890s, physics and medicine
radically changed our view of the world. The discovery of X-rays, radioactivity, sub-atomic particles, relativity, and
quantum theory produced a revolution in how scientists viewed matter and energy. Meanwhile, physicians
identified the first virus. Laboratory-based science reshaped the practice of medicine. Research in scientific
medicine first led to a cure for yellow fever. Then, it eliminated polio and smallpox.
Humankind developed air transport, discovered antibiotics, and invented computing. They also split the atom and
broke the genetic code. Communication technology was revolutionized with the telephone, the radio, and the
Internet. Medicine, too, underwent a radical transformation. Contraceptives separated sex from procreation. The
rapid spread of the automobile also modernized transportation technology.
The 20th century also witnessed a revolution in economic productivity. Between 1900 and 2000, the world's
population roughly quadrupled--from almost 1.6 billion to 6 billion people. But global production of goods and
services rose 14 or 15-fold. In 1900, the Standard & Poor's 500 index stood at 6.2. In 1998, the index was 1085.
Technological improvements shrunk the average work week by a day and a half. Technology also opened the
workplace to increasingly numbers of women, especially married and older women.
Equally important was the rise of mass communication and mass entertainment. In 1900, each person made an
average of 38 telephone calls. By 1997, the figure had grown to 2,325 phone calls. In 1890, there were no
billboards, no trademarks, no advertising slogans. There were no movies, no radio, no television, and few spectator
sports. No magazine had a million readers. The 1890s saw the advent of the mass circulation newspaper, the
national magazine, the best-selling novel, many modern spectator and team sports, and the first million dollar
nationwide advertising campaign. In 1900, some 6,000 new books were published. By the end of the century, the
number had increased more than 10-fold.
The 20th also century brought about a revolution in health and living standards. The latter part of the 19th century
was an era of tuberculosis, typhoid, sanitariums, child labor, 12-hour work days, tenements, and outhouses. In
1900, more Americans died from tuberculosis than from cancer. Each day millions of horses deposited some 25
pounds of manure and urine on city streets. Life expectancy increased by 30 years. Child mortality fell 10-fold. In
1900, families spent an average of 43 percent of their income on food; now they spend 15 percent.
The expansion of government was one of the 20th century’s most striking developments. In 1900, the U.S.
government took in just $567 million in taxes. In 1999, $1.7 trillion. Government spending as a share of Gross
Domestic Product (the measure of wealth created) in 1913 ranged from 1.8 percent in the U.S. to 17 percent in
France. At the end of the century, it ranged from 34 percent in the United States to 65 percent in Sweden.
Less pleasantly, the 20th century also saw a visible increase in the human capacity for violence. In 1900, British
commander Horatio Kitchener came up with a new strategy in the Boer War in South Africa. He rounded up 75,000
people, mostly women and children, and confined them to prison camps where most quickly died. They were the
first victims of one of the 20th century's most destructive inventions: the concentration camp.
The turn of the century also introduced genocide--the deliberate attempt to exterminate an entire people. In 1904,
in the German colony of South-West Africa, now Namibia, the Kaiser's troops systematically exterminated as many
as 80,000 Herero. This slaughter produced forced labor camps, sex slaves, and the first academic studies of
supposed Aryan superiority. After poisoning the water holes, the Herero were driven into the desert and were
bayoneted, shot, or starved. Those not killed--20,000 Herero--were condemned to slavery on German farms and
ranches.
The human capacity for mass killing increased exponentially as a result of improved weaponry and the increased
power of the state. The 20th century was scarred by gulags, concentration camps, secret police, terrorism,
genocide, and war.
Technology helped make the 20th century the bloodiest in history. World War I, which introduced the machine gun,
the tank, and poison gas, killed 10 million (almost all were soldiers). World War II, with its firebombs and nuclear
weapons, produced 35 million war deaths. The Cold War added another 17 million deaths to the total.
Technology made mass killing efficient; ideologies and ethnicity justified it. Underdeveloped countries driven to
modernize quickly were often scenes of repression and sickening mass killing, whether they were communist or
non-communist.
A Century of the Young
Among the new words that entered the English language during the 20th century were "adolescence," "dating,"
and "teenager." For the first time there was a gap between puberty and incorporation into adult life.
In 1900, children and teenagers under the age of 16 accounted for 44 percent of the population. Today, the young
make up 29 percent. In 1900, less than 2 percent of young people graduated from high school.
A Century of Women
In 1900, American women could vote in only four Western states. Just 700,000 married women (6 percent) were in
the paid labor force. Today, the figure is 34 million (64 percent).
In 1900, women accounted for 1 percent of lawyers and 6 percent of doctors. At the end of the century, those
percentages had risen to 29 percent and 26 percent, respectively. The number of women with bachelor's degrees
increased by half, with women now earning almost 60 percent of such degrees. Today, women with comparable
work and work histories as men earn 98 cents for every dollar that men do.
A Century of Prosperity
Despite an economic depression of unprecedented depth, the 20th century was a century of an extraordinary
improvements in health and increases in prosperity. The average lifespan increased by 30 years, from 47 years to
77 years. Infant mortality decreased by 93 percent, and heart disease deaths were cut by half.
The per person Gross Domestic Product was almost seven times higher in 1999 than in 1900. Manufacturing
wages, in today's dollars, climbed from $3.43 per hour in 1900 to $12.47 in 1999. This did not include the growth
in fringe benefits such as vacation, medical insurance, and retirement benefits. Household assets--everything from
the value of our homes to our personal possessions--were seven times greater. Meanwhile, home ownership
increased by 43 percent. In 1900, only 1 percent of Americans invested in public companies or mutual funds. By
the end of the century, the proportion of shareholders exceeded 50 percent.
At the beginning of the century, 40 to 50 percent of all Americans had income levels that classified them as poor.
At the end of the century, that was cut to between 10 and 15 percent. Until the 20th century, large numbers of
working class men and women faced “the poor house” at the conclusion of their working lives. Today, thanks to
social security and retirement plans, most Americans can expect to enjoy a period of more than a decade when
they no longer have to work.
During the 20th century, household incomes of African Americans increased 10-fold. Although African Americans
still earn less than whites, the gap has decreased. In 1900, blacks earned about 40 percent of what whites earn.
Today, they earn about 80 percent of what whites earn.
The average length of the work week decreased by 30 percent, falling from 66 hours to 35 hours. With the
introduction of more holidays and a shorter work week, the average number of hours worked in a year is half of
what it was in the latter part of the 19th century. Meanwhile, the percent of workers on the farm fell by 93 percent.
The percentage of households with electricity went from 10 percent to near universal. At the same time, the
average American in 1900 had to work six times as many hours to pay his electric bill than did an American a
century later.
The number of telephone calls per capita increased 5,600 percent. The number of households with cars increased
90-fold. The percentage of people completing college was four times higher. Today, more people (28 percent) have
bachelor's degrees than the number of Americans who held high school degrees in 1900 (22 percent).
The Expansion of Freedom
Perhaps the greatest of all 20th century revolutions was an expansion in human freedom and its extension to new
groups of people. Vast strides were made in civil rights, women's rights, and civil liberties.
European imperialism and colonial empires came to an end. In 1900, the British Empire contained roughly 400
million people, about a quarter of the world's population. Lesser empires, including the Austro-Hungarian, the
Ottoman, and the French, ruled large parts of the globe. In the span of less than 20 years, Europe had partitioned
nine-tenths of Africa. France ruled Southeast Asia. The Netherlands established rule in Indonesia and part of New
Guinea. Japan established a colonial empire in Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, and many Pacific Islands. Not to be left
out, the United States acquired the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico as a result of war with Spain, and also
annexed Hawaii.
At the start of the 21st century, 88 of the world's 191 countries were free. These countries are home to 2.4 billion
people--about 40 percent of the total world population. These nations enjoy free elections and the rights of speech,
religion and assembly.
The very meaning of freedom expanded in the 20th century. In the 19th century, freedom's meaning was
surprisingly limited. It referred simply to equality before the law, freedom of worship, free elections, and economic
opportunity. Subsequently, early 20th century reformers argued that individual freedom could only be realized
through the efforts of an activist, socially-conscious state. Freedom increasingly was seen to depend on
government regulation, consumer protection, minimum wage, and old-age pensions.
Free speech became a major issue during World War I, largely because of socialists toiling to speak out against the
war, labor radicals struggling for the right to strike, and feminists seeking to end to broad regulation on
contraception.
World War II brought the most basic contradiction in American life to a head. It underscored the jarring
discrepancy between American ideals of equality and the realities of discrimination, racial exclusion, and inequality.
In a series of decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the white-only primary, restrictive covenants that
barred blacks and Jews from segregated neighborhoods, and most significant of all, separate schools for African
American students.
The conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Guatemala, the Belgian Congo, and the clashes during the Cold War cost millions
of lives. But these struggles had an ironic consequence: they doomed Europe's empires, and they ultimately
reinvigorated the idea of freedom.
During the 1960s, notions of rights extended still further. The discourse of rights expanded to include gay rights,
abortion rights, the right to privacy, and the rights of criminal defendants.
At the end of the century, a process of democratization took place on a global scale. "People power" led to the
overthrow of the corrupt Marco’s regime in the Philippines and the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union. The 1990s witnessed the end of apartheid in South Africa; the weakening of clerical
tyranny in Iran; the overthrow of dictatorship in Indonesia; and the liberation of East Timor.
Immense attitudinal changes took place during the 20th century. Ecological consciousness grew, thus, leading
people around the world to recognize that the world's resources are not limitless. New standards of human rights
spread, transcending race, ethnicity, nationality, and gender.