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Peristrokia: restructuring of the Soviet political and economic systems
Glasnost: a term that was made up that meant "openness"
Mikhail Gorbachev opened up the Soviet Union by letting the people speak out and be heard. The books that were banned were allowed, churches were open and people were released from jail.
Communism was when the government basically controlled how the people live. Mikhail Gorbachev paved a way so that he would let the people be heard. He allowed angered Soviets to speak about their problems that they had. He listened to his people instead of ignoring them.
By the late 1970's, Communism was in crisis in many parts of the world. The population of Communist China had almost doubled under the power of Mao Zedong, & the Chinese government was barely able to provide food for its people. Dissatisfactions with Communism in the Soviet controlled countries of Eastern Europe was growing.
The Soviet Union was confronted with serious economic problems, an unsatisfied middle class & many disappointments with the Communist political system. Many non-Russians resented the power of ethnic Russians and began to demand more control over their owns problems. Also, corruption was growing among the Communist party. In western Europe, Communist parties faced declining electoral support by the late 1970's
By the late 1980's most Communist countries had experienced long periods of very little or no economic growth. Centralized planning planning proved to be inefficient, & was behind with the development of new technologies. Most Communist countries was not able to compete economically with Japan and the industrial powers of the West.
The collapse of Communism also made the Berlin Wall fall. The Berlin Wall separated East and West Germany. East Germany was Communist. West Germany was capitalists. The tearing down of the Berlin Wall was more of a symbolic act, showing the fall of the Soviet Union and Communism. In order to be truly unified, the Germans felt that the Berlin wall needed to come down.
Zionism is a movement aimed at establishing a national Jewish state in Palestine, the ancient Jewish homeland.
The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine recommended that Palestine be divided up into two different states. A state for the Arabs and a state for the Jews. In 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent state of Israel. The very next day that Israel was made, the neighboring Arab nations attacked the new nation. The Arabs thought the whole entire land of Israel should have been their own land.
The reason that the Jews and the Arabs don't get along is because they both want the land for themselves.
Apartheid - separating people based on what they are
In the time of Apartheid, the Africans weren't considered a citizen of their own countries. They really didnt have any civil rights or freedom rights. Somebody needed to stand up for the African people and be the voice of the people.
Then came along Nelson Mandela. He was the brave one who had stood up for the people of Africa. He faught and spoke for the people of Africa. The African people had found the voice for their scilence.
Nelson Mandela went to jail for speaking for the African people. At one time, he refused to be released because there was no freedom.
He is admired because of his books and for what he did. He faught for the freedom of the African people. He is a freedom fighter.
Over a 20 year period[1955-1957], Africa had changed drastically. They were divided up into colonies by the European imperialists.
In many of the colonies, Africans who had been educated in Europe led the organizations that called for self government. Supported by the people of Africa, these organizations began strikes, boycotts, & rallies. In some cases, the anti colonial feelings were made into riots, terrorists attacks & armed rebellions. A revolt against the French broke out in 1954 in Algeria. Because of the large number of French settlers, the revolt lasted eight years before the country gained their independence. In 1957, the Gold Coast became the first African colony to gain their independence. It won their independence from Britain & renamed their country Ghana.
An African leader Kwame Nkumah, was like Ghandi in a way. He believed in non violent protests & strikes, just like Ghandi believed it. His ways made good use in Ghana. He became the Prime Minister & then the president of Ghana.
Jomo Kenyatta was another African leader. He had studied in London. He had become President of Kenya, but unfortunately died in 1978.
There were many other African leaders that help Africa reach their goal of being their own independent nation. It only takes one person to make a difference.
The Neolithic Revolution was a major turning point in history. The Neolithic Revolution is also known as the first agricultural revolution. Humans went from hunting & gathering for animals and moving around from place to place to settling down in one area and planting seeds.
From this, cave men evolved into farmers. The population of people grew and cities had formed. The cities formed in river valleys because of the rich soil that was good for planting crops. From this, more advanced civilizations began because the places where the new & improved cavemen, which were knew as farmers, had the places well organized.
The European Union is the joining of the 25 European countries. It became the competing superpower with the United States.
With the EU being made, people could now travel to other countries without having to go through all the passport stuff at the country borderline. They can just pass through freely. Also, people were free to work in the other countries of Europe. For example, an Italian man could have the ability to work in Germany without any trouble.
It is also easy for the people money wise. Throughout Europe, there was only one currency. It was called the Euro. Now it was easy because every time they traveled to another country, they could still keep their money. They didn't have to do a money exchange every time they traveled to another country.
The EU is a good thing because it saves money for the people who live in Europe. The EU joined them to become one. Now, they can prevent wars from breaking out.
In the movie "The Right Stuff", the United States and the U.S.S.R. were competing on who could send a man up into space first. This competition that they were having was called the "Space Race".
The U.S.S.R. was winning the competition. They had already sent a man up into space before the United States had.
The scene that I would always remember is the scene when the United States kept trying and trying to get a space craft into space & they weren't successful. To me, it showed how hard they were trying in order to win the competition. Eventually they were successful in getting space craft into space.
In October of 1962, The United States learned that the U.S.S.R had secretly installed missiles and missile bases and Cuba, which is about 90 miles away from Florida, which is extremely close to the United States. President Kennedy demanded that the U.S.S.R remove the missiles from Cuba at once. The U.S.S.R. offered to the the missiles from Cuba, providing if the Unties States would diamantle its military bases in Turkey. The United States refused.
After a week of extreme tension between the two nations,Nikita Khrushchev, the Premier of the U.S.S.R., agreed to remove the missiles.
NATO stood for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This organization came together on April 4, 1949. NATO consisted of North America and the European countries. The purpose for this organization coming together is because so that the countries could back each other up when they are in need of aide. Europe had formed this organization because Europe felt very weak again the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union started to gain lots & lots of power.
6 years later, the Warsaw Pact was born. This alliance consisted of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries. This was a response to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, other known as NATO. They had made this because the Soviet Union observed NATO as a threat.
Some of my reactions to the documentary of the holocaust "Night and Fog" left me speechless. I can't even imagine that people could be so cruel to one another. The Germans were so cruel to the Jews, it wasn't even funny. To start everything off, the Jews didn't even do anything to the Germans. Watching the killings and the slaughter of the Jewish race is very disturbing. Hopefully, nothing like this will ever occur in this world again.
"Night and Fog" was powerful & "Schindler's List" was powerful too. I can't really decide which one is more powerful. Both films had a great effect on me. Between the two movies, I can't really make a comparison with the scenes. They both showed how the brutal the Jews were treated.
The only thing that "Schindler's List" didn't show that "Night and Fog" showed was what the Jews did with the dead bodies. They took some bodies and used the fat from the bodies to make soap, which makes me think twice about what is in the soap I use to wash my skin. They also used all the hair that was shaved from the women's head to weave blankets, which I find utterly disgusting.
The movie "Schindler's List" shows how badly the Jewish people were treated, the killings for being Jewish and the journey to the camps where the majority of Jews faced their death. The Jews were treated like they weren't even people. They were treated like useless objects that needed to be thrown out in the garbage. This was very gruesome and cruel. God did not create people so that they can kill their own species. He created them so that they could live happily together, but it seems like the Germans did not go by that. To gather up the Jews, the Germans would always give the Jews very little space between them. When they were gathering up Jews to ship them off to the death camps, they packed the Jews like sardines on the trains. Also, it was very hot and the Germans sprayed them the train cars with a hose. The Jews were so dehydrated. They were acting like fishes out of water when the water was sprayed on them.
In this movie, the scene that was most powerful was the children. It killed me inside to see them being separated from their parents and not knowing what was going to happen to them. The Germans lured them into getting on the truck so that they can be killed. The children were waving to their parents happily as they were going away on the truck. I don't think that they would be smiling if they knew what was really going on.
One scene that would stick with me is when the Jews had to eat their own jewelry to keep it safe. This goes to show that people will do any crazy thing if they are in a serious situation. They would do any crazy thing if it means that it would keep a prized possession safe. They also didn't have any other choice but to eat their own jewelry because I don't think that they would want any of the Germans to take away their things.
Another scene that would really stick with me was when the little boy ran away from the Germans and was looking for a place to hide. All the places he had looked, there was other children there. The only place left was the bathroom. He went through the hole and landed in crap. It was really disgusting. There was other children there too. I can't even image the things that was going through his mind at the time. I couldn't even imagine myself in that situation. Just thinking about it gives me chills.
According to this news article, the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the number one news story of the century.
Yes, I do think that the dropping of the atomic bombs was the biggest news story of the century. I don't think that there could be a bigger news story than this. The war was going on for so long and America needed a way to just end the war. The dropping of the bombs had finally ended the war. The ending of the war was really big news. But the one thing that I think that should have brought the most attention to the people of the world was the number of lives it had killed. It had killed hundreds and thousands of innocent lives, including women and small children.
On the list of events, there would be a few things I would change. According to this list, the Great Depression ranked #10. In my opinion, I think that the Great Depression was a very serious time. People look at America as such a great country. For it to go into poverty was a very serious issue. People had next to nothing at that time. I think that it should be moved up and be ranked as #2. Another event that I would change is the identification of the AiDS disease. This disease is very deadly and it should be taken very seriously. It surprised me that it was ranked #25. I think that it should have been ranked in at least in the top 5. Another thing that I would change is when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. This was ranked #44. This was a major change for the colored people in America. For years, colored people was discriminated just because they were different. It was finally time for them to shine. Somebody had to make a difference. I would put this event in the top 20 events.
Propaganda: information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
The poster says "Europe's Victory is Your Prosperity". I think the poster is trying to say that if Europe wins the war, it would be beneficial to the people. The people will live good lives. The symbol of the fist punching punching Stalin showed that they wanted to rule and take over the Soviet Union with an "iron fist".
The cross with Churchill shows that Great Britian was defeated by Germany.
The Treaty of Versailles had a really bad effect on Germany. After the war was over, Germany was blamed for everything. It was said that Germany was the cause of the war. They had to take responsibility for all the damage that happened. Germany even lost some of their land because of the war.
I think that historians would say this because at that time, Germany was in need for a leader. With Hitler, Gemany thought that the counrty would become stronger. Then, Hitler became a dictator. He was against the Jewish people, so he killed them. Anybody else who would go againt Hitler was killed.
The people of Turkey looked up to Mustafa Kemal as a father. In his eyes, Turkey was not modernized. To modernize Turkey, he wanted to change the way they dressed. He wanted the people to look formal and professional. He got rid of the Turkish headwear called a fez and make people wear a hat with a brim. He also enforced shirts and ties. The also had to wear nice boots or dress shoes. They also had to wear jackets.secular: things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred
Without Gandhi, I think that India would have been under British rule longer. He was the brave one who stood up for the whole of India for its freedom under British rule.
One of the main things that Gandhi did was that he rebelled a lot. He refused to follow any British rules. Doing this, showed the British that the Indians did not need them to go on in life. For example, he refused to buy British products. He refused to buy salt and buy British cloth. As a result of refusing to buy British products, he wove his own clothes and he produced his own salt from the ocean.
Gandhi also did things in a non-violent way. When the British were putting him under arrest for specific charges, he did not fight or argue about it. He basically just went with the flow. Also, when the British was beating him down for disobeying the British law, he just took the beatings and did not fight back. He believed that not fighting back with the British showed that they were stronger.
