Mr. Raasch's Social Studies
Unit 10- Early Cold War/ Vietnam
After WWII
The second world war completely changed the landscape of Europe and the Pacific region. Following WWII, Stalin expanded the Soviet Union into many areas that had been previouly held by the Nazis, creating what Winston Churchill called the "Iron Curtain" of communism. The Cold War began directly following the close of WWII, as the democratic nations joined forces against the growing number of communist naions around the world. These seeds distrust and fear continued to grow and would last for over 40 years, cost billions of dollars and countless lives were affected in the ideological struggle for the hearts and minds of the people of the world.
The Vietnam War
The communist forces of Vietnam had been fighting French occupation before WWII and continued thier fight directly after it as well. With the final victory of Ho Chi Mihn and the Vietcong at Bien Dien Phu, the French left their colony in Vietnam. But the strong anti-communist feelings in the United States and a Congress that was devoted to the policy of containment combined to increased involvement in Vietnam and the longest war in US history until the Afghan war. The American public became familiar with terms like tunnel rats, pungi traps and seek and destroy missions.
Vietnam in HD- Tet Offensive
The Cuban Situation
Like his predessors following WWII, John F. Kennedy was concerned with the preceived power of communism and was at high aleart for any nation looking to join the ranks of the communist nations of the world. When the island of Cuba, only 90 miles from US soil, became communist after an successful revolution the Kenndy administration felt that the people didn't want communism or Fidel as a leader. The Bay of Pigs failure was the first US intervention in Cuba since the rise of the Cuban socialist state but it gave the USSR confidence that the new US leader was weak. Khrushev began to exploit this precieved weakness and moved nuclear missiles into Cuba, leading to the greatest showdown of the US and Soviet Russia up to this point. Both nations felt that their backs were agaisnt the wall but the situation avoided a full scale nuclear war and damaged relations between the US and Cuba that last up to today.
