Vibha Academic Bowl Outreach History Subject Outline – Middle School
Overview: World history, focusing on American topics as they are the most likely to be covered by NAQT/PAGE. Georgia history also is relevant, as the local competitions seem to LOVE it. In the bigger sections (WWI, WWII, Cold War) I hit the highlights, such as major battles and major individuals, as Middle School students should come across questions that only cover the major ideas of each conflict.
1) Ancient History
a. First civilizations
i. Mesopotamia
1. Major cities: Sumer, Ur, Babylon
2. Written language of cuneiform – believed to be the world’s oldest written language
3. Founded around the Euphrates and Tigris rivers – called “Cradle of Civilization” – modern day Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran
4. Epic of Gilgamesh – Epic poem – one of the world’s oldest works of literature – Story of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk – deals with Gilgamesh’s search for immortality and his relationship with his friend Enkidu and the goddess Ishtar.
ii. Egypt
1. Major river – Nile – The River Nile actually is made up of two “colorful” rivers, the Blue Nile and the White Nile.
2. Egypt was divided into two sections, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. The pharaoh was the ruler of both, deriving the name “Lord of the Two Lands.” The pharaoh was also the religious leader of Egypt and represented the gods on earth. The pharaohs ruled in periods called dynasties.
3. Early Dynastic Period began in approx. 3100 BC. Egyptian dynasties effectively came to an end in 30 BC when it became a province under Rome (conquered by Augustus Caesar)
4. Famous for elaborate burial buildings – pyramids – biggest pyramids at Giza.
5. Also at Giza – The Great Sphinx
6. Famous Pharaohs:
a. King Tutankhamen (King Tut, or the Boy King) -
b. Ramsey II (famous for the number of children he fathered) – Also known as Ramses the Great – He ruled Egypt during the 19th Dynasty, from 1279 to 1213 BC. One of the greatest Egyptian pharaohs.
c. Cleopatra VII– Cleo was the last pharaoh of Egypt, and represented the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which had been established by Alexander the Great after he conquered Egypt. The Ptolemies were Greek in origin. Egypt flourished under her rule, but her affiliation with the Romans – chiefly Gaius Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) – proved to be the downfall of her kingdom. She was installed as ruler of Egypt following Caesar’s victory at the Battle of the Nile in 47 BC. Caesar and Cleo were in a relationship for many years, and he may have fathered her child Caesarion. Following Caesar’s assassination on the Ides of March, 44 BC, Cleo fled from Rome. She entered into a relationship with Marc Antony, whom she committed suicide with following their defeat at the Battle of Actium by Octavian in 31 BC.
7. Important gods:
a. Anubis – Man with a jackal head, god of embalming and the dead; many Egyptians believed that Anubis watched over the dead.
b. Horus – Man with the head of a hawk, god of the sky; Horus was most well-known as the protector of the pharaoh. Famed for the “Eye of Horus”
c. Isis – Woman with headdress in the shape of a throne or a pair of cow horns with a sun disk, known as a protective goddess. Isis was the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus.
d. Osiris – Mummified man wearing a white cone-like headdress with feathers, god of the dead and the ruler of the underworld; Osiris was the brother/husband of Isis and father of Horus.
e. Ra – Man with hawk head and headdress with a sun disk, the sun god; Ra was the most important god of the ancient Egyptians. Egyptians believed that Ra was swallowed every night by the sky goddess Nut, and then was reborn every morning.
b. Rome – Kings to the end of the Republic:
i. Founded by Romulus and Remus – two brothers who were descended from Aeneas, the man who fled from the burning city of Troy – Aeneas’ story is told in the Aeneid, written by Vergil – The fall of Troy is told by Homer in his Iliad, the story of the Trojan War (and, more specifically, the Greek hero Achilles). Vergil’s Aeneid was written during the reign of Augustus and is considered to be one of the greatest works of the period (and of Roman culture itself).
ii. Most of the history of the creation of Rome and the rule of the Seven Kings comes from Livy, but Livy’s writings may have been a combination of common myths and the convenient creation of facts.
iii. Legend tells that R&R were found by a she-wolf (from the Latin, lupa) next to a river; they were then raised by a man and his wife who found the boys with the wolf. Romulus killed his brother Remus and created Rome in 753 BC. While this date is commonly accepted and used as the founding date of Rome, it was mostly likely created by Varro, the historian that first used it.
iv. After founding and naming Rome (as the story goes), Romulus permitted men of all classes to come to Rome as citizens, including slaves and freemen without distinction. To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighboring tribes to a festival in Rome where he abducted the young women from amongst them (known as The Rape of the Sabine Women). After the ensuing war with the Sabines, Romulus shared the kingship with the Sabine king Titus Tatius. Romulus selected 100 of the most noble men to form the Roman senate as an advisory council to the king
v. Romulus was the first king of Rome, and he was followed by six others:
1. Romulus
2. Numa Pompilius
3. Tullus Hostilius
4. Ancus Marcius
5. Lucius Tarquinius Priscus
6. Servius Tullius
7. Lucius Tarquinius Superbus
vi. At the end of Superbus’ reign, his nephew Sextus Tarquinius Superbus raped the daughter of Roman nobleman Lucretius. This event, the Rape of Lucretia, incited Brutus to lead a revolt and overthrew the king, putting into place the Roman Republic. The date was 509 BC. The Republic was led by two consuls, leaders elected for a one year term, and by a Senate, which was comprised of leading Roman men.
vii. However, it took a few centuries for Rome to become the great city of popular imagination. By the 3rd century BC, Rome had become the pre-eminent city of the Italian peninsula. During the Punic Wars between Rome and the great Mediterranean empire of Carthage (264 to 146 BC), Rome's stature increased further as it became the capital of an overseas empire for the first time. There were three Punic Wars. Vergil explains the relations between Rome and Carthage as a result of Aeneas’ relationship with Dido, the Queen of Carthage. After Aeneas left her, Dido vowed that the Romans would be the sworn enemies of Carthage.
viii. Famous Romans from the Republic:
1. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) – famous orator, lawyer, and senator. He was consul during the Catilinarian Conspiracy of 63 BC. Years later, he was exiled from Rome because of his actions against the conspirators (he had them killed). Many of his speeches are still read until this day because of the high degree of skill he used.
2. Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) – Roman senator and general who took over the state and proclaimed himself dictator (consul for life). He was a member of the First Triumvirate with Marcus Crassus and the great Roman general Pompey. Caesar was involved in a multi-year relationship with Cleopatra VII of Egypt, and he may have been the father of her son Caesarion. He was assassinated on the Ides of March, 44BC by Brutus and Cassius.
3. Octavian (63 BC – AD 14) – adopted son of Julius Caesar, was known later as Augustus. He was a member of the Second Triumvirate with Marcus Lepidus and Marcus Antonius. He defeated Marc Antony (Antonius) and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium. Cleo and Antony then committed suicide. Augustus became the first emperor of the Roman Empire.
c. Rome – Empire to Fall
i. The Roman Empire began with the end of several civil wars involving the First and Second Triumvirates. Several key events marked the transition from Republic to Empire: Julius Caesar’s appointment as dictator in 44BC; the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, pitting Octavian vs. Antony/Cleopatra; and the granting of the honorific Augustus to Octavian by the Roman Senate in 27 BC.
ii. Following Augustus’s (AKA Octavian, AKA Caesar Augustus) acesion to power, the Empire experienced two centuries of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Romana. When he took power, Augustus took the title “princeps,” or “leading citizen.” He did not want to be associated with the concept of “king,” thanks to Rome’s sordid past with kings. Consuls continued to be elected, tribunes of the people continued to put forth legislation, and senators still debated in the curia (Senate House). It was Augustus, however, who established the precedent that the emperor controlled the final decisions, backed up by military force.
iii. Rome began annexing provinces during the 3rd century BC, and in that sense was an empire while still a republic in name.
iv. Vespasian became the founder of the brief Flavian dynasty, to be followed by the Nerva–Antonine dynasty which produced the "Five Good Emperors": Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and the philosophically inclined Marcus Aurelius. In the view of the Greek historian Dio Cassius, a contemporary observer, the accession of the emperor Commodus in 180 AD marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron"—a famous comment which has led some historians, notably Edward Gibbon, to take Commodus' reign as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.
v. In 212, during the reign of Caracalla, Roman citizenship was granted to all freeborn inhabitants of the Empire. But despite this gesture of universality, the Severan dynasty was tumultuous—an emperor's reign was ended routinely by his murder or execution—and following its collapse, the Roman Empire was engulfed by the Crisis of the Third Century, a period of invasions, civil strife, economic depression, and plague. In defining historical epochs, this crisis is sometimes viewed as marking the transition from Classical Antiquity to Late Antiquity. The emaciated illusion of the old Republic was sacrificed for the sake of imposing order: Diocletian (reigned 284–305) brought the Empire back from the brink, but declined the role of princeps and became the first emperor to be addressed regularly as dominus, "master" or "lord". Diocletian's reign also brought the Empire's most concerted effort against the perceived threat of Christianity, the "Great Persecution". The state of autocratic absolutism that began with Diocletius as the Dominate endured till the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476. The decline of the Western Roman Empire was finished in 476 AD, as Romulus Augustus was deposed by Odoacder, a Germanic chieftain.
vi. The Roman Empire reached it largest size under the reign of Trajan, as the Romans finished expanding into England and the Middle East. It totaled 5 million square kilometers that, as of 2009, was divided between 40 different countries. The traditional population estimate of 55-60 million inhabitants accounted for between one-sixth and one-fourth of the world’s total population. It was the largest population of any unified political entity in the West until the mid-19th century. Following Trajan, the Emperor Hadrian constructed Hadrian’s Wall. Sections of the wall still remain, as John Clayton became alarmed at its destruction in the 19th century and began buying up sections of it. It was 73 miles long, and the height and width depended on what construction materials were nearby.
vii. Famous people of the Empire:
1. Augustus Caesar – See “Rome – Republic”
2. Vergil – Poet of the epic poem the Aeneid – other works include the Eclogues and the Georgics. The Aeneid is considered to be the national epic of ancient Rome to the present day – Vergil had an immense impact of the future writers of the Renaissance, especially Dante. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Vergil acts as Dante’s guide of hell and purgatory.
3. Nero – the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, Nero is most famous for being emperor during the Great Fire of Rome (64 AD). Many believed that Nero was the creator of the fire and that he fiddled while Rome burned. This is because the land destroyed by the Great Fire was later used as the spot for the Domus Aurea, the palace he had built in honor of himself.
4. The Five Good Emperors – A peaceful succession of emperors (it was not dynastic) that lasted from 96-180 AD. The Five were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. It ended with Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius, a paranoid and insane ruler who ended the “Pax Romana.”
5. Horace – Writer of the Augustan Age, famous for his Epodes, Odes, Satires, and Epistles. His Art of Poetry stated the basic rules of classical writing as the Roman understood and used them. Following the death of Vergil, Horace became Rome’s leading poet.
6. Ovid – Roman author of such works as the Fatsi, which describes Roman festivals and their legendary origins. Ovid's greatest work, the Metamorphoses weaves various myths into a fast-paced, fascinating story. Ovid was a witty writer who excelled in creating lively and passionate characters. The Metamorphoses was the best-known source of Roman mythology throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It inspired many poets, painters, and composers.
d. Greece (pre-Roman contact):
i. Traditional dates for Ancient Greece 776 BC (first Olympic games) to 323 BC (death of Alexander the Great)
ii. Ancient Greece is considered by most historians to be the foundational culture of Western Civilization. Greek culture was a powerful influence in the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of Europe. Ancient Greek civilization has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, art and architecture of the modern world, particularly during the Renaissance in Western Europe and again during various neo-Classical revivals in 18th and 19th century Europe and the Americas.
iii. The basic unit of politics in Ancient Greece was the polis, sometimes translated as city-state. "Politics" literally means "the things of the polis". Each city was independent, at least in theory.
iv. Two major wars shaped the Classical Greek world. The Persian Wars (500–448 BC) are recounted in Herodotus's Histories. Ionian Greek cities revolted from the Persian Empire and were supported by some of the mainland cities, eventually led by Athens. The notable battles of this war include Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. In 458 BC, while the Persian Wars were still ongoing, war broke out between the Delian League (founded by Athens to fight against the Persians) and the Peloponnesian League, comprising Sparta and its allies. After some inconclusive fighting, the two sides signed a peace in 447 BC. That peace, it was stipulated, was to last thirty years: instead it held only until 431 BC, with the onset of the Peloponnesian War. Our main sources concerning this war are Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War and Xenophon's Hellenica.
v. The Hellenistic period of Greek history begins with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ends with the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC.
vi. Famous Greeks:
1. Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) – King of Macedon; Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC. He founded at least twenty cities with his name, including Alexandria in Egypt.
2. Aristotle (384-322 BC) – Greek philosopher who studied under Plato. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing morality, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.
3. Plato (428-348 BC) - a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Famous work – the Republic.
4. Socrates (469-399 BC) – A founder of Western philosophy; he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method. He was found guilty of both corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and of impiety ("not believing in the gods of the state"), and subsequently sentenced to death by drinking a mixture containing poison hemlock.
e. Seven Wonders of the Ancient World:
i. The list of the Seven Wonders was created by various authors in guidebooks popular among the ancient Hellenic tourists, in particular. The original list inspired innumerable versions for the ages, often listing seven entries. Of the original Seven Wonders, only one, the Great Pyramid of Giza, still stands.
ii. Great Pyramid of Giza (modern day Egypt)
iii. Hanging Gardens of Babylon (modern day Iraq)
iv. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (modern day Turkey)
v. Statue of Zeus at Olympia (modern day Greece, site of ancient Olympic games)
vi. Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (modern day Turkey, was a burial site of a man named Mausolus)
vii. Colossus of Rhodes (island of Rhodes, a statue of the Greek Titan Helios)
viii. Lighthouse of Alexandria (modern day Egypt)
2) Middle Ages
a. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church based in Rome played an extreme role in the governing of people’s lives. This was a constant throughout the period, culminating in the Church’s power in the mid-1000s.
b. Major theme throughout the Middle Ages was the system of Feudalism – a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor – nobles owned the land, serfs (peasants) worked the land and were tied to the land. If land changed hands between owners, the serfs would stay and not leave with the old owner.
c. Early Middle Ages
i. Roughly 476-1000
ii. Collapse of Western Roman Empire following sack in 476 – end of Classical Period
iii. Confusion following fall of Western Roman Empire, changing societal structure
iv. Rise of Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire)
v. Rise of Islam
1. Founder – Muhammad – leader who unified Arabia into one polity under the religion of Islam
vi. Beginning of Feudalism as economic system
d. High Middle Ages
i. Roughly 1000-1347
ii. Extreme growth in population – large number of peasants, few lords – continued growth of feudalism
iii. Formative period of states in Western Europe
iv. Beginning of the Crusades
v. Great Schism (specifically, East-West Schism) between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church – 1054
e. Late Middle Ages
i. Fame, War, and Plagues
ii. Black Death – a fun time to be alive in Europe
1. Killed between 75 and 200 million people
2. Reoccurred on and off until 19th century
iii. Rise of strong, royally-based kingdoms throughout Europe
iv. Hundred Years War between England and France
v. Collapse of Byzantium
vi. End of period and Middle Ages with beginning of Renaissance
3) The Renaissance
a. An extreme period of intellectual, artistic, and political growth in Europe. Divided into two parts – the Northern Renaissance and the Italian Renaissance. The Northern focused more on Humanism – the group of philosophies and ethical perspectives which emphasize the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers individual thought and evidence over established doctrine or faith – while the Italian had an emphasis on art. Both did have their thinkers and artists, however.
b. Lasted roughly from 14th century to 17th century; began in part to the invention of the movable type printing press by Gutenberg in1439 – allowed for the reproduction and spread of literature and ideas; also began because of system of patronage, in which a wealthy person would pay an artist to create a work.
c. The Renaissance began in Florence, Italy, thanks to the convergence of several different factors: its political structure; the patronage of its dominant family, the Medici; and the migration of Greek scholars and texts to Italy following the Conquest of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.
d. As a cultural movement, it encompassed innovative flowering of Latin and vernacular literatures, beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on classical sources, which contemporaries credited to Petrarch, the development of linear perspective and other techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform. In politics, the Renaissance contributed the development of the conventions of diplomacy, and in science an increased reliance on observation. Historians often argue this intellectual transformation was a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era. Although the Renaissance saw revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well as social and political upheaval, it is perhaps best known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term "Renaissance man".
e. In all, the Renaissance could be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals to study and improve the secular and worldly, both through the revival of ideas from antiquity, and through novel approaches to thought.
f. Also a major time for philosophy, including political philosophy – Machiavelli wrote The Prince
g. Famous artists/architects – da Vinci, Titian, Botticelli, Raphael, Donatello, Durer, Michelangelo, Jan van Eyck,
i. Remember, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all named for Renaissance painters!
ii. Da Vinci – A Renaissance Man
1. Painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.
2. Art: Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. Leonardo's drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon.
3. Science: Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualized a helicopter, a tank, concentrated solar power, a calculator, and the double hull, and he outlined a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, but some of his smaller inventions, such as an automated bobbin winder and a machine for testing the tensile strength of wire, entered the world of manufacturing unheralded. He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics, but he did not publish his findings and they had no direct influence on later science.
iii. Dante – Author of the Divine Comedy - The Divine Comedy describes Dante's journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Paradise (Paradiso), guided first by the Roman poet Virgil and then by Beatrice, the subject of his love and of another of his works, La Vita Nuova. While the vision of Hell, the Inferno, is vivid for modern readers, the theological niceties presented in the other books require a certain amount of patience and knowledge to appreciate. Purgatorio, the most lyrical and human of the three, also has the most poets in it; Paradiso, the most heavily theological, has the most beautiful and ecstatic mystic passages in which Dante tries to describe what he confesses he is unable to convey (e.g., when Dante looks into the face of God: "all'alta fantasia qui mancò possa" — "at this high moment, ability failed my capacity to describe," Paradiso, XXXIII, 142). The DC is considered to be the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and one of the first great works written in the vernacular.
The Age of Discovery and the Age of Imperialism
h. Also known as Age of Exploration, the Age of Discovery (AoD) began in the 15th century and continued until the 17th century. It was characterized by European explorers and navigators sailing around the world and discovering unknown lands. The Age of Imperialism (AoI) started during the AoD and continued on after it; this period was when colonialism began – people from home countries (European countries) went to the newly discovered lands to live. Europeans made contact with Africa, North America, South America, Asia, and Oceania during the AoD.
i. Portugal dominated the AoD, and it was led by Prince Henry the Navigator
j. Famous explorers by country:
i. Great Britain – James Cook (Australia and Oceania), Francis Drake (a legal pirate under the British Empire), John Cabot (North America), Henry Hudson (North America, Hudson River and Hudson Bay named for him)
ii. Portugal – Prince Henry, Bartolomeu Diaz (First Europeaner to sail around horn of Africa, named it Cape of Good Hope in 1488), Vasco de Gama (First Europeaner to sail to India, 1498), Ferdinand Magellan (First to ever sail around the world, was killed in the Philippines, Straight of Magellan named for him)
iii. Italy – Amerigo Vespucci (first demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts as initially conjectured from Columbus’ voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass, which was then named from the feminized Latin version of his name, America)
iv. Spain – Christopher Columbus (Actually Italian, but King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain agreed to finance his voyage; went in search of Asia, discovered North America in 1492)
k. During AoI, European countries dominated the regions that they orginially discovered – Spain and Portugal took South America; Spain, Britain, and France took North America; many countries vied for power in Asia and Africa. Africa was divided up in the Berlin Conference in 1884, creating a period called “The Scramble for Africa”
4) British History Pre-20th
a. Famous Megalith – Stonehenge, believed to have been started as early as 2500 BC
b. Colonized during Roman times – was officially controlled by the Roman Empire from 43 AD until 430 AD, but Julius Caesar led battles in Britain in 50s BC. Famous remnants of Roman control – Hadrian’s Wall, constructed by the emperor Hadrian in 128; this demarcated the northernmost boundary of the Roman Empire in British Isles.
c. A big part of British “history” is Arthurian legend, the story of King Arthur and Camelot.
d. 1066 – William, Duke of Normandy invaded England, claiming that he was the rightful heir to the throne, and defeated King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. We get some of our knowledge of the Battle of Hastings from the Bayeux Tapestry, completed in 1077
e. 1215 – Magna Carta is signed. Limited power of king and increased the power of the nobility. Required King John to proclaim certain liberties and accept that his will was not arbitrary —for example by explicitly accepting that no "freeman" (in the
f. 1337-1453 – Hundred Years War between Britain and France - the war gave impetus to ideas of French and English nationalism. Militarily, it saw the introduction of weapons and tactics that supplanted the feudal armies dominated by cavalry. The first standing armies in Western Europe since the time of the Roman Empire were introduced for the war, thus changing the role of the peasantry.sense of non-serf) could be punished except through the law of the land, a right that still exists.
g. Geoffrey Chaucer – Known as the Father of English Literature, and widsely conidered to be the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey. His most famous work remain The Canterbury Tales, one of the greatest works of the vernacular, Middle English. Chaucer was a major figure in establishing the legitimacy of the use of the vernacular.
h. Famous thinkers – Sir Thomas More (advisor to King Henry VIII, wrote political treaty Utopia, killed by Henry VIII when he would not support his divorce from first wife Catherine of Aragon in 1529)
i. Henry VIII – became king in 1509 – wanted to divorce first wife Catherine of Aragon in 1529, Pope would not consent as England was still a member of Roman Catholic Church – cuts ties with Church – divorces Catherine and marries Anne Boleyn in 1533, is excommunicated by Pope Clement VII – 1534, Act of Supremacy, which defines the king (thus, Henry) the head of the Church of England – ended up having six wives: two were divorced, two were executed, one died following childbirth, one was widowed.
j. 1558 – Elizabeth I (daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn) becomes queen
k. 1588 – Defeat of Spanish Armada during attempted invasion of Britain – greatest naval victory in British history
l. November 5, 1605 – attempted destruction of Parliament by Guy Fawkes – known as the Gunpowder Plot
m. 1620 – Pilgrims land at Plymouth
n. 1642-1651 – English Civil War
o. 1666 – Great Fire of London
p. 1688 – Glorious Revolution – overthrow of King James II; William of Orange and wife become King William III and Queen Mary II. Following their coronation, Bill of Rights was created.
q. Victorian Era – 1837-1901 – rule of Queen Victoria (also held title Empress of India) - a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.
5) The American Revolutionary War
a. Fought from 1775-1783 between British colonists (later, United States of America) and Great Britain. Obviously, the Americans won.
b. Techinally, the war was fought between the Thirteen Colonies, France, Netherlands, Spain, and Mysore (a kingdom in South India) against Great Britain.
c. Occurred for many different reasons: colonists felt like they were very different from British and desired to be their own people; the Stamp Act of 1765 led to tension between the two; the result of the French and Indian War and the massive debt leveled on the British created a need for more taxation revenue, so the British taxed their colonies; as Benjamin Franklin put it “the Colonies raised, clothed, and paid, during the [French and Indian War], near twenty-five thousand men, and spent many millions”; other taxes included the Tea Tax, which led to the famous Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts that were poised to punish the Massachusetts colonists for the Tea Party.
d. Boston Tea Party – 1773 – the American boycott of taxed British tea led to the Boston Tea Party, when shiploads of tea were destroyed by the Colonists. London responded by ending self-government in Massachusetts and putting it under the control of the British army. General Thomas Gage – the newly appointed governor of Mass. – learned in April 1775 of weapons being gathered in Concord, so he sent troops there to seize and destroy them. The conflict that thus arose marked the beginning of the war with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
e. Any chance for peace between the two powers ended when the colonists issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
f. France, Spain, and the Dutch all provided help to the colonists, as a loss of the Colonies would weaken Britain, a goal for other countries. These countries secretly provided supplies, ammo, and weapons beginning in 1776, but France entered the war officially in early 1778, following the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga in 1777. Spain and the Netherlands threatened invasion of Britain and tested the Empire’s strength with campaigns in Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean over the next four years.
g. Famous American leaders: George Washington, John Adams, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benedict Arnold, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock
h. Famous British leaders: King George III, Sir Henry Clinton, General Thomas Gage, Charles Cornwallis
i. Valley Forge – winter camp of American army
j. Battle of Yorktown – surrender of British forces under Cornwallis to American forces under Washington
k. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the US over the territory bounded roughly by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west. The peace was not final, as the two nations would come into conflict many times before the War of 1812 over land and rights to the sea.
6) The First Presidents, the Creation of a Nation, and the Rise of Cotton
a. Washington first president – served for two terms – from Virginia
b. Adams second president – from Boston
c. Jefferson third president – from Virginia
d. Madison fourth – from Virginia
e. Cotton was king in this period in the Deep South. Thanks to cotton and other cash crops (indigo, tobacco), slavery was extremely big in the South.
f. This period was dominated by two major national political parties – the Federalists (led by John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury) and the Democratic-Republicans (led by Thomas Jefferson and Madison)
g. Constitutional Crisis of 1800 – Burr and Jefferson tie in Electoral College, the decision over who becomes president goes to the House of Representatives – Jefferson wins
h. Louisiana Purchase – 1803 – U.S. buys the Louisiana Territory from France as France needs help funding the Napoleonic Wars – more than doubles the size of the nation – Jefferson regarded by many as hero for purchase, leads to his reelection – Jefferson sends personal secretary Meriwether Lewis and friend William Clark on a mission to travel to Pacific Ocean across the continent. Along the way, native Shoshone woman Sacagawea assists them.
i. Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr, Vice President under Jefferson.
7) The American Civil War and Reconstruction
a. Fought from 1861-1865 between the Union (United States of America, North) and the Confederate States of America (South)
b. Causes – issues of slavery, states’ rights, sectionalism, protectionism, the expansion of slavery (slave power v. free soil), elections of mid-1800s and the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln
c. Began with the secession of South Carolina from the Union on December 24, 1860. This started the “secession winter,” during which seven states total seceded from the Union before Lincoln took office. These states were: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. They established a Southern government, the Confederate States of America, on Feb 4, 1861. President James Buchanan did little to oppose these actions, as he would leave office on March 4. Jefferson Davis was elected President of the Confederacy, and the government was modeled on the US Constitution. The shelling of Fort Sumter in Charleston’s harbor in 1861 marked the first official act of war during the Civil War, and four additional states would secede and join the Confederacy following it: Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The northwestern portion of Virginia subsequently seceded from Virginia to rejoin the Union (this became West Virginia in 1863).
d. Union leaders: President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S Grant, General William Tecumseh Sherman
e. CSA leaders: President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E Lee, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, General J.E.B. Stewart
i. Facts about Robert E Lee – educated at West Point, a member of the US Army, from Virginia. When war began, he was asked to stay in the Union Army by the US, asked to be in charge of CSA army – he chose to fight with his homeland, pitting him against his former friends and brothers-in-arms. As a result, the Union began burying soldiers in the front yard of his family home Arlington as a slap in the face for Lee’s “disloyalty” – became Arlington National Cemetery. Lee, following the war, became president of what would later be named Washington and Lee University – his horse’s name was Traveler.
f. Major battles: Battle of Gettysburg, Battle of Antietam (deadliest one-day fight), Sherman’s March to the Sea across Georgia, the two Battles of Bull Run (Manassas), Battle of Shiloh
g. Major events: Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, surrender of CSA at Appomattox Courthouse in VA, assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater
h. Andrew Johnson becomes president following Lincoln’s assassination and begins Reconstruction – from end of war in 1865 to 1877
i. Reconstruction Amendments – 13th (abolished slavery), 14th (made blacks citizens, prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness), 15th (grants voting rights regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" – did not include women)
j. Included deployment of troops in the South to enforce new laws
8) World War One
a. Fought from July 1914 – November 1918
b. Two sides:
i. Entente (Allied) Powers – Great Britain (GB), France, Russia, U.S., Italy (originally a Central Power but switched to Allied side)
ii. Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire
c. Causes:
i. One major cause for war was the secret network of treaties and alliances that spanned Europe. As the war began, the treaties came to light, pitting the Allies against the Central Powers.
ii. A second cause was a decades-long battle for naval dominance between GB and Germany. Following its unification in late 1800s, Germany worked to become the dominant power in Europe, a position that GB had held for decades. This led to an arms race between the nations, a race that spilled over to the rest of Europe. Arms race began with GB’s launching of the HMS Dreadnought.
iii. The spark of the war came with assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by Gavrilo Princip in June 1914.
d. Ultimately, more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilized in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of technological advancements that led to enormous increases in the lethality of weapons without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility.
e. Several fronts – Western Front (France/Germany) and Eastern Front (Russia) were the predominant ones. Germany believed that it could dominate the Eastern Front quickly and then move all forces to Western Front to overload Allies – did not work.
f. Technology during World War I reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general
i. Machines guns become huge during war, along with advances in rifles.
ii. A drastic increase in military technology combined with very few increases in defensive technology made it hard for any troop advances, creating trench warfare that lasted throughout the war.
iii. Artillery became very destructive throughout the war.
iv. Cavalry were still used throughout the war, leading to even more deaths. Commanders refused to face the changing face of warfare, a sad truth that led to more deaths.
v. Poison gas was developed by the Germans and was used by both sides throughout the war, causing horrible and painful deaths.
vi. Air combat began in World War One; famous fighter pilot for Germany was the “Red Baron.”
vii. Tanks were first used in World War One
g. During the war, the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917; following collapse and instillation of Communist government (beginning of USSR), Russia signed a treaty with Germany and pulled out of the war.
h. By the end of the war, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires—ceased to exist.
i. Armistice was signed in 1918 (ended fighting) and Treaty of Versailles of 1919 ended the war.
j. Fourteen Points Address – a famous speech delivered by US President Woodrow Wilson – outlined his plan for the world following the war – led to the creation of the League of Nations (precursor to United Nations) – LoN failed, in part, because the U.S. Senate failed to ratify treaty.
k. Interesting note – the famous war novel All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque) came from the author’s experiences fighting in the war.
9) The Great Depression and The New Deal
a. The “Great Depression” was a term used to describe the economic collapse of the United States from late 1929 until the beginning of World War Two, but it was in fact a worldwide economic depression.
b. Was preceded by the “Roaring Twenties,” a time of extreme economic growth and prosperity in America. This period set up reckless spending by individuals and banks. The stock market rose and rose, making many believe that it could never stop. The “Great War” was over, and the world had now moved on. But on October 29, 1929 – a date infamously known as Black Tuesday – the stock market crashed.
c. President Hoover – America’s golden boy from World War One – failed to turn things around. As a gesture to his lack of leadership, shantytowns nicknamed “Hoovervilles” sprung up across the nation.
d. Bad move by Congress - in June 1930 Congress approved the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act which raised tariffs on thousands of imported items. The intent of the Act was to encourage the purchase of American-made products by increasing the cost of imported goods, while raising revenue for the federal government and protecting farmers. Other nations increased tariffs on American-made goods in retaliation, reducing international trade, and worsening the Depression
e. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, inaugurated in 1933 – Would eventually hold office of President for most terms (4), but would die midway through his fourth term.
f. First 100 Days – program instituted by FDR in which he used his first 100 days to accomplish as much as he could with Congress – resulted in New Deal
i. Through the use of fireside chats, FDR communicated with the American people
g. New Deal focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": Relief, Recovery, and Reform. That is, Relief for the unemployed and poor; Recovery of the economy to normal levels; and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression
h. Alphabet Soup of Agencies – FDR and Congress created many new federal agencies to try to help the nation:
i. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) – used unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18-28; provided unskilled manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state and local governments; built roads, dams, etc.
ii. Public Works Administration (PWA)
iii. National Recovery Administration (NRA) – ruled unconstitutional
iv. Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) – also unconstitutional
i. Social Security Act – passed as part of the “Second New Deal” - established a permanent system of universal retirement pensions (Social Security), unemployment insurance, and welfare benefits for the handicapped and needy children in families without father present – at times, had a negative effect as fathers would leave their families so that they could get SS benefits.
j. Court Packing Plan – in 1937, Roosevelt got tired of the Supreme Court (USSC) ruling his accomplishments unconstitutional; he decided to try to force through a bill that would allow him to appoint a new justice every time a sitting justice reached 70 years old and did not retire within six months. The bill failed and had negative repercussions for the FDR administration
k. Recession of 1937 – The U.S. experienced a recession in 1937 – FDR responded by attacking monopoly powers – FDR’s administration began to lose popularity
l. It was not until the beginning of WWII that the US and world finally pulled out of the Great Depression thanks to the sharp rise in manufacturing needs to power a vast, worldwide war
10) World War Two
a. Background – following World War One, the Treaty of Versailles was signed between the Allies and Germany. The treaty was highly opposed by the German people, as the treaty blamed Germany for the war (Article 231 – the War Guilt Clause). It also removed German forces from the Rhineland, weakened the German military by placing size restrictions on it, forced the Germans to pay reparations to the Allies for damages done, and gave Alsace and much of Lorraine back to France. The goal was to weaken Germany so that it could never rise again. The German people were infuriated. Germany would end up violating the provisions of the treaty.
b. Following the collapse of Germany, the Weimar Republic was created to run the country. It was inefficient and would not last. As the Weimar Republic fell, the German Nazi Party took power, led by Adolf Hitler.
c. Many countries – headed by Great Britain and its Prime Minister (PM) Neville Chamberlin – practiced the policy of appeasement with Hitler. They allowed him to do as he pleased without serious negative repercussions. A famous case of this policy was the Munich Agreement, in which GB and France allowed Germany to take over the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.
d. WWII was truly a “world war.” Fighting occurred in the Pacific, Atlantic; the sides fought in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.
e. Began on 1 September 1939 with Germany’s invasion of Poland; subsequently Britain and France joined the war. War in Europe ended with the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. In August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese as the invasion of the Japanese archipelago became imminent, and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, invading Manchuria. The Empire of Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945.
f. Sides:
i. Allied Powers (and leaders): U.S. (FDR), Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin), Great Britain (PM Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee), China (Chiang Kai-shek), etc.
ii. Axis Powers: Germany (Adolf Hitler), Japan (Hirohito), Italy (Mussolini)
iii. Other famous Axis leaders: Heinrich Himmler (second in command of Nazi Germany, was the chief architect of the "Final Solution" and through the SS was overseer of the Nazi concentration camps, extermination camps, and Einsatzgruppen death squads); Joseph Goebbels (Germany, Propaganda Minister); Erwin Rommel (German commander of the Afrika Korps in the North African campaign and became known by the nickname "The Desert Fox”); Hideki Tōjō (Japanese Prime Minister from 1941 until 1944)
iv. Other famous Allied Leaders: Charles de Gaulle (Free French Forces leader); Dwight D Eisenhower (U.S., supreme leader of Allied forces in European Theater); George C Marshall (US Secretary of State following WWII, General of the Army and Chief of Staff); Douglas MacArthur (U.S., General of the Army was Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South West Pacific Area, 1942-45)
g. The war altered the world forever – it resulted in new states (Israel); the Holocaust; the Cold War between the two superpowers of the US and USSR; and the establishment of the United Nations, an international body that replaced the League of Nations.
h. Germany signed a treaty with the USSR before the war – they later broke this pact and attacked the USSR, pulling the Soviet Union into the war.
i. Battle of Britain – After conquering most of Europe (and steam-rolling every country that stood in their way), the Nazis began an air assault on Great Britain. Through the Luftwaffe (the German air force), they bombed major cities and manufacturing areas. But Britain had developed a special technology called radar, which allowed them to spot planes before they arrived. Germany was not successful.
j. 7 December 1941 – Pearl Harbor – “A day that will forever live in infamy.” – Japanese pilots bomb Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Oahu, Hawaii – The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States; ironically, it drew the US into the war. The next day, the US declared war on Japan.
k. 6 June 1944 – D-Day – Invasion of German-occupied France by combined Allied forces.
l. Before Berlin fell, Hitler committed suicide with wife Eva Braun.
m. After Berlin fell, Germany collapsed and surrendered. Allied troops now made their way throughout the countryside; as they did so, they found the worst horror of WWII and one of the worst horrors in all of world history – the concentration camps of the Holocaust. Over 6 million Jews were killed; estimates show that between 11 and 17 million citizens were killed because of Nazi ideological beliefs.
n. The war in the Pacific Theater came to a close as the American forces took the Philippines and moved closer to the Japanese homeland. Instead of invading Japan, as many in the American government believe they would, the US moved to a new option – the atomic bomb. Created by the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, NM, the atomic bomb was the most powerful weapon ever created. Robert J Oppinheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project, would go on to be a major supporter of nuclear disarmament. President Herbert Hoover – who replaced FDR following his death at Hot Springs, GA in April 1945 – decided that two bombs should be dropped. The two bombs – nicknamed “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” – were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, respectively. The Nuclear Age had begun, and Japan surrendered soon.
o. Following the war, the Allies established operational zones in Austria and Germany.
p. Also following the war, many Nazi leaders were put on trial for “crimes against humanity” – these Nuremburg Trials resulted in the killing or imprisonment of many Nazi leaders for their activities related to the Holocaust.
q. Marshall Plan - American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism; created by US Sec of State George Marshall; he later won Nobel Peace Prize for this.
11) Cold War
a. Lasted roughly from 1945-1991
b. A sustained state of political and military tension between powers in the Western Bloc, dominated by the United States with NATO and other allies; versus powers in the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union with the Warsaw Pact and other allies
c. Two world superpowers following WWII: U.S. and United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR)
i. Third faction: The Non-Aligned Movement, led by Egypt, India, and Yugoslavia; did not side with US or USSR
d. Themes:
i. Proxy wars – wars not directly fought between US/USSR, but instead through other groups or nations
ii. Arms race – US and USSR “raced” each other to build the biggest weapons arsenals; the major weapons that this included were aircraft and nuclear weapons
iii. The threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) – MAD is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only effective reciprocal destruction. The idea of MAD stopped the two sides from using weapons of mass destruction against each other.
iv. Cycles of relative calm followed by high tension which could have led to war; examples are the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Suez Crisis (1956), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Yom Kippur War (1973), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989)
v. Espionage conducted by both sides against each other and, at times, allies. The two intelligence apparatuses were the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States and the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) of the USSR
e. Russian History Following 1917
i. After the October Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik Party took over Russia and formed the USSR
ii. The Russian Civil War followed, pitting the Red Army against the White Army. The Red Army, later a symbol of Soviet aggression and military might, became the major fighting force of the nation.
iii. Following Lenin’s death, a battle for power ensued between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky; Stalin won, and Trotsky was later assassinated by the KGB, who acted on Stalin’s orders.
f. The creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by the US and other countries was viewed (correctly) by the USSR as a bloc of states (the Western Bloc) against their interests. In response, the USSR and other Eastern European countries formed signed the Warsaw Pact, which created a response to NATO and formed the Eastern Bloc.
g. Long Telegram – Sent by George Kennan, the Long Telegram helped to articulate the US government's increasingly hard line against the Soviets, and became the basis for US strategy toward the Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War.
h. Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech - Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri. The speech called for an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets, whom he accused of establishing an "iron curtain" from "Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic".
i. Creation of East and West Germany – In 1947, the US and Britain combined their two German zones, with France adding its zone in 1949. This effectively created two sides: a West Germany controlled by Western powers and an East Germany controlled by the USSR.
j. The two zones were famously split in Berlin by the Berlin Wall, a literal wall that divided the city into Communist and non-Communist zones. It was here that US President Ronald Reagan famously delivered his speech in 1987 in which he said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” In 1989, a series of radical political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest. The physical Wall itself was primarily destroyed in 1990. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.
k. Berlin Blockade and Airlift – In response to the combining of the American and British, the Soviet Union instituted the Berlin Blockade, one of the first major crises of the Cold War, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began the massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other provisions. A special part of the Berlin Airlift was Operation Vittles, in which US aircraft dropped candy bars to the children of East Germany.
l. In 1949, a joint venture between the BBC and US radio broadcasters created Radio Free Europe in order to bring about a peaceful demise of the Soviet Union.
m. Wars that were part of the Cold War:
i. Korean War (1950-1953)
ii. Vietnam War - occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist countries.
iii. Soviet-Afghani War – Invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR fought between 1979-1989. The Afghani forces were supported by the United States and the CIA. Weapons given to the Afghans would later be used against the US.
n. Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis
i. In 1959, the Cuban regime was overthrown in a revolution and Fidel Castro became leader of the country. In 1961, CIA-led Cuban forces launched an attempted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. It drastically failed, and it became world knowledge that the US was involved.
ii. The Cuban Missile Crisis (October–November 1962) brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before. It further demonstrated the concept of mutually assured destruction, that neither superpower was prepared to use their nuclear weapons, fearing total global destruction via mutual retaliation. The aftermath of the crisis led to the first efforts in the nuclear arms race at nuclear disarmament and improving relations, although the Cold War's first arms control agreement, the Antarctic Treaty, had come into force in 1961.
o. The Space Race
i. The Space Race sparked unprecedented increases in spending on education and pure research, which accelerated scientific advancements and led to beneficial spin-off technologies
ii. Began with the Soviet launch of the first satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. US leaders began to fear that the Soviet Union would gain a distinct advantage over the US by having space capabilities.
iii. First man (and Soviet cosmonaut) in space – Yuri Gagirin.
First US astronaut in space – Alan Shepard
iv. In 1961, President John F Kennedy promised that by the end of the decade, the United States would place a man on the moon.
v. On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from the Apollo 11 spaceflight landed on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the US and becoming the first men to land on the Moon.
p. The Kennedy Assassination – on 22 November 1963, President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was later killed by Jack Ruby before he could stand trial.
q. Détente and Perestroika
i. Détente – Practiced between the United States and USSR on and off throughout the Cold War, détente is the easing of strained relations. It began in 1971, as a foreign policy of U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford called détente; a 'thawing out' or 'un-freezing' at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War. Part of détente was the SALT Treaties (Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty).
ii. Perestroika - was a political movement for reformation within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the 1980s (1986), widely associated with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost (meaning "openness") policy reform. The literal meaning of perestroika is "restructuring", referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system. Perestroika is often argued to be the cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, and the end of the Cold War.
r. The Fall of the Soviet Union and the End of the Cold War
i. By 1989, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and, deprived of Soviet military support, the Communist leaders of the Warsaw Pact states were losing power. In the USSR itself, glasnost weakened the bonds that held the Soviet Union together and by February 1990, with the dissolution of the USSR looming, the Communist Party was forced to surrender its 73-year-old monopoly on state power.
ii. The USSR was declared officially dissolved on December 25, 1991.
s. US Presidents During Cold War
i. Harry Truman (1945-1953)
ii. Dwight D Eisenhower (1953-1961)
iii. John F Kennedy (1961-1963)
iv. Lyndon B Johnson (1963-1969)
v. Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
vi. Gerald Ford (1974-1977)
vii. Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
viii. Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
ix. George H W Bush (1989-1993)
t. Soviet Leaders During Cold War
i. No official title of “Leader of the Soviet Union,” but the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party became synonymous with the title
ii. Joseph Stalin (1922-1953)
iii. Georgy Malenkov (1953-1955)
iv. Nikita Khrushchev (1955-1964)
v. Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982)
vi. Yuri Andropov (1982-1984)
vii. Konstantin Chernenko (1984-1985)
viii. Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991)
12) 9/11 and Modern American History
a. President Bill Clinton (Democrat from Arkansas) defeats George H W Bush in 1992 election; in 1994, Republicans would gain control of the House (led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA)) and the Senate, forcing Clinton to deal with a split government for most of his two terms.
b. The administration had a mixed record on taxes but produced the first federal budget surpluses since 1969, for fiscal years 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001, leading to a decrease in the public debt (though the gross federal debt continued to increase).
c. Highlights of Clinton Administration:
i. 1994 – Passing of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico.
ii. The administration began with efforts by Clinton to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, which culminated in a compromise known as "Don't ask, don't tell", allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military if they did not disclose their sexual orientation (the policy was repealed in 2010). However Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, considered by many to be a blow to the LGBT rights movement
iii. The administration's foreign policy addressed conflicts in Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Haiti through militarism and economic exploitation. On three separate occasions, in 1996, 1998, and 2000, the administration unsuccessfully attempted to capture or assassinate Osama Bin Laden.
iv. Monica Lewinsky Scandal – President Clinton came under fire for an alleged sexual relationship with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. It resulted in an impeachment charge against Clinton, which he was acquitted of.
d. Bush v Gore 2000 Presidential Election
i. Republican Texas Governor George W Bush (son of G H W Bush) against Democrat Vice President Al Gore
ii. The election was sent to the Supreme Court, where the Court decided that Bush won the election.
e. September 11, 2001
i. A series of four coordinated suicide attacks upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. areas on September 11, 2001. On that Tuesday morning, 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally flew two of those planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours. Debris from the collapsing towers fell onto or initiated fires in several surrounding buildings leading to the partial or complete collapse of all the other buildings in the complex. Debris also caused major damage to ten other large structures in the immediate area. The hijackers also intentionally crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and intended to pilot the fourth hijacked jet, United Airlines Flight 93, into the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers and the plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks, including all 227 civilians and 19 hijackers aboard the four planes.
ii. Following the 9/11 Attacks, blame was placed on an Islamic militant group named al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden (OBL). The group had previously carried out attacks on several US targets, including the USS Cole.
iii. In the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history, the United States enacted the Homeland Security Act of 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security. Congress also passed the USA PATRIOT Act, saying it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes. Civil liberties groups have criticized the PATRIOT Act, saying it allows law enforcement to invade the privacy of citizens and that it eliminates judicial oversight of law enforcement and domestic intelligence.
iv. In the following years, the United States would invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.
f. Highlights of Bush Administration:
i. Bush pushed through a $1.3 trillion tax cut program and the No Child Left Behind Act, and also pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based welfare initiatives.
ii. Nearly 8 million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2005 – more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history. Almost half entered illegally.
iii. Running as a self-styled "war president" in the midst of the Iraq War, Bush won re-election in 2004, as his campaign against Senator John Kerry was successful despite controversy over Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War and his handling of the economy.
iv. Upon leaving office the final poll recorded his approval rating as 19%, a record low for any U.S. President.
g. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain in the presidential election.
i. First African-American president
h. Highlights of Obama Administration:
i. Obama signed Executive Order 13492 suspending all the ongoing proceedings of Guantanamo military commission and ordering the detention facility to be shut down within the year. He also signed Executive Order 13491 – Ensuring Lawful Interrogations requiring the Army Field Manual to be used as a guide for terror interrogations, banning torture and other coercive techniques, such as waterboarding.
ii. Throughout the first term of Obama’s administration, Obama’s handling of the economy was a major theme that he caught much grief for.
iii. Withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
iv. Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
v. Obama won reelection in 2012 against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts.
13) Georgia History
a. Founded as a debtors colony by James Oglethorpe in 1732 as a colony under Great Britain, and it was named for King George II. He founded the first major city of Georgia, Savannah.
b. The colony originally prohibited slavery, a prohibition which lasted until 1749. Afterward, slavery grew in the colony, initially as labor for the coastal rice plantations.
c. Post secondary education was formalized, in 1785, with the establishment of The University of Georgia (first named Franklin College, after Benjamin Franklin), the oldest land grant college in the U.S.
d. Archibald Bulloch was elected the first President of the newly independent state. On January 2, 1788, the state ratified the United States Constitution, the fourth state to do so.
e. In 1794, Eli Whitney, a Massachusetts-born artisan residing in Savannah, patented a cotton gin, mechanizing the separation of cotton fibers from their seeds.
f. In 1829, gold was discovered in the north Georgia mountains, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush, the second gold rush in U.S. history. A federal mint was established in Dahlonega, Georgia, and continued to operate until 1861. During this time, Cherokee Indians owned their ancestral land, operated their own government with a written constitution, and did not recognize the authority of the state of Georgia. An influx of white settlers pressured the U.S. government to expel them. The dispute culminated in the Indian Removal Act of 1830, under which all eastern tribes were sent west to Indian reservations in present-day Oklahoma. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court in 1832 ruled that states were not permitted to redraw the boundaries of Indian lands, but President Andrew Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. In 1838, his successor, Martin van Buren dispatched federal troops to round up the Cherokee and deport them west of the Mississippi. This forced relocation, beginning in White County, became known as the Trail of Tears and led to the death of over 4,000 Cherokees
g. Seventy-three years after ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Georgia seceded from the Union and joined other Southern states to form the Confederate States of America in February 1861. War erupted on April 12, 1861 and Georgia contributed nearly one hundred thousand soldiers to the war effort. The first major battle in Georgia was the Battle of Chickamauga, a Confederate victory, and the last major Confederate victory in the west. In 1864, William T. Sherman's armies invaded Georgia as part of the Atlanta Campaign; Sherman's March to the Sea devastated a wide swath from Atlanta to Savannah in late 1864. The capital of the state during the Civil War was in Milledgeville.
h. During Reconstruction, Atlanta began to grow rapidly, becoming the state’s largest city and one of the leading cities of the South.
i. During the Civil Rights Movement, Georgia was the base for African-American leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
j. Georgia was a Democratic stronghold in presidential elections until 1964. Democratic candidates continued to receive popular support in state and local elections until the 1990s. Since 2000 the white majority has supported the Republican Party, which has majorities in both houses of the legislature, and more recently, control of all statewide elective offices.
14) Miscellaneous History
a. Ways to notate time
i. Traditionally Before Christ (BC) and Anno Domini (In the Year of Our Lord, AD)
ii. Now, Before Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE)
iii. When reading centuries, take number and subtract one – ex. 14th century CE = 1300s CE.
b. US Government Agencies and Acronyms:
i. Department of Defense – DoD
ii. Housing and Urban Development – HUD
iii. Department of Transportation – DOT
iv. Department of Homeland Security – DHS
v. Central Intelligence Agency – CIA
vi. National Security Agency – NSA
vii. Environmental Protection Agency – EPA
viii. Federal Emergency Management Agency – FEMA
ix. National Aeronautics and Space Administration – NASA
c. Major 20th US Political Scandals
i. Teapot Dome Scandal – Warren G Harding Admin. – 1922 – Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall was bribed by Harry F Sinclair for control of the Teapot Dome federal oil reserves in Wyoming. Fall became the first Cabinet member to ever be convicted of a crime.
ii. McCarthyism – A broad political and cultural purge against people suspected of sympathy with communism, starting near the end of World War II and reaching its climax in the investigations of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The Senate passed a resolution of condemnation against McCarthy in 1954 after an embarrassing investigation of the United States Army, ending his career, but anti-communist purges continued for several years.
iii. The Nixon Administration
1. Vice-President Spiro Agnew (R-MD) to Richard Nixon was convicted of tax fraud stemming from bribery charges in Maryland and forced to resign. Gerald R. Ford (R-MI)(1973) was nominated by Nixon and replaced Agnew as Vice President (the first person appointed to the Vice Presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment.)
2. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) drove his car into a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island, a small island off of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, passenger Mary Jo Kopechne drowned. Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a suspended sentence of two months.
3. And… Watergate: The King of Political Scandals – The Watergate Scandal occurred in the 1970s as a result of the June 17, 1972, break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement. The scandal eventually led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the President of the United States, on August 9, 1974 — the only resignation of a U.S. President to date. The scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction, and incarceration of forty-three persons, dozens of whom were Nixon's top administration officials. The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972. The Federal Bureau of Investigation connected cash found on the burglars to a slush fund used by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, the official organization of Nixon's campaign. In July 1973, as evidence mounted against the president's staff, including testimony provided by former staff members in an investigation conducted by the Senate Watergate Committee, it was revealed that President Nixon had a tape-recording system in his offices and he had recorded many conversations. Recordings from these tapes implicated the president, revealing he had attempted to cover up the questionable (and illegal) goings-on that had taken place after the break-in. After a protracted series of bitter court battles, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president had to hand over the tapes to government investigators; he ultimately complied. Facing near-certain impeachment in the House of Representatives and a strong possibility of a conviction in the Senate, Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974. His successor, Gerald Ford, then issued a pardon to him.