Class Notes

Notes 4/2-4/5

American Policy 1972-Present

1. President Ford
-Pardoned Nixon
-Arab OPEC members boycotted the U.S. causing oil prices to drastically increase
-Ford signed the Helsinki Accord which recognized Eastern European borders and the Soviets promised to uphold certain human rights

2. President Carter
-Carter wanted a moral tone to foreign policy
-Agreed to return the Panama Canal Zone by 2000
-Negotiated the Camp David Accord between Egypt and Israel which led to a peace treaty
-1979 Shah of Iran was overthrown
-The Ayatollah Khomeini established The Islamic Republic and American Embassy staff were held hostage for over a year

3. President Reagan
-Make U.S. strong again, he withdrew troops from Beirut
-Launched air strikes against Libya
-Under the Reagan Doctrine he aided anti-Communist Contras in Nicaragua and Afghanistan by selling weapons to Iran (Iran Contra Affair)
-Strategic Defense Initiative, Mikhail Gorbachev (Soviet leader) to meet with Reagan in Iceland and agree to reduce their nuclear arms
-Reagan was Conservative and Reaganomics which was supply side economics promoted tax cuts to business which would supply large amounts of goods to consumers would turn the economy around

4. President George H. W. Bush
- Under his administration the Cold War came to an end
-The Berlin wall came down and Germany was reunited
-The Soviet Union dissolved
-Apartheid (segregation) ended in South Africa
-Bush had Manuel Noriega the Panamanian dictator arrested
-Forced Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait (Operation Desert Storm)
-Brought food to starving people of Somalia

6. President Clinton
-NAFTA and the World Trade Organization promoted economic prosperity
-U.S. and NATO intervened in Yugoslavia to prevent genocide
-Clinton didn’t help the people in Rwanda but intervened when democracy was threatened in Haiti


7. President George W. Bush
-Came to office after a controversial election against Al Gore in 2000
- 2001 al-Qaeda terrorist hijacked planes and crashed into the World Trade Center, Pentagon
- Bush declared “War on Terror” attacked Afghanistan, overthrew the Taliban, invaded Iraq, Saddam Hussein was tried and hung


8. President Obama
- Tried to strengthen global ties
- Withdrew troops from Iraq in 2011 killed Osama bin Laden
- During the Arab Spring (upraising in Libya, Egypt and other parts of North Africa and Middle East)
-Mostly organized on social Media Mubarak was removed from power in Egypt and Gaddafi was removed from power in Libya
- The U.S. is a world leader no longer a super power

Notes from 3/6-3/7

Civil Rights Thurgood Marshall 29/32 cases won before Supreme Court Morgan vs. Virginia (1964) banned segregation on buses Gov. Orval Faubus turned away the “Little Rock Nine” 1955 Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus   Dr. Martin Luther King Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1957 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Sit ins staged in Chicago Freedom riders Beat in Birmingham by police forced to Tennessee Attorney General Robert Kennedy ordered to Montgomery President Kennedy gave them direct support   Johnson signed Civil Rights Act 1964 Prohibits discrimination on basis of race, religion, national origin, and gender. Freedom Summer Thousands of predominantly white college students went to register black voters Voting Rights Act of 1965 Eliminated literacy test   De facto segregation- by custom De jure segregation – by law   Malcolm x Malcolm Little  Went to jail at 20 discovered Elijah Muhammad head of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) Broke with Nation of Islam after journey TO Mecca Black Power 1968 King assassinated Robert Kennedy assassinated Civil Rights Act of 1968 ends housing discrimination Affirmative Action

Notes from 2/28-3/5

• New Frontier & Great society
  John F. Kennedy (JFK)
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista 1959
• Seized American and British oil refineries
• Seized American sugar companies
• Allies with Soviet Union
  • Gave weapons to Cuba
  • Soviets removed Missile in exchange for pledge not to invade Cuba
• Castro & Nikita khrushchev
• Berlin Wall
• August 13, 1961
• Built wall separating East & West Germany
• Response to American refusal to give up access to West Germany
• USSR and US agreed to Limited Test Ban Treaty
  • Banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere
• NEW FRONTIER
• May 5, 1961
  • Alan Shepard- 1^st American in space
  • 1957 Sputnik first unmanned satellite launched Russia
• Peace Corp
  • Help developing nations
• Alliance for Progress
  • Aid to Latin America
    Lyndon B. Johnson

• Economic Opportunity Act (combat poverty)
  • Job Corp
  • Project Head Start
• The Great Society
  • Established Medicare and Medicaid
  • Established HUD
  • Immigration Act of 1965
    • Opened doors to non European immigrants
• Water Quality Act
• Truth in packaging
• Warren Court
  • Banned prayer in public schools
• Baker vs. Carr (1962) one person one vote
•  Mapp vs. Ohio (1961)- evidence illegally seized can’t be used in court
• Gideon vs. Wainwright (1963) indigents have a right to free legal counsel
• Miranda vs. Arizona (1966) Have rights read
• Univ. of CA v. Bakke (1978) affirmative action
   
• Nixon
• Nixon sought détente- lesson tension with the Soviet Union (USSR)
• Nixon was the first modern U.S. president to visit china

• Nixon resigned from the presidency due to the Watergate scandal
  • President was involved in a coverup of a break in at the DEMOCRATIC National Committee headquarters
  • Supreme court forced Nixon to hand over his private taped conversations

Cold War
 

1945-1960
1.- The United States vs.       Soviet Union
-Capitalist democracy            - Communist dictatorship
-Individual rights                     - Planned economy
-Elected leaders                      - Collectivized farming & state owned factories
- The Cold War was rooted in political, economic, and social differences
- Each nation was promoting their way of life

2. Superpowers:
- Felt the Soviet Union had the right to control Eastern Europe
- Promised free elections in Poland at Yalta Conference but failed to honor it.

3. Iron Curtain:
-Joseph Stalin cut trade, travel, and communications between Eastern and Western Europe was cut off

4. U.S. President Harry S. Truman:
- 1947 Communist threatened Greece and Turkey

- Announced Truman Doctrine which promised aid to those resisting Communism

- Under the Marshall plan the U.S. gave aid to countries in Western Europe

 

5. “Berlin Airlift”:
- Stalin cut off land routes in 1948
- The U.S. responded by flying in supplies
-1949 Western Allies formed NATO
-1950 Eastern Europe and the satellites formed the Warsaw Pact

6. Communism spread:
- China communist led by Mao Zedong take over in 1949
- Chiang Kai-Shek and Chinese Nationalist fled to Taiwan
- Communist in North Korea attacked South Korea 1950
-U.S. helped South Korea resist the attack

7. McCarthyism – Senator led witch hunt for communist:
- Fear of Communism (Red Scare)
- Loyalty Review Boards and the House Un-American Activities interrogate citizens about their activities
- Alger Hiss important state official is jailed
-Rosenberg’s are executed as spies

8. Nuclear proliferation:
- spread of nuclear weapons after Soviet Union exploded their first atomic bomb
- Both super powers developed hydrogen bombs

9. President Dwight Eisenhower:
- Announced Eisenhower Doctrine- U.S. opposed
communism in the Middle East
- 1957 the Soviets sent Sputnik into space (1st satellite)
- U.S. increase spending on education in science to enter space race

10. Fidel Castro:
- 1959 overthrew the dictator in Cuba and established a communist state
-Castro took over U.S. investments causing Eisenhower to boycott Cuba
- CIA trained exiles to overthrow Castro
-1961 President John F. Kennedy launched an
invasion of Cuba at Bay of Pigs which failed

11. Nikita Khrushchev:
-New Soviet leader ordered the building of the
Berlin Wall

12. Cuban Missile Crisis:
- 1962 Americans discovered installed missiles in Cuba
-The closest the world came to nuclear war
-Americans blockaded Cuba and Khrushchev removed missiles
-Superpowers agreed to a partial ban

Course of WWII

• Sept.1939 German invasion of Poland
• Drove allies to Dunkirk Hitler ordered them to stop
• June 1940 France surrendered, Charles de Gaulle, French general, refused to acknowledge surrender
• Winston Churchill, British Prime minister refused to surrender
• Luftwaffe began a bombing campaign against England
• 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact nonaggression treaty
   
  American Neutrality
• Neutrality Acts
• 1935- cannot sell arms to any nations at war
• 1937- Cash and carry basis after Axis Powers form (Germany, Italy, & Japan)
   
  Embargo on Japan
• Restricted sale of fuel and scrap iron
• Lend lease aid to China
• Froze Japan’s assets and stopped oil shipment
• Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor “day that will live in infamy”
• Dec. 8, 1941 U.S. declares war
   
  Striking Germany and Italy
• Strategic bombing of rail lines and factories
• Tehran Conference Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt met in Iran reached several agreements
• Stalin launch full scale offensive
• Roosevelt and Stalin would divide Germany after the war
• Soviets would help U.S. fight Japan
• Stalin agreed to peacekeeping organization after the war
   
  D-DAY INVASION
• Eisenhower decided to launch an invasion of France to make Germany fight on both fronts
• Selected beach of Normandy
• June 6, 1944 launched invasion
• General Omar Bradley saw heavy fighting on Omaha Beach
• Despite 100,000 dead U.S., Canadian and British soldiers the allies occupied the beach
   
  Battle of Midway
• Code breakers foiled Japan’s plan to take midway
• U.S. Navy ambushed Japanese
• Battle of midway stopped Japanese advances
• Island hopping strategy didn’t work due to shallow water
• U.S. Captured Mariana Islands began bombing campaign of Japan
• Japanese used Kamikaze attacks “dive wind”
   
• Home front
• American ECONOMY
• Collected raw materials to aid military
• Victory gardens for food
• Rationing of meat, shoes, gas
• Factories produce war equipment
• Racism and riots zoot suit riots sailors attacking Mexican American in Los Angeles
• Office of War Information Hollywood promotes war effort
   
  Minorities in War
• African Americans in segregated units
• Tuskegee Airmen
• Japanese Americans were most decorated families were in internment camps
• Hispanic Americans
• Native Americans unlike other minorities were welcomed on the front lines
• Jewish Americans
• Women Army Auxiliary Corp clerical duties
   
  End of the war
• Third Reich Collapses
• Battle of the Bulge Dec. 1944 staged offensive in Belgium
• 1945 Germany forced to retreat
• Soviets reached Berlin April 1945
• April 30 Hitler committed suicide
• V-E Day “Victory in Europe” May 8, 1945
   
  Japan DEFEATED
• 1945 U.S. troops stormed Iwo Jima many American died but they captured the island for a fueling station
• Firebombing made with napalm to reach targets killed many civilians but damaged Japan’s war industries
• Okinawa U.S. forced captured island Americans wanted removal of emperor
   
  Manhattan project
• Leo Szilard splits Uranium atoms
• Einstein to send a letter to Roosevelt warning about the bombs
• Built a lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico led by Robert J. Oppenheimer
• July 16,1945 first atom bomb was detonated
• August 6 “Little Boy” dropped on Hiroshima
• August 9 “Fat man” dropped on Nagasaki 63% of the city was destroyed
• August 15, 1945 V-J Day Japanese surrender
   
  War Trial
• Military tribunals for German and Japanese war criminals
• Germans tried in Nuremberg
• Japanese tried in Tokyo
• Punish wrong doers and prevent crimes from happening in the future.

Class notes The Great Depression

Great Depression

1. Global economic crisis
U.S. investors withdrew funds from Germany and other European markets
2. Production fell by half
3. 1/4 of people were unemployed

Causes
4. Prosperity of the 1920s led to speculation and buying on the margin
5. Black Tuesday 10/29/29 stock crashed
6. Purchases declined, mass unemployment, banks closed, people lost their homes
Dust Bowl
7. Series of droughts in the Great Plains
8. Farmers lost everything and many headed west

Course of the Depression

9. John Meyer Keynes an advocatd for deficit spending because he believed it would create jobs
10. Hoover believed in laissez-faire (the government should not intervene)
11. Created Reconstruction Finance Corporation (did little)
12. Sent the army to break up protest by veterans (Bonus Army)

Franklin Roosevelt

13. Won the election of 1932
14. Created the "New Deal" to relief, recover, and reform
15. Declared bank Holiday to renew confidence in banks

New Deal

Alphabet soup
16. NRA- National Recovery Administration- set hours, wages, and prices
17. AAA-Agricultural Adjustment Act- help farmers and prevented surplus
18. CCC- Civilian Conservation Corps- employed young people

Second New Deal
19. Social Security Act safety net for Americans
20. WPA-Works Progress Administration- created public works
21. Wagner Act allowed unions to form
22. Fair Labor Standards Act- set hours, minimum wage, prohibited child labor

Arts
23. John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath depicted the plight of Okies
24. Langston Hughes - wrote about struggles of African Americans
25. Dorothe Lange- Captured the depression in images

Class notes

Roaring 20s
1920s
 

1. Return to Normalcy
a. After the war soldiers return to peacetime production

 

2. Washington Naval Conference
a. the world’s naval powers agree to limit the numbers of battleships.
b. Kellogg-Briand Pact, countries agreed to give up war except for self-defense.

 

3. Reparations
a. Americans lent money to the Allies
b. Allies used reparations from Germany to repay their loans.
c. The Americans created the Dawes Plan which lent money to Germany and reduced reparations loan.

 

4. Corruption
a. Republican Presidents Warren Harding, Calving Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover pursued policies favorable to business: low taxation, high tariffs, (Fordney McCumber Act)
 

5. Teapot Dome scandal
a. Exposed corruption in Harding’s administration
Racism/Nativism

 

6. Red Scare
a. The triumph of Bolshevism in Russia
b. Strikes and bombings in the United States
c. Fear anarchists and Communist during the “Red Scare.”
d. Two Italian anarchist, Sacco and Vanzetti, were convicted of murder in 1920 on flimsy evidence.

7. Racism/Nativism
a. The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the National Origins Act of 1924 placed restrictions on immigrants.

 

8. Conservatism
Traditional values confronted new ones.
a. Fundamentalist Christians supported Prohibition (ban on alcohol)
b. Scopes trial ban teaching of evolution

c. The Kul Klux Klan reemerged
 

9. Amendments
a. 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote
b. Flappers dressed in loose clothes and went out without chaperones
c. 18th amendment instituted prohibition

 

10. Harlem Renaissance
a. Celebrated African American culture
b. Jazz, music, essay, poetry
c. Marcus Garvey encouraged black to live separate from whites

 

11. Civil Rights

a. Blacks continued to face Jim Crow
b. Inequalities and lynching continued
c. Booker T. Washington urged vocational training
d. W.E.B. Dubois favored struggle for civil rights
e. Florida had race riots in Rosewood in 1923

 

12. Prosperity

a. The spread of automobile
b. New electric appliances contributed to economic prosperity.
c. Assembly-line production lowered prices
d. Consumers paid on credit.
e. Speculations on the stock market, including buying on the margin added to prosperity.

 

Class notes on World War I

Class notes Imperialism

1. Imperialism
a. One nation rules another nation
b. Politically, economically, or militarily

2. Argument in favor of imperialism
a. Colonies provide natural resources and
markets
b. Americans had a moral obligation to help
colonial people (Social Darwinism)
c. Americans should grab remaining territories
before Europeans
d. Colonies would provide strategic naval
bases, encourage trade, bring wealth and power

3. Arguments against imperialism
a. Americans had fought British imperialism and
should not become imperialist
b. Imperialism is anti-democratic
c. Owning colonies could pull the U.S. A. into
global conflict

4. American show of strength
 Building up of the Navy, the White Fleet was
used to show American might
b. Used the military to put down rebellions

c. Alfred T. (Thayer) Mahan advocated for a strong navy

5. Spanish American War

a. Cuba’s war for independence from Spain led
by Jose Marti
b. Yellow journalism (exaggerated news reports)
pushed for U.S. intervention
c. Spanish Ambassador De Lome called
President McKinley weak
d. U.S.S. Maine exploded in the Havana Harbor
e. U.S.A. defeated Spain and made Cuba a
f. protectorate under the Teller Amendment
 

6. Territorial acquisitions
a. Philippines and Guam from the Spanish
b. Hawaii from Queen Liliuokalani
c. Puerto Rico
d. Alaska purchased from the Russians
e. Purchased the U.S. Virgin Islands

a. Created by John Hay
b. Trade with China should remain open to all
foreign powers
c. Chinese Boxer Rebellion aimed at getting rid of foreigners attack embassies7. Open Door policy

8. Panama Canal
a. Provide easy access between the Pacific and
Atlantic Ocean
b. Built through the Isthmus of Panama
c. Supported Panamanian rebels in rebellion
against Colombia

9. Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

a. America would police Latin America

b. Allowed U.S. intervention in South and

Central America

c. President Wilson chased Pancho Villa during

the Mexican Revolution 

Industrialization
1865-1901

America's 2nd Industrial Revolution

1. Poor working conditions for industrial workers:
Worked in unpleasant and dangerous conditions for long hours
Workers
2. Workers had no bargaining power with large corporations.
3. Some workers began to organize into labor unions which allowed them to negotiate wages, working conditions, or strike

Labor Unions
4. Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) were early national unions.
5. Knights of Labor allowed skilled and unskilled workers including women and blacks to participate
6. AFL only allowed skilled workers

Public perception
7. Management had the upper hand as the government public were distrustful of unions.
8. Management would fire or blacklist union members
9. Early strikes were unsuccessful. Organizers were blamed for bombing at the Haymarket Riot.
10. State police intervened in the strike at the Carnegie Homestead Steel
11. Federal troops went in to breakup Pullman strike.

Ideology (Ideas)
12. Capitalism- Individuals or corporations own the factors of production
13. Laissez-faire- (Let it be) attitude that allowed business men to do as they please
14. Communism- Developed by Karl Marx called for workers to overthrow the rich and the government and have a classless society
15. Social Darwinism- People who are naturally superior will be more successful

Monopolies
16. One company or person controls the market
17. Andrew Carnegie
used the Bessemer process to produce steel cheaply and quickly. Used vertical integration
(Bought all the factors of production) to create a monopoly
18. John D. Rockefeller used Horizontal integration
(bought out his competitors) and created a monopoly for his company Standard Oil.
19. J.P. Morgan
investment banker who sold stocks. He bought Carnegie Steel and other companies which he merged into United States Steel Corporation or US Steel.

Westward Expansion
1865-1890

Pull Factors
1. American frontier was the line separating areas of settlement from less populated areas: Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and deserts of the Southwest
2. Push factors that drive immigration: economic hardships, Pull factors: Economic opportunity

Miners & Rancher
3. Miners found Gold and Silver
4. Some areas of the west were used for mining or cattle, farmers with new technology made the land fertile for growing crops.
5. Technology: Wells, windmills, sod houses, barbed wire fences, steel plow to break up dry land, farm machinery
Railroads
6. Transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869
7. Indians were defeated during the Indian Wars (Sand Creek Massacre, Battle of Little Big Horn- Indians killed General Custer)

Native Americans
8. 1865 Indians lived in the Great Plains and Southwest. 
9. The destruction of the buffalo took away their source of food, after a series of war loses Indians were put on reservations
Government Action
10. Congress passed the Dawes Act which gave Indians the right to private property from reservation lands and tried to “Americanize” them.
11. Congress passed the Homestead Act in 1862 which allowed settlement on public land for a small fee

Farmers Responses
12. Farmers organized and formed Grange Movement which served social and educational purposes
13. Granges passed Grange laws which regulated railroad and grain elevators
14. Munn v. Illinois case dealing with corporate rates and agriculture. The Munn case opened the door for states to regulate certain businesses within their borders
 

Reconstruction

Reconstruction 1865-1877
The Plan
1. During Reconstruction Southern states had to be readmitted to the Union and emancipated freedmen had to be included in public life
2. Lincoln’s Reconstruction plan dealt with the South leniently: He would pardon Southerners after they take an oath of loyalty, but excluded some of the Confederate leaders.
3. Johnson’s plan pardoned all the people of the Confederacy
Differing views
4. There was struggle over what to do with freed slaves. They were not given the land they were promised. The Freedmen’s Bureau was created to help them and schools were built to educate them.
5. Southern legislatures passed Black codes to limit the freedoms of blacks
6. Northerners angered by Black Codes passed the Civil Rights Act granting rights to blacks

Congress Plan
7. Radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens wanted harsh punishment for Confederate leaders and black to have the right to vote
8. Congress passed their own plan for Reconstruction which took power away from former Confederate leaders and gave blacks the right to vote
9. Republicans tried to impeach President Johnson for defying the Tenure of Office Act, but did not get the necessary votes in the Senate
10. Three amendments passed: 13th amendment ended slavery, 14th guaranteed equal protection of the law, 15th gave blacks the right to vote

Participation in public life
11. Freedmen, carpetbaggers (Northerners who moved South), scalawags (Southerners who supported Reconstruction and worked with Republicans) held power in government
12. Hiram Rhodes Revels became the 1st African American elected to congress

Impact of Reconstruction
13. During Reconstruction the government built roads, schools and moved toward racial equality in 1877 when Northern troops left the south they passed segregation laws
14. Former slaves became sharecroppers, gave a portion of their crops to landowner in exchange for use of the land

The New South
15. South passed Jim Crow Laws requiring segregation in 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court upheld segregation
16. KKK terrorized blacks and kept them from exercising political rights.

 

Civil War

Long term causes
1. Sectionalism
2.Slavery
3. States' rights

Breakdown of Compromises
4. Kansas-Nebraska Act (vote on slavery)
5. Bleeding Kansas
6. Dred Scott decision (blacks are not citizens and have no rights)

Secession (to leave) and war
7. Election of Lincoln in 1860
8. Shots fired on Fort Sumter (starts the fighting)

Course of the war
9. The north had more people and resources
10. Anaconda Plan the north blockades the south and cuts their supplies
11. Battle of Vicksburg the Union captured a strategic location on the Mississippi
12. Emancipation Proclamation- Lincoln Freed slaves in northern -held territories

Consequence
13. Preserved the Union
14. Slavery was abolished (13th -Amendment)
15. Loss of life and destruction of property
16. Federal government was strengthened

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------