oral+history+resarch

After WWII tension was building between Communist and Capitalist countries. At the Yalta conferance things started to come to a head and both sides were disagreeing with eachother. The United States made a molicy of containment in which they would not allow the expansion of Communism. Also the US and other capitalist nations teamed up to form an alliance called NATO. The Soicet Uion which was the mian communist country did not like either of these things so the made the Warsaw pact with Eastern Eurpeon countries and other coummunist powers. The Cold War began in 1945. Things started to get violent when Germany was split in half, East being Communist west being capitalist. The Soviet Union blockaded Berlin and it took 11 months for the people to be freed. Many people started to get scared that we were going to lose this war against communism cuasing to Read Scares where people panicked. Also many other people were getting accused of being communists and it would ruin their lives. Proxy wars began to occur in places like Korea. The South Korean were capitalist and the north were communists. The north invaded the south driving them back but then the US came and helped them drive th north back to China. Then China joined the war and they were pushed back to where they started. This war was very costly and had little gain. It also planted the seed of hate for the Cold War in the hearts of the American people. Also there was the Cuban missle crisis where the Cubans had missles but eventually we got the Cubans to take them away. An even larger fight was in Vietnam. Vietnam had been in much turmoil with the French and Japanese already and did not want US interfierence even though the north is communist and the south is capitalist. The undeclared war started when a Vietnam ship fired on a US ship. This started a large battle where the US was fighting against both the north vietnamese and the southern viet cong. Men were drafted by picking birthdays out of a hat. After much difficult ungle warfare and meany causualties the US eventually lost the war and communis took over and the American people did not like the war. Many people protested the war by marching or even rioting for peace. Also in the Cold War was the space race where both sides wanted to be the first to space for a tactical advantage. The Soviet Union got the first stallite into space but the US was first to the moon. Eventuall the Cold War ended because the Soviet Union's economy was to badly damaged. So a new leader named Gorbachev took over and ended the war and the Soviet Union collapesed in 1991.

Scorces

"The Vietnam War." //The History Place//. N.p., 1999. Web. 30 May 2010. [].

"The Cold War." //history learning site//. N.p., 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. [].

"Cold War." //Global Security//. N.p., 2010. Web. 30 May 2010. [].

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