The Collapse of Communism

the reason for the collapse of the berlin wall was that people left countrys without exiting visas and caused a migration to east germany. countries formed a union against communism called the warsaw pact. Which denied communism into countries. communist parties still stayed political. traditional communist partys with dictators china cuba north korea and others. also chinese parties crushed their schools. The U.S. was able to profit from its imperialist exploitation of other countries while socialism could only lose economically in that competition.

Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

Mikhail Gorbachev is the president of Russia. he was 54 and he was the youngest president. Mikhail decided that since russia was a totalitarian state, and nothing was getting done,that he should open up russia more so that free fresh new ideas will come and make Russia more better. This was called the "Glasnost". This was to promote openess in Russia.

In 1985, Gorbachev made something new called "Peristrokia". This was to make economic reforms. Local managers had full rights to their farms and property and people were able to have private small businesses.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

The apartheid was a racial segragation policy in South Africa. just like the one in the United States. But they were segragated from 1948-1990. this thing stated that only white people had the right to do things like voting. but all the other peoples, known as the bantu, didnt have those rights.Nelson Mandela was sent to jail because of this.

nelson mandela fought for the independence of South Africa. he was in the ANCs fight to promote non-violence methods to get freedom and justice and to stop the Apartheid. because of this he was a hero. he was in jail for 26 years and he got out,wrote a book and continued to fight for his people. the people liked this about him. so when the election came they voted for him and he was over in 61% votes.

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

Both the US and USSR were competing to see who was the 1st to who gets to space. And at some point, the US was very embarrassed because they 1st sent up a monkey and instead of a man and it made them look bad. A few nights later, Russia sent up their very first man to space. That was why the US was very embarrassed because it made them seem better then the US. The Russians got a head start on going to space 1st. But the ones who won the race was the US because we were the first man to land on the moon. The scenes from the movie that will help me remember about the cold war would be when the scientist was testing out the rockets, and all of them failed. The reason why that would remind me of the cold war is because it shows me how funny it was when the Americans and the Russians were on a race to see who is smarter, stronger and better then each other but they all wound up failing.

African Independence

Africa is a continent and it is filled with over 20 countries. Africa didn't have any independence. The Europeans imperialized the continent and took it for themselves. Until 1955-1970, Africa had been gaining their independence back. The French, Spanish, English etc. took over them for a long time. They used them for their natural resources and cheap labor. Ghana was the first country to gain their independence. Kwame Nkrumah was leading for the people to get their independence. He was a teacher who spent time studying in the united states and came back to get more rights for his country, but ended up becoming the president of Ghana. Another nation was Kenya. In this country, their leader was in prison then he was elected leader. This is only one of the two countries that did this. The leaders name was Jomo Kenyatta. He led the Mau Maus so he can scare the white men away without fighting them. So during this time of fighting for independence, Africa changed a lot, they gained all of their independence from the European countries except for a few and most of them got to destroy their country's names and change them to something more african and create a flag. Like Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, then they changed it to Zimbabwe and created their own national flag to show their independence for that nation.

NATO and the Warsaw Pact

after ww2 the countries in western europe thought they were too weak to fight against the communist. So they made an alliance with 12 nations including UK and US. It was called NATO and it was officially made on April 4,1949 when they signed the North Atlantic Treaty. 6 years after NATO was made the Warsaw Pact was made by a communist military alliance to take power over Eastern Europe. They took over both European nations and let other nations know that they were a military and political force.

Film lesson: "Night and Fog"

I thought the Night and Fog movie was more powerful then Shindlers List because it showed the dead bodies and the real footage of how things happened. The scenes from Shindlers List was just acting and the scenes from Night and Fog were more real. I think that the Night and Fog one was more powerful because it showed more of the real footage and it even showed what they did to all the dead bodies after everything ended.