Ap World History Unit 8

• At the February 1945 Yalta Conference, Stalin was allowed to keep the eastern part of Poland in exchange for respecting the independence of Eastern European countries
• Stalin reneged on his promise and the Soviet Red Army created the Communist Bloc
• Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and other Eastern European countries became Soviet satellite nations
• Yugoslavia and Albania were communist but not aligned with the U.S.S.R
• The U.S. and U.S.S.R. competed in an arms and space race and supported their respective allies in civil/proxy wars in other countries
• After WWII, Germany was divided into Soviet-occupied East and American, British, and French-occupied West
• The 1948 Berlin Blockade saw the Soviets cut off supplies to West Berlin, leading to the subsequent Berlin Airlift by the Americans
• The "Iron Curtain" was the ideological division between communist East and democratic capitalist West Europeans
• The Berlin Wall physically divided East and West Berliners from 1961 until 1989
• The Marshall Plan was a strategy to rehabilitate Western Europe, while the Truman Doctrine aimed to prevent Greece and Turkey from falling to communism
• U.S. Presidents sought the "containment" of communism and intervened in civil wars and conflicts to thwart the "domino effect"
• The Cold War alliances were NATO for democratic nations and the Warsaw Pact for communist nations
• There are still a few communist governments in existence today, including China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Cuba
• Communism is both a political and economic system with distinct characteristics compared to democracy and capitalism
• Poland and Hungary attempted to break free in 1956 but were violently suppressed
• Stalin's death in 1953 led to Nikita Khrushchev denouncing him for his purges, gulags, and "cult of personality"
• The U.S. engaged in coups to overthrow left-leaning or anti-western leaders during the Cold War
• In the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro replaced Fulgencio Batista, leading to a communist neighbor for the U.S.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 brought the world to the brink of WWIII, but a peaceful resolution was negotiated
• China fell to communism in 1949, with Mao Zedong becoming the leader
• Mao's radical policies like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution had significant impacts on China
• In Korea, the Korean War ended with an armistice and division along the 38th parallel
• The Vietnam War, marked by U.S. involvement, ended with the fall of Saigon to the Communists in 1975
• Cambodia under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge saw mass executions and starvation in "The Killing Fields"
• In Southeast Asia, authoritarians gained control by being anti-imperialist/Western or anti-communist
• The Philippines and Indonesia had leadership transitions and conflicts during the Cold War
• Decolonization in South Asia and Africa followed WWII, with India and the Philippines being among the first countries to gain independence
• In 1947, the partition led to the creation of predominantly Hindu modern India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan
• Religious groups, including Sikhs and Buddhists, were scattered, relocated, and fought fiercely
• Kashmir in the Punjab region is still a disputed territory
• Civil war in Sri Lanka relatively recently
• After Gandhi's assassination, Nehru became Prime Minister, followed by his daughter, Indira Gandhi
• Indira Gandhi promoted a "green revolution" to feed the large population
• Indira Gandhi also promoted repressive birth control/sterilization and repression of Sikh separatists
• Both Indira Gandhi and her son, who took over after her, were assassinated
• From 1983 to 2009, independent Ceylon/Sri Lanka was embroiled in civil war between the Singhalese and Tamil people
• Apartheid in South Africa began in 1948, with the white minority oppressing the black and biracial majority
• Nelson Mandela, a civil rights leader, was jailed from 1964 to 1982 but became the first black President of South Africa in 1994
• Yugoslavia, ruled by Josip Bros Tito, saw ethnic and religious war under Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic
• The 1995 Dayton Accords and peaceful division of The Balkans were negotiated with the help of U.S. President Bill Clinton