Us History Overview 3 - Wwii to Vietnam

We finished off the last video entering into the Great Depression. It wasn't just a depression in the U.S. it was a depression all over the world. But I want to back up a little bit because I forgot to mention a very important fact that's hugely important to the rest of U.S. history in the 20th century and that's what happened in 1917 during World War I. And that's the Bolshevik Revolution. The Russian Empire was overthrown by the Bolsheviks and it became the Soviet Union, which you probably know was a Communist state and it became the United States's arch enemy over the rest of...well not over the rest of...but near the second half of the twentieth century. So with that out of the way, I just want to make sure you know that Russia is now the Soviet Union. Let's fast forward back through the Great Depression and probably the one point when we're doing this very high level overview that's of interest, and as you can see, even though the focus of this series of videos is on U.S. interests, what's happening in the rest of the world is starting to become much more important because the U.S. is starting to become this really serious global actor. And so in 1933, so this is right in the middle of this global depression and Germany was especially hit hard because of all the damage done by WWI and all the war reparations and all the rest. You have Hitler coming to power as Chancellor of Germany. It's interesting to note that he came to power in a Democratic process. Chancellor of Germany is analogous to Prime Minister in other countries. Essentially he was ruling a coalition. The Nazis, his party, did not have a majority, but they were able to control a coalition. Although it was a very weak one. But what they were good at is intimidating and rigging elections and all the rest. And so over the course of the rest of the 30s, essentially the Nazis consolidated power until we get to 1939, and the rest of the world kept watching Hitler, you know he was consolidating power, and he came in democratically but he was essentially consolidating power under himself, turning it into a dictatorship, he was militarizing Germany. People started to get concerned but they all kind of wanted to ...they had the doctrine of appeasement - you know "hey, let's just kind of not make him too angry and maybe he won't start anything too bad." But in 1939 Germany invades Poland. And this is kind of viewed as the one event that kind of...you know the straw that breaks the camel's back so-to-speak... and so it begins WWII And initially it's between...I guess the great powers that initially get involved are the British Empire and the Soviet Union. France is involved and quickly gets overrun by the Nazis And what happens is that the U.S., it wasn't like this situation with WWI when the U.S. was trying to stay neutral. The U.S. had recognized, especially FDR - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - he had recognized that Hitler was an aggressor. That he was, I guess from FDR's point of view, definitely in the wrong here. So even in the beginning of WWII, the U.S. did help support the allies so it would send arms and any other type of assistance. When Japan and Italy go in on the side of Germany, the U.S. embargoed oil to Japan. The U.S. was an exporter of oil to Japan and you can imagine Japan did not produce a lot of its own oil, and oil is super important when you are trying to run a war machine. So that didn't make Japan too happy. So you fast-forward to 1941 and you have Japan bombing Pearl Harbor. So until this point the U.S. kind of played a nondirect role. It definitely supported the allies and did what it could economically and by providing military aide, but it did not actively participate in the fighting But then 12/7/1941, the Japanese bomb the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor and this is a whole interesting debate because it was lucky for the US that most of the Pacific fleet was not there, but it was obviously this kind of thing that convinced the US public that WWII was worth joining. So 1941, because of Pearl Harbor, the US enters the war. And it enters the war in both arenas, both in Europe and the Pacific. And then you fast forward - it goes against the Italians in North Africa, and then you fast forward to 1944 and it actually enters into the fight in mainland Europe. This is the invasion of Normandy. This is D Day June 6th 1944. If you've ever seen Saving Private Ryan it starts with this. I've never stormed a beach, but I can imagine that was probably the most realistic reenactment of what it was like to storm the beach at Normandy. But if we fast forward to 1945 and eventually the, especially between the Soviet and the US, or I guess I should say all of the allied forces, they are able to win the European front of WWII and then fast forward to the end of that year. Japan was still fighting pretty ferociously And so the US, and once again I could make many videos of this, we could debate the ethical implications of this, but the US develops the atomic bomb and ignites one over here in Hiroshima and then a few days later one in Nagasaki and that essentially ends WWII. And so the outcome of WWII is you have two remaining superpowers: you have the Soviet Union and you have the United States. And what happens after that is you have the Cold War. These two huge powers - the Soviet Union is this Communist country and it's obviously trying to create this Communist sphere of influence a lot of Eastern Europe was falling under Soviet sway, the US - not a Communist country, a very capitalist country, uh you can imagine. And this is something that gets confused a lot - the Soviet Union was Communist and it was totalitarian. Communism and democracy are not necessarily things that go against each other. But the Soviet Union had neither a capitalist system nor a democracy. It was both Communist and Totalitarian. And when I say Communist I'm talking about no private wealth - the state really owns all private resources. The US on the other hand was hugely capitalist and you can imagine the US did not want any of this Communism business to kind of come to us. You have this major battle that never really erupts into direct conflict between the Soviet Union and the US. It's always done through proxies, through people who are acting on behalf of the US or the Soviet Union. You have the Cold War beginning. And it's called a cold war because it wasn't really a hot war. The US and Soviet Union never really fired bullets at each other. Instead they supported other parties that would fire bullets at the Soviet Union. And the Soviet Union would support other parties that would fire bullets at the US. For the US it was all about stopping Communism. It was all about preventing this domino theory that if one country in a region would fall to Communism, the other countries would. And the US became a bit paranoid - and maybe it was justified, but either way it was very concerned about the spread of Communism. And the first time this really gets tested - and 1950 is an interesting year - because this is the first time (obviously the US had nuclear weapons as of 1945), but in 1950, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon. So now the Cold War is starting to get very serious. Both of these adversaries can now nuke each other if they wanted. And also in 1950, you have Korea. Korea, before WWII was a Japanese colony. But obviously Japan had now lost and so after WWII it was split between North Korea, which was influenced by the Russians and South Korea, which was influenced by the US. So it was split along the 38th parallel, and I know this is a super small diagram. (We'll go into more detail when we do detailed videos about the Korean War) But in 1950 you have the North Koreans invading the South. And that started the Korean War. The US sent troops. The North Koreans had China on their side - the Chinese army. The Soviets were also supplying them. But at the end of the day in 1953 you fast forward, it ends up being a little bit of a stalemate because the end result is that the original 38th parallel border gets reinstated. That was the first real conflict of the Cold War. Notice that there were never US or Soviet troops directly firing at each other. The US was at war with the North Korean and Chinese troops, but they were kind of proxies for the Soviet Union. And at the same time, as you can imagine, because we have these two technically sophisticated adversaries - they both had nuclear weapons - it became very interesting on who can kind of dominate space. You have the space race developing in 1957. The Soviets are able to launch the first artificial satellite around the Earth. This is Sputnik 1. Some people think the first Sputnik is the one that had the dog in it, but no, that came a few months later. That was Sputnik 2 (I actually had the picture of the doge here, the dog actually dies but it was alive for a little bit in orbit). So that gets everyone freaked out and the US responds. Then in 1961 you have Yuri Gagarin, he is the first person in space. The first human being in space. He returns safely. We eventually get up there as well (the US). And then you fast forward all the way to 1969, the US is the first to be on the moon. So you have this space race that is, you know, the two countries really trying to one up each other and at the same time that's happening, you have (and I bring this up because so much happened during his presidency) in 1960 you have John F Kennedy being elected, kind of in the heart of the Cold War. And the other interesting thing is he is the first Catholic president which was, you know, people questioned whether---that by itself was interesting which was---that by itself was interesting But what was really interesting in his short presidency--- he actually became president in '61 he was elected in '60, but he became president in '61 He had a very short presidency, and he was assassinate in '63. But, a lot happened in that short presidency. In 1959, right before he became president, you have the Cuban revolution. Cuba became Communist. Fidel Castro takes over; it becomes Communist. So, as you can imagine, the Americans didn't like a Communist state so close to our own borders. So in 1961, we support some ex-cubans--- some cuban exiles to try to invade Cuba---and that also can be a whole topic for another video. There's debates between the CIA and the Kennedy Administration of who is to blame for it being such a failure. But it was a failure. So it was a huge embarrassment to the United States. And from the Communist Revolutionaries' point of view, they kind of viewed this as solidifying their hold of Cuba; it showed they could fend off a counter-revolutionary assault And then you have in 1962 we have these spy planes and we see that the Soviets are starting to put these ballistic missles in Cuba, which really freaks the United States out because these ballistic missles could reach any part of the United States We actually had similar ones in parts of Europe and Turkey. But we didn't like these things here, so we essentially use our Navy to "blockade" anymore arm shipments to the Soviet Union. So Kennedy has this kind of stand-off with the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missle Crisis in 1962. And most people believe that this was the closet that the United States and the Soviet Union ever got to actually having a war---and, which would have probably turned into a nuclear war. But the standoff eventually got resolved. The Soviet Union eventually agreed to remove their missiles. Well, one, not send anymore missles and dismantle the ones they had already set up. And, (and this wasn't publicly stated at the time) but the United States also agreed to do the same thing for our missiles that were pointed at the Soviet Union to remove those from Turkey. So the world---at that point in time---had avoided kind of a mutually assured destruction. The whole time that this is happening, remember that the United States is paranoid--- and maybe, justifiably so---(paranoia usually means worried when there's not a cause) but maybe justifiably worried about the spread of Communism. You have a situation where in Vietnam. You have Vietnam which is right about... In Vietnam you have the Communists come to power in North Vietnam (this was formerly a French colony). The US, right from the get-go, in the 1950's starts sending advisors to aid the "anti-Communists" in South Vietnam. In Kennedy's administration the amount of "advisors"---and I should probably put that in quotes because these advisors started becoming much more involved---really grew. And until 1965, the United States started sending its "official" combat troops to fight in Vietnam. And you fast-forward that all the way to 1975---and the reason why this is significant (other than this being one of the more recent major wars that the United States has been in) it's the first war that the United States kind of unambiguously lost. In 1975, the last presence of the United States left, and essentially Saigon (which was the capital of South Vietnam) fell to the Communists. So I'll leave you there, and we're now essentially in modern history---at least from my point of view because I was born not too long after that. Anyway, hopefully you found that interesting.