Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

The Collapse of Communism

During the Cold War the USSR and the U.S. were the world's leading superpowers. After WW2 these two world powers were competing in a race. Both of them being world powers and armed with atomic weapons so they did not get in to any actual fighting. The cost of keeping up with each other was high for both countries. For the USSR it was too much. Their economy soon collapsed at the high price of competing with the U.S. With the collapse of the USSR the communist countries that they supported soon also collapsed due to the fact that their main source of money came from Soviet Russia.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid is a policy of legal racial segregation.
Nelson Mandela was raised in South Africa. He lived in a part under the Apartheid system. He was treated unfairly just because his skin was black. People were treated unequally. Living conditions were harsh in South Africa. For example, if a white man and a black man had the same job. The white man could possibly make more money in a week than the black man could make in an entire year.
He lead an underground movement. It didnt last long however because he was sentenced to life in prison in 1964. He was freed 27 years after his imprisonment. Five years later, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and elected president of South America.

African Independence

African Independence was a period when African colonies gained its independence from the European countries. During the mid 1950's the continent of Africa was being ruled by European countries, because the Europeans wanted the natural resources that were available in Africa. After 20 years Africa was a whole different continent, because the colonies gained independence from the Europeans and went on to become independence countries. It was easy for the African countries because the European countries were weakened after WWII. The Europeans did not want to deal with their colonies, because it was very expensive to run colonies from countries far away. Many Africans became well educated. Africa had many leaders because there were so many provinces. These leaders were inspired by African-American leaders. They had Leopold Senghor, who lead Sengal and later became president; Marcus Garvey was jamaican born, but his goal was to lead Europeans out of Africa and have Africa ruled by Africans; Kwame Nkrumah became Ghana's first prime minister; Jomo Kenyatta led Kenya through a harsh independence; etc.

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

The US and the USSR were competing on who had the better space program. They at first competed on who could send a man into space first. The Russians succeded first as the US only sent a chimpanzee into space, while the Russians succeded in sending a man. The Russians were clearly winning the competition.

Scenes that I will remember from this movie are all the Rocket failures that NASA had, as it was strange to see how bad it was in the beginning. I will also remember the scene of when the pilot was able to pass the sound barrier in the jet plane. Lastly, I will rember the scenes of all the tests the scientists do on the austronauts, as they seem very intense.

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

NATO is an organization that includes countries in Europe and North America. The major reason for the formation of NATO was that the countries involved wanted a mutual defense alliance so that if one of them were attacked all of the other countries in NATO would come to their aide.
Along with helping European nations with defense, since the western European nations were economically in shambles at the end of WWII, the agreement also helped them with economic aide under the Marshall Plan. This would be done as long as the countries agreed to cooperate with each other. This would help them rebuild more quickly and get them on good terms.

Film Lesson: Schindler's List

Schindler's list was a great and pretty accurate movie on the Holocaust. It was a good idea to make it in black in white, since it went more with that time. making it in black in white would also easily allow actual footage to be put into the movie, as they were all in black in white. As I viewed it the scenes that were most powerful to me as a viewer are the liquidation of the ghettos, where they send all the jews to concentration camps. It was sad to see how ruthless the Nazis were against the jews and how they killed anyone that showed anykind of refusal.

One image from the film that will stay with me is when they showed the entrance to Aushwitz, when Schindler's women workers were accidentally transported to the death camp. It was a pretty scary sight from knowing so much of the terrors that occured there. It was also a crazy sight when they showed all the burned bodies being packed up, when the camp was being rid of evidence, as everyone including the Nazis were goin crazy from the killing and smell. It must have been really freaky having all the human ashes "snow" down.