Sunday, June 12, 2016
June 12, 2016 - Final Exam Review Reading - Short History of 20th Century
This reading is a short history of the twentieth century - click here
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016 - Final Exam Review
Final Exam Review Materials
The exam will take the format of 100 multiple choice questions and two essays - there will also be extra credit that is worth up to 5% of the exam.
These are the essay questions that you will be answering on the final exam:
1. What is the meaning of the word “Modern” in the “Modern World” and is the whole world currently “Modern”?
Recognize that this question is really two questions – each should get a paragraph. First, you will need to explain what you mean by modern - think in terms of political, economic and social systems –as well as access to technology. Second, you will need to explain how well the countries of the world fit into your idea of "modern".
2. Imagine that you have been hired by the United States Department of State as a foreign policy strategist. What do you think are the three largest challenges facing the United States today and how should the United States deal with these challenges?
Recognize that identifying the three largest challenges is only the first part of answering this question. The second part, "how to deal with them", will involve addressing the history that created these challenges and noting how your solution is the best choice given the history. Do not think that you can get a good grade by going all Trump and simply bluster through an answer without logic or facts.
Your answers should have the following format:
The exam will take the format of 100 multiple choice questions and two essays - there will also be extra credit that is worth up to 5% of the exam.
These are the essay questions that you will be answering on the final exam:
1. What is the meaning of the word “Modern” in the “Modern World” and is the whole world currently “Modern”?
Recognize that this question is really two questions – each should get a paragraph. First, you will need to explain what you mean by modern - think in terms of political, economic and social systems –as well as access to technology. Second, you will need to explain how well the countries of the world fit into your idea of "modern".
2. Imagine that you have been hired by the United States Department of State as a foreign policy strategist. What do you think are the three largest challenges facing the United States today and how should the United States deal with these challenges?
Recognize that identifying the three largest challenges is only the first part of answering this question. The second part, "how to deal with them", will involve addressing the history that created these challenges and noting how your solution is the best choice given the history. Do not think that you can get a good grade by going all Trump and simply bluster through an answer without logic or facts.
Your answers should have the following format:
- First Paragraph – Thesis statement only.
- Supporting Paragraphs – start with a topic sentence and include relevant facts.
- No Conclusion Paragraph
Important points to remember:
These are both open essay questions. There is no one correct answer for these essays. Instead, you will be graded based on the content of your answers – the more specific and detailed your essay the better.
These essays are based on the concept that an education is only truly tested when it is challenged to do something new.
I am giving you these questions with the expectation that you will discuss them with each other and other people.
I will not do your thinking for you. You need to state relevant facts and specifically make important connections in your writing.
These essays are based on the concept that an education is only truly tested when it is challenged to do something new.
I am giving you these questions with the expectation that you will discuss them with each other and other people.
I will not do your thinking for you. You need to state relevant facts and specifically make important connections in your writing.
Friday, May 27, 2016
May 27, 2016 - Importance of the Islamic Revolution
Homework - Write a response to question, "Should the Islamic Revolution be considered to be a historic event on the same scale as the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution?"
Your answer should be no more than one page in length single spaced.
Your answer should clearly explain how you think about the historical scale of the impact from the French and Russian Revolutions.
You need to include historic facts to support your answer.
You should think about this homework assignment as being equivalent to a test answer - I will be grading it out of 20 points. This means that your answer should be clear and logical, but it does not need to take the form of an essay answer.
Due - Tuesday, May 31, 2016
In addition, I have moved the due date for the Documentary project to June 8, 2016.
Your answer should be no more than one page in length single spaced.
Your answer should clearly explain how you think about the historical scale of the impact from the French and Russian Revolutions.
You need to include historic facts to support your answer.
You should think about this homework assignment as being equivalent to a test answer - I will be grading it out of 20 points. This means that your answer should be clear and logical, but it does not need to take the form of an essay answer.
Due - Tuesday, May 31, 2016
In addition, I have moved the due date for the Documentary project to June 8, 2016.
Friday, May 20, 2016
May 20, 2016 - Modern Middle East
Homework - For next class, you should read the assignment "Overview of Modern Middle East" and answer the questions (these are available on the class web page and here).
On Wednesday, you will have a quiz on the reading notes for the Modern Middle East.
Monday, May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 - Africa Source Materials
Homework Friday (5/20) - Use the following source materials about Modern Africa to answer the assigned questions. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Thursday's class will be for checking in on your documentary projects - You need to have a "General Thesis" for your project.
Source # 1 - Colonial Rule of Africa & Ghana - click here
Source # 2 - Ghana Becomes Independent - click here
Source # 3 - Problems in Ghana after Independence - click here
Source # 4 - Independence Comes to Africa - click here
Biography - Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 to a chieftain family in the Xhosa tribe in South Africa. He was one of thirteen children. His father named him Rolihlahla, which means "pulling the branch of the tree", or more colloquially "troublemaker." The name Nelson was not given until his first day at school. Mandela attended a missionary school and college, before studying at the University of Fort Hare (South Africa's first university college for Black Africans). He was expelled from the Fort Hare for political activism. Mandela moved to black township outside of Johannesburg, where he worked as a clerk in a law firm and studied law at night. He studied law with Seretse Khama, who would later become the first president of an independent Botswana.
In 1944, Mandela joined the African National Congress or ANC. Mandela thought the organization was "a dying order of pseudo-liberalism and conservatism, of appeasement and compromise." Mandela and other young ANC leaders formed the African National Congress Youth League to change the ANC from the inside. Over the next few years, Mandela rose in leadership within the ANC.
In the early 1950’s, the South African government began to go after both Mandela and the ANC by using the Suppression of Communism Act to ban Mandela from holding an official position in the ANC and limiting his travel to the area around Johannesburg. In response, the ANC developed the M-plan (M for Mandela) that would allow the ANC to keep operating even if it was made an illegal organization by the government. In addition, Mandela secretly traveled around the country, including attending the Congress of the People in 1955 to watch the adoption of the Freedom Charter. The Freedom Charter begins with the statement, "We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people..."
In response to the Freedom Charter, the South African government arrested the leadership of the ANC and charged them with "high treason and a countrywide conspiracy to use violence to overthrow the present government and replace it with a communist state." However, in the "Treason Trial" the government was unable to prove its case and in 1961, Mandela and his 29 co-defendants were acquitted.
After the violent police response to the Sharpeville protests, Mandela had the ANC set up a military organization called “Spear of the Nation”. In addition, Mandela left South Africa to meet other African leaders and to go to Europe to get support. in 1962, when he returned to South Africa, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to five years for "incitement and illegally leaving the country".
While already in jail, the South African government put Mandela on trial and found guilty in 1964 for his leadership in the Spear of the Nation, which included counts of "sabotage, preparing for guerrilla warfare in SA, and for preparing an armed invasion of SA". Mandela sentenced to life in prison. In his final statement before being taken away, Mandela said,
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
By 1989 it was clear that the South African government could not maintain the Apartheid system and the South African president FW de Klerk began secret meetings with Mandela about how to dismantle Apartheid. In 1990, de Klerk released Mandela from prison. After this, Mandela and de Klerk worked together to change the South African constitution to make it a democracy with voting rights for all. Both men shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their work. In 1994, Mandela was elected president of South Africa. In his inaugural presidential speech, Mandela said,
"We have at last, achieved our political emancipation. we pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender, and other discrimination. Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another... Let freedom reign. God Bless Africa!"
As president, Mandela worked to ease the dangerous political differences in his country and to build up the South African economy. To a remarkable degree he was successful in his aims. Mandela's skill at building compromise and his enormous personal authority helped him lead the transition to democracy. In an effort to help the country heal, he also backed the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which offered amnesty (exemption from criminal prosecution) to those who had committed crimes during the apartheid era. This action helped to promote discussion about the country's history.
In 1997 Nelson Mandela stepped down as leader of the ANC in favor of Thabo Mbeki, and in 1999 he relinquished the post of president. In retirement Mandela campaigned for AIDS prevention and treatment and for more international support for African development. Mandela died in 2013 at age 95.
Source # 5 - Apartheid Falls in South Africa - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Source # 1 - Colonial Rule of Africa & Ghana - click here
Source # 2 - Ghana Becomes Independent - click here
Source # 3 - Problems in Ghana after Independence - click here
Source # 4 - Independence Comes to Africa - click here
Biography - Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in 1918 to a chieftain family in the Xhosa tribe in South Africa. He was one of thirteen children. His father named him Rolihlahla, which means "pulling the branch of the tree", or more colloquially "troublemaker." The name Nelson was not given until his first day at school. Mandela attended a missionary school and college, before studying at the University of Fort Hare (South Africa's first university college for Black Africans). He was expelled from the Fort Hare for political activism. Mandela moved to black township outside of Johannesburg, where he worked as a clerk in a law firm and studied law at night. He studied law with Seretse Khama, who would later become the first president of an independent Botswana.
In 1944, Mandela joined the African National Congress or ANC. Mandela thought the organization was "a dying order of pseudo-liberalism and conservatism, of appeasement and compromise." Mandela and other young ANC leaders formed the African National Congress Youth League to change the ANC from the inside. Over the next few years, Mandela rose in leadership within the ANC.
In the early 1950’s, the South African government began to go after both Mandela and the ANC by using the Suppression of Communism Act to ban Mandela from holding an official position in the ANC and limiting his travel to the area around Johannesburg. In response, the ANC developed the M-plan (M for Mandela) that would allow the ANC to keep operating even if it was made an illegal organization by the government. In addition, Mandela secretly traveled around the country, including attending the Congress of the People in 1955 to watch the adoption of the Freedom Charter. The Freedom Charter begins with the statement, "We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people..."
In response to the Freedom Charter, the South African government arrested the leadership of the ANC and charged them with "high treason and a countrywide conspiracy to use violence to overthrow the present government and replace it with a communist state." However, in the "Treason Trial" the government was unable to prove its case and in 1961, Mandela and his 29 co-defendants were acquitted.
After the violent police response to the Sharpeville protests, Mandela had the ANC set up a military organization called “Spear of the Nation”. In addition, Mandela left South Africa to meet other African leaders and to go to Europe to get support. in 1962, when he returned to South Africa, Mandela was arrested and sentenced to five years for "incitement and illegally leaving the country".
While already in jail, the South African government put Mandela on trial and found guilty in 1964 for his leadership in the Spear of the Nation, which included counts of "sabotage, preparing for guerrilla warfare in SA, and for preparing an armed invasion of SA". Mandela sentenced to life in prison. In his final statement before being taken away, Mandela said,
"During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
By 1989 it was clear that the South African government could not maintain the Apartheid system and the South African president FW de Klerk began secret meetings with Mandela about how to dismantle Apartheid. In 1990, de Klerk released Mandela from prison. After this, Mandela and de Klerk worked together to change the South African constitution to make it a democracy with voting rights for all. Both men shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their work. In 1994, Mandela was elected president of South Africa. In his inaugural presidential speech, Mandela said,
"We have at last, achieved our political emancipation. we pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender, and other discrimination. Never, never, and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another... Let freedom reign. God Bless Africa!"
As president, Mandela worked to ease the dangerous political differences in his country and to build up the South African economy. To a remarkable degree he was successful in his aims. Mandela's skill at building compromise and his enormous personal authority helped him lead the transition to democracy. In an effort to help the country heal, he also backed the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which offered amnesty (exemption from criminal prosecution) to those who had committed crimes during the apartheid era. This action helped to promote discussion about the country's history.
In 1997 Nelson Mandela stepped down as leader of the ANC in favor of Thabo Mbeki, and in 1999 he relinquished the post of president. In retirement Mandela campaigned for AIDS prevention and treatment and for more international support for African development. Mandela died in 2013 at age 95.
Source # 5 - Apartheid Falls in South Africa - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Thursday, May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016
Homework - For Monday (5/16) finish reading read the Modern Africa notes - this is the sections on South Africa & Zimbabwe. There will be a quiz on this at the start of Monday's class.
Important - Keep doing research on your documentary project. You will need to have your General Thesis for next week.
Monday, May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016 - Modern Africa
Homework - For Thursday (5/12) read the Modern Africa notes up to the section "South Africa". There will be a quiz on this at the start of Thursday's class.
Wednesday's class will be spend working on the Documentary Project.
Wednesday's class will be spend working on the Documentary Project.
Friday, May 6, 2016
May 6, 2016 - Test on Modern Asia
Test - The class will have a test on Modern Asia next Tuesday (5/10). The test will have the short answer format that was common in the first part of the year - four questions will be asked and you will answer two of the questions.
Here are past test questions that you can use to study:
7. After his death, the modern Chinese government sum
up Mao’s legacy as one who was pure of thought but misguided in his
actions. Is Mao a positive or negative
force in Chinese history?
Here are past test questions that you can use to study:
1. How
is the Japanese model of "authoritarian development" different from
Western liberal capitalism and how has this model affected the rest of Asia?
2. How did World War Two help
Mao defeat Chiang Kai-shek in the struggle over China?
3. What
does Deng Xiaoping’s quote, “What does it matter is the cat is black or white,
so long as it catches mice” show about how his approach to ruling China was
different from Mao’s approach?
4. How did the American and Soviet
conflict of the Cold War shape the development of Asia in the second half of
the twentieth century?
5. How did the Japanese model of "authoritarian development" result in the Asian Tigers?
6. How has the process of growing
international trade affected the region of Asia?
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
May 3, 2016 - Modern China
Homework for Friday (5/6) - Use the following source materials about World War Two in Asia to answer the assigned questions. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Biography - Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was born in 1904 to a family of landlords in China. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1924 while studying France. Before returning to China in 1926 he went to Moscow, where he studied for several months. After returning to China he joined with Mao in organizing peasants into a communist force in southern China and was leader in the Long March. Deng was described as very talented and intelligent - he was nicknamed, "a living encyclopedia". During the civil war against the KMT, Deng proved to be a very good and pragmatic leader. After Mao established the People's Republic of China, Deng became part of the Politburo, or group of leaders of China. Mao used Deng to work with the government of the Soviet Union in getting Soviet aid for China.
Mao and Deng's close relationship broke down as a result of the failed Great Leap Forward. Deng was one of the more moderate Chinese leaders who pushed Mao out of power in order to save the country from the terrible famine. The reforms that Deng made stopped the famine and helped China recover. However, Mao was furious over losing power and plotted on how to get back at Deng. In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. Deng and his family were force to move to rural China. Deng was forced to work in a factory cafeteria. His son was attacked by the Red Guard, who threw him out of a fourth story window and left him paralyzed.
The Cultural Revolution resulted in chaos across China and the communist leaders realized they needed Deng's talents in ruling China. In 1973, Deng returned to power. When Mao died in 1976, Deng emerged as the leader of China. His first action was to punish the communist leaders who had punished him during the Cultural Revolution by having them arrested and jailed - this included Mao's widow.
Deng opened China to trade with the rest of the world and allowed foreign countries to build factories in China to take advantage of cheap Chinese workers. In short, Deng turned China away from a Communist system to a Capitalist system and the result was the economy of China began to grow at a rapid rate and quality of life for the average Chinese person began to improve, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Deng’s willingness to change his policies based on their effectiveness, instead of being based only on communist ideals, is best described in Deng’s saying, “What does it matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”
In addition, while Deng gave the Chinese people more economic freedom, he did not give them political freedom. In 1989, when a large group of students began to protest for democracy in Tienanmen Square in the center of Beijing (the capital city) , Deng ordered the army to crush the protests - hundred of people were killed by the army. The Tienanmen Square Massacre showed that Deng thought that the communist party would not give up power the way it had in the Soviet Union. After this, Deng slowly gave power to younger leaders who would continue his market reforms without changing the political structure of the communist dictatorship. In his last years Deng started debate within the Communist Party on the need to balance economic reform with political stability. Deng died in 1997 at age ninety-two.
Source # 1 - Video on Deng Xiaoping's reforms in China - click here
Source # 2 - Video on Tienanmen Square protests - click here
Source # 3 - Video on China in the 1990's - click here
Source # 4 - Video on how well the image of the "Tank Man" is known in China today - click here
Source # 5 - Video on China's transformation from the first British trade expedition to the present day - click here
Biography - Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was born in 1904 to a family of landlords in China. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1924 while studying France. Before returning to China in 1926 he went to Moscow, where he studied for several months. After returning to China he joined with Mao in organizing peasants into a communist force in southern China and was leader in the Long March. Deng was described as very talented and intelligent - he was nicknamed, "a living encyclopedia". During the civil war against the KMT, Deng proved to be a very good and pragmatic leader. After Mao established the People's Republic of China, Deng became part of the Politburo, or group of leaders of China. Mao used Deng to work with the government of the Soviet Union in getting Soviet aid for China.
Mao and Deng's close relationship broke down as a result of the failed Great Leap Forward. Deng was one of the more moderate Chinese leaders who pushed Mao out of power in order to save the country from the terrible famine. The reforms that Deng made stopped the famine and helped China recover. However, Mao was furious over losing power and plotted on how to get back at Deng. In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. Deng and his family were force to move to rural China. Deng was forced to work in a factory cafeteria. His son was attacked by the Red Guard, who threw him out of a fourth story window and left him paralyzed.
The Cultural Revolution resulted in chaos across China and the communist leaders realized they needed Deng's talents in ruling China. In 1973, Deng returned to power. When Mao died in 1976, Deng emerged as the leader of China. His first action was to punish the communist leaders who had punished him during the Cultural Revolution by having them arrested and jailed - this included Mao's widow.
Deng opened China to trade with the rest of the world and allowed foreign countries to build factories in China to take advantage of cheap Chinese workers. In short, Deng turned China away from a Communist system to a Capitalist system and the result was the economy of China began to grow at a rapid rate and quality of life for the average Chinese person began to improve, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Deng’s willingness to change his policies based on their effectiveness, instead of being based only on communist ideals, is best described in Deng’s saying, “What does it matter if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice.”
In addition, while Deng gave the Chinese people more economic freedom, he did not give them political freedom. In 1989, when a large group of students began to protest for democracy in Tienanmen Square in the center of Beijing (the capital city) , Deng ordered the army to crush the protests - hundred of people were killed by the army. The Tienanmen Square Massacre showed that Deng thought that the communist party would not give up power the way it had in the Soviet Union. After this, Deng slowly gave power to younger leaders who would continue his market reforms without changing the political structure of the communist dictatorship. In his last years Deng started debate within the Communist Party on the need to balance economic reform with political stability. Deng died in 1997 at age ninety-two.
Source # 1 - Video on Deng Xiaoping's reforms in China - click here
Source # 2 - Video on Tienanmen Square protests - click here
Source # 4 - Video on how well the image of the "Tank Man" is known in China today - click here
Source # 5 - Video on China's transformation from the first British trade expedition to the present day - click here
Friday, April 29, 2016
April 29, 2016 - Communist China
Homework - For Wednesday, use the following source materials about Mao's rule of Communist China to answer the assigned questions. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Source # 1 - Video on the end World War Two in China and the Communist victory over the Nationalists (KMT) in the Civil War - click here
Source # 2 - Video Mao's rule of China and the Great Leap Forward - click here
Source # 3 - New York Times article China's Great Shame by Yang Jisheng about his book Tombstone (which is banned in China) - click here
Source # 4 - Video on the Cultural Revolution - click here
Source # 1 - Video on the end World War Two in China and the Communist victory over the Nationalists (KMT) in the Civil War - click here
Source # 2 - Video Mao's rule of China and the Great Leap Forward - click here
Source # 3 - New York Times article China's Great Shame by Yang Jisheng about his book Tombstone (which is banned in China) - click here
Source # 4 - Video on the Cultural Revolution - click here
Source # 5 - Video on the Opening of Chinese-American relations during the Vietnam War - click here
Sunday, April 24, 2016
April 25, 2016 - Modern Japan & Tigers
Homework - Read the notes "Modern Asia - Japan & Tigers" for Tuesday. There will be quiz. The notes are available on the class web page and here.
Homework for Thursday (4/28) - Use the following source materials about Modern Japan and the Vietnam War to answer the assigned questions. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Source # 2 - Map of economic development and Pacific Trade Flow
Source # 3 - Documentary on reasons Singapore, one of the Tiger Economies, became an economic success - click here
Source# 4 - Documentary video about the Vietnam War - click here
Homework for Thursday (4/28) - Use the following source materials about Modern Japan and the Vietnam War to answer the assigned questions. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Source # 1 - Documentary video about Post World War Two Japan - click here
Note - you will have to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Source # 2 - Map of economic development and Pacific Trade Flow
Source # 3 - Documentary on reasons Singapore, one of the Tiger Economies, became an economic success - click here
Source# 4 - Documentary video about the Vietnam War - click here
Note - you will have to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Source # 5 - Video clip on Vietnam as an emerging Tiger Economy - click here
Source # 5 - Video clip on Vietnam as an emerging Tiger Economy - click here
Monday, April 11, 2016
April 11, 2016 - Test Review for Interwar and World War Two in Asia
The class will have a test on Interwar and World War Two in Asia on Thursday, April 14th. The test will have the short answer format that was common in the first part of the year - four questions will be asked and you will answer two of the questions.
Here are past test questions that you can use to study.
1. How did Sun Yat-sen and Gandhi use idea from other parts of the world in their efforts to build national countries?
2. Why was it a mistake for Chiang Kai-shek to focus on defeating Mao and his communist army instead of the threat posed by the Japanese?
3. How was the American island hopping campaign in the Pacific War connected to the use of air power?
4. How did the Treaty of Versailles and the Bolshevik take-over in Russia affect developments in China?
5. Why was Gandhi’s campaign of “satyagraha” a successful form of protest against British rule of India?
6. What issues in Japan led to the Japanese military take-over of Manchuria?
7. In World War Two, how were the Japanese similar to the Nazi Germans?
8. How was the ability to survive crucial to Mao’s success as a leader of the Chinese Communists?
9. How was Gandhi able to use morality as a weapon against British rule of India?
10. How did the Treaty of Versailles and the Bolshevik take-over in Russia affect developments in China?
Here are past test questions that you can use to study.
1. How did Sun Yat-sen and Gandhi use idea from other parts of the world in their efforts to build national countries?
2. Why was it a mistake for Chiang Kai-shek to focus on defeating Mao and his communist army instead of the threat posed by the Japanese?
3. How was the American island hopping campaign in the Pacific War connected to the use of air power?
4. How did the Treaty of Versailles and the Bolshevik take-over in Russia affect developments in China?
5. Why was Gandhi’s campaign of “satyagraha” a successful form of protest against British rule of India?
6. What issues in Japan led to the Japanese military take-over of Manchuria?
7. In World War Two, how were the Japanese similar to the Nazi Germans?
8. How was the ability to survive crucial to Mao’s success as a leader of the Chinese Communists?
9. How was Gandhi able to use morality as a weapon against British rule of India?
10. How did the Treaty of Versailles and the Bolshevik take-over in Russia affect developments in China?
April 11, 2016 - Gandhi and Indian Independence Movement
Homework - Use the following source materials about World War Two in Asia to answer the assigned questions. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Biography - Mohandas Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi was born in 1869 in India to a family of government workers. As a child he was shy, soft-spoken, and only a mediocre student at school. At age 13, Gandhi married his wife in an arranged marriage. They would have four children and stay married until her death in 1944.
In September 1888, at age 18, Gandhi left India, without his wife and newborn son, in order to study law in England. When he first arrived in England, Gandhi tried to make himself into an English gentleman by buying new suits, fine-tuning his English accent, learning French, and taking violin and dance lessons. However, after a few months, Gandhi decided these things were a waste of time and money. After that, he became a serious student and living a very simple lifestyle. While in England, Gandhi discovered his life-long passion for vegetarianism. In his search for vegetarian restaurants, Gandhi found and joined the London Vegetarian Society. The Society consisted of an intellectual crowd who introduced Gandhi to different authors, such as Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy, both famous for his writings on civil disobedience.
Gandhi became a lawyer 1891 and returned to India. After having difficulty practicing law in India, Gandhi left his family in India again to become a lawyer in South Africa. It was his experience in South Africa that transformed Gandhi into a leader against discrimination. Gandhi had only been in South Africa for week when a railroad officials told Gandhi that he could not ride in a first class carriage (even though he had purchased a ticket) because he was not white and that he could only ride in a third-class carriage. When Gandhi refused to move, a policeman came and threw him off the train. Sitting in the cold of the railroad station after being thrown off the train, Gandhi contemplated whether he should go back home to India or to fight the discrimination. After much thought, Gandhi decided that he could not let these injustices continue and that he was going to fight to change these discriminatory practices.
Gandhi spent the next twenty years working to better the rights of Indians in South Africa. During the first three years, Gandhi learned more about Indian grievances, studied the law, wrote letters to officials, and organized petitions. Gandhi became well-known for his activism and his acts were even covered by newspapers in England and India. In a few short years, Gandhi had become a leader of the Indian community in South Africa.
It was during his work in South Africa, that Gandhi developed the concept of satyagraha in 1906. In the very simplest sense, satyagraha is passive resistance. Needing a new term for the Indian resistance, Gandhi chose the term "satyagraha," which literally means "truth force." Since Gandhi believed that exploitation was only possible if both the exploited and the exploiter accepted it, if one could see above the current situation and see the universal truth, then one had the power to make change. In practice, satyagraha was a focused and forceful nonviolent resistance to a particular injustice. The goal was not for there to be a winner and loser of the battle, but rather, that all would eventually see and understand the "truth" and agree to rescind the unjust law.
The first time Gandhi officially used satyagraha was in South Africa beginning in 1907 when he organized opposition to the Asiatic Registration Law (known as the Black Act). In March 1907, the Black Act was passed, requiring all Indians - young and old, men and women - to get fingerprinted and to keep registration documents on them at all times. While using satyagraha, Indians refused to get fingerprinted and picketed the documentation offices. Many of the protesters were beaten and arrested, including Gandhi. (This was the first of Gandhi's many jail sentences.) It took seven years of protest, but in June 1914, the Black Act was repealed. Gandhi had proved that nonviolent protest could be immensely successful.
Gandhi returned to India in 1914 a national hero. Although he was eager to begin reforms in India, a friend advised him to wait a year and spend the time traveling around India to learn about the lives of average Indians and their problems. In order to travel anonymously, Gandhi began wearing a loincloth (dhoti) and sandals (the average dress of the masses). If it was cold out, he would add a shawl. This became his wardrobe for the rest of his life. It was during his first year back in India that Gandhi was given the honorary title of Mahatma ("Great Soul"). The title represented the feelings of the millions of Indian peasants who viewed Gandhi as a holy man. However, Gandhi never liked the title because it seemed to mean he was special while he viewed himself as ordinary.
In 1919, the British government in India passed the Rowlatt Act that gave the British the power to break up "revolutionary" organizations and keep Indians in prison indefinitely without trial. In response to this Act, Gandhi organized a general strike. Unfortunately, such a large scale protest quickly got out of hand and in many places it turned violent. The worst violence was in Amritsar, where British soldiers attacked a group of protesting Indians with machine guns, killing more than 300 and injuring more than 1000 in 15 minutes. The violence of the Amritsar Massacre caused Gandhi to begin to advocate for Indian Independence.
After this, Gandhi spent several years working to make sure his followers understood the ideals of satyagraha and organizing to keep nationwide protests from becoming violent. Gandhi also began advocating self-reliance as a way to gain freedom from the British by making the making the process of maintaining the colony an economic loss. For example, from the time that the British had established India as a colony, the Indians were supplying Britain with raw materials, like cotton, and then importing expensive, woven cloth from England. Thus, Gandhi advocated that Indians spin their own cloth to free themselves from this reliance on the British and hurt the British economically. Gandhi popularized this idea by traveling with his own spinning wheel, often spinning yarn while giving a speech. In this way, the image of the spinning wheel became a symbol for Indian independence.
In December 1928, Gandhi began the protest against the British salt tax. The British had made it illegal to own salt not sold or produced by the British government. In a tropical environment, salt is an important part of people's daily diets. The tax that Indians paid to buy British salt was used to fund the British rule of India. Gandhi recognized that this tax symbolized the way the British forced the Indians to pay for their own colonization. In 1930, Gandhi lead his followers on the Salt March, a 200 mile march to the sea. When they reached the coast, Gandhi deliberately broke the law by picking up a piece of sea salt that lay on the beach. He then encouraged his followers to do the same and make their own salt. Thousands of people went to the beaches to pick up loose salt while others began to evaporate salt water. Indian-made salt was soon sold across the country. The British responded with mass arrests.
When Gandhi announced that he planned a march on the government-owned Dharasana Salt Works, the British arrested Gandhi and imprisoned him without trial. Although the British had hoped that Gandhi's arrest would stop the march, they had underestimated his followers. As the group of the 2,500 marchers reached the 400 policemen and 6 British officers who were waiting for them, the marchers approached in a column of 25 at a time. The marchers were beaten with clubs, often being hit on their heads and shoulders. The international press watched as the marchers did not even raise their hands to defend themselves. After the first 25 marchers were beaten to the ground, another column of 25 would approach and be beaten, until all 2,500 had marched forward and been pummeled. The news of the brutal beating by the British of peaceful protesters shocked the world.
Realizing he had to do something to stop the protests, the British viceroy, Lord Irwin, met with Gandhi. The two men agreed on the Delhi Pact, the first step on a long negotiated path to Indian independence. The outbreak of World War Two complicated this process because the British believed they needed it for their war effort. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had opposed Indian independence, he announced that Britain would free India at the end of World War II. However, this was not enough for Gandhi. He organized a "Quit India" campaign in 1942. In response, the British jailed Gandhi for most of the war.
When Gandhi was released from prison in 1944, Indian independence seemed in sight. Unfortunately, the reality of independence created conflict between Hindus and Muslims over how a new India would be governed. Specifically, the Muslim population feared living in a Hindu dominated India. The Muslim population wanted to create their own country, Pakistan, in the area of northwest India. Gandhi opposed this plan.
The argument over the creation of Pakistan caused massive violence to erupt across India. Hindu and Muslim population massacred each other and it seemed like the country was falling into civil war. Gandhi tried to stop this by travelling across India, hoping his presence could end the violence. Although violence did stop where Gandhi visited, he could not be everywhere. In the face of this violence, decided to sped up the process for giving India independence. In 1947, Britain granted independence to India and to the newly formed Muslim country of Pakistan.
The violence between the Hindus and Muslims continued as millions of Muslim refugees marched out of India on the long trek to Pakistan and millions of Hindus who found themselves in Pakistan packed up their belongings and walked to India. To stop this wide-spread violence, Gandhi started a fast, saying that he would only eat again when he saw clear plans to stop the violence. Realizing that the frail and aged Gandhi could not withstand a long fast, both sides worked together to create a peace.
Unfortunately, not everyone was happy with this peace plan. In particular, radical Hindu groups blamed Gandhi for the creation of Pakistan. On January 30, 1948, the 78-year-old Gandhi was walking to a prayer meeting, when a young Hindu, who blamed Gandhi for the partition and creation of Pakistan, stopped before him and bowed. Gandhi bowed back. The young man then shot Gandhi and killed him.
Source # 1 - Video clip from the movie Gandhi showing the Salt March and the protest at the Dharasana Saltworks - click here
You will need to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Source # 2 - Cartoon from the Hindustan Times (Indian newspaper) in 1931. Lord Wellington was the Viceroy (another term for Governor) of the British Colony of India.
Biography - Mohandas Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi was born in 1869 in India to a family of government workers. As a child he was shy, soft-spoken, and only a mediocre student at school. At age 13, Gandhi married his wife in an arranged marriage. They would have four children and stay married until her death in 1944.
In September 1888, at age 18, Gandhi left India, without his wife and newborn son, in order to study law in England. When he first arrived in England, Gandhi tried to make himself into an English gentleman by buying new suits, fine-tuning his English accent, learning French, and taking violin and dance lessons. However, after a few months, Gandhi decided these things were a waste of time and money. After that, he became a serious student and living a very simple lifestyle. While in England, Gandhi discovered his life-long passion for vegetarianism. In his search for vegetarian restaurants, Gandhi found and joined the London Vegetarian Society. The Society consisted of an intellectual crowd who introduced Gandhi to different authors, such as Henry David Thoreau and Leo Tolstoy, both famous for his writings on civil disobedience.
Gandhi became a lawyer 1891 and returned to India. After having difficulty practicing law in India, Gandhi left his family in India again to become a lawyer in South Africa. It was his experience in South Africa that transformed Gandhi into a leader against discrimination. Gandhi had only been in South Africa for week when a railroad officials told Gandhi that he could not ride in a first class carriage (even though he had purchased a ticket) because he was not white and that he could only ride in a third-class carriage. When Gandhi refused to move, a policeman came and threw him off the train. Sitting in the cold of the railroad station after being thrown off the train, Gandhi contemplated whether he should go back home to India or to fight the discrimination. After much thought, Gandhi decided that he could not let these injustices continue and that he was going to fight to change these discriminatory practices.
Gandhi spent the next twenty years working to better the rights of Indians in South Africa. During the first three years, Gandhi learned more about Indian grievances, studied the law, wrote letters to officials, and organized petitions. Gandhi became well-known for his activism and his acts were even covered by newspapers in England and India. In a few short years, Gandhi had become a leader of the Indian community in South Africa.
It was during his work in South Africa, that Gandhi developed the concept of satyagraha in 1906. In the very simplest sense, satyagraha is passive resistance. Needing a new term for the Indian resistance, Gandhi chose the term "satyagraha," which literally means "truth force." Since Gandhi believed that exploitation was only possible if both the exploited and the exploiter accepted it, if one could see above the current situation and see the universal truth, then one had the power to make change. In practice, satyagraha was a focused and forceful nonviolent resistance to a particular injustice. The goal was not for there to be a winner and loser of the battle, but rather, that all would eventually see and understand the "truth" and agree to rescind the unjust law.
The first time Gandhi officially used satyagraha was in South Africa beginning in 1907 when he organized opposition to the Asiatic Registration Law (known as the Black Act). In March 1907, the Black Act was passed, requiring all Indians - young and old, men and women - to get fingerprinted and to keep registration documents on them at all times. While using satyagraha, Indians refused to get fingerprinted and picketed the documentation offices. Many of the protesters were beaten and arrested, including Gandhi. (This was the first of Gandhi's many jail sentences.) It took seven years of protest, but in June 1914, the Black Act was repealed. Gandhi had proved that nonviolent protest could be immensely successful.
Gandhi returned to India in 1914 a national hero. Although he was eager to begin reforms in India, a friend advised him to wait a year and spend the time traveling around India to learn about the lives of average Indians and their problems. In order to travel anonymously, Gandhi began wearing a loincloth (dhoti) and sandals (the average dress of the masses). If it was cold out, he would add a shawl. This became his wardrobe for the rest of his life. It was during his first year back in India that Gandhi was given the honorary title of Mahatma ("Great Soul"). The title represented the feelings of the millions of Indian peasants who viewed Gandhi as a holy man. However, Gandhi never liked the title because it seemed to mean he was special while he viewed himself as ordinary.
In 1919, the British government in India passed the Rowlatt Act that gave the British the power to break up "revolutionary" organizations and keep Indians in prison indefinitely without trial. In response to this Act, Gandhi organized a general strike. Unfortunately, such a large scale protest quickly got out of hand and in many places it turned violent. The worst violence was in Amritsar, where British soldiers attacked a group of protesting Indians with machine guns, killing more than 300 and injuring more than 1000 in 15 minutes. The violence of the Amritsar Massacre caused Gandhi to begin to advocate for Indian Independence.
After this, Gandhi spent several years working to make sure his followers understood the ideals of satyagraha and organizing to keep nationwide protests from becoming violent. Gandhi also began advocating self-reliance as a way to gain freedom from the British by making the making the process of maintaining the colony an economic loss. For example, from the time that the British had established India as a colony, the Indians were supplying Britain with raw materials, like cotton, and then importing expensive, woven cloth from England. Thus, Gandhi advocated that Indians spin their own cloth to free themselves from this reliance on the British and hurt the British economically. Gandhi popularized this idea by traveling with his own spinning wheel, often spinning yarn while giving a speech. In this way, the image of the spinning wheel became a symbol for Indian independence.
In December 1928, Gandhi began the protest against the British salt tax. The British had made it illegal to own salt not sold or produced by the British government. In a tropical environment, salt is an important part of people's daily diets. The tax that Indians paid to buy British salt was used to fund the British rule of India. Gandhi recognized that this tax symbolized the way the British forced the Indians to pay for their own colonization. In 1930, Gandhi lead his followers on the Salt March, a 200 mile march to the sea. When they reached the coast, Gandhi deliberately broke the law by picking up a piece of sea salt that lay on the beach. He then encouraged his followers to do the same and make their own salt. Thousands of people went to the beaches to pick up loose salt while others began to evaporate salt water. Indian-made salt was soon sold across the country. The British responded with mass arrests.
When Gandhi announced that he planned a march on the government-owned Dharasana Salt Works, the British arrested Gandhi and imprisoned him without trial. Although the British had hoped that Gandhi's arrest would stop the march, they had underestimated his followers. As the group of the 2,500 marchers reached the 400 policemen and 6 British officers who were waiting for them, the marchers approached in a column of 25 at a time. The marchers were beaten with clubs, often being hit on their heads and shoulders. The international press watched as the marchers did not even raise their hands to defend themselves. After the first 25 marchers were beaten to the ground, another column of 25 would approach and be beaten, until all 2,500 had marched forward and been pummeled. The news of the brutal beating by the British of peaceful protesters shocked the world.
Realizing he had to do something to stop the protests, the British viceroy, Lord Irwin, met with Gandhi. The two men agreed on the Delhi Pact, the first step on a long negotiated path to Indian independence. The outbreak of World War Two complicated this process because the British believed they needed it for their war effort. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had opposed Indian independence, he announced that Britain would free India at the end of World War II. However, this was not enough for Gandhi. He organized a "Quit India" campaign in 1942. In response, the British jailed Gandhi for most of the war.
When Gandhi was released from prison in 1944, Indian independence seemed in sight. Unfortunately, the reality of independence created conflict between Hindus and Muslims over how a new India would be governed. Specifically, the Muslim population feared living in a Hindu dominated India. The Muslim population wanted to create their own country, Pakistan, in the area of northwest India. Gandhi opposed this plan.
The argument over the creation of Pakistan caused massive violence to erupt across India. Hindu and Muslim population massacred each other and it seemed like the country was falling into civil war. Gandhi tried to stop this by travelling across India, hoping his presence could end the violence. Although violence did stop where Gandhi visited, he could not be everywhere. In the face of this violence, decided to sped up the process for giving India independence. In 1947, Britain granted independence to India and to the newly formed Muslim country of Pakistan.
The violence between the Hindus and Muslims continued as millions of Muslim refugees marched out of India on the long trek to Pakistan and millions of Hindus who found themselves in Pakistan packed up their belongings and walked to India. To stop this wide-spread violence, Gandhi started a fast, saying that he would only eat again when he saw clear plans to stop the violence. Realizing that the frail and aged Gandhi could not withstand a long fast, both sides worked together to create a peace.
Unfortunately, not everyone was happy with this peace plan. In particular, radical Hindu groups blamed Gandhi for the creation of Pakistan. On January 30, 1948, the 78-year-old Gandhi was walking to a prayer meeting, when a young Hindu, who blamed Gandhi for the partition and creation of Pakistan, stopped before him and bowed. Gandhi bowed back. The young man then shot Gandhi and killed him.
Source # 1 - Video clip from the movie Gandhi showing the Salt March and the protest at the Dharasana Saltworks - click here
You will need to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Source # 2 - Cartoon from the Hindustan Times (Indian newspaper) in 1931. Lord Wellington was the Viceroy (another term for Governor) of the British Colony of India.
Friday, April 8, 2016
April 8, 2014 - World War Two in Asia
Homework - Use the following source materials about World War Two in Asia to answer the assigned questions. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Source # 1 - Japan Invasion of China - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
Source # 2 - World War II Begins in China - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
Source # 3 - Japanese War In China - click here
Source # 4 - Clip from the Chinese movie Back to 1942 - The movie Back to 1942 is about the situation in Henan Province in China during World War Two. The map below shows the location of Henan Province. The clip shows the efforts of Governor Li, who was appointed by Chiang Kai-shek, to help the people during the war and the suffering of refugees in the province during the war - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
Source # 5 - Air Raid on Tokyo - click here
Source # 1 - Japan Invasion of China - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
Source # 2 - World War II Begins in China - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
Source # 3 - Japanese War In China - click here
Source # 4 - Clip from the Chinese movie Back to 1942 - The movie Back to 1942 is about the situation in Henan Province in China during World War Two. The map below shows the location of Henan Province. The clip shows the efforts of Governor Li, who was appointed by Chiang Kai-shek, to help the people during the war and the suffering of refugees in the province during the war - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
Source # 5 - Air Raid on Tokyo - click here
Friday, April 1, 2016
April 1, 2016 - Chinese Revolution & Civil War
Homework - On Tuesday, April 5th, there will be a quiz on the notes "Interwar & War in Asia". On Wednesday, the class will be working on the the Documentary Project. For Friday, April 8th, you need to answer the assigned questions on the Chinese Revolution & Civil War. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Biography - Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-Sen was born in southern China in 1866 to a peasant family. He started school in China, but moved to live with his brother in Hawaii in 1876 where he finished high school and developed an interest in Christianity. When he was 17 he returned to China, but he rebelled against the traditional ways in rural China and went to Hong Kong to study medicine and became a Christian. Sun was interest in Christianity because it represents Western ideas and was a way of rebelling against the government of Emperor of China.
In 1891, Sun began to work to organize Chinese people outside of China to rebel against the Emperor of China. After China was defeated by Japan in 1895, Sun returned to China to lead a rebellion against the Emperor with the goal of making China a democratic republic. The rebellion was defeated and Sun had to flee to Japan. Working from Japan, Sun organized eight more rebellions against the Emperor – they all failed.
In 1907, Sun declared the Three People’s Principles in which he outlined the goal of a new government for China. These goals were nationalism meaning an end of foreign control of China, rights for the people of China to live in a democracy and economic security for the people of China to not live in poverty. Sun had used his experience from being educated by Americans and living in the United States in developing these goals.
Then, in 1911, a revolution swept through China and brought down the child-emperor of China. Sun was in the United States at the time of the rebellion, but as soon as he heard about it he returned to China. He was elected the president of the new Republic of China. However, Yuan Shi-kai one of the Emperor’s generals challenged Sun for power and forced him to give up power. The Yuan Shi-kai was not interested in turning China into a democratic country and instead had plans to make himself the new emperor of China. After this, Sun began to organize his supporters into the Guomindang or KMT fight against Yuan Shi-kai.
After the Russian Revolution and creation of the Soviet Union, Sun asked for help from the Soviet Union in building a military academy to train the KMT army. However, many of Sun’s supporters did not like the idea of communism. Sun and the KMT were able to build an army of 250,000 soldiers with the help of the Soviet Union. Sun planned to use this army to defeat warlords, former generals of the Emperor, that controlled central and northern China. However, Sun died in 1925 before the KMT attacked the warlords. At this point, the leaders of the KMT who took over after his death carried out the attack on the warlords and defeated them. After the KMT had captured most of China, the KMT leaders turned on the communist and killed them.
Source # 1 - Documentary on Sun Yat-sen and the Nationalist take-over of China - click here
Note - you need to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Source # 2 - Video clip from the Chinese movie 1911 about Sun Yat-sen and revolt that overthrew the Qing Dynasty - click here
Note - you need to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Biography - Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong was born in 1893 to a family of wealthy farmers in China. Mao went to school for five year before he began to work full-time on the farm. Mao rebelled against his parents’ authority and he left home to continue his education in the local city. In 1911 he served as a soldier supporting Sun Yat-sen as leader of China. After this, he began to study to become a teacher. In 1918, Mao graduated and went to the Beijing, the capital to work in university library. It was here that he was introduced to the ideas of communism and became interested in the Russian Revolution that had brought Lenin to power. In 1920, Mao joined the communist party.
In 1926, Mao survived the KMT massacre of the communists and found shelter in the rural China. It was here that Mao developed his strategy of building a communist movement in the countryside where it would be hard for the KMT to attack them. He described this by saying that the communists would be "swimming in a peasant sea". It was during this time that Mao began to organize the peasants of southern China in to a communist movement. As Mao's organization became more powerful, the KMT moved into surround and crush the communists. In 1934, Mao lead his communist army in a desperate escape from the KMT army - however, the KMT pursued Mao's retreating communists. As a result, Mao led his army on a 5,000 mile trek across western China to Northern China in an event called the Long March. Only 10,000 or 10% of Mao's communist army survived the Long March.
After the Long March , it looked like Mao's army had been destroyed. While he began to rebuild his army in northern China, in 1937 the Japanese invaded China and pushed the KMT out of the major cites of China. At this point, Mao's communists and the KMT worked together to fight the Chinese. However, it was an uneasy alliance and after the United States defeated Japan in World War Two, Mao's communists and the KMT went back to war. However, this time, Maos communists were in the stronger position and they defeated the KMT in 1949.
In 1949, Mao established the People's Republic of China as a communist country. Mao began a process of turning China into a communist society. Landlords were killed and their lands were given to peasants. Anyone who opposed Mao's plans were punished, and often killed. Mao also followed Stalin's plans on how to turn a peasant society into an industrial nation. However, this process was not fast enough for Mao. In 1958, he announced The Great Leap Forward in which he said China would catch up to the United States in 10 years. He ordered peasants to start making steel in backyard furnaces - the peasants did this by melting down their farming tools. The result was a famine that killed 40 million people. As a result, many leaders in the communist party lost faith in Mao and he lost much of his powers in running China - however, he remained a powerful figure.
In 1966, Mao decided to take power back by launching The Cultural Revolution in which he told the young communists, who he called the "Red Guard" to attack the older communist leadership and destroy the old traditional Chinese ways. Young Chinese students rampaged across China destroying ancient artwork and texts, burning temples and beating intellectuals to death. At the same time, Mao took back power and punished many of the communist party leaders who had taken power after the failure of The Great Leap Forward.
By the early 1970's, Mao was a old man with failing health. He died in 1976 leaving behind a complicated legacy for China. He is known as the "Founding Father of Modern China". However, his rule also caused the senseless deaths of millions of Chinese people and destruction of a lot of Chinese culture.
Source # 3 - Documentary about Mao Zedong and the Long March - click here
Note - you need to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Biography - Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-Sen was born in southern China in 1866 to a peasant family. He started school in China, but moved to live with his brother in Hawaii in 1876 where he finished high school and developed an interest in Christianity. When he was 17 he returned to China, but he rebelled against the traditional ways in rural China and went to Hong Kong to study medicine and became a Christian. Sun was interest in Christianity because it represents Western ideas and was a way of rebelling against the government of Emperor of China.
In 1891, Sun began to work to organize Chinese people outside of China to rebel against the Emperor of China. After China was defeated by Japan in 1895, Sun returned to China to lead a rebellion against the Emperor with the goal of making China a democratic republic. The rebellion was defeated and Sun had to flee to Japan. Working from Japan, Sun organized eight more rebellions against the Emperor – they all failed.
In 1907, Sun declared the Three People’s Principles in which he outlined the goal of a new government for China. These goals were nationalism meaning an end of foreign control of China, rights for the people of China to live in a democracy and economic security for the people of China to not live in poverty. Sun had used his experience from being educated by Americans and living in the United States in developing these goals.
Then, in 1911, a revolution swept through China and brought down the child-emperor of China. Sun was in the United States at the time of the rebellion, but as soon as he heard about it he returned to China. He was elected the president of the new Republic of China. However, Yuan Shi-kai one of the Emperor’s generals challenged Sun for power and forced him to give up power. The Yuan Shi-kai was not interested in turning China into a democratic country and instead had plans to make himself the new emperor of China. After this, Sun began to organize his supporters into the Guomindang or KMT fight against Yuan Shi-kai.
After the Russian Revolution and creation of the Soviet Union, Sun asked for help from the Soviet Union in building a military academy to train the KMT army. However, many of Sun’s supporters did not like the idea of communism. Sun and the KMT were able to build an army of 250,000 soldiers with the help of the Soviet Union. Sun planned to use this army to defeat warlords, former generals of the Emperor, that controlled central and northern China. However, Sun died in 1925 before the KMT attacked the warlords. At this point, the leaders of the KMT who took over after his death carried out the attack on the warlords and defeated them. After the KMT had captured most of China, the KMT leaders turned on the communist and killed them.
Source # 1 - Documentary on Sun Yat-sen and the Nationalist take-over of China - click here
Note - you need to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Source # 2 - Video clip from the Chinese movie 1911 about Sun Yat-sen and revolt that overthrew the Qing Dynasty - click here
Note - you need to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Biography - Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong was born in 1893 to a family of wealthy farmers in China. Mao went to school for five year before he began to work full-time on the farm. Mao rebelled against his parents’ authority and he left home to continue his education in the local city. In 1911 he served as a soldier supporting Sun Yat-sen as leader of China. After this, he began to study to become a teacher. In 1918, Mao graduated and went to the Beijing, the capital to work in university library. It was here that he was introduced to the ideas of communism and became interested in the Russian Revolution that had brought Lenin to power. In 1920, Mao joined the communist party.
In 1926, Mao survived the KMT massacre of the communists and found shelter in the rural China. It was here that Mao developed his strategy of building a communist movement in the countryside where it would be hard for the KMT to attack them. He described this by saying that the communists would be "swimming in a peasant sea". It was during this time that Mao began to organize the peasants of southern China in to a communist movement. As Mao's organization became more powerful, the KMT moved into surround and crush the communists. In 1934, Mao lead his communist army in a desperate escape from the KMT army - however, the KMT pursued Mao's retreating communists. As a result, Mao led his army on a 5,000 mile trek across western China to Northern China in an event called the Long March. Only 10,000 or 10% of Mao's communist army survived the Long March.
After the Long March , it looked like Mao's army had been destroyed. While he began to rebuild his army in northern China, in 1937 the Japanese invaded China and pushed the KMT out of the major cites of China. At this point, Mao's communists and the KMT worked together to fight the Chinese. However, it was an uneasy alliance and after the United States defeated Japan in World War Two, Mao's communists and the KMT went back to war. However, this time, Maos communists were in the stronger position and they defeated the KMT in 1949.
In 1949, Mao established the People's Republic of China as a communist country. Mao began a process of turning China into a communist society. Landlords were killed and their lands were given to peasants. Anyone who opposed Mao's plans were punished, and often killed. Mao also followed Stalin's plans on how to turn a peasant society into an industrial nation. However, this process was not fast enough for Mao. In 1958, he announced The Great Leap Forward in which he said China would catch up to the United States in 10 years. He ordered peasants to start making steel in backyard furnaces - the peasants did this by melting down their farming tools. The result was a famine that killed 40 million people. As a result, many leaders in the communist party lost faith in Mao and he lost much of his powers in running China - however, he remained a powerful figure.
In 1966, Mao decided to take power back by launching The Cultural Revolution in which he told the young communists, who he called the "Red Guard" to attack the older communist leadership and destroy the old traditional Chinese ways. Young Chinese students rampaged across China destroying ancient artwork and texts, burning temples and beating intellectuals to death. At the same time, Mao took back power and punished many of the communist party leaders who had taken power after the failure of The Great Leap Forward.
By the early 1970's, Mao was a old man with failing health. He died in 1976 leaving behind a complicated legacy for China. He is known as the "Founding Father of Modern China". However, his rule also caused the senseless deaths of millions of Chinese people and destruction of a lot of Chinese culture.
Source # 3 - Documentary about Mao Zedong and the Long March - click here
Note - you need to be logged into your BHS Google account to watch the video
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
March 29, 2016 - Documentary Assignment & Homework
Homework - For next class, you should read the notes "Overview of the Modern World" - there will be a quiz on this material. For Friday's class, you should read the assignment "Overview of Modern Asia" and answer the questions (these are available on the class web page and here).
Assignment for Documentary Video Project - click here
Assignment for Documentary Video Project - click here
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
March 15 - Review for World War Two Test
The class will have a test on World War Two on Monday, March 21st. The test will have the short answer format that was common in the first part of the year - four questions will be asked and you will answer two of the questions.
Friday's class will be spent going over the material to be covered on the test.
Here are past test questions that you can use to study.
1. Did Hitler, both what he did after he come to power in Germany and in how he conducted war against other countries, demonstrate that Nazism is essentially a philosophy based on race?
2. Would it be correct to say that Hitler came to power by drawing on the bitterness, fear and pain, the Germans felt in the post-war period up through the Great Depression?
3. Why were the future World War Two Allies (Britain, France and the Soviet Union) unable to act against Hitler’s expansionism up to the outbreak of the Second World War?
4. Explain the statement “In the first years of the war, Germany was able to deal terrible defeats to Britain and Soviet Union but was unable to deal the knock-out blow”.
5. How did the brutality of the Nazi-Soviet war on the Eastern Front demonstrate Hitler’s plans for German “living space” and Stalin’s ruthlessness in defending the Soviet Union at all costs?
6. How did the Nazi’s policies toward the Jews change over time from when Hitler came to power in 1932 to the end of World War Two?
7. Why would it be correct to describe the Allied victory in World War Two as a result of American capital and Soviet blood? (Capital means industrial production)
8. Even though it was clear as early as 1943 that Nazi Germany would ultimately lose the war, why did the war in Europe only end after Nazi Germany had been militarily defeated and Nazi capital of Berlin had been captured by the Soviets?
Friday's class will be spent going over the material to be covered on the test.
Here are past test questions that you can use to study.
1. Did Hitler, both what he did after he come to power in Germany and in how he conducted war against other countries, demonstrate that Nazism is essentially a philosophy based on race?
2. Would it be correct to say that Hitler came to power by drawing on the bitterness, fear and pain, the Germans felt in the post-war period up through the Great Depression?
3. Why were the future World War Two Allies (Britain, France and the Soviet Union) unable to act against Hitler’s expansionism up to the outbreak of the Second World War?
4. Explain the statement “In the first years of the war, Germany was able to deal terrible defeats to Britain and Soviet Union but was unable to deal the knock-out blow”.
5. How did the brutality of the Nazi-Soviet war on the Eastern Front demonstrate Hitler’s plans for German “living space” and Stalin’s ruthlessness in defending the Soviet Union at all costs?
6. How did the Nazi’s policies toward the Jews change over time from when Hitler came to power in 1932 to the end of World War Two?
7. Why would it be correct to describe the Allied victory in World War Two as a result of American capital and Soviet blood? (Capital means industrial production)
8. Even though it was clear as early as 1943 that Nazi Germany would ultimately lose the war, why did the war in Europe only end after Nazi Germany had been militarily defeated and Nazi capital of Berlin had been captured by the Soviets?
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
March 9, 2016 - End of War in Europe
Homework - Use the following source materials about the end of the war to answer the assigned questions. The assignment is available on the class web page and here.
Source # 1 - Video about the Allied bombing raid on the German city of Hamburg - click here
Source # 1 - Video about the Allied bombing raid on the German city of Hamburg - click here
Source # 2 - Video on German tactics and actions in the end of the war - click here
Source # 3 - Video about Allied attack on Germany - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
Source # 4 - Video about how the Nazis punished Germans who spoke out at the end of the war - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
Source # 5 - This clip is a set of scenes from the German movie Downfall about the Battle for Berlin at the end of World War Two - click here
Note - You will have to be logged into your BHS Google Account to watch the video
This clip follows the story of Peter Kranz, a young German boy fighting in the Hitler Youth at the end of the war. It provides a back story for the famous picture, shown below, of Hitler awarding medals to Hitler Youth soldiers in the last days of the war.
Biography - Gunter Grass
Gunter Grass was born to a German family that ran a grocery store in the city of Danzig in 1927. Danzig was a German city that had been given to Poland in the Treaty of Versailles. Grass was twelve years old when the German army invaded Poland and retook the city. As a student, Grass was part of the Hitler Youth organization and then became an “air force helper” when he was in high school. Toward the end of 1944, when he was 17 years old, Grass was drafted into military service and served with an SS tank unit. In April 1945, he was wounded in battle and captured by the American army.
After the war, he went to work as a miner and stone mason, but began to become an artist and writer. In 1959, Grass published his first book, The Tin Drum. The book tells the story of a boy who is horrified by the adult world and decides to stop growing at the age of three. The boy protests the violence around him by pounding on a tin drum. Through this character, Grass described Danzig as the Germans took over and burned the synagogue, the war on the Eastern Front and Soviet take-over after the war. Within a few years of its publication, the book was seen as an important piece of literature that forced Germany to confront its Nazi German past.
The success of The Tin Drum made Grass an intellectual voice calling for the German people to take responsibility for Nazism. Many of his books are filled with characters who represented the difficulty post-war German society had with confronting its Nazi past. For example, one character is a school teacher who discovers a set of long forgotten letters she wrote as a committed member of the Nazi Youth, which included denouncing neighbors to the authorities, and is trying to decide whether to share the letters with her students. Another character is a former general who is re-fighting the war in a sandbox in his garage, while his daughter tries to defeat him again by playing the role of the Russians in these sandbox battles.
In one of his last books, Peeling the Onion, Grass addressed his own personal life in Nazi Germany and discussed his service as a member of the SS. In this book he wrote, “I was silent. Because so many others have kept silent, the temptation is great … to shift the blame onto the collective guilt, or to talk about oneself only figuratively in the third person: He was, saw, did, said, he kept silent.”
Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 and died in 2015.
Source # 6 - Excerpt from Headbirths or The Germans are Dying Out by Gunter Grass – Grass wrote this book in 1979 after a trip to China
Pedestrians among bicycle riders repeating one another ad infinitum in dress and bearing, immersed in a jungle of bicycle riders in Shanghai, the city where eleven out of nine hundred fifty million Chinese live, foreign bodies in the mass, we were suddenly hit by an idea, a speculative reversal: what if, from this day on, the world had to face up to the existence of nine hundred fifty million Germans, whereas the Chinese nation numbered barely eighty million, that the present population of the two Germanys. And a moment later I was confronted by the image of a hundred million Saxons and a hundred and twenty million Swabians emigrating to offer the world their tight-packed industriousness.
In the midst of the cycling multitudes we were seized with terror. Is such a thought possible? Is such a thought permissible? Is such a world conceivable, a world inhabited by nine hundred fifty million Germans, who, even if the rate of increase is kept down to the bare 1.2 percent, will nevertheless multiply to something over one billion two hundred million Germans by the year 2000? Could the world bear it? Wouldn’t the world have to defend itself (but how?) against such a multitude? Or could the world put with as many Germans as there are Chinese today?
Friday, March 4, 2016
March 4, 2016 - Holocaust
Homework - Use the following source materials on the Holocaust to answer the assigned questions.
Source # 1- Video on World War Two and the Holocaust - click here
Source # 2 - Video of the Warsaw Ghetto and Invasion of the Soviet Union - click here
Source # 3 - Video of Nazi Holocaust Plans for Eastern Europe - click here
Source # 4 - Video on the Holocaust in Lithuania - click here
Source # 5 - Video on Einsatzgruppen - click here
You will have to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch
Biography - Vassily Grossman
Vassily Grossman was born to a Jewish family in Ukraine in the Russian Empire in 1905. He supported the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution. He began writing short stories while he was an engineering students at Moscow State University. His early stories got the attention and support of high ranking Soviet leaders and by the early 1930’s, he became a full time writer.
In 1937, during the period of the Great Purge, Grossman had his first confrontation with the Soviet authorities when his wife was arrested because she had not denounced her first husband after he had been arrested as an “enemy of the people”. In response to his wife’s arrest he took the risky move of writing the head of the NKVD (the secret police) to complain that his wife was being held responsible for a man she had left. Surprisingly, his wife was released by the NKVD.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Grossman became a war correspondent for a Soviet newspaper. In this role, he reported on many of the major battles of the war such as the battles for Moscow, Stalingrad and Berlin. Grossman preferred to report on the lives and struggles of many of the ordinary Soviet soldiers and he spent a lot of time at the front lines of battles. His articles became a favorite read among the Soviet soldiers.
The Nazi Holocaust had a major affect on Grossman and he was one of the first reporters to bring the issue of the Holocaust to the world's attention. Grossman wrote about what the Soviet army encountered as it pushed the German army out of the Soviet Union. For example, when the Soviets liberated the region of Ukraine (which had one of the highest Jewish population in pre-war Europe), Grossman wrote, “There are no Jews in Ukraine… All is silence. Everything is still. A whole people have been murdered.” It was as the Soviet army advanced into Ukraine that he learned that his mother had been murdered along with 30,000 other people when her village had been captured by the Germans.
Grossman was the first journalist to arrive at the Nazi death camp of Treblinka in 1944. Grossman interviewed the survivors and the people who lived around the camp to write his article “Hell of Treblinka”. This article was used as evidence against the Nazi leadership at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Grossman went on to gather more evidence of Nazi crimes in the Soviet Union that he was compiled into a “Black Book”. However, following the war, Stalin wanted to downplay the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews and focus on the general suffering of the Soviet people and ordered that Grossman’s work be supressed. This turned Grossman against the Soviet government.
Grossman turned his wartime experience into his major novel Life and Fate, which told the story of the war on the Eastern Front, but is focused mostly on the battle of Stalingrad and the events of the Holocaust. The novel tells the story on an epic scale that tells the story of many different characters from both the Soviet and German sides of the war as they fought in Stalingrad and suffered the Holocaust. Grossman finished the manuscript for the book in 1959. However, because the book was openly critical of the Soviet system, the government decided that it would not be published. In fact, the Soviet government considered it dangerous. The secret police raided Grossman’s house and confiscated all the copies of the manuscript, including the typewriter ribbons he used when writing the book. Grossman wrote to Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, to complain about how his book had been “arrested” and that he was “requesting freedom for my book”. A government official responded to Grossman letter by saying that the book could not be published for “two or three hundred years”.
A few years later, in 1964, Grossman died bitter over his treatment and the loss of his book. However, one copy of the manuscript of Life and Fate had escaped the Soviet authorities. Grossman had lent it to a friend who hid it at his country house. This copy of the manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union and was published in Europe in 1980. The novel was later published in Soviet Union in 1988 as the country opened up under Gorbachev’s policy of Perestroika.
David watched the door close: gently, smoothly, as though drawn by a magnet, the steel door drew closer to its steel frame. Finally they became one.
High up, behind a rectangular metal grating in the wall, David saw something stir. It looked like a grey rat, but he realized it was a fan beginning to turn. He sensed a faint, rather sweet smell.
The shuffling quietened down; all you could hear were occasional screams, groans and barely audible words. Speech was no longer of any use to people, nor was action; action is directed towards the future and there no longer was any future. When David moved his head and neck, it didn’t make Sofia Levinson want to turn and see what he was looking at.
Her eyes–which had read Homer, Izvestia, Huckleberry Finn and Mayne Reid, that had looked at good people and bad people, that had seen the geese in the green meadows of Kursk, the stars above the observatory at Pulkovo, the glitter of surgical steel, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, tomatoes and turnips in the bins at market, the blue water of Issyk-Kul–her eyes were no longer of any use to her. If someone had blinded her, she would have felt no sense of loss.
She was still breathing, but breathing was hard work and she was running out of strength. The bells ringing in her head became deafening; she wanted to concentrate on one last thought, but was unable to articulate this thought. She stood there–mute, blind, her eyes still open.
The boy’s movements filled her with pity. Her feelings towards him were so simple that she no longer needed words and eyes. The half-dead boy was still breathing, but the air he took in only drove life away. He could see people settling onto the ground; he could see mouths that were toothless and mouths with white teeth and gold teeth; he could see a thing stream of blood flowing from a nostril. He could see eyes peering through the glass; Roze’s inquisitive eyes had momentarily met David’s. He still needed his voice–he would have asked Aunt Sonya about those wolf-like eyes. He still even needed thought. He had taken only a few steps in the world. He had seen the prints of children’s bare heels on hot, dusty earth, his mother lived in Moscow, the moon looked down and people’s eyes looked up at it from below, a teapot without its head, where there was milk in the morning and frogs he could get to dance by holding their front feet–this world still preoccupied him.
All this time David was being clasped by strong warm hands. He didn’t feel his eyes go dark, his heart become empty, his mind grow dull and blind. He had been killed; he longer existed.
Sofia Levinton felt the boy’s body subside in her hands. Once again she had falled behind him. In mine-shafts where the air becomes poisoned, it is always the little creatures, the bird and mice, that die first. This boy, with his slight, bird-like body, had left before her.
“I’ve become a mother,” she thought.
That was her last thought.
Her heart, though, still had life in it; it still beat, still ached, still felt pity for the dead and the living. Sofia Levinton felt a wave of nausea. She was hugging David to her life a doll. Now she too was dead, she too was a doll.
Source # 1- Video on World War Two and the Holocaust - click here
Source # 2 - Video of the Warsaw Ghetto and Invasion of the Soviet Union - click here
Source # 3 - Video of Nazi Holocaust Plans for Eastern Europe - click here
Source # 4 - Video on the Holocaust in Lithuania - click here
Source # 5 - Video on Einsatzgruppen - click here
You will have to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch
Biography - Vassily Grossman
Vassily Grossman was born to a Jewish family in Ukraine in the Russian Empire in 1905. He supported the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution. He began writing short stories while he was an engineering students at Moscow State University. His early stories got the attention and support of high ranking Soviet leaders and by the early 1930’s, he became a full time writer.
In 1937, during the period of the Great Purge, Grossman had his first confrontation with the Soviet authorities when his wife was arrested because she had not denounced her first husband after he had been arrested as an “enemy of the people”. In response to his wife’s arrest he took the risky move of writing the head of the NKVD (the secret police) to complain that his wife was being held responsible for a man she had left. Surprisingly, his wife was released by the NKVD.
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Grossman became a war correspondent for a Soviet newspaper. In this role, he reported on many of the major battles of the war such as the battles for Moscow, Stalingrad and Berlin. Grossman preferred to report on the lives and struggles of many of the ordinary Soviet soldiers and he spent a lot of time at the front lines of battles. His articles became a favorite read among the Soviet soldiers.
The Nazi Holocaust had a major affect on Grossman and he was one of the first reporters to bring the issue of the Holocaust to the world's attention. Grossman wrote about what the Soviet army encountered as it pushed the German army out of the Soviet Union. For example, when the Soviets liberated the region of Ukraine (which had one of the highest Jewish population in pre-war Europe), Grossman wrote, “There are no Jews in Ukraine… All is silence. Everything is still. A whole people have been murdered.” It was as the Soviet army advanced into Ukraine that he learned that his mother had been murdered along with 30,000 other people when her village had been captured by the Germans.
Grossman was the first journalist to arrive at the Nazi death camp of Treblinka in 1944. Grossman interviewed the survivors and the people who lived around the camp to write his article “Hell of Treblinka”. This article was used as evidence against the Nazi leadership at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Grossman went on to gather more evidence of Nazi crimes in the Soviet Union that he was compiled into a “Black Book”. However, following the war, Stalin wanted to downplay the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews and focus on the general suffering of the Soviet people and ordered that Grossman’s work be supressed. This turned Grossman against the Soviet government.
Grossman turned his wartime experience into his major novel Life and Fate, which told the story of the war on the Eastern Front, but is focused mostly on the battle of Stalingrad and the events of the Holocaust. The novel tells the story on an epic scale that tells the story of many different characters from both the Soviet and German sides of the war as they fought in Stalingrad and suffered the Holocaust. Grossman finished the manuscript for the book in 1959. However, because the book was openly critical of the Soviet system, the government decided that it would not be published. In fact, the Soviet government considered it dangerous. The secret police raided Grossman’s house and confiscated all the copies of the manuscript, including the typewriter ribbons he used when writing the book. Grossman wrote to Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, to complain about how his book had been “arrested” and that he was “requesting freedom for my book”. A government official responded to Grossman letter by saying that the book could not be published for “two or three hundred years”.
A few years later, in 1964, Grossman died bitter over his treatment and the loss of his book. However, one copy of the manuscript of Life and Fate had escaped the Soviet authorities. Grossman had lent it to a friend who hid it at his country house. This copy of the manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union and was published in Europe in 1980. The novel was later published in Soviet Union in 1988 as the country opened up under Gorbachev’s policy of Perestroika.
Source # 6 - Excerpt from Life and Fate - this scene captures the thoughts of on of the novel's characters, Sofia Livinson as she dies in the gas chamber at Auschwitz with David, a young orphan met and befriends in the cattle car to death camp.
David watched the door close: gently, smoothly, as though drawn by a magnet, the steel door drew closer to its steel frame. Finally they became one.
High up, behind a rectangular metal grating in the wall, David saw something stir. It looked like a grey rat, but he realized it was a fan beginning to turn. He sensed a faint, rather sweet smell.
The shuffling quietened down; all you could hear were occasional screams, groans and barely audible words. Speech was no longer of any use to people, nor was action; action is directed towards the future and there no longer was any future. When David moved his head and neck, it didn’t make Sofia Levinson want to turn and see what he was looking at.
Her eyes–which had read Homer, Izvestia, Huckleberry Finn and Mayne Reid, that had looked at good people and bad people, that had seen the geese in the green meadows of Kursk, the stars above the observatory at Pulkovo, the glitter of surgical steel, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, tomatoes and turnips in the bins at market, the blue water of Issyk-Kul–her eyes were no longer of any use to her. If someone had blinded her, she would have felt no sense of loss.
She was still breathing, but breathing was hard work and she was running out of strength. The bells ringing in her head became deafening; she wanted to concentrate on one last thought, but was unable to articulate this thought. She stood there–mute, blind, her eyes still open.
The boy’s movements filled her with pity. Her feelings towards him were so simple that she no longer needed words and eyes. The half-dead boy was still breathing, but the air he took in only drove life away. He could see people settling onto the ground; he could see mouths that were toothless and mouths with white teeth and gold teeth; he could see a thing stream of blood flowing from a nostril. He could see eyes peering through the glass; Roze’s inquisitive eyes had momentarily met David’s. He still needed his voice–he would have asked Aunt Sonya about those wolf-like eyes. He still even needed thought. He had taken only a few steps in the world. He had seen the prints of children’s bare heels on hot, dusty earth, his mother lived in Moscow, the moon looked down and people’s eyes looked up at it from below, a teapot without its head, where there was milk in the morning and frogs he could get to dance by holding their front feet–this world still preoccupied him.
All this time David was being clasped by strong warm hands. He didn’t feel his eyes go dark, his heart become empty, his mind grow dull and blind. He had been killed; he longer existed.
Sofia Levinton felt the boy’s body subside in her hands. Once again she had falled behind him. In mine-shafts where the air becomes poisoned, it is always the little creatures, the bird and mice, that die first. This boy, with his slight, bird-like body, had left before her.
“I’ve become a mother,” she thought.
That was her last thought.
Her heart, though, still had life in it; it still beat, still ached, still felt pity for the dead and the living. Sofia Levinton felt a wave of nausea. She was hugging David to her life a doll. Now she too was dead, she too was a doll.
Source # 7 - Video on Treblinka - click here
Biography - Samuel Willenberg
Samuel Willenberg was born in 1923 to a Jewish family in Poland. He volunteered for the army when the Germans invaded Poland in September, 1939. He was sent into combat to fight the Soviet army as it invaded Poland from the east. Willenberg was wounded fighting the Soviet army and was taken prisoner. He escaped three months later and returned to his home in central Poland, then under German control. Willenberg was forced, along with his sisters and parents, to move into a Jewish ghetto. Willenberg worked as a forced laborer until his family was able to escape the ghetto with forged documents. However, the family was rounded up and forced into another ghetto. From here, Willenberg was sent to Treblinka when the ghetto was liquidated in 1942.
When he arrived at Treblinka, Willenberg was wearing paint-stained work clothes and the Germans thought is was a manual laborer. Instead of sending him to the gas chambers to be killed, they selected him to do work at Treblinka. He was the only one on his train not sent to the gas chambers. He was sent to work sorting through the belongings of the people killed in the gas chamber. While doing this work, he found the cloths that his sisters had been wearing on their way to Treblinka.
Willenberg conspired with the other prisoners to revolt against the Nazis. In August 1943, they rose up in rebellion. Most of the prisoners were killed, but Willenberg was able to escape with a few other prisoners. He travelled to Warsaw where he joined the Polish Home Army and participated in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans in September 1944. He was captured at the end of the battle for the city when the Germans put down the rebellion. However, he escaped the prison train and hid in the countryside until the Soviets liberated the region.
After the war, Willenberg joined the Polish army and worked to help Jewish families find their children who had been hidden by non-Jewish Polish families. However, life for Jewish people in post-war Communist Poland was very difficult and Willenberg immigrated to Israel where he worked as an engineer and studied art. He focused his art on memorializing the victims at Treblinka. He also wrote and spoke about his experiences. He died in February 2016
Source # 8 - Fate of German Jews - click here
Biography - Samuel Willenberg
Samuel Willenberg was born in 1923 to a Jewish family in Poland. He volunteered for the army when the Germans invaded Poland in September, 1939. He was sent into combat to fight the Soviet army as it invaded Poland from the east. Willenberg was wounded fighting the Soviet army and was taken prisoner. He escaped three months later and returned to his home in central Poland, then under German control. Willenberg was forced, along with his sisters and parents, to move into a Jewish ghetto. Willenberg worked as a forced laborer until his family was able to escape the ghetto with forged documents. However, the family was rounded up and forced into another ghetto. From here, Willenberg was sent to Treblinka when the ghetto was liquidated in 1942.
When he arrived at Treblinka, Willenberg was wearing paint-stained work clothes and the Germans thought is was a manual laborer. Instead of sending him to the gas chambers to be killed, they selected him to do work at Treblinka. He was the only one on his train not sent to the gas chambers. He was sent to work sorting through the belongings of the people killed in the gas chamber. While doing this work, he found the cloths that his sisters had been wearing on their way to Treblinka.
Willenberg conspired with the other prisoners to revolt against the Nazis. In August 1943, they rose up in rebellion. Most of the prisoners were killed, but Willenberg was able to escape with a few other prisoners. He travelled to Warsaw where he joined the Polish Home Army and participated in the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans in September 1944. He was captured at the end of the battle for the city when the Germans put down the rebellion. However, he escaped the prison train and hid in the countryside until the Soviets liberated the region.
After the war, Willenberg joined the Polish army and worked to help Jewish families find their children who had been hidden by non-Jewish Polish families. However, life for Jewish people in post-war Communist Poland was very difficult and Willenberg immigrated to Israel where he worked as an engineer and studied art. He focused his art on memorializing the victims at Treblinka. He also wrote and spoke about his experiences. He died in February 2016
Source # 8 - Fate of German Jews - click here
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
March 2, 2016 - War on the Eastern Front
Source # 1 - Video about Nazi goals and the attack on the Soviet Union - click here
Source #2 - This video clip from the German movie Generation War. This clip shows the fighting on the Eastern Front (in the Soviet Union) from the perspective of German soldiers. This clip shows the war in 1941 as the Germans are invading the Soviet Union. The two main characters are Lieutenant Wilhelm Winter and Private Friedhelm Winter, who serve in the same unit of the German army - click here
Note - you will need to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch this video
Source # 3 - Video about the experience of how experience of the people of the Soviet Union during the war and the Battle of Leningrad - click here
Biography - Lyudmyla Pavlychenko
Lyudmyla Pavlychencko was born outside of city of Kyiv, Ukraine in the Russian Empire in 1916. She joined a shooting club when she was young after she heard a boy in her neighborhood talk about how he was such a good shot. She said started shooting to “show that a girl could do as well.” Even though she described her own school years by saying that she was “unruly in the classroom”, she enrolled at Kyiv University to be a teacher. While in university she also worked in a military factory.
Pavlychenko was vacationing in the coastal city of Odessa when the Germans invaded in the Soviet Union in June 1941. She volunteered to join the army, but enlistment officers wanted to make her a nurse. When Pavlychenko insisted that she was good with a rifle, they forced to prove her ability during the battle of Odessa as the Germans attacked the city. They brought her to the front and handed her a rifle and ordered her to shoot two enemy soldiers on a nearby hill. They were her first two kills. However Pavlychenko did not include them in her battlefield tally because “they were test shots”.
After the Germans captured Odessa, Pavlychenko was assigned to the defense of the Sevastopol in Crimea. It was in the brutal battle to defend Sevastopol that Pavlychenko demonstrated her effectiveness as a sniper. She killed 309 enemy soldiers, including 100 German officers. Because of her ability, she was assigned to be a counter-sniper, which meant that she had to hunt enemy snipers on the battlefield. Operating as a counter-sniper was extremely dangerous since it required her to stay in position in the center of battlefield for hours, and sometimes days. She killed 36 German snipers. She said that killing Germans did not bother her because, “Every German who remains alive will kill women, children and old folks. Dead Germans are harmless. Therefore, if I kill a German, I am saving lives.”
After the Germans captured Sevastopol, the Soviet army took Pavlychenko out of combat because she was too valuable to lose. She had already been wounded four times and the Germans had specifically begun to try to find and kill her. The Soviet Union honored her by putting her on a postage stamp.
In 1942, Pavlychenko was sent by the Soviet government to United States to get American support for the war against Germany. She was the first Soviet citizen to be a guest at the White House and went on to tour the United States with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Pavlychenko became friends and Roosevelt helped her with silly comments from the American media such as the New York Times which called her the “girl sniper” and said that she “wore no lip rouge, or makeup of any kind” and that “there isn’t much style to her olive-green uniform”. Pavlychenko replied to such comments by replying that “I wear my uniform with honor” and “who has time to think of her shiny nose when a battle is going on?”
When she returned to the Soviet Union she became an instructor for snipers and then served as a researcher in the Soviet Military after the war. She and Roosevelt remained friends and met again in 1957 when Roosevelt visited the Soviet Union. Pavlychenko died in 1974 in Moscow.
Source # 4 - Video from the Russian-Ukrainian film Battle for Sevastopol about Lyudmyla Pavlychenko. This video clip shows Pavlychenko in training to be a sniper and her first experience in battle - click here
Note - you will need to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch this video
Biography - Gregory Zhukov
Georgy Zhukov was born in 1896 to a family of peasants. In 1915, Zhukov was drafted into the Russian army and fought in World War One. He was awarded for his bravery and was badly wounded in battle. After the October Revolution, Zhukov joined Lenin's Bolshevik Party and became an officer in the Red Army in the Russian Civil War. After the Civil War, Zhukov became an army commander of the Soviet Army in Siberia (far eastern Russia). Because he was so far away from the capital of Moscow, Zhukov was able to survive Stalin's "Great Purge" of the army (When Stalin ordered the secret police to arrest and kill the leaders of the army). As the commander of the Soviet Army in Siberia, Zhukov defeated the Japanese is a short war between the Soviet Union and Japan over the region of Mongolia in 1939. Stalin rewarded Zhukov by making him a commander of the overall Soviet Army in January 1941.
When the German army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stalin ordered Zhukov to attack the Germans and not retreat. While he disagreed with Stalin's orders, Zhukov obeyed the orders and the result heavy Soviet losses. Stalin removed Zhukov from command when Zhukov argued against defending the city of Kyiv and instead recommended that the Soviet Army retreat. Stalin ignored Zhukov's advice and the Germans captured 600, 000 Soviet soldiers when they captured Kyiv. After the loss of Kyiv, Stalin changed his mind about Zhukov and put Zhukov in command of the defense of Moscow, the Soviet capital. By December of 1941, the Germany army was closing in on Moscow and it looked as if they might capture the city. Even Stalin made plans to evacuate the city.
The Battle of Moscow was one of the largest and most crucial battles of the whole war. Zhukov had to organize the defense of the capital of the Soviet Union with a badly beaten army with not enough weapons or supplies - some units went in to battle with only one rifle for every ten soldiers. Zhukov was able to bolster the defense of Moscow by convincing Stalin to move the Soviet army in Siberia to the defense of the city. The Siberian soldiers were equipped and experienced with fighting in winter conditions. They were able to stop the German advance and pushed the Germany army back 150 miles - saving Moscow from being captured. This was the first major defeat for the German army in the war and destroyed Germany's chance for a quick victory in the war. However, the cost of the battle was enormous - the Soviet lost more than 1.9 million soldiers. When Zhukov's deputy showed him the numbers of losses he told him to "hide it and don't show it to anybody!"
After the successful defense of Moscow, Zhukov was put in command of organizing the defense of the city of Stalingrad. The battle of Stalingrad was one of the most important battles of World War Two. Zhukov developed and led and attack on the German army at Stalingrad that surrounded the Germans and forced them to surrender in February 1943 - which eliminated an entire German army. The in the summer of 1943, Zhukov lured the German army into the battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle of the war, which was another crushing defeat for the Germans. The combined defeats of Stalingrad and Kursk broke the power of the German army.
After the victories at Stalingrad and Kursk, Zhukov lead the Soviet Army as it drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union. Stalin was so pleased with Zhukov's military ability that he gave him the special distinction of leading the Soviet attack on the Nazi capital of Berlin in 1945. After a ferocious battle to capture the city, which ended when Hitler committed suicide before the Soviets could capture him, Zhukov oversaw the surrender of the remains of the Nazi German government.
After the war, Stalin was threatened by Zhukov's popularity with the Soviet military and the general population. Ever paranoid, Stalin removed Zhukov from his position as supreme military commander and assigned him to run the military in region in the southwest of the Soviet Union. After Stalin died, Zhukov was elevated to the position of defense minister in the Soviet Union. He died in 1974.
Source # 4 - Video clip from the opening scene from the movie Enemy at the Gates about the Battle of Stalingrad. This was one of the most important battles of World War Two and was the first major defeat for Germany in the war. This scene follows a Soviet soldier as he arrives at Stalingrad and is sent into the fighting - click here
Note - you will need to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch this video
Source # 5 - Video about the Battle of Kursk - American aid for Soviet war effort - click here
Source # 6 - Video clip from the German movie "Generation War which shows the war in 1943, after the Germans have lost the Battle of Stalingrad, and follows a group of German soldiers has they participate in the Battle of Kursk - click here
Note - you will need to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch this video
Source #2 - This video clip from the German movie Generation War. This clip shows the fighting on the Eastern Front (in the Soviet Union) from the perspective of German soldiers. This clip shows the war in 1941 as the Germans are invading the Soviet Union. The two main characters are Lieutenant Wilhelm Winter and Private Friedhelm Winter, who serve in the same unit of the German army - click here
Note - you will need to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch this video
Source # 3 - Video about the experience of how experience of the people of the Soviet Union during the war and the Battle of Leningrad - click here
Biography - Lyudmyla Pavlychenko
Lyudmyla Pavlychencko was born outside of city of Kyiv, Ukraine in the Russian Empire in 1916. She joined a shooting club when she was young after she heard a boy in her neighborhood talk about how he was such a good shot. She said started shooting to “show that a girl could do as well.” Even though she described her own school years by saying that she was “unruly in the classroom”, she enrolled at Kyiv University to be a teacher. While in university she also worked in a military factory.
Pavlychenko was vacationing in the coastal city of Odessa when the Germans invaded in the Soviet Union in June 1941. She volunteered to join the army, but enlistment officers wanted to make her a nurse. When Pavlychenko insisted that she was good with a rifle, they forced to prove her ability during the battle of Odessa as the Germans attacked the city. They brought her to the front and handed her a rifle and ordered her to shoot two enemy soldiers on a nearby hill. They were her first two kills. However Pavlychenko did not include them in her battlefield tally because “they were test shots”.
After the Germans captured Odessa, Pavlychenko was assigned to the defense of the Sevastopol in Crimea. It was in the brutal battle to defend Sevastopol that Pavlychenko demonstrated her effectiveness as a sniper. She killed 309 enemy soldiers, including 100 German officers. Because of her ability, she was assigned to be a counter-sniper, which meant that she had to hunt enemy snipers on the battlefield. Operating as a counter-sniper was extremely dangerous since it required her to stay in position in the center of battlefield for hours, and sometimes days. She killed 36 German snipers. She said that killing Germans did not bother her because, “Every German who remains alive will kill women, children and old folks. Dead Germans are harmless. Therefore, if I kill a German, I am saving lives.”
After the Germans captured Sevastopol, the Soviet army took Pavlychenko out of combat because she was too valuable to lose. She had already been wounded four times and the Germans had specifically begun to try to find and kill her. The Soviet Union honored her by putting her on a postage stamp.In 1942, Pavlychenko was sent by the Soviet government to United States to get American support for the war against Germany. She was the first Soviet citizen to be a guest at the White House and went on to tour the United States with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Pavlychenko became friends and Roosevelt helped her with silly comments from the American media such as the New York Times which called her the “girl sniper” and said that she “wore no lip rouge, or makeup of any kind” and that “there isn’t much style to her olive-green uniform”. Pavlychenko replied to such comments by replying that “I wear my uniform with honor” and “who has time to think of her shiny nose when a battle is going on?”
When she returned to the Soviet Union she became an instructor for snipers and then served as a researcher in the Soviet Military after the war. She and Roosevelt remained friends and met again in 1957 when Roosevelt visited the Soviet Union. Pavlychenko died in 1974 in Moscow.
Source # 4 - Video from the Russian-Ukrainian film Battle for Sevastopol about Lyudmyla Pavlychenko. This video clip shows Pavlychenko in training to be a sniper and her first experience in battle - click here
Note - you will need to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch this video
Biography - Gregory Zhukov
Georgy Zhukov was born in 1896 to a family of peasants. In 1915, Zhukov was drafted into the Russian army and fought in World War One. He was awarded for his bravery and was badly wounded in battle. After the October Revolution, Zhukov joined Lenin's Bolshevik Party and became an officer in the Red Army in the Russian Civil War. After the Civil War, Zhukov became an army commander of the Soviet Army in Siberia (far eastern Russia). Because he was so far away from the capital of Moscow, Zhukov was able to survive Stalin's "Great Purge" of the army (When Stalin ordered the secret police to arrest and kill the leaders of the army). As the commander of the Soviet Army in Siberia, Zhukov defeated the Japanese is a short war between the Soviet Union and Japan over the region of Mongolia in 1939. Stalin rewarded Zhukov by making him a commander of the overall Soviet Army in January 1941.
When the German army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Stalin ordered Zhukov to attack the Germans and not retreat. While he disagreed with Stalin's orders, Zhukov obeyed the orders and the result heavy Soviet losses. Stalin removed Zhukov from command when Zhukov argued against defending the city of Kyiv and instead recommended that the Soviet Army retreat. Stalin ignored Zhukov's advice and the Germans captured 600, 000 Soviet soldiers when they captured Kyiv. After the loss of Kyiv, Stalin changed his mind about Zhukov and put Zhukov in command of the defense of Moscow, the Soviet capital. By December of 1941, the Germany army was closing in on Moscow and it looked as if they might capture the city. Even Stalin made plans to evacuate the city.
The Battle of Moscow was one of the largest and most crucial battles of the whole war. Zhukov had to organize the defense of the capital of the Soviet Union with a badly beaten army with not enough weapons or supplies - some units went in to battle with only one rifle for every ten soldiers. Zhukov was able to bolster the defense of Moscow by convincing Stalin to move the Soviet army in Siberia to the defense of the city. The Siberian soldiers were equipped and experienced with fighting in winter conditions. They were able to stop the German advance and pushed the Germany army back 150 miles - saving Moscow from being captured. This was the first major defeat for the German army in the war and destroyed Germany's chance for a quick victory in the war. However, the cost of the battle was enormous - the Soviet lost more than 1.9 million soldiers. When Zhukov's deputy showed him the numbers of losses he told him to "hide it and don't show it to anybody!"
After the successful defense of Moscow, Zhukov was put in command of organizing the defense of the city of Stalingrad. The battle of Stalingrad was one of the most important battles of World War Two. Zhukov developed and led and attack on the German army at Stalingrad that surrounded the Germans and forced them to surrender in February 1943 - which eliminated an entire German army. The in the summer of 1943, Zhukov lured the German army into the battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle of the war, which was another crushing defeat for the Germans. The combined defeats of Stalingrad and Kursk broke the power of the German army.
After the victories at Stalingrad and Kursk, Zhukov lead the Soviet Army as it drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union. Stalin was so pleased with Zhukov's military ability that he gave him the special distinction of leading the Soviet attack on the Nazi capital of Berlin in 1945. After a ferocious battle to capture the city, which ended when Hitler committed suicide before the Soviets could capture him, Zhukov oversaw the surrender of the remains of the Nazi German government.
After the war, Stalin was threatened by Zhukov's popularity with the Soviet military and the general population. Ever paranoid, Stalin removed Zhukov from his position as supreme military commander and assigned him to run the military in region in the southwest of the Soviet Union. After Stalin died, Zhukov was elevated to the position of defense minister in the Soviet Union. He died in 1974.
Source # 4 - Video clip from the opening scene from the movie Enemy at the Gates about the Battle of Stalingrad. This was one of the most important battles of World War Two and was the first major defeat for Germany in the war. This scene follows a Soviet soldier as he arrives at Stalingrad and is sent into the fighting - click here
Note - you will need to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch this video
Source # 5 - Video about the Battle of Kursk - American aid for Soviet war effort - click here
Source # 6 - Video clip from the German movie "Generation War which shows the war in 1943, after the Germans have lost the Battle of Stalingrad, and follows a group of German soldiers has they participate in the Battle of Kursk - click here
Note - you will need to be signed into you BHS Google account to watch this video
Friday, February 26, 2016
February 26, 2016 - World War Two Begins
Important Note - The quiz on the second half of the World War Two reading notes (beginning with Invasion of Soviet Union) will be on Wednesday, March 2, 2016.
Homework - Use the following source materials on the beginning of World War Two to answer the assigned questions.
Source # 3 - Video of German victory against France and the Battle of Dunkirk - click here
Biography - Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle was born in 1890 in France. His father was a math teacher who had fought in the Franco-Prussian War which ended in defeat for France (it was at the end of the war the Otto von Bismarck had the King of Prussia crowned the Emperor of Germany at the Palace of Versailles). De Gaulle's father greatly influenced De Gaulle's life-long goal of restoring France to be the most powerful country in Europe.
In 1909, De Gaulle enrolled in a student in a military academy and graduated in 1912 a lieutenant in the French army. He led a frontline unit in World War One and awarded medals for bravery in battle. He was badly wounded in the battle of Verdun and was left for dead. However, he revived when his body was collected by the Germans to be buried. The Germans took him prisoner, and despite many escape attempts, he was held in a German maximum security prison for the rest of the war.
After the war de Gaulle returned to the French military. However, he got in trouble for constantly criticizing his superiors. They supported the ideas of trench warfare, which had been used in World War One. In contrast, De Gaulle thought the French army should become more modern in using armored tanks and in a strategy of mobile war (similar to the Blitzkrieg tactics designed by the Germans). The French military ignored De Gaulle's ideas - the Germans read them.
When Germany attacked France in 1940, De Gaulle was put in command of a tank unit which was able to slow the German attack. However, because other parts of the French army retreated, De Gaulle was also forced to retreat. After six weeks of fighting, the French government and military decided to surrender to the Germans instead of continuing to fight. However, while he was not a top French commander, De Gaulle refused to surrender. He said, "France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war." De Gaulle fled to England where he began to organize the Free French and support the British in their war against Germany by organizing soldiers from French colonies to fight on the Allied side. From England, De Gaulle was able to lead the French resistance to the German occupation of France and he spoke to the French people by radio broadcast from England.
After the Allied D-Day invasion of France in June 1944, De Gaulle returned to France as a hero and was elected the premier, or leader, of the country. However, De Gaulle often fought against the other national leaders, many of whom had worked with the Germans while they occupied France. In 1946, he resigned his position. However, he remained an active force in French politics and became the president of France from 1958 to 1969. He died in 1970.
Source # 4 - Video on the Battle of Britain - click here
Note - You will have to log into your BHS Google Account to access the video
Biography - Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill was born in 1874 in England. His father was a member of the British Parliament and his mother was an American heiress. Churchill was sent to a military school where was popular, but not a good student and had a tendency to get in trouble. He went on to study at the Royal Military Academy and graduate to become a military officer. After graduating, Churchill traveled to Cuba, India, Sudan and South Africa as a war reporter for a British newspaper.
When he was 25, Churchill returned to England and was elected to British Parliament. As a young Member of Parliament, Churchill was very outspoken and active, working to both reduce taxes and improve the lives of the poor. As a result of his hard work, in 1911, he was promoted to be the First Lord of the Admiralty, which meant that he was in charge of the British Navy. Churchill was worried that the Germans were building a navy to be stronger than the British Navy and so he spent the next three years working to build up the strength of the British Navy. As a result, the British Navy was prepared for war when World War One began in 1914.
As the First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill was involved in planning the British strategy in World War One. The first significant setback in his life was his plan to attack the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Gallipoli. The Ottoman Empire was seen as being weak and Churchill thought it was would be easy to defeat them. However, the Ottoman defense to the British attack was strong and Churchill's plan turned into a military disaster for the British. Churchill was forced to resign his position in the government. Out of government, Churchill joined the British Army and served as the commander of a unit on the Western Front in France. While he did not participate in any major battles, he did spend a significant amount of time on the front line. In 1917, he returned to government and was made Minister of Munitions (weapons).
After World War One, Churchill was a leader in the Conservative Party and held different positions in the British Government. However, he spent more time on personal interests such a writing books, painting and even learning how to do masonry (build with bricks).
In the late 1930’s, Churchill began to speak out against Hitler and said that Britain needed to stand up to Nazi Germany. Churchill argued that the British policy of giving in to Hitler’s aggression would make Hitler stronger and would lead to war. The war Churchill feared began in 1939 when Germany attacked Poland. Churchill’s stance against Hitler and Nazi Germany made him very popular with the people of Britain.
After Germany attacked France in May 1940, Churchill became the Prime Minister and began to rally the British people to a long war against Germany. He gave many speeches to Parliament, such as his famous “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” speech to inspire the British to keep fighting against a seemingly invincible enemy. After the defeat of France, Britain was alone in its war against Germany. It was a time when Britain doggedly fought on against Germany even though seemed to be winning and German air force was bombing British cities in the Battle of Britain. It was during this period that Churchill proved to be a strong leader by telling the British people that Britain would “never surrender”. Churchill became known as the "British Bulldog".
In 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and declared war on the United States. After these events, Britain no longer stood alone against Nazi Germany. From this point forward, Churchill worked closely with Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States, and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, to coordinate that Allies’ war against Nazi Germany. However, Churchill never fully trusted Stalin and tried to prevent Stalin from gaining too much territory at the end of the war.
As the war ended, Churchill saw that Britain was weak and was no longer the world power it had been before World War One. This realization caused Churchill to tried to get the United States to take on the role of standing up to Stalin and the Soviet Union. In 1946, Churchill visited the United States and famously used the term “Iron Curtin” to describe how the countries of Eastern Europe were now controlled by the Soviet Union and forced to become communist.
Churchill also argued for more unity among the countries of Europe to prevent another war. He said that the countries should form a “United States of Europe” and supported many of the early parts of building the European Union.
After the war, Churchill, who was then 70, resigned as Prime Minister. However, six years later, he was again elected Prime Minister and served until he was 80 years old, when because of poor health he had to retire. He continued to be very active, spending his time writing, speaking and painting. In his later life he won the Nobel Prize for Literature and was made a honorary citizen of the United States. He died in 1965 from a stroke.
Source # 5 - Except from Winston Churchill speech "Never Surrender" delivered to British Parliament on June 4, 1940
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…
Source # 6 - Cartoon of Winston Churchill published on June 8, 1940
Homework - Use the following source materials on the beginning of World War Two to answer the assigned questions.
Source # 1 - Video of Nazi Germany's takeover of Austria and Czechoslovakia - click here
Source # 2 - Graphic describing the tactic of Blitzkrieg
Source # 3 - Video of German victory against France and the Battle of Dunkirk - click here
Biography - Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle was born in 1890 in France. His father was a math teacher who had fought in the Franco-Prussian War which ended in defeat for France (it was at the end of the war the Otto von Bismarck had the King of Prussia crowned the Emperor of Germany at the Palace of Versailles). De Gaulle's father greatly influenced De Gaulle's life-long goal of restoring France to be the most powerful country in Europe.
In 1909, De Gaulle enrolled in a student in a military academy and graduated in 1912 a lieutenant in the French army. He led a frontline unit in World War One and awarded medals for bravery in battle. He was badly wounded in the battle of Verdun and was left for dead. However, he revived when his body was collected by the Germans to be buried. The Germans took him prisoner, and despite many escape attempts, he was held in a German maximum security prison for the rest of the war.
After the war de Gaulle returned to the French military. However, he got in trouble for constantly criticizing his superiors. They supported the ideas of trench warfare, which had been used in World War One. In contrast, De Gaulle thought the French army should become more modern in using armored tanks and in a strategy of mobile war (similar to the Blitzkrieg tactics designed by the Germans). The French military ignored De Gaulle's ideas - the Germans read them.
When Germany attacked France in 1940, De Gaulle was put in command of a tank unit which was able to slow the German attack. However, because other parts of the French army retreated, De Gaulle was also forced to retreat. After six weeks of fighting, the French government and military decided to surrender to the Germans instead of continuing to fight. However, while he was not a top French commander, De Gaulle refused to surrender. He said, "France has lost a battle, but France has not lost the war." De Gaulle fled to England where he began to organize the Free French and support the British in their war against Germany by organizing soldiers from French colonies to fight on the Allied side. From England, De Gaulle was able to lead the French resistance to the German occupation of France and he spoke to the French people by radio broadcast from England.
After the Allied D-Day invasion of France in June 1944, De Gaulle returned to France as a hero and was elected the premier, or leader, of the country. However, De Gaulle often fought against the other national leaders, many of whom had worked with the Germans while they occupied France. In 1946, he resigned his position. However, he remained an active force in French politics and became the president of France from 1958 to 1969. He died in 1970.
Source # 4 - Video on the Battle of Britain - click here
Note - You will have to log into your BHS Google Account to access the video
Biography - Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill was born in 1874 in England. His father was a member of the British Parliament and his mother was an American heiress. Churchill was sent to a military school where was popular, but not a good student and had a tendency to get in trouble. He went on to study at the Royal Military Academy and graduate to become a military officer. After graduating, Churchill traveled to Cuba, India, Sudan and South Africa as a war reporter for a British newspaper.
When he was 25, Churchill returned to England and was elected to British Parliament. As a young Member of Parliament, Churchill was very outspoken and active, working to both reduce taxes and improve the lives of the poor. As a result of his hard work, in 1911, he was promoted to be the First Lord of the Admiralty, which meant that he was in charge of the British Navy. Churchill was worried that the Germans were building a navy to be stronger than the British Navy and so he spent the next three years working to build up the strength of the British Navy. As a result, the British Navy was prepared for war when World War One began in 1914.
As the First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill was involved in planning the British strategy in World War One. The first significant setback in his life was his plan to attack the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Gallipoli. The Ottoman Empire was seen as being weak and Churchill thought it was would be easy to defeat them. However, the Ottoman defense to the British attack was strong and Churchill's plan turned into a military disaster for the British. Churchill was forced to resign his position in the government. Out of government, Churchill joined the British Army and served as the commander of a unit on the Western Front in France. While he did not participate in any major battles, he did spend a significant amount of time on the front line. In 1917, he returned to government and was made Minister of Munitions (weapons).
After World War One, Churchill was a leader in the Conservative Party and held different positions in the British Government. However, he spent more time on personal interests such a writing books, painting and even learning how to do masonry (build with bricks).
In the late 1930’s, Churchill began to speak out against Hitler and said that Britain needed to stand up to Nazi Germany. Churchill argued that the British policy of giving in to Hitler’s aggression would make Hitler stronger and would lead to war. The war Churchill feared began in 1939 when Germany attacked Poland. Churchill’s stance against Hitler and Nazi Germany made him very popular with the people of Britain.
After Germany attacked France in May 1940, Churchill became the Prime Minister and began to rally the British people to a long war against Germany. He gave many speeches to Parliament, such as his famous “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” speech to inspire the British to keep fighting against a seemingly invincible enemy. After the defeat of France, Britain was alone in its war against Germany. It was a time when Britain doggedly fought on against Germany even though seemed to be winning and German air force was bombing British cities in the Battle of Britain. It was during this period that Churchill proved to be a strong leader by telling the British people that Britain would “never surrender”. Churchill became known as the "British Bulldog".
In 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and declared war on the United States. After these events, Britain no longer stood alone against Nazi Germany. From this point forward, Churchill worked closely with Franklin Roosevelt, President of the United States, and Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, to coordinate that Allies’ war against Nazi Germany. However, Churchill never fully trusted Stalin and tried to prevent Stalin from gaining too much territory at the end of the war.
As the war ended, Churchill saw that Britain was weak and was no longer the world power it had been before World War One. This realization caused Churchill to tried to get the United States to take on the role of standing up to Stalin and the Soviet Union. In 1946, Churchill visited the United States and famously used the term “Iron Curtin” to describe how the countries of Eastern Europe were now controlled by the Soviet Union and forced to become communist.
Churchill also argued for more unity among the countries of Europe to prevent another war. He said that the countries should form a “United States of Europe” and supported many of the early parts of building the European Union.
After the war, Churchill, who was then 70, resigned as Prime Minister. However, six years later, he was again elected Prime Minister and served until he was 80 years old, when because of poor health he had to retire. He continued to be very active, spending his time writing, speaking and painting. In his later life he won the Nobel Prize for Literature and was made a honorary citizen of the United States. He died in 1965 from a stroke.
Source # 5 - Except from Winston Churchill speech "Never Surrender" delivered to British Parliament on June 4, 1940
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…
Source # 6 - Cartoon of Winston Churchill published on June 8, 1940
Thursday, February 25, 2016
February 25, 2016 - Hitler & Nazis Take Over Germany
Homework - Use the following source materials about Adolf Hitler and the Rise of the Nazis to answer the assigned questions.
Biography - Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was born in 1889, in Austria (a country south of Germany) to an extremely domineering father. After his father’s death in 1903 Hitler became rebellious and began failing at school. He dropped out of school and with dreaming of becoming an artist, he moved to Vienna to become a painter. However, he failed to be accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts and ended up living a lonely life as a poor street artist painting post cards. Antisemitism was common in Vienna, and it is believed that this is where Hitler first developed his extreme hatred toward Jewish people.
When World War I began in 1914, Hitler volunteered to enlist in the German army and fought on the Western Front. Hitler said he found acceptance and accomplishment fighting the war where he won several awards for bravery, including the highly respected Iron Cross First Class, and was wounded several times. Hitler was in a military hospital recovering from his wounds when he heard that Germany had signed the armistice that ended the war.
Like many German soldiers, Hitler had a difficult time readjusting to life after the war in the chaos of post-war Germany. He got a job in the army keeping track of radical political organization. This is how he first came in contact with the National Socialist German Workers Party, called the Nazis. He joined Nazi Party and soon became its most well known speaker. Hitler’s speeches drew more people into the Nazi Party and, in 1921, Hitler became the Fuhrer, or leader, of the party.
In 1923, Germany suffered terrible hyperinflation (a period where money quickly loses its value) and many Germans were unhappy with the democratic government in Germany. Hitler believed he could use this to take power in Germany. Hitler organized the Nazi Party to violently overthrow the government. However, the rebellion was quickly put down by the local police and Hitler was charged with treason and sentenced to a year in prison. It was during his time in prison that Hitler wrote his book, Mien Kampf or “My Struggle” which described his goals of expanding Germany to make an empire and to make it a racially pure society – it would only be for Germans. After his release from prison, Hitler continued to lead the Nazi Party, but it was a marginal party in German politics.
It was the economic crisis of the Great Depression in the early 1930’s that made the Nazi Party a major political force in Germany. By 1932, the Nazi Party was one of the largest political parties in Germany. The other large party was the communist party. Many Germans supported Hitler and the Nazis because they feared the communists. In 1932, Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany. When the President of Germany died in 1934, Hitler used Emergency Powers to make himself Fuhrer, or leader, of Germany. After taking power, Hitler moved ruthlessly to eliminate other political parties by having their leaders arrested and even had many of the leaders of the Nazi Party who could challenge him killed in an event called the Night of the Long Knives.
Once Hitler had full control over Germany, he began to prepare Germany for wars of conquest to enlarge Germany. He put millions of unemployed people to work on rebuilding the German military. In addition, he began to turn Germany into racially pure country by forcing Jews to leave the country. He did this by enacting laws that banned Jews from doing professional work and from attending school. He also allowed his supporters to attack Jews openly in the Night of Broken Glass.
Hitler began to take over other countries to achieve his goal of gaining “living space” for the Germans. He envisioned a future German Empire that would cover most of Europe in which the other peoples of Europe would either be killed or forced to work as slave labor for Germans. In the late 1930’s, Hitler took over Austria and Czechoslovakia without having to fire a single shot. Then, in 1939, he began World War Two by attacking Poland. Then the next year he conquered France and began to bomb Britain. The year after that, he attacked the Soviet Union and his army got all the way to Moscow, the Soviet capital city. By the end of 1942, it looked to the world as if Hitler might achieve his goal of building a Nazi Empire. In the areas that Germany had taken over, Hitler ordered the Nazi forces to round up people to be used as slave labor and sent out death squads to kill Jews.
However, at that point the war began to turn against Hitler. First, he had not fully defeated Britain and the Soviet Union. Both of these countries recovered from their earlier defeats and began to push back the German army. Second, Hitler had declared war on the United States and now the United States joined with Britain and the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany. Beginning in 1943, the Allies began to win victories on all fronts and began to push the Nazi forces back. However, even in the face of defeat, Hitler did not give up his dream of creating a racially pure Germany and ordered the speeding up of killing Jews in specially built death camps.
As the war turned against Hitler, he became more isolated. He did not appear in public, he refused to listen to his military advisers and began to put resources into "super" weapons that he believed would give him victory. In 1944, a group of military officers tried to kill Hitler with a bomb. After this, Hitler became increasing paranoid and determined to fight to the bitter end of the war, even if it meant the total destruction of Germany in the process. Under the slogan of "total victory or total ruin," Hitler ordered German army destroy everything as it retreated and that all men, even school boys and old men, be drafted into the army. Hitler’s secret police were ordered to kill any German who opposed these actions. Hitler spent the last few months of his life living in a bunker in the center of the bombed out ruins of Berlin, still desperately believing that he could win the war and build his Nazi Empire. However, as Russian soldiers attacked Berlin, Hitler recognized that all was lost and wrote his will in which he blamed the Jews for starting the war. After this, he married his long-time mistress Eva Braun and then committed suicide.
Source # 1 - Nazi poster from 1930 election. "National-Sozialistische Deutsche-Arbeiter-Parti" means "National Socialist German Worker's Party". The red words coming from the snake are: usury, Versailles, unemployment, war guilt lie, Marxism, Bolshevism, lies and betrayal, inflation, Locarno, Dawes Pact, Young Plan, corruption, Barmat, Kutistker, Sklarek [the last three Jews involved in major financial scandals], prostitution, terror, civil war.
Source # 2 - Graphs showing the unemployment rate in Germany and the popularity of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1920's and 1930's
Source # 3 - Excerpt from the graphic novel Berlin: City of Smoke that shows the street conflicts between the Nazis and communists in Berlin - click here (You need to be logged into your BHS Google account to access this source)
Source # 4 - Video of Nazi Rule of Germany in the 1930's - click here
Source # 5 - Video of Nazi ideology and programs - click here
Biography - Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was born in 1889, in Austria (a country south of Germany) to an extremely domineering father. After his father’s death in 1903 Hitler became rebellious and began failing at school. He dropped out of school and with dreaming of becoming an artist, he moved to Vienna to become a painter. However, he failed to be accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts and ended up living a lonely life as a poor street artist painting post cards. Antisemitism was common in Vienna, and it is believed that this is where Hitler first developed his extreme hatred toward Jewish people.
When World War I began in 1914, Hitler volunteered to enlist in the German army and fought on the Western Front. Hitler said he found acceptance and accomplishment fighting the war where he won several awards for bravery, including the highly respected Iron Cross First Class, and was wounded several times. Hitler was in a military hospital recovering from his wounds when he heard that Germany had signed the armistice that ended the war.
Like many German soldiers, Hitler had a difficult time readjusting to life after the war in the chaos of post-war Germany. He got a job in the army keeping track of radical political organization. This is how he first came in contact with the National Socialist German Workers Party, called the Nazis. He joined Nazi Party and soon became its most well known speaker. Hitler’s speeches drew more people into the Nazi Party and, in 1921, Hitler became the Fuhrer, or leader, of the party.
In 1923, Germany suffered terrible hyperinflation (a period where money quickly loses its value) and many Germans were unhappy with the democratic government in Germany. Hitler believed he could use this to take power in Germany. Hitler organized the Nazi Party to violently overthrow the government. However, the rebellion was quickly put down by the local police and Hitler was charged with treason and sentenced to a year in prison. It was during his time in prison that Hitler wrote his book, Mien Kampf or “My Struggle” which described his goals of expanding Germany to make an empire and to make it a racially pure society – it would only be for Germans. After his release from prison, Hitler continued to lead the Nazi Party, but it was a marginal party in German politics.
It was the economic crisis of the Great Depression in the early 1930’s that made the Nazi Party a major political force in Germany. By 1932, the Nazi Party was one of the largest political parties in Germany. The other large party was the communist party. Many Germans supported Hitler and the Nazis because they feared the communists. In 1932, Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany. When the President of Germany died in 1934, Hitler used Emergency Powers to make himself Fuhrer, or leader, of Germany. After taking power, Hitler moved ruthlessly to eliminate other political parties by having their leaders arrested and even had many of the leaders of the Nazi Party who could challenge him killed in an event called the Night of the Long Knives.
Once Hitler had full control over Germany, he began to prepare Germany for wars of conquest to enlarge Germany. He put millions of unemployed people to work on rebuilding the German military. In addition, he began to turn Germany into racially pure country by forcing Jews to leave the country. He did this by enacting laws that banned Jews from doing professional work and from attending school. He also allowed his supporters to attack Jews openly in the Night of Broken Glass.
Hitler began to take over other countries to achieve his goal of gaining “living space” for the Germans. He envisioned a future German Empire that would cover most of Europe in which the other peoples of Europe would either be killed or forced to work as slave labor for Germans. In the late 1930’s, Hitler took over Austria and Czechoslovakia without having to fire a single shot. Then, in 1939, he began World War Two by attacking Poland. Then the next year he conquered France and began to bomb Britain. The year after that, he attacked the Soviet Union and his army got all the way to Moscow, the Soviet capital city. By the end of 1942, it looked to the world as if Hitler might achieve his goal of building a Nazi Empire. In the areas that Germany had taken over, Hitler ordered the Nazi forces to round up people to be used as slave labor and sent out death squads to kill Jews.
However, at that point the war began to turn against Hitler. First, he had not fully defeated Britain and the Soviet Union. Both of these countries recovered from their earlier defeats and began to push back the German army. Second, Hitler had declared war on the United States and now the United States joined with Britain and the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany. Beginning in 1943, the Allies began to win victories on all fronts and began to push the Nazi forces back. However, even in the face of defeat, Hitler did not give up his dream of creating a racially pure Germany and ordered the speeding up of killing Jews in specially built death camps.
As the war turned against Hitler, he became more isolated. He did not appear in public, he refused to listen to his military advisers and began to put resources into "super" weapons that he believed would give him victory. In 1944, a group of military officers tried to kill Hitler with a bomb. After this, Hitler became increasing paranoid and determined to fight to the bitter end of the war, even if it meant the total destruction of Germany in the process. Under the slogan of "total victory or total ruin," Hitler ordered German army destroy everything as it retreated and that all men, even school boys and old men, be drafted into the army. Hitler’s secret police were ordered to kill any German who opposed these actions. Hitler spent the last few months of his life living in a bunker in the center of the bombed out ruins of Berlin, still desperately believing that he could win the war and build his Nazi Empire. However, as Russian soldiers attacked Berlin, Hitler recognized that all was lost and wrote his will in which he blamed the Jews for starting the war. After this, he married his long-time mistress Eva Braun and then committed suicide.
Source # 1 - Nazi poster from 1930 election. "National-Sozialistische Deutsche-Arbeiter-Parti" means "National Socialist German Worker's Party". The red words coming from the snake are: usury, Versailles, unemployment, war guilt lie, Marxism, Bolshevism, lies and betrayal, inflation, Locarno, Dawes Pact, Young Plan, corruption, Barmat, Kutistker, Sklarek [the last three Jews involved in major financial scandals], prostitution, terror, civil war.
Source # 2 - Graphs showing the unemployment rate in Germany and the popularity of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1920's and 1930's
Source # 3 - Excerpt from the graphic novel Berlin: City of Smoke that shows the street conflicts between the Nazis and communists in Berlin - click here (You need to be logged into your BHS Google account to access this source)
Source # 4 - Video of Nazi Rule of Germany in the 1930's - click here
Source # 5 - Video of Nazi ideology and programs - click here
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