The Space Race

The Space Race started on October 4, 1957, when the Sputnik, an unmanned satellite, made it's way orbiting around Earth.  They later launched the Sputnik II (complete with a space dog, Laika), leaving the United States even farther behind in the space race, with several of their own rockets exploding disastrously on the launch pads, nicknaming them "Kaputnik". The thought of the possibility of Soviet Union missiles circling the world, prepared to launch missiles at any time struck fear into the hearts of Americans, feeding into the Red Scare and anti- Communism that had built up during the Cold War, and propelling the United States into the Space Race. On April 9, 1959, NASA announced the Mercury Seven, the first United States men designated to be astronauts. The US aimed to put the first man in space, only to be beaten by the USSR's Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit Earth in 1961, chased by the US Alan Shepard the first US man in space (though not in orbit) later that year. In early 1962 the United States put their first man, John Glenn (who later became the oldest man in space at age 77) into orbit around the Earth three times. The Mercury missions ended in 1963, when Gordo Cooper was sent to orbit the Earth twenty- two times.  So far the United States had largely denied the possibility of a female astronaut, a belief that was not shared by the Soviet Union, who sent pregnant astronaut Valentina Tereshkova into orbit around the Earth forty-eight times, doubling Cooper's achievement a month earlier. The US was yet to have a win until the Apollo 8 mission in which Jim Lovell, Bill Anders, and Frank Borman became the first men to orbit around the Earth in late 1968.  The Apollo 11 mission finally completed the ;ate President Kennedy's promise to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade on July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the moon (accompanied by Michael Collins).  Although there were other missions after the Apollo 11, including the near- deadly Apollo 13 in which an oxygen tank exploded, the Apollo 11 was ultimately the flight that led to the US "winning" the space race.
Pictured below: the Original Mercury Seven Astronauts

The First Modern Pharmacological War

The Vietnam War was anything but conventional. In World War II, combat tactics revolved around gaining ground and pushing the enemy back into submission. However, during the Vietnam War, there were no front lines, rears, or territories to be conquered. This was due in part to the Vietcong’s style of combat which was surprising and deceptive. But besides differences in fighting styles, the Vietnam War was unique in that it was the first pharmacological war; the amount of drugs consumed during this war was unprecedented in American History and they helped to create a super soldier.

Statistics released by the House Select Committee on Crime showed that 225 millions tablets of stimulants were used in the armed forces from 1966 to 1969. The annual consumption for a navy seal was 21.1 pills, 17.5 in the air force, and 13.8 in the army. These so called “pep pills” were distributed to soldiers leaving on long reconnaissance missions. “Pep pills” included 20 milligrams of dextroamphetamine, a drug twice as strong as Adderall, an ADHD medicine, for 48 hours of fighting. Soldiers invading Laos for a four day mission were given medical kits that included the usual items along with 12 tablets of Darvon, mild painkillers, 24 tablets of codeine, an opioid analgesic, and six pills of Dexedrine. Units were also given steroid injections before they left. This wide distribution of drugs throughout the armed forces prompted some soldiers to say that the drugs were “used like candies.”

In combat, these drugs gave soldiers heightened senses and kept them awake. Some soldiers explained that they felt invincible while on these drugs. Along with the alertness however came aggression and violent outbursts often resulted from frequent drug usage. The drugs also boosted morale and reduced the injuries from combat and mental breakdowns. Because of these drugs, the percentage of mental breakdowns in Vietnam was the lowest compared to two previous wars; 10 percent of soldiers had mental breakdowns in WWII, 4 percent in the Korean War, while only 1 percent in the Vietnam. However, the drugs didn’t eliminate the stress soldiers experienced and as a result, PTSD and post-service substance abuse rates were higher than they ever were. This method of drug usage to deal with mental stress was like reassuring a soldier by giving them an anesthetic for a gunshot wound and then sending him back into the fighting.

Saddam Hussein: Rise and Fall of a Dictator

Saddam Hussein was the President of Iraq for 24 year, beginning in 1979, and is well-known for his dictatorial rule and subsequent capture and execution. He proved himself a ruthless politician and rose to power as part of a coup, and as the nation's leader, he did much to improve Iraq's economy, education, health-care, and industry, particular in the area of oil. However, he was largely condemned in the Western Hemisphere for his brutality, and is thought to have caused over 250,000 deaths.

He was born in the town of Al-Awja on April 28, 1937, to a family of shepherds. He lived under the guidance of his uncle in his early years after fleeing from his harsh stepfather. He studied at an Iraqi law school but dropped out at the age of 20 to join a revolutionary political party. As a member of this Ba'ath party, he helped overthrow the country's ruler in a military coup. Eventually, the Ba'ath party came to control the government, and Saddam gained power steadily, first as the deputy chairman of the council, then as the party's clear moving force. He became the president of Iraq on July 17, 1979.

Saddam solidified his power through various means. Iraq had always been split into countless factions, which was a major cause of tension between groups like the Sunni and Shi'ite. He moved up the government ranks by working on ways to strengthen the unity of his party and expand its influence, while addressing the country's major domestic problems. In addition, he not only improved living standards, but also actively repressed rising factions. He dominated the oil industry, but also diversified the Iraqi economy through a campaign that helped the nation's energy industries and brought electricity to most of the country's cities.

However, he also showed a ruthless side. During an assembly meeting shortly after he became president, 68 names were read off of a list. These people were promptly arrested, tried, and found guilty of treason, with many of them being sentenced to death. By August of 1979, hundreds more of Saddam Hussein's political enemies had been executed. He also caused thousands of deaths by invading oil-rich regions of Iran and later Kuwait. This is what prompted a UN coalition to confront the Iraqi forces and drive them back in a crushing defeat.

Much like previous authoritarian dictators before him, Saddam Hussein developed a cult of personality that was constantly present throughout society. There were thousands of portraits and statues of him, and he was often shown in a positive light, portrayed wearing either Western suits or as a devout Muslim. He conducted two show elections, in which he received exactly 100% of the people's votes.

Saddam Hussein's fall began when the Bush administration began to suspect his ties to al Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, and named Iraq a part of the "Axis of Evil." There were claims that the country was developing weapons of mass destruction, even though inspections by the UN gave little or no evidence. US forces toppled the Iraqi government regardless, and after an extensive search, Saddam Hussein was caught, tried for crimes against humanity, and sentenced to death. However, his legacy and influence lives on, in the form of both benefits and harm to his country.

Reaganomics: a two sided coin

Reaganomics: a two sided coin

The 1977-1981 presidency under Jimmy Carter was, as many historians say, one of the most misfortunate presidencies through American History. From oil crisis’ to massive increases in poverty, this era was unsuccessful in achieving any of the goals set by President Carter. By the end of this era there was consistent “stagflation”, or high poverty and high inflation coupled with little to no economic progress. At the end of his presidency his popularity had eroded so much that his running mate, President Ronald Reagan managed to win 44/50 states.

Coming into this setting, President Reagan found himself in a precarious position. Luckily for him, congress was willing to try anything new to try and stop the rising inflation and unemployment. The main policies that Reagan preached were less government spending, a 30% tax cut, as well as decreased spending on social welfare programs. This policy of tax breaks became known as Reaganomics.

At first this massive tax cut increased inflation and sparked a heavy recession in 1881. However, after this initial cut, the nation’s economy seemed to be growing. Rather than stagflation, there was steadily increasing productivity. Many historians credit Reagan with saving America in a time of heavy deposits, but what many do not take into consideration is the massive changes he made in the class system. Under Reagan, the upper middle class and the rich were given a 25% tax cut. This was put into action with the thought that allowing the upper class to have a tax break would allow for increased spending by this class, which would put money back into the system. This would allow for some movement in the consumer economy, but the immediate effects were felt not by the upper classes, but rather by the lower class as a massive recession hit the country. While the economy was able to stabilize by 1883, the unemployment rate had already risen to 10%. Reagan was also a heavy advocate for less government welfare programs. He believed that they took up too much of government spending which could be used for the military or to count against the massive debt he had stockpiled in his years in office. Overall, which Reagan’s policies were able to kickstart the American economy back to a place where it could compete on the global scale as a world power, his policies were merely supportive of the rich, and we can attribute at least some of modern day’s socio economic gap to these policies.

The Manhattan Project

Background:

The Manhattan Project also known as the making of the Atomic Bomb started when President Roosevelt received the Einstein–Szilárd letter on August 2, 1939. The letter encouraged United States to make use of Nuclear Weapons in the war before Nazi Germany was hit by this idea. After receiving this letter, Roosevelt authorized the National Defense Research Committee to explore and research further about Nuclear Weapons and how they are built and all  other things including the costs etc. Then the NDRC formed the S-1 Uranium Committee under the guidance of Lyman Briggs. Since Britain was busy in the war, the Americans increased their speed of the nuclear research.

The Making:

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the S-1 committee held its first meeting on December 18, 1941. In this meeting they discussed the several techniques and designs for the project. The funding was authorized by Roosevelt in June 1942. The project was re-designated the "Manhattan District" on August 13. During the summer of 1942, the project was led by Colonel James Marshall. He explored sites for facilities, but was unable to secure the needed priority by the US Army. Bush then replaced Marshall in September with Brigadier General Leslie Groves. 

Weapon Design:

As production ensued elsewhere, Oppenheimer and the team at Los Alamos worked on designing the atomic bomb. Early work focused "gun-type" designs which fired one piece of uranium into another to create a nuclear chain reaction. While this approach proved promising for uranium-based bombs, it was less so for those utilizing plutonium. As a result, the scientists at Los Alamos began developing an implosion design for a plutonium-based bomb as this material was relatively more plentiful. By July 1944, the bulk of the research was focused on the plutonium designs and the uranium gun-type bomb was less of a priority.

The Trinity Test:

Oppenheimer felt that a test of the weapon was needed before it could be moved into production. Though plutonium was relatively scarce at the time, Groves authorized the test and assigned planning for it to Kenneth Bainbridge in March 1944. Bainbridge pushed forward and selected the Alamogordo Bombing Range as the detonation site. Though he originally planned to use a containment vessel to recover the fissile material, Oppenheimer later elected abandon it as plutonium had become more available. A pre-test explosion was conducted on May 7, 1945. This was followed by the construction of a 100-ft. tower at the site. The implosion test device, nicknamed "The Gadget," was hoisted to the top to simulate a bomb falling from an aircraft. At 5:30 AM on July 16, with all the key Manhattan Project members present, the device was successfully detonated with energy equivalent of around 20 kilotons of TNT. Alerting President Harry S. Truman, then at the Potsdam Conference, the team began moving to build atomic bombs using the test's results.

Little Boy and Fat Man:

Little Boy fell for fifty-seven seconds, before detonating at the predetermined height of 1,900 feet with a blast equivalent to about 13-15 kilotons of TNT. Creating an area of complete devastation approximately two miles in diameter, the bomb, with its resulting shock wave and fire storm, effectively destroyed around 4.7 square miles of the city, killing 70,000-80,000 and injuring another 70,000. Its use was quickly followed three days later when "Fat Man," an implosion plutonium bomb, fell on Nagasaki. Generating a blast equivalent of 21 kilotons of TNT, it killed 35,000 and wounded 60,000. With the use of the two bombs, Japan quickly sued for peace.

Aftermath:

Costing nearly $2 billion and employing approximately 130,000 people, the Manhattan Project was one of the US' largest endeavors during World War II. Its success ushered in the nuclear age which saw nuclear power harnessed for both military and peaceful purposes. Work on nuclear weapons continued under the Manhattan Project's jurisdiction and saw further testing in 1946 at Bikini Atoll. Control of nuclear research passed to the United States Atomic Energy Commission on January 1, 1947 following the passage of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Though a highly secret program, the Manhattan Project was penetrated by Soviet spies, including Fuchs, during the war. As a result of his work, and that of others such as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the US' atomic hegemony ended in 1949 when the Soviets detonated their first nuclear weapon.

Sources:

• Class notes/powerpoints
• Homework Readings
• Documentaries on WWII focusing on nuclear weapons
• http://www.ushistory.org/us/51f.asp
• http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/mp/
• http://www.britannica.com/event/Manhattan-Project

Watergate and Nixon

On the morning of June 17th 1972, in the Watergate hotel in Washington, the Democratic party's national committee offices were broken into. However the burglars were arrested inside the office because the security guard at the time was good at his job. Before President Richard Nixon's reelections, the United States was deeply internally divided because of the Vietnam war. Nixon and his advisors believed that in the country's political state a forceful campaign was necessary for reelection. Members of the committee to reelect President Nixon broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters to tap phones, and steal top secret documents. However as we usually see in movies the bad guys were bad at their job, and had to break in a second time on June 17th, because they did the wire the phones correctly the first time. The security guard saw that the locks had been taped and called the police who caught the burglars. The burglars could not be clearly connected to the president, until the police found the phone number to the reelection committee in their bag. Two months later Nixon gave a speech promising the public none of his staff were involved, and surprisingly the public believed him, and elected him again. While he made this promise, it was discovered that he paid the burglars hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep them quiet, as well as used the CIA to interfere and cease the FBI's investigation into the break in. In try to cover up the true, Nixon abused his presidential power, obstructed justice, and did way worse things than the actual break in. 7 conspirators were on charges related to the break in, but 5 were convinced by Nixon's aides to plea guilty and avoided trial, but the other two were convicted in 1973. This is when the public began to suspect a conspiracy, and the pressure was too much for some close to Nixon who testified against him, and revealed that every conversation in the oval office was on tape. Some of the tapes had evidence to prove Nixon's guilt, and he and the courts went back and fourth demanding and refusing the presentation of the tapes. By early 1947, 7 of Nixon's aides were on charges related to the Watergate scandal. In July of that year the Supreme Court order Nixon to turn over the tapes, and while he stalled as long he could, the House of Representatives used obstruction of justice, abuse of power, criminal over up, and constitutional violations as grounds for impeachment. Before he ever released the raw tapes, he released edited transcripts to the public of the tapes. The public was horrified by what they read, and on August 5th Nixon released the raw tapes under supreme court order. 3 days later Nixon resigned as president, as impeachment was imminent. While Nixon did many things wrong and should have spent much time in prison, Gerald Ford, the successor to Nixon pardoned him for his crimes while in office. Nixon's aides were convicted and sent to federal prison. After all the evidence was released, and Nixon was clearly guilty, he never admitted to any criminal wrongdoing, but blamed the whole situation of poor judgement. The scandal brought down an already dismayed country after the outcomes of the Vietnam war, and the previous years. The public became cynical, and mistrusting. 

http://watergate.info/burglary

http://www.history.com/topics/watergate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/watergate/

President Harry Truman

Harry Truman was the 33rd president of the United States until 1953, after President Franklin Roosevelt. He did many memorable things like rebuild postwar Europe, contain communism, drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and lead the US into the Korean war. Born on May 8th 1884, in Lamar, Missouri on a farm, Harry was a smart student, yet was financially unable to attend college after he graduated high school in 1901. He had many small jobs while he helped his father on the farm, and served in the Missouri National Guard. In 1917 when WW1 began he reenlisted and was sent to France where he was promoted to captain. After the war a Kansas political boss helped him get elected as the district judge in Jackson county, where he handled finance, and public projects. In 1926 he became the presiding judge and was reelected 4 years later because of his integrity and efficiency. 4 years after that he became a senator on the US senate, and highly supported Roosevelt's new deal programs which were trying to help America out of the Great Depression. While in the senate he saved taxpayers millions, and was admired for his assembly of the "Truman committee," which worked to reduce military spending. During Roosevelt's 4th term, he chose Truman as his running mate, and 3 months after he was elected Roosevelt suddenly died due to health reasons at age 63, leaving Harry Truman as the President of the United States. Truman was first at a loss as he had only spoke with Roosevelt a couple times before his death, and had no idea about the atomic bomb being constructed. After the Potsdamn Conference, Truman approved the atomic bomb attack on Japan to try and end the war in the Pacific, and prevent an invasion from Japan. In 1945 on August 14th the Japanese surrendered, however his approval of the use of the atomic bomb is still thought to be one of the most controversial decisions made by any US president. At the start of the cold war, Truman began a containment policy toward soviet expansion and communism. He also introduced the Truman Doctrine to protect Greece and Turkey from communist aggression, as well as the Marshall plan which donated billions to help rebuild the European nations. He airlifted food and supplies to Berlin in 1948 which was being blockaded by the Soviet Union. His popularity was decreasing as the American economy was deteriorating, however in the next election, he travelled by railroad around the country giving speeches, and surprisingly was reelected as President. His second term began 1949, and his inauguration speech was the first ever to be televised. He immediently began a social reform plan, known as the Fair Deal, that had national medical insurance, federal housing, higher min wage, farmer assistance, repeal of the Taft-Hartley labor act, more social security, and civil rights reforms. While Congress prevented most of this he did introduce the housing act of 1949, issued desegregation in the armed forces, and prevented federal job discrimination. He supported NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and appointed Dwight Eisenhower as the first commander of the 12 country military alliance. In 1950 Truman sent planes to help South Korea after the North Korean invasion, and while it preserved South Koreas independence, Truman was disliked for this. After his second term ended Truman left the Presidency to Eisenhower in 1953.

http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/harry-truman
https://www.whitehouse.gov/1600/presidents/harrystruman
http://millercenter.org/president/truman
http://millercenter.org/president/biography/truman-life-in-brief