African Independence

The countries of Africa didn't want to return to colonial domination after WW II . They wanted their freedom and independence. Kwame Nkrumah was a leader of the largely nonviolent protests. He was a former teacher who had been studying in the United States for several years. In the 1940s, Nkruhmah helped liberate Gold Coast (the first African colony south of Sahara). He organized strikes and boycotts and was often imprisoned by the British government. The Gold Coast succeed its independence in 1957 and was renamed as Ghana. He then became Ghana's prime minister and president. Nkruhma was able to establish development plans and economic projects such as: new roads, new schools, and expanded educational facilities. He also created organizations such as the Pan-African Congress and Organization of Africain Unity.
Other leaders that help African gain its independence were: Jomo Kenyatta - nationalist leader of Kenya, Mobuto Sese Seko - ruled the country Zaire, and Leopold Senghor - first president of Senegal.
In 1955, Africa was mostly ruled by British colonies. Twenty years later, there were only four countries that weren't independent.

NATO and the Warsaw Pact

NATO is shorten for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is a military alliance that included nations from North America and Europe. If one of the nations was attacked, the other nations were to help them as aides. The countries that are in NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. The agreement aslso helped them economically, by following the Marshall Plan. After the communisims failed, NATO was transformed from a military force to a political one.
The Warsaw Pact included communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. It was an organization, just like NATO, but it was Soviet's Union response to NATO. The soviet Union dominated the Warsaw Pact. It was a communist military alliance to maintain power in Europe. The Warsaw Pact were far superior to those of NATO, their technology soon fell far behind. After many democratic revolutions within the Warsaw Pact it was labeled "nonexistent" in 1991.
Both of these organizations were formed to build strong alliances and use their military and political foreces. NATO was formed to prevent the spread of communisim while the Warsaw Pact wanted to spread and encourage communism throughout other countries.

Schindler's List

The ghettos, actors, and concentration camps, all seemed very realistic in the film "Schinlder's List." All the scenes in the film were disturbing and crazy. There was this one scene in the film were the little kids were taken away to be killed and their mothers were suffering and couldn't do anything to stopped the Nazis.. When a mother did try to stop them, they were thrown to the ground treated like garbage. Most children were killed while other were able to hide in the camps.
The Jews were moved around to a lot of places and kept on suffering. Auschwitz was one of the most powerful concentration camps during the Holocaust. Most of the executions were held in Auschwitz. Parents, children, and the elderly, were being killed in the most scarriest creative ways ever. Some of the Jews were fooled by thinking they were jumping into showers to wash while running acid was falling on them. The scenes in the movie were disturbing and defitnitley showed the effect the concentration camps had on the Jews.

Film Lesson: Night and Fog

"Night and Fog" is a documentry film based on Nazi concentration camps. I felt that the film was powerful because it was real. The images were very horrifying and i felt nauseous looking at them. During the concentation camps scenes, you can see the effects of what happened in the camps. The documentry is quite disturbing to watch, but it definitely gave you an impact. some of the Jews were killed or they killed themselves. Some of them crawled into the snow and died.
The scenes and images shown in "Night and Fog" i found more interesting than "Shindler's List" because they were clips from real people suffering. "Shindler's List" is a hollywood film that was scripted and acted by actors. It was disturbing though hearing the people screaming while they were suffering. Both films showed how horrible the Holocaust was.

The Treaty of Versailles (ended WW I)

At the ending of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles was established declaring that the war was over and Germany was to be blamed entirely for the war. Germany had been forced to pay all compensation to the allies and accept full responsibility for the war. All of the nation's overseas colonies were taken away and shared between the allies, including that she also lost ten percent of its land. A bulky 12.5% of the German population was living outside of Germany.

Stated on weblink http://www.schoolshistory.org.uk/germanyversailles.htm

• Initially they refused to sign the treaty and opted to scuttle the fleet in protest.
  
• The economy was ruined as much of the produce and profit had to be sent to the allies as reparations payments. This meant that the German economy was unable to recover itself.
• The disarmament of the armed forces was viewed as an embarrassment and the Germans felt very insecure about their inability to defend themselves: it also meant a loss of status as military power means that a nation has political clout
• The German people felt bitter that they were excluded from the league of nations and enforced to live by other peoples rules.

Including in the Treaty, Germany's army was limited to 100,000 men, forbidden to build large ships, and was forced to borrow a large amount of money from America in order to pay its war debt, since its economy was going through a depression from the war. The Treaty of Versailles made many Germans feel humilated and felt the need to get revenge, which is were Aodl Hitler comes into the picture.

Hitler stated that Germany lost the war because of "a stab in the back." He blamed outsiders for causing problems in the nation. He believed that Germany had a weak government and he attempted to overthrow Germany's government but did not succeed. Instead, he got arrested and spend nine months in jail. Hitler also believed that most of Germany's problems were because of the Jews. In 1933, Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled Germany and outlawed all other political parties. Most people who opposed them were often murdered. The rise of Hitler, began with his publiing speakings, the development of the Nazi party, to focusing on and training teenagers to follow his beliefs because there generation will be later on the future.

I believe that the Treaty of Versailles was fair. Germany took its superiority to a point were they thought they were the best and are able to outstand other countries. The nation was ull of itself. If you think you're so powerful and can take down everyone else, then think again because there's always going to be someone willing to bring you down too.

Mustafa and the Moderization of Turkey

Ataturk created a true secular system in turkey, where a great area of Moslem majority and the small Christian and Jewish minorities are free to practice their faith. Secularism brought independence of thought and independence of institutions from the dominance of religious thinking and religious institutions. Seperation of state and religion, religion from education, cultural, and legal affairs, took act in secularism. It was not an anti-God principle, but it was a rationalist anti-clerical sercularism.
European hats replaced the fez, women stopped wearing the veil, all citizens took surnames, and the Islamic calendar was replaced by the Western calendar. Ataurk introduced moderization all through Turkey for the better. He wanted to lead his country out of the crumbling past into a fearless future. From the changes he made, Ataturk led his nation to full independence.


Secular: of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: secular interests.

Film Lesson/Ghandi

Ghandi was raised in a very conservative family. I believe the reason for why he was non-violent was because of his conservative beliefs. He encouraged Indians to boycott British goods and buy Indian goods instead. This helped by weakening British economy in the country. Ghandi believed that acts of violence would cause more negative conflicts. An example from the movie is when ghandi was thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg, after refusing to move from the first class to a third class coach while holding a valid first class ticket. He did not verbally or physically fight back with the officers who escort him off the train.
He first used non-violent civil disobedience as an withdrawing lawyer in South Africa, in the resident of Indian's community's struggle for civil rights. Ghandi led nationwide campaigns for expanding women's rights, for easing poverty, for building religious and ethnic friendship, for increasing economic self-reliance, but most important, for achieving the independence of India from foreign domination. He was imprisoned for numerous of times, in both South Africa and India, but he never gave up. After studying law in London, he returned to South Africa in 1907. He took part in many passive protests against the Tramsval government's treatment of Indian settlers. In 1915, Ghandi returned to India and became known as one of the party's leaders in Congress movement.
I think that India's independence was all about Ghandi because he inspired a lot of people. To achieve anything, you must take action. India gained its independence because of Ghandi actions. If he hadn't done the things he did, maybe no one would have been able to lead India to freedom and Britain might have still dominate India today. India became independent in early August of 1947.