Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of Communism

Well the Collapse of Communism happened when the president of Russia was Mikhail Gorbachev. His polices/reform was that Communist strictures was clam, he would of relaxed the rules of communism and also with the reform policies of "glasnost and perestroika" Glasnost meant for openness and Perestroika meant for restructuring. Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to communism to be gone as the government. He noticed that Communism was working out well, for example people would have to wait in lines, long lines, in the store just for toothpaste. And he notcied how captlism countries would have an more choice for stuff. For example, people in Communism countries would have to get the same thing, like an dishwasher is an good example. In the US their was like 10 dishwashers to pick from which meant variety and in communism countries their was only one to pick. So people had nothing new. Mikhail Gorbachev wanted change. He even got regular people to help him out with ideas to change the government. The first thing he decided was to give free elections to people. Mikhail Gorbachev didn't like communism, and wanted change but it wasn't easy because its hard for an communism country to began having an government capitalism. It wasn't easy because they didn't know how an capitalism country is suppose to run, Mikhail Gorbachev and his society didnt know how to run the new government. And it been 25 years from now and Russia still has problems with an capitalism goveremnt. But when Mikhail Gorbachev began the capitalism country, America started to like Russia now, because they weren't communism anymore. So thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev Russia changed their government in an big time.

The Collapse of Communism

Well the collapse of communism, started to happen when Eastern bloc are as you can say Warsaw Pact because it was form by Warsaw Pact. Eastern Bloc started to reject communism. After awhile, alittle bit to the end, the breakdown of the Soviet Union happened by reforms and democratic revolutions. And in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union and he relaxed Communist strictures with the reform policies of "glasnost and perestroika". And next thing you would know the Soviet Union did not involve nations, for example Poland, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechslovakia and more countries abandoned the communism government. And in East Germany, people forced that the old Stalinist government to no longer exist and then the new president of East Germany decided to agree on free elections and also on November 9, 1989 the President of East Germany wanted to have the demolition of the Berlin Wall. After awhile the USSR didn't exist anymore and now became as Russia.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid was an Racial-segregation policy in South America and was an policy in the government from 1948 to 1994. People that were considered as non-whites did not have the same right as those who were white. Non-Whites didn't have many rights for them, they couldn't vote. Their was public bathrooms for them, so their was separated bathrooms for white and non-whites. Not only bathrooms, their was also diners and water fountains and more. The word "apartheid" happened in the late 1930's by South of America Bureau for Racial Affairs (SABRA), which was for separation. This first started in the 1948 by the Afrikaner National Party.It would get worser because more ideas about separation was happening. For example there couldn't be mixed marriages or sexual relations between individuals of different race. Then non-whites had their own school, and about 5 universities banned non-white kids from them, so alot of separation was happening and people were racist. Nelson Mandela was very important because thanks to him freedom happened, non-whites not their rights back. Nelson Mandela was in prison for a very long time about 27 years, he went out of prison in February 11, 1990. Nelson Mandela thought this wasn't right, he didn't like the Apartheid Law. Nelson wanted this law to be over so he had strikes for example, he would have non-violent strikes and civil disobedience and more.But one thing we knew has that he did it in non-violent ways, which was an very smart idea. Nelson Mandela was an important person or as they call him an hero because he won Independence and rights for non-whites.

African Independence

African Independence changed Africa alot. From the 1955 to 1975, Africa changed alot. In the 1955 Africa was controlled by the British Colony. Almost every country in Africa was ruled by British but only Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, and also some of South America were not ruled from them. Africans were French Speaking and West Indians began to express their growing sense of black consciousness and pride of Africa. Africans had an Negritude movement, this was an movement to celebrate African Culture, heritage, and values. This movement was viewed the black experience as unique. After the World War II, many European countries were ready to transfer their governments to Africa. One person that was their way to Independence was Ghana. The British colony of the gold coast were the first African colony south of Sahara to win Independence from British. African Americans wanted to have freedom, they didn't want to be controlled. Another important leader that help won Independence was Kwame Nkrumah, he has a former teacher who spend most of his time studying in Untied States. He was wanted to work the Gold Cast to Independence from the British Kwame would organized strikes and boycotts, and this would of happened alot of times. Kwame would be imprisoned by the British Government many times. But thanks to him, they received Independence from British in 1957 and the west coast took the name Ghana. During this Independence people were celebrations about Nkrumah. Nkrumah was the first prime minster and later the president of Ghana. Thanks to him, their was new roads, new schools, and expanded and started new things. Cecil Rhodes was the leader and person how was trying to get British Governments in Africa, he was also racist, he thought that British was the best and the first race and best. And an very important leader was Jomo Kenyatta, he would study very hard and gain alot of education. He became as a carpenter but still wanted to learn about politics which he did. When Europe wanted to invade his home town which they did, he realized and noticed that the British were treating them bad, and he also realized that British wanted to make Africa into an communism government.Jomo Kenyatta tried is best to win freedom but they put him in jail for about 7 years. But when he got, Africa won their Independence and Jomo became the president of Kenva because thanks to him he had influence on Europe. So Africa did change if you look at the map from 1955 to 1975, they won Independence and their was more new countries from the Independence they won.

Film Lesson: The Right Stuff

The movie "The Right Stuff" was actually not a bad movie. This movie was in the setting of the Cold War. I liked it because it showed the airplanes and the tries of launching the American Space-Shuttle to Space. And at the same time, it was also funny. The movie was about the Untied States (US) competing with The Soviet Union (USSR) to see who will go to space first. In the beginning of the movie you see how test pilots are trying out the plane that is fast as the speed of lighting. They want to see if they are able to fly it in a high altitude and see if it was enough power to get in the moon. One test pilot die from the test drive in the movie. The space race took a long time in the progress because it wasn't easy to create a space shuttle and shooting it in the moon. The US was the first one to send somebody to the moon. But here is the catch, the US send a monkey to space first not an person. They didn't want to risk a person life, so they thought sending a monkey to space would be safer. But next thing you know, two or three weeks later the Russians succeed by sending a Person to space. And countries and people started to make fun of the United States because we send a monkey into space and not a human. But Untied States didn't give up on the Race. They kept on trying and doing more tests, and next thing you know we were able to circle around the globe once and then three times around it and next thing you know we were able to circle around the globe 10 times. And that is when we were getting ideas about sending a person(human) to the moon. And that is how we won the race. By beating the Soviet Union in the race that we send a person to the moon. So Untied States won right their in the race.

My Favorite scenes of the movie "The Right Stuff" was when the test pilots were in the plane and you see the view in first person mode. You see all the clouds and how the planes turn around, so I thought that was cool. This is another favorite part, is when United States is trying their best to make a Space Shuttle. And you see how the Untied States were failing. But they kept on trying. And the cool thing was that it was real recording taken in the past. Some parts were actually funny how Untied States were failing on the goal to send a space shuttle to the moon. And you also see how the Untied States would give medical and physical exams on the test pilots, to see if they would be right for the job. So this movie was inserting and funny at the same time. I enjoyed the movie, it was great.

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

NATO is alliance between countries in Europe and North America. The reason of the formation of NATO was that they wanted countries involved wanted a mutual defense alliance so if one country was being attacked then all of the rest countries in NATO will come to their aide, which means help them out in a any way. By providing supplies or going to war with them as alliances. The NATO also helped if a country had economic problems. For example after World War 2, alot of countries faced unstable economics, so for NATO all the countries in it would help each other with their economics under the Marshall Plan. Thanks to this the countries this helped them by rebuilding more quickly and get them in good terms of their state. NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO Major reason was defense. And it was a important thing also about NATO. The NATO was just formed by countries that came up with this idea.

The Warsaw Pact was mostly the Soviet Union involved and its satellite countries. They made the Warsaw Pact to be a response to the NATO. Warsaw Pact was mostly countries in Europe. The Soviet Union wanted to dominated the alliance,which they did. The Soviet Union kept military personal in the other countries of he alliance and kept them running in a government that was socialist. The Soviet Union did this plan because they wanted to strengthen their country and the satellite countries. Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolay Bulganin over took this plan after they got power. This happened in the year 1955. But 20 years later the Warsaw Pact was renewed in 1985. The organization was then weaken badly in the 1980's. The countries that had the military personal had to withdraw them. After that countries started to get out of the Warsaw Pact and later on their were only six countries more that deiced to get out of the pack too. And the Warsaw Pact was just getting smaller.

Schindler's List

In the movie "Schindler's List" the movie illustrated the Holocaust really good, it showed how life was for Jews during the Holocaust. In "Schindler's List" the movie had graphically scenes of Jews dying in the Holocaust. Their were scenes were some Jew got shot in the head or murdered on the spot. In the movie "Schindler's List" you will get the right and well defined picture of how the holocaust looked and was. In the movie you will see how Jews were treated and the Jews only worked and if they didn't they would be killed on the spot or gassed or burned. Only the healthy people would work, because the Germans wanted young and healthy people to work in the labor camps because they wanted to them work and help them in the factories to manufacture new things for the army as a example. Old people or retarded ones and little kids would die first because like i said the Germans wanted fast workers and the Germans also wanted to stop the race of Jews. So they killed kids so the race will stop from producing. The most powerful scene for me in the movie "Schindler's List" was when the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, because you see how people were screamed at and had to pack up things they could carry, which was mostly taken from them later. But it is terrible because you had to see the Jews leave their house which they had a lot of memoirs. They also killed some Jews during this the Germans. And what was inserting was how Jews tried to hide from the Germans in the ghetto, because the hiding spot were amazing, some hided in the floor and some hided even inside a piano. But the sad thing was that later on the day the Germans found their hiding spots and most of them died. Another part that shocked me was when the Germans were doing the Heath checkup on the Jews. And while the people were busy getting tested, the Germans wanted to take away the kids somewhere else in trucks and you see how the mothers and fathers chased for their kids but the parents mostly got pushed off and the amazing part was that some of the kids tried to hide in the camps, and you see one little boy was no spot to hide and jumps to the toilets so he can hide. In the movie "Schindler's List" i will never forget the scenes because they are still stuck in my head. One part that got my eye in the movie "Schindler's List" was the little girl in the pink coat, because you see her in the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto and she is alone and somewhere in the middle where the Germans plan to do the "Final Solution" and you see the same little girl in her pink coat but only burned and died. That is what caught me eye in the movie. I think that the movie "Schindler's List" is most powerful and you will learn alot from that movie about the Holocaust, becasue you will see how Jews were treated and what they had to live threw.

Night and Fog

Night and Fog is a french documentary but has the subtitles in English. I think Nigh and Fog is a very good documentary about the holocaust. My reaction to the documentary was shocking because they had real pictures and some video of the what was happening during the Holocaust. Real video and real pictures which makes you think about what happened during this era. It is shocking what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust, the Jews live threw hell in the Concentration Camps. But the documentary only showed the died people and how they looked like. So it wasn't that bad, the only think that was terrible for me was when the bull-dozer pushed all the people to the dirt, and it was all died Jews that the Germans killed during the holocaust. The documentary was not really powerful to me. I think the movie Schindler's List" was the most powerful to me. Because in the movie "Schindler's List" you see people actually dying, like for example getting shot or killed and in the doucmentry it is only a picture of died people. But in "Schindler's List" they show you the phsically way the Germans treated the Jews during the Holocaust. The documtenary is also graphically because of the pictures and videos were taken during the Holocaust but I think the movie "Schindler's List" is way intersing and better because you see how the Jews had to survie just to make it out. I think persoanlly in the movie "Schindler's List" you will learn more of how it was during the Holocaust.

The Treaty of Versailles (ended WW I)

After World War 1, Germany was faced with a punishemnt. Because they lost the war. Germany had to sign The Treaty Of Versailles. The treaty of Versailles said that since Germany lost the war that everything what happened during the war was their fault. Germany now had to pay for all the damgaes that happened during the world to thier allies. Germany's miltary also had to shrink down to like 100,000 soliders. And Germany also lost some of it's land. Germany had so much to pay, their economy was now runined. They now had a poor economy now because the taxes were so high because they needed to pay off dues. The dues were very high in money. Most of the land that Germany had was given to their allies, which new country's formed. Germany lost alot of people in the war and in their population. I think that the Treaty was not fair out all. Germany wasn't the only one in the war. Germany did do some bad things during the war, they just wanted to win the war. I think that Germany should get blame but with the other countires that were with them. During the time the Germans lost they had a rough time getting back were they started. Their were doing so good at the beginning but then just went crashing. I do think that The Treaty Of Versailles did cause the rise of hilter. Becasue Germany wanted to be a powerful nation again. They wanted to have a good leader. And they thought Hilter was the right person. They thought he was a strong powerful leader. But later on they found out that Hilter was a bad and it was a bad idea picking him as a leader.

Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) Modernization of Turkey

Mustafa is the one who won Independence for Turkey. And he is also the one that found the Turkey Republic and was the first president for Turkey. Turkey was actually run first by Ottoman Empire. Mustafa goal was to modernize Turkey, we didn't want them to compare with the other country's. He made Turkey also secular, which means he put Religon on the Side, it wasn't a law anymore. Secular is when religious belief should not influence public and governmental decisions. In other country's Religon would be a Law. But he wanted to have it different for Turkey. He also changed the style in Turkey, he wanted to make his naton more outlook, European Hats replaced the fez, which the fez has a hat with a picece of a rope on top of it. Women would stop wearing the veil, citizens tooks surnames now, and also the Islamic Calendar gave way to the Western Calendar. The urban life of people's who lived in Turkey changed. Mustafa also introduced nationalism to Turkey. But for here Nationalism wouldn't be rascist. It would be to preserve the independence Of the republic of Turkey. Mustafa was the priesdent for a long time in Turkey. We made alot of changes to his nation. Like I said he made it more Modern.

Gandhi

Gandhi was a very important person for India. Thanks to him India got their Independence. India won Independence from Great Britain. Gandhi was a very smart person he would win India's Independence without violence. Because Great Britain was using violence most of the time, so Gandhi thought if they don't fight back and rebel in non violence way then Great Britain will look bad. Which was a very smart idea. At first the nation didn't listen to him, so Gandhi went on a strike you can say. He fasted for a long time, and then people noticed that he cares about their nation so they started to rebel in a non violence. Gandhi would always go on marches and the people would go with him, they would be on his side because they knew he was doing something good for their nation. One thing that Gandhi did was he made his own supplies. For example he made his own clothes, he boycotted. Clothes cost so much, so Gandhi wanted to rebel. Another thing he rebel for was slat. Great Britain put such a huge tax on salt. So Gandhi and a lot of his followers walked for 240 miles, to the ocean so they get salt, so they can boycott. Gandhi has helped India so much, to get their Independence. I think that thanks to Gandhi India got their Independence. Without him India would lose more people to the violence that was happening. Gandhi was a peace maker, he wanted to get Independence in a peaceful way. Gandhi was still angry when they won Independence because Muslims and Hindus were separated from each other. I think Gandhi Non-violence idea was brilliant. Thanks to Gandhi the nation of India didn't have to worry about getting their Independence anymore.

The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution was very important. It what changed Russia's government. In the old days Russia would have Czar's or Leaders. Russia had a Revolution because it was doing so bad. The people of Russia were being being controlled. The people were poor, starving, and barely had any hope in them. Czar's mostly cared about them and their families. They had no feeling for the people. The people couldn't wait until the revolution would start. So they started. The Russian People wanted to have peace and have everything going well in their country. They wanted change. Some important causes that started was the influence of World War One. Russia was losing so much people during this war. They were not industrialized. They had not much technology. The war was messing up their economy. That like i was saying the people revolted with Czar's. This is when a man named Lenin came with his group called the Bolsheviks. And he took over and was the new leader. He took the idea of Communism from Karl Marx he thought it was a good idea for Russia Government. And from that long time Russia is still a Communism Country. You can say now that Dictatorship was starting in Russia. When Lenin took over their was finally a peace in Russia. People were now happy with their government. Their economy was now on the right track. Lenin and his group the Bolsheviks had this famous saying that they made. "Peace, land and bread" It think this mean that thanks to Lenin and The Bolsheviks, Russia is now in peace which lead to their economy to go up and now they have anything they wanted now. Now they had more land which made Russia be normal again.

Causes Of WWI

World War One was a deadly war that happened. New army equipment were created for this war. Machine Guns, Poison Gas, Tanks and more. World War One also started to use trenches. Alot of people died during this war, there are many causes that started this war. One Very Important Causes that moslty started everything thing was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand On June 28, 1914. He was visiting Sarajevo. The Austria had many problems with Serbia, which they blamed them and this is what mostly triggered the War to start. When Austria demand war on Serbia then their alliance came in. Austria had Germany while Russia has with Serbia. And then so many countries came to this war. The war that started in Serbia and Austria changed in a chain reaction. Another important causes that happened during World War One was Nationalism. Nationalism is mostly the love of a country. This is mostly like racist was happening you can say. Because each country thought their country was the best. A lot of strong nationalist movements happened. Their were people demanding that they were the best. People would hang up posters and have speeches. And if another country would agree with them then they would form some kind of a alliance together. So they would have each other back with for example they went to war. Last but not least another important causes was Militarism. Militarism is moslty based of a government having a strong and huge military army and ready for war any time. During this a lot of new military technology was built. Like I was saying in the beginning machine guns were built and poison gas, tank and much more. Europe's military was very strong in every country. But this all caused a huge amount of Death. So these were the most important causes that caused World War 1 to happened.