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Mr. Hoth
8th Grade Social
Studies Encore
Our Journey continues. This
time, back to 1960 and a world
about to experience dramatic
changes. Our project this time is
an art poster reflecting one
event and its repercussions from
1960 to 1990.
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Unit 2: Unrest at Home and Abroad
In this Unit, students will:
Understand the changing world on the 1960s.
Reflect on social changes and unrest during the Vietnam War.
Learn the history of the 1970s and how it still impacts the world.
Study the 1980s and understand and see how it relates to them.
Question to Ponder:
What do you know about Vietnam?
The 1960 World
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The
World
of
1960
•The Civil Rights Movement was changing America and
starting a social revolution.
•The Cold War dominated World politics, heated up Vietnam,
& created a Space Race between the US and the USSR.
•Average home price: $13,000, average income was $5,300,
Anyone who grew up during the
Cold War remembers the blue and
red maps that illustrated the fear
we felt at the time. The US, and
its capitalistic allies were in shades
of blue, while the Communists
were red and shades of pink. The
rest of the world was divided
between yellows and grays, which
reflected emerging countries or
fence sitting nations, unsure of
who to ally with. Our fears soon
became tangible as news around
the world became darker.
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1960: The World is a-changin’
•OPEC formed and controlled 79% of the world’s oil supply.
Events •3,500 troops sent to S. Vietnam to help counter communists.
•Gary Powers U-2 Spy plane shot down over Russia which
helped accelerate the Space Program.
•Kennedy barely defeated Nixon in November election.
1960
Francis Gary Powers became a pawn of
the Cold War after being shot down
over eastern Russia. His U-2 Spy Plane,
flying at 70,000 feet, was supposedly
too high for the Russians to intercept it
or shoot it down. But, on May 1st, a
Russian surface to air missile did just
that, forcing Powers to eject. At first,
the US denied any spying, but after the
Russians produced Powers on live TV,
the US had to embarrassingly
acknowledge the existence of the plane
and the spy program itself. Powers was
held until 1963, and was quietly traded
for a similar Russian spy.
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1961-1962: The End of the World?
1961- •Yuri Gagarin became the first human in Space, soon followed by
1962 Alan Shepard a month later, Kennedy vows to land on the moon.
•US Cuban exiles fail in attempt to overthrow Cuba.
•Berlin Wall constructed to prevent further defections.
•Cuban Missile Crisis almost starts WW3.
•James Meredith becomes first black enrolled at Ole’ Miss.’
DefCon is an alert system used that
reflects different states of military
preparedness or readiness.
Normally, our level is 5, which reflects
normal day to day military operations
and procedures. As the number
lowers, more military personal are
ready to answer the call or respond to
an attack. The level has only been at
3 twice, once during the 1973 ArabIsraeli war and the other time during
9/11. DefCon 2 was only reached
once-during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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1963-1964: Events Have Consequences
1963- •March on Washington and MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
1964 •President Kennedy gunned down in Dallas.
•4 black girls killed in a church bombing in Birmingham
•Freedom summer registers thousands of new black voters.
•Civil Rights Acts ends Jim Crow laws in the South.
•Gulf of Tonkin incident leads to more US troops in Vietnam.
1964 was a pivotal year in our
history. Lyndon Johnson, a
southerner, found himself President
after JFK’s assassination. Despite his
personal beliefs, Johnson
understood part of America’s
strength lies in our diversity, and
laws preventing people from voting
based upon the color of their skin
were not acceptable in modern
times. The South though never
forgave the Democrats and Johnson
and have voted solid Republican
ever since.
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1965-1966: Vietnam Heats Up
1965- •34 killed and 1,000 injured during the Watts Riots in L.A.
1966 •After the Selma March, the Voting Rights Act was passed.
•Operation Rolling Thunder starts massive bombing campaign
of N. Vietnam while U.S. troops in Vietnam top 500,000.
•Vietnam War protests hit major cities around the world.
•Miranda rights decision by the US Supreme Court.
Protests against the Vietnam war
actually started in 1963. By 1964,
folks singers like Bob Dylan and
Joan Baez started organizing large
scale protests in cities like San
Francisco. After footage of Marines
burning a village were aired on CBS
in 1965, more and more Americans
started asking the age old war time
question, “what are we fighting
for?” By 1966, public opinion had
shifted and only 48% of the country
supported the war.
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1967-1968: Summer of Love
1967- •After blockading the Straight of Tiran, Israel attacked Egypt,
1968 Syria, and Iraq in the Six Day War; Egypt closes the Suez Canal.
•Race riots and Peace protests hit more American cities.
•Summer of Love draws 100,000 to San Francisco.
•N. Vietnam launched the TET offensive which killed thousands.
•US denies further troop increases in Vietnam.
•Johnson announced he will not seek re-election, Nixon wins.
•MLK and Robert Kennedy assassinated.
The failure of the TET offensive was a
dramatic turning point in Vietnam. TET
was a massive and simultaneous attack on
50 South Vietnam cities during new year
celebrations. Even though the attack was
unsuccessful, the thousands of dead on
all sides made further US commitment
impossible, leading to the ouster of
Robert McNamara, the architect of the
war, and General Westmoreland, the
commander of US troops in Vietnam.
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1969-1970: Man on the Moon
1969- •Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to land on the moon.
1970 •Woodstock draws 350,000 to New York for a 3 day concert.
•250,000 march on Washington to protest Vietnam.
•Stonewall Riots take place in NYC.
•Apollo 13 moon mission abandoned after serious mishap.
•US secretly invades Cambodia, 4 protesters killed at Kent State.
After President Nixon announced that
Cambodia had been invaded,
thousands of college students
nationwide protested what they saw
as an escalation of a war that had
appeared to be winding down. At
Kent State in Ohio, the situation was
tense for 4 days as crowds of students
threw bottles and rocks at police. The
National Guard was called to bring
order, but on May 4th, troops fired 67
rounds in 13 seconds into 2,000
protestors, killing 4 and wounding 13.
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1971-1972: China Opens Up
1971- •Attica Prison riot kills 10 hostages and 29 prisoners in NY.
1972 •Idi Amin seizes control of Uganda.
•Dan Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, which further
eroded support for Vietnam and caused mistrust in the public.
•11 Israel athletes killed at the Munich Olympics.
•Democratic HQ at the Watergate Hotel burglarized.
•Last US ground troops leave Vietnam.
•Nixon visited China, opening it up to future trade with the US.
Watergate has become so synonymous
with a scandal, that most of us have
forgotten what the original scandal was
about. In June, 1972, 5 men, known
collectively as the Plumbers, broke into and
bugged the National Democratic
Headquarters, located at the Watergate
Hotel. Subsequent investigations showed
the burglars were paid out of campaign
funds to reelect the President. Nixon’s
attempt to cover-up the scandal by abusing
his authority would cost him his job.
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1973-1974: Abuse of Power
1973- •American troops left Vietnam and we ended bombings of
1974 Cambodia and Laos.
•Pinochet takes over Chile after a successful coup.
•Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt/Syria leads to oil
embargo by OPEC, energy prices soar.
•President Nixon uses his office to try and contain Watergate.
•Nixon resigns to avoid removal; President Ford grants full pardon.
President Nixon appointed special prosecutor
Archibald Cox to find out all the facts behind the
Watergate break-in. When Cox ordered Nixon to
turn over all relevant audio tapes, the President
refused and ordered his Attorney General, Elliot
Richardson to fire Cox. The top lawyer refused and
resigned in protest. Nixon next ordered Deputy
Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to remove
Cox, but he also refused and resigned. Eventually,
Robert Bork, the Solicitor General, complied and
fired Cox. But the damage from the Saturday Night
Massacre was done, and Congress started
Impeachment hearings for a gross abuse of power.
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1975-1976: America Recovers & Celebrates
1975- •Khmer Rouge take over Cambodia, killing over 2 million.
1976 •Vietnam unified after Saigon falls to the Communists.
•President Ford survives two assassination attempts.
•United States celebrates Bicentennial.
•Israeli commandos free hostages held in Entebbe, Uganda.
•Soweto uprising and massacre kills 700 school children.
•Viking Landers send images of another planet for the 1st time.
•Jimmy Carter easily wins against Gerald Ford for President.
Palestinian terrorists hijacked Air France
flight 139 bound to Paris from Tel Aviv,
Israel. The airplane was diverted first to
Libya, and then to Uganda. Idi Amin
tried to negotiate a release, but his
efforts were half hearted. After a week,
the Israelis launched a successful bold
rescue of all hostages, which resulted in
one commando killed. Only 53 minutes
was needed in one of the most precise
anti-terrorist operations ever conducted.
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1977-1978: Peace at Last?
1977- •US agrees to return the Canal to Panama.
1978 •Trans-Alaska Pipeline opens and soon supplies 15% of our oil.
•President Carter pardons all Vietnam draft dodgers.
•Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel signed.
•People Temple’s cult commits mass suicide in Guyana.
•Numerous teacher strikes extend student’s summer vacations.
Jim Jones moved his People’s Temple cult
to Guyana in 1977 with almost 1,000
followers. Word quickly got out that
some of the people in Guyana were
being held against their will. California
Congressman Leo Ryan went to
Jonestown with reporters to investigate.
15 followers agreed to leave with Ryan,
but were ambushed at the local airport
by Jones’ goons. Jim Jones then ordered
his congregation to commit mass suicide
as he knew others would follow. 910
followers died of cyanide poisoning in
the worst mass suicide in history.
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1979-1980: The World Heats Up Again
1979- •Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
1980 •Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania.
•Shah thrown out of power in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeni returns and
assumes power; 63 hostages taken after US embassy overrun.
•Failed rescue attempt for the Hostages results in a dozen dead.
•Iran-Iraq war starts.
•Mount St. Helens blows in Washington, killing 57.
•Reagan elected President.
The first face of Islamic terrorism and
extremism came to most Americans
when we watched Iranians storm our
embassy and emerge with hostages. For
the next 444 days, we tuned in every day
to the news to learn their fate.
Khomeni’s desired an Islamic State and
for the most part succeeded. But Iran
also showed that not all Muslims are the
same when Iraq invaded in September,
partly out of fears that Iran’s Revolution
would extend into Iraq’s Shiite majority.
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1981-1982: A New America
1981- •First Shuttle flight into Space.
1982 •Air Traffic Controller strike ends after Reagan fires them all.
•Solidarity Union Strikes in Poland, starting their process towards
democracy and opening the first cracks in Communism.
•John Paul II shot in Rome.
•Brief Falklands War ends with victory for England over Argentina.
•Cyanide laced Tylenol capsules kill 7 in Chicago.
•First artificial heart transplant.
By 1981, one of three Polish workers were
affiliated with the only non-communist
union in Poland, Solidarity. The Union
used civil resistance to advance their
agenda of free elections. The Soviets
responded by declaring Martial Law. But,
by 1989, the situation changed and the
popular Union won nationwide elections.
The dismantling of communism had
started and in two short years the Soviet
Union itself would be dismantled.
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1983-1984: A New Epidemic
1983- •63 killed in bombing of US Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon.
1984 •Ethiopian famine kills 4 million, the world responds with relief.
•3,500 dead after chemical spill in Bhopal, India.
•21 killed during mass shooting at McDonalds in California.
•Subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz shot 4 black youths on a
New York subway after previously being harassed.
•AIDS virus identified after claiming 5,000 lives.
Famines are rarely caused by a lack of food; instead,
most are human caused. Ethiopia had been a mess
under Emperor Haile Selassie for six decades and his
oppressive regime ended in 1974 after a military coup.
His policies of using food as a weapon against his
opponents made natural droughts and famines far
worse. After Selassie’s death, civil war broke out
between competing factions. When drought struck
northern Africa in 1982, the new Ethiopian
government used the crisis to punish rebels and
withheld crucial relief, forcing the international
community to step in. The end figures are still in
dispute, but estimates range that 1 to 4 million people
starved to death.
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1985-1986: Strange Events
1985- •Volcanic eruption in Columbia kills 25,000.
1986 •Titanic found in 12,000 feet of water.
•Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine radiates Europe.
•7 million Americans participate in Hands Across America.
•Space Shuttle Challenger blows up, killing 7 astronauts.
•Iran-Contra Affair scandal.
•Human Genome project launched, complete in 2000.
Only two nuclear accidents have reached
the highest level of classification-level 7Fukushima and Chernobyl. On April 26th,
1986, one of four nuclear reactors located
near the Ukrainian town of Pripyat suffered
a nuclear meltdown that in turn ignited the
power plant. The fire, and subsequent
smoke spread radioactivity throughout the
Ukraine and Europe. 31 workers were killed
outright, but hundreds of thousands were
exposed to high levels of radiation, which
were 400 times higher than the Hiroshima
bombing of 1945.
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1987-1988: Milestones
1987- •USS Start struck by Iraqi missile, 37 sailors killed.
1988 •World population hits 5 Billion people.
•PanAm Flight 103 exploded over Scotland, killing 270 people.
•Piper Alpha Drilling platform exploded and kills 167 in the N. Sea.
•USS Vincennes shoots down Iranian Passenger jet, killing 290.
•Fires in Yellowstone destroys ¼ of the park.
•George HW Bush elected President.
The Vincennes thought they were under
attack by F-14 Tomcats, operated by the
Iranian Republican Guard. The Captain
and his crew were exonerated, but the US
agreed to pay family members 62 million
dollars in compensation. Flight 103 on
the other hand was blown up by a bomb
planted by Libyan terrorists. In 2003,
Libyan president Gadhafi agreed to pay
compensation to family members 15
years after the event. Pan Am, one of the
first Airlines in the world, folded in 1991
due to flight 103 and internal problems.
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1989-1990: Our Modern World
1989- •100s of Pro Democracy protestors killed in Tiananmen Square.
1990 •Free elections held in Poland and Czechoslovakia.
•Exxon Valdez spilt 11 million gallons of oil in Alaska.
•7.1 Quake hits San Francisco area, killing 70.
•Iranian Earthquake killed 50,000.
•Chunnel construction finished, connecting France and England.
No one knows the exact death toll that
resulted from the Chinese army
moving in and stamping out
demonstrations in Beijing. The
protesters not only wanted a more
democratic government, but were also
upset over the repent corruption
across China. At the height of the
protests, almost 1 million people filled
the large 109 acre meeting area. Most
of the deaths occurred as civilians
tried to stop soldiers and tanks from
entering and dispersing the protestors.