History Notes

-Social movements
● Mexican Americans (Caesar Chavez)
● Native Americans (Alcatraz)
● Homosexuality
-Lyndon B Johnson
● the war in poverty (discovered link between poverty on crime)
● The “Great Society”, similar to the new deal, civil rights act of 1964 and 1965, voting rights
act of 1965, education acts, department of housing and urban development (HUD)
● Can a president succeed both domestically and internationally?
-Vietnam “Police Action”
● Vietnamese seek independence from France, led by Ho Chi Minh, US gives support to France
● France withdraws forces in 1954
● North becomes communist
-Vietnam War Main Events
● US sends in “Military Advisors”
● US sends in troops 1965
● Viet Cong used guerrilla tactics
● Americans massacre My Lai, 1968 (people start opposing the war)
● Nixon pulls out troops by 1975
-Lack of Public Support
● draft dodgers
● Protests
● Berkeley and free speech, counterculture develops, hippies and San Francisco
● “For what it’s worth” (song)
-Vietnam war effects
● 56,000 dead and 300,000 wounded, agent orange
● Communist Vietnam
● Hate of war (dragged on, why are we there)
● Isolationism (not get involved)
● Lack of trust in the government (how could they put us in this war)
● Inflation
-Vietnam veterans and PTSD
● “Baby killers” not hero
● Displaced
● PTSD, “suicide is painless”, “Born in the USA”, Rambo
-Stagnation in the 1970s
● Vietnam vs domestic needs
● High inflation + high employments = stagflation
 ● Energy Crisis
● Iranian Revolution, US hostages taken in Teheran, Iran in 1979
-Richard M Nixon
● VP to Eisenhower
● Lost to Kennedy in 1960
● Cold warrior
● Moderate but ended up liberal, desegregation, wage/price control, EPA (environmental
protection agency), China 1972 (ease relations with China)
-The Watergate Scandal
● June 1972 five men caught bugging Democratic headquarters at Watergate building
● “Plumbers” working for CREEP
● Nixon receives a landslide victory in 1972
● Washington post reporters uncover possible link to Nixon
● Nixon is forced to release White House tapes
● Nixon resigns 1974
● Ford pardons Nixon
● Americans lose faith in their president
-The Disco Generation
● Saturday Night Fever, “Staying’ Alive”
● What struggles did people face in the 1970s?
● How did they react to struggles?
1980s
– Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
○ He had been an actor
○ Former governor of California
○ 69 years old
○ Neoconservative (New Right) Democratic Party was solid but republican was wavering
and he changed that
○ Cold warrior
– Neoconservatism
○ Part of a larger conservative movement
○ Response to 1960s-1970s
○ AIDS first diagnosed in 1981
○ “Just say no” Nancy Reagan (to drugs and bad behavior) WAR on drugs (not that
effective)
○ Pro-life movement
○ Religious revival
– Reaganomics
○ Supply-side or “voodoo” economics
 ○ Reduce government spending and government regulation
○ Free enterprise
○ Tax cuts (for people who will hopefully put money back into the economy)
○ Tighten the money supply
○ Give money to the people and they will put it into the economy
○ Stimulate investment
– Effects
○ 1981-82 recession
○ Social programs cut
○ Massive military spending
○ $2 trillion in national debt
○ Inflation fell
○ Increased government spending
– Reviving the Cold War
○ Soviet empire is the “focus of evil in the modern world”
○ Goal: outspend the soviets (Soviet’s have always been poor so we’ve always been
outspending them)
○ “Starwars”: Strategic Defense Initiative things in space to stop nuclear missiles (never
actually happened) (how to defend from Soviet Union in space)
○ Several meetings with Gorbachev
– Why did the Cold War end
○ Mikhail Gorbachev, 1985. glasnost-openness. Perestroika-restructuring
○ Communism collapses in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev allows it to happen
○ Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989 -“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
○ Fall of the Soviet Union, 1991
– Bush Sr. And the Gluf War
○ Gulf war, 1991 (operation

Clinton
Somalia ended in disaster
Rwanda genocide us didn’t get involved
Bosnia Serbian genocide

Today

Freedom to practice religion

Pioneers
Quakers
Percecution

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