Book Report

Black Hawk Down was an exciting thriller of a book about modern war going on in Somalia.  This book was about American troops going into Somalia to protect its people that were not being treated fairly by the Somalian government.  The troops were being sent in because warlords were allowing their people to starve to death. The world had sent food, and the warlords hoarded it. The world had decided to stop this. Today's mission was to invade the Habr Gidr clan that was in Mogadishu Somalia. The clan was led by Mohamed Farrah Aidid, but that day's targets were two of his lieutenants. They were to be arrested and imprisoned with other clan members that had already been captured. At 3:32 P.M. the armada launched. They flew from the coastal airport into the city of Mogadishu. Above the city the men could see the destructions the city had experienced during civil war. Many buildings were demolished and the streets were crumbling. The Black Hawks were down low over the city, and the Little Birds were closing in on the target. Tires burning on the street near the target set alarm. It was a way Somalis signaled trouble and summoned militia. 

When the Little Birds came down people and cars began to scatter. Some people were gesturing eagerly. The Black Hawks would move in next. People began poring into the streets with weapons. Others were building barricades or lighting fires. Most of the soldiers saw Super Six One going down. Chief Warrant Officer Cliff Wolcott was the pilot of the helicopter. The chopper went into a spin. It hit the top of a house before it came to a rest on its side in an alley. Two Americans were able to climb from the crash. 
Super Six Four was asked to fill the downed helicopter's position. On the ground men were moving toward the crash. Some men had not seen the chopper go down and did not understand why they were not leaving yet. 

When darkness fell the amateur Somalis went home. There was less firing but they were more accurate. At the site of the first wreckage as long as the soldiers showed no light there was no shooting. They could here promises to send a rescue team over the radio. A bit before midnight they finally heard them miles away. By midnight they knew the rescue was getting closer. It was nearly one hundred vehicles, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and Humvees. 

The First Computers

Charles Babbage, the father of the original computer was a mechanical engineer who got the original idea for the computer when he tried to invent something for the use of navigation calculations.  Due to the technology being used on this "first computer" it was at least a century ahead of its time.  Parts were made individually for the computer, not a single part came from a factory or anywhere else.  Everything was made completely by hand, especially the hardware of the computer.  Computers nowadays come in pieces and then are put together with each part assembled separately.  Unlike computers today, Babbage put every single part of the computer together himself, each and every part built separately and then combined to create a truly innovationary device used daily by most Americans.  Babbage's son, Henry was truly the first creator of the first computer after compiling his fathers work into a smaller more simplified version of the computer that was far more usable.

However this type of computer was never marketed to the public.  There were several different computers created around this time, one of them being the Manchester Mark 1.  The Manchester Mark 1 was truly the first computer that was ever used all around the world.  It was one of the earliest stored program computers, meaning it was able to hold its own programs and hold its own memory.  The success of this very first computer went smoothly for nine hours on the first day it was released before a problem was encountered.  The IBM 650 was the truly original computer that was produced and sold over two thousand different systems.  The IBM 650 was used commonly among many scientists and engineers everywhere.  It was the first computer to convert special characters from a two decimal code. Without this technology the IBM 650 wouldn't be able to type out words and coding commonly used at the time.  The IBM was created back in 1952 and parts and software were produced for it all the way up until around 1969 when the next model was released as an even better computer that sold even more units.  The pure size of this machine is hard to compare to any computers we have today.  Each system was a set of different machines that took up an incredible amount of space compared to the small compact computers we have today.

13-2

What is the goal of containment?
To keep communism in its own confines and not let it spread.

How is GREECE the first battlefront in the cold war?
Because the Greek communists attacked the Greek government and Britain was forced to step in.

What is the Marshall plan?
European recovery plan which gives European nations American aid to help rebuild economies.

What is the Berlin Airlift?
American French and German areas of Berlin/Germany needed a lot of supplies that had to be airdropped in to the countries with countless amounts of food and water.

What is NATO?
North Atlantic Treaty Orginization. Which is a mutual defense alliance.

What happened in China?
There was a Chinese civil war where the Chinese communists revolted against Chinese nationalist government.

Make a 5 step timeline in Korean War.
1.) 1949 NATO pact signed 

2.) 1950 Korea started to fight South Korea 

3.) June 1950 Truman sends support to South Korean side

4.) January 1951 Chinese step into Korea and peace talks start
5.) 1953 Eisenhower is elected and says he will end Korean War
6.) 1954 Korea and south Korea make a trues

13-1

Comprehension questions, Chapter 13-1
Write on paper, or on blog.

What was the goal for Roosevelt after the war?  What were Soviet goals about Germany?
To promote economic growth by increasing world trade. Soviets wanted to  secure their borders.
What did FDR think was 'key' to world peace?
Economic growth.
What was 'declaration of liberated europe, and how successful was it?'
It asserted the right of all people to choose the form of government they wanted to be under.
How was Germany to be controlled?
It was split in four regions controlled by four different countries. Berlin was also split the same way.
What was Truman's view about how to deal with USSR?
Truman said that we must stand up to the Russians and did exactly that at a meeting.
What is a satellite nation?
The communist countries of Eastern Europe.
What is an 'iron curtain'
The imaginary barrier between the Western and Eastern Europe.

Notes

11-1
Fascism: extreme nationalism
Stalin: ussr dictator who killed many
Hitler: leader of nazi party killed many people
Mein Kampf: hitlers book called my struggle. It outlined his whole plan for total world domination.

Isolationism: staying out of the war

Internationalism: involved in foregin affairs, was Roosevelt wanted

11-2
Anschluss: German takeover of Australia
Sudetenland: ugoslavia
Appeasement: giving in to hitler with things like Anschluss and Sudetenland
Nazi-Soviet Non aggression Pact
Blitzkrieg: lightning war
Dunkirk: major battle where allies lost- port on Coast of France
Battle of Britain: war of bombers and planes

11-3, and 11-4
Kristallnacht: night of the broken glass, start of the holocaust
Holocaust: 6 million Jews and 6 million other minorities were killed. Hitler wanted total power.
Concentration Camps/Extermination Camps
Pearl Harbor

12-1
Liberty Ships
Double V Campaign

12-2
Bataan: where American and Filipino forces surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942. The prisoners had to March 65 miles to a prison camp, and the march was later known as the Bataan death  march.
Doolittle raid: Doolittle was appointed to lead a raid on Tokyo, and he did so by loading 16 b-25s onto an aircraft carrier. This was the first time that a bomb fell on Japan, so it raised American morale and made the Japanese very angry.
Coral SeaCoral Sea: in march of 1942, Americans decoded a Japanese message about a Japanese attack on New Guinea. American sent two carriers that made the Japanese turn around, so Japan was not able to take over the American supply lines to Australia.
Midway: The U.S. intercepted Japan's plan to attack the Midway Islands. Because the U.S. was able to stop Japan in a surprise attack, Japan had to retreat and it was a victory for the U.S.
Erwin Rommel: Commander of the German forces in North America. He was a brilliant leader who had the nickname of "Desert Fox."
Kassarine Pass: Germans defeated the unprepared and outmatched Americans, who suffered 7000 casualities. This resulted Patton's promotion to general, because the old general was fired.
Convoy System: A system where cargo ships traveled in packs, and were escorted by Navy Warships. This helped protect the precious supplies that were being shipped over sea.
Stalingrad: Germany was convinced that if they captured Stalingrad, then they would be able to cut off Russia's resources and destroy their army and economy. Russia held their ground though, so the Germans were not able to capture the city.

12-3
Rosie the Riviter: a character from the popular song by the four vagabonds.she was a symbol of the government campaign that was trying to get more women hired to do jobs that the men at war used to do. 
Zoot suit Riots: teens in California would wear zoot suits which were brightly colored suits, and then older people got very mad about it and told them that they couldn't wear the suits. 2500 servicemen went into a Latino neighbor hood and attacked because of zoot suits.  
Detroit Riots: lots of people were moving to Detroit to try and find work, which caused a mass pile up of people. The riots started with a group of teen girls, and led to a whole city affair. It was mostly caused by racism.
Rationing:there were not enough supplies for everyone in the u.s. As well as all the solders. People were given rationing books to solve this problem, so that everyone could have the necessities, but more than that was not allowed to make sure that there was enough for people overseas.

Victory gardens: This was a way that people got around rationing, because they would just grow their own food. These gardens were a win win for everyone, because they were adding more food into circulation. 

12-4

Strategic bombing: the allies dropped boms on Germany in a strategic manor. They had dropped many tons of explosives on Germany every month for over 3 years. the bombing didn't compleatly destroy Germany, but it did mess up their oil production and railroad system.

Overlord: the allies tricked the Germans into thinking that they were going to attack pas-de-Calais, when they were really going to attack the beaches of Normandy. They did this by planting empty Tents and fake machinery as a decoy.

Island Hopping: going from one island to another, smashing and blasting. Eventually you get places to land huge planes. Island hopping was very helpful to the us troops because the islands became big ports for the next isnakd attack, over and over.

Guadalcanal: battle that was fought in the jungle. The Americans were unprepared for the environment and terrain, and so that was a big obstacle for the troops to overcome.

Kamikaze: Japan's final attempt, where people would fly their planes into American boats and such. This was a horrible but pretty effective tactic. 

12-5
Battle of the Bulge: last major nazi offensive to destroy allies. Hitler wanted to cut off Allies supplies coming in through Belgium, but it didn't work and the Germans had to surrender. The allies had won.
Hiroshima: august 6, 1945, the us dropped the worlds first atomic bomb on the town of Hiroshima in Japan. The explosion killed 90% of the city, but thousands more died from radiation later.
Manhattan Project: the code name for the American project to build an atomic bomb.it was headed by general groves, and once they created a bomb they tested it in New Mexico.

Nuremberg Trials: the trails that were heald to bring nazi war criminals to justice. These were 13 trials that we're carried out charged nazis with crimes against peace and humanity.
UN: United Nations was a international political organization that was formed by Roosevelt to prevent another war. The UN would have a general assembly, where all member nations would get one vote.

Short Essays
Changing role for Women in the War: there were more jobs for women, especially in factory's,
Changing role for African Americans: in factories there were more jobs available, and blacks got equal pay as whites.
Pick a battle in EUROPE as a turning point, and explain why: Stalingrad- major defeat for the Germans.
Pick a battle in PACIFIC as a turning point, and explain why: midway- first Japanese defeat
Pros and Cons of bombing japan.  p. 514.  AND YOUR OPINION: pro- don't have to invade them, but showed that we are powerful. Cons- killed many civilians and we didn't necessarily have to do it.
Why was the US able to fight a war on 2 fronts: because we had so many factories, that we were able to produce a ton of supplies. America wasn't under attack either, so that helped, and we had many allies. 

How did the end of WW1 lead to WW2: treaty of Versailles was a very flawed peace treaty, that was way too harsh on Germany.  It made Germany want to get back at everyone else.

Earth Day Video

"A Fierce Green Fire" is a movie about the environmental movements during the early 20th century.  People finally started to think about how the environment was being affected by all the pollution and things people were doing, we were seemingly destroying ourselves.  The movie showed what people started doing to help the effort to "fix" the world once again.  Things like whaling and the Love Canal which were previously unknown to the public were showed through this film and released into the world.

The True Problem of Whaling

Despite the killing of whales being banned since 1986, around a thousand are still killed each and every year.  The Japanese are the most guilty of the killings and still attempt to continue it even though the species is endangered.  Some species of whales are near extinction because of the hundreds murdered each year.  The only thing that is truly being done to try and save the whales are several conservation groups that are using the money they've raised to send out ships in attempt to scare away the whaling boats.  The government has yet to get involved and still does very little to try and help the dying species.

http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/whaling.asp

Reliance on Fossil Fuels

Not only the United States, but the entire planet has far too much dependance on fossil fuels which we will not have forever.  Maybe not within a few years, but in the future, we will run totally dry on the fossil fuels that power most cars and tons of other machinery.  Raising gas prices over the years has the potential to harm our economy in a serious way.  The high use of gas in our cars is what is driving the problems of pollution.  Think how often most people fill up their cars, most every couple weeks to a month.  If we don't start changing over to other sources of energy like solar and wind, we may run dry.

http://www.mineralwebs.com/problem-with-fossil-fuels.php

12-2

Nimitz- Commander of the United States Navy in the pacific.  Planned operations against the Japanese using the aircraft carriers that were mostly unharmed from Pearl Harbor.

MacArthur- Commander in the Philippines that lead the troops there to retreat from the Japanese to the Bataan peninsula.

Bataan- the Bataan peninsula was a very rough terrain that the Japanese were not used to. MacArthur was able to hold them off because of the diseases the Japanese caught from the U.S.

Doolittle raid- James Doolittle led 16 B-25 bombers from an aircraft carrier to bomb japan and land in china. This was their first rebellion against Japan after Pearl Harbor.

Coral sea- Americans intercepted the Japanese plan to attack New Guinea.  America sent two aircraft carriers to intercept them.

Midway- Japanese, once again unaware of the intercepted transmissions fell into the Americans trap and launched their aircraft against ours.

Afrika Corps- the German forces in Africa.  Sent by Adolf Hitler. Famous leader General Irwin Rommel

Erwin Rommel- the general of the Afrika Corps. Nicknamed the desert fox because of his success.

El Almein- Battle in which the British forces in Africa forced Rommel and his troops to retreat.

Patton- American forces leader in Africa. Captured the city of Casablanca.

Casablanca- city captured by Patton and the British forces.

Kassarine pass- The battle in which the Americans were outnumbered and out maneuvered and outfought. They suffered 7000 casualties and lost 200 tanks.

Convoy system- cargo ships travelled in groups and we're escorted by navy warships.

Stalingrad- Hitler ordered troops to capture strategic oil fields in the Ukraine and Russia. Stalingrad was the most important of them all.