The Korean War - North and South Korea

The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korea and South Korea. The conflict arose from the attempts of the two Korean powers to re-unify Korea under their respective governments. The period immediately before the war was marked by escalating border conflicts at the 38th Parallel and attempts to negotiate elections for the entirety of Korea. These negotiations ended when the North Korean Army invaded the South on June 25, 1950. Under the aegis of the United Nations, nations allied with the United States intervened on behalf of South Korea. After rapid advances in a South Korean counterattack, North-allied Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea. While some have referred to the conflict as a civil war, many other factors were at play. Each side was supported by external powers and the conflict expanded, becoming a proxy war in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

Reagan/Sandinistas/Contras - Nicaragua/El Salvador


President Reagan became convinced that the Sandinistas' 1979 victory in Nicaragua could spark off revolution throughout the region and threaten the security of the United States.
Sandinidtas were the left-wing of revolutionaries.
The Sandinistas never defined themselves as communist.
They set up the clearly political Sandinista People's Army, to replace the National Guard. And they began to redistribute wealth, expropriating large estates.
This was enough to alarm Ronald Reagan, who had become US president in 1981. Reagan became implacably opposed to the Sandinista government.
At the same time, a disillusioned Sandinista commander, Eden Pastora, set up an opposition base in Honduras to the north. Both groups became known as the "contras", that is counter-revolutionary forces.
In 1986, the Reagan government, secretly and illegally, transferred to the contras the proceeds of clandestine sales of military equipment supplied to Iran.
Made unpopular by the need to fight a long and costly war against the US-backed contras, Sandinistas were unexpectedly voted out of office in elections in February 1990.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/269619.stm

Ho Chi Minh/Domino Theory - Vietnam



A theory that if one nation comes under Communist control, then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control.
A theory that one event will set off a train of similar events.
The domino theory was a foreign policy theory, promoted by the government of the United States, that speculated that if one land in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino effect suggests that some change, small in itself, will cause a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change.

Ho Chi Minh
was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary and statesman who was Prime Minister (1946–1955) and President (1946–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954.
Some Vietnamese who lived through the war hated Ho Chi Minh for bringing chaos to the country.the Vietnamese in the U.S., who fled communist rule after 1975, view Hồ as a murderer and traitor who ruined Vietnam by starting a war







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh

Osama bin Laden - Afghanistan

Born 10 March 1957 is a member of the prominent Saudi bin Laden family and the founder of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda, best known for the September 11 attacks on the United States and is also the most wanted person in the world.
Bin Laden and fellow Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the border of Afghanistan or Pakistan's
Bin Laden believes that the restoration of Sharia law will set things right in the Muslim world, and that all other ideologies—"pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy"—must be opposed.
Osama bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States The attacks involved the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 11, and American Airlines Flight 77; the subsequent destruction of those planes and the World Trade Center.
Know one is sure how or who kill Osama Bin Laden.


















http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden

Pinochet/Allende/Nixon - Chile

Salvador Allende was the world's first democratically-elected Marxist leader of any nation.
his term was to be cut short less than three years later by General Augusto Pinochet. Both Allende and Pinochet were dogmatic men, each believing his cause was the right one and neither left room for compromise - when two men of this disposition clash, tragedy is the only outcome.
At 4am on 11 September, a date that is now synonymous with strikes against democracy, military units stationed throughout Chile reported for action to the leaders of the coup, led by Augusto Pinochet.
The most effective operation was carried the military has cut out all the phone lines and round everyone in a Island. The whole operation took less than 85 minutes to execute.
President Allende was alerted to the fact that the navy were trying to capture the port of Valparaíso and on hearing the news, he immediately removed himself to La Moneda, he had the chance to run away in a helicopter but he wasn’t afraid and stay to fight.
group of people were seen waving the white flag of surrender at a side door of La Moneda.
At the same time Allende suicide with a gun in his room.

Nixon was elected president on 1968. The most immediate task facing President Nixon was the Vietnam War. He initially escalated the conflict, overseeing secret bombing campaigns, but soon withdrew American troops and successfully negotiated a ceasefire with North Vietnam, effectively ending American involvement in the war.
Domestically, he implemented new economic policies which called for wage and price control and the abolition of the gold standard. He was reelected by a landslide in 1972
He suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A716591

Kennedy, Krushcev, and Castro -Cuba

Born: 1925Died: 1968 Kennedy attended Harvard University, but took a leave of absence in the middle of his studies to join the United States Navy during World War II. He help with the campain of his brother which make him president in 1961.Robert Kennedy's role in the Missile Crisis was both as a facilitator and as an unquestioned confidante. Kennedy also proved his ability to reason clearly and look ahead in the discussion about why the missiles should be removed.

Castro:

Born: 1926
Died: 2 years after graduating from school in law office he run for election in cuba. The elections were never carried out because then dictator Fulgencio Batista halted them and ended democracy in Cuba. This was perhaps, the defining moment in Castro's life. Castro assembled a small force and attacked the Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on July 26. Castro was captured and sentenced to fifteen years in prison In 1955, however, Batista released him. Castro immediately went into exile in Mexico where he began to train a group of revolutionaries called the 26th of July Movement. In December 1956, Castro's forces invaded Cuba. The rebels suffered losses, but many were able to escape to the Sierra Maestra. Shortly after Castro took control of the government, relations with the United States declined. In 1960, he took over U.S. oil refineries in Cuba. The United States then stopped buying Cuban sugar. Castro's role in the crisis differs greatly from the other two leaders. Once he decided to accept the missiles, he lost control over their fate. unfortunately for the Cuban people, it occurred on their island. In the end, Castro had little effect on the outcome of the crisis and felt betrayed by the U.S.S.R. The crisis solved few of Cuba's problems and left the country to deal with the United States alone.

Nikita Khrushchev:

Premier of the soviet Union. He was born in 1894, he spend his early years working as a shepherd. After fighting in World War I, he joined the Communist party and the Red Army in 1918 and fought in the civil war. During World War II he gained favor with Stalin and in 1953, at Stalin's death, Khrushchev was a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Six months later, he became first secretary, or head of the Communist Party of the country. Over the next five years Khrushchev outmaneuvered his political rivals and became Premier in 1958. He wanted to avoid war with the Western nations and, at the same time, increase economic competition between Communist and non-Communist countries. The policy, known as peaceful co-existence, caused bitter quarrels between the Soviet Union and China. Then he placed nuclear missiles in Cuba to restore the balance of power in the cold war. Some years later the united states discovered the missiles and Khrushchev was stunned. In 1971 he dies.

http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/people/castro.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/11046/people/r_kennedy.html

Arbenz, Armas, and the CIA - Guatemala

Arbenz was elected President of Guatemala in 1950 to continue a process of socio- economic reforms that the CIA
The first CIA effort to overthrow the Guatemalan president--a CIA collaboration with Nicaraguan dictator Anastacio Somoza to support a disgruntled general named Carlos Castillo Armas and codenamed Operation PBFORTUNE--was authorized by President Truman in 1952.
In 1954 Carlos Castillo Armas make a assesination list for CIA, the list was divided into 2, ones that will die and ones that will be prisoned during the operation.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/

Kim Il Sung - North Korea

He was born on 1912 and died 1994. His father was a teacher in the school and taught him politics.
Kim Il-sung headed North Korea's government from 1948 until his death in 1994. Kim gained fame in Korea as a guerilla fighter against the Japanese in Manchuria during the 1930s. His most famous years may have been 1950-53, when he led his country (backed by the Soviet Union and China) in the Korean War against South Korea (backed by the United States and United Nations forces).
http://www.answers.com/topic/kim-il-sung

Mao Tse Tung:

A Chinese politic and statistic. Born in China in 1893.
1911 Revolution, Mao enlisted as a soldier in a local regiment in Hunan, which fought on the side of the revolutionaries. Then he studied alone for 3 years.
From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the Soviet Republic of China and was elected Chairman of this small republic in the mountainous areas in Jiangxi. In 1973 was a Chinese communist leader. Mao led the Communist Party of China to victory against the Kuomintang in the Chinese Civil War, and was the leader of the People’s Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

Joseph Stalin:

Joseph Stalin was the second leader of the Soviet Union. His real name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Born 1879 in Georgia, his mom sent him in a path to become priest, and he studied Russian Orthodox Christianity until he was nearly twenty. Stalin spent his first years after the revolution building his post as general secretary secretly into the most powerful one in the communist.He soon followed Vladimir Lenin's ideology, when Lenin die he become the Left wing of the organization.In 1939, Stalin made the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany which divided Eastern Europe between the two powers. In 1941, however, Hitler broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union later on in 1953 Stalin dies.

Harry Truman:

Harry truman was born in may 8, 1884. He was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953).
During World War I Truman served as an artillery officer, making him the only president to have seen combat in World War I.
In 1945 he wins the elections.
with the end of World War II and his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan, the founding of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, cause the beginning of the Cold War.
Defense policy statements
On June 23, 1941, the day after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Senator Truman declared: "If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances”
Truman dies on December 26, 1972.

Map

Cold War

Introduction:

The Cold War began in 1945 at the end of World War II. The conflict lasted until the early 1990's when Communist rule came to an end in a number of Eastern European countries. During the Cold War, leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States played key roles in initiating, escalating, and resolving the conflict.

Soviet leaders:

Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev

U.S. leaders:

Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush