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EXAM FIVE STUDY GUIDE

THE ROAD TO WORLD WAR II 1 and 2: These lectures dealt with American foreign policy in the decades before WWII.  The lecture argued that American foreign policy in the 1920s was not isolationist (as it is commonly interpreted), but instead aggressive and far-reaching. To prove this point, lectures considered the arguments made in favor of the isolationist interpretation and then challenged this perspective by examining American economic, business, and disarmament activities in the 1920s. Turning to the 1930s, the lecture noted that true isolationism did emerge in this decade as the United States grappled with the Great Depression. It also noted that, given what was occurring in the World between 1931 and 1941, the 1930s was a particularly bad time for the US to be absent from the international community. 

The second Road to World War II lecture departed from US history briefly to consider Nazism and the Holocaust.  It also dealt with rising militarism in Japan and the attack on Pearl Harbor.

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You need to know the following:

  • The US as a world leader and how it differed from other nations that had previously been in charge (Britain, for instance)

  • How the US came to be the world's dominant nation.

  • Whether the US was suited for world leadership or not.

  • The Dawes Plan. 

  • The Washington Naval Conference and the major treaty that emerged from this conference. 

  • Business activity in the 1920s 

  • The Good Neighbor Policy 

  • The Neutrality Acts of 1935 and 1937 

  • The problems with Cash and Carry

  • Events in Europe from the emergence of Hitler to the outbreak of WWII. Know the timeline and dates. 

  • Adolph Hitler's biography

  • Nazi Philosophy

  • Aryans

  • Hitler's art

  • Chancellor of Germany

  • Nuremburg Laws

  • Yellow Star

  • T4

  • Skede Massacre

  • Concentration camps

  • Killing centers

  • Sobibor, Chelmno, Treblinka

  • 1936

  • 1938 and Austria

  • 1939 and Czechoslovakia

  • 1939 and Poland

  • Fall of France

  • The Arsenal of Democracy 

  • Lend Lease/Destroyers for Bases. These both speak to the end of United States neutrality in the early 1940s.

  • Reasons for Japanese militarism in the 1930s

  • Events in Asia from the invasion of Manchuria to Pearl Harbor. Know the timeline. 

  • Understand why Japan and Germany came under murderous regimes in the 1930s.  What happened in these nations?

  • The Japan cutoffs – scrap iron, steel, aviation gas, soil

  • Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. 

 

World War II:  This lecture hardly needs an explanation. It covered World War II in Asia and Europe.

You need to know the following: Always remember to place events in their proper dates; that’s true for everything you study in history.)

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You need to know the following:

  • Conditions in the world in late 1941-early 1942

  • The events on the Philippines early in the war. 

  • Bataan Death March 

  • Battle of Los Angeles

  • US government spending activities during the war. 

  • How the US raised money to pay for the war

  • War Production Board

  • The OPA and rationing. 

  • Wartime jobs and who benefited

  • Race riots, Zoot suit riots.

  • The Anti-Inflation Act and Revenue Act

  • Port Chicago

  • Executive Order 9066 

  • The timeline of the War in Europe 

  • December 8, 1941 

  • The differences between the war against Japan and Germany

  • Firebombing in Germany - its significant, impact, and purpose.

  • Battle of the Bulge

  • June 6, 1944 - the cross-channel D-day invasion into France.

  • May 8, 1945 

  • The timeline of the War Against Japan. 

  • Island Hopping

  • Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Drives. 

  • Coral Sea and Midway 

  • The nature of the war against Japan - the closer to Japan, the worse the casualties and the more deadly the resistance.

  • Hiroshima and Nagasaki 

  • The Manhattan Project 

  • Harry Truman 

  • Okinawa 

  • Iwo Jima 

  • The Atomic Bombings and the reasons for these actions.

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Cold War: Like the lecture on WWII, this one does not need much explanation. This lecture considered the post-war competition that emerged between the United States and the Soviet Union. This lecture traced the evolution of containment as the United States sought to prevent Soviet expansion. It pointed out that the Cold War gradually escalated and eventually involved some extremely dangerous weapons.

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You need to know the following:

  • The Yalta Conference 

  • The Holodormor

  • The reasons for Soviet behavior

  • George Kennan and his report on the Soviet Union 

  • Strongpoint Defense 

  • The Truman Doctrine 

  • The Marshall Plan 

  • The Germany crisis and the Berlin Airlift 

  • The events of 1949 

  • NSC-68 

  • MIKE 

  • The Korean War 

  • Inchon 

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