Mikahail Gorbachev and the collapse of Communism

Mikhail Gorbachev made reforms in the USSR so that it could stay the super power of the world. Glasnost was when there was no secrets from the people in the media. People for once were able to seen exactly what was going on around them, even though they had already suspected some of the things they saw, they were more relieved to see the truth, instead of lies being told to them.
Perestrokia was "restructuring" russia. It was a change in the political system, and tried to make it more democratic.
Eastern and western Germany were united once again after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. The Easter Communist Side and the Wester Demoractic side were united again.

Collapse of Communism

After so many years that the Soviet Union was following communism, people started to realize that communism wasn't really as good as they thought. Since people who made more effort in their jobs and worked longer harder hours were getting paid the same, they started to realize that they should put an end to communism. Since many communist governments, weren't the best at the time, they were not happy with the choice of their governments and their rulers. Dictator and Communist leaders wouldn't do the best for the country and people started realizing that they were getting the short end of the the stick. The collapse of communism was inevitable.

Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid was the segregation between many people of Africa. Nelson Mandela, was the person who disagreed with this act. He tried to stop this segregation act. He spent 27 years in prison, but he was represented by the idea of having freedon and equality for everyone. many people admired his acts because no one else had courage like him to accomplish the ideas he had in his anti-apartheid mind. Nelson Mandela also used the "civil disobedience" idea, as Gandhi did. Gandhi in a way inspired most of the ways of nelson and his acts on how he acted towards the Apartheid idea.

African Independence

African Independence was a start to many good things in Africa. The people were becoming more educated, and a beggining of a middle class was begining. This was the start to African countries gaining their independence from Britain. Many African leaders who were well educated were able to gain independence for some countries. Many of these leaders were inprisoned and then became prime ministers, who set their countries free.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis, was considered the hottest part of the War, because it was the closest tha we ever got to an actaul war with physical contact. It all started beacuse Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev wanted to put missiles in Cuba, beacuse Fidel Castro needed protection from the U.S he liked this idea and let the Russians put missiles on the island, secretly. After President John Kennedy found this out he organized the EX-COMM, which was a group of the most important advisors, inoreder to take care of this problem.

Later the president found where they were being installed, and then announced that if any missile were to attack the U.S that they would take it personally, and say that it was Russia's fault, and oreder them to retrieve their weapons. Soon a letter from Nikita Khrushchev came to the president saying that they would take out missiles planted in Cuba, if they promised not to attack Cuba.

Nato and The Warsaw Pact

The North American Treaty Organization, was made up of The United States, and some countries in Europe, and was made in order to make allies. The united countries would have each others back, if something were to happen. The countries that joined this organization, had mostly the same views, and agreed on just about everything. Since the United States was kind of the leader, and a big part of this organization, the Russians thought that the NATO was a threat to them.

The Russians decided to make an organization of their own, The Warsaw Pact. With this pact the Russians were able to create allies of their own. Their ideas of communism and being against democracy, were shared throught out this organization, and with this they were able to get along, unlike the U.S and Russia.

Film Lesson : "The Right Stuff"

This film showed us how Russia and the United States, were in a competition on who's technology was more equiped for space. The Russians were able to send the first satellite into space, and because of this we started realizing that we needed to speed up, and try to defeat the Russians in the space area. So then we started working on rockets, but they kept on failing. We finally were able to get our rocket to work, nut we couldn't risk one of our men going up there as we didn't know if our rocket were to blow up, so instead we sent a monkey.

After this the Russians, started to step up, and were able to send the first man into space. Although they did win the race for getting the first man in space, we eventually won because we were able to send the first man to the moon.