Nelson Mandela and Apartheid

Apartheid is a racial segregation policy of South Africa from 1948 - 1994. In the Apartheid system, nonwhites were referred to as Bantu meaning blacked or colored. Also the wealth class between the blacks and whites were very different. Whites got paid well, while the Blacks don't. Nelson Mandela stood up to Apartheid to make a difference. He influenced the people the support him. Later, society feared that he was capable of starting a revolution so they sentenced him to jail for 27 years. When he was released his people wanted to immediately elect him. He became president. He also won a noble prize

African Independence

African Independence occurred not that long ago. Kwame Nkrumah was a non- violent protester and wanted Africa to have it's independence. He led strikes and boycotts in Africa. He was also often arrested. His efforts were very successful, thus getting Africa it's Independence. He was the main reason Africa got their independence. The only independent countries in 1955 were Egypt, Libia, Ethopia, Liberia, South Africa. Jomo Kenyatta was also a protest leader. Peopl respected him so much they named a Africa country after him named Kenya. In 1975, all countries were independent except , Rhosedia, South-West Africa and Afars Issas Territory, and the Spanish Sahara.

The Cuban Missle Crisis

The Cuban missile crisis was the closest we ever came into having a war with The Soviet Union. Thanks to the cooperation and help of John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, the war was avoided. Nikita Khrushchev had conceived the idea of placing missiles in Cuba so if they ever needed to go to war with the U.S, they can release the missiles. In the summer of 1962, They had started placing the missiles in Cuba. After President John F. Kennedy, had found out about the installments of the Cuban missiles, he immediately organized The EX-COMM, consisting of 12 of his most important trustworthy advisers to handle the crisis. Kennedy imposed a quarantine on the island. After Kennedy pulled back the quarantine, Nikita sent a letter stating that if the U.S never invades Cuba they will get rid of the missiles, then another letter came from Nikita stating that if they remove the missiles from Turkey they would remove the missiles from Cuba. Two options. One was chosen, which was the first proposal. That was the end of the Cuban missile crisis

Nato and Warsaw Pact

The Nato Pact consists of The United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Turkey. The main purpose for this alliance was defense. It stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Also since the western European countries were a little beat up after WW II, The US covered them by applying The Marshall Plan. Nato started a new program in 1979, which would help build up defense, as well as new efforts towards stopping the Soviet Union from building up their nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union then felt that Nato was a threat so they forged the Warsaw Pact. This pact consisted of mostly of The Soviet Union and it's satellite countries. The Soviet Union wanted to strengthen it's hold on it's satellite countries. This program was taken over by Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolay Bulganin in the early 1955.

Film Lesson: "The Right Stuff"

The US and USSR were competing in many different unique concepts. The US were the first to break the sound barrier and Russia were the first to send a satellite and a man to space. The US then felt embarrassed and with hard work they pulled of their own space program and sent a monkey to space, while the Russians sent a man to space.The US felt very embarrassed sending a chimp to space. The US afterwards gained the upper hand by sending a man to the moon. The movie showed scenes where doctors were testing the men, to see if they're capable to go to space and handle the stress. There were also scenes were it took the US many tries to build a successful space rocket.

Film Lesson: "Schindler's List"

Schindler's List was a hollywood version movie of the procedure the Jews went through. From ghettos to concentration camps to death camps. Schindler's List illustrates Holocause effectively, but not as effectively as Night and Fog. It illustrates the way the Jews were treated and how they were killed for no reason, just to take lives out of boredom. The movie illustartes how the children were taken away and disposed of because their lack of inability to work. In the movie there was one Jewish Girl wearing red while the rest of the movie was black and white. They did that for a reason so they could show the girl's corpse later burned and put in a shovel cart. It must be terrifying living with the thought that you could die any second for no reason. The SS with machine guns murdered the sick in the infirmary because they could not work.

Film Lesson: "Night and Fog"

This movie illustrates the Holocaust effectively. It shows real images and clips of the massacred Jews and discusses how they were treated.I believe this movie was more effective in illustrating the Holocaust more than "Schindler's List" because it was a real documentary showing real images of massacred Jews. I felt really sad, how the bodys were all stacked up in a pile and the way the bulldozer moved the leftover bodys like they were nothing. It was also felt really sorry when they were all free and looking at their family and friends bodys all piled and spread in the unforgiven soil of the death/concentration camps. The Jews that became free after the Allied forces found the concentration/death camps did not know what to do since they are now free. They were all used to painstaking work and small amounts of food. Their minds never crossed what they would do if they became free because they thought they would never be free. When I saw the overgrown camp "Auschwitz" in the 1960s as shown in the documentary, I felt really amazed looking at a historical significant land that murdered 3,000,000 Jews alone in that camp.