The United States after World War II

1.

The United States after
World War II
(Part II. Domestic
Affairs)

2. The Civil Rights Movement

In the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
the Supreme Court ruled that compulsory racial
segregation in public schools was a violation of the
Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal rights to all
citizens.

3. The Civil Rights Movement

On December 1, 1955, a black woman named Rosa
Parks refused to give up her seat and move to the back
of a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
Her action resulted in a yearlong bus
boycott in that city led by the Reverend
Dr. Martin Luther
King.

4. “ I have a dream …”

In 1963 over 200,000 black and white activists took part in a mass
demonstration in Washington to demand full racial equality. They
marched from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial,
where they heard Martin Luther King deliver his famous “I have a
dream” speech:
“ I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and
live out these truths that all men are created equal. I have a
dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of
former slaves and the sons of former slaveholders will be
able to sit down together at
the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that my four
little children will one day
live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the
color of their skin but by
the content of their
character.”

5. Famous Assassinations of 1960s

Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963
Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4,1968

6. Watergate Scandal

One of the worst scandals in American history happened on June 17, 1972,
when five men were caught in a burglary attempt in the Watergate, an
apartment-hotel complex in Washington. They had been paid to steal
information to discredit President Nixon’s Democratic opponents. Nixon
vowed that he had known nothing about the Watergate break-in, but the
tape recording made in Nixon’s office proved that he had known all. In
addition, the vulgarity of the language used by the president on these tapes
shocked the nation. Nixon resigned as President in 1974, part way through
his term of office. He was the first man ever to do so.

7. Presidents (1974-1988)

Gerald Ford
(August 9,
1974 – January
20, 1977)
Ronald Reagan
(January 20, 1981 –
January 20, 1989)
Jimmy Carter
(January 20, 1977 –
January 20, 1981)

8. The Gulf War

On August 2, 1990 the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, seized the border
country of Kuwait, which sits on a valuable oil pool. Bush succeeded in
urging the United Nations to take action against Iraq. This Gulf War began
on January 16, 1991, when a military attack force crushed the Iraqi army.
The war ended quickly. On February 25, Saddam agreed to withdraw his
troops from Kuwait and accepted the terms of a cease-fire. He also
accepted a UN resolution calling for the destruction or removal of all Iraq’s
chemical and biological weapons.
George
Herbert
Walker Bush,
(January 20,
1989 – January
20, 1993)
Saddam Hussein
(16 July 1979 – 9 April 2003)
the 5th President of Iraq

9. Big Scandal

In 1998, American politics entered a period of turmoil with the revelation that
Clinton had carried on an affair inside the White House with a young intern, Monica
Lewinsky. On February 1999, Clinton was acquitted of all charges of perjury an
obstruction of justice.
Monica Lewinsky
Bill Clinton
(January 20,
1993 – January 20,
2001)
Hillary Clinton

10. George W. Bush

In 2001 George W. Bush, the son of former President
George H.W. Bush became President. He was expected
to be a president primarily concerned with domestic
policy.
George W. Bush
(January 20, 2001 –
January 20, 2009)

11. The 9/11 attack

George
Bush’s
presidency
changed irrevocably on September
11, 2001, when Middle Eastern
terrorists simultaneously hijacked
four passenger airplanes and
rammed two of them into the World
Trade Center in New Your City,
killing nearly 3,000 people. A third
crashed into the Pentagon, the
Defense Department headquarters,
and killed 200. The fourth, headed
for the Capitol or the White House
in
Washington,
crashed
in
Pennsylvania
as
passengers
rebelled the seizure of the plane
and
fought
the
terrorists.
Passengers, crew members, and
terrorists, numbering 246, died in
the crash.

12. Al Qaeda

The United States had assisted the Taliban in its
struggle for independence since this happened during the
Cold War. The Muslim radicals regarded the United States as
the “Great Satan” who with the arrogance of power sought to
dictate policy in the Middle East, especially in its support of
Israel.
Osama bin Laden
(1988 – May 2, 2011)
1st General Emir of AlQaeda

13. The Anthrax Letters

As the nation began to recover from the 9/11 attack, an unknown
person or group sent out letters containing small amounts of
anthrax bacteria. Some went to members of Congress and
administration officials, others to obscure individuals. Five victims
died, however, and several others suffered serious illness. The
mailings touched off a wave of national hysteria, then stopped as
suddenly as they had begun, and remained a mystery.

14. Invasion of Iraq

In his 2002 State of the Union address, the president denounced the
regimes of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an “axis of evil, aiming to
threaten the peace of the world.” These nations, he believed, were
seeking to develop or in fact had developed chemical, biological, or
nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
January 29, 2002 – Bush Defines “Axis of Evil” in State of the Union Address

15. The End of War

Saddam Hussein was found hiding underground in
December 2003. He was later tried, found guilty, and
hanged. Baghdad fell on April 9. On April 14, Pentagon
officials announced that the military campaign was over.
But taking Iraq turned out to be far easier than
administering it.

16. Results of the War

The reputation of the United States was
further
damaged
when
cameras
graphically revealed the barbaric use of
torture by Americans of prisoners held in
Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison in April
2004.

17. Barack Obama

In
2008, Americans chose Barack Obama for the
presidency. Obama became the first African American to
hold the nation’s highest office. He faces serious
economic difficulties - the worst, many think, since the
Great Depression of the 1930s.