Washington's Farewell Address
Washington's Farewell Address is an important work in U.S. history. it announced that he would refuse to serve a third term. He warned not to rely on permanent foreign alliances and only stick with temporary ones for emergencies. He also informed his "friends and fellow citizens" not to let hatred of foreign countries mess with their view. He had Alexander Hamilton proofread and edit his work before publishing it in the newspaper for the newborn nation. Washington's words served as inspiration, and his advice was followed for a good century and a half. |
War of 1812-Impressment
For many Americans, impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy was the biggest cause of the War of 1812. Naval ships would force people into the labor. When they began this, it wasn't against the law to press men at sea. Any captain could choose men to board their ship to help with service. Yet, the law protected foreigners. However, it got to where the law was ignored. Many British naval vessels would stop American ships to press their men, and Americans who couldn't prove their citizenship (usually had a document) were forced into the service. The need for seamen kept growing until the number rose to 140,000. This was a huge cause of the war, revealing that the British had no respect for American sovereignty.
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Monroe Doctrine
President James Monroe deliver to Congress a message that warned for Europe not to enter the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine meant that America and the rest of the Western Hemisphere, including both North and South America, wouldn't accept European colonization. President John Tyler even used this doctrine to justify when taking Texas. Yet, the greatest extension of the Monroe Doctrine was when Theodore Roosevelt announced that European countries couldn't use force in Latin American countries in order to collect debts owed to them. This was called the Roosevelt Corollary. The Monroe Doctrine is significant because it became "a longstanding tenet of U.S. foreign policy."
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Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny is the term to describe the westward expansion of the United States. John O'Sullivan, a newspaper editor, coined the term to describe the attitude. This wasn't just the cause of westward expansion, but it's also the cause for the removal of Native Americans and the war with Mexico. It was originally a partisan Democratic issue, but it soon gained Republic adherents. Religion was also a large portion of this, as missionaries believed they could convert the people on the other side if they were one of the first to cross the Mississippi River. Yet, gold was found in California, and people migrated even more to the west. However, many believed in American cultural and racial superiority, and racism spread with the people, as they believed the Native Americans were inferior.
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Imperialism-Late 19th Century
Imperialism is when a country expands its power through force. There are four types of imperialism: Colonial, Economic, Political, and Socio-cultural. Colonial imperialism is a complete takeover of the land, including stances from an economic, political, and socio-cultural point.The land was made to benefit the mother country. Economic imperialism was when a colony was allowed to work like its own nation, but the mother country almost completely controlled business and trade. Political imperialism is when a colony has its own government, but it's run the way the mother country wants it to (dubbed a "puppet government"). Lastly, socio-cultural imperialism is when the mother country tries changing the culture of the colony, including customs, religions, and languages. While European countries were usually the ones to colonize, the United States and Japan began becoming imperialist powers in the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century imperialism is called "The Age of Imperialism" or "New Imperialism." After Reconstruction and the Civil War, Americans wanted to continue moving west, but this time, they wanted to go through the Pacific. Social Darwinism (the belief that some people are more "fit for survival" than others, and this was usually pretty racist) and technological advances were also reasons. The mother countries believed that they were making the colonies better, and they were being improved. Many countries were formed due to this imperialism, and these countries are shaped the way they are today because of this.
Roosevelt Corollary
The Roosevelt Corollary was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine, and it was a main part of Theodore Roosevelt's international relations policy. It stated that the United States could intervene in order to make sure that countries in the Western Hemisphere "fulfilled their obligations to international creditors and did not violate the rights of the United States or invite 'foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations.'" Roosevelt said to "walk softly, but carry a big stick." This became a highly-known saying, and the Roosevelt Corollary is often called the Big Stick Diplomacy. His belief was along the lines of aiming for peace while still keeping other nations conscious of their military power.
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World War I
World War I, also known as the Great War, was the result of many problems throughout the world. Militarism was a large portion of the problem, as countries kept building up their militaries to make themselves seem like the most powerful country, and the entire thing turned into one giant competition. Another reason was alliances. Nations would make alliances with one another, so if you messed with one country, four more came at you. Imperialism, another problem, was also a growing factor, and countries would often take over more land or other countries to make themselves grow. Nationalism, which isn't a bad thing, was made malevolent by the other added causes. However, the main cause, or rather the spark of the whole war, is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie Chotek. Serbian nationalist Nedjelko Cabrinovic threw a bomb under the vehicle (which failed) before Gavrilo Princip shot the couple- Ferdinand in the head and Sophie (who was pregnant at the time) in the stomach. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the attack, and all the alliances gathered on either side to decide who should be blamed, starting the first World War. There were two sides: The Allied Powers and the Central Powers. The Allies were made up of twenty-seven, including France, Great Britain, Russia, the United States, Romania, Greece, Serbia, and Japan. On the Central Powers, the nations included Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Italy was actually part of an alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary but hadn't joined the war. However, when Italy did join, the nation was a part of the Allied Powers. The Allied Powers beat the Central Powers for four main reasons. The first reason is that there were twenty-seven Allies compared to four Central Powers, meaning they had more manpower and resources. The Allies also controlled most of the seas, blockading Germany's coastline and starving them of food and resources. The Allies also had more support, due to their claim of fighting for democracy. Lastly, Germany had two errors: they invaded Belgium, bringing Britain into the Great War, and using unrestricted submarine campaign, furthering the support of the Allies and lessening that of the Central Powers.The War officially ended with the Treaty of Versailles, which was written by the Allies with little to none of Germany's participation. The treaty included payments such as loss of land (which was distributed between the victors) and stripping the country of its armed forces.
World War II
World War II, also known as the Second World War, started due to unresolved problems due to the first World War.The Treaty of Versailles left Germany in shambles. Willing to trust anyone, Adolf Hitler and his Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) Party rose to power. He had this idea of a pure German race (dubbed "Aryan"), and by violating the Treaty, he built up Germany's military power and signed alliances with Japan and Italy against the Soviet Union. When Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria and Czechoslovakia, it went unnoticed, as the United States and the Soviet Union had internal problems to worry about and Great Britain and France (who were most devastated by the Great War) didn't want to go through another war. Hitler and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union's leader) signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact in 1939. Hitler invaded Poland, and France and Great Britain declared war on Germany two days later. As Germany kept expanding and taking over countries, Benito Mussolini, the leader for Italy, declared war on France and Britain in 1940. On the 7th day of December in 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the United States entered the war. This was what got our nation out of the Great Depression. The two sides were the Axis Powers and the Allied Powers. The Axis Powers included Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Romania, and the Soviet Union. The Allied Powers included Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, United States, and Yugoslavia. During the war, Hitler had political prisoners, common criminals, gypsies, "asocial" or "shiftless" Germans, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and most noteably, Jews were put into concentration camps. It was there that they were overworked, shoved into small living spaces, and in the end, died, whether it be from starvation, disease, exhaustion, brutal treatment, torture, or mass murder (gas and ovens). More than six million Jews died, and this number doesn't include the hundred of others that were also prisoners. One by one, the Axis Powers surrendered, starting with Italy then Japan. Adolf Hitler knew Germany's loss was inevitable, and he killed himself. Karl Dönitz was given control, and he was left to surrender. The war ended with the Allies being the victors.
Truman Doctrine
President Harry S. Truman established that the United States "would provide political, military, and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces." The two countries that were in mind were Turkey and Greece, both of which were in danger of falling under communism. It started after Great Britain announced that it would no longer provide military and economic assistance to Turkey and to Greece, who was going through a civil war against to the Greek Communist Party. The U.S. government believed that if the Soviet Union provided assistance, Greece's government would be influenced. President Truman argues that American safety and security was not depended on solely physically in America's borders. The Truman Doctrine was the official declaration of the Cold War.
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Ending the Cold War
Even thought the Soviet Union and the United States fought on the same side during the Second World War, their relationship struggled. The Soviet Union was a communist country, which made the U.S. wary, and when the Soviet Union expanded, it didn't help the matter. Nuclear weapons were brought into the matter, and the Cold War was even taken to outside the Earth thanks to the space race. Towards the end of the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan believed that the spread of communism threatened freedom everywhere, so he provided aid to anticommunist countries worldwide. This was known as the reagan Doctrine. In the Soviet Union, Premier Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to solve economic problems within the country. He introduced two policies: "glasnost" and "perestroika." Glasnost was political openness, and perestroika was an economic reform. The influence of the country died down dramatically. At the time, Germany was split into two sides: East and West, and between them was a wall dubbed the Berlin Wall. This was a visible sign of the Cold War and the tension between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. On the 9th day of November in 1989, the wall fell. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union had completely fallen apart, losing all influence it once had on other European countries.
Persian Gulf War
When Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, order for Kuwait to be invaded, Saudi Arabia and Egypt asked for the United State's help. It started when Hussein "accused neighboring nation Kuwait of siphoning crude oil from the Ar-Rumaylah oil fields located along their common border." The United Nations Security Council authorized the use of "all necessary means" of force against Iraq. Serving for Kuwait was the United States, Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and many other nations. However, Iraq had the help of Jordan, Algeria, the Sudan, Yemen, Tunisia, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The war began with Operation Desert Storm, a military buildup and huge air offensive lead by the U.S. NATO allies, as well as Egypt, conducted the response alongside the United States. They destroyed Iraq's air defenses, communications networks, weapons plants, oil refineries, and the list goes on. They wanted to fight on the ground as least as possible. When Iraq was about to face collapse, President Bush declared a ceasefire, which ended the war. Thanks to a peace treaty, Iraq would acknowledge Kuwait's sovereignty, as well as dispose of all of their nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. Yet, more problems arose after the war until President Bush claimed that Hussein had forty eight hours to step down from power, otherwise another war would be started. When Saddam Hussein declined, the second Gulf War started, but this time, it was called the Iraq War.
War On Terrorism- 2001 to present
On the 11th day of September in 2001, al-Qaeda terrorist group hijacked four planes and carried out suicide attacks. Two planes went into the World Trade Center, also known as the Twin Towers. Another plane hit the Pentagon, and the last hit a field in Pennsylvania. The Bush Administration called for a global "war on terror." A war began in Afghanistan, and the U.S. attacked the Taliban, who was hiding al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden. Ground troops pursued him into the Afghan foothills, but bin Laden escaped to Pakistan. Congress passed the Homeland Security Act in 2002 after realizing that Saddam Hussein, Iraq's leader, was building weapons of mass destruction. In 2003, Homeland Security opened its doors, and the Iraq war was launched. In 2006, U.S. troops found and executed Saddam Hussein. On the 2nd day of May in 2011, Osama bin Laden was found and murdered as well. Today, the Islamic terrorist group ISIS, originally stemming from al-Qaeda in 2004, is responsible for the majority of terrorist attacks being played out. Their core countries include Syria and Iraq, but many other Middle Eastern countries take part in the terrorist group. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is their leader. In 2004, al Qaeda was established in Iraq, and they tried starting a sectarian war against the Shia community in 2006. After three leaders die, their current leader, al-Baghdadi, is made leader in 2010. Since their time, they've taken many people hostage and killed even more, the mortality number being more than 33,000.