Читайте также:
|
The latest 40s and 50s were anxious years for Americans. Despite their prosperity Americans feared the Soviet Union. Many Americans saw communism as a dangerous disease.
In 1949 The Soviet Union tested successfully its atomic bomb & China became the People’s Republic. At this time ambitious & unscrupulous senator Joseph McCarthy used these fears to win force & power for himself. He started a “witch hunt” for people whom he blamed for working secretly for the Soviet Union. Most of them were scientists, writers and famous actors (Monroe). He never gave roof but the Americans were so full of fears that many believed him & McCarthy ruined many innocent lives.
By the middle of the 50s McCarthy had lost his power but McCarthyism had done serious damage to the US reputation for justice & fair play.
WASP (оса) - White Anglo – Saxon Protestant.
In 1960 a new president John F. Kennedy was elected. He was the youngest elected president (44). He was the youngest to die in the office (46). He was the country’s first catholic president. Despite his short term Kennedy faced major challenges abroad & at home. The worst moment – The Cuban Crisis (1962) For 10 days in October 1962 the world trembled on the edge of nuclear war. Finally Хрущев ordered to turn the missiles (управляемые ракеты) to the Soviet Union & Kennedy called off the blockade of Cuba & promised to leave it alone.
Though the most dangerous crisis was over the US was still afraid of the spread of communism & the first American troops were sent to Vietnam.
At home Afro-Americans demanded that the government pass laws that guaranteed them rights to vote, to a good education & to equal treatment. The Kennedy years saw violence against civil rights leaders and the nation was divided almost as it had been during Civil War.
The US founded The Peace Corps (корпус мира).
On November, 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
After Kennedy’s assassination his vice-president Lyndon B. Johnson became president. And he was reelected in 1964. Many of Kennedy’s social programs were carried out by Johnson:
1) Medicare (free of charge)
2) the Elementary and secondary Education act
3) the Civil Rights Act (it prohibited discrimination based on color, race, national origin, religion and sex)
Though Johnson’s domestic accomplishments were popular, his decision to widen the US involvement in Vietnam was a serious mistake.
In 1968 the Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King & senator Robert F Kennedy were assassinated.
The 1968 election brought victory to the republican candidate Richard Nixon. His greatest achievements were his negotiations with communist countries. He was the first president to visit the People’s Republic of China. He signed an arms control treaty (договор по контролю за вооружением) with the Soviet Union. & he tried to bring an end to the Vietnam War, the longest in the US history.
In the 1972 the US troops left Vietnam.
Дата добавления: 2015-11-14; просмотров: 320 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая страница | | | следующая страница ==> |
| The Civil War- 1861-1865 | | | The American Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the most Important Amendments. |