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U.S. History 1877-Present 6: The End of Isolationism 6627 Views
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Description:
Shoot our friends, fine...but try to get Mexico to fight us? Ohoho. No way, my good sir. It's war time. And you are not gonna like it one bit. Isolationism is so last term anyway.
Transcript
- 00:00
Thank you We sneak in Most people know that american
- 00:05
isolationism didn't last while if they uh know what the
- 00:09
word isolation isn't means Anyway just so we're clear Isolationism
- 00:14
is a policy in which countries don't get involved in
- 00:16
other countries Politics basically it's the idea that life is
Full Transcript
- 00:20
best when playing alone in one's room Well the u
- 00:23
s had rolled like that for a while During the
- 00:25
first years of world war i we held out for
- 00:27
three years while the old world ripped itself apart But
- 00:31
our isolation is and just wasn't gonna last When somebody
- 00:34
makes a mess that big everybody gets splattered Well funnily
- 00:38
enough president woodrow wilson actually took america the war only
- 00:41
months after winning an election on the slogan he kept
- 00:44
us out of war Can we say false advertising there
- 00:48
Maybe Well technically the slogan wasn't He will continue to
- 00:52
keep us out of the war You got to read
- 00:54
the fine print people What changed woody's Mind in the
- 00:57
minds of most americans Well the first factor was the
- 00:59
german attack on a british ocean liner The lusitania Now
- 01:03
that sounds weird because ships were being sunk and shots
- 01:06
Fired all over the world at this point But the
- 01:08
lusitania had rial live bona fide americans on board and
- 01:13
you know how presidents get when their own people are
- 01:15
killed Ornery that's How the second factor was a sneaky
- 01:18
little affair in the form of an encoded telegram german
- 01:22
sent a secret note called the zimmerman telegram to mexico
- 01:26
and the germans were looking for a little more than
- 01:28
the world's best taco recipe although that would have been
- 01:30
a good idea We love because well you know german
- 01:34
tacos or the pits In the telegram the germans offered
- 01:37
an alliance against the u s if america got involved
- 01:40
in the war Well to sweeten the deal germany also
- 01:42
offered to help mexico reclaim all the territory lost in
- 01:45
the mexican american war Unfortunately for the germans at least
- 01:49
the secret note was intercepted And you know how american
- 01:52
presidents get when european powers try to intervene in the
- 01:55
americas Ornery that's How at this point germany had done
- 01:58
just about all the things that are guaranteed to incite
- 02:00
the ire of america Us claims that american intervention was
- 02:04
needed to make the world safe for democracy and with
- 02:07
that wilson sent two million americans to europe over one
- 02:11
hundred thousand would never return And not because it was 00:02:14.43 --> [endTime] the best euro trip ever get out
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