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U.S. History 1877-Present 10: Introduction 29 Views


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Description:

The post-war era was all about outdoing Russia, buying stuff, and building a carefully crafted false sense of security about the effectiveness of school desks as nuclear weapon shields.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Read a little US history and the term post-war era will ['Big Book of U.S. History' on a table]

00:07

inevitably be thrown around to describe the years after 1945. World War II was

00:12

over and Americans came home from the fighting and went back to work. They

00:16

bought homes and started families and created a new suburban middle-class in [Sold sign appears in front of a house]

00:20

cookie cutter housing developments. Boy the post-war years were grave weren't they.

00:25

Yeah.. debatable. The term post-war era isn't even all that um.. accurate really.

00:31

One war was over yes but another began immediately on its heels, the Cold War.

00:35

Don't be confused it does sound like what's going to happen whenever the [Cold War written in frozen letters]

00:39

White Walkers finally attacked the wall on Game of Thrones. But it was actually a

00:43

decades long face off between the US and the USSR. It was called the Cold War

00:48

because it never erupted into direct physical conflict or a ''hot war'' between

00:54

the two superpowers yeah, well what was the beef? The US was capitalist and the [American flag and USSR flag side by side]

00:58

Soviet Union was communist, and both powers thought that the other spreading

01:02

their ideas into the world was as bad an idea as sticking a fork into a toaster

01:07

in the aftermath of World War two Europe was divided in two with the eastern half

01:11

under Soviet control and the western half allied with the US. To keep each

01:15

other within their boundaries, both the US and USSR stockpiled massive amounts

01:20

of nuclear weapons the idea being that only the threat of total nuclear [Planet Earth explodes]

01:24

annihilation would keep the other countries from using the bomb keeping

01:29

the world safe from nuclear war. 'MAD' - mutually assured destruction. There are

01:35

some flaws in logic there but let's just gloss over them for now. By 1950 the [White board with 'MAD' information on is wiped clean]

01:39

Soviets and Americans had begun sort of fighting each other all over the globe

01:42

in a series of proxy wars. This meant that they supported opposing sides in a

01:47

smaller war without fighting each other directly... It was kind of like two big

01:51

bullies making two littler kids fight or in some picking a side in a fight

01:56

that was already happening and saying enough with the fist you guys should try [An arm hands a baseball bat to child in a fight]

02:00

these baseball bats. Well Americans worried that the US would be destroyed

02:04

from within by hidden Soviet spies.. This time of paranoia was called the Red

02:10

Scare, it swept the nation and had people looking under every bed for so-called

02:13

commies even while bumping chats with the Soviet Union for world dominance the

02:18

US did take its immigration policy in a new direction. Well the Immigration Act [America and the USSR on a world map with angry looking eyes]

02:23

of 1965 removed immigration quotas based on race, ethnicity and religion that had

02:29

been put in place in 1882 and this shifted the balance of immigration to

02:34

the US. For the first time Asia and Latin America sent the most new immigrants

02:38

making a whole new generation of coming to America stories possible. At the same

02:43

time Americans tried to push the fear of nuclear annihilation to the back of

02:47

their mind. Duck and cover.. yep we actually trained kids how to protect [Title footage of "Duck and Cover" training video]

02:51

themselves from a nuclear bomb. By what? Yes, hiding under their desk. We had

02:55

fun distracting ourselves with new things to buy cars, refrigerators, hula

03:00

hoops, jello molds to bomb shelter snacks. Welcome to America in the postwar world

03:04

of war everybody yeah.. Incidentally if we needed snacks for our bomb shelter we'd [Picture of a bomb shelter with supplies]

03:10

probably go with Swedish fish which are made in Canada... Go figure.

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