1. THE COMING OF A BIPOLAR WORLD
AND THE DAWN OF THE NUCLEAR
AGE

2. Sicily and the End of Mussolini

3. The Air War

4. Operation Overlord

5. Russian Revenge

6. The End of the Thousand Year Reich

7. Yalta Conference
• Post War issues
• Germany – denazification,
demilitarization, war
criminals
• U.S. – wants Russia to help
in Pacific
• USSR – wants sphere of
influence in E. Europe
– Poland
• U.K. wants free elections in
East Europe
– Poland
Feb 4-11 1945
• U.S. Sells out?

8. A new Atomic Age
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

9. Potsdam Conference
*Division of Germany into occupation zones
*Changing Germany’s borders
*Removing German Threat to Russia
*Dismantling of German Military-Industrial Complex
*Churchill, Truman, Kai-Sheik agree how to end war in Pacific

10. A United Nations?
• Idea originating with
FDR and Churchill
• 1945 – founded SF
• Later based in NY
• Security council
– 10 nation council with 5
permanent members
– Allies in WWII
– USSR, UK, France,
China, USA
– Veto power

11. Division of Europe

12. Berlin Airlift
 Soviets blockade
Western Berlin from
June of 1948-May of
1949
 Britain and US respond
by airlifting supplies in
 13k tons per day
 Push back against the
“Eastern Bloc”

13. Iron Curtain

14. Marshall Plan

15. Containment
From 1946 on, the U.S. engages in a policy of “Containment” of the spread
of communism, funding anti-Communist troops in Greece and Turkey, as well as
the development of NATO.

16. Warsaw Pact Vs Nato

17. 1956: Hungarian Revolution

18. Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was erected in late 1961, closing an emigration loophole
between East and West Germany. In the West it symbolized the Iron
Curtain, in the Eastern Bloc it was seen as a protective barrier from the
vices of capitalism

19. To the Brink

20. MADness

21. How I learned to quit worrying…
absurdity In the face of death

22. Prague Spring
 Aleksander Dubcek –
 1968 Soviet Invasion
 A Czech Way of
Resistance
 Jan Palach
 Temporarily Crushing
the Revolution

23. Prague Spring