History of the United States II / Unit 13 USH2 1817 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Nineteen Forty-Nine
The idea
Nineteen forty-nine turned the Cold War. NATO formed, and in May the Soviets lifted the Berlin blockade. On August twenty-ninth the Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb, years before American officials had expected, the Yawp records. On October first Mao Zedong proclaimed the Communist victory in China's civil war, and in December the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek left for Taiwan.
In practice
A single year's calendar: an alliance, a lifted blockade, a Soviet bomb, a Communist China.
Where people slip
Suspicion followed at once, the anchor records: that spies had handed the Soviets the bomb's secrets, and that Communist sympathisers had cost the nation China. The Yawp calls the loss of China a source of panic among American policymakers, whose attention began to shift from Europe to Asia. The next entries follow both consequences, abroad and at home.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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