African Independence

Africa fought hard to win it's own freedom and win its independence from Europe. When Africans returned home from WWII they refused to still be apart of the British colonies. Both the Europeans and the Africans fought in WWII to win their freedom, so why should they return home to see that they are still being ruled by the Europeans? The British let more Africans be nominated to the legislative council but this was not what the Africans wanted. They wanted a chance to have their own electives and the freedom to rule their own countries. Kwame Nkrumah studied the United States and felt that Africans should have the same freedom. Nkrumah started to organized boycotts. The British government felt threatened and put Nkrumah on trial for going against the British empire. After many years he was found not guilty. Even thought he won the trials he was thrown in jail many times. This did not stop him from trying to gain freedom for his people. The British empire finally came to a economical conclusion that Africa should have its independence. Nkrumah spent many years as the president of Africa and is still living today.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The horror of a nuclear war never came closer than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Photos were taken from a plane that showed Cuba building nuclear bombs. This was on October 15, 1962. Long debates on weather or not the U.S. should invade Cuba went on for days. On October 27, Cuba demanded nuclear U.S. missiles to be taken out of Turkey in exchange for the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Just one day later, people start to cool down after hearing that Cuba would return the missiles to the Soviets. This meant that they were putting a great deal of trust into the U.S. President John F. kennedy honored their trust and the crisis was over.

NATO and The Warsaw Pact

NATO is a group of countries in North America and Europe that formed an alliance with one another. If one NATO country was attacked, all NATO countries would come to that countries aid to help them. This also allowed Russia to recover after WWII. The Soviets were becoming an increasing threat towards the NATO. The military of the Soviets were becoming just as powerful as the Western Powers. This made many Europeans members start to doubt weather the U.S. would defend them if they were attacked by the soviets. As the U.S. was fighting a war in Vietnam, Europeans were afraid that the soviets were building up their military force. NATO managed to prevent getting attacked by the soviets although communist governments were forming in the alliances.

The Soviet Union and its satellite countries formed a organization of their own called the Warsaw Pact. This was created in response to the NATO. Warsaw was a attempt to strengthen the soviet's control over satellite countries. This was a organization where all the communist countries united. Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union made up the Warsaw pact. East Germany got out of the pact to join West Germany and unite once again. The USSR started to withdraw troops to aid other countries part of the Warsaw pact. With only six countries left in the Warsaw pact, the organization soon decided to disband.