Friday, November 19, 2010

War Notes

Here we go.

Remember: Your posts on this blog's comments section are worth TWICE AS MUCH to your grade as the quizzes.

Also, your grade on the Presidents quiz (and subsequent quizzes) are based not on how many you get right, but how long it takes for you to get all of them.

Below are the notes and discussion questions for last week, this week, and next week.

Go get 'em.

AMERICAN WARS

1756-2010

FRENCH & INDIAN WAR
1756-1763

Cost of war led to colonies being taxed

George Washington becomes field commander

Native Americans cast their lot with the French against the English.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1776-1783

Established America as its own country

Showed the vulnerability of the British army

America and France become allies

WAR OF 1812
1812-1815

British force American sailors into their Navy

America fights England to a draw

England pulls out of US territory

MEXICAN WAR
1846-1848

Monroe Doctrine

Missouri Compromise Line

Combat experience for future Civil War generals

CIVIL WAR
1861-1865

“Becoming a Singular” – Ken Burns

Racial integration

600,000+ casualties

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
1898

Expansive foreign policy

First major victory against a European power

First war waged entirely on foreign soil

WORLD WAR I
1914(7)-1918

U. S. is the decisive factor in a stalemate war

U. S. becomes a dominant player in the world

Woodrow Wilson's idealism (International law, world government)

WORLD WAR II
1939(41)-1945

U. S. and U. S. S. R. the last two standing

European rivalries dead

Advent of the nuclear age

KOREAN WAR
1951-1954

First test of united western world vs. communism

Hindered China's desire to dominate global communism

Never resolved – just stopped

VIETNAM WAR
1950(6)-1975

Signaled the end of European colonialism

“The war that would not die”

Last war fought with drafted soldiers

GULF WAR
1990-1991

First major military conflict after the fall of the Berlin Wall

Central role of oil in American foreign policy

Advent of “New World Order”

AFGHANISTAN
2001-present

Response to 9/11 attacks

New kind of war: Nations vs. non-nations

Perpetual skirmishing vs. pitched battles

IRAQ
2003-present (kind of)

Pre-emptive war (Bush Doctrine)

Legitimacy of the UN

Nation building

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

Agree or disagree with one of the following statements, telling why:

1. America became a powerful nation in the 20th Century primarily because the wars were fought everywhere but here.

2. The most significant wars and battles are those that involve the most people in combat.

3. Of the five “big stories” we talked about earlier, the one with the biggest impact on the outcomes of wars has been technology.

10 comments:

  1. question one. I agree with it because if you look at the history of other nations at the same period of time, their status in the world as a power was not as great because their economies were mainly focused on the funding of wars and repairing the damage done by the wars. America became a power because our industries provided machines and weapons to fight the wars, soldiers, but did not have to repair damages done by fighting.

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  2. I agree with tiffany on question one. Everybody else was trying to fight off others but they also had damages to repair and ammunition to buy so there was a lot of damage to other countries but not us because the wars were not fought on our land but in Europe and Asia.
    J.T.

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  3. Question #1
    I agree completely because we can focus completely on supporting our troops with weapons and machines and not be worried about all the repairs that need to be done in our country!!

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  4. Question #2
    I disagree. I don’t think the amount of people involved matters too much. One of the most significant wars to the US, I think, would be the American Revolution, seeing as it made us a free Nation and set the foundation to what our country is today. The number of troops in the Revolution was quite significantly smaller then the amount troops involved in the more recent wars like World War I and World War 2, but it’s a war that made a huge impact on the US.

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  5. @ anyone
    I agree with Katie, the outcome of the war partailly concerns the number of troops, but what really matters is what the technology, the leadership, and the moral of the troops are

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  6. @chewie and katie
    i agree with you all completly

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  7. i also agree with Katie!!:)

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  8. @ everyone
    I agree with everything that anybody has said so far. J.T. Mayes :D

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  9. Question 1
    i agree. when we are fighting in other places that gives our country time to get stonger and prepare incase something does happen here.

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  10. i totally agree with everyone. i think since we were fighting somewhere else it gave us time to provide more ammunition and other things to the troops and to prepare just in case something does happen over here.

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