The Late 1950’s and Early 1960’s Superpowers Emerge

The Arms Race In 1952 America explodes the 1 st hydrogen bomb In 1953, Stalin dies and is replaced with Nikita Khrushchev By 1957, the USSR and the USA have emerged as the two superpowers No country wants to use nuclear weapons, so each nation begins to stockpile their nukes, by 1970 both USSR & USA have enough to destroy the entire world By 1964, China builds a nuclear bomb and three years later detonates a hydrogen bomb, shortly afterwards, England and France also possess the bomb

The Space Race The Superpowers also competed for control of space, the goal: if you can get into outer space, you can launch a nuke directly into another country In 1957, the USSR shocked the world by launching the 1 st ever human made satellite named Sputnik Sputnik weighed 184 lbs and traveled at 18,000 mph Fear that the Soviet Union will win the race into outer space leads to the creation of NASA and the NDEA The USSR also is the 1 st to put a living creature in space – Laika the Dog, orbit the moon, orbit the sun, put a human into space – Yuri Gagarin The USA is 1 st in reaching the moon in July of 1969 – Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin

Gaining Allies After WWII, many former colonies gained their independence, this led to a race for the USA and USSR to gain new allies The Peace Corps was created by POTUS John F. Kennedy to counter Soviet attempts to win the allegiance of new nations by offering construction, medical and educational assistance to developing nations Africa becomes the focus of Soviet and American influence in Ghana, Guinea and Congo, violent wars break out between factions wishing to side with each superpower The Philippines becomes the 1 st Asian nation to win it’s independence in post WWII era, breaking away from American control, however after the USA gives up control the Philippines begin to fight, removing rights and social conflict grew Vietnam gains independence from France under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Ho was a Communist and supported by the USSR. Ho beats the French but fighting continued for 30 years, before it is done even America will be drawn into Indochina

Fidel Castro Comes to Power Facing widespread poverty and poor health care, the USA attempted to influence Latin governments to improve their condition during the 1950’s The change moved very slow causing many revolts and anti-American sediments, as a result the USA backed several military dictators in the region, this is still a source of tension between the USA and Latin America in today’s world In 1959, Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba and took control, soon after he begins preaching revolution to all of Latin America and sided with the Soviets. His rebellion was very harsh and forced many Cubans into exile, many came to live in America In 1961, a group of those exiles secretly trained in America and with the help of the CIA, went back to Cuba to lead a revolt – the invasion failed and Castro had embarrassed the USA

The Cuban Missile Crisis In 1962, Aerial photographs showed that the USSR had placed nuclear missiles on Cuba only 90 miles from Florida America insisted that the missile be removed and the Soviets refused, POTUS JFK used the navy to blockade Cuba and ordered any Soviet ship sank if it crossed the blockade For 13 days the USA and USSR were on the brink of nuclear war, at the very end the USSR backed down