1. Nuclear Weapons since World War II

2. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS due on Sept 12 1) What event in 1991 ended the threat of a Civilization ending nuclear war? 2) What is the major fear TODAY from nuclear Weapons NO NEW WORD WALL NO NEW SAT REMEMBER TO STUDY FOR TEST FRIDAY

3. The atomic explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved to be much more awful than anyone had expected

5. At the same time, the wartime friendship between the West and the USSR was breaking down. Stalin, dictator of Soviet Union, was determined to have a BUFFER of friendly (i.e., communist) countries between the USSR and Germany

7. Truman perhaps thought he could use the threat of the atomic bomb to get Stalin to back down on this.

8. Stalin who had ordered the deaths of millions of his own people did not back down from threats but doubled down on efforts to spread communism.

10. Stalin set up communist countries in all of EAST EUROPE & created IRON CURTAIN.

12. The Cold War divided Europe into TWO BLOCKS—West was democratic and East was communist.

13. NATO was WESTERN ALLIANCE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

14. WARSAW PACT was communist organization.

15. The world was stunned when the USSR created its own atomic bomb in 1949. There had been spies in American program giving secrets to Communists.

16. In a few years both sides had developed a HYDROGEN BOMB- even more powerful.

17. Both sides soon had enough fire power to destroy the world many times over.

18. School children practiced “Duck and Cover” drills.

20. When the USSR launched SPUTNIK the first earth satellite in 1957

21. The United States went into a panic that we were behind the Russians.

22. The closest that the world ever came to World War III was the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS of October, 1962. Fidel Castro had staged a revolution in the 1950s and made Cuba a communist state.

24. In early October 1962, an American U2 spy plane photographed Russian missiles in Cuba.

26. President Kennedy announced that the US would put a naval blockade around Cuba and that the Russians had to move the missiles.

28. For 13 days the world held its breath. Would someone start shooting???

29. Finally Soviet leader Khrushchev agreed to remove Russian missiles

30. Six months later the US quietly removed OUR missiles from Turkey.

31. After this scare, the US and the USSR agreed to stop testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. All tests would be underground. Actually DISARMING and doing away with missiles proved to be VERY hard.

33. With the fall of communism in 1991, the threat of a world ending nuclear war finally went away. States like North Korea can never have enough bombs to blow up the world.

34. Today about 8 countries have nuclear weapons, but they have not been used in war since 1945. Big threats are IRAN getting bomb and using on SMALL COUNTRY OF ISREAL and also TERRORISTS using one bomb against a city