AP U.S. History Period 8:  1945-1980

  Cross-Links to Massachusetts Standards and Wiki Pages

• Causes and Consequences of the Vietnam War

• Analyze the causes and consequences of important domestic Cold War trends in the United States

• Sources of Cold War Conflict

• The Cold War Between US and the USSR

Dramatic Event page: The Lavender Scare

The Red Scare of the 1950s

 Cross-Link: McCarthyism and the Red Scare in the 1950s

House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

The House Un-American Activities Committee from EdSiteMent is a lesson on the anti-communist activities of Congress in the late 1940s.

Photo of Screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo at HUAC hearings, 1947

Click here for a brief overview of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Click here for testimony by the folksinger Pete Seeger before the Un-American Activities Committee, August 18, 1955.

Click here for testimony of Walt Disney to HUAC and click here for brief clip of Walt Disney testifying to HUAC from YouTube.

Hollywood 'Red' Probe, HUAC Hearings Begin, 1947 from YouTube.

Using Historical Footage asks students to evaluate a primary source video clip from the Army/McCarthy hearings.

 Duck and Cover Drills Video Federal Civil Defense Administration video on how to stay safe during an atomic bomb attack.

American Foreign Policy and the Cold War

Troop strengths of NATO members in Europe, and of Warsaw Pact members, 1959

See American policy of containment during the Cold War

 American policies during the Cold War, including the Vietnam War.

Factors that contributed to the Cold War, including Soviet expansion in Europe and the differences between democracy and communism

For a perspective on the Korean War, see Korea's Partition: Soviet-American Pursuit of Reunification, 1945-1948 by James L. Matray.

 See also NATO Declassified from primary source materials including the beginnings of the NATO and the Suez Crisis.

Cuban Missile Crisis

• Dramatic Event Page: The Cuban Missile Crisis

• Link to information about Fidel Castro on a page about nationalist movements and leaders
  

The United Nations

For more on the creation of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

United Nations History Project from the UN Records and Archives Management Section offers annotated bibliographies, timelines, and featured sources on thirteen major themes of UN history.

Harry Truman and the Truman Doctrine from the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum.

The Vietnam War

Link to background on the causes and consequences of the Vietnam War

Political Posters from the United States, Cuba and Vietnam, 1965-1975 from the Sixties Project, University of Virginia

A lesson plan from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on military advisers in Vietnam.

Understanding and Teaching the Vietnam War. John Day Tully, Matthew Masur, & Brad Austin (eds.). University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.