HIS 132 - American History II: American History 2 Project

For the past three decades conventional wisdom in America has held that the Vietnam War was a "bad war," unlike the "good war" of World War II. The argument can be made that the Vietnam War not only was a good war but was more vital to America's interest than World War II.

Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) propaganda was prolific during the Vietnam War. From 1965 to 1975, it bombarded North and South Vietnam, the US and world opinion with sensationalistic truths, half-truths and outright lies, all fashioned with masterful precision.

Offers a look at the Tet Offensive of 1968, part of the Vietnam Conflict. Wave of surprise attacks by the Communists during the Lunar New Year, the Tet holiday;

This is a teacher's lesson plan for Tet but there is solid information about Tet and the buildup to it. Also includes TV transcripts.

This week marks the 30th anniversary of America's ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam in helicopters from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon. Not since the Civil War 100 years before had the country been so divided. What lessons have we learned, or should we have learned, from the Vietnam experience?

Encyclopedia article from CredoReference.

On March 16, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, American soldiers killed 504 unarmed civilians in the village of My Lai. After a brief overview of the war and the home front backlash against it, this program seeks to understand the massacre and its aftermath through the interwoven narratives of three U.S. soldiers.

A part of the series America in the 20th Century. It was the longest war in America’s history and the most divisive in more than a century.

Using examples from both print and television, this article argues that journalists presented disturbing portraits of the American GI and the war before Tet, alongside more optimistic dispatches.

Ebook about media and Vietnam.

Article written in 1975 details the feeling of the lack of completion of the mission of Vietnam.

From the Vietnam War experience we should learn the relationship between political and military objectives, if we learn nothing else.

Films on Demand Video Segment. Because of television, the Vietnam War is referred to as the "living room war." Television makes it clear to Americans leaders that American might could not make the situation right. Horrific images fuel protests at home.

During the Vietnam War the American military learned it must control media coverage of the realities of war. Media coverage of war today is carefully staged to manipulate public perceptions and distance people from the horrors of war.

In a special broadcast, Walter Cronkite editorialized against the Vietnam War, declaring we had fought as hard as honor demands and must negotiate for peace. A demoralized Johnson did not seek re-election.

Among a range of unpalatable choices, the best option is to pursue some version of the current policy. The United States might as well do that as well as it can.

Yet, after three weeks of war, after the capture of Baghdad and the collapse of the Iraqi government, Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction - those weapons that President [George Bush], on the eve of hostilities, said were a direct threat to the people of the United States - have still to be identified.

U.S. troop numbers were cut to 50,000 in advance of the Aug. 31 milestone in the 7 1/2-year-old war launched by Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, whose stated aim was to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

[...]it is not clear whether any real effort has been made to establish the true figures of this, the first of the many gruesome statistics that have marred the past ten years of Iraq's history. [...]it must be assumed that any mil- itary intervention will have regional reper- cussions that will be beyond the control of even the best-planned invasion.

In his January 2002 State of the Union speech, after the fall of the Taliban, President George W. Bush declared: "The last time we met in this chamber, the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school.

In this program from Iran’s PressTV, a news crew travels throughout Afghanistan to learn firsthand how people there feel about the foreign presence in their country. The journalists find anger and frustration in Kandahar. In Kabul the immediate concern is not foreign policy, but trying to feed families as aid shipments are diverted by corrupt middlemen. And while some in Jalalabad express gratitude towards the countries that have arrived to help, some feel that they are being exploited.

Boyer examines how General Tommy Franks has signed on to Donald Rumsfeld's attempts to transform the military. The Afghanistan campaign was precisely the sort of conflict that Rumsfeld had anticipated and the military's plan for it was exactly what Rumsfeld that was wrong with the military.

Films on Demand Video Segment. Martin Luther King, Jr. chooses Selma for his non-violent march because it would provide footage of dramatic confrontation between police and peaceful citizens. This manipulation of public conscience gives power to the weak in a way nothing else can.

Films on Demand segment. Dr. King applies for a court order to march between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. President Lyndon Johnson enlists 2,000 U.S. troops,1800 Alabama National Guardsman, 100 US Marshall's, and 100 FBI agents to protect the marchers.

Longtime civil rights and political advocate, Dr. C. DeLores Tucker, joined Dr. King, wife Coretta Scott King, Dr. Ralph Bunche, (now Congressman) John Lewis, and other local and national activists in leading the masses from Selma to Montgomery.

Sunday, Mar 7, 1965, was a tense day in Selma AL. That afternoon, about 600 people -- mostly African-Americans, many still in their church clothes -- set off from Brown Chapel AME church. Their goal was to walk to the state capital of Montgomery, 54 miles away. Part of an ongoing campaign spearheaded by civil rights leader Martin Luther King III, they were marching to demand the ability to vote, denied to them in much of the South. Here, Brown discusses how the Selma-to-Montgomery marches 50 years ago helped end discrimination against black voters.

NPR interview with Rutgers University history professor David Levering Lewis the author of "W.E.B. DuBois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century."

NPR interview with David Levering Lewis.

[DuBois] and Booker Washington clashed over issues of civil rights and higher education for the offspring of freedmen. DuBois insisted on training for teachers, doctors and other professions. The general attitude of whites prompted DuBois to dub Washington a leader "not of one race but of two."

FILMS ON DEMAND Booker T. Washington gently ridiculed whites' fear of black people to win audiences over, argued that the "Negro Problem" was their problem, and presented his solution. We listen to a reading.

This Films on Demand program portrays the Jim Crow era, when African Americans struggled to build their own worlds within the harsh, narrow confines of segregation. At the turn of the 20th century, a steady stream of African Americans left the South, fleeing the threat of racial violence and searching for opportunities in the North and West. Leaders like Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey organized, offering different strategies to further black empowerment and equality.

FILMS ON DEMAND For African-Americans, the 20th century was fraught with contrasts. There was the glowing promise of equality in the nation’s charters and there was the actual bigotry that shadowed and shrank that promise. This program has several segments about Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois and their differing philosophies.

The women's rights movement fought for an amendment to the Constitution that would guarantee equal rights for women.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which was first proposed in the 1920s, again became a national issue in 1983 when Democrats in Congress reintroduced the legislation.

This is an article from 1980. A list of national organizations supporting the ERA includes American Baptist Churches, USA; Coalition of Labor Union Women; National Business Council; National Council of Negro Women; and both the Democratic and Republican National Committees.

This is an article from 2012. Four decades ago, as a fierce national debate played out over an amendment meant to guarantee women the same rights as men, young people spoke out on both sides of the issue.

John Holland, son of ex-hostage Leland Holland The former hostages and their advocates are mobilizing for a new Capitol Hill push that they hope will be the final chapter in a 33-year quest for relief and justice. The ordeal that left an indelible mark on so many lives has not only receded in time; it has also been overwhelmed and overshadowed by the many terrible terrorist acts that followed, most notably the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

Background of the Iranian Revolution and the events leading to the hostage taking.

"Hello," she said. And for a long moment, she heard only the crackle of the long distance line. "I thought you were dead," her son said. "They told me you were dead."

Technical analysis of the economic sanctions against Iran by the US during the hostage crisis.

Interview with Ted Koppel about his memories of the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

A brief look back at the Iranian Crisis and how it was the beginning of Islamic Radicalism and the US.

Encyclopedia article from CredoReference.

FILMS ON DEMAND Drawing on archival footage—including previously unreleased film from Iran—and candid interviews with the American hostages and their Iranian captors, this riveting program presents a balanced look at the harrowing details of the 14-month standoff that brought radical Islam to world prominence and forever altered America’s attitude towards the Middle East.

Encyclopedia article about Cold War.

The worst thing that happened to the U.S.S.R. (other than Stalin) was the Cold War -- not because of the strain this put on the U.S.S.R.; the strain has helped to hold it together; but because it sustained Soviet illusions.

Russian poll of citizens

While some former Soviet countries are thriving since the fall of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, Russia is still a work in progress, according to a Kansas State University expert on the country.

Films on Demand title. A part of the series America in the 20th Century. Although communists and capitalists united during World War II to crush fascism, Hitler’s defeat set the stage for allies to become adversaries once more. This program frames the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union as the defining conflict of much of the 20th century.

If the Cold War began in 1945 or 1946, then it must have ended in 1990, when the iron curtain across Europe was dismantled and there was no longer an East-West military confrontation. By the fall of that year, the Central and Eastern European countries that had been under Soviet dominance since the end ofWorld War II were allowed to choose noncommunist governments, Soviet forces were withdrawn from the area, and Germany was unified with Soviet blessings.

FILMS ON DEMAND Covers five turbulent years from Martin Luther King Jr to the Vietnam War.

FILMS ON DEMAND This program contains speeches by two of the 20th century’s greatest orators: John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Included are Kennedy’s inaugural address, King’s moving "I Have a Dream" speech to civil rights marchers in Washington and parts of his prophetic "When a Man Has Already Died" speech are also featured.

FILMS ON DEMAND Includes a segment about the Vietnam War and one about Cold War tensions in Cuba.

FILMS ON DEMAND The year 2000 marked the 25th anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. In this classic NewsHour program, Gwen Ifill and Terence Smith sit down with renowned historians and correspondents to ask them to address some of the lingering issues associated with that war. Several segments discuss the media and public opinion of the war and how it shaped the outcome.

FILMS ON DEMAND First there was the law, and then there was enforcement of the law. This program begins at Little Rock’s Central High. Martin Luther King, Jr., already appears in 1958 at a meeting of black leaders with President Eisenhower. The civil rights movement accelerated: marches, clashes with the police and the jailing of demonstrators, the murder of Medgar Evers, the bombing of the Baptist church in Birmingham, sit-ins and protests, the Montgomery march, the Mississippi Freedom march, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous "I Have a Dream" and "I Have Been to the Mountaintop" speeches, his funeral, and President Johnson’s signing of the Civil Rights Bill of 1968.

FILMS ON DEMAND For decades, Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s sadistic stomping ground. Then it became George W. Bush’s ideological battlefield. The turning point was 9/11 and a perceived link between Saddam and al Qaeda, bringing calls for an invasion from top American and Western leaders. This program examines the consequences of that hasty decision-making process: misadventure on a grand scale, according to many observers, and an extremist backlash that engulfed Iraq in bloodshed.

FILMS ON DEMAND This program discusses Western democracy’s confrontation with and ultimate defeat of Communism from the end of World War II to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Events depicted include the Red Army’s invasion of Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, and the heightening of the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia through the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. The destruction of the Berlin Wall is the symbolic beginning of a new era in European history.

FILMS ON DEMAND In Poland, the victory of the Solidarity-led coalition in 1989 marks the beginning of the end of the Eastern Bloc. Many Soviet republics assert their independence, but when communist aides stage a coup, citizens resist. Boris Yeltsin steps up.

FILMS ON DEMAND The invasion of Iraq was the most extensively-reported conflict in history, with more than 2,000 journalists descending on the country. But paradoxically, most of this coverage never made the news back home. This documentary contrasts coverage of the Iraq War with the reporting of previous conflicts, revealing how the 2003 invasion was sanitized and repackaged for the American public, and assessing the wider implications of the media’s role in war coverage.

FILMS ON DEMAND A part of the series America in the 20th Century. It was the longest war in America’s history and the most divisive in more than a century.

The history of women in space is not only a celebration of women's accomplishments; it is also a discursive history that defines the ever-evolving relationships among gender, chronological time, and the very notion of history.

By the time the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was chartered in the United States in July 1958, women were a fixture in aeronautical circles--not just in support roles, but as pioneers in astronomics, engineering, and mathematics. In 1963, when Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (1937-) left Earth aboard the Vostok 6, she became the first woman in space, forever changing the destiny of women.

The Mercury 7 astronauts are profiled. The Mercury 7 are women who passed the astronaut testing yet never got off the ground. One of the physicians who tested them stated that the women were extraordinary human beings. The difference between the men and the women was their motivation.

A look- back the female conquest of the cosmos.

Columbia Encyclopedia article about Iran-Contra Affair.

Films on Demand segment. Oliver North became the face of the Iran-Contra affair. Journalists who covered the story offer insight and analysis. Archival footage of Reagan and Oliver North is shown. Americans who watched the television coverage remember.

Films on Demand segment. In 1985 a hostage crisis in Lebanon led to scandal for the Reagan administration. Secret negotiations were made to give Iran weapons if the Ayatollah would use his influence with Islamic militants to free American hostages.

The Iran-Contra affair, during which administration sources revealed that it had used illegal arms sales to Iran to finance a rebels in Nicaragua against the express policy of Congress, almost led to the impeachment of President Ronald Regan. During hearings on the matter, John Poindexter, the national security advisor, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and declined to answer Congressional questioning. While under oath at a later hearing, Poindexter claimed that he purposely did not tell the President about aid to the rebels.

Chronology of Iraq from the 1500's until now from the BBC.

Get the history of the Iran Hostage Crisis from the History Channel.

Timeline and facts about Iran Hostage Crisis from CNN

Get the History of the Vietnam War from the BBC

Timeline and facts about Vietnam War from CNN.

Get the history of the Vietnam War, during which South Vietnam, aided by the US, battled North Vietnam and its communist allies, straight from the History Channel.

Get the history of the Civil Rights Movement with lots of links to other great information.

The History Channel presents the Fight for Women's Suffrage.

Get video, links to people and events, and other information about the Cold War from History.com.

Materials from Brown University about the Iran-Contra Affair.

From the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

DigitalNC has digitized 18 community and 16 school papers written by and for African-Americans in North Carolina. It covers subjects such as politics, art, and literature.