Regents Review 2: Thematic Essay

Here is the second practice thematic essay to be completed in class. On Wednesday, you will write the essay in 45 minutes and turn it in to the student coordinator. The next day (Thursday), the essays will be distributed for peer review and then collected again by the student coordinator.


Select two different geographic features and for each:

• Explain how the geographic feature affected the development of a specific region or nation

• Discuss how that geographic feature promoted or hindered cultural diffusion

Also, Castle Learning benchmark assignment due before May 17

Regents Review: Thematic Essay

Here is the first practice thematic essay to be completed in class. On Monday, you will write the essay in 45 minutes and turn it in to the student coordinator. The next day (Tuesday), the essays will be distributed for peer review and then collected again by the student coordinator. 


Identify two turning points from your study of global history.

• Describe the causes and key events that led to the turning point

• Explain how each turning point changed the course of history for nations and peoples

Modification: You must use the Neoltihic Revolution as one of the turning points. You can pick the other turning point. I recommend the Industrial Revolution or Green Revolution.

Genocide Essay Link

http://francislewissocialstudies.weebly.com/operation-generation-without-genocide.html


Genocide around the World:
● Cambodia
● Rwanda
● Bosnia
● Armenia
● Ukraine
● Darfur

Evidence of your research needs to answer the following questions:  
1. Where did the event occur?
2. When did it occur?
3. Why did this happen?
4. Who did it affect? 
5. What happened?  Explain the conflict
6. Did any country around the world know if the event was occurring and what did they do if anything to help?

•       Essay length minimum: 10 paragraphs 
• You are required to create a work cited page
• You will need to include at least 4 different sources including where you received your information about the genocide of your choice.  

HW- The Berlin Blockade

The first heightening of Cold War tensions occurred in 1948 when the Soviets imposed a partial blockade of Berlin in April, and then a full blockade in June. Understanding the events that led to the imposition of the blockades is the key to understanding the later division of Berlin in 1961 by the Berlin Wall, and the division of the German state that had occurred earlier in 1949 when separate west German (Federal Republic of Germany) and east German (German Democratic Republic) states were established.

There are three key events that led to the Soviet blockades of Berlin: the institution of the Marshall Plan for European Recovery; the London Conferences of winter and spring of 1948; and the resultant London Program which called for a separate West Germany and currency reform as a means to reach this end.

In light of the communist rebellions in Greece and Turkey in March of 1947, President Harry Truman announced the Truman Doctrine, which stated that America promised to “support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures (with U.S. military aid).” Three months after this policy announcement, the Marshall Plan was introduced to serve as an economic and financial extension of the Doctrine.

In light of this increasing tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the U.S. decided that quadripartite occupational control of the defeated Germany with the Soviet Union was no longer feasible. Accordingly the U.S. and the other western nations occupying Germany (Great Britain and France), as well as the BENELUX nations, embarked on a series of discussions held in London from February to June of 1948 known collectively as the London Conferences. This came at a strategic time because the other occupying powers of Germany were also realizing that cooperation with the Soviets was increasingly difficult, and all three nations were beginning to reexamine their policies as such.

The result of these discussions was the London Program. The main goal of the London Program was to establish a West German government, with the means to achieving this goal being the combination of the three western zones of occupation and a reform of the currency. The western Allies wanted to combine their zones so that they could be administered as a single economic unit, and so that the currency exchange would be uniform throughout the western sectors of Germany.

While it was a combination of the three events that led the Soviets to blockade Berlin, the London. On March 6th the communique regarding the London Program was issued, and in April the Soviets responded by constraining the military supplies entering Berlin via the Soviet zone from the west. This left the western nations with the choice of either being politically pressured out of West Berlin (which would diminish their prestige in the rest of Europe), or staying to institute the currency reform and ultimately establish a separate West German nation.

The western allies decided to stay. In mid-June the west issued a new currency in their zone (but not in western Berlin), and the Soviet Union issued a new currency in their zone. On June 23, the west introduced the new currency into Berlin. The next day the Soviets imposed a complete blockade on Berlin. Railways and highways were restricted so that no surface traffic between the western zones and Berlin could occur. The Soviets were able to do this without breaking any international laws on a technicality; the west and the Soviet Union never made a written pact in regards to the right of western ground access to Berlin. It must be noted that at the time of the blockade Stalin did not give any ultimatums, and while the blockade was in place the Soviets did keep the door open to negotiations on the matter. As a matter of fact, Stalin curiously quipped to a western diplomat during the blockade, “We are still allies.”

But the western powers would not give in. To demonstrate their resolve, the Americans orchestrated a monumental airlift which flew necessities such as coal and food into the western sectors of Berlin. This airlift lasted for 324 days, and approximately 13,000 tons of supplies a day were delivered.

In the spring of 1949 it was increasingly clear that the objectives Stalin had in mind when ordering the blockade were not going to be met. The U.S. was still continuing its counter blockade measures, the separate western government in Germany was about to be established, and the North Atlantic Treaty was being signed in Washington. Stalin had the choice of either continuing with the disastrous blockade, or admitting defeat and lifting the blockade. Stalin chose the latter, and in May 1949, at the final meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the blockade was ended.

1. Why did the Soviet Union launch the Berlin Blockade?

2. Do you think Stalin was serious when he said "We are still allies" during the blockade? Explain 

HW- Cold War Origins

Who is to blame for the start of the Cold War: The Soviet Union, U.S., or both ?

Explain in at least 2 paragraphs

HW- The Start of the Cold War

Excerpt from Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech:


"A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organisation intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my wartime comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and goodwill in Britain - and I doubt not here also - towards the peoples of all the Russia's and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.


From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone - Greece with its immortal glories - is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russian-dominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy.


Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at the claims which are being made upon them and at the pressure being exerted by the Moscow Government. An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist party in their zone of Occupied Germany by showing special favors to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the fighting last June, the American and British Armies withdrew westwards, in accordance with an earlier agreement, to a depth at some points of 150 miles upon a front of nearly four hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies to occupy this vast expanse of territory which the Western Democracies had conquered.


If now the Soviet Government tries, by separate action, to build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious difficulties in the British and American zones, and will give the defeated Germans the power of putting themselves up to auction between the Soviets and the Western Democracies. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts - and facts they are - this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.


The safety of the world requires a new unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast. It is from the quarrels of the strong parent races in Europe that the world wars we have witnessed, or which occurred in former times, have sprung. Twice in our own lifetime we have seen the United States, against their wishes and their traditions, against arguments, the force of which it is impossible not to comprehend, drawn by irresistible forces, into these wars in time to secure the victory of the good cause, but only after frightful slaughter and devastation had occurred. Twice the United States has had to send several millions of its young men across the Atlantic to find the war; but now war can find any nation, wherever it may dwell between dusk and dawn. Surely we should work with conscious purpose for a grand pacification of Europe, within the structure of the United Nations and in accordance with its Charter. That I feel is an open cause of policy of very great importance.


In front of the iron curtain which lies across Europe are other causes for anxiety. In Italy the Communist Party is seriously hampered by having to support the Communist-trained Marshal Tito's claims to former Italian territory at the head of the Adriatic. Nevertheless the future of Italy hangs in the balance. Again one cannot imagine a regenerated Europe without a strong France. All my public life I have worked for a strong France and I never lost faith in her destiny, even in the darkest hours. I will not lose faith now. However, in a great number of countries, far from the Russian frontiers and throughout the world, Communist fifth columns are established and work in complete unity and absolute obedience to the directions they receive from the Communist center. Except in the British Commonwealth and in the United States where Communism is in its infancy, the Communist parties or fifth columns constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilization. These are somber facts for anyone to have to recite on the morrow of a victory gained by so much splendid comradeship in arms and in the cause of freedom and democracy; but we should be most unwise not to face them squarely while time remains."


1. Why is Churchill so concerned about the Soviet Union after World War 2?


2. What evidence does Churchill give of Soviet or communist aggression?

DBQ Essay- June 2005 Regents

Click on the link below to access the DBQ essay. Due 2/23

http://www.nysedregents.org/globalhistorygeography/Archive/20050621exam.pdf