PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The invasion occurred on April 17, 1961. It did not go well. Although the Cuban air force was damaged by early air strikes, there were still planes left to attack the invaders. Once the invasion started, it took too long for the troops and ammunition to get off the ships. Before the ammunition could be unloaded, Cuban planes sunk the invader's ships.
Many of the paratroopers, who were supposed to slow down Castro's forces on the ground, landed at the wrong place or in the swamps. Soon the invaders were surrounded by a much larger force and were running out of ammunition. They tried to retreat, but most were eventually captured and put into prison.
Berlin Wall
The division of Berlin was planned as a temporary measure. However, the Soviet Union demanded that the division of the city be made permanent, hoping this would reduce the flow of East Germans escaping through Berlin to West Germany.
To avoid a confrontation, the soviets built a wall to separate the communist & non-communist sections of Berlin in August 1961. The Berlin Wall came to be a somber symbol of the Cold War tensions
Cuban Missile Crisis
On October 16, 1962, photos were taken from an American spy plane showed construction of Soviet missiles bases in Cuba. Americans response to this became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. This brought the superpowers to the brink of nuclear war.
President Kennedy decided to authorize a naval "quaratine" around Cuba. Soviet agreed to remove it's missile from Cuba in return the United States agreed to end the quarantine.
Assassination of President Kennedy
President Kennedy was shot & killed on November 22, 1963 in a limousine riding through Dallas, Texas. He was there to mobilize for his reelection campaign.Less than an hour earlier, police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently hired employee at the Texas School Book Depository. He was being held for the assassination of President Kennedy and the fatal shooting. On Sunday morning, November 24, Oswald was scheduled to be transferred from police headquarters to the county jail. Viewers across America watching the live television coverage suddenly saw a man aim a pistol and fire at point blank range. The assailant was identified as Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. Oswald died two hours later at Parkland Hospital.
"I Have A Dream" Speech
On 28 August 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. organised a now historic march to Washington to show the importance of solving the United States racial problems. About 250,000 people gathered and listened to his immortal words: "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character".
A year later, in 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
