Mid+20th+Century+World+group3

=Mid 20th Century World=

During the mid 20th century there were many things going on in the world. Many different events happened to change how America and the world would grow. Some global issues are the famous moon landing, a massacre, the space race, and a kidnapping. Many of these issues had a huge effect on America.

== On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first satellite ever into space. This started the space race. Th e United States and the Soviet Union were trying to see who could get to the moon first. The race was going on during the era of the cold war. The Soviet Union, in 1961, put the first man into space. Yuri Gagarin was his name and he orbited the world for 108 minutes until returning to earth. Twenty three days later the United States launched John Glenn into space to orbit the earth. He was the first American to orbit the earth. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." This was the quote that Neil Armstrong said as he stepped on the moon for the first time. America was the first country to land a person on the moon. As you can see to the right, Neil Armstrong is placing an American Flag on the surface of the moon.
 * ==The Space Race and Landing on the Moon==

The United States likes to keep its past looking clean but American did make mistakes that can only be learned from. In March of 1968 the Vietnam war was under way. There was a siege on a town called Khe Sanh at the time. A bit farther away from this town was My Lai. 60 to 70 Americans, from a US infantry, went into this town and destroyed everything. It took them only about twenty minutes to kill and destroy anything they saw moving. More than 100 men, women, and children were killed in this massacre. Twenty five people lived through it because they had hid under people that had already been killed. The massacre did not show up in the news papers for about a year. People would talk about it but no one truly admitted to it right away. It came out through the survivors and also a young American that was a friend of one of the men from the infantry. He put together thirty letters of evidence and sent them to the president and congressmen. After this many of the people were charged with committing something "dark and bloody" at My Lai.
 * ==My Lai Massacre==

In April of 1974 a bank in San Fransisco, California was robbed. As the police reviewed a videotape of the robbery, they saw a girl was with the robbers. Her name was Patty Hearst, at age nineteen, she had been kidnapped two months earlier. She even looked excited to be there. She was the daughter of a well known news paper publisher. She was taken at gun point by two black men and a white women from her apartment. The kidnappers are said to be from the Symbionese Liberation Army. This gang of people threatened her and abused her many times. After two months she was brain washed and joined the group. Her father and many people thought she was forced to join but after seeing the video tape, she looked thrilled to be in it. "As for being brainwashed, the idea is ridiculous to the point of being beyond belief." She ended by declaring that "I am a soldier of the people's army." This is a quote said by Patty a couple days after the bank robbery. She ended up getting arrested and put on trial in court. At first Patty was given about 30 years in jail but then it was reduced to five years of probation for all her crimes. The court could not prove that she had been brain washed or not.
 * ==Patty Hearst Kidnapping​==