Month: February 2010

The 1970s would see the end of the Vietnam War and a relaxing of Cold War tensions. Political scandal would bring down a president and change politics for decades to come.

The 1960s were marked by massive shifts in technology, culture, and politics. The Cold War and Space Race reached a fever pitch, and war continued to rage in Southeast Asia. Superhuman populations continued to grow worldwide, to mixed reactions by various world governments.

As the decade of the 1950s opened, war erupted on the Korean peninsula, which had been split in the aftermath of the Second World War at the 38th Parallel. On 25 June 1950, the army of the communist North Korea crossed the border into South Korea. United States President Harry Truman interrupted a long weekend at his home in Independence, Missouri, to return to the capitol, where, five days later, he authorized General Douglas MacArthur to lead American ground forces to repel the invasion. Also in 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin accused State Department employees and many members of the American literary, film, and theatrical communities of being members of the Communist Party. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission constructed the first nuclear reactor for power production, and in late November, the Chinese entered the Korean War and mounted a counteroffensive into South Korea.

The Second World War erupted when, on 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. France quickly declared war on Germany, with much of the remaining countries in Europe following suit. United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, however, issued a proclamation of neutrality on 5 September. By the end of the year, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, and the Declaration of Panama warned belligerents away from Western Hemisphere seas south of Canada.