Weeks 32-35: Modern history IDs

Letting Go Old Acquisitions

The first half of the twentieth century brought many hardships to the European countries, and they found it harder and herder to control their colonies. The costs of World War I, World War II, and rebuilding afterwards took its toll on European countries.

Many colonies of countries such as Britain, France, and Belgium had to fight for several years to achive independance, Germany, Japan, and Italy's colonies and territories won immediate freedom. Even the U.S. began to go slack on their territories.

The war in Vietnam began when this colony tried to seek help in achieving freedom from France. When it could not get this help from the Western countries (who wanted to keep strong ties with France after WWII) it turned to the communist countries for help. Vietnam was able to lose French control, but the US feared that the country would fall to communism, since communist countries had been thier only allies. Thus, the US entered into Vietnam's civil war on the side of the anti-communist rulers.

Through all of this decolonization, new countries began to appear.  Laos and Cambodia in1954, the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia in 1949, the Philippines in 1946 are all a few examples of these new countries, over 50 in a mere few decades.

 This graph shows the colonization (blue) and decolonization (red) over the years.