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The History of Written Language | Educational Videos for Kids

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The Black Death was a plague that killed many people. It first showed up in Europe in October 1347.

It came to Europe on 12 ships from the Black Sea.

Authorities in Sicily ordered the fleet of death ships to leave the harbor, but it was too late.

Over the next five years, more than 20 million people died from a disease that almost killed one-third of Europe's population.

Plague is one of the most deadly diseases. It is second only to smallpox. It is a disease that comes from rodents and fleas, but it can also quickly go to people in close contact with each other. Keep reading to learn more Black Death facts.

The 14th century saw the worst plague in human history. The "Great Pestilence" or "Great Plague" was the term used by medieval people to describe it. Contemporary writers referred to it as the "Great Mortality."

In the 1340s, rumors about the Great Pestilence were spreading before it hit Europe. It first started in China, then India, Persia, Syria, and Egypt.

It is believed that the plague started in Asia over 2000 years ago. People think it was spread by trading ships, but new research has shown that it could have existed in Europe as early as 3000 B.C.

The plague first arrived in Europe at port cities. It went by sea and land, following trade routes. The most common form was the bubonic plague.

The Black Plague was a very contagious disease. It spread quickly from person to person. Even if people were healthy in the morning, they might die at night. Some towns shut themselves down and sealed their gates so no one could come in or out.

First, the Black Death came to Messina. After that, it traveled to Marseilles in France and Tunis in North Africa. Then it went to Rome and Florence. These were places where people had lots of trade routes, so many people came there too. In the middle of 1348, the Black Death spread to Paris, Lyon, and London.

Some of the worst-hit regions were mountainous and remote areas, such as in Snowdonia in Wales or Mangona, a mountain village north of Florence. It is difficult to explain why the Black Death did not hurt Milan and Douai in Flanders. For some reason, they did not have a big problem with it.

Many people died when the Black Death came. The authorities didn't know what to do with the bodies, so they just piled them up in carts and left them lying there. They told people to stay at home and not talk to anyone since they might get sick.

There weren't enough regular gravesites for all the dead. So new plague cemeteries were opened.

Some people think that the Black Death spread at a rate of one mile or more each day. But other accounts say it traveled as fast as 8 miles every day. It is thought to have traveled 30 to 100 times faster than the bubonic plagues of the 20th century.

People used to think that the Black Death was a person. They would show him as the Grim Reaper who would come to take healthy people.

The Black Death: Rats and the Disease

In the fall of 1347, a ship came from Asia. It had people on board too, but also rats. The rats carried the Black Death and the bubonic plague with them.

The bubonic plague happened because of two groups of rats: those who were not vulnerable to the disease and those who were. When the second population dies, the fleas move on to other animals and then to people. They make people sick.

The rat carries the fleas that make people sick. The black rat was the original carrier of the plague-infected fleas thought responsible for the Black Death. The bacterium responsible for the Black Death is called Yersinia pestis. Other animals that can carry the plague are cats and dogs.

Symptoms of the Black Death

The plague affected everyone. It did not matter if you were rich or not, old or young, man or woman. The Black Death was very bad for all people in society.

The Black Death killed many knights, ladies, and merchants. It also killed many people in convents, friaries, and monasteries. Artisans lost their jobs because of this event.

The plague had three distinct strains, each of which resulted in a variety of symptoms.

The first one was the bubonic plague. This was a disease with symptoms like painful swellings. Buboes were found around the neck, armpits, and groin. They oozed pus or blood. The symptoms damaged your skin and tissue until you were covered in dark blotches.

Most people who got the plague died in about a week. This would kill 30-75% of those who had it.

The second one was the pneumonic plague, which was a type of airborne sickness. It attacked the lungs before it went to any other part of the body. This is why it was so deadly during the Black Death.

Finally, if you contracted the septicemic plague, you got sick because of your blood. The septicaemic plague caused dangerous bleeding in your body, which was almost always deadly. This was the deadliest form of plague in medieval times.

Medieval Doctors and Medicine

In the past, doctors wore a mask and clothes to protect them from the plague. The costume looked like a bird and had different scents.

The mask had openings for the eyes. Straps held the beak in front of the doctor's nose, which was a type of respirator.

Doctors thought that if there were bad smells, they could remove them. They thought this would prevent the disease. They also thought herbs could remove the smell of evil and keep people from getting infected with the plague.

A wooden cane was used to point out problems and examine patients without disturbing them. A cane was also used to keep people away and remove clothing from plague victims without having to touch them.

Many important developments in the history of medicine and health happened during times when there was the plague. Doctors learned how to do surgery, they learned about blood circulation, and they also figured out how to make public places safer from disease.

People thought they could get cured using unusual remedies. Here are some of them:

God sent the plague to punish people who did bad things. If you do good things, then the plague will not be given to you.

Mix tree resin, roots of white lilies, and human excrements and spread it on your skin.

Bathing should not be avoided. Bathing with vinegar and rosewater is an option, or you can bathe in your own urine if you prefer.

Quarantine for 40 days (quarantine derives from Latin for "forty").

To capture the pestilence, place a live hen near the sores. Drink two glasses of your own urine twice a day to draw out the disease.

Make an emerald tea by grinding the gem. Sip it in wine.

Drink a hot drink of eggs shells, some flowers, and treacle. Do it every day.

Many people left the city. They couldn't escape the disease. People were desperate to save themselves, so they left their sick relatives in the city.

This disease also affected sheep. A lot of them died. This caused a European wool shortage.
Read more about Medieval Medicine
Consequences

The best estimates are that at least 25 million people died in Europe from 1347 to 1352. This is about 40% of the population (some estimates say 60%).

Half the people in Paris who lived there died. In Italy, Florence's population was reduced from 120,000 people to 50,000. The plague was a disaster that is hard to find in recorded history. It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover after the plague.

The plague never ended. It came back years later. But the people in the Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa were able to slow its spread.

They put sailors in isolation until they were sure that they did not have the disease. They also created social distancing by keeping people apart to slow down the spread of the disease. The sailors were held on their ships for 30 days, and this was later increased to 40 days or a quarantine.

The plague made the system of serfdom collapse. There were fewer laborers, so people who still had their jobs could charge more for their work. There was more land, food, and money to go around.

Women gained property rights. Laws varied depending on the region, but in some parts of England, women who had lost husbands could keep their land for a certain period until they remarried or remarried and still keep the property.

People who were descendants of people who survived the plague were more likely to live to their 50s or beyond. That was because their ancestors had some genetic advantage that allowed them to survive the plague.

The Great Plague of London happened in 1665. It was the last major plague in England. In the 17th century, the plague also disappeared from Spain and Germany. The last major plague epidemic happened in Marseilles, France, from 1720-1721.

Modern sanitation and public-health practices have significantly reduced the number of people who get the disease, but it is still around. Antibiotics can be used to kill the Black Death, but there are still about 1,000 to 3,000 cases every year, according to the WHO (World Health Organization).

Sources

P.S. If you enjoyed what you read and are a teacher or tutor needing resources for your students from kindergarten all the way up to high school senior (or even adults!), check out our partner sites KidsKonnect, SchoolHistory, and HelpTeaching for hundreds of facts, worksheets, activities, quizzes, courses, and more!

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The Black Death Facts and History - History for Kids

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The Black Death was a plague that killed millions of people. It first showed up in Europe in October 1347. Click to learn more facts!

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The word "feudal" refers to the economic, political, and social system that characterized medieval Europe from about 1000 to 1300.

A landowner gave vassals a piece of land in return for a promise from the person who received it.

The people's payment to the lord usually came by doing military service or regularly giving them produce or money.

How Feudalism Began

In 911, Rollo was the head of a Viking army. He faced the King of France, who gave him some lands in return for protection and taxes.

Rollo and his men took things from the rich Seine River valley for some time. Charles was the king of France. He was a king, but he had little money and power.

Charles, the king in France, gave a lot of land in France to the Viking leader. It became called Northmen's land. The Viking leader swore loyalty to Charles in return.

Later on, rulers and warriors, just like Charles and Rollo had done, also made these agreements throughout Europe.

Feudalism Emerges in Europe

People in Europe thus started using this system of government called feudalism. It came from China before. In feudal Japan, the system began in A.D. 1192, and it ended much later.

In exchange for protection and other services, a lord gave land to people. A fief was land given to a vassal. People who got the land were called vassals.

In feudalism, people who owned land controlled who they gave it to and the riches the land gave back.

Hierarchies in Feudalism

The structure of feudal society was like a pyramid. At the very top sits the king with a lot of power.

Next came the most powerful vassals. They were wealthy landowners such as nobles and bishops.

At the top of society were knights. Knights rode horses and pledged to defend their lords' land in exchange for fiefs.

There was a group of people at the bottom of the pyramid. They had to work in the fields and take care of the land.

In the past, people's status determined how much power they had. People with higher social class usually inherited their positions.

In the Middle Ages, people were divided into three groups:

Nobles and knights who fought

Men and women of the Church, who prayed

Peasants, who worked

In Europe in the Middle Ages, most people were peasants. They couldn't leave the place where they were born.

Though serfs were bound to the land, their lords didn't own them, which means there was no slavery. The lord could give the person a job but what they made belonged to the lord.

Consequences of Feudalism

The feudal system made it so that many different groups of people owed loyalty to one person. This person was the boss of the land, and they had absolute authority over what happened there.

When a person had land, they could give it to their child. This made a permanent difference between those who owned the land and those who rented it.

The system often favored the ruler when a noble died without an heir. The ruler could either keep it or give it to another person.

It was hard for kings to track who owned what, so they kept books like the Domesday Book.

Domesday is Britain's earliest record. It tells about land and who owns it. It was made by William I. The Domesday Book has information about society and what happened in England before industrial times.

Unrest and Revolts

The feudal system could create a lot of unrest.

The Barons Revolt and the Magna Carta

Sometimes, a king might ask the nobles to fight in a war. But sometimes, they refuse because of other things. King John of England wanted the Barons to fight in France on their side. The Barons refused.

The nobles rebelled. They made John agree to Magna Carta on June 15th, 1215. The Magna Carta was a list of things the barons wanted from the king. They wanted to limit his power.

The barons said 'no' to the king and made him do as they wanted. The barons acted together, and this was a threat to feudalism. Feudalism is based on private arrangements between lords and vassals.

In England, military service was reduced to 40 days so that nobles could stay in their land and not leave for too long.

However, a king would not finish a battle in 40 days. The king had to pay mercenaries which made it difficult for the tradition of feudalism and vassalage.

The Peasants Revolt

The first great popular rebellion was the Peasants' Revolt. Wat Tyler led the English peasants in a revolt against the hard life on manors. Their battle cry was ending laws that forced serfs to work for free and made them pay a lot of money without getting anything in return.

Manors

A manor was where the lord lived. It is on an estate. During the Middle Ages, that was how people made their living.

The manor system is a set of rules. A lord owns his land, giving some of it to serfs. Serfs have rights and obligations.

The lord usually gave the serfs housing and farmland. They also protected them from bandits. The serfs helped out by tending their lands.

Peasant women helped on the farm with their husbands.

Free peasants had to work some days for the lord too. They had to give some of their crops to the lord too.

Peasants' Everyday Life

A manor usually had a few square miles of land. It typically had a house for the lord, a church, and workshops.

There were usually about 15 to 30 families living there on the manor. It was like a small village surrounded by fields, pastures, and woodlands.

Sometimes there were streams in the manor. Streams and ponds provided fish to eat.

The mill was where they ground their grain. The manor was largely a community that did not need to buy food from anybody else.

The only things bought outside were salt, iron, and some other objects like millstones, which were very big stones for making flour.

Serfs lived in small houses with one or two rooms. The main room had activities like cooking, eating, and doing housework. The second was a bedroom for the family.

Peasants' houses had dirt floors. They warmed their house by bringing pigs inside at night. The family would all lay on a pile of straw that often had bugs crawling on it.

Peasants ate vegetables, bread, cheese, and soup.

William Langland wrote "Piers Plowman" in 1362. This is about peasants' lives. Here is a fragment:

What by spinning they save, they spend it in house-hire, Both milk and meal to make a mess of porridge, To cheer up their children who chafe for their food, And they suffer surely much hunger And woe in the winter, with waking at nights And rising to rock an oft restless cradle.

Many children were put to work when they were old enough. Illness and malnutrition were a constant problem for peasants from the Middle Ages.

People used to live on average about 35 years. They never went more than 25 miles from their homes.

Even though they had a hard life, they accepted their lot in life. They believed that God determined where you lived, and they were ok with it.

Taxes and Money

In exchange for living on the lord's land, peasants had to pay a lot of money. They had to pay a tax on all-grain they ground in the lord's mill.

Anyone who tried to keep the bread they made in someone else's bakery would be treated as criminal.

People who were peasants had to pay a tax when they got married. They could not get married unless they had the landlord's permission.

Peasant families also owed a church tax. In the church tax, they had to give one-tenth of their income. This was called a tithe.

The End of Feudalism

Under medieval feudalism, lords and vassals both gave each other things. But as time went on, the relationship became more complicated.

Before this, lords owned 1 or 2 estates. But now, they can own more than one, and their vassals could be tenants of the land. People choose to show loyalty to whoever is best for them and not just one person.

Another problem with feudalism was that the population shrank when there were wars or plagues. Sometimes, peasants would revolt because they were not happy.

The crisis caused a shortage of workers. People stopped working on estates because no one could help them work.

People wanted to move from the country to the city. This happened because people wanted more jobs.

By the 13th century, merchants were doing more business and using coins more. This was affecting the way that feudalism worked.

People could now pay their king instead of doing army work.

The monarchs were using mercenaries to help fight their battles. It was so bad that the barons themselves weren't very important anymore.

A monarch could now give money instead of land. Wealthy people became merchants and had no loyalty to anyone but the monarch, their suppliers, and their customers.

Even people born into less fortunate circumstances, like serfs, sometimes bought their freedom and escaped.

These things made feudalism based on land ownership and service weaker, even if it continued in some places.

Sources

P.S. If you enjoyed what you read and are a teacher or tutor needing resources for your students from kindergarten up to high school senior (or even adults!), check out our partner sites KidsKonnect, SchoolHistory, and HelpTeaching for hundreds of facts, worksheets, activities, quizzes, courses, and more!

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The Feudal System Facts for Kids The Feudal System Facts for Kids

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The word "feudal" refers to the economic, political, and social system that characterized medieval Europe from about 1000 to 1300. A landowner gave vassals a piece of land in return for a promise from the person who received it. The people's payment to the lord usually came by doing military service or regularly giving them produce or money.

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After World War II ended and the mid-20th century began, the Cold War started. The United States and Russia were at war against each other. Space became an arena for this competition as both sides fought with technology, military power, and economic system to prove who was better. Keep reading for more facts about the space race!

Fiction and Trips to Space

Jules Verne's book From the Earth to the Moon and H.G. Wells' book First Men in the Moon is old books about the possibility of going to the Moon.

Robert A. Heinlein also wrote a book about four Americans who flew to the Moon and found people on it. The book became the inspiration for the Space Race.

The Space Race

The Cold War defined much of the early Space Age, including the missile and rocket development in the United States and the Soviet Union.

After the Soviet Union and the Cold War were over, other countries developed their space programs.

The Space Race happened during the Cold War.

The Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, partners of these two Superpowers, and the Third World nations whose support both sides sought during the Cold War.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a satellite. This was the first time that people knew about the Space Age.

Sputnik I and II

The launch of the first Sputnik satellite marks when space flight went from being just a thought to something that exists.

The Soviet Union launched the first Sputnik satellite. The next day, they put an article about it in the newspaper that said,

The first artificial satellite was created as a result of very intensive work by scientific research institutes and design bureaus. On October 4, 1957, this first satellite was successfully launched in the USSR. According to preliminary data, the carrier rocket has imparted the required orbital velocity of about 8000 meters per second to the satellite.

Rocket R-1 was the carrier for the satellite Sputnik I. It caused a lot of concern in Western countries.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had a powerful rocket and achieved space flight before the West. This shows that they are ahead in the Space Race by making the first move.

People were afraid that the Soviets would attack the United States in outer space. They also thought that powerful Soviet rockets might be used to launch missiles.

Then the Soviets successfully launched their second satellite, Sputnik II. It had a dog named Laika on it.

The success of Sputnik made people think about space. People paid attention to the military rockets.

Vanguard and Explorer I

Two months ago, the United States tried to launch a rocket with an important satellite. But they couldn't because something went wrong.

Finally, an Army team led by the German immigrant Wernher von Braun succeeded in launching the first American satellite. It was called Explorer I.

The Explorer was a spacecraft that carried some instruments. These instruments helped to find out about radiation belts. They are named after the scientist James A. Van Allen.

He wrote these words,

We were treated like heroes, rescuing the honour of the United States in this great Cold War with Russia by having a successful satellite.

The launch of the Sputnik I had started the development of communication for satellites. It also helped create two space agencies in the United States, one civilian and one military.

The First Astronauts

Then the space projects started including people in their flights. The programs were called:

Vostok (East) (USSR program for one astronaut. He was Yuri Gagarin, the first man ever in space)

Voshkod (Rise) (USSR program for two astronauts)

Soyuz (Union) (USSR lunar program)

Mercury (American program for one astronaut)

Gemini (American program for two astronauts)

Apollo (American lunar programs)

Both countries first used the one-person spaceship. It was good for them because they got lots of experience.

As spacecraft got larger, people could go outside. Spacewalks are when people go out of the spacecraft. It is also called an extravehicular activity.

The first spacewalk was done by a Russian astronaut called Alexei Leonov. He was tethered to a Voskhod capsule.

American astronaut Edward H. White did the first spacewalk in a Gemini space capsule three months later.

The Soviets began achieving a lot of records in the Space Race:

Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to go to space in 1963

Luna 9 was the first landing on the Moon

Kosmos 186 and Kosmos 188 made the first automatic docking on the Moon

Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 made the first docking in space by astronauts

Then US President John F. Kennedy announced,

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

The Space Race: Reaching the Moon

The US won the race to put a man on the Moon. This happened when Neil Armstrong did it on July 20, 1969.

The Apollo 11 mission used a Saturn V rocket, the Columbia command module, and the Eagle landing module.

More Apollo missions went to the Moon. They were Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. In three years, twelve American astronauts travelled to the Moon.

Afterwards, other American firsts happened until 1983, when Sally Ride went to space for the first time. She was the first American woman in space. Guion Bluford also went to space that year, and he was the first black astronaut there.
Read more about Apollo 11
Spacial Accidents

There were some accidents in the early days of testing. These accidents happened before we were able to test safely.

Three astronauts died in a fire during the Apollo 1 spacecraft test. Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger Bruce Chaffee.

The Soviets lost their first Soyuz spacecraft, and Vladimir Komarov died in space.

The deaths prompted the Apollo spacecraft and safety program to be redesigned. The first human-crewed Apollo flight occurred in 1968 when the vehicle travelled around the Earth 163 times during its mission.

Space Programs to Other Planets

Besides manned spaceflight, NASA and the Soviet space program sponsored unmanned programs that sent probes to different planets and the solar system.

The first Soviet Salyut (Salute) space station was put into orbit. The Soviets launched nine Salyut modules during the eleven-year program, six of which were research stations and three of which were military reconnaissance stations.

The American Skylab 1, 2, and 3 orbited the planet. These space stations enabled the astronauts to spend extended periods in space and conduct research while there. Furthermore, the stations had plenty of room for weightless floating within the spacecraft.

Reusable Spacecraft

The Soviet Mir (Peace) space stations and American reusable Space Shuttle programs, both of which incorporated several missions, helped to expand our knowledge. The Soviets built a reusable spaceflight vehicle called the Buran (Snowstorm) and successfully sent it into orbit unmanned.

The United States designed and operated a fleet of reusable spacecraft, including Columbia, Challenger, Enterprise, Discovery, and Atlantis. In 1981, Columbia was the first to reach space.

After that, space shuttles flew missions to find satellites and bring people. They could even get other spaceships.

The Space Shuttle program was created without an escape system, resulting in two major disasters. On January 28, 1986, the Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff. The crew of five men and two women perished in the tragedy.

Then Columbia went on its 114th mission in 2003. It came back to Earth, and then the spacecraft fell apart, and the seven astronauts on board died.

The End of the Space Race

After the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Space Race ended.

The Space Race had no meaning after the Cold War ended. When the military stopped, there was no reason to compete. Politicians and people didn't care about it anymore.

Many countries want to be better and have more power. They build mega space programs to do this.

Other Countries in Space

The European nations worked together on various initiatives to develop their technologies and space programs.

When the European Organization selected Moomera for the launch test site, Australia joined the European Launcher Development Corporation (ELDO). Still, a satellite could not be launched in any of the four tests. They moved then to the South American country of French Guiana.

China has been making space missions since the 1950s. They have received help from Russia as a young communist country.

The Chinese completed a manned space mission in 2003 when Yang Liwei circled the Earth 14 times in the Shenzhou 5.

Today's Space Race

Today's world is far more complicated than during the Cold War, when there were only two major superpowers competing for ascendancy.

Now, new companies want to show off their spaceflight abilities. They are following the steps of Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin.

Tomorrow's space race will not be the same as the old days. There are more actors in it, and everyone can win or lose.

Sources

P.S. If you enjoyed what you read and are a teacher or tutor needing resources for your students from kindergarten all the way up to high school senior (or even adults!), check out our partner sites KidsKonnect, SchoolHistory, and HelpTeaching for hundreds of facts, worksheets, activities, quizzes, courses, and more!

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The Space Race Facts for Kids The Space Race Facts for Kids

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After World War II ended and the mid-20th century began, the Cold War started. The United States and Russia were at war against each other. Space became an arena for this competition as both sides fought with technology, military power, and economic system to prove who was better.

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During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had fought on the same side, though they did not fancy each other a lot.

Americans had been worried about Russian Communism for a long time and Russians thought that the US should have joined them sooner so more Russians would not have died in the war.

The term 'cold war' first came up in an essay written by English author George Orwell. It was called 'You and the Atomic Bomb.'

Overview

In the 1950s, there was a war between the US and USSR. This war became a big part of everyday life in both countries.

The war was fueled by two things: the arms race and the fear of nuclear weapons. These things were happening at the same time as wars in Korea and Southeast Asia.

In Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union was trying to take over other countries. This made American's scared of a Russian plan for world control. That made the Russians mad because they thought American officials were always threatening them and trying to stop their plans for power.

The result was that both sides started fighting. It became a Cold War where nobody could win.

Within months, writer George Orwell's prediction came true. The US and the USSR were suspicious of one another and wanted to keep power in the wake of World War II by creating allies in capitalism and communism, respectively.

The "long telegram"

By the time World War II ended, American officials decided that the best defense the US could have against the Soviets was through containment.

A diplomat named George Kennan (1904-2005) explained this policy in his famous "Long Telegram." The Soviet Union was a political force committed to the idea that there could not be peace with the US. That is why the US's choice was to contain Russia and contain its expansionist tendencies.

Starting in 1947, the US military power became important to both countries after President Truman asked for money to help Turkey and Greece. He was trying to stop the influence of the Soviet Union in these two countries which were very near the USSR.

This was called the Truman Doctrine. The US usually became involved with other countries by giving them money and arms to fight the USSR in their own territories. It was like the US fought a war outside of its own territory and in the name of other countries.

After World War II, the line between East and West was frozen. Conflicts like the ones in Greece and Turkey happened in Asia, Africa, and Latin America too for the next five decades. Some of these conflicts got mixed up with the Cold War because the countries wanted to influence anti-colonial movements.

The Atomic Age

Some of the leaders of the Soviet Union were afraid that the US would attack Russia. The US had used an atomic bomb to end World War II in Japan. This showed the Soviets that America was a possible threat to their government.

The Russians also didn't want Germany to become independent after World War II because they had invaded Russia twice and killed many people before. Russia wanted to occupy Germany and prevent another attack. The US didn't want Germany occupied, but they agreed with the Soviets on this point.

The containment strategy also provided the reason for an increase in money for the military. Truman's recommendation was to use military force against communism anywhere that it was happening. To do that, he proposed a huge increase of money for the US defense.

The United States went on to develop atomic weapons. They started an arms race with the Soviet Union.

In 1949, the Soviets tested an atom bomb of their own. In response, President Truman announced that the United States would build an even more destructive atomic weapon: a hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) or "superbomb". Stalin followed suit.

Because of the Cold War, the stakes were high. The first H-bomb test made a 25-square-mile fireball. It made a hole in the ocean floor and could have destroyed half of Manhattan. There were radioactive wastes that came out of later American and Soviet tests.

The Cold War had a great effect on life in the US. People built bomb shelters in their backyards. They practiced attack drills at schools and other public places.

The 1950s and 1960s saw an epidemic of popular films that horrified moviegoers with depictions of nuclear destruction and mutant creatures. In these ways, the Cold War was always there for Americans' everyday lives.

The Space Race

Space exploration was also used as a front in the Cold War. American people were not happy when a Soviet missile put an object in space first. The United States wanted to keep up with the Soviet Union, so they started exploring space too.

In 1958 the US launched its own satellite, Explorer I, and the Space Race began. In that year President Dwight Eisenhower signed a public order to create NASA to explore space.

The Soviets were one step ahead of the US, though, because they launched a man into space in 1961 for the first time. In May, a US citizen became the first American man in space.

President JFK said that by the end of the decade the US would land a man on the Moon. His prediction came true on July 20 when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon.

The astronauts were seen as heroes and Soviets were seen as villains because they couldn't do it themselves. After Apollo 11 landed on the moon, six more Apollo missions followed. One of these was Apollo 13. The crew had an explosion in their space ship and they survived.

The red scare

The government of the United States started to prevent communism from expanding after World War II. Many Americans had become fear that communism might spread and threaten democracy in the US.

The House Un-American Activities Committee was created to find communist activities in the US. The government was afraid the Soviet Union had spies in the country.

The Committee brought the Cold War home by doing a series of hearings. They wanted to show that communist subversion existed in the United States.

The federal government and state governments attacked what they thought were communist threats. Senator Joseph McCarthy chaired one such committee, and the hope was to end communism in the federal government.

In Hollywood, the Committee made people say something that wasn't true about their politics, which meant they lost their jobs. More than 500 people lost their jobs. People who were blacklisted couldn't work again for a long time.

Thousands of people were investigated, fired, or even prosecuted during the 1950s. After communism became a topic, liberal college professors lost their jobs, and people were asked to testify against colleagues. Loyalty oaths became commonplace during this time period.

The war abroad

The fight against subversion at home was like the fight against the Soviet threat abroad. In 1950, the Cold War had its first military move when the North Korean People's Army, which was backed by the USSR, invaded South Korea, which was backed by the US. Truman sent American troops into Korea, but the Korean War dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953.

Some other international disputes happened. In the early 1960s, President Kennedy had a lot of trouble in his own hemisphere. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 seemed to prove that the real communist threat now lay in countries that were unstable and postcolonial, like Cuba.

In Vietnam, there was a struggle between the American-backed nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in the south and the communist nationalist Ho Chi Minh in the north. The US wanted to stop communists from taking over so they supported Diem. But by 1964, it became clear that if they wanted to stop communists from taking over Vietnam, then they had to help Diem more.

The US sent a lot of troops to Vietnam to fight for a lost cause. Many young soldiers died in the Vietnam war. Finally, the US had to retire its troops and Vietnam unified into a communist country.

The end of the Cold War

Richard Nixon became the US president in the 1970s. He didn't view the world as just one country with more power. Instead, he believed that people should use diplomacy instead of fighting to have more power.

To this end, he did things like recognizing China after their government became communist. He also established diplomatic relations with China and the Soviet Union at a time when they were not friends.

Then Mikhail Gorbachev took office in the USSR. He did two things that changed how Russia was seen by other countries: "glasnost" which means the country was more open to new ideas, and "perestroika" which meant that there were to be very strong economic changes inside the USSR.

In 1989, Eastern Europe changed. Every other communist country replaced its government with a noncommunist one. On November 9, the Berlin Wall was finally demolished. By 1991, the Soviet Union had fallen apart and there was no more Cold War. The US had no other "big" enemy with whom to fight.

Though the Cold War ended in the 1980s, it still affects today's geopolitics.

The United States is called the superpower because it has a lot of allies in countries where it sent money and arms to fight. The US also has a lot of weapons and military outposts all over the globe.

Sources

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The Cold War Facts for Kids - History for Kids

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During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had fought on the same side, though they did not fancy each other a lot. Americans had been worried about Russian Communism for a long time and Russians thought that the US should have joined them sooner so more Russians would not have died ...

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The Korean War is a war that was fought between two countries, North Korea and South Korea.

It all started in 1950 when 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel which divides Korea into North Korea (communist) and South Korea (democratic).

American troops soon entered as well to help south Korea.

This war lasted for 3 years with back and forth battles.

The Korean peninsula is where the US and the USSR fought a war that lasted from 1951 to 1953. Two people in the State Department were given the choice about what they would do with Korea after Japan lost it in World War II.

They agreed and divided it into two parts: North and South Korea. The Russians got the north and the Americans got the south.

Two new states formed in the south and north of Korea. Syngman Rhee was anti-communist, and Kim Il Sung was communist. The Americans let Syngman Rhee rule in the south, but they let Kim Il Sung rule in the north.

Both dictators wanted to be on the other side of the 38th parallel. They fought a lot and thousands died. They still did not want to stop fighting because they were trying to get more land.

Causes Of The Korean War

The war began when Japan took over Korea. They were in charge for a long time.

But then World War II ended and the Allied powers had to take over Japan's empire. When they did, the US and the Soviet Union had to work out what to do with Korea. They made a deal about it.

When the allies got together again in 1948, they made two separate countries. One was led by Kim Il-sung and the other by Syngman Rhee. The former allies didn't trust each other, so they made these two separate countries so that no one could hurt anyone else.

North Korea invaded its neighbor in 1950. North Korea attacked the South that year, and it started the war between communist countries. It was the first time a war had happened in the Cold War.

The Korean War In The Middle Of The Cold War

With her brother on her back, a war weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-26 tank, at Haengju, Korea. 6/9/1951, Library of Congress

The North Korean invasion was a surprise to the American government. Yet they knew that it was more than just a border dispute between two dictatorships. They thought it was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world.

Some top officials did not see intervention as an option. They thought that the US military should be used to stop communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be happening, even if the land was not strategic or valuable.

Harry Truman was the US president. He said that if he let Korea down, the Soviets would keep on going and take over other places.

The Korean War was a symbol of what happened in the Cold War between East and West. The North Korean army went into South Korea's capital, Seoul. The US got ready to fight communism itself because they did not want it taking over other places like Korea.

At first, the war was to get communists out of South Korea. It was hard for Allies. The North Korean army had trained soldiers and well-equipped guns. On the other hand, the forces in the South Korean army were not very well prepared.

At the beginning of the war, armies would move forward and then back. The North Koreans attacked and drove United Nations Command forces to a narrow perimeter around Pusan.

After this, General MacArthur surprised the North Koreans in September 1950 with an amphibious landing at Inchon. The North Koreans had to retreat behind the 38th parallel.
Read more about The Cold War
New Strategies

On top of that, the weather that year was very hot and dry. American soldiers had to drink water from rice paddies that were fertilized with human waste. That made them very sick because they were thirsty.

So President Truman and General Douglas MacArthur decided on a new set of war aims. The Korean War was offensive: it was a war to "liberate" the North from the communists.

The United States' new strategy was successful at first. The Inch'on Landing at Inch'on pushed the North Koreans out of Seoul and back to their side of the 38th parallel.

President Truman said that he was considering using atomic bombs in Korea. He made this comment at a press conference. This caused some people to panic.

The British Prime Minister came to Washington because of what Truman had said. But then Truman reassured him that the US would not use atomic weapons in Korea unless a major disaster or war problem was happening there between the North and South Koreans.

China Answers Back

When American troops crossed the boundary and headed north toward the Yalu River, China started to worry about protecting themselves from "armed aggression" against Chinese territory. Mao Zedong, the Chinese leader, wanted to help North Korea.

Mao Zedong warned the United States to keep away from the Yalu boundary unless it wanted full-scale war. He planned to use the Chinese People's Volunteers Army (CPVA) to save North Korea. He sent in 250,000 troops in November 1950.

They began a counterattack and continued with two offensives in 1950 and 1951. These unexpected attacks drove the United Nations forces south of Seoul and the Han River Valley.

Truman vs MacArthur

President Truman and his advisers did not want a war with the USSR. They were sure that such a war would lead to Soviet aggression in Europe, the deployment of atomic bombs, and many deaths. General MacArthur disagreed and wanted to start a wider war because he felt like this was necessary.

President Truman wanted to keep peace with the Chinese. General MacArthur, however, tried to make war happen.

Finally, in 1951 General MacArthur sent a letter to someone in Congress who liked fighting with China and was very opinionated about it. President Truman did not like this so he fired him for insubordination.

Stalemate

US soldiers pass fleeing refugees in the Nakdong River region, in what is now South Korea, during the Korean War.

In July 1951, President Truman and his military commanders started peace talks at Panmunjom. The fighting continued along the 38th parallel as negotiations stalled.

Both sides wanted a ceasefire that kept the 38th parallel boundary. Yet they could not agree if prisoners of war should be turned back. China and North Korea agreed, but the US did not.

Fighting in Korea ended in July 1951 and the two sides started talking about an armistice. The talks took a long time because Stalin, the USSR leader, died in March 1953.

But when new leaders came, they were more likely to agree so they signed the armistice on July 27, 1953.

It made a new boundary that allowed South Korea to have more territory (around 1,500 square miles). It also created a 2-mile-wide "demilitarized zone" that is still there today.

Consequences of the Korean War

The Korean War was bloody. Half of the people who died were civilians. That is 10% of Korea's population before the war started. Estimates of the number of people who died during this time vary. But we think that more than two million civilians died in North Korea.

The border between North Korea and South Korea remained in the same place as it was before North Korea invaded.

The Armistice finished the war in Korea and put armed forces to peace. But no peace treaty was made to re-establish relations between North and South Korea. A demilitarized zone, DMZ, was made. Both sides maintain a military presence there but only one side is allowed to be armed.

The countries have had periods where they are friendly and other periods when they are angry with each other. Some family members live in one country and work in another country, but their families are not together. North Korea has been making threats about nuclear programs which have led the United States to keep troops there.

The "Forgotten War"

The Korean War was called the "forgotten war" because it received less attention than other wars. The legacy of this war is still important today. Not only does it still shape geopolitics, but the US also started permitted US presidents to become involved in wars without Congress's approval.

The Korean War did not get much attention in the US. The most famous representation of the war in popular culture is the television series "M*A*S*H." It was set in a field hospital in South Korea. That show ran from 1972 until 1983, and its final episode was the most-watched TV episode ever.

Many US Korean War Veterans are remembered every day at the Korean War Veterans Memorial near Washington D.C., with statues of servicemen that represent them all.

Many soldiers were not accounted for at the end of the war. About 80,000 South Korean soldiers were caught in North Korea when the war ended. The North denies they took them prisoner- but defectors and South Korean officials say that these soldiers were put to work as forced laborers. Most of these prisoners will never be found because their remains are gone.

Sources

P.S. If you enjoyed what you read and are a teacher or tutor needing resources for your students from kindergarten all the way up to high school senior (or even adults!), check out our partner sites KidsKonnect, SchoolHistory, and HelpTeaching for hundreds of facts, worksheets, activities, quizzes, courses, and more!

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The Korean War Facts and History - History for Kids

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The Korean War is a war that was fought between two countries, North Korea and South Korea. It all started in 1950 when 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel which divides Korea into North Korea (communist) and South Korea (democratic).

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World War 2 was a battle between two groups of countries which are known as the Allies and the Axis.

The Allies were Britain, Russia, China, France, and the US. The Axis included Germany, Italy, and Japan.

There were lots of people killed and more land destroyed than ever before.

When the First World War happened, it made the world unstable. The next international conflict was World War II and it was worse.

Adolf Hitler, a leader in Germany, had good ideas for the country but he wanted to take over all of Europe. He tried to make Germany stronger and sign treaties with other countries like Italy and Japan.

Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. It made Great Britain and France go to war with Germany. Hitler killed more than 6 million Jews in different concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Hitler's plans for Germany

The war before World War II made Europe very unstable. The people who lost the war became angry and they wanted to make Germany more powerful.

One of those people was Adolf Hitler. When Germany got more powerful, they started making new rules for themselves called the Nazis. These rules were not fair and some people disagreed with them.

In World War II, Hitler wanted to create the "best" race. He didn't want Jews, gypsies, or people with disabilities to be part of it. So he imprisoned them and killed them.

Hitler became the leader of Germany in 1933. He wanted lands for German people to live on. Hitler's goal was war, and he had a secret plan to rearm Germany even though it was against the treaty that ended World War I.

The war begins

Hitler and Joseph Stalin from Russia signed a pact in August 1939. Hitler was going to attack Poland, and France and Great Britain had promised to help. But the pact with Stalin meant that Hitler would not fight on two fronts when he attacked Poland, because he could have Soviet assistance in conquering and dividing the nation itself.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. Then on September 17th, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. This made it hard for Poland to defend itself. Soon after that Germany and Russia took control of Poland.

The German invasion of Poland was hard. The Poles lost 70,000 men, 133,000 were wounded and 700,000 were taken prisoner in the defense of their country. 50,000 Poles died fighting the Soviets following their invasion on September 16th. 45,000 Polish citizens were shot in cold blood during the German invasion of Poland.

The West Front

In 1940, Germany attacked Norway and Denmark. On May 10th, they also attacked Belgium and the Netherlands. Three days later, they broke through a line of defence in France called the Maginot Line with their planes and tanks.

The British Expeditionary Force was evacuated by sea, while the southern regions of France fought against the Nazis. Italy's dictator Benito Mussolini allied with Hitler, and then he attacked France and Britain.

On June 14, German forces invaded Paris and a new government was formed. The French government asked for an armistice on the night of June 16. France has been divided into two zones: one occupied by German forces and the other by the French government.

Hitler now turned his attention to Britain, which had an advantage because it was separated from Europe by the English Channel.

Hitler wanted to invade England. He did this by bombing it. This was called the Blitz. The RAF fought back and eventually won the war. The US helped them so they could keep fighting.

Many people fought in this war. But some countries were not on one side or the other. Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden stayed neutral during the fighting.

Rescue at Dunkirk

The German forces went to the French coast. The Allies were trapped around the city of Lille by the end of May 1940. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and bombed from the air. The Allied forces retreated to Dunkirk with their backs to the sea.

Great Britain set out to rescue the army with a fleet of 850 ships. They went across the English Channel. It also had Royal Navy ships, and civilian craft- yachts, lifeboats, motorboats, paddle steamers, and fishing boats- help with rescuing 338 thousand soldiers from Dunkirk.

Winston Churchill

The British had a very powerful weapon in Winston Churchill. He was their leader and he fought the Germans when they were alone. His talent helped him to rally the people behind an effort to defeat Germany.

In one famous speech, Churchill said that Britain was willing to

...wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us . . . against a monstrous tyranny . . . We shall fight on the

beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets . . . we shall never surrender.

Radars helped the RAF to fight back against the Nazis by telling how many enemies are coming, how fast they are going, and their direction.

The British also smuggled a German machine called Enigma that could tell what messages were being sent between Nazi leaders. It could decode any message that the Nazis sent.

Hitler was surprised by the British. His decision then was to stop his attacks. Instead, he focused on other areas. The Allies learned from the Battle of Britain that Hitler's attacks could be stopped.

Operation Barbarossa

By 1941, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria had joined the Axis. Nazi troops overran Yugoslavia and Greece that April.

Hitler wanted to take over the Soviet Union because they had land. He also wanted to kill all Jews.

On June 22nd, 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union. It was called Operation Barbarossa.

The Germans had much fewer tanks and planes than Russians but they attacked Russia because Russians were not prepared for war.

German forces put Leningrad under siege. By November, the city was cut off from the rest of Russia.

To force a surrender, Hitler planned to starve people living in the city and destroy food that was stored in warehouses. People got hungry so they ate cattle as well as cats and dogs. Nearly one million people died in Leningrad during 1941-1942 because of hunger. But the city refused to fall.

Hitler looked at Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. His army began attacking getting close to Moscow.

But then the Nazis retreated as it got cold and their uniforms were summer uniforms. The Germans finally retreated again because they had lost a lot of people by then. Russian weather had stopped Hitler in the same way it had stopped Napoleon 150 years before.

The Eastern and Mediterranean Fronts

Germany wanted to conquer North Africa because Hitler was friends with Mussolini. But before that, Italy had not been in the war.

Mussolini attacked British-controlled Egypt in September 1940. The Battle of Britain was still going on, but he ordered his army to attack anyway.

Mussolini wanted to take the Suez Canal because it would help him get closer to oil fields in the Middle East. Italians pushed 60 miles into Egypt, and they forced British units back.

In December 1941, the British fought back against the Italian army. This was a disaster for the Italians. The British took 130,000 prisoners from Italy.

Hitler sent a German tank force to save his Axis partner. This caught the British by surprise and they were forced to retreat.

The Holocaust

The Nazis believed that the Germanic peoples were a master race. They thought people who weren't Germanic were inferior and would eventually lead to the Holocaust, which is when people would be killed because they were judged to be inferior.

When Hitler tried to get Jews to leave for other countries and they did not, he made them go to certain cities. They were there in overcrowded, dismal ghettos. The Nazis kept Jews from leaving these areas with barbed wire and stone walls. Many people died from hunger or disease

Hitler was mad that Jews didn't die from hunger or disease. He had a plan to kill all the Jews called the Final Solution. It was a program of genocide, which means he wanted to just kill all of them.

Many Jews died in these camps and Nazi massacres. Only a few people helped them escape from the death camps to reach better lives. These rescuers hid the Jews in their homes or helped them to escape to other countries. The ones who survived were changed forever by what they experienced.
Read more about The Holocaust
War in the Pacific Ocean

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and the US Navy. When Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, America found itself in a global war.

Fighting in the Pacific was different from fighting in Europe. In Europe, there were big ground forces that drove into the enemy's country. Both of these campaigns had battles where naval power, airpower, and ships were important.

Japan launched a huge assault that swept through the US territories of Guam, Wake Island, and the Philippines as well as British-controlled Hong Kong, Malaya, and Burma.

In 1942, the US Navy and Japanese forces fought to the Battle of Coral Sea. The US Navy stopped Japan for the first time.

Then a month later US forces destroyed four Japanese aircraft carriers. This was a major victory for the US and it was important in stopping Japan from winning.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

On 6 August, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. Over 100,000 people died soon afterwards. On 9 August, another bomb was dropped and over 35,000 people died right away.

Allied forces issued a challenge to the Japanese government to surrender but they did not listen to it. The hardliners thought that holding out for a long time was better than surrendering because their defences were strong enough

The most controversial decision of World War II was whether to drop atomic bombs on Japan. It is hard to know if the Allies should have dropped the bomb because it is a complex matter but some people say it was necessary to end the war.

The Allied victory

In 1944, an Allied army freed France from Nazi rule. One year later, the Allies invaded Germany and forced them to surrender.

On D-Day, also called the invasion of Normandy, British, American, French, and Canadian troops fought their way onto a 60-mile stretch of beach in Normandy, France.

The Germans had dug in with machine guns, rocket launchers, and cannons behind concrete walls three feet thick. The Allies took heavy casualties that day among their forces. More than 2700 men died that day.

The Allies rolled across the Rhine River into Germany. Their army of 3 million approached Berlin from the southwest. Another 6 million Soviet troops approached from the east.

On April 30th Hitler killed himself. The city was falling under Soviet attack. The Germans surrendered on May 8th, 1945.

The Japanese surrendered to General MacArthur at the beginning of September. The ceremony happened aboard the US battleship Missouri. With Japan's surrender, the war had ended.

Now, countries faced the task of rebuilding a world that was torn apart by war.

Sources:

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World War II Facts, Summary and History - History for Kids

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World War 2 was a battle between two groups of countries which are known as the Allies and the Axis. The Allies were Britain, Russia, China, France, and the US. The Axis included Germany, Italy, and Japan. There were lots of people killed and more land destroyed than ever before.

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The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn that lasted for many years.

It started in the United States and affected almost every country.

One of the most important things it did was make people want to get new jobs.

The Great Depression was the worst economic event in history. The Great Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929. It lasted until World War II ended, which was 1946. Economists and historians often say that this is the worst event in modern history.

The stock market crash in October 1929 was the beginning of the Great Depression. By 1933, there were 25% unemployment rates. More than 5,000 banks had closed.

President Herbert Hoover tried to fix this by using the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but these measures did not work well enough. Franklin Roosevelt became president in 1932. His New Deal offered a different approach to solving the Great Depression.

What caused the Great Depression

The U.S. economy was excellent, and people made a lot of money from stocks in the 1920s. People had stock exchanges where they could buy and sell stocks, but some people were doing things like putting their savings into the stock market for no good reason, which led to a big crash later on.

The stock market started to go down in the 1920s. Unemployment went up. Jobs became hard to find. Banks had large loans that they could not sell on the market.

The stock prices were higher than they should have been because people didn't have enough money for goods. Then there was an economic downturn in the agriculture sector, meaning that there were not enough crops being grown or low food prices.

The Wall Street Crash

On October 24, 1929, people started to sell the shares they were buying for more than what they were worth. This happened because there were too many. The day this was happening was called "Black Thursday." People traded a record 12.9 million shares that day, and it is still considered one of the worst days in history.

Five days later, on October 29th, or "Black Tuesday," sixteen million shares were traded. It was panic that made it happen. Millions of people lost money, and those who had borrowed money got wiped out completely.

After the stock market crashed, people were scared. They didn't want to spend money. Other businesses then had less business because people don't buy things when they are afraid of them. People with jobs worked more, but they made less money, and people could only afford fewer things with their lower wages.

Many Americans who had to borrow money to buy their homes ended up in debt. The number of foreclosures and repossessions was high. But the global adherence to the gold standard helped spread economic problems from America worldwide, especially Europe.

President Hoover

Despite promises from Herbert Hoover and other leaders, the Great Depression worsened. By 1930, 4 million Americans were looking for work, and they could not find it. That number increased to 6 million in 1931.

Meanwhile, America's industrial production dropped by 50%. People were buying fewer things because they had less money. There were more lines at soup kitchens and more homeless people in America's towns and cities.

In the fall of 1930, people didn't have confidence in their banks and took their money, so they had enough cash. This made it hard for banks to give out loans.

A lot of banks closed in the United States. By 1933, thousands of them had closed.

In this dire situation, Hoover's administration tried to help banks with government loans. The idea was that the banks would then give loans to businesses, hiring their employees back. Banks also needed to get rid of loans they couldn't pay back by selling them.

Hoover believed that the government should not do work for people but instead let them find jobs. He also thought that it was not the government's responsibility to create jobs or provide economic relief.

The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl was a dry time in the Southern Plains. There were terrible dust storms.

A terrible drought went through the Southern Plains in 1930. Massive dust storms began in 1931. A series of drought years made the water shortage worse.

There are 35 million acres of land that could not be farmed anymore, and another 125 million acres of land was losing its topsoil. Farmers couldn't buy their crops. So they left them there to rot. People who were starving lost their food and animals.

Dust storms happened during the Dust Bowl. These storms would carry dirt from the Great Plains and make it go all the way to Washington and New York City. Ships in the Atlantic Ocean were covered in dirt.

In some areas, dust made it hard to see the sky. It was like a big cloud that covered the sky and then became a blanket on the ground. The dust got into houses and made them dirty.

Some people had trouble breathing because of the dust. There are estimates about how many people died from this condition, but how many died from this problem is not clear.

On April 14, 1935, the worst dust storm happened. News reports called it Black Sunday. A wall of blowing sand and dirt started in Oklahoma and spread east. Millions of tons of dirt blew off the Great Plains on this day.

The Dust Bowl was a terrible time because of the high winds that blew dust from Texas to Nebraska. This made people move into cities for work instead of where they used to be on farms.

The Dust Bowl also called the Dirty Thirties, lasted for ten years. But its economic impacts on the region continue to affect it today.

President Roosevelt

In 1932, the country was in a depression. More than 20% of people were unemployed. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won the election because people voted for him to fix their problems and make things better.

On the day that FDR became president, all of the U.S. states had already ordered banks to close, and there was not enough money to pay for workers from the government. But FDR felt confident and optimistic by declaring, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Roosevelt took action to fix the country's economic problems first by making a four-day bank holiday. This meant that banks would close, and we could pass legislation for them to reopen. He also spoke to the public over the radio, and these were called "fireside chats".

During Roosevelt's first 100 days in office, he passed laws that helped stabilize and grow the economy. He also created two organizations to help the economy. One organization protects people's money in banks, and another helps to keep stock markets safe so they can't go wrong as they did before.

The New Deal

The New Deal was a series of programs started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to fix the Great Depression. Roosevelt tried quickly to better the economy by providing jobs and different relief programs for those having a bad time.

The government created many different experimental New Deal projects over the next eight years. These projects fundamentally changed how US federal governments work by making them more prominent than before so they could serve more people better.

The government can use the money to help the economy. When they do this, it is called Keynesian economics.

The New Deal did many things that gave people jobs and made sure that prices were low. For example, if a product is too expensive, the government might change the price or even stop making it buy more.

Roosevelt tried to support prices and wages. He also took away the US from the international gold standard. He banned some business practices that some people think are competitive, and he created new public works programs to help people get jobs.

The Roosevelt administration paid farmers to stop or cut back on their production. One of the challenges was destroying excess crops, despite the need for people who wanted food they could afford.

Federal taxes increased three times from 1933 to 1940. Taxes went up for things like income, inheritance, and corporate taxes. These are all types of taxes.

The United States built many projects that employed people. These projects were like dams, bridges, tunnels, and roads that are still in use today.

The New Deal helped the country. Because of it, people felt better when they saw that there were measurable results, like when FDR closed the banks for a week in 1933 to stop people from taking their money out.

In World War II, the United States got better. The war made trade happen. It also fixed a problem with prices and wages. Suddenly, there was a lot of demand for things that were not expensive, and this led to a significant economic stimulus.

Although the economy got better, it wasn't enough to convince people that the New Deal helped get America out of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was the result of three things. A changing Federal Reserve, tariffs, and inconsistent government intervention. It might be made better or even avoided by changing any one of these factors.
Read more about the New Deal
Sources

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The Great Depression Causes, Impact, History for kids

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The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn that lasted for many years. It started in the United States and affected almost every country. One of the most important things it did was make people want to get new jobs. The Great Depression was the worst economic event in history.

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World War 2: Facts & Information for Kids - History for Kids

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World War 2 was the biggest war in global history. It lasted 6 years, involved over 30 countries and killed millions. Learn all about it!

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The League of Nations Facts for Kids - History for Kids

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The League of Nations was an international organization that tried to stop wars and settle disputes. It was created after the First World War to make sure that nothing like that would happen again.

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The Middle Ages Facts for Kids - History for Kids

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The Middle Ages were a time of social change, wars, and natural disasters. The end of the Middle Ages was the Renaissance. Click for more!

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World War I Facts for Kids | Key Events, Timeline, Deaths, Cause

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Over 9 million military personnel and 13 million civilians died in the destruction caused by World War I. Click for more facts.

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Famous Inventions for Kids! | Animated Read Aloud History and Science | Vooks Narrated Storybooks

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THE HISTORY OF MONEY | Interesting Facts You Didn't Know | Happy Learning 💰📜🤑

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Who Invented Money? | The History of Money | Barter System of Exchange | The Dr Binocs Show

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STORMS⚡️ Natural Disasters in 1 Minute ⛈️☔

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https://youtu.be/Q0Avq60pNWI?si=r1UoRbeJnWU0zy8o

https://youtu.be/J2__Bk4dVS0?si=ZLok64eZps1qbN-V

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https://youtu.be/DI9Y24SKPEg?si=JO0-8Qg97ISnEf-o

https://youtu.be/oAEbtqsrF3Y?si=47qJNOVYmp9PAGcL

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Tsunami | The Dr. Binocs Show | Educational Videos For Kids

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All About Volcanoes: How They Form, Eruptions & More!

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'Worst typhoon in 25 years' hits Japan's west

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Hurricane | The Dr. Binocs Show | Educational Videos For Kids

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Write all the words you can't pronounce here

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TTSReader - Text To Speech by WellSource Ltd.

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TTSReader’s Player - Free Online Text to Speech Reader

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English to Japanese Dictionary

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Dictionary - online translation - bab.la

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bab.la dictionary: Search the free online dictionary for millions of translations in many different languages.

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What Caused The Black Death? | Bubonic Plague | The Dr Binocs Show | Peekaboo Kidz

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History of the Irish Potato Famine in 1 minute

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A huge storm hit Japan earlier this week causing widespread destruction.

Typhoon Nanmadol was one of the strongest typhoons to have ever hit the country.

Wind speeds reached more than 100mph. The typhoon caused flooding, triggered landslides and damaged buildings. Reports say that some areas experienced over half a metre of rainfall.

Two people have died and more than 100 people were injured by the storm.

Typhoon Nanmadol has now weakened, headed out into the Pacific Ocean and people in Japan are beginning to clear up after the storm.

What is a typhoon?

A typhoon is an intensely violent rotating storm.

To start with, these types of storms are called tropical depressions. However, when the wind speed gets above 39mph they are then classified as tropical storms.

If the wind speed gets above 74mph, it gets called a typhoon.

The fastest typhoon winds ever recorded were from Tropical Cyclone Olivia. Gusts of up to 253mph battered Barrow Island off the coast of Australia in 1996.

Typhoons are known by different names in different parts of the world. In some places, they are called cyclones and in others, they are called hurricanes.

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How Dinosaurs became Extinct | Dinosaur Extinction | Dinosaurs video

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How Did Dinosaurs Become Extinct?

Want to know more information about dinosaur extinction?

We ask "How did dinosaurs become extinct?" and do some 'digging' for answers!

Based on different research we outline some theories about why they became extinct. Share them with your kids and see which they think really happened.

Dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago at the end of the cretaceous period (see what cretaceous dinosaurs were around at this time).

About 70% of all animal life on earth died out. Scientists call it a mass extinction - it wasn't the first mass extinction in earth's history and it probably won't be the last!

Having existed for 165 million years, why did dinosaurs die out?

There are many different theories about why this happened. We will probably never know exactly what happened, which means that scientists will continue to disagree and come up with different dinosaur extinction theories.

Here are some of them:

Asteroid Impact

A massive asteroid hit the earth at Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico about 65 million years.
The meteor crater is 180 km from rim to rim and scientists have worked out that the asteroid must have been 10 km across. It is thought that the impact would have caused massive damage, including a giant dust cloud which lead to massive changes in the climate.

This would have destroyed lots of the cretaceous plants, so herbivorous dinosaurs starved and the meat eating ones were left with nothing to eat either.

Ice Age Theory

Now and again, the earth cools into periods we call ice ages. As dinosaurs were thought to be cold blooded, it would have been hard for them to cope with such cold conditions.

For example, if large parts of the planet were covered in ice, then there would have been little or no plants for herbivorous dinos to eat. However, there is no real evidence of an ice age at this time.

Volcano Theory

There was massive volcanic activity between 63 and 67 million years ago, particularly on the Deccan Plateau in western India. This, again, would have caused a massive change in climate, which dinosaurs would have found hard to adapt to.
Disease

It is possible that a disease spread through the dinosaur population causing their extinction.

Competition from Other Animals

Fossils of small mammals have been found from 65 million years ago. It is possible that these small cretaceous animals started to compete with dinosaurs, for example stealing and eating dinosaur eggs. However, no-one is sure whether mammals caused dinosaur extinction, or they thrived because dinosaurs were no longer around.

Gradual Extinction

The number of dinos declined throughout the cretaceous period. Maybe a number of factors contributed to their eventual extinction and they just died out.

Dinosaur extinction is a big mystery, as although dinosaurs died out at this time, many species survived, including similar animal types like crocodiles.

New Discoveries

Scientist have come up with some strange ideas but none of the theories really explains everything, so we will probably never be sure what happened.

To help you keep up with the news and discoveries about this, I have set up a news page on Why are Dinosaurs Extinct?

So what do you think? Have you got a theory? Why not invent a story about how you think dinos became extinct and share it with us here at Kids-dinosaurs.com. You can even upload a drawing to go with it!

I am happy for your class to submit their theories, but PLEASE send only one compiled submission under your school name - not individual ones. Then I will put up a class page for you.

See other sent stories:

Click below to see stories from other visitors.

More of your dinosaur extinction theories.

Some of your ideas were short, so I have pulled them together into one page.
Go to Kids Dinosaur Home from Dinosaur Extinction

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Dinosaur Extinction - Facts and Theories for Kids

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Want to know more information about dinosaur extinction? We ask "How did dinosaurs become extinct?" and do some 'digging' for answers! Based on different research we outline some theories about why they became extinct. Share them with your kids and see which they think really happened.

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A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that generally tracks in a westward or northern direction. Basically it is a hurricane formed in the western North Pacific Ocean. Cyclone, Hurricane, Typhoon all are same but have different names depending on the ocean basin they have formed in. All of them are strong tropical storms with winds over 75 miles per hour.

They have a circular or spiral system of violent winds and heavy rains. These circular systems can range up to hundreds of kilometers in diameter. The term typhoon has been derived from the Cantonese word 'tai feng.'
Quick Facts: -

The spin in the hurricane requires Coriolis force to be formed. This force is too weak near the equator so these tropical storms do not form there.

They are most commonly formed in late summers and if the winds hit 150 miles per hour then it becomes a Super typhoon.

The eye of a storm can be defined as its low-pressure center which can range from 10 to 40 miles in width.

Just outside the eye of the storm winds can reach at speeds of 110 miles per hour.

Supertyphoons are very destructive and can measure several hundred miles across.

The Caroline Islands in the south-western Pacific Ocean rarely get hit by fully developed storms because this is where these storms originate.

A thunderstorm can take hours or even days to develop into a strong tropical cyclone.

The usual typhoon season starts in the early summer and ends in early autumn. It generally coincides with the monsoon season in Southeast Asia.

They typically form between 5 to 15 degrees latitude north and south of the equator.

Visit https://www.health24 for more info

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A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that generally tracks in a westward or northern direction. Basically it is a hurricane formed in the western North Pacific Ocean. Cyclone, Hurricane, Typhoon all are same but have different names depending on the ocean basin they have formed in.

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We could start a 'Kindness Club' where students organize weekly activities to spread joy, like leaving encouraging notes on lockers, organizing surprise thank-you events for teachers, or creating a 'buddy system' to ensure no one feels left out during recess or lunch.

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Let's transform our school environment by creating colorful and interactive spaces. We could paint inspiring murals, set up a student-run garden, or design flexible learning areas with comfortable seating where students can relax, study, or socialize between classes.

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We could implement a 'Voice Box' system where students anonymously share ideas or concerns. A student-teacher committee could review these regularly, turning the best suggestions into real changes, giving everyone a chance to shape our school community.

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We could start a 'Kindness Club' where students organize weekly activities to spread joy, like leaving encouraging notes on lockers, organizing surprise thank-you events for teachers, or creating a 'buddy system' to ensure no one feels left out during recess or lunch.

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How can we make our school a happier place for everyone?

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How can we make our school a happier place for everyone?