AP European History Learning Targets:

The Cold War and the Era of the Cold War (1945 near present day)
Did the actions of the Soviet Union or the actions of the Western Democracies contribute more to the outbreak and escalation of the Cold War?
First take:

What do I need to know in order to validate this first take?

What do I need to be able to do in order to validate this first take?

Second take, based on preliminary reading / research (HEMW Ch. 21, pages 876 - 881; Ch. 22, pages 883 - 901 Western Europe: Political
Reconstruction):

Evidence in support of my second take:

Learning Target
1. I can examine the factors that
contributed to the outbreak of the Cold
War.

2. I can define containment and assess

to what extent this strategy worked for the
United States during the early years of the
Cold War.

3. I can explain how Berlin became the

focus of the Cold War confrontation in
Europe.

3. I can explain how Berlin became the

focus of the Cold War confrontation in
Europe (continued).
4. I can describe the Cold War alliance
system.

Essential concepts and events

Yalta Conference
Declaration of Liberated Europe
Warsaw vs. London Poles
United Nations
Iron Curtain
Communist Bloc
Containment
Truman Doctrine
UN Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration
European Recovery Program /
Marshall Plan
COMECON / Molotov Plan
coup in Czechoslovakia
Potsdam Conference
Allied occupation of Germany
Marshall Plan and
reestablishment of German
currency
Berlin Blockade
Berlin Airlift / Operation Vittles
Vienna Summit
Berlin Wall
North Atlantic Treaty / NATO
Warsaw Pact

Essential people and their works

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin
Winston Churchill,
Iron Curtain speech

George Kennan, The Sources of

Soviet Conduct
Harry Truman
Markos
George Marshall
Joseph Stalin
Vyacheslav Molotov

Essential locations
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Germany
Greece
Poland
Romania
Russia (USSR)
Serbia (Yugoslavia)
Slovakia
Turkey
Berlin
Vienna

Harry Truman
Joseph Stalin
Nikita Khrushchev
John F. Kennedy

Belgium
Denmark
France
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
United Kingdom

Final take:

Evidence in support of my final take:

History questions (in preparation for writing my essay):
What happened? In light of the big question above, how/why did these
events happen?

Historiography question sources (in preparation for writing my

essay): What evidence exists that these events happened as you claim they
did?

What was the high water mark for the Soviet Union in its Cold War with the Western Democracies and could this high water mark have
been better played by the Soviets to produce victory or was the Soviet Cold War effort doomed to defeat from the beginning?
First take:

What do I need to know in order to validate this first take?

What do I need to be able to do in order to validate this first take?

Second take, based on preliminary reading / research (HEMW Ch. 22, pages 918 Communist Societies in the USSR and Eastern Europe - 924; Ch.
24, pages 959 - 970 Collapse and Recovery of the European Economy):

Evidence in support of my second take:

Learning Target
5. I can evaluate the leadership of Nikita
Khrushchev.

6. I can assess to what extent the efforts

of the Soviet Union to maintain control of
Eastern Europe were successful.

7. I can describe the nuclear arms race

and evaluate the strategies of the U. S. and
Soviet Union during the arms race.

8. I can describe the problems that

confronted the Soviet Union during the
1970s and 1980s.

Essential concepts and events

Destalinization
Kitchen Debate
Sputnik
Cuban Revolution
U-2 Affair
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Vienna Summit / Berlin Wall
Cuban Missile Crisis
hare-brained schemes
Separate Paths to Socialism
Hungarian Revolt
Prague Spring
Warsaw Pact invasion
Brezhnev Doctrine

Essential people and their works

Nikita Khrushchev,
Secret Speech
Fidel Castro
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy

ICBM
Nuclear Deterrence
massive retaliation
Mutual Assured Destruction
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty
Era of Stagnation
centrally-planned economy
central planning bureaus
black market economy
infrastructure disintegration
Invasion of Afghanistan

Leonid Brezhnev
Richard Nixon

Nikita Khrushchev
Imre Nagy
Leonid Brezhnev
Alexander Dubcek

Leonid Brezhnev

Essential locations
Hungary
Czech Republic
Russia (USSR)
Slovakia
Budapest
Prague

Final take:

Evidence in support of my final take:

History questions (in preparation for writing my essay):
What happened? In light of the big question above, how/why did these
events happen?

Historiography question sources (in preparation for writing my

essay): What evidence exists that these events happened as you claim they
did?

Mikhail Gorbachev has recently been decried as a traitor by some Russian politicians, who go so far as to say that recent tensions with
Chechyna, Georgia, and the Ukraine are rightly blamed on his actions. To what extent does this charge of treason have any historical merit?
First take:

What do I need to know in order to validate this first take?

What do I need to be able to do in order to validate this first take?

Second take, based on preliminary reading / research (HEMW Ch. 24, pages 981 The Cold War Rekindled and Defused - 986; Ch. 25, pages 987 1018):

Evidence in support of my second take:

Learning Target
9. I can evaluate the policies introduced
by Mikhail Gorbachev in an effort to
address the problems faced by the Soviet
Union.

Essential concepts and events

Glasnost
Perestroika
market reforms
Demokratizatsaya
Intermediate Nuclear Forces
Treaty
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
Solidarity
free elections in Poland
Velvet Revolution
Romanian Revolution
Reunification of Germany
Croatian War of Independence
Bosnian War
ethnic cleansing
Dayton Peace Accords / IFOR
Kosovo War

Essential people and their works

Mikhail Gorbachev
Boris Yeltsin
Ronald Reagan

11. I can explain the events that led to the

collapse of the Soviet Union.

hardliners
January Events in Lithuania
new Union Treaty
August Coup
Commonwealth of Independent
States

Mikhail Gorbachev
Gennady Yanayev
Boris Yeltsin

12. I can examine the post-Soviet

conditions of Russia.

shock therapy
kleptocracy
Chechnyan wars and terrorism
Invasions of Georgia and Ukraine

Boris Yeltsin
Vladimir Putin

10. I can describe the results of the Soviet

military withdrawal from Eastern Europe.

Lech Walesa
Ronald Reagan
Margaret Thatcher
John Paul II
Alexander Dubcek
Vaclav Havel
Nicolae Ceaucescu
Helmut Kohl
Iosip Tito
Slobodan Milosevic

Essential locations

Bosnia
Croatia
Czech Republic
Hungary
Poland
Romania
Serbia (formerly Yugoslavia)
Slovakia
Slovenia
Kosovo
Berlin
Bucharest
Budapest
Gdansk
Prague
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Estonia
Georgia
Latvia
Lithuania
Russia
Ukraine
Moscow
Russia
Chechnya

Final take:

Evidence in support of my final take:

History questions (in preparation for writing my essay):
What happened? In light of the big question above, how/why did these
events happen?

Historiography question sources (in preparation for writing my

essay): What evidence exists that these events happened as you claim they
did?

To what extent have the events since the end of the Second World War demonstrated that Europes best market and source of raw materials has
always been itself? If so, why should the European Union not have come into existence 100 years before it did?
First take:

What do I need to know in order to validate this first take?

What do I need to be able to do in order to validate this first take?

Second take, based on preliminary reading / research (HEMW Ch. 22, pages 912 Europe and the Global Economy - 918 End of the Gold-Dollar
Standard; Ch. 23, pages 925 - 957; Ch. 24, pages 977 The Enlarged European Community - 981 The Cold War Rekindled and Defused; Ch. 26,
pages 1028 The European Union - 1032 The New Economy):

Evidence in support of my second take:

Learning Target
13. I can examine the process by which
European powers left their colonies in
Africa and Asia.

14. I can examine the process by which

the European Union was founded and
expanded.

14. I can examine the process by which

the European Union was founded and
expanded (continued).

Essential concepts and events

Statute of Westminster
Commonwealth of Nations
Indian National Congress
Partition of India
Partition of Palestine
Israeli War of Independence
Suez Crisis
Indochina War
Battle of Dien Bien Phu
Algerian War
European Coal and Steel
Community
Treaty of Rome
European Common Market /
European Economic Community
Value-Added Tax (V.A.T.)
Maastricht Treaty
European Union
Euro
European Bank of
Reconstruction and
Redevelopment
European Constitution (rejected)

Essential people and their works

Mohandas Gandhi
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Gamel Abdel Nasser
Ho Chi Minh
Charles de Gaulle

Essential locations
Belgium
France
Netherlands
United Kingdom

Winston Churchill
Robert Schuman
Charles de Gaulle

Belgium
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Irish Republic (Eire)
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
United Kingdom

Final take:

Evidence in support of my final take:

History questions (in preparation for writing my essay):
What happened? In light of the big question above, how/why did these
events happen?

Historiography question sources (in preparation for writing my

essay): What evidence exists that these events happened as you claim they
did?

Reflective history questions:

Based upon your understanding of these events, to what extent do they
suggest continuity and/or change?

What do these events reveal about us as humans?

Reflective historiography question interpretations & theories:

In light of your responses to the other questions, what historical theories
seem to be at work?