History Through 1777 Essay

Submitted By littlelbows
Words: 9020
Pages: 37
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Ashley Medeiros
History Exams 3 and 4

Question #1:

There was a low level insurgency going on in Cambodia long before 1969. In the early 1960s in order not to aggravate the North Vietnamese Communists, Prince Norodom Sihanouk--the hereditary king of Cambodia--opened Cambodian ports to North Vietnamese supply ships building up base camps in eastern Cambodia to use as staging areas for attacks against South Vietnam. More supplies came through Cambodia then down the infamous Ho Chi Mihn Trail in Laos. In return the North Vietnamese insured that the Kramer Rouge insurgents kept their level of attacks very low.
When Richard Nixon started pulling American ground troops out of South Vietnam in 1969 these big base camps in eastern Cambodia became more of a threat, and pressure was put on Sihanouk (who really didn't much like the N. Vietnamese using his county as a cover to attack S Vietnam) to let the US take out these facilities. Sihanouk agreed to the so-called "secret bombing campaign" undertaken by B-52s. This was NOT an expansion of the war, and if these facilities had been taken out in 1967 (like the US military advised LBJ to do) there would have never been a Tet Offensive in 1968.
However, there were elements in the Cambodian government that did not feel this went far enough. While Sihanouk was out of the country some Army Officers seized power, and confronted the Kramer Rouge and their sponsors the NVA directly setting off a much more intense insurgency. Sihanouk was very popular among the Cambodian people, and they did not support his ouster, leading to an eventual victory by the Kramer Rouge. In the end the Kramer Rouge murdered something in the neighborhood of 2.5 millions Cambodians and the war in Cambodia was a tragedy for everyone.
On May 4, 1970 students were protesting outside of Taylor Hall against the Vietnam War and the bombings in Cambodia and Laos. Rioting had started the night before and the ROTC building had been burned to the ground. Ohio governor, James Rhodes, sent in the National Guard to keep order. During the protests on the second day, the National Guard opened fire on the students and other protesters. It is unsure who ordered the gunfire. Some say that the students were setting off firecrackers or there was a gunman firing on the National Guard. The Guard took position on the Hill, leveled their guns and opened fire. Four people were killed and an additional 12 people were wounded. The campus was closed down and the recoil is still remembered there, to this day. You can see the memorial near Taylor Hall (the Architecture Building). The second article, I am including here, details the five days that led up to the massacre.
The "Pentagon Papers" were/are a compilation of material about the US involvement Indochina. The papers were compiled by the US State Department and the US military in the late 1960's showing how the US became involved in Vietnam (and in Laos and Cambodia) between 1945 and 1967. The New York Times obtained a copy of the top-secret report from one of the people compiling the report, Daniel Ellsberg and published it in 1971.
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age. Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The Twenty-sixth Amendment was proposed on March 23, 1971, and ratified on July 1, 1971. The ratification period of 107 days was the shortest in U.S. history. The amendment, which lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen, was passed quickly to avert potential problems in the 1972 elections. He Watergate Scandal began with the Watergate burglary -- Republican operatives under G. Gordon Liddy and CREEP (the Committee to Re-Elect the President) broke into Democratic National Committee Headquarters to
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