This is a photo of the Berlin Wall before it was a wall in 1959, looking at the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor) which was the end point of the main avenue in Berlin (Unter den Linden).  The gate became the symbolic dividing point between East and West Berlin when the "wall" was built in 1961.  Below is a photo of the wall--sorry that the slide is a little dirty--after it was a "wall" in 1967.

• Read chapters 27 and 28 in the textbook.
• Read my notes for HIS 135 on the Cold War.  I also have remarks on Russia and the Cold War and Gorbachev in my HIS 242 course.
• Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the unit.
• Post (or respond) your thoughts/ideas about this unit's reading and assignment in the Blackboard online discussion forum. Do not post your assignment there.
• Submit the Optional Solzhenitsyn paper.

• Read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich  (if you are going to submit the optional Solzhenitsyn paper).
• Submit the Optional Solzhenitsyn paper.  If you don't understand why I call this an optional paper, take a look at the Explanation of Assignments and Grading
• Submit a My Family and History paper that requires you to examine your family's history in light of the historical events of the past half century.  Point value is 100 points possible for a two-page paper (less for one page).
• Listen to some further information about this unit as a mp3 file.  You can also read the information as a txt file.

• JFK - "Ich bin ein Berliner" (1963)
• See also the videos dealing with Russia and the Cold War in the HIS 242 course.
• For extra credit please suggest to your instructor a relevant video for this unit of the course. Send the title of the video, the url and a brief explanation of why you find the video interesting and applicable to the material that is being studied in this unit.

• Take the short 5-point quizzes for chapters 27 and 28. Log into Blackboard and look under "Chapter Quizzes." You have five minutes to complete each quiz (multiple-choice questions).Read George Kennan's "The Sources of Soviet Conduct".  In a one-page paper, given the benefit of hindsight, assess the accuracy of Kennan's remarks almost fifty years later for a maximum of 50 points extra credit.
• Watch the movie Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, directed by Stanley Kubrick), released at the very height of the Cold War.  For a maximum of 25 points, in a long paragraph explain why or why not a similar-type of movie poking fun at the current international situation could be released in 2006.
• For 25 points maximum extra credit, compare and contrast the NATO and Warsaw pact treaties in a short paragraph.
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit, read The Helsinki Final Act (1975) and write a short paragraph explaining the purpose of the Accords.
• For a maximum of 50 points extra credit, read Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech (1946) and then Joseph Stalin's Reply to Churchill (1946) and write a one-page paper comparing the rhetoric on both sides.
  
• For a maximum of 25 points extra credit, read the U.S. and USSR Exchange of Notes on the Berlin Wall (1961) and write a paragraph on the politics involved in the creation of the Berlin Wall.
• For a maximum of 50 points extra credit, read the The Tonkin Bay Resolution (1964), and then write a one-page paper, How did the Gulf of Tonkin Incident provide an excuse for United States military involvement in Vietnam?
• For a maximum of 10 points extra credit, answer the Solzhenitsyn study sheet questions.
• For a maximum of 50 points, choose one of the famous quotes about the study of history--scroll down that page to find a list of quotes--(Get permission from your instructor first.) and write a one-page paper in which you explain who the author of the quote was, what he/she meant by the quote and then your evaluation of the quote's acuracy. (You can also use the material on these two links, Historians and Why we study history). Don't forget to cite your sources.
• For 25 points of extra credit, contribute at least five photos to the Northern Virginia Digital History Archive.
• For extra credit, please suggest a relevant website for this unit of the course.  Send the title of the site, the url and a brief explanation why you find the information interesting and applicable to the material being studied this unit.