Major Events of 1968

Essay Questions
Name
Institution
Essay Questions
Major Events of 1968
The year 1968 is considered to have been one of the turning points not only in the American history but also in the world history. During this year, several occurrences changed the manner in which America related with the world, as well as its internal policies. According to Brinkley (2009), one of the major events in 1968 took place on 30th January when a contingent of 85,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers took control of several towns in South Vietnam. The war caught the U.S. forces by surprise, and although they were able to reclaim the lost communities, the event marked the withdrawal of American support for the Vietnam War. This war that came to be known as the Tet offensive became a major turning point for the Vietnam War. Although this offensive did not necessarily end the war, it became a major turning point for the war as it led to the withdrawal of US forces from the war. This withdrawal became a key event in 1968 as it marked the start of the end of the war that had dragged on for a long time (Qiang, 2000).
Another major event of 1968 that changed the history of the world was the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on 4th April in Memphis, Tennessee. Martin Luther King Jr. was a leading civil rights crusader, and his death was a big blow to the civil rights movement in America and the world. Although other civil rights activists called for a non-violent response to honor King’s memory, this was not to be as there were sporadic riots across the nation. This assassination was a key event as King was an influential figure and his death was received in shock and anger throughout the world (McLaughlin, 2014).
The last major event of 1968 was the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5th in Los Angeles. This killing came only two months after the assassination of King, and as expected it changed the political temperature in the country considering that Kennedy was a leading Democratic presidential candidate. Kennedy’s death shaped what would later be called the “Kennedy Legacy,” a set of ideas that would for a period become central to American liberalism. The passion that Kennedy had aroused made his tragic death a particularly devastating experience for many Americans (McLaughlin, 2014).
The Cold War
The Cold War is used to refer to the period of tension that characterized the end of World War II. During the War, the US, UK, and France were linked to the Soviet Union but as it became apparent that victory was in the offing, new battle lines began to emerge. What transpired was close to half a century of tension, characterized by espionage and proxy battles involving client states. All these were conducted with the knowledge of the nuclear catastrophe that the actual war would present (Brinkley, 2009).
Ideally, one of the major turning points of the Cold War was the Containment policy of 1947. Ideally, this policy that was coined by diplomat George Kennon employed strategies that were meant to prevent the spread of communism in the West. This was meant to curb the spread of the Soviet Union influence in Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam. The containment policy led to the cr...