What was americas standing in the world in 1949

The country of Indonesia, formerly the Dutch East Indies colony, was granted sovereignty from the Netherlands during December. Indonesian nationalists had declared their independence following the end of World War II in , leading to the Indonesian War of Independence. The armed conflict between the Dutch and Indonesians lasted for several years and eventually worldwide opinion turned in favor of granting independence to Indonesia.

Within a year the states were dissolved and the country became just the Republic of Indonesia. Considered to be one of the most influential novels written during the twentieth century, the story focused on a futuristic totalitarian state that set out to control the thoughts of its citizens and rewrite history.

The novel was an immediate success and was made into a movie in and The book was so influential that many of its made up terms have become part of normal speech such as "Big Brother," "Thought Police" and "doublethink.

It was a collective defense pact meant to protect Europe from the Soviet Union which had been aggressively controlling much of Eastern Europe at the time. It also guaranteed US influence in the region, bolstering the status of the United States at the start of the Cold War.

The Soviet Union countered with the Warsaw Pact in De-Havilland Comet first commercial passenger jet airliner takes it's first test flight on July 27th. The prototype De Havilland Comet jetliner has its first flight in July. The Comet was the first commercial passenger jet and it was created by De Havilland in Hertfordshire, England between and Representing the work of students from hundreds of institutions around the globe, Inquiries Journal 's large database of academic articles is completely free.

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Then, both Moscow and Washington peered into the horrifying abyss of total mutual annihilation. Fortunately, they both stepped back before going over this tragic cliff.

The solution to this crisis was basically settled when President John F. Kennedy secretly agreed to pull U. At the time, I was an undergraduate student and did not fully appreciate the danger the world was in then in. The full sense of the vulnerability of the human species did not strike home to me until I began teaching classes on the subject starting in and continued to do so for the next twenty years.

All of Asia and the West would never be the same again. The substantial increase in average family income within a generation resulted in millions of office and factory workers being lifted into a growing middle class, enabling them to sustain a standard of living once considered reserved for the wealthy.

By , blue-collar workers had become the biggest buyers of many luxury goods and services. The period from to also witnessed a significant increase in the paid leisure time of working people. The hour workweek established by the Fair Labor Standards Act in covered industries became the actual schedule in most workplaces by The majority of workers also enjoyed paid vacations and industries catering to leisure activities blossomed.

American family watching TV in , photo by Evert F. Baumgardner for National Archives and Records Administration.

Images of prosperous white middle-class families in their suburban homes symbolized the popular narrative of economic stability and traditional family values. Educational outlays were also greater than in other countries while a higher proportion of young people were graduating from high schools and universities than elsewhere in the world, as hundreds of new colleges and universities opened every year.

At the advanced level, U. In regard to social welfare, the postwar era saw a considerable improvement in insurance for workers and their dependents against the risks of illness, as private insurance programs like Blue Cross and Blue Shield expanded.

With the notable exception of farm and domestic workers, virtually all members of the labor force were covered by Social Security. In , about two-thirds of factory workers and three-fourths of office workers were provided with supplemental private pension plans.

Many city dwellers gave up cramped urban apartments for a suburban lifestyle centered on children and housewives, with the male breadwinner commuting to work.

The growth of suburbs was not only a result of postwar prosperity, but innovations of the single-family housing market with low interest rates on and year mortgages, and low down payments, especially for veterans. Meanwhile, the suburban population swelled because of the baby boom; a dramatic increase in fertility in the period of — The role of women in U.

As women had been forced out of the labor market by men returning from the military service, many chafed at the social expectations of being an idle stay-at-home housewife who cooked, cleaned, shopped, and tended to the children.

Marriage rates rose sharply in the s and reached all-time highs. Americans began to marry at a younger age and marriage immediately after high school was becoming commonplace.