The Second Millenium

[Vince53]

"By the grace of God, I have returned." Douglas MacArthur

The Axis are having such a bad year that we are returning to 1944 for the last time.


Disobeying a direct order form Hitler to destroy the city, the German commander of Paris surrenders to the Allies.


Germany begins launching both V-1 and the more advanced V-2 rockets on London.


After defeating an invasion of the Netherlands, the Nazis organize a famine that kills about 22,000 Dutch.


German military legend Erwin Rommel commits suicide to spare his family after being caught in an assassination attempt on Hitler.

The Great Atlantic Hurricane kills about 350 Americans (mostly at sea) as it devastates the US east coast.

Douglas MacArthur keeps his promise, as the US invades the Philippines.

American troops capture Aachen, the westernmost city in Germany. Occupied by the brutal SS during the battle, the survivors welcomed the Americans as liberators.

The US wins its greatest fleet battle, the six-day long Battle of Leyte Gulf. Unknown to the Americans, the Japanese have virtually no navy left.

It's not quite a dying gasp, but Germany crashes 50 miles into US lines at the Battle of the Bulge. Eventually running out of fuel, the Germans are driven back. During the battle, Emidio Massi (my uncle) wins the Silver Star for destroying a captured American half track.

"Nuts!" Surrounded American troops at Bastogne reply to a German demand to surrender. The holding of Bastogne becomes the turning point of the Battle of the Bulge.

 

[Vince53]

1945 alters the course of world history in more ways than one.

Advancing rapidly through Germany, local commanders order American troops to take no prisoners. Learning that Germans had recently murdered about 80 US prisoners, US soldiers in Belgium murder about 25 German prisoners who had surrendered. Decades later, the US quietly admitted that speed was so important (they had to keep the Germans from fortifying defense lines) that many local commanders ordered no prisoners, and hundreds of surrendered Germans were executed.

Soviet troops arrest Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who had saved tens of thousands of Jews. He dies two years later in a slave labor camp.

The German navy becomes a legend of courage as it evacuates tens of thousands of troops before advancing Soviets can capture them for slave labor.

American scientists develop oral penicillin.

Running out of targets, Britain and the US spend three days bombing Dresden, Germany. With their major centers destroyed, Germany had turned this peaceful town into a major transportation, communications, and manufacturing center. It is not true that more people were killed in Dresden than in Hiroshima--the official count is about 25,000 killed.

God takes a photograph--For the first time in the 2,000 year history of Japan, foreign conquerors raise their flag on Japanese soil. Using a flag that is too small, US Marines raise their flag on the highest point of Iwo Jima, a vitally important (future) air base that is part of Japan itself. Ordered to take down the flag so the Secretary of the Navy can have it for a souvenir, General Howling Mad Smith orders it replaced with a larger flag while the real one is sent to the Marine museum. And then everybody botches up. The Marines don't have a flagpole, so they scrounge up a twenty foot long water pipe. They have to use a Navy flag from a supply ship. The pole is so heavy that a Navy medic has to help raise it. They shove a civilian photographer out of the way, so when he snaps his photo (of the first flag being replaced) he misses. And here's what he got: http://worshippingchristian.org/honor_america/WW2_Iwo_Jima_flag_raising.jpg

 

[Vince53]

1945 continues to be a bad year for evil.

The Rhine River is not the western boundary of Germany, but it is a major defense. Jubilant American forces capture an intact bridge, while others simply wade across.

The US kills about 100,000 Japanese civilians in a massive fire-bombing of Tokyo. Napalm, a gelatin that burns without oxygen, sets a large area on fire. But the burning building do use oxygen, so the fire must go out on its own. But if the fire is big enough, the heated air rises, pulling fresh air (with new oxygen) into the burning area.

March 9—Four years earlier, Japan had forced France to allow the Japanese to use Vietnam as a military base against the Allies. But fearing an Allied victory, the Japanese suddenly attack the French, removing them from government positions and defeating the French army within 24 hours. But the Japanese then ignore the Vietnamese, concentrating on transporting supplies.

Fifty miles off their coast, the Japanese bomb the aircraft carrier USS Franklin. Possibly the most damaged ship in history to survive, the Franklin returns to California with 800 dead. Catholic chaplain Joseph O'Callahan becomes a legend of courage as he personally leads fire-fighting crews into burning area to hose down ammunition.

Suffering succotash! Sylvester the Cat makes his first cartoon appearance.

Yes, it was bigger than D-Day, involved more men, and involved a greater distance. The US invades Okinawa, the fifth largest island of Japan. The US had needed Iwo Jima as an airbase to bomb Okinawa. Now it needs Okinawa as an airbase to bomb Japan's "home islands." One out of every eight Marines who ever die in combat will die on Okinawa.

Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the greatest German Church opponent of Nazism, is hanged in a concentration camp.

 

[Vince53]

April 1945 is a very bad month for WW2 leaders.

April 12--US President Franklin Roosevelt dies. As President, Roosevelt succeeded in pulling the US out of the Great Depression. A far better military tactician than Winston Churchill, Roosevelt had built up the US military before the war, appointed competent leadership after the war began, and directed US forces successfully. But unlike Churchill, Roosevelt could not grasp the realities of the post-war world. He expected China to become a strong democratic ally and failed to keep Russia as a US friend.

April 28--After Italian partisans execute Mussolini, jubilant Italians hang his naked corpse from a gas station. Brilliant, competent, brutal, and evil, Mussolini had saved Italy from communism, stabilized the economy, and increased productivity. But his massive ego led Italy into unjust wars that produced massive starvation, bombings, and casualties.

April 30--As Soviet forces close in on his underground bunker, Adolf Hitler commits suicide. It is not clear when Hitler became insane, although he was clearly mad when he would not let freezing German forces fall back forty miles from the ruins of Stalingrad to a major supply base. In his will, Hitler appoints, Joseph Goebbels as the new Fuhrer.

May 1--Joseph Goebbels commits suicide. A Ph.D and early Nazi, Goebbels supported genocide so well that Hitler made him Minister of Propaganda. When the war turned against Germany, Goebbels was put in charge of the entire civilian population, putting them into "total war" without success.

 

[Vince53]

We return to 1945


August 14—With Japan defeated, a widespread revolt against France breaks out in Vietnam, with the rebels quickly capturing Hanoi.

German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun successfully leads a 120 man team to the west to surrender tot he Americans rather than the Russians. The team goes on to lead the early US space program.

Simon Wiesenthal, "The Nazi hunter," is liberated from a concentration camp. The next day he testifies to the Americans against one of the guards, and goes on to help prosecute thousands of war criminals.

May 8, 1945--Germany surrenders.

He doesn't appear until next year, but the "Thomas the Tank Engine" series of children's books begins publishing.

Communist partisans in Yugoslavia massacre thousands of surrendered Yugoslavian troops (who had fought for Germany).

The US detonates a small atom bomb in the New Mexico desert. Tourists today are allowed a one-hour visit, where they are exposed to one full day's radiation.

Japan unconditionally rejects Allied peace offers. The Japanese will only agree to peace if they can keep currently-occupied territory. If the Allies had agreed, their weapons would be gone after a few decades and the two sides would be equal.



September 2—With France still holding large parts of the country, Vietnam declares itself independent.

September 5—Jackson Beck shouts the most famous speech in history into a live radio microphone. The opening line? “Faster than a speeding bullet!” Starting five years earlier (two years after the comic book) the Superman radio show was one of the most popular broadcasts in history. Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and Kryptonite all originated with the radio show.

 

[Vince53]

The Atom Bombs

The Japanese were not beaten yet. They had assembled over 4,000 aircraft to be used as suicide bombers when the US Navy approached their shores. Already, the US had lost more ships to kamikaze suicide planes than they had lost at Pearl Harbor. At Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Japanese had dug caves and set up a suicide system that would have cost the Allies heavy casualties as they advanced; if Americans had landed on the smallest of Japan's four home islands, over 250,000 soldiers would have been killed just to reach (and not capture) Hiroshima. The US alone would have lost half a million men capturing Tokyo.

Critics point out that the Japanese were extending peace feelers. Critics don't explain that Japan's peace terms were for the Allies to stop where they were, and after a few decades of having their equipment fall apart, the Allies would no longer be superior to Japan's military strength.

Critics point out that two separate studies had shown that Japan would have surrendered in a few more months. Critics don't point out: 1) Both studies were wrong--Japanese leadership was arming and training the entire civilian population to fight to the death. This would have cost far more lives than the atom bombs. 2) Both studies included the results of massive firebombings of Japanese cities, which would cost more lives than both atom bombs combined. After a city was firebombed, the population decreased while farmland increased, allowing the government to keep more civilians alive to fight the invaders.

August 14, 1945--Japan surrenders, ending World War 2.

 

[Vince53]

In 1946, we enter a shattered, but mostly peaceful, world.


Knowing how terribly the Italians had suffered during WW2, Winston Churchill pressures the Allies to show mercy. Italy is allowed to form a republic that lasts to this day. And Italian women are granted the right to vote.

January 10, 1946--The US Army bounces a radar signal off the moon, proving that communication with spaceships is possible. According to some sources, this begins "The Space Age."

The United Nations begins

American scientists complete ENIAC, the first electronic calculator. ENIAC is not a computer (It does not have a central processing unit, known as a "CPU.") It is a calculator designed to aim navy cannon by radio. As a Soviet and US fleet approach each other, the Americans will have their guns better-aimed in case a problem starts.

If you don't know what "The Iron Curtain" is, you're showing your youth. A popular phrase to describe the boundary between Communism and the free world, the phrase is invented by Winston Churchill, who recognizes that the friendship between freedom and Communism has ended.

The US executes the Japanese commander of the Filipino Death March. The victorious US takes no excuses for the mistreatment of American POWs. They insist that the Japanese had to obey the Geneva Convention, even when it was difficult. Shocked Japanese officers, who take responsibility for ordering the murder of American prisoners, defend the enlisted men (who carried out the executions) by arguing that an "illegal order" did not exist in the Japanese military. Rejecting all such defenses, the US imprisons Japanese soldiers who had carried out their orders (The officers who gave the orders were executed). As military governor of Japan, Douglas MacArthur quietly releases most of them.

Indonesia (the seventh most populated nation in the world) had been conquered by Japan, but had formed a resistance. When the Dutch rulers return, they brutalize the Indonesians back into subjection, and Indonesia revolts, winning independence after a few months.

The US begins testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific.

July 4, 1946--The US grants independence to the Philippines.

Violence between Moslems and Hindus sweeps India as the nation transitions to independence.

Victorious Allies sentence eleven Nazis to be hanged (one commits suicide). An important point: thousands of Germans were tried, most of whom were innocent. The most common defenses were that they didn't know the prisoners (usually Jews) were going to be executed, and that they were only following orders. NOT A SINGLE DEFENDANT CLAIMED THAT THE HOLOCAUST NEVER TOOK PLACE.

 

[Vince53]

1947 starts off with a rough winter.

Britain has the worst snowfall of the Twentieth Century, and the Thames River has the worst flood of the Twentieth Century when spring arrives. Parts of Canada are literally buried in snow. The lowest temperature ever recorded in North America (-63 C -81F) occurs in the Yukon Territory.

A meteor shower peppers half a square mile of eastern Russia with small craters.

With most of eastern Europe firmly enslaved by Communism, Voice of America begins broadcasting accurate news reports into those areas.

The US begins launching its own rockets into space. Carrying no satellites and not achieving orbit, they help the US advance from captured German technology into its own space program.

The first Polaroid instant camera is invented. The first Volkswagen Beetle arrives in the US.

Black athlete Jackie Robinson begins playing Major League Baseball.

 

[Vince53]

We return to 1947

The phrase "Cold War," describing the tension between free and Communist nations, is introduced.

Widespread UFO sightings begin. While there definitely are "Unidentified Flying Objects," it is hard to believe that aliens who can fly faster than the speed of light can't invent stealth technology. Several nations today have satellites that can make detailed observations of Earth while flying too high to be visible.

Russia invents the AK-47 Assault Rifle, which has killed more people than any other rifle in history. Still in use, it has few moving parts and is easy to maintain. About 1 in 5 firearms in the world are AK-47s.

India and Pakistan become independent, and quickly go to war in an enmity that exists to this day.

One reason for the US defeat at Pearl Harbor had been that no one person knew everything that was going on. The CIA is founded to prevent this happening again. J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI resist so strongly that the US later bans the CIA from activity inside the US, while banning the FBI from spying outside the US.

There are only a few, but computers are becoming important. Giant machines with less power than today's scientific calculators, they speed up the birth of new technology. After one is crippled by a moth, the term "bug" is used to describe computer glitches.

The US breaks the sound barrier with a rocket plane.

 

[Vince53]

Welcome to 1948

Mahatma Ghandi begins fasting to death to stop violence in newly-independent India. It works. But a few weeks later, a Hindu (not Moslem) militant assassinates Ghandi, hoping to provoke increased violence against Indian Moslems.

Miranda is discovered. With the tallest cliff in the solar system, it is the closest of Uranus's moons.

The US Supreme Court bans religious instruction in the public schools.

The assassination of a presidential candidate provokes a ten-year civil war in Columbia in which 200,000 people are killed.

The day after Israel is declared independent, four Moslem nations declare war.

The Soviet Union begins deporting 130,000 Lithuanians as slave laborers in Siberia.

The US launches a monkey into space. He suffocates to death during the flight.

Newfoundland, a large island off Canada's east coast, votes to join Canada.

A massive Soviet earthquake kills 110,000 people. Communist censorship leads to the rumor (untrue) that the earthquake was accidentally caused by a nuclear weapon test.

"The Red Scare" begins in the US. There really were a small number of high-ranking US officials who were Communists, and a national hysteria will grow out of it.

 

[Vince53]

And now it is 1949.

Chinese Communists capture Beijing.

What? You've never heard of Grady the cow? Upset after giving birth to a stillborn calf, the distraught 1,200 pound cow plunges through a 17" wide, 25" high silo opening. How to get her out? Even the Air Force joined in giving thousands of suggestions, as national news coverage made Grady a celebrity. They finally tranquilized her, covered her with grease, and dragged her out. A national celebrity and tourist attraction for the rest of her life, she marched in parades and appeared in fairs, dying in 1961.

The US Air Force makes the first non-stop around-the-world flight, refueling four times in mid-air.

The Soviet Union deports 92,000 people from the conquered Baltic states to remote areas.

NATO is founded.

Southern Ireland becomes independent.

After failing to starve out Berlin, the USSR lifts its blockade.

Israel is admitted to the UN.

Britain builds the first jet-propelled passenger plane.

The USSR detonates its first atom bomb.

Communists establish a Chinese government,and northeast Germany becomes a Communist state. The Greek civil war ends with a Communist defeat, leaving Greece as the only free nation in southeast Europe.

A typhoon hits Korea, killing several thousand. Most of the dead are fishing boat crews.

The USSR begins an official persecution of Soviet Jews.

 

[Vince53]

1950 brings us to a new decade. Some historians consider the 1950's to be the best decade in US history.

The world population passes 2 1/2 billion.

Taiwan is all that remains of Nationalist China as the Communists capture the rest of the mainland. World-wide recognition of the Communist government pours in, even from democracies (but not the US).

In the US, the first credit cards appear.

"Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy, a US senator, begins terrorizing the US with wide-spread, occasionally true, accusations of Communist infiltration at high levels.

Communist Poland seizes all Catholic Church property.

Britain begins broadcasting "The Archers," a soap opera about a fictional British family. Still being broadcast, it is the world's longest-running soap opera.

June 25--encouraged by an American declaration that America's line of defense does not include Korea, North Korea invades South Korea, beginning the Korean War. Rapidly-advancing Communists quickly capture Seoul and both sides begin massacring civilians. With little territory left, the US lands massive troops in South Korea, China begins sending in thousands of troops, and the US wins the first all-jet dogfight. Despite their massive gains, the Communists have run out of resources, and the American allies quickly push their way into North Korea before a massive Chinese onslaught stops them.

The Catholic Church authorizes belief in theistic evolution.

He doesn't enlist yet, but Beetle Bailey first appears in the comics. And the first Peanuts comic strip is published. (Years will pass before Snoopy, a neighborhood puppy, becomes Charlie Brown's dog).

 

[Vince53]

Welcome to 1951


Beetle Bailey enlists in the US Army. Still a private after 65 years, America’s most beloved enlisted man is hated by real-life military leaders who regard him as a bad example and a disgrace.

Communist China invades, conquers, and eventually annexes Tibet.

Russia launches Sputnik 1 into orbit. All it does is beep, but by measuring the strength of the beep, scientists are able to measure the thickness of the atmosphere.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg go on trial for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

After criticizing President Truman's decision not to use nuclear weapons in the Korean War, Douglas MacArthur is relieved of command. The hero of three wars receives a hero's welcome when he returns to the US, while Truman becomes the first US President to be booed down in public. But Truman's doctrine, that we will not use nuclear weapons in a conventional war, has become the world standard, and may well have prevented World War 3.

The invention of the transistor makes vacuum tubes almost obsolete.

"I Love Lucy" (and we still do) premieres on television. A hit every year, these live broadcasts popularize the TV industry. Today, it is the second-most viewed TV show in history. (The first? Gilligan's Island).

Libya becomes independent of Italy.

 

[Vince53]

What's new in 1952?

Queen Elisabeth receives the Throne of England. By George (He was her father) she's still there--the longest-reigning monarch in British history.

Britain invents its own atom bomb.

Vincent Massey (no relation to me) becomes Canada's first Canadian-born head of state.

The US develops the B-52 bomber. Designed to last 80 years and still in use. the B-52 was built with the ability to carry intercontinental ballistic missiles that had not yet been invented.

Andre Gide was a French author who won the 1947 Nobel Prize in literature. His books condemn morality, narrow education, and colonialism, and support communism. This year, the Catholic church condemns his books and forbids Catholics to read them.

Moslem militants seize the government of Egypt.

The Revised Standard Version is published. Written by translators who oppose the Word of God (the one fundamentalist on the final committee condemned the translation) it sets the standard for modern translations.

The US detonates the first hydrogen bomb. The flash is visible on Mars.

 

[Vince53]

1953


Watson and Crick discover that DNA exists in a double helix structure. So? They win the Nobel Prize for it. So? Just hours before they can prove their theory, a team of women scientists will have proved it. With both teams tired from their long hours, they let the women see them wandering away from the lab. Not realizing how close they are to success, the tired women scientists take a break. Watson and Crick sneak back in and prove the theory before the women can.

71% of US televisions are tuned in to watch I Love Lucy, the episode in which she gives birth to her son Ricky. No other show in history has topped that record.

In British-occupied Kenya, the Mau Mau Uprising is in full swing. Beginning last year and lasting until 1960, native Kenyans objected to British colonists taking the best farmlands and mistreating the natives. There is no Mau Mau tribe--it seems to be a code for "Get out! Get out!" Poorly organized and internally divided, the uprising causes about 16,000 deaths before being defeated.

Britain and Nepal reach the top of Mount Everest.

 

[Vince53]

We return to 1953.

Jordan crowns King Hussein, who will rule until 1999. Following a moderate course (for a Moslem nation) he successfully guides Jordan through the Cold War and a series of conflicts with Israel, eventually making peace with the Jewish nation. He brought electricity, water, and sanitation to 99% of Jordanians (up from 10%), increased food by 1/3, increased literacy, and built an efficient system of highways. In 1956, he made Jordan completely independent of Britain.

An armistice ends the Korean War.

Scientists acknowledge that Piltdown Man is a hoax.

Cambodia becomes independent of France.

 

[Vince53]

It would be better for France if 1954 hadn't occurred.

The US launches the first nuclear-powered submarine. The Nautilus quickly sets several records, as it can stay submerged longer and travel farther than regular subs. In the process, it discovers some manufacturing flaws that help improve future nuclear subs. She will be the first ship to sail under the North Pole, and the Nautilus is a floating museum today.

President Eisenhower warns the US against the danger of getting involved in Vietnam, where Communists are defeating the French rulers of the South. Eisenhower, along with vice-President Richard Nixon, also believed that the atom bombing of Hiroshima was immoral.

Nikita Khrushchev illegally transfers Crimea from Russia to the Ukraine. Why? Officially, it was a gift to celebrate Ukraine's 300th anniversary in the Russian Empire. Unofficially, it added over 1 million Russians to Ukrainia, making it more likely to support the Soviet Union (which was practically a Russian empire).

April 11, 1954 has been declared the most boring day of the Twentieth Century. Computer search engines cannot find anything at all important that happened that day.

The course of US history is altered forever when the US Supreme Court declares that segregated schools are unconstitutional. The Court had previously ruled that "separate but equal" is legal, but in actual practice, the Blacks were not treated equally. Scientific studies also showed that segregation produced psychological harm on Black children.A few months later, the Boy Scouts voluntarily integrate.

The phrase "under God" is added to the US Pledge of Allegiance.

The transistor radio is invented. These small, battery-powered radios increase communication all over the world (especially where electricity is not available) and promote the growth of radio stations in developed nations. TV Dinners are also invented.

Algeria rebels against France. Laos becomes independent of France.

The US stock market passes the record it had set 25 years ago before the stock market crash of 1929.

 

[Vince53]

And in 1955...


Over Soviet objections, Italy is allowed to join the United Nations.(Mama mia, Nikita, it's been ten years!)

Captain Kangaroo begins its thirty-year run on US television. The first McDonald's opens. Disneyland opens. A tiny, isolated US town receives one hour of nuclear-generated electricity in a successful test of a reactor that melts down six years later.

South Africa forcibly evicts 60,000 Blacks and mixed-race citizens from their homes.

80-year-old Winston Churchill resigns as Prime Minister due to poor health.

Jonas Salk, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants to the US, invents a successful polio vaccine. Vigorously campaigning for mandatory vaccinations, he almost single-handedly stops one of the world's greatest plagues. Refusing to patent his invention, he continues to research other cures.

Turkey begins persecuting its Greek minority, forcing large-scale emigration.

There's a big rock 232 miles west of the nearest inhabited land. It's the world's smallest island, and Britain annexes it as part of Scotland, in case someone discovers oil or fish out there. no luck so far.

After a hard day's work, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus to a White man. Her arrests triggers the Montgomery Bus Strike and propels a young Martin Luther King into prominence.

 

[Vince53]

1956 "We will bury you." Nikita Khrushchev, referring to his hoped-for collapse of freedom.

5 evangelical missionaries, refusing to use their guns, are killed by Auca Indians in Ecuador. Other missionaries later convert large number of the Indians.

Morocco and Tunisia become independent of France.

A British plane exceeds 1,000 mph on level flight.

In the US, the United Methodist Church starts ordaining women and also condemns segregation.

The US begins building the interstate highway system. In progress for decades, the idea was to make it possible to rapidly transport military troops and equipment, while allowing civilian use. Eventually, it boosted American productivity by making the transportation of parts easier.

"In God We Trust" becomes the official motto of the United States.

What? You've never heard of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, which is part of the Catholic Church but uses Byzantine rituals instead of the Latin rite? After the Communist government of Romania declares the Church exterminated, 5,000 members assemble for a public Mass. Its current 600,000+ members have such low attendance that the Roman Catholic Church outnumbers them in Romania today.

The computer hard drive is invented.

"The Ten Commandments" hits US theaters. Adjusted for inflation, it is still one of the top ten money-making films of all time, and the parting of the Red Sea is still considered a technological marvel.

in a courageous attempt to gain freedom, Hungary overthrows its Communist masters. But the Soviet Union quickly invades and ends the revolt.

About two million people are killed in a three-year-long Asian Flu epidemic that begins in China and spreads world-wide.

 

[Vince53]

It is now 1957!

In the US, Collier's Magazine prints its last issue. For 69 years, Collier's had fought for social justice and had been sued several times for exposing wrongdoing. Winning every lawsuit, Collier's encouraged other publications to expose corruption.

The frisbee is invented.

Brazil opens the first planetarium in the Southern Hemisphere.

"The Cat in the Hat" is published.

The United Church of Christ is formed by united two denominations and some smaller ones. For the record, the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock are part of the merger.

Little Rock, Arkansas calls out the National Guard to keep Black students out of White schools. Declaring Arkansas to be in rebellion, President Eisenhower nationalizes the Arkansas National Guard and has them protect Black students instead. This becomes a milestone, as future Presidents will be willing to use the military to enforce integration laws.

The Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first satellite to go into orbit. By tracking its beeps, scientists were able to measure the density of the upper atmosphere. And thus, The Space Race between the US and the USSR begins.

Now independent, Indonesia seizes all Dutch businesses and expels all Dutch nationals.