Inaugural Address JFK肯尼迪就职演说 高级英语第一册.pptVIP

The social background In what period in history did Kennedy become president? in 1960s Cold war is sth. which marks the situation in 1960s. The world is mainly divided into two hostile camps. 1) socialist camp -- headed by the Soviet Union 2) capitalist camp -- headed by the US The camps opposed each other politically. The First American Revolution The American Revolution was not a revolution in the sense of a radical or total change. It was not a sudden and violent overturning of the political and social framework, such as later occurred in France and Russia, when both ? were already independent nations. Significant changes were ushered in, but they were not breathtaking. What ? happened was accelerated evolution rather than outright revolution. During the conflict itself people went on working and praying, marrying and playing. Most of them were not seriously disturbed by the actual fighting, and many of the more isolated communities scarcely knew that a war was on. ? ? The first shots of the American Revolution were fired  in Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775. The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, established a new nation and transformed a limited revolt to secure rights within the British empire into a far-reaching one, aimed at complete independence from British control. Since the king and his ministers had determined to restore British rule, the Americans now faced a long, hard struggle for independence requiring a sustained national effort such as they had not expected in 1775.? Cold War Postwar Estrangement The Western democracies and the Soviet Union discussed the progress of World War II and the nature of the postwar settlement at conferences in Tehran (1943), Yalta (February 1945), and Potsdam (July-August 1945). After the war, disputes between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, particularly over the Soviet takeover of East European states, led Winston Churchill to warn in 1946 that an iron curtain was descendi