🧊
Grade 5 Social Studies · World 6: The War Turns Cold · Level 64
McCarthy and Khrushchev
Identify each one.
Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.
What children learn in Level 64
- By 1949, the Soviet Union had atomic bombs too. Americans grew afraid. Could communists be hiding inside their own government? This fear is known as the Red Scare.
- Joseph McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin, claimed in 1950 to hold a list of communists in the government. McCarthy never showed proof, but people were scared, and it made headlines.
- McCarthy accused more and more people, and many lost their jobs and their good names. Others were too frightened to speak up. Accusing people without proof came to be called McCarthyism.
- In 1954, Americans watched McCarthy on television, and many didn't like what they saw. The Senate voted to condemn McCarthy. It's a warning about what fear can do to fairness.
- On the other side, Nikita Khrushchev became the Soviet leader after Stalin died. Khrushchev criticized Stalin's cruelty, but kept up the contest with the West. In 1961, a wall went up through Berlin to stop people from escaping.
Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:
- SS5H5.c — Identify Joseph McCarthy and Nikita Khrushchev.