Answer to Question #309451 in History for Kelsey Jand

Question

At the end of the video, the narrator states, “If watching the news doesn’t make us feel hopeful about where things are heading, watching the numbers might.” There is without a doubt still destruction, war, poverty, famine, and many other crises in the world today, but how might looking at the past give you hope for the future? Do you think humanity has made progress since World War II? Answer in at least 4-5 sentences.

Context Video: http://worldhistoryeducatorsblog.blogspot.com/2016/01/human-cost-of-world-war-ii-great-clip.html

Answer 1

After World War II a number of developing countries attained independence from their former colonial rulers. One of the common claims made by leaders of independence movements was that colonialism had been responsible for perpetuating low living standards in the colonies. Some 73 million people died in World War II. After the war ended, communist dictatorships and free‐​market democracies fought in a variety of proxy conflicts as part of the Cold War, including the Korean Warand the Vietnam War.

In spite of all that suffering, people’s lives continued to improve. New technologies were introduced. They included the microwave oven, the mobile phone, the transistor, the video recorder, the credit card, the television, solar cells, optic fiber, microchips, lasers, the calculator, fuel cells, the World Wide Web and the computer. Medical advances included penicillin, cortisone, the pacemaker, artificial hearts, the MRI scan, HIV protease inhibitor, and vaccines for hepatitis, smallpox, and polio.