Advertise on podcast: Historic Voices: Global History and Culture

(Bonus) The Warsaw Pact (WP),[d] formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA),[e] was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. The term "Warsaw Pact" commonly refers to both the treaty itself and its resultant defensive alliance, the Warsaw Treaty Organization[5] (WTO).[f] The Warsaw Pact was the military and economic complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), the regional economic organization for the Eastern Bloc states of Central and Eastern Europe

(Bonus) The Cold War originated in the breakdown of relations between the two main victors in World War II: United States and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, in the years 1945–1949. The origins derive from diplomatic (and occasional military) confrontations stretching back decades, followed by the issue of political boundaries in Central Europe and non-democratic control of the East by the Soviet Army. In the 1940s came economic issues (especially the Marshall Plan) and then the first major military confrontation, with a threat of a hot war, in the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949. By 1949, the lines were sharply drawn and the Cold War was largely in place in Europe.[1] Outside Europe, the starting points vary, but the conflict centered on the US's development of an informal empire in Southeast Asia in the mid-1940s.[2] Events preceding World War II and even the Communist takeover of Russia in 1917, underlay older tensions between the Soviet Union, European countries and the United States.

(Bonus) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance of 31 member states – 29 European and two North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implemented the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949.[3][4] NATO is a collective security system: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. During the Cold War, NATO operated as a check on the threat posed by the Soviet Union. The alliance remained in place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact and has been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. The organization's motto is animus in consulendo liber (Latin for 'a mind unfettered in deliberation').[5]

(Bonus) The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc, the Socialist Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was the coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were aligned with the Soviet Union and existed during the Cold War (1947–1991). These states followed the ideology of Marxism–Leninism, in opposition to the capitalist Western Bloc. The Eastern Bloc was often called the "Second World", whereas the term "First World" referred to the Western Bloc and "Third World" referred to the non-aligned countries that were mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America but notably also included former pre-1948 Soviet ally Yugoslavia, which was located in Europe.

S16-E03 Topics: Arming of the East and the West, formation of NATO pact, formation of the WARSAW pact. The following links allow you to subscribe: iTunes and Apple Podcast, Amazon Music/Audible, Castbox.fm, Deezer, Facebook, Gaana, Google Podcast, iHeartRadio, Player.fm, Radio Public, Samsung Listen, Stitcher, TuneIn, Twitter, Vurbl, and YouTube. Automatically available through these podcast apps: Castamatic, iCatcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RSSRadio, and more. Please post comments to the individual episodes, post to the iTunes podcast review and rating section, and email to me, [email protected] You can also check out my other four podcasts and other social media at www.davidmedia.org 

(Bonus) On the Beach is a 1959 American post-apocalyptic science fiction drama film from United Artists starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins. Produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, it is based on Nevil Shute's 1957 novel On the Beach depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war. Unlike the novel, no one is assigned blame for starting the war, which attributes global annihilation to fear compounded by accident or misjudgment. World War III has devastated the Northern Hemisphere, killing all humans there. Air currents are slowly carrying the fallout to the Southern Hemisphere, where Melbourne, Australia will be the last major city on Earth to perish.

(Bonus) Fail Safe is a 1964 Cold War thriller film directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler. The film follows a crisis caused by a critical error that sends a group of U.S. bombers to destroy Moscow, and the ensuing attempts to stop the bomber group before it can deploy a nuclear first strike. The film features performances by actors Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, Walter Matthau, Frank Overton, Larry Hagman, Fritz Weaver, Dana Elcar, Dom DeLuise and Sorrell Booke.

(Bonus) Duck and Cover is a 1952 American civil defense animated live-action social guidance film[1] that is often mischaracterized[2][3] as propaganda.[4] It has similar themes to the more adult-oriented civil defense training films. It was widely distributed to United States schoolchildren in the 1950s, and teaches students what to do in the event of a nuclear explosion.[5] The film was funded by the US Federal Civil Defense Administration and released in January 1952. At the time, the Soviet Union was engaged in nuclear testing and the US was in the midst of the Korean War

(Bonus) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (known simply and more commonly as Dr. Strangelove) is a 1964 political satire black comedy film directed, co-written, and produced by Stanley Kubrick and starring Peter Sellers in three roles, including the title character. The film, which satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States, also stars George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, and Tracy Reed, and is loosely based on the thriller novel Red Alert (1958) by Peter George, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Kubrick and Terry Southern. The story concerns an unhinged United States Air Force general who orders a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. It separately follows the President of the United States, his advisors, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a Royal Air Force exchange officer as they attempt to prevent the crew of a B-52 (following orders from the general) from bombing the Soviet Union and starting a nuclear war. The film is often considered one of the best comedies ever made and one of the greatest films of all time. In 1998, the American Film Institute ranked it twenty-sixth in its list of the best American movies (in the 2007 edition, the film ranked thirty-ninth), and in 2000, it was listed as number three on its list of the funniest American films. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress included Dr. Strangelove as one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[7][8] The film received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor for Sellers. The film was also nominated for seven BAFTA Film Awards, winning Best Film From Any Source, Best British Film, and Best Art Direction (Black and White), and it also won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.

S16-E02 Topics: Fail Safe movie, Dr. Strangelove movie, On the Beach movie, Duck and Cover movie. The following links allow you to subscribe: iTunes and Apple Podcast, Amazon Music/Audible, Castbox.fm, Deezer, Facebook, Gaana, Google Podcast, iHeartRadio, Player.fm, Radio Public, Samsung Listen, Stitcher, TuneIn, Twitter, Vurbl, and YouTube. Automatically available through these podcast apps: Castamatic, iCatcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RSSRadio, and more. Please post comments to the individual episodes, post to the iTunes podcast review and rating section, and email to me, [email protected] You can also check out my other four podcasts and other social media at www.davidmedia.org 

(Bonus) Biography of SCOTUS Justice Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ; born April 1, 1950) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated to the high court by President George W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has served on it since January 31, 2006. After Antonin Scalia, Alito is the second Italian American justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

(Bonus) Justice Alito explains the majority decision on the Hobby Lobby religious freedom case.