Australian citizens offered little opposition to their country’s early involvement in the Vietnam War. Opposition came from groups like Youth Campaign Against Conscription (YCAC), founded in 1964, and Save our Sons (SOS), founded in 1965. Other early dissenters included: trade unionists, religious groups, and those affected by the National Service Act.
In 1963, the CND began their campaign by organizing a petition they called “No Bombs South of the Line,” which argued for the establishment of a nuclear free zone in southern New Zealand. The CND collected over 80,000 signatures which was the largest petition in New Zealand since the petition calling for equal voting rights between women and men collected in 1893.
In 2011, Mexico faced huge costs from the drug trade and efforts to
counteract it. Mexico constituted a key part of the global drug trade,
as cartels trafficked illegal drugs through Mexico to their main buyer,
the United States. Cartels committed extensive violence as they tried
to ensure compliance from citizens and maximize profit. The most
frequent victims of drug violence were poor Mexicans, and some cities,
such as the border town of Ciudad Juarez, were particularly dangerous.
From 1961 to 1996 Guatemalans endured a bloody civil war. During this conflict the military-controlled government fought the leftist guerillas or the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). These groups fought each other for political control. The extreme violence pushed many indigenous Guatemalans high into the country’s highlands or displaced them as refugees into other countries.
On 4 April 2004, Casey Sheehan, an American soldier, was killed in the Iraq War. Upon hearing the news, his mother Cindy Sheehan was completely devastated and questioned the value of the war.
In November of 1960, the United States and British governments reached an agreement on the use of the Holy Loch in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland as an overseas base for the US Navy. The governments believed the U.S. military required an overseas nuclear base for refit and crew overturn for its new Polaris missile submarines, built to serve as a deterrent to Soviet military might.
On 21 December 1963, the Greek-Turkish controlled island of Cyprus experienced extreme intercommunal violence between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. The capital, Nicosia, was thereafter divided into two sectors by a “Green Line”, separating the two communities.
In July 1973, then-Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos announced the decision to build the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) in response to the Philippines’ economic crisis at the time. The Middle East oil embargo was putting incredible stress on the Philippine economy. For the Marcos regime, investing in nuclear power was the solution to their dependence on imported oil and energy demands. However, Bataan residents and Philippine citizens responded in fierce opposition to the new plant due to its threat to public health.
