This year we learnt about the Russian Revolution and the Indochina Conflict. A huge part of this year was spent trying to understand how different countries have revolutions and their point of view on communism.

 We studied several key topics from the Russian Revolution including Bloody Sunday, where Father Gapon lead a peaceful protest against the Tsar and his corrupt autocratic government. Men, women, and children were fired upon by the Cossack Army. We also learned about the corrupt and interesting, ‘Holy Figure’ Rasputin. He essentially became the neck that turned the head for Russia's government. Ultimately, revolutionary groups began to form to overthrow the Tsar and Lenin, one of the main leaders, became a great historical figure. Lenin and the Bolshevik party overthrew the provisional government and helped turn Russia into a Communist state.

Later in the year we learnt about the Indochina conflict. A part of this was learning about Vietnam gaining independence from the French. We then later covered the Vietnam War with the United States of America. With this understanding we completed three internals regarding this topic. 

The first internal covered the battle of Dien Bien Phu, which was a battle between the French and Vietnamese which the Vietnamese won. 

The other internals were connected and were about the My Lai Massacre and how it was covered up by the US government for over a year. The My Lai Massacre was an event that involved US soldiers going into a village under the false information that their enemy was hiding out there but instead they were met by innocent civilians made up of elderly, women and children. Instead of just leaving they opened fire and killed between 300-500 people while losing no lives on their side.

 The US government realised the mistake and covered it up by saying that US soldiers had killed about 30 Viet Cong soldiers and the day was a success.

Written by Aimee Musson-Polwart on behalf of the year 12 History Class