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Modern World History Videos 86 videos

Modern World History 3.11 Unions: the People Who Brought You Weekends
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Modern World History: Movin' to Africa: Ghanaian History 16 Views


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Description:

Like most new governments, Ghana definitely had its growing pains. But hey, who hasn't experienced a coup d'état or two?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

the West African nation of Ghana gained its independence from Great

00:06

Britain in 1957. some newly independent countries like to doggie paddle around [UK flag with symbol of Africa}

00:11

for a bit testing the waters trying to decide

00:13

whether to stay in the shallows or head from the deep end, but the ghanians led

00:18

by President Kwame Nkrumah didn't doggy paddle. no they went right in from the 10

00:25

meter diving board and plunged into the deep end headfirst. well Nkrumah was

00:29

ambitious he was kind of a dreamer and he looked great in a speedo,

00:33

maybe only two of those are true, but as president of ghana he swore to turn his

00:38

country into a utopia, unite all of africa and free the continent from the

00:43

yoke of european colonialism. well in order to do this Nkrumah believed

00:48

that he first had to mold Ghana into an industrialized nation that could compete

00:53

with the West. he wanted to build the industries and infrastructure that would

00:57

allow Ghana to turn its natural resources into manufactured products

01:02

worth a lot of cash. but getting industrialized wasn't the only problem [tomatoes being canned]

01:05

Ghana's faced. power the Ghanaian people after years of British rule supposed to

01:11

confront the monstrous markets of modernity.the crewmen wanted to drag

01:15

Ghana kicking and screaming into the 20th century and since patience wasn't one

01:19

of his virtues, he decided to throw common sense to the land and set about

01:24

socializing Ghana. well if nakooma put a mighty government

01:28

in place to protect his people from things like supply and demand economics

01:33

then Ghana would quickly and smoothly take its place amongst the modern

01:38

nations. what a shame it wasn't connected to any form of reality. which probably [many nations flags]

01:43

means you won't be surprised to learn that Nkrumah's policy policies bombed.

01:48

sure he successfully expanded the role of the government in Ghana but he also

01:51

stifled political opposition and destroyed the economy. he was deposed in

01:56

1966 and ended up dying in Romania six years later. hey the world is in a

02:02

Disney flick. not all stories have a happy ending. [story stamped with a "not happy ending" stamp]

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