The answer to this question is a matter of perspective. The Cold War came about due to the rivalry that emerged between the United States and the Soviet Union in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The biggest issue involved postwar Europe. When the Soviet Union essentially set up Soviet-style communist regimes in Eastern Europe, beginning with Poland, the United States saw it as aggression on par with that perpetrated by Adolf Hitler leading up to World War II. From a Soviet perspective, however, it was a necessary move to establish a buffer zone between the Russian frontier and Western Europe, especially Germany. The Soviets had suffered over 27 million deaths during World War II, and they wanted to secure their borders. Similarly, the Soviets viewed American attempts to establish a pro-western government in Germany, as well as the flooding of Western Europe with American loans and economic assistance as capitalist aggression, and feared they ultimately wanted to destabilize the Soviet regime itself. Perhaps it is best to simply say that the Cold War developed because the two major superpowers who were left standing at the end of World War II had irreconcilable interests which led them into a series of political (and nearly military) conflicts.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
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