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US History Final Exam

Terms

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-NSC-68
NSC-68 or National Security Council Report 68 was a 58 page classified report issued April 14, 1950 during the presidency of Harry Truman. Written in the formative stages of the Cold War, it has become one of the classic historical documents of the Cold War. NSC-68 would shape government actions in the Cold War for the next 20 years and has subsequently been labeled its "blueprint." Truman officially signed NSC-68 on September 30, 1950. It was declassified in 1977.
-John F. Kennedy
35th President of the United States. He served from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Major events during his presidency include the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the American Civil Rights Movement and early events of the Vietnam War.
Open Skies
The term open skies refers to either to a bilateral or multilateral Air Transport Agreement which liberalizes the rules for international aviation markets and minimizes government intervention — the provisions apply to passenger, all-cargo and combination air transportation and encompass both scheduled and charter services; or adjusts the regime under which military and other state-based flights may be permitted.
-Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Was one of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged in April of 1960 from student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
-"hawks"
Supporters of intensified military efforts in the Vietnam war.
-Fascism
Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests inferior to the needs of the state, and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on ethnic, cultural, or racial attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism, collectivism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, and opposition to economic and political liberalism
-Richard Nixon
37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, and the 36th Vice President of the United States in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961). Born and raised in California, Nixon attended Whittier College and Duke University School of Law before beginning the practice of law. During the Second World War, he served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific, before being elected to the Congress, and later serving as Vice President. After an unsuccessful presidential run in 1960, Nixon was elected in 1968.
-George Marshall
American military leader, Secretary of State, and the third Secretary of Defense. Once noted as the "organizer of victory" by Winston Churchill for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II, Marshall supervised the U.S. Army during the war and was the chief military advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As Secretary of State he gave his name to the American post-war reconstruction effort in Europe, which became known as the Marshall Plan; he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the plan.
-Subversive
Subversive activity is the lending of aid, comfort, and moral support to individuals, groups, or organizations that advocate the overthrow of incumbent governments by force and violence. All willful acts that are intended to be detrimental to the best interests of the government and that do not fall into the categories of treason, sedition, sabotage, or espionage are placed in the category of subversive activity.
-National Security Act of 1947
signed by U.S. President Harry S. Truman realigned and reorganized the United States' armed forces, foreign policy, and Intelligence Community apparatus in the aftermath of World War II. The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on 18 September 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James V. Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. The Act merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (NME) headed by the Secretary of Defense. It was also responsible for the creation of a separate Department of the Air Force from the existing United States Army Air Forces. Initially, each of the three service secretaries maintained quasi-cabinet status, but the act was amended on 10 August 1949 to assure their subordination to the Secretary of Defense. At the same time, the NME was renamed as the Department of Defense.
-New Conservatives
Short-lived Australian political party registered in the Australian Capital Territory. It was founded in November 1991 by Robyn Nolan, a former Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly, who had resigned from that party the previous month. Nolan had not long before been told that she would not be given a winnable position on the Liberal ticket for the forthcoming 1992 election after a round of bloodletting caused by Liberal leader Trevor Kaine reasserting control over the party.
-Blitzkrieg
(German, literally lightning war or flash war) is a popular name for an offensive operational-level military doctrine which involves an initial bombardment followed by the employment of mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from implementing a coherent defense.
-Truman's Fair Deal
In United States history, the Fair Deal was U.S. President Harry S Truman's policy of social improvement, outlined in his 1949 State of the Union Address to Congress on January 5, 1949. Truman stated that "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal." He was unable to pass any major part through Congress. Only one of his Fair Deal bills, an initiative to expand unemployment benefits, was ever enacted.
-The Great Society
A 1960s San Francisco rock band in the burgeoning Haight Ashbury folk-psychedelic style pervasive during the time of its existence, 1965 to 1966. Remembered as the original group of model turned singer Grace Slick, the initial line-up of the band also featured her then-husband Jerry Slick on drums, his brother Darby Slick on guitar, David Minor on vocals and guitar, Bard DuPont on bass, and Peter van Gelder on saxophone. Minor and DuPont would not remain with the band for the duration.
-The Counterculture
The counterculture of the 1960s began in the United States as a reaction against the conservative social norms of the 1950s, the political conservatism (and percieved social repression) of the Cold War period, and the US government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam.
-Thomas Dewey
Governor of New York (1943-1954) and the unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 1944 and 1948. As a leader of the liberal faction of the Republican party he fought the conservative faction led by Senator Robert A. Taft, and played a major role in nominating Dwight D. Eisenhower for the presidency in 1952.
Affluence
Wealth
-Robert Kennedy
Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968), also called RFK, was one of two younger brothers of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and served as United States Attorney General from 1961 to 1964. He was one of President Kennedy's most trusted advisors and worked closely with the president during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His contribution to the African-American Civil Rights Movement is sometimes considered his greatest legacy. After his brother's assassination in late 1963, Kennedy continued as Attorney General under President Johnson for nine months. He resigned in September 1964 and was elected to the United States Senate from New York that November.
-Pacific Theater
The South West Pacific was one of two theatres of World War II in the Pacific region, between 1942 and 1945. The South West Pacific theatre included the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies (excluding Sumatra), Borneo, Australia, the Australian Territory of New Guinea (including the Bismarck Archipelago), the western part of the Solomon Islands and some neighbouring territories. The theatre takes its name from the major Allied command, which was known simply as the "South West Pacific Area".
-Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 - April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974, and the 36th Vice President of the United States in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961). Born and raised in California, Nixon attended Whittier College and Duke University School of Law before beginning the practice of law. During the Second World War, he served as a Navy lieutenant commander in the Pacific, before being elected to the Congress, and later serving as Vice President. After an unsuccessful presidential run in 1960, Nixon was elected in 1968.
-Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress passed in August 1964 in direct response to a minor naval engagement known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. It is of historical significance because it gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military force in Southeast Asia. The Johnson administration subsequently cited the resolution as legal authority for its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam conflict.
-Cold War
period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s. Throughout the period, the rivalry between the two superpowers was played out in multiple arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and espionage; military, industrial, and technological developments, including the space race; costly defense spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms race; and many proxy wars.
-Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at a Watergate Office Building in Washington, D.C. by members of Richard Nixon's administration and the resulting cover-up which led to the resignation of the President. A number of them were from the "plumbers unit", originally set up to "plug leaks," and some of them were former members of the CIA. Though then-President Nixon had endured two years of mounting political embarrassments, the court-ordered release in August 1974 of a "smoking gun tape" about the burglaries brought with it the prospect of certain impeachment for Nixon; he resigned only four days later, on August 9, 1974, making him the only U.S. President to have resigned from office.
-Flexible Response
Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of Massive Retaliation. Flexible response calls for mutual deterrence at strategic, tactical, and conventional levels, giving the United States the capability to respond to aggression across the spectrum of warfare, not limited only to nuclear arms.
-The Plumbers
The White House Plumbers or simply the Plumbers is the popular name given to the covert White House Special Investigations Unit established July 24, 1971 during the presidency of Richard Nixon. Its job was to stop the leaking of classified information (hence the word "Plumbers") to the news media during the Nixon administration. Its members branched into more nefarious projects working for the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP, or the more derogatory CREEP), including the first Watergate break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal.
-North Atlantic Treaty Organization
military alliance, established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949. With headquarters in Brussels, Belgium,[3] the organisation established a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, and promote liberty around the world.
-George Kennan
American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers.
-hippies
People who identified with the 1960's counterculture. Mind altering drugs, communal living, new forms of music.
-Harry Truman
thirty-third President of the United States (1945-1953); as Vice President, he succeeded to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In domestic affairs, Truman faced challenge after challenge: a tumultuous reconversion of the economy marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act over his veto.[1] After confounding all predictions to win re-election in 1948,[2] he was able to pass almost none of his Fair Deal program.[3] He used executive orders to begin desegregation of the U.S. armed forces[4] and to launch a system of loyalty checks to remove thousands of Communist sympathizers from government office.
-Civil Rights Act of 1968
On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (also known as CRA '68), which was meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While the Civil Rights Act of 1866[1] prohibited discrimination in housing, there were no federal enforcement provisions. The 1968 act expanded on previous acts and prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, (and as amended) handicap and family status. It also provided protection for civil rights workers. Title VIII of the Act is also known as the Fair Housing Act (of 1968) .
-Lend-Lease Act
name of the program under which the United States of America supplied Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material (matériel) between 1941 and 1945 in return for land to house a military base. It began in March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor. It was abruptly stopped by the Americans immediately after VE-day.
-Eisenhower Doctrine
The Eisenhower Doctrine, given in a message to Congress on January 5, 1957, was the foreign policy of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The doctrine stated that the United States would use armed forces upon request in response to imminent or actual aggression to the United States. Furthermore, countries that took stances opposed to Communism would be given aid in various forms.
-European Theater
The European Theater was an area of heavy fighting across Europe, during World War II, from 1 September 1939 to 8 May 1945. Allied forces fought the Axis powers in three theatres: the Eastern Front, the Western Front and the Mediterranean Theatre.
-Dwight Eisenhower
34th U.S. President, serving for two terms. As President, he ended the Korean War, kept up the pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, made nuclear weapons a higher defense priority, launched the Space Race, enlarged the Social Security program, and began the Interstate Highway System.
-Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer (also known as the Mississippi Summer Project) was a campaign in the United States launched during the summer of 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in the State of Mississippi, which up to that time had almost totally excluded black voters. The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations(COFO) which was an umbrella of four established civil rights organizations: the (NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee). Over 1,000 mostly young people volunteered, most of them Northern whites interested in helping out the civil rights cause.
-Vietnam War
(also known as the Second Indochina War, the American War in Vietnam and the Vietnam Conflict) occurred from 1959 to April 30, 1975. The war was a successful effort by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV or North Vietnam) and the indigenous National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, (also known derogatively as the Việt Cộng, Charlie or VC) to reunify Vietnam under a communist government. To a degree, the war may be viewed as a Cold War conflict between the U.S., its allies, and the Republic of Vietnam on one side, and the Soviet Union, its allies, the People's Republic of China, and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on the other. Others, however, viewed the conflict as a civil war between communist and non-communist Vietnamese factions.
-Roe vs. Wade
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that resulted in a landmark judicial opinion about privacy and abortion in the United States.[1] According to the Roe decision, most laws against abortion violated a constitutional right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
-Office of War Information
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was a U.S. government agency created during World War II to consolidate government information services. It operated from June 1942 until September 1945. It coordinated the release of war news for domestic use, and, using posters and radio broadcasts, worked to promote patriotism, warned about foreign spies and attempted to recruit women into war work. The office also established an overseas branch which launched a huge information and propaganda campaign abroad.
-Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation during the Cold War among the Government of the United States, the Government of the Soviet Union, and the Government of Cuba.
-Martin Luther King
one of the main leaders of the American civil rights movement, a political activist, a Baptist minister, and was one of America's greatest orators. In 1964, King became the youngest man to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (for his work as a peacemaker, promoting nonviolence and equal treatment for different races). On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
-Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. (July 14, 1913 - December 26, 2006) was the 38th President (1974-1977), and 40th Vice President (1973-1974) of the United States. Ford was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. Upon succession to the presidency, Ford became the only person to hold that office without having been elected either President or Vice President. Prior to 1973, he served for over eight years as the Republican Minority Leader of the House of Representatives; he was first elected to Congress in 1948 from Michigan's 5th congressional district.
-Henry Kissinger
Henry Alfred Kissinger (born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923) is a German-born American diplomat, and 1973 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the Nixon administration. He continued in the latter position after Gerald Ford became President in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal.
-Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 - February 21, 1965), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was a Black Muslim Minister and National Spokesman for the Nation of Islam. He was also founder of the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
-block grants
In a federal system of government, a block grant is a large sum of money granted by the national government to a regional government with only general provisions as to the way it is to be spent. This can be contrasted with a categorical grant which has more strict and specific provisions on the way it is to be spent.
-Nye Committee
Studied the causes of United States involvement in World War I between 1934 and 1936. There were seven members of what was officially known as Senate Munitions Investigating Committee. Senators Homer T. Bone, James P. Pope, Bennett Champ Clark, and Arthur H. Vandenberg served on the committee. Alger Hiss was the committee's general counsel, Senator Gerald Nye lead it. Ninety-three hearings questioned more than two hundred witnesses. It found that bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war in order to protect their loans abroad. Also, the arms industry was at fault for price fixing and held excessive influence on American foreign policy leading up to and during World War I.
-Kent State
Kent State gained national attention on May 4, 1970 when an Ohio National Guard unit shot at students in response to war protests on and around campus, killing four and wounding nine. This event, known as the Kent State shootings, propagated intense national response as hundreds of schools closed due to an eight million student strike.
-Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 - January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States (1963-1969). After serving a long career in the U.S. Congress, Johnson became the 37th Vice President, and in 1963, he succeeded to the presidency following President John F. Kennedy's assassination. He was a major leader of the Democratic Party and as President was responsible for designing his Great Society, comprising liberal legislation including civil rights laws, Medicare (health care for the elderly), Medicaid (health care for the poor), aid to education, and a major "War on Poverty"
-Brown vs. Board of Education
landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court overturning its earlier ruling, declaring the establishment of separate public schools for black and white students inherently unequal. This victory paved the way for integration and the Civil Rights Movement. A companion case dealt with the constitutionality of segregation in the District of Columbia.
-Freedom riders
Civil Rights activists called Freedom Riders, rode in interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia, (1960) 364 U.S. 454, which outlawed racial segregation in interstate transportation facilities, including bus stations and railroad terminals. A total of 436 Freedom Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, violating state and local Jim Crow laws, etc. All but a very small number were sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) while the others belonged to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
-Winston Churchill
English statesman, soldier in the British Army and author. Well-known as an orator and strategist, Churchill was one of the most important leaders in modern British and world history. A prolific author, he won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature for his many books on English and world history.
-Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that was intended to guarantee equal rights under the law for Americans regardless of sex. Amendments can be approved according to the process in Article V of the Constitution. The final deadline for approving the ERA passed in either 1979 or 1982—depending upon one's view of a controversial extension of the ratification time constraint. In the intervening years, public discussion on the ERA has been greatly reduced, though the proposal has been reintroduced in every Congress since 1982.
-Bay of Pigs
The site of the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, a 1961 US-supported invasion by Cuban exiles during John F. Kennedy's presidency. The US denied all knowledge of the attack. The intention of the invasion was to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro. It took place at a beach called Playa Girón. The attack was one of many attempts to overthrow Fidel Castro.
-Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first nuclear weapon (atomic bomb) during World War II by the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada.
-Nikita Khrushchev
chief director of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin. He was First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. He was removed from power by his party colleagues in 1964 and replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. He spent the last seven years of his life under the close supervision of the KGB.
-Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted in the United States on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969). Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin Roosevelt, but differed sharply in types of programs. Some Great Society proposals were stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. Johnson's success depended on his own remarkable skills at persuasion, coupled with the Democratic landslide in 1964 that brought in many new liberals. Anti-war Democrats complained that spending on the Vietnam War choked off the Great Society. While some of the programs have been eliminated or have had their funding reduced, many of them, including Medicare, Medicaid, and federal education funding, continue to the present.
-Fidel Castro
He led the revolution overthrowing Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and shortly after was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Cuba.[2] Castro became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965, and led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. In 1976 he became president of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. He also holds the supreme military rank of Comandante en Jefe ("Commander in Chief") of the Cuban armed forces.
Saturation bombing
Aerial area bombardment is the policy of indiscriminate bombing of an enemy's cities, for the purpose of destroying the enemy's means of producing military materiel, communications, government centres and civilian morale. It differs from the use of bombs to destroy military targets. The practice came to prominence during the Second World War with the use of large numbers of unguided gravity bombs, often with a high proportion of incendiary bombs, to effect indiscriminate bombing of the target region - either to destroy personnel and/or materiel, or as a means to demoralize the enemy (see terror bombing). Initially, this was effected by multiple aircraft, often returning to the target in waves. Nowadays, a large bomber or missile can be used to create the same effect on a small area (an airfield, for example) by releasing a relatively large number of smaller bombs. The terms carpet bombing and saturation bombing are also used.
-Adlai Stevenson
American politician, noted for intellectual demeanor and advocacy of liberal causes in the Democratic party. He served one term as governor of Illinois and lost, by landslides, in two races for president against Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. He was Ambassador to the United Nations, 1961-65.
-Taft-Hartley Act
The Labor-Management Relations Act, commonly known as the Taft-Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that greatly restricts the activities and power of labor unions. The Act, still largely in effect, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and passed over U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto on June 23, 1947, establishing the act as a law.
-Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience encompasses the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence.
-Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, or mobility. As a verb, blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize them from a certain social circle.
-Election of 1948
The U.S. presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction (with or without public opinion polls) indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way split in his own party. Truman's surprise victory was the fifth consecutive win for the Democratic Party in a presidential election. Truman's election confirmed the Democratic Party's status as the nation's majority party, a status they would retain until the 1980's.
-"living room war"
Phrase that meant that television had brought the Vietnam war into the living rooms of Americans and led them to question the war.
-Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan on December 7, 1941 brought the United States, sometimes referred to as the sleeping giant, into World War II.
-Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer (also known as the Mississippi Summer Project) was a campaign in the United States launched during the summer of 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in the State of Mississippi, which up to that time had almost totally excluded black voters. The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations(COFO) which was an umbrella of four established civil rights organizations: the (NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee).
-Joseph McCarthy
Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period of extreme anti-communist suspicion inspired by the tensions of the Cold War. He was noted for making unsubstantiated claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the federal government. Ultimately, his tactics led to his being discredited and censured by the United States Senate. The term "McCarthyism," coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist pursuits.
-Détente
Détente is a French term, meaning a relaxing or easing; the term has been used in international politics since the early 1970s. Generally, it may be applied to any international situation where previously hostile nations not involved in an open war "warm up" to each other and threats de-escalate. However, it is primarily used in reference to the general reduction in the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and a thawing of the Cold War, occurring from the late 1960s until the start of the 1980s.
-Neutrality Acts
Legislation that restricted loans, trade and travel with belligerent nations in an attempt to avoid entanglements that brought us into WWI.
-Employment Act of 1946
United States federal law. Its main purpose was to lay the responsibility of economic stability onto the federal government.
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern, Ph.D (born July 19, 1922) is a former United States Representative, Senator, and Democratic presidential nominee. McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election in a landslide to incumbent Richard Nixon. McGovern was most noted for his opposition to the Vietnam War. He is currently serving as the United Nations global ambassador on hunger.
-Braceros
The Bracero Program was originally a binational temporary contract labor program initiated, in August 1942, by an exchange of diplomatic notes between the United States and Mexico after a series of negotiations. Bracero is Spanish for 'unskilled laborer'. The program was designed initially to bring a few hundred experienced Mexican agricultural laborers to harvest sugar beets in the Stockton, California area but soon spread to cover most of the United States to provide much needed farm workers to agriculture labor market.
-Zoot suits
A zoot suit was a style of clothing first popularized by young African Americans, Filipino Americans, Italian Americans, and Mexican Americans in the late 1930s and 1940s
-Marshall Plan
Primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger foundation for the allied countries of Europe, and repelling communism after World War II. The initiative was named for United States Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan.
-Massive retaliation
Also known as a massive response or massive detterrence, is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack.
-Zionism
Zionism is an international political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel.
-Containment
Containment refers to the foreign policy strategy of the United States in the early years of the Cold War in which it was to stop what it called the domino effect of nations moving politically towards Soviet Union-based communism, rather than European-American-based capitalism.
-Alger Hiss
U.S. State Department official involved in the establishment of the United Nations. He was accused of being a Soviet spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950. Although new evidence has added a variety of information to the case, Hiss's guilt or innocence remains controversial.
-Belligerent
A belligerent is an individual, group, country or other entity which acts in an aggressive or hostile manner, such as engaging in combat.
-Think tank
is an organization, institute, corporation, or group that conducts research and engages in advocacy in areas such as social policy, political strategy, science or technology issues, industrial or business policies, or military advice.[1] Many think tanks are non-profit organizations, which in some countries such as the US and Canada provides them with tax exempt status. While many think tanks are funded by governments, interest groups, or businesses, some think tanks also derive income from consulting or research work related to their mandate.
-Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 — April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist and nature writer whose landmark book, Silent Spring, is often credited with having launched the global environmental movement. Silent Spring had an immense effect in the United States, where it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
-Third World
The terms First World, Second World, and "Third World" can be used to divide the nations of Earth into three broad categories.
-"domino theory"
The domino theory was a 20th Century foreign policy theory, promoted by the government of the United States, that speculated if one land in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino effect suggests that some change, small in itself, will cause a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on in linear sequence, by analogy to a falling row of dominoes standing on end.
-Voting Rights Act of 1965
outlawed the requirement that would-be voters in the United States take literacy tests to qualify to register to vote, and it provided for federal registration of voters in areas that had less than 50% of eligible minority voters registered. The act also provided for Department of Justice oversight to registration, and the Department's approval for any change in voting law in districts that had used a "device" to limit voting and in which less than 50% of the population was registered to vote in 1964. It was signed in 1965, and signed for a 25 year extension by President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006.
-Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (May 27, 1911 - January 13, 1978) was the 38th Vice President of the United States, serving under President Lyndon Johnson. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and Americans for Democratic Action. He also served as mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from 1945-1949. In 1968, Humphrey was the nominee of the Democratic Party in the United States presidential election but narrowly lost to the Republican nominee, Richard M. Nixon.
-Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957, primarily a voting rights bill, was the first civil rights legislation enacted in the United States since Reconstruction. It was proposed by Congress to President Dwight Eisenhower.
-stagflation
Stagflation, a portmanteau of the words stagnation and inflation, is a term in general use within modern macroeconomics used to describe a period of out-of-control price inflation combined with slow-to-no output growth, rising unemployment, and eventually recession.
-doves
Opponents of military action, especially those who favored a quick end to involvement in Vietnam.
Elvis Presley
He is often known simply as Elvis, and is also called "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", or simply "The King". Presley began his career as a singer of rockabilly, performing country and rhythm and blues songs. He developed a versatile voice and sang a combination of country music and blues with a strong back beat, and an energetic delivery - one of the earliest forms of rock & roll. He also had success with other genres, including gospel, blues and pop. Presley set many records for concert attendance, television ratings and records sales. He subsequently became one of the best-selling and most influential artists in the history of popular music.
-Highway Act of 1956
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, was enacted on June 29, 1956, when a hospitalized Dwight D. Eisenhower signed this bill into law. Appropriating $25 million for the construction of 40,000 miles of interstate highways over a 10-year period, it was the largest public works project in American history to that point.
-Joseph Stalin
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until 1953 . Despite his formal position being originally without significant influence, and his office being nominally but one of several Central Committee Secretariats, Stalin's increasing control of the Party from 1928 onwards led to him becoming the de facto party leader and the dictator of his country.
HUAC
House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC or HCUA) (1938-1975) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is often referred to as the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to the Committee on Internal Security. When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee. The committee's anti-communist investigations are often confused with those of Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy, as a senator, had no direct involvement with this House committee.
-Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
American Communists who received international attention when they were executed for passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, Soviet communications decrypted in the VENONA project were released, which supported the general allegations of espionage by Julius, though not supporting the specific charges on which the Rosenbergs were convicted. Also supporting the conviction were Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's posthumously published memoirs.
-Earl Warren
California district attorney of Alameda County, the 20th Attorney General of California, the 30th Governor of California, and the 14th Chief Justice of the United States (from 1953 to 1969). As Chief Justice, his term of office was marked by numerous rulings affecting, among other things, the legal status of racial segregation, civil rights, separation of church and state, and police arrest procedure in the United States. In the years that followed, the Warren Court became recognized as a high point in the use of the judicial power in the effort to effect social change in the U.S.
-Black Power Movement
Black Power was a political movement among persons of African descent throughout the world, though it is often associated primarily with African Americans in the United States. Most prominent in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the movement emphasized racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural institutions to nurture and promote black collective interests, advance black values, and secure black autonomy.
-environmentalism
Mounting concern over the disruption of ecological balances and habitats.
-Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was a proclamation by U.S. president Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947. It stated that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere. The Doctrine shifted American foreign policy as regards the Soviet Union from Détente to, as George F. Kennan phrased it, a policy of containment of Soviet expansion. Historians often use it to mark the starting date of the Cold War.
-Operation OVERLORD
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of northwest Europe, which began on June 6, 1944, and ended on August 19, 1944, when the Allies crossed the River Seine. Over sixty years later, the Normandy invasion still remains the largest sea borne invasion in history, involving almost three million troops crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy.
-Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 1, 1909 - May 29, 1998) was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953-1965, 1969-87) and the Republican Party's nominee for president in the 1964 election. He is the American politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s.
-Korematsu vs. United States
A case that focused on Japanese Americans who were denied citizenship and forced to move is the case of Korematsu v. United States. Fred Korematsu refused to obey the wartime order to leave his home and report to a relocation camp for Japanese Americans. He was arrested and convicted. After losing in the Court of Appeals, he appealed to the United States Supreme Court, challenging the constitutionality of the deportation order.The Supreme Court upheld the order excluding persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast war zone during World War II. Three justices dissented.
-Silent Spring
Silent Spring is a book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin in September 1962. The book is widely credited with launching the environmentalism movement in the West.
-George Wallace
George Corley Wallace, or officially George C. Wallace, Jr. (August 25, 1919 - September 13, 1998), was an American politician who was elected Governor of Alabama as a Democrat four times (1962, 1970, 1974 and 1982) and ran for U.S. President four times running as a Democrat in 1964, 1972, and 1976, and as the American Independent Party candidate in 1968. He is best known for his pro-segregation attitudes during the American desegregation period, which he later recanted.
-Baby boom
any period of greatly increased birth rate during a certain period, and usually within certain geographical bounds. Persons born during such a period are often called baby boomers. Some contest the general conventional wisdom that baby booms signify good times and periods of general economic growth and stability, but this is a controversial position that ignores much of the well-documented historical record from the 1500s to present.
-Destroyer-for-Bases deal
The Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom, September 2, 1940, transferred fifty destroyers from the United States Navy in exchange for land rights on British possessions. The destroyers became the Town class.
-McCarthyism/Red Scare
McCarthyism is the term describing a period of intense anti-Communist suspicion in the United States that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s. This period is also referred to as the Second Red Scare, and coincided with increased fears about Communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the actions of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, "McCarthyism" later took on a more general meaning, not necessarily referring to the conduct of Joseph McCarthy alone.
-VJ Day
Celebration of the Surrender of Japan, which took place on August 15, 1945, ending the Second World War. In Japan, the day is known as, Shusen-kinenbi, which literally means the "Memorial day for the end of the war". This is commemorated as Liberation Day in Korea and some other nations.
-Douglas MacArthur
American Field Marshal (only in the Philippines) and general who played a prominent role in the Pacific theater of World War II. He was poised to command the invasion of Japan in November 1945 but was instead instructed to accept their surrender on September 2, 1945. MacArthur oversaw the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1951 and is credited for making far-ranging democratic changes in that country. He led United Nations forces defending South Korea in 1950-51 against North Korea's invasion. MacArthur was removed from command by President Harry S Truman in April 1951 for insubordination and failure to follow Presidential directives.
-Redlining
Redlining is the practice of denying or increasing the cost of services, such as banking, insurance, access to jobs,[1] access to health care,[2] or even supermarkets[3] to residents in certain, often racially determined,[4] areas. The most devastating form of redlining, and the most common use of the term, refers to mortgage discrimination.
-Jackie Robinson
first African-American professional baseball player of the modern era in 1947.[1] While not the first African American professional baseball player in history, his Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers ended approximately eighty years of baseball segregation, also known as the baseball color line.
-counterculture
Anti-establishment movements that symbolized youthful social upheaval in the 1960's. More open, less regimented.
-The Feminine Mystique
1963 book written by Betty Friedan which attacked the popular notion that women during this time could only find fulfillment through childbearing and homemaking. According to The New York Times obituary of Friedan in 2006, it "ignited the contemporary women's movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around the world" and "is widely regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.
-Rosa Parks
African American civil rights activist and seamstress whom the U.S. Congress dubbed the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement". Parks is famous for her refusal on December 1, 1955 to obey bus driver James Blake's demand that she relinquish her seat to a white man. Her subsequent arrest and trial for this act of civil disobedience triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, one of the largest and most successful mass movements against racial segregation in history, and launched Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the organizers of the boycott, to the forefront of the civil rights movement.
-Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
U.S. civil rights organization that played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 20th century. Membership in CORE is stated to be open to "anyone who believes that 'all people are created equal' and is willing to work towards the ultimate goal of true equality throughout the world."
-Montgomery Bus Boycott
political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit system. The ensuing struggle lasted from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses unconstitutional.
-Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The two Japanese cities that were targeted by the atomic bomb.

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