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| an Austrian born German politician and the leader of the Nazi Party. He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. Hitler was at the center of Nazi Germany, WWII in Europe, and the Holocaust. |
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| The Neutrality Acts were passed by the US Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to WWII. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in WWI, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts. |
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| the law that started a program under which the US supplied the UK, the USSR, Republic of China, Free France, and other Allied nations with material between 1941 and 1945. It was signed into law a year and a half after the outbreak of WWII in Europe. This was nine months before the US entered the war. The Act effectively ended the US pretense of neutrality. |
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| a pivotal policy statement first issued in August 1941 that early in WWII defined the Allied goals for the post war world. It was drafted by Britain and the US, and later agreed to by all the Allies. |
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| the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941. The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the US Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the UK, the Netherlands, and the US. |
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| The 23rd president of the US. He succeeded to the presidency when Roosevelt died after months of declining health. Under Truman, the US successfully concluded World War II; in the aftermath of the conflict, tensions with the Soviet Union increased, marking the start of the Cold War. |
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| Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The three powers were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and, later, Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. The three powers gathered to decide how to administer punishment to Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender. The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of the war. |
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| a research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during WWII. It was led by the US with the support of the UK and Canada. |
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| The atomic bombings of cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were conducted by the US in the final stages of WWII. |
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| The League of Nations failed to prevent WWII. Because of the widespread recognition that humankind could not afford a third world war, the United Nations was established to replace the flawed League of Nations in 1945 in order to maintain international peace and promote cooperation in solving international economic, social, and humanitarian problems. |
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| The forcible transfer by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60-80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during WWII. |
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| The location for the Battle of the Coral Sea, a major confrontation during WWII between the navies of the Empire of Japan, and the United States and Australia. |
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| The readjustment allowance authorized $20 a week of unemployment funds for 52 weeks and soon became known to its beneficiaries as the "52-20 Club.” |
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| A law that provided a range of benefits for returning WWII veterans. Benefits included low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business or farm, cash payments of tuition and living expenses to attend college, high school or vocational education, as well as one year of unemployment compensation. |
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| The end of WWII brought a baby boom to many countries, especially Western ones. It is most often agreed to begin in the years immediately after the war, ending more than a decade later; birth rates in the US started to decline in 1957. |
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| Governmental restrictions on the prices that can be charged for goods and services in a market. The two primary forms of control are a price ceiling, the maximum price that can be charged, and a price floor, the minimum price that can be charged. |
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| The airlift began after World War II when Germany was occupied territory and Berlin was surrounded by the Soviet zone. The city itself was divided into four sectors controlled by Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The Soviets tried to dissuade a West German government in the city by gradually escalating harassment of Western traffic to and from Berlin, which culminated in the Berlin blockade, imposed June 24, 1948. Royal Air Force Dakotas (C-47 equivalents) deployed from the United Kingdom to Germany and flew their first missions into Berlin (6.5 tons for the British garrison). On June 28, the Air Force ordered C-54s from Alaska, Hawaii, and the Caribbean to Germany to reinforce the airlift. These were the first U.S. and British cargoes for Berliners. On May 12, 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade and by Sept. 30, 1949, the airlift ended. |
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| The American program to aid Europe, in which the US gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of WWII in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism. |
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| A further topic, discussed under the rubric of “atomic diplomacy” and advanced in a 1965 book of that name by Gar Alperovitz, is that the bombings had as a primary purpose to intimidate the Soviet Union, being the opening shots of the Cold War. Along these lines some argue that the US raced the SU and hoped to drop the bombs and receive surrender from Japan before a Soviet entry into the Pacific war. However, the SU, the US and GB came to an agreement at the Yalta Conference on when the SU should join the war against Japan, and on how the territory of Japan was to be dismembered at the end of the war. Others argued that such considerations played little or no role, the US being instead concerned with the defeat of Japan, and in fact that the US desired and appreciated the Soviet entry into the Pacific war, as it hastened the surrender of Japan. |
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| An international relations policy set forth by the US President Harry Truman in a speech stating that the US would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere. Historians often consider it the start of the Cold War, and the start of the containment policy to stop Soviet expansion. |
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| popular name given to latitude 38° N that in East Asia roughly demarcates North Korea and South Korea. The line was chosen by U.S. military planners at the Potsdam Conference (July 1945) near the end of World War II as an army boundary, north of which the U.S.S.R. was to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces in Korea and south of which the Americans were to accept the Japanese surrender. |
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| The 37th President of US. He was the only president to resign from office. Although Nixon initially escalated America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, he subsequently ended US involvement in 1973. |
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| American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. |
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| series of hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations between April 1954 and June 1954. The hearings were held for the purpose of investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Army accused chief committee counsel Roy Cohn of pressuring the Army to give preferential treatment to G. David Schine, a former McCarthy aide and a friend of Cohn's. McCarthy counter-charged that this accusation was made in bad faith and in retaliation for his recent aggressive investigations of suspected Communists and security risks in the Army. |
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| American attorney who became famous during Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into Communist activity in the United States during the Second Red Scare. Cohn gained special prominence during the Army–McCarthy hearings. He was also an important member of the U.S. Department of Justice's prosecution team at the espionage trials of Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. |
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| a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". |
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| state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African Americans. The separation in practice led to conditions for African Americans that tended to be inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages. |
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| an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. |
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| African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor to Republican presidents. He was the dominant leader in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915. |
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| American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. |
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| a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). He founded the Black Star Line, part of the Back-to-Africa movement, which promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands. |
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| an American clergyman, activist, and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience. King has become a national icon in the history of American progressivism. |
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