Term
| The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (1944) (The GI Bill) |
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Definition
| Legislation in June of 1944 that eased the return of veterans into American society by providing educational and employment benefits. |
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Term
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Definition
| The Republicans and Democrats were not very far apart; the goal was a middle way between communism and fascism: liberal democracy and state-regulated market economy. |
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Term
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Definition
George Kennan, a U.S. diplomat in Moscow, wrote an article in 1947 which argued that the appropriate response of the U.S. to Soviet ambitions was the “firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”
Containment became American foreign policy for the next 40 years. |
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Term
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Definition
| In a speech to Congress, President Truman argued that it must be US policy to support free people resisting Communist aggression but that help “should be primarily through economic and financial aid.” |
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Term
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) |
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Definition
A mutual defense pact by the U.S., Canada, and 10 European nations.
The U.S. commitment to NATO was unprecedented and important because it was the first peacetime military alliance.
The Soviets set up their own counterpart for their satellites in 1955, called the Warsaw Pact. |
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Term
| National Security Council Paper 68 (NSC-68) |
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Definition
| A comprehensive statement of U.S. strategic goals |
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Term
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Definition
North Korean forces advanced into South Korea in June 1950.
The war officially was a United Nations action, and 21 other nations committed military resources in a multinational coalition.
The Korean War enlarged the geographical range of the Cold War to include East Asia. |
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Term
| House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) |
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Definition
| The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) became permanent in 1945. It focused on investigating “un-American propaganda.” Hollywood, with its supposedly loose morals and leftist writers, presented a particularly tempting target, and hearings opened in October 1947. |
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Term
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Definition
While giving a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he waved a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of 205 known Communists working in the State Department.
He opened dozens of investigations of government agencies ranging from the Government Printing Office to the Army Signal Corps. |
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Term
| What constituted the four major problems areas in U.S.-Soviet relations at the end of World War 2? |
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Definition
Soviet resentment over the Allies’ delay in opening the 2nd Front
Control over Eastern Europe and Germany – The most crucial issue was Poland
Would the U.S. make a Reconstruction loan to the USSR?
The atom bomb |
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Term
| Why was the Korean War a significant development in the Cold War? What were some of the major consequences of this war for the United States? |
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Definition
The Korean War enlarged the geographical range of the Cold War to include East Asia.
Expanded presidential power
“Unwinnable” wars
Civilian casualties |
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Term
| Why did “McCarthyism” flourish during the 1950s? |
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Definition
Real atomic spies
Anti-Semitism and nativism
Southern & western resentment of elitism
General fear and anxiety |
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Term
| Why did the balance of power in the Cold War suddenly appear to shift against the United States in 1949? |
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Definition
The Soviets tested their own atomic bomb on August 29, 1949
On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong led a Communist takeover of China. |
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Term
| Federal Highway Act (1956) |
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Definition
President Eisenhower’s most significant domestic achievement
The new system of 41,000 miles in national highways was framed in terms of the Cold War:
Roads = wide enough for military vehicles
Evacuation of cities in the event of nuclear attack |
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Term
| Mendez v. Westminster (1945) |
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Definition
| In 1945, five Mexican American families challenged school segregation in Orange County. The California Supreme Court ruled that “segregation of Mexican youngsters found no justification in the laws of California and furthermore was a clear denial of the 'equal protection' clause of the Fourteenth Amendment." |
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Term
| Brown v. Board of Education (1954) |
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Definition
Thurgood Marshall argued that separate facilities denied African Americans their full civil rights. He used sociological and psychological evidence about the negative impacts of segregated schools on black children.
Chief Justice Earl Warren ruled that segregated public schools were “inherently unequal.”
This decision was historic and significant because the courts had become the venue where minorities could use the language of constitutional rights to achieve political & social goals |
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Term
| Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott (1956 – 1957) |
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Definition
December 1, 1955- Rosa Parks
Rev. King
called for a boycott of the bus system by Montgomery’s African American population of about 50,000.
The bus company’s revenues declined by 2/3, but Montgomery authorities refused to negotiate.
On June 4, 1956, three federal judges declared bus segregation unconstitutional, and the Supreme Court upheld the ruling. |
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Term
| Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (1960) |
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Definition
| In April 1960, a student conference voted to create the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which emphasized direct action and civil disobedience. |
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Term
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Definition
| The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) tested desegregation in travel and accommodations in order to provoke arrest and prod the Justice Dept. “Freedom riders” were attacked and beaten. The Justice Dept. asked Interstate Commerce Commission to prohibit segregated interstate travel. |
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Term
| Birmingham, Alabama (1963) |
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Definition
| Again, the goal was to challenge desegregation and provoke a federal response. Birmingham sheriff “Bull” Connor used dogs and fire hoses on protesters, shocking the world. On May 10, the Justice Dept. negotiated an agreement with the SCLC ending the protests and desegregating businesses and public facilities. |
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Term
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Definition
Prohibited discrimination in most public facilities
Barred discrimination in employment on basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin
Barred discrimination in programs receiving federal funding
Empowered the Justice Department to pursue lawsuits to integrate school districts and other facilities
Created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) |
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Term
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Definition
Authorized federal supervision of registration in counties where less than half the potential voters were registered.
Outlawed discriminatory tests, like literacy tests.
Mississippi’s black registered voters rose from 7% to 59% of the state’s black population between 1964 and 1968.
Throughout the South, black voters increased from 1 million to over 3 million |
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Term
| How did the rising productivity of the U.S. economy during the 1950s affect the relations between labor unions and corporations? |
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Definition
Easy for corporations to share gains with large labor unions
Workers rise to middle class
Unions lost interest in radical changes to system |
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Term
| How was the California case of Mendez v. Westminster directly linked to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education? |
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Definition
Thurgood Marshall was a co-author of the NAACP's amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the Méndez case
The judge relied on social science & education research
The case posed a (limited) challenge to Plessy v. Ferguson
CA Governor Governor Earl Warren repealed all segregation statutes, ending “separate but equal” in California schools, and Warren would later be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the Brown case. |
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Term
| How did some white Americans try to resist the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education? |
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Definition
“Private” academies
Nullification
White Citizens’ Councils
“Southern Manifesto”: 101 Southern Congressmen rejected compliance with the ruling
Third Ku Klux Klan |
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Term
| What was the impact of the civil rights movement? |
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Definition
The South was permanently transformed: no more separate facilities
The goal of equal protection had been achieved, but there were still economic & social inequalities
The shift from an emphasis on political rights to a focus on economic rights begins. |
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Term
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Definition
Young whites from civil rights movement
Liberal ≠ Left: The main target of the New Left was not conservatives, but Liberals |
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Term
| Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (1960) |
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Definition
Grew out of a conference between white northern students and some of the black students leading the sit-in movement in the South
They emphasized self-actualization, independence, and authenticity.
They called for a genuine “participatory democracy”
They argued that the university played a crucial role |
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Term
| National Liberation Front (NLF or Vietcong or VC) (1960) |
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Definition
| The National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, or National Liberation Front (NLF) was organized in December 1960. It also was called the Viet Cong or VC, but the NLF was both Communist and non-Communist. They began an uprising against Diem’s government and many peasants joined it. The NLF was successful at the local level because wherever they went they reduced land rents and introduced land reform. |
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Term
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Definition
| Reconnaissance photos revealed that the Soviets were constructing launch sites for nuclear missiles. Kennedy informed the American public of the missiles and imposed a blockade. After 13 excruciating days, Khrushchev ordered warships headed for Cuba to turn around. This was the closest the U.S. came to nuclear war with the U.S.S.R. during the Cold War. |
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Term
| Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964) |
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Definition
Secretly drafted 6 weeks before the incident for which it is named.
Authorized any action necessary to repel aggression: closest thing to a declaration of war.
Johnson called it “Grandma’s nightshirt” because it covered everything
Became the basis for the expansion of the war |
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Term
| Operation Rolling Thunder (1965) |
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Definition
| a series of intensifying air attacks on North Vietnam. Pushed U.S. over the line from propping up the South Vietnamese government to leading the war. Johnson’s decision turned a S. Vietnamese war into a US war. |
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Term
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Definition
The great turning point of the war
January 1968, North Vietnam and the Viet Cong launched a multi-prong offensive against the South.
Although the U.S. halted the advance and inflicted tremendous casualties, “it shattered the credibility of American officials who had repeatedly claimed the enemy to be virtually beaten.”
For the first time, polls showed that a majority of Americans -- 52% -- believed that the war was a mistake. |
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Term
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Definition
| a company of American soldiers brutally killed the majority of the population of the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai in March 1968. |
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Term
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Definition
| The five days of violence left 34 dead, 1,032 injured, nearly 4,000 arrested, and $40 million worth of property destroyed. The Watts riot was the worst urban riot in 20 years and foreshadowed the many rebellions to occur in ensuing years in Detroit, Newark, and other American cities. |
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Term
| The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan |
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Definition
| The book articulated the frustrations of suburban women and revived the feminist movement, largely dormant since the Progressive era: “Second wave feminism.” |
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Term
| What were the origins of the Vietnam War? Why did Presidents Kennedy and Johnson escalate the war? |
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Definition
Truman Doctrine
Containment
They didn't want to be the first president to lose a war |
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Term
| Why were young people so prominent by the mid-1960s? |
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Definition
Baby Boom: By 1950 there were 8 million more children than demographers had predicted. By 1960 there were 56 million kids under the age of 15. In 1960, average age was 34; by the mid-60s, the average age had dropped to 17.
Affluence & youth consumer culture = economic power
Universities: During the 1960s, 1/3 of high school graduates headed for college, 3 times as many as their parents’ generation |
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Term
| What was the U.S. military strategy in Vietnam? |
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Definition
The plan was for U.S. ground forces to defeat the Viet Cong (VC) in South Vietnam and restore political stability to a pro-American government.
U.S. strategy on the ground was “search and destroy”: locating enemy detachments and calling in air and artillery strikes. But most fighters were South Vietnamese guerrillas who avoided large set-piece battles. U.S. forces swept through Vietnamese farms and hamlets, seeking VC and supporters, and left enormous death and destruction in their wake. |
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Term
| What was President Johnson’s primary accomplishment and why was it significant? |
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Definition
| Main accomplishment = Medicare: health care for the elderly. Most far-reaching piece of social legislation since the New Deal |
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Term
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Definition
| In 1969, the Nixon Doctrine declared that the U.S. would supply other countries with money and weapons instead of troops to fight their wars. |
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Term
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Definition
Easing of tensions, not friendship
The goals of détente:
Keeping China and Russia off balance
Limit competition to control 3rd World countries |
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Term
| Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) (1972) |
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Definition
| This was the first successful attempt at arms limitation since the beginning of the Cold War, and a very useful public relations victory for both Nixon and Brezhnev. |
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Term
| Paris Peace Accords (1973) |
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Definition
| In the Paris Peace Accords signed January, 1973, the U.S. agreed to withdraw and not to provide additional military aid to South Vietnam. |
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Term
| Watergate Hotel break-in by CREEP (1972) |
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Definition
| Audiotapes made secretly in the Oval Office by President Nixon revealed Nixon’s efforts to use federal agencies to harass private citizens. They documented that he not only knew about the Watergate break-in, he ordered it. |
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Term
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Definition
| rising unemployment, rising inflation, low economic growth. |
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Term
| Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) (1972) |
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Definition
| The proposed amendment to the constitution called the Equal Rights Amendment became a central goal of the movement. It stated: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” |
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Term
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Definition
On March, 28, 1979 a near-meltdown of the core reactor of the nuclear power plant occurred at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and forced the evacuation of 150,000 residents. The impact of this near-disaster was significant:
It resulted in massive public demonstrations against nuclear power.
Local groups defeated proposals for new nuclear facilities |
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Term
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Definition
President Carter asserted the determination of the U.S. to protect its interests in the Persian Gulf.
Although his primary intention was to warn the Soviets against interfering in the flow of oil in the region, subsequent Presidents and their advisors have greatly broadened the scope of Carter’s pronouncement, leading to U.S. wars and occupations in the Middle East and South Asia. |
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Term
| Iran Hostage Crisis (1979 – 1980) |
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Definition
The former Shah of Iran had been exiled and after President Carter allowed the Shah to enter the US for cancer treatment, Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and took 60 Americans as hostages. They demanded that the U.S. surrender the Shah.
A deal was finally reached on the eve of the 1980 election, and the hostages were released after 445 days on January as Ronald Reagan was being sworn in as the new President. |
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Term
| What were the human, financial, strategic, and historical costs of the Vietnam War? |
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Definition
The Human Cost: 58,000 U.S. lives and as many as 2 million Southeast Asians were killed
The Financial Cost: $150 billion
Strategic and Historical Costs:
failure to achieve war aims
lost foothold in SE Asia
containment = unworkable
legacy of skepticism |
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Term
| How was President Nixon’s domestic policy a rather contradictory mixture of liberal and conservative ideas? |
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Definition
He supported the Family Assistance Plan, which drew opposition from both liberals and conservatives.
Liberal
He supported new Social Security benefits and subsidized housing for the poor
He created the Environmental Protection Agency (1970)
His administration established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1971
Conservative
He accepted integration but rejected bussing
He appointed more conservative nominees to the Supreme Court |
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Term
| Why was the spectacular growth of the region of the country known as the “Sunbelt” during the 1970s linked with federal spending? |
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Definition
| The region’s growth was propelled by a huge inflow of federal funds, including defense spending and Social Security payments to the retirees who were trekking to sunny new retirement communities in Florida, Arizona, and southern California. The number of residents over the age of 65 in the Sunbelt increased 30% during the 1970s. |
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Term
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Definition
| promoted what it called “traditional values,” so it endorsed the death penalty while opposing abortion and blamed the women’s movement for undermining “family values.” |
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Term
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Definition
| During the 1970s and 1980s, these were generally former liberals who believed that the social movements of the 1960s had harmed the moral fabric of the nation and that the Cold War was deadly serious business. |
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Term
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Definition
| created in 1979 as a political lobbying group opposing gays, pornography, and government assistance to the poor and advocating more defense spending. |
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Term
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Definition
| “Supply-siders” advocated cuts in public spending in addition to tax cuts. They argued that this would stimulate investment in new business and thus create new jobs. Economic growth would create tax revenues to replace revenues lost to the cuts, and spending cuts would keep interest rates down. |
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Term
| National Security Directive D-13 (1981) |
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Definition
| proposed a new doctrine that calculated that it might be possible to fight and win a nuclear war. According to one administration official, all Americans needed to survive was “enough shovels” for digging fallout shelters. |
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Term
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Definition
The Reagan Doctrine asserted America’s right to intervene anywhere in the world to fight Communist insurgencies.
Its primary application was Central America. Administration officials were convinced that political uprisings in the region were instigated and financed by the Soviet Union. The U.S. provided more military aid to right-wing governments and groups in Central America between 1980 and 1983 than during the entire previous 30 years. |
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Term
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Definition
| In 1984, Congress passed the Boland Amendment, cutting off funding for direct or indirect military operations in Nicaragua, so the administration turned to other sources including private contributions and foreign aid to keep its now entirely-illegal war going. This would explode in the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987. |
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Term
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Definition
In the U.S.S.R., Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Communist party in 1985 and initiated series of economic and political reforms:
glasnost = political openness; more freedom of speech and the press
perestroika = restructuring of the bureaucratic economy
in 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev negotiated the first real nuclear disarmament treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Force Agreement (INF). |
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Term
| What historical developments led to the rise of the “New Right” and the conservative ascendancy of the 1980s? |
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Definition
Many Republicans rejected President Eisenhower’s “New Republicanism” by early 1960s
White resentment of civil rights and school and neighborhood integration, in Northeast and Midwest as well as the South
Taxpayer resentment of government programs that benefited minorities, the poor, or the environment
Evangelical Christianity
Traditionalists who were concerned and anxious about the great social upheavals and cultural shifts of the 1960s and 1970s |
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Term
| What were the primary features of President Ronald Reagan’s domestic policy? |
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Definition
Tax Cuts: The Economic Recovery and Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) cut hundreds of billions in individual and corporate taxes.
Spending Cuts: Cut billions from federal funding for education, health, housing, food stamps, the environment, research on synthetic fuels, and the arts, but mandated huge increases in defense spending.
Deficit Spending
Deregulation: Deregulated financial markets = boom times for corporate consolidations and mergers |
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