Complete 2nd Semester US History Study Guide
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235 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Allies | Great Britain, France, Soviet Union, United States |
| Axis Powers | Japan, Italy, Germany |
| Franklin Delano Roosevelt | 32nd President; Quarantine Speech; He was president from 1933 until his death in 1945 during both the Great Depression and World War II; He is the only president to have been elected 4 times |
| Winston Churchill | Prime Minister of Great Britain during WWII |
| Josef Stalin | Communist leader of Soviet Union during WWII; glorified like Hitler and Mussolini |
| Benito Mussolini | Socialist leader of Italy; introduced facism; dictatorship |
| Adolf Hitler | author of Mein Kampf; failed art student; joined Nazi Party; totalitarian dictator of Germany |
| Munich Conference | 1938 conference at which Chamberlain and Daladier attempted to appease Hitler by turning over the Sudetenland to him in exchange for promise that Germany would not expand Germany's territory any further. |
| Blitzkrieg | German military strategy; combination of air attack and fast moving strikes to achieve quick victory |
| Luftwaffe | German air force; bombed London in the Battle of Britain |
| Non-Aggression Pact | during tensions of Hitler invading Poland, Stalin and Hitler sign this document on August 23, 1939; Germany and Russia now committed never to attack each other (public agreement) and also to divide Poland amongst them (secret pact) |
| Lend-Lease Act | law passed in 1941 that allowed the United States to ship munitions and supplies, without immediate payment from receiving countries, to nations fighting the Axis powers |
| Operation Torch | Nov 1942, American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria, and pressing eastward trapped the German and Italian armies being driven westward by the British, forcing German and Italian troops to surrender, despite Hitler's orders to fight to the death |
| Operation Overlord (D-Day) | the Allied invasion of Normandy in June of 1944 lead by General Eisenhower |
| Battle of the Bulge | December 16, 1944- January 1945 - After recapturing France, the Allied advance became stalled along the German border. In the winter of 1944, Germany staged a massive counterattack in Belgium and Luxembourg which pushed a 30 mile "bulge" into the Allied lines. The Allies stopped the German advance and threw them back across the Rhine with heavy losses |
| Battle of Britain | an aerial battle fought in World War II in 1940 between the German Luftwaffe (air force), which carried out extensive bombing in Britain, and the British Royal Air Force, which offered successful resistance. |
| Executive Order 9066 | February 1942: 112,000 Japanese-Americans forced into camps causing loss of homes & businesses; demonstrated fear of Japanese invasion |
| George Patton | US Lieutenant General; led forces in the Battle of the Bulge as well as troops in North Africa |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower | leader of the Allied forces in Europe during WW2; leader of troops in Operation Torch in Africa; commander in DDay invasion; elected president after Truman |
| Chester Nimitz | United States admiral of the Pacific fleet during World War II who used aircraft carriers to destroy the Japanese navy during the Battle of Coral Sea and Midway |
| Omar Bradley | The commander of the American forces landing at Omaha and Utah beach during Operation Overlord |
| Douglas MacArthur | United States general who served as chief of staff and commanded Allied forces in the South Pacific during World War II; pledges "I shall return" after being forced to leave American and Filipino forces in Bataan, Phillipines during Japanese advancement; |
| Battle of Midway | U.S. naval victory over the Japanese fleet in June 1942, in which the Japanese lost four of their best aircraft carriers. It marked a turning point in World War II as Allies began "island hopping" towards the Japanese mainland |
| Battle of Coral Sea | Fought on May 7-8 1942; Caused heavy losses on both sides; Japanese won a tactical victory because they sank US carrier Lexington; Americans claimed a strategic victory by stopping Japan's drive towards Australia; fought entirely by air, with planes that took off from Allied aircraft carriers; first Japanese invasion to be stopped |
| Battle of Iwo Jima | lasted 6 weeks, several thousand marines, and more than 20,000 Japanese soldiers were killed; famous photograph of US marines lifting the American flag to a standpoint on Mt. Suribachi |
| Battle of Okinawa | Allied victory over Japan on an island 350 miles from mainland Japan; March-June 1945; 7,600 Americans died along with 110,000 Japanese, including 2 generals that chose ritual suicide over surrender; the battle provided a chilling sample of what an invasion of the Japanese mainland could come to |
| Battle of Guadalcanal | (1942-1943) battle in the Pacific; it represented the first Allied counter-attack against Japanese forces; Allied victory forced Japanese forces to abandon the island |
| Manhattan Project | program to build atomic bomb; work on the bomb was carried out in great secrecy by a team including US physicists Enrico Fermi and J. Robert Oppenheimer. |
| Desert Fox | nickname given for German General Erwin Rommel; led German forces through North Africa |
| Cash-and-Carry | US adopted this new policy allowing allies including Britain and France to buy goods from the United States if they paid in full and used US ports to transport them |
| appeasement | Great Britain's policy of giving into aggressive demands to potential enemies to maintain peace and avoid war |
| Tuskegee Airmen | all-black pilots of 99th Pursuit Squadron trained at Tuskegee Institute; victorious in Italy against Luftwaffe; awarded 2 Distinguished Unit Citations (highest military commendation) for shooting down over 200 German planes in Italy |
| genocide | the deliberate and systematic extermination of a particular racial, national, or religious group |
| Rosie the Riveter | symbol of American women in the workforce back in the US during WWII; provided inspiration for women to help support the war by working in factories and in job fields typically pursued by men |
| Pearl Harbor | December 7, 1941; Japanese forces attack US military base in Hawaii; US entered war after this surprise attack |
| D-Day Invasion | June 6, 1944; invasion led Dwight D. Eisenhower; landing on Normandy beaches (Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold, and Juno); successful turing point of WWII, first time allied forces successfully set foot in Europe; largest land-sea-air operation in army history |
| Nagasaki | US dropped its second atomic bomb on this Japanese city; August 9, 1945 |
| Hiroshima | Truman decided to drop an atomic bomb on this Japanese city after Japan failed to surrender; August 6, 1945 |
| Nuremburg Trials | after the discovery of Hitler's death camps, 24 surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial for crimes against humanity, crimes against the peace, and war crimes in the southern German town of Nuremberg; 12 of the 24 were sentenced to death and most of the rest were imprisoned |
| Charles de Gaulle | led a French resistance group after fleeing to Great Britain |
| Hideki Tojo | chief of staff of Japan's Kwantung Army; later controls Japan and decides fate of country as powerful prime minister after Emporer Hirohito is made a powerless figurehead |
| Bernard Montgomery | a British Lieutenant-General; won victories over General Rommel in North Africa |
| Erwin Rommel | German field marshal noted for brilliant generalship of the Afrika Korps in North Africa during World War II; known as "Desert Fox" |
| Doolittle's Raid | daring air raid of Tokyo and other Japanese cities by Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle and the 16 bombers under his command; lifted American spirits and instilled fear in previously fearless Japanese |
| Final Solution | the Nazi program of exterminating Jews under Hitler by sending them to concentration camps |
| Marshall Plan | the program, proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall in 1947, under which the US supplied economic aid to European nations to help them rebuild after World War II |
| Truman Doctrine | a U.S. policy, announced by President Truman in 1947, of providing economic and military aid to free nations threatened by internal or external opponents, namely those of Communist influence |
| Yalta Conference | 1945 Meeting with US president FDR, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and and Soviet Leader Stalin during WWII to plan post-war; resulted in plans to split Germany into 4 zones, a promise from Stalin for "free and unfettered elections" in Soviet-occupied Eastern European countries, the USSR's support in the war against Japan, and the USSR's participation in the future United Nations |
| Eisenhower Doctrine | a US commitment to defend the Middle East against attack by any Communist country, announced by President Eisenhower in 1957 |
| containment | the blocking of another nation's attempts to spread its influence - especially the efforts of the US to block the spread of Communism after WWII |
| Berlin Airlift | a 327-day operation in which US and British planes flew in and dropped food and supplies into West Berlin after the Soviets blockaded the city in 1948 |
| HUAC | House Committee on Un-American Activities, a congressional committee that investigated Communist influence inside and outside the US government in the years following WWII |
| arms race | massive emphasis put on manufacturing and accumulating weapons and ammunitions by militaristic countries during the Cold War |
| Space Race | a competition of space exploration between the United States and Soviet Union |
| Bay of Pigs Invasion | In April 1961, a group of Cuban exiles organized and supported by the U.S. CIA landed on the southern coast of Cuba in an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro. When the invasion ended in disaster, President Kennedy took full responsibility for the failure. |
| Military Industrial Complex | Eisenhower first coined this phrase when he warned American against it in his last State of the Union Address. He feared that the combined lobbying efforts of the armed services and industries that contracted with the military would lead to excessive Congressional spending |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | USSR ships weapons and nuclear missiles during the summer of 1962; American spy planes take photos in October of 1962 revealing missile bases with armed nuclear warheads that could reach the US within minutes; Kennedy orders their removal or face all-out attack on the USSR; Khrushchev agrees to remove missiles only if US promises to call off Cuban invasion and to (secretly) remove missiles in Turkey |
| Paper Tiger | nickname give to President Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs invasions |
| Berlin Wall | a wall separating East and West Berlin built by East Germany in 1961 to keep citizens from escaping to the West |
| McCarthyism | The term associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy who led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee. |
| The Rosenbergs | Ethel and Julius Rosenberg accused of passing secrets about the atomic bomb to the USSR after US learns of a-bomb detonation by USSR 5 years earlier than was predicted; convicted and sentenced to death, possibly unjustly; first time any citizen has been put to death over espionage in US |
| Alger Hiss | A former State Department official who was accused of being a Communist spy and was convicted of perjury. The case was prosecuted by Richard Nixon, gaining him fame |
| George H.W. Bush | President given credit for winning Cold War; Republican, former director of CIA; oil company founder/owner; involved in NAFTA negotiation |
| blacklisting | practice of defaming individuals and/or affiliations based upon race, religion, political views, or suspicions regarding their involvement in espionage |
| Hollywood 10 | ten Hollywood screen writers, actors, etc accused of being communist; were blacklisted and refused to cooperate with HUAC; sent to jail |
| Korean War | a conflict between North Korea and South Korea, lasting from 1950 to 1953, in which the United States, along with other UN countries, fought with South Korea and China with the North Koreans |
| Invasion at Inchon | September 15, 1950; first counterattack by MacArthur on North Vietnamese; US troops made amphibious landing at Inchon paired with reinforcements pushing north from Pusan, trapping the advanced North Vietnamese between two attacking forces; forces half of NVA to surrender, rest retreat back across 38th parallel with UN troops in pursuit |
| 38th Parallel | border between North and South Korea; as WWII ended, Japanese troops north of it surrendered to the Soviet Union and those south of it surrendered to the US, creating two separate nations, one Communist and one Democratic; later becomes reference for Truce Line after Korean War ends in stalemate |
| Sputnik | spacecraft created by the USSR which became the first manmade satellite to successfully takeoff, leave the Earth's atmosphere, and remain in orbit; led to US pursuit of space program to compete with USSR |
| capitalism | an economic system based on open competition in a free market, in which individuals and companies own the means of production and operate for profit |
| suburbanization | The process of population movement from within towns and cities to the rural-urban fringe |
| baby boom | the sharp increase in the U.S. birth rate following the return of soldiers who had fought in World War II |
| urban renewal | the clearing and rebuilding and redevelopment of urban slums |
| Beat movement | a social and artistic movement of the 1950's stressing unrestrained literary self expression and nonconformity with the mainstream culture |
| Jackie Robinson | first African American to play in Major League Baseball |
| John F. Kennedy | the 35th President of the United States; leader during Cold War, Bay of Pigs invasions; serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963 in Dallas |
| Malcolm X | Malcolm X was an advocate of black power; Nation of Islam; greatly influential in getting people to believe in black power and self-defense, as opposed to King's peace; changed his views afer visit to Saudi Arabia; assassinated in 1965 |
| NASA | National Aeronautic and Space Administration - a US government agency in charge of the space program |
| hydrogen bomb | One thousand more times more powerful than the atomic bomb. Truman ordered the development of it to outpace the Soviets. |
| Warsaw Pact | a military alliance formed in 1955 by the USSR and its satellite nations in eastern Europe |
| brinkmanship | the practice of threatening an enemy with massive military retaliation for any aggression; going to the "brink" of war but not initiating it |
| Interstate Highway System | A system of limited access roadways that connects all major cities in the US. The system was designed to give troops faster routes to get to destinations across the US in the event of an attack on the US. The system's main purpose now is travel by civilians |
| Martin Luther King Jr. | U.S. Baptist minister and civil rights leader. A noted orator, he opposed discrimination against blacks by organizing nonviolent resistance and peaceful mass demonstrations. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Nobel Peace Prize (1964) |
| Robert Kennedy | He was a Democrat who ran for president in 1968 promoting civil rights and other equality based ideals. He was ultimately assassinated in 1968, leaving Nixon to take the presidency but instilling hope in many Americans |
| Warren Commission | Commission made by LBJ after killing of John F. Kennedy. (Point is to investigate if someone paid for the assasination of Kennedy.) Conclusion is that Oswald killed Kennedy on his own. Commissioner is Chief Justice Warren |
| Peace Corps | US agency established under Kennedy's administration to provide volunteer assistance to developing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America |
| flexible response | policy developed during Kennedy's administration that advocated the buildup of conventional troops and weapons to allow the US to fight a limited war without using nuclear weapons |
| New Frontier | The campaign program advocated by JFK in the 1960 election. He promised to revitalize the stagnant economy and enact reform legislation in education, health care, and civil rights |
| Plessy v. Ferguson | supreme court ruled that segregation public places facilities were legal as long as the facilities were equal; 1896 |
| Thurgood Marshall | American civil rights lawyer, first black justice on the Supreme Court of the United States |
| Medgar Evers | NAACP Field secretary who was murdered by a KKK member in 1963 |
| Rosa Parks | United States civil rights leader who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery 1955; triggered the national civil rights movement |
| Stokley Carmichael | former SNCC leader, he quit and joined the Black panthers after calling for "Black Power Now!" |
| James Meredith | United States civil rights leader whose college registration caused riots in traditionally segregated Mississippi; first African American Student to attend Ole Miss; JFK sent troops to allow him to graduate |
| James Earl Ray | convicted of killing Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and sentenced to 99 years in jail |
| George Wallace | Four time governor of Alabama. Most famous for his pro-segregation attitude and as a symbol for states' rights; refused to integrate schools |
| Bobby Seale | militant founder/leader of the Black Panthers |
| War on Poverty | President Lyndon B. Johnson's program in the 1960's to provide greater social services for the poor and elderly |
| VISTA | Volunteers in Service to America which sent volunteers to help people in poor communties |
| Medicaid | health care for the poor |
| Medicare | health care for the elderly |
| Emmet Till | a 14 year old black boy who was murdered by whites in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi |
| James Farmer | organized CORE; racial equality;started a movement to get blacks to sit in an all white restaurant to protest |
| Freedom Riders | rode in interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the ruling of unsegregated public places |
| sit-ins | protests by black college students who took seats at "whites only" lunch counters and refused to leave until served; in 1960 over 50,000 participated in these across the South. Their success prompted the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. |
| March on Washington | held in August 1963 to show support for the Civil Rights Bill in Congress. Martin Luther King gave his famous "I have a dream..." speech. 250,000 people attended the rally |
| Freedom Summer | In the summer of 1964, when blacks and whites together challenged segregation and led a massive drive to register blacks to vote; SNCC, CORE, SCLC, NAACP |
| Little Rock Nine | incident in which nine African-American students were prevented from attending Little Rock Central High in 1957 during the Civil Rights Movement |
| Brown v. Board of Education | 1954; supreme court found that segregation was a violation of the Equal Protection clause; "separate but equal" has no place; reverses decision of Plessy v Feurgeson |
| Black Power | the belief that blacks should fight back if attacked; it urged blacks to achieve economic independence by starting and supporting their own businesses |
| Civil Rights Act of 1964 | This act made racial, religious, and sex discrimination by employers illegal and gave the government the power to enforce all laws governing civil rights, including desegregation of schools and public places |
| Voting Rights Act of 1965 | gave federal protection to black voters which allowed many more to vote and participate in the government |
| SNCC | Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, college kids participate in Civil Rights, staged sit-ins |
| SCLC | Southern Christian Leadership Conference, churches link together to inform blacks about changes in the Civil Rights Movement, led by MLK Jr. |
| CORE | First civil rights organization to use non-violent tactics to promote racial equality and desegregation |
| 24th Amendment | eliminated the poll tax as a voting requirement |
| de facto segregation | Segregation resulting from economic or social conditions or personal choice. |
| de jure segregation | segregation that is imposed by law |
| Ralph Abernathy | A baptist minister and NAACP member since 1951; one of the main organizers of the Montgomery boycott in 1955; helped MLK fund the SCLC in 1957 |
| affirmative action | Special steps to help minorities and women gain access to jobs and opportunities that were denied in the past because of discrimination |
| Civil Rights Act of 1968 | this law banned discrimination in housing, the segregation of education, transprotation, and employment, it helped African Americans gain their full voting rights. |
| Ho Chi Minh | Vietnamese communist statesman who fought the Japanese in World War II and the French until 1954 and South vietnam until 1975 |
| Ho Chi Minh Trail | A network of jungle paths winding from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam, used as a military route by North Vietnam to supply the Vietcong during the Vietnam War |
| Ngo Dihn Diem | first President of South Vietnam, pro-Western, fiercely anti-Communist, had the support of Eisenhower, caused tensions between North and South to intensify |
| Vietcong | the guerrilla soldiers of the Communist faction in Vietnam, also know as the National Liberation Front who fought against the South Vietnamese |
| Henry Kissinger | The main negotiator of the peace treaty with the North Vietnamese; secretary of state during Nixon's and Ford's presidency; introduced realpolitik |
| George Westmoreland | the commander of the US ground troops in South Vietnam; ordered thousands of search and destroy missions to drive enemy forces out of their hideouts |
| Robert McNamara | was the secretary of defense under Kennedy. He helped develop the flexible response policy. He was against the war in Vietnam and was removed from office because of this. |
| Agent Orange | a herbicide used in the Vietnam War to defoliate forest areas; later found out to cause cancer |
| napalm | Highly flammable chemical dropped from US planes in firebombing attacks during the Vietnam War. |
| Hawks | those who supported the war |
| Doves | Those who opposed the war |
| Tonkin Gulf Resolution | This gave the president authority to take "all neccessary measures to repel any armed attack against forces of the United States." |
| Domino Theory | the political theory that if one nation comes under Communist control then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control |
| deferment | certificate which disallowed individuals to be drafted based on medical condition, college attendance, or serious religious affiliation (priest, pastor, rabbi) |
| Tet Offensive | a massive surprise attack by the Vietcong on South Vietnamese towns and cities in early 1968. |
| My Lai Massacre | 1968 event in which American troops brutally massacred innocent women and children in the village of My Lai; led to increased opposition to the war |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | President in 1963, passed Civil Rights bills, created Great Society (Voting Rights Act, Economic Opportunity Act, Clean Air Act, etc); political career ruined by Vietnam; he does not run again for reelection in 1968 |
| War Powers Act | Act that grants emergency executive powers to president to run war effort |
| 26th Amendment | lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971 |
| Pentagon Papers | secret government documents published In 1971; revealed that the US government had lied to Americans about the Vietnam War |
| Woodstock | 3 day rock concert in upstate N.Y. in August 1969; exemplified counterculture of the late 1960s; nearly 500,000 gather in a 600 acre field |
| Vietnamization | President Richard Nixons strategy for ending U.S involvement in the Vietnam War, involving a gradual withdrawl of American troops and replacement of them with South Vietnamese forces |
| silent majority | middle class Americans who supported government and Nixon; disapproved of antiwar protests |
| Richard Nixon | Vice President under Eisenhower and 37th President of the United States; Southern strategy to appeal to former segregationists in the South; against drugs and crime; took interest in the environment; was reelected in 1972 and was impeached and later resigned due to his involvement in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal |
| detente | the easing of tensions or strained relations between US and Soviet Union |
| Camp David Accords | A peace treaty between Israel and Egypt signed at Camp David where Egypt agreed to recognize the nation state of Israel |
| Watergate | 1972; Nixon feared loss so he approved the Commission to Re-Elect the President to spy on the Democrats. A security guard foiled an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committe Headquarters, exposing the scandal; Nixon resigned after being impeached |
| Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward | two Washington Post journalists who investigated the break-in and solved to mystery of Watergate |
| Iran Hostage Crisis | the Shah of Iran (a US ally) came to US after a revolution in Iran and armed Iranian students took 52 American hostages. (contributed to the defeat of Carter in 1980 election) |
| Jimmy Carter | 39th President; created the Department of Energy and the Depatment of Education; criticized for his return of the Panama Canal Zone, and his last year in office was marked by the takeover of the American embassy in Iran, fuel shortages, and the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, which caused him to lose to Ronald Regan in the next election. |
| Iran-Contra affair | Reagan administration officials secretly sold weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of American hostages being held in the Middle East; Profits from these sales were then sent to the contras of Nicaragua; Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North took the blame |
| Soviet invasion of Afghanistan | invasion of the Arab country that threatened oil supplies and forced Carter to order an embargo on USSR |
| Ronald Reagan | 40th President of the United States; Iran Contra Scandal; supply-side economics; "The Great Communicator" |
| Betty Friedan | United States feminist who founded a national organization for women; author of the Feminine Mystique |
| NOW | National Organization of Women, 1966, Betty Friedan first president, wanted Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforce its legal mandate to end sex discrimination |
| Three Mile Island | Nuclear Power Plant in Harrisburg, Penn. which failed, causing radiation to be admitted in the air |
| SALT 1 and SALT 2 | the first and second treaties between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics resulting from the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks |
| H. Ross Perot | Texas billionaire who ran in the 1992 election against Clinton and Bush as an independent; wanted to end deficit spending |
| Bill Clinton | 42nd President advocated economic and healthcare reform; second president to be impeached; scandal with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater business faults |
| Battle of Mogadishu | battle against Somalia militia to bring down local warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in 1993 during the Somalian civil war by UN peacekeeping forces; nicknamed "Black Hawk Down" due to the loss of a Blackhawk helicopter during the battle |
| Clarence Thomas | 2nd african american supreme court justice; appointed by George H.W. Bush |
| Brady Bill | 1993; imposed a waiting period before people could buy hand guns, also required a criminal record check; put in place after assassination attempt during Reagan's presidency |
| convoy system | the protection of merchant ships from U-boat (German submarine) attacks by having the ships travel in large groups escorted by warships |
| rationing | a restriction of people's right to buy unlimited amounts of particular foods and other goods, often implemented during wartime to ensure adequate supplies for the military |
| Neville Chamberlain | British prime minister who met with Hitler in September of 1938 and signed the Munich Agreement, which turned the Sudetenland over to Germany without a single shot being fired |
| Harry Truman | became United States' President after FDR's death; ordered the deployment of the 2 atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima |
| Francisco Franco | General of the Spanish army who became the Fascist dictator of Spain's new totalitarian government |
| Invasion of Poland | on September 1, 1939, the German Luftwaffe and tank division used the blitzkrieg tactic to launch the surprise _____ __ ____; caused Britain and France to declare war on Germany on September 3, 1939 |
| Battle of Stalingrad | began in August of 1942 in hopes of securing oil fields of Caucasus Mountains and destroying the major Soviet industrial center; Stalin ordered survival of city no matter the cost; Germans controlled 90% within a month; vicious winter set in and turned city into frozen wasteland; Soviets trapped Germans in a massive counterattack, cut supply lines and left them helpless; Hitler refused retreat; German commander surrendered on January 31, 1943 along with the rest of the troops 2 days later; resulted in 1.1 million Soviet deaths/230,000 German deaths, but major Allied victory and turning point in the war as the Soviet army could now begin its westward advance towards Germany |
| Navaho code talkers | considered indispensable to the war effort in the Pacific for their ability to speak their mysterious language and transmit messages which were undecipherable by the Japanese |
| island hopping | practice of Allied conquering of a Pacific island, followed by moving to the next Pacific island and conquering it with the eventual goal of reaching the Japanese mainland |
| Holocaust | systematic killing of 11 million people across Europe, more than half of whom were Jewish; part of Hitler's Final Solution, a policy of genocide against Jews, gypsies, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, the mentally deficient, the mentally ill, the physically disabled, and the incurably ill; at first, Nazi SS killed those persecuted in firing squads, but later sent them to concentration camps to be worked to death or forced into gas chambers to be killed |
| VE Day | May 8, 1945 |
| VJ Day | September 2, 1945 |
| Potsdam Conference | final wartime meeting of the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union was held at Potsdam, outside Berlin, in July, 1945. Truman, Churchill, and Stalin discussed the future of Europe but their failure to reach meaningful agreements soon led to the onset of the Cold War. |
| satellite nation | a country that is dominated politically and economically by another country (i.e. new eastern European countries controlled by USSR) |
| Cold War | state of hostility, without direct military conflict, that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II |
| GI Bill of Rights | a 1944 law that provided financial and educational benefits for veterans of World War II |
| Iron Curtain | a phrase used by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe an imaginary line that isolated Communist countries in the Soviet bloc of eastern Europe from countries in western Europe |
| NATO | North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a defensive military alliance formed in 1949 by 10 western European countries, the US, and Canada |
| MacArthur vs. Truman | name given to dispute between General Douglas MacArthur and President Truman; MacArthur wanted to attack China by using nukes; Truman strongly disagreed, along with his advisors who said an all-out conflict with China would be "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy"; MacArthur continues to publicly criticize Truman's decisions on foreign policy; Truman fires MacArthur on April 11, 1951 |
| Nikita Khrushchev | Soviet Premier during the early 1960s who initiated multiple global crises between the Soviet Union and the United States; ordered construction of Berlin Wall and provided aid to Cuba, which included nuclear weapons |
| hot line | direct communication line between the White House and the Kremlin to be used in times of dire emergencies |
| Limited Test Ban treaty | US and USSR sign this in 1963 which banned nuclear testing in the Earth's atmosphere |
| Lee Harvey Oswald | On November 22, 1963, he assassinated President Kennedy who was riding downtown Dallas, Texas; later shot by Jack Ruby |
| guerilla warfare | sudden unexpected attacks carried out by an unofficial military group or groups that are trying to change the government by assaults on the armed forces |
| Operation Rolling Thunder | bombing campaign over North Vietnam, supposed to weaken enemy's ability and will to fight |
| conscientious objector | person who refuses to enter the military or bear arms due to moral or religious reasons |
| credibility gap | a lack of popular confidence in the truth of the claims or public statements made by the federal government, large corporations, politicians, etc. |
| Kent State | an Ohio University where National Guardsmen opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War on May 4,1970, wounding 9 and killing 4 |
| feminism | the movement aimed at equal rights for women |
| counterculture | a culture with lifestyles and values opposed to those of the established culture |
| The Establishment | controlling group of powerful leaders who represent the established order of society |
| Feminine Mystique | book by Betty Friedan that encourages equal rights among women. |
| Equal Rights Amendment | was a proposed amendment to the Constitution; originally written by Alice Paul; in 1972, it passed both houses of Congress but failed to gain ratification before its June 30, 1982 deadline |
| Cesar Chavez | Organized Union Farm Workers (UFW); helped migratory farm workers gain better pay & working conditions |
| hippie | participants in the 1960s counterculture who promoted peace, love, and freedom, experimented w/new styles of dress and music and had freer attitudes toward sexual relationships and the recreational use of drugs |
| impeachment | a formal accusation of misconduct in office against a public official |
| Executive privilege | an implied presidential power that allows the president to refuse to disclose information regarding confidential conversations or national security to Congress or the judiciary. |
| OPEC | Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries; international cartel that inflates price of oil by limiting supply; Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and UAE are prominent members |
| oil embargo | economic crisis of 1973 that occurred when OPEC nations refused to export oil to Western nations; ensuing economic crisis plagued Gerald Ford's time in office |
| energy crisis | when Carter entered office, inflation soared due to the increases in oil prices; in the summer of 1979, instability in the Middle East produced a major fuel shortage in the US and OPEC announced a major price increase |
| Apollo 11 | 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became first people to walk on the moon after using this spacecraft |
| Gerald Ford | president 1974-77; Nixon's Vice president after Spiro Agnew resigns; only person not voted into the White House; became president after Nixon resigned |
| Reaganomics | Reagan's economic program which cut taxes and government regulation in order to increase productivity, and eventually increase tax revenue as cash flowed into the economy |
| budget deficit | when the government spends more money than it collects in taxes |
| supply-side economics | economic theory that states lowering taxes will boost the economy as businesses and individuals invest their money, thereby creating higher tax revenue |
| SDI | Strategic Defense Initiative (1983), also known as "Star Wars," called for a land- or space-based shield against a nuclear attack. Although SDI was criticized as unfeasible and in violation of the Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, Congress approved billions of dollars for its development. |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | head of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991; his liberalization effort improved relations with the West, but he lost power after his reforms led to the collapse of Communist governments in eastern Europe |
| glastnost | Gorbechev's plan to allow more political freedom in the 1980's; "openness" |
| perestroika | a policy initiated by Gorbachev that involved restructuring of the social and economic status quo in communist Russia towards a market based economy and society |
| Whitewater | political controversy that began with the real estate dealings of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates in the Whitewater Development Corporation, a failed business venture; David Hale, the source of criminal allegations against Clinton, claimed in November 1993 that Bill, while governor of Arkansas, pressured him to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to associates |
| Kenneth Starr | an American lawyer and former judge who was appointed to the Office of the Independent Counsel to investigate the Whitewater scandal; later became prosecutor against Clinton in the Lewinsky scandal; advocated Clinton's impeachment |
| Sandra Day O'Conner | appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Reagan; became the first female Supreme Court justice |
| Fall of the Berlin Wall | 1989; beginning of the fall of communism and the Soviet Union; symbolized the failure of communism and massive socialism |
| Operation Desert Storm | Military operations that started on January 16, 1991, with a bombing campaign, followed by a ground invasion of February 23 and 24, 1991. The ground war lasted 100 hours and resulted in a spectacularly one-sided military victory |
| Saddam Hussein | dictator in Iraq who tried to take over Iran and Kuwait violently in order to gain the land and the resources; refused to let the UN into Iraq in order to check if the country was secretly holding weapons of mass destruction |
| Kuwait | this country was invaded by Iraq in 1991 and has 10-15% of the world's oil reserves |
| NAFTA | North American Free Trade Agreement; allows and encourages open trade with US, Mexico, and Canada |
| Monica Lewinsky | White House intern whose affair with Bill Clinton led to his impeachment |
| Election of 2000 | Bush v. Gore; Bush won although Gore won popular vote; controversy over the final vote count in Florida; settled by Supreme Court decision in favor of Bush |
| George W. Bush | 43rd President; Republican; neo-conservative; foreign policy dominated by war on terror; No child left behind; proposed privatizing social security; opposed stem cell research/pro-life/carbon reductions/ international law; wanted more domestic drilling to alleviate oil dependence |
| September 11, 2001 | the date 19 al-Qaeda members hijacked passenger airplanes and used them to destroy a small section of the Pentagon & destroy the twin towers of the World Trade Center in NYC; 3,000 people were killed & 6,000 were injured; these events led to an unsuccessful manhunt for Saudi-born extremist Osama Bin Laden, heightened security in the US, and expanded military action abroad |
| Hurricane Katrina | considered to be the one crisis of the Bush administrations second term and in is inefficiency to deal with the crisis. It destroyed 80% of New Orleans and more than 1300 people died, while the damages were $150 billion |
| Department of Homeland Security | US federal agency created in 2002 to coordinate national efforts against terrorism |
| Patriot Act | controversial 2001 law allows anti-terrorism authorities to monitor e-mail and Internet traffic in order to prevent terrorist attacks; government argues that cyberspace is public domain and that no warrants should be needed to access information |
| al-Qaeda | a network of Islamic terrorist organizations, led by Osama bin Laden, that carried out the attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 |
| Taliban | fundamentalist Muslim group that gained power and restored order in Afghanistan, but imposed an extreme form of Islam on and supported al-Qaeda |
| Election of 2008 | Barack Obama vs. John McCain. 365 electoral votes to Obama, 173 electoral votes to McCain |
| Great Recession | severe ongoing global economic problem that began in December 2007 and took a particularly sharp downward turn in September 2008; has affected the global economy, with higher detriment in some countries than others; sparked by the outbreak of the late-2000s financial crisis |
| illegal immigration | the unlawful entry of people from other nations into the United States; plays powerful role in current policies towards Mexico and the US border |
| Obama's presidency | addressed a global financial crisis with changes in tax policies, legislation to reform the United States health care industry, foreign policy initiatives, and the phasing out of detention of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba; announced in Prague that he intended to negotiate substantial reduction in the world's nuclear arsenals, en-route to their eventual extinction; awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." |
| Fall of Saigon | late in April 1975, communist forces marched into Saigon, shortly after officials of the Thieu regime and the staff of the American embassy had fled the country in humiliating disarray. The forces quickly occupied the capital, renamed it Ho Chi Minh City and began he process of uniting Vietnam under Hanoi. |
| mutual deterrence | belief that arsenal of nuclear weapons would prevent war by assuring that if one nation attacked so could the other and create and equally devastating result, therefore no one would risk it |
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