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History Final Exam

Terms in this set (77)

Joseph Stalin
Russian leader who succeeded Lenin as head of the Communist Party and created a totalitarian state by purging all opposition (1879-1953)
Tuskegee Airmen
332 Fighter Group famous for shooting down over 200 enemy planes. African American pilots who trained at the Tuskegee flying school.
Bataan Death March
After the Japanese landed in the Philippines in May 1942, nearly 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners were forced to endure a 60-mile forced march; during the ordeal, 10,000 prisoners died or were killed.
Pearl Harbor
7:50-10:00 AM, December 7, 1941 - Surprise attack by the Japanese on the main U.S. Pacific Fleet harbored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii destroyed 18 U.S. ships and 200 aircraft. American losses were 3000, Japanese losses less than 100. In response, the U.S. declared war on Japan and Germany, entering World War II.
Okinawa
took place on Okinawa, an island only 370 miles south of Japan, and gave evidence of the strength of the Japanese resistance in these last desperate days. Week after week, the Japanese troops on shore launched desperate nighttime attacks on the American lines. The US and its allies suffered nearly 50,000 casualties before finally capturing Okinawa in late June 1945.
Nagasaki
Japanese city where the us dropped atomic bombs
Nuremberg Trials
Series of trials in 1945 conducted by an International Military Tribunal in which former Nazi leaders were charged with crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
Adolf Hitler
Born in Austria, Hitler became a radical German nationalist during World War I. He led the National Socialist German Workers' Party-the Nazi Party-in the 1920s and became dictator of Germany in 1933. He led Europe into World War II. (p. 786)
Potsdam
meeting between Stalin, Churchill, and Truman to discuss post-WWII; compromise: each side would take reparations from its own occupation zone, divided up GER, created Council of Foreign Ministers; marked the end of wartime alliance
United Nations
international body formed to bring nations into dialogue in hopes of preventing further world wars; much like the former League of Nations in ambition, it was more realistic in recognizing the authority of the Big Five Powers in keeping peace in the world, thus guaranting veto power to all permant members of its Security Council (Britian, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States)
Nikita Khrushchev
Premier of the Soviet Union from 1958-1964, he was a communist party offical who emerge from the power struggle after Stalin's death in 1953 to lead the USSR. He crushed a pro-Western uprising of Hngary in 1956, and, in 1958, issued an ultimatum for Western evacuation of Berline. Defended Soviet-style economic planning in the Kitchen Debate with Richard Nixon in 1959 and attempted to send missiles to Cuba in 1962 but backed down when comfronted by JFK
Harry S Truman
The 33rd U.S. president, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945. Truman, who led the country through the last few months of World War II, is best known for making the controversial decision to use two atomic bombs against Japan in August 1945. After the war, Truman was crucial in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, which greatly accelerated Western Europe's economic recovery.
Massive Retaliation
The "new look" defense policy of the Eisenhower administration of the 1950's was to threaten "massive retaliation" with nuclear weapons in response to any act of aggression by a potential enemy.
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs was an American attempt to overthrow the newly established communist government in Cuba by training and sending Cuban rebels. The coup ended up in a disaster due to the lack of support by the Americans. The incident was an embarrassment for the U.S. and ultimately led to Castro pleading for Soviet aid (Cuban Missile Crisis)
Mao Zedong
The Communist leader in China. He established his regime in Beijing (the people's Republic of China) but the US refused to recognize it and continued to support the nationalist govt in Taiwan.
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