AP US History Chapter 36 & 37 Vocabulary

Harry S. Truman
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Terms in this set (30)
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.
George F. Kennan
an 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.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Arrested in the Summer of 1950 and executed in 1953, they were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage by passing plans for the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Director of the Manhattan Project and later of the Atomic Energy Commission.
Adlai Stevenson
The Democratic candidate who ran against Eisenhower in 1952. His intellectual speeches earned him and his supporters the term "eggheads". Lost to Eisenhower.
Dwight Eisenhower
leader of the Allied forces in Europe during WW2 and leader of troops in Africa and commander in D-Day invasion. Elected president and president during integration of Little Rock Central High School.
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.
Iron curtain
A political barrier that isolated the peoples of Eatern Europe after WWII, restricting their ability to travel outside the region.
Berlin airlift
Joint effort by the US and Britian to fly food and supplies into W Berlin after the Soviet blocked off all ground routes into the city.
Truman Doctrine
First established in 1947 after Britain no longer could afford to provide anti-communist aid to Greece and Turkey, it pledged to provide U.S. military and economic aid to any nation threatened by communism.