History Final

Equal Rights Amendment

(ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. In 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time. The ERA has always been highly controversial regarding the meaning of equality for women. It was "feminist against feminist", the result was the eventual defeat of the ERA. Middle-class women generally were supportive. Those speaking for the working class were strongly opposed, arguing that employed women needed special protections regarding working conditions and hours. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. It seemed headed for quick approval until Phyllis Schlafly mobilized conservative women in opposition, arguing that the ERA would disadvantage housewives. Congress had set a ratification deadline of March 22, 1979. Through 1977, the amendment received 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. Five states later rescinded their ratifications before the 1979 deadline. In 1978, a joint resolution of Congress extended the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, but no further states ratified the amendment and it died. Several organizations continue to work for the adoption of the ERA. Alice Paul and her National Woman's Party was the leading proponent, arguing that women should be on equal terms with men in all regards, even if that means sacrificing certain benefits given to women through protective legislation, such as shorter work hours and no night work or heavy lifting. Feminist opponents of the amendment, such as the Women's Joint Congressional Committee, believed that these gender-based benefits protected women and that the loss of such protection would not be worth the supposed gain in equality. In general, middle-class elements supported the ERA, and working-class elements (and the labor movement) opposed it.

military-industrial complex

(MIC) is an informal alliance between a nation's military and the defense industry which supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy. These relationships include political contributions, political approval for military spending, lobbying to support bureaucracies, and oversight of the industry; or more broadly to include the entire network of contracts and flows of money and resources among individuals as well as corporations and institutions of the defense contractors, The Pentagon, the Congress and executive branch. 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. A very tight and close collaboration between military and the private corporate defense industry. The complex was based on the rationale that in order to develop a sense of overwhelming security, it entails the close collaboration of the military and private industry, and also the full access to the resources of government to build up this defense industry. The government and defense work in tandem to develop improved weapons.

Battle of the Bulge

16 December 1944 - 25 January 1945, a major German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region in Belgium, France, and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in Europe. The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard. United States forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties for any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany's armored forces on the western front, and Germany was largely unable to replace them. German personnel, and later Luftwaffe aircraft also sustained heavy losses. The offensive was planned by the German forces with utmost secrecy, minimizing radio traffic and moving troops and equipment under cover of darkness. The Germans achieved total surprise on the morning of 16 December 1944 due to a combination of Allied overconfidence, preoccupation with Allied offensive plans, and poor aerial reconnaissance. The Germans attacked a weakly defended section of the Allied line, taking advantage of heavily overcast weather conditions, which grounded the Allies' overwhelmingly superior air forces. Fierce resistance on the northern shoulder of the offensive around Elsenborn Ridge and in the south around Bastogne blocked German access to key roads to the northwest and west that they counted on for success. Columns of armor and infantry that were supposed to advance along parallel routes found themselves on the same roads. This and terrain that favored the defenders threw the German advance behind schedule and allowed the Allies to reinforce the thinly placed troops. Improved weather conditions permitted air attacks on German forces and supply lines, which sealed the failure of the offensive. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were left severely depleted of men and equipment, as survivors retreated to the defenses of the Siegfried Line.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of conventional military force in Southeast Asia. Specifically, the resolution authorized the President to do whatever necessary in order to assist "any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty". This included involving armed forces. Senator Gruening objected to "sending our American boys into combat in a war in which we have no business, which is not our war, into which we have been misguidedly drawn, which is steadily being escalated". (Tonkin Gulf debate 1964) The Johnson administration subsequently relied upon the resolution to begin its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam and open warfare between North Vietnam and the United States. On August 2, 1964, the destroyer USS Maddox, while performing a signals intelligence patrol as part of DESOTO operations, was pursued by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron. The Maddox fired 3 warning shots and the North Vietnamese boats then attacked with torpedoes and machine gun fire. One US aircraft was damaged, three North Vietnamese torpedo boats were allegedly damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were said to have been killed, with six more wounded. There were no U.S. casualties.The Maddox "was unscathed except for a single bullet hole from a Vietnamese machine gun round."

John Dean

He testified against Nixon as well as other cabinet members in the Watergate hearings. His testimony helped led to the removal of several White House officials and the resignation of Nixon. Before his testimony he had been a White House lawyer. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up. He was referred to as the "master manipulator of the cover-up" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He pleaded guilty to a single felony count, in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution. former white house counsel

Montgomery, Alabama

In 1955, Martin Luther King Jr., began a famous civil rights bus boycott here after Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white passenger. The lawsuit, known as Browder v. Gayle, sought a complete end to segregation on the city's buses. On January 30, 1956, they bombed King's home, and two days later, they bombed E. D. Nixon's home. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling declaring that segregation on Montgomery buses was unconstitutional. One month later, African Americans integrated the city's bus system, ending the 381-day boycott. The successful protest was a source of inspiration for African Americans nationwide. The high rate of black participation and the sophisticated nature of the mobilization effort demonstrated what African Americans were capable of achieving. The boycott also breathed new life into black protest by introducing King to the nation. The victory, however, did not end segregation beyond the city buses. Nor did it end racial violence. On January 10, 1957, white terrorists bombed Abernathy's home. Greensboro encouraged black students across Alabama. Soon after the Greensboro sit-in, three dozen Alabama State students attempted to eat at the segregated cafeteria in the state capitol. None of them was surprised when cafeteria workers refused to serve them, but they were all shocked when school president Councill Trenholm expelled them at the insistence of Governor Patterson. Several thousand students held a rally in support of their classmates at Hutchinson Street Baptist Church, and at least as many marched on the capitol the following day. The willingness of black students to challenge the authority of the state placed them on the frontline of the civil rights movement, where they remained for the rest of the decade. SNCC leaders in Nashville quickly sent reinforcements to Alabama. But when the second wave of Freedom Riders arrived in Montgomery on May 20, 1961, the city police refused to protect them. Instead, they allowed a group of whites to attack them as they disembarked. The assault sent John Lewis and several others to the hospital. This round of violence embarrassed and infuriated U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy and caused him to pressure Governor Patterson to provide the Freedom Riders with safe passage into Mississippi. Once there, the Freedom Riders were arrested and jailed. Their demonstration was a turning point in the Alabama civil rights movement, however. The Freedom Rides refocused attention on segregation and racial violence in the state and forced President John F. Kennedy to take decisive action to protect the civil rights activists. Unfortunately, the president did not make protecting civil rights workers a permanent priority, which left them exposed to white violence.

Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, only six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea, the United States Navy under Admirals Chester Nimitz, Frank Jack Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance decisively defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." The Battle of Midway is considered a turning point in the Pacific War. The operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific. Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall "barrier" strategy to extend Japan's defensive perimeter, in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo. This operation was also considered preparatory for further attacks against Fiji, Samoa, and Hawaii itself. The plan was handicapped by faulty Japanese assumptions of the American reaction and poor initial dispositions. Most significantly, American codebreakers were able to determine the date and location of the planned attack, enabling the forewarned U.S. Navy to prepare its own ambush. All four of Japan's large aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser were sunk, while the U.S. lost only the carrier Yorktown and a destroyer. After Midway and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's capacity to replace its losses in materiel (particularly aircraft carriers) and men (especially well-trained pilots and maintenance crewmen) rapidly became insufficient to cope with mounting casualties, while the United States' massive industrial and training capabilities made losses far easier to replace.

Berlin Airlift

The Berlin Airlift was in response to the Berlin Blockade from June 1948 - May 1949, which was the first international crisis of the Cold War resulting in casualties. After WWII the Allied Powers were coming into Berlin to rebuild Europe from the Potsdam conference but the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies railway and road access to sectors of Berlin under Allied control. The day after the 18 June 1948 announcement of the new Deutsche Mark, Soviet guards halted all passenger trains and traffic on the autobahn to Berlin, delayed Western and German freight shipments and required that all water transport secure special Soviet permission. On 21 June, the day the Deutsche Mark was introduced, the Soviet military halted a United States military supply train to Berlin and sent it back to western Germany. On 22 June, the Soviets announced that they would introduce a new currency in their zone. The Soviets opposed western plans for a reform. They interpreted this new currency as an unjustified, unilateral decision.

Southern Manifesto

The Declaration of Constitutional Principles (known informally as the Southern Manifesto) was a document written in February and March 1956, in the United States Congress, in opposition to racial integration of public places. The manifesto was signed by 101 politicians (99 Southern Democrats and two Republicans) from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The Congressmen drafted the document to counter the landmark Supreme Court 1954 ruling Brown v. Board of Education, which determined that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. School segregation laws were some of the most enduring and best-known of the Jim Crow laws that characterized the American South and several northern states at the time. Senators led the opposition, with Strom Thurmond writing the initial draft and Richard Russell the final version.The manifesto was signed by 19 Senators and 82 Representatives, including the entire congressional delegations of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. All of the signatories were Southern Democrats except two Republicans, Joel Broyhill and Richard Poff of Virginia. However, four Southern Senate Democrats refused to sign: Albert Gore, Sr.; Estes Kefauver; Ralph Yarborough and Lyndon B. Johnson. Their opposition earned them the enmity of their colleagues for a time. The Southern Manifesto accused the Supreme Court of "clear abuse of judicial power." It promised to use "all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation." The Manifesto suggested that the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution should limit the reach of the Supreme Court on such issues.

Greensboro Sit-ins

The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. While not the first sit-in of the Civil Rights Movement, the Greensboro sit-ins were an instrumental action, and also the most well-known sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement. These sit-ins led to increased national sentiment at a crucial period in US history.The primary event took place at the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth store. the Greensboro Four: Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., and David Richmond. All were young black students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. They were inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his practice of non-violent protest, and wanted to change the segregational policies of Woolworth in Greensboro, North Carolina. The plan was simple, but effective: the four men would occupy seats at the local Woolworth, ask to be served, and when they were inevitably denied service, they would not leave. They would repeat this process day in and day out, for as long as it would take. Their thinking was that, if they could attract widespread attention to the issue, Woolworth would feel pressured to desegregate.

Iran hostage Crisis

The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981) after a group of Iranian students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The crisis was described by the Western media as an "entanglement" of "vengeance and mutual incomprehension." President Jimmy Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy" and said, "The United States will not yield to blackmail." In Iran, it was widely seen as a blow against the United States and its influence in Iran, including its perceived attempts to undermine the Iranian Revolution and its longstanding support of the recently overthrown Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had led an autocratic regime. After his overthrow in 1979, the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was purportedly admitted to the United States for cancer treatment. Iran demanded that he be returned to stand trial for crimes he was accused of committing during his reign. Specifically, Pahlavi was accused of committing crimes against Iranian citizens with the help of his secret police, the SAVAK. Iranians saw the decision to grant him asylum as American complicity in those atrocities. The Americans saw the hostage-taking as an egregious violation of the principles of international law, which granted diplomats immunity from arrest and made diplomatic compounds inviolable. The crisis reached a climax when, after failed efforts to negotiate the hostages' release, the United States military attempted a rescue operation using ships that were patrolling the waters near Iran. On April 24, 1980, the attempt, known as Operation Eagle Claw, failed, resulting in the deaths of eight American servicemen and one Iranian civilian, as well as the destruction of two aircraft. Documents dated two weeks before the operation claim that the American national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, discussed an invasion of Iran through Turkish bases and territory, though this plan was never executed. Shah Pahlavi left the United States in December 1979 and was ultimately granted asylum in Egypt, where he died from complications of cancer on July 27, 1980. In September 1980, the Iraqi military invaded Iran, beginning the Iran-Iraq War. These events led the Iranian government to enter negotiations with the U.S., with Algeria acting as a mediator. The hostages were formally released into United States custody the day after the signing of the Algiers Accords, just minutes after the new American president, Ronald Reagan, was sworn into office. The crisis is considered a pivotal episode in the history of Iran-United States relations. Political analysts cite it as a major factor in the trajectory of Jimmy Carter's presidency and his loss in the 1980 presidential election. In Iran, the crisis strengthened the prestige of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the political power of theocrats who opposed any normalization of relations with the West. The crisis also led to the United States' economic sanctions against Iran, further weakening ties between the two countries.

D-Day

The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front. Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on D-Day was far from ideal, but postponing would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the invasion planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that meant only a few days in each month were deemed suitable. Adolf Hitler placed German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of German forces and of developing fortifications along the Atlantic Wall in anticipation of an Allied invasion. The Allies failed to achieve all of their goals on the first day. Only two of the beaches (Juno and Gold) were linked on the first day, and all five beachheads were not connected until 12 June; however, the operation gained a foothold which the Allies gradually expanded over the coming months. German casualties on D-Day were around 1,000 men. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead. Led by Eisenhower The turning point of World War II.

SNCC

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was one of the most important organizations of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a student meeting organized by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in April 1960. SNCC grew into a large organization with many supporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC's work in the South, allowing full-time SNCC workers to have a $10 per week salary. Many unpaid volunteers also worked with SNCC on projects in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and Maryland. SNCC played a major role in the sit-ins and freedom rides, a leading role in the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party over the next few years. SNCC's major contribution was in its field work, organizing voter registration drives all over the South, especially in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. A final SNCC legacy is the destruction of the psychological shackles which had kept black southerners in physical and mental peonage; SNCC helped break those chains forever. It demonstrated that ordinary women and men, young and old, could perform extraordinary tasks. In the later 1960s, led by fiery leaders such as Stokely Carmichael, SNCC focused on black power, and then protesting against the Vietnam War. As early as 1965, organization leader James Forman said he did not know "how much longer we can stay nonviolent" and in 1969, SNCC officially changed its name to the Student National Coordinating Committee to reflect the broadening of its strategies. It passed out of existence in the 1970s.

Cesar Chavez

an American labor leader and civil rights activist, who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (later the United Farm Workers union, UFW) in 1962. Originally a Mexican American farm worker, Chavez became the best known Latino American civil rights activist, and was strongly promoted by the American labor movement, which was eager to enroll Hispanic members. His public-relations approach to unionism and aggressive but nonviolent tactics made the farm workers' struggle a moral cause with nationwide support. By the late 1970s, his tactics had forced growers to recognize the UFW as the bargaining agent for 50,000 field workers in California and Florida. However, by the mid-1980s membership in the UFW had dwindled to around 15,000. helped exploited Chicano workers with his successful "boycott grapes" movement that led to better pay, limits on the use of toxic fertilizers, and recognition of farm workers' collective bargaining right

zoot suit riots

The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of racial attacks in 1943 during World War II that broke out in Los Angeles, California, during a period when many Mexican migrants arrived for the defense effort and newly assigned servicemen flooded the city. Some whites thought that the continued wearing of zoot suits represented the youths' public flouting of rationing regulations. United States sailors and Marines attacked Mexican youths, recognizable by the zoot suits they favored, as being unpatriotic (Although Mexican-American men were over-represented in the military as a percentage of their population). American military personnel and Mexicans were the main parties in the riots; servicemen attacked some African American and Filipino/Filipino American youths as well, who also took up the zoot suits. The Zoot Suit Riots were related to fears and hostilities aroused by the coverage of the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, following the killing of a young Latino man in a barrio near Los Angeles. The riot appeared to trigger similar attacks that year against Latinos in Chicago, San Diego, Oakland, Evansville, Philadelphia, and New York City.

Japanese Internment

The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry who had lived on the Pacific coast. Sixty-two percent of the internees were United States citizens. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the incarceration shortly after Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Incarceration was applied unequally due to differing population concentrations and, more importantly, state and regional politics. The internment is considered to have resulted more from racism than from any security risk posed by Japanese Americans. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the deportation and incarceration with Executive Order 9066, issued February 19, 1942, which allowed regional military commanders to designate "military areas" from which "any or all persons may be excluded."[9] This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire West Coast, including all of California and much of Oregon, Washington and Arizona, except for those in government camps. The United States Census Bureau assisted the internment efforts by providing confidential neighborhood information on Japanese Americans. The Bureau denied its role for decades, but this was finally documented in 2007.[13][14] In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the removal by ruling against Fred Korematsu's appeal for violating an exclusion order.

Marshall Plan

an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billionin economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning April 8th 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-devastated regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, make Europe prosperous again, and prevent the spread of communism. The Marshall Plan required a lessening of interstate barriers, a dropping of many regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity, labour union membership, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures. The Marshall Plan aid was divided amongst the participant states roughly on a per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival. Somewhat more aid per capita was also directed towards the Allied nations, with less for those that had been part of the Axis or remained neutral. Although offered participation, the Soviet Union refused Plan benefits, and also blocked benefits to Eastern Bloc countries, such as East Germany and Poland. The United States provided similar aid programs in Asia, but they were not called "Marshall Plan". The initiative is named after Secretary of State George Marshall. The plan had bipartisan support in Washington, where the Republicans controlled Congress and the Democrats controlled the White House with Harry S. Truman as president. USSR's version of the Marshall Plan is Molotov Plan (1947)

Pentagon Papers

The papers were discovered and released by Daniel Ellsberg, and first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of The New York Times in 1971. A 1996 article in The New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers had demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration "systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress." More specifically, the papers revealed that the U.S. had secretly enlarged the scale of the Vietnam War with the bombings of nearby Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, none of which were reported in the mainstream media. For his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg was initially charged with conspiracy, espionage, and theft of government property, but the charges were later dropped after prosecutors investigating the Watergate Scandal soon discovered that the staff members in the Nixon White House had ordered the so-called White House Plumbers to engage in unlawful efforts to discredit Ellsberg. a classified study of the Vietnam War that was carried out by the Department of Defense. An official of the department, Daniel Ellsberg, gave copies of the study in 1971 to the New York Times and Washington Post. The Supreme Court upheld the right of the newspapers to publish the documents. In response, President Richard Nixon ordered some members of his staff, afterward called the "plumbers," to stop such "leaks" of information. The "plumbers," among other activities, broke into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, looking for damaging information on him. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara , revealed among other things that the government had drawn up plans for entering the war even as President Johnson promised that he would not send American troops to Viet.

Port Huron Statement

a 1962 political manifesto 宣言 of the North American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). It was written primarily by Tom Hayden, a University of Michigan student and then the Field Secretary of SDS, with help from 58 other SDS members, and completed on June 15, 1962, at a United Auto Workers retreat in Port Huron, Michigan, for the group's first national convention. A few years later, however, the SDS shifted away from labor unions and more towards the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In December 1964, with the political climate drastically changing, a second printing of the manifesto was issued which included an introductory disclaimer which indicated that "while few of its original writers would agree today with all of its conclusions," the manifesto retained its importance as an "essential source of SDS direction" and "one of the earliest embodiments of the feelings of the new movement of young people which began in the sixties. "articulated the fundamental problems of American society and laid out a radical vision for a better future" "brought the term 'participatory democracy' into the common parlance 说法" criticized the federal government for racial inequality, poverty, and also the Cold War and international peace. Reform of the Democratic Party & University reform

Feminine Mystique

a 1963 book by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th anniversary reunion; the results, in which she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives, prompted her to begin research for The Feminine Mystique, conducting interviews with other suburban housewives, as well as researching psychology, media, and advertising. She originally intended to publish an article on the topic, not a book, but no magazine would publish her article. a book that helped launch the new phase of female protest on a national level. women had lost ground during the years after WWII, advertisers had caused women to become domestic/homemakers

National Environmental Policy Act

a United States environmental law that promotes the enhancement of the environment and established the President's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). The law was enacted on January 1, 1970. The bill was an early step towards the development of the United States's environmental policy. NEPA's most significant outcome was the requirement that all executive federal agencies prepare environmental assessments (EAs) and environmental impact statements (EISs). These reports state the potential environmental effects of proposed federal agency actions. NEPA does not apply to the President, Congress, or the federal courts. Environmental Impact Statements must be done before any project affecting federal lands can be started Growing public concern for the environment led to the creation of this government legislation in 1970

A. Philip Randolph

a leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the American labor movement, and socialist political parties. He organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly African American labor union. In the early Civil Rights Movement, Randolph led the March on Washington Movement, which convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II. The group then successfully pressured President Harry S. Truman to issue Executive Order in 1948, ending segregation in the armed services. In 1963, Randolph was the head of the March on Washington, which was organized by Bayard Rustin, at which Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech. Randolph inspired the "Freedom Budget", sometimes called the "Randolph Freedom budget", which aimed to deal with the economic problems facing the black community.

Birmingham Movement

a movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., James Bevel, Fred Shuttlesworth and others, the campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities, and eventually led the municipal government to change the city's discrimination laws. In the early 1960s, Birmingham was one of the most racially divided cities in the United States, both as enforced by law and culturally. Black citizens faced legal and economic disparities, and violent retribution when they attempted to draw attention to their problems. Martin Luther King called it the most segregated city in the country. Protests in Birmingham began with a boycott led by Shuttlesworth meant to pressure business leaders to open employment to people of all races, and end segregation in public facilities, restaurants, schools, and stores. When local business and governmental leaders resisted the boycott, SCLC agreed to assist. Organizer Wyatt Tee Walker joined Birmingham activist Shuttlesworth and began what they called Project C, a series of sit-ins and marches intended to provoke mass arrests. When the campaign ran low on adult volunteers, James Bevel, SCLC's Director Direct Action, thought of the idea of having students become the main demonstrators in the Birmingham campaign. He then trained and directed high school, college, and elementary school students in nonviolence, and asked them to participate in the demonstrations by taking a peaceful walk fifty at a time from the 16th Street Baptist Church to City Hall in order to talk to the mayor about segregation. This resulted in over a thousand arrests, and, as the jails and holding areas filled with arrested students, the Birmingham Police Department, led by Eugene "Bull" Connor, used high-pressure water hoses and police attack dogs on the children and adult bystanders. Not all of the bystanders were peaceful, despite the avowed intentions of SCLC to hold a completely nonviolent walk, but the students held to the nonviolent premise. King and the SCLC drew both criticism and praise for allowing children to participate and put themselves in harm's way. The Birmingham campaign was a model of nonviolent direct action protest and, through the media, drew the world's attention to racial segregation in the South. It burnished King's reputation, ousted Connor from his job, forced desegregation in Birmingham, and directly paved the way for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited racial discrimination in hiring practices and public services throughout the United States.

Lend-Lease Act

a program under which the United States supplied Free France, the United Kingdom, the Republic of China, and later the USSR and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945. This included warships and warplanes, along with other weaponry. It was signed into law on March 11, 1941 and ended in September 1945. In general the aid was free, although some hardware (such as ships) were returned after the war. In return, the U.S. was given leases on army and naval bases in Allied territory during the war. This program effectively ended the United States' pretense of neutrality and was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy, which had dominated United States foreign relations since 1931. Lend-Lease would help the British and Allied forces win the battles of future years; the help it gave in the battles of 1941 was trivial.

"kitchen debate"

a series of impromptu exchanges between then U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow on July 24, 1959. For the exhibition, an entire house was built that the American exhibitors claimed anyone in America could afford. It was filled with labor-saving and recreational devices meant to represent the fruits of the capitalist American consumer market. The debate was recorded on color videotape and Nixon made reference to this fact; it was subsequently rebroadcast in both countries.

Great Society

a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964-65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, and transportation were launched during this period. The program and its initiatives were subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s and years following. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some Great Society proposals were stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. Johnson's success depended on his skills of persuasion, coupled with the Democratic landslide in the 1964 election that brought in many new liberals to Congress, making the House of Representatives in 1965 the most liberal House since 1938. Anti-war Democrats complained that spending on the Vietnam War choked off the Great Society. While some of the programs have been eliminated or had their funding reduced, many of them, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Older Americans Act and federal education funding, continue to the present. The Great Society's programs expanded under the administrations of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

stagflation

a situation in which the inflation rate is high, the economic growth rate slows, and unemployment remains steadily high. It raises a dilemma for economic policy, since actions designed to lower inflation may exacerbate unemployment, and vice versa. During the 60's and 70's, the U.S. was suffering from 5.3% inflation and 6% unemployment. Refers to the unusual economic situation in which an economy is suffering both from inflation and from stagnation of its industrial growth. Ford's and Carter's presidencies experienced a recession and inflation simultaneously, solved by Keynesian economics

Southern Strategy

a strategy by Republican Party candidates of gaining political support in the Southern United States by appealing to disaffected 不满的 white southerners, many of whom were originally Democratic voters. During the 1950s and 1960s, the African-American Civil Rights Movement achieved significant progress in its push for desegregation in the Southern United States. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in particular, largely dismantled the system of Jim Crow laws that had enforced legal segregation in the South since the end of the Reconstruction Era. During this period, Republican politicians such as Presidential candidate Richard Nixon worked to attract southern white conservative voters, most of whom had traditionally supported the Democratic Party, to the Republican Party, and Senator Barry Goldwater won the five formerly Confederate states of the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina) in the 1964 presidential election. In the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon won Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, all former Confederate states, contributing to the electoral realignment that saw many white, southern voters shift allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party during this period. In academia, the term "southern strategy" refers primarily to "top down" narratives of the political realignment of the south. This top-down narrative of the southern strategy is generally believed to be the primary force that transformed southern politics following the civil rights era.This view has been questioned by historians, who have presented an alternative, "bottom up" narrative, which Lassiter has called the "suburban strategy." This narrative recognizes the centrality of racial backlash to the political realignment of the South, but suggests that this backlash took the form of a defense of de facto segregation in the suburbs, rather than overt resistance to racial integration, and that the story of this backlash is a national, rather than a strictly southern one. The perception that the Republican Party had served as the "vehicle of white supremacy in the South," particularly during the Goldwater campaign and the presidential elections of 1968 and 1972, has made it difficult for the Republican Party to win the support of black voters in the South in later years. Nixon's attempt to attract the support of Southern conservative Democrats who were unhappy with federal desegregation policies and liberal Supreme Court.

Oliver North

an American political commentator and television host, military historian, and former United States Marine Corps lieutenant colonel. North is primarily remembered for his term as a National Security Council staff member during the Iran-Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s. The scandal involved the illegal sale of weapons to Iran, supposedly to encourage the release of U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan, which was to divert proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel groups in Nicaragua, which had been specifically prohibited under the Boland Amendment.

Fair Deal

an ambitious set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to Congress in his January 1949 State of the Union address. More generally the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman Administration, from 1945 to 1953. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, but with the Conservative Coalition controlling Congress, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable GOP support. The most important proposals were aid to education, universal health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act (restricts the activities and power of labor unions). They were all debated at length, then voted down. Nevertheless, enough smaller and less controversial items passed that liberals could claim some success.

Sputnik

first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. This surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments.

War on Poverty

legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. The speech led the United States Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act, which established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to administer the local application of federal funds targeted against poverty. As a part of the Great Society, Johnson believed in expanding the federal government's roles in education and health care as poverty reduction strategies. These policies can also be seen as a continuation of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, which ran from 1933 to 1935, and the Four Freedoms of 1941. Johnson stated "Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it". The legacy of the War on Poverty policy initiative remains in the continued existence of such federal programs as Head Start, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), TRIO, and Job Corps. The popularity of a war on poverty waned after the 1960s. Deregulation 违反规定 , growing criticism of the welfare state, and an ideological shift to reducing federal aid to impoverished people in the 1980s and 1990s culminated in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which President Bill Clinton claimed, "ended welfare as we know it."

New Frontier

liberal, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech in the 1960 United States presidential election as the Democratic slogan to inspire America to support him. The phrase developed into a label for his administration's domestic and foreign programs. Amongst the legislation passed by Congress during the Kennedy Administration, unemployment benefits were expanded, aid was provided to cities to improve housing and transportation, funds were allocated to continue the construction of a national highway system started under Eisenhower, a water pollution control act was passed to protect the country's rivers and streams, and an agricultural act to raise farmers' incomes was made law. A significant amount of anti-poverty legislation was passed by Congress, including increases in social security benefits and in the minimum wage, several housing bills, and aid to economically distressed areas. A few antirecession public works packages, together with a number of measures designed to assist farmers, were introduced. Major expansions and improvements were made in Social Security (including retirement at 62 for men), hospital construction, library services, family farm assistance and reclamation. Food stamps for low-income Americans were reintroduced, food distribution to the poor was increased, and there was an expansion in school milk and school lunch distribution. The most comprehensive farm legislation since 1938 was carried out, with expansions in rural electrification, soil conservation, crop insurance, farm credit, and marketing orders. In September 1961, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency was established as the focal point in government for the "planning, negotiation, and execution of international disarmament and arms control agreements." Altogether, the New Frontier witnessed the passage of a broad range of important social and economic reforms. More new legislation was actually approved and passed into law than at any other time since the Thirties. When Congress recessed in the latter part of 1961, 33 out of 53 bills that Kennedy had submitted to Congress were enacted. A year later, 40 out of 54 bills that the Kennedy Administration had proposed were passed by Congress, and in 1963 35 out of 58 "must" bills were enacted. Kennedy's plan, supports civil rights, pushes for a space program, wants to cut taxes, and increase spending for defense and military

Tet offensive

one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968, by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian commands and control centers throughout South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese launched a wave of attacks in the late night hours of 30 January in the I and II Corps Tactical Zones of South Vietnam. This early attack did not lead to widespread defensive measures. When the main North Vietnamese operation began the next morning the offensive was countrywide and well coordinated, eventually more than 80,000 North Vietnamese troops striking more than 100 towns and cities, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five of the six autonomous cities, 72 of 245 district towns, and the southern capital. The offensive was the largest military operation conducted by either side up to that point in the war. Though initial attacks stunned both the US and South Vietnamese armies, causing them to temporarily lose control of several cities, they quickly regrouped, beat back the attacks, and inflicted heavy casualties on North Vietnamese forces. During the Battle of Huế, intense fighting lasted for a month, resulting in the destruction of the city by US forces. During their occupation, the North Vietnamese executed thousands of people in the Massacre at Huế. Around the US combat base at Khe Sanh fighting continued for two more months. Although the offensive was a military defeat for North Vietnam, it had a profound effect on the US government and shocked the US public, which had been led to believe by its political and military leaders that the North Vietnamese were being defeated and incapable of launching such an ambitious military operation. U.S. public support for the war declined and the U.S. sought negotiations to end the war. highest U.S. casualty + a new draft call

Silent Majority

popularized by United States President Richard Nixon in a November 3, 1969, speech in which he said, "And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support." In this usage it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time, who did not join in the counterculture, and who did not participate in public discourse. Nixon along with many others saw this group of Middle Americans as being overshadowed in the media by the more vocal minority. Nixon's silent majority referred mainly to the older generation (those World War II veterans in all parts of the U.S.) but it also described many young people in the Midwest, West and in the South, many of whom eventually served in Vietnam. The Silent Majority was mostly populated by blue collar white people who did not take an active part in politics; suburban, exurban and rural middle class voters. They did, in some cases, support the conservative policies of many politicians. Others were not particularly conservative politically, but resented what they saw as disrespect for American institutions. In his famous speech, Nixon contrasted his international strategy of political realism with the "idealism" of a "vocal minority." He stated that following the radical minority's demands to withdraw all troops immediately from Vietnam would bring defeat and be disastrous for world peace. Appealing to the silent majority, Nixon asked for united support "to end the war in a way that we could win the peace." The speech was one of the first to codify the Nixon Doctrine, according to which, "the defense of freedom is everybody's business—not just America's business." After giving the speech, Nixon's approval ratings which had been hovering around 50% shot up to 81% in the nation and 86% in the South.

counterculture

the counterculture of the 1960s became identified with the rejection of conventional social norms of the 1950s. Counterculture youth rejected the cultural standards of their parents, especially with respect to racial segregation and initial widespread support for the Vietnam War, and, less directly, the Cold War — with many young people fearing that America's nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, coupled with its involvement in Vietnam, would lead to a nuclear holocaust. In the United States, widespread tensions developed in the 1960s in American society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the war in Vietnam, race relations, sexual mores, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, and a materialist interpretation of the American Dream. White, middle class youth — who made up the bulk of the counterculture in western countries — had sufficient leisure time, thanks to widespread economic prosperity, to turn their attention to social issues.These social issues included support for civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights movements, and a rejection of the Vietnam War. The counterculture also had access to a media which was eager to present their concerns to a wider public. Demonstrations for social justice created far-reaching changes affecting many aspects of society. Hippies became the largest countercultural group in the United States. Rejection of mainstream culture was best embodied in the new genres of psychedelic rock music, pop-art and new explorations in spirituality. New forms of musical presentation also played a key role in spreading the counterculture, with large outdoor rock festivals being the most noteworthy. The movement divided the population. To some Americans, these attributes reflected American ideals of free speech, equality, world peace, and the pursuit of happiness; to others, they reflected a self-indulgent, pointlessly rebellious, unpatriotic, and destructive assault on the country's traditional moral order. Authorities banned the psychedelic drug LSD, restricted political gatherings, and tried to enforce bans on what they considered obscenity in books, music, theater, and other media. The counterculture has been argued to have diminished in the early 1970s, and some have attributed two reasons for this. First, it has been suggested that the most popular of its political goals — civil rights, civil liberties, gender equality, environmentalism, and the end of the Vietnam War — were "accomplished" (to at least some degree); and also that its most popular social attributes — particularly a "live and let live" mentality in personal lifestyles (the "sexual revolution") — were co-opted by mainstream society. Second, a decline of idealism and hedonism occurred as many notable counterculture figures died, the rest settled into mainstream society and started their own families, and the "magic economy" of the 1960s gave way to the stagflation of the 1970s — the latter costing many in the middle-classes the luxury of being able to live outside conventional social institutions. The counterculture, however, continues to influence social movements, art, music, and society in general, and the post-1973 mainstream society has been in many ways a hybrid of the 1960s establishment and counterculture.

Reaganomics

the economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. commonly associated with supply-side economics The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and tighten the money supply in order to reduce inflation. Reagan's theory that if you cut taxes, it will spur the growth of public spending and improve the economy. It included tax breaks for the rich. Belief that the economy would be stimulated and would recover quickest if the supply of goods increased. Because Reagan backed policies and supported corporate tax cuts designed to benefit producers (corporations, small business owners, investors, etc.), "Reaganomics" was a term used by his critics who thought his economic plan was a mistake.

"New Look"

the national security policy of the United States during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It reflected Eisenhower's concern for balancing the Cold War military commitments of the United States with the nation's financial resources. The policy emphasized reliance on strategic nuclear weapons to deter potential threats, both conventional and nuclear, from the Eastern Bloc of nations headed by the Soviet Union. reflected Eisenhower's desire for a "long-haul" approach to security planning that would maintain a more or less constant level of military preparedness, consistent with the health of the U.S. economy. It differed from NSC 68, approved by President Harry S. Truman on September 30, 1950. Truman's advisers believed that Soviet military capabilities would reach a maximum relative to those of the United States and its allies in the mid-1950s.[3]