History Study Guide 2

National Organization of Women

(1966) org. formed to work for economic and legal rights of women. acted from the liberal tenet that women and men are alike in important respects and, therefore, entitled to equal rights and opportunities. extremely effective in enacting rhetorical strategies that have brought about concrete changes in laws and policies that enlarge women's opportunities and protect their rights. Issues: abortion rights, violence against women, constitutional equality, promoting diversity and ending racism, lesbian rights, economic justice.

Silent Spring

A book written to voice the concerns of environmentalists. Launched the environmentalist movement by pointing out the effects of civilization development., written by Rachel Carson in 1962 controversial bc it criticized chemicals and named their makers "if the song bird gets sick, humans aren't far behind" "we're all toxic from conception to death", lawsuit against the dept. of agriculture

James Dean

A film star in "Rebel without a Cause" which made him an icon for American youths in the mid 50's, died at 24 in a car accident

Bill Clinton's Impeachment Trial

Bill Clinton, President of the United States, was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, and acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999. The charges, perjury, obstruction of justice, and malfeasance in office, arose from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the Paula Jones lawsuit. The trial proceedings were largely partisan, with no Democratic Senators voting for conviction and only five Democratic Representatives voting to impeach. In all, 55 senators voted not guilty, and 45 voted guilty on the perjury charge. The Senate also acquitted on the charge of obstruction, with 50 votes cast as not guilty, and 50 votes as guilty.[1] It was only the second impeachment of a President in American history, following the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.

Timothy McVeigh

In April 1995, a van containing explosives blew up in front of a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. This man, a former marine who had become part of a militant anti-government movement on the right, was convicted of the crime and eventually executed in 2001. Sought revenge against the US government.

Spiro Agnew

Nixon's vice-president resigned and pleaded "no contest" to charges of tax evasion on payments made to him when he was governor of Maryland. He was replaced by Gerald R. Ford., vice president, 1969-1973, a vocal critic of antiwar and civil rights opponents of the Nixon administration; he resigned the vice presidency in 1973 when it was discovered he has accepted bribes as governor of maryland and as vice president

Dan Quayle

Republican vice-presidential nominee in the 1988 election; ridiculed for factual and linguistic mistakes; George H. Bush's running mate in 1988 and 1992 , who had a hard time spelling "potato"

Rock'n Roll of the 1950's and 60's

Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s,[1][2] primarily from a combination of the blues, country music[3] and gospel music.[4] Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of the 1930s,[3] and in blues records from the 1920s,[5] rock and roll did not acquire its name until the 1950s.[6][7] An early form of rock and roll was rockabilly,[8] which combined country and jazz with influences from traditional Appalachian folk music and gospel. Started when people were happy because of the economic boom. Black artists emerged which led to civil rights movements.

Astronauts walk on Moon 1969-Project Apollo-NASA

The Apollo 11 space flight landed the first humans on Earth's Moon on July 20, 1969. The mission, carried out by the United States, is considered a major accomplishment in human exploration and represented a victory by the U.S. in the Cold War Space Race with the Soviet Union. Launched from Florida on July 16, the third lunar mission of NASA's Apollo Program (and the first G-type mission) was crewed by Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. On July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin landed in the Sea of Tranquility and became the first humans to walk on the Moon. Their landing craft, Eagle, spent 21 hours and 31 minutes on the lunar surface while Collins orbited above in the command ship, Columbia.[2] The three astronauts returned to Earth with 47.5 pounds (21.55 kilograms) of lunar rocks and landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24. Apollo 11 fulfilled U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon before the Soviets by the end of the 1960s, which he had expressed during a 1961 speech before the United States Congress. Five additional Apollo missions landed on the Moon from 1969-1972.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP Oil Spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, or the Macondo blowout)[3][4][5] is a massive ongoing oil spill stemming from a sea floor oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico that started with a suspicious[6] oil well blowout on April 20, 2010. The blowout caused a catastrophic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform that was situated about 40 miles (64 km) southeast of the Louisiana coast. Eleven platform workers are missing and presumed dead; the explosion also injured 17 others. The gusher originates from a deepwater oil well 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below the ocean surface. Estimates of the amount of oil being discharged range from BP's current estimate of over 5,000 barrels (210,000 US gallons; 790,000 litres) to as much as 100,000 barrels (4,200,000 US gallons; 16,000,000 litres) of crude oil per day. The exact spill flow rate is uncertain - in part because BP has refused to allow independent scientists to perform accurate measurements[7] - and is a matter of ongoing debate. The resulting oil slick covers a surface area of at least 2,500 square miles (6,500 km2), with the exact size and location of the slick fluctuating from day to day depending on weather conditions.[8] Scientists have also discovered immense underwater plumes of oil not visible from the surface.

Election of 2000

The United States presidential election of 2000 was a contest between Republican candidate George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush (1989-1993), and Democratic candidate Al Gore, then-Vice President. Bill Clinton, the incumbent President, was vacating the position after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Bush narrowly won the November 7 election, with 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266 (with one elector abstaining in the official tally). The election was noteworthy for a controversy over the awarding of Florida's 25 electoral votes, the subsequent recount process in that state, and the unusual event of the winning candidate having received fewer popular votes than the runner-up.[1] It was the closest election since 1876.

War on Terror

The War on Terror (also known as the Global War on Terror or the War on Terrorism) is the campaign launched by the United States of America, under the Presidency of George W. Bush, with the support of the United Kingdom, the rest of the NATO members and other countries. The campaign was launched in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and had the stated objective of eliminating international terrorism.[1] The phrase War on Terror was used frequently by former US President George W. Bush and other high-ranking US officials to denote a global military, political, legal and ideological struggle against organizations designated as terrorist and regimes that were accused of having a connection to them or providing them with support or were perceived or presented as posing a threat to the US and its allies in general. It was typically used with a particular focus on militant Islamists and al-Qaeda. The administration of President Barack Obama has discontinued use of the term "War on Terror" and instead uses the term "Overseas Contingency Operation". However, President Obama has stated that the US is at war with al-Qaeda.[2] Both the term and the policies it denotes have been a source of ongoing controversy, as critics argue it has been used to justify unilateral preventive war, human rights abuses and other violations of international law.[3][4]

Obama Stimulus Package

The stimulus was intended to create jobs and promote investment and consumer spending during the recession. The rationale for the stimulus comes out of the Keynesian economic tradition that argues that government spending should be used to cover the output gap created by the drop in consumer spending during a recession. Most current economists agree that monetary policy should be used instead of fiscal policies like the fiscal stimulus. However, the Federal Reserve had already cut interest rates to zero, greatly reducing their policy options. The flow of finances also stagnated because of a liquidity trap, also limiting monetary policy effectiveness. While many economists agreed a stimulus was needed under these conditions, others maintained that fiscal policy would not work because government debt would use up savings that would otherwise go to investments, what economists call crowding out. Proponents countered that the negative effects of crowding out are limited when investment has already stagnated. The measures are nominally worth $787 billion. The Act includes federal tax cuts, expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions, and domestic spending in education, health care, and infrastructure, including the energy sector. The Act also includes numerous non-economic recovery related items that were either part of longer-term plans (e.g. a study of the effectiveness of medical treatments) or desired by Congress (e.g. a limitation on executive compensation in federally aided banks added by Senator Dodd and Rep. Frank). No Republicans in the House and only three Republican Senators voted for the bill.[1][2][3] The bill was signed into law on February 17 by President Obama at an economic forum he was hosting in Denver, Colorado.[4] As of the end of August 2009, 19 percent of the stimulus had been outlaid or gone to American taxpayers or business in the form of tax reductions.[5]

Election of 2008

Then-Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was the Democratic nominee, and Senator John McCain of Arizona was the Republican nominee. Incumbent President George W. Bush was ineligible for re-election per the 22nd Amendment, which limits a president to two terms, and incumbent Vice President Dick Cheney declined to run for the office. The 2008 presidential election was the first since 1928 in which neither an incumbent president nor an incumbent vice president was a candidate (nor had been president or vice president), and the first since 1952 in which neither was nominated by his party as a candidate in the general election and the first since 1976 in which the incumbent vice-president was not a candidate for president or vice-president. Senator Obama won the number of electors necessary to be elected President and was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. 1st Black president.