History test 5

Election of 1996

- Demo. Clinton, Repub. Dole, Reform Perot, Green Nader. Clinton won

Vietnam:- National Liberation Front (Vietcong)

- In 1956, these guerrilla forces began attacking South Vietnam's government and in 1960 the resistance groups coalesced as the National Liberation Front.

Iranian Hostage Crisis

- In 1979, a revolution in Iran placed the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a fundamental religious leader, in power. In November 1979, revolutionaries seized the American embassy in Tehran and held those inside hostage. President Carter struggled to get the hostages. He tried pressuring Iran through appeals to the United Nations, freezing Iranian assets in the United States and imposing a trade embargo. During an aborted rescue operation, a helicopter collided with a transport plane and killed eight U.S. soldiers. Finally, Carter unfroze several billion dollars in Iranian assets, and the hostages were released after being held for 444 days; but not until Ronald Reagan had become president of the United States.

Geraldine Ferraro

- In the 1984 presidential election, Democratic nominee, Walter Mondale, chose her as his running mate. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York, she was the first woman to be a vice-presidential nominee for a major political party. However, she was placed on the defensive because of her hus- band's complicated business dealings.

Hillary Clinton

- In the 2008 presidential election, Senator Hillary Clinton, the spouse of former President Bill Clinton, initially was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, which made her the first woman with a serious chance to win the presidency. However, Senator Barack Obama's Internet-based and grassroots-orientated campaign garnered him enough delegates to win the nomination. After Obama became president, she was appointed secretary of state.

Fall of South Vietnam, 1975

- March 29, 1973, the last U.S. combat troops left Vietnam. On that same day, almost six hundred American prisoners of war, most of them downed pilots, were released from Hanoi. Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Within months of the U.S. withdrawal, however, the cease-fire in Vietnam collapsed, the war between North and South resumed, and the Communist forces gained the upper hand. In 1975, the North Vietnamese launched a full-scale invasion, and South Vietnamese president Thieu appealed to Washington for the promised U.S. assistance. Congress refused. The much-mentioned "peace with honor" had proved to be, in the words of one CIA official, only a "decent interval"—enough time for the United States to extricate itself from Vietnam before the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. On April 30, 1975, Americans watched on television as North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon, soon to be renamed Ho Chi Minh City, and helicopters lifted the U.S. embassy officials to ships waiting offshore. In those desperate, chaotic final moments, terrified South Vietnamese fought to get on board the departing helicopters, for they knew that the Communists would be merciless victors. The longest, most controversial, and least successful war in American history was finally over, leaving in its wake a bitter legacy.

Election of 2000

- Repub. Bush, Demo. Gore, Green Nader. Bush won

Bob Dole -

- Republican presidential candidate and former senate majority leader on the campaign trail

Khe Sahn

- The Battle of Khe Sanh was conducted in Khe Sanh of northwestern Quảng Trị Province, Republic of Vietnam, between 21 January and 9 July 1968 during the Vietnam War

Economic recession

- The soaring budget deficit, which triggered the worst economic recession since the thirties, was Reagan's greatest failure.

Walter Mondale

- former vice president of carter, democratic running against Reagan.

Monica Lewinsky

- white house intern that had a prolonged sexual affair with Clinton.

Brady Bill, 1994 -

Act of the United States Congress that mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States, and imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998.

Op Desert Storm -

After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, President George H. W. Bush sent American military forces to Saudi Arabia on a strictly defensive mission. They were soon joined by a multinational coalition. When the coalition's mission changed to the retaking of Kuwait, the operation was renamed Desert Storm. Multinational allied force that defeated Iraq in the Gulf War of January 1991.

Jimmy Carter -

An outsider to Washington, capitalized on the post- Watergate cynicism and won the 1976 presidential election. He created departments of Energy and Education and signed into law several environmental initiatives. However, his efforts to support the Panama Canal Treaties and his unwillingness to make deals with legislators caused other bills to be either gutted or stalled in Congress. Despite his efforts to improve the economy, the recession continued and inflation increased. In 1978, he successfully brokered a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt called the Camp David Accords. Then his administration was plagued with a series of crises. Fighting in the Middle East produced a fuel shortage in the United States. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and Carter responded with the suspension of an arms-control treaty with the Soviets, the halting of grain shipments to the Soviet Union, and a call for a boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow. In Iran, revolutionaries toppled the shah's government and seized the American embassy, taking hostage those inside. Carter struggled to get the hostages released and was unable to do so until after he lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to further peace and democratic elections around the world.

Manuel Noriega -

Bush ordered the invasion of Panama and the capture of Panamanian leader ----, who was wanted in America on drug charges. He was captured, tried, and convicted.

Assassination of Diem -

By the fall of 1963, the Kennedy administration had decided that the autocratic Diem had to go. On November 1 dissident generals seized the South Vietnamese government and murdered Diem. But the rebel generals provided no more political stability than had earlier regimes, and successive coups set the fragile country spinning from one military leader to another. South Vietnam had become a morass of corruption and violence.

Pol Pot -

Cambodian revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until 1997. From 1963 to 1981, he served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea

Cuban Missile Crisis -

Caused when the United States discovered Soviet offensive missile sites in Cuba in October 1962; the U.S.-Soviet confrontation was the cold war's closest brush with nuclear war.

March on Washington, 1963 -

Civil rights demonstration on August 28, 1963, where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream'' speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

- MLK & Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) -

Civil rights organization founded in 1957 by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders.

Gays in the military -

Clinton dropped his promise to allow gays to serve in the armed forces after military commanders expressed strong opposition. Instead, he later announced an ambiguous new policy concerning gays in the military that came to be known as "don't ask, don't tell."

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) - ("Star Wars'')

Defense Department's plan during the Reagan administration to build a system to destroy incoming missiles in space.

Election of 1992 -

Demo. Clinton, Repub. Bush, Indep. Perot. Clinton won.

Election of 1976 -

Democratic candidate - Jimmy Carter, Republican Candidate Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter won

Michael Dukakis

Democratic running against Bush Sr. won the democratic candidacy against Jesse Jackson

Whitewater -

During his first term, President Clinton was dogged by allegations of improper involvement in the Whitewater Development Corporation. In 1978, while serving as governor of Arkansas, he had invested in a resort to be built in northern Arkansas. The project turned out to be a fraud and a failure, and the Clintons took a loss on their investment. In 1994, Kenneth Starr, a Republican, was appointed as independent counsel in an investigation of the Whitewater case. Starr did not uncover evidence that the Clintons were directly involved in the fraud, although several of their close associates had been caught in the web and convicted of various charges, some related to Whitewater and some not.

John F. Kennedy -

Elected president in 1960, he was interested in bringing new ideas to the White House. Despite the difficulties he had in getting his legislation through Congress, he did establish the Alliance for Progress programs to help Latin America, the Peace Corps, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and funding for urban renewal projects and the space program. He mistakenly proceeded with the Bay of Pigs invasion, but he successfully handled the Cuban missile crisis. In Indochina, his administration became increasingly involved in supporting local governments through aid, advisors, and covert operations. In 1963, he was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.

Saturday Night Massacre -

Elliot Richardson, had appointed as special prosecutor to investigate the Watergate case, took the president to court in October 1973 to obtain the tapes. Nixon refused to release the recordings and ordered Cox fired. In what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre, on October 20 Attorney 1389 General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than fire the special prosecutor. Solicitor General Robert Bork finally fired Cox. Nixon's dismissal of Cox produced a firestorm of public indignation.

Ngo Dihn Diem -

Following the Geneva Accords, the French, with the support of America, forced the Vietnamese emperor to accept Dinh Diem as the new premier of South Vietnam. President Eisenhower sent advisors to train Diem's police and army. In return, the United States expected Diem to enact democratic reforms and distribute land to the peasants. Instead, he suppressed his political opponents, did little or no land distribution, and let corruption grow. In 1956, he refused to participate in elections to reunify Vietnam. Eventually, he ousted the emperor and declared himself president.

Richard M. Nixon -

He first came to national prominence as a congressman involved in the investigation of Alger Hiss. Later he served as vice president during the Eisenhower administration. In 1960, he ran as the Republican nominee for president and lost to John Kennedy. In 1968, he ran and won the presidency against Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey. During his campaign, he promised to bring about "peace with honor" in Vietnam. He told southern conservatives that he would slow the federal enforcement of civil rights laws and appoint pro-southern justices to the Supreme Court. After being elected, he fulfilled the latter promise attempted to keep the former. He opened talks with the North Vietnamese and began a program of Vietnamization of the war. He also bombed Cambodia. In 1973, America, North and South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong agreed to end the war and the United States withdrew. However, the cease-fire was broken, and the South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam. In 1970, Nixon changed U.S. foreign policy. He declared that the America was no longer the world's policemen and he would seek some partnerships with Communist countries. With his historic visit to China, he ended twenty years of diplomatically isolating China and he began taking steps towards cultural exchanges and trade. In 1972, Nixon traveled to Moscow and signed agreements with the Soviet Union on arms control and trade. That same year, Nixon was reelected, but the Watergate scandal erupted shortly after his victory. When his knowledge of the break-in and subsequent cover-up was revealed, Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment.

George H. W. Bush-

He had served as vice president during the Reagan administration and then won the presidential election of 1988. During his presidential campaign, Bush promised not to raise taxes. However, the federal deficit had become so big that he had to raise taxes. Bush chose to make fighting illegal drugs a priority. He created the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but it was only moderately successful in stopping drug use. In 1989, Bush ordered the invasion of Panama and the capture of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, who was wanted in America on drug charges. He was captured, tried, and convicted. In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; and Bush sent the American military to Saudi Arabia on a defensive mission. He assembled a multinational force and launched Operation Desert Storm, which took Kuwait back from Saddam in 1991. The euphoria over the victory in Kuwait was short lived as the country slid into a recession. He lost the 1992 presidential election to Bill Clinton.

Al Gore -

He served as a senator of Tennessee and then as President Clinton's vice president. In the 2000 presidential election, he was the Democratic candidate and campaigned on preserving Social Security, subsidizing prescription-medicine expenses for the elderly, and protecting the environment. His opponent was Governor George W. Bush, who promoted compassionate conservatism and the transferring of power from the federal government to the states. The election ended in controversy. The close election came down to Florida's electoral votes. The final tally in Florida gave Bush a slight lead, but it was so small that a recount was required by state law. While the votes were being recounted, a legal battle was being waged to stop the recount. Finally, the case, Bush v. Gore, was presented to the Supreme Court who ruled 5-4 to stop the recount and Bush was declared the winner.

Henry Kissinger-

He served as the secretary of state and national security advisor in the Nixon administration. He negotiated with North Vietnam for an end to the Vietnam War. In 1973, an agreement was signed between America, North and South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong to end the war. The cease-fire did not last; and South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam. He helped organize Nixon's historic trips to China and the Soviet Union. In the Middle East, he negotiated a cease-fire between Israel and its neighbors following the Yom Kippur War and solidified Israel's promise to return to Egypt most of the land it had taken during the 1967 war.

Gerald Ford-

He was President Nixon's vice president and assumed the presidency after Nixon resigned. President Ford issued Nixon a pardon for any crimes related to the Watergate scandal. The American public's reaction was largely negative; and Ford never regained the public's confidence. He resisted congressional pressure to both reduce taxes and increase federal spending, which sent the American economy into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Ford retained Kissinger as his secretary of state and continued Nixon's foreign policy goals, which included the signing of another arms- control agreement with the Soviet Union. He was heavily criticized following the collapse of South Vietnam.

Barry Goldwater -

He was a leader of the Republican right whose book, The Con- science of a Conservative, was highly influential to that segment of the party. He proposed eliminating the income tax and overhauling Social Security. In 1964, he ran as the Republican presidential candidate and lost to President Johnson. He campaigned against Johnson's war on poverty, the tradition of New Deal, the nuclear test ban and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He advocated the wholesale bombing of North Vietnam.

- Robert McNamara

He was the secretary of defense for both President Kennedy and President Johnson and a supporter of America's involvement in Vietnam.

Richard Nixon & Vietnam, invasion of Cambodia, 1970 -

Heavy bombing of North Vietnam was part of what Nixon called his "madman theory." He wanted the North Vietnamese leaders to believe that he "might do anything to stop the war." In March 1969, the United States began a fourteen-month-long bombing campaign aimed at Communist forces that were using Cambodia as a sanctuary for raids into South Vietnam. Congress did not learn of those secret raids until 1970, although the total tonnage of bombs dropped was four times that dropped on Japan during the Second World War. Still, Hanoi's leaders did not flinch. Then, on April 30, 1970, Nixon announced what he called an "incursion" into "neutral" Cambodia by U.S. troops to "clean out" North Vietnamese military bases. Nixon knew that sending troops into Cambodia would ignite "absolute public hysteria." Several members of the National Security Council resigned in protest. Secretary of State William Rogers predicted that the Cambodian escalation "will make the [anti-war] students puke." Nixon told Kissinger, who strongly endorsed the decision to extend the fighting into Cambodia, "If this doesn't work, it'll be your ass, Henry."

Ronald Reagan-

In 1980, the former actor and governor of California was elected president. In office, he reduced social spending, cut taxes, and increased defense spending. He was criticized for cutting important programs, such as housing and school lunches and increasing the federal deficit. By 1983, prosperity had returned to America and Reagan's economic reforms appeared to be working, but in October of 1987 the stock market crashed. Some blamed the federal debt, which had tripled in size since Reagan had taken office. In the early 1980s, HIV/AIDS cases were beginning to be reported in America, but the Reagan administration chose to do little about the growing epidemic. Reagan believed that most of the world's problems came from the Soviet Union, which he called the "evil empire." In response, he conducted a major arms buildup. Then in 1987, he signed an arms-control treaty with the Soviet Union. He authorized covert CIA operations in Central America. In 1986, the Iran-Contra scandal came to light which revealed arms sales were being conducted with Iran in a partial exchange for the release of hostages in Lebanon. The arms money was being used to aid the Contras.

- March on Selma, 1965

In Selma, Alabama, civil rights protesters began a march to Montgomery, the state capital, about forty miles away, only to be dispersed by five hundred state troopers. A federal judge agreed to allow the march to continue, and President Johnson provided troops for protection. By March 25, when the now twenty-five thousand demonstrators reached Montgomery, the original capital of the Confederacy, segregationists greeted them by flying Confederate flags. Undaunted by the hostile reception, King delivered a rousing address from the steps of the state capitol. Several days earlier, President Johnson had urged Congress to "overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and intolerance" by passing stronger laws protecting voting rights.

Watergate -

In an incident in 1972, burglars were caught breaking into the Democratic campaign headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. Eventually the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) was implicated, and investigators began to probe the question of President Nixon's involvement. Nixon tried to block the judicial process, which led the public to call for the president to be impeached for obstruction of justice. In 1974, in United States v. Richard M. Nixon, the Supreme Court ruled that the president had to surrender the so-called Watergate tapes. Nixon resigned to avoid being impeached.

John F. Kennedy & "missile gap" Bay of Pigs -

In early 1961, Kennedy inherited a CIA plot to topple the regime of Fidel Castro, the premier of Cuba. Kennedy naïvely agreed to the plot, whereby some 1,500 anti-Castro Cubans landed at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. The plotters failed to inspire a revolution, and most were quickly captured. Kennedy's seeming weakness in the face of Soviet aggression led the Russian premier, Nikita Khrushchev, to believe that the Soviets could install ballistic missiles in Cuba without American opposition. In October 1962 in a tense standoff, Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba and succeeded in forcing Khrushchev to withdraw the missiles.

Détente -

In the 1970s, the United States and Soviet Union began working together to achieve a more orderly and restrained competition between each other. Both countries signed an agreement to limit the number of Intercontinental Long Range Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that each country could possess and to not construct antiballistic missiles systems. They also signed new trade agreements.

Pentagon Papers -

Informal name for the Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam conflict; leaked to the press by former official Daniel Ellsberg and published in the New York Times in 1971.

JFK & the New Frontier

John F. Kennedy's program, stymied by a Republican Congress and his abbreviated term; his successor Lyndon B. Johnson had greater success with many of the same concepts.

OPEC, energy crisis

Just as domestic petroleum reserves began to dwindle and dependence upon foreign sources of oil increased, resolved to use its huge oil supplies as a political and economic weapon. In 1973, the United States sent massive aid to Israel after a devastating Syrian-Egyptian attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. OPEC responded by announcing that it would not sell oil to nations supporting Israel and that it was raising its prices by 400 percent. Gasoline grew scarce, and prices soared. American motorists thereafter faced long lines at gas stations.

SALT treaty -

Nixon and Brezhnev signed agreements reached at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), which negotiators had been working on since 1969. The SALT agreement did not end the arms race, but it did limit the number of missiles with nuclear warheads each nation could possess and prohibited the construction of antiballistic missile systems. In effect, the Soviets were allowed to retain a greater number of missiles with greater destructive power, while the United States retained a lead in the total number of warheads. No limitations were placed on new weapons systems, though each side agreed to work toward a permanent freeze on all nuclear weapons.

Assassination of MLK -

On April 4 1968, only four days after Johnson's withdrawal from the presidential race, a white racist named James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. King's death set off an outpouring of grief among whites and blacks and ignited riots in over sixty cities.

Watergate Hearings

On July 24, 1974, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously, in United States v. Richard M. Nixon, that the president must surrender all of the tape recordings. A few days later, the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend three articles of impeachment: obstruction of justice through the payment of "hush money" to witnesses and the withholding of evidence, abuse of power through the use of federal agencies to deprive citizens of their constitutional rights, and defiance of Congress by withholding the tapes. But before the House of Representatives could meet to vote on impeachment, Nixon grudgingly handed over the complete set of White House tapes.

- Civil Rights Act of 1964 -

Outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment.

Human rights -

Over time, the gap between the idealistic goals and the actual achievements of Carter's foreign policy became a chasm. He decided to cut off aid to nations that chronically violated basic human rights. This human rights campaign aroused opposition from two sides, however: those who feared it sacrificed a detached appraisal of national interest for high-level moralizing, and those who believed that human rights were important but that the administration was applying the standard inconsistently to different nations.

Three Mile Island -

Partial nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979, in reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Camp David Accords -

Peace agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, brokered by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. The first part of the eventual agreement called for Israel to return all land in the Sinai in exchange for Egyptian recognition of Israel's sovereignty. This agreement was implemented in 1982, when the last Israeli settler vacated the peninsula. But the second part of the agreement, calling for Israel to negotiate with Sadat to resolve the Palestinian refugee dilemma, began to unravel soon after the Camp David summit. By March 26, 1979, when Begin and Sadat returned to Washington to sign the formal treaty, Begin had already refused to block new Israeli settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Sadat had regarded as a prospective homeland for the Palestinians. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, most of the Arab nations condemned Sadat as a traitor. Islamic extremists assassinated him in 1981. Still, Carter and Vance's high-level diplomacy made an all-out war between Israel and the Arab world less likely.

Robert F. Kennedy -

Presidents younger brother, acted as his campaign manager, JFK appointed him attorney general, he later became a senator from New York

David Stockman -

Reagan's budget director, assumed responsibility for the president's efforts to reduce federal spending on various domestic programs.

Supply-side economics -

Reagans philosophy that combined tax cuts, less government spending, and a balanced budget with an unregulated marketplace.

Election of 1988

Repub. - Bush, Demo. - Dukakis, Liber. - Paul. New Alliance - Fulani. Bush won.

1984 election

Repub. - Reagan, Demo. - Mondale, Lib. - Bergland, Indep. - LaRouche. Reagan won

Election of 1980 -

Republican - Ronald Reagan, democratic - Jimmy Carter, independent - John Anderson, libertarian - Ed Clark. Reagan won

Election of 1964-

Republican candidate - Barry Goldwater. Democratic candidate - Lyndon b Johnson. Johnson won

Election of 1972 -

Republican candidate - Richard Nixon, Democratic candidate - George McGovern, Independent - John Hospers. Nixon won

Election of 1968

Republican candidate - Richard Nixon, Democratic candidate - Hubert Humphrey, Independent - George Wallace. Nixon won

Election of 1960

Republican candidate- Richard Nixon, democratic candidate - John f. Kennedy, Independent Harry Byrd. Kennedy won

Kenneth Starr -

Republican that was appointed as independent counsel in an investigation of the Whitewater case.

Freedom Summer," 1964

Robert Moses, severed as secretary of SNCC in MI, decided it would take an army to effect the states longstanding effort to deny voting rights to blacks. So he got an army of volunteers to teach blacks in rural areas in freedom schools so they could register to vote. Recruited 1000 volunteers, most white students many Jewish, to participate in this. MI leaders resented the efforts ad doubled the police force and stockpiling gas, electric cattle prods, and shotguns. The prominent writer Eudora Welty reported from her hometown of Jackson that "this summer all hell is going to break loose." Volunteers went to Ohio C. to learn about the black history to know what to expect from white racists. the Ku Klux Klan, local police, and other white racists assaulted and arrested the volunteers and murdered several of them. but it was successful in refocusing the civil rights movement on political rights. The number of blacks registered to vote inched up.

Iran-Contra scandal -

Scandal of the second Reagan administration involving sale of arms to Iran in partial exchange for release of hostages in Lebanon and use of the arms money to aid the Contras in Nicaragua, which had been expressly forbidden by Congress.

Sandra Day O'Connor -

She was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States and was appointed by President Reagan. Reagan's critics charged that her appointment was a token gesture and not a sign of any real commitment to gender equality.

Clinton impeachment

Starr Report found "substantial and creditable" evidence of presidential wrongdoing, prompting the House of Representatives on October 8 to begin a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry of the president. Thirty-one Democrats joined the Republicans in supporting the investigation. On December 19, 1998, William Jefferson Clinton became the second president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The House officially approved two articles of impeachment, charging Clinton with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. House Speaker Newt Gingrich led the effort to impeach the president over the Lewinsky scandal—even though he himself was secretly engaged in an adulterous affair with a congressional staffer. The Senate trial of President Clinton began on January 7, 1999. Five weeks later, on February 12, Clinton was acquitted. Rejecting the first charge of perjury, 10 Republicans and all 45 Democrats voted "not guilty." On the charge of obstruction of justice, the Senate split 50-50 (which meant acquittal, since 67 votes were needed for conviction). In both instances, senators had a hard time interpreting Clinton's adultery and lies as constituting "high crimes and misdemeanors," the constitutional requirement for removal of a president from office.

TET offensive -

Surprise attack by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese during the Vietnamese New Year of 1968; turned American public opinion strongly against the war in Vietnam.

Moral Majority -

Televangelist Jerry Falwell's political lobbying organization, the name of which became synonymous with the religious right— conservative evangelical Protestants who helped ensure President Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory.

Contract with America

Ten-point document released by the Republican party during the 1994 Congressional election campaigns, which outlined a small-government program featuring less regulation of business, diminished environmental regulations, and other core values of the Republican revolution.

Newt Gingrich -

The Republican insurgency in Congress during the mid-nineties was led him. In early 1995, he became the first Republican Speaker of the House in forty-two years. Gingrich, a former history professor was a superb tactician who had helped mobilize religious and social conservatives associated with the Christian Coalition. He pledged to start a new reign of congressional Republican dominance that would dismantle the "corrupt liberal welfare state." He was aided in his efforts by newly elected Republican House members who promoted what Gingrich called with great fanfare the Contract with America.

Lyndon B. Johnson & escalation Gulf of Tonkin resolution Operation Rolling Thunder -

The Tonkin Gulf resolution authorized the president to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." Only Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon and Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska voted against the resolution, which Johnson thereafter interpreted as equivalent to a congressional declaration of war. Soon after his landslide victory over Goldwater in November 1964, John- son, while still plagued by private doubts, made the crucial decisions that committed the United States to a full-scale war in Vietnam for the next four years. On February 5, 1965, Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas killed 8 and wounded 126 Americans at Pleiku, in South Vietnam. More attacks later that week led Johnson to order Operation Rolling Thunder, the first sustained bombing of North Vietnam, which was intended to stop the flow of soldiers and supplies into the south. Six months later an extensive study concluded that the massive bombing was astonishingly ineffective; it had not slowed the supplies pouring down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam through Laos and into South Vietnam. Johnson's solution was to keep applying more pressure.

Saddam Hussein, Kuwait -

The former dictator of Iraq who became the head of state in 1979. In 1980, he invaded Iran and started the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War. In 1990, he invaded Kuwait, which caused the Gulf War of 1991. In 2003, he was overthrown and captured when the United States invaded. He was sentenced to death by hanging in 2006.

Bill Clinton -

The governor of Arkansas won the 1992 presidential election against President George H. W. Bush. In his first term, he pushed through Congress a tax increase, an economic stimulus package, the adoption of the North America Free Trade Agreement, welfare reform, a raise in the minimum wage, and improved public access to health insurance. However, he failed to institute major health-care reform, which had been one of his major goals. In 1996, Clinton defeated Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. Clinton was scrutinized for his investment in the fraudulent Whitewater Development Corporation, but no evidence was found of him being involved in any wrongdoing. In 1998, he was revealed to have had a sexual affair with a White House intern. Clinton had initially lied about the affair and tried to cover up it, which led to a vote in Congress on whether or not to begin an impeachment inquiry. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton, but the Senate found him not guilty. Clinton's presidency faced several foreign policy challenges. In 1994, he used U.S. forces to restore Haiti's democratically elected president to power after he had been ousted during a coup. In 1995, the Clinton Administration negotiated the Dayton Accords, which stopped the ethnic strife in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkan region. Clinton sponsored peace talks between Arabs and Israelis, which culminated in Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat signing the Oslo Accords in 1993. This agreement provided for the restoration of Palestinian self-rule in specific areas in exchange for peace as provided in UN Security Council resolutions.

Lunch counter sit-ins

The momentum generated the first genuine mass movement in African American history when four well-dressed, polite black students enrolled at North Carolina A&T College sat down and ordered coffee and doughnuts at Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960. The clerk refused to serve them because only whites could sit at the counter; blacks had to eat standing up or take their food outside. The Greensboro Four, as they were called, waited forty-five minutes and then returned the next day with two dozen more students. They returned every day thereafter for a week, patiently and quietly tolerating being jeered, cuffed, and spat upon by hooligans. By then, hundreds of rival protesters rallied outside. Meanwhile, the non-violent "sit-in" movement had spread to six more towns in the state, and within two months, similar sit-in demonstrations—involving blacks and whites, men and women, young and old—had occurred in fifty- four cities in thirteen states. By the end of July 1960, officials in Greensboro lifted the whites-only policy at the Woolworth's lunch counter. And the civil rights movement had found a new voice among courageous young activists and an effective new tactic: nonviolent direct action against segregation.

-Malcolm X & Black Muslims

The most articulate spokesman for black power. Originally, the chief disciple of Elijah Muhammad, the black Muslim leader in the United States, Malcolm X broke away from him and founded his own organization committed to establishing relations between African Americans and the nonwhite peoples of the world. Near the end of his life, he began to preach a biracial message of social change. In 1964, he was assassinated by members of a rival group of black Muslims. Malcolm joined a small Chicago-based sect called the Nation of Islam (NOI), whose members were often called Black Muslims

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Moscow Olympics -

The signing of a controversial new Strategic Arms Limitation Talks treaty with the Soviets (SALT II) put Carter's leadership to the test just as the mounting economic problems made him the subject of biting editorial cartoons nationwide. The new agreement placed a ceiling of 2,250 bombers and missiles on each side and set limits on the number of warheads and new weapons systems each power could assemble. But the proposed SALT II treaty became moot in 1979 when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan to prop up the faltering Communist government there, which was being challenged by Muslim rebels. To protest the Soviet action, Carter immediately shelved SALT II, suspended grain shipments to the Soviet Union, and called for an international boycott of the 1980 Olympics, which were to be held that summer in Moscow.

US Marine barracks in Beirut -

U.S. Marines are killed in a suicide bombing in Beirut in 1983

the 1961 Berlin Crisis -

West Berlin served as a showplace for democracy and prosperity, each year 3000 E. Germans went to the west through Berlin. In 1958, Khrushchev threatened to give E. Germany control of E. Berlin and air lanes into W. Berlin. After the deadline he set, May 27, 1959, Western occupation authorities would have to deal with the Soviet-controlled East German government, in effect recognizing it, or face the possibility of another blockade. Eisenhower didn't budge on position in Berlin. In 1959, K & E agreed time for summit meeting. During the Bay of Pigs, k. decided that Kennedy was inexperienced and he'd bully. Upon his return home from the Vienna summit with Khrushchev, Kennedy demonstrated his resolve to protect West Berlin by calling up Army Reserve and National Guard units. The Soviets responded on August 13, 1961, by erecting the twenty-seven-mile-long Berlin Wall, which isolated U.S.-supported West Berlin and prevented all movement between the two parts of the city. Behind the concrete wall, topped with barbed wire, the Communists built minefields and watchtowers manned by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone trying to escape to the West. First wall to keep people from leaving.

Norman Schwarzkopf -

a United States Army general. While serving as Commander-in-Chief, United States Central Command, he led all coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War.

Anita Hill -

an American attorney and academic. She is a University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women's Studies at Brandeis University and a faculty member of Brandeis' Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She became a national figure in 1991 when she accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, her boss at the U.S. Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, of sexual harassment

Joe Lieberman -

an American politician and former United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election under Al Gore. Currently an independent, he remains closely associated with the party.

Sam Ervin -

an American politician. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. During his Senate career, Ervin was a legal defender of the Jim Crow laws and racial segregation, as the South's constitutional expert during the congressional debates on civil rights. Unexpectedly, he became a liberal hero for his support of civil liberties. He is remembered for his work in the investigation committees that brought down Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954 and especially his investigation in 1972 and 1973 of the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation in 1974 of President Richard Nixon.

Colin Powell -

an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under U.S. President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first African American to serve in that position. During his military career, Powell also served as National Security Advisor (1987-1989), as Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command (1989) and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-1993), holding the latter position during the Persian Gulf War. Born in Harlem as the son of Jamaican immigrants, Powell was the first, and so far the only, African American to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the first of two consecutive black office-holders to serve as U.S. Secretary of State

Clinton's achievement

balanced budget & surplus, economic growth, & peace efforts

aftermath and legacy of Vietnam -

eventually fell to communism

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

in April 1960, some two hundred student activists, black and white, converged in Raleigh, North Carolina, to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Their goal was to ratchet up the effort to dismantle segregation. The sit-ins, which began at restaurants, were broadened to include "kneel-ins" at all-white churches and "wade-ins" at segregated public swimming pools. Most of the civil rights activists practiced King's concept of nonviolent interracial protest. They refused to retaliate, even when struck with clubs, poked with cattle prods, or subjected to vicious verbal abuse.

Paris Accords, 1973 -

intended to establish peace in Vietnam and an end to the Vietnam War. It ended direct U.S. military combat, and temporarily stopped the fighting between North and South Vietnam. The governments of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), and the United States, as well as the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) that represented indigenous South Vietnamese revolutionaries, signed the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam on January 27, 1973. The agreement was not ratified by the United States Senate

Haiti, nation-building -

most rewarding foreign-policy endeavor. Emerged suddenly from a cycle of coups with a democratic election in 1990, which brought to the presidency a popular priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When a Haitian army general ousted Aristide, the United States announced its intention to bring him back with the aid of the United Nations. With drawn-out negotiations leading nowhere, Clinton moved in July 1994 to get a UN resolution authorizing force as a last resort. At that juncture, former president Jimmy Carter asked permission to negotiate. He convinced the military leaders to quit by October 15. Aristide returned to Haiti and on March 31, 1995, the occupation was turned over to a UN force commanded by an American general.

RFK assassination -

on June 5 1968, a young Jordanian named Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed forty-two-year-old Senator Robert F. Kennedy just after he had defeated Eugene McCarthy in the California

JFK's assassination-

on November 22, 1963, while riding in an open car through Dallas, Texas, Kennedy was shot in the neck and head by Lee Harvey Oswald. A twenty- four-year-old ex-marine drifter, Oswald had become so infatuated with communism that he had traveled to the Soviet Union and worked for twenty months in a failed effort to defect and become a Soviet citizen. After returning to the United States, he worked in the Texas School Book Depository, from which the shots were fired at Kennedy. Oswald's motives remain unknown. Two days after the assassination, Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner dying of cancer, murdered Oswald as he was being trans- ported to a court hearing in handcuffs

George McGovern -

ran against Nixon. Senator of South Dakota, a steadfast anti- war liberal who proceeded to organize one of the most inept presidential campaigns in history. Recognized that the old New Deal Democratic coalition of urban ethnic groups, organized labor, and southern white populists was fading so he tried to create a "new politics" coalition centered on minorities, women, and young, well-educated activists. However logical, it was an electoral disaster. In the 1972 election, Nixon won the greatest victory of any Republican presidential candidate in history, capturing 520 electoral votes to only 17 for McGovern.

Freedom Rides -

revealed that African Americans—especially young African Americans— were tired of waiting for the segregationist South to abide by federal laws and to align with American values. With each passing month, more southern blacks were willing to confront the deeply embedded racist political and social structure.

Anti-nuclear movement -

social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental groups, and professional organizations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, and international level. Major anti-nuclear groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. The initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear groups oppose both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The formation of green parties in the 1970s and 1980s was often a direct result of anti-nuclear politics.

Cambodia: Khmer Rouge -

the Cambodian Communist movement, plunged that country into a colossal bloodbath. The maniacal Khmer Rouge leaders organized a genocidal campaign to destroy their opponents, killing almost a third of the total population.

1994 midterm elections-

the Democrats suffered a humbling defeat. It was the first election since 1952 in which Republicans captured both houses of Congress at the same time.

Dan Quayle -

vice president during George H. W. Bush presidency

Spiro Agnew -

vice president for Nixon, but did not succeed Nixon because he was forced to resign in Oct. 1973 for taking bribes from contractors before and during his term.