Korean War & Cold War

Cuban Missile Crisis

13 Day period in October 1962 when Soviet nuclear missile were pointed at the United States in Cuba.

Harry Truman

33rd President of the United States. He fired General Douglass MacArthur over disagreements on the Korean War.

John F. Kennedy (JFK)

35th President of the United States. Was in office during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Cuban Missile Crisis and the building of the Berlin Wall.

Berlin Airlift

A 327-day operation in which U.S. and British planes flew food and supplies into West Berlin after the Soviets blockaded the city in 1948.

Warsaw Pact

A Military alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites.

General Douglas MacArthur

A U.S. general during the Korean War. The President fired him for not listening to his orders.

Truman Doctrine

A U.S. policy, announced by President Harry Truman in 1947, of providing economic and military aid to free nations threatened by internal or external opponents.

Berlin Wall

A concrete wall that separated East Berlin and West Berlin from 1961-1989, built by Communist East German government to prevent its citizens from fleeing to the West.

Korean War

A conflict between North Korea and South Korea, lasting from 1950-1953, in which the United States along with other UN countries, fought on the side of the South Koreans while China fought on the side of the North Koreans.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

A congressional committee that investigated Communist influence inside and outside the U.S. government in the years following World War II.

Satellite Nations

A country that is dominated politically and economically by another nation.

Iron Curtain

A phrase used by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the imaginary line that separated Communist countries in the Soviet bloc of Eastern Europe from the countries in Western Europe.

Cold War

A political conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The nations never directly confronted each other on the battlefield.

communism

A political system in which the government owns all property and dominates all aspects of life in a country.

armistice

An agreement to stop fighting

demilitarized zone

An area where no military forces or weapons are allowed

Communism

An economic and political system based on one-party government and state ownership of property.

United Nations

An international organization formed after WWII to promote international peace, security, and cooperation.

China

Asian nation that turns to Communism in 1949 after the Mao Zedong comes into power and fights with the North in the Korean War.

Fidel Castro

Communist dictator of Cuba who came into power in 1959.

Mao Zedong

Communist leader of China who comes into power in 1949.

38th parallel

Dividing line between North and South Korea

Bay of Pigs

Failed CIA operation in April 1961to overthrow Castro and take over Cuba using Cuban exiles.

President Harry Truman

He was the 33rd President of the United States from 1945-53. His policy of communist containment started the Cold War, and he initiated U.S. involvement in the Korean War.

38th Parallel

Latitude line/boundary between North and South Korea.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

Married couple who become the first U.S. citizens put to death for espionage in 1953. They were charged with passing Atomic Bomb secrets to the Soviets.

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

Military alliance created in 1949 made up of 12 non-Communist countries including the United States that support each other if attacked.

stalemate

Neither side wins; The Korean War ended in a stalemate.

What event started the Korean War?

North Korea invaded South Korea

Joseph Stalin

Soviet leader following World War II, dies in the middle of the Korean War in 1953.

McCarthyism

The attacks, often unsubstantiated, by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others on people suspected of being Communist in the early 1950s.

Containment

The blocking of another nation's attempts to spread it's influence - especially the efforts of the United States to block the spread of Soviet influence during the late 1940s to early 1950s.

Korean War

The conflict between Communist North Korea and Non-Communist South Korea. The United Nations (led by the United States) helped South Korea.

Marshall Plan

The program, proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall in 1947, under which the United States supplied economic aid to European nations to help them rebuild after World War II.