APUSH Unit 6: Post WWII Vocabulary

Brown vs. Board of Edu.

(1954) U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public education and declared "separate but equal'' unconstitutional.

Vietnam War

(1955-75) was a Cold War conflict pitting the U.S. and the remnants of the French colonial government in South Vietnam against the indigenous but communist Vietnamese independence movement, the Viet Minh, following the latter's expulsion of the French in 1954.

Gideon vs. Wainwright

(1963) U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteeing legal counsel for indigent felony defendants.

Miranda vs. Arizona

(1966) U.S. Supreme Court decision required police to advise persons in custody of their rights to legal counsel and against self-incrimination.

Bao Dai

13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty, which was the last dynasty of Vietnam.

McCarran Act

1950 Act passed over President Harry S. Truman's veto which required registration of American Communist party members, denied them passports, and allowed them to be detained as suspected subversives.

Escobedo vs. Illinois

378 U.S. 478 was a United States Supreme Court case holding that criminal suspects have a right to counsel during police interrogations under the Sixth Amendment.

Peace Corps

A celebrated governmental program, created in 1961 under the Kennedy administration, which supplies volunteers to provide educational and technical services abroad.

Military Industrial Complex

A country's military establishment and those industries producing arms or other military materials, regarded as a powerful vested interest.

Rock and Roll

A form of music that emerged during the postwar era that combined a strong beat with off-beat accents and repeated harmonic patterns to produce its distinctive sound. The electric guitar provided the basic instrument.

The Beats

A group of young writers, poets, painters, and musicians who rebelled against the regimented horrors of war and the mundane horrors of middle-class life.

Viet Minh

A member of a communist-dominated nationalist movement, formed in 1941, that fought for Vietnamese independence from French rule. Members of the Vietminh later joined with the Vietcong.

Viet Cong

A member of the communist guerrilla movement in Vietnam that fought the South Vietnamese government forces 1954-75 with the support of the North Vietnamese army and opposed the South Vietnamese and US forces in the Vietnam War.

Sit Ins

A nonviolent form of protest begun when four black college students sat down and demanded service at a "whites-only" lunch counter in 1960, starting a movement which quickly spread throughout the country.

MLK Jr.

A pastor from Montgomery Alabama who brought the civil rights movement a message of nonviolent disobedience based on the Gospels, the writings of Henry David Thoreau, and the example of Mahatma Gandhi in India. "We must use the weapon of love,"

"Under God"

A phrase that Congress made mandatory on all American currency in 1954, inspired by Eisenhower's patriotic crusade to bring Americans back to God.

Arthur Miller

A playwright of the postwar period who reinforced David Riesman's image of modern American society as a "lonely crowd" of individuals without internal values, hollow at the core, groping for a sense of belonging and affection.

Ho Chi Minh

A seasoned revolutionary and passionate Vietnamese nationalist obsessed by a single goal: independence for his country.

Letter from Birmingham City Jail

A stirring defense of the nonviolent strategy that became a classic of the civil rights movement, written by Martin Luther King from his jail cell after being arrested while demonstrating in 1963.

James Meredith

A student denied entrance to the University of Mississippi in 1962 because he was black, Merideth's case caused Attorney General Robert Kennedy to dispatch federal marshals to enforce the law and, after a bloody protest from a white mob, Meredith was finally able to register at "Ole Miss."

James Dean

A super foxy actor in the 1950s who starred in only 3 major films, but remains a cult cinema icon 50 years after his death.

NSC-68

A top secret document produced by the National Security Council that called for rebuilding conventional military forces to provide options other than nuclear war.

JFK

A young Democrat who defeated Richard Nixon to win the presidency in 1960 who focused his efforts on liberal reform and furthering civil rights until his tragic assassination in 1963.

Elvis

A young white truck driver from Mississippi, raised in Memphis, Tennessee, who experimented with "rockabilly" music, gospel, country-and-western, and R and B rhythms. He released a smash hit "Heartbreak Hotel" in 1956 and, over the next two years, emerged as the most popular musical entertainer in American history.

National Security Act

Act of 1947 that authorized the reorganization of government to coordinate military branches and security agencies; created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Military Establishment (later renamed the Department of Defense).

Employment Act of 1946

Act which set up a three-member Council of Economic Advisers to make appraisals of the economy with regard to employment levels and advise the president in an annual economic report, while a new congressional Joint Committee on the Economic Report would propose legislation.

Berlin Airlift

Allied air forces flew food, medicine, coal, and equipment into Berlin to counteract the Russian blockade of the city from June 1948 to May 1949.

Dixiecrats

Also known as the States Rights Party, a group of Deep South delegates who walked out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention in protest of the party's support for civil rights legislation.

AFL-CIO

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations is a national trade union center and the largest federation of unions in the United States.

Chuck Berry

American guitarist, singer and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music.

George Meany

American labor union leader for 57 years. He was the key figure in the creation of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, and served as the AFL-CIO's first president from 1955-1979.

Francis Gary Powers

American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.

Sunbelt

An arc of states in the South, the Southwest, and the West, that stretched from the Carolinas down through Texas and into California that experienced population growth in urban areas.

John K. Galbraith

An economist who attacked the prevailing notion that sustained economic growth would solve America's chronic social problems.

Jackie Robinson

Army veteran who joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 and became the first black player in major league baseball.

James Jones

Author of From Here to Eternity, whose characters tended to be restless, tormented, and often socially impotent individuals who can find neither contentment nor respect in an overpowering or uninterested world.

Dr. Benjamin Spock

Author of The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, who advised parents to foster in their children qualities and skills that would enhance their chances in what Riesman called the "popularity market."

Ralph Ellison

Best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953.

Medgar Evers

Black civil rights activist from Mississippi who worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi and gain social justice and voting rights.

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.

Mao Zedong

Chinese Communist revolutionary, and the founding father of the People's Republic of China.

Chiang Kai-Shek

Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China between 1928 and 1975. Expelled Chinese communists from the party and led a successful unification of China

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.

CORE

Congress of Racial Equality , civil rights organization started in 1944 and best known for its "freedom rides," bus journeys challenging racial segregation in the South in 1961.

Atomic Energy Commission

Created in 1946 to supervise peacetime uses of atomic energy.

Fidel Castro

Cuban politician and revolutionary who governed the Republic of Cuba as its Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as its President from 1976 to 2008.

George F. Kennan

Diplomat who authored the anonymous 1947 Foreign Affairs article that introduced the theory of containment.

Fair Deal

Domestic reform proposals of the second Truman administration (1949-53); included civil rights legislation and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, but only extensions of some New Deal programs were enacted.

Ike

Dwight D. Eisenhower's nickname.

General Gamal Nasser

Egyptian military and political leader: prime minister of Egypt 1954-56; president of Egypt 1956-58; president of the United Arab Republic 1958-70.

Sputnik

First artificial satellite to orbit the earth; launched October 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union.

Civil Rights Act 1957

First federal civil rights law since Reconstruction; established the Civil Rights Commission and the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

Earl Warren

Former governor of California and appointed by Eisenhower as the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Containment

General U.S. strategy in the cold war that called for containing Soviet expansion; originally devised in 1947 by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan.

HUAC

House Un-American Activities Committee, formed in 1938 to investigate subversives in the government; best-known investigations were of Hollywood notables and of former State Department official Alger Hiss, who was accused in 1948 of espionage and Communist party membership.

Election of 1960

JFK (D) versus Richard Nixon (R), JFK won.

Lee Harvey Oswald

John F. Kennedy's assassin, who shot the President on his visit to Dallas Texas in November of 1963.

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.

Election of 1964

LBJ (D) was elected to stay in office (he'd became president when JFK was shot). Beat Barry Goldwater (R).

Desegregation in Little Rock

Little Rock Central High School 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.

Levittown

Low-cost, mass-produced development of suburban tract housing built by William Levitt on Long Island in 1947.

Baby Boom

Markedly higher birth rate in the years following World War II; led to the biggest demographic "bubble" in American history.

NOW

National Organization for Women, founded in 1966 by writer Betty Friedan and other feminists, it pushed for abortion rights and nondiscrimination in the workplace, but within a decade it became radicalized and lost much of its constituency.

Jack Ruby

Nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas. On November 24, 1963, Ruby fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, who was in police custody after being charged with the murder of President John F. Kennedy two days earlier.

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, defensive alliance founded in 1949 by ten western European nations, the United States, and Canada to deter Soviet expansion in Europe.

Marshall Plan

Officially the European Recovery Program (ERP), was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion (approximately $130 billion in current dollar value as of March 2016) in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War.

GI Bill of Rights

Officially the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, provided money for education and other benefits to military personnel returning from World War II.

Creation of Israel

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, in favor of a Partition Plan that created the State of Israel. The British relinquished their mandate over Palestine in 1948. War broke out between the Arabs and Jews soon after.

Taft-Hartley Labor Act of 1946

Passed over President Harry Truman's veto, the 1947 law contained a number of provisions to control labor unions, including the banning of closed shops.

Nikita Khrushchev

Politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War.

Election of 1956

Popular Dwight D. Eisenhower successfully run for re-election. The 1956 election was a rematch of 1952, as Eisenhower's opponent in 1956 was Democrat Adlai Stevenson, whom Eisenhower had defeated four years earlier.

Truman Doctrine

President Harry S. Truman's program of post-World War II aid to European countries-particularly Greece and Turkey-in danger of being undermined by communism.

Alger Hiss

President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who served in several government departments; Hiss was accused by Whittaker Chambers, a former Soviet agent, of leaking secret government documents and was convicted of perjury in 1950.

New Left

Radical youth protest movement of the 1960s, named by leader Tom Hayden to distinguish it from the Old (Marxist-Leninist) Left of the 1930s.

Election of 1952

Republican Dwight Eisenhower was the landslide winner, ending a string of Democratic wins that stretched back to 1932. Adlai Stevenson was the Democratic candidate.

Joseph McCarthy

Republican senator from Wisconsin who accusing the State Department of being infested with Communists and was a major instigator of the Red Scare, McCarthy was later censured by the Senate.

Norman Vincent Peale

Reverend who perfected "feel good" theology whose book The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) was a phenomenal best-seller throughout the 50's.

Robert Kennedy

Senator and brother of John F. Kennedy, an outspoken leader of the antiwar forces and presidential candidate who was assassinated during his campaign in June of 1968.

John Foster Dulles

Served as U.S. Secretary of State under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, advocating an aggressive stance against Communism throughout the world.

SEATO

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, pact among mostly western nations signed in 1954; designed to deter Communist expansion and cited as a justification for U.S. involvement in Vietnam .

SCLC

Southern Christian Leadership Conference, civil rights organization founded in 1957 by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights leaders.

Ngo Dinh Diem

Southern Vietnam's Catholic Premier, whose use of repressive tactics against Communists and the Buddhist majority, along with his failure to deliver promised social and economic reforms lost him popular support in the early 1960s.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Sparked by Rosa Parks's arrest on December 1, 1955, a successful year-long boycott protesting segregation on city buses; led by the Reverend Martin Luther King.

SNCC

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, founded in 1960 to coordinate civil rights sit-ins and other forms of grassroots protest.

Thurgood Marshall

Supreme Court's 96th justice and its first black justice.

Army-McCarthy Hearings

Televised U.S. Senate hearings in 1954 on Senator Joseph McCarthy's charges of disloyalty in the Army; his tactics contributed to his censure by the Senate.

Great Society

Term coined by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1965 State of the Union address, in which he proposed legislation to address problems of voting rights, poverty, diseases, education, immigration, and the environment.

"Iron Curtain"

Term coined by Winston Churchill to describe the cold war divide between western Europe and the Soviet Union's eastern European satellites.

LBJ

Texan Democrat who served as John F. Kennedy's vice-president and assumed the presidency after Kennedy's assassination in 1963, devoted to furthering civil rights and promising Americans a "Great Society."

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research.

National Security Council

The President's principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials.

38th Parallel

The border between North and South Korea prior to the Korean War.

Fulgencio Batista

The elected President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, and dictator from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown during the Cuban Revolution.

J. Edgar Hoover

The first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States, appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924.

Civil Rights Act 1964

The most far-reaching civil rights measure ever enacted by the Congress, it outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment.

"Brinkmanship"

The practice of seeking advantage by creating the impression that one is willing and able to push a highly dangerous situation to the limit rather than concede.

Great Black Migration

The relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from 1916 to 1970. Driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws, many blacks headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that first arose during the First World War. Migrants dealt with poor working conditions and competition for living space, as well as widespread racism and prejudice. Blacks began to build a new place for themselves in public life, actively confronting economic, political and social challenges and creating a new black urban culture that would exert enormous influence in the decades to come.

Suburbia

The suburbs or their inhabitants viewed collectively.

Youth Culture

The way adolescents live, and the norms, values, and practices they share. Culture is the shared symbolic systems, and processes of maintaining and transforming those systems. Youth culture differs from the culture of older generations.

Little Richard

U.S. rock and roll singer, songwriter, and pianist.