Chapters 34-37 Terms

Federal Highway Act of 1954

- $27 billion dollar plan to build 42 thousand miles of sleek, fast motorways authorized by Ike - dramatically increased the move to the suburbs, an white middle class Americans could more easily commute to their jobs - Approved May 5, 1954 - To amend and supplement the Federal-Aid Road Act approved July 11, 1916 (39 Stat. 355), as amended and supplemented, to authorize appropriations for continuing the construction of highways, and for other purposes - This act authorized the building of highways throughout the nation, which would be the biggest public works project in the nation's history - Popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 established an interstate highway system in the United States

Truman Doctrine

- 1947, President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology, mainly helped Greece and Turkey - President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces - President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology - Promised to support democracies and to oppose the spread of Communism - Promised military and economic aid - In response to the struggles at Greece and Turkey were having with Communism, Truman issued is Truman Doctrine in 1947 - In it, he declares that the US will support any country that is fighting Communist aggression

Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 1978

- A 1978 Supreme Court case which held that a university's admissions criteria which used race as a definite and exclusive basis for an admission decision violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - A white Californian, Allan Bakke, made headlines in 1978 when the Supreme Court, in a five-four decision, upheld his claim that his application to medical school had been turned down because of an admissions policy that favored minority applicants - In a tortured decision reflecting the troubling moral ambiguities and insoluble political complexities of this issue, the Court ordered the University of California at Davis medical school to admit Bakke and declared that preference in admissions could not be given to members of any group, minority, or majority, on the basis of ethnic or racial identity alone

Title IX in Education, 1972

- A United States law enacted on June 23, 1972 that states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." - A law that bans gender discrimination in schools that receive federal funds - Prohibiting sex discrimination in any federally assisted educational program or activity

Marshall Plan

- A United States program of economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe (1948-1952) - A plan that the US came up with to revive war-torn economies of Europe - Offered $13 billion in aid to western and Southern Europe - Officially the European Recovery Program (ERP), was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe and repelling communism after WWII - Calls for America to use its Dollars to help Europe rebuild - Thirteen Billion Dollars Spent in four years - This program is widely credited for getting Europe back on its feet and for sparking an economic boom in Europe - This plan is sometimes criticized for being a vehicle for "buying friendships" - Russia didn't have a suitable alternative to the Marshall Plan - On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948 - Named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe

Stokely Carmichael

- A black civil rights activist in the 1960's - Leader of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee - He did a lot of work with Martin Luther King Jr. but later changed his attitude - Carmichael urged giving up peaceful demonstrations and pursuing black power - He was known for saying, "black power will smash everything Western civilization has created" - Began to preach the doctrine of Black Power

The blinding of Isaac Woodard in 1946

- A black sergeant was pulled out of a bus and beaten after arguing with the bus driver - Sparked outrage, as he was left permanently blind - Harry Truman ordered a federal investigation - In 1946, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a Greyhound bus, still in uniform - The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind - Woodard, in uniform, was arrested by the local police chief, Lynwood Shull, and beaten and blinded while in custody - President Harry Truman was outraged by the incident and he established the first presidential commission on civil rights and his Justice Department filed criminal charges against Shull

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 - Created to search out disloyal Americans & Communists - Investigatory body established in 1938 to root out "subversion" - Sought to expose communist influence in American government and society, in particular through the trial of Alger Hiss - Was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and rebel activities on the part of private citizens, public employees and organizations suspected of having Communist ties - Citizens suspected of having ties to the communist party would be tried in a court of law

Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961

- A conscript flies bombing missions from the Italian Island of Pianolla during World War II - Every time he has flown a round of missions, the authorities set another round for him - To him, the horror of flying those missions is compounded by the horror of having to fight an inhuman, man-killing bureaucracy every time he gets his feet safely back on the ground - A Pacifist pamphlet suggesting that no war is worth fighting : you think you are fighting for a worthwhile cause but you end up risking your life for the sake of a system - the army's bureaucratic machine being just an extension of the government machinery - Human beings are just pawns and fodder keeping the machine running, and obeying a mad will that is beyond their control and understanding - A satirical war novel by American author Joseph Heller - He began writing it in 1953 and the novel was first published in 1961 - The work centres on Captain John Yossarian, an American bombardier stationed on a Mediterranean island during World War II, and chronicles his desperate attempts to stay alive

MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)

- A doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender - The situation in the US-Soviet nuclear arms race in which either side could absorb a first-strike and still respond by imposing unacceptable damage on the other side - Posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender - Kept the world from being destroyed - Every so often the Russians made it clear that they would invade West Berlin and the U.S. president would make it clear that they would use Hydrogen Bombs against Russia

Veterans Administration

- A federal agency that administers benefits provided by law for veterans of the armed forces - A federal agency that assists former soldiers - Following World War II, the VA helped veterans purchase new homes with no down payment, sparking a building boom that created jobs in the construction industry and fueling consumer spending in home appliances and automobiles - Benefits include disability compensation, pension, education and training, health care, home loans, insurance, vocational rehabilitation and employment, and burial

Willem de Kooning

- A gestural abstractionist used slashing brush strokes and agitated application of pigment - Often he would scrape off the pigment and begin again - Was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist - He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962 - In 1943, he married painter Elaine Fried - One of the most prominent and celebrated of the Abstract Expressionist painters, his pictures typify the vigorous, gestural style of the movement - Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, he developed a radically abstract style of painting that fused Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism

Operation Wetback, 1954

- A government program to roundup and deport as many as one million illegal Mexican migrant workers in the United States - The program was promoted in part by the Mexican government and reflected burgeoning concerns about non-European immigration to America - Was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), in cooperation with the Mexican government - The program was implemented in June 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell

Project Head Start

- A government-funded program that is designed to provide children from low-income families the opportunity to acquire the skills and experiences important for school success - Launched as an eight-week summer program by the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1965, was designed to help break the cycle of poverty by providing preschool children of low-income families with a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional, and psychological needs - Designed to help break the cycle of poverty - It gave preschool children from families with low income a comprehensive program to meet their emotional, social, health, nutritional, and educational needs

Neoconservatives

- A group that championed free-market capitalism liberated from government restraints, anti-soviet positions in foreign policy, questioned liberal welfare programs, and called for the reassertion of traditional values of individualism and the centrality of the family - Many of them former liberals appalled by what they regarded as the excesses of the 1960s, spearheaded this conservative revival - They championed free-market capitalism liberated from government restraints and sharply questioned the efficacy of the welfare programs spawned by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society initiatives - They called for the restoration of traditional values at home and took though harshly anti-Soviet positions in foreign policy

The Voting Rights Act, 1965

- A law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to African-American suffrage - Signed into law on August 6 - It outlawed literacy tests and sent federal voters registrars into several southern states - The act did not end discrimination and oppression overnight, but it placed an awesome lever for change in blacks' hands - Black southerners now had power and began to wield it under federal protection - White southerners began to court black votes and business as never before - In the following decade, for the first time since emancipation, African Americans began to migrate into the South

Endangered Species Act, 1973

- A law requiring the federal government to protect all species listed as endangered - Was designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation" - Prohibits importing, exporting, taking, possessing, selling, and transporting endangered and threatened species (with certain exceptions) - Also provides for the designation of critical habitat and prohibits the destruction of that habitat

James "Jimmy" Hoffa

- A leader of the Teamsters who had the whole union expelled due to his tampering of juries - Jimmy Hoffa's union's expulsion was during the beginning of Eisenhower's second term, which was full of scandalous reports of fraud and gangsterism - Specifically with the Teamsters, brass-knuckle tactics were especially affiliated with American unions - Was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1957 until 1971 - From an early age, Hoffa was a union activist, and he became an important regional figure with the IBT by his mid-twenties - Known throughout the trucking industry as a tough and knowledgeable bargainer, Hoffa successfully centralized administration and bargaining in the international office of the union - He also played a key role in the creation of the first national freight-hauling agreement

Allen Ginsberg

- A leading member of the Beat movement whose writings featured existential mania for intense experience and frantic motion - Was an American poet and writer - As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation - The visionary poet and founding father of the Beat generation inspired the American counterculture of the second half of the 20th century with groundbreaking poems such as "Howl" and "Kaddish" - Among the avant-garde he was considered a spiritual and sexually liberated ambassador for tolerance and enlightenment

Development of Hydrogen bombs after WWII

- A little less than a year after the United States tested its first thermonuclear device with the Mike Shot on November 1, 1952, the Soviets tested their own thermonuclear bomb - On August 8, 1953, Soviet Premier Georgy Malenkov announced that the United States no longer had a monopoly on the hydrogen bomb - US detonated its first Hydrogen Bomb in 1952, the Soviets did the same in 1953

Martin Luther King Jr

- A martyr for justice, he had bled and died on the peculiarly American thorn of race - The killing of King cruelly robbed the American people of one of the most inspirational leaders in their history - at the time when they could least afford to lose him - This outrage triggered a nationwide outburst of violent ghetto-gutting riots, costing over forty lives - Assassinated in April of 1968, in Memphis - King's death triggered more rioting across the country - Rioters noisy made news, but thousands of other blacks quietly made history - Their voter registration in the South shot upward - By the late 1960s several hundred blacks held election office in the Old South - Cleveland, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana elected black mayors - By 1972 nearly half of southern black children sat in integrated classrooms (More schools in the South were integrated than the North) - About a third of black families had risen economically into the ranks of the middle class - through an equal proportion remained below the "poverty line"

Freedom Summer in Mississippi, 1964

- A massive voter-registration drive in Mississippi - Singing "We shall overcome '' they idealistically set out to sooth generations of white anxieties and black fears - The 24th amendment abolished poll tax in federal elections. - Blacks joined hands with white civil rights workers - many of them student volunteers from the North - Beginning in 1964, opening up the polling booths became the chief goal of the black movement in the South - zThe 24th Amendment, ratified in January 1964, abolished the poll tax in federal elections - Blacks joined hands with white civil rights workers - many of them students volunteers from the North - in a massive voter-registration drive in Mississippi - Was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi - Over 700 mostly white volunteers joined African Americans in Mississippi to fight against voter intimidation and discrimination at the polls

The Strategic Air Command

- A part of the US Air Force formed in the late 1940s, to engage in long-range bombing missions and to prepare for nuclear strikes - An airfleet of bombers armed with nuclear bombs - Developed in the mid 1950s by the Eisenhower administration and consisting of some 2,000 troops heavy bombers capable of delivering nuclear weapons on soviet targets - Was both a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force Major Command responsible for command and control of the strategic bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile components of the United States military's strategic nuclear forces from 1946 to 1992

Stagflation

- A period of slow economic growth and high unemployment (stagnation) while prices rise (inflation) - Americans in the 1970s struggled through a crisis of confidence in their leaders and institutions, as well as wrenching transformations in the nations economy and politics - The engines of postwar economic growth and broadly shared prosperity sputtered to a near-halt, giving way to a bewildering mixture of stagnation and inflation - Some of the major pillars of the postwar order began to crumble : Keynesian economic policies; an expanding welfare state; shared prosperity; and stable corporations matched by strong labor unions

"Silent Majority"

- A phrase used to describe people, whatever their economic status, who uphold traditional values, especially against the counterculture of the 1960s - Nixon launched a counteroffensive by appealing to a majority who presumably supported the war and rejected the counterculture - Though ostensibly conciliatory, Nixon's appeal was in fact deeply divisive - His intentions soon became clear when he unleashed tough-talking Vice President Agnew ti attack the "nattering nabobs of negativism" who demanded a quick withdrawal from Vietnam

Affirmative Action

- A policy designed to redress past discrimination against women and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities - Johnson struck another blow for women and minorities in 1965 when he issued an executive order requiring all federal contractors to take action against discrimination - Also known as positive discrimination, involves sets of policies and practices within a government or organization seeking to include particular groups based on their gender, race, sexuality, creed or nationality in areas in which such groups are underrepresented - such as education and employment

Détente

- A policy of reducing Cold War tensions that was adopted by the United States during the presidency of Richard Nixon - Is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication - The term, in diplomacy, originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsuccessfully to reduce tensions - Was a period in which Cold War tensions eased between the Soviet Union and the United States from the late 1960s to 1979 - Was characterized by warm personal relationships between US president Richard Nixon (1969-1974) and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982) - It produced some significant achievements during the Cold War - The willingness of both superpowers to communicate led to arms reduction summits, the signing of anti-nuclear proliferation agreements and a reduction in nuclear arms stockpiles

Redlining

- A process by which banks draw lines on a map and refuse to lend money to purchase or improve property within the boundaries - A discriminatory real estate practice in North America in which members of minority groups are prevented from obtaining money to purchase homes or property in predominantly white neighborhoods - The practice derived its name from the red lines depicted on cadastral maps used by real estate agents and developers. Today, redlining is officially illegal - Is a discriminatory practice in which services are withheld from potential customers who reside in neighborhoods classified as "hazardous" to investment; these neighborhoods have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities, and low-income residents - A discriminatory practice that consists of the systematic denial of services such as mortgages, insurance loans, and other financial services to residents of certain areas, based on their race or ethnicity

United States v. Wheeler, 1978

- In this case, the Court declared that Indian tribes had a "unique and limited" sovereignty, which could be regulated by Congress, but not by individual states - A series of victories in the courts consolidated the decade's gains - The Supreme Court declared that Indian tribes possessed a "unique and limited" sovereignty, subject to the will of Congress but no to individual states - Several tribes capitalized on their newly asserted sovereign rights to set up highly profitable casinos in many parts of the country, as codified in the Indian Gamin Regulatory Act of 1988

ICBMs

- Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles - They have the power to shoot a missile from one country to another - This makes it easier to attack a country without getting to close to them - An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a range greater than 5,500 kilometers, primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery - Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons can also be delivered with varying effectiveness, but have never been deployed on ICBMs

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) formed in 1957

- Is a civil rights organization founded in 1957, as an offshoot of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which successfully staged a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery Alabama's segregated bus system - With the goal of redeeming "the soul of America" through nonviolent resistance, the SCLC was established in 1957 to coordinate the action of local protest groups throughout the South (King, "Beyond Vietnam," 144) - The SCLC played a major part in the civil rights march on Washington, D.C., in 1963 and in notable anti-discrimination and voter-registration efforts in Albany, Georgia, and Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, in the early 1960s—campaigns that spurred passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act - Was established in 1957 after the Montgomery Bus Boycott - The association was founded by ministers and elected Dr. Martin Luther King Jr the first president - The associations two goals were to end segregation and encourage African American to register to vote

Gerald Ford

- Is selected by Nixon to become the new VP - Ford will later become the first "un-elected" President of the U.S. when he takes over for a resigning Richard Nixon in 1974 - Was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977 - He was the only president never to have been elected to the office of president or vice president as well as the only president to date from Michigan - He previously served as the leader of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives, and was appointed to be the 40th vice president in 1973 - When President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, Ford succeeded to the presidency, but was defeated for election to a full term in 1976

Six-Day War, 1967

- Israel responded to a blockade of the port of Elath on the Gulf of Aqaba by Egypt in June, 1967, by launching attacks on Egypt, and its allies, Jordan and Syria. Won certain territories for defense - Overcommitment in Southeast Asia also tied America's hands elsewhere - A beleaguered Israel stunned the world in June 1967 with a preemptive military strike against Egypt, Jordan and Syria - Israel expanded to control new territories in the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank of the Jordan River, including Jerusalem - The Israeli victory brought some 1 million resentful Palestinian Arabs under direct Israeli control, while another 350,00 Palestinian refugees fled to neighboring Jordan - The Israelis eventually signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and withdrew from the Sinai and, much later, from Gaza but they stubbornly held on to other conquered territory and began moving Jewish settlers into the heavily Arab district of the West Bank - Markedly intensified the problems of the already volatile Middle East, leading to an increasingly bitter standoff between the Israelis and Palestinians

Fair Deal Program of Truman

- A program by Truman in 1949 message to Congress - It called for many things, but the only major successes included raising the minimum wage, providing for public housing, and extending old-age insurance to many more beneficiaries through the Social Security Act - Significant because it allowed large shifts in the domestic economy that brought substantial improvements to many Americans' lives - Truman announced it in a speech on January 5, 1949 - His Fair Deal recommended that all Americans have health insurance, that the minimum wage (the lowest amount of money per hour that someone can be paid) be increased, and that, by law, all Americans be guaranteed equal rights - The four main points were the abolition of poll taxes, an anti-lynching law, a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission, and a farm aid program - The President requested action on initiatives such as an increase in the minimum wage, civil rights legislation, and national health care - Southern Democrats were angry with Truman and his stand in favor of Civil Rights, so they blocked his "Fair Deal" proposals and doomed most of Truman's proposals to Congress - There were some Democrats who chose not to vote for Truman because they felt he was too liberal and not conservative enough. These were mainly Southern Democrats. These Southern Democrats supported segregation and believed each state should have the right to determine its own policy on issues of race.

Watts Riots, 1965

- A race riot that took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 17, 1965 - The six-day unrest resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests, and over $40 million in property damage - It was the most severe riot in the city's history until the Los Angeles riots of 1992 - Just five days after President Johnson signed the voting law, a bloody riot erupted in Watts, a black ghetto in Los Angeles - Blacks enraged by police brutality burned and looted their own neighborhoods for nearly a week - When the smoke finally cleared over the Los Angeles basin, thirty-one blacks and three whites law dead, more than a thousand people had been injured, and hundreds of buildings stood charred and gutted - The Watts explosion heralded a new phase of the black struggle - increasingly marked by militant confrontation, led by radical and sometimes violent spokesperson, and aimed not at interracial cooperation but at black separatism

SALT II

- Additional arms limitations signings in 1979 which places limits on long-range missiles, bombers and nuclear warheads - Signed after a meeting between President Carter and the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev - Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II - Limited the level of lethal strategic weapons in the Soviet and American arsenals - But conservative critics of the president's defense policies, still regarding the Soviet Union as the Wicked Witch of the West, unsheathed their long knives to carve up the treaty when it came to the Senate for debate in the summer of 1979 - Political earthquakes in the petroleum-rich Persian Gulf region finally buried all hopes of ratifying the treaty

Truman fired MacArthur in 1951

- After MacArthur began to publicly criticize President Truman, and after several warnings - On 11 April 1951, U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieved General of the Army Douglas MacArthur of his commands after MacArthur made public statements that contradicted the administration's policies - Truman felt that his decision was just because MacArthur had overstepped his authority, defied direct orders from his superior and interfered with Truman's hope of ending the Korean War quickly - The firing of MacArthur set off a brief uproar among the American public, but Truman remained committed to keeping the conflict in Korea a "limited war" - MacArthur refused to pull his forces out of the Korean War after China threatened war and Truman ordered a retreat - Truman wanted to avoid a major land battle in Asia with American troops and he also wanted to avoid starting WWIII

Tonkin Gulf Resolution, 1964

- After President Johnson claimed North Vietnamese forces attacked U.S. boats in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, the U.S. Congress voted to give the president a "blank check" to do whatever was necessary to stop communism in South Vietnam - Johnson cultivated the contrasting image of a resolute statesman by seizing upon the Tonkin Gulf episode early in August, 1964 - Unbeknownst to the public or Congress,U.S. Navy ships had been cooperating with South Vietnamese gunboats in provocative raids along the coast of North Vietnam - Two of these American destroyers were allegedly fired upon by the North Vietnamese on August 2 and 4, although the facts remained murky - With only two dissenting votes in both chambers, lawmakers virtually abdicated their war-declaring powers and handed the president a blank check to use forth force in Southeast Asia - Marked a major turning point in the Cold War struggle for Southeast Asia - Passage of the resolution gave President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to expand the scope of U.S. involvement in Vietnam without a declaration of war - This joint resolution of Congress (H.J. RES 1145), dated August 7, 1964, gave President Lyndon Johnson authority to increase U.S. involvement in the war between North and South Vietnam

Truman desegregates the Armed Forces in 1948

- After Randolph threatened protests against segregation in the military, Truman issued order for desegregation of the armed forces - On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, creating the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services - The order mandated the desegregation of the U.S. military - On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed this executive order establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, committing the government to integrating the segregated military - Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948, calling for the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces, he repudiated 170 years of officially sanctioned discrimination

Republicans win back the Congress in 1946

- After attacking Harry Truman and his "High-tax Harry" reputation, the republicans gained control of Congress in the congressional elections of 1946 - Significant because although the republicans won back congress and nominated Thomas Dewey for president in 1948 Truman still won - The 1946 election resulted in Republicans picking up 55 seats to win majority control - Joseph Martin, Republican of Massachusetts, became Speaker of the House, exchanging places with Sam Rayburn, Democrat of Texas, who became the new Minority Leader - The GOP gained 55 seats for a 246 to 188 advantage (with an additional third-party Member)

Spiro T. Agnew

- Agnew was Nixon's vice-president but ultimately resigned due to financial charges - He helped Nixon gain votes from his moderate, immigrant, and Democratic state background - Was the 39th vice president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1973 - He is the second vice president to resign the position, the other being John C. Calhoun in 1832 - Agnew was born in Baltimore to a Greek immigrant father and an American mother - Maryland's governor who was noted for his tough strands against dissidents and black militants, as his vice-presidential running mate

George Wallace of Alabama

- Also jumps into the race as a segregation promoting Independent - In 1963 he had stood in the doorway to prevent two black students from entering the University of Alabama - He called for prodding the blacks into their place, with bayonets if necessary - He and his running mate, former Air Force general Curtis LeMay, also proposed smashing the North Vietnamese to smithereens by "bombing them back to the Stone Age" - Was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms - A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and populist views - During his tenure, he promoted "industrial development, low taxes, and trade schools" - Has amassed the largest third-party popular vote in American history to that point and was the last third-party candidate to win any electoral votes - His candidacy foreshadowed a coarsening of American political life that would take deep root in the ensuing decades

This war shook America's image of itself and its ideals

- America had lost more than a war, it had lost face in the eyes of foreigners, lost its own self-esteem, lost confidence in its political leadership and its military prowess, and lost much of the economic muscle that had made possible its global preeminence since World War II - Americans reluctantly came to realize that their power as well as their pride had been deeply wounded in Vietnam and that recovery would be slow and painful

America's economy stalls significantly in the 1970s

- America's economy had previously soared to new heights in the 1950s and 1960s - This setback was a shock to Americans who had become accustomed to economic prosperity - The entire decade of the 1970s did not witness a productivity advance equivalent to even one year's progress in the preceding two decades - At the new rate, it would take five hundred more years to bring about another doubling of the average worker's standard of living - The median income of the average American family stagnated in the decades after 1970 and failed to decline only because of the addition of working wives' wages to family incomes - As the postwar wave of robust economic growth crested in the early 1970s, the "can-do" American spirit gave way to an unaccustomed sense of limits - Prices increased astonishingly throughout the 1970s - The cost of living tripled in the dozen years after Richard Nixon's inflationary cycle in American history

Soviets detonate their own atomic bomb in 1949

- America's first atomic bomb detonation had been in July of 1945 - At a remote test site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, the USSR successfully detonates its first atomic bomb, code name "First Lightning" - In order to measure the effects of the blast, the Soviet scientists constructed buildings, bridges, and other civilian structures in the vicinity of the bomb and they also placed animals in cages nearby so that they could test the effects of nuclear radiation on human-like mammals - The atomic explosion, which at 20 kilotons was roughly equal to "Trinity," the first U.S. atomic explosion, destroyed those structures and incinerated the animals - A U.S. spy plane flying off the coast of Siberia picked up the first evidence of radioactivity from the explosion and later that month, President Harry S. Truman announced to the American people that the Soviets too had the bomb - Three months later, Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist who had helped the United States build its first atomic bombs, was arrested for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets

OPEC oil embargo against US and others supporting Israel in 1973

- America's policy of backing Israel against its oil-rich neighbors exacted a heavy penalty - Late in October 1973, the OPEC nations announced an embargo on oil shipments to the United States and several European allies supporting Israel - What was more, the oil-rich Arab states cut their oil production, further ratcheting up pressure on the entire West, whose citizens suffered a long winter of lowered thermostats and speedometers - Lines at gas stations grew longer as tempers grew shorter - The shortage triggered a major economic recession not just in America but also in France and Britain - Although the latter two countries had not supported Israel and had thus been exempt from the embargo, in an increasingly globalized, interconnected world, all nations soon felt the crunch of the "energy crisis"

Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957

- American writer, who was the first to use the term, Beat Generation - His best-known book was On The Road, a largely autobiographical account of the Beat experience in America, which described the hitchhiking adventures of several characters who embraced drugs, sex, and music - On The Road became a handbook for the Beatnik generation - Based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States - It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonists living life against a backdrop of jazz, poetry, and drug use - There is frequent talk of stealing gas and cars to get around, wandering the streets for vacant bars to occupy until morning, shameful amounts of alcohol and drug consumption (the effects of which are more than evident in Dean's almost hysterical nature by the end of the story), and other lewd behavior

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse Five, 1969

- An American author who wrote the novel "The Slaughterhouse Five", a dark comedic war story told in prose - Their significance is showing the changing tides of American authors away from realistic war stories and towards a much more comedic style - Or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut - Is the semi-autobiographical account of the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany by the British and American air forces in the February of 1945 - The destruction of this non-military city so late in the war is still very controversial, and that controversy is central to Vonnegut's book - The most significant theme in this novel concerns the dichotomy of predestination and free will - Over and over again, Vonnegut proclaims that there is no such thing as free will - Humankind is the slave of predestination, meaning that all human actions are prescribed before they occur

Andy Warhol

- An American commercial illustrator and artist famous for his Campbell's soup painting - He was the founder of the pop-art movement, which like all other art movements in history reflected something back on the present society - Was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art

Consumer Product Safety Commission created in 1972

- An agency created to hold companies to account for selling customers dangerous products - The CPSC was created as an inspection protocol for big companies to hold them accountable for their actions - Along with the OSHA, these "mega-agencies" helped the government gain more power/control over business operations - Followed two years after OSHA, holding companies to account for selling dangerous products

LBJ declared a "War on Poverty"

- An anti-poverty campaign was declared because LBJ believed the depth and extent of poverty in the country to be a national disgrace that merited a national response - His actions worked to reduce the 20% of Americans that lived in poverty to a smaller percentage - Johnson rammed Kennedy's stalled tax bill through Congress and added proposals of his own - The initial political impetus for the antipoverty campaign had come from journalist Michael Harrington's surprise best seller The Other America (1962(, which revealed that even in affluent America 20 percent of the population - and over 40 percent of the black population - suffered in poverty - Prior to his death, Kennedy had contemplated developing an antipoverty initiative - Composed one element of a far-reaching reform program that he dubbed the Great Society

Silent Spring written by Rachel Carson in 1962

- An environmental book written by environmentalist Rachel Carson - Brought even more attention to the environment-friendly movement - This book increased the number of environmentalists and contributed to the creation of Earth Day - Scientist and author Rachel Carson gave the environmental movement a huge boost in 1962 when she published this novel, an enormously effective piece of latter-day muckraking that exposed the poisonous effects of pesticides

"pink-collar ghetto"

- An informal range of jobs that were traditionally held by women that often involved caring for or serving others - The term was adopted because those jobs didn't fit into blue- or white-collar jobs associated with physical labor or office settings - New clerical and service jobs for women - Occupations that came to be dominated by women, like clerical and service work - Where women are concentrated in jobs that are typically low-paying and low prestige and offer limited opportunities for advancement

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

- An international organization that has joined together for military purposes - Created in 1949 by the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of collective security - Also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states - 28 European and two North American - Its purpose was to secure peace in Europe, to promote cooperation among its members and to guard their freedom - all of this in the context of countering the threat posed at the time by the Soviet Union - The Alliance's founding treaty was signed in Washington in 1949 by a dozen European and North American countries

Violence in the street of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention in August of 1968

- Angry antiwar zealots, deprived by an assassin's bullet of one of their candidates, streamed menacingly into Chicago for the Democratic convention in August 1968 - Mayor Richard Daley responded by arranging for barbed-wire barricades around the convention hall ("Fort Daley"), as well as thousands of police and National Guard reinforcements - Some militant demonstrators baited the officers in blue by calling them "pigs," chanting "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh," shouting obscenities, and hurling bags and cans of excrement at the police lines - As people the world over watched on television, the exasperated peace officers broke into what was later described as a "police riot," clubbing and manhandling innocent and guilty alike

Senator Eugene McCarthy

- Announces a run for President by opposing the Vietnam War - President Johnson was being sharply challenged from within his own party - A little-known Democratic senator from Minnesota had emerged as a contender for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination - A sometime poet and devout Catholic, gathered a small army of antiwar college students as campaign workers

Taft-Hartley Act, 1947

- Anti-union law passed by increasingly conservative Congress over Truman's veto - Prohibited the closed shop (union only), permitted states to ban union-shop agreements (to become anti-union "right to work" states), forbade union contributions to candidates in federal elections, forced union leaders to swear in affidavits that they were not communists, and mandated an 80 day cooling off period before carrying out strikes - This enraged labor, who called it a "slave labor" law - Helped contribute to massive decline in unions - Was amended to protect employees' rights from these unfair practices by unions - The amendments protected employees' Section 7 rights from restraint or coercion by unions, and said that unions could not cause an employer to discriminate against an employee for exercising Section 7 rights

Earl Warren

- Appointed by Eisenhower as the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953 - Eisenhower viewed Warren as a fellow moderate Republican and nominated him on the basis of affiliation with national politics - Warren was sworn in as the 14th Chief Justice on October 4, 1953 - Appointed the fourteenth Chief Justice of the United States - Among the Warren Court's most important decisions was the ruling that made racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional - Was an American attorney, politician, and jurist who served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969 - The Warren Court was, of course, criticized for "activism" - for declaring laws unconstitutional

Louis Kahn

- Architecture is the reaching out for the truth - Was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia - After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935 - Was a highly important modern architect in the post-World War II United States - Based in Philadelphia and known for his monumental and brutalist style while highlighting the materials involved in a building's construction, he rightfully deserves a place among the 20th century's most important architects - Was resolute in his philosophy that architecture is the thoughtful making of spaces whose design can and should simultaneously reveal the story of their construction and meet the aesthetic and functional needs of the people who inhabit them

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

- Arrested in the Summer of 1950 and executed in 1953, they were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage by passing plans for the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union - American couple executed for passing atomic secrets to Soviet agents - Communists who received international attention when they were executed having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage in relation to passing information on the American atomic bomb to the Soviet Union -The two young sons of convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg take part in a giant demonstration in front of the White House asking presidential clemency for their parents, but as they reconstructed the evidence on their parents, they came to the agonizing conclusion that their father wasn't innocent after all - Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union - The couple were convicted of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs

A second oil crisis emerges as Iran withholds its oil supplies from the US

- As Iranian oil stopped flowing into the stream of world commerce, shortages appeared, and OPEC again seized the opportunity to hike petroleum prices - Americans once more found themselves waiting impatiently in long lines at gas stations or buying gasoline only on specific days - As this second oil crisis deepened, President Carter sensed the rising temperature of popular discontent - In July 1979 he retreated to the presidential mountain hideaway Camp David, where he remained largely out of public view for ten days

John Foster Dulles

- As Secretary of State, he viewed the struggle against Communism as a classic conflict between good and evil - Believed in containment and the Eisenhower doctrine - Eisenhower's tough-talking secretary of state who wanted to "roll back" communism - United States diplomat who (as Secretary of State) pursued a policy of opposition to the USSR by providing aid to American allies (1888-1959) - Was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician - He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly a Republican U.S. Senator for New York in 1949 - He was the architect of many major elements of U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War with the Soviet Union after World War II

Senator Robert F. Kennedy

- Attorney General under his brother, JFK, he was assassinated in June 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic party nomination - Announced his candidacy for President in 1968 - Shortly after winning the California primary around midnight on June 5, 1968, Kennedy was mortally wounded when shot with a pistol by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, allegedly in retaliation for his support of Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. Kennedy died 25 hours later - Senator from New York - Heir to his murdered brother's mantle of leadership, stirring a passionate response among workers, African Americans, Latinos, and young people

Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet of Chile

- Augusto Pinochet was the dictator of Chile from 1973 to 1990 - Salvador was trying to create democracy in Chile, but when Augusto took over, the country was led by the harsh dictator - Nixon strongly opposed the election of the outspoken Marxist Salvador Allende to the presidency of Chile in 1970 - His administration slapped an embargo on the Allende regime, and the Central Intelligence Agency worked covertly to undermine the legitimately elected leftist president - When Allende died during a Chilean army attack on his headquarters in 1973, many observers smelled a Yankee rat - an impression that deepened when Washington warmly embraced Allende's successor, military dictator General Augusto Pinochet

Korean War (1950-1953)

- Began as a civil war between North and South Korea (which had been established by the USSR and US respectively), but the conflict soon became international when, under U.S. leadership, the United Nations joined to support South Korea and China entered to aid North Korea - The war left Korea divided along the 38th parallel - The Korean War was an example of the U.S. Cold War policies of containment and militarization, setting the stage for the further enlargement of the U.S. defense perimeter in Asia (Vietnam) - Was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953 - The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea - On June 27, President Truman announced to the nation and the world that America would intervene in the Korean conflict in order to prevent the conquest of an independent nation by communism - As Kim Il-sung's North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea's aid

Antifeminists

- Believed that the women's movement has caused the collapse of the natural order, one that guaranteed male dominance, and they work to reverse this trend - Led by conservative activist Phyllis Scholarly, argued that the ERA would remove traditional protections that women enjoyed by forcing the law to see them as men's equals - They further believed the the amendment would threaten the basic family structure of American society - Scholarly charged that the ERA's advocates were just "bitter women seeking a constitutional cure for their personal problems"

IBM Corporation

- Best known for producing and selling computer hardware and software, as well as cloud computing and data analytics - The company has also served as a major research and development corporation over the years, with significant inventions like the floppy disk, the hard disk drive, and the UPC barcode - The International Business Machines Corporation, nicknamed Big Blue, is an American multinational technology corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 175 countries - In 1952, the company introduced the IBM 701, its first large computer based on the vacuum tube. The tubes were quicker, smaller and more easily replaced than the electromechanical switches in the Mark I - In the 1960's and 1970's was driven by the vision of CEO Thomas Watson Jr. as evidenced by IBM's $5 billion development investment into the System/360, "the biggest privately financed commercial project ever"

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam

- Black Muslim worked to raise black spirits and pride (cf. Marcus Garvey) - Emphasized black institutions rather than mere desegregation, blacks to gain freedom at any cost - He was at first inspired by the militant black nationalists in the Nation of Islam - Like the Nation's founder, Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm changed his surname to reclaim his lost African Identity in white America - A brilliant and charismatic preacher - Trumpeted black separatism and inveighed against the "blue-eyed white devils" - Eventually he distanced himself from Elijah Muhammed's separatist diatribes and moved toward mainstream Islam - In early 1965 he was cut down by rival Nation of Islam gunmen while speaking to a large crowd in New York City

The Middle Class doubled

- By the 1950s, thanks to rising income and economic growth, 60% of Americans were in the middle class - At the time, the economy was booming and consumerism gave Americans a life of prosperity and leisure - Americans were able to purchase products only the wealthy could afford - Consumerism de-emphasized class difference and this created the middle class and the beginning of consumerism

"Tract" housing developments

- Came about in the 1940s when the demand for cheap housing skyrocketed - Economies of scale meant that large numbers of identical houses could be built faster and more cheaply to fulfill the growing demand - Was popularized in the United States when the building firm Levitt and Sonsbuilt four planned communities called "Levittowns" - These homebuilders buy large tracts of land and build subdivisions that generally offer a choice of three floorplans - While the buyer has little say over the home design other than the basic floor plan, tract homes are often less expensive (per square foot) than spec or custom builds and have a set, quick(er) timeline - They are built the most efficient way possible and made in bulk

The Senate approved a Panama Canal Treaty in 1978

- Carter pushed through two treaties to turn over the Panama Canal to the Panamanians, though at considerable political cost at home - Conservatives launched a massive campaign against the Panama Canal treaties, with Ronald Reagan stridently declaring, "We bought it, we paid for it, we built it, and we intend to keep it!" - Twenty senators who voted for the treaties lost their seats in 1978 and 1980 - For all of the sound and the fury, however, the treaties passed and the United States gave up control of the canal on December 31, 1999

Senator William Fulbright

- Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee - He turned against the war and helped influence widespread opposition to Johnson's policies - Held a series of televised hearings in 1966 and 1967 in which he convinced the public that it had been deceived about the causes and "winnability" of the war - Was an American politician, academic, and statesman who represented Arkansas in the United States Senate from 1945 until his resignation in 1974 - He is best known for his strong multilateralist positions on international issues, opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War, and the creation of the international fellowship program bearing his name, the Fulbright Program. Sumner, Missouri, U.S. Washington, D.C., U.S.

I.M. Pei

- Chinese-born American architect, known as the last master of high modernist architecture - Was a Chinese-American architect - Raised in Shanghai, he drew inspiration at an early age from the garden villas at Suzhou, the traditional retreat of the scholar-gentry to which his family belonged - Noted for his large, elegantly designed urban buildings and complexes

Freedom Riders, 1961

- Civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern U.S. in 1961 - They wanted to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation in seating and bus terminals and the non-enforcement of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions, which ruled segregated public buses unconstitutional - The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did not enforce them - Helped push Kennedy towards supporting civil rights - Were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court - During the spring of 1961, student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals - Through their defiance, they attracted the attention of the Kennedy Administration and as a direct result of their work, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) issued regulations banning segregation in interstate travel that fall

LBJ died in 1973

- Clearly, Vietnam destroyed LBJ's Presidency and overshadowed anything he might have accomplished with his Great Society - He returned to his Texas ranch in January 1969 and died there four years later - His party was defeated, yet his legislative leadership for a time had been remarkable - No president since Lincoln had worked harder or done more for civil rights and none had shown more compassion for the poor, blacks, and the ill-educated

Pol Pot of Cambodia

- Communist leader of Cambodia who order the genocide of anyone he thought opposed to his rule in Cambodia from 1975-1979 - 25% of Cambodia's population was killed - A murderous tyrant who dispatched as many as 2 million of his people to their graves - He was forced from power, ironically enough, only by the Vietnamese army's invasion in 1978

All Volunteer Military put in place after the wartime draft is removed

- Congress greatly reduced anxieties among draft-age youth and their families when it ended conscription in January 1973 - The nation then transitioned from its traditional reliance on an inclusive citizens' army to the highly selective AVF - AVF : All-Volunteer Force which was smaller, better disciplined, less expensive, and eventually far more technologically enhanced than the conscript force that had been in place since WWII - Also proved to be much easier to empty as an instrument of foreign policy, as the rate of overseas military deployments rose dramatically in the decades to come

Army-McCarthy Hearings, 1954

- Congressional hearings called by Senator Joseph McCarthy's to accuse members of the army of communist ties - In this widely televised spectacle, McCarthy finally went too far for public approval - The hearings exposed the Senator's extremism and led to his eventual disgrace - Were a series of televised hearings held by the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations (April-June 1954) to investigate conflicting accusations between the United States Army and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy - The hearings were held for the purpose of investigating conflicting accusations between the United States Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy - The Army accused chief committee counsel Roy Cohn of pressuring the Army to give preferential treatment to G. David Schine, a former McCarthy aide and a friend of Cohn's

The New Right

- Conservative political movements in industrialized democracies that have arisen since the 1960's and stress "traditional values," often with a racist undertone - A term for various right-wing political groups or policies in different countries during different periods - One prominent usage was to describe the emergence of certain Eastern European parties after the collapse of the Soviet Union - Regan's pursuit of the GOP nomination was propelled by a swelling conservative movement - His campaign also highlighted a major change in the American political system when it made shrewd use of the proliferating primary elections that delegate selection reforms had recently prompted - Mainly veterans of Barry Goldwater's failed 1964 presidential campaign - They spent the 1970s building an interlocking network of advocacy groups, political action committees, and think tanks - Emphasized hot-button cultural issues - from the ERA and abortion to busing and school curricula - as well as a nationalist foreign-policy outlook that rejected detente and international treaties

Frank Lloyd Wright

- Considered America's greatest architect - Pioneered the concept that a building should blend into and harmonize with its surroundings rather than following classical designs - Was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator - He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years - Was a great originator and a highly productive architect - He designed some 800 buildings, of which 380 were actually built - UNESCO designated eight of them—including Fallingwater, the Guggenheim Museum, and Unity Temple—as World Heritage sites in 2019

Suez Crisis in 1956 and Gamal Nasser of Egypt

- Consisted of the issue of lack of funding to build a dam from the Nile - Egypt was in desperate need of irrigation and power - As an act of support, The US and Britain offered large sums to help build the dam - However after they started siding with communist sources, Oil was turned into a way to create war and issues so Eisenhower ruled to let them deal with the effects - Began on October 29, 1956, when Israeli armed forces pushed into Egypt toward the Suez Canal, a valuable waterway that controlled two-thirds of the oil used by Europe - In July of that year, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal - The Egyptian Government seized control of the Suez Canal from the British and French owned company that managed it, had important consequences for U.S. relations with both Middle Eastern countries and European allies

Birth Control Pill, 1960

- Contraceptive used to lower unplanned pregnancy rates during the 1960s, when sexual activity was no longer "hidden" - First time birth control was readily accessible - The 1960s witnessed a sexual revolution, though its novelty and scale are often exaggerated - Made unwanted pregnancies much easier to avoid and sexual appetites easier to satisfy - The Mattachine Society, founded in Los Angeles in 1951, was a pioneering advocate for gay rights, as gay men and lesbians increasingly demanded sexual tolerance

The IMF, the World Bank, and GATT

- Created in 1944 to help restore and sustain the benefits of global integration, by promoting international economic cooperation - Their purpose was to agree on a system of economic order and international cooperation that would help countries recover from the devastation of the war and foster long-term global growth - In July 1945, Congress passed the Bretton Woods Agreements Act, authorizing U.S. entry into the IMF and World Bank, and the two organizations officially came into existence five months later - The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are institutions in the United Nations system and they share the same goal of raising living standards in their member countries - The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was established in 1948 to regulate world trade, it was created to boost economic recovery after the Second World War by reducing or eliminating trade tariffs, quotas and subsidies

25th Amendment

- Deals with Presidential Succession - It is applied for the first time to fill the vacancy created by Agnew's resignation from the VP position - The first use of the 25th Amendment occurred in 1973 when President Richard Nixon nominated Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to fill the vacancy left by Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation - Proposed by Congress and ratified by the states in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the amendment provides the procedures for replacing the president or vice president in the event of death, removal, resignation, or incapacitation

Brown vs. the Board of Topeka, Kansas, 1954

- Decided unanimously that segregation is inherently unequal Segregation must be reversed, as the "separate, but equal" decision of Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned - Was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality - On May 17, 1954, the Court declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, effectively overturning the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision mandating "separate but equal" - The Brown ruling directly affected legally segregated schools in twenty-one states - In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional - It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States, overruling the "separate but equal" principle set forth in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case

The Feminine Mystique, 1963, by Betty Friedan

- Described the plight of the suburban housewife during the 1950s, by 1960 Friedan would be the forefront of a movement to change the social and political status of women in American society - A best seller and a classic of feminist protest literature It launched the modern women's movement - It gave focus and fuel to women's feelings of wanting to be both a worker and homemaker - Widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States - First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, became a bestseller, initially selling over a million copies - Gave voice to millions of American women's frustrations with their limited gender roles and helped spark widespread public activism for gender equality

38th parallel

- Dividing line between North and South Korea - Line of latitude that separated North and South Korea - Soviet Union occupied the north and United States occupied the south, during the Cold War - Is a circle of latitude that is 38 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane - It crosses Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean - Formed the border between North and South Korea prior to the Korean War - Eventually, an armistice signed in July 1953 brought the Korean War to an end - In total, about five million people died in the Korean War, including many civilians - The cease-fire line roughly followed the 38th parallel with only minor changes, and the country remains divided along that line still today

MacArthur and his role in Japan after WWII

- Douglas MacArthur sat at the driver seat of the complicated Japanese reconstruction after WWII - MacArthur dictated a constitution for the Japanese that they adopted in 1946 - As the Supreme Commander, MacArthur had absolute authority over all Japanese, even the government and the Emperor - He effectively used his power not only to disarm the Imperial Army and punish the war criminals but also to help the Japanese to recover from the aftermath of the war—poverty, starvation and despair - Effectively if autocratically directed the demobilization of Japanese military forces, the expurgation of militarists, the restoration of the economy, and the drafting of a liberal constitution

The Nixon Doctrine

- During the Vietnam War, this doctrine was created - It stated that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments, but in the future other countries would have to fight their own wars without support of American troops - It proclaimed that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but that in the future, allies would have to fight their own wars without the support of large bodies of American ground troops

Equal Rights Amendment

- ERA - It declared, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." - Constitutional amendment passed by Congress but never ratified that would have banned discrimination on the basis of gender

Presidential Election of 1952

- Eisenhower vs Adlai Stevenson - Truman didn't run again - Democrat Adlai Stevenson of Illinois vs. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower (aka Ike) - Republicans raised the specter of the rise of communism in China and Eastern Europe, and criticized the growing power of the federal government and alleged bribery and corruption among Truman - Adlai E. Stevenson vs Dwight D. Eisenhower - Eisenhower's campaign was rub mostly by a vicious Nixon - Landslide victory for Eisenhower, of course - Republican control of congress and presidency - Was the 42nd quadrennial presidential election and was held on Tuesday, November 4, 1952. Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower won a landslide victory over Democrat Adlai Stevenson II, which ended 20 years of Democratic rule that stretched back to 1932 - A Democrat from Missouri, he ran for and won a full four-year term in the 1948 election - Although exempted from the newly ratified Twenty-second Amendment, Truman did not run again in the 1952 election because of his low popularity - He was succeeded by Republican Dwight Eisenhower

Presidential Election of 1956

- Eisenhower vs Adlai Stevenson, again - Democratic nominee was Adlai Stevenson, while the Republican nominee was Dwight D. Eisenhower - Louisiana voted Republican for the first time since 1876 - Landslide victory for Eisenhower, who won the presidency but lost both congressional houses - In the presidential election, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Democratic former Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois in a re-match of the 1952 election - Eisenhower won the popular vote by fifteen points and once again won every state outside the South

A "New Look" in Foreign Policy

- Eisenhower's plan as president of cutting back on army and navy and relying more heavily on air force and its nuclear striking power; defense budgets did drop below $40 billion a year as a result of this policy - US would build up Strategic Air Command because of fear of the effects of the Domino Theory - Eisenhower FP that 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 - The main elements of the New Look were: (1) maintaining the vitality of the U.S. economy while still building sufficient strength to prosecute the Cold War (2) relying on nuclear weapons to deter Communist aggression or, if necessary, to fight a war (3) using the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out secret or covert actions against governments or leaders "directly or indirectly responsive to Soviet control" (4) strengthening allies and winning the friendship of nonaligned governments

14-year-old Emmitt Till killed in 1955

- Emmitt Till was lynched and killed for "allegedly leering at a white woman" - His body was left bloated and floating in the Tallahatchie River and many saw this as a symbol for the insane racism in America - His murderers were acquitted by an all white jury but his coffin is an exhibit at the National Museum for African American History - Brought nationwide attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in Mississippi - An African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier

The Warren Commission empaneled to investigate the Kennedy assassination

- Empaneled to investigate the Kennedy assassination - The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson through Executive Order 11130 on November 29th 1963 to investigate the assassination of US President John F Kennedy - Concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to kill Kennedy and that there was no larger conspiracy

Nixon's Triangular Diplomacy with China and Russia

- Even as the war in Vietnam ground on, Nixon pursued a dramatic Cold War diplomatic initiative in Beijing and Moscow - The two great communist powers, the Soviet Union and China, were dueling over their rival interpretations of Marxism - In 1969 they had even fought several bloody skirmishes along the inner border that separated them in Asia - Nixon astutely perceived the the Chinese-Soviet tension afforded the United States an opportunity to play off one antagonist against the other, in the process gaining new flexibility and leverage on the world stage and, potentially, even the aid of both powers in pressuring North Vietnam into peace - Nixon secures a new era of Détente with China and Russia

The US backed Shah of Iran was overthrown in January of 1979

- Events in Iran jolted Americans out of their complacency about energy supplies in 1979 - The imperious Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, installed as shah of Iran with help from America's CIA in 1953, had long ruled his oil-rich land with a will of steel - His repressive regime was finally overthrown in January 1979 - Violent revolution was spearheaded in Iran by Shia Muslim fundamentalists who fiercely resented the shah's campaign to westernize and secularize his country - Denouncing the United States as the "Great Satan" that had abetted the shah's efforts, these extremists engulfed Iran in chaos in the wake of his departure - The Shah was replaced with a hardline religious government that hated the US for its interference in Iran by backing the Shah from 1953-1979

"Entitlements"

- Federal programs that confer rights on certain groups of Americans and no longer need additional approvals from the Congress - They conferred rights on certain categories of Americans in perpetuity, without the need for repeated congressional approval - These programs were part of a spreading "rights revolution" that materially improved the lives of millions of Americans - but also eventually helped to undermine the federal government's financial health

Vladimir Lenin (1917-1924)

- First leader of the Soviet Union - Encouraged a socialist economy and brought about economic growth

Sputnik, 1957

- First man-made satellite put into orbit by the USSR - This caused fear in the US that the Soviets had passed them by in science & technology and the arms race - Democrats scorched the Republican administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower for allowing the United States to fall so far behind the communists - Eisenhower responded by speeding up the U.S. space program (NASA), which resulted in the launching of the satellite Explorer I on January 31, 1958 - The "space race" had begun - In 1969, the US would land men on the moon, a major victory - The first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite - It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957

National Security Council and the CIA

- Foreign policy agencies - The CIA's role is to advise the NSC on intelligence-related matters and they evaluate and advise their members about the intelligence activities of other government agencies - The leader of the CIA is a Senate-approved Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) - The Central Intelligence Agency is charged by the National Security Council with conducting espionage and counter-espionage operations abroad - The NSC was established in 1947 to integrate U.S. foreign and defense policy - By law, the Council is the United States government's most exalted official committee, composed of just four members: the president, vice president, secretary of state, and secretary of defense

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

- Formed in 1960 - A permanent, intergovernmental Organization, created at the Baghdad Conference on September 10-14, 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela - Multinational organization that was established to coordinate the petroleum policies of its members and to provide member states with technical and economic aid - Was founded in Baghdad, Iraq, with the signing of an agreement in September 1960 by five countries namely Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela

NASA, 1958

- Formed to create satellites and missiles to compete with the USSR after Sputnik - Agency created for the purpose of space exploration, using the first American astronauts - Launched manned vehicles (Alan Shepard, John Glenn) into space to orbit the earth (Glenn = 1st American to do it) - On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) - To provide for research into problems of flight within and outside the earth's atmosphere, and for other purposes

The move of Americans to the "Sunbelt"

- From approximately 1945 through 1975, an average of 30 million individuals every year decided to change their residences, usually moving to one of the Sunbelt states - During this time, the Sunbelt states nearly doubled their population in contrast to the industrial northeast, which was shrinking in population - Beginning in the 1950s, the region saw a boom in population as citizens were attracted to new economic opportunities tied to military bases and industrial, agricultural, and commercial development throughout the region - Attracted domestic and international businesses for many reasons, including lower energy costs and nonunion wages, state policies favorable to business, and, in the West, proximity to the increasingly important Pacific Rim nations - The South's share of the national population has increased from 24% to about 50% since 1950 - At the end of World War II, the South was the nation's poorest region, with per capita income barely one-half of the national average - Large in-migration, along with a high birth rate and a decline in out-migration, all contributed to rapid growth of both the Sun Belt's population and manufacturing activities

"White Flight"

- From the cities to the suburbs - Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States - They referred to the large-scale migration of people of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions - Is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse - In the 1950s, millions middle class white Americans left the cities for the suburbs - At the same time millions of African American rural poor migrated to the cities - Drained cities of valuable resources, money, and taxes - The movement to the suburbs by middle-class households from the majority white population supposedly in reaction to the growing demands and presence of racial and ethnic minorities in city centres, and the related fears about crime and schooling

Yom Kippur War of 1973

- Frustrated by their losses in the Six-Days War, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur on October 6, 1973 - Israel counterattacked, won a decisive victory, and had even occupied portions of northern Egypt - The long-rumbling Middle East erupted anew in October 1973, when the rearmed Syrians and Egyptians unleashed surprise attacks on Israel in an attempt to regain the territory they had lost in the Six-Day War of 1967 - When the Israelis in desperate retreat, Kissinger, who had become Secretary of State in September, hastily flew to Moscow to restrain the Soviets, who were arming the attackers - Believing that the Kremlin was poised to fly combat troops to the Suez area, Nixon placed America's nuclear forces on alert and ordered a gigantic airlift of nearly $2 billion in war materials to the Israelis - This assistance helped save the day, as the Israelis aggressively turned the tide and threatened Cairo itself before American diplomacy brought about an uneasy cease-fire to this war

War Powers Act of 1973

- Gave any president the power to go to war under certain circumstances, but required that he could only do so for 90 days before being required to officially bring the matter before Congress - Passed over Nixon's veto, it required the president to report to Congress within fort-eight hours after committing troops to a foreign conflict or "substantially" enlarging American combat units in a foreign country - Such a limited authorization would have to end within sixty days unless Congress extended it for thirty more days - Was one manifestation of what came to be called the "New Isolationism," a mood of caution and restraint in the conduct of the nation's foreign affairs after the bloody and futile misadventure in Vietnam

Presidential Election of 1976

- Gerald Ford vs Jimmy Carter - Carter ran and won on being a Washington D.C. outsider, but this also made it hard for him to get things done with the Washington D.C. insiders who in many ways, run that city - James Earl ("Jimmy") Carter, Jr., a dark horse candidate who galloped out of obscurity during the long primary-election season. A peanut farmer and former Georgia governor who insisted on the humble "Jimmy" as his first name, this born-again Baptist touched many people with his down-home sincerity - Especially important were the votes of African Americans, 97% of whom cast their ballots for Carter - Ford actually beat Carter among white southerners

Checkers Speech

- Given by Richard Nixon on September 23, 1952, when he was the Republican candidate for the Vice Presidency - Said to have saved his career from a campaign contributions scandal - Speech by Nixon that defended himself about using campaign money for personal reasons - A speech made by vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1952 after he had been accused of improprieties regarding a fund established for him to reimburse him for his political expenses - In it, he said that he defended himself and said regardless of what everyone else thought, he would keep a dog that his kids had named checkers - It led to an outpouring of support for Nixon and it secured his place on the republican ticket for the 1952 election - Was an address made on September 23, 1952, by Senator Richard Nixon, six weeks before the 1952 United States presidential election, in which he was the Republican nominee for Vice President

Little Rock Nine, 1957

- Governor Faubus sent the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine Black students from entering Little Rock Central High School - Eisenhower sent in U.S. paratroopers to ensure the students could attend class - African American students admitted to Central High School, governor of Arkansas, prevent African American students, from attending the school and sent the Arkansas National Guard to the school - President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by sending federal troops to school, and school was integrated - In September 1957 the school board in Little rock, Arkansas, won a court order to admit nine African American students to Central High a school with 2,000 white students - The governor ordered troops from Arkansas National Guard to prevent the nine from entering the school - The next day as the National Guard troops surrounded the school, an angry white mob joined the troops to protest the integration plan and to intimidate the AA students trying to register - The mob violence pushed Eisenhower's patience to the breaking point - He immediately ordered the US Army to send troops to Little Rock to protect and escort them for the full school year

Nelson Rockefeller

- Governor of New York and vice president to Ford - Considered a moderate Republican - Prompted conservatives to seek an alternative nominee other than Ford - Sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky - Was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977 - Was an outspoken supporter of the civil rights movement

The Earl Warren led Supreme Court handed down many famous decisions, starting with the Brown decision in 1954

- Griswold v. Connecticut - 1965 : The court struck down a state law that prohibited the use of contraceptives, even among married couples. The court proclaimed a "right of privacy" that soon provided the basis for decisions protecting women's abortion rights - Gideon v. Wainwright - 1963 : That all criminal defendants were entitled to legal counsel, even if they were too poor to afford it - Escobedo - 1964 and Miranda v. Arizona - 1966 : Ensured the rights of the accused to remain silent and enjoy other protections - Engel v. Vitale - 1962 and School District of Abington Township v. Schempp - 1963 : The justices argued that the First Amendment's separation of church and state meant that public schools could not require prayer of Bible reading

Presidential Election of 1948

- Harry Truman - Democrat - Thomas Dewey - Republican - Strom Thurmond - Dixiecrat (a former Democrat) - Henry Wallace - Progressive (a former Democrat) - Down in the polls and under fire within his own party, Truman alone remained confident of his victory - On the morning after the election, Americans rose to news of the most surprising comeback in presidential election history - In Missouri, Truman learned of his victory at 4:00am, when a Secret Service agent woke him - Was the 41st quadrennial presidential election - Truman's surprise victory was the fifth consecutive presidential win for the Democratic Party, the longest winning streak for the Democrats, and the longest for either party since the 1880 election

Richard Wright, Black Boy, 1945

- He became the first African-American best seller and he continued his work with influential Black Boy, which was a semi-biography/memoir about Wright's childhood in the south and adult life in Chicago asking of hunger, beatings, and racism which he tries to escape in the north - Wright's work would influence many African American writers and show his experiences in the south and north - Is a memoir by American author Richard Wright, detailing his upbringing - Wright describes his youth in the South: Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee, and his eventual move to Chicago, where he establishes his writing career and becomes involved with the Communist Party - Racism as a problem among individuals is a familiar topic in literature - This novel, however, explores racism not only as an odious belief held by odious people but also as an insidious problem knit into the very fabric of society as a whole - The poem has an underlying tone of sadness by the way in which the boy begins to understand his social constraints because he is black, and only in death will he be seen as equal to the English boy. The boy's skin tone is symbolic of the social constraints he will face in life and how he may over come them

John R. Lewis

- He planned and coordinated SNCC's participation in Freedom Summer of 1964, a time when black and white students came to the South to participate in movement activities - On March 7, 1965, Lewis and SCLC's Hosea Williams led the Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights - Was experienced as a Freedom Rider - Not long after the group set out, Lewis, then 21, was attacked in Rock Hill, South Carolina. In another attack during the rides, a white mob beat Lewis unconscious in Montgomery, Alabama - The son of Alabama sharecroppers, Representative John Lewis of Georgia dedicated his life to advancing the cause of freedom and equality in America - As a leader in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Lewis challenged Jim Crow segregation and oppression across the South through nonviolent protest

Yuri Andropov (1982-1984)

- He played an important role in the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 - Andropov returned to Moscow to head the Department for Liaison with Socialist Countries (1957-1967) and was promoted to the Central Committee Secretariat in 1962, succeeding Mikhail Suslov, and in 1967 he was appointed head of the KGB

Robert F. Kennedy

- He ran for President in 1968 - Stirred a response from workers, African Americans, Hispanics, and younger Americans and would have captured Democratic nomination but was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan after victory speech during the California primary in June 1968 - Also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. Senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968 - He served as his brother's closest advisor until the latter's 1963 assassination - His tenure is known for advocating for the civil rights movement, the fight against organized crime and the Mafia, and involvement in U.S. foreign policy related to Cuba - Kennedy's campaign was especially active in Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, California, and Washington, D.C. Kennedy's campaign ended on June 6, 1968 when he was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, following his victory in the California Primary

Nikita Khrushchev (1953-1964)

- He was Stalin's successor and commonly bullied the Western Hemisphere with atomic threats - He was the leader of the Soviet Union who backed down during the Cuban Missile Crisis - A Soviet leader during the Cuban Missile Crisis - Also famous for denouncing Stalin and allowed criticism of Stalin within Russia

Edward Teller

- He was one of the scientists behind the research and development of the Hydrogen bomb - the Father of the Hydrogen Bomb - The use of the H-bomb was controversial but Truman could not be dissuaded from using it because of his anxiety over communist threats - Was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb", although he did not care for the title, considering it to be in poor taste - Teller, along with Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner, helped urge President Roosevelt to develop an atomic bomb program in the United States

Jackie Robinson

- He was the first black man signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers or allowed into the MLB at all - By doing this, he was a symbol for other Black people to enter sports - Breaks MLB color barrier in 1947 - On April 15, 1947, becomes the first African American player in Major League Baseball's modern era when he steps onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn to compete for the Brooklyn Dodgers - Robinson broke the color barrier in a sport that had been segregated for more than 50 years

Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991)

- Head of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991 - His liberalization effort improved relations with the West, but he lost power after his reforms led to the collapse of Communist governments in eastern Europe - Was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991 - Reforms were gradualist and maintained many of the macroeconomic aspects of the command economy (including price controls, inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and the government monopoly over most means of production) - The unsuccessful August 1991 coup against Gorbachev sealed the fate of the Soviet Union - Planned by hard-line Communists, the coup diminished Gorbachev's power and propelled Yeltsin and the democratic forces to the forefront of Soviet and Russian politics

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960

- Her book used southern gothic tradition to talk about racial injustice and the loss of youthful innocence - Lee confronts readers with the tale of racial inequality's y in the Deep South, specifically during Jim Crow laws - It was published in 1960 and was instantly successful - In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools - Has become a classic of modern American literature, winning the Pulitzer Prize - Was an American novelist best known for her 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird

Nixon visits China in February of 1972

- Historic journey walked on the fabled Great Wall of China in February 1972 - He had accepted an invitation to visit Communist China in 1972 - He capped his visit with the Shanghai Communique, in which the two nations agreed to normalize their relationship - An important part of the accord was America's acceptance of a "one-China" policy

Ho Chi Minh and Ngo Dinh Diem

- Ho Chi Minh the communist revolutionary leader of North Vietnam - Ngo Dinh Diem the leader of South Vietnam was a battle between North and South to determine whether Vietnam would be communist or not - Ho Chi Minh-Communist leader of North Vietnam who wanted to unite all of Vietnam under communist rule - Ngo Dinh Diem-Anticommunist leader of South Vietnam, supported by the United States - Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese leader who at first sides with the US but became highly in support of communism - Ho Chi Minh accepted the 2 year open election policy - Ngo Dinh Diem was the leader of South Vietnam he supported pro western government. Communists were against Diem

Cult of Domesticity

- Idealized view of women & home, where women were self-less caregiver for children, refuge for husbands - A term used by historians to describe what they consider to have been a prevailing value system among the upper and middle classes during the 19th century in the United States - Identified the home as a woman's "proper sphere" - Women were supposed to inhabit the private sphere, running the household and production of food (including servants), rearing the children, and taking care of the husband

Levittown

- In 1947, William Levitt used mass production techniques to build inexpensive homes in surburban New York to help relieve the postwar housing shortage - Levittown became a symbol of the movement to the suburbs in the years after WWII - New York suburb where postwar builders pioneered the techniques of mass home construction - Was the first truly mass-produced suburb and is widely regarded as the archetype for postwar suburbs throughout the country - William Levitt, who assumed control of Levitt & Sons in 1954, is considered the father of modern suburbia in the United States - William J. Levitt refused to sell Levittown homes to people of color, and the FHA, upon authorizing loans for the construction of Levittown, included racial covenants in each deed, making each of these towns a segregated community - In New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Puerto Rico - New York, however, was the first and most famous

Truman desegregated the Military in 1948

- In 1948 president Truman passed Executive Order 9981 which desegregated the armed forces - Competition with the Soviets for international support put pressure on the US to live up to its own stated democratic ideals - This created political opportunities and rhetorical tools for advocates to press civil rights claims - On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, creating the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services - The order mandated the desegregation of the U.S. military

Montgomery Bus Boycott 1955-1956

- In 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus, Dr. Martin L. King led a boycott of city busses - After 11 months the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public transportation was illegal - A year-long bus boycott that brought a new leader, Martin Luther King Jr., and a new strategy of nonviolent protest to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement - Was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating - The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation - Was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama - It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and the Democratic National Convention of 1964

- In April 1964, the MFDP was founded. Open to all without regard to race, it was a parallel political party designed to simultaneously encourage Black political participation while challenging the validity of Mississippi's lily-white Democratic Party. In August 1964, the integrated MFDP delegates challenging their states' all-white "regular" were denied seats at the Democratic NationConvention - Only a handful of black Mississippians had succeeded in registering to vote

Diem assassinated by his own military in 1963

- In November, 1963, Diem was killed as a result of a coup that had been encouraged by the Kennedy administration - This led to political disintegration that Kennedy had originally sought to prevent - Kennedy ended up with deep political commitments when he told the South Vietnamese that it was "their war" - On 1 November 1963, Ngô Đình Diệm, the president of South Vietnam, was arrested and assassinated in a successful coup d'état led by General Dương Văn Minh - The coup was the culmination of nine years of autocratic and nepotistic family rule in the country - Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers - The death of Diem caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, but also lead to political chaos in the nation

"spheres of influence"

- In international politics - The claim by a state to exclusive or predominant control over a foreign area or territory - Gives an external organization, group, or institution power in a foreign territory — power they would not typically possess on their own - Typically cause some level of societal change and can be created formally or informally

A boom in the ownership of TV sets by 1960

- In the 1940s, Tv was rich peoples novelties, but in 20 years, every home had one - Movies, religion, sports, music were all dramatically transformed because it could be shown on a picture tube - Home television ownership, a rarity during the 1940's, exploded in the post-war boom years of the 1950's - While only around 9% of Americans owned TV's in 1950, by 1960 that figure had jumped above 80% - In 1950 only 9 percent of American households had a television set, but by 1960 the figure had reached 90 percent - Television cemented its grip on American attention spans during the 1960s - The industry added channels and improved the quality of its color pictures - However, some Americans became increasingly critical of television programming in the decade

"Red Scare"

- In the US began with Americans who had become terrified that Communists had or would infiltrate the US and cause disorder in our own country - Politicians in the US started to make themselves famous as "red hunters" by making loud statements about how they would ferret out these disloyal Communists hiding amongst us - Is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state - Occurred immediately after World War II - Was preoccupied with the perception that national or foreign communists were infiltrating or subverting American society and the federal government - The name refers to the red flag as a common symbol of communism

Eisenhower's warning about a "Military-Industrial Complex" in his farewell in 1961

- In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex - The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist - The expression military-industrial complex (MIC) describes the relationship between a country's military and the defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy - In his last speech, Eisenhower warned the people about letting the military industrial complex take over the country and its interests - He saw the business of war as a threat to freedom

Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man, 1952

- In the novel, the author captures the African American struggle for personal freedom - He creates the experience of a nameless black narrator who finds that none of his supporters see him as a real man - It opened discussion about black visibility in America - Published by Random House in 1952 - It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues faced by African Americans in the early 20th century - The novel works to protest against racism and the cloak of invisibility that is placed on Black people - It addresses the oppressions faced by people of color that goes against mainstream White society - In this way, the novel is considered an existentialist novel or bildungsroman - Was an American writer who won eminence with his first novel (and the only one published during his lifetime), Invisible Man (1952)

The last Americans left Vietnam in April of 1975

- On April 29, 1975 the last few American forces that remained in Southern Vietnam were evacuated by helicopter as Saigon fell to the communist forces - Along with these Americans were some 140,000 South Vietnamese who were so strongly aligned with the Americans that they feared for their lives so Ford compassionately admitted these refugees to the United States, where they added further seasoning to the melting pot - This number eventually rose to around half a million - Early in 1975 the North Vietnamese gave full throttle to their long-expected drive southward - President Ford pleaded in vain for Congress to vote still more weapons for Vietnam and without the crutch of massive American aid, the South Vietnamese quickly and ingloriously collapsed - 140,000 South Vietnamese are allowed to immigrate to the US to escape what might've been severe punishment or death at the hands of the North Vietnamese, if they had stayed - The total number of South Vietnamese who immigrated during the years of the war was around 500,000 - 58,000 Americans died, and another 300,000 were wounded in the Vietnam War - An estimated 1.5 million Vietnamese died during this war

Selma Marchers attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, March of 1965

- On March 7, 1965, when then-25-year-old activist John Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and faced brutal attacks by oncoming state troopers, footage of the violence collectively shocked the nation and galvanized the fight against racial injustice - On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80 - They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma - The three marches at Selma were a pivotal turning point in the civil rights movement because of the powerful impact of the marches in Selma, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was presented to Congress on March 17, 1965. President Johnson signed the bill into law on August 6, 1965

Truman recognized the state of Israel, 1948

- On May 14, 1948, Truman officially recognized the Jewish state of Israel on the day of its birth - Truman ignored the opposition from Arab oil countries - His main motive was humanitarian sympathy for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, prevent Soviet influence in Israel, and retain support from the Jewish American voters - This would complicate relations with the Arab world which supplied the U.S. with oil which was crucial to the U.S. economy - His decision came after much discussion and advice from the White House staff who had differing viewpoints - Some advisors felt that creating a Jewish state was the only proper response to the holocaust and would benefit American interests

The United Nations

- Opened in April of 1945 - An intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations - The maintenance of international peace and security, the promotion of the well-being of the peoples of the world, and international cooperation to these ends

Lee Harvey Oswald

- Oswald is later shot and killed, just a few days later, by Jack Ruby, while in the basement of the Dallas Police Dept. - The assassin named in the John F. Kennedy case - On November 22, 1963, he assassinated President Kennedy who was riding downtown Dallas, Texas - Oswald was later shot in front of television cameras by Jack Ruby - Was a U.S. Marine veteran who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, on November 22, 1963

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

- Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin - The act banned racial discrimination in most private facilities open to the public, including theaters, hospitals, and restaurants - It strengthened the federal government's power to end segregation in schools and other public places - Title VII of the act barred employers from discriminating based on race or national origin in hiring and empowered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC, a body Kennedy had created in 1961) to enforce the law - When conservatives tried to derail the legislation by adding a prohibition on sexual, as well as racial, discrimination, the tactic backfired - The bill's opponents cynically calculated that liberals would not be able to support a bill that threatened to wipe out laws that singled out women for special protection because of their sex

Fidel Castro

- Overthrew Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in 1959 - The rebels finally ousted Batista on 31 December 1958, replacing his government. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución (from Spanish: "Day of the Revolution") - The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist-Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965 - In the months following the March 1952 coup, a young lawyer and activist, petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny

National Security Act, 1947

- Passed in 1947 in response to perceived threats from the Soviet Union after WWII - It established the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Council - Major reorganization of US military after WWII to fight Cold War - It created the Department of Defense (replacing Dept. of War) in a new building - the Pentagon - Also established the National Security Council (NSC) to advise the president on security matters and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate the government's foreign fact gathering (spying) and subvert governments and popular movements seen as contrary to the interests of US government elites - Was a law enacting major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II

Camp David Accords, 1978

- Peace treaty between Egypt and Israel - Hosted by US President Jimmy Carter - Caused Egypt to be expelled from the Arab league and created a power vacuum that Saddam hoped to fill - First treaty of its kind between Israel and an Arab state - President Carter's most spectacular foreign-policy achievement came in September 1978 when he invited President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel to a summit conference at Camp David, the woodsy presidential retreat in the Maryland highlands - Carter persuaded the two visitors to sign an accord that held considerable promise of peace - Israel agreed in principle to withdraw from territory conquered in the 1967 war, and Egypt in return promised to respect Israel's borders

Kennedy's "New Frontier"

- Plan aimed at improving the economy, fighting racial discrimination, and exploring space - John F. Kennedy's New Frontier program was intended to boost the economy, provide international aid, provide for national defense, and to boost the space program - The newest frontier was space - In 1957, the Soviet Union shocked Americans by launching Sputnik, the first satellite to be placed in orbit - Congress responded by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under President Eisenhower - When Kennedy took office, the United Space fell farther behind - Kennedy's New Frontier programs involved a number of economic and social reforms - Kennedy wanted to work to help those in poverty and worked towards increasing federal aid for medical care for the elderly, urban housing, and increasing the minimum wage - He also wanted to increase spending in education to improve educational programs, especially in math and science - Kennedy also worked to improve advances in space discoveries and established the Peace Corps to help people around the world

Bracero Program

- Plan that brought laborers from Mexico to work on American farms - United States labor agents recruited thousands of farm and railroad workers from Mexico. -The program stimulated emigration for Mexico - Wartime agreement between the United States and Mexico to import farm workers to meet a perceived manpower shortage - The agreement was in effect from 1941 to 1947 - Was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated on August 4, 1942, when the United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico - An executive order called the Mexican Farm Labor Program established the Bracero Program in 1942 - This series of diplomatic accords between Mexico and the United States permitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts

Helsinki Accords, 1975

- Political and human rights agreement signed in Helsinki, Finland, by the Soviet Union and western European countries - Ford at first sought to enhance the so-called detente with the Soviet Union that Nixon had crafted - In July 1975 President Ford joined leaders from thirty-four other nations in Finland to sign the accords - One set of the Helsinki agreements officially wrote an end to World War II by finally legitimizing the Soviet-dictated boundaries of Poland and other Eastern European countries - In return, the Soviets signed a "third basket" of agreements, guaranteeing more liberal exchanges of people and information between East and West and protecting certain human rights - Kindled small dissident movements in Eastern Europe, which the USSR tied in vain to squelch - American grain and technology flowed across the Atlantic to the USSR, and little of comparable importance flowed back - Moscow continued its human rights violations, including restrictions on Jewish emigration, which promoted Congress in 1974 to add punitive restrictions to a U.S.-Soviet trade bill

The Baby Boom of the 1950s

- Population expansion took place between the years 1946 and 1964, with the peak occurring in 1957 - The elevated birthrate, unparalleled in American history, added more than 50 million babies by the end of the 1950s - This generation is known by the term "Boomer" - A cohort of individuals born in the United States between 1946 and 1964, which was just after World War II in a time of relative peace and prosperity - These conditions allowed for better education and job opportunities, encouraging high rates of both marriage and fertility - In 1947, another 3.8 million babies were born; 3.9 million were born in 1952; and more than 4 million were born every year from 1954 until 1964, when the boom finally tapered off - As the baby boomers aged, their presence was, and still is, felt by virtually all aspects of American institutions and businesses. In the 1950s, manufacturers of baby products reaped huge profits due to the exceptionally high demand. Baby food, furniture, and toys were flying off store shelves at a record pace - The increase was largely the result of the renewed confidence and security that followed the economic hardships and uncertainties of the Great Depression and World War II

Philadelphia Plan

- Program established by Richard Nixon to require construction trade unions to work toward hiring more black apprentices - The plan altered Lyndon Johnson's concept of "affirmative action" to focus on groups rather than individuals - Requiring construction-trade unions to establish "goals and timetables" for the hiring of black apprentices

Medicare and Medicaid, 1965

- Programs that established health insurance for the poor, elderly, and disabled - For the elderly, accompanied by aid for the poor, became a reality in 1965 - Like the New Deal's Social Security program, both of these programs created "entitlements" - On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed this act, also known as the Social Security Amendments of 1965, into law - It established Medicare, a health insurance program for the elderly, and Medicaid, a health insurance program for people with limited income

"The Rush to the Suburbs"

- Racial fears, affordable housing, and the desire to leave decaying cities were all factors that prompted many white Americans to flee to suburbia - And no individual promoted suburban growth more than William Levitt - 1950s Suburbia describes the culture of the American middle class in the 1950s - Due to a population boom following World War Two, new neighborhoods were built in the areas surrounding large cities - These communities were known as suburbs, thus the term suburbia - Suburbs helped to promote a resurgent economy and a new era of American optimism - Home ownership and the move to the suburbs exemplified the achievement of the American Dream

"smoking gun" tape

- Recording made in the Oval Office in June 1972 that proved conclusively that Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in and endeavored to cover it up - Led to a complete breakdown in congressional support for Nixon after the Supreme Court ordered he hand the tape to investigators - Revealed the president giving orders, six days after the Watergate break-in, to use the CIA to hold back an inquiry by the FBI - Nixon's own tape-recorded words convicted him of having been an active party to the attempted cover-up

Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma, 1944

- Reflecting the nation's escalated concern with the status of black Americans during the World War Two era, this book, written by a Swedish social scientist, offered an uncompromising portrait of how deeply racism was entrenched in law, politics, economics, and social behavior, both past and present - The book combined sobering analysis with admiration for the "American Creed"--belief in equality, justice, equal opportunity, and freedom - WWII, the author argued, made Americans more award than ever of the contradiction between this creed and the reality of racial inequality - This book helped to put racial justice on the liberal-left agenda in the post-War era - The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy is a 1944 study of race relations authored by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal and funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York. The foundation chose Myrdal because it thought that as a non-American, he could offer a more unbiased opinion - For Myrdal and his collaborators, the central dilemma was the unresolved tension of the "American creed"—the celebration of ideals of equal opportunity and democracy, in the face of deep and enduring racial discrimination and inequality. The dilemma has changed, but it has not receded.

The "Rustbelt"

- Region of the United States that experienced industrial decline starting in the 1950s - Declined in large part due to a lack of competition in labor and output markets in its most prominent industries, such as steel, automobile and rubber manufacturing - Geographic region of the United States that was long the country's manufacturing, steelmaking, and coal-producing heartland but that underwent dramatic industrial decline that resulted in widespread unemployment, increased poverty, decay, and population loss - Refers to a region in the Midwest and Northeast where factory production was concentrated during the 1940s and 50s

The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, 1955

- Remains symbolic of certain kind of middle-class conformity in 1950s America, namely the need for a man to submit to the rat race in pursuit of the American Dream - A novel by Sloan Wilson about the American search for purpose in a world dominated by business - Tom Rath (Gregory Peck) is a suburban father and husband haunted by his memories of World War II, including a wartime romance with Italian village girl Maria (Marisa Pavan), which resulted in an illegitimate son he's never seen. Pressed by his unhappy wife (Jennifer Jones) to get a higher-paying job, Rath goes to work as a public relations man for television network president Ralph Hopkins (Fredric March). Drawn into poisonous office politics, Tom finds he must choose his career or his family.

Matthew Ridgway

- Replaced Douglas MacArthur as Commander of all UN Forces in Korea - Led UN forces in Korea after April 1951 - Was a senior officer in the United States Army, who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the 19th Chief of Staff of the United States Army - In April 1951, after several major disagreements, President Harry S. Truman relieved MacArthur and replaced him with Ridgway, who oversaw U.N. forces and served as military governor of Japan - Led the Eighth Army in Korea from 1950 to 1951

Presidential Election of 1968

- Richard Nixon vs Hubert Humphrey - Humphrey secured the nomination with such ease because the nominating procedures of the era left most of the power over delegate selection in the hands of state and local party officials, who were overwhelmingly aligned with the administration - Over six hundred of the convention delegates had actually been selected back in 1966, and Humphrey managed to become the nominee without having entered a single primary race in 1968 - The significance of the 57% of the popular vote going to Nixon and Wallace shows that people are starting to grow tired of New Deal liberalism including, race riots, drugs, protest, violence, counterculture, federal intervention in social institutions, and permissiveness - This was the first presidential election after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had resulted in growing restoration of the franchise for racial minorities, especially in the South, where most had been disenfranchised since the turn of the century

CREEP

- Richard Nixon's committee for re-electing the president. Found to have been engaged in a "dirty tricks" campaign against the democrats in 1972 - They raised tens of millions of dollars in campaign funds using unethical means - They were involved in the infamous Watergate cover-up

4 killed at Kent State University protests in 1970

- Riots due to the movement into Cambodia caused National Guard members to fire into a crowd - Massive outrage caused across the country - Angry students nationwide responded to this newest escalation of the fighting with rock throwing, window smashing, and arson - At Kent State University in Ohio, jumpy members of the National Guard fired into a noisy crowd, killing four and wounding many more; at historically black Jackson State College in Mississippi, the highway patrol discharged volleys at a student dormitory, killing two students

The Yalu River

- River that forms the boundary between North Korea and China - River separating North Korea and China. - UN forces close to the Yalu River caused Chinese intervention - Known by Koreans as the Amrok River or Amnok River - Together with the Tumen River to its east, and a small portion of Paektu Mountain, the Yalu forms the border between North Korea and China - Its importance to China, especially at the time of the establishment of the People's Republic, was one of the main reasons that China entered the Korean War in 1950, when United Nations troops were advancing northward toward the Yalu - An international waterway and a major source of hydroelectric power - The Battle of Chongju (29-30 October 1950) took place during the United Nations Command (UN) offensive towards the Yalu River, which followed the North Korean invasion of South Korea at the start of the Korean War

RFK assassinated in June of 1968

- Robert F. Kennedy (dem candidate) was shot to death by a young Arab immigrant resentful of RFK's pro Israel views - RFK was seen as the only one who was capable of uniting the people - It prompted protection of presidential candidates and Nixon (rep) won the presidential election - Also started the violence in Chicago - On June 5, 1968, the night of his exciting victory in the California primary, Kennedy was shot to death by a young Arab immigrant resentful of the candidate's pro-Israel views - Shortly after winning the California primary around midnight on June 5, 1968, Kennedy was mortally wounded when shot with a pistol by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, allegedly in retaliation for his support of Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War. Kennedy died 25 hours later

"Korea saved us."

- Secretary of State Dean Acheson in 1950 - The Korean War boosted GDP growth through government spending, which in turn constrained investment and consumption - While taxes were raised significantly to finance the war, the Federal Reserve followed an anti-inflationary policy - Truman's nearly immediate decision to order U.S. troops to come to South Korea's aid guaranteed a major jump in U.S. defense spending. (Truman had proposed a $13 billion defense budget for FY 1951; it ended up ballooning to $58 billion) - With cost no longer an obstacle, NSC-68 became official policy and Acheson later observed, "Korea saved us" - Whether NSC-68 correctly gauged Soviet intentions and actions, or exaggerated the Soviet threat and exposed the United States and the rest of the Free World to needless conflicts and crises - What isn't in dispute is that the blandly named "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security" set the basic guidelines that would govern U.S. national security policy for four decades

Tet Offensive, January of 1968

- Series of Communist attacks on 44 South Vietnamese cities - Although the Viet Cong suffered a major defeat, the attacks ended the American view that the war was winnable and destroyed the nation's will to escalate the war further - Ended in a military defeat but a political victory for the Viet Cong causing Americans to demand a speedy end to the war - American military leaders responded to the Tet attacks with a request for 200,000 more troops which staggered many policymakers - A communist offensive launched in late January 1968, during Ten, the Vietnamese New Year - At a time when the Viet Song were supposedly licking their wounds, they suddenly and simultaneously mounted savage attacks on 27 key South Vietnamese cities, including the capital, Saigon

"Operation Rolling Thunder" 1965

- Series of bombing campaign that start in March 1965 - Largely trying to cut off the Ho Chi Ming Trail, but it is very very difficult - Tens of thousands of American troops are being sent to Vietnam (At the peak, there are 536,000 troops in Vietnam) - Regular full-scale bombing attacks against North Vietnam - Before 1965 ended, some 184,000 American troops were involved, most of them slogging through jungles and rice paddies of South Vietnam searching for guerrillas

Rosa Parks

- She was college educated and a seamstress and was very active in the NAACP - She sat down in the whites only section and refused to leave - She was arrested for violation of the Jim Crow laws - This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasted for a year - Arrested in December of 1955 - On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, after a bus driver ordered her to give up her bus seat to another passenger, and she refused - The other passenger was white and Parks was black - Helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955 - Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott

The G.I. Bill of Rights/Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944

- Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 22, 1944 - Also known as the G.I. Bill - Provided World War II veterans with funds for college education, unemployment insurance, and housing - It put higher education within the reach of millions of veterans of WWII and later military conflicts - Was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans

Nearly 60% of Americans own their own homes by 1960

- Since 1960, the home-ownership rate in the United States has remained relatively stable - It has decreased 1.0% since 1960, when 65.2% of American households owned their own home - Additionally, homeowner equity has fallen steadily since World War II and is now less than 50% of the value of homes on average - In 1960, approximately 68 out of 100 Americans could afford a home

The "final frontier" was space and space exploration

- Space: the final frontier - These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise - Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before - Means that the voyages of outer space is continuing its mission to explore and discover strange new worlds - It refers to the idea that the space is the final frontier to seek out new life and new civilizations and explore new worlds - Space is truly massive and it is estimated that the Universe is 100 billion light years across and still expanding - It's final because our species will never survive long enough (in our current form) to explore it all

Special Forces created or supported

- Special Forces traces its lineage to the First Special Service Force (FSSF), constituted on July 5, 1942 - A combined U.S. and Canadian unit, the FSSF was originally formed to conduct unconventional warfare in Nazi-occupied Norway - Special Operations Command was formed by the U.S. Army Psychological Warfare Center which was activated in May 1952 - The initial 10th Special Forces Group was formed in June 1952 and was commanded by Colonel Aaron Bank who is known as the father of Special Forces - Like SEALS and Green Berets

Lyndon Baines Johnson

- Started his Presidency by retaining most of the people from the JFK Administration - A texan who towered six feet three inches - He mistrusted "the Harvards," Johnson retained most of the bright Kennedy team - The new president managed a dignified and efficient transition in the winter of 1963, pledging continuity with his slain predecessor's policies - Originally a congressman from Austin, Texas in 1937 - Supported Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal - After losing a Senate race in 1941, he learned the sobering lesson that liberal beliefs did not necessarily win elections in Texas

SALT

- Strategic Arms Limitation Talks - An ionic compound made from the neutralization of an acid with a base - The US and the USSR agreed to a limited number of ballistic missiles, as well as a limited number of missile deployment sites

SDS

- Students for a Democratic Society - An antiestablishment New Left group, founded in 1960, this group charged that corporations and large government institutions had taken over America - They called for a restoration of "participatory democracy" and greater individual freedom - By the end of the decade it had spawned a clandestine terrorist group called the Weather Underground

Massive Retaliation

- The "new look" defense policy of the Eisenhower administration of the 1950's was to threaten "massive retaliation" with nuclear weapons in response to any act of aggression by a potential enemy - Policy of threatening to use massive force in response to aggression - A military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack - A military doctrine and nuclear strategy by which a state commits itself to retaliate with much greater force when attacked - Was successful as it forced the Soviet Union to rethink its use of nuclear weapons and conventional attack activities on US interests

The Apollo Missions

- The Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to earth - A series of U.S. missions to the moon which proved that humans can live and work in space - Also known as Project Apollo, was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which succeeded in preparing and landing the first humans on the Moon from 1968 to 1972 - Many are familiar with Apollo 11, the mission that landed humans on the Moon for the first time, but there were 14 missions total during the Apollo Program (1961-1972) - Apollo 13 has been called a "successful failure," because the crew never landed on the Moon, but they made it home safely after an explosion crippled their ship

Miranda warning

A series of statements informing criminal suspects, on their arrest, of their constitutional rights, such as the right to remain silent and the right to counsel: required by Supreme Court's 1966 decision in Miranda v. Arizona

Chinese Civil War and the collapse of Nationalist China in 1949

- The Communists gained control of mainland China and established the People's Republic of China in 1949, forcing the leadership of the Republic of China to retreat to the island of Taiwan - In October of 1949, after a string of military victories, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the PRC; Chiang and his forces fled to Taiwan to regroup and plan for their efforts to retake the mainland - In 1948 and 1949 the Communist People's Liberation Army won three major campaigns that forced the Nationalist government to retreat to Taiwan - As a civil war fought from 1927 to 1949 because of differences in thinking between the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Kuomintang (KMT, or Chinese Nationalist Party) - The war was a fight for legitimacy of the government of China - The 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria began a chain of events that led to the eventual communist overthrow of China in 1949 - For years, the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai Shek had worked to suppress rebellions by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) - The government was effective in defeating communist forces

Woolworth's lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, 1960

- The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service - The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South - In 1960 four freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro walked into the F. W. Woolworth store and quietly sat down at the lunch counter - They were refused service, but they stayed until closing time - Soon dining facilities across the South were being integrated, and by July 1960 the lunch counter at the Greensboro Woolworth's was serving Black patrons - The Greensboro sit-in provided a template for nonviolent resistance and marked an early success for the civil rights movement - Though most stores did not immediately desegregate their lunch counters, the sit-ins were successful both in forcing partial integration and in increasing national awareness of the indignities suffered by African-Americans in the southern United States

Soviets have the Berlin Wall constructed in 1961

- The Soviets convinced East Germany to rebuild the Berlin Wall in 1961 in order to keep America out of Berlin and keep western Germans out - It was importantly called the "Wall of Shame" because it represented the division that remained in Europe decades after WWII, often referred to as a wall surrounding a prison - To halt the exodus to the West, Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev recommended to East Germany that it close off access between East and West Berlin - On the night of August 12-13, 1961, East German soldiers laid down more than 30 miles of barbed wire barrier through the heart of Berlin - The Berlin Wall was built by the German Democratic Republic during the Cold War to prevent its population from escaping Soviet-controlled East Berlin to West Berlin, which was controlled by the major Western Allies - The Wall was built in 1961 to prevent East Germans from fleeing and stop an economically disastrous migration of workers and it was a symbol of the Cold War, and its fall in 1989 marked the approaching end of the war

UNESCO and the WHO

- The United Nations, setting up its permanent glass home in NYC, had some gratifying initial success - Through such arms as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization), FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization), and WHO (World Health Organization), the UN brought benefits to peoples the world over - The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture -

Nixon travels to Moscow in May of 1972

- The United States and the USS were able to reach a number of agreements with the Soviets - His Visit ushered in an era of Détente or relaxed tension, with the two Communist power and led to several significant agreement such as the Anti-ballistic missile treaty and the Strategic Arms limitations Talks - Travelled to Moscow in May 1972 to play his "China card" in a game of high-stakes diplomacy in the Kremlin - The Soviets, hungry for American foodstuffs and alarmed over the possibility of intensified rivalry with an American-backed China, were ready to deal - Nixon's visits ushered in an era of detente, or relaxed tension, wit the two communist powers

Flexible Response

- The buildup of conventional troops and weapons to allow a nation to fight a limited war without using nuclear weapons - A policy, developed during the Kennedy administration, that involved preparing for a variety of military responses to international crises rather than focusing on the use of nuclear weapons - Also called Flexible Deterrent Options (FDO), U.S. defense strategy in which a wide range of diplomatic, political, economic, and military options are used to deter an enemy attack - First appeared in U.S. General Maxwell D - Was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of massive retaliation - Was tested in many different conflicts - Two of its biggest successes occurred during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. In Berlin, the Soviet Union ordered the withdrawal of Western forces from West Berlin

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, 1951

- The character in this novel, among many others, are restless, tormented souls who can find neither contentment nor respect in an overpowering or uninterested world - Salinger's book chronicled the tribulations of teenager Holden Caulfield who could not fit in anywhere - The book criticizes the 1950s obsession with conformity and the "phoniness" of American life - It was also strongly criticized at the time for its use of profanity and its depiction of teenage sexuality - Takes the loss of innocence as its primary concern - Holden wants to be the "catcher in the rye"—someone who saves children from falling off a cliff, which can be understood as a metaphor for entering adulthood - Has served as a resonant expression of alienation for several generations of adolescent readers and adults who have considered themselves at odds with the norms and institutions of American society - Was an American author best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye - Got his start in 1940, before serving in World War II, by publishing several short stories in Story magazine

Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962

- The closest the world has come to nuclear annihilation - Many nuclear historians agree that 27 October 1962, known as "Black Saturday", was the closest the world came to nuclear catastrophe, as US forces enforced a blockade of Cuba to stop deliveries of Soviet missiles - The confrontation that followed brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles - The conflict showed that both superpowers were wary of using their nuclear weapons against each other for fear of mutual atomic annihilation - For thirteen days in October 1962 the world waited—seemingly on the brink of nuclear war—and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the crisis - In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba

J. Edgar Hoover

- The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who investigated and harassed alleged radicals - Was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - Was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 48 years, serving under every president from Calvin Coolidge to Richard M. Nixon - His supporters praised him for building the FBI into one of the world's outstanding law-enforcement agencies - Director Hoover fired a number of agents whom he considered to be political appointees and/or unqualified to be special agents - He ordered background checks, interviews, and physical testing for new agent applicants and he revived the earlier Bureau policies of requiring legal or accounting training - He established a fingerprint file, which became the world's largest; a scientific crime-detection laboratory; and the FBI National Academy, to which selected law enforcement officers from all parts of the country were sent for special training - In 1950, at the outbreak of the Korean War, Hoover submitted a plan to President Truman to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and detain 12,000 Americans suspected of disloyalty. Truman did not act on the plan - Was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for 48 years, reshaping that organization from a small, relatively weak arm of the federal government's executive branch into a highly effective investigative agency

Watergate

- The events and scandal surrounding a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972 and the subsequent cover-up of White House involvement, leading to the eventual resignation of President Nixon under the threat of impeachment - On June 17, 1972, five men were arrested in the Watergate apartment-office complex in Washington after a bungled effort to plant electronic "bugs" in the Democratic party's headquarters - They were soon revealed to be working for the Republican Committee to ReElect the President - popularly known as CREEP - The Watergate break-in turned out to be just one in a series of Nixon administration "dirty tricks" that included forging documents to discredit Democrats, using the Internal Revenue Service to harass innocent citizens named on a White House "enemies list," burglarizing the office of the psychiatrist who had treated the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, and perverting the FBI and the CIA to cover the trickster's tacks

First Presidential Debate on TV, 1960

- The first televised presidential debates were between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon - These debates may be what gave Kennedy the edge in the 1960 election when he won the presidency - The debates also shifted how presidential candidates would hold debates and otherwise promote themselves in the future - Some believe that those who listened to the first debate on radio thought that Nixon had won, while those who watched that debate on television thought that Kennedy had won - During the 1960 debates between the two candidates, Americans for the first time could tune in and watch the debates on television, or listen on the radio - About 70 million people tuned in to watch the Kennedy/Nixon debates

This embargo and a deliberate cut in oil production created an energy crisis that lasted years

- The five months of the Arab "blackmail" embargo in 1974 clearly signaled the end of an era - the era of cheap and abundant energy - A twenty-year surplus of world oil supplies had masked the fact that since 1948 the United States had been a net importer of oil - American oil production peaked in 1970 and then began a long-term decline, reversed only by the introduction of new drilling technologies in the twenty-first century - Blissfully unaware of their dependence on foreign suppliers, Americans, like revelers on a binge, had more than tripled their oil consumption since the end of World War II

Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982)

- The general secretary of the CPSU who replaced Nikita Khrushchev, embraced the tacit social contract, and led the USSR during the Graying of Communism - Seized power from Nikita Khrushchev and became leader of the Soviet Communist party in 1964 - Ordered forces in to Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia

1946-1947

- The last famine in the Soviet Union - Due to aggressive grain requisition after WWII - Were tough years for the American economy as adjustments were being made to transition ourselves from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy - There were also adjustments being made by labor unions, as they had agreed not to go on strike during WWII but were now ready to consider going on strike, now that WWII was over - The Soviet famine of 1946-1947 was a major famine in the Soviet Union - The estimates of victim numbers vary, ranging from several hundred thousand to 2 million

Clean Air Act 1970

- The law aimed at combating air pollution, by charging the EPA with protecting and improving the quality of the nation's air - In the wake of what became a yearly event, the U.S. Congress passed this act - Resulted in a major shift in the federal government's role in air pollution control - This legislation authorized the development of comprehensive federal and state regulations to limit emissions from both stationary (industrial) sources and mobile sources

Pusan Perimeter

- The line where U.N. troops stopped the advance of North Korea in 1950 - A defensive line around the city of Pusan, in the southeast corner of Korea, held by South Korean and United Nations forces in 1950 during the Korean War - Marks the farthest advance of North Korean forces - It was one of the first major engagements of the Korean War - An army of 140,000 UN troops, having been pushed to the brink of defeat, were rallied to make a final stand against the invading Korean People's Army (KPA), 98,000 men strong - This battle was critical because Pusan was the last port controlled by American forces that allowed them to continue fighting the war - Was a large-scale battle between United Nations Command and North Korean forces lasting from August 4 to September 18, 1950 - It was one of the first major engagements of the Korean War

Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns in October of 1973

- The moral stench hanging over the White House worsened when Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign in October 1973 for taking bribes from Maryland contractors while governor and also as vice president - In the first use of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, Nixon nominated and Congress confirmed Agnew's successor, a twelve-term congressman from Michigan, Gerald Ford - After months of maintaining his innocence, Agnew pleaded no contest to a single felony charge of tax evasion and resigned from office - Nixon replaced him with House Republican leader Gerald Ford

National Speed Limit of 55 MPH temporarily enacted in 1974 to help lessen dependence on oil

- The national 55 mile per hour (mph) speed limit law was enacted as a fuel conservation measure after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, and secondarily, to improve highway safety - As part of his response to the embargo, President Nixon signed a federal law lowering all national highway speed limits to 55 mph - The act was intended to force Americans to drive at speeds deemed more fuel-efficient, thereby curbing the U.S. appetite for foreign oil

Carter resumed full diplomatic relations with China in 1979

- The president crowned this diplomatic success by resuming full diplomatic relations with China in early 1979 after a nearly thirty-year interruption - During Jimmy Carter's presidency, the most dramatic moment in Sino-American relations occurred on December 15, 1978, when, following months of secret negotiations, the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) announced that they would recognize one another and establish official diplomatic relations - In 1979, Carter extended formal diplomatic recognition to the PRC for the first time - This decision led to a boom in trade between the United States and the PRC, which was pursuing economic reforms under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping

Brinksmanship

- The principle of not backing down in a crisis, even if it meant taking the country to the brink of war - Policy of both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the Cold War - A policy of threatening to go to war in response to any enemy aggression - A strategy in which adversaries take actions that increase the risk of accidental war, with the hope that the other will "blink," or lose its nerve, first and make concessions - The art or practice of pursuing a dangerous policy to the limits of safety before stopping, especially in politics - I the practice of forcing a confrontation in order to achieve a desired out-come - In the Cold War, it meant using nuclear weapons as a deterrent to communist expansion around the world

Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, 1945-1946

- The trying of twenty-two war criminal Nazis by the allies for crimes against the laws of War, humanity, and the plotting of aggressions contrary to solemn treaty pledges - Significant because it was large step and example of the allies attempting to cut any Nazism out of Germany - When the judges rendered their final verdicts on October 1, 1946, 12 of the defendants were sentenced to death, three were acquitted, and the rest received sentences ranging from 10 years to life in prison - Were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II - Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949

15 million black citizens of the USA in 1950

- There was a decently large amount of African-Americans in the US at this time, many of which still lived in the south in a segregated society (Jim Crow laws) - Even when the laws didn't uphold certain levels of segregation black people were still being lynched and killed for speaking up or doing virtually anything - There were different sections for seating for black people in movie theaters, restaurants, bathrooms, water fountains and more - According to the 1950 Census, the population of the United States was 150,697,361. Of this total, 15,042,286, or 10 percent, identified as Black or African American alone - The white population of the United States increased by 17.5 percent between 1950 and 1960, as compared with 26.7 percent for the nonwhite population, so that white persons constituted 88.6 percent of the total population in 1960 and 89.3 percent in 1950. - Nearly five years after World War II, the 1950 Census marked the first time the United States had a large number of military and government workers living overseas with their families. As a result, we created special forms to count this population.

LBJ announces that HE WILL NOT BE RUNNING FOR REELECTION in March of 1968

- These startling events abroad and at home were not lost on LBJ - In a bombshell address on March 31, 1968, he announced on nationwide television that he would freeze American troop levels and scale back the bombing - Then, in a dramatic plea to unify a dangerously divided nation, Johnson startled his vast audience by firmly declaring that he would not be a candidate for the presidency in 1968 - Johnson's abdication had the effect of preserving the military status quo - He had held the hawks in checks, while offering himself as a sacrifice to the militant doves - The United States could thus maintain the maximum acceptable level of military activity in Vietnam with one hand, while trying to negotiate a settlement with the other - North Vietnam shortly agreed to commence negotiations in Paris - But progress was glacially slow, as prolonged bickering developed over the very shape of the conference table

Harvard Whiz Kids

- These were the group of young advisors that made up President Kennedy's inner circle - They were known for their brash confidence and self-conscious sophistication - Robert Strange McNamara was the personification of postwar America, the original and ultimate "whiz kid" who rose to power on the firm belief that arms and rationality can solve all problems—and tumbled to tragedy as the illusion shattered in the fields of Vietnam - In the early '40s, they had a basketball team, a good one. They called them the Whiz Kids," he said. "At the time, Ford Motor Company had a guy named McNamara who was the big deal there. And he said he called this group of young guys there his Whiz Kids" - Was a name given to a group of experts from RAND Corporation with which Robert McNamara surrounded himself in order to turn around the management of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in the 1960s - The purpose was to shape a modern defense strategy in the Nuclear Age by bringing in economic analysis, operations research, game theory, computing, as well as implementing modern management systems to coordinate the huge dimension of operations of the DoD with methods such as the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) - They were called the Whiz Kids recalling the group at Ford Motor Company that McNamara was part of a decade earlier

Warren Burger

- This marked a significant shift in the US Supreme Court away from liberal rulings to conservative rulings - Nixon selected a man from Minnesota to succeed the retiring Earl Warren in 1969 as chief justice - Before the end of 1971, the Court counted four. conservative Nixon appointments out of nine members

America accepts the "One-China" Policy

- This still has importance relevance today, especially with regard to Taiwan, which is technically part of that "One-China" - Implying a lessened American commitment to the independence of Taiwan - The United States has formal relations with the PRC, recognizes the PRC as the sole legal government of China, and simultaneously maintains its unofficial relations with Taiwan while not recognizing China's sovereignty over Taiwan - Internationally, it may also refer to the stance of numerous other countries

Nixon's "Southern Strategy"

- To win over the Solid South, away from the Democrats, to the Republicans - Appointing conservative Supreme Court justices, soft-pedaling civil rights, and opposing school busing to achieve racial balance were all parts of a GOP electoral approach by Nixon's advisors - By deliberately seeking to convert disillusioned white southern Democrats to the Republican cause, Nixon set in motion a sweeping political realignment that eventually transformed the American party system

Loyalty Oaths

- Truman orders background checks on 3 million federal employees, and loyalty oaths were demanded, especially from teachers - Many citizens feared that communist spies were undermining the government - A pledge of loyalty to a group, such as an organization or a nation - Is a pledge of allegiance to an organization, institution, or state of which an individual is a member - In the United States, such an oath has often indicated that the affiant has not been a member of a particular organization or organizations mentioned in the oath - Truman signed United States Executive Order 9835, sometimes known as the "Loyalty Order", on March 21, 1947 which established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence in the U.S. federal government

Chinese "volunteers" moved into the Korean War

- UN forces invaded North Korea in October 1950 and moved rapidly towards the Yalu River—the border with China—but on 19 October 1950, Chinese forces of the People's Volunteer Army (PVA) crossed the Yalu and entered the war - About 3 million Chinese civilian and military personnel had served in Korea throughout the war - In some of the fiercest fighting of the Korean War, thousands of communist Chinese troops launch massive counterattacks against U.S. and Republic of Korea (ROK) troops, driving back the Allied forces before them and putting an end to any thoughts for a quick or conclusive U.S. victory - The People's Volunteer Army (PVA) was the armed expeditionary forces deployed by the People's Republic of China during the Korean War - In October 1950, Chinese troops under the name of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (CPV) crossed the Yalu River to assist North Korean armies

Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1955

- Used a lyrical writing style that incorporated elements of the Southern Gothic style - The Southern Gothic style often involves making archetypes of southern literature such as the chivalrous hero or the beautiful damsel flawed or grotesque in nature - His use of Imagery and Symbolism in A Streetcar Named Desire - Throughout the play symbolism is used to capture attention and to appeal to viewers' emotions - It is expressed through music, color and imagery all of which help to heighten tension and reflect the atmosphere created by an impending force - Is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams. The play, an adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", was written between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955 - The message is that indulging one's desire in the form of unrestrained promiscuity leads to forced departures and unwanted ends

Nixon's "Law and Order" political rhetoric

- Using harsher enforcements and penalties to reduce crime - Nixon attempted to discredit the Democratic Party in the eyes of these voters, blaming it for being soft on crime and rioters - Previously, other politicians had used this term," although their use of the term was much less systematic and frequent than that of Wallace, Nixon, or Reagan - Positioning himself as the champion of what he called the "silent majority" - Nixon appealed to white southern voters with his law-and-order rhetoric, as well as with his choice of Maryland's Governor Spiro T. Agnew, noted for his tough strands against dissidents and black militants, as his vice-presidential running mate

Peace Corps

- Volunteers who help third world nations and prevent the spread of communism by getting rid of poverty, Africa, Asia, and Latin America - Federal program established to send volunteers to help developing nations - Is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance - Following up on the idea he launched at the University of Michigan, President Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps on March 1, 1961 - Three days later, R. Sargent Shriver became its first Director. Deployment was rapid: Volunteers began serving in five countries in 1961

The Yalta Conference, February 1945

- Wartime conference in which the Big Three approved: (1) A Declaration on Liberated Europe, which championed self-determination for liberated nations (2) The establishment of the United Nation (3) The partitioning of Germany (and Berlin) into four occupation zones (French would also get a western zone) (4) The Soviets agreed to help the USA in the war against Japan - By the time of the conference at Yalta in the Ukraine in February 1945, the defeat of Germany was a foregone conclusion - The Western powers, which had earlier believed that the Soviets were in a weak position, were now faced with the reality of eleven million Red Army soldiers taking possession of eastern and much of central Europe

Dr. Benjamin Spock

- Was a 1950's doctor who told the whole baby boom generation how to raise their kids - He also said that raising them was more important and rewarding than extra money would be - Pediatrician and author of the Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), which emphasized children's need for the love and care of full-time mothers - Was an American pediatrician and left-wing political activist whose book Baby and Child Care is one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, selling 500,000 copies in the six months after its initial publication in 1946 and 50 million by the time of Spock's death in 1998

Konstantin Chernenko (1984-1985)

- Was a Soviet politician and the seventh General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union - He briefly led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death on 10 March 1985

Billy Graham and Oral Roberts

- Was a celebrity preacher. Was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christian figure, and according to a biographer, was "among the most influential Christian leaders" of the 20th century - Was a pentecostal holiness preacher. Was an American Charismatic Christian televangelist, ordained in both the Pentecostal Holiness and United Methodist churches. He is considered one of the forerunners of the charismatic movement, and at the height of his career was one of the most recognized preachers in the US - Both of these preachers used television to spread the christian gospel

Mark Rothko

- Was a chromatic abstractionist whose paintings appear as shimmering veils of color suspended in front of the canvas - Abstract Expressionism - Was a Latvian-American abstract painter - He is best known for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and painterly rectangular regions of color, which he produced from 1949 to 1970 - One of the preeminent artists of his generation, he is closely identified with the New York school, a circle of painters that emerged during the 1940s as a new collective voice in American art - During a career that spanned five decades, he created a new and impassioned form of abstract painting

Black Panther Party and Black Power

- Was a group that was made to resist police brutality and establish breakfast programs for black children since they were at a disadvantage. Brandished weapons in "citizens' patrols" intended to resist police brutality, even while it also established children's breakfast programs - Became the slogan to promote awareness for black rights and to show support for their fight. It fought for not only voting rights or equality in the workplace but also for awareness of African American culture and representation. Some advocates insisted that they simply intended the slogan to describe a breakfront effort to exercise the political and economic rights gained by the civil rights movement and to speed the integration of American society

Roy Lichtenstein

- Was a pop artist who excerpted images from comic books using the ben-day dot system - Pop artist who used fanciful comic strips to comment on mass consumerism and conspicuous consumption - Was an American pop artist - During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement - His work defined the premise of pop art through parody

Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism

- Was a republican senator who used the communist concern for his reelection campaign, he charged that 205 communists were working in the SD, was able to make himself one of the most powerful men in America, "witchhunt" for communism - Senator Joseph McCarthy led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee - Was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957 - The term originally referred to the controversial practices and policies of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and covers the period of the late 1940s through the 1950s - Is the term describing a period of intense anti-Communist suspicion in the United States which began during the start of the Cold War, that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the mid to late 1950s - The term gets its name from U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican of Wisconsin - Is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner

JFK assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963

- Was accompanied by his wife, and vice president - They were on a fundraising trip to Texas and the trip was likely intended to attempt bringing together feuding the democratic party with the state vital to Kennedy's election - Kennedy was shot in the motor parade and died several hours later in a hospital - The significance to this was that Kennedy was a really popular individual who had great morals and was going to lead the us in the right direction and then get killed by a person not fond of him - This showed the secret service how to always be prepared and to look out in every angle

John Updike

- Was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic - American writer of novels, short stories, and poetry, known for his careful craftsmanship and realistic but subtle depiction of "American, Protestant, small-town, middle-class" life - From the time his first short story, Friends From Philadelphia, was bought by the New Yorker in 1954, until his death on Tuesday, Updike wrote nearly 30 novels, 14 volumes of short stories, nine of poetry and 10 collections of essays and criticism - Rabbit, Run - A & P

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, 1949, and The Crucible, 1953

- Was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater - Among his most popular plays are All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and A View from the Bridge - He wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his work on The Misfits - Is recognized as one of the most important figures in 20th century American theater, as well as an activist who drew public attention to controversial political and social issues of his time - Is a 1949 stage play written by American playwright Arthur Miller. The play premiered on Broadway in February 1949, running for 742 performances. Addresses loss of identity and a man's inability to accept change within himself and society. The play is a montage of memories, dreams, confrontations, and arguments, all of which make up the last 24 hours of Willy Loman's life - Is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692-93. One of the main messages of the play is to show that trying to preserve one's reputation can end up harming others. But, in keeping one's honor and integrity, a person can stay true to themselves, and can put an end to fear that might cause hysteria

Sylvia Plath

- Was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer - She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965) - Was an American writer whose best-known works, including the poems "Daddy" and "Lady Lazarus" and the novel The Bell Jar, starkly express a sense of alienation and self-destruction that has resonated with many readers since the mid-20th century - She committed suicide at age 30 but left behind an incredible legacy of work that includes "The Bell Jar" and "The Unabridged Journals," a deeply personal account of her life and its "mundane" events

Gore Vidal

- Was an American writer and public intellectual known for his epigrammatic wit, erudition, and patrician manner - Vidal was bisexual, and in his novels and essays interrogated the social and cultural sexual norms he perceived as driving American life - Today, he is often seen as an early champion of sexual liberation - He took the pseudonym "Edgar Box" and wrote the mystery novels Death in the Fifth Position (1952), Death before Bedtime (1953) and Death Likes it Hot (1954) featuring Peter Cutler Sargeant II, a publicist-turned-private-eye

William Faulkner

- Was an American writer known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where Faulkner spent most of his life - Wrote numerous novels, screenplays, poems, and short stories. Today he is best remembered for his novels The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Sanctuary (1931), and Absalom, Absalom! (1936) - American novelist and short-story writer is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century - He is remembered for his pioneering use of the stream-of-consciousness technique as well as the range and depth of his characterization - In 1949 Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for Literature - A Rose for Emily - The Sound and the Fury - Barn Burning

Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) (Snick) formed in 1960

- Was founded in 1960 in the wake of student-led sit-ins at segregated lunch counters across the South and became the major channel of student participation in the civil rights movement - Young activists and organizers with the SNCC (pronounced "SNICK"), represented a radical, new unanticipated force whose work continues to have great relevance today - For the first time, young people decisively entered the ranks of civil rights movement leadership - In the early 1960s, young Black college students conducted sit-ins around America to protest the segregation of restaurants

Douglas MacArthur

- Was ordered into Korea to take the lead in its defense - After North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, MacArthur was appointed supreme commander of the U.S.-led U.N. force sent to aid the South - In September, he organized a risky but highly successful landing at Inchon, and by October North Korean forces had been driven back across the 38th parallel - He wanted a complete blockade of the Communist Chinese coastline - He wanted to bomb industrial sites and other strategic targets within China - He wanted to bring Nationalist Chinese troops from Formosa to fight in Korea

Containment Doctrine and George F. Kennan

- Was the US's foreign strategy policy during the Cold War and was first brought to light by George F. Kennan and stated that in order to avoid the spread of Communism to other countries it needed to be contained and isolated - Significant because it was one of the closest points of the Cold War turning into a nuclear war and prevented enemy expansion into other neighboring countries - Kennan advocated that the United States "actively" move to contain communism and communist aggression. The goal was to quarantine communism as one would quarantine a disease - The U.S. was afraid that if one country in the world falls to communism, eventually the whole world would fall to communism - The U.S. government became convinced that communism was like an infectious disease

Failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, approved by JFK

- Was the failed attempt by US-backed Cuban exiles to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro - President Eisenhower authorized the operation and it was subsequently approved by President Kennedy - Kennedy hoped that this invasion would result in the overthrow of Cuban leader Fidel Castro - But the operation that unfolded over the next five days became one of the greatest military fiascoes in American history - In 1961 was a failed attack launched by the CIA during the Kennedy administration to push Cuban leader Fidel Castro from power - Since 1959, officials at the U.S. State Department and the CIA had attempted to remove Castro

The Boeing 707, 1957

- Was the first large passenger jet - It was brought out by Seattle based Boeing company in 1957 - The design was inspired by the B-52, SAC's long range strategic bomber - Its improvements over earlier planes in passenger capacity, range, and speed revolutionized air travel, and it came to be used by American airlines for most domestic and transatlantic flights throughout the 1960s

Mao Zedong and Jiang Jieshi (aka Chiang Kaishek)

- Was the leader of the nationalist, who fought against the leader of the communist, Mao Zedong. Commander-in-chief of the National Revolutionary Army (from which he came to be known as a Generalissimo), he led the Northern Expedition from 1926 to 1928, before defeating a coalition of warlords and nominally reunifying China under a new Nationalist government. He joined with the Communists to try and defeat the Warlords and the nationalists and communists defeated the warlords then he started fighting the communists and became president of China. - Zedong was ultimately victorious, and Jiang escaped to Taiwan with the remnants of his people. Zedong's main goal was to preserve communism by purging capitalist and traditional elements, and power struggle between Maoists and pragmatists. The improved economy of China was a result of Mao's economic policies. This also brought drastic shifts in social and political sectors. The literacy rate increased, which shifted the Chinese political system from being quantitative to qualitative.

Robert S. McNamara

- Was the secretary of defense under Kennedy - He helped develop the flexible response policy - He was against the war in Vietnam and was removed from office because of this - Cabinet officer who promoted "flexible response" but came to doubt the wisdom of the Vietnam War he had presided over - Was an American business executive and the eighth United States Secretary of Defense, serving from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson - He remains the longest serving Secretary of Defense, having remained in office over seven years - One of the most recognizable and controversial figures of the Vietnam War, served as the Secretary of Defense under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson - His policies changed the way that the military operated and also shaped the strategy of the Vietnam War - His conviction that the US only needed to apply massive military power to defeat communists in North Vietnam led to the rapid escalation of the war after 1965, notably with the bombing raids of Operation Rolling Thunder - In a 1995 memoir, McNamara reviewed the anticommunist climate during his tenure as defense secretary, the alleged false assumptions that animated U.S. foreign policy, and military mistakes that led to the Vietnam debacle

LBJ's Vietnam word was "Escalation"

- We went from sending advisers under JFK to escalating our involvement in Vietnam to actually fighting their war for them, with our own troops - Johnson had now taken the first fateful steps down a slippery path - He and his advisors believed that a fine-tuned, step-by-step escalation of American force would drive the enemy to defeat with a minimum loss of life on both sides - But the enemy matched every increase in American firepower with more men and more wiliness in the art of guerrilla warfare - The South Vietnamese themselves were meanwhile becoming spectators in their own war, as the fighting became increasingly Americanized - By 1968, there were more than 500,000 US troops in Vietnam, and the annual bill for the war was exceeding $30 billion

Beatles, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix

- Were a famous band from the sixties and they were two famous solo musicians - They were significant because they were known worldwide and helped connect people from different generations and cultures - Were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and popular music's recognition as an art form. - Rose to fame in the late 1960s and was known for her powerful, blues-inspired vocals. She died of an accidental drug overdose in 1970 - Provided a soundtrack for the 60s counterculture, and has come to represent the decade through his music. His iconic sound drew on a combination of genres including blues, folk, and rock 'n' roll. These assorted musical inspirations were paralleled by an equally eclectic fashion sense - The newfound power of popular youth culture proved global in its reach, helping to stitch together generational styles, norms, and touchstones across borders

Nixon chose to resign in August of 1974 rather than be impeached in the House and convicted and removed by the Senate.

- When Ford takes over for Nixon, he immediately gives Nixon a full and complete pardon of any crimes he might have committed - Ford reasoned that the Watergate scandal would have dragged on for years if he had not pardoned Nixon - Ford wanted that nation to heal and move on - Congress frankly informed the president that his impeachment by the full House and removal by the Senate were foregone conclusions and that he do best to resign

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created in 1970

- Which climaxed two decades of mounting concern for the environment - In July 1970, President Nixon had signed Reorganization Plan No. 3 calling for the establishment of EPA in July 1970 - Two days after his confirmation, on December 4, Ruckelshaus took the oath of office and the initial organization of the agency was drawn up in EPA Order 1110.2 - A real environmental crusader by 1970, Muskie led the 1970 fight for very tough clean air legislation - The resulting Clean Air Act of 1970 made EPA directly responsible for establishing limits on air pollutants and enforcing them

Nixon's Vietnam word was "Vietnamization"

- Which meant that his goal was to honor American commitments in Vietnam while gradually pulling US troops out of Vietnam and replacing them with Vietnamese troops, thus Vietnamizing the war - Richard Nixon urged the American people, torn with dissension over Vietnam and race relations, to "stop shouting at one another" - The new president seemed an unlikely conciliator of the clashing forces that appeared to be ripping apart American society - Solitary and suspicious by nature, Nixon could be brittle and testify in the face of opposition - He also harbored bitter resentments against the "liberal establishment" that had cast him into the political darkness for much of the preceding decade - Was to withdraw the 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam over an extended period - The South Vietnamese - with American money, weapons, training, and advice - could then gradually take over the burden of fighting their own war

"Suburbanization also fostered segregation"

- William Levitt, who assumed control of Levitt & Sons in 1954, is considered the father of modern suburbia in the United States - William J. Levitt refused to sell Levittown homes to people of color, and the FHA, upon authorizing loans for the construction of Levittown, included racial covenants in each deed, making each of these towns a segregated community - Began during the New Deal and the Second World War, when sweeping federal policies hollowed out cities, pushed rapid suburbanization, and created a white homeowner class intent on defending racial barriers - Rising car and truck ownership made it easier for businesses and middle- and working-class white residents to flee to the suburbs, leaving behind growing poor and minority populations and fiscal crises - Segregated social classes (can also be by race and ethnicity) and segregated land use (residents are separated from commerical and manufacturing activities) - It showed conformity, materialism, blind embracement of corporate culture, mobility and female oppression

William F. Buckley and the National Review

- Writer that founded the National Review magazine in 1955 - The magazine stimulated the conservative movement - Senator Goldwater owed his nomination to a bourgeoning conservative movement that was gathering strengthen the mushrooming middle-class suburbs of the Sunbelt - An American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs - The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955 - Was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator - In 1955, he founded National Review, the magazine that stimulated the conservative movement in the mid-20th century United States

Berlin Airlift, 1948-1949

- Year-long mission of flying food and supplies to blockaded West Berliners, whom the Soviet Union cut off from access to the West in the first major crisis of the Cold War - Germany as divided into four zones after World War I, city of Berlin was divided into 2 zones - East Germany and East Berlin were under control of the USSR - West Germany and West Berlin were under control of France, Britain, and the US - USSR cuts of land routes to West Berlin in order to force out US, France and Britain - US decided to fly supplies non-stop to West Berlin until the Russians back down and reopen land to West Berlin

YAF

- Young Americans for Freedom - The largest student political organization in the country in the 1960s - Its conservative members defended free enterprise and supported the war in Vietnam

William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 1962

1914-1997 - He was an American writer and visual artist - He was nearly a decade older than Kerouac and Ginsbers, but still contributed the third great work of Beat literature - With the publication of his work Naked Lunch in 1962, after shooting dead his common-law wife in Mexico City and becoming a drug addict and a fugitive - His work spurred an obscenity trial in Massachusetts and made Burroughs an early icon of postmodernism - Abandoning plot and coherent characterization, used a drug addict's consciousness to depict a hideous modern landscape - American writer of experimental novels that evoke, in deliberately erratic prose, a nightmarish, sometimes wildly humorous world - His sexual explicitness (he was an avowed and outspoken homosexual) and the frankness with which he dealt with his experiences as a drug addict won him a following among writers of the Beat movement

The Long Economic Boom

1950-1970 - Fueled primarily by reduced military expenditures - From 1950s to the 1970s, the American economy grew rapidly. Incomes rose, the middle class expanded, and Americans accounted for 40% of the planet's wealth. - The economic growth changed the face of politics and society - Paved the war for the success of the civil rights movement, funded new welfare programs, and gave Americans the confidence to exercise international leadership in the Cold War era - Most new jobs created after WWII went to women, as the service sector of the economy dramatically outgrew the old industrial and manufacturing sectors - The post-World War II economic expansion, also known as the postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism, was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning after World War II and ending with the 1973-1975 recession

The Beat Generation

1950s - Group highlighted by writers and artist who stressed spontaneity and spirituality instead of apathy and conformity - Group of artists and writers who rejected traditional artistic and social forms - Influences included psychedelic drugs and Eastern beliefs, such as Zen Buddhism - Members rejected regular work and preferred communal living - Many members were located around San Francisco - Writers of the generation included Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era - The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generationers in the 1950s, better known as Beatniks

Civil Rights Act of 1957

1957 - Law that established a federal Civil Rights Commission - First civil rights act since Reconstruction - Stimulated by Brown v. Board of Edu. of Topeka and civil rights activism - Created a panel to ensure that voting rights of African Americans were not violated - The first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction - The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote - Was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875 - The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 9, 1957

ABM Treaty

1972-2001 - Anti-Ballistic Missile - Political treaty between the U.S and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons - An agreement between the United States and Soviet to cease construction of a national anti-ballistic missile system to limit the development and deployment of defensive missiles

Birmingham, Alabama, Civil Rights Campaign, dogs and fire hoses, 1963

- 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. The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama—a church with a predominantly Black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. - The demonstrations of 1963 culminated with the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28 to protest civil rights abuses and employment discrimination. Despite Kennedy's assassination in November of 1963, his proposal culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law just a few hours after it was passed by Congress on July 2, 1964. The act outlawed segregation in businesses such as theaters, restaurants, and hotels. - Fire hoses and police dogs were used here today to disperse Negro students protesting racial segregation. In May 1963, police in Birmingham, Alabama, responded to marching African American youth with fire hoses and police dogs to disperse the protesters, as the Birmingham jails already were filled to capacity with other civil rights protesters.

JFK's famous Civil Rights Speech in response, on June 11, 1963

- It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color - In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated - In his speech, Kennedy called Americans to recognize civil rights as a moral cause to which all people need to contribute and was "as clear as the American Constitution" - He conveyed how the proposed legislation would lead the nation to end discrimination against African Americans

Kennedy sent "military advisers" to Vietnam

- John F. Kennedy ordered more "military advisers" to be placed in South Vietnam in 1961 - It was a response to the threat of anti-Diem agitators who sought to overthrow the pro-American government at the time - America was to protect Diem from communists so that there would be political stability and social reforms - However, the Kennedy administration ended up losing hope in the right-wing government of Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon - The administration ended up encouraging a coup against Diem that was successful - In May 1961, JFK authorized sending an additional 500 Special Forces troops and military advisors to assist the pro Western government of South Vietnam - By the end of 1962, there were approximately 11,000 military advisors in South Vietnam; that year, 53 military personnel had been killed

Kennedy challenged Americans to get a man on the moon, and back, by the end of the 1960s

- Kennedy stood before Congress on May 25, 1961, and proposed that the US "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" - Not everyone was impressed; a Gallup Poll indicated that 58 percent of Americans were opposed - Kennedy delivered an address at Rice University to inspire Americans to support NASA's mission to the moon - In what became known as his "We Choose the Moon" speech, Kennedy promised to put an American astronaut on the moon before the end of the 1960s - We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, and one we are unwilling to postpone

Presidential Election of 1960

- Kennedy vs Nixon - Close election between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon - Most likely decided by first televised debate - Was the 44th quadrennial presidential election - It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960 - In a closely contested election, Democratic United States Senator John F. Kennedy defeated the incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican Party nominee - The Presidential election of 1960 was one of the closest in American history - John F. Kennedy won the popular vote by a slim margin of approximately 100,000 votes - Richard Nixon won more individual states than Kennedy, but it was Kennedy who prevailed by winning key states with many electoral votes

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

- Kennedy's inaugural address inspired children and adults to see the importance of civic action and public service - His historic words challenged every American to contribute in some way to the public good - On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural address - The conclusion of that speech inspired a generation — and profoundly shaped the launch of the Peace Corps in 1961

Khrushchev visits the USA in 1959

- Khrushchev wanted the U.S. to remove its forces in West Berlin, and was invited by Eisenhower to an in-person meeting - Despite doubts of having any results from this meeting, Eisenhower reluctantly invited Khrushchev to a face-to-face meeting - He met with Eisenhower at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains - The state visit of Nikita Khrushchev to the United States was a 13-day visit from 15-27 September 1959 - It marked the first state visit of a Soviet leader to the US

A bombing of a Black Birmingham Church

- Killed four girls in September of 1963 - A former Ku Klux Klansman was convicted today in the 1963 bombing of an Alabama church that killed four black girls - Was a white supremacist terrorist attack which occurred at the African-American 16th Street Baptist Church - On the morning of September 15, 1963, as the congregation's children prepared for annual Youth Day celebrations, a bomb exploded

Elvis Presley

- King of Rock and Roll - Had a large impact on the development of Rock 'N' Roll - United States rock singer whose many hit records and flamboyant style greatly influenced American popular music (1935-1977) - A symbol of the rock-and-roll movement of the 50s when teenagers began to form their own subculture, dismaying to conservative parents; created a youth culture that ridiculed phony and pretentious middle-class Americans, celebrated uninhibited sexuality and spontaneity; foreshadowed the coming counterculture of the 1960s- - In 1954, the performer kicked off a musical revolution by modernizing traditional genres such as blues, country and bluegrass for contemporary (and more youthful) audiences - His combination of "black music" and lively performances were crucial in helping to start a new counter-cultural revolution, one that attempted to break down color barriers and awaken the youth to influences outside of what was deemed "safe"

Inchon

- Korean port from which American forces launched a successful attack against the North Korean army during the Korean War - A port city in western South Korea on the Yellow Sea - Site of major battle in the Korean War - Was an amphibious invasion and a battle of the Korean War that resulted in a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations Command (UN) - Amphibious landing and battle to take Seoul directed by the commander of Republic of Korea and United Nations forces, U.S. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, resulted in a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations Command

Presidential Election of 1964

- LBJ vs Barry Goldwater - Johnson's nomination by the Democrats was a foregone conclusion; he was chosen by acclamation in Atlantic City - Prodded by Johnson, the Democrats stood foursquare on their most liberal platform since Truman's Fair Deal days - The Republicans, convening in San Francisco's Cow Palace, nominated box-jawed Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, a bronzed and bespectacled champion of rock-ribbed conservatism - Goldwater's forces had galloped out of the Southwest to ride roughshod over the moderate Republican "eastern establishment" - Insisting that the GOP offer "a choice not an echo," Goldwater attacked the federal income tax, the Social Security system, the Tennessee Valley Authority, civil rights legislation, the nuclear test-ban treaty, and the Great Society

The Great Society

- LBJ's version of the New Deal - President Johnson called this his version of the Democratic reform program - In 1965, Congress passed many Great Society measures, including Medicare, civil rights legislation, and federal aid to education - Initiatives epitomized the soaring national self-confidence of the post-World War II era - They envisioned not only the end of racial discrimination, but also vastly expanded health and welfare programs, the abolition of poverty, and major new public investments in education and the arts - Was a set of domestic policy initiatives, programs, and legislation introduced in the 1960s in the U.S. - These programs were intended to reduce poverty levels, reduce racial injustice, reduce crime, and improve the environment

OSHA created in 1970

- Late in 1970 Nixon signed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration into law - Creating an agency dedicated to improving working conditions, preventing work-related accidents and deaths, and issuing safety standards

J. Robert Oppenheimer

- Lead the Manhattan Project: the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear bomb - He was remembered as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb" - Director of the Manhattan Project and later of the Atomic Energy Commission - Lead the Manhattan Project: the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear bomb - He was remembered as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb" - Was director of the Los Alamos Laboratory and responsible for the research and design of an atomic bomb - The project was populated by many scientists who had escaped fascist regimes in Europe, and their mission was to explore a newly documented fission process involving uranium-235, with which they hoped to make a nuclear bomb before Adolf Hitler could develop it

Joseph Stalin (1924-1953)

- Leader of communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) - His efforts to transform the Soviet Union into an industrial power and form state-run collective farms caused extreme hardship and millions of deaths

Pentagon Papers

- Leaked to the New York Times in 1971by Daniel Ellsberg - New combustibles filed the fires of antiwar discontent in June 1971, when a former Pentagon official leaked to the New Times some papers - A top-secret Pentagon study that documented the blunders and deceptions of the Kenned and Johnson administrations, especially the provoking of the 1964 North Vietnamese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin

26th Amendment

- Lowers the voting age, nationally, to 18 years of age in 1971 - Pentagon Papers leaked to the New York Times in 1971by Daniel Ellsberg

The Lyndon "Johnson Treatment"

- Lyndon could move mountains or checkmate opponents as the occasion demanded which created this phrase - An intimidating display of backslapping, flesh-pressing, and arm-twisting that overbore friend and foe alike - His ego and vanity were legendary - Used his size and physical proximity to intimidate, pressure, and convince others to do what he wanted - Became the Democratic majority leader in 1954, wielding power second only to that of Eisenhower in the White House - As president, Johnson quickly shed the conservative coloration of his Senate years to reveal the latent liberal underneath

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan

- Many people will seek credit for success, but few will accept responsibility for failure - Means when you are winning you get more people around you and they tend to be by your side and cherish you but when you start losing, it becomes the opposite - In 1961, when President John F. Kennedy was embarrassed by the failed attempt to invade Cuba, he made a famous comment

My Lai massacre, 1968

- Military assault in a small Vietnamese village on March 16, 1968, in which American soldiers under the command of 2nd Lieutenant William Calley murdered hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children - The atrocity produced outrage and reduced support for the war in America and around the world when details of the massacre and an attempted cover-up were revealed in 1971 - Rumors filtered out of Vietnam that soldiers were "fragging" their own officers - murdering them with fragmentation grenades - Domestic disgust with the war further deepened amid revelations that American troops had callously slaughtered more than 300 innocent women and children in 1968

Battle of Dien Bien Phu, 1954

- Military engagement in French colonial Vietnam in which French forces were defeated by Viet Minh nationalists loyal to Ho Chi Minh - With this loss, the French ended their colonial involvement in Indochina, paving the way for American's entry - Victory of Vietnamese forces over the French, causing the French to leave Vietnam and all of Indochina; Geneva Peace Accords that followed established North and South Vietnam - Fought from March 13 to May 7, 1954, was a decisive Vietnamese military victory that brought an end to French colonial rule in Vietnam - Was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954 - It was fought between the French Union's colonial Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries

$50 billion per year being spent on the Defense Budget by the time of the Korean War

- Military spending in the United States was high prior to the Korean War due to the Cold War with the Soviet Union - The Korean War cost the US$30 billion in 1953, which is equivalent to US$341 billion in 2011 - During the last year of the war, annual war expenditure comprised about 14.1 percent of GDP - The Korean War increased U.S. spending on military defense to roughly 14 percent of GDP - The country had to raise taxes to pay for the war, which led to price increases and limited domestic spending - Still, the war had an overall smaller impact on the U.S. budget than World War II did - The Korean War affected the U.S. economy in several ways. First, the war led to increased government spending because the artilleries used to fight against North Koreans were very expensive. Increased government spending negatively affected economic growth, resulting in increased taxes that minimized consumer spending.

MIRV

- Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicle - Nuclear warheads that sit atop a variety of missiles in the US. inventory, and can hit multiple targets simultaneously - Equipped with large numbers of warheads, several to a rocket

Medgar Evers assassinated in his driveway in Mississippi

- NAACP field secretary in Mississippi Medgar Evers (1925-1963) was assassinated at his home in Jackson, Mississippi, a few hours after President Kennedy made a nationally televised speech in which he announced he soon would ask Congress to enact civil rights legislation - The same night as JFK's speech in 1963 - After pulling into his driveway and getting out of his car carrying NAACP T-shirts reading "Jim Crow Must Go," Evers was shot in the back and died at the local hospital less than an hour later - He was murdered just hours after President John F. Kennedy's speech on national television in support of civil rights

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

- National Security Adviser - Continued secrete negotiations with the North Vietnamese in Paris - Had reached America as a youth when his parents fled Hitler's anti-Jewish persecution - In1969 the former Harvard professor had begun meeting secretly on Nixon's behalf with North Vietnamese officials in Paris to negotiate an end to the war in Vietnam - He was meanwhile preparing the president's path to Beijing and Moscow

Carter's "Malaise" Speech

- National address by President Jimmy Carter in which he criticized American materialism and urged a communal spirit in the face of economic hardships - Although Carter intended the speech to improve both public morale and his standings as a leader, it had the opposite effect and was widely perceived as a political disaster - Carter stunned a perplex nation with his speech, chiding his fellow citizens for falling into a "moral and spiritual crisis" and for being too concerned with "material goods" - A few days later, in a bureaucratic massacre of almost unprecedented proportions, he fired four cabinet secretaries and circled the wagons of his Georgia advisors more tightly about the White House by reorganizing and expanding the power of his personal staff - Critics began to wonder aloud whether Carter, the professed man of the people, was losing touch with popular mood of the country

Nixon's ordered US forces into Vietnam's neighbor, Cambodia

- Nixon does this as a means of getting at Communist Vietnamese forces who would sometimes circumvent us by ducking into that neighboring country - For several years the North Vietnamese and Viet Kong had been using Cambodia, bordering South Vietnam on the west, as a springboard for troops, weapons, and supplies - Suddenly, on April 29, 1970, without consulting Congress, Nixon ordered American forces to join with the South Vietnamese in cleaning out the enemy sanctuaries in officially neutral Cambodia

The White House Tapes and "executive privilege"

- Nixon indignantly denied any prior knowledge of the break-in and any involvement in the legal proceedings against the burglars - But when a former White House aide revealed that a secret taping system had recorded most of Nixon's Oval Office conservations, a Pandora's box of incriminating evidence lay open - Nixon at first agreed only to the publication of "relevant" portions of the tapes, with many sections missing - But on July 24, 1974, the president suffered a disastrous setback when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that privilege gave him no right to withhold evidence relevant to possible criminal activity - Nixon's invoking of to withhold these tapes from Congress and its Watergate investigation - The privilege, claimed by the president for the executive branch of the US government, of withholding information in the public interest.

Secret bombing raids in Cambodia occurring for multiple years

- Nixon launched a furious two-week bombing of North Vietnam in an iron-fisted effort to force the North Vietnamese back to the conference table - This merciless pounding drove the North Vietnamese negotiators to agree to a cease-fire in the Treaty of Paris on January 23, 1973, nearly three months after peace was prematurely proclaimed - In July 1973 Americans were shocked to learn that the U.S. Air Force had secretly conducted some thirty-five hundred bombing rids against North Vietnamese positions in Cambodia, beginning in March 1969 and continuing for some fourteen months prior to the open American incursion in May 1970

Richard Nixon and Alger Hiss

- Nixon led movement to Hiss's indictment - Convicted of perjury, Nixon gained national prominence - In 1948 committee member (of HUAC) Richard Nixon, an ambitious red-catcher, led the chase after Alger Hiss, a prominent ex-New Dealer and a distinguished member of the "eastern establishment" - Accused of being a communist agent in the 1930s, Hiss demanded the right to defend himself - He dramatically met his chief accuser before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Aug 1948 - Hiss denied everything but was caught in embarrassing falsehoods, convicted of perjury in 1950, and sentenced to five years in prison -

Presidential Election of 1972

- Nixon vs George McGovern - The continuing Vietnam conflict spurred the rise of South Dakota senator George McGovern in the race for Democratic presidential nomination, while changes in the nominating system itself helped to ensure his victory at the party's convention - McGovern had led a party commission tasked with reforming state delegate selection procedures to ensure popular participation in Democratic presidential nominations - Nixon's campaign emphasized that he had wound down the "Democratic war" in Vietnam from some 540,000 troops to about 30,000 - Nixon's candidacy received an added boost just twelve days before the election when the high-flying Dr. Kissinger announced that "peace is at hand" in Vietnam and that an agreement would be reached in a few days

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

- Nonviolent leader of the civil rights movement and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference - Leader of the civil rights movement - Baptist minister known for his advocacy of nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience - Civil Rights leader in the United States, who led a March on Washington in 1963 to push for Civil Rights to become a national issue - Was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 - He was the driving force behind watershed events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington, which helped bring about such landmark legislation as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act - King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964

Stonewall Rebellion, 1969, in New York City

- Off-duty police officers attacked gay men at the Stonewall Inn (many gay people and lesbians were demanding more sexual tolerance at this time) - The victims fought back, and because many gay people and lesbians were demanding more sexual tolerance at this time, this was a rebellion - A brutal attack on gay men by off-duty police officers at New York's Stonewall Inn in 1969 proved a turning point, when the victims fought back - Widening worries in the 1980s about sexually transmitted diseases slowed but did not reverse the sexual revolution

James Meredith

- Officially became the first African American student at the University of Mississippi on October 2, 1962 - He was guarded twenty-four hours a day by reserve U.S. deputy marshals and army troops, and he endured constant verbal harassment from a minority of students - Desegregated University of Mississippi in 1962 - A former serviceman in the U.S. Air Force, Meredith applied and was accepted to the University of Mississippi in 1962, but his admission was revoked when the registrar learned of his race - With his admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962, he became one of the heroic figures in the American Civil Rights Movement, succeeding against every legal, political and bureaucratic obstacle that blocked his path to becoming the university's first African-American student

Over 200,000 march in Washington D.C. to hear MLK's "I Have A Dream" Speech in Aug, 1963

- Officially called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the historic gathering took place on August 28, 1963 - Some 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, and more than 3,000 members of the press covered the event - On August 28, 1963, an interracial assembly of more than 200,000 people gathered peaceably in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial to demand equal justice for all citizens under the law - On August 28, 1963, more than a quarter million people participated in the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, gathering near the Lincoln Memorial - More than 3,000 members of the press covered this historic march, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

U-2 Spy Plane

- On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defense Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory - Piloted by Francis Gary Powers shot down in 1960 - Hopes for a successful summit were dashed when on May 1, May Day, an American U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet air space - An American U-2 spy plane is shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union - The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month

First Earth Day celebrated in 1970

- On April 22, 1970, millions of environmentalists around the world celebrated the first Earth Day - In order to raise awareness and to encourage their leaders to act

Iranian Hostage Crisis

- A rescue effort was ordered, by it ended in disaster - 8 Americans died in a crash caused by an accidental crash, en route to Iran - Was traumatizing for Americans and made Carter look helpless - On November 4, 1979, a mob of passionately anti-American Muslim militants stormed the United State embassy in Tehran, Iran, and took all of its occupants hostage - The captors then demanded that the American authorities ship back to Iran the exiled shah, who had arrived in the United States two weeks earlier for medical treatment - World opinion hotly condemned the diplomatic felony in Iran, while Americans agonized over both the fate of the hostages and the stability of the entire Persian Gulf region, so dangerously close to the Soviet Union - The Soviet army then aroused the West's worst fears on December 27. 1979, when it blitzed into the mountainous nation of Afghanistan, next door to Iran, and appeared to be poised for a thrust at the oil jugular of the Gulf - The Americans in the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran were taken hostage starting in November of 1979 and were held for 444 Days - In 1979, Iranian fundamentalists seized the American embassy in Tehran and held fifty-three American diplomats hostage for over a year - The Iranian hostage crisis weakened the Carter presidency - The hostages were finally released on January 20, 1981, the day Ronald Reagan became president - President Carter reacted vigorously and he slapped an embargo on the export of grain and high-technology machinery to the USSR and called for a boycott of the upcoming Olympic Games in Moscow - The captured Americans languished in cruel captivity, while the nightly television news broadcasts in the United States showed humiliating scenes of Iranian mobs burning the American flag and spitting on effigies of Uncle Sam

Jackson Pollock

- A twentieth-century American painter, famous for creating abstract paintings by dripping or pouring paint on a canvas in complex swirls and spatters - Abstract Expressionism - Was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement - He was widely noticed for his "drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles - His work brought together elements of Cubism, Surrealism, and Impressionism, and transcended them all - Beside that achievement even greats such as de Kooning, who remained closer to Cubism, and hung on to figurative imagery, seemed to fall short

A U.N. "police action"

- A war in all but name - Basically an undeclared war - The Department of State coordinated U.S. strategic decisions with the other 16 countries contributing troops to the fighting - In addition, the Department worked closely with the government of Syngman Rhee, encouraging him to implement reform so that the UN claim of defending democracy in Korea would be accurate - North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950

"the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy"

- A war with Communist China, over Korea, would be described as - According to Five Star General Omar Bradley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at that time - Is General Omar Bradley's famous rebuke in his May 15, 1951 Congressional testimony as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the idea of extending the Korean War into China, as proposed by General Douglas MacArthur - General Omar Bradley, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in 1951 called America's deepening involvement in the Korean conflict - George S. Patton, upon taking control of Berlin in 1945, said "We defeated the wrong enemy." The Communists, one supposes, were the right enemy

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

- Abolished the national-origins quotas and providing for the admission each year of 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western Hemisphere - Immigration reform was the third of Johnson's Big Four feats - Its largely unintended consequences reshaped. the nation demographically and economically for decades to come - Abolished at last the "national-origins" quota system that had been in place since 1921 - The act a also doubled (to 290,00) the number of immigrants allowed to enter annually, while for the first time setting limits on immigrants from the Western Hemisphere (120,000) - The new law further provided for the admission of close relative of U.S. citizens beyond those numerical limits - More than 100,000 persons per year took advantage of the act's family unification provisions in the decades after 1965, as the immigrant stream swelled beyond expectations - The sources of immigration soon shifted heavily from Europe to Latin America and Asia, dramatically changing the racial and ethnic composition of the American population

Roe v. Wade, 1973

- Abortion rights fall within the privacy implied in the 14th amendment - Legalized abortion - Was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion

CIA installs The Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi in 1953

- According to the CIA's declassified documents and records, some of the most feared mobsters in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-Shah riots on 19 August - Other men paid by the CIA were brought into Tehran in buses and trucks, and took over the streets of the city - The Shah received significant American support during his reign and he frequently made state visits to the White House, and received praise from numerous American presidents - The Shah's close ties to Washington and his modernization policies soon angered some Iranians, especially the hardcore Islamic conservatives - Considered the founding father of modern Iran by contemporary historians, Army General Reza Shah Pahlavi replaced Islamic laws with western ones, and forbade traditional Islamic clothing, separation of the sexes and veiling of women (hijab) - Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, also known as Mohammad Reza Shah, was the last Shah of the Imperial State of Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow in the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979 - Owing to his status, he was usually known as the Shah

The "prime rate" that the US Government lent money to commercial banks went up to 20% in 1980

- Adding to Carter's mushrooming troubles was the failing health of the economy - A stinging recession during Ford's presidency had brought the inflation rate down slightly to just under 6 percent but from the moment Carter took over, prices resumed their dizzying ascent, driving the inflation rate well above 13 percent by 1980 - The soaring bill for imported oil plunged America's balance of payments deeply into the red - The "prime rate" (rate of interest that banks charge their very best customers) vaulted to an unheard-of 20 percent in early 1980 - The high cost of borrowing money shoved small businesses to the wall and strangled the construction industry, which depended heavily on loans to finance new housing and other projects