HIST 1302

Upton Sinclair

1906 Published "The Jungle" (exposed gross in meat packing companies) which caused few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the "free press" in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Was a socialist but not successful in politics.

Reverend Jerry Falwell

1988 Supreme Court defends right to Satirize Public Figures - Freedom of Speech. It overturned his award of $200,000 from Hustler who made fun of him in their magazine with a crude cartoon. Falwell was a religious conservative and founder of the Moral Majority political advocacy group. Replaced Jim Baker and ran PTL (right into bankruptcy). Believes a lot of the tragedies that occur are God's punishment for our allowing homosexuality. Extremely controversial and a hater of everyone not doing as he believes - God's punishment.

Operation Desert Storm - Airstrike January 17, 1991

A massive U.S.-led air offensive hit Iraq's air defenses, moving swiftly on to its communications networks, weapons plants, oil refineries and more. The coalition effort benefited from the latest military technology, including Stealth bombers, Cruise missiles, so-called "Smart" bombs with laser-guidance systems and infrared night-bombing equipment. The Iraqi air force was either destroyed early on or opted out of combat under the relentless attack, the objective of which was to win the war in the air and minimize combat on the ground as much as possible

Roe v. Wade (Jan 22, 1973) Norma McCorvey vs Dallas County DA

Abortion had been around for a long time. But it was not considered immoral or criminal - Doctors decided that abortion practitioners were unwanted competition and went about eliminating that competition. By the 1900s, all states had laws against abortion but not until 30s were they enforced.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) March 1933

Formed March 1933 - First New Deals Program. Public works project intended to promote environmental conservation ran by Army. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's baby. Responsible for over half the reforestation, public and private, done in the nation's history. In 10 years built 800 parks and planted 3 B trees. Covered by Army and unknowingly prepared youth for WWII.

USA Patriot's Act (Uniting and Strengthening America) October 2001

Oct. 26, 2001 initial signed and renewed 3/2006. Anti-terrorism law drawn up in response to the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Law intended to "enhance the penalties that will fall on terrorists or anyone who helps them." Gave FBI power to look at personal stuff. American Civil Liberties Union challenges the government's rights to do this.

Bay of Pigs (1961)

On January 1, 1959, a young Cuban nationalist named Fidel Castro (1926-) drove his guerilla army into Havana and overthrew General Fulgencio Batista, the nation's American-backed president. For the next two years, officials at the U.S. State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempted to push Castro from power. Finally, in April 1961, the CIA launched what its leaders believed would be the definitive strike: a full-scale invasion of Cuba by 1,400 American-trained Cubans who had fled their homes when Castro took over. However, the invasion did not go well: The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro's troops, and they surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting. Batista allowed a lot of business benefitting Americans. Castro, by contrast, disapproved of the approach that Americans took to their business and interests in Cuba. It was time, he believed, for Cubans to assume more control of their nation. "Cuba Sí, Yanquis No" became one of his most popular slogans. Castro made ties with USSR and US banned Cuban sugar...USSR steeped in and bought to prevent economic crash. Plan to invade was to train the Americans who fled (1,400), attack Castro's tiny air force base, April 15, 1961 they tried to attack with plans that looked like stolen Cuban planes but Castro knew they were coming, On April 17, the Cuban exile brigade began its invasion at an isolated spot on the island's southern shore known as the Bay of Pigs. Almost immediately, the invasion was a disaster. The CIA had wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible, but a radio station on the beach (which the agency's reconnaissance team had failed to spot) broadcast every detail of the operation to listeners across Cuba. Unexpected coral reefs sank some of the exiles' ships as they pulled into shore. Backup paratroopers landed in the wrong place. Before long, Castro's troops had pinned the invaders on the beach, and the exiles surrendered after less than a day of fighting; 114 were killed and over 1,100 were taken prisoner. However, the president Kennedy was resolute: As much as he did not want to "abandon Cuba to the communists," he said, he would not start a fight that might end in World War III.

John Steinbeck

On this day, writer John Steinbeck was presented the U.S. Medal of Freedom. Steinbeck had already received numerous other honors and awards for his writing, including the 1962 Nobel Prize and a 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Grapes of Wrath (dust bowl in Oklahoma families move to California and become fruit pickers). Famous author of Mice and Men, Grapes of Wrath, Cannery Row, and the Pearl. Cannery Row - Cannery Row is a novel by American author John Steinbeck, published in 1945. It is set during the Great Depression in Monterey, California, on a street lined with sardine canneries that is known as Cannery Row. The story revolves around the people living there: Lee Chong, the local grocer; Doc, a marine biologist based on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts; and Mack, the leader of a group of derelicts. the Pearl - published in 1947. It is the story of a pearl diver, Kino, and explores man's nature as well as greed and evil. Steinbeck's inspiration was a Mexican folk tale from La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, which he had heard in a visit to the formerly pearl-rich region in 1940.[1] In 1947, it was adapted into a Mexican film named La perla and in 1987 into a Kannada movie Ondu Muttina Kathe. The story is one of Steinbeck's most popular books and has been widely used in high school classes.[2] The Pearl is sometimes considered a parable. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with the comparable Congressional Gold Medal, bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award of the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors".[3] The award is not limited to U.S. citizens and, while it is a civilian award, it can also be awarded to military personnel and worn on the uniform.

Works Progress Administration 1933 (Part of New Deal under Roosevelt)

Put unemployed Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance. WPA workers built highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. They restored theaters-such as the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, S.C.-and built the ski lodge at Oregon's Mt. Hood. The WPA also put actors, writers and other creative arts professionals back to work by sponsoring federally funded plays, art projects, such as murals on public buildings, and literary publications. FDR safeguarded private enterprise from competition with WPA projects by including a provision in the act that placed wage and price controls on federally funded products or services.

Loving v. Virginia

Richard Loving, a white man, met Mildred Jeter, a family friend who was of African and Native American descent, when both were teenagers, and their relationship quickly blossomed into romance. In June 1958 the couple drove 80 miles from their native Virginia, where so-called "anti-miscegenation" laws made interracial unions illegal, to exchange their vows in Washington, D.C. Five weeks later, police officers walked through their unlocked front door and awakened the newlyweds in the middle of the night. When a sheriff asked what he was "doing in bed with this lady," 24-year-old Richard simply pointed at the marriage certificate hanging on the wall. Arrested and charged with "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth," the Lovings were sentenced to one year in prison or a 25-year exile from their home state. The couple relocated to Washington, where they lived for five years and had three children. Missing their family and friends back home, in 1963 they contacted U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who referred them to the American Civil Liberties Union. Volunteer lawyers ultimately took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which in the landmark Loving v. Virginia decision of 1967 unanimously ruled that bans on racial intermarriage in Virginia and 15 other states were unconstitutional. Richard was killed in a car crash in 1975, and Mildred remained in the Virginia house he had built her until her death in 2008.

Gulf War Begins - January 15, 1991

Sadam Hussein invaded Kuwait he said it was not a recognized state. Saudi Arabia and Egypt called for US intervention. ON mid-January 1991 U.S.-led air offensive for 42 days and ran them out. BUT NOT all was settled and in 2003 there was a 2nd Gulf War known as Iraq War. Hussein went back on cease fire and thought other Arab countries would back him...they did not. Kuwait/Iraq turned to NATO for help. Hussein even tried to call a jihad to gain Muslims.

Abu Ghraib

Saddam Hussein's prison 20 miles west of Bagdad. Torture and inhumane conditions. When Hussein's reign collapsed, US totally rebuilt the prison as a military prison. Living conditions were better than homes. Sadly, Americans began the abuse and the prison was investigated. Most abuse happened at the direction of senior commanders. Nobody questioned the treatment because orders were coming from higher ups. Ryder sent to investigate and wrote a wonderful review of the prison and said nothing wrong. However, Taguba uncovered gross treatment of detainees and exposed all involved. Geneva Treaty was violated in how we handled prisoners!

World War II (Started 1939; US entered 1941)

Second World War was the most widespread and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries and resulting in more than 50 million military and civilian deaths (with some estimates as high as 85 million dead). Sparked by Adolf Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939, the war would drag on for six deadly years until the final Allied defeat of both Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt committed American forces to the Allied cause in World War II. The instability created in Europe by the First World War (1914-18) set the stage for another international conflict-World War II-which broke out two decades later and would prove even more devastating. Rising to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi Party) rearmed the nation and signed strategic treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination. Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, and World War II had begun. Over the next six years, the conflict would take more lives and destroy more land and property around the globe than any previous war. Among the estimated 45-60 million people killed were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler's diabolical "Final Solution," now known as the Holocaust. Leading up to World War II The devastation of the Great War (as World War I was known at the time) had greatly destabilized Europe, and in many respects World War II grew out of issues left unresolved by that earlier conflict. In particular, political and economic instability in Germany, and lingering resentment over the harsh terms imposed by the Versailles Treaty, fueled the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party. Hitler's Rise After becoming Reich Chancellor in 1933, Hitler swiftly consolidated power, anointing himself Führer (supreme leader) in 1934. Obsessed with the idea of the superiority of the "pure" German race, which he called "Aryan," Hitler believed that war was the only way to gain the necessary "Lebensraum," or living space, for that race to expand. In the mid-1930s, he began the rearmament of Germany, secretly and in violation of the Versailles Treaty. After signing alliances with Italy and Japan against the Soviet Union, Hitler sent troops to occupy Austria in 1938 and the following year annexed Czechoslovakia. Hitler's open aggression went unchecked, as the United States and Soviet Union were concentrated on internal politics at the time, and neither France nor Britain (the two other nations most devastated by the Great War) were eager for confrontation. Outbreak of WWII see http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history

Korean War (June 1950-July 1953)

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Korea had been a part of the Japanese empire, and after World War II it fell to the Americans and the Soviets to decide what should be done with their enemy's mperial possessions. In August 1945, two young aides at the State Department divided the Korean peninsula in half along the 38th parallel. The Russians occupied the area north of the line and the United States occupied the area to its south. The Korean War (TV show "MASH" depicts this war)began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea's behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. Tried to create Armistice with North Korea to prevent engaging in War with Russia and China. Many feared North Korea's advancement was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world. For this reason, nonintervention was not considered an option by many top decision makers. (In fact, in April 1950, a National Security Council report known as NSC-68 had recommended that the United States use military force to "contain" communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring, "regardless of the intrinsic strategic or economic value of the lands in question.") What went wrong? At first, the war was a defensive one-a war to get the communists out of South Korea-and it went badly for the Allies. The North Korean army was well-disciplined, well-trained and well-equipped; Rhee's forces, by contrast, were frightened, confused, and seemed inclined to flee the battlefield at any provocation. Also, it was one of the hottest and driest summers on record, and desperately thirsty American soldiers were often forced to drink water from rice paddies that had been fertilized with human waste. As a result, dangerous intestinal diseases and other illnesses were a constant threat. Became a war to liberate North Korea which worked at first until we got to close to China in Yula River. China warned of full scale war. Truman backed down but MacArthur wanted to push ahead. Finally, in March 1951, he sent a letter to Joseph Martin, a House Republican leader who shared MacArthur's support for declaring all-out war on China-and who could be counted upon to leak the letter to the press. "There is," MacArthur wrote, "no substitute for victory" against international communism. He was fired. Both sides agreed to cease fire but they could not agree on whether prisoners of war should be forcibly "repatriated." (The Chinese and the North Koreans said yes; the United States said no.) Finally, after more than two years of negotiations, the adversaries signed an armistice on July 27, 1953 -allowed the POWs to stay where they liked; drew a new boundary near the 38th parallel that gave South Korea an extra 1,500 square miles of territory; and created a 2-mile-wide "demilitarized zone" that still exists today. Rate of civilian casualties was higher than World War II's and Vietnam's.

Joseph McCarthy Senator from Wisconsin

Symbolizes the "Red Scare" during the midst of the Cold War with Communist. Tried to reveal communists within our government and other walks of society. Declared he knew 205 communist in US at the Women's Republican Club Meeting. Almost a witch hunt! Nobody spoke against him until 1954 when he accused the army of holding communists in its ranks. He was censured by the US Senate. In 2nd term investigated government employees and over 2000 government employees (violating their rights) lost their jobs. His interviews being televised began his downfall. He lost his power but not his job.

Korematsu v. United States

The Supreme Court upheld the legality of the relocation order of Japanese to camps. History: After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt ordered all Japanese-Americans to evacuate the west coast. 120,000 were taken to 10 camps in the US. 1946 last camp closed, 1948 survivors paid for their loss in selling everything. In 1988 Congress ordered restitution ($) to be paid to survivors of the camps because we violated their civil rights.

Atlantic Charter (US & Britain created August 1941) (26 Allied Countries joined them Jan 1942)

The document, which was not a treaty, stated that the two leaders "deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world." The Atlantic Charter included eight common principles. Among them, the United States and Britain agreed not to seek territorial gains from the war, and they opposed any territorial changes made against the wishes of the people concerned. The two countries also agreed to support the restoration of self-government to those nations who had lost it during the war. Additionally, the Atlantic Charter stated that people should have the right to choose their own form of government. Other principles included access for all nations to raw materials needed for economic prosperity and an easing of trade restrictions. The document also called for international cooperation to secure improved living and working conditions for all; freedom of the seas; and for all countries to abandon the use of force. During World War II (1939-45), the United States and Great Britain issued a joint declaration in August 1941 that set out a vision for the postwar world. In January 1942, a group of 26 Allied nations pledged their support for this declaration, known as the Atlantic Charter. The document is considered one of the first key steps toward the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. From August 9 to August 12, 1941, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt (1882-1945) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) met aboard naval ships in Placentia Bay, off the southeast coast of Newfoundland, to confer on a range of issues related to World War II. It was the first time the two leaders had met as heads of their respective governments, and at that point, the United States had not yet entered the war (it would do so in December of that year).

Bull Connor

Theophilus Eugene Connor, known as Bull Connor (July 11, 1897 - March 10, 1973), was an American politician who served as a Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, Alabama, during the American Civil Rights Movement. Connor's office, under the city commission government, gave him responsibility for administrative oversight of the Birmingham Fire Department and the Birmingham Police Department, which had their own chiefs. A Democrat, Connor's actions to enforce racial segregation and deny civil rights to black citizens, especially during the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Birmingham campaign of 1963, made him an international symbol of racism. Bull Connor directed the use of fire hoses and police attack dogs against civil rights activists; that included the children of many protestors.[1][2] These tactics exposed the extent of racism when shown on national television. They served as one of the catalysts for major social and legal change in the Southern United States and contributed to passage by the United States Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The city of Birmingham, Alabama, was founded in 1871 and rapidly became the state's most important industrial and commercial center. As late as the 1960s, however, it was also one of America's most racially discriminatory and segregated cities. Alabama Governor George Wallace was a leading foe of desegregation, and Birmingham had one of the strongest and most violent chapters of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The city's police commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor, was also notorious for his willingness to use brutality in combating radical demonstrators, union members, and blacks. In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. had been arrested there while leading supporters of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in a nonviolent campaign of demonstrations against segregation. While in jail, King wrote a letter to local white ministers justifying his decision not to call off the demonstrations in the face of continued bloodshed at the hands of local law enforcement officials. His famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" was published in the national press, along with shocking images of police brutality against protesters in Birmingham that helped build widespread support for the civil rights cause.

My Lai Massacre (March 1968)

Worse massacre of civilians in Vietnam War by Americans. Covered up by top ranks until 1970. Happened in the My Lai hamlet, part of the village of Son My, was located in Quang Ngai province, which was believed to be a stronghold of the National Liberation Front (NLF) or Viet Cong (VC) and was a frequent target of U.S. and South Vietnamese bombing attacks. Massacre stopped by Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot who threatened to open fire on soldiers if they didn't stop. Soldiers sent were from the Charlie Company of the Americal Division's 11th Infantry Brigade received word that VC guerrillas had taken control of Son My. They were led by Lieutenant William L. Calley. Morale was already low and they were angry from their loss at TET.

Black History Milestones

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-milestones

Executive Order 9066 (Feb 19, 1942)

After Pearl Harbor, this order was given by President Roosevelt authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas "as deemed necessary or desirable." The military in turn defined the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area. By June, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to remote internment camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country. For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military guards.

Wagner Acts 1935 (Part of New Deal under Roosevelt)

Also known as the National Labor Relations Act. Named after one of its authors, Senator Robert Wagner of New York-which established workers' rights to collective bargaining and attempted to regulate unfair practices by employers, employees and unions. By 1937, after successful sit-down strikes (during which the workers remained inside the factory so that strikebreakers were unable to enter) both General Motors and Chrysler had made deals with the fledgling UAW, and Ford was the lone holdout against the unionization of the auto industry.

Great Depression (1929-39)

Cause: the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929 "Black Thursday", which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Panic on "black Tuesday" stock market crashed! Result: *was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. 15M out of work and 1/2 banks closed. *the adherence to the gold standard, which joined countries around the world in a fixed currency exchange, helped spread the Depression from the United States throughout the world, especially in Europe. *1930s 4 waves of banking panics wiped out banks. Ended because of Pearl harbor bombing and the US joining WWI which stimulated American industry! This expanding industrial production, as well as widespread conscription beginning in 1942, reduced the unemployment rate to below its pre-Depression level.

Gulf of Tonkin/Resolution (Aug 7, 1964) Terminated December 31, 1970

During the spring of 1964, military planners had developed a detailed design for major attacks on the North, but at that time President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers feared that the public would not support an expansion of the war. By summer, however, rebel forces had established control over nearly half of South Vietnam, and Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee for president, was criticizing the Johnson administration for not pursuing the war more aggressively. Passed the sentence shy of only two votes. On August 2nd in the Gulf of Tonkin the USS Maddox was fired on by South Korea (twice) - this turned out to be inaccurate information. These reports caused President Johnson to approach the Senate and ask for a resolution that authorized him to take "all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." It was called the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave broad congressional approval for expansion of the Vietnam War.

Operation Rolling Thunder (February 13, 1965)

Earlier in the month, the president had ordered Operation Flaming Dart in response to communist attacks on U.S. installations in South Vietnam. The campaign was a failure. More measures were taken called Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign was designed to interdict North Vietnamese transportation routes in the southern part of North Vietnam and slow infiltration of personnel and supplies into South Vietnam. The first Rolling Thunder mission took place on March 2, 1965, when 100 U.S. Air Force and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) planes struck the Xom Bang ammunition dump 100 miles southeast of Hanoi. In July 1966, Rolling Thunder was expanded to include North Vietnamese ammunition dumps and oil storage facilities, and in the spring of 1967, it was further expanded to include power plants, factories, and airfields in the Hanoi-Haiphong area. Operation Rolling Thunder was closely controlled by the White House and at times targets were personally selected by President Johnson. From 1965 to 1968, about 643,000 tons of bombs were dropped on North Vietnam. A total of nearly 900 U.S. aircraft were lost during Operation Rolling Thunder. The operation continued, with occasional suspensions, until President Johnson, under increasing domestic political pressure, halted it on October 31, 1968.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) April 4, 1949

Established by 12 Western nations: the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, Canada, and Portugal. The military alliance, which provided for a collective self-defense against Soviet aggression, greatly increased American influence in Europe. Greece, Turkey, and West Germany later joined NATO, but in 1966 France withdrew, citing American violations of the 1949 treaty. In 1955, the Warsaw Pact, a Soviet-led Eastern European alliance, was established to counter NATO. In 1994, three years after the end of the Cold War, NATO engaged in its first military action as part of an international effort to end two years of fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, which all left the Warsaw Pact upon its dissolution in 1991, joined NATO in 1999. Today, there are twenty-six member states in total.

National Recovery Administration (1933) Part of New Deal under Roosevelt

Established in 1933, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a key component of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program designed to combat the effects of the Great Depression. The goal was to eliminate "cut-throat competition" by bringing industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices. The NRA was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and allowed industries to get together and write "codes of fair competition." The codes were intended to reduce "destructive competition" and to help workers by setting minimum wages and maximum weekly hours, as well as minimum prices at which products could be sold. The NRA also had a two-year renewal charter and was set to expire in June 1935 if not renewed. Blue Eagle was its symbol.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (Aug 28, 1963)

First organized March on Washington in 1941 by Randolph (president of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) was cancelled because Roosevelt passed Executive Order 8802 to help African Americans in their plight to get jobs in defense jobs. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. The march, which became a key moment in the growing struggle for civil rights in the United States, culminated in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a spirited call for racial justice and equality. Organized specifically to advocate passage of the Civil Rights Act then stalled in Congress. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference put aside their long-standing rivalry, black and white groups across the country were urged to attend, and elaborate arrangements were made to ensure a harmonious event. John Lewis of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee gave speech but had to leave out harshness against Kennedy Administration. 200,000 blacks and whites showed up. Very successful but there was still racial strife for years.

George Kennan

George Kennan, the American charge d'affaires in Moscow, sends an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union, and U.S. policy toward the communist state. Kennan's analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for America's Cold War policy of containment. Kennan was among the U.S. diplomats to help establish the first American embassy in the Soviet Union in 1933. His appraisal of the communist leadership of the Soviet Union became increasingly negative and harsh. Didn't agree with Roosevelt's nice treatment of Stalin.Less than a year after Roosevelt's death, Kennan, then serving as U.S. charge d'affaires in Moscow, released his opinions in what came to be known as the "long telegram." He said Soviet Union could not foresee "permanent peaceful coexistence" with the West. This "neurotic view of world affairs" was a manifestation of the "instinctive Russian sense of insecurity." As a result, the Soviets were deeply suspicious of all other nations and believed that their security could only be found in "patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power." Kennan was convinced that the Soviets would try to expand their sphere of influence, and he pointed to Iran and Turkey as the most likely immediate trouble areas. In addition, Kennan believed the Soviets would do all they could to "weaken power and influence of Western Powers on colonial backward, or dependent peoples." Kennan's telegram caused a sensation in Washington. Stalin's aggressive speeches and threatening gestures toward Iran and Turkey in 1945-1946 led the Truman administration to decide to take a tougher stance and rely on the nation's military and economic muscle rather than diplomacy in dealing with the Soviets. These factors guaranteed a warm reception for Kennan's analysis. His opinion that Soviet expansionism needed to be contained through a policy of "strong resistance" provided the basis for America's Cold War diplomacy through the next two decades. Kennan's diplomatic career certainly received a boost-he was named U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1952.

New Deal 1933

Great Depression hit in 1929. President Hoover told everyone just to wait and things would get better...they Did NOT. President Roosevelt took office in 1933 (32 was the worse year ever for Americans) Inaugural Address "First of all," he said, "let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He acted swiftly to try and stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering. Over the next eight years, the government instituted a series of experimental projects and programs, known collectively as the New Deal, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity and prosperity to many Americans. More than that, Roosevelt's New Deal permanently changed the federal government's relationship to the U.S. populace. New Deal good but NOT enough...were met with Supreme Court and in the end was not enough to turn America around from Depression. Did bring whites and blacks together to fight for commonality. *Emergency Banking Act - Helped Americans trust banks again. *End Prohibition (21st Amendment) - people could drink again. *Tennessee Valley Authority Act-build dams and create hydro power along Ten. River. *Agricultural Adjustment Act - ????Paid Commodity Farmers to stop farming to stop surplus of grains and such. *National Industry Recovery Act-gave workers right to unionize and bargain for better wages. This also funded Public Works Administration *Passed 12 other laws including Glass-Steagall Banking Bill and the Home Owners' Loan Act. 2nd New Deal (1935) *Works Progress Administration (WPA) to provide jobs for unemployed people. WPA projects weren't allowed to compete with private industry, so they focused on building things like post offices, bridges, schools, highways and parks. The WPA also gave work to artists, writers, theater directors and musicians. *In July 1935, the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, created the National Labor Relations Board to supervise union elections and prevent businesses from treating their workers unfairly. *In August, FDR signed the Social Security Act of 1935, which guaranteed pensions to millions of Americans, set up a system of unemployment insurance and stipulated that the federal government would help care for dependent children and the disabled.

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Sept 8, 1954

Having been directed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to put together an alliance to contain any communist aggression in the free territories of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, or Southeast Asia in general, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles forges an agreement establishing a military alliance that becomes the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Signatories, including France, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, and the United States, pledged themselves to "act to meet the common danger" in the event of aggression against any signatory state. The language of the treaty did not go as far as the absolute mutual defense commitments and force structure of the NATO alliance, instead providing only for consultations in case of aggression against a signatory or protocol state before any combined actions were initiated.

Wagner Act (AKA National Labor Relations Act) 1935

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's allies in Congress passed the landmark National Labor Relations Act-also known as the Wagner Act, after one of its authors, Senator Robert Wagner of New York-which established workers' rights to collective bargaining and attempted to regulate unfair practices by employers, employees and unions. By 1937, after successful sit-down strikes (during which the workers remained inside the factory so that strikebreakers were unable to enter) both General Motors and Chrysler had made deals with the fledgling UAW, and Ford was the lone holdout against the unionization of the auto industry. The elder Ford absolutely hated union and had many beaten for trying to unionize his workers. He was convicted for this interfering and ordered to stop. His refusal to sign caused strikes and fighting. His wife threatened to leave him if he didn't sign. So, Ford Motor Company signs its first contract with the United Automobile Workers of America and Congress of Industrial Organizations (UAW-CIO) June 20, 1941. Paradoxically, Ford gave its workers more generous terms than had either GM or Chrysler: In addition to paying back wages to more than 4,000 workers who had been wrongfully discharged, the company agreed to match the highest wage rates in the industry and to deduct union dues from workers' pay.

Truman Doctrine (March 12, 1947)

In a dramatic speech to a joint session of Congress, President Harry S. Truman asks for U.S. assistance for Greece and Turkey to forestall communist domination of the two nations after the British announced it could no longer afford to do this. Historians call it Truman Doctrine and the official declaration of the Cold War. Truman requested $400 million in assistance for the two nations. Congress approved his request two months later. Truman's address outlined the broad parameters of U.S. Cold War foreign policy: the Soviet Union was the center of all communist activity and movements throughout the world; communism could attack through outside invasion or internal subversion; and the United States needed to provide military and economic assistance to protect nations from communist aggression.

First Gulf War (aka Persian Gulf War) January 1991

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ordered the invasion and occupation of neighboring Kuwait in early August 1990. Alarmed by these actions, fellow Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the United States and other Western nations to intervene. Hussein defied United Nations Security Council demands to withdraw from Kuwait by mid-January 1991, and the Persian Gulf War began with a massive U.S.-led air offensive known as Operation Desert Storm. After 42 days of relentless attacks by the allied coalition in the air and on the ground, U.S. President George H.W. Bush declared a cease-fire on February 28; by that time, most Iraqi forces in Kuwait had either surrendered or fled. Though the Persian Gulf War was initially considered an unqualified success for the international coalition, simmering conflict in the troubled region led to a second Gulf War-known as the Iraq War-that began in 2003. Why: Hussein delivered a speech in which he accused neighboring nation Kuwait of siphoning crude oil from the Ar-Rumaylah oil fields located along their common border. He insisted that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and cancel out $30 billion of Iraq's foreign debt, and accused them of conspiring to keep oil prices low in an effort to pander to Western oil-buying nations. Hussein's assumption that his fellow Arab states would stand by in the face of his invasion of Kuwait, and not call in outside help to stop it, proved to be a miscalculation. Two-thirds of the 21 members of the Arab League condemned Iraq's act of aggression, and Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, along with Kuwait's government-in-exile, turned to the United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for support. On August 3, the United Nations Security Council called for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait; three days later, King Fahd met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney to request U.S. military assistance. On August 8, the day on which the Iraqi government formally annexed Kuwait-Hussein called it Iraq's "19th province"-the first U.S. Air Force fighter planes began arriving in Saudi Arabia as part of a military buildup dubbed Operation Desert Shield. The planes were accompanied by troops sent by NATO allies as well as Egypt and several other Arab nations, designed to guard against a possible Iraqi attack on Saudi Arabia. The rest of the storyhttp://www.history.com/topics/persian-gulf-war

Good Neighbor Policy 1934

It was Hull who pursued closer relations with Latin America, promoting the Good Neighbor Policy that promised an end to U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of its southern neighbors. This had the effect of undoing decades of distrust between the United States and Central and South America and was essential to creating a united pan-American front against the fascist powers of Europe. Hull was less conciliatory toward Japan, refusing any relaxation of economic embargos against the Axis power until it had completely withdrawn from China and Southeast Asia.

James Meredith Shot not killed (June 6, 1966)

James H. Meredith, who in 1962 became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, is shot by a sniper shortly after beginning a lone civil rights march through the South. Known as the "March Against Fear," Meredith had been walking from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, in an attempt to encourage voter registration by African Americans in the South. 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. A federal court ordered "Ole Miss" to admit him, but when he tried to register on September 20, 1962, he found the entrance to the office blocked by Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett. On September 28, the governor was found guilty of civil contempt and was ordered to cease his interference with desegregation at the university or face arrest and a fine of $10,000 a day. Two days later, Meredith was escorted onto the Ole Miss campus by U.S. Marshals, setting off riots that resulted in the deaths of two students. He returned the next day and began classes. In 1963, Meredith, who was a transfer student from all-black Jackson State College, graduated with a degree in political science. Three years later, Meredith returned to the public eye when he began his March Against Fear. On June 6, just one day into the march, he was sent to a hospital by a sniper's bullet.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - Convicted 1951 June 19, 1953 (executed)

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in 1951, are put to death in the electric chair. The execution marked the dramatic finale of the most controversial espionage case of the Cold War. they were accused of heading a spy ring that passed top-secret information concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs vigorously protested their innocence, but after a brief trial in March 1951 they were convicted. were American citizens executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, relating to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The other atomic spies who were caught by the FBI offered confessions and were not executed, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, who supplied documents to Julius from Los Alamos and served 10 years of his 15-year sentence; Harry Gold, who identified Greenglass and served 15 years in Federal prison as the courier for Greenglass; and a German scientist, Klaus Fuchs, who served nine years and four months.[1][2] In 1995, the United States government released a series of decoded Soviet cables, codenamed VENONA, which confirmed that Julius acted as a courier and recruiter for the Soviets, but did not provide definitive evidence for Ethel's involvement.[3][4] Ethel's brother David Greenglass, whose testimony had condemned her, later stated that he had lied to protect his own wife Ruth, who had been the actual typist of the classified documents he stole,[5] and that he was encouraged by the prosecution to do so.[6][7] Morton Sobell, who was tried with the Rosenbergs, served 17 years and 9 months of a 30-year sentence.[8] In 2008, Sobell admitted he was a spy and stated that Julius Rosenberg had spied for the Soviets, but that Ethel Rosenberg had not.[9] Sobell also stated in a letter to the New York Times that he did not know anything about Julius Rosenberg's involvement with David Greenglass and atomic espionage.

Alliance for Progress March 13, 1961

Kennedy proposed March 13, 1961, 10 year multi-billion dollar aid program for Latin America. Designed to improve relations with Latin America. Also hoped to stop spread of communism from Cuba. Ultimately it was a failure!

Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong led communist forces in China through a long revolution beginning in 1927 and ruled the nation's communist government from its establishment in 1949. Along with Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, Mao is considered one of the most significant communist figures of the Cold War. Mao was a Chinese communist leader and founder of the People's Republic of China. He was responsible for the disastrous policies of the 'Great Leap Forward' and the 'Cultural Revolution'. In 1934, after the KMT surrounded them, Mao led his followers on the 'Long March', a 6,000 mile journey to northwest China to establish a new base. The Communists and KMT were again temporarily allied during eight years of war with Japan (1937-1945), but shortly after the end of World War Two, civil war broke out between them. The Communists were victorious, and on 1 October 1949 Mao proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island of Taiwan.

Cash and Carry (1941)

Neutrality Act in August 1935, forbidding the sale of munitions by U.S. firms to any and all belligerents in any future war. This was a not-so-subtle signal to all governments and private industries, domestic and foreign, that the United States would play no part in foreign wars. The original 1935 act was made even more restrictive in May 1937, forbidding not only arms and loans to warring nations, but giving the president of the United States the authority to forbid Americans from traveling on ships of any warring nation, to forbid any U.S. ship from carrying U.S. goods, even nonmilitary, to a belligerent, and to demand that a belligerent nation pay for U.S. nonmilitary goods before shipment-a "cash and carry" plan. Changed when World War II began. The first amendment to the act came as early as September 1939 by President Roosevelt. Revised for allowing the sale of munitions to those nations under siege by Nazi Germany. President Roosevelt proclaimed, also in September 1939, that U.S. territorial waters were a neutral zone, and any hostile power that used those waters for the prosecution of the war would be considered "unfriendly" and "offensive." Finally, when the U.S. destroyer Reuben James was sunk by a German sub in October 1941, the Neutrality Act was destined for the dustbin of history. By November, not only would merchant ships be allowed to arm themselves for self-defense, but they would also be allowed to enter European territorial waters. America would no longer stand aloof from the hostilities.

Vietnam War 1954

North Vietnam supported by China and Soviet Union. South Vietnam support by US, South Korea, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. Kennedy ordered the first troops into Vietnam to support S. Vietnam and President Johnson took over after his assassination. Our ships first attacked, we retaliated with Operation Rolling Thunder (bombing of Vietnam). The war began in 1954 (though conflict in the region stretched back to the mid-1940s), after the rise to power of Ho Chi Minh and his communist Viet Minh party in North Vietnam, and continued against the backdrop of an intense Cold War between two global superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. U.S.-South Vietnamese war effort in the south was fought on the ground, largely under the command of General Westmoreland The divisive war, increasingly unpopular at home, ended with the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973 and the unification of Vietnam under Communist control two years later. More than 3 million people, including 58,000 Americans, were killed in the conflict. President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. In 1975, communist forces seized control of Saigon, ending the Vietnam War, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year.

TET Offensive (Jan 30, 1968)

On January 31, 1968, some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Tet Offensive (named for the lunar new year holiday called Tet), a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the Communist People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), planned the offensive in an attempt both to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its support of the Saigon regime. Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the Communist attacks, news coverage of the offensive (including the lengthy Battle of Hue) shocked and dismayed the American public and further eroded support for the war effort. Giap believed the alliance between South Vietnam and the United States was unstable; he hoped the offensive would drive the final wedge between them and convince American leaders to give up their defense of South Vietnam. Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive, as the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the slow, painful American withdrawal from the region. Result: America would not send more to fight (Americans didn't want to) and started pushing for negotiating an end.

Freedom Rides 1961

On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals. The Freedom Riders, who were recruited by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a U.S. civil rights group, departed from Washington, D.C., and attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way into the Deep South. African-American Freedom Riders tried to use "whites-only" restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa. The group encountered tremendous violence from white protestors along the route, but also drew international attention to their cause. Over the next few months, several hundred Freedom Riders engaged in similar actions. In September 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in bus and train stations nationwide.

September 11, 2001

On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Often referred to as 9/11, the attacks resulted in extensive death and destruction, triggering major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism and defining the presidency of George W. Bush. Over 3,000 people were killed during the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., including more than 400 police officers and firefighters. The attackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly financed by Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist organization, they were allegedly acting in retaliation for America's support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War and its continued military presence in the Middle East The 19 terrorists easily smuggled box-cutters and knives through security at three East Coast airports and boarded four flights bound for California, chosen because the planes were loaded with fuel for the long transcontinental journey. Soon after takeoff, the terrorists commandeered the four planes and took the controls, transforming ordinary commuter jets into guided missiles. As millions watched the events unfolding in New York, American Airlines Flight 77 circled over downtown Washington, D.C., and slammed into the west side of the Pentagon military headquarters at 9:45 a.m. Jet fuel from the Boeing 757 caused a devastating inferno that led to the structural collapse of a portion of the giant concrete building. a fourth California-bound plane-United Flight 93-was hijacked after leaving Newark International Airport in New Jersey. Because the plane had been delayed in taking off, passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via cell phone and Airfone calls to the ground. One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett Jr., told his wife over the phone that "I know we're all going to die. There's three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey." Another passenger-Todd Beamer-was heard saying "Are you guys ready? Let's roll" over an open line. Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were "Everyone's running to first class. I've got to go. Bye." The passengers fought the four hijackers and are suspected to have attacked the cockpit with a fire extinguisher. The plane crashed in a rural field in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m. All 45 people aboard were killed. Its intended target is not known, but theories include the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland or one of several nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard. Operation Enduring Freedom, the American-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based there, began on October 7. Within two months, U.S. forces had effectively removed the Taliban from operational power, but the war continued, as U.S. and coalition forces attempted to defeat a Taliban insurgency campaign based in neighboring Pakistan. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11th attacks, remained at large until May 2, 2011, when he was finally tracked down and killed by U.S. forces at a hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In June 2011, President Barack Obama announced the beginning of large-scale troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, with a final withdrawal of U.S. forces tentatively scheduled for 2014.

GI Bill of Rights (1944)

On this day in 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the GI bill to provide financial aid to veterans returning from World War II. Upon signing the legislation, Roosevelt voiced his belief that ensuring veterans' employability was critical to a sound postwar economy. The GI bill, named after the slang term for soldiers whose wartime goods and services were government issued, provided funding for education, home loans, unemployment insurance, job counseling and the construction of veterans' hospital facilities. It also greatly strengthened the authority of and scope of services provided by the Veterans Administration. Tuition for advanced education or technical training was covered up to $500 per school year, along with a monthly living allowance while the veteran was in school. GIs could also apply for guaranteed home and business loans. He hoped that the GI bill would help prevent a situation in which the return of 2.2 million servicemen from war created massive unemployment, economic depression or social unrest.

Title IX (June 23, 1972)

On this day in 1972, Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 is enacted into law. Title IX prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex. It begins: "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." As a result of Title IX, any school that receives any federal money from the elementary to university level-in short, nearly all schools-must provide fair and equal treatment of the sexes in all areas, including athletics. Before Title IX, few opportunities existed for female athletes. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which was created in 1906 to format and enforce rules in men's football but had become the ruling body of college athletics, offered no athletic scholarships for women and held no championships for women's teams. Title IX was designed to correct those imbalances. Although it did not require that women's athletics receive the same amount of money as men's athletics, it was designed to enforce equal access and quality. Women's and men's programs were required to devote the same resources to locker rooms, medical treatment, training, coaching, practice times, travel and per diem allowances, equipment, practice facilities, tutoring and recruitment. Scholarship money was to be budgeted on a commensurate basis, so that if 40 percent of a school's athletic scholarships were awarded to women, 40 percent of the scholarship budget was also earmarked for women. Since the enactment of Title IX, women's participation in sports has grown exponentially. In high school, the number of girl athletes has increased from just 295,000 in 1972 to more than 2.6 million. In college, the number has grown from 30,000 to more than 150,000. In addition, Title IX is credited with decreasing the dropout rate of girls from high school and increasing the number of women who pursue higher education and complete college degrees. Despite these advancements, Title IX has not been without controversy. Critics point out that while it may be helping female athletes, it can hurt male athletes when schools are forced to cancel smaller men's programs to meet the strictures of the law.

NSC-68 (April 14, 1950)

President Harry S. Truman receives National Security Council Paper Number 68 (NSC-68). The report was a group effort, created with input from the Defense Department, the State Department, the CIA, and other interested agencies; NSC-68 formed the basis for America's Cold War policy for the next two decades. In the face of U.S. foreign policy concerns, most notably the Soviet explosion of an atomic device in September 1949 and China's fall to communism the following October, President Truman requested a complete review and re-evaluation of America's Cold War diplomacy strategy. The result was NSC-68, a report that took four months to compile and was completed in April 1950. According to the report, the United States should vigorously pursue a policy of "containing" Soviet expansion. NSC-68 recommended that the United States embark on rapid military expansion of conventional forces and the nuclear arsenal, including the development of the new hydrogen bomb. In addition, massive increases in military aid to U.S. allies were necessary as well as more effective use of "covert" means to achieve U.S. goals. The price of these measures was estimated to be about $50 billion; at the time the report was issued, America was spending just $13 billion on defense. Truman was hesitant to accept this because it would be taxing Americans in a time of peace. But when Korean War started, Truman signed the document Sept 1950. Was top secret until it was declassified in 1975

Invasion of Cambodia (April 28, 1970)

President Richard Nixon gives his formal authorization to commit U.S. combat troops, in cooperation with South Vietnamese units, against communist troop sanctuaries in Cambodia. Gen. Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cabled Gen. Creighton Abrams, senior U.S. commander in Saigon, informing him of the decision that a "higher authority has authorized certain military actions to protect U.S. forces operating in South Vietnam." Nixon believed that the operation was necessary as a pre-emptive strike to forestall North Vietnamese attacks from Cambodia into South Vietnam as the U.S. forces withdrew and the South Vietnamese assumed more responsibility for the fighting. This move angered many Americans. Student demonstrations, Kissinger's people resigning. The incursion angered many in Congress, who felt that Nixon was illegally widening the war; this resulted in a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would severely limit the executive power of the president. Eventually, terminating the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

Hollywood Ten 1947

Red Scare during the Cold War caused people to go on witch hunts for communist or those who supported them. In October 1947, 10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. These prominent screenwriters and directors, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. Their defiant stands also placed them at center stage in a national debate over the controversial anti-communist crackdown that swept through the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Besides the Hollywood Ten, other members of the film industry with alleged communist ties were later banned from working for the big movie studios. The Hollywood blacklist came to an end in the 1960s. The 10 individuals who defied HUAC were Alvah Bessie (c. 1904-85), Herbert Biberman (1900-71), Lester Cole (c. 1904-85), Edward Dmytryk (1908-99), Ring Lardner Jr. (1915-2000), John Howard Lawson (1894-1977), Albert Maltz (1908-1985), Samuel Ornitz (1890-1957), Robert Adrian Scott (1912-73) and Dalton Trumbo (1905-76). These men, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, not only refused to cooperate with the investigation but denounced the HUAC anti-communist hearings as an outrageous violation of their civil rights, as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave them the right to belong to any political organization they chose. Some compared the committee's coercive methods and intimidating tactics to the oppressive measures enacted in Nazi Germany. "I am not on trial here," declared screenwriter Lawson. "This committee is on trial." The Hollywood Ten paid a high price for their actions at the HUAC hearings. In November 1947, they were cited for contempt of Congress. Facing trial on that charge in April 1948, each man was found guilty and sentenced to spend a year in prison and pay a $1,000 fine. After unsuccessfully appealing the verdicts, they began serving their terms in 1950. While in prison, one member of the group, Edward Dmytryk, decided to cooperate with the government. In 1951, he testified at a HUAC hearing and provided the names of more than 20 industry colleagues he claimed were communists.

House Un-American Activities Committee (1938)

Role of the House Un-American Activities Committee was to investigate Communist and fascist organizations that had become active during the Great Depression, though it also examined the activities of other groups on the political left. From the outset, the committee proved to be a source of political discord. Its defenders argued it uncovered vital information that bolstered national security, while critics charged it was a partisan tool bent on discrediting the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945). It was a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, investigated allegations of communist activity in the U.S. during the early years of the Cold War (1945-91). Established in 1938, the committee wielded its subpoena power as a weapon and called citizens to testify in high-profile hearings before Congress. This intimidating atmosphere often produced dramatic but questionable revelations about Communists infiltrating American institutions and subversive actions by well-known citizens. HUAC's controversial tactics contributed to the fear, distrust and repression that existed during the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950s. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, HUAC's influence was in decline, and in 1969 it was renamed the Committee on Internal Security. Although it ceased issuing subpoenas that year, its operations continued until 1975. Particularly after 1947, HUAC assumed new heights of prominence and notoriety, and the committee conducted a series of high-profile hearings alleging that Communists disloyal to the U.S. had infiltrated government, schools, the entertainment industry and many other areas of American life. Created blacklist of people not to trust; Hollywood Ten who were persecuted; Alger Hiss accused and convicted;

Berlin Airlift ("Operation Vittles"-Americans) ("Air Bridge" by Western Berliners) 1948 Ended 5/12/49 but airlift continued to September (feared blockade again)

Soviets feared a unified West Germany...blockade to prevent this and persuade West Berliners to reject their western allies. DID NOT WORK! (The Federal Republic of Germany was established in May 1949.) As World War II came to an end in 1945, the Allied powers held peace conferences at Yalta and Potsdam to determine how they would divide up Germany's territories. The agreements split the defeated nation into four "allied occupation zones": They gave the eastern part of the country to the Soviet Union and the Western part to the U.S. and Great Britain. In turn, those nations agreed to cede a small part of their territories to France. The Soviets took the eastern half, while the other Allies took the western. This occupation of Berlin, governed by a multipower agency called the Kommandatura, began in June 1945. In 1948 Western allies created currency called the Deutsch Mark and the Soviets said last straw! anti-Soviet. They decided that something needed to be done to stop this creeping unificationism. They withdrew from the Kommandatura and began a blockade of West Berlin, a maneuver that they hoped would effectively starve the western powers out of Berlin. Literally blocking all supplies~ Blockade of Berlin 6/15/48. Allies did not want to start a nuclear war or give up holding so they found another way to supply West Berlin...air! The Berlin airlift was supposed to be a short-term measure, but it settled in for the long haul as the Soviets refused to lift the blockade. For more than a year, hundreds of American, British and French cargo planes ferried provisions from Western Europe to the Tempelhof (in the American sector), Gatow (in the British sector) and Tegel (in the French sector) airfields in West Berlin. At the beginning of the operation, the planes delivered about 5,000 tons of supplies to West Berlin every day; by the end, those loads had increased to about 8,000 tons of supplies per day. The Allies carried about 2.3 million tons of cargo in all over the course of the airlift. Most historians agree that the blockade was a failure in other ways, too. It amped up Cold War tensions and made the USSR look to the rest of the world like a cruel and capricious enemy. It hastened the creation of West Germany, and, by demonstrating that the U.S. and Western European nations had common interests (and a common foe), it motivated the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance that still exists today.

Carter Doctrine (1980)

The Carter Doctrine was a policy proclaimed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter in his State of the Union Address on January 23, 1980, which stated that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf. It was a response to the Soviet Union's intervention of Afghanistan in 1979, and was intended to deter the Soviet Union—the United States' Cold War adversary—from seeking hegemony in the Gulf. The following key sentence, which was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser, concludes the section: Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force. Brzezinski modeled the wording on the Truman Doctrine,[1] and insisted that the sentence be included in the speech "to make it very clear that the Soviets should stay away from the Persian Gulf".

Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. In subsequent years, Congress expanded the act and also passed additional legislation aimed at bringing equality to African Americans, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Civil Rights Act was later expanded to bring disabled Americans, the elderly and women in collegiate athletics under its umbrella. It also paved the way for two major follow-up laws: the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited literacy tests and other discriminatory voting practices, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which banned discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of property. Though the struggle against racism would continue, legal segregation had been brought to its knees.

Yalta Conference (1945)

The February 1945 Yalta Conference was the second wartime meeting of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the conference, the three leaders agreed to demand Germany's unconditional surrender and began plans for a post-war world. Stalin also agreed to permit free elections in Eastern Europe and to enter the Asian war against Japan, for which he was promised the return of lands lost to Japan in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Although most of these agreements were initially kept secret, the revelations of the conference particulars became controversial after Soviet-American wartime cooperation degenerated into the Cold War. More Info http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/yalta-conference

Marshall Plan (announced June 1947)

The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe between 1948 and 1951. The Marshall Plan successfully sparked economic recovery, meeting its objective of 'restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole.' The plan is named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who announced it in a commencement speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947. The Soviet Union, however, viewed the Marshall Plan as an attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of other states and refused to participate. Ultimately, the Soviets prevented Poland and Czechoslovakia from taking part, despite their eagerness to do so. Revisionist historians have challenged the assertion that the plan represented American altruism. They have argued that the export of dollars to Europe kept the United States from backsliding into depression by providing a market for U.S. capital goods. The Marshall Plan, according to revisionists, allowed the United States to remake the European economy in the image of the American economy. The plan promoted European economic integration and federalism, and created a mixture of public organization of the private economy similar to that in the domestic economy of the United States. This reorganization of the European economy provided a more congenial environment for American investment.

Montgomery Bus Boycott Dec 5, 1955

The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating, took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. On December 1, 1955, four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to yield her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. She was arrested and fined. The boycott of public buses by blacks in Montgomery began on the day of Parks' court hearing and lasted 381 days. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system, and one of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), emerged as a prominent national leader of the American civil rights movement in the wake of the action. Although Parks has sometimes been depicted as a woman with no history of civil rights activism at the time of her arrest, she and her husband, Raymond (1903-77), were, in fact, active in the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Parks served as its secretary. Upon her arrest, Parks called E.D. Nixon (1899-1987), a prominent black leader, who bailed her out of jail and determined she would be an upstanding and sympathetic plaintiff in a legal challenge of the segregation ordinance. African-American leaders decided to attack the ordinance using other tactics as well. The Women's Political Council (WPC), a group of black women working for civil rights, began circulating flyers calling for a boycott of the bus system on December 5, the day Parks would be tried in municipal court. On the afternoon of December 5, black leaders met to form the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). The group elected Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), the 26-year-old-pastor of Montgomery's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, as its president, and decided to continue the boycott until the city met its demands. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was significant on several fronts. First, it is widely regarded as the earliest mass protest on behalf of civil rights in the U.S., Second, in his leadership of the MIA, Martin Luther King emerged as a prominent national leader of the civil rights movement while also solidifying his commitment to nonviolent resistance, The boycott also brought national and international attention to the civil rights struggles occurring in the U.S.,

Southern Christian Leadership Conference 1957

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed in 1957 just after the Montgomery Bus Boycott had ended. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference's (SCLC) main aim was to advance the cause of Black civil rights in America but in a non-violent manner. From its inception in 1957, its president was Martin Luther King - a post he held until his murder in 1968. The SCLC brought together all the various strands of civil rights organisations and put them under one organisation. Originally called the 'Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Non-violent Integration', the organisation adopted the title Southern Christian Leadership Conference - by including the word 'Christian', it emphasised the spiritual nature of the organisation. SCLC called for three basic 'wants': 1) White Americans to not stand by and meekly watch while wrongs were being committed against the black community. 2) Black Americans were encouraged to "seek justice and reject all injustice." 3) All those associated with SCLC had to accept the philosophy of non-violence regardless of the provocation. The SCLC's 'motto' was "not one hair of one head of one white person shall be harmed." The SCLC assisted black Americans in registering to vote, it opened citizenship schools, but above all it preached the use of non-violence in all campaigns associated with its name. It wanted to present civil rights to America and the world as a moral issue.

Warsaw Pact (1955)

The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. The Warsaw Pact, so named because the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria as members. The treaty called on the member states to come to the defense of any member attacked by an outside force and it set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union. The introduction to the treaty establishing the Warsaw Pact indicated the reason for its existence. This revolved around "Western Germany, which is being remilitarized, and her inclusion in the North Atlantic bloc, which increases the danger of a new war and creates a threat to the national security of peace-loving states." This passage referred to the decision by the United States and the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on May 9, 1955 to make West Germany a member of NATO and allow that nation to remilitarize. The Soviets obviously saw this as a direct threat and responded with the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact remained intact until 1991. Albania was expelled in 1962 because, believing that Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev was deviating too much from strict Marxist orthodoxy, the country turned to communist China for aid and trade. In 1990, East Germany left the Pact and reunited with West Germany; the reunified Germany then became a member of NATO. The rise of non-communist governments in other eastern bloc nations, such as Poland and Czechoslovakia, throughout 1990 and 1991 marked an effective end of the power of the Warsaw Pact. In March 1991, the military alliance component of the pact was dissolved and in July 1991, the last meeting of the political consultative body took place.

Iran-Contra Affair (Oct. 5, 1986)

The US was secretly funding the Contras in Nicaurgau to fight what Reagan saw as the Soviet Union's puppet in that country. Denial by all involved! Despite denials from the president, Vice President George Bush, and other Reagan officials that the CIA had nothing to do with the flight, persistent investigations by journalists and Congress began to unravel the so-called Iran-Contra scandal. The scandal involved the secret sale of U.S. weapons to Iran (which was supposed to help in the release of U.S. hostages in the Middle East). Some of the proceeds from these sales were used to covertly fund the Contra war in Nicaragua. A Congressional investigation, begun in December 1986, revealed the scheme to the public. Many figures from the Reagan administration were called to testify. These included Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, who was the action officer in charge of coordinating both the arms sales and funneling of money to the Contras. His testimony, in particular, demonstrated the cavalier attitude taken by the Reagan administration toward the flaunting of congressional resolutions and acts. The resulting scandal rocked the Reagan administration and shook the public's confidence in the U.S. government; 11 members of the President's administration eventually were convicted of a variety of charges related to the scandal. Hasenfus was tried and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment by a Nicaraguan court, but was released just a few weeks later.

Francisco Franco

The general and dictator Francisco Franco (1892-1975) ruled over Spain from 1939. He rose to power during the bloody Spanish Civil War when, with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, his Nationalist forces overthrew the democratically elected Second Republic. Adopting the title of "El Caudillo" (The Leader), Franco persecuted political opponents, repressed the culture and language of Spain's Basque and Catalan regions, censured the media and otherwise exerted absolute control over the country. Some of these restrictions gradually eased as Franco got older, and upon his death the country transitioned to democracy. In 1935 Franco became army chief of staff. When a leftist coalition won the next round of elections in February 1936, he and other military leaders began discussing a coup. Spanish Civil War started and Within a few months, Franco was named head of the rebel Nationalist government and commander-in-chief (generalísimo) of the armed forces German and Italian bombardments helped the Nationalists conquer Basque lands and Asturias in 1937. Barcelona, the heart of Republican resistance, fell in January 1939, and Madrid surrendered that March, effectively ending the conflict. Though he sympathized with the Axis powers, Franco largely stayed out of World War II (1939-45) but did send nearly 50,000 volunteers to fight alongside the Germans on the Soviet front. Franco also opened his ports to German submarines and invaded the internationally administered city of Tangier in Morocco. Following the war, Spain faced diplomatic and economic isolation, but that began to thaw as the Cold War heated up.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

This 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. It stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, breaking a Louisiana law. Rejecting Plessy's argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Court ruled that a state law that "implies merely a legal distinction" between whites and blacks did not conflict with the 13th and14th Amendments. Restrictive legislation based on race continued following the Plessy decision, its reasoning not overturned until Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.

Feminine Mystique

With her book The Feminine Mystique (1963), Betty Friedan (1921-2006) broke new ground by exploring the idea of women finding personal fulfillment outside of their traditional roles. She also helped advance the women's rights movement as one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She advocated for an increased role for women in the political process and is remembered as a pioneer of feminism and the women's rights movements. She was restless as a homemaker and began to wonder if other women felt the same way. To answer this question, Friedan surveyed other graduates of Smith College. The results of this research formed the basis of The Feminine Mystique. The book became a sensation—creating a social revolution by dispelling the myth that all women wanted to be happy homemakers. Friedan encouraged women to seek new opportunities for themselves. She co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966, serving as its first president. Friedan also fought for abortion rights by establishing the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America) in 1969. She wanted women to have a greater role in the political process. With such other leading feminists as Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, Friedan helped create the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971. In 1982, Betty Friedan published The Second Stage, which sought to help women wrestling with the demands of work and home. It seemed to be a more moderate feminist position than her earlier work. While in her seventies, Friedan explored the later stages of a woman's life in The Fountain of Age (1993).

Office of War Information 1942

a United States government agency created during World War II to consolidate existing government information services and deliver propaganda both at home and abroad. OWI operated from June 1942 until September 1945. Through radio broadcasts, newspapers, posters, photographs, films and other forms of media, the OWI was the connection between the battlefront and civilian communities. The office also established several overseas branches, which launched a large-scale information and propaganda campaign abroad.

Ronald Reagan (The Great Communicator)

a former actor and California governor, served as the 40th U.S. president from 1981 to 1989 (two terms). In first inaugural speech said "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem." He and his wife lived a little more classier life and so dubbed "Hollywood on the Potomac". Reagan, who survived a 1981 assassination attempt by John Hinkley (who was trying to impress actress Jodie Foster). 1984 reelection carried 49 out of 50 states in the election and received 525 out of 538 electoral votes, the largest number ever won by an American presidential candidate. He was longest lived President until Ford. Presidency Job: He cut taxes, increased defense spending, negotiated a nuclear arms reduction agreement with the Soviets and is credited with helping to bring a quicker end to the Cold War. Appointed first woman to Supreme Court Sandra O'Connor in 1981. massive buildup of weapons and troops, escalation of the Cold War (1946-1991) with the Soviet Union, which the president dubbed "the evil empire." Key Reagan Doctrine, under which America provided aid to anticommunist movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 1983, Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a plan to develop space-based weapons to protect America from attacks by Soviet nuclear missiles. In 1987, the Americans and Soviets (Gorbachev) signed a historic agreement to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear missiles. Encouraged successfully removal of Berlin Wall in Germany.

Tennessee Valley Authority 1930 (Part of New Deal under Roosevelt)

every spring in the Tennessee River Valley brought on an onslaught of rain which totaled six feet each year. Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority to fix the problem. Enabled the federal government to build dams along the Tennessee River that controlled flooding and generated inexpensive hydroelectric power for the people in the region.

D-Day (June 6, 1944)

the day the Allied powers crossed the English Channel and landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II. Within three months, the northern part of France would be freed and the invasion force would be preparing to enter Germany, where they would meet up with Soviet forces moving in from the east. On the morning of June 5, 1944, U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe gave the go-ahead for Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious military operation in history. On his orders, 6,000 landing craft, ships and other vessels carrying 176,000 troops began to leave England for the trip to France. That night, 822 aircraft filled with parachutists headed for drop zones in Normandy. An additional 13,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

was a Baptist minister and social activist who played a key role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. Inspired by advocates of nonviolence such as Mahatma Gandhi, King sought equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. He was the driving force behind watershed events such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the March on Washington, which helped bring about such landmark legislation as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and is remembered each year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a U.S. federal holiday since 1986. By the time the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating on public buses unconstitutional in November 1956, King, heavily influenced by Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) and the activist Bayard Rustin (1912-1987), had entered the national spotlight as an inspirational proponent of organized, nonviolent resistance. (He had also become a target for white supremacists, who firebombed his family home that January.) Emboldened by the boycott's success, in 1957 he and other civil rights activists-most of them fellow ministers-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a group committed to achieving full equality for African Americans through nonviolence. (Its motto was "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed.") He would remain at the helm of this influential organization until his death.

Southern Manifesto (Feb/Mar 1956) (AKA Declaration of Constitutional Principles )

was a document written in February and March 1956, in the United States Congress, in opposition to racial integration of public places.[1] The manifesto was signed by 101 politicians (99 Southern Democrats) from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.[1] The Congressmen drafted the document to counter the landmark Supreme Court 1954 ruling Brown v. Board of Education, which determined that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. School segregation laws were some of the most enduring and best-known of the Jim Crow laws that characterized the American South and several northern states at the time. Senators led the opposition, with Strom Thurmond writing the initial draft and Richard Russell the final version.[2] The manifesto was signed by 19 Senators and 82 Representatives, including the entire congressional delegations of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia. All of the signatories were Southern Democrats except two Republicans, Joel Broyhill and Richard Poff of Virginia. However, four Southern Senate Democrats refused to sign: Albert Gore, Sr.; Estes Kefauver; Ralph Yarborough and Lyndon B. Johnson. Their opposition earned them the enmity of their colleagues for a time. The Southern Manifesto accused the Supreme Court of "clear abuse of judicial power." It promised to use "all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation." [3] The Manifesto suggested that the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution should limit the reach of the Supreme Court on such issues.[4]