HIST 2301 FINAL REVIEW - ROLLIN TTU

Reagan's missile defense

"We win and they lose." - Ronald Reagan on winning the Cold War, 1977; Reagan Doctrine: massive military expansion; longest since the Vietnam War; B-1 bomber and MX missile adopted; new missiles deployed to bases in Great Britain and Germany; Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

House Un-American Activities Committee

(HUAC) was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties.

Fair Deal

1949 - proposed federal aid to education, civil rights measures, national medical insurance; most of the Fair Deal was blocked by Congress; Harry Truman's presidency (1945-53)

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 - Civil Rights; overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896); segregation declared unconstitutional

Watergate

1972: June 17, 1972: Five men working for Nixon's re-election campaign broke into the national headquarters of the Democratic Party, then located at the Watergate complex.; The men were discovered and arrested on the spot.; Nixon denied any connection to them and their activities. 1973: An aide of Nixon's, Alexander Butterfield, disclosed that all conversations in the Oval Office were taped. Nixon refused to turn any of the tapes over.; Rep. Gerald Ford of Michigan replaced Spiro Agnew as Vice President (October 1973); Saturday Night Massacre (October 1973) 1974: July 1974: The Supreme Court ordered Nixon to hand over the tapes; the House of Representatives began considering articles of impeachment.; Facing likely impeachment and possible removal from office, Nixon chose to resign as President on August 8, 1974.; Gerald Ford became President, appointed Gov. Nelson Rockefeller (R-New York) to be Vice President.

Iran-Contra affair

1986-87 - was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. They hoped that the arms sales would secure the release of several US hostages and use the money to fund the Contras in Nicaragua. Under the Boland Amendment, further funding of the Contras by the government had been prohibited by Congress.

Bay of Pigs

April 1961 - was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. A counter-revolutionary military, trained and funded by the United States government's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Brigade 2506 fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF) and intended to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro. Launched from Guatemala, the invading force was defeated within three days by the Cuban armed forces, under the direct command of the Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur

At the time of the Korean War (1950-1953), MacArthur criticized Truman, called for expansion of the war to China.; In response to his public criticism, Truman fired MacArthur on April 11, 1951.

"new look" defense policy

Eisenhower established a "new look" US defense policy, reducing the army and navy and relying more on the air force and its nuclear striking power.; massive retaliation

détente

Henry Kissinger - relaxation of tension with the Soviet Union; The term is often used in reference to the general easing of the geo-political tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States which began in 1969, as a foreign policy of U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford calleddétente; a "thawing out" or "un-freezing" at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War. The period was characterized by the signing of treaties such as SALT I and the Helsinki Accords. Another treaty, SALT II, was discussed but never ratified by the United States. There is still ongoing debate amongst historians as to how successful the détente period was in achieving peace.

Berlin Wall

In August 1961, the Soviet Union built a high barrier around West Berlin to stop the flow of refugees out of East Germany; The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. Berlin Airlift (1948-49): In June 1948, the Soviets cut off access to West Berlin to force the Allies out.; US responded with a massive airlift to feed the 2 million citizens of West Berlin.; Soviets ended their blockade of West Berlin in May 1949.

Operation Desert Storm

Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait - August 1990; Saudi Arabian oil fields under threat - Bush organized an international coalition; 500,000 American troops deployed along the Saudi Arabian-Iraqi border (Operation Desert Shield); Iraq expelled from Kuwait by the end of February 1991 - U.S. ground troops led by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf (Operation Desert Storm); Saddam Hussein left in power; Iraq not occupied

Tet Offensive

Jan. 30 - March 7, 1968 - During the Tet Offensive, the NVA and Vietcong attacked key cities and major bases across South Vietnam.;Militarily, the enemy was defeated, suffering a loss of more than 30,000 men; the Viet Cong were all but wiped out.; Public approval of the war among the American public declined; Johnson ended escalation and sought a negotiated peace with North Vietnam.

NSC-68

National Security planning paper No. 68 redefined America's national defense policy (1950)

1970s oil embargo

Oil Embargo, 1973-1974:During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed an embargo against the United States in retaliation for the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military and to gain leverage in the post-war peace negotiations. Arab OPEC members also extended the embargo to other countries that supported Israel including the Netherlands, Portugal, and South Africa. The embargo both banned petroleum exports to the targeted nations and introduced cuts in oil production. Several years of negotiations between oil-producing nations and oil companies had already destabilized a decades-old pricing system, which exacerbated the embargo's effects.

Gulf of Tonkin resolution

On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia.

Cuban missile crisis

The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis, The Missile Scare, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba. It played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.

Equal Rights Amendment

The Ford Presidency (1974-1977); was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal rights for women. The ERA was originally written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. In 1923, it was introduced in the Congress for the first time. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and went to the state legislatures for ratification.

Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan and other foreign aid programs financed a heavy export trade; Part of the Postwar boom; Part of why the US grew; Marshall Plan (March 1948) - devised by Secretary of State George C. Marshall; Over the next five years (1948-1953), the United States would spend $13 billion to restore the economies of Western Europe.; Communist coup in Czechoslovakia prompted passage.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Took part in the civil rights movement; assassinated April 1968

Viet Cong

a political organization and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1959-1975), and emerged on the winning side. It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the regular North Vietnamese army. During the war, communists and anti-war spokesmen insisted the Việt Cộng was an insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments portrayed the group as a tool of Hanoi. Although the terminology distinguishes northerners from the southerners, communist forces were under a single command structure set up in 1958.

supply-side economics

a school of macroeconomics that argues that economic growth can be most effectively created by lowering barriers for people to produce (supply) goods and services as well as invest in capital. According to supply-side economics, consumers will then benefit from a greater supply of goods and services at lower prices; furthermore, the investment and expansion of businesses will increase the demand for employees. Typical policy recommendations of supply-side economists are lower marginal tax rates and less regulation.

Reagan Doctrine

massive military expansion; longest since the Vietnam War; B-1 bomber and MX missile adopted; new missiles deployed to bases in Great Britain and Germany

Iranian hostage crisis

was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. Sixty-six American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981), after a group of Iranian students, belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who were supporting the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. President Jimmy Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy," adding that "the United States will not yield to blackmail."