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WWI - Cold War
From WWI - Cold War Study Terms
100
History
Undergraduate 1
12/14/2010

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Term
Francisco Villa (1877-1923)
Definition
Nicknamed Pancho, Mexican revolutionary general/leader born 1877, died 1923
Term
Lusitania (1915)
Definition
1915; Germans sank this ship in the atlantic by a UBOAT, This was when the US officially entered into WWI, 1198 people died sparking international outrage
Term
Arabic Pledge (1915)
Definition
Promise made by the German Empire during WWI to limit unrestricted submarine warfare. It stated that Germany would warn non-military ships 30 minutes before they sank them to make sure the passengers and crew got out safely. Germany broke this pledge on March 24, 1916 when a UBOAT sank the Sussex, LEADING TO THE SUSSEX PLEDGE
Term
Sussex Pledge (1916)
Definition
Promise made in 1916 during WWI by Germany to the US. Afraid of the US's entry into the war, Germany attempted to appease the US by issuing the SUSSEX PLEDGE which promised a change in Germanys naval warfare policy
Term
Terms of Sussex Pledge (1916)
Definition
1. Passenger ships would not be targeted
2. Merchant ships would not be sunk until presence of weapons have been established
3. Merchant ships would not be sunk without provision for safety of passengers and crew
Term
House-Grey Memorandum (1916)
Definition
Prepared by Woodrow Wilson and Edward House and Edward Grey. It was an invitation from the U.S to Germany to participate in a U.S sponsored peace convention to end WWI. IF GERMANY DECLIEND TO ATTEND THE U.S WOULD PROBABLY BECOME MILITARILY INVOLVED IN THE EUROPEAN CONFLICT
Term
Zimmerman Telegram (1917)
Definition
1917 Diplomatic proposal from the German Empire to Mexico to make war against the U.S! IT WAS DECLINED BY MEXICO and the british decoded the message and showed the untied states and it ANGERED the U.S declaring war against Germany and its allies on APRIL 6
Term
George Creel
Definition
Committee on Public Information, was the head of the U.S committee on public information, a propaganda organization created by president Woodrow Wilson during WWI
Term
Fourteen Points (1918)
Definition
Speech delivered by Woodrow Wilson to Congress on January 8,1918. The address was intended to assure the country that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe. ONLY formal speech to explicitly state war aims by any nation
Term
Treaty of Versailles (1919)
Definition
One of the peace treaties at the end of WWI. It ended the state of war between Germany and Allied Powers. It was signed on June 28, 1919. It took 6 months of negotiations at the Paris Peace conference to conclude the peace treaty
Term
League of Nations (LON)
Definition
was an intergovernmental organization as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, and the precursor of the UNITED NATIONS (THE UN) GOALS: Prevent war through collective security, disarmment, and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.
Term
Xenophobia
Definition
an irrational deep-rooted fear of or antipathy towards FOREIGNERS
Term
Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936)
Definition
ATTORNEY GENERAL of the US from 1919-1921. He was nicknamed 'The Fighting Quaker' and he directed the very controversial Palmer Raids
Term
Red Scare (1)
Definition
Two strong periods of STRONG anticommunism in the U.S. First scare from 1919 to 1920. The first red scare was about WORKER (social) revolution and political radicalism.
Term
Red Scare (2)
Definition
strong anti communism period from 1947 to 1957 about national and foreign communists influencing society or infiltrating the federal government or both
Term
Nicola SACCO and Bartolomeo VANZETTI
Definition
Two anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in Massachusetts. After a controversial trial and a series of appeals, the two Italian immigrants were executed on August 23, 1927. NO one knows if they were guilty or innocent or whether or not the trials were fair. STILL NO CONSENSUS REACHED
Term
Warren G. Harding (1865-1923)
Definition
29th president of the U.S serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. (2 YEARS TOTAL) FIRST INCUMBENT US Senator and newspaper editor to be elected president
Term
Albert Fall
Definition
Fall was a US senator from New Mexico and the Secretary of the Interior under Harding, infamous for his involvement in the Teapot dome Scandal
Term
Teapot Dome Scandal
Definition
bribery scandal during the Harding presidential administration. RUINED Hardings public repuation who was extremely popular. Teapot Dome is an oil field on public land. In 1921, by executive order of President Harding, control of U.S. Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and at Elk Hills and Buena Vista in California, were transferred from the U.S. Navy Department to the Department of the Interior. It was found that in 1921, Doheny had lent Fall $100,000, interest-free, and that upon Fall's retirement as Secretary of the Interior, in March 1923, Sinclair also lent him a large amount of money. The investigation led to criminal prosecutions.[4] Fall was indicted for conspiracy and for accepting bribes. Convicted of the latter charge, he was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $100,000, the same amount that Doheny had lent him
Term
Harry M. Daugherty (1860-1941)
Definition
American politician best known as a Republican Party boss and member of the Ohio Gang name given to the group of advisors surrounding president WARREN G HARDING
Term
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
Definition
30th PResident of the U.S. Worked his way up the ladder from Massachusetts.Was the president succeeding after Harding in 1923. He successfully restored confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predessor's administration and left office with considerable popularity.
Term
Andrew Mellon
Definition
Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932
Term
George Washington Carver (1864-1943)
Definition
Carver: United States botanist and agricultural chemist who developed many uses for peanuts and soy beans and sweet potatoes (1864-1943)
invented "peanut butter"
Term
Booker "T" (Taliaferro) Washington (1856-1915)
Definition
was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in theAfrican American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915. He was representative of the last generation of black leaders born in slavery and spoke on behalf of blacks living in the South. Washington was able throughout the final 25 years of his life to maintain his standing as the major black leader because of the sponsorship by powerful whites, substantial support within the black community, his ability to raise educational funds from both groups, and his accommodation to the social realities of the age of Jim Crow segregation.[1]
Term
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964)
Definition
31st president of the U.S. Professional mining engineer and author. Promoted government intervention under the rubric "economic modernization". Easily won 1928 election. Elected without prior experience militarily or politically. . The consensus among historians is that Hoover's defeat in the 1932 election was caused primarily by failure to end the downward economic spiral. As a result of these factors, Hoover isranked poorly among former US Presidents.
Term
19th Amendment
Definition
United States Constitution prohibits each state and the federal government from denying any citizen the right to votebased on that citizen's sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920.
Term
"Bible, Christ and the Constituion Campaigns"
Definition
Propaganda campaigns used to include the Bible Christ in the constitutionality of government.
Term
Madison Grant, The Passing of a Great Race (1916)
Definition
The Passing of The Great Race; or, The racial basis of European history was an influential book of scientific racism written by the American eugenicist, lawyer, and amateur anthropologist Madison Grant in 1916. The book was very influential in United States during the inter war period, going through many reprintings and selling 1,600,000 copies in the United States alone by 1937. The book put forward Grant's theory of "Nordic superiority" and argued for a strong eugenics program in order to save the waning "Nordics" from inundation of other race types. Grant's propositions to create a strong eugenics program and for the "Nordic" population to be masters of the other races were controversial at the time and now considered extremely unethical and dangerous.
Term
Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color (1920)
Definition
, postulates the collapse of white world empire, and of colonialism, because of the population growth among colored peoples. The postulations constitute scientific racism, with which Stoddard concludes for, and advocates, an eugenic separation of the “primary races” of the world.
Despite the book’s title, Stoddard does not advocate a white race bid for world domination, based on white supremacy, but questions the right of white peoples to invade the lands of other races, and criticizes the European colonial empire powers for imposing their will upon the peoples of Asia.
Term
W.D Griffith, Birth of a Nation (1915)
Definition
is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith. Set during and after the American Civil War, The Birth of a Nation was the highest-grossing film of the silent film era, and is noted for its innovative camera techniques and narrative achievements. It has provoked great controversy for promoting white supremacy and positively portraying the "knights" of the Ku Klux Klan as heroes.[2] The film was originally presented in two parts separated by an intermission
Term
National Origins Act (1924)
Definition
A law that severely restricted immigration by a system of national quotas that blatantly discriminated against immigrants from southern and eastern Europe virtually excluded Asians. The policy stayed in effect until the 1960s
Term
W.E.B Dubois, "The Souls of Black Folks"
Definition
is a classic work of American literature by W. E. B. Du Bois. It is a seminal work in the history of sociology, and a cornerstone of African-American literary history.
The book, published in 1903, contains several essays on race, some of which had been previously published in Atlantic Monthly magazine. Du Bois drew from his own experiences to develop this groundbreaking work on being African-American in American society. Outside of its notable place in African-American history, The Souls of Black Folk also holds an important place in social science as one of the early works to deal with sociology.
Term
Mary White Ovington (1865-1951)
Definition
Co founder of the NAACP. Parents were involved with supporting womens rights and had been involved in anti slavery. She began campaigning for civil rights in 1890 after hearing Frederick Douglass speak in a Brooklyn church.
Term
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) (1909)
Definition
"), is one of the oldest and most influentialcivil rights organizations in the United States.[3] Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination".[4] Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, is one of the last surviving uses of the term colored people.
Term
Guinn vs. U.S (1915)
Definition
. It found grandfather clause exemptions to literacy tests to be unconstitutional. In 1915, in the case of Guinn v. United States, the Supreme Court declared the grandfather clauses in the Maryland and Oklahoma constitutions to be repugnant to the Fifteenth Amendment and therefore null and void."[1]
Term
Buchanan vs. Warley (1917)
Definition
) was a unanimous United States Supreme Court decision addressing racial segregation in residential areas. The Court held that a Louisville, Kentucky, ordinance requiring residential segregation based on race violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Unlike prior state court rulings that had overturned racial zoning ordinances on takings clause grounds due to those ordinances' failures to grandfather land owned prior to enactment, the Court in Buchananruled that the motive for the Louisville ordinance, race, was an insufficient purpose to make the law constitutional.[1]
Term
Racial Restrictive Covenants
Definition
Racially restrictive covenants, in particular are contractual agreements among property owners that prohibit the purchase, lease, or occupation of their premises by a particular group of people, usually African Americans.
Term
Shelley Vs. Kraemer (1948)
Definition
is a United States Supreme Court case which held that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate
Term
Nixon v. Herndon (1927)
Definition
), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court struck down a Texas law which forbade blacks from voting in the Texas Democratic primary
Term
Marcus Garvey
Definition
Founder of the UNIA-ACL (Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League.
Term
William Simmons (1880-1945)
Definition
Founder of the second Ku Klux Klan on Thanksgiving Night of 1915
Term
Volstead Act (1924)
Definition
The Volstead Act, formally the National Prohibition Act, was the enabling legislation for the Eighteenth Amendment which established prohibition in the United States
Term
Scopes Trial of 1924
Definition
was an American legal case in 1925 in which a high school biology teacher John Scopes was accused of violating the state's Butler Act which made it unlawful to teach evolution.[1]
Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he was never brought back to trial.
Term
Hoovervilles
Definition
was the popular name for shanty towns built by homeless people during the Great Depression. They were named after the President of the United States at the time, Herbert Hoover, because he allegedly let the nation slide into depression. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of theDemocratic National Committee.[1] The name Hooverville has also been used to describe the tent cities commonly found in modern-day America.
Term
The New Deal
Definition
Deal is a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, from 1933 to 1936. The programs were responses to theGreat Depression, and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": relief, recovery and reform. That is, relief for the unemployed and poor; recovery of the economy to normal levels; and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.
Term
National Industrial Recovery Act (1933)
Definition
(NIRA) authorized the President to regulate industry and permit cartels and monopolies in an attempt to stimulate economic recovery and established a national public works program
Term
Civilian Conservation Corp (1933)
Definition
CCC was a public work relief program for unemployed men age 18-25 providing unskilled manual labor related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural areas of the U.S. (DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION) MOST POPULAR NEW DEAL PROGRAM VOTED BY THE PUBLIC
Term
Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933)
Definition
restricted agricultural production in the New Deal era by paying farmers to reduce crop area. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus so as to effectively raise the value of crops, thereby a portion of their fields lie fallow. The money for these subsidies was generated through an exclusive tax on companies which processed farm products. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, to oversee the distribution of the subsidies.[1] It is considered the first modern U.S. farm bill.
In 1936, the Supreme Court case United States v. Butler declared the Act unconstitutional for levying this tax on the processors only to have it paid back to the farmers. Regulation of agriculture was deemed a state power. However, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 remedied these issues
Term
Public Works Administration (1935)
Definition
(PWA) was a New Deal agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression. It concentrated on the construction of large-scalepublic works such as dams and bridges, with the goal of providing employment, stabilizing purchasing power, and contributing to a revival of American industry. Most of the spending came in two waves in 1933-35, and again in 1938. The PWA was closed down in 1939.
Term
Tennessee Valley Authority
Definition
TVA is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, floodcontrol, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression. The enterprise was a result of the efforts of Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska. TVA was envisioned not only as a provider, but also as a regional economic development agency that would use federal experts and electricity to rapidly modernize the region's economy and society
Term
Wagner Act (1935)
Definition
The Wagner Act provided protection for collective bargaining and labor unions.
Term
Huey Long "Kingfish"
Definition
served as the 40th Governor of Louisiana from 1928–1932 and as a U.S. Senator from 1932 to 1935. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. Though a backer of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election, Long split with Roosevelt in June 1933 and allegedly planned to mount his own presidential bid for 1936. policies. Charismatic and immensely popular for his programs and willingness to take forceful action, Long was accused by his opponents of dictatorial tendencies for his near-total control of the state government.
At the height of his popularity, Long was assassinated by a gunman on September 8, 1935, at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge. He died two days later at the age of 42. His last words were reportedly, "God, don't let me die, I have so much left to do."[1]
Term
Social Security Act of 1935
Definition
On August 14, 1935, the Social Security Act established a system of old-age benefits for workers, benefits for victims of industrial accidents, unemployment insurance, aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind, and the physically handicapped
Term
Court Packing Plan (1937)
Definition
In February 1937 President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent to Congress a bill to change the composition of the federal judiciary. This “court‐packing bill,” as it was promptly dubbed, was FDR's attempt to expand the membership of the Supreme Court so that he could nominate justices who would uphold the constitutionality of New Deal legislation. The court‐packing struggle constitutes a critical episode in Roosevelt's presidency and one of the bitterest clashes between the judiciary and the executive in American history.
Term
Revenue Act of 1932
Definition
raised U.S tax rates across the board with the rate on top incomes rising from 25 to 63 percent. The estate tax was doubled and corporate taxes were raised by almost 15%. The provisions of the act applied to the taxable year of 1932 and all subsequent taxable years.
It was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover.
Term
Meiji (1852-1912)
Definition
Emperor of Japan from 1867 to 1912. He was responsible for the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the rapid modernization and industrialization of Japan.
Term
Black Dragon Society
Definition
Prominent paramilitary ultra-nationalist right-wing group in Japan
Term
Invasion of Manchura (1931)
Definition
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army of the Empire of Japan, beginning on September 19, 1931, immediately followed theMukden Incident. The Japanese occupation of Manchuria lasted until the end of World War II
Term
The Rape of Nanking (1937)
Definition
The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, is a mass murder and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing (Nanking), the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During this period, hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000–80,000 women were raped[1] by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army.[2][3][4]
Term
Panay (1937)
Definition
l937 The USS Panay Incident was a Japanese attack on the United States Navy gunboat USS Panay while she was anchored in the Yangtze River outside ofNanjing on December 12, 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The Japanese claimed that they did not see the United States flagspainted on the deck of the gunboat, apologized, and paid an indemnity. Nevertheless, the attack and the subsequent Allison incident in Nanjing caused U.S. opinion to turn against the Japanese
Term
Washington Disarmament Conference (1921)
Definition
was a military conference called by the administration of President Warren G. Harding and held in Washington, D.C. from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922. Conducted outside the auspices of the League of Nations, it was attended by nine nations having interests in the Pacific Ocean and East Asia. Soviet Russia was not invited to the conference. It was the first international conference held in the United States and the first disarmament conference in history, and is studied by political scientists as a model for a successful disarmament movement. [1] it resulted in three major treaties: Four-Power Treaty, Five-Power Treaty (more commonly known as the Washington Naval Treaty) and the Nine-Power Treaty and a number of smaller agreements. These treaties preserved peace during the 1920s but are also credited with enabling the rise of the Japanese Empire as a naval power leading up to World War II
Term
Adolf Hitler
Definition
20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, abbreviated NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and served as head of state as Führer und Reichskanzler from 1934 to 1945.
Term
Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact (1928)
Definition
was signed on August 27, 1928 by the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany,Italy, Japan, and a number of other states. The pact renounced aggressive war, prohibiting the use of war as "an instrument of national policy" except in matters of self-defense.[1] It made no provisions for sanctions. The pact was the result of a determined American effort to avoid involvement in the European alliance system. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on September 4, 1929.[2] The Kellogg–Briand Pact is named after its authors: Frank B. Kellogg and French foreign minister Aristide Briand.
Term
Appeasement
Definition
” Appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power.[1] It has been described as "...the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous."[2] It was used by European democracies in the 1930s who wished to avoid war with the dictatorships of Germany and Italy, bearing in mind the horrors of the First World War. The word "appeasement" has been used as a synonym for weakness and even cowardice since the 1930s, and it is still used in that sense today as a justification for firm, often armed, action in international relations.
Term
Blitzkrieg
Definition
German word meaning lightning war.[Notes 1] describing all-mechanized force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery and air power, concentrating overwhelming force and rapid speed to break through enemy lines, and once the latter is broken, proceeding without regard to its flank. Through constant motion, the blitzkrieg attempts to keep its enemy off-balance, making it difficult to respond effectively at any given point before the front has already moved on.
Term
Nazi Holocaust
Definition
was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews duringWorld War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany.[4] Two-thirds of the population of nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust were killed.[5]
Term
Lend-Lease Act (1941)
Definition
was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union,China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between 1941 and 1945. It was signed into law on 11 March 1941, over 18 months after the outbreak of the European war in September 1939, but before the U.S. entrance into the war in December 1941. It was called An Act Further to Promote the Defense of the United States. This act also ended the pretense of the neutrality of the United States. This program was a decisive step away from American non-interventionism since the end of World War I and towards international involvement. There was no debt--the U.S. did not charge for the aid during the war (though it did charge for aid delivered after the war
Term
Executive Order 9066 (1942)
Definition
 authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones. Eventually, EO 9066 cleared the way for the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps.
Term
Detroit (race) Riot (1943)
Definition
The Detroit Race Riot broke out in Detroit, Michigan in June 1943 and lasted for three days before Federal troops restored order. The rioting between blacks and whites began on Belle Isle on 20 June 1943 and continued until 22 June, killing 34, wounding 433, and destroying property valued at $2 million.[1]
Term
Zoot Suit Riot (1943)
Definition
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles, California between European-American sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored. While Mexican Americans were the primary targets of military servicemen, African American and Filipino/Filipino American youth were also targeted.[1] The Zoot Suit Riots were in part the effect of the infamous Sleepy Lagoon murder which involved the death of a young Latino man in a barrio near Los Angeles.
The incident triggered similar attacks against Latinos in Beaumont, Chicago, San Diego, Detroit, Evansville, Philadelphia, and New York.[2]
Term
Yalta Conference (1945)
Definition
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the February 4–11, 1945 wartime meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin, respectively—for the purpose of discussing Europe's postwar reorganization. Mainly, it was intended to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe.
Term
Potsdam Conference (1945)
Definition
— gathered to decide how to administer punishment to the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on May 8 (V-E Day). The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and countering the effects of war. . Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The three nations were represented by Communist Party General Secretary Joseph Stalin,Prime Ministers Winston Churchill[2] and later Clement Attlee,[3] and President Harry S. Truman.
Term
Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)
Definition
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki inJapan, the first on August 6, 1945 and the second on August 9, 1945. Six days after the detonation over Nagasaki, on August 15, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the Instrument of Surrender on September 2, officially ending the Pacific War and therefore World War II. Germany had signed its Instrument of Surrender on May 7, ending the war in Europe. The bombings led, in part, to post-war Japan adopting Three Non-Nuclear Principles, forbidding the nation from nuclear armament.[10] The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the U.S.'s ethical justification for them, as well as their strategical importance, is still debated.[11][12]
Term
Truman Doctrine (1947)
Definition
On March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman presented this address before a joint session of Congress. His message, known as the Truman Doctrine, asked Congress for $400 million in military and economic assistance for Turkey and Greece.
Term
Marshall Plan (1947)
Definition
On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe.
Term
Berlin Crisis (1948)
Definition
. In June 1948, the Soviet Union attempted to control all of Berlin by cutting surface traffic to and from the city of West Berlin. Starving out the population and cutting off their business was their method of gaining control. The Truman administration reacted with a continual daily airlift which brought much needed food and supplies into the city of West Berlin. This Airbridge to Berlin lasted until the end of September of 1949---although on May 12, 1949, the Soviet government yielded and lifted the blockade. 
Term
Strom Thurmond
Definition
) was an American politician who served as the 103rd Governor of South Carolina and as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrat) candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes. Thurmond later represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 to April 1956 and November 1956 to January 2003, at first as a Democrat and after 1964 as a Republican, switching parties as the conservative base shifted.
Term
Dixiecrats
Definition
Members of the States' Rights Democratic Party were often called Dixiecrats. (The termDixiecrat is a portmanteau of Dixie, referring to the Southern United States, and Democrat, referring to the Democratic Party.)
By 1950, nearly all the Dixiecrats had returned to the Democratic Party. The Dixiecrats had little short-run impact on politics. However, they did have a long-term impact. The Dixiecrats began the weakening of the Democratic Party's total control of presidential elections in the Deep South. The 1948 campaign laid the foundation, at first in presidential voting only, for the creation of a two-party region. Finally, the Dixiecrats, especially Strom Thurmond (Senator from 1954 to 2003) initiated a national political dialog on the dangers of an expansive federal government that threatened "local control." This theme was picked up by southern Republicans, who became a major element in the national GOP by the 1990s[2].
Term
Joseph McCarthhy
Definition
was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsinfrom 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespreadCommunist subversion.[1] He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics and his inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.
Term
McCarthyism
Definition
--------- McCarthyism is a term used to describe the making of accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by heightened fears of communistinfluence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.
Term
Korean War of 1950
Definition
[28] was a military conflict between the Republic of Korea, supported by the United Nations, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which was supported by People's Republic of China (PRC), with air support from the Soviet Union. The war began on 25 June 1950 and an armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. The war was a result of the political division of Korea by agreement of the victorious Allies at the conclusion of the Pacific War. The Korean peninsula had been ruled by Japan from 1910 until the end of World War II. In 1945, following the surrender of Japan, American administrators divided the peninsula along the 38th Parallel, with United States troops occupying the southern part and Soviet troopsoccupying the northern part.[29] With both North and South Korea sponsored by external powers, the Korean War was a proxy war. From a military science perspective, it combined strategies and tactics of World War I and World War II: it began with a mobile campaign of swift infantry attacks followed by air bombing raids, but became a static trench war by July 1951.
Term
Bay of Pigs (1961)
Definition
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was an unsuccessful attempt by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba, with support from US government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.
The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile combatants in three days.
Term
Cuban Missile Crisis
Definition
was a confrontation between the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War. In September 1962, the Cuban and Soviet governments began to surreptitiously build bases in Cuba for a number of medium- and intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs) with the ability to strike most of the continental United States. This action followed the 1958 deployment of Thor IRBMs in the UK and Jupiter IRBMs to Italy and Turkey in 1961 – more than 100 U.S.-built missiles having the capability to strike Moscow with nuclear warheads. On October 14, 1962, a United States U-2 photoreconnaissance plane captured photographic proof of Soviet missile bases under construction in Cuba.The confrontation ended on October 28, 1962 when President John F. Kennedy and United Nations Secretary-General U Thant reached an agreement with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to dismantle the offensive weapons and return them to the Soviet Union, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for an agreement by the United States to never invade Cuba
Term
Brown v. Board of Education
Definition
In TOPEKA, KANSAS (1954)was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.[2]
Term
Martin Luther King Jr.
Definition
was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African American civil rights movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings ofMahatma Gandhi. King is often presented as a heroic leader in the history of modern American liberalism.[1]A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career.[2] He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he expanded American values to include the vision of a color blind society, and established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history.King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. national holiday in 1986
Term
Malcolm X
Definition
‎), was an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist.[2][3][4][5] To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans.[6] His detractors accused him of preaching racism,black supremacy, antisemitism, and violence.[7][8][9][10][11] He has been described as one of the greatest, and most influential, African Americans in history.[12][13][14] In 1998, Time named The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the ten most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.Less than a year after he left the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was assassinated by three members of the group while giving a speech in New York.
Term
Louis Farrakhan
Definition
was the leader of the Chicago-based Nation of Islam (1981–2007). He served as minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem before the 1975 death of the longtime Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. After Warith Deen Muhammad led most of the NOI members into traditional Islam and renamed the group the American Society of Muslims, Farrakhan set up a separate group, at first named Final Call. In 1981 his minority group took back the name of Nation of Islam.
Farrakhan is an advocate of civil rights for African Americans and a critic of the United States government on many issues. Farrakhan has been both praised and widely criticized for his often controversial political views and outspoken rhetorical style. In October 1995, he helped organize a Million Man March in Washington, DC, calling on black men to renew their commitments to their families and communities. In 1996, Libya's de facto leader Muammar al-Gaddafi awarded him the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. Because of health issues, in 2007 Farrakhan reduced his responsibilities with the NOI.
Term
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Definition
was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, including racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public ("public accommodations"). Powers given to enforce the act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment
Term
The National Security Act of 1947
Definition
) was signed by United States President Harry S. Truman on July 26, 1947, and realigned and reorganized the U.S. Armed Forces, foreign policy, and Intelligence Community apparatus in the aftermath of World War II. The majority of the provisions of the Act took effect on September 18, 1947, the day after the Senate confirmed James Forrestal as the first Secretary of Defense. His power was extremely limited and it was difficult for him to exercise the authority to make his office effective. This was later changed in the amendment to the act in 1949, creating what was to be the Department of Defense.[1] The Act merged the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment, headed by the Secretary of Defense. It was also responsible for the creation of a separate Department of the Air Force from the existing Army Air Forces. Initially, each of the three service secretaries maintained quasi-cabinet status, but the act was amended on August 10, 1949, to assure their subordination to the Secretary of Defense. At the same time, the NME was renamed as the Department of Defense. The purpose was to unify the Army, Navy, and what was soon to become the Air Force into a federated structure.[2] Aside from the military reorganization, the act established the National Security Council, a central place of coordination for national security policy in theexecutive branch, and the Central Intelligence Agency, the U.S.'s first peacetime intelligence agency. The function of the council was to advise the president on domestic, foreign, and military policies so that they may cooperate more tightly and efficiently. Departments in the government were encouraged to voice their opinions to the council in order to make a more sound decision.[3]
Term
HUAC - House Un-American Activities Committee
Definition
was an investigativecommittee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security". When the House abolished the committee in 1975,[2] its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.
The committee's anti-communist investigations are often confused with those of Senator Joseph McCarthy.[3] McCarthy, as a U.S. Senator, had no direct involvement with this House committee.[4] McCarthy was the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Government Operations Committee of the U.S. Senate, not the House.
Term
Peace Corps
Definition
Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand U.S. culture, and helping Americans understand the cultures of other countries. Generally, the work is related to social and economic development. Each program participant, (aka Peace Corps Volunteer), is an American citizen with a college degree who works abroad for a period of twenty four months after three months of training. Volunteers work with governments, schools, non-profit organizations, non-government organizations, and entrepreneurs in education, hunger business, information technology, agriculture, and the environment. Purpose: To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower.
Term
Sputnik
Definition
which is translated as 'companion' or 'satellite') was a series of robotic spacecraft missions launched by the Soviet Union. The first of these, Sputnik 1, launched the first human-made object to orbit the Earth. That launch took place on October 4, 1957 as part of theInternational Geophysical Year and demonstrated the viability of using artificial satellites to explore the upper atmosphere.
The Russian word sputnik literally means "co-traveler", "traveling companion" or "satellite",[note 1] and the satellite's R-7 launch vehicle was designed initially to carry nuclear warheads.
Term
Interstate Highway System
Definition

", is a network of limited-access roadways (also called freeways or expressways) in the United States. It is named forPresident Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed its formation. As of 2006, the system has a total length of 46,876 miles (75,440 km),[1] making it both the largest highway system in the world and the largest public works project in history.[2] The Interstate Highway System is a subsystem of the National Highway System.

This freeway system serves nearly all major U.S. cities, with many Interstates passing through downtown areas. The distribution of virtually all goods and services involves Interstate Highways at some point.[3] Residents of American cities commonly use urban Interstates to travel to their places of work. The vast majority of long-distance ground travel, whether for vacation or business, uses the national road network.[4] Of these trips, about one-third (by the total number of miles driven in the country in 2003) use the Interstate system.[5]

Term
Freedom Riders
Definition
Riders were civil rights activists that rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia (of 1960).[1] The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.[2]
Term
The Great Society
Definition
was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted in the United States on the initiative of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. The Great Society in scope and sweep resembled the New Deal domestic agenda of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but differed sharply in types of programs enacted.
Some Great Society proposals were stalled initiatives from John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. Johnson's success depended on his skills of persuasion, coupled with the Democraticlandslide in the 1964 election that brought in many new liberals to Congress. Anti-war Democrats complained that spending on the Vietnam War choked off the Great Society. While some of the programs have been eliminated or had their funding reduced, many of them, including Medicare, Medicaid, and federal education funding, continue to the present. The Great Society's programs expanded under the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.[1]
Term
Ho Chi Minh
Definition
) was a Vietnamese Marxist revolutionary leader who was prime minister (1946–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He formed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and led the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War until his death.
Hồ led the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating theFrench Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. He lost political power inside North Vietnam in the late 1950s, but remained as the highly visible figurehead president until his death. The former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, after the Fall of Saigon, was renamed Hồ Chí Minh City in his honor.
Term
Vietnam Syndrome
Definition
Syndrome is a term used in the United States, in public political rhetoric and political analysis, to describe the perceived impact of the domestic controversy over the Vietnam War on US foreign policy after the end of that war in 1975. Since the early 1980s, the combination of a public opinion apparently biased against war, a less interventionist US foreign policy, and a relative absence of American wars and military interventions since 1975, has been dubbed Vietnam Syndrome. The inability for the United States to go on the offensive was also dubbed as 'Vietnam paralysis'.
The term was coined in the context of the Cold War as part of a conservative and right-wing conservative polemic on US foreign policy, which was at first directed against the Détente policies of the Carter Administration (1977–1981).
Term
Mikhail Gorbachev
Definition
Russia's last Soviet leader
) is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its collapse in 1991.
Term
SDI - Strategic Defense Initiative
Definition
was created by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983[1] to use ground and space-based systems to protect theUnited States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Term
Berlin Crisis/Blockade/Airlift
Definition
 During the multinational occupation of post WWII Germany, the Soviets cut off road and rail traffic from the American, British, and French zones of occupied germany to Berlin. An 11 month airlift followed with western planes supplying fuel and food to their zones of the city. The success of the airlift brought humiliation to the soviets who believed that it would not make a huge difference. The blockade was lifted in May 1949 by Stalin, giving the Truman administration a major victory.
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