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FCSDGbl2-Beyond WW2
Beyond WW2 topics
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Nuremburg Trials | (1945-1949) trials in which an Allied military tribunal tried several dozen top Nazi & military officials; many were executed for war crimes |
Robert H. Jackson | Lawyer from Jamestown, NY; Lead prosecutor for the Nuremberg Trials |
Human Rights | basic rights to which every person is entitled simply by the fact that they are a human being |
Universal Declaration of Human Rights | 30 basic human rights written in a document created by the United Nations in 1948 |
United Nations | international organization formed in 1945 to maintain world peace & encourage cooperation among nations |
Cold War | era of high tension & bitter rivalry between the US & Soviet Union in the decades following WWII |
Yalta Conference | (February 1945) a meeting between FDR, Churchill & Stalin to reach an agreement on what to do with Germany after WWII |
Potsdam Conference | (1945) a meeting of Allied leaders in the German city of Potsdam to address issues about the post-WWII Europe |
Division of Germany | after WWII, split into 4 sectors held by France, Great Britain, Soviet Union and United States |
Gen. Douglas MacArthur | American general; commanded US troops in the SW Pacific during WWII and administered Japan after the war ended |
Robert Oppenheimer | scientist responsible for the development of the atom bomb |
Containment | US policy adopted in the 1940s to stop the spread of communism by providing economic & military aid to countries opposing the Soviets |
Marshall Plan | plan for the economic reconstruction of Europe after WWII |
Truman Doctrine | (1947) US President Truman's pledge to provide economic & military aid to countries threatened by communism |
Berlin Airlift | (1948-1949) a program in which the US & Britain shipped supplies by air to West Berlin during the Soviet blockade of all routes to the city |
NATO | North Atlantic Treaty Organization; a defensive military alliance of twelve Western nations formed in 1949 |
Warsaw Pact | military alliance of the Soviet-dominated countries of Eastern Europe, established in 1955 |
Eva & Juan Peron | wife & President of Argentina from 1946-1955 & 1973-1974; rose to power following a military coup d'etat & was a supporter of the rights of the people |
4 Worlds | concept of levels of development of countries 1 = developed, 2 = developed but improvements possible, 3 = poor economy, medical care, education , 4 = extremely poor |
Third World | old term for developing nations |
Developing Nations | new term for 3rd World countries |
LDCs (Less Developed Countries) | newer term for developing countries |
Problems for Developing Nations | financial/economic, education, medical care, housing |
Green Revolution | a significant increase in agricultural productivity resulting from the introduction of high-yield varieties of grains, the use of pesticides, & improved management techniques |
Che Guevara | Argentinean revolutionary leader; an aide to Fidel Castro during the Cuban revolution |
Fulgencio Batista | retired Cuban general; seized power in 1952; fled when Castro led revolt in 1959 |
Fidel Castro | Communist political leader of Cuba; helped overthrow the Cuban government in 1959 & seized control of the country, exercising total control of the government & economy |
Cuban Missile Crisis | (1962) confrontation between the US & the Soviet Union over Soviet missiles in Cuba |
Sandinistas | Marxist group who led the revolution against the dictator of Nicaragua & then rulled the country fro 1979-1990 |
Mikhail Gorbachev | Russian politician; was the last president of the Soviet Union before the country's collapse in 1991 |
Chernobyl | catastrophic nuclear power plant accident (4/26/86) in Ukraine; explosion & fire released large quantities of radioactive particles into the atmosphere, which spread over much of the west |
Fall of Berlin Wall | 1989, symbolic of the fall of Communism |
Mao Zedong | Leader of the Chinese Communists; led a successful revolution & established a Communist government in China in 1949 |
Long March | (1934) the 6000-mile journey made by Communist Chinese to escape Nationalist troops |
Chaing Kai-shek | Chinese Nationalist; battles Chinese Communists lead by Mao in1949; retreated to Taiwan |
Great Leap Forward | (1958) Mao Zedong's second Five-year Plan for China; goal was to speed progress |
Cultural Revolution | the violent attempt at social change in China launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 |
Red Guards | group of young men in China who carried out the work of the Cultural Revolution; they roamed the cities & villages, identifying possible opposition to Mao Zedong's leadership |
Deng Xiaoping | Chinese revolutionary & government leader; after a struggle for power following Mao's death, he took power in 1981 & made far-reaching reforms in the Chinese economy |
Four Modernizations | goals set forth by Zhou Enlai in 1963, and enacted by Deng Xiaoping from 1978, to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, national defense, and science and technology in China (5th Modernization - Democracy - caused controversy) |
Tiananmen Square Massacre | violent suppression by the Chinese communist government of a large prodemocracy protest in Beijing's central square in 1989 |