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US History
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Protective Tariffs | Taxes on imported goods from other countries |
| National Association for the Advancement of Colored People | Worked for civil rights for African-Americans, especially in court cases like Brown v. Board of Education (1954) |
| Open Door Policy | US agreement to open trade in China evenly for all countries |
| Hiroshima & Nagasaki | Japanese cities hit with atomic/nuclear bombs by the US during World War II |
| Transcontinental Railroad | Railroad connecting the East and West in the US so goods and people could be transported more quickly |
| Collective Bargaining | Workers and employers coming together to negotiate pay and working conditions |
| Spanish-American War | War for Cuban independence when the US gained Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines |
| Navajo Code Talkers | Native Americans who sent messages for the US Army in their native language during World War II |
| Double V Campaign | Civil rights campaign for victory overseas in World War II and victory over racism at home |
| Tenements | Run down apartments for poor people and immigrants |
| Meat Inspection Act | Progressive Era law that all meat must be inspected before selling it; passed because of "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair |
| Allies (World War II) | US, Great Britain, France, & Soviet Union |
| Rural to urban migrants | People who move from the country to the city usually for jobs or because machines took their jobs on farms |
| Dawes Severalty Act | Law designed to assimilate Native Americans by giving them 160 acres to farm for 25 years |
| Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) | Civil rights group formed during World War II |
| Roosevelt Corollary | Addition to the Monroe Doctrine; says the US has the right to interfere in the affairs of countries in Latin America |
| Urbanization | Rapid expansion of cities |
| Admiral Chester Nimitz | Leader of the US Navy during World War II |
| Women's Suffrage | Women's right to vote (19th Amendment) |
| Unrestricted Submarine Warfare | Policy of sinking every ship by German U-boats during World War I |
| William Jennings Bryan | Leader of the Populist Party who gave the Cross of Gold speech supporting bimetallism and winning the Democratic nomination for president in 1892 |
| Korematsu v. United States | Supreme Court case about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II that said it was ok to take away some freedoms for national security |
| Suspension bridges | Bridges built using steel cables; helped cities expand greatly |
| Niagara Movement | Meeting of civil rights leaders that led to the founding of the NAACP |
| Moral Diplomacy | Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy of supporting Latin American countries that believed in democracy |
| Entrepreneurs | People who start and run businesses |
| Skyscrapers | Tall buildings made possible by steel that helped cities expand by giving people room to live and work |
| Massacre at Wounded Knee | Murder of innocent Native American men, women, and children by the US Army |
| Good Neighbor Policy | Franklin Roosevelt's policy of leaving Latin American countries alone in an effort to improve relations and trade |
| Sweatshops | Small, cramped, unsafe workplaces where workers were paid very little for long hours |
| Battle of Stalingrad | Turning point in World War II where the Soviet Army beat the German (Nazi) Army for the first time |
| Cooperatives (Co-ops) | Support groups for farmers to get better prices and social activity |
| Marcus Garvey | Civil rights leader who led the Back to Africa movement |
| Conspicuous Consumerism | Buying expensive and flashy items to show off your wealth |
| Concentration Camps | German work camps where Jews and others were worked to death or murdered during World War II |
| Horizontal Integration | Buying up as much of one part of a process as possible to control it and charge higher prices (John D. Rockefeller & oil refineries) |
| Zimmermann Note/Telegram | German communication with Mexico promising to give them back Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California in return for attacking American during World War I |
| New immigrants | Eastern & Southern Europe; unskilled; uneducated; could not speak English; poor; worked in factories |
| Big Stick Diplomacy | Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy where he threatened Latin American countries with our military |
| Tenant Farmer/Sharecropper | Person who farms someone else's land for payment, usually in crops |
| Fourteen Points | President Woodrow Wilson's plan for world peace after World War I |
| General Dwight Eisenhower | Commander of all Allied forces in Europe; later president of the United States |
| Palmer Raids | Arrests and deportations of suspected Communist by Attorney General Palmer during the Red Scare after World War I |
| Farmer's Alliance | Organization of farmers joining together to get better prices and lower costs; led to the formation of the Populist Party |
| Jim Crow Laws | Segregation laws designed to keep African-Americans in line |
| Cold War | Indirect war between the US and Soviet Union after World War II including arms race, space race, Iron Curtain, NATO, Warsaw Pact, Korean War, Bay of Pigs, Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, etc. |
| League of Nations | International organization formed after World War I to prevent future wars; lacked the military power to enforce anything |
| Cross of Gold Speech | Speech about bimetallism given by William Jennings Bryan to get the presidential nomination for the Democratic party in 1896 |
| Red Scare | US public fear of communism; led to the Palmer Raids after World War I and HUAC, blacklists, and McCarthyism after World War II |
| German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact | Agreement between Hitler and Stalin for Germany and the Soviet Union not to attack each other during World War II; later broken when Germany attacked the Soviet Union |
| Assembly line | Quicker and cheaper war of making products that requires cheaper labor by breaking the process into steps and having one person do the same thing over and over; made popular by Henry Ford |
| Nationalism | Love of one's country to the exclusion of others |
| Suburbs | Areas immediately outside cities |
| Exodusters | Ex-slaves who fled the South to farm and form towns in Kansas |
| Genocide | Trying to murder an entire group of people (for example, the Holocaust) |
| Charles Lindbergh | First American to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean |
| Iron Curtain | Imaginary barrier dividing communist countries in Eastern Europe under the control of the Soviet Union and democratic countries in Western Europe |
| Sussex Pledge | Pledge by Germany not to sink non-military ships with their u-boats during World War I |
| Cash crops | Crops grown to be sold and not just eaten |
| Leisure time | Time not spent working; expanded because of new technologies in the 1920s like cars, refrigerators, and washing machines |
| Ida B. Wells | Reporter and civil rights activist who worked for women's suffrage and spoke out against lynching |
| United Nations (UN) | International organization created after World War II to prevent future wars; had more military power than the League of Nations |
| Bimetallism | Using silver and gold to back up currency |
| Nativism | Favoring native born people over immigrants |
| Nuremberg Trials | Trials prosecuting war criminals like the Nazis for war crimes committed against civilians (non-soldiers) during World War II |
| Harlem Renaissance | Explosion of African-American culture during the 1920s after the Great Migration |
| Superpowers | The US and Soviet Union during the Cold War after World War II |
| Lusitania | British ship with American passengers sunk by German U-boats during World War I; led to the Sussex Pledge |
| Mass transit | Transportation to move millions of people around a city including trains, buses, trolleys, subways, etc |
| Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) | Supreme Court case that made segregation legal by saying "separate but equal" was ok |
| Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 | Law banning any new immigrants from China; people already here could stay but had no rights |
| Manhattan Project | Top secret US program to develop atomic/nuclear weapons during World War II |
| Mass culture | Movies, music, news, etc. that huge numbers of people experience together |
| Berlin Airlift | Attempt by the Soviet Union to starve the US and our allies out of West Berlin; we flew in planes full of supplies to get around the blockade |
| Imperialism | Large nations dominating smaller nations for their resources |
| Melting pot | When multiple cultures share ideas, food, customs, etc. to form a new hybrid culture |
| Reservations | Land the US set aside for Native Americans after we took the majority of their land away |
| Conservation | Protecting nature and natural resources such as national and state parks |
| Tuskegee Airmen | Group of African-American pilots who fought in World War II |
| Reparations | Payment for damages |
| USS Maine | US ship that blow up in Havana harbor that yellow journalism used to blame Spain and start the Spanish-American War |
| Soviet Union | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR); communist Russia and a few other communist countries bordering Russia |
| Central Powers | Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire; losers of World War I |
| Lost Generation | Writers after World War I who rebelled against traditional ideas because of what they saw during the war (modernism) |
| Containment | US policy during the Cold War to try to keep communism from spreading anywhere new |
| Isolationism | Policy of staying to one's self and out of the affairs of other countries |
| Monopoly | Control over an item or good |
| Inflation/Deflation | Increase or decrease in the supply of money and prices |
| Japanese internment | Imprisoning of innocent Japanese-Americans in camps in the US during World War II |
| Temperance Movement | Push to ban all alcohol; led to the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) |
| Dollar Diplomacy | Using government money and business investment to support countries in Latin America; foreign policy of William Howard Taft |
| Prohibition | Ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of alcohol |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | Alliance of the US, Canada, and Western Europe to protect themselves from the Soviet Union after World War II |
| Benito Mussolini | Fascist leader of Italy during World War II |
| Political machines | Corrupt organizations led by bosses that used immigrants' votes to get power to steal money while delivering some services (like Boss Tweed) |
| Neutrality | Not taking a side during war; the US started this way before getting involved in World War I and World War II |
| Corporation | People joining together to form a business; this type of business is used to gather capital and spread liability |
| War bonds | US citizens bought war bonds in cash to help pay for the war and were paid back with interest after the war |
| Great Migration | Movement of millions of African-Americans from the South to cities in the North and Midwest to take factory jobs during World War I |
| Populist Party | Political party made up mostly of farmers who pushed for bimetallism, secret ballots, graduated income tax, direct election of senators, referendum, recall, initiative, and other progressive measures |
| Bessemer Process | Cheap way of making steel faster |
| Scopes Trial | Trial over whether it should be legal to teach evolution in public schools; clash of traditionalism versus modernism |
| Marshall Plan | US plan to rebuild Europe after World War II to prevent the spread of communism and get new markets for US goods after World War II |
| Rough Riders | Cavalry unit led by Theodore Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War; made him a famous war hero |
| Dictatorship | Government led by one person |
| Rationing | Limiting the supply of a certain item |
| Flappers | Modern women in the 1920s who rejected traditional values and wore short hair, short dresses, makeup, smoked, drank, partied, and had jobs |
| Truman Doctrine | Policy that the US would send military aid to any country that would fight communism |
| Militarism | Glorifying the military and building it up to prepare for war |
| Trust | Combining businesses in an effort to control the supply of a product to maximize profits |
| Barbed wire | Ended the open range and made farming easier of the Great Plains |
| Joseph Stalin | Leader of the Soviet Union during World War II and the beginning of the Cold War |
| Fascism | Right wing form of government dominated by the military and a dictator |
| Hawaii | Country taken over by the US in 1893 for sugar cane and a coaling station in the Pacific Ocean for the US Navy |
| Upton Sinclair | Muckraker who wrote the book The Jungle which led to the passage of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act |
| Axis Powers | Germany, Italy, and Japan; losers in World War II |
| Speakeasy | Place where people could get illegal alcohol during Prohibition |
| Warsaw Pact | Alliance of communist countries; answer to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) |
| Manifest Destiny | Idea that God gave the land all the way to the west coast to European settlers no matter who might already be on the land |
| Nazi Party | Leading political party in Germany just before and during World War I; led by Adolf Hitler; caused the Holocaust |
| General Douglas MacArthur | Leader of US troops in the Pacific during World War II |
| Installment buying | Using credit to purchase items for more than you can afford at one time; led to a booming economy in the short term but a Great Depression in the long term |
| Mao Zedong | Leader of the communists who took over China |
| Ghost Dance | Native American religious ceremony where they prayed for the buffalo to come back and for European settlers to leave |
| Social Darwinism | The idea of "survival of the fittest" which led to racism and nativism against certain groups of immigrants and other people viewed as undesirable |
| Island hopping | US military tactic used in the Pacific during World War II where we would avoid the biggest islands and use our navy to hop around where the Japanese were strongest |
| Margin | Buying stocks on credit; allowed you to buy more stock with less money which was great when it worked buy much worse than normal when it didn't work |
| Vertical integration | Owning all of the steps in the production process; Andrew Carnegie and US Steel |
| Blitzkrieg | "Lightning war" in German; quick strikes using planes, tanks, and artillery in World War II |
| Allies (World War II) | US, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union |
| Mass production | Making hundreds or thousands of a product to make them cheaper; made possible by the assembly line |
| Cash-and-carry | US policy to sell war supplies to the Allies in World War II only if they could pay cash and pick up the supplies themselves; replaced later by lend-lease |
| Treaty of Versailles (1919) | Ended World War I; made Germany pay reparations; created the League of Nations |
| Stock market speculation | Buying stocks on margin (credit); very dangerous |
| Korean War | Invasion of South Korea by communist North Korea; UN forces led by the US pushed the North Koreans almost to China; China sends 300,000 troops to push the UN forces back to near the 38th parallel where a truce is declared; first test of containment |
| Yellow Journalism | Sensationalizing of news to sell more newspapers; led to the Spanish-American War after the explosion of the USS Maine |
| Munich Agreement | Agreed that Germany could take over Czechoslovakia with no consequences if they would stop there; example of appeasement |
| Great Depression | Largest and longest lasting economic downturn in US history |
| Israel | Country formed by Jews in the Middle East in 1948; recognized by the US as a way of making up for ignoring the Holocaust during World War II |
| Assimilation | Forcing a minority culture to be more like the majority culture (for example, Native Americans) |
| Lend-lease | US policy of letting the Allies borrow military supplies during World War II and owing us money or support after the war |
| Brinkmanship | Being willing to take the world to the edge of nuclear destruction during the Cold War to get the other side to back down |
| Patent | Government license to control a product or invention such as a light bulb |
| Bataan Death March | Event where the Japanese forced US and Filipino troops to march 60 miles to a prisoner of war camp during World War II |
| Open Range | System of feeding cattle through letting them graze on open land and sending cowboys to collect and drive them to railroad towns to be sold; ended by the invention of barbed wire |
| Ida Tarbell | Muckraker who wrote a book about the unfair business practices of John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil |
| Atlantic Charter | Agreement between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill about what the world would look like after World War II |
| Bank failures | When more people withdrew more money than the bank had to cover and the banks went out of business; mostly fixed with the bank holiday and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) |
| Domino Theory | Idea that if one country was allowed to fall to communism, many of the countries around it would fall to communism too; especially important in the Korean War and Vietnam War |
| Battle of Britain | Bombing of London by the German air force during World War II to try to win World War II |
| Trustbusting | Using antitrust laws to force large trusts to be broken down into smaller companies to prevent them from controlling too much of a product or industry and raising prices too high |
| Battle of Midway | Turning point of the War in the Pacific during World War II when the US turned the tide against Japan and started defeating them |
| Grange | Organization that joined farmers together for social and educational reasons; led to the formation of the Populist Party |
| Socialism | Economic system where the government controls most resources and divides resources and profits equally amongst the people |
| Stock Market Crash (1929) | Dramatic economic downturn that began the Great Depression |
| Ho Chi Minh | Communist leader of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War |
| Appeasement | Giving in to a bully hoping that they will stop |
| Homestead Act of 1862 | Government program to give settlers 160 acres of land if they would build a house and farm for 5 years |
| Holocaust | Systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis (Germany) during World War II (9 million people from other groups were also murdered) |
| Nakita Khrushchev | Leader of the Soviet Union who replaced Joseph Stalin |
| Smoot-Hawley Tariff | Passed at the beginning of the Great Depression; caused international trade to crash and made the Great Depression worse |
| Fidel Castro | Communist leader of Cuba |
| Jacob Riis | Muckraker photojournalist who took pictures of immigrants and poor people during the Progressive Era to try to force change |
| Dust Bowl | Severe drought on the Great Plains that made the Great Depression worse for some farmers; many left to move to the West Coast for jobs |
| National Interstate and Defense Highway Act (1956) | Created the interstate highway system to quickly move military supplies and evacuate cities; contributed to suburban sprawl |
| Pearl Harbor | Sneak attack by the Japanese on the US Naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; brought the US into World War II |
| Spoils system | Political system of giving jobs to the people who helped you get elected; limited by the passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883) |
| Baby boom | Rapid increase in the birth rate after World War II |
| Bonus Army | World War I veterans who demanded their bonus be paid to them early at the beginning of the Great Depression; they were beaten instead of paid |
| Muckrakers | Writers and journalists who exposed the problems with society during the Progressive Era in an attempt to create positive change |
| D-Day | Day of the invasion of Normandy in France to begin pushing the German Army back in Europe |
| Hoovervilles | Groups of shacks built outside cities by homeless people during the Great Depression; named for President Herbert Hoover |
| Suburban sprawl | Mass expansion of the areas outside cities as more and more people bought houses and cars to drive on the new interstate highways to work instead of living in cities |
| Gold Standard | Using only gold to back up our currency |
| Adolf Hitler | Leader of the Nazis and dictator of Germany during World War II |
| Blacklist | Banned from being hired; Second Red Scare |
| Bank Holiday | Four day period when banks were closed for inspection and reopened if they were secure; one of the first acts of Franklin D. Roosevelt to restore confidence and end the Great Depression |
| Normandy | Site of the D-Day invasion in France to push the Germany Army back across Europe |
| House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) | House committee that investigated suspected communists; Hollywood Ten; blacklist |
| Fireside chats | Radio addresses where Franklin D. Roosevelt explained his plans to fix the Great Depression to the American people |
| General George Patton | US leader of Army tank forces in Europe |
| Civil Service | Government employees |
| Senator Joseph McCarthy | Accused many people of being communist spies with no proof during the Second Red Scare in the 1950s |
| Hundred Days | First 100 days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term as President when he passed a lot of New Deal legislation to fix the economy and the Great Depression |
| McCarthyism | Accusing people of things with no proof |
| Big Three | Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin during World War II |
| Arms race | Competition between the US and Soviet Union to have the most nuclear weapons such as Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) |
| New Deal | Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to end the Great Depression |
| Space race | Competition between the US and Soviet Union to be the first to accomplish several different things in space |
| Deficit spending | Spending more money than the government takes in; used to help get out of the Great Depression |
| Brown v. Board of Education (1954) | Supreme Court case that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896); said "separate but equal" is illegal and schools must be integrated |
| Thurgood Marshall | Lead lawyer for the NAACP for Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and first African-American Supreme Court Justice |
| Keynesian economics | Economic theory that focused on deficit spending during economic downturns to keep the economy moving |
| Sputnik I | First satellite launched into space by the Soviet Union; began the space race |
| Montgomery Bus Boycott | Protest of segregation on buses by refusing to pay for the service or ride the buses |
| Bay of Pigs | Failed invasion of Cuba in 1961 |
| Court packing | Plan by Franklin D. Roosevelt to add six new Supreme Court Justices because the court kept declaring his New Deal programs unconstitutional |
| Freedom Rides | Protest of segregation on interstate buses where people from different races traveled together through the South; many were beaten and jailed |
| Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) | New Deal program that gave jobs to men ages 18-25 to build and maintain state and national parks |
| Berlin Wall | Built by the Soviet Union to prevent people from leaving the communist side of Berlin and defecting to the democratic side |
| Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) | New Deal program that built hydroelectric dams along the Tennessee River Valley to provide electricity and jobs |
| Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) | New Deal organization that polices the stock market |
| Freedom Summer | Campaign to register African-Americans to vote in Mississippi |
| Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) | New Deal program that paid farmers to grow fewer crops so crop prices would go up |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | The US discovered missiles in Cuba, blockaded them, and negotiated a deal to remove our missiles from Turkey and promise not to invade Cuba in exchange for the Soviet Union removing their missiles; brought the world very close to nuclear destruction |
| Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) | New Deal program that insured bank deposits up to $2,500; rebuilt public confidence in banks |
| Peace Corps | Government program that paid volunteers to do community service in poor countries; designed to help the US in the Cold War |
| Public Works Administration (PWA) | New Deal program that built schools, hospitals, roads, and other public works |
| Viet Cong | Communists in South Vietnam who started a civil war to try to unite all of Vietnam under communism |
| Works Progress Administration (WPA) | New Deal program that paid actors and writers to entertain people and interview people to write down their history |
| Great Society | Lyndon Johnson's social programs to help poor people |
| Social Security Administration (SSA) | New Deal program that paid people after they retire as well as the elderly and children |
| Medicaid | Great Society program that helps poor people pay for health insurance |
| Medicare | Great Society program that helps people over 65 pay for health insurance |
| Rural Electrification Administration (REA) | New Deal program that built power stations and power lines in rural areas across the US |
| War of Poverty | Plan where Lyndon Johnson planned to spend as much money on helping poor people as the US usually spent on a war |
| Gulf of Tonkin Resolution | After a US Navy ship was fired upon by the North Vietnamese, Congress declared war on North Vietnam |
| My Lai Massacre | Murder of 300 men, women, and children in a village in Vietnam by a platoon of US Army soldiers |
| Tet Offensive | Surprise attack by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong across all of South Vietnam; turned US opinion against the Vietnam War |
| The Establishment | Authority such as police, the government, and the military |
| Apollo 11 | NASA mission that landed a man on the moon |
| Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 | Changed the quota system for immigration to a points system based on education and job skills |
| Affirmative Action | Giving special consideration to minorities and women to improve their educational and job opportunities |
| Busing | Transporting students to schools outside their neighborhood to achieve racial integration |
| Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) | Group of oil producing countries who attempt to control the price and supply of oil in the world market |
| Detente | Easing of Cold War tensions between the US and communist countries |
| Ping-pong Diplomacy | Beginning of normal relations between the US and China after China hosted the US table tennis team |
| Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) | Limited the number of nuclear weapons possessed by the US and Soviet Union (USSR) |
| Vietnamization | Nixon's policy that transferred responsibility for the Vietnam War back to the South Vietnam government |
| Paris Peace Accords (1973) | Ended the Vietnam War. South Vietnam fell to the communists within 2 years and all of Vietnam was under one communist government. |
| Executive Privilege | The right of certain people in the Executive Branch to keep communications secret to be able to do their job properly |
| Impeachment | A formal accusation against a president of committing a crime |
| Pentagon Papers | Top secret military study on the history of the Vietnam War; showed the government had been lying about winning the war |
| United States v. Nixon | Supreme Court case that determined executive privilege had limits |
| Watergate | Scandal that forced President Nixon to resign from office (he sent people to break into the Democratic Party headquarters to get dirt on his opponents and covered it up when they got caught) |
| Camp David Accords | Treaty that brought peace between Egypt and Israel |
| Iranian Hostage Crisis | Event where Iranian protesters stormed the US embassy and took the staff hostage; lasted for over a year |
| Ayatollah Khomeini | Muslim leader of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 |
| Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) | Would have guaranteed women equal rights with men; failed to pass |
| Roe v. Wade | Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion |
| 26th Amendment | Lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 |
| Regents of the University of California v. Bakke | Supreme Court case that upheld affirmative action as constitutional |
| Earth Day | Beginning of the environmental movement (1970) |
| Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) | Lets US citizens request information from the Executive Branch with some limits |
| Moral Majority | Group influenced by Christian values to oppose liberal ideology |
| Conservatism | Favoring less active government and more individualism |
| Liberalism | Favoring more active government and group support |
| New Right/Christian Right/Religious Right | Republicans who focused on Christian values in addition to traditional Republican beliefs |
| Rainbow Coalition | Political organization formed by Rev. Jesse Jackson to support the needs and issues of minorities |
| Balanced budget | Government spending only as much as it takes in |
| Deregulation | Removing government oversight or rules from businesses and industries |
| Sandra Day O'Connor | First woman Supreme Court Justice |
| Reaganomics | Supply-side economics supported by President Ronald Reagan |
| Supply-side economics | Emphasizing tax cuts over government spending with the idea that giving more money to the rich and businesses would trickle-down to more people (trickle-down economics) |
| Glasnost | "Openness" in Russian; giving more basic freedoms to Russian people |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | Soviet leader who came to power in 1985 |
| Perestroika | "Restructuring" in Russian; creating a free market in Russia and including more people in the political process |
| Terrorism | Acts of violence or intimidation for a political purpose |
| Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) | Virus that weakens the immune system and the disease caused by this virus |
| Iran-Contra Affair | Scandal where money from the US selling weapons to Iran were rerouted to support the Contras in Nicaragua against US law |
| "Just Say No" Campaign | Anti-drug campaign during the Reagan Administration |
| Tower Commission | Congressional committee that investigated the Iran-Contra scandal |
| Saddam Hussein | Dictator of Iraq |
| Operation Desert Storm | Military operation that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait after the Iraqis had invaded |
| Persian Gulf War | Liberated the Kuwaitis from the Iraqis and Saddam Hussein |
| Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) | Law designed to end discrimination against people who are handicapped |
| Global warming | Increase in the earth's average temperature due to the greenhouse effect |
| Contract with America | Republican agenda for Congress during the 1994 mid-term elections |
| Al-Queda | Middle Eastern terrorist group led by Osama bin Laden |
| Osama bin Laden | Terrorist leader who wanted the US to remove all troops from Muslim nations |
| Ethnic cleansing | Removing an unwanted group of people from a region through violence |
| Globalization | Cooperation of nations from around the world to achieve mutually beneficial goals |
| North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) | Created a free trade zone between Canada, the US, and Mexico |
| Bush v. Gore | Supreme Court case that stopped the recount in Florida and made George W. Bush president |
| Department of Homeland Security (DHS) | Agency formed to coordinate the fight against terrorism |
| Guantanamo Bay | US military base in Cuba where prisoners of war from the War on Terror are kept |
| Insurgency | Rebellion or uprising against an occupying force |
| Operation Enduring Freedom | Invasion of Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda and capture Osama bin Laden |
| Operation Iraqi Freedom | Invasion of Iraq to end the regime of Saddam Hussein |
| September 11, 2001 (9/11) | Date of the terrorist attacks against the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon |
| Taliban | Islamic government of Afghanistan |
| USA Patriot Act | Allowed federal agencies to collect and share personal information to protect the US from future terror attacks like 9/11 |
| Weapons of mass destruction | Chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons designed to kill large numbers of people |
| Filibuster | When a senator keeps talking to stall and keep a legislative action from moving forward |
| No Child Left Behind (NCLB) | Required students to make progress in school as determined by yearly test scores |
| Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) | Government assistance to financial institutions and large corporations considered too big to allow them to fail |
| Tea Party | Grassroots movement within the Republican Party for smaller government, lower taxes, and less national debt |
| Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) | Expansion of Medicaid to require all US citizens to have health insurance; nicknamed Obamacare |
| American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) | Allocated money to save or create jobs in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 |
| Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) | Extremist Islamic group formed from the remnants of al-Qaeda; gained control of large areas of Iraq and Syria |
| Paris Agreement | International treaty on climate change with the goal of limiting global warming and greenhouse gas emissions |
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