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Cold War 1980-1991
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Ronald Reagan | elected 40th U.S. President in 1980 on the Republican ticket defeating Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter; Reagan was a former actor and Governor of California. |
| Sandra Day O’Connor | the first woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court, nominated by President Reagan and approved by the Senate in 1981. |
| George H. W. Bush | became 41st U.S. President on the Republican ticket in the election of 1988, defeating Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis; Bush had been Reagan’s Vice President and a former CIA Director. |
| Mikhail Gorbachev | became Soviet Premier (leader) in 1985 after taking over from Chernenko; Gorbachev was the last Premier of the USSR before its collapse in 1991. |
| Norman Schwarzkopf | U.S. commander put in charge of all coalition forces during the 1991 Gulf War. |
| Oliver North | a Marine who worked for the NSC and was a key witness before the Senate during the Iran-Contra investigations. |
| Boris Yeltsin | first freely elected official in the USSR; elected President of Russia (a Soviet Republic) in 1989; NB this is different than Soviet Premier (Gorbachev was still head of the USSR). |
| Manuel Noriega | military ruler of Panama from 1983-1989; he was captured by U.S. military for his masterminding drug smuggling operations into the U.S.; he was later convicted in 1992 of cocaine trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. |
| Operation Desert Storm | the January 16, 1991, U.S.-led invasion of Iraq due to its invasion of Kuwait in 1990; this started the 1991 Gulf War. |
| 1991 Persian Gulf War | began with air attacks on Baghdad [U.S. invaded Kuwait first to drive Iraqis back, to protect Kuwait and keep oil-rich region stable] |
| Iran-Contra scandal | Senate investigation into the Reagan’s administration selling of weapons to Iran and funneling the money to the Contras in Nicaragua to fund their guerilla warfare of the Sandinista communist regime. [Key witness = marine & NSC employee Oliver North] |
| fall of the Berlin Wall | the breaking down of the Berlin Wall built by the Soviets under Khrushchev in the 1960s; this event of Nov. 1989 signaled the beginning of the end of communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR. |
| break-up of the USSR | July of 1991 START 1 signed in Moscow. September of 1991 USSR officially dissolved; commonwealth of Independent States/Russian Federation formed. |
| invasion of Grenada | a small Caribbean Island just north of Venezuela that the U.S. invaded in 1983 to rescue American medical students and to stop Cuba from building an airstrip. |
| Tiananmen Square Massacre | the shooting of several hundred civilians, mainly student demonstrators, by the Chinese in Beijing in June of 1989; students had occupied the square for seven weeks, refusing to move until their demands for democratic reform were met. |
| nuclear accident at Chernobyl | site of the 1986 nuclear disaster in the USSR in which a nuclear power plant blew up; the official Soviet casualty count of 31 deaths has been disputed, and long-term effects such as cancers and deformities are still being accounted for. |
| Marine peacekeeping mission in Lebanon | In June of 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon due to use as an attack base by PLO = 2-day war w/Syria. 1,800 US marines sent in to Lebanon as peacemakers and in October of 1983, Marine barracks in Lebanon bombed; killed 241. |
| Iran hostage crisis | inaugurated and hostages in Iran released in exchange for $8 billion frozen assets ($5 billion given to US to pay debts) Reagan negotiated w/Iran’s leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini |
| AIDS virus | a.k.a. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; named in the 1980s after a huge increase in illnesses among homosexual men; the causal virus, HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), was discovered by French scientist in the 1984. |
| invasion of Panama | December of 1989, 2,000 US troops invaded Panama to stop drug trafficking by Manuel Noriega. |
| U.S. attacks on Libya | In 1986, US planes attacked Tripoli, Libya because there was a terrorist attack in Germany and an American Soldier was killed. Later, terrorists sponsored and trained by, and fled back to Libya. |
| SDI | President Reagan’s push to develop futuristic defense weapons (e.g., particle or laser beams) to counter any Soviet nuclear strike; dubbed by the media as “Star Wars” but led to the USSR renewing arms limitations negotiations. |
| ADA | (Americans with Disabilities Act) law passed by Congress in 1990 to prohibit discrimination against disabled people in public places; led to the requirement of building wheelchair ramps, etc. |
| Reaganomics | name given by the media to President Reagan’s economic policies that lowered individual and corporate income tax rates as well as reducing government regulation (laissez-faire capitalism); Reagan’s policies were based on supply-side economics. |
| Recession ended in US and markets began 9 yr. rise; inflation decreased to only 2%. | What happened to the inflation rate by 1982? |
| Affirmative Action | What program promoted preferential hiring of minorities due to past discrimination? |
| Not raise taxes by signing the Congressional Bill | What was H.W. Bush’s most famous campaign promise (that he broke)? |
| To protest the late 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. | Why did the U.S. boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics? |
| Computers | Which invention had the greatest impact on American workplaces in the 1980s? |
| The GI Bill enabled enlisted men and women to access the funds necessary to attend college. | Why did graduation rates increase after 1945? |
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mbk0585
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