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AP 8
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Big Three | allies during WWII: Soviet Union, United Kingdom, United States |
Tehran Conference | First major meeting between the Big Three (United States, Britain, Russia) at which they planned the 1944 assault on France and agreed to divide Germany into zones of occupation after the war |
Yalta Conference | 1945 Meeting with US president FDR, British Prime Minister(PM) Winston Churchill, and and Soviet Leader Stalin during WWII to plan for post-war |
Potsdam Conference | The final wartime meeting of the leaders of the U.S., Britain, & the Soviet Union was held at Potsdam in July, 1945. Truman, Churchill, & Stalin discussed the future of Europe but their failure to reach agreements soon led to the onset of the Cold War. |
Harry Truman | 33rd President of the United States. Led the U.S. to victory in WWII making the ultimate decision to use atomic weapons for the first time. Shaped U.S. foreign policy regarding the Soviet Union after the war. |
Cold War | A conflict that was between the US and the Soviet Union. The nations never directly confronted each other on the battlefield but deadly threats went on for years. |
Dwight Eisenhower | Thirty-fourth President, Allied military commander during WWII - led forces in North Africa, Italy, & England, Signed the truce in 1953 to end Korean War, Completed integration of military forces, Warned the Us about the "military-industrial complex" |
Self-determination | Concept that ethnicities have the right to govern themselves |
hydrogen bomb | One thousand more times more powerful than the atomic bomb. Truman ordered the development of it to outpace the Soviets. |
military-industrial complex | Eisenhower coined this phrase when he warned American against it in his last State of the Union Address. He feared the combined lobbying efforts of the military & industries that contracted with the military would lead to excessive Congressional spending. |
United Nations (UN) | an organization of independent states formed in 1945 to promote international peace and security |
Iron Curtain | Winston Churchill's term for the Cold War division between the Soviet-dominated East and the U.S.-dominated West. |
Satellite Countries | Countries bordering USSR that Soviets made Communist to have "friendly ring of countries" |
world revolution | a belief that organized workers would overthrow capitalism in all countries |
Containment | American policy of resisting further expansion of communism around the world |
Truman Doctrine | President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology |
Non-Aligned Movement | The group of nations that didn't side with either the US or the USSR during the Cold War. |
Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) | idea that both sides would face certain destruction in a nuclear war |
Sputnik | First artificial Earth satellite, it was launched by Moscow in 1957 and sparked U.S. fears of Soviet dominance in technology and outer space. It led to the creation of NASA and the space race. |
Marshall Plan | A United States program of economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe (1948-1952) |
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) | Assistance (COMECON) An economic organization of Communist states meant to help rebuild East Bloc countries under Soviet auspices. |
Jawaharlal Nehru | Indian statesman. He succeeded Mohandas K. Gandhi as leader of the Indian National Congress. He negotiated the end of British colonial rule in India and became India's first prime minister (1947-1964). Leader of non-aligned movement. |
Kwame Nkrumah | Leader of nonviolent protests for freedom on the Gold Coast. Became the first prime minister of Ghana. He was criticized for spending too much time on Pan-African efforts, & neglecting his own countries' issues. Leader of non-aligned movement. |
Gamel Abdel Nasser | He was president of Egypt from 1956-1970. During the Suez Crisis, he nationalized the canal, causing a dispute between him and Israel, France and Britain, leader of the non-aligned movement. |
Sukarno | Leader of Indonesian independence movement; first president of Indonesia, leader of the non-aligned movement. |
Space Race | A competition of space exploration between the United States and Soviet Union. |
Communism | A theory or system of social organization based on the holding of all property in common, actual ownership being ascribed to the community as a whole or to the state. USSR, Eastern Europe |
Democracy | A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them |
Authoritarianism | A political system in which a small group of individuals exercises power over the state without being constitutionally responsible to the public. |
Cold War | A conflict that was between the US and the Soviet Union. The nations never directly confronted each other on the battlefield but deadly threats went on for years. |
Capitalism | an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. United States, Western Europe |
proxy war | a war in which the powers in conflict use third parties as substitutes instead of fighting each other directly |
Berlin Airlift | airlift in 1948 that supplied food and fuel to citizens of west Berlin when the Russians closed off land access to Berlin |
Berlin Wall | A wall separating East and West Berlin built by East Germany in 1961 to keep citizens from escaping to the West |
Korean War | The conflict between Communist North Korea and Non-Communist South Korea. The United Nations (led by the United States) helped South Korea. |
Vietnam War | A prolonged war (1954-1975) between the communist armies of North Vietnam who were supported by the Chinese and the non-communist armies of South Vietnam who were supported by the United States. |
domino theory | A theory that if one nation comes under Communist control, then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control. |
Bay of Pigs | In April 1961, a group of Cuban exiles organized/supported by the U.S. CIA landed on the southern coast of Cuba in an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro. When the invasion ended in disaster, President Kennedy took full responsibility for the failure. |
Cuban Missile Crisis | The 1962 confrontation between US and the Soviet Union over Soviet missiles in Cuba. |
Angola | Former Portuguese colony became a battleground in the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States took sides in its civil war. |
Contra War | The contras is a label given to the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to the early 1990s in opposition to the left-wing, socialist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction government in Nicaragua |
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | 1949 alliance of nations that agreed to band together in the event of war and to support and protect each nation involved |
Warsaw Pact | An alliance between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations. This was in response to the NATO |
Communist Bloc | The group of Eastern European nations that fell under the control of the Soviet Union following World War II. |
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) | defensive alliance aimed at preventing communist aggression in Asia |
Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) | An anti-Soviet treaty organization formed by Great Britain, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Turkey to prevent the spread of Communism in the Middle East. |
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty | A treaty signed by the Soviet Union and the United States, and roughly 100 other countries, that ended the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. |
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty | treaty that made signers agree not to develop nuclear weapons or to stop the proliferation or spread of nuclear weapons |
hot line | direct telephone line between the White House and the Kremlin set up after the Cuban missile crisis |
Antinuclear Weapons Movement | One of the first such movements developed in Japan in 1954 in opposition to U.S. testing of nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean. |
Douglas MacArthur | (1880-1964), U.S. general. Commander of U.S. (later Allied) forces in the southwestern Pacific during World War II, he accepted Japan's surrender in 1945 and administered the ensuing Allied occupation. He was in charge of UN forces in Korea 1950-51. |
Lyndon Johnson | president during the Vietnam War after JFK was shot |
John F. Kennedy | President of the US during the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis |
Nikita Khrushchev | A Soviet leader during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also famous for denouncing Stalin and allowed criticism of Stalin within Russia. |
Berlin Blockade | The blockade was a Soviet attempt to starve out the allies in Berlin in order to gain supremacy. The blockade was a high point in the Cold War, and it led to the Berlin Airlift. |
East Germany | After WWII, Germany was divided into two countries, this part was communist in government and had a command economy |
West Germany | British, American and French zone of Germany and was democratic. |
land reform | the process of breaking up large landholdings to attain a more balanced land distribution among farmers |
commune | in China during the 1950s, a group of collective farms which contained more than 30,000 people who lived and worked together |
theocracy | A government controlled by religious leaders |
Mao Zedong | (1893-1976) Leader of the Communist Party in China that overthrew Jiang Jieshi and the Nationalists. Established China as the People's Republic of China and ruled from 1949 until 1976. |
Great Leap Forward | Started by Mao Zedong, combined collective farms into People's Communes, failed because there was no incentive to work harder, ended after 2 years. |
Cultural Revolution | Campaign in China ordered by Mao Zedong to purge the Communist Party of his opponents and instill revolutionary values in the younger generation. |
Red Guards | the Radical youth of the Cultural Revolution in China starting in 1966. Often wore red armbands and carried Mao's Little Red Book. |
White Revolution | Policy of reforms enacted by Reza Shah, beginning in 1963, to rapidly modernize and Westernize Iran |
Iranian Revolution | (1978-1979) a revolution against the shah of Iran led by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which resulted in Iran becoming an Islamic republic with Khomeini as its leader |
Muhammad Reza Pahlavi | Born in 1919, Pahlavi was shah of Iran from 1941 until he was deposed and fled the country in 1979; he died in 1980. |
Mohammad Mossadegh | Iranian nationalist leader; established a state owned company created to take control of Anglo-Iranian assets, he was anti-British & a nationalist. He couldn't sell any of the oil. There was a worldwide boy cot on Iranian oil. |
Haile Selassie | Emperor of Ethiopia (r. 1930-1974) and symbol of African independence. He fought the Italian invasion of his country in 1935 and regained his throne during World War II, when British forces expelled the Italians. He ruled Ethiopia as an autocrat. |
Mengistu Haile Mariam | Ethiopian soldier and politician who was the leader of Ethiopia from 1977 to 1991. |
Nationalists | Chinese group which believed in democracy; led by Chiang Kai Shek, defeated by Mao Zedong and the Communists |
Reeducation | Chinese intellectuals and elites were sent to the remote countryside to work with farmers as part of their education during the Cultural Revolution. |
Shari'ah Law (Islamic Law) | Islamic legal system based on the Qur'an |
Jacob Arbenz | President of Guatemala. Moderate socialist Arbenz enacted land reforms angering elite and US companies (United Fruit) was deposed by rebel forces back by US. |
Kerala, India | Successful land reform program, laws fixed work hours and wages, central government took control to slow down program |
Kwame Nkrumah | founder of Ghana's independence movement and Ghana's first president |
Charles de Gaulle | French general and statesman who became very popular during World War II as the leader of the Free French forces in exile. Worked with Algerians to help them gain independence from France. |
Ho Chi Minh | Communist leader of North Vietnam, led the fight against the French and then the Americans to reunify the country |
Gamel Abdel Nasser | He was president of Egypt from 1956-1970. During the Suez Crisis, he nationalized the canal, causing a dispute between him and Israel, France and Britain. |
one-party state | a political system in which one party controls the government and actively seeks to prevent other parties from contesting for power |
Algerian War for Independence | Began in 1954 with Algerians campaigning for independence from France. |
Algerian Civil War | (1991-2002) Islamic Salvation Front versus National Liberation Front, an armed conflict between the Algerian Government and various Islamic rebel groups which began in 1991 following a coup negating an Islamist electoral victory. |
Suez Crisis | July 26, 1956, Nasser (leader of Egypt) nationalized the Suez Canal, Oct. 29, British, French and Israeli forces attacked Egypt. UN forced British to withdraw; made it clear Britain was no longer a world power |
Biafran Civil War | 1967-1970; a movement by the Igbo to fight for their independence from the new country of Nigeria; created more violence and ethnic-based conflict |
Quiet Revolution | A period of intense social, political, and economic change in Quebec. During this period, which lasted from about 1960 to 1966, Quebecois began to assert their rights and affirm and promote their language and culture. |
Muslim League | an organization formed in 1906 to protect the interests of India's Muslims, which later proposed that India be divided into separate Muslim and Hindu nations |
Organization of African Unity (OAU) | An organization started in 1963 by thirty-two newly independent African states and designed to prevent conflict that would lead to intervention by former colonial powers. |
Viet Cong (VC) | A Communist-led army and guerrilla force in South Vietnam that fought its government and was supported by North Vietnam. |
Pan-Africanism | A movement that stressed unity among all Africans |
FLN (National Liberation Front) | Algerian Nationalists founded it in 1950's. 1954 civil war broke out and used guerrilla warfare which was highly effective. |
Pan-Arabism | A movement that calls for unification among the peoples and countries of the Arab World, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea. It is closely connected to Arab nationalism, which asserts that the Arabs constitute a single nation. |
Wladyslaw Gomulka | Communist leader who attempted to make Poland less dependent on the Soviet Union |
Imre Nagy | Hungarian Communist Party leader who attempted to end association with the USSR which lead to the 1956 Hungarian revolt. |
Prague Spring | In 1968, Czechoslovakia, under Alexander Dubcek, began a program of reform. Dubcek promised civil liberties, democratic political reforms, and a more independent political system. USSR invaded the country & put down the short-lived period of freedom. |
Alexander Dubcek | Leader of Czechoslovakia who introduced liberal reforms and was ousted by the Soviets |
Brezhnev Doctrine | Policy proclaimed in 1968 and declaring that the Soviet Union had the right to intervene in any Socialist country whenever it determined there was a need. |
Irish Republican Army (IRA) | An unofficial nationalist military force seeking independence for Ireland from Great Britain |
Ulster Defense Association | is the largest Ulster loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during the Troubles. |
Basque Homeland and Freedom (ETA) | A revolutionary group of northern Spain who used terrorist attacks to force the government to grant territorial independence. |
Abimael Guzman | Known as "Presidente Gonzalo." Founder of the Shining Path. Was a philosophy professor who spread his ideas to his students. Believed in popular justice and rejected human rights. |
Shining Path | a terrorist group formed in Peru in the late 1960s as a splinter group from the communist party of Peru |
Martin Luther King Jr. | U.S. Baptist minister and civil rights leader. A noted orator, he opposed discrimination against blacks by organizing nonviolent resistance and peaceful mass demonstrations. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Nobel Peace Prize (1964) |
Nelson Mandela | ANC leader imprisoned by Afrikaner regime; released in 1990 and elected as president of South Africa in 1994. |
Kent State University | An Ohio university where National Guardsmen opened fire on students protesting the Vietnam War on May 4, 1970, wounding nine and killing four |
military-industrial complex | Eisenhower first coined this phrase when he warned American against it in his last State of the Union Address. Feared that the combined lobbying efforts of the industries that contracted with the military would lead to excessive Congressional spending. |
Brown v. Board of Education | 1954 case that overturned Separate but Equal standard of discrimination in education. |
Montgomery Bus Boycott | In 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus, Dr. Martin L. King led a boycott of city busses. After 11 months the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public transportation was illegal. |
March on Washington | 1963 demonstration in which more than 200,000 people rallied for economic equality and civil rights |
Apartheid | Laws (no longer in effect) in South Africa that physically separated different races into different geographic areas. |
1968 Student Protests | The protests of 1968 comprised a worldwide escalation of social conflicts, predominantly characterized by popular rebellions against military and bureaucratic elites, who responded with an escalation of political repression. |
Terrorism | Acts of violence designed to promote a specific ideology or agenda by creating panic among an enemy population |
Northern Ireland | A former member of the Republic of Ireland that broke away in 1920 after refusing to take part in the Irish Free State. Ruled and governed by Protestants and heavy discrimination exists against the Roman Catholic Minority. |
Boko Haram | a Nigerian militant Islamist group that seeks the imposition of Shariah law throughout all 36 states of Nigeria |
Al-Shabaab | Terrorist group in Somalia affiliated w/ Al-Qaeda |
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria | ISIS stands for Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and is an extremist militant group that rules by Wahhabi/Salafi law. Also known as ISIL. |
Taliban | Fundamentalist Muslim movement whose militia took control of much of Afghanistan in 1995 and set up a radical Islamic state. The movement was forcibly removed from power by the US and its allies after the September 11, 2001, attacks, back in power today |
Al Qaeda | a network of Islamic terrorist organizations, led by Osama bin Laden, that carried out the attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 |
Oklahoma City Bombing | Bombing of Murrah Federal Building. The blast, set off by white nationalists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, killed 168 people, including 19 children in the building's day-care center. |
Francisco Franco | Spanish general whose armies took control of Spain in 1939 and who ruled as a dictator until his death (1892-1975). |
Idi Amin | "The Butcher of Uganda" He took over the government of Uganda and overthrew his ally. And started his own reign of terror, and in 8 months there was over 300,000 executed. He started war with Tanzania and was crushed by them, he later than fled to Libya. |
United Nations Commission on Human Rights | Made up of 18 delegates chosen to begin work on the first international human rights document. The number was later expanded to 53. |
Organization of African Unity (OAU) | An organization started in 1963 by thirty-two newly independent African states and designed to prevent conflict that would lead to intervention by former colonial powers. |
Six Day War | (1967) Short conflict between Egypt and her allies against Israel won by Israel; Israel took over the Golan Heights , The West Bank of the Jordan River; and the Sanai Peninsula. |
Yom Kippur War (1973) | Frustrated by their losses in the Six-Days War, Egypt & Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur on October 6, 1973. Israel counterattacked, won a decisive victory, & had even occupied portions of northern Egypt. |
Camp David Accords (1978) | The meeting between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and the US President Jimmy Carter. They agreed that Egypt would never again invade Israel if Israel turned over the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt |
Palestine Liberation Organization | a political movement uniting Palestinian Arabs in an effort to create an independent state of Palestine |
Fatah | a Palestinian political and military organization founded by Yasser Arafat in 1958 to work toward the creation of a Palestinian state |
Hamas | a militant Islamic fundamentalist political movement that opposes peace with Israel and uses terrorism as a weapon |
Khmer Rouge | communist party in Cambodia that imposed a reign of terror on Cambodian citizens |
Kashmir | A region in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent; India and Pakistan dispute control of it. |
Sirimavo Bandaranaike | Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike, commonly known as Sirimavo Bandaranaike, was a Sri Lankan stateswoman and politician and the modern world's first female head of government |
Indira Gandhi | Daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister. She was also prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977. |
Benazir Bhutto | Twice prime minister of Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s; first ran for office to avenge her father's execution by the military clique then in power. |
Julius Nyerere | President of Tanzania who advocated an African form of socialism |
Metropole | a large city of a former colonial ruler ex. London |
Zionist Movement | a nationalist movement among the Jews to establish a home land in Palestine |
Balfour Declaration | Statement issued by Britain's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour in 1917 favoring the establishment of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine. |
T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) | British officer sent to encourage Arabia to declare independence from the Ottomans |
Pol Pot | Leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who terrorized the people of Cambodia throughout the 1970's |
Killing Fields of Cambodia | sites where large amounts of people were killed and buried |
ujamaa | A Swahili word meaning "familyhood," expressing a feeling of community and cooperative activity; a term used by the Tanzanian government to indicate a commitment to rapid economic development according to principles of socialism and communal solidarity. |
Idi Amin | He took over the government of Uganda and overthrew his ally. And started his own reign of terror, and in 8 months there was over 300,000 executed. He started war with Tanzania and was crushed by them, he later than fled to Libya. |
Ronald Reagan | Elected president in 1980 & 1984. Iran released hostages on his Inauguration Day in 1980. He used the Strategic Defense Initiative to avoid conflict. His meetings with Gorbachev were the 1st step to ending the Cold War. |
Mikhail Gorbachev | Soviet statesman whose foreign policy brought an end to the Cold War and whose domestic policy introduced major reforms (born in 1931) |
Detente | A policy of reducing Cold War tensions that was adopted by the United States during the presidency of Richard Nixon. |
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) | Part of the policy of detente, attempted to reduce the weapons each country contains |
perestroika | A policy initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev that involved restructuring of the social and economic status quo in communist Russia towards a market based economy and society |
glasnost | A policy of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev which called for more openness with the nations of West, and a relaxing of restraints on Soviet citizenry. |
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty | Arms limitation agreement settled by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev after several attempts. The treaty banned all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe and marked a significant thaw in the Cold War. |
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) | Popularly known as "Star Wars," President Reagan's SDI proposed the construction of an elaborate computer-controlled, anti-missile defense system capable of destroying enemy missiles in outer spaced. Critics claimed that SDI could never be perfected. |
Berlin Wall | A fortified wall surrounding West Berlin, Germany, built in 1961 to prevent East German citizens from traveling to the West. Its demolition in 1989 symbolized the end of the Cold War. This wall was a symbol of repression to the free world. |
Richard Nixon | 37th President of the U.S.; ended American involvement in Vietnam in 1973, brought the American POWs home, & ended the draft. His visit to China in 1972 eventually led to diplomatic relations between the two. |
Leonid Brezhnev | Soviet leader from 1962 to 1984 who is most known internationally for actions such as his hard-line stance against the pro-democracy Prague Spring protesters in 1968 and well as overseeing Russia's long, costly, and futile war in Afghanistan. |
Soviet-Afghan War | war between Afghanistan and USSR. Afghanistan wins with the help of the US. Big defeat for the USSR. |
Nuclear Holocaust | refers to a possible complete or nearly complete annihilation of human life by the use of a large enough quantity of nuclear weapons to produce a Doomsday device |
End of the Soviet Union | 1991 The Soviet Union breaks up into 15 different countries |
First World | a term from the Cold War era that is used to describe industrialized capitalist democracies |
Second World | a term from the Cold War era that describes nations with moderate economies and standards of living |
Third World | Term applied to a group of "developing" or "underdeveloped" countries who professed nonalignment during the Cold War. |
Soviet Bloc | The Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries that installed Communist regimes after World War II and were dominated by the Soviet Union. |
Containment | American policy of resisting further expansion of communism around the world |
global superpower | term that describes a country that is so powerful that they affect the rest of the world |
geopolitical | relating to politics, especially international relations, as influenced by geographical factors |
free market society | one where the government does not regulate goods and services, although the government can help to promote a healthy economy |
Arms Race (Cold War) | US and USSR compete for technological and nuclear supremacy |
NATO | North Atlantic Treaty Organization; an alliance made to defend one another if they were attacked by any other country; US, England, France, Canada, Western European countries |
Warsaw Pact | An alliance between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations. This was in response to the NATO |
Brinkmanship | A 1956 term used by Secretary of State John Dulles to describe a policy of risking war in order to protect national interests |
Proxy War | A war instigated by a major power that does not itself participate |
Decolonization | The collapse of colonial empires. Between 1947 and 1962, practically all former colonies in Asia and Africa gained independence. |
Cold War (1945-1991) | A war of words and threats between the United States and the Soviet Union that was marked primarily by a political and economic, rather than military, struggle between the two nations. |
Marshall Plan | A United States program of economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe (1948-1952) |
United Nations | An international organization formed after WWII to promote international peace, security, and cooperation. |
World Trade Association (WTO) | an international economic organization dedicated to trade liberalization; the WTO seeks to regulate international trade by implementing international trade agreements and resolving trade disputes among nations |