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Unit 8
All Vocabulary
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Cold War | Ideological battle and competition for global influence after WWII between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union that was fought through proxy wars rather than a direct war. |
| Soviet Union | Communist country and world superpower after WWII that challenged the United States for global influence in the Cold War. |
| Joseph Stalin | Communist authoritarian dictator who led the Soviet Union through WWII as a member of the Allies and through the beginning of the Cold War and was known for using violence to maintain control. |
| United Nations | International diplomatic organization based on the League of Nations created at the end of WWII to help prevent future conflicts. |
| Security Council | International peacekeeping arm of the United Nations that is authorized to approve peacekeeping missions and includes five permanent members with veto powers and ten rotating members. |
| World Bank | International economic organization created near the end of WWII to help the world rebuild after WWII and fund major improvement projects that the Soviets refused to join over concerns of capitalism. |
| Satellites | Buffer communist states in Eastern and Central Europe created and supported by the Soviet Union as a protection measure against another German-like invasion from the West. |
| Winston Churchill | British Prime Minister who famously coined the term “iron curtain” to describe the control the Soviets had established over satellite states in Eastern and Central Europe. |
| Iron Curtain | Term coined by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to describe the control the Soviets had established over satellite states in Eastern and Central Europe. |
| Containment | U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War that focused on stopping the spread of communism through any means necessary, which was started under the Truman Administration with the Truman Doctrine. |
| George Marshall | U.S. general during WWII and Secretary of State for President Truman who created a plan to financially support the rebuilding of Western Europe after WWII to prevent the spread of communism. |
| Dean Acheson | Undersecretary of State under President Truman who helped create the U.S. foreign policy of containment during the Cold War through the Truman Doctrine. |
| George F. Kennan | Expert on Soviet affairs under President Truman who helped create the U.S. foreign policy of containment during the Cold War through the Truman Doctrine. |
| Walter Lippmann | Journalist and major critic of the Truman Doctrine and containment who believed it was too ambitious and would not have the intended effect. |
| Truman Doctrine | U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War that focused on stopping the spread of communism through any means necessary. |
| Marshall Plan | Extensive program of financial aid from the United States to financially support the rebuilding of Western Europe after WWII to prevent the spread of communism. |
| Berlin Airlift | Soviet blockade of West Berlin that was broken by U.S. planes flying supplies into the city, which ultimately forced the Soviet Union to end the blockade, but resulted in the creation of two Germanys. |
| West Germany | Officially known as the Federal Republic of Germany, this Germany was a U.S. ally during the Cold War and was a capitalist democratic republic. |
| East Germany | Officially known as the German Democratic Republic, this Germany was a communist Soviet satellite that eventually dissolved with the reunification of Germany in 1990. |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) | Military alliance formed in 1949 for mutual defense, primarily against the Soviet Union, between the United States, Canada and predominantly Western European nations. |
| Warsaw Pact | Military alliance formed in 1955 for mutual defense, primarily against NATO, between the Soviet Union and its communist satellite states in Eastern and Central Europe. |
| National Security Act (1947) | Congressional law that replaced the War Department with the centralized Department of Defense, created the National Security Council and created the Central Intelligence Agency. |
| Department of Defense | Executive branch department created by the National Security Act that is charged with coordinating and supervising national security efforts and the United States Armed Forces. |
| National Security Council (NSC) | Advisory board to the president on matters of national security, military and foreign policy that was created by the National Security Act. |
| Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) | Civilian foreign intelligence service of the executive branch created by the National Security Act. |
| Arms Race | Intense competition between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War to develop and possess the most advanced and destructive weapons systems. |
| NSC-68 | Secret National Security Council report in 1950 that concluded the United States needed to quadruple defense spending and form alliances with non-communist countries in order to win the Cold War. |
| Douglas MacArthur | U.S. general in the Pacific Theatre of WWII who took command of the successful reconstruction of Japan and led U.S. troops in the Korean War until he was recalled by President Truman. |
| Emperor Hirohito | Monarch of Japan during WWII who was allowed to remain as the ceremonial head of state under Japan’s new constitution after the war after giving up his claims to divinity. |
| U.S.-Japanese Security Treaties | Official agreements that ended the U.S. occupation of Japan in exchange for permanent military bases and Japan giving up its claims to Korea and some Pacific islands. |
| Independence for the Philippines | Official end of the U.S. occupation of the Philippines as started under President Franklin Roosevelt, though the United States did maintain some military bases. |
| Chiang Kai-shek | Nationalist leader of China during WWII who lost the loyalty of millions of Chinese to communism over rapid inflation and widespread corruption and established a government in exile in Taiwan. |
| Mao Zedong | Communist leader in China who defeated Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists to establish the People’s Republic of China. |
| Taiwan | Historically Chinese island where Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists established a government in exile after being defeated by Mao Zedong and his communist forces. |
| People’s Republic of China | Communist government of China that Mao Zedong established after defeating Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalists, which the United States refused to officially recognize until 1979. |
| 38th Parallel | Circle of latitude that separated North Korea and South Korea before and after the Korean War and continues to separate the two countries to this day. |
| Kim Il Sung | Communist leader the Soviets left in charge to form a Communist government in North Korea when the Soviets left after WWII and who ordered the invasion of South Korea that started the Korean War. |
| Syngman Rhee | Controversial conservative nationalist who was the elected leader of South Korea after U.S. troops left after WWII and led South Korea during the Korean War. |
| Korean War | Military conflict between North Korea and South Korea that served as a proxy war of the Cold War and put the Truman Doctrine of containment to the test. |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower | Military hero from WWII and the 34th President of the United States who balanced fiscal conservatism with a moderate approach to domestic issues and a firm stance against communism. |
| John Foster Dulles | Secretary of State to President Eisenhower who felt containment was too passive and pushed for an aggressive foreign policy of brinkmanship to combat Soviet influence. |
| Brinkmanship | Aggressive foreign policy developed by President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State that involved threatening communist nations with American nuclear superiority in order to control their influence. |
| Massive Retaliation | Aggressive foreign policy developed by President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State that involved threatening an overwhelming military response in the event of an attack. |
| Korean Armistice | Ceasefire in the Korean War brokered by President Eisenhower in 1953 that was not a permanent peace treaty, but put a stop to open fighting and kept Korea divided at the 38th parallel. |
| Atoms For Peace | President Eisenhower’s foreign policy plan for stressing the dangers of nuclear weapons in order to help reduce the arms race while encouraging the use of nuclear reactors for good such as energy. |
| Open-Skies Policy | Rejected proposal made by President Eisenhower for opening U.S. and Soviet territory to open aerial photography in order to try and prevent a surprise nuclear war. |
| Spirit of Geneva | Meeting between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1955 that is typically viewed as the first thaw in the Cold War. |
| Nikita Khrushchev | Soviet leader who took power in 1956 and in a public speech denounced the crimes of Joseph Stalin and supported peaceful coexistence with the West. |
| Peaceful Coexistence | Idea that the United States and its capitalist allies could safely exist along with the Soviet Union and its communist allies. |
| Hungarian Revolt | Overthrow of the communist government in Hungary that the Soviet Union violently put down and the United States refused to interfere in, which marked the end of the first thaw in the Cold War. |
| Sputnik | Soviet satellite launched in 1957 that was the first satellite successfully launched into space, which sparked fear in the United States of falling behind technologically and led to the creation of NASA. |
| National Defense and Education Act (NDEA) | Congressional law passed in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, which authorized increased funding for math, science and foreign language education. |
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) | National government agency created in 1958 to direct U.S. efforts to build missiles and explore outer space in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. |
| Second Berlin Crisis | Threat made by the Soviet Union in 1958 to turn over West Berlin to the East Germans, which was diffused after President Eisenhower held talks with Premier Khrushchev at Camp David. |
| U-2 Incident | Diplomatic disaster that involved the Soviets shooting down a high altitude U.S. spy plane over Soviet territory, which exposed a secret U.S. tactic for gaining information and greatly increased tensions. |
| Cuba | Country in the Caribbean Sea near the United States that became a communist nation in 1959 after Fidel Castro successfully overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista, which sparked fear in the United States. |
| Fidel Castro | Communist leader of Cuba who overthrew dictator Fulgencio Batista, stopped the Bay of Pigs invasion and sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis. |
| Military-Industrial Complex | Relationship between a country’s military and the defense industry that supplies it, which President Eisenhower warned against in his farewell address. |
| John F. Kennedy | 35th President of the United States who oversaw the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, navigated the Cuban Missile Crisis and abandoned massive retaliation for a flexible-response foreign policy. |
| Bay of Pigs | Failed invasion of Cuba by CIA trained and armed anti-communist Cuban exiles that turned into a diplomatic embarrassment and led to Fidel Castro getting more aid from the Soviet Union. |
| Berlin Wall | Fortification surrounding West Berlin controversially built by the East Germans with Soviet backing in 1961 to prevent East Germans from fleeing to West Berlin. |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | Tense diplomatic and military standoff between the United States and the Soviets over Soviet missiles in Cuba that ended with an agreement between President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev. |
| Nuclear Test Ban Treaty | International agreement to end the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere signed by the United States, Soviet Union and over 100 other nations in 1963. |
| Flexible-Response Policy | President Kennedy’s foreign policy that favored increasing military spending on conventional arms and mobile military forces over nuclear weapons in order to reduce the risk of nuclear war. |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 36th President of the United States who continued the U.S. policy of containment by sending U.S. troops to Vietnam, but also negotiated agreements with the Soviets to control nuclear weapons. |
| Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) | International agreement between the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union in which each signatory agreed not to help other countries develop or acquire nuclear weapons. |
| Prague Spring | Attempt to democratize the communist Czechoslovakia in 1968 which was violently put down by the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact. |
| Richard M. Nixon | 37th President of the United States who worked with his national security adviser Henry Kissinger to develop a pragmatic foreign policy called détente that reduced Cold War tensions. |
| Henry Kissinger | National security adviser and later Secretary of State to President Nixon who helped develop a pragmatic foreign policy called détente that reduced Cold War tensions. |
| Détente | Foreign policy implemented by President Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger, which focused on pragmatic solutions to purposefully reduce Cold War tensions. |
| Visit to China | President Nixon’s diplomatic meeting with communist leader Mao Zedong in Beijing, which led to official U.S. recognition of the communist Chinese government in 1979. |
| Antiballistic Missiles (ABMs) | New type of missiles with the potential for nuclear warheads developed as part of the arms race between the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War. |
| Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT I) | Diplomatic meetings between the United States and the Soviet Union endorsed by President Nixon with the goal of limiting the number of nuclear armed ballistic missiles. |
| George H. W. Bush | Former member of Congress and future president who President Ford tasked with reforming the CIA after the agency was accused of engineering the assassinations of foreign leaders. |
| Salvador Allende | Communist president of Chile who died in 1973 under mysterious circumstances, with accusations of the CIA engineering his assassination. |
| SALT II | Continuation of the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks with a treaty signed in 1979 that would have limited the size of each nation’s nuclear delivery systems, but the treaty was never ratified by the Senate. |
| Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan | Attempted Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 that led to fears of the Soviets wanting control of the oil rich Persian Gulf and greatly increased Cold War tensions. |
| Second Red Scare | Widespread anti-communist hysteria in the United States following WWII that led to the rise of McCarthyism and suspicion of communist activity in Hollywood and the government |
| Loyalty Review Board | Government entity created under President Truman in 1947 to investigate the background of federal employees for communist activity, which resulted in many resignations and firings. |
| Smith Act (1940) | Congressional law that made it illegal to advocate for or teach in favor of the overthrow of the government by force or to belong to an organization with this objective. |
| Dennis et al v. United States | Landmark SCOTUS that upheld the constitutionality of the Smith Act and the convictions of leaders of the American Communist Party under the Smith Act. |
| McCarran Internal Security Act (1950) | Congressional law passed over President Truman’s veto which built on the Smith Act by allowing for the monitoring, investigating and detaining of suspected communists. |
| House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) | Committee of the House of Representatives originally created to seek out Nazis that was reactivated to find and investigate communists. |
| Arthur Miller | Famous American playwright who was accused of being anti-American and used the Salem witch trials as a thinly veiled metaphor for the Second Red Scare in his play The Crucible. |
| The Crucible | Play written by Arthur Miller in which he used the Salem witch trials as a thinly veiled metaphor for the Second Red Scare. |
| South Pacific | Musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein that was criticized, especially by Southern politicians, as a Communist assault on racial segregation. |
| Whittaker Chambers | Communist who testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee that Alger Hiss was a Communist who had shared secret State Department documents. |
| Alger Hiss | Prominent official in the State Department who had assisted President Franklin Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference and was accused of being a Communist who shared secret documents. |
| Julius and Ethel Rosenberg | American couple controversially accused, convicted and executed for communist activity and operating a spy ring to share nuclear secrets with the Soviets. |
| Joseph McCarthy | Republican senator from Wisconsin who used the growing anti-communist hysteria of the Second Red Scare to grow his political power through many unfounded accusations of communist activity. |
| McCarthyism | Term used to describe the “witch hunt” for communists led by a senator from Wisconsin during the Second Red Scare. |
| Harry S. Truman | 33rd President of the United States who attempted to continue Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal economic policies in the face of growing conservative opposition. |
| Employment Act of 1946 | Congressional law passed under the Truman Administration that created the Council of Economic Advisers. |
| Council of Economic Advisers | Government entity created by the Employment Act of 1946 in order to help the president and Congress on means of promoting national economic welfare. |
| GI Bill (1944) | Congressional law passed to economically support returning WWII veterans that is still in effect today and provides veterans with free education and low interest government back loans. |
| Baby Boom | Name for the large generation born between 1945 and 1960 that profoundly affected the nation’s social institutions and economic life in the last half of the 20th century. |
| Levittown | Project of 17,000 mass-produced, low-priced family homes on Long Island, New York that helped promote the rise of suburbia after WWII, but also banned African American families from moving in. |
| Sun Belt | Southern and Western states which grew rapidly in population after WWII because people were attracted to the warmer climate, lower taxes and economic opportunities in defense-related industries. |
| 22nd Amendment | Amendment ratified in 1951 in response to Franklin Roosevelt being elected president four times that limited a president to a maximum of two full terms in office. |
| Taft-Hartley Act (1947) | Congressional law passed over President Truman’s veto that checked the growing power of unions through provisions such as outlawing the closed shop and permitting “right to work” laws. |
| Closed Shop | Negotiated contract requirement that workers join a union before being hired at the company, which was outlawed by the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. |
| “Right to Work” Laws | State laws permitted by the Taft-Hartley Act that outlaw the union shop, which is a negotiated contract requirement that workers join a union after being hired at the company. |
| Fair Deal | President Truman’s ambitious domestic reform program that included national health insurance, federal aid to education and civil rights legislation, which was mostly blocked by Congress. |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower | 34th President of the United States who approached his domestic policy as a moderate by reducing government spending while continuing and sometimes expanding New Deal programs. |
| Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) | New executive branch department created under President Eisenhower in order to consolidate national welfare programs. |
| Soil-Bank Program | Federal government program initiated under President Eisenhower to pay farmers to retire farm land for ten years, which would reduce farm production and thereby increase farm income. |
| Modern Republicanism | Term used by President Eisenhower to describe his balanced and moderate approach to his domestic policy. |
| Highway Act (1956) | Congressional law passed under President Eisenhower, which authorized the construction of 42,000 miles of interstate highways linking all of the nation’s major cities. |
| Interstate Highways | Network of major roads that connect the nation’s major cities that were built under the Eisenhower Administration and positively contributed to the economy, but hurt rail and the environment. |
| John F. Kennedy | 35th President of the United States who promoted his New Frontier domestic policy and navigated several Cold War controversies, but was assassinated near the end of his third year in office. |
| New Frontier | Domestic agenda of President Kennedy that involved federal aid for education, federal support of health care, urban renewal and civil rights, most of which was not passed during his presidency. |
| Trade Expansion Act (1962) | Congressional law passed under the Kennedy Administration that authorized tariff reductions with the new European Economic Community of Western European nations. |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 36th President of the United States who aggressively promoted many of the domestic programs that Kennedy had failed to get through Congress and went further with his Great Society agenda. |
| Great Society | President Johnson’s ambitious domestic policy that successfully included federal funding for education, created new and expanded social welfare programs, immigration reform and civil rights. |
| Richard Nixon | 37th President of the United States who attempted to curb the growth of the Great Society programs by shifting more of the responsibility to the states through his domestic policy of New Federalism. |
| Revenue Sharing | Policy idea of Congress giving state and local governments federal tax money through block grants to use as they see fit rather than being instructed on how to spend the money by Congress. |
| New Federalism | President Nixon’s domestic policy of limiting the growth of Great Society programs by using revenue sharing to return more government responsibility to the states. |
| Stagflation | Economic condition involving the unusual combination of an economic slowdown (stagnation) and rising prices (inflation), which is extremely difficult to fix and hurt the U.S. economy in the 1970s. |
| Consumer Culture | Influence of materialism and prosperity on society, which similar to the 1920s, was very apparent in the United States during the 1950s. |
| Conformity | Act of matching attitudes, beliefs and behaviors to group norms, which impacted the United States in a major way during the 1950s with the rise of new forms of mass media such as television. |
| Television | New form of mass media introduced in the late 1940s that quickly grew in popularity with new shows and programs that helped create a more conformed national culture. |
| Credit Cards | Payment card that allows qualifying consumers to immediately purchase goods and services, but pay their debt balance with interest later, which contributed to the rise of consumer culture in the 1950s. |
| Fast Food | Quick service restaurant chains that became popular during the 1950s and showed the success of new marketing techniques and standardized products. |
| Paperback Books | New type of book binding introduced in the 1950s that is typically cheaper and faster to produce, which made it easier for more Americans to afford books. |
| Rock and Roll | New music genre of the 1950s that was inspired by a blend of African American rhythm and blues sounds with White country music and popularized by artists such as Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry. |
| Conglomerates | Large businesses with diversified holdings that began to dominate entire industries in the 1950s such as food processing, hotels, transportation, insurance and banking. |
| Baby and Child Care | Popular and best selling self-help book written by Dr. Benjamin Spock in 1946 that reaffirmed the traditional view of a woman’s role as caring for the home and children. |
| The Lonely Crowd | Book written by Harvard sociologist David Riesman, in which he criticized the replacement of the importance of individuality with the emphasis on conformity during the 1950s. |
| The Affluent Society | Book written by economist John Kenneth Galbraith who criticized the failure of wealthy Americans to address the need for increased social spending for the common good. |
| The Catcher in the Rye | Novel written by J. D. Salinger about the individual’s struggle against conformity through the lens of a troubled teenager's struggle with “phoniness.” |
| Catch-22 | Novel written by Joseph Heller, in which he satirized the rigidity of the military and the insanity of war. |
| Beatniks | Group of rebellious writers and intellectuals in the 1950s who advocated for spontaneity, the use of drugs and rebellion against societal standards. |
| Warren Commission | Government investigation of the Kennedy assassination led by Chief Justice Earl Warren that concluded Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, but conspiracy theories still ran rampant. |
| Jackie Robinson | First African American to play on a major league team since the 1880s after being hired by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. |
| Harry S. Truman | 33rd President of the United States who used his influence to challenge racial discrimination by establishing the Committee on Civil Rights and desegregating the federal government. |
| Committee on Civil Rights | Temporary government entity created under President Truman in 1946 that investigated civil rights in the United States and recommended desegregating the federal government. |
| National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) | Civil rights organization founded to protect and promote the rights of African Americans, including through legal work and support. |
| Thurgood Marshall | Leader of a group of NAACP lawyers who successfully argued that segregation in public schools was illegal based on the 14th Amendment in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. |
| Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka | Landmark SCOTUS case that unanimously overturned the Plessy decision by ruling “separate facilities are inherently unequal” and hence unconstitutional. |
| Earl Warren | Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that included “separate facilities are inherently unequal” and hence unconstitutional. |
| Southern Manifesto | Document signed by 101 members of Congress in strong opposition to the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. |
| Massive Resistance | Campaign among many Southern states to block desegregation at the local, state and nation level after Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. |
| Desegregation | Ending policies of separating people by race, which was required in public schools after Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, but actively resisted by many Southern states. |
| Little Rock Nine | African American students who enrolled at the formerly all-white Central High School, but were initially blocked from entering by the governor of Arkansas until President Eisenhower sent in troops. |
| Rosa Parks | Active member of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP who refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger and was arrested, which sparked the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott. |
| Martin Luther King Jr. | Minister who emerged as an inspirational leader of the Civil Rights Movement during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and pushed for nonviolent tactics such as civil disobedience. |
| Civil Disobedience | Nonviolent refusal to comply with certain laws, which Martin Luther King Jr. was inspired to use as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement from Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi. |
| Montgomery Bus Boycott | Successful protest of segregation laws on city buses that involved African Americans refusing to use public transportation in Montgomery until the law was overturned. |
| Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) | Religious civil rights organization founded by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957 to organize churches in the South to get behind the Civil Rights Movement. |
| Sit-In Movement | Form of civil disobedience to protest segregation that involved African Americans deliberately inviting arrest by sitting in restricted areas in segregated places. |
| Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) | Civil rights organization founded by young students such as John Lewis in 1960 to promote voting rights and end segregation. |
| Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 | Modest civil rights laws passed under President Eisenhower that laid the foundation for future laws and were the first such laws to be enacted by Congress since Reconstruction. |
| Civil Rights Commission | Permanent government entity established by the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 to investigate, report on and make recommendations on civil rights issues. |
| Decolonization | Process of breaking up colonial empires by giving independence to former colonies, which picked up heavily in the era after WWII. |
| Third World | Term originally used to define countries that remained non-aligned with NATO or the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, but is now often used to describe developing nations. |
| Middle East | Region of the world centered around the Arabian Peninsula that includes many oil-rich Arab states and Israel. |
| Israel | Newly created country by the U.N. in 1948 as a Jewish state that has led to conflict over land with the Palestinians and conflict with surrounding countries who tried to prevent a Jewish state from being formed. |
| Covert Action | Undercover intervention in the internal politics of other nations, which the United States through the CIA turned to as a cheaper alternative to military intervention during the Cold War. |
| Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) | Civilian foreign intelligence service of the executive branch that used covert action to influence the internal politics of other nations. |
| Iran | Middle Eastern country that the CIA used covert action to overthrow the elected government and reinstate the Shah in response to efforts to nationalize the holdings of foreign companies. |
| Suez Crisis | Diplomatic emergency caused by Egypt seizing and nationalizing an important European owned canal in 1956, which led to a British, French and Israeli invasion that was condemned by the United States. |
| Eisenhower Doctrine | U.S. foreign policy issued in 1957 in which the United States pledged economic and military aid to any Middle Eastern country threatened by communism. |
| Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) | Intergovernmental entity made up of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and Venezuela aimed at coordinating oil policies to grow their political power. |
| Yom Kippur War | Syrian and Egyptian surprise attack on Israel in 1973 during a Jewish holiday that the Israelis repelled with U.S. arms, which angered the Arab members of OPEC and led to an oil embargo. |
| Oil Embargo | Ban on oil sales to supporters of Israel after the Yom Kippur War in the 1970s, which sparked an international oil crisis and severely hurt the U.S. economy through rapid inflation and job loss. |
| Camp David Accords | Framework for a peace settlement between Israel and Egypt that was mediated by President Carter in 1978 and eventually led to Egypt being the first Arab nation to officially recognize Israel. |
| Iran Hostage Crisis | Diplomatic emergency in 1979 when Iranian militants stormed the U.S. embassy and held 50 American staff members hostage, which President Carter struggled to deal with. |
| Peace Corps | Service organization founded by President Kennedy that recruited young American volunteers to give technical aid to developing countries. |
| Alliance of Progress | U.S. program created by President Kennedy that promoted land reform and economic development in Latin America. |
| Return of the “Big Stick” | President Johnson’s abandoning of Kennedy’s Alliance of Progress in favor of interventionist policies in Latin America to stop the spread of communism. |
| Panama Canal | Major waterway built by the United States through Central America that President Johnson violently protected from local takeover, but President Carter later transferred to local control.. |
| Human Rights Diplomacy | Foreign policy of President Carter that focused on championing the civil rights of peoples all around the world. |
| Vietnam War | Military conflict between North Vietnam and South Vietnam that served as a proxy war of the Cold War and put U.S foreign policy of containment to the test again. |
| Ngo Dinh Diem | Controversial South Vietnamese leader supported by the United States who was eventually overthrown and assassinated, which helped lead to the fall of the South Vietnam government. |
| Ho Chi Minh | Communist leader of North Vietnam supported by the Soviet Union and China who led North Vietnam through a majority of the Vietnam War and refused to give in to U.S. demands throughout the war. |
| Domino Theory | President Eisenhower’s foreign policy idea that if South Vietnam fell to communism, one nation after another in Southeast Asia would also fall to communism. |
| John Foster Dulles | Secretary of State to President Eisenhower who put together the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in 1954 to help stop the spread of communism. |
| Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) | Defense pact led by the United States and joined by seven other nations involved in the region in which members agreed to defend one another in case of attack. |
| Tonkin Gulf Resolution | Congressional authorization for President Johnson to use any means necessary to protect U.S. interests in Vietnam after North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fired on U.S warships. |
| Vietcong | Communist guerilla soldiers based in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia who were supported by North Vietnam and launched major attacks on South Vietnam and U.S. forces. |
| Operation Rolling Thunder | Prolonged aerial bombing by U.S. B-52 bombers against targets in North Vietnam that was authorized by President Johnson, but failed to eliminate North Vietnamese will to fight. |
| Escalation | Process of increasing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, such as President Johnson’s initial refusal to send in U.S. troops to the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam swelling to 485,000 by 1967. |
| General William Westmoreland | Commander of the U.S. forces in Vietnam who adopted a strategy of attrition against the Vietcong and North Vietnamese, which proved costly and failed to break their will to fight. |
| Credibility Gap | Mistrust that developed between the American public and the federal government over the scope, costs and winability of the Vietnam War that put political pressure on ending U.S. involvement. |
| Hawks | Supporters of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War who believed the United States was justified in stopping the spread of communism. |
| Doves | Opponents of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War who believed the United States was sacrificing American lives and wasting resources on a civil war they should not be involved in. |
| Tet Offensive | Major Vietcong surprise attack on almost every provincial capital and U.S. base in South Vietnam that U.S. forces successfully repelled, but the major loss of lives demoralized the American public. |
| Robert F. Kennedy | President Kennedy’s brother and Attorney General who became a senator from New York and ran for president in 1968 before being assassinated for his support of Israel. |
| George Wallace | Conservative governor of Alabama who unsuccessfully ran for president in 1968 by embracing the growing hostility of many Whites to federal desegregation, antiwar protests and race riots. |
| Richard Nixon | 37th President of the United States who won the Republican nomination over George Wallace in the 1968 primary and won the presidency as a war “hawk” and a “law and order” platform. |
| Hubert Humphrey | Democratic nominee in the presidential election of 1968 whose loss is often marked as the turning of the tide against New Deal liberalism in favor of conservatism. |
| Henry Kissinger | National security adviser and later Secretary of State to President Nixon who helped develop a pragmatic foreign policy called détente that reduced Cold War tensions. |
| Vietnamization | President Nixon’s policy of gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam and giving the South Vietnamese the money, weapons and training they needed to take over full conduct of the war. |
| Nixon Doctrine | U.S. foreign policy issued in 1969 that declared that in the future Asian allies would receive U.S. support against the spread of communism, but without the extensive use of U.S. ground forces. |
| Cambodia | Southeast Asian country that President Nixon controversially ordered the invasion of as part of the Vietnam War after promising to wind down U.S. involvement in the conflict. |
| Kent State | University in Ohio where National Guard troops fired on students protesting President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, which resulted in the deaths of four students. |
| Jackson State | University in Mississippi where National Guard troops fired on students protesting President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia, which resulted in the deaths of two students. |
| My Lai | Village in Vietnam where U.S. troops committed a massacre of women and children in 1970, which shocked the American public and increased calls to remove U.S. troops from the Vietnam War. |
| Pentagon Papers | Secret government study documenting the mistakes and deceptions of government officials in dealing with Vietnam, which was published by The New York Times in 1971 and sparked outrage. |
| Paris Accords | Failed peace attempt to end the Vietnam War in 1973 that allowed the United States to remove its troops, but the promised ceasefire and free elections did not occur. |
| War Powers Act (1973) | Congressional law passed over President Nixon’s veto that limited presidential power to send troops into combat without Congressional approval. |
| Fall of Saigon | Official end of the Vietnam War after communist North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam and reunified Vietnam under a communist regime, which hurt American prestige overseas and at home. |
| Khmer Rouge | Radical communist faction that overthrew the U.S. backed government in Cambodia and committed a genocidal relocation program against its own people. |
| Little Tigers | Nickname for Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia that did not fall to communism, but rapidly developed as part of the vigorously growing Asian (Pacific Rim) economy. |
| Lyndon B. Johnson | 36th President of the United States who aggressively promoted many of the domestic programs that Kennedy had failed to get through Congress and went further with his Great Society agenda. |
| Great Society | President Johnson’s ambitious domestic policy that successfully included federal funding for education, created new and expanded social welfare programs, immigration reform and civil rights. |
| The Other America | Best-selling book written by Michael Harrington and published in 1962 that helped focus national attention on the 40 million Americans still living in poverty. |
| Michael Harrington | Author of the best-selling book The Other America, which was published in 1962 and helped focus national attention on the 40 million Americans still living in poverty. |
| War on Poverty | Part of President Johnson’s Great Society that focused on legislation and programs to increase economic opportunity and provide support to financially struggling Americans. |
| Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) | Anti-poverty government agency created as part of President Johnson’s Great Society, which helped fund self-help programs such as Head Start and the Job Corps. |
| Head Start | Anti-poverty program originally sponsored by the Office of Economic Opportunity that provides early childhood education and health services to low-income families. |
| Job Corps | Anti-poverty program originally sponsored by the Office of Economic Opportunity that offers free education and vocational training to low-income young Americans. |
| Community Action Program | Anti-poverty program originally sponsored by the Office of Economic Opportunity that allows local citizens to play a major role in running aid programs in their own neighborhoods. |
| Barry Goldwater | Conservative senator from Arizona who ran for president in 1964 and lost in a landslide based on his platform of attacking President Johnson’s Great Society and pledging to end the welfare state. |
| Food Stamp Act (1964) | Congressional law passed as part of President Johnson’s Great Society that expanded the federal program to help low-income people buy food through vouchers. |
| National Foundation on the Art and Humanities | Government organization created as part of President Johnson’s Great Society that provided federal funding for creative and scholarly projects. |
| Medicare | Government healthcare program created as part of President Johnson’s Great Society that provides health insurance for all Americans 65 years and older. |
| Medicaid | Government healthcare program created as part of President Johnson’s Great Society that provides funds to states to pay for medical care for the poor and disabled. |
| Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) | Congressional law passed as part of President Johnson’s Great Society that provides federal funds to poor school districts and for special education. |
| Higher Education Act (1965) | Congressional law passed as part of President Johnson’s Great Society that provides federal scholarships for postsecondary education. |
| Child Nutrition Act (1966) | Congressional law passed as part of President Johnson’s Great Society that added breakfast to the school lunch program. |
| Department of Transportation (DOT) | New executive branch department created under President Johnson as part of his Great Society that coordinates national transportation initiatives to help the economy. |
| Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) | New executive branch department created under President Johnson as part of his Great Society that coordinates housing assistance and development plans. |
| Ralph Nader | Political activist and author of Unsafe at Any Speed, which was a book that helped convince Congress to pass automobile industry regulations that would save thousands of lives. |
| Unsafe at Any Speed | Book written by Ralph Nader in 1965 that helped convince Congress to pass automobile industry regulations that would save thousands of lives. |
| Rachel Carson | Conservationist and author who wrote Silent Spring, an exposé on pesticides that helped spark an environmental movement that included a national ban on DDT. |
| Silent Spring | Exposé on pesticides written by Rachel Carson in 1962 that helped spark an environmental movement that included a national ban on DDT. |
| Beautify America | Environmental campaign led by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, which resulted in the High Beautification Act that regulated billboards and junkyards near highways. |
| Immigration Act of 1965 | Congressional law passed under President Johnson that ended the ethnic quotas of the 1920s that favored European immigrants in order to allow in immigrants from all over the world. |
| James Meredith | African American veteran who attempted to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, but needed a federal court ruling and military protection to protect him and his right to attend class. |
| George Wallace | Conservative governor from Alabama who embraced the growing hostility of many Whites to federal desegregation and tried to stop African American students from entering the University of Alabama. |
| Martin Luther King Jr. | Minister who emerged as an inspirational leader of the Civil Rights Movement during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and pushed for nonviolent tactics such as civil disobedience. |
| Letter from Birmingham Jail | Inspirational essay written by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 during his imprisonment for an allegedly illegal march, in which he called for mass civil disobedience against racist laws. |
| March on Washington | Massive civil rights demonstration in the nation’s capital in 1963 that was organized by labor leader A. Philip Randolph and where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” Speech. |
| “I Have a Dream” Speech | Inspirational address given by Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington which appealed for the end of racial prejudice and inspired many to join the Civil Rights Movement. |
| Civil Rights Act of 1964 | Congressional law that made segregation illegal in all public facilities and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. |
| Equal Employment Opportunity Commission | Government entity created under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to enforce the ban on employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. |
| 24th Amendment | Amendment ratified in 1964 that abolished poll taxes, which had discouraged poor people from voting for decades. |
| Bloody Sunday | Violent suppression of the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama by state troopers, whose violent tactics sparked national outrage and support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. |
| John Lewis | Civil rights activist who was severely injured on Bloody Sunday and later became known as the “conscience of Congress” for his civil rights work as a member of the House of Representatives. |
| Voting Rights Act of 1965 | Congressional law passed under President Johnson aimed at eliminating legal barriers for African Americans to exercise their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment. |
| Black Muslims | Religious group centered around Islam and founded by Elijah Muhammad to promote Black nationalism, separatism and self-improvement. |
| Malcom X | Civil rights leader and Black Muslims member who advocated for African Americans to use self defense against White violence and criticized Martin Luther King Jr. for promoting peaceful civil disobedience. |
| Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) | Civil rights organization founded by young students such as John Lewis in 1960 to promote voting rights and end segregation. |
| Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) | Civil rights organization formed in 1942 that was created to work more militantly for African Americans rights. |
| Stokely Carmichael | Chairman of SNCC who repudiated nonviolence and advocated “black power” (especially economic power) and racial separatism. |
| Black Panthers | Revolutionary socialist movement founded in 1966 by Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and other African American militants who advocated for self-rule for American blacks. |
| Watts | Black neighborhood in Los Angeles where the arrest of a young African American motorist by white police in 1965 sparked a 6 day race riot that killed 34 people and destroyed more than 700 buildings. |
| Race Riots | Eruptions of violence over race relations, which happened in many of the major cities in the summers between 1965 and 1968 and were investigated by the Kerner Commission. |
| Kerner Commission | Federal investigation into the race riots of the summers between 1965 and 1968 that concluded the inequities created by racism and segregation were chiefly responsible for the riots. |
| De Jure Segregation | Separation of people and discrimination based on race because of the law, such as Jim Crow laws in the South following Reconstruction. |
| De Facto Segregation | Separation of people and discrimination based on race because of racism, which the Civil Rights Movement tried to address after eliminating most of the Jim Crow laws. |
| Women’s Movement | Second wave of feminism that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s that tried to address political, economic and social gender inequalities. |
| Betty Friedan | Feminist and author who wrote The Feminine Mystique and encouraged women to seek fulfillment in professional careers in addition to being wives, mothers and homemakers. |
| The Feminine Mystique | Feminist book written by Betty Friedan, which encouraged women to seek fulfillment in professional careers in addition to being wives, mothers and homemakers. |
| National Organization for Women (NOW) | Feminist group partially founded by Betty Friedan, which adopted the activist tactics of other civil rights movements to secure equal treatment of women. |
| Equal Pay Act of 1963 | Congressional law that prohibited employers from paying different wages to men and women for similar work and whose jobs require the same level of skill, effort, and responsibility. |
| Civil Rights Act of 1964 | Congressional antidiscrimination law that banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. |
| Title IX (1972) | Congressional statute meant to end sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funding, which is most famous for its requirement that schools provide girls with equal athletic opportunities. |
| Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) | Proposed amendment to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex, which passed Congress in 1972, but just missed ratification by the states. |
| César Chávez | Labor leader and civil rights activist who helped organize Latino agricultural workers into the United Farm Workers Association to campaign for better pay, working conditions and rights. |
| United Farm Workers Association | Labor union that César Chávez helped create to organize Latino agricultural workers in order to campaign for better pay, working conditions and rights. |
| Hispanic Americans | Citizens of the United States of descent from Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas and who became the country’s largest minority group in 2000. |
| American Indian Movement (AIM) | Native American civil rights organization founded in 1968 that became involved in several militant actions such as the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973. |
| Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975 | Congressional law that gave reservations and tribal lands greater control over internal programs, education and law enforcement. |
| Asian Americans | American citizens of Asian descent who became the fastest growing ethnic minority in the United States by the 1980s, but often faced prejudice and racial stereotypes. |
| Gay Rights Movement | Civil rights movement for the LGBTQ community sparked by riot in 1969, which was caused by a police raid on Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. |
| “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” | Policy created under President Clinton in 1993 that stopped the military from asking for people to identify their sexual identity, but permitted the military to expel people for being gay or lesbian. |
| Warren Court | Era of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969 marked by liberal leaning landmark decisions that profoundly affected the criminal-justice system, state political systems and individual rights. |
| Mapp v. Ohio | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Warren Court that ruled evidence seized illegally cannot be used against the accused in court. |
| Gideon v. Wainwright | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Warren Court that ruled state courts must provide counsel (attorney) for indigent (poor) defendants. |
| Escobedo v. Illinois | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Warren Court that extended the Gideon ruling to give suspects the right to have a lawyer present during questioning by the police. |
| Miranda v. Arizona | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Warren Court that ruled defendants must be informed of their right to counsel and right against self incrimination before arrest and incarceration. |
| Reapportionment | Process of redrawing election districts according to new population data from the U.S. Census, which can lead to partisan gerrymandering. |
| Baker v. Carr | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Warren Court that ruled states drawing election districts in ways that favored rural areas over cities was unconstitutional by reinforcing the “one man, one vote” principle. |
| “One Man, One Vote” | Legal principle that election districts need to be drawn in ways to provide equal representation for all citizens, which was reinforced by the Supreme Court in Baker v. Carr. |
| Yates v. United States | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Warren Court that ruled classified radical and revolutionary speech as protected 1st Amendment speech, unless it presented a “clear and present danger.” |
| Engel v. Vitale | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Warren Court that ruled state laws requiring prayers and Bible readings in public schools violated the 1st Amendment’s provision for separation of church and state. |
| Griswold v. Connecticut | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Warren Court that ruled state laws prohibiting the use of contraceptives ruled unconstitutional in recognition of a citizen’s right to privacy |
| Baby Boomers | Members of the large generation born between 1945 and 1960 that profoundly affected the nation’s social institutions and economic life in the last half of the 20th century. |
| Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) | New Left student organization formed in 1962 that issued the Port Huron Statement, which called for university decisions to be made through participatory democracy. |
| Port Huron Statement | Document issued by the Students for a Democratic Society, which called for university decisions to be made through participatory democracy. |
| New Left | Liberal political movement of the 1960s and 1970s that consisted of activists and intellectuals who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil rights, environmentalism and feminism. |
| Free Speech Movement | Student led push for a greater voice in university decisions and the end of university restrictions on students’ political activities, which started at the University of California, Berkeley. |
| Columbia University Sit-Ins | Peaceful protest against racial discrimination on the campus of Columbia University in 1968 that was violently ended by police after nearly a week. |
| Chicago Democratic Convention | Protest of a Democratic Party meeting in 1968 by peaceful and radical antiwar protestors, anarchists and Yippies that was violently ended by the police. |
| Yippies | Members of the Youth International Party, which was a radical and counterculture revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and antiwar movements of the 1960s. |
| Weather Underground | Radical offshoot of SDS that embraced violence and vandalism tactics such as bombings to attack “the system,” which led many Americans to discredit the idealism of the New Left. |
| Counterculture | Way of life in contradiction with the prevailing social norms, such as the hippies of the 1960s who often opposed the Vietnam War and embraced rebellious styles of dress, music and drug use. |
| Hippies/Flower Children | Members of the counterculture movement of the 1960s who often opposed the Vietnam War and embraced rebellious styles of dress, music, sexual relations and drug use. |
| Folk Music | Genre of music focused on telling the story of everyday life, which experienced a revival in the 1960s and popularized as part of the counterculture movement by artists such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. |
| Rock Music | Genre of music that blended African American rhythm and blues with White country music and was popularized as part of the counterculture movement of the 1960s by artists such as Jimi Hendrix. |
| Woodstock | Massive music festival in upper New York State in 1969 that reflected the zenith of counterculture with performances by Janis Joplin, The Who and Jimmi Hendrix. |
| Alfred Kinsey | Biologist whose pioneering surveys of American sexual practices indicated that premarital sex, marital infidelity and homosexuality were more common than anyone suspected. |
| Sexual Revolution | Changing attitudes toward sexual practices and behaviors during the 1960s that challenged more traditional social norms. |
| Rachel Carson | Conservationist and author who wrote Silent Spring, an exposé on pesticides that helped spark an environmental movement that included a national ban on DDT. |
| Silent Spring | Exposé on pesticides written by Rachel Carson in 1962 that helped spark an environmental movement that included a national ban on DDT. |
| Barry Commoner | Biologist who led the political fight to end above ground nuclear weapons testing after discovering high levels of a cancer-causing substance from nuclear radiation in children’s teeth. |
| Paul Ehrlich | Biologist who argued in his book The Population Bomb that overpopulation was causing the world’s environmental problems and that starvation would become a major issue. |
| The Population Bomb | Book written by biologist Paul Ehrlich in which he argued that overpopulation was causing the world’s environmental problems and that starvation would become a major issue. |
| Bikini Atoll | U.S. nuclear weapons test site where in 1954 the 23-man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon were exposed to radioactive fallout, which helped spark restrictions on nuclear testing. |
| Santa Barbara Bay | Site of an oil well blowout in 1969 that spilled more than 200,000 gallons of oil into the ocean and the resulting widespread pollution forced the oil industry to reform its operations. |
| Cuyahoga River | Body of water in Cleveland, OH that burst into flames in 1969 because of the oils and chemicals floating on its surface, which helped spark the environmental movement. |
| Three Mile Island | Nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania that experienced a malfunction that almost resulted in a nuclear disaster and turned public opinion against building additional nuclear power plants. |
| Earth Day | Annual environmental celebration started in 1970 to encourage people to participate in local nature and environment activities as part of the growing environmental movement . |
| Earthrise | Photograph of the world taken by the Apollo crew in 1968 that became an iconic image for the environmental movement. |
| Sierra Club | Environmental activist group founded by John Muir to promote preservationism and other environmental priorities that experienced rapid member growth as part of the environmental movement. |
| National Audubon Society | Organization focused on the conservation of birds that established sophisticated operations in Washington D.C. as part of the environmental movement. |
| Environmental Defense Fund | Organization focused on financing environmental solutions that established sophisticated operations in Washington D.C. as part of the environmental movement. |
| National Wildlife Federation | Organization focused on conservation education and advocacy that established sophisticated operations in Washington D.C. as part of the environmental movement. |
| National Resources Defense Council | Organization focused on providing legal support for conservation efforts that established sophisticated operations in Washington D.C. as part of the environmental movement. |
| National Parks Conservation Association | Organization focused on advocacy for the National Parks System that established sophisticated operations in Washington D.C. as part of the environmental movement. |
| Wilderness Act (1964) | Congressional law that permanently set aside certain federal lands from commercial economic development in order to preserve them in their natural state. |
| Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) | Independent federal agency created under President Nixon to regulate and enforce regulations on air and water pollution, radiation issues, pesticides and solid waste. |
| Clean Air Act (1970) | Congressional law that regulated air emissions and authorized the EPA to set standards to protect public health by regulating emissions of hazardous pollutants. |
| Clean Water Act (1977) | Congressional law that regulated discharges of pollutants into U.S. waters and authorized the EPA to set standards to protect public health by regulating discharges of hazardous pollutants. |
| Superfund Act (1980) | Congressional law that established financing administered by the EPA to clean up toxic waste from former industrial sites. |
| Endangered Species Act (1973) | Congressional law passed in response to the near extinction of American bald eagles in order to protect the ecosystems that wildlife depended on for survival. |
| Emissions | Production and discharge of harmful pollutants, which the environmental movement campaigned to have regulated by the federal government in order to protect the environment and public health. |
| Greenhouse Gasses | Emissions into the air, such as carbon dioxide and methane, that scientists determined contribute to global warming and climate change. |
| Climate Change | Long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns, which scientists have determined humans can have an impact on and is a concern of the environmental movement. |
| Antinuclear Movement | Push against the construction of new nuclear plants and increased government regulation of existing nuclear plants after the accident at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania. |
| Richard Nixon | 37th President of the United States who pushed the Republican Party to be more socially conservative to win support and was a part of the Watergate scandal, which led to his resignation. |
| Silent Majority | Americans President Nixon appealed to in order to build support who he thought were disaffected by civil rights, liberal court rulings, antiwar protests, black militants and youth counterculture. |
| Southern Strategy | President Nixon’s tactic to build Republican support in the South by appealing to Southern White frustrations with liberal court rulings that ended legal segregation. |
| Election of 1972 | Presidential election in which President Nixon won reelection in a landslide victory, which marked the start of a major political realignment of Sun Belt and suburban voters to the Republican Party. |
| Pentagon Papers | Secret government study documenting the mistakes and deceptions of government officials in dealing with Vietnam, which was published by The New York Times in 1971 and sparked outrage. |
| Watergate | Political scandal involving President Nixon in which members of his reelection committee were caught breaking into and bugging the offices of the Democratic national headquarters. |
| Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) | Reelection committee for President Nixon that worked with the Nixon Administration to conduct illegal activities and “dirty tricks” that benefited President Nixon. |
| Plumbers | Group created by President Nixon’s aides to stop more leaks like the Pentagon Papers and discredit opponents through inappropriate investigations by government agencies, such as the IRS. |
| Impeachment | Process where the House of Representatives holds an investigation and can vote to recommend the Senate remove a government official, which started to happen to President Nixon in 1974. |
| Nixon White House Tapes | President Nixon’s secret recordings of conversations held in the Oval Office that revealed his knowledge of and involvement in cover ups of political scandals such as Watergate. |
| Gerald Ford | President Nixon’s vice president after Vice President Agnew resigned over political corruption accusations who later became president and issued Nixon a pardon after President Nixon resigned. |
| Pardoning of Nixon | President Ford’s full and unconditional pardon for Nixon for any crime he may have committed, which sparked outrage because it was issued before any formal charges were made by a court. |
| Jimmy Carter | 38th President of the United States who won election by campaigning as a honest political outsider against the imperial presidency, but he struggled to deal with many major issues once in office. |
| Imperial Presidency | Term used to describe the evolution of the modern presidency to be vastly more powerful than perhaps originally intended by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. |
| National Malaise | Speech given by President Carter in 1979 in which he blamed the problems facing the United States on a “moral and spiritual crisis,” however, many Americans blamed weak leadership. |
| Burger Court | Transitional era of the Supreme Court that marked a conservative shift from the Warren Court, but included several landmark decisions that angered conservatives, such as Roe v. Wade. |
| United States v. Nixon | Landmark SCOTUS case under the Burger Court that ruled executive privilege is not absolute and required President Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes. |
| Roe v. Wade | Landmark SCOTUS case that struck down many state laws prohibiting abortions as a violation of a woman’s right to privacy, a decision that has become a major target for conservatives over the years. |
| Televangelists | Christian preachers with widely broadcasted services who preached about the need for traditional and conservative values in the face of the moral decay of American society. |
| Moral Majority | Political action group founded by evangelist Jerry Falwell in 1979 to finance campaigns to unseat liberal members of Congress. |
| Religious Fundamentalists | Traditional and often conservative Christians who attacked “secular humanism” as a root cause for moral decay and campaigned for the return of prayer and Bible readings in public schools. |
| Think Tanks | Business supported research organizations created to support certain political interests, such as the U.S Chamber of Commerce being created to lobby for pro-business legislation. |
| Reverse Discrimination | Belief by some White workers and students that they were being discriminated against by employers and admission offices because too much weight was being put in race and ethnicity. |
| Regents of the University of California v. Bakke | Landmark SCOTUS case that upheld affirmative action programs, but ruled using racial quotas to admit students was unconstitutional. |
| Proposition 13 | Law in California passed by voters in 1978 to cut property taxes, which many historians credit as the spark for a national taxpayer revolt that contributed to the election of President Reagan. |
| Arthur Laffer | Economist who believed that large tax cuts would greatly improve the economy and in turn increase government tax revenue, which became the basis for President Reagan’s tax cuts. |
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