Cold War
Hydrogen Bomb: A fusion bomb first tested in 1952 by the US. Many times more powerful than fission bombs. In 1953, Soviets exploded their first H-bomb.
Massive Retaliation: Secretary of State Dulles plan to respond to any provocation with nuclear annihilation: more bang for the buck. Utterly nuts!
Space Race: a 20th-century (1955–1972) competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy in spaceflight capability.
Cold War: tense standoff between the US and USSR, 1945-1989? Result of conflicting ideology and other issues.
Postwar Decolonization: The undoing of colonialism, in which nations had established and maintained their domination over dependent territories. After the Cold War, the Soviet Union did this.
Suez Crisis: US and UK offered to help the President of Egypt, Nasser, with funds for the Suez Canal, but Secretary of State Dulles withdrew the offer after discovering Nasser's ties to the USSR. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, prompting Britain and France to seize it. The USSR threatened to intervene against the US and attack Paris and London if the canal was not returned. US left its allies hanging without fuel, so they withdrew. Phew! What is the significance?
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC): Look this one up!
Harry Truman/Containment Policy: Democrat; VP to FDR. 1945, takes over as President after the death of FDR. At the Potsdam Conference meets with the Big Three. Orders dropping of A-bombs on Japan. 1947, Truman decided to respond to perceived Soviet expansion with the goal of “containment,” a patient and firm policy of resisting Soviet expansion.
Korean War: June 1950, N Korean army crossed the 38th parallel and pushed S Korea down to Pusan. UN Security Council voted N Korea as an aggressor and 2 days later Truman ordered American air and naval units to support S Korea as part of a UN force. After UN forces drove the North Koreans to the Chinese border, China joined N Korea and pushed back across the 38th parallel. MacArthur fired for publicly arguing with Truman over going to war with China. Eisenhower ends the war with basically the status quo ante bellum, division along the 38th.
Vietnam War: (1955–75) was a Cold War conflict pitting the U.S. and the remnants of the French colonial government in South Vietnam against the indigenous but communist Vietnamese independence movement, the Viet Minh. Presidents Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Nixon tried unsuccessfully to prop up the South against incursions of the NVA and activities of the Viet Cong. Shortly following US withdrawal, the country was unified under communist rule, though Ho Chi Minh died before the war’s end.
Military-Industrial Complex: 1961, in farewell address Ike warned against allowing industry to link up with the military to create a nation based on making war.
Joseph McCarthy/McCarthyism: Republican anti-communist crusader nicknamed “Tailgunner Joe,” “Low-Blow Joe.” Feb. 1950, accused Secretary of State Dean Acheson of knowingly employing 205 communists in the State Department but couldn't prove a single one. Denounced former Sec of State Marshall for alleged communism. Went too far when he attacked the US Army. Enemies fought back in 1954 for 35 days in televised hearings. Discredited, he died 3 yrs later of chronic alcoholism. McCarthyism stands for baseless accusations based on fear. Totally uncool if you ask me.
Civil Rights
SCLC/ MLK, Jr./March on Washington, 1963: Southern Christian Leadership Conference formed by MLK, Jr. in 1957 in the wake of the Montgomery Bus boycott. Aimed to mobilize black churches on behalf of black rights and advocated civil disobedience and non-violence.
Selma, Alabama: In 1965, during the civil rights movement, Selma was the center of a registration drive for black voters, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. Marchers were brutally attacked by State forces as they tried to cross a bridge. Eventually they completed their march with federal protection.
Civil Rights: the rights to full legal, social, and economic equality extended to blacks and other groups in the 1960s.
Fannie Lou Hamer: was an American voting rights activist, civil rights leader, and philanthropist. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi's Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the vice-chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
John Lewis: is an American politician and civil rights leader. He is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987. Lewis is the only living "Big Six" leader of the American Civil Rights Movement, having been the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), playing a key role in the struggle to end legalized racial discrimination and segregation.
Brown v. Board of Education, 1954: The Warren Court ruled that segregation in public schools was “inherently unequal” and thus unconstitutional. The decision reversed the decision of Plessey v. Ferguson, 1896, that “separate but equal” was ok.
Thurgood Marshall: A judge of the twentieth century; the first black appointed to the Supreme Court. Before his appointment to the Court in 1967, Marshall served as a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and in 1954 he argued before the Court against segregation in the case of Brown versus Board of Education.
The Feminine Mystique: is a 1963 book by Betty Friedan which is widely credited with sparking the beginning of second-wave feminism in the United States. Title is intended to be ironic.
Gloria Steinem: is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and spokeswoman for, the feminist movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. Associated with Ms. Magazine.
Civil Rights Act, 1964: A federal law that authorized federal action against segregation in public accommodations, public facilities, private businesses open to the public and employment.
Voting Rights Act, 1965: A law passed at the time of the civil rights movement. It eliminated various devices, such as literacy tests, that had traditionally been used to restrict voting by black people. Sent registrars into the south to register black voters. Recently that part was declared unconstitutional.
LBJ's Great Society: Johnson's domestic program: Big Four: aid to education (head Start), medical care for the elderly and indigent (Medicare and Medicaid), immigration reform (Act of 1965 ends quota system), and a new voting rights bill (of 1965). LBJ was very successful getting program through Congress.
Griswold v. Connecticut: is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. Crucial to Roe v. Wade, 1973, which gave women the right to abortion.
Miranda v. Arizona: the Supreme Court ruled that detained criminal suspects, prior to police questioning, must be informed of their constitutional right to an attorney and against self-incrimination.
Students for a Democratic Society: Students for a Democratic Society. Originally an antipoverty and antiwar campaign. By end of 1960s, launched the Weathermen, an underground terrorist group which undertook bombings at campuses doing war research. The “New Left.”
Black Panthers: a militant and revolutionary political organization set up in Oakland, California, in 1966 to fight for black rights. Bobby Seale, Huey Newton were its leaders. Armed confrontation their approach.
SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee): Began in Feb. 1, 1960 when 4 black college freshmen in Greensboro, NC demanded service at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter. They were initially refused service, but their protest became the SNCC. This organization became more militant with time.
NOW (National Organization of Women): A major feminist organization, founded in the middle 1960s, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed to enforce a clause in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender. One of its founders was Betty Friedan.
UFW (United Farm Workers): is a union for agricultural laborers, primarily in California. Founded by charismatic leader, Cesar Chavez, UFW reached the peak of its influence in the 1970s, then declined until his death in 1993.
AIM (American Indian Movement): is a Native American advocacy group in the United States, founded in July 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Post-War America
Sun Belt: 15 state area from Virginia to Florida and from Texas to Arizona and California; California was filled with the electronics Industry and Florida and Texas with aerospace complexes. Revitalized by WW II industry.
Beat Movement: a group of American post-World War II writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired. Had roots in jazz. Poet Alan Ginsberg one of the leaders.
The Affluent Society: 1958, first in a series of books written by John Kenneth Galbraith, a Harvard economist. Questioned the relationship between private wealth and the public good.
Rock and Roll: a type of popular dance music originating in the 1950s, characterized by a heavy beat and simple melodies. Rock and roll was an amalgam of black rhythm and blues and white country music, usually based on a twelve-bar structure and an instrumentation of guitar, bass, and drums. Elvis Presley.
Immigration Laws in 1965: abolished the National Origins Formula that had been in place in the United States since the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. New emphasis on reuniting families and attracting immigrants with skills. Still numerical limits with quotas for countries, but there were significant exceptions.
Rachel Carson: An American author and scientist of the twentieth century who was fervently devoted to defending the natural world against pollution. Her best-known books are Silent Spring, concerning the overuse of pesticides and weed killers, and The Sea Around Us.
Clean Air Act: is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. It requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and enforce regulations to protect the public from airborne contaminants known to be hazardous to human health.
Earth Day: is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which day events worldwide are held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970 and Natalie Gillard was born on Earth Day in 1994! You don't have to know that.
Counterculture/Hippies: mid-60s subculture youth movement. Into psychedelic rock, opposed the Vietnam War. Rejected square parents and their hang-ups, including marriage. Inaugurated a sexual revolution. Used Marijuana and LSD. Don't trust anyone over 30! Timothy Leary one of the leaders.
Watergate: by 5 CREEP members, including G Gordon Liddy, who broke into the Democratic National Committee's office to plant bugs. Nixon tried to cover-up the burglary with hush money and obstruction of justice, but his own audio tapes proved his undoing. Nixon resigned.
Bakke v. University of California: was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. It overruled racial quotas as reverse discrimination, but upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy.
Phyllis Schlafly: is known for her staunch social and political conservatism, her opposition to modern feminism, and her successful campaign against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.