Dust Bowl
Name given to parts of the Great Plains in the 1930s after severe drought stuck in the region.
Huey Long
US Senator from Louisiana who wanted to take from the rich and give to the poor.
Fireside Chats
Radio talks broadcasted by FDR.
FDR
New York governor who won the election of 1932.
FDIC
New Deal agency created in 1933 to insure bank deposits.
CCC
Civilian Conservation Corps- New Deal agency established in 1933, employed young men on conservation projects.
TVA
Tennessee Valley Authority- New Deal program est. in 1933; built dams and power stations to provide hydroelectric power and flood control to the Tennessee River Valley.
New Deal Supreme Court
Rejected some of FDR's programs.
Atlantic Charter
1941-Pledge signed by US President FDR and a British prime minister Winston Churchill not to acquire new territory as a result of World War 2 and to work for peace after the war.
Dec 7th, 1941
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
Isolationism
National policy of avoiding involvement in the affairs of other nations.
Maginot Line
Line of defenses built by France along its border with Germany.
Red Army
Russian Army during WW2.
Battle of Stalingrad
Turning point in WW2 where Soviets beat Germany.
Battle of Coral Sea
1942- WW2 battle in which the Allies stopped the Japanese advance on Australia.
Douglas MacArthur
General who defended the Philippines.
Erwin Rommel
"Desert Fox" who had advanced as far as El Alamein. He was sent in by Hitler to North America.
Battle of the Bulge
1944- WW2 battle in which the Allies stopped the Japanese advance on Australia.
Normandy
Allies landed here on D-Day, June 6th, 1944.
Chester Nimitz
Commander of the US Pacific fleet.
Cold War
1945-1991- Long power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, waged mostly on economic and political fronts rather than on the battlefield.
Satellite Nations
Countries controlled by the Soviet Union.
Containment
US foreign policy followed during the Cold War that sought to prevent the expansion of Soviet communism.
Marshall Plan
European Recovery Program, US program of giving money to European countries to help them rebuild their economies after WW2.
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization; alliance formed in 1949 by the US, Western European nations, and other countries to help defend each other in case of attack.
Dwight Eisenhower
WW2 hero chosen as presidential candidate in 1952 and won.
Truman Doctrine
1947- President Harry S. Truman's policy stating that the United States would help any country fighting against communism.
Eisenhower Doctrine
Issued in Jan. 1957, Eisenhower offered military aid to any Middle Eastern nation seeking help in resisting communist aggression.
Sputnik
The world's first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957.
U.N. Security Council
Part of UN in charge of military force.
Palestine
After WW2, thousands of European Jews fled to Palestine.
Plessy VS. Ferguson
1896- Supreme Court case that established the "separate but equal" doctrine for public facilities.
JD Salinger
Author who wrote The Catcher in the Rye.
NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People- Group founded by the W.E.B Du Bois and others in 1909 to end racial discrimination.
Medicaid
Federal program created in 1965 to provide free health care to the needy.
Medicare
Federal health insurance program for people over the age of 65; created in 1965.
Richard Nixon
Ran against Kennedy in 1960 and lost.
LBJ
Able to get Kennedy's bills passed and was Kennedy's running mate.
Barry Goldwater
Ran against LBJ in 1964.
Election of 1960
Republican Nixon ran against Democratic Kennedy. Kennedy won.
Gideon VS. Wainright
Declared that the states must provide lawyers at public expense, for poor defendants charged with serious crimes.
Miranda VS. Arizona
1966- The accused persons must be informed of their rights at the time of their arrest.
Escobedo VS. Illinois
1964-Granted the accused the right to have a lawyer.
Bay of Pigs
Group of anti-Castro Cuban refugees were to invade Cuba. Resulted in disaster.
Cuban Missile Crisis
1962- Standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union in which the Soviets agreed to remove missiles from Cuba if the United States promised not to invade the island, followed by an easing of Cold War tensions.
SNCC
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee- Student organization formed in 1960 to coordinate civil rights demonstrations and to provide training for protests.
J.Edgar Hoover
FBI director who organized counter intelligence programs to block the activities of black nationalist and civil rights groups.
George Wallace
Banned the protest march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to end discrimination.
Brown VS. Board
1954- Supreme court case that declared "separate but equal" public schools unconstitutional.
NOW
National Organization for Women- Tried to influence and ensure social and economic equality for women.
Roe VS. Wade
The court overturned a state law limiting women's access to abortion during the first 3 months of pregnancy.
Betty Friedan
Author who hoped to dispute the popular notion that higher education was harmful to women.
Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Banned discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Robert Kennedy
Senator of New York who was the brother of slain President JFK and a former US attorney general.
Ho Chi Minh
Led the Vietnamese fight for independence.
Henry Kissinger
Nixon's key foreign policy adviser.
War Powers Act (1973)
Legislation that reaffirmed Congress constitutional power to declare war, set a 60 day limit on the presidential commitment of US troops to foreign conflicts.
Kent State University
4 anti-discrimination protests occured here.
Pentagon Papers
Secret government documents published in 1971, revealed that the US government has mislead Americans about the Vietnam War.
William Westmoreland
Commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam.
Watergate
Scandal in which President Nixon authorized the cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, led to Nixons resignation in 1974.
James McCord
A former CIA agent who had taken part in the Watergate break-in.
John Dean
Nixon's former White House attorney who provided that the President had been directly involved in the cover-up.
WIN
Whip Inflation Now- President Gerald Ford's slogan to garner support for his anti-inflation program.
Harry Truman
President from 1945-1953, who faced the decision to drop the atomic bomb. He proceeded.
Jimmy Carter
Former Georgia governor who won the election of 1976.
Manual Noriega
Panamanian dictator and drug smuggler.
Americans with Disabilities Act
Prohibits discrimination against people with physical or mental disabilities in employment, transportation, telephone services and public buildings.
Glasnot
Soviet policy est. in the 1980s that promoted political openness and freedom of expression.
Mikhail Gorbachev
Leader of the Soviet Union in 1985.
New Right
Various conservative voters groups that grew in strength in the 1980s.
Ayatollah Khomeini
A militant Islamic leader, forced the shah to flee Iran.
Geraldine Ferraro
Walter Mondale's running mate who became the first woman to run on a major party presidential ticket.
Clarence Thomas
Conservative African American judge and former head of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Fidel Castro
Rebel leader who led an uprising that succeeded in overthrowing the Cuban dictator in 1959.
Wounded Knee
American Indian protest that turned into a massacre in South Dakota.
Medgar Evers
NAACP field secretary who was killed by a white assassin.
Malcolm X
The growth of the Nation of Islam during the 1950s was in part of Malcolm X.
Head Start
A pre-school education program for low-income families.
Lee Harvey Oswald
Shot and killed President JFK. Was later shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
Dixiecrats
States rights party; formed in 1948 by southern Democrats who were dissatisfied with President Truman's support for civil rights issues.
Mao Zedong
Communist Part leader who made reforms that gave land to peasants.
George Marshall
Secretary of State who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for the Marshall Plan.
Hiroshima
An atomic bomb was dropped on the city killing 75,000 people.
Yalta Conference(1945)
Meeting of US President FDR, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to plan for the postwar world.
Genocide
Deliberate annihilation of an entire people.
Internment Camps
Forced relocation and imprisonment of Japanese Americans in WW2.
Auschwitz
Major death camp in Poland during the Holocaust.
Woodstock (1969)
Rock concert near Woodstock, NY that marked the high point of the counterculture era.
Spiro Agnew
Vice President of Nixon who was charged with income tax invasion.
Michael Dukakis
Ran with Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 election.
Walter Mondale
Senator of Minnesota who was Jimmy Carter's running mate in the 1976 election.
Tet Offensive (1968)
Attack by North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops against South Vietnam during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year; demonstrated that the North Vietnamese were still militarily strong.
Black Panther Party
Political organization formed in the 1960's that called for empowerment of and defense for African Americans.
Freedom Riders
A group of civil rights workers who took bus trips through southern states in 1961 to protest illegal bus segregation.
Warren Commission
Special group led by Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the assassination of JFK.
G.I. Bill (1944)
Servicemens readjustment act, est. pensions and government loans to veterans for education, businesses, or to buy houses or farms.
Peace Corps
Program begun by JFK to send volunteers to work in developing nations for two years.
Explorer 1
First US satellite in space.
Zionism
Movement for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Hollywood Ten
Group of film directors and writers who went to jail rather than answer questions from the House Un-American Activities Committee.
V-E Day
Marked the formal end of a brutal war that had held Europe in its grip for more than 5 years.
War Production Board
WW2 agency that was in charge of converting factories to war production.
Manhattan Project
Secret US project begun in 1942 to develop an atomic bomb.
Island-hopping
US WW2 strategy of conquering only the Pacific islands that were important to the Allied advance toward Japan.
Social Security Act (1935)
Law that provides retirement pensions, unemployment insurance, and payments to people with disabilities and widows and children of male workers who had died.
New Deal
President FDR's programs for helping the US economy during the Great Depression.
Gerald Ford
Nominated by Nixon for Vice President.
Neil Armstrong
Astronaut who landed Apollo 11 on the moon in 1969.