Key terms for A.P. United States History, Chapter 37 and 38.
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| 162011937 | The Feminine Mystique | 1963 - Betty Friedan depicted how difficult a woman's life is because she doesn't think about herself, only her family. It said that middle-class society stifled women and didn't let them use their talents. Attacked the "cult of domesticity." | |
| 162011938 | Checkers Speech | Nixon was accused of financial improprieties when running as vice president with D.D.Eisenhower. He made a speech to the American people freeing him of the accusations. Speech got name from the name of his dog which was a gift. | |
| 162011939 | McCarthyism | The term associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy who led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee. | |
| 162011940 | Jim Crow | Laws written to separate blacks and whites in public areas/meant African Americans had unequal opportunities in housing, work, education, and government | |
| 162011941 | 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. | |
| 162011942 | Brown v. Board of Education | 1954 - The Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, declared that racially segregated facilities are inherently unequal and ordered all public schools desegregated. | |
| 162011943 | Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee | This committee was formed in order to strenghten the influence of black non-violent efforts through organized sit-ins and boycotts | |
| 162011944 | Operation Wetback | Massive roundup of illegal immigrants in reference to the migrants' watery route across the Rio Grande, as many as 1 million Mexicans were apprehended and returned to Mexico in 1954. | |
| 162011945 | Federal Highway Act of 1956 | This act, an accomplishment of the Eisenhower administration, authorized $25 billion for a ten- year project that built over 40,000 miles of interstate highways. This was the largest public works project in American history. | |
| 162011946 | Dien Bien Phu | In 1954, Vietminh rebels besieged a French garrison at Dien Bien Phu, deep in the interior of northern Vietnam. In May, after the United States refused to intervene, Dien Bien Phu fell to the communists. | |
| 162011947 | 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 | |
| 162011948 | Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries | An economic organization consisting of Arab nations that controls the price of oil and the amount of oil its members produce and sell to other nations. Used its power to change American Mid-West Policy. | |
| 162011949 | 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. | |
| 162011950 | Southern Christian Leadership Conference | An organization founded by MLK Jr., to direct the crusade against segregation. Its weapon was passive resistance that stressed nonviolence and love, and its tactic direct, though peaceful, confrontation. | |
| 162011951 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | 34th president of the US. Nicknamed Ike. General in the US army. During WWII, was supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe. Supervised invasion of France and Germany | |
| 162011952 | Richard M. Nixon | When he was elected there was high inflation and economic recession from high spending in the war. His greatest success was easing coldwar tensions and with forign countries. He was impeached because of the Watergate Scandal but resigned before he was removed from office. | |
| 162011953 | Elvis Presley | White singer born in 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi; chief revolutionary of popular music in the 1950s, fused black rhythm and blues with white bluegrass and country styles; created a new musical idiom known forever after as rock and roll. Was "The King". | |
| 162011954 | Rosa Parks | United States civil rights leader who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery (Alabama) and so triggered the national civil rights movement (born in 1913) | |
| 162011955 | 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) | |
| 162011956 | John Foster Dulles | As Secretary of State. he viewed the struggle against Communism as a classic conflict between good and evil. Believed in containment and the Eisenhower doctrine. | |
| 162011957 | Central Intelligence Agency | An agency created after World War II to coordinate American intelligence activities abroad. It became involved in intrigue, conspiracy, and meddling as well. | |
| 162011958 | U-2 Incident | The incident when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The U.S. denied the true purpose of the plane at first, but was forced to when the U.S.S.R. produced the living pilot and the largely intact plane to validate their claim of being spied on aerially. The incident worsened East-West relations during the Cold War and was a great embarrassment for the United States. | |
| 162011959 | Bay of Pigs Invasion | In 1961, an attempt by Cuban exiles in southern Cuba to overthrow the Cuban socialist government of Fidel Castro; the effort was funded by the U.S. and was famously disastrous. | |
| 162011960 | Cuban Missle Crisis | The Soviet Union was secretly building nuclear missile launch sites in Cuba, which could have been used for a sneak-attack on the U.S. The U.S. blockaded Cuba until the U.S.S.R. agreed to dismantle the missile silos. | |
| 162011961 | Berlin Wall | In 1961, the Soviet Union built a high barrier to seal off their sector of Berlin in order to stop the flow of refugees out of the Soviet zone of Germany. The wall was torn down in 1989. | |
| 162011962 | Vietcong | A group of Communist guerrillas who, with the help of North Vietnam, fought against the South Vietnamese government in the Vietnam War. | |
| 162011963 | Gulf of Tonkin Resolution | 1964 Congressional resolution that authorized President Johnson to commit US troops to south vietnam and fight a war against north Vietnam. | |
| 162011964 | Ho Chi Minh Trail | A network of jungle paths winding from North Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam, used as a military route by North Vietnam to supply the Vietcong during the Vietnam War. | |
| 162011965 | Tet Offensive | Attack on the Vietnamese New Year (Tet), which was defeated after a month of fighting and many thousands of casualties; major defeat for communism, but Americans reacted sharply, with declining approval of LBJ and more anti-war sentiment | |
| 162011966 | Brinkmanship | A 1956 term used by Secretary of State John Dulles to describe a policy of risking war in order to protect national interests | |
| 162011967 | Detente | French word meaning an easing of tensions between the world's superpowers during the Cold War | |
| 162011968 | Eisenhower Doctrine | Eisenhower proposed and obtained a joint resolution from Congress authorizing the use of U.S. military forces to intervene in any country that appeared likely to fall to communism. Used in the Middle East. | |
| 162011969 | Hollywood Ten | Group of people in the film industry who were jailed for refusing to answer congressional questions regarding Communist influence in Hollywood | |
| 162011970 | War on Poverty | Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in his 1964 State of the Union address. A new Office of Economic Opportunity oversaw a variety of programs to help the poor, including the Job Corps and Head Start. | |
| 162011971 | Students for a Democratic Society | Founded in 1962, it was a popular college student organization that protested shortcomings in American life, notably racial injustice and the Vietnam War. It led thousands of campus protests before it split apart at the end of the 1960s. | |
| 162011972 | Woodstock | Three day rock concert in upstate N.Y. August 1969, exemplified the counterculture of the late 1960s, nearly half a million gathered in a 600 acre field | |
| 162011973 | Chicago Democratic Convention Riot | August, 1968 - With national media coverage, thousands of anti-war protestors, Blacks and Democratic supporters were clubbed by Major Daley's police. | |
| 162011974 | Civil Rights Act of 1964 | This act made racial, religious, and sex discrimination by employers illegal and gave the government the power to enforce all laws governing civil rights, including desegregation of schools and public places. | |
| 162011975 | Voting Rights Act of 1965 | Under this law, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were registered and the number of African American elected officials increased dramatically. | |
| 162011976 | Black Power | A slogan used to reflect solidarity and racial consciousness, used by Malcolm X. It meant that equality could not be given, but had to be seized by a powerful, organized Black community. | |
| 162011977 | Dixiecrats | Southern Democrats split in 1948 and formed Democrats and Dixies nominated Strom Thurmond picked up 39 votes. | |
| 162011978 | Great Society | President Johnson called his version of the Democratic reform program the Great Society. In 1965, Congress passed many Great Society measures, including Medicare, civil rights legislation, and federal aid to education. | |
| 162011979 | Warren Court Decisions | The chief justice that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson in Brown v. Board of Education (1954); he was the first justice to help the civil rights movement through judicial activism. | |
| 162011980 | Malcom X | One-time pimp and street hustler, converted to a Black Muslim while in prison. At first urged Blacks to seize their freedom by any means necessary, but later changed position and advocated racial harmony. He was assassinated in February, 1965. |
