ROE V. WADE
ROE V. WADE was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973. It prohibited state legislatures from interfering with a woman's right to abortion. Norma McCarvey, a.k.a. Jane Roe, said in 1995 that she no longer believed in abortion rights.
Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action: programs designed to encourage employers and colleges to hire or accept more minorities and women to even out the workforce, eliminate racism in the hiring process, and improve the lives of impoverished minorities in America. The programs were opposed by many as reverse discrimination against those who were not hired in an effort to keep the workplace ethnically diverse.
Neoconservatism
neoconservatives were a small influential group of thinkers who were supporters of Ronald Regan. They were acting against the 1960's liberalism. They took tough anti-Soviet positions in foreign policy. They championed free-market capitalism liberated from gov't restraints. They questioned liberal forms of welfare programs and affirmative action policies. They encouraged traditional values, individualism, and the centrality of the family.
Sunbelt
15 state area from Virginia to Florida and west to California. It included Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Everyone was moving into these areas because they had a great and strong economy.
Grenada Invasion
Ronald Reagan dispatched a heavy- fire- power invasion force to the island of Grenada, where a military coup had killed the prime minister and brought Marxists to power ----Americans captured the island quickly demonstrating Reagan's determination to assert the dominance of the US in the Caribbean
Yuppies
young, urban professionals who wore ostentatious gear such Rolex watches or BMW cars. They came to symbolize the increased pursuit of wealth and materialism of Americans in the 1980s.
Strategic Defense Initiative
This was Regan's proposed high-tech, anti-nuclear missile, defense system. It was said to be scientifically impossible. It was nicknamed "Star Wars."
Betty Friedan
She was a leader in the modern feminist movement in the 1960s. She wrote "The Feminist Mystique."
Reverse Discrimination
During the 1970's, white workers and students felt that they were being discriminated against by employers and admission offices because too much weight was put on race and ethnic background. In the court case, Bakke vs. California, the Supreme Court declared that preference in admissions to a college could not be given to a certain race, but racial factors could be taken into account in a school's overall admissions policy.
Geraldine Ferraro
In 1984 she was the first woman to appear on a major-party presidential ticket. She was a congresswoman running for Vice President with Walter Modale.
Sandra Day O'Connor
She was appointed by Reagan as a Supreme Court justice. She is a brilliant Stanford Law School graduate. She was sworn in on Sept.25, 1981. She was the first woman to ascend to the high bench in the Court's nearly 200 yr. History.
"supply-side economics"
The nickname given to the type of economy that Ronald Reagan brought before Congress. It involved, among other things, a 25% tax cut that encouraged budgetary discipline and would hopefully spur investments. However, the plan was not a success and the economy was sent into its deepest recession since the 1930's.
Moral Majority
An evangelical Christian group that was created to fight against the liberal ideas and politics that developed in the 60's and after. It is a "right-wing," conservative group.
Chappaquiddick
Senator Edward Kennedy, brother of John F. Kennedy, was at a Batchelor party on an island. There were some young women there and there was some drinking and Kennedy ended up taking one of the young ladies off the island. But when they were crossing a bridge Kennedy's car went off the bridge. The young woman was killed. Kennedy's story was that he swam across a bay to get help but it was too late. There was much controversy over this incident about Kennedy's motives, such as if he was trying to kill the lady because she knew something and that Kennedy was already married.
Anwar Sadat
President of Egypt; Carteer invited Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin to a conference at Camp David; the two signed an agreement that served as a step toward peace between Egypt and Israel.
Walter Mondale
He was the vice president of Carter and when he won the democratic nomination he was defeated by a landslide by Reagan. He was the first presidential candidate to have a woman vice president, Geraldine Ferraro.
Jesse Jackson
A black candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 1988 election who attempted to appeal to minorities, but eventually lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis
Edward Kennedy
He is a Senator from Massachusetts and the last of the Kennedy brothers. In 1979, he said that he was going to challenge Carter for the Presidency, but an incident back in '69 with a car crash, handicapped his decision.
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was first elected president in 1980 and elected again in 1984. He ran on a campaign based on the common man and "populist" ideas. He served as governor of California from 1966-1974, and he participated in the McCarthy Communist scare. Iran released hostages on his Inauguration Day in 1980. While president, he developed Reagannomics, the trickle down effect of government incentives. He cut out many welfare and public works programs. He used the Strategic Defense Initiative to avoid conflict. His meetings with Gorbachev were the first steps to ending the Cold War.
John Anderson
Ran against Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter on the independent ticket, tallying 7 percent of the popular vote and not a single electoral vote.
Martin Luther King Jr.
He was an African American minister who was instrumental in starting the Black Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. He formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of 1957. Led a peaceful "March on Washington" King fought for, and won, the outlaw of literacy tests in the voting booth. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
Viet Cong
South Vietnamese Communists.
Jimmy Carter
He was a Democratic, dark-horse candidate who won the 1976 presidential election. Carter was a humanitarian, and got Israel and Egypt to sign a peace treaty in 1978 at Camp David.
