| A | B |
|---|
| New Deal | FDR's program of relief, recovery, and reform programs to combat the Great Depression |
| Black Tuesday | October 29, 1929 the day on which the Great Crash of the stock market began |
| Fireside Chat | radio speeches given by FDR to reassure Americans during the Great Depression |
| Social Security system | publicly run system that provides regular payments to people that cannot support themselves; one of the New Deal programs |
| Monroe Doctrine | a policy of US opposition to any European interference in the affairs of the Western hemisphere |
| imperialism | expanding beyond one's borders to dominate or exploit weaker nations |
| yellow journalism | news coverage that emphasized sensational stories to encourage America to go to war against Spain in 1898 |
| Zimmerman note | note by a German diplomat proposing an alliance with Mexico; factor in America entering WWI |
| Fourteen Points | President Wilson's plan for peace following WWI |
| Versailles Treaty | 1919 treaty ending WWI; blames Germany for starting the war and forces it to pay reparations |
| Lend-Lease Act | allowed the US to ship arms and other supplies to nations fighting the Axis powers in WWII |
| Allied Powers - WWII | Great Britain, United States and Soviet Union |
| Pearl Harbor | Japanese attack upon American naval base on Dec. 7, 1941; results in US declaring war upon Japan |
| Manhattan Project | the US program to develop an atomic bomb |
| kamikaze | the deliberate crashing of a bomb filled airplane into a military target |
| Final Solution | name given to the Nazi plan to eliminate Jews |
| Cold War | the state of hostility that developed between the US and USSR after WWII |
| NATO | defensive military alliance formed in 1949 including the US, Canada and 10 European nations |
| Iron Curtain | term for the extension of Communist control over Eastern Europe |
| Berlin Airlift | a 327 day operation in which US and British planes flew food and supplies into West Berlin after the Soviets blockaded the city |
| Douglas MacArthur | US general forced to resign by President Truman in 1951 |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | tense situation between US and USSR in 1962 when the Soviets attempted to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba |
| Gulf of Tonkin Resolution | authorized President Johnson to take military action in Vietnam |
| Vietnamization | President Nixon's strategy for ending US involvement in the Vietnam War |
| Franklin Roosevelt | US President during the Great Depression and WWII |
| Harry Truman | US President at the end of WWII; ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945 |
| Adolf Hitler | Nazi dictator of Germany during WWII |
| John F. Kennedy | US President during the Cuban Missile Crisis; assasinated in 1963 |
| Woodrow Wilson | US President during WWI; architect of the Fourteen Points |
| Lyndon Johnson | US President responsible for escalating American presence in Vietnam War |
| Richard Nixon | US President forced to resign from office following Watergate scandal |
| Watergate | Scandal involving the Nixon Administration leading to his resignation |
| Annexation | to incorporate territory into an existing country or state; what the US did to Hawaii in 1898 |
| Open Door Policy | policy proposed by Secy of State John Hay seeking open trading rights in China |
| Spanish American War | Conflict between US and Spain over Cuban independence; fueled by yellow journalism and the explosion of the USS Maine |
| U.S.S. Maine | American ship that exploded in the harbor of Havana, Cuba; American newspapers blamed the Spanish for the explosion |
| Lusitania | British liner sunk by the Germans in WWI; 128 American lives lost; one cause of America's entrance into WWI |
| Unrestricted submarine warfare | Naval strategy followed by the Germans in WWI where any ship found in the waters near Great Britain would be sunk without warning |
| League of Nations | International body proposed by President Wilson to help maintain the peace after WWI |
| Harlem Renaissance | a flowering of African American artistic creativity during the 1920s, centered in the Harlem community of New York City |
| Prohibition | the period from 1920-1933 during which the 18th amendment forbidding the manufacture and sale of alcohol was in force in the US |
| Speakeasies | a place where alcoholic drinks were sold and consumed illegally during Prohibition |
| Al Capone | Chicago gangster who headed a bootlegging empire during Prohibition |
| Bootleggers | people who smuggled in alcohol and sold it during Prohibition |
| Flappers | a young woman who embraced the new fashions and urban attitudes of the 1920s |
| shantytowns | neighborhoods made up of make shift shacks common during the Depression |
| Japanese internment | the forced confinement of Japanese Americans during WWII |
| D-Day | the Allied invasion of German-occupied France; June 6,1944; coordinated by General Eisenhower |
| General Dwight D. Eisenhower | Commander of Allied forces in Europe and coordinator of the D-Day invasion |
| Hiroshima/Nagasaki | Cities in Japan where the atomic bomb was dropped leading to the Japanese surrender |
| United Nations | International peacekeeping body created after WWII |
| Truman Doctrine | policy aimed at containing the spread of communism by providing military and economic aid |
| Marshall Plan | American economic aid given to European nations to help them rebuild after WWII |
| Warsaw Pact | military alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites |
| Korean War | civil war between North & South Korea in which the US and UN fought on the side of the South and China supported the North |
| Domino theory | Fear that if a nation fell to communism, the surrounding nations would also fall; justification for US involvement in Korea and Vietnam |
| Gulf of Tonkin Resolution | Granted President Johnson broad military powers in Vietnam |
| Tet Offensive | A massive surprise attack by the Vietcong in 1968 that turned American public opinion against the war |
| guerilla warfare | method of fighting using hit and run ambush attacks |
| Vietcong | Communists in South Vietnam; difficult for US troops to detect since they blended in with the S. Vietnamese people |
| Vietnamization | Nixon's plan to gradually withdraw American troops from Vietnam and replace them with well-trained Vietnamese troops |
| My Lai Massacre | 200 unarmed S. Vietnamese civilians killed by American troops |
| Kent State | Anti-war protest where 4 students were killed by the National Guard; incident showed how divided the country was about the war |
| Plessy vs. Ferguson | Supreme Court case that allowed for separate public accommodations |
| Booker T. Washington | Prominent African American who believed racism would end once blacks acquired useful labor skills; founded the Tuskegee Institute |
| W.E.B. DuBois | African American founder of the Niagara Movement which insisted blacks seek a liberal arts education |
| Little Rock Central High School | Governor Faubus used the National Guard to try and keep nine black students from integrating this school |
| Brown vs. Board of Education | Supreme Court ruling that struck down segregation in schooling |
| Literacy tests | These were used in the South to keep blacks from voting |
| Voting Rights Act of 1965 | Eliminated the use of literacy tests |
| Malcom X | African American who preached that blacks should separate from white society |
| Rosa Parks | Her refusal to give up her seat on the bus lead to the Montgomery Bus Boycott |
| Martin Luther King, Jr. | Prominent civil rights leader who advocated the use of non-violence to achieve equality |
| Watergate | Scandal that lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon |
| Roe vs. Wade | Supreme Court decision allowing women the right to choose an abortion |
| Executive Order 9066 | Signed by FDR in 1942 requiring the internment of Japanese Americans along the west coast |
| FDIC | agency created during the New Deal to insure bank accounts to protect people against losses due to bank failures |
| SEC | agency created during the New Deal that monitors the stock market and enforces laws regulating the sale of stocks & bonds |
| McCarthyism | the attacks made by Senator Joseph McCarthy on people suspected of being Communists in the early 1950s |
| Bay of Pigs | failed CIA mission to remove Fidel Castro as the leader of Cuba in 1961; a major embarrassment for President Kennedy |
| U2 Incident | American spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960; increased tensions between the US & USSR |
| Sputnik | Satellite launched by the Soviets in 1957 giving the USSR the lead in the space race with the US |
| Cesar Chavez | Latino civil rights leader who worked towards unionizing farm workers by using nonviolent strategies such as boycotts |
