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| Joseph McCarthy | Joseph McCarthy was the Wisconsin Senator who started McCarthyism which was the practice of searching out suspected Communists and others outside mainstream American society, discrediting them, and hounding them from government and other employment. McCarthyism was practiced from 1950 to 1954 was very successful for distorying many innocent lives. |
| HUAC | House Un-American Activities Committee, an active committee from 1947 to 1954 whose members considered it their duty to purge the country of any Communist influences. HUAC's major target was Hollywood because of it's high profile. This committee had three purposes: 1st: Prove the screen writer's had communist members, 2nd: Show that those writers were able to insert subversive propaganda into films, 3rd: Tactics worked to force many talented and creative people to leave Hollywood. One member was Richard Nixon, membership of this committee is what brought him the extra votes to win U.S. Senator against Helen Douglas. |
| Bay of Pigs | In April 1961, an U.S. trained force of Cuban exiles to invaded southern Cuba with support from U.S. government. Their goal was to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro and was lead by Jose Miro Cardona. This was an unsuccessful attempt that created bad relations between America and Cuba. |
| Missile Crisis | In September 1962, Cuba and Russia placed nuclear missiles on Cuba. The United States did all they could to remove the nuclear missilies from Cuba. America was successful in the removal and this was the closest time the Cold War was to a Nuclear War. |
| Gulf of Tonkin | On August 2, 1964, two American Destroyers engaged three North Vietnamaese torpedo boats. Both American boats were hit and needed repairs and one Vietnam torpedo boat was sunk. On August 4, 1964, there was a second engagement with North Vietnamese boats. Because of these two engagements with Vietnam, it changed the Political American opinion and thus prompted the first large-scale involvement of U.S. armed forces in Vietnam. |
| Tet Offensive | Stated on January 31, 1968. Forces of Viet Cong and North Vietnam fought against South Vietnam, the United States and their Allies in supprise attacks. The purpose of this offensive was to strike militarty and civilian command and control centers in South Vietnam, for North Vietnam and Viet Cong, they wanted to get the war in one single blow. The Tet Offense changed the minds of all politicians to the point that Truman was the only one for the war in Vietnam. After this event many people of Truman's officals resigned. |
| War on Poverty | The War on Poverty was Lyndon B. Johnson's legislation that was proposed during his State of the Union address. This was in response to the poverty rate of 19% in 1964 and allowed Congress to pass the Economic Opportunity Act and established the Office of Economic Opportunity. This allowed federal funds to target poverty. |
| Great Society | President Lyndon Johnson's domestic program, which includes civil rights legislation, antipoverty programs, government subsidy of medical care, federal aid to education, consumer protection, and aid to the arts and humanities. |
| Stagflation | An economic situation were inflation and stagnant economy occur at the same time. This was a new concept because before this most most people thought inflation and recession were mutually exclusive events. This hurt America because Western Europe and Japan recovered from WWII faster than U.S. in the 1970s and this was the period of time were American imported more than it exported and U.S. could no longer back it's currency with gold. |
| Vietnamization | Vietnamizatoin is the beginning of removing American troops from Vietnam and training South Vietnam Soliders to fight their own war. This was important for America because it did decrease the number of troops in Vietnam and it also decreased the number of American deaths. Vietnamization did not change the goal of the war, non-Communist South Vietnam, but the soliders that fought the war. |
| Watergate | Five men working for Nixon's reelection campain broke into a democratic party headquaters in the Watergate complex in Washington D.C. The first break it, they put a defective bug on a telephone line, because this did not work, they broke in for a second time to re-bug the phone line. This time security came and caught the men breaking in. Nixon attempted to cover up the connection between those that broke into the room and the administration officals. This scandal started when the "plumbers" were established to stop "leaks" after the publication of the Pentagon Papers. He would have been the first president to be impeached and thus he resigned from office. At this point, Ford took over the presidency. |
| Iran Hostage Crisis | Carter allowed the shah (Iran exiled leader from 1964) into the United States for medical treatment This increased the Iranian's dislike for American and it excelled on November 4, 1979 when Iran took hostage 66 Americans and demanded that the shah be returned to Iran for trial. This did not happen and Iran did not release the hostages until Carter was out of office in 1980. This increased the tensions between Iran and the U.S. |
| Reaganomics | Reaganomics was Reagan's economic policies which had four parts: (1) reduce the growth of government spending. (2) Reduce the income and capital gains marginal tax rates. (3) reduce government regulation of the economy. (4) Control the money supply to reduce inflation. It was successful in lowering marginal taxes, but government spending continued to rise during his presidency. |
| Iran Contra | Reagan and his administration, including George H.W. Bush, provided aid in the form of weapons and training to the contras. This was against congress. Some of the trades were done to release seven American hostages being held in Lebanon. Of the administration, seven individuals pleaded or were proven guilty, six were pardon by George H.W. Bush, and there was no proof that Reagan had broken the law. This was the most serious scandal since Watergate. |
| Détente | It is the easing of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Nixon administration. First Nixon talked with Communist China, then with the Soviet Union. Détente did not abandon containment, but it changed the focus from arms control to ensuring that Soviet and Chinese stakes in stable internation order would restrain the leaders of those countries from additional crises. Nixon's Goal was "A stronger, healthy United States, Europe, Soviet Union, China, Japan, each balancing the other." |
| Glasnost | Gorbachev's way to stimulate production and streamline distribution. Glasnot meant a greater freedom of expression. This in combination with free enterprise, allowed new political parties, contested elections, and challenges to Communist rule. |
| SALT | Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Between the Soviet Union and United States, both agreed to limit antiballistic missles to two each and to give up pursuit of nuclear weapons. This was extremely important in preventing either nation from building so secure an ABM defense against a nuclear attack that it would risk first strike. |
| Gorbachev | The new leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. Mikhail Gorbachev negotiaged with the United States and decreased the tensions between America, Soviet Union, and Cuba. He had allowed the cold war to end within three years of when he assumed power. |
| Monicagate | Bill Clinton lied about a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a 21 year old intern, and lied about it to a federal grand jury. With this scandal and the Whitewater scandal, Clinton faced the possiblilty of impeachment, but it did not pass in the senate. |
| Yom Kippur War | In October 1993, Egypt and Syria surprised Israel with a fullscale attack on the Jewish Holiday, Yom Kippur. The United States sided with Israel which made the Arab nations retaliate against the U.S. with an oil embargo. Because the United states helped Israel during this war, it helped contribute to the anti-American feelings in Arabs. This caused issues on American homeland because there was a decrease in the oil supplies, the arab nations had cut us off. |
| Kent State | 100,000 people protested Nixon's speech defending his move and emphasizing the importance of U.S. credibility and students boycotted classes. One of the most noted schools was Kent State University in Ohio. An ROTC building was burned and the National Guard came in to help. At this point, students threw rocks at the guards and the guards fired back. The guards killed 4 and injurded 10. |
| Gulf War (1st) | Persian Gulf War in 1991.During this war the U.S. was helped by the Soviet Union and UN. By January 15, 1991, 400,000 American soliders and 265,000 troops from other nations were stationed in Saudi Arabia. There was then a 40 day air war against Iraq. Within 100 hours after the attack Hussein withdrew his forces in Kuwait |
| 9/11 | On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked four planes. 2 Planes flew into the twin towers, one plane flew into the Pentagon, the last plane crashed because the hostages in the plane over took the hijackers. This was a very important terrorist attack that shocked America and changed our opinion of Iran and Afghanistan. This was the most deadly attack on American soil |
| Iraq War | On March 19,2003, the United States and the support of 30 other nations invaded Iraq. This was an easy win and the war was declared ended on May 1st. At end of the war Saddam Hussein still had power, which continued till December of 2003. We entered the war because of claims that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda and harbored terrorists and that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. |
| Election of 2000 | Bush and Gore had a very close run and the votes came down to Florida's 25 electoral votes. At this point Florida's votes were re-counted, but not all of them were. The election results waited over a month while the re-count of the votes went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 against the recount of the votes. Bush won Florida's 25 electoral votes by 537 votes and it was the first time since the 1800s that a president took office without winning popular vote. |
