| A | B |
|---|
| Yalta Conference | a meeting between the leaders of the Allied powers that resulted in a plan for peace after World War II |
| Nuremberg trials | the war crimes trials of Nazi leaders |
| United Nations | an alliance of nations that attempts to end disputes between countries peacefully |
| Cold War | a period of hostility between Western powers and Communist powers |
| containment | a foreign policy that attempts to stop the spread of communism without ending it in the countries in which it already exists |
| Truman Doctrine | a policy attempting to contain the spread of communism, beginning with military aid to the monarchies of Turkey and Greece |
| Marshall Plan | the idea that the U.S. could help rebuild wartorn Europe with loans and other economic aid |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization | an alliance of Western powers |
| GI Bill of Rights | a law that offered veterans money for school, houses, farms, and businesses |
| Fair Deal | President Truman's legislative plan for the nation that included antilynching laws |
| Mao Zedong | Communist leader of China, he defeated a nationalist army for control of China. |
| 38th parallel | the boundary between North and South Korea before the Korean War |
| Joseph McCarthy | A U.S. senator from Wisconsin, he led investigations into the spread of communism in American society and within the government itself. He was eventually discredited when he could produce no evidence. |
| hydrogen bomb | a thermonuclear weapon that gets its power from splitting a hydrogen atom |
| arms race | a growth in weapons based on the number of weapons an enemy country has |
| Sputnik | the first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957 |
| brinkmanship | the Cold War foreign policy designed to "get to the verge without getting into the war" |
| baby boom | a sharp increase in the number of American births during the 1950s and 1960s |
| Sun Belt | the southern area of the United States from Florida to California that experienced an increase in population during the 1970s |
| urban renewal | a governmental program that attempted to rid innercities of slums and replace them with low- and middle-income housing |
| beats | young people, many of whom were writers and artists, who discussed their dissatisfaction with the American society of the 1950s |
