| A | B |
|---|
| Red Scare | hysteria following both WWI and WWII characterized by a fear of communist influence in the U.S. |
| Kellogg-Briand Pact | treaty signed by over 60 nations in 1927 that outlawed war as a part of foreign policy |
| Teapot Dome Scandal | most well known of the Harding scandals, it involved the illegal leasing of federal oil reserves to private oil companies |
| Scopes Trial | trial in Dayton, Tennessee where teacher, John Scopes, was tried for illegally teaching evolution |
| Harlem Renaissance | period of great music, writing, and art of African Americans centered in Harlem, New York |
| bank holiday | FDR's temporary closing of all banks in 1933 to allow for inspections and to prevent more bank failures |
| fireside chat | FDR's radio addresses to the American people where he explained New Deal actions and calmed Americans' fears |
| court packing | FDR's attempt to get the power to appoint additional justices to the Supreme Court to get a court more favorable to the New Deal |
| Dust Bowl | years of drought and over-cultivation of the Great Plains led to much of the topsoil blowing away in the mid-1930s and forced many to move to California |
| Munich Conference | Britain and France agreed to allow Hitler to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia; this is an example of appeasement |
| blitzkrieg | Germany's "lightning war" used to take over much of Europe in 1940 |
| Pearl Harbor | American Pacific Fleet headquarters attacked by Japan on December 7,1941, bringing the U.S. into WWII |
| Battle of Midway | turning point in the Pacific during WWII when the U.S. stopped the Japanese advance |
| internment/relocation | the movement of over 120,000 Japanese-Americans from their homes to detention camps during WWII to prevent their helping of the Japanese military |
| D-day | Allied invasion of German-controlled France on June 6, 1944, commanded by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower |
| Yalta Conference | WWII conference between FDR, Churchill, and Stalin where they decided to divide Germany into four zones of occupation following the war |
| island hopping | American strategy in the Pacific of attacking specific Japanese held islands, pushing closer and closer to Japan |
| Manhattan Project | code name for the project to build the atomic bomb during WWII |
| Hiroshima/Nagasaki | two Japanese cities hit with the atomic bombs in August of 1945 to bring WWII to a close |
| Nuremberg Trials | held to try German war criminals after WWII for genocide and crimes against humanity |
| cold war | worldwide competition between the free world led by the U.S. and the communist bloc led by the USSR from 1945 to 1990 |
| Berlin Blockade | Stalin's attempt to force the Allies out of Berlin by blocking access to the city. Truman responded with the Berlin Airlift carrying supplies in by plane |
| Sputnik I | the first manmade orbiting satellite launched by the USSR in 1957 |
| U-2 | American spy plane. One was shot down over the USSR in 1960 leading to greater tensions in the cold war |
| Bay of Pigs | site of attempted invasion of Cuban refugees trained by the CIA to overthrow Castro. It failed miserably. |
| Berlin Wall | built by Nikita Khrushchev when JFK refused to pull American troops out of Berlin in 1961 |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | confrontation between the U.S. and USSR when Soviet missiles were discovered in Cuba. It nearly led to a nuclear war in 1962 until the Soviets agreed to tear down the missiles in return for an American promise not to invade Cuba. |
| Nuclear Test Ban Treaty | signed by U.S., Britain, and USSR in 1963 agreeing not to test nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, under water, or above the ground |
| Battle of Dien Bien Phu | Viet Minh defeat of the French in 1954 that forced the French out of Vietnam and led to the U.S. supporting South Vietnam |
| Geneva Conference | held in 1954 to divide Vietnam at the 17th parallel and to provide for elections to unite the country in 1956. The U.S. and South Vietnam later refused to allow the elections. |
| Tet Offensive | massive attack of cities and bases in South Vietnam by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese in 1968. The offensive was defeated, but it turned American public opinion against the war in Vietnam. |
| Plessy vs. Ferguson | Supreme Court decision in 1896 that upheld Jim Crow laws as long as the segregated facilities were "separate but equal." |
| Brown vs. Board of Education | 1954 Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson and said that segrated schools were unconstitutional. |
