The Fifties

HUAC

Congressional group who investigated possible Communist threats within the US during the Cold War

McCarthyism

Named after Joe McCarthy

The period in the Us of anti-communist fear, paranoia, and political repression

Mohammad Mosaddegh

Prime minister of Iran

Forced out of power by the CIA

Destalinization

Khrushchev changing the old tactics and violence of Stalin

The Arms Race

Competition between the Soviet Union and US to build more and better weapons (nuclear weapons)

MAD

(Mutually assured destruction)

Space race

Race to space, sputnik, Apollo 11, Yuri Gagarin

The Suez Crisis

Egypt nationalizes the Suez canal

Egyptians get to keep the canal

Brinkmanship

the act of moving close to the brink of nuclear war without going over

The Berlin Crisis

the building of the Berlin wall

Eisenhower

President of the US in the 1950-es

The Domino Theory

a geopolitical theory which posits that changes in the political structure of one country tend to spread to neighbor countries in a domino effect