HIST 13C FINAL EXAM KEYTERMS

spring '26 HIST 13C final exam keyterms

pearl harbor

CONTEXT: 1941; Hitler allied with imperial Japan; Japan moving more aggressively in Asia; U.S. debating whether to go to war or not

CAUSES: Japan attacks U.S. naval base in Hawai’i

SIGNIFICANCE: U.S. declares war on the Axis powers, officially joining WWII; became a rallying point for the American war effort (boost moral and patriotism for the war when things seemed dire); Japanese in the Americas were targeted and put in internment camps because the government feared they were plotting to sabotage the U.S.

bretton woods system

CONTEXT: established in 1944

CAUSES: driven by the desire to avoid another global depression (the Great Depression)

SIGNIFICANCE: gold became the basis for the U.S. dollar’s value; ended in 1971 partly causing stagflation b/c it drove up inflation, the dollar depreciated, and consumer demand slowed

containment

CONTEXT: late 1940s; early beginnings of the Cold War

CAUSES: Soviet communism expanding across Eastern Europe; George Kennan sends his “Long Telegram”

SIGNIFICANCE: foreign policy to check the expansionist policy of the Soviet Union; the Truman Doctrine offers military support to peoples resisting communism, leading to proxy wars such as the Vietnam War

military-industrial complex

CONTEXT: 1960s; coined by President Eisenhower

CAUSES: driven by nuclear arms race; moving to permanent wartime production; private corporate partners making products and money

SIGNIFICANCE: alliance between the nation’s military and the defense industry that supplies it; defense firms wield political power to maintain government funding; worry that powerful profit motive will push nation towards unnecessary conflicts

NAACP

CONTEXT: founded in the early 1900s

CAUSES: spread of anti-Black violence and lynchings; Jim Crow laws

SIGNIFICANCE: civil rights organization with mission to ensure equality for all people and eliminate race-based discrimination; driving force behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, and federally funded programs)

postwar “consensus”

CONTEXT: end of WWII

CAUSES: post-war manufacturing boom and availability of GI Bill created financial stability and optimism; anti-communism sentiment creates an environment where conformity = patriotism; acceptance of the “mixed economy”

SIGNIFICANCE: promotion of the “nuclear family;” marginalized groups left behind; Vietnam War destroys unified Cold War policy; Civil Rights Movement; new generation rejects strict social, gender, and political conformity

1950s “rock n’ roll”

CONTEXT: Cold War

CAUSES: rise of the “teenager” who had more leisure time; new electric guitars

SIGNIFICANCE: rejection of Cold War conformity; argued it made adolescents become reckless and violent; worried it degraded social morals leaving the nation open to communism

“lavendar scare”

CONTEXT: Cold War

CAUSES: lawmakers believed gays were vulnerable to extortion; linked LGBTQ+ individuals with communists

SIGNIFICANCE: careers ruined and reputations destroyed; lavendar marriages; rise in LGBTQ+ communities

long civil rights movement

CONTEXT: 1940s-1970s

CAUSES: systemic inequality and Jim Crow laws; labor and economic justice; hypocrisy of wars

SIGNIFICANCE: A. Phillip Randolph threatens a black workers march —> FDR establishes Fair Employment Practices Committee; end of Jim Crow segregation; decline of prejudice

rosa parks

CONTEXT: 1940s-1970s; long civil rights movement

CAUSES: involved in the NAACP

SIGNIFICANCE: civil rights activists best known for refusing to move from her bus seat; tactic of dressing and acting respectable against opponents; park represented as a hero

“creative destruction” and silicon valley

CONTEXT: Cold War period (1940s-1990s); California

CAUSES: military contracts; Stanford encourages students to stay close to the university; venture capital; tech innovation; market competition

SIGNIFICANCE: replacing old with the new to drive economic growth and improve living standards; tech no longer about engineering but a business of storytelling and salesmanship

the vietnam war

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1970s and american “decline”

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FIRE economy

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milton friedman

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helsinki networks and the end of the cold war

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“new cold war”

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reaganomics

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“washington consensus” and neoliberal globalization

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inequlity (1990s to today)

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“the war on terror”

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dakota access pipeline and standing rock

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