Chapter 27 and 28 APUSH Keyterms

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

A cartel formed in 1960 by the Persian Gulf states and other oil-rich developing countries that allowed its members to exert greater control over the price of oil.

Energy Crisis

A period of fuel shortages in the United States after the Arab states in the OPEC declared an oil embargo in October 1973.

Environmentalism

Activist movement begun in the 1960s that was concerned with protecting the environment through activities such as conservation, pollution control measures, and public awareness campaigns. In response to the new environmental consciousness, the federal government staked out a broad role in environmental regulation in the 1960s and 1970s.

Silent Spring

Book published in 1962 by biologist Rachel Carson. Its analysis of the pesticide DDT's toxic impact on the human and natural food chains galvanized environmental activists.

Earth Day

An annual event honoring the environment that was first celebrated on April 22, 1970, when 20 million citizens gathered in communities across the country to express their support for a cleaner, healthier planet.

Environment Protection Agency

Federal agency created by Congress and President Nixon in 1970 to enforce environmental laws, conduct environmental research, and reduce human health and environmental risks from pollutants.

Three Mile Island

A nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where a reactor core came close to a meltdown in March 1979. After this, no new nuclear plants were authorized in the United States, though a handful with existing authorization were built in the 1980s.

Stagflation

An economic term coined in the 1970s to describe the condition in which inflation and unemployment rise at the same time.

Deindustrialization

The dismantling on manufacturing--especially in the automobile, steel, and consumer-goods industries--in the decades after World War II, representing a reversal of the process of industrialization that had dominated the American economy from the 1870s through the 1940s.

Rust Belt

The once heavily industrialized regions of the Northeast and Midwest that went into decline after deindustrialization. By the 1970s and 1980s, these regions were full of abandoned plants and distressed communities.

Tax Revolt

A movement to lower or eliminate taxes. California's Proposition 13, which rolled back property taxes, capped future increases for present owners, and required that all tax measures have a two-thirds majority in the legislature, was the result of one such revolt, inspiring similar movements across the country.

Proposition 13

A measure passed overwhelmingly by Californians to roll back property taxes, cap future increases for present owners, and require that all tax measures have a two-thirds majority in the legislature. "tax revolts" across the country and helped conservatives define an enduring issue: low taxes.

Watergate

Term referring to the 1972 break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., by men working for President Nixon's reelection campaign, along with Nixon's efforts to cover it up. This scandal led to President Nixon's resignation.

War Powers Act

A law that limited the president's ability to deploy U.S. forces without congressional approval. Congress passed this act in 1973 as a series of laws to fight the abuses of the Nixon administration.

Freedom of Information Act

Passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the 1974 act gave citizens access to federal records.

Ethics in Government Act

Passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the 1978 act forced political candidates to disclose financial contributions and limited the lobbying activities of former elected officials.

Deregulation

The limiting of regulation by federal agencies. Deregulation of prices in the trucking, airline, and railroad industries had begun under President Carter in the late 1970s, and Reagan expanded it to include cutting back on government protections of consumers, workers, and the environment.

Affirmation Action

Policies established in the 1960s and 1970s by governments, businesses, universities, and other institutions to overcome the effect of the past discrimination against specific groups such as racial and ethic minorities and women. Measures to ensure equal opportunity include setting goals for the administration, hiring, and promotion of minorities; considering minorities states when allocating resources; and actively encouraging victims of past discrimination apply for jobs and other resources

Bakke v. University of California

1978 Supreme Court ruling that limited affirmative action by rejecting a quota system.

Equal Rights Amendment

Constitutional amendment passed by Congress in 1972 that would require equal treatment of men and women under federal and state law. Facing fierce opposition from the New Right and the Republican party, this was defeated as time ran out for state ratification in 1982.

STOP ERA

An organization founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972 to fight the Equal Rights Amendment.

Roe v. Wade

The 1973 Supreme Court ruling that the Constitution protects the right to abortion, which states cannot prohibit in the early stages of pregnancy. The decision galvanized social conservatives and made abortion a controversial policy issue for decades to come.

Evangelicalism

The trend in Protestant Christianity that stresses salvation through conversion, repentance of sin, and adherence to scripture; it also stresses the importance of preaching over ritual.

Great Society

President Lyndon B. Johnson's domestic program, which included civil rights legislation, antipoverty programs, government subsidy of medical care, federal aid to education, consumer protection, and aid to the arts and humanities.

Economic Opportunity Act

1964 act which created a series of programs, including Head Start to prepare disadvantaged preschoolers for kindergarten and the Job Corps and Upward Bound to provide young people with training and employment, aimed at alleviating poverty and spurring economic growth in impoverished areas.

Medicare and Medicaid

a health plan for the poor passed in 1965 and paid for by general tax revenues and administered by the states; a health plan for the elderly passed in 1965 and funded by a surcharge on Social Security payroll taxes

Equal Pay Act

law passed in 1963 that established the principle of equal pay for equal work. Trade-union women were especially critical in pushing for, and winning, congressional passage of the law.

The Feminine Mystique

The title of an influential book written in 1963 by Betty Friedan critiquing the ideal whereby women were encouraged to confine themselves to roles within the domestic sphere.

National Organization for Women

Women's civil rights organization formed in 1966. Initially, it focused on eliminating gender discrimination in public institutions and the workplace, but by the 1970s it also embraced many of the issues raised by more radical feminists.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Resolution passed by Congress in 1964 in the wake of a naval confrontation in this area between the United States and North Vietnam. It gave the president virtually unlimited authority in conducting the Vietnam War. The Senate terminated the resolution in 1971 following outrage over the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.

Students for a Democratic Society

An organization for social change founded by college students in 1960.

Operation Rolling Thunder

Massive bombing campaign against North Vietnam authorized by President Johnson in 1965; against expectations, it ended up hardening the will of the North Vietnamese to continue fighting.

Port Huron Statement

A 1962 manifesto by Students for a Democratic Society from its first national convention in Port Huron, Michigan, expressing students' disillusionment with the nation's consumer culture and the gulf between rich and poor, as well as a rejection of Cold War foreign policy, including the war in Vietnam.

New Left

A term applied to radical students of the 1960s and 1970s, distinguishing their activism from the Old Left — the communists and socialists of the 1930s and 1940s who tended to focus on economic and labor questions rather than cultural issues.

Young Americans for Freedom

The largest student political organization in the country, whose conservative members defended free enterprise and supported the war in Vietnam.

Counterculture

A culture embracing values or lifestyles opposing those of the mainstream culture. Became synonymous with hippies, people who opposed and rejected conventional standards of society and advocated extreme liberalism in their sociopolitical attitudes and lifestyles.

Tet Offensive

Major campaign of attacks launched throughout South Vietnam in January 1968 by the North Vietnamese and Vietcong. A major turning point in the war, it exposed the credibility gap between official statements and the war's reality, and it shook Americans' confidence in the government.

1968 Democratic National Convention

A convention held in Chicago during which numerous antiwar demonstrators were tear-gassed and clubbed by police. Inside the convention hall, the delegates were bitterly divided over Vietnam.

Women's Liberation

A new brand of feminism in the 1960s that attracted primarily younger, college-educated women fresh from the New Left, antiwar, and civil rights movements who sought to end to the denigration and exploitation of women.

Title IX

A law passed by Congress in 1972 that broadened the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include educational institutions, prohibiting colleges and universities that received federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sex. By requiring comparable funding for sports programs, this made women's athletics a real presence on college campuses.

Stonewall Inn

A gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village that was raided by police in 1969; the ensuing two-day riot contributed to the rapid rise of gay liberation movement.

Silent Majority

Term used by Nixon in a 1969 speech to describe those who supported his positions but did not publicly assert their voices, in contrast to those involved in the antiwar, civil rights, and women's movements.

Vietnamization

A new U.S. policy, devised under President Nixon in the early 1970s, of delegating the ground fighting to the South Vietnamese in the Vietnam War. American troop levels dropped and American casualties dropped correspondingly, but the killing in Vietnam continued.

My Lai Massacre

Vietnamese village where U.S troops executed nearly five hundred people in 1968, including a large number of women and children

Detente

The easing of conflict between US and the Soviet Union during the Nixon administration, which was achieved by focusing on issues of common concern, such as arms control and trade.

Warren Court

The Supreme Court which expanded the Constitution's promise of equality and civil rights. It issued landmark decisions in the areas of civil rights, criminal rights, reproductive freedom, and separation of church and state.

George Wallace

He was the governor of Alabama and in 1968 and ran as the American Independent Party candidate in the presidential election. A right- wing racist, he appealed to the people's fear of big government and made a good showing.

SALT I

Treaty signed between the USSR and the US limiting the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles each side could stockpile and the number of antimissile launching pads.