US History and Global Conflicts Flashcards

Vocabulary practice cards based on key historical terms, global events, and significant figures from the Jazz Age to the modern era as specified in lecture notes.

Jazz Age

A period in the $1920s$ characterized by the popularity of jazz music and significant cultural and social changes in the United States.

Harlem Renaissance

An intellectual and cultural revival of African American art, literature, and music centered in Harlem during the $1920s$ and $1930s$.

Teapot Dome Scandal

A bribery scandal involving the secret leasing of federal oil reserves by Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall during the Harding administration.

Ford Model T

An automobile produced by the Ford Motor Company from $1908$ to $1927$, regareded as the first affordable car for the middle class.

Nativism

A policy or belief that favors the interests of established inhabitants over those of immigrants.

Birth of a Nation (film)

A highly controversial $1915$ silent film that portrayed the Ku Klux Klan as a heroic force.

Return to Normalcy

The campaign theme of Warren G. Harding in the election of $1920$, referring to a return to the way of life before World War I.

Speculation

The practice of making high-risk investments in the stock market in hopes of making a quick profit, which contributed to the stock market crash.

Black Tuesday

October $29, 1929$, the day the stock market crashed, signaling the start of the Great Depression.

Dust Bowl

A period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American prairies during the $1930s$.

Grapes of Wrath

A novel by John Steinbeck that depicts the hardships of an Oklahoma family during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.

Fireside Chats

A series of evening radio addresses given by FDR to explain his policies to the American public in an informal way.

Emergency Banking Act

An act passed in $1933$ that allowed the treasury to reopen banks that were found to be solvent after the national bank holiday.

New Deal (alphabet soup agencies)

A series of programs and agencies, known by their acronyms, created by FDR to provide relief, recovery, and reform during the Great Depression.

Pearl harbor

A surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl harbor, Hawaii Territory, on December $7, 1941$.

D-Day

June $6, 1944$, the date of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, during World War II.

Conscientious Objectors

Individuals who refuse to perform military service on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion.

Double V Campaign

A slogan and drive to promote the fight for democracy in overseas campaigns and at the home front for African Americans during World War II.

Executive Order 9066

A presidential order signed by FDR that authorized the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II.

Potsdam Conference

A meeting held in $1945$ where the leaders of the Allies established the postwar order and issued a declaration demanding the unconditional surrender of Japan.

Manhattan Project

A research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Two Italian-born anarchists who were convicted of robbery and murder in $1920$ and executed in $1927$ despite widespread protests.

Klaus Fuchs

A German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and after World War II.

Korean War

A conflict between North and South Korea from $1950$ to $1953$ that became a prominent proxy war of the Cold War.

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an intergovernmental military alliance between North American and European countries established in $1949$.

Bay of Pigs

A failed military invasion of Cuba in $1961$ undertaken by a CIA-sponsored paramilitary group to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Containment

A geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism.

Domino Theory

The theory that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect.

Iron Curtain

A term popularized by Winston Churchill to describe the political, military, and ideological barrier erected by the Soviet Union to isolate itself and its satellite states from the West.

Marshall Plan

An American initiative passed in $1948$ to provide foreign aid to Western Europe to help rebuild after the devastation of World War II.

Cuban Missile Crisis

A $13$-day confrontation in $1962$ between the U.S. and the Soviet Union initiated by Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba.

Dien Bien Phu

The climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that resulted in a French defeat and their withdrawal from Vietnam in $1954$.

Gulf of Tonkin Incident

An international confrontation that led to the U.S. engaging more directly in the Vietnam War through the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

My Lai Massacre

The mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops in March $1968$, which increased domestic opposition to the Vietnam War.

Vietcong

The communist guerrilla force in South Vietnam that fought against the South Vietnamese government and United States forces.

Ho Chi Minh Trail

A logistical system that ran from North Vietnam to South Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia to provide support to the Vietcong and NLF.

Vietnamization

The U.S. policy under Richard Nixon of withdrawing its troops and transferring the responsibility and direction of the war effort to the government of South Vietnam.

Pentagon Papers

A top-secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from $1945$ to $1967$, which was leaked to the press in $1971$.

Little Rock Nine

A group of nine African American students who enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in $1957$, leading to a crisis in which federal troops were called for their protection.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

A civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating from $1955$ to $1956$.

Freedom Riders

Civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern U.S. in $1961$ to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings that ruled segregated buses unconstitutional.

Kim Il Sung

The first leader of North Korea, who ruled from its establishment in $1948$ until his death in $1994$.

Lee Harvey Oswald

The former U.S. Marine who was accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy on November $22, 1963$.

Shirley Chisolm

The first African American woman elected to the United States Congress and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

Bernadine Dohrn

A leader of the radical left-wing militant organization Weather Underground in the late $1960s$ and $1970s$.

Iranian Hostage Crisis

A diplomatic standoff between the United States and Iran in which $52$ American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for $444$ days from $1979$ to $1981$.

Reagonomics

The neoliberal economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the $1980s$, focusing on supply-side economics and tax cuts.

Vietnam Syndrome

A term used to describe the perceived domestic public aversion to American overseas military interventions following the Vietnam War.

Iran Contra Scandal

A political scandal in the U.S. involving the secret sale of weapons to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua, despite a congressional ban on such funding.

NAFTA

The North American Free Trade Agreement, an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that created a trilateral trade bloc in North America.

Contract with America

A legislative agenda advocated for by the Republican Party during the $1994$ Congressional election campaign.

Kyoto Protocol

An international treaty adopted in $1997$ that committed state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions based on the scientific consensus on global warming.

Benghazi Attack (2012)

A coordinated attack against two U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, by members of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia on September $11, 2012$.

WTO/Globalization

The World Trade Organization and the process of increasing economic integration and interdependence among countries across the world.

Jonestown

The informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project led by Jim Jones in Guyana, where a mass murder-suicide occurred in $1978$.

WMDs

Weapons of Mass Destruction, often cited as the justification for the $2003$ invasion of Iraq by the United States and Allied forces.

Collin Powell

The first African American Secretary of State and a retired four-star general in the United States Army who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.