Studied by 91 people
Yalta conference
Meeting of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin in February 1945 at an old tsarist resort on the Black Sea, where the Big Three leaders laid the foundations for the postwar division of power in Europe, including a divided Germany and territorial concessions to the Soviet Union.
Cold War
The forty-five-year-long diplomatic tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that divided much of the world into polarized camps, capitalist against communist. Most of the international conflicts during that period, particularly in the developing world, can be traced to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Bretton Woods Conference
Meeting of Western allies to establish a postwar international economic order to avoid crises like the one that spawned World War II. Led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, designed to regulate currency levels and provide aid to underdeveloped countries.
United Nations (U.N.)
International body formed in 1945 to bring nations into dialogue in hopes of preventing further world wars. Much like the former League of Nations in ambition, the U.N. was more realistic in recognizing the authority of the Big Five powers in keeping peace in the world. Thus, it guaranteed veto power to all permanent members of its Security Council—Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
Nuremberg war crimes trial
Highly publicized proceedings against former Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity in postwar Germany. The trials led to several executions and long prison sentences.
Berlin airlift
Year-long mission of flying food and supplies to blockaded West Berliners, whom the Soviet Union cut off from access to the West in the first major crisis of the Cold War.
containment doctrine
America’s strategy against the Soviet Union based on ideas of George Kennan. The doctrine declared that the Soviet Union and communism were inherently expansionist and had to be stopped from spreading through both military and political pressure. Containment guided American foreign policy throughout most of the Cold War.
Truman Doctrine
President Truman’s universal pledge of support for any people fighting any communist or communist-inspired threat. Truman presented the doctrine to Congress in 1947 in support of his request for $400 million to defend Greece and Turkey against Soviet-backed insurgencies.
Marshall Plan
Massive transfer of aid money to help rebuild postwar Western Europe, intended to bolster capitalist and democratic governments and prevent domestic communist groups from riding poverty and misery to power. The plan was first announced by Secretary of State George Marshall at Harvard’s commencement in June 1947.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Military alliance of Western European powers and the United States and Canada established in 1949 to defend against the common threat from the Soviet Union, marking a giant stride forward for European unity and American internationalism.
National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (NSC-68)
National Security Council recommendation to quadruple defense spending and rapidly expand peacetime armed forces to address Cold War tensions. It reflected a new militarization of American foreign policy, but the huge costs of rearmament were not expected to interfere with what seemed like the limitless possibilities of postwar prosperity.
Korean War
First “hot war” of the Cold War. It began when the Soviet-backed North Koreans invaded South Korea and U.N. forces, dominated by the United States, launched a counteroffensive. The war ended in stalemate in 1953.
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
Investigatory body established in 1938 to root out “subversion.” Sought to expose communist influence in American government and society, in particular through the trial of Alger Hiss.
McCarthyism
A brand of vitriolic, fear-mongering anti-communism associated with the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the early 1950s, Senator McCarthy used his position in Congress to baselessly accuse high-ranking government officials and other Americans of conspiracy with communism. The term named after him refers to the dangerous forces of unfairness and fear wrought by anticommunist paranoia.
Army-McCarthy hearings
Congressional hearings called by Senator Joseph McCarthy to accuse members of the army of communist ties. In this widely televised spectacle, McCarthy finally went too far for public approval. The hearings exposed the senator’s extremism and led to his eventual disgrace.
Executive Order 9981
Order issued by President Truman to desegregate the armed forces. The president’s action resulted from a combination of pressure from civil rights advocates, election-year political calculations, and the new geopolitical context of the Cold War.
Taft-Hartley Act
Republican-promoted, antiunion legislation passed over President Truman’s vigorous veto that weakened many of labor’s New Deal gains by banning the closed shop and other strategies that helped unions organize. It also required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath, which purged the union movement of many of its most committed and active organizers.
Operation Dixie
Failed effort by the CIO after World War II to unionize southern workers, especially in textile factories.
Employment Act of 1946
Legislation declaring that the government’s economic policy should aim to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power, as well as to keep inflation low. This general commitment was much shorter on specific targets and rules than its liberal creators had wished. The act created the Council of Economic Advisers to provide the president with data and recommendations to make economic policy.
GI Bill
Known officially as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act and more informally as the GI Bill of Rights, this law helped returning World War II soldiers reintegrate into civilian life by securing loans to buy homes and farms and set up small businesses. It also made tuition and stipends available for them to attend college, as well as job training programs. The act was intended to cushion the blow of 15 million returning servicemen on the employment market and to nurture the postwar economy.
Fair Deal
President Truman’s extensive social program introduced in his 1949 message to Congress. Republicans and southern Democrats kept much of his vision from being enacted, except for raising the minimum wage, providing for more public housing, and extending old-age insurance to many more beneficiaries under the Social Security Act.
Sunbelt
Leviittown
Suburban communities with mass-produced tract houses built in the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas in the 1950s by William Levitt and Sons. Typically inhabited by white middle-class people who fled the cities in search of homes to buy for their growing families.
redlining
Refers to the practice of classifying neighborhoods based on their perceived risk to lenders. (“Red” indicated the highest-risk areas.) While ostensibly based strictly on financial considerations, redlining served as a covert form of racial discrimination that worsened segregation during the postwar period.
baby boom
Demographic explosion from births to returning soldiers and others who had put off starting families during the war. This large generation of new Americans forced the expansion of many institutions such as schools and universities.
Joseph Stalin
(1878-1953) Soviet dictator from Lenin’s death in 1922 until his own death in 1953. He led the Soviet Union through World War II and shaped Soviet policies in the early years of the Cold War. Stalin secured protective "satellite states" in Eastern Europe at the Yalta Conference and pushed Soviet scientists to develop atomic weapons, escalating an arms race with the United States.
Jiang Jieshi
(1887-1975) Leader of the Chinese Nationalists, also known as Chiang Kai-shek. He was defeated by Mao Zedong’s communist revolutionaries in 1949 and was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan, where, with the support of the United States, he became president of the Republic of China.
Alger Hiss
(1904-1996) A prominent ex–New Dealer and a distinguished member of the “eastern establishment” who was accused of being a communist agent in the 1930s; he met his chief accuser before HUAC in August 1948 and denied everything but was caught in embarrassing falsehoods, convicted of perjury in 1950, and sentenced to five years in prison.
George F. Kennan
(1904-2005) American diplomat who authored the "containment doctrine" in 1947, arguing that the Soviet Union was inherently expansionist and had to be stopped, via political and military force, from spreading throughout the world.
George C. Marshall
(1880-1959) Former World War II general who became secretary of state under President Harry Truman. He was the originator of the concept of the Marshall Plan to provide aid to reconstruct Western Europe in 1947.
Joseph McCarthy
(1908-1957) Senator from Wisconsin who rose to infamy by accusing the State Department of employing communists. McCarthy conducted high-profile red-baiting hearings that damaged countless careers before he finally overreached in 1954 when he went after the U.S. Army. Following the Army-McCarthy hearings, he was censured by the Senate and died of alcoholism shortly thereafter.
Reinhold Niebuhr
(1892-1971) A liberal Protestant theologian whose teachings and writings aimed to relate Christian faith to the realities of modern politics. A socialist and pacifist as a young man, he came out of World War II committed to the doctrine of the "just war" and the necessity of resisting dark forces of evil like Hitler and Stalin, while remaining outspoken in defense of progressive social causes.
Benjamin Spock
(1903-1998) Pediatrician and author of The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, which instructed parents on modern child-rearing, replacing traditional means of passing along such knowledge.
1944
Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill)
1944
Bretton Woods economic conference
1945
Spock publishes The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
1945
Yalta conference
1945
United States ends lend-lease to USSR
1945
United Nations established
1945-1946
Nuremberg war crimes trial in Germany
1946
Employment Act creates Council of Economic Advisers
1946
Iran crisis
1946
Kennan's "Long Telegram" lays out "containment doctrine"
1946-1948
Tokyo war crimes trials
1947
Truman Doctrine
1947
Marshall Plan
1947
Taft-Hartley Act
1947
National Security Act creates Department of Defense, National Security Council (NSC), and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
1948
Israel founded; United States recognizes it
1948
"Voice of America" begins radio broadcasts behind iron curtain
1948
Alger Hiss case begins
1948
Truman defeats Dewey for presidency
1948-1949
Berlin blockade
1949
NATO established
1949
Communists defeat Nationalists in China
1949
Soviets explode their first atomic bomb
1950
American economy begins postwar growth
1950
McCarthy red hunt begins
1950
McCarran Internal Security Bill passed by Congress over Truman's veto
1950-1953
Korean War
1951
Truman fires MacArthur
1951
Rosenbergs convicted of treason
1952
United States explodes first hydrogen bomb
1954
Army-McCarthy Hearings
1957
Postwar peak of U.S. birthrate
1973
U.S. birthrate falls below replacement level
