APUSH CHAPTER 36

Proposition 13

A successful California state ballot initiative that capped the state's real estate tax at 1 percent of assessed value. The proposition radically reduced average property tax levels, decreasing revenue for the state government and signaling the political power of the "tax revolt," increasingly aligned with conservative politics.

Boll Weevils

Term for conservative Southern Democrats who voted increasingly for Republican issues during the Carter and Reagan administrations.

Supply-Side Economics

Economic theory that underlay Ronald Reagan's tax and spending cuts. Contrary to Keynesianism, __________ declared that government policy should aim to increase the supply of goods and services, rather than the demand for them. It held that lower taxes and decreased regulation would increase productivity by providing increased incentives to work, thus increasing productivity and the tax base.

Strategic Defense Initiative

Reagan administration plan announced in 1983 to create a missile-defense system over American territory to block a nuclear attack. Derided as "Star Wars" by critics, the plan typified Reagan's commitment to vigorous defense spending even as he sought to limit the size of government in domestic matters.

Sandinistas

Leftwing anti-American revolutionaries in Nicaragua who launched a civil war in 1979.

Contras

Anti-Sandinista fighters in the Nicaraguan civil war. The Contras were secretly supplied with American military aid, paid for with money the United States clandestinely made selling arms to Iran.

Glasnost

Meaning "openness," a cornerstone along with perestroika of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's reform movement in the USSR in the 1980s. These policies resulted in greater market liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.

Perestroika

Meaning "restructuring," a cornerstone along with glasnost of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's reform movement in the USSR in the 1980s. These policies resulted in greater market liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

Arms limitation agreement settled by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev after several attempts. The treaty banned all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe and marked a significant thaw in the Cold War.

Iran-Contra Affair

Major political scandal of Ronald Reagan's second term that was revealed in 1986. An illicit arrangement of selling "arms for hostages" with Iran and using money to support the contras in Nicaragua, the scandal deeply damaged Reagan's credibility.

Moral Majority

Political action committee founded by evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell in 1979 to promote traditional Christian values and oppose feminism, abortion, and gay rights. The group was a major linchpin in the resurgent religious right of the 1980s.

Black Monday

October 19, 1987. Date of the largest single-day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average until September 2001. The downturn indicated instability in the booming business culture of the 1980s but did not lead to a serious economic recession.

Operation Desert Storm

U.S.-led multicountry military engagement in January and February of 1991 that drove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army out of neighboring Kuwait. In addition to presaging the longer and more protracted Iraq War of the 2000s, the 1991 war helped undo what some called the "Vietnam Syndrome," a feeling of military uncertainty that plagued many Americans.

American with Disabilities Act

Landmark law signed by President George H. W. Bush that prohibited discrimination against people with physical or mental handicaps. It represented a legislative triumph for champions of equal protections to all.

Ronald Reagan

(1911-2004) Fortieth president of the United States, 1981-1989. A former actor and California governor, he was elected in 1980 with a pronounced conservative mandate to fix the American economy by scaling back taxes and the role of government in business. Ronald Reagan was a staunch Cold Warrior whose massive defense spending added stress to the Soviet Union's military budget and may ultimately have contributed to the end of the Cold War.

Margaret Thatcher

(1925-2013) Conservative prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. As an ideological partner to President Ronald Reagan, _________ enacted economic liberalization reforms and attempted to check the powers of labor unions in Britain. She led a successful British military operation in the Falkland Islands War in 1982.

Mikhail Gorbachev

(1931-2022) Last leader of the Soviet Union. Mikhail Gorbachev assumed control in 1985 and ushered in a period of reforms known as glasnost and perestroika. On four occasions, he met U.S. president Ronald Reagan to negotiate arms reduction treaties and other measures to thaw the Cold War. In 1991, after surviving a failed military coup against him, he dissolved the Soviet Union and disbanded the Communist party.

Saddam Hussein

(1937-2006) Iraqi dictator who led the Ba'ath party in a coup in 1968 and ruled Iraq until the U.S. invasion. He inaugurated hostilities with neighboring Iran in 1980, leading to the protracted and bloody Iran-Iraq War. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, prompting a broad-based military operation led by the United States to liberate the country. After that war, Saddam Hussein retained power under strict sanctions and no-fly demilitarized zones throughout the 1990s, but he stymied international atomic weapons inspectors. After his fall in 2003, he went into hiding but was ultimately captured, tried, and executed by the Iraqi government.

Jerry Falwell

(1933-2007) Christian evangelical reverend and radical right-wing traditionalist. In 1979, Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority, a political action committee dedicated to moral values and in opposition to feminism and gay rights.

Sandra Day O'Connor

(1930-2023) The first female justice on the Supreme Court. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she served as an attorney, jurist, and politician in Arizona before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. On the bench, she was known as a moderate, frequently casting crucial swing votes in important cases. She retired in 2005.

George H.W. Bush

(1924-2018) Forty-first president of the United States, 1989-1993. A former congressman, diplomat, businessman, Republican party chairman, and director the CIA, George H.W. Bush served for eight years as Reagan's vice president before being elected president in 1988. As president, he oversaw the end of the Cold War and the revitalization of the American military in the Persian Gulf War. He faced a severe economic recession late in his term that damaged his popularity, and he lost his bid for reelection in 1992.

Boris Yeltsin

(1931-2007) First president of Russia, who took over as the former Soviet republic became independent in 1991. Boris Yeltsin led the country through the breakdown of the communist economy and introduced important market reforms.

Nelson Mandela

(1918-2013) Anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. After spending twenty-seven years in prison in South Africa, Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994, dramatically signaling the end of racial apartheid in the country.

Manuel Noriega

(1935-2017) Panamanian general and dictator from 1983 to 1989. Manuel Noriega was ousted from power after the U.S. invasion in late 1989, convicted in the United States of drug trafficking, and imprisoned in Miami, Florida.

Clarence Thomas

(1948-) The second black American to serve on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas is a conservative justice who adheres to constitutional interpretation based on the doctrine of originalism. Appointed by George H. W. Bush in 1991 to replace Thurgood Marshall, Clarence Thomas was the subject of controversial nomination proceedings when he was accused of sexual harassment by a former colleague.