Unit 8 - APUSH

Yalta Conference

Yalta Conference

a. Conference

b. Yalta

c. At this conference FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met at Yalta. Russia agreed to declare war on Japan after the surrender of Germany and in return FDR and Churchill promised the USSR concession in Manchuria and the territories that it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War.

Containment

a. Foreign Policy

b. Worldwide

c. This was the American policy of resisting the further expansion of Soviet communism around the world. It was first implemented during the Truman administration.

The Truman Doctrine

a. Doctrine

b. United States

c. This was President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology. The purpose of this doctrine was to contain the spread of Soviet communism.

Berlin Airlift

a. Airlift

b. Berlin

c. This airlift in 1948 supplied food and fuel to citizens of West Berlin when the Russians closed off land access to Berlin. The Soviets eventually reopened the land access, but this was a tense moment in the Cold War struggle between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.

NATO

a. Organization

b. North America and Western Europe

c. This is an international organization created during the Cold War for collective security. It was later opposed by the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.

Warsaw Pact

a. Pact

b. Eastern Europe

c. This was an alliance between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations for collective security during the Cold War. This was in response to NATO.

"Militant Liberty"

a. Government Operation

b. United States

c. Under the code name "Militant Liberty," national security agencies encouraged Hollywood to produce anti-communist movies. This operation highlights U.S. domestic policy and propaganda during the Cold War.

The Fair Deal

a. Program

b. United States

c. This was an economic extension of the New Deal proposed by Harry Truman that called for higher minimum wage, housing, and full employment. It led only to the Housing Act of 1949 and the Social Security Act of 1950 due to opposition in Congress.

McCarthyism

a. Practice

b. United States

c. This practice was associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy who led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee. This search was almost always based on "unfounded accusations of subversion and treason."

Sputnik

a. Satellite

b. Soviet Union/Space

c. This was the first artificial Earth satellite, it was launched by Moscow in 1957 and sparked U.S. fears of Soviet dominance in technology and outer space. It led to the creation of NASA and the space race.

Kitchen Debate

a. Debate

b. Moscow

c. This was the televised exchange in 1959 between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and American Vice President Richard Nixon. Here, the two leaders sparred over the relative merits of capitalist consumer culture versus Soviet state planning. It was a major event of the Cold War.

Military-Industrial Complex

a. Phrase

b. United States

c. President Dwight D. Eisenhower first coined this phrase when he warned Americans against it in his last State of the Union Address. He feared that the combined lobbying efforts of the armed services and industries that contracted with the military would lead to excessive Congressional spending.

Massive Retaliation

a. Policy

b. United States

c. This was the "new look" defense policy of the Eisenhower administration of the 1950s. This policy relied on threatening "massive retaliation" with nuclear weapons in response to any act of aggression by a potential enemy.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

a. Failed Invasion

b. Cuba

c. This was failed invasion of Cuba in 1961 when a force of 1,200 Cuban exiles, backed by the United States, landed at the Bay of Pigs. Fidel Castro crushed this attempted invasion and later called on the Soviets to reinforce communism on the island.

Cuban Missile Crisis

a. Confrontation

b. The United States and the Soviet Union

c. This was the 1962 confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union over Soviet missiles in Cuba. The Soviet Union backed down from arming Cuba with weapons, but the world came close to nuclear annihilation during this crisis.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

a. Supreme Court Case

b. Washington D.C.

c. This Supreme Court decision unanimously upheld that the racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This case overruled Plessy v. Ferguson's "separate but equal" doctrine and would eventually lead to the desegregation of schools across the South

Sit-ins

a. Act of Protest

b. United States

c. These were acts of protests by black college students that took seats at "whites only" lunch counters and refused to leave until served. In 1960, over 50,000 participated in sit-ins across the South. Their success prompted the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

a. Civil Rights Leader

b. United States

c. He began his career as a civil rights leader with the Birmingham Bus Boycotts. Later he would be amongst the foremost civil rights leaders, always calling for non-violent civil resistance to racial oppression. He was assassinated in 1968.

The March on Washington (1963)

a. Political March

b. Washington, D.C.

c. This was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. Here, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony at the Lincoln Memorial during the march. This march was widely credited as helping lead to the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the National Voting Rights Act (1965).

Civil Rights Act of 1964

a. Act

b. United States

c. President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed this law that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It was the result of the protests of the Civil Rights Movement.

Twenty-Fourth Amendment

a. Constitutional Amendment

b. United States

c. This constitutional amendment declared poll taxes void in federal elections. It was the result of the Civil Rights Movement.

Freedom Summer

a. Political Movement

b. Mississippi

c. This was a project in 1964 to register African-American voters in Mississippi. This led to the murder of three SNCC volunteers in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Malcolm X

a. Civil Rights Leader

b. United States

c. He was a charismatic Black Muslim leader who promoted separatism in the early 1960s. He eventually left the Muslim Brotherhood and was assassinated.

Black Panthers

a. Political Organization

b. United States

c. This was a black political organization that was against peaceful protest and for violence if needed. The organization marked a shift in policy of the black movement, favoring militant ideals rather than peaceful protest.

The Great Society

a. Program

b. United States

c. This was the name of President Johnson's version of the Democratic reform program. In 1965, Congress passed many Great Society measures, including Medicare, civil rights legislation, and federal aid to education.

"The War on Poverty"

a. Program

b. United States

c. This was President Lyndon B. Johnson's program in the 1960s to provide greater social services for the poor and elderly. It eventually ended as the United States focused its resources to fight a war in Vietnam.

The Feminine Mystique

a. Book

b. United States

c. This book was written by Betty Friedan, journalist, and mother of three children. In this book, Friedan described the problems of middle-class American women and the fact that women were being denied equality with men. She believed that women were kept from reaching their full human capacities.

National Organization for Women (NOW)

a. Organization

b. United States

c. Founded in 1966, this organization called for equal employment opportunities and equal pay for women. It also championed the legalization of abortion and the passage of an equal rights amendment to the Constitution.

Women's Liberation

a. Civil Rights Movement

b. United States

c. This was 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. These women sought to end the denigration and exploitation of women.

Equal Rights Amendment

a. Failed Constitutional Amendment

b. United States

c. This was a failed constitutional amendment passed by Congress but never ratified by the states. It would have banned discrimination based on gender.

Roe v. Wade (1973)

a. Supreme Court Case

b. United States

c. In this case, the Court legalized abortion by ruling that state laws could not restrict it during the first three months of pregnancy. The Court based its decision on the Fourth Amendment rights of a person to be secure in their persons. This decision was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.

The Warren Court

a. Era

b. United States

c. This was the era of the Supreme Court when Earl Warren was chief justice. During this period, the Court was noted for its activism in the areas of civil rights and free speech.