Unit 4 Vocab US History

Great Depression

A period, lasting from 1929 to 1940, in which the U.S. economy was in severe decline and millions of Americans were unemployed

Black Tuesday

a name given to October 29,1929, whne stock prices fell sharply

Buying on the Margin

The purchasing if stocks by paying only a small percentage of the price and borrowing the rest

Shantytown

a neighborhood in which people live in makeshift shacks

Dust Bowl

The region, including Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, that was made worthless for farming by drought and dust storms during the 1930s

New Deal

President FDR's program to alleviate the problems of the Great Depression, focusign in relief for the needy, economic recovery, and financial reform

Civilian Corporation Camps (CCC)

An agency, established as part of the New Deal, that put young unemployed men to work building roads, developing parks, planting trees, and helping in erosion-control and flood-control projects

World war II

a global conflict fought primarily between 1939 and 1945, pitting the Allied powers against Axis powers, resulting in the death of an estimated 60-80 million people

Totalitarian

a characteristic of a political system in which the government exercises complete contorl over its citizens' lives

Fascism

a political philosophy that advocates a strong, centralized, nationalistic government leaded by a powerful dictator

Pearl Harbor

a harbor in the island of Oahu, Hawaii, and the location of a U.S. Navy base that was the site of a surpriseattack by the Imperial Japanese NAvy on December 7, 1941 leading to the United States' entry into World War II

Lend Lease Act

a law, passed on 1941, that allowed the U.S. to ship arms and other supplies, without immediate payment, to nations fighting the Axis powers

Island Hopping

The Allied strategy in the Pacific theater during the World War II of capturing and securing selected islands and using them as bases to advance closer to Japan while avoiding the heaviest concentrations of enemy forces

Japanese American Internment camps

an organization that pushed the U.S. government to compensate Japanese Americans for property they had lost when they were interned durign World War II

D-Day

a named given to June 6, 1944-- the day on which the Allies launched an invasion of the European mainland during World War II

Victory Gardens

vegetable gardens planted durign the world wars in order to ensure and adequate food supply for civilians and troops

Atomic Bomb

a bomb whose violent explosive power is due to the sudden realease of energy resulting from the splitting of nuclei of a heavy chemical element by nuetrons

Holocaust

a genocide-- of Jews and other groups in Europe by Nazis before and during World War II

Marshall Plan

the program, proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall in 1947, under which the United States supplied economic aid to European nations to help them rebuild after World War II

Berlin Air Lift

a 327-day operation in which U.S. and British planes flew food and supplies into West Berlin after the Soviets blockaded the city in 1948

Iron Curtain

a phrase used by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe an imaginary line that separated Communist countries in the Soviet bloc of Eastern Europe from countries in Western Europe

Truman Doctrine

A U.S. policy, announced by President Harry S. Truman in 1947, of providing economic and military aid to free mations threatened by internal or external opponents

NATO

a military alliance of 32 member states in Europe and North America, formed in 1949 to promote collective security and deter potential threats

Warsaw Pact

a military alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc countries as a counterbalance to Nato, solidifying the Cold War division of Europe