U.S. History Review: WWI to the Late 20th Century

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering major events and figures in U.S. history from WWI through the Cold War and late 20th-century presidencies.

Zimmerman Telegram

A 1917 intercepted message in which Germany promised Mexico U.S. territory if they joined the Central Powers.

Woodrow Wilson

The U.S. President during World War I who campaigned on the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War" and designed the "14 Points" to end the conflict.

19th Amendment

Ratified in $1920$, it granted women the right to vote, largely influenced by their critical contributions to the wartime workforce.

War Industries Board (WIB)

A government agency that managed the wartime economy by setting production quotas and allocating raw materials.

Committee on Public Information (CPI)

Led by George Creel, this organization used propaganda, such as the "Four-Minute Men," to drum up public support for the war.

Great Migration

The mass movement of roughly $1.6\text{ million}$ African Americans from the rural South to Northern and Midwestern cities between $1916$ and $1919$ to escape Jim Crow laws and fill factory jobs.

Schenck v. United States

A unanimous Supreme Court ruling that upheld the Espionage Act of $1917$, stating speech could be restricted if it created a "clear and present danger."

Versailles Treaty

The peace agreement that forced Germany to pay $\$33\text{ billion}$ in reparations, accept the "War Guilt Clause," and created the League of Nations.

Armistice

An agreement to stop fighting; the World War I armistice began on November $11$, $1918$ (the $11\text{th}$ hour of the $11\text{th}$ day of the $11\text{th}$ month).

Liberty Bonds and Victory Bonds

A method used to fund about $\frac{2}{3}$ of the U.S. war effort through public sales.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

The agreement that allowed Russia to exit World War I following the internal collapse caused by the Bolshevik Revolution in $1917$.

Flapper

A young woman in the $1920\text{s}$ who challenged gender norms by wearing short skirts, bobbing her hair, and listening to jazz.

Teapot Dome Scandal

A corruption scandal during the Harding administration where Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall accepted bribes to lease federal oil reserves to private companies.

Harlem Renaissance

An African American cultural and artistic movement in the $1920\text{s}$ that celebrated Black identity through figures like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway

Authors of the "Lost Generation" who were disillusioned by WWI; Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby and Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms.

First Red Scare

A period of intense fear of a communist revolution in the U.S. that led to the Palmer Raids and the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.

National Origins Act

A $1924$ law that established a quota system capping immigration at $2\%$ of the population of that nationality living in the U.S. as of $1890$, specifically targeting Southern/Eastern Europeans.

Black Tuesday

October $29$, $1929$, the day stock prices completely collapsed, marking the start of the Great Depression.

Al Capone

A notorious Chicago gangster who built a wealth through a bootlegging network during Prohibition.

18th Amendment

Ratified in $1919$, it banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol and was enforced by the Volstead Act.

New Deal

Franklin Roosevelt's plan to lift America out of the Depression using the "$3\text{ Rs}$": Relief, Recovery, and Reform.

Oakie

A derogatory term for migrant workers from Dust Bowl states like Oklahoma who traveled to California seeking work.

Court Packing

Refers to the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of $1937$, Roosevelt’s failed attempt to add up to six new justices to the Supreme Court.

Margin Buying

The practice of purchasing stock by paying a small percentage down (often $10\%$) and borrowing the rest (often $90\%$) from a broker.

Hoovervilles

Homeless villages named sarcastically after President Herbert Hoover, who was blamed for the Great Depression.

Bonus Army

A group of roughly $43,000$ WWI veterans who marched on Washington in $1932$ to demand early payment of wartime bonus certificates.

Fireside Chat

Evening radio addresses used by Franklin D. Roosevelt to explain policies and restore public confidence.

AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act)

A New Deal program that paid farmers subsidies to reduce crop production in order to raise prices.

CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps)

A relief program that employed young men for environmental projects like planting trees and building parks.

WPA (Works Progress Administration)

A massive agency that built public infrastructure and funded arts, drama, and literacy projects during the Depression.

Brain Trust

A group of expert advisers, including academics and economists, who helped FDR design the New Deal policies.

Appeasement

The diplomatic policy of making concessions to an aggressive power to avoid conflict, demonstrated at the $1938$ Munich Conference.

D-Day (Operation Overlord)

The Normandy invasion that opened a second major front in Europe and began the Allied liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control.

Manhattan Project

The top-secret U.S. government program that successfully developed the world's first atomic bombs.

Pearl Harbor

The U.S. naval base in Hawaii attacked by Japanese forces on December $7$, $1941$, leading to U.S. entry into WWII.

Neutrality Acts

Laws passed in the $1930\text{s}$ that banned the sale of weapons or loans to nations at war to maintain U.S. isolationism.

Executive Order 9066

The authorization for the forced removal and relocation of over $120,000$ Japanese Americans into internment camps.

Tuskegee Airmen

The first African American military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps who helped pave the way for military desegregation.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

An investigative committee designed to uncover citizens with communist ties, famous for blacklisting Hollywood figures.

Iron Curtain

A term popularized by Winston Churchill in $1946$ describing the barrier between the Soviet Union's satellite nations and Western Europe.

Highway Act of 1956

Signed by President Eisenhower, it authorized $\$25\text{ billion}$ to build a $41,000\text{-mile}$ Interstate Highway System.

Containment

The early Cold War policy of stopping the global spread of communism without directly attacking existing communist states.

Brinkmanship

The aggressive policy of being willing to go to the edge of nuclear war to force an adversary to back down.

Detente

The policy of easing Cold War tensions through diplomacy, associated with the $1970\text{s}$.

Cuban Missile Crisis

A $13\text{-day}$ standoff in October $1962$ triggered by Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

McCarthyism

A period of intense anti-communist paranoia in the early $1950\text{s}$ characterized by Joseph McCarthy's unsubstantiated accusations of treason.

Fall of the Berlin Wall

The event in November $1989$ that symbolized the end of the Cold War.

Harry S. Truman

President who ordered the use of the atomic bomb and ended the war in Korea.

Ronald Reagan

President who aimed to develop the SDI system and saw the eventual end of the Cold War.

Lyndon B. Johnson

President who declared a "War on Poverty" through his Great Society Program.

Richard Nixon

The first president to visit China and the Soviet Union, who later resigned due to the Watergate Scandal.

Jimmy Carter

U.S. President during the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Gerald Ford

The only president never elected to the presidency or vice presidency; he pardoned Richard Nixon.

Bill Clinton

President who signed NAFTA and presided over a major $1990\text{s}$ economic boom before being impeached.