Final review guide History 1200

What policy did the U.S. pursue toward the USSR and China in the early 1970s?

Detente

What provoked the 1973–74 Arab oil embargo?

U.S. support for Israel

What was the outcome of the 1979 Iranian Revolution for U.S.–Iran relations?

An anti-American regime seized power

What symbolic event in 1989 marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War in Europe

The fall of the Berlin Wall

Which major geopolitical collapse occurred in 1991?

The breakup of the Soviet Union

How did the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 differ from events in Eastern Europe?

Chinese Communist Party violently suppressed protests

What was the Gulf War (1990–91)?

U.S. led international coalition expelled Saddam Hussein

What prompted the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003)?

The September 11 attacks

What broader military campaign did the Bush administration launch after 9/11?

War on Terror

Where did the U.S. detain—and sometimes torture—suspected terrorists?

Guantanamo bay detention camp

What significant anti-terrorist action did U.S. forces carry out in 2011?

killed Osama bin Laden

When did the U.S. first withdraw troops from Iraq, and why did they return?

2011 and ISIS

What landmark health-care reform did President Obama sign in 2010?

Obamacare

What triggered the 2007–08 financial crisis and Great Recession?

The collapse of a housing-price bubble and ensuing banking failures

What natural disaster devastated New Orleans in 2005?

Hurricane Katrina

What controversy decided the 2000 presidential election?

The Florida recount fight, ultimately settled by the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore

When was climate change science well-established, and who championed U.S. action?

the late 1980s/early 1990s

What fueled the U.S. economic boom of the 1990s?

Rapid internet growth and a surge of web-based businesses

What media transformation began in the 1980s and ’90s?

Fragmentation into niche outlets, including the rise of conservative talk radio (Rush Limbaugh) and Fox News

When did the HIV/AIDS epidemic first come to public attention in the U.S., and which community was initially hardest hit?

1981 gay men

Which campaign against drug use escalated under Reagan?

War on drugs

What were the hallmarks of Reagan’s domestic policy?

Large tax cuts, pro-business deregulation, military spending hikes, and runaway deficits

What economic shift intensified after the 1970s?

Rising income and wealth inequality.

What trend in U.S. manufacturing began in the 1970s, leading to widespread job losses?

Deindustrialization of steel, automotive, and other heavy industries

What term describes the 1970s combination of economic stagnation and high inflation?

Stagflation

What crisis (1973–74) was triggered by U.S. support for Israel?

The Arab oil embargo

Which proposed constitutional amendment was defeated in the 1970s by Phyllis Schlafly?

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

What scandal (1972–74) led to President Nixon’s resignation?

Watergate

Who served as U.S. President from 1945 to 1953, overseeing the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War?

Harry S. Truman

Which president (1953–1961) warned of the “military-industrial complex” in his farewell address?

Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Who was the first Catholic elected U.S. President, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963?

John F. Kennedy

Which president (1963–1969) launched the “Great Society” domestic agenda?

Lyndon B. Johnson.

Who was President from 1969 until his resignation in 1974 over the Watergate scandal?

Richard Nixon

Which Wisconsin senator became synonymous with baseless anti-communist accusations in the early 1950s?

Joseph McCarthy

Who led the FBI from 1924 (as BOI director) and then 1935–1972, overseeing domestic surveillance abuses?

J. Edgar Hoover

Which Chief Justice (1953–1969) presided over landmark Warren Court rulings expanding civil liberties?

Earl Warren

Which activist, affiliated with the Nation of Islam until 1964, advocated a more militant approach to Black liberation?

Malcom X

Who led the United Farm Workers and championed Mexican-American labor rights?

Cesar Chavez

Which author’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, ignited the second-wave feminist movement?

Betty Friedan

Who wrote Silent Spring (1962), raising alarm about DDT and helping launch the modern environmental movement?

Rachel Carson

What 1944 law provided returning WWII veterans with college tuition and home-loan benefits?

The GI Bill

Which 1946 Act created the Council of Economic Advisors to guide U.S. economic policy?

The Employment Act

What 1947 court ruling desegregated schools in Southern California?

Mendez v. Westminster

Which 1954 Supreme Court decision overturned “separate but equal” in public schooling?

Brown v. Board of Education

What 1958 Act boosted federal funding for science and math education in response to Sputnik?

The National Defense Education Act

Name three landmark mid-1960s civil-rights laws and amendments that ended legal segregation and voting barriers

Civil Rights Act (1964), 24th Amendment (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965)

What 1965 law abolished national-origin quotas and diversified U.S. immigration?

The Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Celler)

Which LBJ “Great Society” programs created government health coverage for the elderly and poor?

Medicare and Medicaid

Which Supreme Court case (1966) established the requirement that police inform suspects of their rights?

Miranda v. Arizona

Which 1965 decision protected the right to use birth control, laying groundwork for privacy rights?

Griswold v. Connecticut

Which 1967 ruling legalized interracial marriage nationwide?

Loving v. Virginia

Which 1973 decision (though after Warren’s retirement) affirmed a woman’s right to choose abortion?

Roe v. Wade

What 1948 action integrated the U.S. Armed Forces?

President Truman’s executive order desegregating the military

Which 1948 splinter group opposed Truman’s civil-rights agenda?

The Dixiecrats (States’ Rights Democrats)

What 1956 federal project connected U.S. cities and suburbs and spurred suburban growth?

The Interstate Highway System

What 1970 tragedy saw National Guardsmen kill four protesting students at Kent State University?

The Kent State shootings

What 1971 leak exposed government deception about the Vietnam War?

The Pentagon Papers

What ideological rivalry dominated U.S.–Soviet relations from 1945 to 1991?

The Cold War

Who declared in 1946 that an “iron curtain” had fallen across Europe?

Winston Churchill

Which 1949 event brought the People’s Republic of China into the Soviet sphere?

The Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War

What conflict (1950–1953) pitted U.S. and UN forces against North Korea and its communist backers?

The Korean War

Which 1962 confrontation brought the U.S. and USSR to the brink of nuclear war?

The Cuban Missile Crisis

What 1964 Congressional resolution authorized large-scale U.S. military engagement in Vietnam?

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Who was president of the United States when the Great Depression began in 1929?

Herbert Hoover

Which president served four terms—1933 to 1944—implementing the New Deal?

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Who succeeded FDR in 1944 and served through 1953?

Harry S. Truman

Which aviator led the isolationist “America First” movement before WWII?

Charles Lindbergh

Who organized a March on Washington threat in 1941 to press for fair employment, prompting Executive Order 8802?

Philip Randolph

Which three totalitarian leaders headed the Axis powers or the USSR during WWII?

Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Josef Stalin

Which 1932 protest by WWI veterans symbolized Depression-era desperation?

The Bonus Army

What labor federation, founded in the 1930s, pioneered the sit-down strike and admitted Black workers?

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

What secret U.S. program (1942–45) developed the atomic bomb?

The Manhattan Project

Which 1931 trial exposed Jim Crow injustice in Alabama?

The Scottsboro Boys trial

What 1933 act let FDR declare a “bank holiday” and stabilize U.S. banks?

The Emergency Banking Act

Which 1935 law created old-age pensions and welfare benefits

The Social Security Act

What 1935 law guaranteed workers the right to unionize and bargain collectively?

The Wagner Act

What was FDR’s 1937 proposal to add Supreme Court justices called?

Court-Packing

Which 1941 order banned racial discrimination in defense industries?

Executive Order 8802

What 1942 order authorized the internment of Japanese Americans?

Executive Order 9066

What term describes the 1920s gap between rich urban prosperity and rural poverty?

Uneven prosperity

What massive economic collapse lasted roughly from 1929 until WWII?

The Great Depression

What phenomenon—when everyone rushes to withdraw cash—toppled many banks early in the Depression?

A bank run

What nickname was given to shantytown camps of the unemployed?

Hoovervilles

What coalition of labor, urban, and minority voters kept FDR—and then Democrats—dominant in national elections?

The New Deal coalition

What migration of African Americans from the Jim Crow South to Northern and Western cities accelerated during WWII?

The Great Migration

What discriminatory Home Owners’ Loan Corporation practice denied mortgages in minority neighborhoods?

Redlining

What 1942 program brought in Mexican agricultural laborers as temporary guest workers?

The Bracero Program

What 1943 Southern California conflict targeted Mexican-American youths?

The Zoot Suit Riots

What wartime mobilization effort ended the Depression by converting factories to defense production?

U.S. industrial mobilization during WWII