Key Concepts in 20th Century U.S. History and Politics

Isolationism

avoiding foreign wars and alliances.

Zimmermann Telegram

Germany secretly asked Mexico to attack U.S.

Wilson's 14 Points

Wilson's post-WWI peace plan including the League of Nations.

Red Scare (1919)

fear of communist revolution spreading to U.S. after Russia's revolution.

Harlem Renaissance

African American artistic and cultural movement in 1920s New York.

Nativism

belief that native-born Americans are superior to immigrants.

Prohibition

18th Amendment banned alcohol 1920.

Rugged Individualism

Hoover's belief government shouldn't provide direct relief, people solve their own problems.

New Deal

FDR's relief, recovery, and reform programs.

FDIC

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, insures your bank deposits.

Social Security Act (1935)

federal retirement income for elderly, insurance for unemployed.

Dust Bowl

ecological disaster in Great Plains from drought plus over-farming.

Bonus Army

WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding early pay.

Lend-Lease Act (1941)

U.S. supplied weapons to Allied nations before entering the war.

Executive Order 9066

authorized Japanese American internment.

Double V Campaign

Black Americans demanded victory against fascism abroad AND racism at home.

Manhattan Project

secret U.S. program to develop atomic bomb.

Holocaust

Nazi Germany's murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others.

Containment

U.S. strategy to stop communism from spreading to new countries.

Truman Doctrine (1947)

U.S. will support any country resisting communist takeover, militarily if needed.

Marshall Plan (1948)

U.S. gives $13 billion to rebuild Western Europe.

NATO

military alliance where an attack on one member is an attack on all.

McCarthyism

Senator McCarthy's campaign accusing government officials of being communists, usually with no evidence.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

both sides have enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other, so neither attacks first.

Détente

Nixon's policy of reducing Cold War tensions through diplomacy with China and USSR.

Military-Industrial Complex

Eisenhower's term for the dangerous alliance between defense contractors and the military that profits from permanent war.

Jim Crow Laws

state laws enforcing racial segregation in the South after Reconstruction.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Supreme Court unanimously overturns school segregation.

Nonviolent Direct Action

peaceful protest designed to provoke violent response, generating media coverage and political pressure.

Civil Rights Act (1964)

bans segregation in public places and discrimination in employment.

Voting Rights Act (1965)

banned literacy tests and other barriers to Black voting.

Great Society

LBJ's domestic programs including Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, federal education funding.

Black Power

movement emphasizing Black pride, self-determination, and community control rather than integration.

Supply-Side Economics / Reaganomics

cut taxes for wealthy and corporations, deregulate industry, theory that wealth trickles down.

Iran-Contra Affair (1986)

Reagan's administration secretly sold weapons to Iran and illegally funded Nicaraguan rebels, bypassing Congress.

NAFTA (1994)

eliminated trade tariffs between U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

PATRIOT Act (2001)

dramatically expanded government surveillance after 9/11.

Globalization

increasing economic and cultural interconnection of nations through trade and technology.

Great Recession (2008)

worst economic crisis since the Depression, caused by housing bubble collapse.

WMDs / Iraq War

Bush administration claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as justification for 2003 invasion.