U.S. History Since 1877 - Final Exam

Marshall Plan

(officially the European Recovery Program) was an American initiative to aide Western Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II

Dawes Plan

(proposed by the Dawes Committee, chaired by Charles G. Dawes), was an attempt in 1924 to solve the World War I reparations problems, which had bedeviled international politics following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles

Stock Market Crash

A severe downturn in equity prices that occurred in October 1929 in the "Roaring Twenties." This did not occur in one day, but was spread out over a two-week period beginning in mid-October.

Great Depression

An economic slump in North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world that began in 1929 and lasted till about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression experienced by the industrialized western world.

John Maynard Keynes

An author and economist who is well-known for his stance that national governments should attempt to smooth out the effects of expansion and contraction in the business cycle by using fiscal and monetary policy.

Herbert Hoover

The 31st president of the United States (1929-1933), whose term was notably marked by the stock market crash of 1929 and the beginnings of the Great Depression.

Laissez-Faire

Abstention by governments from interfering in the workings of the free market.

Bonus Marchers

An assemblage of some 43,000 -- 17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups -- who gathered in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1932 to demand cash payment reception of their service certificates.

Consumer Capitalism

A theoretical economic and social political condition in which consumer demand is manipulated, in a deliberate and coordinated way, on a very large scale, through mass-marketing techniques, to the advantage of sellers.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

A Democratic politician who became the 32nd United States president (1933-1945), and the only one to be elected four times.

New Deal

A group of government programs and policies established under Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s designed to improve conditions for persons suffering in the Great Depression.

Emergency Banking Relief Act

(1933) a bill passed during the administration of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt in reaction to the financially adverse conditions of the Great Depression in an attempt to stabilize the banking system.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

An independent agency of the U.S. federal government that preserves public confidence in the baking system by insuring deposits.

Public Works Administration (PWA)

Part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large scale public works construction agency in the U.S. headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression.

Tennessee Valley Authority (TWA)

A federally owned corporation in the U.S. created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression.

Supreme Court "Packing"

An unsuccessful attempt by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937 to appoint up to six additional justices to the Supreme Court, which had invalidated a number of his New Deal laws.

Dust Bowl

An area of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Northern Texas affected by severe soil erosion (caused by windstorms) in the early 1930s, which obliged many people to move.

Okies

Migrant agricultural workers from Oklahoma who had been forced to leave during the Depression of the 1930s.

Charles Lindbergh

United States aviator who in 1927 made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

Socialism

A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Fascism

A political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a central autocratic government headed by a doctoral leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Communism

A political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

Francisco Franco

Spanish general whose armies took control of Spain in 1939 and who ruled as dictator until his death.

Neutrality Acts

Laws passed in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 to limit U.S. involvement in future wars. They were based on the widespread disillusionment with World War I in the early 1930s and the belief that the United States had been drawn into the war through loans and trade with the Allies.

"Cash and Carry"

A policy requested by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt at a special session of the U.S. Congress in 1939, subsequent to the outbreak of war in Europe. It replaced the Neutrality Acts of 1936. The revision allowed the sale of material to belligerents, as long as the recipients arranged for the transport using their own ships and paid immediately in cash. However, the sale of war materials was not allowed.

Lend-Lease Act of 1941

The principle means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. The act authorized other defense materials for which Congress appropriated money to "the government of any country whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the United States."

Day of Infamy

December 7, 1941, on which Japan, attracted Pearl Harbor, bringing the United States into World War II.

League of Nations

An international organization established after World War I under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. As the forerunner of the United Nations, it brought about much international cooperation on health, labor programs, refugee affairs, etc.

Munich Conference

A meeting between Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany on September 29,1938, to decide that the Sudetenland was ceded to Germany.

Japanese Imperialism

The 1930s marked the highpoint of Japan's pre-World War II empire, when imperial Japan's territory stretched from mainland China to Micronesia. Japan's empire would grow even larger during WWII, extending almost as far south as Australia, which Japan directly attacked in 1942 and 1943. But after Japan's defeat in 1945, the country was occupied and stripped of its imperial possessions.

NAZI

A member of the National Social German Worker's Party.

Operation Torch

The Allied invasion of French North Africa in November 1942, the first time the British and Americans had jointly worked on an invasion plan together.

D-Day

The day (June 6, 1944) in World War II on which Allied forces invaded northern France by means of beach landings in Normandy.

Battle of Okinawa

Also known as operation Iceberg, took place in April-June 1945. It was the largest amphibious landing in the Pacific theater of World War II. It also resulted in the largest casualties with over 100,000 Japanese casualties and 50,000 casualties for the Allies.

Hiroshima

A city of Southwest Honshu, Japan, on the inland sea west of Osaka. The city was destroyed in World War II when an American airplane dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare (August 6, 1945).

Nagasaki

A city of western Kyushu, Japan, that was devastated by the second atomic bomb used in World War II (August 9, 1945).

William J. Levitt

An American real estate investor whose mass production of affordable private homes to middle class persons led to the development. He founded a number of towns in the mid-20th century and marketed the homes to middle class persons and families.

G.I. Bill of 1944

A law passed that provided educational and other benefits for people who had served in the armed forces in World War II.

Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization

Signed in Washington, D.C., on April 4, 1949 establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.

Harry Truman

Democratic president from 1945 to 1953. He led the nation in the final months of World War II and made the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He supported the United Nations and put forward the Marshall Plan to aid the recovery of Europe after the war. He sent American troops to support the U.N. in the Korean War and removed General Douglas MacArthur from his command in Korea.

Containment Policy

A United States foreign policy doctrine adopted by the Truman administration in 1947, operating on the principle that communist governments will eventually fall apart as long as they are prevented from expanding their influence.

Cold War

The state of political hostility that existed between the Soviet bloc countries and the U.S.-led Western powers from 1945 to 1990.

U.S.S.R.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, official name of the Soviet Union.

Joseph McCarthy

United States senator of Wisconsin who unscrupulously accused many citizens of being communists.

Red Scare

The promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism or radical leftism regarding worker (socialist) revolution and political radicalism.

Loyalty Review Boards

A government agency established and authorized to inquire into the loyalty to the government of the U.S. of persons employed or considered for employment by international organizations of which the U.S. is a member and to make usually advisory determinations in such cases.

Alger Hiss

An American government official who was accused of being a Soviet Spy in 1948 and convicted of perjury in connection with this charge in 1950.

Lawrence Fuchs

The first Peace Corps director in the Philippines from 1961 until 1963.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

American citizens who spied for the Soviet Union and were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage and for passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviets.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

United States general who supervised the invasion of Normandy and the defeat of Nazi Germany, 34th President.

Korean War

(1950-1953) fought between North Korea (aided by Communist China) and South Korea (supported by the U.S. and other members of the U.N.)

38th Parallel

A circle of latitude in the Northern Hemisphere, used as a pre-Korean War boundary between North and South Korea.

Chinese Revolution

The events that culminated in the overthrow of the Nationalist regime and the establishment of the People's Republic of China by the Chinese communists in 1949.

Mao Zedong

Chinese communist leader: chairman of the People's Republic of China 1949-1959; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party 1943-1976.

Bikini Atoll

An island in the Pacific Ocean where the U.S. performed nuclear weapons tests from 1946 until the 1960s.

A-bomb

First used on August 6, 1945, dropped by a U.S. B-29 bomber on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing around 80,000 people. Three days later, a second was dropped on Nagasaki, causing the deaths of 40,000 more.

H-bomb

The world's first thermonuclear weapon, detonated on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific.

Cuban Missile Crisis

A confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba. The Soviet premier Khrushchev placed Soviet military missiles in Cuba, which had come under Soviet influence since the success of the Cuban Revolutionaries. John F. Kennedy set up a naval blockade of Cuba and insisted that Khrushchev remove the missiles. He did.

Nikita Khrushchev

Soviet statesman; premier of the Soviet Union (1958-1964). After Stalin's death he became first secretary of the Soviet Communist Party (1953-1964) and initiated a policy to remove the influence of Stalin (1956). As a premier, he pursued a policy of peaceful coexistence with the West, but alienated Communist China.

John F. Kennedy

A Democratic party political leader who was president from 1961-1963. He brought the U.S. out of the Cuban Missile Crisis and negotiated with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 with Britain and the Soviet Union. His presidency ended with his assassination on November 22, 1963, apparently by Lee Harvey Oswald.

Fidel Castro

Cuban socialist leader who overthrew a dictator in 1959 and established a Marxist Socialist state in Cuba.

Vietnam War

(1955-1975) a Cold War conflict pitting the U.S. and the remnants of the French colonial government in South Vietnam against the indigenous but communist Vietnamese independence movement, the Viet Minh, following the latter's expulsion of the French in 1954.

New Left

A radical movement of the 1960s and 1970s that opposed the military-industrial complex and involvement of the U.S. in the Vietnam War; they urged more public attention to conditions of black people and the poor.

Lyndon Johnson

A Democratic party political leader who was president from 1963-1969, rising to power after Kennedy was assassinated. He guided many of Kennedy's New Frontier projects through Congress, including the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He also started his own set of domestic programs, known as the Great Society and began a sharp increase in American military involvement in the Vietnam War.

Richard Nixon

Vice President under Eisenhower and 37th president of the U.S. The best-remembered events of his presidency were his visits to the People's Republic of China and to the Soviet Union; a cease fire in Vietnam and withdrawal of United States forces; and the Watergate scandal, which led to his resignation.

Jim Crow

A series of racist laws and measures that discriminated against African-Americans enacted between 1876 and 1965.

Segregation

The separation of humans into ethnic or racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, riding a bus, or in the rental or purchase of a home.

Ida B. Wells

An African American journalist, newspaper editor, suffragist, sociologist, Georgist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

The Supreme Court case, which upheld the constitutionality of "separate, but equal facilities" based on race.

Black Migration

The relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to cities of the North, Midwest, and West from 1916 to 1970 that had a huge impact on the urban life in the U.S.

Scientific Racism (eugenics)

The use of ostensibly scientific or pseudo-scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, racialism, racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races.

Literacy Tests

An examination to determine whether a person meets the literacy requirements for voting.

Poll Taxes

A capitation tax, the payment of which is sometimes a prerequisite to exercise the right to suffrage.

24th Amendment

Abolished the poll tax for all federal elections.

Double "V" Campaign

Begun by the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper in 1942 that encouraged African Americans to participate in winning the war abroad, while simultaneously fighting for their civil rights at home.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

A landmark piece of Civil Rights legislation in the U.S. that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

A law passed at the time of the Civil Rights movement that eliminated various devices, such as literacy tests, that had traditionally been used to restrict voting by black people.

Civil Rights Act of 1968

Defines housing discrimination as the "refusal to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of his race, color, religion, or national origin."

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

A U.S. Civil Rights organization formed by students and active especially during the 1960s, whose aim was to achieve political and economic equality for blacks through local and regional action groups.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

A Civil Rights organization founded in 1957 by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

An African American clergyman and political leader of the twentieth century; the most prominent member of the Civil Rights movement.

Stokely Carmichael

A Civil Rights activist and national chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1966 and 1967. He is credited with popularizing the term "Black Power."

Malcolm X

African American activist who was a member of the Nation of Islam and advocated separatism and black pride. After converting to orthodox Islam, he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity (1964) and was assassinated in Harlem.

Black Nationalism

The advocacy of separate national status for black people, especially in the United States.

Black Power

A movement that grew out of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s that called for independent development of political and social institutions for black people and emphasizes pride in black culture. In varying degrees, it calls for the exclusion of whites from black Civil Rights organizations.

Black Panthers

A militant black organization that was active int he 1960s and 1970s that formed to work for the advancement of the rights of blacks, often by radical means.

Huey Newton

An African American political activist and revolutionary who, along with Bobby Seale, co-founded the Black Panther Party in 1966.

James Meredith

U.S. Civil Rights leader whose college registration caused riots in traditionally segregated Mississippi.

White Flight

The move of white city-dwellers to the suburbs to escape the influx of minorities.

Suburbanization

The growth of areas on the fringes of cities. It is one of the many causes of the increase in urban sprawl.

Shelley v Kraemer (1948)

A landmark supreme court case which held that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate.

Restrictive Covenants

An agreement that requires the buyer to either take or abstain from a specific action. In real estate, legal obligations written into the deed of a property by the seller.

Zoning

The division of an area into zones as to restrict the number and types of buildings and their uses.

Federal Housing Authority

The federal agency in the Department of Housing and Urban Development that insures residential mortgages.

Red-Lining

Refusing a loan or insurance to someone because they live in an area deemed to be a poor financial risk.

Urban Renewal

The redevelopment of areas with a large city, typically involving the clearance of the slums.

Public Housing

Housing provided for people with low income, subsidized by public funds.

Pruitt-Igoe Rent Strike

Protest of poor living conditions in St. Louis public housing for its poverty, crime, and segregation.

De-Industrialization

Decline in industrial activity in a region or economy.

Soviet-Afghan War

A great drain on the Soviet military, costing the Soviet regime significant international regime. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev withdrew the last Soviet troops in February 1989.