AP World History Unit 8 Main Terms and Definitions

This is some main words/phrases and their meanings!

Potsdam and Yalta Conference

A meeting between Allies (Great Britain, France, US, USSR, etc.) about how they would separate Europe (P one was specifically about Germany)

Tehran Conference

A meeting between the Allies to discuss war plans (1943)

Self-Determination

The idea that people of a shared identity would be able to create their own independent country. Usually applies to countries seeking independence.

Iron Curtain

Proclaimed by Churchill as the “barrier” between the West and the East in Europe. Communism v Capitalism. USA v USSR.

Satellite Countries

An “independent country” that is being controlled militarily, economically, and politically by a larger, more powerful country (e.g., Poland and East Germany by the USSR).

Containment

Cold War policy aimed to prevent the spread of Soviet ideology.

Space Race

A competition between the US and USSR to get to space and the moon before the other.

Sputnik- USSR spacecraft, got into orbit

Apollo 11- US spacecraft, got to space

Mutually Assured Destruction

Since both the US and USSR had atomic weapons, direct war between the two superpowers would result in atomic destruction.

They instead fought Proxy Wars (Korean war, Vietnam war, etc.)

Berlin Blockade, Airlift, Wall

The USSR noticed that people were starting to move into the Capitalist Western Berlin from the struggling Eastern Berlin and decided to put a blockade up to prevent the West (USA) from bringing supplies into Berlin.

Berlin Airlift- The West decided to airlift supplies to Berlin because they couldn’t get in through land routes.

Berlin Wall- The migration from Eastern Berlin to Western Berlin eventually became so bad that the USSR put up the Berlin Wall to keep its people in.

Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy isn’t perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in. — JFK After the Berlin Wall went up.

NATO

Essentially the new League of Nations but with the US.

Warsaw Pact

The USSR’s NATO

Domino Theory

If one country turn communist/Capitalist, then they all will turn too!

Compare it to the struggle between the North and the South in the US for the issue

Contra Wars

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Cuban Missle crisis,

Quarantine

Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty

Non Proliferation Treaty

Great Leap Forward

Cultural Revolution

Red Guard

White Revolution