US History Ch. 15-16 - Vocab

38th parallel

dividing line between North and South Korea

Douglas MacArthur

(1880-1964) commanded American troops in World War I, where he developed a reputation for bravery. As supreme commander of Allied forces in the Pacific (1942-1945) he accepted Japan’s surrender to end World War II. In 1950, he became the commander of UN forces in the Korean War. He retired after his controversial removal from command in 1951, following a dispute with President Harry Truman.

mutually assured destruction

policy in which the United States and the Soviet Union hoped to deter nuclear war by building up enough weapons to destroy one another

John Foster Dulles

(1888-1959) was a diplomat and political thinker. A strong anti-communist, he helped organize the United Nations after World War II and later served as Secretary of State under president Dwight Eisenhower. In this role, he helped formulate the Cold War policies of brinkmanship and “massive retaliation“.

Nikita Khrushchev

(1894-1971) was a Communist Party leader who served as premier of the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1964. They led the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but lost power soon afterwards.

Suez crisis

attempt by France and Great Britain to seize control of the Suez Canal in 1956

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

U.S. intelligence-gathering organization

Red Scare

fear that communists were working to destroy the American way of life

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

congressional committee that investigated possible subversive activities within the United States

Hollywood Ten

group of movie writers, directors, and producers who refused to answer HUAC questions about communist ties

blacklist

list of persons who were not hired because of suspected communist ties

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

They were two American civilians controversially convicted and executed for espionage during the Red Scare of the 1950s. Later evidence from the Verona Papers confirmed that both did have ties to Soviet espionage.

Joseph R. McCarthy

(1908-1957) was a U.S. Senator who led a series of high-profile investigations into Americans whom he accused of being disloyal to the United States. His tactics, known as McCarthyism. helped define the Red Scare of the 1950s.

McCarthyism

negative catchword for extreme, reckless change of disloyalty

GI Bill of Rights

legislation that eased the return of World War II veterans by providing education and employment aid

baby boom

increase in births between 1945 and 1964

Sunbelt

name given to the region of states in the South and the Southwest

service sector

businesses that provide services rather than manufactured goods

Interstate Highway Act

the 1956 law that authorized the spending of $32 billion to build 41,000 miles of highway

nuclear family

an ideal or typical household with a father, mother, and children; a family that consists of parents and their children

urban renewal

government programs for redevelopment of urban areas

Thurgood Marshall

(1908-1993) became counsel for the NAACP in 1938 and won 29 of the 32 major civil rights cases he argued over the next 23 years. In 1967, he became the first African American to sit on the Supreme Court and held the post until poor health caused him to retire in 1991.

De Facto Segregation

segregation by unwritten custom or tradition

Orval Faubus

(1910-1994) was the governor of Arkansas from 1954 to 1967. He is best known for ordering the Arkansas National Guard to block nine African American students from entering Little Rock Central High School in 1957, in defiance of a federal order that mandated the end of racial segregation in schools. His efforts failed when President Eisenhower sent federal troops to usher the students into the school.

Sit-in

form of protest during which participants sit and refuse to move

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

grassroots movement founded in 1960 by young civil rights activists

Freedom Rides

1961 protest by activists who rode buses through southern states to test their compliance with laws banning segregation on interstate buses

James Meredith

(1933-) attended an all black college before becoming the first black student at the University of Mississippi in 1962. After he graduated, he earned a law degree and became involved in Republican Party politics. He was shot in Mississippi while on a protest march in 1966. After he recovered, he continued to be active in the civil rights movement.

March on Washington

1963 demonstration in which more than 200,000 people rallied for economic equality and civil rights

Freedom Summer

1964 effort to register African American voters in Mississippi

24th Amendment

constitutional amendment that banned the poll tax as a voting requirement

Malcom X

(1925-1965) served as a spokesman and minister for the Nation of Islam. His work helped the Nation of Islam, which had only 400 members when he was released from prison in 1952, grow to 40,000 members by 1960. He broke with the group shortly before his assassination in 1965.

“Black Power“

movements in the 1960s that urged African Americans to use their collective political and economic power to gain equality

Affirmative Action

policy that gives special consideration to women and minorities to make up for past discrimination

New Frontier

President Kennedy’s plan to improve the economy, fight racial discrimination, and explore space

Equal Pay Act

1963 law requiring men and women to receive equal pay for equal work

Space Race

competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to successfully land on the moon

Great Society

President Lyndon Johnson’s goals in the areas of health care, education, the environment, discrimination, and poverty

Medicare

federal program created in 1965 to provide basic hospital insurance to most Americans over the age of sixty-five

Medicade

federal program created in 1965 to provide low-cost health insurance to poor Americans of any age

Immigration and Nationality Act

law that changed the national quota system limits of 170.000 immigrants per year from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 per year from the Western Hemisphere

Tinker v Des Moines School District

1969 Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the right to free speech extended to other types of expression besides the spoken word