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The Feminine Mystique (1963)
Best-selling book by feminist thinker Betty Friedan. This work challenged women to move beyond the drudgery of suburban house-wifery and helped launch what would become second-wave feminism.
Rock 'n' Roll
"Crossover" musical style that rose to dominance in the 1950s, merging black rhythm and blues and driving rhythm, rock 'n' roll music became a defining feature of the 1950s youth culture.
Checkers Speech (1952)
Nationally televised address by vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon during which he defended himselve against the allegations of corruption. Using the new mass medium of television shortly before the 1952 election, the vice-presidential candidate saved his place on the ticket by saying the only campaign gift he had received was a cocker spanial named Checkers.
Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)
Protest by black Alabamians against segregated seating on city buses, sparked by Rosa Parks's defiant refusal to move to the back of the bus. The bus boycott lasted from December 1, 1955, until moments of the civil rights movement. It led to the rise of Martin Luther King Jr., and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision opposing segregated busing.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)
Landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy v. Fergusson (1896) and abolished racial segregation in public schools. The Court reasoned that "separate" was inherently "unequal", rejecting the foundation of the Jim Crow system of racial segregation in the South. This decision was the first major step toward the legal end of racial discrimination and a major accomplishment for the civil rights movement.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Youth Organization founded by southern black students in 1960 to promote civil rights. Drawing on its members' youthful energies, SNCC in its early years coordinated demonstrations, sit-ins, and voter registration drives.
Operation Wetback (1954)
A government program to round up and deport as many as 1 million illegal Mexican migrant workers in the United States. The program was promoted in part by the Mexican government and reflected burgeoning concerns about non-European immigration to America.
Federal Highway Act of 1956
Federal legislation signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower to construct thousands of miles of modern highways in the name of national defense. Officially called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, this bill dramatically increased the move to the suburbs, as white middle-class people could more easily commute to urban jobs.
Policy of Boldness (1954)
Foreign-policy objective of Dwight Eisenhower's secretary of state John Foster Dulles, who believed in changing the containment strategy to on that more directly engaged the Soviet Union and attempted to roll back communist influence around the world. This policy led to a buildup of America's nuclear arsenal to threaten "massive retaliation" against communist enemies, launching the Cold War's arms race.
Hungarian Uprising (1956)
Series of demonstrations in Hungary agaisnt the Soviet Union. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushcev violently suppressed this pro-Western uprising, highlighting the limitations of America's power in Easter Europe.
Battle of Dien Bien Phu (1954)
Military engagement in French colonial Vietnam in which French forces were defeated by Viet Minh nationalists loyal to Ho Chi Minh. With this loss, the French ended their colonial involvement in Indochina, paving the way for America's entry.
Suez Crisis (1956)
International crisis launched when Eygptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned mostly by the French and British stockholders. The crisis led to a British and French attack on Eygpt, which failed without aid from the United States. The Suez crisis marked an important turning point in the post-colonial Middle East and highlighted the rising importance of oil in world affairs.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
Cartel comprising Middle Eastern states and Venezuela first organized in 1960. OPEC aimed to control access to and prices of oil, wrestling power from Western oil companies and investors. In the process, it gradually strengthened the hand of non-Western powers on the world stage.
Sputnik (1957)
Soviet satellite first launched into earth orbit on October 4, 1957. This scientific achievement marked the first time human beings had put a man-made object into orbit and pushed the USSR noticeably ahead of the United States in the space race. A month later, the Soviet Union sent a larger satellite, Sputnik II, into space, prompting the United States to redouble its space exploration efforts and raising American fears of Soviet superiority.
Kitchen Debate (1959)
Televised exchange in 1959 between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushcev and American Vice President Richard Nixon. Meeting at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, the two leaders sparred over the relative merits of capitalist consumer culture versus Soviet state planning. Nixon won applause for his staunch defense of American capitalism, helping him to the Republican nomination for president in 1960.
Military-industrial Complex
Term popularized by President Dwight Eisenhower in his 1961 Farewell Address, referring to the political and economic ties between manufacturers, elected officials, and the U.S. armed forces that created self-sustaining pressure for high military spending during the Cold War. Eisenhower also warned that this powerful combination left unchecked could "endanger our liberties or democratic process." favoring defense concerns over more peaceful goals that balanced security and liberty.
Abstract Expressionism
An experimental style of mid-twentieth-century modern art exemplified by Jackson Pollock's spontaneous "action paintings," created by flinging paint on canvases stretched across the studio floor.
International Style
Archetypal, post-World War II modernist architectural style, best known for its "curtain-wall" designs of steel-and-glass corporate high-rises.
Beat Generation
A small coterie of mid-twentieth-century bohemian writers and personalities, including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, who bemoaned bourgeois conformity and advocated free-form experimentation in life and literature.
Southern Renaissance
A literary outpouring among mid-twentieth-century southern writers, begun by William Faulkner and marked by a new critical appreciation of the regions burdens of history, racism, and conservatism.
New Frontier (1961-1963)
President Kennedy's nick-name for his domestic policy agenda. Buoyed by youthful optimism, the program included proposals for the Peace Corps and efforts to improve education and health care.
Peace Corps
A federal agency created by President Kennedy in 1961 to promote voluntary sevice by Americans in foreign countries. The Peace Corps provides labor power to help developing countries improve their infrastructure, health care, educational systems, and other aspects of their societies, Part of Kennedy's New Frontier vision, the organization represented an effort by postwar liberals to promote American values and influence through productive exchanges across the world.
Apollo (1961-1975)
Program of manned space flights run by America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The project's highest achievement was the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon on July 20, 1969.
Berlin Wall
Fortified and guarded barrier between East and West Berlin erected on orders from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushcev in 1961 to stop the flow of people to the West. Until its destruction in 1989, the wall was a vivid symbol of the divide between communist and capitalist worlds.
European Economic Community (EEC)
Free-trade zone in Wester Europe created by Treaty of Rome in 1957. Often referred to as the "Common Market," this collection of countries originally included France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The body eventually expanded to become the European Union, which by 2005 included twenty-seven member states.
Bay of Pigs Invasion (1961)
CIA plot in 1961 to overthrow Fidel Castro by training Cuban exiles to invade and supporting them with American airpower. The mission failed and became a public relations disaster early in John F. Kennedy's presidency.
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
Standoff between John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushcev in October in 1962 over Soviet plans to install nuclear weapons in Cuba. Although the crisis was ultimately settled in America's favor and represented a foreign-policy triumph for Kennedy, it brought the world's superpowers perilously close to the brink of nuclear confrontation.
Freedom Riders
Organized mixed-race groups who rode interstate buses deep into the South to draw attention to and protest racial segregation, beginning in 1961. This effort to challenge racism, which involved the participation of many northern young people as well as southern activists, proved a political and public relations success for the civil rights movement.
Voter Education Project (1962-1968)
Effort by SNCC and other civil rights groups to register the South's historically disenfranchised black population. The project typified a common strategy of the civil rights movement, which sought to counter racial discrimination by empowering people at grassroots levels to exercise their civic rights through voting.
March on Washington (1963)
Massive civil rights demonstration in August 1963 in support of Kennedy-backed legislation to secure legal protections for American blacks. One of the most visually impressive manifestations of the civil rights movement, the march was the occassion of Martin Luther King's famous "I have a Dream" speech.
Betty Friedan
Feminist author of "The Feminie Mystique" in 1960. Her book sparked a new consciousness among suburban women and helped launch the second-wave feminist movement.
Earl Warren
Liberal Californian politician appointed Chief Justice the Supreme Court by Eisenhowerin 1953, he was principally known for moving the Court to the left in defense of civil and individual rights in such cases as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
