Key Terms from The American Pageant Chapter 35 - History

IBM

International Business Machines, was part of the historic shift to a mass consumer economy after World War II, and symbolized another momentous transformation to the fast-paced "Information Age."

Rosa Parks

United States civil rights leader who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery (Alabama) and so triggered the national civil rights movement (born in 1913)

Checkers Speech

A speech made by vice presidential candidate Richard Nixon in 1952 after he had been accused of improprieties regarding a fund established for him to reimburse him for his political expenses. In it, he said that he defended himself and said regardless of what everyone else thought, he would keep a dog that his kids had named checkers. It led to an outpouring of support for Nixon and it secured his place on the republican ticket for the 1952 election.

MLK Jr.

United States charismatic civil rights leader and Baptist minister who campaigned against the segregation of African Americans

Montgomery Bus Boycott

In 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus, Dr. Martin L. King led a boycott of city busses. After 11 months the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public transportation was illegal.

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 - The Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, declared that racially segregated facilities are inherently unequal and ordered all public schools desegregated.

SNCC

(Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee)-a group established in 1960 to promote and use non-violent means to protest racial discrimination; they were the ones primarily responsible for creating the sit-in movement

Fidel Castro

Cuban socialist leader who overthrew a dictator in 1959 and established a Marxist socialist state in Cuba (born in 1927)

Federal Highway Act

Appropriating $25 billion for the construction of interstate highways over a 20-year period, it was the largest public works project in American history to that point.

policy of boldness

Foreign policy objective of Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who believed in changing the containment strategy to one that more directly engaged the Soviet Union and attempted to roll back communist influence around the world. This policy led to a build-up of America's nuclear arsenal to threaten "massive retaliation" against communist enemies, launching the Cold War's arms race.

Hungarian Uprising

Hungarian nationalists staged huge demonstrations demanding non-communist parties be legalized; turned into armed rebellion and spread throughout the country

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

The climactic battle of the First Indochina War between French Union forces of the French Far East Expeditionary Corps, and Vietnamese Viet Minh communist revolutionary forces. The battle occurred between March and May 1954, and culminated in a massive French defeat that effectively ended the war.

Suez Crisis

July 26, 1956, Nasser (leader of Egypt) nationalized the Suez Canal, Oct. 29, British, French and Israeli forces attacked Egypt. UN forced British to withdraw; made it clear Britain was no longer a world power

John F. Kennedy

president during part of the cold war and especially during the superpower rivalry and the cuban missile crisis. he was the president who went on tv and told the public about hte crisis and allowed the leader of the soviet uinon to withdraw their missiles. other events, which were during his terms was the building of the berlin wall, the space race, and early events of the Vietnamese war.

Lyndon B. Johnson

signed the civil rights act of 1964 into law and the voting rights act of 1965. he had a war on poverty in his agenda. in an attempt to win, he set a few goals, including the great society, the economic opportunity act, and other programs that provided food stamps and welfare to needy famillies. he also created a department of housing and urban development. his most important legislation was probably medicare and medicaid.

Kitchen Debate

Debate between Nixon and Khrushechev. The two men discussed the merits of each of their respective economic systems, capitalism and communism. The debate took place during an escalation of the Cold War, beginning with the launch of Sputnik in 1957, through the U-2 Crisis in 1960. Most Americans believed Nixon won the debate.

military-industrial complex

Eisenhower first coined this phrase when he warned American against it in his last State of the Union Address. He feared that the combined lobbying efforts of the armed services and industries that contracted with the military would lead to excessive Congressional spending.

Abstract Expressionism

An artistic movement that focused on expressing emotion and feelings through abstract images and colors, lines and shapes.

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

Group highlighted by writers and artist who stressed spontaneity and spirituality instead of apathy and conformity.

Southern Renaissance

A literary outpouring among mid-twentieth-century southern writers, begun by William Faulkner and marked by a new critical appreciation of the region's burdens of history, racism, and conservatism.

New Frontier

The campaign program advocated by JFK in the 1960 election. He promised to revitalize the stagnant economy and enact reform legislation in education, health care, and civil rights.

Peace Corps

(JFK) , volunteers who help third world nations and prevent the spread of communism by getting rid of poverty, Africa, Asia, and Latin America

Robert F. Kennedy

He ran for President in 1968; stirred a response from workers, African Americans, Hispanics, and younger Americans; would have captured Democratic nomination but was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan after victory speech during the California primary in June 1968.

Berlin Wall

A wall separating East and West Berlin built by East Germany in 1961 to keep citizens from escaping to the West

Allen Ginsberg

A leading member of the Beat movement whose writings featured existential mania for intense experience and frantic motion.

Bay of Pigs

In April 1961, a group of Cuban exiles organized and supported by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency landed on the southern coast of Cuba in an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro. When the invasion ended in disaster, President Kennedy took full responsibility for the failure.

Cuban Missile Crisis

1962 crisis that arose between the United States and the Soviet Union over a Soviet attempt to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba

Freedom Riders

Group of civil rights workers who took bus trips through southern states in 1961 to protest illegal bus segregation

Voter Education Project

project of the SNCC where volunteers went to rural areas in the Deep South to register African Americans to vote; began with Robert Moses

March on Washington

held in 1963 to show support for the Civil Rights Bill in Congress. Martin Luther King gave his famous "I have a dream..." speech. 250,000 people attended the rally

Richard Nixon

1968 and 1972; Republican; Vietnam: advocated "Vietnamization" (replace US troops with Vietnamese), but also bombed Cambodia/Laos, created a "credibility gap," Paris Peace Accords ended direct US involvement; economy-took US off gold standard (currency valued by strength of economy); created the Environmental Protection Agency, was president during first moon landing; SALT I and new policy of detente between US and Soviet Union; Watergate scandal: became first and only president to resign

Elvis Presley

1950s; a symbol of the rock-and-roll movement of the 50s when teenagers began to form their own subculture, dismaying to conservative parents; created a youth culture that ridiculed phony and pretentious middle-class Americans, celebrated uninhibited sexuality and spontaneity; foreshadowed the coming counterculture of the 1960s

John Foster Dulles

As Secretary of State. he viewed the struggle against Communism as a classic conflict between good and evil. Believed in containment and the Eisenhower doctrine.

Nikita Khrushchev

A Soviet leader during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also famous for denouncing Stalin and allowed criticism of Stalin within Russia.