20th Century US History Review

Flashcards for reviewing lecture notes on 20th-century US history.

FDR

President during the Great Depression and World War II, known for the New Deal.

Howard Hunt

One of the 'Plumbers' involved in the Watergate scandal.

John Sirica

Judge in the Watergate scandal.

New Deal

A series of programs and reforms enacted in the United States between 1933 and 1939 during the Great Depression.

Social Security

A social insurance program providing benefits to retirees, the unemployed, and the disabled.

Gerald Ford

President who pardoned Richard Nixon.

Impeachment

The process by which a legislative body formally levels charges against a high official of government.

Korematsu v. U.S.

Supreme Court case concerning the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

D-Day

The Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

CREEP

Committee to Re-Elect the President; involved in the Watergate scandal.

Kent State

Site of a shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard in 1970.

Berlin Airlift

A military operation in the late 1940s that brought food and other needed goods into West Berlin by air after the government of East Germany.

Marshall Plan

A U.S. program providing aid to Western Europe following the devastation of World War II.

Tet Offensive

A series of major attacks by communist forces in the Vietnam War in 1968.

Doves

Individuals against the Vietnam War.

NATO

A military alliance of European and North American democracies founded after World War II.

Hawks

Individuals who supported the Vietnam War.

Operation Rolling Thunder

A U.S. bombing campaign during the Vietnam War.

Warsaw Pact

A military alliance of communist nations in Eastern Europe.

Dwight Eisenhower

U.S. President who warned against the military-industrial complex.

Robert Kennedy

Attorney General during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations; assassinated in 1968.

Process to remove a president from office

The formal process by which a president can be removed from office.

Winston Churchill

British Prime Minister during World War II.

Robert McNamara

U.S. Secretary of Defense during much of the Vietnam War.

My Lai Massacre

Site of a massacre of unarmed Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops.

Harry Truman

U.S. President who made the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan.

HUAC

House Un-American Activities Committee; investigated alleged communist influence.

Agent Orange

A defoliant chemical used by the U.S. in the Vietnam War.

Domino Theory

The belief that if one country fell to communism, neighboring countries would follow.

Bay of Pigs

A failed invasion of Cuba by CIA-trained exiles.

Sputnik

The first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, launched by the Soviet Union.

Vietcong

South Vietnamese communists.

Plumbers

A secret group of White House operatives during the Nixon administration.

Red Scare

Widespread fear of communism in the U.S.

Francis Gary Powers

U.S. pilot shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960.

NY Times

A major newspaper that published the Pentagon Papers.

Rosenbergs

American citizens who were executed for espionage.

Woodward and Bernstein

Journalists who broke the Watergate scandal.

Richard Nixon

U.S. president who resigned due to the Watergate scandal.

Pentagon Papers

A top-secret history of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Vietnamization

Nixon's policy of gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam.

John Kennedy

U.S. President who was assassinated in 1963.

Lyndon Johnson

U.S. President who escalated the Vietnam War.

Containment

A U.S. foreign policy doctrine during the Cold War.

Joseph McCarthy

U.S. Senator who led anti-communist campaigns in the early 1950s.

Lee Harvey Oswald

The person who assassinated John F. Kennedy.

Truman Doctrine

A U.S. foreign policy doctrine providing aid to countries resisting communism.

Rosa Parks

A catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

A leader of the Civil Rights Movement.

Federalism

A system of government in which power is divided between a central authority and constituent political units.

Women's Political Council

Organization that initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Sit-ins

A form of protest in which participants sit and refuse to move.

Ho Chi Minh

The leader of North Vietnam.

Thurgood Marshall

A lawyer who argued Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court.

Emmett Till

An African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955.

Geneva Accords

Agreement that temporarily divided Vietnam into two zones.

Gulf of Tonkin

Incident that led to increased U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Federal legislation that outlawed discriminatory voting practices.

Freedom Riders

Civil rights activists who rode buses into the South to challenge segregation.

Selma

Site of civil rights marches in Alabama.

SNCC

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; a civil rights organization.

Orville Faubus

Governor of Arkansas who resisted the integration of Little Rock Central High School.

Little Rock Nine

The group of African-American students who integrated Little Rock Central High School.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Federal legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Brown v Topeka Board of Education

landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that American state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality

Plessy v Ferguson

A landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.