Unit 7 to Unit 8 APUSH VOCAB

Unit 7:

Purchase of Alaska (1867)

  • Purchased by William H. Seward, viewed as invaluable until the discovery of its abundance of natural resources, being a valuable asset to the nation after. 

Alfred Thayer Mahan

  • US navy captain who wrote the book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890) to argue that a strong navy was needed to support its ambitions of commerce and becoming a world power.

Jingoism

  • an intense form of nationalism calling for an aggressive foreign policy that swept American public opinion.

Yellow Journalism

  • Sensationalistic reporting that featured bold and lurid headlines of crime, disaster, and scandal to promote war fever.

Sinking of the Maine

  • USS Maine was at anchor in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, when it suddenly exploded and killed hundreds of Americans on board, accusing Spain for the event.

Teller Amendment

  • Declared that the US had no intention of taking political control of Cuba, and that once peace was restored to the island, the Cuban people would control their own gov’t

Rough Riders

  • A regiment of volunteers led by Roosevelt to perform a cavalry charge in San Juan Hill in Cuba

Treaty of Paris (1898)

  • provided for recognition of Cuban independence, US acquisition of Puerto Rico and Guam, and US control of the Philippines in return for a $20 million payment to Spain.

Insular Cases

  • Questions concerning the constitutional rights of the Filipinos, questioning whether the provisions of the constitution apply to whatever territories fell under US control.

Anti-Imperialist League

  • led by William Jennings Bryan to rally opposition to further acts of expansion in the Pacific.

Platt Amendment

  • withdrew troops conditionally upon Cuba’s acceptance of terms included in the amendment, which led to resentment from Cuba

Open Door Policy

  • All nations would have equal trading privileges in China

“Big Stick” Diplomacy

  • a foreign policy that aimed to build the reputation of the US as a world power by acting bolding and decisively in situations.

Theodore Roosevelt

  • A Republican vice president who was an expansionist and hero of the Spanish-American War

Panama Canal

  • A man made canal completed in 1914, where hundreds of laborers lost their lives in the effort.

William Howard Taft

  • President from the 1908 election, running through a progressive and expansionist campaign, and a dollar diplomacy.

“Dollar Diplomacy”

  • Encouraged Americans businesses to send their dollars to foreign countries to weaken European bonds and strengthen ties with the US.

Woodrow Wilson

  • President from the 1912 election, running through an anti-imperialist campaign and a moral diplomacy.

“Moral Diplomacy”

  • The duty to spread the ideal of democracy to nations under threat of totalitarianism.

William Jennings Bryan

  • Wilson’s Secretary of State who also opposed imperialism and ran for president several times only to lose.

Lincoln Steffens

  • Muckraker who wrote The Shame of the Cities, reflecting corruption in urban management.

Ida Tarbell

  • Muckraker who wrote History of Standard Oil, reflecting the greed of oil companies.

Jacob Riis

  • Muckraker who wrote How the Other Half Lives, reflecting the slum conditions of tenement houses.

Secret ballot

  • A system of issuing ballots printed by the state for voters to mark their choices secretly in a private booth.

17th Amendment 

  • Required that all US senators be elected by popular vote.

Initiative, referendum, reform

  • The three methods that forced politicians to obey the will of the people regarding bills and laws in the government.

Temperance and Prohibition

  • Movements that caused division in reformers, separating them into wets and drys for those who either support or do not support prohibition.

Triangle Shirtwaist fire

  • A tragedy that occurred in a garment factory that took the lives of hundreds, mostly women, leading to a greater call for women’s activism and labor safety.

“Square deal”

  • A policy under Roosevelt that urged enforcement of existing antitrust laws and stricter controls on big business.

Trust-busting

  • The efforts of Roosevelt and Taft to end the power of monopolies and trusts that limited competition and harmed consumers and workers.

Upton Sinclair 

  • Author of The Jungle, which described the dangerous conditions in America’s meatpacking factories.

Meat Inspection Act (1906)

  • Created federal standards for meatpacking factories to ensure they met sanitation requirements.

Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

  • Forbade the manufacture and sale of adulterated or mislabeled foods and drugs.

16th Amendment

  • Authorized the collection of a national income tax.

Eugene Debs

  • A Socialist leader sentenced to jail for supporting the Pullman strike.

Bull Moose Party

  • A third party led by Roosevelt in 1912 that advocated for progressive reforms.

Federal Trade Commission

  • An agency that protected consumers by taking action against any unfair trade practice in any industry except banking and transportation.

Clayton Antitrust Act

  • A strengthened version of the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up monopolies and prevent the reduction of competition.

Booker T. Washington

  • An African American reformer who was born a slave, argued that Black people should focus on economic advancement and accommodation to White racism rather than combat it.

WEB Du Bois

  • An African American reformer against Washington, opposing his ways of accepting discrimination and instead supporting equal civil rights and an immediate end to segregation.

19th Amendment

  • Guaranteed women’s right to vote.

Margaret Sanger

  • An activist advocating for birth control education, especially amongst the poor, leading to her Planned Parenthood organization.

League of Women Voters

  • A civic organization dedicated to keeping voters informed about candidates and political issues.

Lusitania

  • The first major challenge on US neutrality in 1915, where German torpedoes sank a British ship, killing most passengers that included Americans.

Zimmerman Telegram

  • A secret message to Mexico by Germany that was intercepted by Britain, proposing that Mexico ally itself with Germany in return for Germany to help Mexico recover its lost territories in the US.

Fourteen Points

  • Wilson’s desired war treaty that addressed the causes of WWI to prevent another world war, calling for the creation of a League of Nations, free trade, a reduction of arms, and self-determination.

Treaty of Versailles 

  • The peace treaty for WWI signed in 1919, forcing Germany to accept the blame for the war, pay large reparations, cede territory, and significantly disarm.

League of Nations

  • A peacekeeping organization that signers of the treaty joined to prevent future world wars and promote world peace.

Henry Cabot Lodge

  • A leading Senate Republican that opposed Wilson after his visible bias towards Democrats during the election.

Irreconcilables

  • A group of Republicans who were totally opposed to the League of Nations.

Article X

  • A term under the League of Nations that called on each member to stand ready to protect other nations.

Liberty Bonds

  • Federally issued bonds sold to Americans during WWI to help fund the war effort.

National War Labor Board

  • Led by President Taft, which helped settle disputes between workers and employers.

Selective Service Act

  • A system that drafted men into the military through a democratic method that required all men between 21 and 30 to register for possible induction.

Espionage Act (1917)

  • Provided imprisonment of up to 20 years for persons who tried to incite rebellion in the armed forces or denied the draft. 

Sedition Act (1918)

  • prohibited anyone from making disloyal or abusive remarks about the US government.

Schenck v. United States  

  • Judicial case that declared that the right to free speech could be limited when it represented a clear danger to public safety.

Great Migration

  • The largest movement of people in US history consisting of African Americans who migrated to the north for job opportunities in the cities.

Red Scare

  • A period of increased paranoia emerging during WWI, where Americans began to fear a communist takeover. 

Palmer Raids

  • Raids motivated from the fears of revolution, where mass arrests of anyone who showed revolutionist motives occurred based on limited criminal evidence.

Tulsa Race Massacre

  • The worst incident of racial violence in America, where the act of African Americans preventing the lynching of a Black men led to White mobs destroying thousands of homes and businesses.



Standard of living

  • Degree of wealth & material comfort of the average person 

Scientific management

  • A management theory that increased work efficiency by analyzing the most efficient production processes.

Henry Ford

  • A businessman who created the assembly line process for manufacturing automobiles.

Assembly line

  • remaining at one place all day while performing the same simply operation over and over again at rapid speed.

Welfare capitalism

  • voluntarily offering their employees improved benefits and higher wages in order to reduce their interests in making unions

Mass media

  • The various forms of communication and entertainment that contributed to the spread of national culture and regional cultures.

Radio

  • A form of mass media that contributed to the changing relationship between citizens, government, and the media. 

Hollywood

  • A city in California where the movie industry centered in, building a national habit of spending leisure time in movie theaters. 

Charles Lindberg

  • a celebrated aviator who flew nonstop across the Atlantic from Long Island to Paris in 1927.

Modernists

  • People who had historical and critical views of excerpts in the Bible, believing they could accept Darwin’s theory of evolution without abandoning their faith.

Fundamentalists

  • People who condemned modernists, believing that every word in the Bible was true literally through a creationist doctrine.

Revivalists

  • People who preached a fundamentalist belief using the radio.

Scopes Trial

  • A trial regarding a teacher, John Scopes, who taught the theory of evolution to his high school class, which was outlawed in public schools.

21st Amendment

  • An amendment that repealed the 18th amendment, putting an end to Prohibition.

Organized Crime

  • Acts of crime that were funded for gangs during the rise of the smuggling trade. 

Al Capone

  • Chicago gang leader who led gangsters to fight for control over the smuggling trade

Quota laws

  • Laws that limited immigration of the number of foreign-born persons from a given nation and restricted groups considered undesirable by nativists.

Sacco and Vanzetti

  • Two Italian-born anarchists who weren’t given a fair trial and were punished to death simply because of their race.

Ku Klux Klan

  • a Klan that reemerged in 1915 during a period of strong racism in the Midwest and South after the release of a silent film, Birth of a Nation.

Birth of a Nation

  • A silent film that portrayed the KKK during Reconstruction as the heroes, and the White backlash to the race riots of 1919.

“Lost generation”

  • A term created by Gertrude Stein that explained the disillusionment of leading writers during the postwar decade.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

  • Author during the lost generation.

Ernest Hemingway

  • Author during the lost generation.

Margaret Sanger

  • An advocate of birth control that created the Planned Parenthood organization.

Consumer Culture

  • A culture that rose during the roaring twenties for Americans to purchase consumer appliances that improved daily life. 

Harlem Renaissance

  • A period of artistic achievements within African Americans in the city of Harlem, New York that was started by the Great Migration.

Migration from the South

  • A mass migration of African Americans to the North due to the discrimination they faced in the South, creating communities in cities. 

Countee Cullen

  • Leading African American poet during the Harlem Renaissance.

Langston Hughes

  • Famous poet during the Harlem Renaissance.

Claude McKay

  • Important writer during the Harlem Renaissance. 

Louis Armstrong

  • Musician during the Harlem Renaissance.

Marcus Garvey

  • A reformer from Jamaica who migrated to Harlem to advocate individual and racial pride for African Americans, inspiring the ideas of Black nationalism.

Black pride

  • An expression that emerged from rising black nationalism, where blackness and cultural expression was exalted for equality.

Warren Harding

  • A Republican president supporting pro-business policies and post-war restoration, who also died in his presidency so Coolidge took his place. 

Teapot Dome

  • A scandal during Harding’s presidency, in which his secretary secretly leased federal oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, to private companies in exchange for bribes.

Calvin Coolidge

  • The successor of Harding who believed in limited government intervention, limited government spending, and Republican values. 

Herbert Hoover

  • A Republican candidate with a spotless reputation, known as a self-made millionaire, and Secretary of Commerce

Black Tuesday

  • The cause of the Wall Street Crash where millions of investors sold and no buyer could be found. 

Buying on margin

  • Allowed people to borrow most of the cost of the stock, making down payments as low as 10%.

Excessive use of credit

  • Increased borrowing and buying during the economic boom where there were low interests rates and that the era was permanent.

Stock market crash

  • An economic crash that was longer lasting, more business failures and unemployment, and affected more people than ever before

Hawley-Smoot Tariff

  • A schedule of tariff rates passed by the Republican Congress that was the highest in history, making the depression worsen.

Bonus March (1932)

  • A march of unemployed WWI veterans in 1932 to Washington, DC to demand immediate payment of the bonuses promised to them at a later date.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

  • The Democratic president behind the New Deal policy, known for expanding the size of the federal government and enlarging presidential powers to take the nation out of its depression.

Eleanor Roosevelt

  • The most active first lady in history, emerged as a leader who influenced the president to support minorities and the less fortunate.

New Deal

  • FDR’s policy that aimed to provide relief for the unemployed, recovery for business and economy, and reform of American economic institutions to save the nation from the Great Depression.

Three R’s

  • The term for relief, reform and recovery.

Frances Perkins

  • FDR’s secretary of labor, the first woman ever to serve in a president’s cabinet.

Hundred Days

  • A desperate period of time where Congress passed into law every request that FDR made to prevent the nation from panicking in the Depression.

Fireside Chats

  • FDR’s radio channel in 1933 that assured his listeners that the banks reopened after the bank holiday were safe.

CCC

  • The Civilian Conservation Corps that employed young men on projects on federal lands and paid their families small monthly sums.

FDIC

  • The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that guaranteed individual bank deposits

WPA

  • The Works Progress Administration that provided jobs for 25% of adult Americans, focusing on construction jobs. 

Social Security Act

  • An act that created an insurance program based on the collection of payments from employees and employers to make monthly payments to retired people over the age of 65.

Limited welfare state

  • A gov’t that regulated economic activity and aided the poor and unemployed to provide economic security for all.

Modern American liberalism

  • The practice of increased government intervention to protect the nation from another depression.

New Deal Coalition

  • A vibrant block of voters who were benefitting from the New Deal, so they switched to Democratic party.

Father Charles E. Coughlin

  • A Catholic priest that founded the National Union for Social Justice, calling for issuing an inflated currency and nationalizing all banks.

Frances Townsend

  • A retired physician who became a hero to millions of senior citizens by proposing a simple plan for guaranteeing a secure income.

Huey Long

  • A senator who became a prominent national figure by proposing a “Share Our Wealth” program that promised a minimum annual income of $5k for every American family, to be paid for by taxing the wealthy.

Okies

  • Farmers from Oklahoma who migrated to California in search of work.

Dust bowl

  • A state of a region where poor farming practices and high winds blew away topsoil.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

  • A pact that renounced the aggressive use of force to achieve national ends.

Good Neighbor Policy

  • FDR’s policy of friendly relations with other nations in the Western hemisphere since fear of rising military regimes in Europe prompted him to search for allies.

Fascism

  • The idea that people should glorify their nation and race through aggressive shows of force.

Axis Powers

  • The enemy side of WWII, involving Japan, Italy, and Germany.

FDR Third Term

  • FDR's third term that focused on leading the nation through post-war matters, mobilizing military involvement and supporting Allied powers. 

“Four Freedoms”

  • The freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. 

Lend-Lease Act (1941)

  • A proposal by FDR to end the cash-and-carry requirement to allow Britain to obtain all the US arms it needed on credit. 

Pearl Harbor

  • A Japanese surprise aircraft attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii that set the stage for WWII.

War Production Board

  • An agency meant to manage war industries for the wartime crisis in 1942.

Manhattan Project

  • A  top-secret project that produce the first atomic weapons

“Double V”

  • A slogan that preached victory in the war and the victory of equality at home for African Americans.

Internment Camps

  • The forced relocation of 120k Japanese Americans after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

Korematsu v. US

  • A court case that ruled the wartime internment of Japanese Americans to be constitutional.

“Rosie the Riveter”

  • A song used to encourage women to take defense jobs during the war.

Dwight Eisenhower

  • A US general who led Allied forces to North Africa to take it from the Germans. 

D-Day

  • The largest invasion by sea in history, where Allied forces attack beaches in France to liberate the nation and drive out German forces. 

Holocaust

  • The Nazi program of genocide against Jews by putting them into concentration camps.

Island Hopping

  • A strategy where commanders bypassed strongly held Japanese posts and isolated them with naval and air power.

Douglas MacArthur

  • A US general who oversaw the island-hopping campaign and accepted Japan's surrender after.

Hiroshima

  • A Japanese city where the first A-bomb was dropped.

Nagasaki

  • A Japanese city where the second atomic bomb was dropped.

Harry S. Truman

  • FDR’s successor who was assumed with enormous responsibilities as the war effort hadn’t been won yet.

Yalta

  • The most important conference between the Allies in the war that determined the future map of Europe.

Potsdam

  • A Big Three conference to demand that Japan surrender unconditionally and that Germany and Berlin would be divided into four zones.

United Nations

  • A peacekeeping organization formed at the end of WWII, created by Allied representatives from the US, Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China.


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Unit 8:

Cold War

  • A conflict between two belligerents where neither engages in open warfare with the other.

Soviet Union

  • The communist power that was against the US in the Cold War. 

Joseph Stalin

  • Leader of the Soviet Union during WWII and the Cold War, popular for pushing his nation's limits of expansionism and spreading communism.

United Nations

  • an association created in 1945 after WWII to provide representation to all member nations and defend any nations victim to aggressor nations.

Winston Churchill

  • The British Prime Minister during WWII and the Cold War, opposing communist powers with the US.

Iron Curtain

  • Churchill’s metaphor of the division between free Western Europe and communist Eastern Europe

Containment policy 

  • A policy designed to prevent Soviet expansion without starting a war.

George Marshall

  • A US military leader during WWII and the Secretary of State during the Cold War era under Truman.

George F. Kennan

  • One of the advisers of the Policy of Containment.

Truman Doctrine

  • Containment of communism by lending support to any country that was threatened by soviet communism. 

Marshall Plan

  • Billions of dollars in economic aid to rebuild Europe after WWII to prevent the spread of communism

Berlin Airlift

  • the Western powers’ actions of delivering necessities to the people of West Berlin to combat the Soviet Union’s blockade.

West Germany and East Germany

  • The US, Great Britain, and France shared control over West Germany, while the Soviet Union occupied East Germany.

NATO

  • A military alliance between US and Western European nations to create a system of mutual defense

    • One NATO nation being attacked is considered all NATO nations being attacked.

Warsaw Pact

  • an alliance between Soviet Union and Eastern European nations to combat NATO.

Douglas MacArthur

  • a WWII hero who participated in the Korean War.

Mao Zedong

  • Leader of the communist forces in China who met with Nixon for peace discussions.

38th Parallel 

  • the line that divided North and South Korea and the location where the Korean War occurred. 

Korean War

  • US involvement in Korean affairs that the Truman administration used as justification for expanding the military.

John Foster Dulles

  • President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State who helped shape US foreign policy during the 1950s by challenging communist forces and liberating nations under communism.

Brinkmanship

  • Pushing Communist powers to the brink of war, declaring that they would back down because of American nuclear superiority.

Nikita Khrushchev

  • a Soviet leader who denounced the crimes of Stalin and supported peaceful coexistence with the West.

Sputnik

  • The first satellites launched by the Soviet Union over the US in 1957.

Fidel Castro

  • A revolutionary who overthrew the Cuban dictator in 1959

NASA

  • an administration to direct the US efforts to build missiles and explore outer space.

U-2 Incident

  • the incident where the US was exposed for stealing information about the enemy’s missile program secretly, ending the promised conference in Paris.

Bay of Pigs

  • an island in Cuba where the trained Cubans fail to set off their plan, causing them to be trapped yet JFK refused to send US forces to save them. 

Berlin Wall

  • A wall to stop East Germans from fleeing to West Germany

Cuban Missile Crisis

  • A standoff between Kennedy and Khrushchev after the discovery of Soviet Union missiles beginning in Cuba on the way to the US, where Kennedy responds with a blockade of Cuban waters. 

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

  • Ending the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.

Henry Kissinger

  • Nixon’s national security adviser who helped with Nixon’s foreign policies, detente and realpolitik.

Detente 

  • A deliberate reduction of Cold War tensions by taking advantage of the Soviet Union and China rivalry.

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)

  • US diplomats who discussed securing Soviet consent to a freeze on the number of ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads.

Smith Act (1940)

  • an act that made it illegal for anyone to advocate overthrowing any gov’t in the US by force. 

HUAC

  • an investigative unit to look into communist activity in the US.

Alger Hiss

  • a conviction of one of Roosevelt’s advisers being a communist spy, making Nixon a national figure after his actions in the case.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

  • A couple tried for sending atomic secrets to the Soviet Union and were convicted of espionage, which fueled the Red Scare paranoia. 

Joseph McCarthy

  • A US senator who fueled the paranoia in the Red Scare through McCarthyism.

McCarthyism

  •  bold accusations of government officials being communist with no evidence by Joseph McCarthy. 

Harry S. Truman

  • the first modern president to use the powers of his office to challenge racial discrimination.

Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill of Rights)

  • WWII veterans were funded by the government to go to college and were allowed to take low interest loans on houses. 

Baby boom

  • A phenomenon where the population of Americans skyrocketed after the war due to the mass production of children. 

Levittown

  • A suburban community where large tracts of lands were purchased to create mass-produced low-cost, identical homes. 

Sun Belt

  • A mass migration to the Southern strip of land going across from California to Florida due to better economic opportunity.

22nd Amendment 

  • An amendment that limited a President to two full four-year terms

Taft-Hartley Act

  • An act that was meant to curb the power of labor unions after a surge in strikes following WWI.

Fair Deal

  • Truman’s reform program that promoted health insurance, civil rights legislation, public housing funding, and other progressive reforms.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

  • Leader of the Allied forces in Europe during WW2– leader of troops in Africa and commander in DDay invasion– president during integration of Little Rock Central High School

Modern Republicanism

  • President Eisenhower's approach to government, described as "conservative when it comes to money, liberal when it comes to human beings"

Highway Act

  • President Eisenhower's approach to government, described as "conservative when it comes to money, liberal when it comes to human beings"

New Frontier

  • JFK’s campaign where he promised to revitalize the stagnant economy and enact reform legislation in education, health care, and civil rights.

New Federalism

  • A way of revenue sharing to grant local gov’ts nationwide $30 billion dollars in grants over 5 years to put more power in the states

Stagflation

  • A period of economic slowdown and high inflation

Television

  • A form of mass media that impacted American culture after WWII, shaping public opinion, sharing information, and influencing social movements.

Rock and Roll

  • A form of mass culture that rooted from African Americans and was glorified by the younger generation.

The Affluent Society

  • A novel that criticized wealthy Americans for not spending enough to forward the public interest, influencing the forthcoming Kennedy and Johnson administrations

The Catcher in the Rye

  • A novel about a troubled teenager who opposed phoniness, which criticized the mass culture conformity of the era.

Beatniks

  • A group of poets who rebelled against the conformity of their age through their poetry.

Warren Commission

  • A commission to investigate the assassination of JFK. 

Jackie Robinson

  • The first African American to play on a major league team.

NAACP

  • A civil rights organization that fought against racial discrimination and advocated for social justice for African Americans.

Thurgood Marshall

  • The Supreme Court justice that led the Brown v. Board of Education case. 

Brown v Board of Education 

  • A case that argued that segregation of Black children in public schools was unconstitutional because it violated the 14th amendment. 

Earl Warren

  • A chief justice that declared separate facilities unconstitutional and ended school segregation.

Little Rock

  • Nine African American students that were defended by the National Guard to enter an integrated high school.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

  • An event where a Black woman refused to give up her seat to a White passenger, leading to her arrest and a series of boycotts of buses. 

SCLC

  • A conference that organized ministers and churches in the South to get behind the civil rights struggle.

SNCC

  • A committee that promoted voting rights to end segregation.

Civil Rights Commission 

  • A committee to investigate and address complaints of racial discrimination.

Decolonization

  • The collapse of colonial empires following WWII, where nations follow a trend of self-governance. 

CIA

  • An organization that conducted covert operations to protect American interests.

Eisenhower Doctrine

  • Economic and military aid to any Middle Eastern country threatened by communism.

OPEC

  • An alliance of Middle Eastern states and the South American state of Venezuela to expand their political power by coordinating their oil policies.

Yom Kippur (October) War

  • A conflict between Israel and Egypt, which launched a surprise attack on Israel during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

Camp David Accords

  • A peace settlement between Egypt and Israel suggested by President Carter, making it his greatest achievement. 

Peace Corps

  • An organization that recruited young American volunteers to give technical aid to developing countries.

Ngo Dinh Diem

  • Anti-communist leader of South Vietnam.

Domino theory

  • If South Vietnam fell to communism, one nation after another in Southeast Asia would also fall.

John Foster Dulles

  • Eisenhower’s secretary of state that created the SEATO.

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

  • A resolution that gave the president a blank check to take all necessary measures to protect US interests in Vietnam.

Credibility gap

  • Misinformation from leaders of the war and Johnson’s to the American people about the scope and costs of the war.

Tet Offensive

  • An all-out surprise attack on every capital and American base in South Vietnam during the Lunar New Year of the Vietcong, which is an American loss. 

Robert F. Kennedy

  • A Democratic president that was antiwar and pro civil rights but was assassinated after his victory.

George Wallace

  • A conservative presidential candidate that ran on an anti-liberalism campaign.

Richard Nixon

  • President during the 1960s that focused on international relations by reducing US involvement in the Vietnam War.

Democratic Convention in Chicago

  • A convention where widespread anti-Vietnam War protests and violent clashes between demonstrators and police occurred.

Hubert Humphrey

  • RFK’s Vice President that loyally supported Johnson’s domestic and foreign policies, being left with the badly divided Democratic party.

Henry Kissinger

  • Nixon’s national security adviser who supported his foreign policy to reduce the tensions of the Cold War. 

Vietnamization

  • Nixon’s policy of gradually withdrawing US troops from Vietnam and giving the South Vietnamese the money, weapons, and training needed to take over the full conduct of the war.

Nixon Doctrine

  • A war-focused doctrine where Nixon expanded the war by using US forces to invade Cambodia to destroy Vietnamese Communist bases,  followed with anti-war protests

My Lai

  • The massacre of women and children in the Vietnamese village of My Lai.

Pentagon Papers

  • A secret government study documenting the mistakes and deceptions of gov’t policymakers in dealing with Vietnam.

Paris Accords

  • a peace settlement that promised a cease-fire and free elections in 1973.

War Powers Act

  • A law that required future presidents to report to Congress within 48 hours after taking military action.

Lyndon Johnson

  • President Kennedy’s vice president that came into power after his assassination, well known for his Great Society program.

Great Society

  • A set of domestic programs by President Johnson that aimed to eliminate poverty, expand civil rights, and improve education, healthcare, and economic opportunities for disadvantaged Americans.

The Other America

  • a book on poverty that helped focus national attention on the 40 million Americans still living in poverty.

War on Poverty

  • A declaration by President Johnson in response to Harrington’s book, The Other America, followed with Congress providing the president with everything he asked for to combat poverty

Barry Goldwater

  • A Republican presidential candidate in the 1964 election who was feared as an extremist, yet was well known to energize conservative voices and end the welfare state.

Medicare

  • A Great Society program that provided health insurance to Americans aged 65 and older.

Medicaid 

  • A Great Society program that provided health insurance to low-income individuals and families.

Department of Housing and Urban Development

  • A cabinet department Johnson established in his Great Society reforms to address urban poverty, improve housing conditions, and promote the development of affordable housing

Elementary and Secondary Education Act

  • A Great Society act that aimed to improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged students by providing federal funding to schools.

Silent Spring

  • a book written by Rachel Carson criticizing the lack of clean air and water laws relating to pesticides. 

Immigration Act of 1965

  • An act that ended the ethnic quota acts of the 1920s favoring Europeans, opening the US to immigrants from anywhere. 

Martin Luther King Jr.

  • Black Civil Rights leader committed to nonviolent protests against civil rights.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

  • A letter written by MLK Jr. criticizing violent Black Americans and supporting the nonviolent cause, calling on America’s constitutions to justify integration of Black and white children nationwide.

March on Washington

  • Over 200k Black and White Americans joined Martin Luther King Jr. in a peaceful march on Washington in which King delivered his “I have a dream” speech

Civil Rights Act of 1964

  • An act that banned racial segregation in all public places, enforced desegregation in schools, and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

24th Amendment

  • Abolished the poll tax that had discouraged the poor from voting.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

  • Abolished literacy tests for voters and aided in the registration of Black voters in the deep South.

Malcolm X

  • Black Muslim leader who preached black separatism and national pride instead of integration with white people

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

  • A civil rights organization where young activists coordinated nonviolent protests and efforts to challenge segregation and discrimination.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

  • A civil rights organization that played a major role in the Civil Rights Movement by organizing nonviolent protests to challenge racial segregation and promote racial equality.

Stokely Carmichael

  • A black activist who advocated for black racial separatism and black power in economics, popular for his Black Power slogan and leadership in the SNCC and Black Panther Party.

Black Panthers

  • A civil rights organization that challenged police brutality and systemic racism against African Americans.

Watts

  • A black neighborhood in Los Angeles where a six-day race riot left 34 dead and hundreds of buildings destroyed

Kerner Commission

  • A commission that investigated the race riots of the late 1960s and concluded that racism and segregation were the chief causes as the Black and White population of the nation grew “separate and unequal” from each other

De Facto Segregation

  • Segregationist ideals continued by law in the South that had migrated racist attitudes towards integration into the North and West

Betty Friedan 

  • Author of the Feminine Mystique.

The Feminine Mystique

  • A book that inspired women to fulfill professional jobs outside the home.

Equal Pay Act of 1963

  • A federal law that aimed to eliminate wage discrimination based on gender by ensuring that men and women receive equal pay for equal work.

Title IX

  • An act that protected the rights of girls who attended federally-funded schools, notably by expanding their athletic opportunities.

Equal Rights Amendment

  • An amendment that proposed that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied by the US on account of sex

Cesar Chavez

  • A prominent labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the UFW, advocating for better working conditions, higher wages, and labor rights for farm workers.

Warren Court

  • The court led by Earl Warren where he prioritized individual rights and ruling on cases concerning the criminal justice system and state governments

Gideon v. Wainwright

  • Required the states to provide an attorney to poor defendants.

Miranda v. Arizona

  • Required police to inform the arrested of their right to remain silent.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

  • A radical student organization in the early 1960s that advocated for civil rights, anti-war activism, and greater political participation, prominent in the New Left movement.

New Left

  • A political movement that sought to address social inequalities, promote civil rights, oppose the Vietnam War, and advocate for a more participatory democracy.

Counterculture

  • A movement of young people where an explosion of the hippie era emerged through folk and rock music, long hair, beads, jeans, and drug use.

Three Mile Island

  • a power plant that faced an accident leading to opposition against building additional nuclear power plants.

Environmental Protection Act (EPA)

  • An independent federal agency that enforced federal programs and policies on air and water pollution, radiation issues, pesticides, and solid waste.

Clean Air Act

  • An act that regulated air emissions from both stationary and mobile sources and authorized the EPA.

Clean Water Act

  • An act that cleaned up toxic waste from former industrial cities.

Climate change

  • An environmental issue that sparked public opinion in the 1970s, fueling that conservation movement.

Silent majority

  • A term used on conservative Americans that disagreed with the liberal drift of their party, whom Nixon appealed to in the election.

Southern strategy

  • Nixon’s tool to win over the South that was more socially conservative and where political power shifted. 

Watergate

  • a scandal involving Nixon and 26 White house officials where Nixon’s committee broke into the Democratic national headquarters’ office and performed a series of illegal activities after.

Impeachment

  • A constitutional process where a president is removed from office after a congressional voting.

Gerald Ford

  • The first unelected president that’s best known for controversially granting Nixon a pardon for his role in the Watergate scandal.

Jimmy Carter

  • President in 1976 that ended the imperial presidency, impressing average Americans with his humanity.

Roe v. Wade

  • A law that allowed women access to abortions and viewed its restriction as a violation of a woman’s right to privacy.

Televangelists

  • religious leaders that preached their beliefs on television in the 1980s.

Moral Majority

  • A group that financed campaigns to unseat liberal members in Congress