1990s Vocabulary - Foster
1. ENIAC – (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945
2. Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak – co founders of Apple in 1976
3. MS-DOS – an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft
4. ARPANET – U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency Network was the first public packet-switched computer network
5. James Watson & Francis Crick – “discovered” that the DNA molecule exists in the form of a three-dimensional double helix
6. Human Genome Project – an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a physical and a functional standpoint (1990-2003)
7. Family Medical Leave Act – (1993) a United States labor law requiring covered employers to provide employees with job-protected, unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons
8. AmeriCorps – (1993) an independent agency of the United States government that engages more than five million Americans in service through a variety of stipended volunteer work programs in many sectors
9. Brady Bill – (The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act) is an Act of the United States Congress that mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers in the United States
10. Newt Gingrich – an American politician and author who served as the 50th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 1999
11. Contract with America – a legislative agenda advocated by the Republican Party during the 1994 congressional election campaign
12. Health Insurance Portability Act – (1996) required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient's consent or knowledge
13. Welfare Reform Act – (Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996) eliminates AFDC's open-ended entitlement and creates a block grant for states to provide time-limited cash assistance for needy families, with work requirements for most recipients
14. Bob Dole – an American politician and attorney who represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996. He was the Republican Leader of the Senate during the final 11 years of his tenure, including three non-consecutive years as Senate Majority Leader
15. H. Ross Perot – an American business magnate, politician, and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Data Systems and Perot Systems. Ran for president in an independent party Election of 1992. Trump before Trump.
16. Children’s Health Insurance Program – (CHIP) provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid. In some states, CHIP covers pregnant women.
17. Whitewater Scandal – a real estate controversy involving former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary as relates to their failed investment into a land development venture known as Whitewater
18. Janet Reno – an American lawyer and public official who served as the first female and 78th United States attorney general. Reno, a member of the Democratic Party, held the position from 1993 to 2001, making her the second-longest serving attorney general
19. Kenneth Starr – headed an investigation of members of the Clinton administration (the Whitewater controversy) from 1994 to 1998
20. Monica Lewinsky – an American activist. Lewinsky became internationally known in the late 1990s after U.S. President Bill Clinton admitted to having had an affair with her during her days as a White House intern between 1995 and 1997
21. Jean-Bertrand Aristide – a Haitian former Salesian priest and politician who became Haiti's first democratically elected president. As a priest, he taught liberation theology and, as a president, he attempted to normalize Afro-Creole culture, including Vodou religion, in Haiti.
22. Ethnic cleansing – Rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove from a given area persons of another ethnic or religious group, which is contrary to international law
23. Dayton Accords – brought an end to the Bosnian War in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
24. Slobodan Milosevic – a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the President of Serbia between 1989-97 and President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 until his оverthrow in 2000. Milošević played a major role in the Yugoslav Wars and became the first sitting head of state charged with war crimes
25. PLO – (The Palestine Liberation Organization) a Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinian people
26. NAFTA – (North American Free Trade Agreement) the goal of NAFTA is to eliminate all tariff and non-tariff barriers of trade and investment between the United States, Canada and Mexico
27. European Union – a supranational political and economic union of 27 member states that are located primarily in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden)
28. Timothy McVeigh – an American domestic terrorist who perpetrated the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people, injured 680, and destroyed one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. It remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history
29. Al Qaeda – broad-based militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s, behind the 2001 attacks
30. Osama Bin Laden - a Saudi Arabian-born Islamic dissident and militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda from 1988 until his death in 2011