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114 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
A. Philip Randolph
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labor and civil rights leader in the 1940's led Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, demanded Fair Employment Practices Commission from FDR
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Agricultural Adjustment Administration
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New Deal program that paid farmers not to produce crops, provided them with an income while reducing surpluses, stabilized production, declared unconstitutional in 1936
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Alfred Smith
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first Catholic ever nominated for President, lost in 1928 due to religion, urban background, and 'wet' views on Prohibition
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American Liberty League
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conservative anti-New Deal administration, criticized 'dictatorial' policies of FDR
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Atlantic Charter
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1941 joint statement issued by FDR and Winston Churchill of goals for an allied victory in WWII, provided for self-determination for all conquered nations, freedom of the seas, economic security, and free trade
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Black Cabinet
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informal network of black officeholders in the federal government, included Mary Bethune, William Hastie, and Robert Weaver
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Bonus Army
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1932, a group of jobless WWI veterans who marched on Washington to demand immediate payment of money promised them in 1945, Hoover drove them out with the Army
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Brain Trust
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group of college professors from Columbia University who advised FDR on economic matters early in the New Deal, unofficial cabinet
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Charles Coughlin
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Catholic priest who used his radio program to criticize FDR and the New Deal, eventually pulled off the air
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Court-Packing Plan
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FDR's 1937 proposal to reform the Supreme Court by appointing additional justices, spurred by Court's actions in striking down New Deal laws, shot down by Congress
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Fireside Chats
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FDR's informal radio addresses, gave people a sense of confidence
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Frances Perkins
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FDR's Secretary of Labor, first woman to serve as a federal Cabinet officer
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Francis Townsend
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retired physician, proposed an Old Age Pension Plan to give every retiree over 60 monthly payments, provided that they spend it
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
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elected President four times, led the country's recovery from the Depression and through WWII, died in office weeks before Germany's surrender
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Harry Hopkins
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close adviser to Roosevelt, FDR's czar of relief programs, headed the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Civil Works Administration, and Works Progress Administration
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Harry Truman
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vice president who became president after FDR died, elected again in 1948, ordered the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, set the course of post-war containment policy, created the Fair Deal
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Hawley-Smoot Tariff
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raised the duties on imported foreign goods to all-time highs, intended to boost American industry and development, worsened the depression
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Herbert Hoover
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president who was blamed the Great Depression, tried to alleviate it but failed due to inflexibility and refusal to give direct relief
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Hoovervilles
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shanty-towns of unemployed and homeless people on the outskirts of major cities during the early days of the Depression
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Huey Long
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flamboyant Louisiana governor and US Senator, challenged FDR to do more for the poor and proposed a popular 'share-our-wealth' plan, assassinated in 1935
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Hundred Days
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term applied to the first weeks of the Roosevelt Administration, during which Congress passed 13 emergency relief and reform measures
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Lend Lease Act
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program authorizing the president to lend or lease equipment to nations whose defense was deemed vital to US security, designed to help Britain keep fighting the Nazis
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National Labor Relations Act
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created a National Labor Relations Board that could compel employers to recognize and bargain with unions, helped promote the growth of organized labor in the 1930's and for decades thereafter
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National Recovery Administration
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agency that created a partnership between business and government to fight the Depression, allowed major industries to fix prices in return for agreeing to fair practice codes, wages and hour standards, etc, declared unconstitutional in 1935
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Neutrality Acts
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series of laws that provided that Americans could not ship weapons, loan money, travel on belligerent ships, extend credit, or deliver goods to any belligerent countries, high tide of isolationism, all repealed after 1939
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New Deal
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Roosevelt's program of domestic reform and relief, Relief, Reform and Recovery did not end the Depression but gave hope and security and made the government more responsive to the people
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Pearl Harbor
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US naval base in Hawaii that was attacked by the Japanese in 1941, serious US losses
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Reconstruction Finance Corporation
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Hoover's economic recovery program that provided government loans to business, banks, and railroads, didn't work
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Rugged Individualism
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Hoover's philosophy that called on Americans to help each other during the Depression without direct government relief, he feared too much government help would weaken American character and lead to totalitarianism
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Second Front
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proposed Anglo-American invasion of France to relive the Soviets, delivered late in the war, worsened Soviet relations with the US and Britain
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Second New Deal
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name given to a series of proposals that FDR requested and Congress passed to reinvigorate the New Deal as recovery began to lag, anti-business in tone and intent
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Social Security Act
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required both workers and their employers to contribute to a federally run pension fund for retired workers, also provided federal disability and unemployment assistance
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Bay of Pigs
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US-supported invasion of Cuba in 1961, intended to overthrow Fidel Castro, complete failure, shook the confidence of the Kennedy Administration and encouraged the Soviet Union to become more active in the Americas
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Camp David Accords
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agreement reached between the leaders of Israel and Egypt after protracted negotiations brokered by President Carter, Israel surrendered land seized in earlier wars and Egypt recognized Israel as a nation
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Chiang Kai Shek
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ineffective and corrupt leader of China in the 30's and 40's, wartime ally of the US, unable to stop the Communists from seizing power in 1949 and was exiled to Taiwan
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Cuban Missile Crisis
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a confrontation between the US and the USSR resulting from a Soviet attempt to place a long-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, Kennedy forced the Soviets to remove them with a blockade and threat of force
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Dien Bien Phu
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French fortress in northern Vietnam that surrendered in 1954 to the Viet Minh, the defeat caused the French to abandon Indochina and set the stage for the Geneva Conference, which divided the region and led to American involvement in South Vietnam
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Domino Theory
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Eisenhower's metaphor that when one country fell to Communists, its neighbors would then be threatened and collapse one after another like a row of dominoes, became a major rationale for US intervention in Vietnam
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Douglas MacArthur
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WWII hero who led UN forces during the Korean War, opposed Truman's decisions to limit the war cost, kicked out by Truman for recklessness
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Dwight Eisenhower
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WWII hero and president, continued Truman's policy of containment, but cut military costs, expanded our nuclear arsenal and the CIA
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Fidel Castro
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Communist leader of Cuba, led a rebellion against the US-backed dictator and took power in 1959, became closely allied with the USSR
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George Kennan
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State Department official who was the architect of the containment concept, said that the USSR was historically and ideologically driven to expand and that the US must practice vigilant containment to stop it
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Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
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authorized President Johnson to take all necessary measures to protect US forces in Vietnam, legalized Us involvement in Vietnam
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Henry Kissinger
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advisor to Presidents Nixon and Ford, architect of the Vietnam settlement, the diplomatic opening to China, and the detente with the Soviet Union
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Ho Chi Minh
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Communist leader of North Vietnam, fought French and American forces to a standstill, considered a Nationalist by many, considered an agent of the USSR and China by others
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Iran-Contra Affair
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scandal that erupted after the Reagan administration sold weapons to Iran in hopes of freeing American hostages in Lebanon, money from the sales was used to aid insurgents in Nicaragua, presidential aides eventually took the blame for this illegal activity
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Iran Hostage Crisis
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incident in which Iranian radicals seized 52 Americans from the US embassy with government support and held them for 444 days, demanding the return of the deposed Shah to stand trial
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Jimmy Carter
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president who aimed for a foreign policy as good and great as the American people, accomplished the Camp David accords, the Iran Hostage Crisis took place during his one term, became successful as an ex-president
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John Foster Dulles
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Eisenhower's Secretary of State, believed that Communism was evil and must be confronted with brinkmanship and massive retaliation
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Joseph Stalin
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ruthless leader of the USSR from 1925 until 1953, industrialized the nation and let it in WWII and the early stages of the Cold War
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Lyndon Johnson
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president during the first part of the Vietnam War, escalated American involvement, unpopular after the Tet Offensive and decided not to seek reelection
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Mao Zedong
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Communist Chinese leader who won control of China in 1949, allied with the USSR and an enemy of the US
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Marshall Plan
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Secretary of State George Marshall's economic aid program to rebuild war-torn Western Europe, poured billions of dollars into European economies and containment
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Massive Retaliation
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idea that the US should depend on nuclear weapons to stop Communist aggression, prompted by frustration of the Korean War stalemate and the desire to save money on military budgets, reduced reliance on conventional forces
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Ngo Dinh Diem
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American ally in South Vietnam from 1954 to 1963, repressive towards the Viet Cong, required increasing American aid to stop a Communist takeover until he was killed in 1963
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Nikita Khrushchev
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Soviet leader, aggressive revolutionary who hoped to spread Communism to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, he was blamed for the Cuban Missile Crisis and fell out of popular support
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North American Treaty Organization (NATO)
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military alliance of the US, ten western countries, and Canada, considered a deterrent to Soviet aggression in Europe, an attack on one member was considered an attack on all
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Peaceful Coexistence
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period in Soviet-American relations marked by less tension and personal diplomacy between Khrushchev and Eisenhower, after they both recognized that competition in a nuclear age must be peaceful, ended with the U-2 spy plane incident in 1960
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Richard Nixon
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president in the early 70's extracted the US from Vietnam slowly, recognized Communist China, improved relations with the Soviet Union, however his achievements were overshadowed by the Watergate scandal
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Tet Offensive
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a series of Communist attacks on 44 South Vietnamese cities, defeated by American forces, but ended the view that the war was winnable for the US
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Truman Doctrine
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the policy of president Truman to provide aid to fee nations faced wit internal or external threats of Communism, announced in conjunction with an economic aid package to Greece and Turkey, successful in helping those countries put down Communist guerrilla movements and is considered to be the first US action of the Cold War
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Yalta Conference
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meeting of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Winston Churchill to discuss postwar plans and Soviet entry into the war against Japan near the end of WWII, disagreements over the future of Poland surfaced, and some Americans considered it a sellout to the Soviets in the Red Scare
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Alger Hiss
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State Department official accused in 1948 of spying for the Soviet Union, pursued by Richard Nixon and eventually convicted and imprisoned
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Barry Goldwater
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unsuccessful presidential candidate against Lyndon Johnson in 1964, called for dismantling of the New Deal, escalation of the war in Vietnam, and status quo on civil rights, grandfather of the 1980's conservative movement
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Black Power
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rallying cry for black militants in the 1960's and 70's, called for blacks to stand up for their rights, reject integration, demand political power, seek their roots, and embrace blackness
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Brown vs. Board of Education
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Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court ruled 'separate but equal' was unconstitutional in schools
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Civil Rights Act of 1964
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proposed by John Kennedy and signed by Lyndon Johnson, desegregated public accommodations, libraries, parks, and amusements, broadened the powers of federal government to provide individual rights and prevent job discrimination
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Civil Rights Act of 1965
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sometimes called the Voting Rights Act, expanded the federal government's protection of voters and voter registration, increased federal authority to investigate voter irregularities and outlawed literacy tests
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Earl Warren
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controversial Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, led the Court in far-reaching social, racial, and political rulings, including school desegregation and protecting rights of persons accused of crimes
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Fair Deal
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Truman's legislative program, it was largely an extension of the New Deal of the 1930's, and Truman had little success convincing Congress to enact it
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Federal Highway Act
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largest public works project in US history, Eisenhower signed the law, which built over 40,000 miles of highways in the US at a cost of 25 billion dollars and created the interstate highway system
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Freedom Rides
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civil rights campaign of the Congress of Racial Equality in which protesters traveled by bus through the South to desegregate bus stations, white violence against them prompted the Kennedy administration to protect them and be more involved in civil rights
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George Wallace
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Alabama governor and third-party candidate for president in 1968 and 1972, ran on a segregation and law-and-order platform, paralyzed by an attempted assassination in 1972
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House Un-American Activities Committee
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congressional committee formed in the 1930's to investigate perceived threats to democracy, in the 1940's the committee laid the foundation for the Red Scare as it investigated allegations of Communist subversion in Hollywood and pursued Alger Hiss
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Hubert Humphrey
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liberal senator from Minnesota and Lyndon Johnson's vice president who tried to unite the president after the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, narrowly lost the presidency to Richard Nixon that year
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John Kennedy
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president in the early 1960's, youngest president ever to serve, as well as the first Catholic to serve, had a moderately progressive domestic agenda and a hard-line policy toward the USSR, assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald
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Joseph McCarthy
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junior Senator from Wisconsin who charged hundreds of Americans with working for or aiding the Soviet Union during the Cold War, had no evidence but terrorized people in the 1950's with reckless charges
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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
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engineer and his wife who were accused, tried, and executed in the early 1950's for running an espionage ring in New York City that gave atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, long considered unjustly accused victims of the Red Scare
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Lyndon Johnson
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president in the late 1960's, took over after Kennedy was assassinated and created the Great Society, a reform program unmatched in the twentieth century, his Vietnam policy divided the country and his party, retired from politics in 1969
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Malcolm X
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militant black leader associated with the Nation of Islam, questioned MLK's strategy of nonviolence and called on blacks to make an aggressive defense of their rights, assassinated by fellow Muslims
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Martin Luther King
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America's greatest civil rights leader, his nonviolent protests gained national attention and resulted in government protection of African American rights, assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee
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National Defense Education Act
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law that authorized the use of federal funds to improve the nation's elementary and high schools, inspired by Cold War fears that the US was falling behind the Soviet Union in the arms and space race, it was directed at improving science, math, and foreign language education
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Richard Nixon
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controversial vice president and president, made his political reputation as an aggressive anti-Communist crusader, his presidency ended with his resignation during the Watergate scandal
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Robert Kennedy
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John Kennedy's brother who served as attorney general and gradually embraced growing civil rights reform, later made a run for the Democratic presidential nomination as a Senator, assassinated in 1968
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Rosa Parks
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NAACP member who initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 when she was arrested for violating Jim Crow rules on a bus, her action and the long boycott that followed became an icon of the quest for civil rights and focused national attention on boycott leader MLK
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Sit-Ins
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protests by black college students who took seats at 'whites only' lunch counters and refused to leave until served, prompted formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
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Sputnik
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Soviet satellite launched in September 1957, set off a panic that the Communists were winning the space race and were superior in math and science education, gave impetus for the Nation Defense Education Act of 1958
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Strom Thurmond
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Democratic governor of South Carolina who headed the States' Rights Party (Dixiecrats), ran for president in 1948 against Truman and his mild civil rights proposals and eventually joined the Republican Party
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Taft-Hartley Act
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anti-labor law passed over Truman's veto, provided a cooling off period wherein the president could force striking workers back to work for 80 days, outlawed closed shops and allowed states to pass right-to-work laws
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Thomas Dewey
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twice-defeated Republic candidate for president, his overconfidence and lackadaisical effort in 1948 allowed Truman to overcome his large lead and pull off the greatest political upset in American history
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Thurgood Marshall
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leading attorney for NAACP in the 1940's and 50's, headed the team in Brown vs. Board Education case, Lyndon Johnson later appointed him the first black justice on the US Supreme Court
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Betty Friedan
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author of the Feminine Mystique, which raised the issue of a woman's place in society and how deadening suburb happiness could be for women, her ideas sparked the women's movement in the 1960's
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Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
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proposed amendment to the US Constitution, outlawed discrimination based on gender, never ratified, but many states adopted similar guidelines to their own constitutions
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George McGovern
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unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president in 1972, called for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and a guaranteed income for the poor
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Gerald Ford
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president in the 1970's, served without being elected after Nixon and Spiro Agnew resigned
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H. R. Haldeman
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a key aide to president Nixon who ordered the CIA and FBI not to probe too deeply in the Watergate break-in, helped provide money to keep the burglars quiet, eventually sentenced to prison
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Hippies
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members of the youth counterculture that dominated many college campuses in the 1960's, rather than promoting a political agenda, they challenged conventional sexual standards, rejected traditional economic values, and encouraged the use of drugs
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James McCord
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one of the 'plumbers' who worked for the White House to 'plug leaks' to the media, committed illegal break-ins and surveillances, revealed in 1973 that he was being paid to keep quiet about Watergate
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John Dean
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White House aide who participated in the Watergate cover-up, testified against Nixon, although he wasn't believed until the White House tapes surfaced
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John Mitchell
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Nixon's first attorney general and his close friend and advisor, many people believed he ordered the Watergate break-in, participated in the cover-up and served 19 months in prison
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Katie Millett
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author of Sexual Politics, a book that energized the more radical elements of the women's liberation movement with its confrontational messages about the male-dominated structure in American society
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New Left
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label for the political radicals of the 1960's influenced by the Old Left of the 1930's, which had criticized capitalism and supported successes of Communism, the New Left supported civil rights and opposed American foreign policy, especially in Vietnam
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National Organization for Women
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founded by Betty Friedan and others in 1966, focused on women's rights in the workplace, fought against legal and economic discrimination against women, lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendent
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Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
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cartel of oil-exporting nations, which used oil as a weapon to alter America's Middle East policy, it organized a series of oil boycotts that rolled the US economy through the 1970'
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Reagan Revolution
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the policies of the first Reagan administration, which increased defense spending, reduced social programs, and cut taxes, based on the 'supply side' theory of growing the economy by cutting government interferences and taxes
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Ronald Reagan
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president in the 1980's who led a conservative movement against detente with the Soviet Union and the growth of the federal government, some people credit him with America's victory in the Cold War while others fault his insensitive social agenda and irresponsible fiscal policies
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Saturday Night Massacre
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name given to an incident in which Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who was relentlessly investigating Watergate, Richardson refused and resigned along with his deputy, who also refused to carry out Nixon's order, created a firestorm of protest in the country
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Silent Majority
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label Nixon gave to middle-class Americans who supported him, obeyed the laws, and wanted 'peace with honor' in Vietnam, he contrasted this group with students and civil rights activists who disrupted the country with protests
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Spiro Agnew
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vice president during the Nixon administration, vocal critic of antiwar and civil rights opponents of the administration, resigned the vice presidency in 1973 when it was discovered he had accepted bribes
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Stagflation
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name given to the economic condition throughout most of the 1970's in which prices rose rapidly but without economic growth, unemployment rose too, this was caused in large part by rising oil prices
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Students for Democratic Society (SDS)
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radical political organization founded by Tom Hayden and others, set forth its ideals in the Port Huron Statement, government should promote equality, fairness, and be responsive to people, most important student protest group in the 1960's
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Warren Burger
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Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1969-1986, more conservative in leadership than Earl Warren, but his court upheld school busing, women's right to abortion, and ordered Nixon to surrender the Watergate tapes
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Watergate Scandal
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name applied to a series of events that began when the Nixon White House tried to place illegal phone taps on Democrats in 1972, the burglars were caught, and rather than accept the political and legal fallout, Nixon and his aides obstructed the investigation, costing him his office and sending several of his aides to prison
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Woodstock
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a three-day rock music festival in 1969, held on a farm in rural New York, attended by some 300,000 young people, this remarkable and unusually peaceful event is considered the high point of the counterculture in the 1960's and 70's
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