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Wilson's Fourteen Points
Proposed a 14-point program for world peace. These points were later taken as the basis for peace negotiations at the end of the war. Built on national self- determination, open diplomacy, and freedom of commerce and travel. The Fourteen Points speech was the only explicit statement of wa…
Prohibition
The 18th amendment prohibited the manufacturing and sale of alcohol including alcoholic beverages. Went into effect January 1920. Lead to rise of crime- Al Capone. Speakeasies were created for people to sell alcohol illegally. Many people concocted their own liquor called bathtub gin. Th…
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Italian Immigrants. Arrested and charged with robbing and murdering a paymaster of a shoe company in MA. They were self- proclaimed anarchists. Sacco had an alibi. Both were innocent but convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. They were convicted because of anti- radicalism and xen…
Marcus Garvey
Jamaican- born black nationalist. Moved to harlem in 1916 opened up a branch of UNIA (universal negro improvement association). He believed that AA did not have a future in America and should live separately from whites. Established the black star line shipping company. He did not repres…
Spokes Monkey Trail
A substitute high school teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in any state-funded school. First jury trail broadcast on live radio. 900 spectators in court room. Reached a guilty verdict in 9 minutes. Wanted…
Eugenics
A pseudo- science based on notions of racial superiority. Some states allowed "inferior" women to be sterilized without their knowledge or consent. Sterilization of children born out of wedlock. Anglo- Saxon Protestants believed that children born out of wedlock would have children out of…
Scottsboro boys
Nine African-American teenagers accused in Alabama of raping two White American women on a train in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. An all white- jury convicted them of rape and sentenced them to death. A new trail …
Dust Bowl
Period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the US plains regions during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion caused the phenomenon. OK, TX, CO, MX ,KS. Drove 60% of pop out of the region. Ok…
Hoovervilles
Shanty towns that the unemployed built in the cities during the early years of the Depression; the name given to them shows that the people blamed Hoover directly for the Depression. These people lost their homes and farms during the depression. There were hundreds of them all over the co…
HUAC
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties. Destroyed many careers of prominent figures as w…
Neutrality Acts (1935, 1936, 1937)
Outlawed arms sales or loans to nations at war and forbidding Americans from traveling on the ships of belligerent powers. Based on the widespread disillusionment with World War I in the early 1930s and the belief that the United States had been drawn into the war through loans and trade …
Japanese Internment
Executive Order 9066 forced relocation and incarceration during World War II of 120,000 Japanese Americans who lived on the Pacific coast in camps in the interior of the country. 2/3 American citizens (Nisei) and couldn't be removed. There was no mass internment of Germans or Italians. 1…
No No Boys
Japanese young men who answered no no to both questions asked by the draft. American decided to draft young Japanese men to the war. They had to answer a 2 part questionnaire. 5,300 answered No No; 4,600 refused to answer. The questions were based on if they were willing to serve and if t…
McCarthyism
A campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy in the period 1950-1954. Brought the fear of the Soviet threat to America's own backyard. 2 spices are found guilty and executed. Laid the foundation for the investi…
G.I. Bill
Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944. Extended crucial financial aid to veterans. It provided lower cost mortgages, created veteran administration hospitals to provide lifetime medical treatment, paid tuition and stipends for college and vocational training. GI bill was the one area in …
Truman Doctrine
An American foreign policy to stop Soviet imperialism during the Cold War. It was announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. Stated that the U.S. would support any nation threatened by Communism. Pr…
Marshall Plan
Dedicated American resources to the economic reconstruction of Western Europe. $12.4 billion for US goods helped US economy. This plan strengthened the global free- market. This plan was created to prevent depression/ spread of communism. Stalin thought this was an attempt to spread capi…
NSC-68 National Security Council
Together with the CIA called for fostering of change in Soviet system. Articulated the logic for National Security State. Argued that the US had entered an era of permanent crisis because of the expansion of communism and the hostile intentions of the Soviet Union.
Brown vs. Board of Education
Supreme Court decision that overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision (1896); led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court ruled that "separate but equal" schools for blacks were inherently unequal and thus unconstitutional. The decision energized the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s a…
Emmett Till
Emmett Louis Till was an African-American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi at the age of 14, after reportedly whistling at a white women. His killers later confessed to the crime but an all white jury found them innocent. The Southern Manifesto was created promising to oppose feder…
Cuban Missile Crisis
A 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba. A deal: the USSR will withdraw missiles from Cuba if the USA agrees to never invade Cuba and remove its missiles from Turkey. The Test Ban Treated (1963) created banning …
Malcolm X
American Muslim minister and a human rights activist. 1952; renamed himself X to signify the loss of his African heritage; converted to Nation of Islam in jail in the 50s. Malcolm X was a Black Muslim minister in the Nation of Islam and an influential black leader who moved away from Kin…
Tet Offensive
Communist military attacks across South Vietnam in Jan-Feb 1968. Named for the Vietnamese New Year. The name given to a campaign in January 1968 by the Viet Cong to attack twenty-seven South Vietnamese cities, including Saigon. It ended in a military defeat for the Viet Cong, but at the s…
Students for a Democratic Society
Founded in Michigan 1962; radical organization wanted to rid American society of poverty, racism, and violence; embraced liberal reforms; advocated participator democracy. One of the main representations of the New Left. Called for a rejuvenation of American politics and society to replac…
Counterculture
Called hippies. Aimed at undermining repressive capitalist culture. Rejected materialism, competition, and conformity. Believed in non-mainstream religions like buddhism. Challenged views on drugs, lifestyles, and sex (many used drugs to test the limit of the mind). Use new forms of music…
Roe vs. Wade
Court case about abortion. Court decision that women have a right to abortion during the 1st two trimesters. This was a symbol of reproductive freedom. Legal abortion; Court justices ruled that governments lacked the power to ban abortions, due to the decision protected by the 14th Amendm…
NOW
National Organization of Women. American feminist organization founded in 1966. Founded by Betty Friedan. Created to lobby against sexual discrimination in places such as employment, wages, education, and jury duty. formed to work for economic and legal rights of women; demanded equality…
1968 Democratic Convention
Held in a hotel in Chicago where delegates voted down a peace resolution and seemed ready to nominate John's former vice, Hubert Humphrey, when protesters gathered for a rally outside. Police beat/arrested them to break up the crowd as the violence was caught on film. The Democrats still…
Détente
The lessening of military or diplomatic tensions, as between the US and the Soviet Union. Kissenger advocated for a new foreign policy. He advocated for détenet (relaxation of tensions). Nixon went to USSR, verified policy of détente. Détenet deteriorated when Carter was president and ca…
Vietnamization
Nixon's policy that involved withdrawing 540,000 US troops from South Vietnam over an extended period of time. It also included a gradual take over of the South Vietnamese taking responsibility of fighting their own war by American-provided money, weapons, training, and advice.
Pentagon Papers
The name given to a secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967Articles by The New York Times about a top-secret study of America's involvement in the Vietnam War. The information was "leaked" to the newspaper by the former P…
Watergate
Agents of Nixon's reelection campaign broke into the Washington D.C. hotel- office complex democratic party headquarters. Nixon helped cover up the break- in. Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment. Nixon had recordings of his meetings and they were used against him.
U.C. vs Bakke (1978)
Imposed limitations on affirmative action to ensure that providing greater opportunities for minorities did not come at the expense of the rights of the majority. In other words, affirmative action was unfair if it lead to reverse discrimination. The case involved the University of Calif.…
Reagan Democrats
A traditionally Democratic voter in the United States, especially a white working-class Northerner, who defected from their party to support Republican President Ronald Reagan in either or both the 1980 and 1984 elections. The nickname given to southern and blue-collar workers who began t…
Feminization of Poverty
The phenomenon in which women experience poverty at rates that are disproportionately high in comparison to men. This is because of not being paid as much.
"Contract with America"
A platform developed by Speaker of the House Gingrich during the 1994 elections that outlined a series of conservative legislative goals endorsed by about 300 republican congressional candidates. Completely dismantled welfare state all for a balanced budget. Moral goal was to end abortion…
Welfare Reform Act (1996)
1996 law that established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in place of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program and tightened Medicaid eligibility requirements. Could only be on welfare for 2 years. Increased the power of the states relative to the federal go…
Homegrown Terrorism
Violence at abortion clinics and against doctors, children use guns to murder (columbine) handguns are easy to buy, 1995 bombing of federal building in oklahoma city found that veterans of iraq did it, deep anger at gov.
L.A. Riots
Riots started in April 1992 after a trial jury acquitted four police officers of the Los Angeles Police Department of the use of excessive force in the videotaped arrest and beating of Rodney King, following a high-speed police chase. These riots killed 58, 4,000 businesses destroyed. Mo…
2000 President Election
George Bush Jr. vs Al Gore. This election exposed defects in the election process, from faulty ballots and voting machines to the role of the media, and raised serious questions about the value of the electoral college. Also revealed the flaws in the system disfranchised large numbers of…
Patriot Act
George W. Bush Jr put into place in October 2001. Increased the U.S. Justice Department's range of options for spying on and detaining citizens and noncitizens suspected of pro- terrorist activites. Arrested hundreds on illegal immigrants and imprisoned them.
Regime Change in Iraq
Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and could attack the US and also to reshape the mideast into a region less hostile to the US and its ally Israel.
Hurricane Katrina
In 2005 the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Killed over 1,800 people primarily in Mississippi and Louisiana leaving much of New Orleans under water. A slow and ineffective response was given by the federal …

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