APUSH – Flashcard

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Truman Doctrine
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First established in 1947 after Britain no longer could afford to provide anti-communist aid to Greece and Turkey, it pledged to provide U.S. military and economic aid to any nation threatened by communism.
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Iron Curtain Speech
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Winston Churchill gave this speech at Westminster College in Fulton Missouri after receiving an honorary degree (March 5, 1946). With typical oratorical skills, Churchill introduced the phrase "Iron Curtain" to describe the division between Western powers and the area controlled by the Soviet Union. As such the speech marks the onset of the Cold War.
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Operation Vittles
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With help from the Royal Air force, the United States began an around-the-clock airlift of historic proportions that delivered nearly 2 million tons of supplies to West Berliners.
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China & 1949
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- after WWII, two political parties emerged from China: communist Mao Zedung that wanted to get rid of feudalism and give more power back to the people and Chang Kai Shek who wanted to hold on to feudalism and was backed by the United States. Mao Zedong won campaign and and moved China to communism. - Communist China was a loss to the U.S. in the war against communism. - became an issue in the presidential debates of 1952: the democrats lost China to communism - China was the first nation to give aid to the liberation of Vietnam. - Every expert that correctly predicted what would happen in China was fired
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soft on communism
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this charge was brought on democrats (by republicans) who claimed that democrats did little to oppose the Soviets and their beliefs
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Military Industrial Complex
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Eisenhower first coined this phrase when he warned American against it in his last State of the Union Address. He feared that the combined lobbying efforts of the armed services and industries that contracted with the military would lead to excessive Congressional spending.
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Israel, 1948
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From the UN General Assembly on April 28, 1947, the Palestine partition of Arab and Jewish states. On May 14, 1948 Israel proclaimed independence and US recognized the new state but the Arabs rejected the proclamation and declared war against Israel. Admitted in U.N in 1949.
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Iran, 1953
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the country's popular prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, nationalized Britain's Anglo- Iranian Oil Company, and the state department worried that this might be a precedent throughout the middle east, so CIA chief in Iran, Kermit Roosevelt, organized and financed an opposition within the Iranian army and on the streets of Teheran; this CIA led movement forced Mossadegh out of office and replaced him with Riza Shah Pahlavi, who showed American loyalty
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Dienbienphu
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small town and former French army base in Northern Vietnam; site of the battle that ended in a Vietnamese victory, the French withdrawal from Vietnam, and the securing of North Vietnam's independence
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Domino Theory
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the political theory that if one nation comes under Communist control then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control
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Warsaw Pact
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treaty signed in 1945 that formed an alliance of the Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain; USSR, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania
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Sputnik
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First artificial Earth satellite, it was launched by Moscow in 1957 and sparked U.S. fears of Soviet dominance in technology and outer space. It led to the creation of NASA and the space race.
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U2 Incident
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The incident when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. The U.S. denied the true purpose of the plane at first, but was forced to when the U.S.S.R. produced the living pilot and the largely intact plane to validate their claim of being spied on aerially. The incident worsened East-West relations during the Cold War and was a great embarrassment for the United States.
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Baby Boom
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people born in the US between 1946 and 1964; this post-war era allowed for better education, employment, peace and prosperity - increasing higher rates of both marriage and fertility.
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McCarthyism
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The term associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy who led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee
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Taft-Hartley Act
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Act that provides balance of power between union and management by designating certain union activities as unfair labor practices; also known as Labor-Management Relations Act (LMRA)
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Dixiecrats
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Were conservative southern Democrats who objected to President Truman's strong push for civil-rights legislation. Southern Democrats who broke from the party in 1948 over the issue of civil rights and ran a presidential ticket as the States' Rights Democrats.
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
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In 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus, Dr. Martin L. King led a boycott of city busses. After 11 months the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public transportation was illegal.
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Federal Aid Highway Act
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The act passed by the US Congress in 1956 that planned and funded 90% the construction of the nation's interstate highway system
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NASA
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Established in 1958 as the government agency responsible for the United States of America's space program and long-term general aerospace research.
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Lunch Counter Sit-Ins
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demonstrations begun in February, 1960, by four black college students at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. Students sat in lunch counters that refused to serve them and refused to leave unless they were served. More than 50,000 people participated in sit-ins in more than 70 cities. They were harassed verbally and physically but did not fight back. The chain desegregated.
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National Defense Education Act
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(NDEA) After the Russian satellite "Sputnik" was successfully launched, there was a critical comparison of the Russian to the American education system. The American education system was already seen as too easygoing. So in 1958 Congress made the NDEA, authorizing $887 million in loans to needy college students and in grants for the purpose of improving the teaching of the sciences and languages.
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