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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. -
Rock n roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, from musical styles such as gospel, jazz, boogie woogie, and rhythm and blues, and country music. -
G.I. Bill (servicemen's readjustment act ) 1944
Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 22, 1944, this act, also known as the GI Bill, provided veterans of the Second World War funds for college education, unemployment insurance, and housing.The provisions of the GI Bill were extremely costly and ensured that hospital facilities were strengthened, provided educational and training opportunities, loans for aid in buying or building houses and purchasing farms or business properties. -
Baby Boom Gerneration
The term "Baby Boom" is used to identify a massive increase in births following World War II. Baby boomers are those people born worldwide between 1946 and 1964, the time frame most commonly used to define them. -
Iron Curtain
The term Iron Curtain had been in occasional and varied use as a metaphor since the 19th century, but it came to prominence only after it was used by the former British prime minister Winston Churchill in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, U.S. -
Containment Policy
Containment was a United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Jonas Salk
Salk took a position at University of Pittsburgh, where he began conducting research on polio, also known as infantile paralysis. By 1951, Salk had determined that there were three distinct types of polio viruses and was able to develop a "killed virus" vaccine for the disease. -
Marshall Plan
Under Paul G. Hoffman, the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), a specially created bureau, the Marshall Plan distributed over $13 billion worth of economic aid. ... The plan contributed greatly to the rapid renewal of the western European chemical, engineering, and steel industries. -
Cold war
It saw the formation of NATO on one side and the Warsaw Pact on the other side. It was a clash between communism and capitalism. I would say the significance of the cold war was that the United States emerged as the sole superpower in the world and ideology wise, capitalism trumped communism. -
North atlantic Treaty (NATO)
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin airlift was important because it prevented West Berlin from falling into the control of the Soviet Union after World War II. The Soviet Union was blockading the parts of Berlin that were occupied and administered by the United States, Great Britain and France. -
McCarthysim
The term McCarthyism is applied to the persecution of innocent people using powerful but unproved allegations. It refers to U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's charges of communist subversion and high treason in the U.S. federal government. -
Beatniks
Beatnik was a media stereotype prevalent throughout the 1950s to mid-1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s. -
Ray Kroc
It was in his role as a milkshake machine salesman that Kroc first became involved with McDonald's, a restaurant chain based in San Bernardino, California. The McDonald brothers were clients who had purchased multiple mixers. -
1950's Prosperity
The United States was the world’s strongest military power. Its economy was booming, and the fruits of this prosperity–new cars, suburban houses and other consumer goods–were available to more people than ever before. However, the 1950s were also an era of great conflict -
Korean War
It was the first armed conflict in the Cold War. It also created a stale mate between South and North Korea. It prevented North Korea from taking over all of Korea. It also showed that America was willing to send troops to contain communism and that Soviet Union was willing to send troops to expand communism. -
Dwight D Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower , a Republican, was the popular 34th President of the United States, serving two terms from 1953 to 1961. Prior to his presidency, Eisenhower was a lifelong military man, commanding the D-Day invasion while serving as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II. -
Rosenberrg Trail
Rosenberg Case Overview. Julius Rosenberg was arrested in July 1950, a few weeks after the Korean War began. He was executed, along with his wife, Ethel, on June 19, 1953, a few weeks before it ended. The legal charge of which the Rosenbergs were convicted was vague: “Conspiracy to Commit Espionage.” -
Domino Theory
The domino theory was a theory prominent from the 1950s to the 1980s, that speculated that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. -
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Vietnam War
It was a direct result of the First Indochina War) between France, which claimed Vietnam as a colony, and the communist forces then known as Viet Minh. In 1973 a “third” Vietnam war began—a continuation, actually between North and South Vietnam but without significant U.S. involvement. -
Interstate Highway Act
Established the modern system of highways as we know it today, and it was the vision of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. -
Space Race
The Space Race was considered important because it showed the world which country had the best science, technology, and economic system. After World War II both the United States and the Soviet Union realized how important rocket research would be to the military. -
Sputnik
Sputnik was the world's first artificial satellite, launched .Fifty-five years ago today, the Space Race was kicked into gear by a silver basketball flying through the sky. Sputnik 1, the Soviet probe that became the first manmade object to reach space, launched -
Levvitown
Levittown, Long Island, the most famous American postwar suburban development, was a household name, the “Exhibit A” of suburbia. It came on the eve of the baby boom and just before the 1948 Housing Bill liberalized lending, allowing anyone to buy a home with 5 percent down and extending mortgage terms to 30 years. Millions of families needed homes. -
Moonlanding
A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission. -
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States (1961-1963), the youngest man elected to the office. On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, JFK was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, becoming also the youngest President to die. -
Bay of Pigs
Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro came to power in an armed revolt that overthrew Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
Betty Friden
Friedan broke new ground by exploring the idea of women finding personal fulfillment outside of their traditional roles. She also helped advance the women's rights movement as one of the founders of the National Organization for Women. -
Lyndon B Johnson
In the 1960 campaign, Lyndon B. Johnson was elected Vice President as John F. Kennedy's running mate. On November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson was sworn in as the 36th United States President, with a vision to build "A Great Society" for the American people. -
Great Society
Great Society, in U.S. history, term for the domestic policies of President Lyndon Johnson. In his first State of the Union message, he called for a war on poverty and the creation of a "Great Society," a prosperous nation that had overcome racial divisions. -
Gulf Of Toking Resoulution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave broad congressional approval for expansion of the Vietnam War. During the spring of 1964, military planners had developed a detailed design for major attacks on the North, but at that time President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers feared that the public would not support an expansion of the war. -
Anti-War Movement
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. -
Tet Offensive
During the lunar new year ((txt)holiday, North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive played an important role in weakening U.S. public support for the war in Vietnam. -
Richard Nixon
After successfully ending American fighting in Vietnam and improving international relations with the U.S.S.R. and China, he became the only President to ever resign the office, as a result of the Watergate scandal. Reconciliation was the first goal set by President Richard M. Nixon. -
Vietnamization
Nixon speeds up 'Vietnamization' of war, April 20, 1970. On this day in 1970, President Richard M. Nixon pledged to withdraw 150,000 more U.S. troops from South Vietnam in the next 12 months -
26th amendment
The 26th set the voting age at 18 down from 21 and by default set the age of adulthood and legal consequence at 18 -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Resolution, generally known as the War Powers Act, was passed by Congress over President Nixon's veto to increase congressional control over the executive branch in foreign policy matters. -
Rustbelt vs sunbelt
The Rust Belt is a term for the region of the United States from the Great Lakes to the upper Midwest States, referring to economic decline, population loss, and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once-powerful industrial sector, also known as deindustrialization.
