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Period: to
Cold War/Vietnam
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Jonas Salk
Jonas Salk was born October 28, 1914, in New York City. In 1942 at the University of Michigan School of Public Health he became part of a group that was working to develop a vaccine against the flu. In 1947 he became head of the Virus Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. At Pittsburgh he began research on polio. On April 12, 1955, the vaccine was released for use in the United States. He established the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 1963. Salk died in 1995. -
Roy Benavidez
Master Sergeant Raul Perez "Roy" Benavidez (August 5, 1935 – November 29, 1998) was a member of the United States Army Special Forces (Studies and Observations Group) and retired United States Army master sergeant who received the Medal of Honor for his valorous actions in combat near Lộc Ninh, South Vietnam on May 2, 1968. -
Abbie Hoffman
American political activist Abbie Hoffman was born Nov. 30, 1936, in Worcester, Mass. He was active in the American civil rights movement before turning to protests of the Vietnam War and the American economic and political system. Hoffman's ethic was codified with the formal organization of the Yippies in January 1968. After he was arrested in 1973 on cocaine charges, Hoffman went underground. -
G.I. Bill/ The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (P.L. 78-346, 58 Stat. 284m), known informally as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). Benefits included low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business, cash payments of tuition and living expenses to attend university, high school or vocational education, as well as one year of unemployment compensation. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain formed the imaginary boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. -
Baby Boom Generation
Baby boomers are people born during the demographic post–World War II baby boom approximately between the years 1946 and 1964. This includes people who are between 52 and 70 years old in 2016. According to the U.S. Census Bureau,[2] the term "baby boomer" is also used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise date definition, even within a given territory. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy created to counter Soviet geopolitical spread 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. American military force was usually not involved; instead Congress appropriated free gifts of financial aid to support the economies and the military of Greece and Turkey. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan, also known as the European Recovery Program, channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe between 1948 and 1951. The Marshall Plan successfully sparked economic recovery, meeting its objective of ‘restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole. -
Berlin Airlift
After World War II, the Allies partitioned the defeated Germany into a Soviet-occupied zone, an American-occupied zone, a British-occupied zone and a French-occupied zone. Berlin, the German capital city, was located deep in the Soviet zone, but it was also divided into four sections. -
NATO
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a military alliance of European and North American democracies founded after World War II to strengthen international ties between member states—especially the United States and Europe—and to serve as a counter-balance to the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Member states pledge to come to each other's aid whenever one is attacked. -
McCarthyism
a vociferous campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy in the period 1950–54. Many of the accused were blacklisted or lost their jobs, although most did not in fact belong to the Communist Party. -
Korean War
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. -
Rosenberg Trail
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens tried, convicted, and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage. They were instrumental in the passing of information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, speeding his development of Soviet nuclear weapon development. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on October 14, 1890, in Denison, Texas. In 1945 he was appointed U.S. Army chief of staff. He became the first Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1951. In 1952 he was elected U.S. president. He served two terms before retiring to Gettysburg in 1961. Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969, at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. -
Domino Theory
The theory that a political event in one country will cause similar events in neighboring countries, like a falling domino causing an entire row of upended dominoes to fall. -
Space Race
The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, enabled by captured German rocket technology and personnel. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. -
Interstate Highway Act
On June 29, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The bill created a 41,000-mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” that would, according to Eisenhower, eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams and all of the other things that got in the way of “speedy, safe transcontinental travel." -
John F. Kennedy
Born on May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate before becoming the 35th president in 1961. As president, Kennedy faced a number of foreign crises, especially in Cuba and Berlin, but managed to secure such achievements as the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the Alliance for Progress. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs Invasion, known in Latin America as Invasión de Playa Girón (or Invasión de Bahía de Cochinos or Batalla de Girón), was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. -
Ray Kroc
Ray Kroc was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on October 5, 1902. Kroc worked as a salesman for 17 years after World War I, before becoming involved with McDonald’s in the 1950s. Kroc purchased the restaurant company in 1961, implementing automation and strict preparation standards that helped make McDonald’s the world’s largest restaurant franchise before his death in 1984, at the age of 81. -
Cuban Missle Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President John Kennedy notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson was elected vice president of the U.S. in 1960 and became the 36th president in 1963, following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, was born in Texas on August 27, 1908. He was elected vice president of the United States in 1960, and became the 36th president in 1963, after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. During his administration, Johnson initiated the "Great Society" social service programs, si -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (August 7, 1964) 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. -
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan. -
Anti-War Movement
An anti-war movement (also antiwar) 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. Many activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. -
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was born on February 4, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois. In 1963, she published The Feminine Mystique, which explores the idea of women finding fulfillment beyond traditional roles. Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women in 1966, and served as its first president. She published The Second Stage in 1982and The Fountain of Age in 1993. She died on February 4, 2006, in Washington, D.C. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was on of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968, by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the United States, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian commands and control centers throughout South Vietnam. -
Richard Nixon
Born on January 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, California, Richard Nixon was a Republican congressman who served as vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nixon ran for president in 1960 but lost to charismatic Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy. Undeterred, Nixon return to the race eight years later and won the White House by a solid margin. In 1974, he resigned rather than be impeached for covering up illegal activities of party members in the Watergate affair. He died on April 22, 1994, at a -
26th Amendment
The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old. -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Resolution (also known as the War Powers Resolution of 1973 or the War Powers Act) (50 U.S.C. 1541–1548) is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The Resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution. -
Miranda V Arizona
Miranda v. Arizona, was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court. In a 5-4 majority, the Court held that both inculpatory and exculpatory statements made in response to interrogation by a defendant in police custody will be admissible at trial only if the prosecution can show that the defendant was informed of the right to consult with an attorney before and during questioning. -
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration to end U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War through a program to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops. -
Cold War
The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact).
