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G.I. Bill
The G. I. Bill of Rights or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 was, a government legislation designed to solve the problem of what the 15 million soldiers would do once they got back home. It provided for college or vocational education for returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as GIs or G. I.s) as well as one-year of unemployment compensation. It also provided loans for returning veterans to buy homes and start businesses. -
Iron Curtain
This was a political, physical, and ideological border between the Soviet Union and the West (Europe and American countries) as an attempt to seal off the noncommunist and communists from each other. The Iron Curtain wasn't a literal physical border till the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 during the increasing tensions of the Cold War with John F. Kennedy as the president of the United States at the time. America was very adamant on the Iron Curtain not spreading to the rest of the world. -
Period: to
Cold War
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The Marshall Plan
This plan was made by the United States Secretary of State, George C.Marshall in 1947 after the end of World War II. It was an economic recovery program designed to give Europe $13 billion to help the countries rebuild after the destruction that the war caused. The plan promoted European economic integration and federalism, and created a mixture of public organization of the private economy similar to that in the domestic economy of the United States. -
Stalin Closes Border
After World War II, and Germany became divided due to occupation zones the Soviet Union had occupied most of Eastern Germany. The Soviets attempted to seek reparations from Germany and many of the Allied Forces were against this. In May 1946, the Americans stopped reparations shipments from their zone to the Soviets. The British, French and American combined their zones. The Soviets saw this as a threat and on June 24, 1948 Soviet forces blocked the roads and railroad lines into West Berlin. -
Berlin Airlift
After the Soviets issued a blockade of Berlin, Germany just a few days earlier to keep other Allied Powers from entering the section that the Soviets had control over, the United States and Britain supplied the city of Berlin with supplies like food and other necessities. The Berlin Airlift faced many issues with shortages of electricity, food and fuel, the event lasted for almost a year and in May 1949 the Soviets lifted the blockade. This was one of the first times that the Soviet Union bends -
Domino Theory
The Domino Theory was a policy during the Cold War that if a nation would fall to communism, it would theoretically be much easier for the neighboring countries to fall as well. One place where this theory applied was in Southeast Asia where Vietnam was at risk to falling from Communism. At the time North Vietnam was backed by China and the Soviet Union, while South Vietnam was backed by the U.S. and it was theorized the other SE Asian countries would fall as well -
Elvis
A white singer born in 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi; rose to fame because white record labels saw the success of black music genre's and wanted to steal it. He chief revolutionary of popular music in the 1950s and modern day mega pop star. He fused black rhythm and blues with white bluegrass and country styles; created a new musical idiom known forever after as rock and roll. Elvis later would die of a heart attack due to drugs in his system -
Dr. Jonas Salk
Salk, born in New York City in 1914, first conducted research on viruses in the 1930s when he was a medical student at New York University, and during World War II helped develop flu vaccines. In 1947, he became head of a research laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh and in 1948 was awarded a grant to study the polio virus and develop a possible vaccine. By 1950, he had an early version of his polio vaccine. -
Period: to
1950s
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Alger Hiss
In 1948 committee member Richard M. Nixon led the chase after Alger Hiss, a prominent ex-New Dealer and a distinguished member of the "eastern establishment." accused of being a communist agent in the 1930s, hiss demanded the right to defend himself. His dramatically met his chief accuser before the Un-American Activities Committee in august but was convicted of perjury.Hiss served nearly four years in jail, but steadfastly protested his innocence during and after his incarceration. -
Ike Turner
Izear Luster Turner, Jr. was born on November 5, 1931, in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and grew up playing the blues. In 1951, he and his band went to Memphis to record at the legendary Sun Studios run by recording legend Sam Phillips. Their song, "Rocket 88," is considered by many to be the first rock and rock recording. It was released under the name of Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats and became a number one hit on the R&B charts. -
Bill Haley and the Comets
Bill Haley and the Comets were founded in 1952 and they were a rock and roll band. They thrived in the 1950's due to the genre taking off. From late 1954 to late 1956, the group placed nine singles in the Top 20, one of those a number one and three more in the Top Ten. Although several members of the Comets became famous, Bill Haley remained the star. -
Fair Deal
This was a series of domestic reform proposals made by the second Truman administration from 1949-53; The Fair Deal included civil rights legislation which was unheard of at the time and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act which worked against labor unions at the time, program that called for improved housing , full employment, higher minimum wage, better farm price supports but only extensions of some New Deal programs were enacted and enforced. -
Polio Vaccine
On March of 1953, Dr. Jonas Salk announces his finds in a polio vaccine that was actually successful. Polio was a virus that crippled anyone it infected and the year prior to Salk's discovery there was about 58,000 new cases discovered in the United States alone. In 1954, clinical trials using the Salk vaccine and a placebo began on nearly two million American schoolchildren. In April 1955, it was announced that the vaccine was effective and safe, and a nationwide inoculation campaign began. -
Period: to
Civil Rights
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Brown v. Board of Education
Oliver Brown filed a class-action suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, after his daughter, Linda Brown, was denied entrance to Topeka’s all-white elementary schools. Brown claimed that this violated the 14th Amendment, which holds that no state can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” There was soon a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court to desegregate schools. -
Emmett Till tragedy
Emmett Till was a 14 year old Black boy from Chicago that went to Money, Mississippi with his uncle. While in Money, Emmett allegedly spoke to a white woman in Roy Bryant's store. Days later Roy Bryant and Miliam decided to enact revenge on Till and kill him. When his body was found, his mother held an open casket. Making many black people angry about the conditions in the south. The trial for Emmett's death was ruled not guilty. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
This was one of the first Civil Right's protests, this was caused by Rosa Parks not giving up her seat to a white man while on a bus. She was arrested by the Montgomery police, as a result many of the black people who lived in the city decide to boycott the bus system for an entire year they walked to their destinations. Soon, the Supreme Court ultimately ordered the Montgomery bus system to desegregate the bus systems. -
Beat Generation
Beat movement, also called Beat Generation, American social and literary movement originating in the 1950s. The people of this movement were called Beatniks, they expressed their alienation from conventional, or “square,” society by adopting an almost uniform style of seedy dress, manners, and “hip” vocabulary. These people also did not care about societal issues and instead focused on themselves. And this caused the rise of the use of drugs as a form of escapism, and sex to feel better. -
Eisenhower Interstate System
A system of limited access roadways that connects all major cities in the US. The system was designed to give troops faster routes to get to destinations across the US in the event of an attack on the US. The system's main purpose now is travel by civilians, making civilians, and it caused the death of many small towns that the highway happened to cut across ; Eisenhower backed the interstate highway act of 1956, a $27 billion plan to build forty-two thousand miles of sleek, fast motorways. -
Eisenhower's intervention
President Eisenhower had a dilemma when the Little Rock 9 crisis happened, he knew he had a vow to uphold the Constitution's laws as the President of the United States.This meant that he had to protect the rights of the Black students, and had to flex the power of the executive branch and sent the federal troops to stop Faubus' intrusion of the federal Brown v. Board law. After this, the students attended Central High School. This showed that the government would uphold Civil Rights laws. -
Little Rock 9
The Little Rock 9 were a group of black students that were going to attend the segregated Central High School located in Little Rock, Arkansas. This was a test of the earlier Brown v. Board and if the government would enforce it in the South. On the day that the students were trying to attend the school, the governor of Arkansas Orval Faubus called the National Guard to block the black students from entry. Eisenhower sent in his federal troops to protect the students and enforce the law. -
Sputnik
The Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite, called the Sputnik I. The satellite was able to transmit radio signals that could be picked up by radio operators, it was also viewable with a pair of binoculars during certain times. The creation of this struck fear in Americans because the Soviet Union now had a way of potentially sending ICBMs or spying on Americans, pushing the Cold War. This marked the beginning of the "Space Race" between the two countries. -
NASA
Known as the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. In the midst of the Cold War after the launch of the Sputnik, America needed to speed up its planned creation of satellites, in order to keep up with and surpass the Soviet Union in space technology. NASA ended up sending the first man into orbit, John Glenn. Then, creating the Apollo 11 for a mission to the moon, and having the first people on Earth land on it. NASA would later have many other launches into the moon and space. -
Albert Sabin
Albert Sabin was born in August 26, 1906, in Bialystock, Poland. Sabin came to the United States with his parents and three siblings in 1921 in order to avoid persecution against Jews. Sabin was also researching a polio vaccine that rivaled Salk's vaccine. From 1955–1957 the vaccine was tested on hundreds of prison inmates with no harmful effects. In the meantime Salk's vaccine had been accidentally contaminated with some live virulent polio viruses. Sabin's vaccine was free of viruses. -
Hippies
This group was stemmed from the Beakniks that appeared earlier a few years before. This group believed in anti-materalism, free use of drugs, they had a casual attitude toward sex and anti-conformity. These hippies caused a whole new wave of drugs that people would use to escape. They smoked marijuana and took LSD. They also had a political influence at the time, they influenced how the United States would take on the issues in Vietnam. -
Feminism
This was commonly known as Second Wave Feminism, this movement happened in the 1960s and American women were limited in almost every respect, from family life to the workplace. A woman was expected to follow one path: to marry in her early 20s. Women began holding many protests in opposition against the society that oppressed them, many women began having radical views about women's rights. Black women would spearhead this -
Period: to
1960s
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Politics (Nixon, Kennedy)
On September 26th, 1960 there was a CBS broadcast between the two presidential candidates appeared on TV to debate. This was the first time presidential candidates would debate on TV. Kennedy had the upper advantage because he used makeup to make him look much more tanned and professional. Meanwhile Nixon was just recovering from the flu, as a result his skin was much more pale, he also chose not to wear makeup. The appeal of Kennedy's visual representation made people think he won the debate. -
Peace Corps
This program is dedicated in helping developing nations with any conflicts and providing relief to citizens, the true original goal of this program was to aid prevent communism from getting further into the world, by helping these countries develop into a capitalist market there is less of a chance of a domino effect for communism. Now, the peace corps focus on humanitarian relief efforts now that the Cold War is over. -
George Wallace (as governor of Alabama)
George Wallace was one of the opposing forces to Civil Rights and especially opposed the policy of desegregation and integration. He was elected governor of Alabama in 1962. In his 1963 inaugural address, Wallace promised “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” He took this so literally that when black students tried to attend he physically stopped them from entering till he was pressured federally. -
MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail
This was an open open letter by Martin Luther King Jr. The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. It says that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws and to take direct action rather than waiting potentially forever for justice to come through the courts.This was a very effective message to the people he sent this letter to (the clergymen) and it aided efforts to continue the Civil Right's movement. -
Birmingham Bombing
This was a bombing that occurred in a predominantly black church in Birmingham, Alabama being caused by Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. There were also black civil rights leaders meeting at the church. The bomb went off while four young black girls were preparing for the congregation, they were below the church and the rubble ended up falling on them. This event pushed even more people to join the Civil Rights movement. -
Assassination of JFK
On November 22, while Kennedy was riding down a parade motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved, Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. -
Lee Harvey Oswald
He was the accused of shooting John F. Kennedy in 1963. Oswald was in the U.S. Marines as a marksman, but he also began to harbor communist views expressing pro-Soviet and politically radical views and, on a hardship plea, secured release from the corps and left to go to the Soviet Union, he tried to denounce his citizenship and was unsuccessful in that attempt. Thirteen months later, in June 1962, he was able to return to the United States with his wife and three-month-old daughter, June Lee. -
Warren Commission
This was a special investigation council that was formed by the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson and lead by Chief Justice Warren that would look into the murder of former president John F. Kennedy. The council came to the conclusion in the investigation that Lee Oswald was the one who shot Kennedy, but later it was theorized that the council might have not looked into the possibility that there could have been a second person involved in the assassination of the president. -
Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater was in the running to become the president in the 1964 United States election. Goldwater was a conservative Republican. His opponent, the incumbent president Lyndon B Johnson was gaining popularity and by the election he achieved a landslide of the vote with over 61%. Setting a record for the largest margin in U.S. history so far. Goldwater's politics did not die off, eventually they caused the conservatism we see in our government today. -
The Great Society
The Great Society was a doctrine made during the Lyndon B. Johnson era. This was an attempt to help all American citizens, especially the citizens who were living in poverty. He wanted to end the current state of poverty, reduce the crime rates. The plan for the Great Society was not laid out till 1964. So far this was the biggest form of social reform that the United States experienced at the time. He created many social programs we see today -
Daisy Girl Ad
This ad was for the 1964 campaign for Lyndon B. Johnson, the ad features a little girl commonly called Daisy. In this ad she was outside picking daisy petals. Until there is a freeze frame, followed by a countdown and a nuclear blast that could be seen through the reflection of her eyes. This ad was an attempt to say that if Goldwater became president then this was bound to happen. This ad was very effective allowing Lyndon to win the election. -
LSD
Many people in the 60/70s had interesting social society ideas. Many did drugs. Somewhat based on the 50's Beats, the "hippies" were disgusting with their causal sex and drug use. In late 60s, a large majority of college students had tried pot, others did things like LSD. LSD is a drug that causes people to have psychedelic trips, the main purpose of it was to help people feel less worried about things. -
Malcolm X
Malcolm X was a Civil Rights leader that had very different ideals compared to Dr. King who wanted to protest the injustice peacefully. Malcolm X was a Muslim African-American who believed that white people were the Devil. He soon changed many of his ideals as he went to Mecca and came back as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, In June 1964, he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Later, he was assassinated by a Black Muslim at a rally of his organization in New York on February 21, 1965. -
Tet Offensive
Tet is an event after Vietnamese New Year's and was a time of truce for the war. In early 1968, however, the North Vietnamese military commander General Vo Nguyen Giap chose January 31 as the occasion for a coordinated offensive of surprise attacks aimed at breaking the stalemate in Vietnam, and to cause the forces to collapse and foment discontent and rebellion among the South Vietnamese population.The offensive would drive the final wedge between the U.S. and South Vietnam. -
Stonewall Riot
After police raided a gay club called Stonewall Inn, although they claimed it was for serving liquor without a license they also raided many other gay clubs in the past. Soon, many people in the LGBT community began to riot against the New York City police, and many of the LGBT people who rioted felt a sense of responsibility. Stonewall is regarded by many as history’s first major protest on behalf of equal rights for homosexuals. -
Period: to
1970s
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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Federal agency established by Nixon to protect and preserve the environment; along with the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the establishment of OSHA, this agency made notable progress in reducing automobile emissions and cleaning up waterways and toxic dump sites. At the time, America was doing a lot of pollution without actually caring about the environment but the EPA helps maintain certain standards across the country to protect the environment. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment was one of the products of the Feminist movements in the 1970's and it made equality for both men and women and prevented discrimination on those grounds. Since then, there have been more laws that apply both to certain states and nation wide that concern the protection of women's rights. Ultimately this law became rejected but is still being rewritten to get voted on even today. -
Watergate
The Watergate scandal was a break-in to the Democratic National Committee. The people who broke in were known as "plumbers" and it would later be found out that these plumbers were connected to Richard Nixon and his reeclection campaign and they had been caught wiretapping phones and stealing documents. The president tries to cover up the scandal but the Pentagon Papers are leaked and then he was forced to reveal the truth -
Title IX
One of the many educational acts and programs that Nixon made Title IX prohibited sex discrimination in any educational programs or activities that are funded by the federal government. This applied to schools especially, because now girls were able to participate and receive the same programs and sports as boys. Nixon also introduced many more amendments to help out with equal rights. -
Roe v. Wade
This was a case in the United States Supreme Court that ruled against states making laws against all abortions unconstitutional. Many women who supported abortions viewed the banning of them unconstitutional and that the right to have one was a constitutional right of privacy. The case began in 1970 when Jane Roe, a fictional name used to protect the identity of the plaintiff wanted federal action against Henry Wade, a district attorney of Dallas Texas. The Supreme Court ruled in her favor -
Endangered Species Act
During the 70's there was an increase in animal hunting, these hunts led to many species having their populations being lowered. As a result the government made a law that would end up protecting many of these species from poachers because they wanted an economic gain. Species are classified as endangered, threatened, or extinct. Now, the act helps with conservation efforts across the United States. -
General Ford's Presidency
Former President of the United States who was appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned in the fall of 1973 due to the shame of Nixon's Watergate scandal. He succeeded to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation in August 1974 and focused his brief administration on containing inflation that was happening at the time and reviving public faith in the presidency. He was defeated narrowly by Jimmy Carter in 1976. -
Jimmy Carter's Presidency
Former President of the United States that actually was very irrelevant prior to his presidency and worked as a peanut farmer in Georgia. He defeated Gerald Ford in 1976. As President, he arranged the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978 but saw his foreign policy legacy tarnished by the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis in 1979. Carter wanted to help America with its energy problems but he came at a time when the country was declining economically. -
Camp David Accords
This was a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and the State of Israel because the two nations had been at war since 1948. Signed on September 17, the historic agreements provided for complete Israeli evacuation from the Sinai, laid the groundwork for the signing of a final peace agreement, and outlined a broader framework for achieving peace in the Middle East. While this was supposed to be a permanent solution, there are still many conflicts in the Middle East today. -
Iran-Hostage Crisis
The crisis began when revolutionaries stormed the American embassy, demanding that the United States return the shah to Iran for trial. The episode was marked by botched diplomacy and failed rescue attempts by the Carter Administration. After permanently damaging relations between the two countries, the crisis ended with the hostage's release the day Ronald Reagan became president. This became the downfall of Carter's presidency and was the reason he lost the second term. -
A.I.D.S. Crisis
AIDS is the advancement of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV. In the 1980's this became a very controversial issue as it spread to the United States, when it was first noticed in a gay man in 1981, soon people began associating with the disease as a homosexual disease due to how many gay people had the disease, but the disease actually spread to heterosexual people as well. There were many questions about AIDS at the time and many people didn't now how the disease spreads. -
Period: to
1980s
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Election of 1980
This election was between two main candidates, Ronald Reagan for the Republicans, and Jimmy Carter the current president who is a Democrat. Reagan was originally a movie star who then became the governor of California in 1966. Then, in 1980 he decided to run as a republican against Carter. Jimmy was running off of the ideals from the last election in 1976. Ultimately Reagan ended up beating Carter and securing the presidency. -
Reganomics
This was a name given to Ronald Reagan's economic policies as the President. Reagan created something called "trickle down" economics where more wealth should be given to those who are already rich because eventually people who are in the lower class would see the benefits of the rich getting richer. Reagan wanted to do this by reducing regulations for companies in order to limit the power the federal government had in the economy and stimulate it. -
Ronald Reagan
Reagan appealed to the common man and "populist" ideas. He served as governor of California from 1966-1974. Iran released hostages on his Inauguration Day in 1980. While president, he developed Reaganomics, the trickle down effect of government incentives. He used the Strategic Defense Initiative to avoid conflict. His meetings with Gorbachev were the first steps to ending the Cold War. He was also responsible for the Iran-contra Affair which bought hostages with guns. -
Space Shuttle Program
This program was started by NASA in the early 1980's with a goal to make space flight maneuverable and having a reusable shuttle hat would work similar to an aircraft, this program had many missions and is famously associated with the Challenger that exploded before reaching space and killed all the crew members on board. The program was defunded in 2011 due to a new development for better spacecrafts coming. -
Music Television (MTV)
MTV: Music Television was a television station meant to air music videos on cable television, The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the first music video to air on the new cable television channel. MTV would become an extremely influential force in the music industry and allowed for many influences in pop culture at the time to rise. Eventually, the company would start airing non-video programming, geared toward teenagers and young adults. -
Sandra Day O'Connor
She was the first ever female to serve on the Supreme Court from 1981 to 2006, Sandra was a moderate conservative, she often made her opinions on cases by researching the topic in depth, in her later years she became more of a liberal on topics.Sandra Day O’Connor retired from the court on January 31, 2006. Part of her reason for retiring was to spend more time with her husband, who was very ill at the time. Today, O'Connor lives in Arizona as a retired Justice. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) "Star Wars"
Ronald Reagan's proposed missile-defense system, this plan wanted to have orbiting satellites in space that would be able to fire laser beams to vaporize any ICBMs as soon as they would lift off. This was popularly known as "Star Wars". This plan also wanted to give the technology to the Soviet Union as well, and if both nations had it there would be no point in threatening nuclear war against each other. This plan was scientifically impossible and astronomically expensive. -
Iran Contra Affair
A political scandal in the United States that came to light in November 1986. During the Reagan administration, Administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran in order to fund more military works, the subject of an arms embargo in hopes of securing the release of hostages and allowing U.S. intelligence agencies to fund the Nicaraguan Contras. This was a very problematic issue in Reagan's presidency. -
Challenger Explosion
This was a space shuttle launch by NASA in the mid 1980's and the launch went very unplanned. Just 73 seconds after liftoff, the Challenger exploded, bringing a devastating end to the spacecraft’s 10th mission. The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts aboard. It was later determined that two rubber O-rings, which had been designed to separate the sections of the rocket booster, had failed due to cold temperatures on the morning of the launch. -
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is a black woman who had her own talk show called the Oprah Winfrey show that garnered her massive success across the world and eventually she became one of the biggest influences in pop culture and business, because whenever she promoted a product it would gain success overnight. Oprah eventually founded her own network OWN. Today, she is the richest black woman in the world with over two billion dollars as her net worth. -
Period: to
1990s
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Persian Gulf War/ 1st Iraq War
This was a "war" fought by the United States after Iraq attempted to invade Kuwait. Iraq wanted the oil fields that Kuwait had access to in the Persian Gulf, they didn't view this as an invasion because historically Kuwait has been a part of Iraq. Saddam Hussein had other goals than just controlling Kuwait he wanted the rest of the Middle East. After the United States got involved Iraq lost the war, and Hussein stayed in power. Eventually there was a ceasefire. -
Ross Perot
A billionaire at the time, Perot wanted to run for the office of President of the United States. As a result Perot became an independent candidate and marked the beginning of third parties drawing away votes from the bigger Democratic and Republican parties. Perot lost the election in the end but still had a voice in the political sphere and debated with Clinton over the North American Free Trade Agreement. -
Election of 1992
This election was between the former Democrat Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton, and the current president George H. W. Bush. The current Bush administration faced many economic promise backlashes which caused a lot of resistance to be met with his re-election campaign. As a result this opened up the way for Bill to win the presidency. But for the first time a third party candidate was gaining major coverage, Ross Perot who was a billionaire with no prior political experience. -
Bill Clinton Presidency
Bill Clinton entered his presidency in 1993 and marked a milestone because he ended the long line of Republican presidents that came with Ronald Reagan's election. Clinton had a domestic agenda. When in office he had a lot of controversial appointments. His office faced many scandals such as the Whitewater affair and Monica Lewinsky's sex scandal with the president. -
World Trade Center Attack (1993)
Terrorists drove a rental van into a parking garage under the World Trade Center’s twin towers and lit the fuses on a homemade bomb stuffed inside. Six people died and more than 1,000 were injured in the blast, it left a large crater below the towers. At the time, it was one of the worst terrorist attacks ever to occur on U.S.territory, it would eventually be overshadowed by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda operatives crashed hijacked airplanes into the towers. -
Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy
This policy concerned the service of homosexuals in the military, as a result he term was coined after Pres. Bill Clinton in 1993 signed a law, directing that military personnel “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue, and don’t harass.” The policy theoretically lifted a ban on homosexual service that had been instituted during World War II. Eventually under Barack Obama this was repealed in 2011. -
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
This trade agreement was made by the North American countries, Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Under NAFTA, tariffs would be reduced, increase trade, and increase investments across countries.NAFTA faced many opposing people and still does today. The North American Free Trade Agreement faces pressure from Donald Trump as he tries to rewrite the agreement. -
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which made it illegal for states to recognize the legality of same-sex marriages. This law was one of the many discriminatory laws in the United States against homosexuals that was passed in the 90's. This law became very contested and was eventually brought up to the supreme court for voting. It was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 2013. -
Lewinsky Affair
This affair was between Monica Lewinsky and the current president at the time, Bill Clinton. Even though the affair was supposed to be private, Lewinsky kept a blue dress that Clinton ejaculated semen onto. When he was asked under oath if they had sex, he denied it. But the blue dress was proof of the encounter. This affair proved to be very positive for George Bush who would become the president in 2001. -
Period: to
Contemporary
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Election of 2000
This election between the Republican George Bush and the former Vice President Al Gore was an extremely close vote and it came down to electoral college votes and specifically the vote in Florida; because of the controversy over a recount in Florida, Gore sued to have a manual recount. This was the 1st time the Supreme Court got involved in electoral college decisions. Bush won the presidency without winning the popular vote. -
George W. Bush Presidency
Bush’s first term in the White House was dominated by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against America. The following month, in response to the attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to overthrow the Taliban government, which was suspected of harboring Osama Bin Laden. With the goal of protecting the United States from future terrorist attacks, Bush also signed the Patriot Act into law which allowed for spying of private citizen's lives. -
9/11 Attacks
The United States was attacked by members of the group Al Qaeda. Four planes were hijacked and used as weapons. Two planes crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. One plane crashed into the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C. and the last plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. This order was handed down by Osama Bin Laden due to his hatred for the United States supporting Israel. -
Patriot Act
As a response to the September 11th terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush signed the Patriot act. This law would essentially cause military spending to rise and this was due to the war on terror. This law also extended the powers of the federal government and allowed the FBI to collect the cell phone data of any American because they could be a terrorist. This law was viewed as an invasion of privacy by many citizens. -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
Schools are responsible for making sure that all children are learning. States must develop proficiency standards for math and reading. Yearly state assessments are given to children in grades 3 through 8 and at least once in high school to measure what they know. States can compare the scores of schools to determine which ones need more help. NCLB sets high standards and accountability for student achievement to make sure that all children are caught up to 21st century learning. -
Hurricane Katrina Disaster
Considered to be the one crisis of the Bush administrations second term and in is inefficiency to deal with the crisis. It destroyed 80% of New Orleans and more than 1300 people died, while the damages were $150 billion. The Bush administration faced extreme backlash from their lack of action on for the people of New Orleans and no proper disaster recovery efforts for the city, this was one of the biggest natural disasters to date for the country. -
Election of 2008
This election was fought for with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democrat position and John McCain as a republican. Obama ran a grass roots campaign that engaged young voters and the black community to care about the issues happening to the country, the failing economy was the centerpiece of the election, especially the recession that was beginning to impact many Americans at the time. -
Obama Presidency
Barack Obama's presidency was a turning point in America in terms of economic growth and social changes. One main thing the presidency was faced with was stopping the recession that George W. Bush left the country with and reversing its affects. Another issue that still hasn't been permanently fixed today is healthcare. Many Americans viewed healthcare as something important and Obama introduced the Affordable Care Act and get it to all Americans. -
Affordable Care Act (ACA) "Obamacare"
This was a form of laws that were brought on by the Obama administration as a form of healthcare reform. At the time of this being signed, health insurance was not commonplace among Americans and it was made to decrease those numbers and get more people insured. This was and still is hotly contested among Republicans and there have been numerous attempts to repeal it but all have failed at the moment. -
Undoing of DOMA
The Defense of Marriage Act which was signed under Bill Clinton previously was being met with extreme pressure from liberals in politics and the LGBT community which saw marriage as a right to them. The Supreme Court made a decision regarding what marriage would be defined as and it was being met with harsh criticism, as a result, in 2013 the Court ruled in a five to four ruling for DOMA to be repealed and made gay marriage a constitutional amendment.
