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The Smith Act
The Smith act was passed because it made offense to advocate or belong to a group that advocated the violent overthrow of the government, was the basis of later prosecutions of members of the Communist & Socialist parties. About 215 people were indicted under the legislation, including alleged communists, anarchists, and fascists. Prosecutions under the Smith Act continued until a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 1957 reversed a number of convictions under the Act, as unconstitutional. -
Period: to
The Cold War
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The G.I. Bill
The G.I. Bill was created to make a law that provided different types of benefits for solders returning from World War ll. Some of the benefits that were giving from this act was payments of tuition and living expenses to attend high school, college or vocational/technical school, low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business, as well as one year of unemployment compensation. -
38th Parallel
The 38th Parallel was a line chosen by U.S. military planners at the Potsdam Conference near the end of World War II as an army boundary, north of which the U.S.S.R. was to accept the surrender of the Japanese forces in Korea and south of which the Americans were to accept the Japanese surrender. The line was intended as a temporary division of the country, However, the Cold War led to the establishment of a separate U.S.-oriented control in South Korea and a communist control in North Korea . -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an plan to help rebuild Western Europe after the end of World War II. The plan was in operation for four years beginning on April 3, 1948.The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity, and prevent the spread of Communism.It also required a lessening of interstate barriers, a dropping of many regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity, trade union membership. -
The Fair Deal
The fair deal was an huge set of ideas put forward by the U.S president Harry S. Truman. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, but with the Conservative Coalition controlling Congress, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable GOP support. This deal concludes, the most important proposals were aid to education, universal health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. -
House-Select Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
(HUAC) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. Most of these former officials refused to answer committee questions, citing the Fifth Amendment. White denied the allegations, and died of a heart attack a few days later. Hiss also denied all charges; however, doubts about his testimony, especially those expressed by freshman Congressman Richard Nixon, led to further investigation that strongly suggested Hiss had made a number of false statements. -
Beat Generation
Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture
& politics in the post-World War II era. Their work was published and popularized. Central elements of Beat culture are rejection of standard narrative values, spiritual quest, exploration of American and Eastern religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs, and sexual liberation and exploration -
Television News
As TV became the primary ad medium, network radio and print publications lost ground. Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca became TV stars, and drew ad dollars to their shows. But individual radio stations, as well as newspapers and magazines, continued to be important outlets for local advertising. Print periodicals benefited from a new and important category, television sets. -
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presely reached across racial lines and connected the 1950s teenage generation. As mentioned earlier, schools in the south were segregated, meaning white students attended one school, and black students attended another. Philips asked Presley what high school he attended to portray to radio listeners that Presley was a white artists. Most listeners assumed he was a black musician based on his musical style. -
Ike Turner
Turner started a group called the Kings of Rhythm. 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. -
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 African American musical styles such as gospel, jump blues, jazz, boogie woogie, and rhythm and blues,along with country music.While elements of what was to become rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954 -
Television
Television struggled to become a national mass media in the 1950s, and became a cultural force – for better or worse – in the 60s. Before these two decades were over the three national networks were offering programs that were alternately earth shaking, sublime and ridiculous. Between 1959 and 1970, the percentage of households in the U.S. with at least one TV went from 88 percent to 96 percent. By 1970, there were around 700 UHF and VHF television stations. -
Period: to
The 1950's
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Brown v. Board of Education
The Brown v. Board of education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. This decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education.This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the Civil Rights Movement and a model for many future litigation cases -
Polio Vaccine
Polio vaccines are vaccines used to prevent poliomyelitis (polio). There are two types: one that uses inactivated polio virus and is given by injection, and one that uses weakened polio virus and is given by mouth. The World Health Organization recommends all children be fully vaccinated against polio. The two vaccines have eliminated polio from most of the world,and reduced the number of cases reported each year from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to 37 in 2016. -
Period: to
Civil Rights Movement
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Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African american students:boys and girls, who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their presents at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. -
Albert Sabin
Albert Sabin was an American-Polish researcher whom soon replaced Salk’s killed-virus, injectable vaccine in many parts of the world. In 1994 the WHO declared that naturally occurring polio virus had been eradicated from the Western Hemisphere owing to repeated mass immunization campaigns with the Sabin vaccine in Central and South America. The only occurrences of paralytic poliomyelitis in the West after this time were the few cases caused by the live-virus vaccine itself. -
Sputnik
when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race. -
Chicano Mural Movement
The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also called the Chicano civil rights movement or El Movimiento, was a civil rights movement extending the Mexican-American civil rights movement of the 1960s with the stated goal of achieving Mexican American empowerment. Similar to the Black Power movement, scholars have also written about the repression and police brutality experienced by members of this movement which some connect to larger government-organized activity such as COINTELPRO. -
Fallout Shelters
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War.During a nuclear explosion, matter vaporized in the resulting fireball is exposed to neutrons from the explosion, absorbs them, and becomes radioactive. When this material condenses in the rain, it forms dust and light sandy materials that resemble ground pumice. -
The New Frontier
The New Frontier was used by liberal Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech in the United States presidential election to the Democratic National Convention at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the Democratic slogan to inspire America to support him. The phrase developed into a label for his administration's domestic and foreign programs. Among the legislation passed by Congress during the Kennedy Administration, unemployment benefits were expanded. -
Hippies
In the mid 1960s, a never before seen hippie counter-culture blossomed throughout the United States, inciting both the Flower Power movement as well as the general revulsion of more straight-laced, Ward Cleaver-esque Americans. No longer wanting to keep up with the Joneses or confine themselves to white picket-fenced corrals of repressive and Puritanical sexual norms, these fresh-faced masses would soon come to be known as Hippies. -
Counter Culture
The counterculture refers to an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon that developed first in the United Kingdom and the United States and then spread throughout much of the Western world, with London, New York City, and San Francisco being hotbeds of early counter-cultural activity. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the Civil Rights Movement continued to grow, and would later become revolutionary with the expansion of the U.S. government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam. -
Feminism
Second-wave feminism is a period of feminist activity and thought that began in the U.S. in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It quickly spread across the Western world, with an aim to increase equality for women by gaining more than just enfranchisement. Issues addressed by the movement included rights regarding domestic issues such as clothing and employment. In the 1960s, women did not tend to seek employment due to their engagement with domestic and household duties. -
Period: to
The 1960's
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Peace Corps
The Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State. The same day, he sent a message to Congress asking for permanent funding for the agency, which would send trained American men and women to foreign nations to assist in development efforts. The Peace Corps captured the imagination of the U.S. public, and during the week after its creation thousands of letters poured into Washington from young Americans hoping to volunteer. -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency -sponsored paramilitary group Brigade. A counter-revolutionary military group (made up of mostly Cuban exiles who traveled to the United States after Castro's takeover, but also some US military personnel trained and funded by the CIA, Brigade fronted the armed wing of the Democratic Revolutionary Front ) and intended to overthrow the increasingly communist government of Fidel Castro. -
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. Due to the violence and arrests continued to garner national and international attention, and drew hundreds of new Freedom Riders to the cause. -
Birmingham bombing
The Birmingham church bombing occurred when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama—a church with a predominantly black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured.This attacked was caused due to Jim crow and the organization know as the KKK. -
Assassination of JFK
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on in Dallas, Texas while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza.Kennedy was riding with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife, Nellie, when he was fatally shot. Governor Connally was seriously wounded in the attack.Former U.S. Marine and Marxist Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested by members of the Dallas Police Department about 70 minutes after the initial shooting -
Warren Commission
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Johnson through Executive Order 11130 to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. The U.S. Congress passed Senate Joint Resolution authorizing the Presidential appointed Commission to report on the assassination of President Kennedy, mandating the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of evidence. -
The Anti-War Movement
The movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began small among peace activists and intellectuals on college campuses–but gained national attention in 1965, after the U.S began bombing North Vietnam. Anti-war marches and other protests, such as the ones organized by Students for a Democratic Society, attracted a widening base of support over the next 3 years, peaking in early 1968 after the successful Tet Offensive by North Vietnamese troops proved that war’s end was nowhere in sight. -
Daisy Girl Ad
"Daisy Girl" or "Peace, Little Girl", was a controversial political advertisement aired on television during the 1964 United States presidential election by incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign. Though only aired once (by the campaign), it is considered to be an important factor in Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater and an important turning point in political and advertising history. It remains one of the most controversial political advertisements ever made. -
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson. 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. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, and transportation were launched during this period. -
Selma March
The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil rights protests, a Southern state with racist policies. In an effort to register black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with violence from local cops and racist white groups. As the world watched, the protesters under protection of federalized National Guard finally achieved their goal, walking around the clock for three days to reach Montgomery. -
Watts Riots
Watts riots started when Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving. A minor roadside argument broke out, and then escalated into a fight with police.False rumors spread that the police had hurt a pregnant woman, and six days of looting and arson followed. -
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrols to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in Oakland, California. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members.The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and community health clinics to address issues like food injustice. -
LSD
LSD was popularized in the 1960s by individuals such as psychologist Timothy Leary, who encouraged American students to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” This created an entire counterculture of drug abuse and spread the drug from America to the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. Even today, use of LSD in the United Kingdom is significantly higher than in other parts of the world.While the ‘60s counterculture used the drug to escape the problems of society. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was made and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community against a police raid that took place in the early morning at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States. -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle. Armstrong became the first human to step onto the lunar surface six hours after landing. Aldrin joined him about 20 minutes later. They spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft, and collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth. -
Period: to
The 1970's
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Equal Rights Amendment
ERA is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex; it seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. The amendment was introduced in Congress for the first time in October 1921 and has prompted conversations about the meaning of legal equality for women and men ever since. -
Watergate Scandal
The Watergate scandal began when several burglars were arrested in the office of the Democratic Committee, located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. The plumbers were connected to President Nixon’s reelection campaign, and they had been caught wiretapping phones and stealing documents. Nixon took steps to cover up the crime, after his role in the conspiracy was revealed, Nixon resigned. This scandal changed American politics forever, leading many Americans to question their leaders. -
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade was a landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s legal right to an abortion.The Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The legal precedent for the decision was rooted in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to privacy involving medical procedures. -
Nixon's Tapes
House tapes are audio recordings of conversations between U.S. President Nixon and Nixon administration, Nixon family members, and White House staff, produced between 1971 and 1973. A sound-activated taping system was installed in the Oval Office,including in Nixon's Oval Office desk,tape recorders to capture audio transmitted by telephone taps and concealed microphones.The system was turned off and two days after it became public knowledge as a result of the Senate Watergate Committee hearings. -
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational
institution—a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise,limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values,and a strong national defense.We believe the principles and ideas of the American Founding are worth
conserving and renewing. -
Endangered Species Act
The Endangered Species Act is a key legislation for both domestic and international conservation. The act aims to provide a framework to conserve and protect endangered and threatened species and their habitats.By providing States with financial assistance and incentives to develop and maintain conservation programs the Act serves as a method to meet many of the United States’ international responsibilities to treaties and conventions. -
Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. The commission describes its duties as "to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections." -
Camp David Accords
At the White House in Washington, D.C., Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords, laying the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities. The accords were negotiated during 12 days of intensive talks at President Jimmy Carter’s Camp David retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. The final peace agreement–the first between Israel and one of its Arab neighbors. -
The Moral Majority
The Moral Majority was a prominent American political organization associated with the Christian right and Republican Party. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in the mobilization of conservative Christians as a political force and particularly in Republican presidential victories throughout the 1980s. -
Three-mile island
The Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor, near Middletown, Pa., partially melted down .This was the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, although its small radioactive releases had no detectable health effects on plant workers or the public. Its aftermath brought about sweeping changes involving emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factors engineering, radiation protection, and many other areas of nuclear power plant operations. -
Rap Music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop is a music genre developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans in the 1970s which consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements:turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing.Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records and rhythmic beatboxing. -
Period: to
The 1980's
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The Election of 1980
The United States presidential election of 1980 was the 49th quadrennial presidential election. Republican nominee Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter. Due to the rise of conservationism following Reagan's victory, some historians consider the election to be a realigning election that marked the start of the "Reagan Era". -
Sandra Day O’Connor
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first female U.S. Supreme Court justice in history. President Reagan nominated her to the Supreme Court to fill the seat of retiring justice Potter Stewart, an Eisenhower appointee. In his presidential campaign, Reagan had promised to appoint a woman to the high court at one of his earliest opportunities, and he chose O’Connor, out of a group of some two dozen male and female candidates, to be his first appointee to the high court. -
A.I.D.S. Crisis
The AIDS epidemic, caused by HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), found its way to the United States. But was first noticed after doctors discovered clusters of Kaposi's sarcoma and pneumocystis pneumonia in young gay men in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco in 1981. Treatment of HIV/AIDS is primarily via a "drug cocktail" of protease inhibitors, and education programs to help people avoid infection. -
Reagonomics
Reaganomics refers to the economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan. These policies are commonly associated with supply-side economics, referred to as trickle-down economics or voodoo economics by political opponents, and free-market economics by political advocates.The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, and reduce government regulation. -
Space Shuttle Program
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its official name, Space Transportation System (STS), was taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. -
Music Television (MTV)
MTV launched with the words "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," spoken by John Lack and played over footage of the first Space Shuttle launch countdown of Columbia and of the launch of Apollo 11. Those words were immediately followed by the original MTV theme song, a crunching rock tune composed by Jonathan Elias and John Petersen, playing over the American flag changed to show MTV's logo changing into various textures and designs. -
Reagan Doctrine
Reagan Doctrine followed in the tradition of U.S. presidents developing foreign policy "doctrines", which were designed to reflect the challenges facing international relations of the times, and propose foreign policy solutions to them. The practice began with the Monroe Doctrine of President James Monroe in 1823, and continued with the Roosevelt Corollary, sometimes called the Roosevelt Doctrine, introduced by Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. -
Iran–Contra Affair
The Iran-Contra Affair was a scandal in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, which came to light when it was revealed that the United States secretly arranged arms sales to Iran in return for promises of Iranian assistance in securing the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon. When they ask him about it he "act" like he didn't know what was going on. -
Challenger Explosion
the NASA shuttle orbiter mission STS-51-L and the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members, which consisted of five NASA astronauts and two payload specialists. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The disintegration of the vehicle began after a joint in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. -
Period: to
Contemporary
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Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Fall of the Berlin Wall happened as the Cold War began to come to an end across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin’s Communist Party announced a change in his city’s relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country’s borders. At midnight, they flooded through the checkpoints. More than 2 million people from East Berlin visited West Berlin that weekend to participate in a celebration. -
Internet
In 1991, the World Wide Web was developed by Tim Berners-Lee (pictured at left) as a way for people to share information. The hyper-text format available through his Web made the internet much easier to use because all documents could be seen easily on-screen without downloading. The first "browser" software - Mosaic - was introduced by Marc Andreessen in 1993, and it enabled more fluid use of images and graphics online and opened up a new world for internet users -
Period: to
The 1990's
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Rodney King Incident
This Incident happen when a man named Rodney King whom was an African American who became a symbol of racial tension in America, after his beating by Los Angeles police officers in 1991 was videotaped and broadcast to the nation.The officers — Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Stacey Koon — were charged with criminal offenses, including assault with a deadly weapon. Their trial was originally set to be held in Los Angeles. -
Election of 1992
United States presidential election of 1992, American presidential election held on Nov. 3, 1992, in which Democrat Bill Clinton defeated incumbent Republican Pres. George Bush. Independent candidate Ross Perot secured nearly 19 percent of the vote—the highest percentage of any third-party candidate in a U.S. presidential election in 80 years. -
World Trade Center Attack - 1993
World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. W hen a truck bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 pounds ) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to send the North Tower (Tower 1) crashing into the South Tower (Tower 2), bringing both towers down and killing tens of thousands of people. It failed to do so but killed six people and injured over a thousand. -
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy
(DADT) was the official United States policy on military service by gays, bisexuals, and lesbians, instituted by the Clinton Administration on February 28, 1994, when Department of Defense Directive took effect, lasting until September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service. -
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
The North American Free Trade Agreement is a treaty between Canada, Mexico and the United States. That makes NAFTA the world’s largest free trade agreement. The gross domestic product of its three members is more than $20 trillion. NAFTA is the first time two developed nations signed a trade agreement with an emerging market country. The three signatories agreed to remove trade barriers between them. By eliminating tariffs, NAFTA increases investment opportunities. -
Lewinsky Affair
The Clinton–Lewinsky scandal was an American political sex scandal that involved 49-year-old President Bill Clinton and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The sexual relationship took place between 1995 and 1997 and came to light in 1998. Clinton ended a televised speech with the statement that he "did not have sexual relations" with Lewinsky.Further investigation led to charges of perjury and to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives. -
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Black Entertainment Television (BET) is a Viacom–owned cable network based in Washington, D.C. The cable channel is viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide. Its founder, Robert L. Johnson, was a former lobbyist for the cable television industry in the late 1970s. In that capacity, Johnson quickly recognized the dearth of television programming designed for the African American public and created BET to reach that demographic audience. Also he was the first African American Billionaire. -
Welfare Reform
Welfare reforms are changes in the operation of a given welfare system, with the goals of reducing the number of individuals dependent on government assistance, keeping the welfare systems affordable, and assisting recipients become self-sufficient. Classical liberals, libertarians, and conservatives generally argue that welfare and other tax-funded services reduce incentives to work, exacerbate the free-rider problem, and intensify poverty. -
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
was a U.S federal law that, prior to being ruled unconstitutional, defined marriage for federal things as of one man and women, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. Some had barred same-sex married couples from being seen as "spouses" for purposes of federal laws, effectively barring them from receiving federal marriage benefits. This passage imposed constraints on the benefits received by all legally married same-sex couples. -
Election of 2000
The 2000 presidential election pitted Republican George W. Bush, governor of Texas and son of former US president George H.W. Bush, against Democrat Al Gore, former senator from Tennessee and vice president in the administration of Bill Clinton.
Because Clinton had been such a popular president, Gore had no difficulty securing the Democratic nomination, though he sought to distance himself from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton’s impeachment trial. -
Bush v. Gore (SCOTUS case)
It also ordered that every county in Florida must immediately begin manually recounting all "under-votes" because there were enough contested ballots to place the outcome of the election in doubt. Governor George Bush and his running mate, Richard Cheney, filed a request for review in the U.S. Supreme Court and sought an emergency petition for a stay of the Florida Supreme Court's decision. The U.S. Supreme Court granted review and issued the stay on December 9. -
War of Terror
The War on Terror, also known as the Global War on Terrorism, is an international military campaign that was launched by the U.S. government after the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. in 2001.The naming of the campaign uses a metaphor of war to refer to a variety of actions that do not constitute a specific war as traditionally defined. U.S. president George W. Bush first used the term "war on terrorism" ,and then "war on terror" a few days later in a formal speech to Congress. -
The Patriot Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. With its ten-letter abbreviation (USA PATRIOT) expanded, the full title is “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001”. The abbreviation, as well as the full title, have been attributed to Chris Kyle, a former staffer on the House Judiciary Committee -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
The No Child Left Behind Act was a U.S. Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students.It supported standards-based education reform based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals could improve individual outcomes in education. The Act required states to develop assessments in basic skills. -
The Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of general economic decline observed in world markets during the late 2000s and early 2010s. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country. In terms of overall impact, the International Monetary Fund concluded that it was the worst global recession since the 1930s (the Great Depression) The causes of the recession originated in the U.S, particularly related to the real-estate market, though choices made by other nations contributed as well. -
Election of 2008
The election of 2008 as the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, a Senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, a long-time Senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of Senator John McCain of Arizona and Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Obama became the first African American ever to be elected as president, and Joe Biden became the first Catholic to ever be elected as vice president. -
Housing Bubble
The United States housing bubble was a real estate bubble affecting over half of the U.S. states. Housing prices peaked in early 2006, started to decline in 2006 and 2007, and reached new lows in 2012. Any collapse of the U.S. housing bubble has a direct impact not only on home valuations, but mortgage markets, home builders, real estate, home supply retail outlets, Wall Street hedge funds held by large institutional investors, and foreign banks, increasing the risk of a nationwide recession. -
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act nicknamed the Recovery Act, was a stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Obama. Developed in response to the Great Recession, this act primary objective was to save existing jobs and create new ones as soon as possible. Other objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most affected by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy -
Obamacare
Obamacare, is a United States federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Obama The term Obamacare was first used by opponents, then re appropriated by supporters, and eventually used by President Obama himself. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 amendment, it represents the U.S. healthcare system's most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.
