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House Un-American Activities Comitee
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. It was originally created in 1938 in order to uncover citizens with Nazi ties inside the United States, but it concentrated its efforts instead on investigating possible Communist Party infiltration. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security". -
War Powers Act
It was an American emergency law that increased Federal power during World War II. The act was signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and put into law on December 18, 1941, less than two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. -
G.I. Bill
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944(the G.I. Bill), was a law that provided a range of benefits for returning World War 2 veterans (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. -
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Baby Boomers
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 53 and 71 years old in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. -
Iron Curtain
The Iron Curtain was the name for the 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. A term symbolizing the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. Referenced in Winston Churchill's famous speech "a hypothetical" divide that separated Germany and Europe into two hostile camps. -
Rock 'n Roll
a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, from a combination of African-American genres such as blues, boogie-woogie, jump blues, jazz, and gospel music, together with Western swing and country music. -
Truman Doctrine
American policy of providing economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey because they were threatened by communism. United States promised to provide money to countries that claimed they were threatened by Communist expansion. Issued by President Truman as a response to the weakening of GB and possibility of Soviet expansion. -
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Cold War
The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc and powers in the Eastern Bloc.The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. -
Levittown
Levittown is significant from a multitude of perspectives. In particular it is an example of the mass assembly of homes. An argument can also be made that it is one of the best early examples of suburban planning. For example, in every section property was set aside for public schools. Other areas were designated for churches. It also allowed for the immense steel mill located along the river to flourish. -
Marshall Plan
The American initiative to aid Western Europe. The European Recovery Program gave $13 billion for economic recovery of war-torn Europe. Capitalist imperialism to the Soviets, USSR, and other Communist countries refused to participate. -
Containment Policy
It 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. -
Berlin Airlift
At the end of the Second World War, U.S., British, and Soviet military forces divided and occupied Germany. Also divided into occupation zones, Berlin was located far inside Soviet-controlled eastern Germany -
North Atlantic Treaty Org. (NATO)
Formed by Allies to provide mutual assistance if one was attacked. Intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty. Communists responded with Comecon. -
McCarthyism
It is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. Brought up by former senator Joseph McCarthy. -
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Beatniks
A young person in the 1950s and early 1960s belonging to a subculture associated with the beat generation. 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. Elements of the beatnik trope included pseudo-intellectualism, drug use, and a cartoonish depiction of real-life people along with the spiritual quest of Jack Kerouac's autobiographical fiction. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States fought for the South, and China fought for the North, which was also assisted by the Soviet Union. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO. -
Jonas Salk
a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, from a combination of African-American genres such as blues, boogie-woogie, jump blues, jazz, and gospel music, together with Western swing and country music. -
Rosenberg Trial
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were United States citizens who were executed on June 19, 1953 after being convicted of committing espionage for the Soviet Union. -
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. -
Ray Kroc
An American businessman and philanthropist. He joined McDonald's in 1954 and built it into the most successful fast food operation in the world. He also lied himself in the Army at age 15 as the first World War was coming to end. He opened his first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois. -
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Vietnam War
The North Vietnamese government and the Viet Cong were fighting to reunify Vietnam. They viewed the conflict as a colonial war and a continuation of the First Indochina War against forces from France and later on the United States -
Interstate Highway Act
An act to amend and supplement the Federal-Aid Road Act approved July 11, 1916, to authorize appropriations for continuing the construction of highways; to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 to provide additional revenue from the taxes on motor fuel, tires and trucks and buses; and for other purposes -
Space Race
The U.S. competition with the U.S.S.R. for technological dominance spurred the U.S. on to the first-ever landing on the moon. The race ran from 1957 to 1975. -
1950's Prosperity
Almost as soon as World War II ended, developers such as William Levitt (whose “Levittowns” in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania would become the most famous symbols of suburban life in the 1950s) began to buy land on the outskirts of cities and use mass production techniques to build modest, inexpensive tract houses there. -
Sputnik
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. PArt of the space race -
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy, commonly referred to by his initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the Peace Corps, developments in the Space Race, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Trade Expansion Act to lower tariffs, and the Civil Rights Movement all took place during his presidency -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs Invasion, known in Latin America as Invasión de Playa Girón, was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis, the Caribbean Crisis, or the Missile Scare, was a 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missiles deployment in Cuba. -
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century. In 1966, Friedan co-founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men." -
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. -
Anti-War Movement
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
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the Communist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), planned the offensive in an attempt both to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese population and encourage the United States to scale back its support of the Saigon regime. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969, assuming the office after serving as the 37th Vice President of the United States under President John F. Kennedy, from 1961 to 1963. Lyndon B. Johnson halted bombing operations over the northern portion of the North Vietnam (Operation Rolling Thunder), in order to encourage Hanoi (the perceived locus of the insurgency) to begin negotiations. -
Vietnamization
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." -
Moon Landing
The Space Race peaked with the July 20, 1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. 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, on 13 September 1959 -
Rust Belt v. Sun Belt
The Rust Belt area is a region that consists of areas in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States. The areas are particularly defined by cities that have depleted populations and economies by 1970. This area includes the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, West Virginia, and Illinois.
The Sun Belt consists of the warm climate states that make up the Southern third of the Continental United States. These states include California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas. -
26th amendment
"The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age." -
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974 when he became the only U.S. president to resign the office. President Richard M. Nixon arrived in China for an official trip. He was the first U.S. president to visit the People's Republic of China since it was established in 1949.
