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Fair Deal
The Fair Deal was President Truman's revival of the New Deal. This followed World War II and was focused around the betterment of the social safety net and an increase in American standard of living. The ways in which they attempted to increase the standard of living was by increasing minimum wage, creating national health insurance, and expanding public housing, Social Security, and education aid. -
Long Telegram
In 1946, the American Diplomat George Kennan warned the Truman Administration that the Soviets were not a normal government and could not be dealt with as one. He believed that the Soviets' communist ideology meant they sought to gain world control, and that the United States was the only country that could stop them. The telegram laid the roots of the policy soon to be known as containment (the U.S. commitment to stopping Soviet expansion). -
Taft-Hartley Act
The Taft-Harley Act aimed to reverse the past decades worth of advances made by organized labor. It accomplished this goal by giving the president the right to stop labor strikes with an 80 day "cool off period," and by banning things such as secondary boycotts, sympathy strikes and closed shops. It also allowed states to have "right-to-work" laws (these right-to-work states would later have population and capital investments shifted towards them). -
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
NATO was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and ten western European states. These countries pledges that at the point of any future Soviet attack, there would be mutual defense. For the U.S. and Europe, this marked the first long term military alliance since the American Revolution. One of the major players of NATO was West Germany, as they served as a wall against Soviet powers. -
McCarran-Walter Act
The McCarran-Walter act was a major legislation for immigration. It maintained quotas based on national origins and allowed for the deportation of communist immigrants (even those who had become citizens). This act was the first big immigration legislation since 1924 and was even passed despite the president's veto. -
Geneva Accords
The Geneva Accords were the result of a peace conference that took place in 1964. They temporarily divided Vietnam into two districts, north and south. The ultimate goal of the Accords was that an election in 1956 would unify the country, however, the southern leader Ngo Dinh Diem refused these elections. -
Brown v. Board of Education
The decision for the Brown v. Board of Education court case was released in 1954, and it stated that segregation in education was unconstitutional and violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This case decision, to many, was a "Second Emancipation Proclamation" and was limited in many ways, as it only banned segregation in public schools. -
Southern Manifesto
The Southern Manifesto was signed in 1956 by 96 southern congressmen and nearly every southern senator. It stated that the decision in the Brown v. Board of Education was an abuse of power and called for resistance against it. They barred desegregation by passing laws, making it illegal for the NAACP to be within their borders, and sometimes even closing down public schools in order to offer white students money to attend private ones. -
"In God We Trust"
In 1947, the phrase "In God We Trust" was beginning to be used on paper money. This was a large step in America's use of Christian and religious ideals, a movement which was accompanied by the addition of the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, and by the uprise of religious ideals being used in the film industry. This religious ideology usage was mainly due to the fact that most Americans in that time attended a Church or Synagogue of some sort. -
National Defense Education Act
The National Defense Education Act was passed during Eisenhower's presidency after the Soviets launched Sputnik. It provided federal funding to higher education and sought to promote students to pursue postsecondary education. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis happened when American spies found that the Soviets had been placing nuclear weapons in Cuba such that they could easily reach America. Rather than attacking Cuba, Kennedy chose to place the island in a blockade and negotiate with the Soviets. The negotiation ended in Kennedy and Khrushchev agreeing that the Soviets would withdraw the missiles if the U.S. did not invade Cuba, and removed their missiles from Turkey. -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress in 1964 during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. It banned racial discrimination in many areas such as employment, hospitals and schools, and private owned public places. Along with this, it banned gender discrimination. -
Griswold v. Connecticut
Griswold v. Connecticut was one of the many cases that happened during the reign of Chief of Justice Earl Warren. This case was one that introduced to the constitution an entirely new right to privacy even within marriage, and overturned a state law that had banned the use of contraceptives. -
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre was a tragic massacre in which American troops were responsible for killing about 350 citizens of South Vietnam. An investigation found Lieutenant William Calley guilty for leading the attack. After the details of this incident were released to the public, anti-war ideologies continued to rise among American citizens. -
Stonewall Inn
The raid on the Stonewall Inn is a crucial aspect of the gay rights movement. It was in 1969 that police forces raided the gathering place for homosexuals and rather than following their past tendencies to follow police orders, gays fought back. After five days of rioting, the gay liberation movement became bigger than ever before. -
Watergate
The Watergate Scandal was a large part of the downfall of Richard Nixon. In 1972, former employees of Nixon's reelection committee broke in to the Watergate apartment complex, which had been housing the Democratic Party headquarters. Congressional hearings that followed this incident uncovered many cases of wiretapping, break-in, and sabotage attempts. -
Title IX
Title IX was passed during Nixon's presidency and it banned discrimination on the basis of gender in higher education. It is part of the Educational Amendments Act and it helped in large to benefit the working lives of women. -
Roe v. Wade
This case was one of the most controversial decisions that had been based upon the rulings of the Warren Court. In the case Roe v. Wade, a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy was created. This was a large step for many feminists, however, even to this day the decision is very controversial and not agreed upon. -
Three Mile Island
The Three Mile Island accident took place during Carter's presidency. He believed that using nuclear energy was a efficient way to lessen the need for imported oil. The nuclear energy industry took a huge hit in 1979 when the Three Mile Island plant started to release tons of radioactive steam. This incident brought light to the environmental issues nuclear energy causes and stuck the industry down. -
Iran-Contra affair
The Iran-Contra affair occurred in 1985 and became the greatest scandal during Reagan's presidency. Though he knew that he was not supposed to, Reagan secretly provided weaponry to Iran (who, at the time, was engaged in a war with Iraq) as a trade for the release of American hostages who were being held by Middle Eastern Islamic groups. Along with this, two CIA workers of high standings funneled money to the Contras despite a Congressional ban.
