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AIDS
This was a deadly outbreak in the 1970's that started with gay men and was labeled the "gay plague," but soon began to affect drug users, hemophiliacs, and minorities. It was expensive to treat, and there was no cure. C Everett Koop caused the government to spend 1.3 billion on AIDS assistance. (date is approximated) -
California vs Bakke
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. It upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy. -
Sandinistas
a member of a left-wing Nicaraguan political organization, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which came to power in 1979 after overthrowing the dictator Anastasio Somoza. Opposed during most of their period of rule by the US-backed Contras, the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990. -
PLO
purpose of the "liberation of Palestine" through armed struggle, with much of its violence aimed at Israeli civilians -
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party -
Religious Fundamentalism
Christian fundamentalism, movement in American Protestantism arose in reaction to theological modernism (anti-evolution) -
Trickle Down Economics
Reducing taxes on businesses and the wealthy in society as a means to stimulate business investment -
Ronald Reagan
"Achieving peace through strength"
40th President -
Supply Side Economics
Emphasized cutting taxes and government spending to stimulate investment and economic growth by enterprise -
Economic Recovery Tax Act
a law that lowered income tax rates and allowed for expending for depreciable assets. -
PACTO Strike
The strike happened when Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) declared strike on August 3, 1981. Reagan ordered all controllers back to work within 48 hours or he would fire them all; over 11,000 refused to return and were subsequently fired and even banned from federal employment for life. -
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor is a retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from her appointment in 1981 by Ronald Reagan to 2006. She is the first woman to serve on the Court. -
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American politician, diplomat and lawyer who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States from 1977 to 1981, and as a United States Senator from Minnesota. -
Brady Bill
James Scott Brady was an assistant to the U.S. President and White House Press Secretary under President Ronald Reagan. In 1981, Brady became permanently disabled from a gunshot wound during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. -
SDI
Strategic Defense Initiative- develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union -
Beirut Bombings
This was a series of suicide truck bombings during the Lebanese Civil War that caused many U.S. military losses. -
Internet
ARPANET adopted TCP/IP on January 1, 1983, and from there researchers began to assemble the “network of networks” that became the modern Internet. The online world then took on a more recognizable form in 1990, when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. -
Geraldine Ferraro
She was the first woman to appear on a major-party presidential ticket. She was a congresswoman running for VP with Walter Mondale. -
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. -
Glasnost & Perestroika
To reform the distraught Soviet Union, the democratization of the Communist Party was promoted through Party Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of “perestroika” and “glasnost.” Perestroika refers to the reconstruction of the political and economic system established by the Communist Party. -
Boland Amendment
term describing three U.S. legislative amendments between 1982 and 1984, all aimed at limiting U.S. government assistance to the Contras in Nicaragua -
Iran-Contra Affair
This was a scandal that erupted after the Reagan administration sold weapons to Iran in hopes of freeing American hostages in Lebanon. The money from the arms sales was used to aid the Contras, who were anti-Communist guerrillas, in Nicaragua, even though Congress had prohibited this assistance. -
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, GCL is a Russian and former Soviet politician. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. -
Bob Dole
American former politician and attorney who represented Kansas in Congress from 1961 and served as the Republican Leader of the United States Senate until 1996 -
Enron
Enron Corporation was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was founded in 1985 as a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both relatively small regional companies. -
William Rehnquist
Rehnquist served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States. Under his leadership, the court cut back on affirmative action in hiring and promotions, as well as limited Roe v. Wade by allowing states to impose certain restrictions on abortion. -
Immigration Act of 1986
law criminalized the act of engaging in a "pattern or practice" of knowingly hiring an "unauthorized alien" and established financial and other penalties for those employing illegal immigrants under the theory that low prospects for employment would reduce undocumented immigration -
"Tear down this fall"
This speech by Reagan was given at the Brandenburg Gate, the entrance of the Berlin Wall. It was where former president JFK delivered his speech upon his visit to Berlin after WWII. He gave this speech to declare the United States' position on communism and the Soviet Union. -
INF Agreement
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty: required the U.S. and Soviet Union to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear weapons and missiles -
John McCain
American politician serving as the senior US Senator- Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama -
Yassar Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa, popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. -
“Read my lips, no new taxes.”
This was the phrase said by George H.W. Bush as he accepted the Republican nomination, stating that he would not tax the American people further. He eventually did raise taxes though as a way to lessen the national budget. -
George H.W Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States from 1989 to 1993. Prior to assuming the presidency, Bush served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. -
Tiananmen Square
located in the center of Beijing, the capital of China, Chinese troops entered fired on civilians -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. The fall of the wall marked an end to Soviet influence in the country and allowed for Germany to become reunited. -
Panama Invasion
In 1989, Bush sent U.S. troops to Panama to take leader Manuel Noriega from power in order to stop him from using his country as a drug pipeline to the U.S. -
Lech Walesa
Lech Wałęsa is a retired Polish politician and labour activist. He co-founded and headed Solidarity, the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland from 1990 to 1995. -
Persian Gulf War
international conflict that was triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. ... Egypt and several other Arab nations joined the anti-Iraq coalition and contributed forces to the military buildup, known as Operation Desert Shield. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
Civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, -
"Ethnic Cleansing
systematic forced removal of ethnic or racial groups from a given territory by a more powerful ethnic group, often with the intent of making it ethnically homogeneous -
Nuclear Proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is the spreading of nuclear weapons to nations that have not previously had them. (date is approximated) -
Taliban
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan currently waging war within that country -
Breakup of the Soviet Union
Officially granting self-governing independence to the Republics of the Soviet Union. Dissolution of the Soviet Union into 15 independent republics, Conclusion of the Cold War -
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999. -
Start I Start II
START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms -
Clarence Thomas
President Bush tapped Thomas to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African American to serve on the court -
Bosnia and Kosovo
Both Kosovo and Bosnia were part of the former Yugoslavia, which began to break up in 1991 -
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. He was also the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Connecticut. -
Rosa Parot
In 1992, Perot ran as an independent candidate for the U.S. presidency, winning nearly 19 percent of the popular vote -
EU
European Union- Maastricht Treaty (formally known as the Treaty on European Union) -
Bill Clinton
The first Democratic president since Jimmy Carter, Clinton served as president from 1993 to 2001. His plan to provide universal health care to all Americans was defeated by Republican Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" movement, as well as a well-organized opposition from the doctors' lobbying organization, the American Medical Association. The Monica Lewinsky sex scandal that led to his impeachment and acquittal. -
Failure of Health Reform
The Clinton health care plan, was a 1993 healthcare reform package proposed by the administration of President Bill Clinton and closely associated with the chair of the task force devising the plan, First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton. -
NAFTA
North American Free Trade Agreement-negotiated among the US, Canada and Mexico for the purpose of removing barriers to the exchange of goods and services among the three countries -
Hilary Clinton
American politician, former diplomat, and First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001 -
"Dont ask, dont tell"
A policy placed by Clinton that allowed gay and lesbian troops to be in the military as long as they kept the presence of their sexuality unacknowledged. -
NRA
The NRA, or National Rifle Association, had a goal to protect the right to bear arms, and it was a majority Republican organization. -
Newt Gingrich
Gingrich was a promoter of the "Contract with America," and was the first Republican speaker in 40 years. -
Contract with America
The 1994 elections resulted in Republicans gaining 54 House and 9 U.S. Senate seats. When the Republicans gained this majority of seats in the 104th Congress, the Contract was seen as a triumph by party leaders such as Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and the American conservative movement in general. -
WTO
The World Trade Organization is an intergovernmental organization that regulates international trade. -
Oklahoma City Bombing
This was a huge explosion that destroyed a federal office building in 1995 that took 168 lives. The bombing was done in retribution for a 1993 standoff between federal agents and a fundamentalist sect known as the Branch Davidians, which ended killing many Branch Davidians. -
West Bank and Gaza Strip
Nuclear proliferation is the spreading of nuclear weapons to nations that have not previously had them. (date is approximated) -
Welfare Reform
In 1996, after constructing two welfare reform bills that were vetoed by President Clinton, Gingrich and his supporters pushed for the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), a bill aimed at substantially reconstructing the welfare system. -
Madeleine Albright
American politician and diplomat- the first woman to have become the United States Secretary of State, served under President Bill Clinton -
G-8
Group of Eight- inter-governmental political forum from with the participation of the major industrialized countries in the world, that viewed themselves as democracies. -
Kyoto Accords
international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -
Deficit Reduction Budget
Clinton had better luck with a deficit-reduction bill in 1993, which combined with an increasingly buoyant economy by 1996 to shrink the federal deficit to its lowest level in more than a decade. By 1998 Clinton's policies seemed to have caged the ravenous deficit monster, as Congress argued over the unfamiliar question of how to manage federal budget surpluses. -
Clinton Impeachment
The impeachment of Bill Clinton was initiated in December 1998 by the House of Representatives and led to a trial in the Senate for the impeachment of Bill Clinton -
Al Gore
Al Gore was Clinton's vice-president and a candidate for the 2000 presidential election. His running caused on of the closest elections in history and a fiasco with the voting system. -
Bush vs Gore
Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98, was a decision of the United States Supreme Court that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election. The ruling was issued on December 12, 2000. -
Housing Bubble
The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates in response to the end of the technology surge, encouraging investors to purchase real estate, causing another "bubble" and increased housing prices. -
Bush Tax Cuts
changes to the United States tax code passed originally during the presidency of Bush and extended during the presidency of Barack Obama -
No Child Left Behind
An education bill created and signed by the George W. Bush administration. Designed to increase accountability standards for primary and secondary schools, the law authorized several federal programs to monitor those standards and increased choices for parents in selecting schools for their children. The program was highly controversial, in large part because it linked results on standardized to federal funding for schools and school districts. -
9/11
series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States -
Al-Qaeda
militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan -
Axis of Evil
A term coined by President Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address; this "axis" included Iraq, North Korea, and Iran. -
Homeland Security
The Department of Homeland Security is a cabinet-level agency created in 2003 to unify and coordinate public safety and anti-terrorism operations within the federal governments. -
WMD's
Also known as Weapons of Mass Destruction, in 2003 secretary of state Colin Powell relying on evidence from the CIA, insisted that Saddam Hussein was developing WMD's -
Operation of Iraq Freedom
Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein -
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was an extremely destructive and deadly Category 5 hurricane that caused catastrophic damage along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge and levee failure. -
Sarah Palin
Republican vice-presidential candidate with John McCain in the 2008 election, the second woman to run for vice president of a major party and the first Republican. Palin served on the city council and as mayor of her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska from 1996-2002 and then in 2006 was elected governor of the state. Relatively unknown nationally, Palin's social conservatism made her popular among the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, which had been distrustful of McCain. -
Great Recession
Banks suddenly found themselves with billions of dollars of worthless investments on their books; in 2008, the situation became a full-fledged crisis, as banks stopped making loans, business dried up, and the stock market collapsed. -
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
government-sponsored enterprises- they are privately owned, but receive support from the Federal Government, and assume some public responsibilities -
Barack Obama
First African American President. 44th -
D.C v Heller
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm -
Tea Party
American conservative movement within the Republican Party. Members of the movement have called for a reduction of the national debt of the US and federal budget deficit by reducing government spending, and for lower taxes -
Sonia Sotomayor
Sotomayor was the first Hispanic and third woman justice in the Supreme Court's history, confirmed in August 2009. -
Dodd-Frank Act
In July 2010, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd-Frank Act) in response to the collapse of the economy that began with the 2007 meltdown of the mortgage lending market. -
Affordable Care Act
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often shortened to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or nicknamed Obamacare, is a United States federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. -
Arab Spring
revolutionary wave of both violent and non-violent demonstrations, protests, riots, coups, foreign interventions -
Citizens United
landmark U.S. constitutional law, campaign finance, and corporate law case dealing with regulation of political campaign spending by organizations -
Osama Bin Laden
Usama ibn Mohammed ibn Awad ibn Ladin, often anglicized as Osama bin Laden, was a founder of al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide. -
Syrian Civil war
The Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad used poisonous gas on the people in the country who were rising up against him. Military action was avoided when the Syrians agreed to give up all their chemical weapons. -
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney is an American businessman and politician who served as the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and was the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. -
JOhn Kerry
American politician who served as the US Secretary of State -Democrat, previously represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate -
Debt Ceiling
an upper limit set on the amount of money that a government may borrow -
Boston Marathon Bombing
two homemade bombs detonated 12 seconds and 210 yards apart at 2:49 p.m., near the finish line of the annual Boston Marathon, killing three people -
Shelby County Vs Holder
landmark United States Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: -
Abu Ghralb Prison
Abu Ghraib prison now know as The Baghdad Central Prison, was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad that operated from its construction in the 1950s until its closure in the 2010s. -
Same Sex Marriage
The Supreme Court Case Obergefell v Hodges made same sex marriage legal everywhere in the US.
