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Rosenberg Case
Involved Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were American communists. They were executed for passing nuclear weapons secrets to the USSR. -
Jonas Salk
American medical researcher and virologist. He discovered and developed the first successful inactivated polio vaccine. -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Act of 1941, also known as the First War Powers Act, 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. -
Truman Doctine
the principle that the US should give support to countries or peoples threatened by Soviet forces or communist insurrection. First expressed in 1947 by US President Truman in a speech to Congress seeking aid for Greece and Turkey, the doctrine was seen by the communists as an open declaration of the Cold War -
Cold War
a state of political hostility between countries characterized by threats, propaganda, and other measures short of open warfare, in particular.the state of political hostility that existed between the Soviet bloc countries and the US-led Western powers from 1945 to 1990. -
Roy Benavidez
Master Sergeant Raul Perez Benavidez was a former member of the United States Army Special Forces and retired United States Army master sergeant who received the Medal of Honor for his valorous actions -
Iron Curtain
the notional barrier separating the former Soviet bloc and the West prior to the decline of communism that followed the political events in eastern Europe in 1989. -
Containment Policy
Containment was a United States policy 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 communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Africa, and Vietnam. -
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Blockade (1 April 1948 – 12 May 1949) was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under allied control. -
Marshall Plan
American initiative to aid Europe and Asia, in which the United States gave $13 billion (approximately $160 billion in current dollar value) in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II. -
Mccarthyism
a vociferous campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy in the period 1950–54. Many of the accused were blacklisted or lost their jobs, although most did not in fact belong to the Communist Party. -
Mao Zedong
Chinese Communist revolutionary and the founding father of the People's Republic of China -
Korean War
fought in the early 1950s between the United Nations, supported by the United States, and the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). The war began in 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
He 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 -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and also known in Vietnam as Resistance War Against America or simply the American War, was a Cold War-era proxy war that occurred in Vietnam -
Gary Powers
Francis Gary Powers was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident. -
Abby Hoffman
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party. -
Domino Theory
the theory that a political event in one country will cause similar events in neighboring countries, like a falling domino causing an entire row of upended dominoes to fall. -
Anti-War Movement
An anti-war movement (also antiwar) 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. -
John F. Kennedy
American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States, a position he assumed after his service as the 37th Vice President. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia. -
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964-65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. -
Tet Offensive 1968
In late January, 1968, during the lunar new year (or “Tet”) holiday, North Vietnamese and communist Viet Cong forces launched a coordinated attack against a number of targets in South Vietnam. The U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries sustained heavy losses before finally repelling the communist assault. The Tet Offensive played an important role in weakening U.S. public support for the war in Vietnam. -
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only US president to resign the office -
Vietnamization
Vietnamization was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration during the Vietnam War to end U.S. involvement in the war and "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". -
26th Amendment
prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old the right to vote.
