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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 2 and served as Supreme Commander of Allied forces in Western Europe. Eisenhower led the massive invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe that began on D-Day (June 6, 1944). He died on March 28, 1969 -
Mao Zedong
Served as Chairman of the People's Republic of China from 1949 to 1959 and led the Chinese Communist Party from 1935 until his death. Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and the Cultural Revolution were ill-conceived and had disastrous consequences, but many of his goals, including stressing China's self-reliance, were generally successful. He died September 9, 1976. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Served in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, launched an ambitious slate of progressive reforms aimed at alleviating poverty and created "Great Society" for all Americans. He died on January 22, 1973. -
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon was a Republican congressman who served a vice president under Dwight D. Eisenhower. He ran for president in 1960, but lost, and eight years later ran again and won. In 1974, he resigned rather than be impeached for covering uo illegal activities of party members in the Watergate affair. He died on April 22, 1994. -
Jonas Salk
Jones Edward Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist. He discovered and developed the first successful inactivated polio vaccine. He died June 23, 1995 -
Roy Benavidez
Master Sergeant Raul Perez Benavidez was a fomer 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. He died on November 29, 1998. -
Abby Hoffman
American political activist and founder of the Youth International Party, who was known for his successful media events. He was active in the civil rights movement before turning his energies to protesting the Vietnam War. He died April 12, 1989. -
House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)
The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having Communist ties. -
Iron Curtain
On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. On either side of the Irron Curtain, states developed their own international economic and military alliances. -
Truman Doctrine
President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. Ended 1949. -
Cold War
Growing out of post-World War 2 tensions between the two nations, the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union that lasted for much of the second half of the 20th century resulted in mutual suspicions, heightened tensions and a series of international incidents that brought the world's superpowers to the brink of disaster. The War ended 1991. -
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 seres of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Africa, and Vietnam. Ended in 1989. -
The Marshall Plan
Also known as the European Recovery Program, channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe between 1948 and 1951. It successfully sparked economic recovery, meeting its objective of 'restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole.' The plan was announced on June 5, 1947. -
Berlin Airlift
The Russians-who wanted Berlin all for themselves-closed all highways, railroads, and canals from western-occupied Germany into western-occupied Berlin. And so they believed it would be impossible to bring supplies to people, in which the airlifts carried the supplies to people who lived there. The Berlin Airlift lasted for more than a year and carried more than 2.3 million tons of cargo into West Berlin. -
McCarthyism
During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the prospect of communist subversion at home and abroad seemed frighteningly real to many people in the United States. For many Americans, the most enduring symbol of this "Red Scare" was Republican Senator Joseph P. McCarthy of Wisconsin. He spent five years trying to expose communists. He attacked the Army in 1954 that his actions earned him the censure of the U.S. Senate. -
Domino Theory
Governed much of U.S. foreign policy beginning in the early 1950s, held that a communist victory in one nation would quickly lead to chain reaction of communist takeovers in neighboring states. In South Vietnam against the communist government of North Vietnam, and ultimately its increasing involvment in the long-running Vietnam War (1954-1975). -
Korean War
The war began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the South. The invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. The Korean War came to an end in July 1953. -
The Rosenberg Trail
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass were American citizens executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, relating to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. They were trialed for wanting to sell nuclear secrets to the Russians. It lasted nearly a month, finally ending on April 4 with convivtions for all the defendants. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. People feared the world would be on the brink of a nuclear war. Disaster was avoided when the U.S. argeed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. Ended on October 28. -
Great Society
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by President Lydon B. elimination of poverty and racial injustice. Which lasted until 1965. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf gave broad congressional approval for expansion of the Vietnam War. During the spring of 1964, military planners had developed a detailed design for major attacks on the North, but at that time President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers feared that public would not support an expansion of the war. -
Anti War Movement
The movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began small-among peace activists and leftist intellectuals on college campuses-but gained national prominence in 1965, after the United States began bombing North Vietnam in earnest. Marches and other protests attracted a widening base of support over the next three years, early 1968 the successful Tet Offensive by troops proved that war's end was nowhere in sight. -
Tet Offensive 1968
Some 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched the Offensive, a coordinated series of fierce attacks on more than 100 cites and towns in South Viwtnam. North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive, as the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the slow, paonful American withdrawal from the region. March 31, 1968 was when this ended. -
Vietnamization
President Richard Nixon introduced a new strategy, which was Vietnamization, that was aimed at ending American involvement in the Vietnam War by transferring all military responsibilities to South Vietnam. The strategy was to build up South Vietnam's military strength in order to facilitate a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops. -
Wars Power Act
Also known as the War Power Resolution of 1973. This act includes the President, and upon sending troops into military action, must notify Congress within 48 hours that he has done so. The Resolution also forbids military personnel from remaining in a state of conflict for more than 60 days (including an additional 30 days for withdrawal). After, the President must seek an additional authorization from Congress or a formal declaration of war. -
Vietnam War
A long armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The divisive war ended with the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973 and the unification of Vietnam under Communist control two years later. -
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. -
John F. Kennedy
Elected in 1960 as the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy became the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic to hold that office. He had a reputation as a military hero into a successful run for Congress in 1946 and for the Senate in 1952. He led a renwed drive for publuc service and eventually provided federal support for the growing civil rights movement. He was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Teaxs. John F. Kennedy is known as the most loved presidents.
