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G.I bill
also called Servicemen's Readjustment Act, U.S. legislation passed in 1944 that provided benefits to World War II veterans -
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. -
Baby boom generation
he term "Baby Boom" is used to identify a massive increase in births following World War II. Baby boomers are those people born worldwide between 1946 and 1964, the time frame most commonly used to define them. -
containment policy
Containment is a geopolitical strategy to stop the expansion of an enemy. It is best known as a Cold War foreign policy of the United States and its allies to prevent the spread of communism -
Jonas salk
Jonas Edward Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist. He discovered and developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. -
Cold war
The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. -
Truman doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It was first announced to Congress by President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 and further developed on July 12, 1948 when he pledged to contain threats to Greece and Turkey. -
Berlin airlift
he Berlin Blockade 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' -
Marshal plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13 billion in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II -
Rock n' roll
a type of popular dance music originating in the 1950s, characterized by a heavy beat and simple melodies. Rock and roll was an amalgam of black rhythm and blues and white country music, usually based on a twelve-bar structure and an instrumentation of guitar, bass, and drums. -
Levitown
Levitt remained the nation's largest home builder through most of the 1950s. In 1998, Time again recognized Levitt's significance, calling his developments "as much an achievement of [their] cultural moment as Venice or Jerusalem -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between several North American and European countries based on the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949 -
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. -
Korean war
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following a series of clashes along the border. -
Beatniks
a young person in the 1950s and early 1960s belonging to a subculture associated with the beat generation. -
Rust belt vs Sun
The post-war period, from the 1950s through the 1980s, was characterized by the migration of hundreds of thousands of Americans from the Northern and Midwestern Rust Belt to the Southern Sun Belt. -
prosperity
The Decade of Prosperity. The economy overall grew by 37% during the 1950s. inflation, which had wreaked havoc on the economy immediately after World War II, was minimal, in part because of Eisenhower's persistent efforts to balance the federal budget. -
Rosenberg trail
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were United States citizens who spied for the Soviet Union and were tried, convicted and executed by the United States government -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was an American army general and statesman who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 to 1961. -
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. -
vietnam war
The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America or simply the American War, -
Vietnamization
the US policy of withdrawing its troops and transferring the responsibility and direction of the war effort to the government of South Vietnam. -
Ray krocc
Raymond Albert "Ray" Kroc was an American businessman. He joined the California company McDonald's in 1954 -
Interstate highway act
It took several years of wrangling, but a new Federal-Aid Highway Act passed in June 1956. The law authorized the construction of a 41,000-mile network of interstate highways that would span the nation. -
sputnik
Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. -
Space race
The Space Race refers to the 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union and the United States, for dominance in spaceflight capability -
Bay of pigs
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961 -
Cuban missile crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and was the moment when the two superpowers came closest to nuclear conflict. -
Betty friedan
American feminist best known for her book The Feminine Mystique (1963), which explored the causes of the frustrations of modern women in traditional roles. -
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" 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. -
Great society
a domestic program in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson that instituted federally sponsored social welfare programs. -
Gulf of Tonkin resolution
two U.S. destroyers stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam radioed that they had been fired upon by North Vietnamese forces. In response to these reported incidents, President Lyndon B. Johnson requested permission from the U.S. Congress to increase the U.S. military presence in Indochina. -
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 -
Tet offence
The Tet Offensive, or officially called The General Offensive and Uprising of Tet Mau Than 1968 by North Vietnam and the NLF, was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. -
Richard Nixon
The first inauguration of Richard Nixon as the 37th President of the United States was held on Monday, January 20, 1969, at the east portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C -
HUAC
HUAC stands for the House of Un-American Activities Committee. HUAC was formed in 1938 to investigate Fascist and Communist activities in the United States but came into prominence in 1947 during the second Red Scare in the Cold War era and the "Communist Witch Hunts". -
Lyndon B. johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 -
Moon landing
The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969. -
26th amendment
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from using age as a reason for denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States who are at least eighteen years old. -
war powers act
is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress.