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Harry S. Truman |
The 33rd U.S. president, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt upon Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. Truman, who led the country through the last few months of World War II, is best known for making the controversial decision to use two atomic bombs against Japan in August 1945. After the war, Truman was crucial in the implementation of the Marshall Plan, which greatly accelerated Western Europe’s economic recovery. |
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George F. Kennan |
an American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. He later wrote standard histories of the relations between Russia and the Western powers. |
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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg |
Arrested in the Summer of 1950 and executed in 1953, they were convicted of conspiring to commit espionage by passing plans for the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. |
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J. Robert Oppenheimer |
Director of the Manhattan Project and later of the Atomic Energy Commission. |
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Adlai Stevenson |
The Democratic candidate who ran against Eisenhower in 1952. His intellectual speeches earned him and his supporters the term "eggheads". Lost to Eisenhower. |
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Dwight Eisenhower |
leader of the Allied forces in Europe during WW2 and leader of troops in Africa and commander in D-Day invasion. Elected president and president during integration of Little Rock Central High School. |
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Nuremberg trials |
Series of trials in 1945 conducted by an International Military Tribunal in which former Nazi leaders were charged with crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. |
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Iron curtain |
A political barrier that isolated the peoples of Eatern Europe after WWII, restricting their ability to travel outside the region. |
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Berlin airlift |
Joint effort by the US and Britian to fly food and supplies into W Berlin after the Soviet blocked off all ground routes into the city. |
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Truman Doctrine |
First established in 1947 after Britain no longer could afford to provide anti-communist aid to Greece and Turkey, it pledged to provide U.S. military and economic aid to any nation threatened by communism. |
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Marshall Plan |
A plan that the US came up with to revive war-torn economies of Europe. This plan offered $13 billion in aid to western and Southern Europe. |
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North Atlantic Treaty Organization |
1949 alliance of nations that agreed to band together in the event of war and to support and protect each nation involved. |
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House Committee on un-American Activities |
An investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee’s name to "House Committee on Internal Security" |
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McCarran Act |
United States federal law that required the registration of Communist organizations with the Attorney General in the United States and established the Subversive Activities Control Board to investigate persons thought to be engaged in "un-American" activities, including homosexuals. |
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Dixiecrats |
Southern Democrats who opposed Truman’s position on civil rights. They caused a split in the Democratic party. |
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thirty-eighth parallel |
The line dividing Korea into two sections, north of the the parellel the communist Soviet Union was in charge and south of the parellel was democratic America was in charge. This line would become the demilitarized zone after the Korean conflict. |
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Billy Graham |
One of the most popular evangelical ministers of the era. Star of the first televised "crusades" for religious revival. He believed that all doubts about the literal interpretation of the bible were traps set by Satan. He supported Republicans and a large increase to money in the military. |
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Richard Nixon |
He was a committee member of the House of Representatives and Committee on Un-American Activities (to investigate "subversion"). He tried to catch Alger Hiss who was accused of being a communist agent in the 1930’s. This brought him to the attention of the American public. In 1956 he was Eisenhower’s Vice-President. |
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Nikita Khrushchev |
Stalin’s successor, wanted peaceful coexistence with the U.S. Eisenhower agreed to a summit conference with him, France and Great Britain in Geneva, Switzerland in July, 1955 to discuss how peaceful coexistence could be achieved. |
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Fidel Castro |
Cuban socialist leader who overthrew a dictator in 1959 and established a Marxist socialist state in Cuba. |
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McCarthyism |
The term associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy who led the search for communists in America during the early 1950s through his leadership in the House Un-American Activities Committee. |
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sit-ins |
protests by black college students, 1960-1961, who took seats at "whites only" lunch counters and refused to leave until served; in 1960 over 50,000 participated in these across the South. Their success prompted the formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. |
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rocket (Sputnik) fever |
The US was desperate to get into space because the soviet union had done so before the US. Billions of dollars were put into the new NASA program in hopes to catch up and excede Russina technology |
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Checkers speech |
Given by Richard Nixon on September 23, 1952, when he was the Republican candidate for the Vice Presidency. Said to have saved his career from a campaign contributions scandal. |
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Brown vs. Board of Education |
1954 court decision that declared state laws segregating schools to be unconstitutional. Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) |
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Eisenhower Doctrine |
Eisenhower proposed and obtained a joint resolution from Congress authorizing the use of U.S. military forces to intervene in any country that appeared likely to fall to communism. Used in the Middle East. |
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U-2 incident |
The Russians shot down a high altitude US spy plane over the Soviet Union; this incident exposed a secret US tactic for gaining information. |
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Sputnik |
The world’s first space satellite. This meant the Soviet Union had a missile powerful enough to reach the US. |
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Twenty-second amendment |
Proposed in 1947 and ratified in 1951. It limited the number of terms that a president may serve to two. Was brought on by FDR’s 4-term presidency. |
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Dienbienphu |
Fortress in northwestern corner of Vietnam in which a key French garrison was trapped. Caused North Vietnam to fall to the nationalists. |
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