APUSH ch 40 and 41

Proposition 13 (1978)

A successful California state ballot initiative that capped the state’s real estate tax at 1 percent of assessed value. The proposition radically reduced average property tax levels, decreasing revenue for the state government and signally the political power of the "tax revolt," increasingly aligned with conservative politics.

boll weevils

Term for conservative southern Democrats who voted increasingly for Republican issues during the Carter and Reagan administrations.

supply-side economics

Economic theory that underlay Ronald Reagan’s tax and spending cuts. Contrary to Keynesianism, supply-side theory declared that government policy should aim to increase the supply of goods and services, rather than the demand for them. It held that lower taxes and decreased regulation would increase productivity by providing increased incentives to work, thus increasing productivity and the tax base.

Reaganomics

Informal term for Ronald Reagan’s economic policies, which focused on reducing taxes, social spending, and government regulation, while increasing outlays for defense.

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

Reagan administration plan announced in 1983 to create a missile-defense system over American territory to block a nuclear attack. Derided as "Star Wars" by critics, the plan typified Reagan’s commitment to vigorous defense spending even as he sought to limit the size of government in domestic matters.

Sandinistas

Leftwing anti-American revolutionaries in Nicaragua who launched a civil war in 1979.

contras

Anti-Sandinista fighters in the Nicaraguan civil war. The Contras were secretly supplied with American military aid, paid for with money the United States clandestinely made selling arms to Iran.

Glasnost

Meaning "openness," a cornerstone along with Perestroika of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform movement in the USSR in the 1980s. These policies resulted in greater market liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.

Perestroika

Meaning "restructuring," a cornerstone along with Glasnost of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform movement in the USSR in the 1980s. These policies resulted in greater market liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (1987)

Arms limitation agreement settled by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev after several attempts. The treaty banned all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe and marked a significant thaw in the Cold War.

Iran-Contra Affair (1987)

Major political scandal of Ronald Reagan’s second term. An illicit arrangement of selling "arms for hostages" with Iran and using money to support the contras in Nicaragua, the scandal deeply damaged Reagan’s credibility.

Moral Majority

Political action committee founded by evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell in 1979 to promote traditional Christian values and oppose feminism, abortion, and gay rights. The group was a major linchpin in the resurgent religious right of the 1980s.

Black Monday

October 19, 1987. Date of the largest single-day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average until September 2001. The downturn indicated instability in the booming business culture of the 1980s but did not lead to a serious economic recession.

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Organization formed from the former republics of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Operation Desert Storm (1991)

U.S.-led multi-country military engagement in January and February of 1991 that drove Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army out of neighboring Kuwait. In addition to presaging the longer and more protracted Iraq War of the 2000s, the 1991 war helped undo what some called the "Vietnam Syndrome," a feeling of military uncertainty that plagued many Americans.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA1990)

Landmark law signed by President George H. W. Bush that prohibited discrimination against people with physical or mental handicaps. It represented a legislative triumph for champions of equal protections to all.

Bush, George H. W.

(1924-): Forty-first president of the United States. A former congressman, diplomat, businessman, Republican party chairman, and director the CIA, Bush served for eight years as Reagan’s vice president before being elected President in 1988. As president, he oversaw the end of the Cold War and the revitalization of the American military in the Persian Gulf War. He faced a severe economic recession late in his term that severely damaged his popularity, and he lost his bid for reelection in 1992.

Falwell, Jerry

(1933-2007): Christian evangelical reverend and radical right-wing traditionalist. In 1979, Falwell founded the Moral Majority, a political action committee dedicated to moral values and in opposition to feminism and gay rights.

Gorbachev, Mikhail

(1931-): Last leader of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev assumed control in 1985 and ushered in a period of reforms known as glasnost and perestroika. On four occasions, he met U.S. president Ronald Reagan to negotiate arms reduction treaties and other measures to thaw the Cold War. In 1991, after surviving a failed military coup against him, he dissolved the Soviet Union and disbanded the Communist Party.

Hussein, Saddam

(1937-2006): Iraqi dictator who led the Ba’ath party in a coup in 1968 and ruled Iraq until the U.S. invasion. He inaugurated hostilities with neighboring Iran in 1980, leading to the protracted and bloody Iran-Iraq War. Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, prompting a broad-based military operation led by the United States to liberate the country. After that war, Hussein retained power under strict sanctions and no-fly demilitarized zones throughout the 1990s, but he stymied international atomic weapons inspectors. After his fall in 2003, he went into hiding but was ultimately captured, tried, and executed by the Iraqi government.

Mandela, Nelson

(1918-): Anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. After spending 27 years in prison in South Africa, Mandela became the first black president of South Africa in 1994, dramatically signaling the end of racial apartheid in the country.

Noriega, Manuel

(1935-): Panamanian general and dictator from 1983 to 1989. Noriega was ousted from power after the U.S. invasion in late 1989, convicted in the United States of drug trafficking, and imprisoned in Miami, Florida.

O’Connor, Sandra Day

(1930-): The first female justice on the Supreme Court. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she served as an attorney, jurist, and politician in Arizona before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. On the bench, she was known as a moderate, frequently casting crucial swing votes in important cases. She retired in 2005.

Reagan, Ronald

(1911-2004): Fortieth president of the United States. A former actor and California governor, he was elected in 1980 with a pronounced conservative mandate to fix the American economy by scaling back taxes and the role of government in business. Reagan was a staunch Cold Warrior whose massive defense spending added stress to the Soviet Union’s military budget and may ultimately have contributed to the end of the Cold War.

Schwarzkopf, Norman

("Stormin’ Norman") (1934-): United States Army General who commanded Coalition forces in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Thatcher, Margaret

(1925-): Conservative Prime Minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990. As an ideological partner to President Ronald Reagan, Thatcher enacted economic liberalization reforms and attempted to check the powers of labor unions in Britain. She led a successful British military operation in the Falkland Islands war in 1982.

Thomas, Clarence

(1948-): The second black American to serve on the Supreme Court, conservative justice who adheres to constitutional interpretation based on doctrine of originalism. Appointed by George H. W. Bush in 1991 to replace Thurgood Marshall, Thomas was the subject of controversial nomination proceedings when he was accused of sexual harassment by a former colleague.

Yeltsin, Boris

(1931-2007): First president of Russia, taking over as the former Soviet republic became independent in 1991. Yelstin led the country through the breakdown of the communist economy and introduced important market reforms.

weapons of mass destruction (WMD)

Refers to weapons—nuclear, biological, and chemical—that can kill large numbers of people and do great damage to the built and natural environment. The term was used to refer to nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein had developed WMD provided the rationale for the United States’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. These weapons were never found after the invasion.

Democratic Leadership Council

Non-profit organization of centrist Democrats founded in the mid-1980s. The group attempted to push the Democratic party toward progrowth, strong defense, and anticrime policies. Among its most influential early members was Bill Clinton, whom it held up as an example of "third way" politics.

Oklahoma City bombing (1995)

Truck-bomb explosion that killed 168 people in a federal office building on April 19, 1995. The attack was perpetrated by right-wing and anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh, later executed by the U.S. government for the crime.

Contract with America (1994)

Multi-point program offered by Republican candidates and sitting politicians in the 1994 mid-term election. The platform proposed smaller government, Congressional ethics reform, term limits, great emphasis on personal responsibility, and a general repudiation of the Democratic party. This articulation of dissent was a significant blow to the Clinton Administration and led to the Republican party’s takeover of both houses of Congress for the first time in half a century.

Welfare Reform Bill (1996)

Legislation that made deep cuts in welfare grants and required able-bodied welfare recipients to find employment. Part of Bill Clinton’s campaign platform in 1992, the reforms were widely seen by liberals as an abandonment of key New Deal/Great Society provisions to care for the impoverished.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (1993)

Free trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada, and the United States. A symbol of the increased reality of a globalized market place, the treaty passed despite opposition from protectionists and labor leaders.

World Trade Organization (WTO) (1995)

An international body to promote and supervise liberal trade among nations. The successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, it marked a key world trade policy achievement of the Clinton Administration.

McCain-Feingold Act (2001)

Bipartisan campaign finance control legislation that sought to limit the amounts and types of money spent by and for candidates for elected office. In particular, the ad placed limits on "soft money," or funds raised by groups that are unaffiliated with a candidate but advertise, indirectly, on that candidate’s behalf, or against the opponent. McCain-Feingold represented an effort to improve the public’s impression of Washington politics by increasing transparency, but was widely criticized by some as an unconstitutional limit on free speech and expression.

Whitewater

A series of scandals during the Clinton Administration that stemmed from a failed real estate investment for which the Clintons were alleged to have illicitly profited. The accusations prompted the appointment of a special federal prosecutor, though no indictments.

Lewinsky affair (1998-1999)

Political sex scandal that resulted in Bill Clinton’s impeachment and trial by Congress. In 1998, Clinton gave sworn testimony in a sexual harassment case that he had never engaged in sexual activity with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. When prosecutors discovered evidence that the President had lied under oath about the affair, to which Clinton admitted, Republicans in Congress began impeachment proceedings. Although Clinton was ultimately not convicted by the Senate, the scandal put a lasting blemish on his presidential legacy.

Kyoto Treaty

International treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It was negotiated and opened for signatories in 1997, and took effect in 2005. Although signed by 169 (of 192) countries, the Bush Administration rejected the plan as too costly in 2001.

9/11 (2001)

Common shorthand for the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, in which 19 militant Islamist men hijacked and crashed four commercial aircraft. Two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing them to collapse. One plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and the fourth, overtaken by passengers, crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Nearly 3000 people were killed in the worst case of domestic terrorism in American history.

Al Qaeda

Arabic for "The Base," an international alliance of anti-Western Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations founded in the late 1980s. Founded by veterans of the Afghan struggle against the Soviet Union, the group is headed by Osama Bin Laden and has taken responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks, especially after the late 1990s. Al Qaeda organized the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States, from its headquarters in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Since the U.S-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the launch of the "Global War on Terror," the group has been weakened, but still poses significant threats around the world.

USA Patriot Act (2001)

Legislation passed shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that granted broad surveillance and detention authority to the government.

Department of Homeland Security

Cabinet-level agency created in 2003 to unify and coordinate public safety and anti-terrorism operations within the federal government.

Guantánamo Detention Camp

Controversial prison facility constructed after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Located on territory occupied by the U.S. military, but not technically part of the United States, the facility serves as an extra-legal holding area for suspected terrorists.

Abu Ghraib prison

A detention facility near Baghdad, Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, the prison was the site of infamous torturing and execution of political dissidents. In 2004, during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the prison became the focal point of a prisoner-abuse and torture scandal after photographs surfaced of American soldiers mistreating, torturing, and degrading Iraqi war prisoners and suspected terrorists. The scandal was one of several dark spots on the public image of the Iraq War and led to increased criticism of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

No Child Left Behind Act (2001)

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.

Hurricane Katrina (2005)

The costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States, killing nearly 2000 Americans. The storm ravaged the Gulf Coast, particularly the city of New Orleans, in late August of 2005. In New Orleans, high winds and rain caused the city’s levees to break, leading to catastrophic flooding, particularly centered on the city’s most impoverished wards. A tardy and feeble response by local and federal authorities exacerbated the damage and led to widespread criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Biden, Joseph R. ( "Joe")

(1942): United States senator from Delaware since 1973 and selected by Barack Obama in 2008 as the Democratic candidate for vice president. Joe Biden had unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1988 and 2008. As a longtime senator, former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Biden brought experience and maturity to the Democratic ticket in 2008.

Bush, George W.

(1946-): Forty-third president of the United States. The son of former president George H. W. Bush and former governor of Texas, he emerged victorious from the contested election of 2000, where he lost the popular vote. As president, he pursued changes in social security, immigration, and education laws, and appointed two conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Launching and leading the "war on terror" in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush was the architect of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Cheney, Richard

(1941-): Forty-sixth vice president of the United States. A former White House staffer, congressman, and secretary of defense during the first Persian Gulf War, Cheney joined the Bush ticket in 2000 to add experience and a link to the first Bush presidency. As vice president, he was more active in policy and politics than his predecessors, playing decisive roles especially in matters of foreign policy.

Clinton, William Jefferson ("Bill")

(1946-): Forty-second president of the United States. A former Arkansas governor and founding member of the Democratic Leadership Council, Clinton promoted "third way" politics and distanced his policies from traditional Democratic programs. He signed the Welfare Reform Act in 1996 to fulfill a campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it." Clinton was the first Democrat to be reelected since Franklin Roosevelt and first president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson.

Clinton, Hillary Rodham

(1947-): Democratic senator from New York who, in 2008, became the first highly competitive female candidate for president. A lawyer and political activist, Clinton was First Lady from 1993 to 2001, and then became the first former First Lady to serve in elected office when she was elected to the Senate. She tried unsuccessfully to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.

Dole, Robert

(1923-): Republican senator from Kansas who ran unsuccessfully against Bill Clinton in 1996. Dole had previously been the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1976 and served as senate minority leader during the 1980s and 1990s.

Gingrich, Newt

(1943-): Republican congressman from Georgia who served as speaker of the house from 1995 to 1999. As the author of the "Contract with America", Gingrich led the Republican "revolution" of 1994."

Kerry, John

(1943-): Democratic senator from Massachusetts who ran unsuccessfully for president against incumbent George W. Bush in 2004. A Vietnam veteran who rose to national attention as a vocal leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in the 1970, Kerry sought to portray himself as muscular in foreign policy even as he criticized the Iraq War. The election typified the stark partisan divide of the country, as Kerry lost the popular vote by 2.5 percent but came within one state (Ohio) of winning the electoral vote.

Lewinsky, Monica

(1973-): White House intern with whom President Bill Clinton had an extra-marital affair in the late 1990s. Lewinsky was the center of a protracted scandal during the second Clinton term.

McCain, John

(1936-): Republican senator from Arizona who lost the 2008 Presidential election to Democrat Barack Obama. A former Navy fighter pilot who spent five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, McCain was known as a maverick senator, frequently departing from his own party to cosponsor moderate legislation with Democratic allies. Among his most notable legislative achievements were changes in campaign finance and efforts to reform immigration laws.

Obama, Barack

(1962-): Forty-forth president of the United States, and first African American elected to that office. A lawyer and community organizer in Chicago, Obama served in the Illinois State Senate before being elected to the U.S. senate in 2004. After a protracted primary election campaign against Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama sealed the Democratic Party’s nomination and defeated Senator John McCain on November 4, 2008.

Palin, Sarah

(1964-): 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.

Pelosi, Nancy

(1940-): Democratic congresswoman from California who became, in 2007, the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives. Representing a liberal district, Pelosi as Speaker sought to strike a more moderate, yet still Democratic, tone.

Perot, H. Ross

(1930-): Texas billionaire businessman who ran populist campaigns for the presidency in 1992 and 1996. In 1992, he garnered 19 percent of the popular vote, probably throwing the election to Bill Clinton. Perot’s campaigns represented anti- establishment sentiment and desires for "common sense" governance.