APUSH Unit 18

1. "The Great Society"

This is the name for Lyndon Johnson’s program for national reform, using economic and welfare measures similar to New Dealism. His program would include a war on poverty as well as support for education, medical care for the elderly, and protection for African Americans. It included some urban development and housing projects. Under the program, Congress doubled the money for the Office of Economic Opportunity to $2 billion, and Johnson created the new cabinet offices of Transportation and of Housing and Urban Development. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Medicare and Medicaid, Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

2. "The New Frontier"

Kennedy used this term to refer to the challenges facing the US during his acceptance speech in 1960. Like the New Deal and other programs from other presidents, this term referred to a number of acts and measures over the course of Kennedy’s term. The Peace Corps, the Alliance for progress in Latin America, a trade expansion act, and a increase in the minimum wage were a few of the changes labeled under this term.

3. "War on poverty"

This included health, education and welfare programs that Congress passed in 1964 and 1965. The original idea came under Kennedy and was continued under L. Johnson when it became a part of his "Great Society." The Council of Economic Advisers was closely related to actions regarding this term including the Economic Opportunity Act, the Job Corps, and the Community Action Program. All of these acts helped to combat poverty and help the poor in various ways.

4. "Hawks" & "Doves"

This term generally refers to those who approve of an aggressive foreign policy with military power and those who wish to resolve conflict without military force. The term first came into use during the Vietnam War under President Kennedy, with one side wanting to send more military force to win the war while the other wanted the troops to return home.

5. 16th Street Baptist church

This was the location, in Birmingham, Alabama, of many civil rights meetings in the 1960s. Famous men like Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke here for the rights of African Americans. On September 15, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed this church killing four girls because of their stand against desegregation. This bombing against and the fighting for civil rights continued to increase in the area after the incident.

6. 1960 Presidential debates

In the race between JFK and Nixon, these were shown on television for the first time. The people’s choice for the winner of these revealed the massive visual influence of the television. Those who watched it on the radio did not choose a clear victor while those who watched overwhelmingly chose JFK as the victor. JFK appeared charming and composed while Nixon looked shaky and pale.

7. Ayatollah Khomeini

He was a Shiite cleric and scholar in Iran. He was the religious leader of the Shiites in Iran in the early 1960s until he was exiled for his criticism of the government. He returned to Iran in 1979 after working on his theory of velyat-e faqh for the Shiite clergy to rule to government, and he was named the political and religious leader called rahbar, enacting his system of government by creating an Islamic Republic of Iran. He was anti-Western and anticommunist, and he worsened the tension with the US when he seized the US embassy in Tehran greatly and started the Iraq-Iran War.

8. Barry Goldwater

He was a conservative Republican senator from Arizona who ran against Lyndon B. Johnson in the presidential election of 1964. He disliked New Dealism and the Civil Rights Act, and he was for increasing the war in Vietnam. His conservatism scared off many voters and lost him the election. He is seen as the man who renewed American conservatism.

9. Bay of Pigs invasion

This was a CIA operation in 1961 to overthrow the Cuban socialist government of Fidel Castro. The CIA had a force of over a thousand trained Cuban exiles who landed here and began an attack. The operation was uncovered after it became a huge failure. The local Cubans were not as supportive as initially anticipated, and the US refused to send air support. Many of the rebel exiles were captured and killed, and others were ransomed back to the US later.

10. Berlin Wall

This was a barrier erected surrounding West Berlin that was built in 1961 in response to a flight of 2,5 million East Germans into West Germany. It represented the division between East and West Germany during the Cold War. It stood from 1961 to 1989 and grew into a system of concrete walls with barbed wire, guard towers, guns, and mines. After the end of the Cold War the wall was torn down and the unification of Germany began.

11. Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein

These two men reported in the 1970s for the Washington Post. They were the investigative journalists who uncovered the connection between the Watergate Scandal and President Nixon. They spent countless hours gathering information about the scandal, discovering that President Nixon had ordered the break in at Watergate. They confirmed their information by talking to "Deep Throat," a man later revealed as number 2 at the FBI.

12. Brown v. Board of Education

Starting as a suit filed by 13 adults against the school district’s policy of segregation in schools, this case moved up to the Supreme Court in 1952. NAACP Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall argued against the earlier Supreme Court decision in support of segregation in the case Plessy v. Ferguson. The court ruled in favor of Marshall, stating that segregation violated the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause.

13. Camp David Agreement, 1978

These negotiations were initiated by President Carter for peace in the Middle East between Israel and Egypt. The prime minister of Israel Beqin and president of Egypt Sadat came to two different agreements. Egypt recognized Israel and created a framework for peace to end the conflict between the two nations when Israel removed its forces from the Sinai Peninsula. Later, the two countries agreed on a plan for self-rule in Palestine in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The agreement was interpreted differently by Israel, American, and Palestine, so the plan remained largely unfinished until new agreement in the 1990s.

14. CORE

This group was created by a group of students from the University of Chicago in 1942 to work for equal rights. It used nonviolent tactics such as sit-ins and picketing to protests segregation. Lead by James Leonard Farmer, it worked for the passage of civil rights. Their "Freedom Rides" in 1946 helped to remove segregation on interstate buses. In the 1960s, it worked together with SNCC and the NAACP to organize strikes, boycotts, and other demonstrations.

15. Cuban Missile Crisis

In 1962, a US spy plane detected detected ballistic nuclear missiles in Cuba. The Soviets had given them military support in 1960 by providing them with tanks, airplanes, troops, etc to balance out the threat of US nuclear missiles in Turkey. JFK ordered a blockade around Cuba and set up negotiations with Khrushchev. Khrushchev wanted the US to remove their missiles from Turkey to remove their missiles from Cuba, but the US ignored this request. The two finally agreed that if the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba the US would promise not to invade Cuba.

16. Détente

This refers to a less tense period during the Cold War as well as President Nixon’s more open policy during that period. This period lasted between 1967 and 1979, bring increased trade and cooperation between the US and the Soviets. This era saw the signing of the SALT treaties, lessening the amount of weapons and arms. During the period Nixon visited Russia and Brezhnev visited America for peace talks.

17. Dien Bien Phu

This was a French military base in North Vietnam and the site of the final battle of the for the French in Vietnam. The French fought against Vietminh forces for almost two months in 1956 at this base, but they lost the base on May 7, 1954. Their loss lead to the Geneva Agreement on Indochina and the end of French involvement in Indochina.

18. Earl Warren

He was the chief justice of the Supreme Court in the 1950s and 1960s, using a loose interpretation of the constitution to win rights for African-Americans in cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and for those accused of crimes in cases such as Miranda v. Arizona. After JFK’s assassination, he chaired the commission named after him to investigate the circumstances surrounding JFK’s death and the shooting of his assassin, Oswald.

19. Economic Opportunity Act of 1964

As part of LBJ’s "war on poverty," he created this to help every individual gain the opportunity to work in society by providing education, training, and work opportunities. It created ten programs designed to work toward those goals–the Job Corps, Neighborhood Youth Corps, Work Study, Work Experience, and Loans to Rural Families to name a few. The program was given $800 million for the first year, lower than originally wanted, while earlier the Council of Economic Advisers had estimated that $11 billion a year would bring everyone out of poverty. The act had some effect but failed to achieve the profound "elimination of poverty" envisioned by LBJ.

20. Emmett Till

He was an African-American boy from Chicago who was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was kidnapped, brutally beaten, and shot. He was so brutally beaten that his body was almost unidentifiable when it was found, dumped in the Tallahatchie River. When his mother chose to have an open casket at the funeral to show the brutality against her son, reporters came, and his pictures were published in Jet magazine. The brutal murder of this boy in 1955 contributed to the rise in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

21. Energy Crisis

This term refers to a shortage in the supply of resources, such as oil, needed for the production of power. This was a major issue in the 1970s when the US had low supplies of oil, making them reliant on foreign sources from the Middle East. In 1973, OAPEC (the arab members of OPEC) made an oil embargo in opposition to the US resupplying Israel during the Yom Kippur War, spiking up the price of oil. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution also caused another rise in oil prices when the because the new regime in Iran did not produce oil consistently and in as great of quantities as before.

22. Eugene McCarthy

He was a Democratic senator from Minnesota who ran for president in 1968. He convinced L. Johnson not to run again because of his early success in the Democratic nomination. He lost the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1968, and he was unsuccessful in all of his other attempts at the presidency. He was in opposition to the Vietnam War and ran on an anti-war platform.

23. Executive privilege

This is the right held by the president and those in his branch of the government to withhold information when disclosing it would adversely affect the operations of the branch or national security. It was curtailed in the US v. Nixon case regarding the release of the Watergate tapes. In that case, the executive branch’s right to withhold information would not be determined by the president but by the Supreme Court. The Court must decide whether national security justifies the withholding of information from the jury.

24. Fidel Castro

He overthrew the Cuban dictator in 1959 and established his own Marxist state in Cuba. He has been the leader of Cuba up until 2008, starting as a prime minister then a president but growing into a harsh dictator of Cuba. The CIA tried to take him down in the Bay of Pigs invasion. He was friends with the Soviets in the Cuban missile crisis.

25. G. Gordon Liddy

Chief operative for the White House Plumbers unit (a group to hide the Watergate scandal), he helped mastermind the break-in at the Watergate building that lead to Nixon’s resignation. He was a former FBI agent and was convicted and sent to jail for his involvement in the break-in. He later acted in several movies and hosted a radio talk show.

26. George McGovern

One of the first senators promising to end the war in Vietnam, he was the Democratic candidate for president in 1972. He ran, promising to pull the US troops out of Vietnam within 90 days, but he lost to Nixon. He won only a single state, losing even his own state. The Watergate investigations revealed he was the victim of smear tactics, but he still lost largely due to other issues. He returned to the Senate for several years but eventually lost his seat in 1980.

27. George Wallace

Governor of Alabama and a strong supporter of segregation during the Civil rights movement, he ran for president in 1968 for independently. He was a symbol of states’ rights in his support of segregation. He loses to Nixon in 1968, he loses again in 1972 when he is shot and paralyzed. He later renounced his segregationist views.

28. Gerald Ford

He was president after Nixon resigned from office in 1974. He was elected by only a vote from Congress. While in office he ended the Vietnam War in 1975 by removing over 500,000 men and returning them home. He also pardoned Nixon of his crimes while in office, earning him some mistrust among the public. He was a Republican while the Congress was controlled by Democrats, vetoing 50 bills. There were two assassination attempts on him before he lost reelection to Carter in 1976.

30. Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

In response to attacks on US navy ships by North Vietnam, this joint resolution was passed in Congress in 1964 that allowed LBJ to use all military force necessary to repel attacks on US forces in Vietnam. This document was used as the reasoning behind the expansion of the war in Vietnam. It was repealed in 1970 because of the power it gave the president.

31. H. R. Haldeman

H. R. Haldeman was an American political aide and businessman, best known for his service as White House Chief of Staff to President Richard Nixon. He ordered the CIA and FBI not to probe too deeply into the Watergate break-in and helped provide money to keep the burglars quiet. He was later sentenced to prison for his role in Watergate.

32. Harry Blackmun

Harry Blackmun was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 until 1994 during the Nixon administration. He is best known as the author of Roe v. Wade, invalidating a Texas statute making it a felony to administer an abortion in most circumstances.

33. Helsinki Accords

The Helsinki Accords was the final act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki, Finland in 1975. Thirty-five states, including the USA, Canada, and all European states except Albania and Andorra, signed the declaration in an attempt to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West. The Helsinki Accords are not binding as they do not have treaty status.

34. Henry Cabot Lodge

Lodge was an outspoken senator from Massachusetts. He came from a distinguished lineage that dated back to the colonial times. He introduced the Literacy Test bill in 1896 to be taken by immigrants, but it was vetoed by Cleveland. The bill however was passed and enacted in 1917. Lodge also led a group of Republicans against the League of Nations. Lodge proposed amendments to the League Covenant but Wilson would not accept. We did not join the League.

35. Henry Kissinger

Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He served as National Security Advisor and later as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. After his term, his opinion was still sought by many subsequent presidents and many world leaders. Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People’s Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War.

36. Hubert Humphrey

Humphrey served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and Americans for Democratic Action. Humphrey was the nominee of the Democratic Party in the 1968 presidential election but lost to the Republican nominee, Richard Nixon.

37. Iranian Hostage Crisis

The Iranian Hostage Crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian Revolution. President Carter called the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy," adding that the "United States will not yield to blackmail. It reached a climax when, after failed attempts to negotiate a release, the United States military attempted a rescue operation, on April 24, 1980, which resulted in a failed mission. It ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19, 1981. The hostages were released into United States custody the following day.

38. J. William Fullbright

Fullbright was an Arkansas Senator and established the Fullbright program. Fulbright was a Southern Democrat and a staunch multilateralist who supported the creation of the United Nations and the longest serving chairman in the history of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was also a segregationist who signed the Southern Manifesto.

39. Jack Ruby

Jack Ruby was convicted of the November 24, 1963 murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Ruby was then a nightclub operator in Dallas, Texas. Convicted of the murder on March 14, 1964, Ruby appealed the conviction and death sentence. As a date for his new trial was being set, he became ill and died of lung cancer on January 3, 1967.

40. Jackson State University

Jackson State University is a historically black university in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1877 in Natchez, Mississippi by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York, the Society moved the school to Jackson in 1882, renaming it Jackson College, and developed its present campus in 1902. It became a state-supported public institution in 1940. A member of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, JSU holds an important place in the history of US civil rights.

41. JFK

JFK was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. Kennedy served in the military in World War I, was a Massachusetts Representative from 1947 to 1953 as a Democrat, and a Senator from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon in the 1960 election. He was the youngest elected to the office, at the age of 43. Events during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African American Civil Rights Movement, and early stages of the Vietnam War.

42. Jimmy Carter

Carter is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States (1977-1981). Before he became President, Carter served as a U.S. Naval officer, was a peanut farmer, served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia. During Carter’s term as President, two new cabinet-level departments were created: the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. He established a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II), and returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama.

43. John Dean III

John Dean III is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up. He pleaded guilty to a single felony count in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution. This ultimately resulted in a reduced prison sentence.

44. John Foster Dulles

Dulles served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959. He was a significant figure in the early Cold War era, advocating an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world. He advocated support of the French in their war against the Viet Minh in Indochina and also played a major role in the Central Intelligence Agency operation to overthrow the democratic Mossadegh government of Iran in 1953 and the democratic Arbenz government of Guatemala in 1954.

45. Kent State University

Kent State University was established in 1910 as the Kent State Normal School as a teacher-training school. The During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the university was known internationally for its student activism in opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam war, due mainly to the events of May 4, 1970.

46. LBJ

Lyndon B. Johnson was the 36th President of the United States (1963-1969). Johnson escalated American involvement in the Vietnam War, from 16,000 American advisors/soldiers in 1963 to 550,000 combat troops in early 1968, as American casualties soared and the peace process bogged down. Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party and as President, he was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his "War on Poverty." He was renowned for his domineering personality and the "Johnson treatment," his coercion of powerful politicians in order to advance legislation.

47. Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations, the sniper who assassinated John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. In 1964, the Warren Commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, firing three shots, a conclusion also reached by prior investigations carried out by the FBI and Dallas Police Department. The evidence used to form this conclusion has since been disputed.

48. "Little Rock Nine"

The Little Rock Nine was a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. On their first day of school, troops from the Arkansas National Guard would not let them enter the school and they were followed by mobs making threats to lynch.

49. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. King has become a national icon in the history of modern American liberalism. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, serving as its first president. King’s efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee.

50. Medgar Evers

Medgar Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi. He became active in the civil rights movement after returning from overseas service in World War II and completing secondary education; he became a field secretary for the NAACP. Evers was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens’ Council. As a veteran, Evers was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. His murder and the resulting trials inspired civil rights protests, as well as numerous works of art, music, and film.

51. Military-Industrial Complex

The Military-Industrial Complex is a concept commonly used to refer to policy and monetary relationships between legislators, national armed forces, and the defense industrial base that supports them. The term is sometimes used more broadly to include the entire network of contracts and flows of money and resources among individuals as well as institutions of the defense contractors, The Pentagon, and the Congress and executive branch.The term is most often used in reference to the military of the United States, where it gained popularity after its use in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 17, 1961.

52. Miranda v. Arizona

Miranda v. Arizona of 1966 was a decision in which the Court held that both inculpatory and exculpatory statements made in response to interrogation by a defendant in police custody will be admissible at trial only if the prosecution can show that the defendant was informed of the right to consult with an attorney before and during questioning and of the right against self-incrimination prior to questioning by police, and that the defendant not only understood these rights, but voluntarily waived them.

53. My Lai Massacre

The My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" company. Most of the victims were women, children, infants, and elderly people. Some of the bodies were later found to be mutilated. While 26 US soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at My Lai, only Second Lieutenant William Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company, was convicted.

54. NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination". Its name, retained in accordance with tradition, uses the once common term colored people.

55. Nelson Rockefeller

Nelson Rockefeller was an American businessman, philanthropist, public servant, and politician. He served as the 41st Vice President of the United States (1974-1977), serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York (1959-1973). He also served the Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions. As a businessman he was President and later Chairman of Rockefeller Center, Inc., and he formed the International Basic Economy Corporation in 1947. Rockefeller assembled a significant art collection and promoted public access to the arts.

56. Ngo Dinh Diem

Ngo Dinh Diem was the first president of South Vietnam (1955-1963) before being assassinated. In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diem led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. He accrued considerable U.S. support due to his staunch anti-Communism.

57. Nixon visits China

U.S. President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to the People’s Republic of China was an important step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It marked the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC, which at that time considered the U.S. one of its staunchest foes, and the voyage ended 25 years of separation between the two sides.

58. Nixon’s Latin Am. Tour

During a goodwill trip through Latin America in May 1958, Vice President Richard Nixon’s car is attacked by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through Caracas, Venezuela. The incident was the dramatic highlight of trip characterized by Latin American anger over some of America’s Cold War policies.

59. Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty- is a treaty prohibiting all test detonations of nuclear weapons except underground. It was developed both to slow the arms race, and to stop the excessive release of nuclear fallout into the planet’s atmosphere. It was signed by the governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, named the "Original Parties", at Moscow on August 5, 1963 and opened for signature by other countries.

60. October War

The October War was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. The war began when the coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, which happened to occur that year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed ceasefire lines to enter the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights respectively, which had been captured and occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War. Both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive resupply efforts to their respective allies during the war, and this led to a near-confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers. The war also challenged many American assumptions; the United States initiated new efforts at mediation and peacemaking. These changes paved the way for the subsequent peace process.

61. OPEC & the 1970s oil crisis

The 1973 oil crisis started in October 1973, when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries or the OAPEC (consisting of the Arab members of OPEC, plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia) proclaimed an oil embargo. This was "in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military" during the Yom Kippur war. With the U.S. actions seen as initiating the oil embargo and the long term possibility of high oil prices, disrupted supply and recession, a strong rift was created within NATO. The 1973 "oil price shock", along with the 1973-1974 stock market crash, have been regarded as the first event since the Great Depression to have a persistent economic effect.

62. Panama Canal Treaties

The Torrijos-Carter Treaties (sometimes referred to in the singular as the Torrijos-Carter Treaty), are a pair of treaties signed by the United States and Panama in Washington, D. C. on September 7, 1977, abrogating the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty signed in 1903. The treaties guaranteed that Panama would gain control of the Panama Canal – then under US control, after 1999. The treaties are named after the two signatories , U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos. The first treaty is officially called The Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal (Under this treaty, the U.S. retains the permanent right to defend the canal from any threat that might interfere with its continued neutral service to ships of all nations). The second treaty is called The Panama Canal Treaty.

63. Peace Corps

The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes: (1) providing technical assistance; (2)helping people outside the United States to understand US culture; and (3) helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. The work is generally related to social and economic development. The program was established by Executive Order 10924, issued by President John F. Kennedy on March 1, 1961, announced on March 2, 1961, and authorized by Congress on September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The act declares the program’s purpose as follows: "To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve, under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs for trained manpower."

64. US v. Nixon

On 9 February 1986, U.S. District Judge Walter L. Nixon of Mississippi was convicted in a federal court of lying to a special grand jury concerning allegations that he had accepted an illegal gratuity from a local businessman. When Nixon refused to resign his judicial office, the House of Representatives approved three articles of impeachment against him. Walter L. Nixon Jr. (Nixon) claimed that Senate impeachment hearings against him were unconstitutional because the entire Senate did not try him, but instead appointed a committee to make initial findings, but even still, he was impeached.

65. RFK

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and acted as one of his advisors during his presidency. Following his brother John’s assassination on November 22, 1963, Kennedy continued to serve as Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson for nine months. Kennedy scored a major victory in winning the California primary. That evening, he was assassinated in the Ambassador’s Hotel, leaving a divided Democratic party during the election of 1968.

66. Richard J. Daley

served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and of Hubert Humphrey in 1968. He is remembered for doing much to avoid the declines that some other "rust belt" cities like Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit experienced during the same period. He had a strong base of support in Chicago’s Irish Catholic community.

67. Richard M. Nixon

During his Presidency, Nixon succeeded in ending American fighting in Viet Nam and improving relations with the U.S.S.R. and China. But the Watergate scandal brought fresh divisions to the country and ultimately led to his resignation.

68. Roe v. Wade

is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. Decided simultaneously with a companion case, Doe v. Bolton, the Court ruled that a right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion, but that right must be balanced against the state’s two legitimate interests in regulating abortions: protecting prenatal life and protecting women’s health. Arguing that these state interests became stronger over the course of a pregnancy, the Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the trimester of pregnancy.

69. S.A.L.T.

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks refers to two rounds of bilateral talks and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. Negotiations commenced in Helsinki, Finland, in 1969. SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two powers. Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979, the United States chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which took place later that year. The US eventually withdrew from SALT II in 1986. This eventually led to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

70. SCLC

With the goal of redeeming ”the soul of America” through nonviolent resistance, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established in 1957, to coordinate the action of local protest groups throughout the South. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., the organization drew on the power and independence of black churches to support its activities. The catalyst for the formation of SCLC was the Montgomery bus boycott.

71. Shah of Iran

Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavī was the last Shah of Iran who ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979. Mohammad Reza came to power during World War II after an Anglo-Soviet invasion forced the abdication of his father Reza Shah. During his reign, the Iranian oil industry was nationalized. The Shah’s White Revolution, a series of economic and social reforms intended to transform Iran into a global power, succeeded in modernizing the nation, nationalizing many natural resources, and extending suffrage to women. His rule was marked by a power struggle with his premier, Mohammad Mosaddeq, who briefly succeeded in deposing him in 1953; covert intervention by British and U.S. intelligence services returned him to the throne the next year. His program of rapid modernization and oil-field development initially brought him popular support, but his autocratic style and suppression of dissent, along with corruption and the unequal distribution of Iran’s new oil wealth, increased opposition led by exiled cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In 1979 Pahlavi was forced into exile.

72. Sirhan Sirhan

is a Jordanian citizen who was convicted for the assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy. He is currently serving a life sentence at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California. On June 5, 1968, Sirhan fired a .22 caliber Iver-Johnson Cadet revolver at Senator Robert Kennedy and the crowd surrounding him in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after Kennedy had finished addressing supporters in the hotel’s main ballroom.

73. Spiro Agnew

was the 39th Vice President of the United States (1969-1973), serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland (1967-1969). He was the first Greek American to hold these offices. During his fifth year as Vice President, in the late summer of 1973, Agnew was under investigation by the United States Attorney’s office in Baltimore, Maryland, on charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery and conspiracy. In October, he was formally charged with having accepted bribes totaling more than $100,000. * Agnew is the only Vice President in United States history to resign because of criminal charges.*

74. Sputnik

was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth’s orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1’s success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the Space Age.

75. Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis was a diplomatic and military confrontation in late 1956 between Egypt on one side, and Britain, France and Israel on the other, with the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations playing major roles in forcing Egypt’s opposition to withdraw. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel, and then began to bomb Cairo. The attack followed the President of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser’s decision of 26 July 1956 to nationalize the Suez Canal (after the withdrawal of an offer by Britain and the United States to fund the building of the Aswan Dam, which was in response to Egypt’s new recognition of Communism during the height of tensions between China and Taiwan). The aims of the attack were primarily to regain Western control of the canal and to remove Nasser from power.

76. Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive was a military campaign during the Vietnam War that was launched on January 30, 1968. Regular and irregular forces of the People’s Army of Vietnam fought against the forces of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the United States, and their allies. The purpose of the offensive was to utilize the element of surprise and strike military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam, during a period when no attacks were supposed to take place. The Tet Offensive undermined Lyndon Johnson’s credibility and decreased the people’s support of the Vietnam war.

77. Thomas Eagleton

was a United States Senator from Missouri, serving from 1968-1987. He is best remembered for briefly being the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972. After his public service he became adjunct professor of public affairs at Washington University. Mr. Eagleton took a leading role on legislative issues like presidential war powers, the bombing of Cambodia and home rule for the District of Columbia. But history will probably remember him primarily as a vice presidential candidate for 18 days. He was removed from the campaign after the discovery of his mental illness.

78. Three Mile Island

The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown which occurred at the Three Mile Island power plant in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979. It was the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history, and resulted in the release of small amounts of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment. According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the accident resulted in no deaths or injuries to plant workers or members of nearby communities.

79. Vietcong

or National Liberation Front (NLF), was a political organization and army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1959-1975). It had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), the regular North Vietnamese army. Southern Vietnamese communists established the National Liberation Front in 1960 to encourage the participation of non-communists in the insurgency.

80. War Powers Act

is a federal law, passed in 1973, intended to check the power of the President in committing the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution; this provides that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."

81. Warren Burger

was the 15th Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986. Although Burger had conservative leanings and was considered a strict constructionist, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a variety of transformative decisions on abortion, capital punishment, religious establishment, and school desegregation during his tenure. Under his leadership, the court upheld the 1966 Miranda v. Arizona decision, permitted busing as a means of ending racial segregation in public schools, and endorsed the use of racial quotas in the awarding of federal grants and contracts. Burger voted with the majority in Roe v. Wade (1973). Keenly interested in judicial administration, he became deeply involved in efforts to improve the judiciary’s efficiency.

82. Watergate

was a political scandal that occurred in the United States in the 1970s as a result of the June 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration’s attempted cover-up of its involvement. The scandal eventually led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the President of the United States, on August 9, 1974, the only resignation of a U.S. President. The scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction and incarceration of 43 people, including dozens of top Nixon administration officials. A series of scandals occurring during the Nixon administration in which members of the executive branch organized illegal political espionage against their perceived opponents and were charged with violation of the public trust, bribery, contempt of Congress, and attempted obstruction of justice.

83. Voting Rights Act of 1965

is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S. Specifically, Congress intended the Act to outlaw the practice of requiring otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote, a principal means by which Southern states had prevented African-Americans from exercising the franchise. The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, who had earlier signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law.

84. Watts Riots

a civil disturbance in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California from August 11 to August 15, 1965. The five-day riot resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests and over $40 million in property damage. This was a clash as a result of tensions between blacks and whites. The Story: During the summer of 1965, rioting broke out in Watts, an African American section of Los Angeles. By 1965 the successes of nonviolent protests seemed irrelevant to many African Americans segregated and mired in poverty and despair in urban ghettoes. Militancy increased, especially in Watts in south central Los Angeles, home to more than 250,000 African Americans. A not-so-routine traffic stop signaled the demise of the era of nonviolence. On 11 August 1965 spectators accustomed to seeing black drivers pulled over by white police officers charged the officers with racism and brutality. Looting, violence, and bloodshed intensified, as rioters attacked whites, fought police, and shot at firefighters. Mobs repeatedly attacked reporters, and snipers aimed their rifles at members of the largely white press. Facing fewer obstacles, black reporters covered the story for major media outlets. Only after the National Guard sent 14,000 soldiers to assist the 1,500 police officers did peace return to Watts.

85. Civil Rights Act of 1968

was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin. The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had previously signed the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act into law. It is commonly known as the Fair Housing Act and was meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

86. Civil Rights Act of 1964

was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public ("public accommodations"). Powers given to enforce the act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years.

87. Apollo 9

Apollo 9, the third manned mission in the American Apollo space program, was the first flight of the Command/Service Module (CSM) with the Lunar Module (LM). The Apollo 9 launch was the first Saturn V/Apollo Spacecraft in full lunar mission configuration and carried the largest payload ever placed in orbit. Since Apollo 9 was the first manned demonstration of lunar module systems performance, many firsts were achieved. The crew had remarkable success in sighting objects using the crewman optical alignment sight (COAS). Their success seems to confirm the thesis that the visual acuity of the human eye is increased in space.

88. Apollo 11

was the spaceflight which landed the first humans, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr, on Earth’s Moon on July 20, 1969, at 20:17:39 UTC. The United States mission is considered the major accomplishment in the history of space exploration. Launched from the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 in Merritt Island, Florida on July 16, Apollo 11 was the fifth manned mission, and the third lunar mission, of NASA’s Apollo program. Apollo 11 fulfilled U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s goal of reaching the Moon before the Soviet Union by the end of the 1960s.

89. 27th Amendment

prohibits any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of the Congress from taking effect until the start of the next set of terms of office for Representatives. It is the most recent amendment to the United States Constitution, having been ratified in 1992, despite its initial submission in 1789.

90. Pentagon Papers

Daniel Ellsberg precipitated a constitutional crisis in 1971 when he released the "Pentagon Papers." The papers comprised the U.S. military’s account of theater activities during the Vietnam War. Ellsberg released top secret documents to The New York Times. His release of the Pentagon Papers succeeded in substantially eroding public support for the Vietnam War. The Pentagon Papers were mostly an indictment of the Democratic administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, but they fed the Nixon administration’s preoccupation with finding information and document leakers. They eventually led to the secret White House "Plumbers" group and then to Watergate , which eventually led to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation. The New York Times claimed that they "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance".

91. "Saturday Night Massacre"

Archibald Cox, Jr., had been appointed special prosecutor in charge of investigating the Watergate Scandal. When he insisted upon receiving secret tapes that President Richard Nixon had made in the Oval Office, Nixon ordered Cox fired. On October 20, 1973, after both Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned their position rather than fire Cox, Nixon assigned the task to U.S. Solicitor General Robert Bork. He also considered resigning, but Richardson convinced him that his resignation could leave the Justice Department in chaos, and Bork agreed to follow Nixon’s order removing Cox from his position. The affair became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. This is an indication of Nixon’s corruption.