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Ross Perot
Henry Ross Perot is an American business magnate and former politician. He is the founder of Electronic Data Systems, which made him a billionaire. He ran an independent presidential campaign in 1992 and a third party campaign in 1996, making the Reform Party in the latter election. Both campaigns were the strongest presidential showings by a third party or independent candidate in U.S. history. Perot also became heavily involved in the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. -
Smith Act
The Alien Registration Act, also known as the Smith Act is a US federal statute. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government and required all non-citizen adult residents to register with the government. Approximately 215 people were indicted under the legislation, including alleged communists, anarchists, and fascists. Prosecutions under the Smith Act continued until decisions in reversed a number of convictions. -
G.I. Bill
Officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was created to help veterans of World War II. It made hospitals, made low-interest mortgages available and granted stipends covering tuition and expenses for veterans attending college or trade schools. From 1944 to 1949, nearly 9 million veterans received close to $4 billion from the bill’s unemployment compensation program. The education and training provisions existed until 1956. -
Little Boy
"Little Boy" was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces. It was the first atomic bomb to be used in warfare. The Hiroshima bombing was the second artificial nuclear explosion in history, after the Trinity test, and the first uranium-based detonation. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was an American foreign policy whose stated purpose was to counter Soviet expansion during the Cold War. Direct American military force was usually not involved, but Congress appropriated financial aid to support the economies and militaries of Greece and Turkey. The Truman Doctrine implied American support for other nations allegedly threatened by Soviet communism. The Truman Doctrine became the foundation of American foreign policy. -
Hector P. Garcia
Hector Perez Garcia was a Mexican-American physician, surgeon, World War II veteran, civil rights advocate, and founder of the American G.I. Forum. As a result of the national prominence he earned through his work on behalf of Hispanic Americans, he was instrumental in the appointment of Vicente T. Ximenes, a Mexican American, and American G.I. Forum charter member, to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Garcia was a representative to the United Nations. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war affected regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity, and prevent the spread of Communism. The Marshall Plan required a dropping of many regulations, and encouraged an increase in productivity, trade union membership, as well as the adoption of modern business procedures. -
Fair Deal
The Fair Deal was an ambitious set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman. More generally the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman administration. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal, but with the Conservative Coalition controlling Congress, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable GOP support. The most important proposals were an aid to education and other issues. -
Beat Generation
The Beat Generation was a literary movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized. Central elements of Beat culture are a rejection of standard narrative values, spiritual quest, exploration of American and Eastern religions, rejection of materialism, explicit portrayals of the human condition, experimentation with psychedelic drugs. -
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy was an American politician who served as U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He is known for alleging that numerous Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. -
Korean War (The Forgotten War)
The Korean 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. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. It was a war against the forces of international communism. -
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman, known as Little Richard, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, and actor. A figure in popular music and culture for seven decades, Little Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s when his dynamic music and charismatic showmanship laid the foundation for rock and roll. His music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. Little Richard influenced numerous singers and musicians. -
Ike Turner
Izear Luster "Ike" Turner, Jr was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. He is most popularly known for his work in the 1960s and 1970s with his then-wife Tina Turner in the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.Turner began playing piano and guitar when he was eight, forming his group, the Kings of Rhythm, as a teenager. He employed the group as his backing band for the rest of his life. He was considered a contender for "first rock and roll song". -
Bill Haley and the Comets
Bill Haley & His Comets were an American rock and roll band, founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band was also known as Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets. The group placed nine singles in the Top 20, one of those a number one and three more in the Top Ten. After recording a country and western-styled version of "Rocket 88", a rhythm and blues song, he changed musical direction to a new sound which came to be called rock and roll. -
Brown v. Board Of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all.This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the Civil Rights Movement. -
Polio Vaccine
American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. In 1952–an epidemic year for polio–there were 58,000 new cases reported in the US, and more than 3,000 died from the disease. Eradicate the disease, which is known as “infant paralysis” because it mainly affects children, Dr. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor. -
Earl Warren Supreme Court
Earl Warren was a leader of American politics and law. Warren secured major reform legislation during his three terms in office. After failing to claim the Republican nomination for the presidency, he was appointed the 14th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953. The landmark case of his tenure was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the Court determined the segregation of schools to be unconstitutional. The Warren Court also sought electoral reforms, in criminal justice. -
Albert Sabin
Albert Bruce Sabin was a Polish American medical researcher, best known for developing the oral polio vaccine which has played a key role in nearly eradicating the disease. With the menace of polio growing, Sabin and other researchers, most notably Jonas Salk in Pittsburgh and Hilary Koprowski and Herald Cox in New York City and Philadelphia, sought a vaccine to prevent or mitigate the illness. The Sabin vaccine is an oral vaccine containing weakened forms of strains of polio viruses. -
Dr. Jonas Salk
Jonas Edward Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist. He discovered and developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. Choosing to do medical research instead of becoming a practicing physician. In 1939, after earning his medical degree, Salk began an internship as a physician-scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital. Two years later he was granted a fellowship at the University of Michigan, where he would study flu viruses with his mentor Thomas Francis, Jr -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". In Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. Parks' prominence inspired the black community. -
Elvis
Elvis Presley was an American singer, actor and song producer. He also was known as the King of Rock `n Roll. More than one billion Elvis records have sold worldwide, with 120 singles in the U.S. top reaching number one. In 1954, Presley began his singing career with Sun Records in Memphis. His first double-sided demo was “My Happiness" and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin," both popular ballads at the time. He gave the record to his mother as a belated birthday present. -
Eisenhower Interstate System
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways is a network of controlled-access highways that form a part of the National Highway System of the United States. The system is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed its formation. Construction was authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, and the original portion was completed 35 years later, although some urban routes were canceled and never built. -
Little Rock 9
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education.The first day of classes at Central High, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the black students’ entry into the high school. Later that month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
President Eisenhower sent Congress a proposal for civil rights legislation. The result was the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The Act was to ensure that all Americans could exercise their right to vote. By 1957, only about 20% of blacks were registered to vote. Despite being the majority in numerous counties and congressional districts in the South, most blacks had been effectively disfranchised by discriminatory voter registration rules. -
Hippies
A hippie is a member of a counterculture, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic music, embraced the sexual revolution, and many used drugs such as marijuana, LSD, peyote, and psilocybin mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness. Hippie fashion and values had a major effect on culture, television, film, literature, and the arts. -
OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is an intergovernmental organization of 14 nations as of February 2018, founded in 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members and headquartered since 1965 in Vienna, Austria. As of 2016, the 14 countries accounted for an estimated 44 percent of global oil production and 73 percent of the world's "proven" oil reserves, giving OPEC a major influence on global oil prices that were previously determined by American-dominated. -
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the United States. The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand American culture, and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. The work is related to social and economic development. Each program participant, a Peace Corps Volunteer, is an American citizen, who works abroad for a period of two years after three months of training. -
Cesar Chavez
Mexican-American Cesar Chavez was a union leader and labor organizer. His early experience as a migrant worker, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. His union joined with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee in its first strike against grape growers in California, and the two organizations later merged to become the United Farm Workers. Stressing nonviolent methods, Chavez drew attention for his causes via boycotts, marches, and hunger strikes. -
Birmingham March
The Birmingham campaign was a movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. Led by Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel, Fred Shuttlesworth and others, the campaign of nonviolent direct action culminated in widely publicized confrontations between young black students and white civic authorities and eventually led the municipal government. -
Assassination of JFK
John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas while riding in a presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza. A ten-month investigation by the Warren Commission from November 1963 to September 1964 concluded that Oswald acted alone in shooting Kennedy and that Jack Ruby also acted alone when he killed Oswald before he could stand trial. Kennedy's death marked the fourth and the most recent assassination of an American President. -
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was an American former Marine and Marxist who assassinated United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. According to four federal government investigations and one municipal investigation, Oswald shot and killed Kennedy from a sniper's nest in a school book depository as the President traveled by motorcade through Dealey Plaza in the city of Dallas, Texas. Oswald was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps and defected to the Soviet Union. -
Warren Commission
A week after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas his successor, Lyndon Johnson, established a commission to investigate Kennedy’s death. The commission concluded that alleged gunman Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating America’s 35th president and that there was no conspiracy, either domestic or international, involved.Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report proved controversial and failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event. -
Daisy Girl Ad
"Daisy Girl" or "Peace, Little Girl", was a controversial political advertisement aired on television during the 1964 United States presidential election by incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign. Though only aired once, it is considered to be an important factor in Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater and an important turning point in political and advertising history. It remains one of the most controversial political advertisements ever made. -
Barry Boldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 1964 election. Despite losing the election Goldwater is the politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. He was a vocal opponent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, believing it was an overreach of federal government. -
Anti-War Movement
The movement against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began small–among peace activists and leftist on college campuses–but gained national prominence in 1965, after the United States began bombing North Vietnam in earnest. Anti-war marches and other protests, such as the ones organized by Students for a Democratic Society, attracted a widening base of support over the next three years, peaking in early 1968 after North Vietnamese troops proved that war’s end was nowhere in sight. -
Malcolm X
Malcolm X, the activist and outspoken public voice of the Black Muslim faith, challenged the mainstream civil rights movement and the nonviolent pursuit of integration by Martin Luther King Jr. He urged followers to defend themselves against white aggression “by any means necessary.” Malcolm became an influential leader of the Nation of Islam, which combined Islam with black nationalism and sought to encourage disadvantaged young blacks searching for confidence in segregated America. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. Prohibits racial discrimination in voting. -
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party was a political organization founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale to challenge police brutality against the African American community. Dressed in black berets and black leather jackets, the Black Panthers organized armed citizen patrols of Oakland and other U.S. cities. At its peak in 1968, the Black Panther Party had roughly 2,000 members. Deadly shootouts and FBI counterintelligence activities aimed at weakening the organization. -
Jack Ruby
Jack Leon Ruby was the Dallas, Texas nightclub owner who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald while Oswald was in police custody after being charged with assassinating of John F. Kennedy and the murder of Dallas policeman J. D. Tippit. A jury found him guilty of murdering Oswald, and he was sentenced to death. Ruby's conviction was later appealed, and he was granted a new trial. However, on January 3, 1967, as the date for his new trial was being set, Ruby became ill in his prison cell and died. -
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first two humans on the Moon. Mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin, both American, landed the lunar module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours after landing on Aldrin joined him about 20 minutes later. They spent about two and a quarter hours together outside the spacecraft and collected 47.5 pounds of lunar material to bring back to Earth. -
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
The Environmental Protection Agency is the prominent agency for protecting the environment from air and water pollution and for protecting the citizens of the United States from the health hazards of pollution. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA and it began operation on December 2, 1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. increasing concern about environment. -
Stagflation
In the 1970s, Keynesian economists had to reconsider their beliefs as the U.S. and other industrialized countries entered a period of stagflation. Stagflation is defined as slow economic growth occurring simultaneously with high rates of inflation. 1970s stagflation in the U.S. analyzes the Federal Reserve's monetary policy and discuss the reversal in monetary policy as prescribed by Milton Friedman that eventually brought the U.S. out of the stagflation cycle. -
Phyllis Schlafly
Phyllis McAlpin Schlafly was an American constitutional lawyer and conservative political activist. She was known for staunchly conservative social and political views, antifeminism, opposition to legal abortion, and her successful campaign against ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Her book, A Choice Not an Echo, a polemic against Republican leader Nelson Rockefeller, sold more than three million copies. Schlafly founded the Eagle Forum. -
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex; it seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of a divorce, property, employment, and other matters. The amendment was introduced in Congress for the first time in October 1921 and has prompted conversations about the meaning of legal equality for women and men ever since. -
Title IX
Title IX is a federal civil rights law in the that was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. Signed into law by U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1972. Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 is a federal law that states: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. -
War Powers Resolution Act
The War Powers Act was designed to limit the U.S. president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad. The law requires that presidents notify Congress after deploying the armed forces and limits how long units can remain engaged without congressional approval. With the goal of avoiding another lengthy conflict such as the Vietnam War, its effectiveness has been repeatedly questioned throughout its history, and several presidents have been failing. -
Endangered Species Act of 1973
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the few dozens of US environmental laws passed in the 1970s and serves as the enacting legislation to carry out the provisions outlined in The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Designed to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation", the ESA was signed into law by President Richard Nixon. -
Federal Election Commission (FEC)
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent agency created in 1975 by the U.S. Congress to regulate election campaign finance in the United States. The mission of the FEC is to administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) that governs the financing of federal elections. The FEC has jurisdiction over campaigns for the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, the presidency and the vice presidency. Facilitate disclosure and administer the public funding program. -
Video Head System (VHS)
The Video Home System is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes. Developed by Victor Company of Japan (JVC) in the early 1970s, it was released in Japan in late 1976 and in the United States in early 1977. From the 1950s, magnetic tape video recording became a major contributor to the television industry, via the first commercialized video tape recorders (VTRs). At that time, the devices were used only in expensive professional environments. -
Camp David Accords
At the White House in Washington, D.C., Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords, laying the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities. The accords were negotiated during 12 days of intensive talks at President Jimmy Carter’s Camp David retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. Sadat and Begin were jointly awarded the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. -
Rap Music
Rap music is a music genre developed in the United States by inner-city African Americans in the 1970s which consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip-hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records. -
Three-Mile Island
Three Mile Island is the site of a nuclear power plant in south central Pennsylvania. In March 1979, a series of mechanical and human errors at the plant caused the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history, resulting in a partial meltdown that released dangerous radioactive gasses into the atmosphere. Three Mile Island stoked public fears about nuclear power—no new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States since the accident. -
A.I.DS. Crisis
In the 1980s and early 1990s, the outbreak of HIV and AIDS swept across the United States and rest of the world, though the disease originated decades earlier. Today, more than 70 million people have been infected with HIV and about 35 million have died from AIDS since the start of the pandemic, according to the World Health Organization. found its way to the shores of the United States as early as 1960, but was first noticed after doctors discovered in young gay men. -
Music Television (MTV)
The channel originally aired music videos as guided by television personalities known as "video jockeys" (VJs). At first, MTV's main target demographic was young adults, but today it is primarily teenagers, particularly high school and college students. MTV has toned down its music video programming significantly in recent years, and its programming now consists mainly of original reality, comedy and drama programming and some off-network syndicated programs and films. -
Sandra Day O'Connor
Sandra Day O'Connor is a retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from her appointment in 1981 by Ronald Reagan to 2006. She is the first woman to serve on the Court. She was an elected official and judge in Arizona serving as the first female Majority Leader of a state senate as the Republican leader in the Arizona Senate. Upon her nomination to the Court, O'Connor was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. -
Strategic defense Initiative (SDI) "Star Wars"
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons.The concept was first announced publicly by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan was a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a "suicide pact", and he called upon the scientists and engineers of the United States to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. -
Robert Johnson
Robert Louis Johnson is an American entrepreneur, media magnate, executive, and investor. He is the co-founder of BET, which was acquired by Viacom in 2001. He also founded RLJ Companies, a holding company that invests in various business sectors. He became the first black American billionaire. Johnson's companies have counted among the most prominent African-American businesses in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. -
Reagan Doctrine
The doctrine was the centerpiece of United States foreign policy from the early 1980's until the end of the Cold War in 1991. Under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States provided overt and covert aid to anti-communist guerrillas and resistance movements in an effort to "roll back" Soviet-backed communist governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The doctrine was designed to diminish Soviet influence in these regions as part of the administration's overall strategy to end the Cold War. -
Iran Contra Affair
Iran-Contra Affair under President Reagan secretly supported an anti-Communist group in Nicaragua and funneled weapons to Iranian terrorists in exchange for American hostages. Lt. Col. Oliver North was found guilty. a secret U.S. government arms deal that freed some American hostages held in Lebanon but also funded armed conflict in Central America. In addition, the controversial dealmaking—and the ensuing political scandal—threatened to bring down the presidency of Ronald Reagan. -
Challenger Explosion
The NASA space shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after liftoff, bringing a devastating end to the spacecraft’s 10th mission. The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts aboard, including Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire who would have been the first civilian in space. It was later determined that two rubber O-rings, which had been designed to separate the sections of the rocket booster, had failed due to cold temperatures on the morning of the launch. -
Internet
the Internet has no single “inventor.” Instead, it has evolved over time. The Internet got its start in the United States more than 50 years ago as a government weapon in the Cold War. For years, scientists and researchers used it to communicate and share data with one another. Today, we use the Internet for almost everything, and for many people, it would be impossible to imagine life without it. The first workable prototype of the Internet came with the creation of ARPANET. -
Election of 1992
The United States presidential election of 1992 was the 52nd quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1992. Democratic Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas defeated incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush, independent businessman Ross Perot of Texas, and a number of minor candidates. Clinton won a plurality in the popular vote but a majority of the electoral vote, breaking a streak of three straight Republican victories. -
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton, the 42nd U.S. president, served in office from 1993 to 2001. During Clinton’s time in the White House, America enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity, marked by low unemployment, declining crime rates, and a budget surplus. Clinton appointed a number of women and minorities to top government posts, including Janet Reno, the first female U.S. attorney general, and Madeleine Albright, the first female U.S. secretary of state. -
World Trade Center Attack - 1993
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center when a truck bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 pounds urea nitrate-hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to send the North Tower crashing into the South Tower, bringing both towers down and killing tens of thousands of people. It failed to do so but killed six people and injured over a thousand. -
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
The North American Free Trade Agreement is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. It superseded the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the U.S. and Canada. NAFTA has two supplements. Most economic analyses indicate that NAFTA has been beneficial to the North American economies and the average citizen, but harmed a small minority of workers in industries exposed to trade competition -
Lionel Sosa
Lionel Sosa is an independent marketing consultant and nationally recognized portrait artist. He is the founder of Sosa, Bromley, Aguilar & Associates, which became the largest Hispanic advertising agency in the U.S. Sosa is an acknowledged expert in Hispanic consumer and voter behavior. Lionel was a media consultant for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. He has served on the teams of eight national Republican presidential campaigns. -
Oprah Winfrey
American television host, actress, producer,and entrepreneur Oprah Gail Winfrey was born on January 29, 1954. Winfrey launched The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986 as a nationally syndicated program. With its placement on 120 channels and an audience of 10 million people, the show grossed $125 million by the end of its first year, of which Winfrey received $30 million. In 1994, with talk shows becoming increasingly trashy and exploitative, Winfrey pledged to keep her show free of tabloid topics. -
Lewinsky Affair
The Clinton–Lewinsky scandal was an American political sex scandal that involved 49-year-old President Bill Clinton and 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The sexual relationship took place between 1995 and 1997 and came to light in 1998. Clinton ended a televised speech with the statement that he "did not have sexual relations" with Lewinsky. Further investigation led to charges of perjury and to the impeachment of President Clinton. -
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
The Defense of Marriage Act was law that defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. Until Section 3 of the Act was struck down in 2013, DOMA, in conjunction with other statutes, had barred same-sex married couples from being recognized as "spouses" for purposes of federal laws, effectively barring them from receiving federal marriage benefits. -
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and government reform causes. Nader was educated at Princeton and Harvard and first came to known in 1965 with the publication of the bestselling book Unsafe at Any Speed, a critique of the safety of American automobile manufacturers. Nader was criticized by some people for siphoning away votes from Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in the close 2000 election, which Gore ultimately lost to Republican George W. Bush. -
George W. Bush
George W. Bush, America’s 43rd president, served in office from 2001 to 2009. Before entering the White House, Bush was a two-term Republican governor of Texas. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, Bush worked in the Texas oil industry. In 2000, he won the presidency after defeating Democratic challenger Al Gore. Bush’s time in office was shaped by the 9/11, terrorist attacks against America. In response to the attacks, it led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. -
9/11 Attacks
19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which triggered major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism. -
Patriot Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001. With its ten-letter abbreviation expanded, the full title is Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. From broad concern felt among Americans from both the September 11 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks, Congress rushed to pass legislation to strengthen security controls. -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was a U.S. Act of Congress that reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; it included Title I provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based education reform based on the premise that setting high standards and establishing measurable goals could improve individual outcomes in education. The Act required states to develop assessments in basic skills. -
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from Arizona since 1987. He was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama. McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 and followed his father and grandfather—both four-star admirals—into the United States Navy. He became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. -
The Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of general economic decline observed in world markets during the late 2000s and early 2010s. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country. In terms of overall impact, the International Monetary Fund concluded that it was the worst global recession since the 1930s. The causes of the recession largely originated in the US, particularly related to the real-estate market, though choices made by other nations contributed as well. -
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, nicknamed the Recovery Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed in response to the Great Recession, the ARRA's primary objective was to save existing jobs and create new ones as soon as possible. Other objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most affected by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy. -
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is an American politician who served as the 44th President of the United States from January 20, 2009, to January 20, 2017. The first African American to assume the presidency, he was previously the junior United States Senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008. Before that, he served in the Illinois State Senate from 1997 until 2004. In 1988 Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. -
Affordable Care Act (ACA) "Obamacare"
The Affordable Care Act or nicknamed Obamacare is a US federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama. The term "Obamacare" was first used by opponents, then reappropriated by supporters, and eventually used by President Obama himself. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 amendment, it represents the U.S. healthcare system's most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage.
