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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
reassured investors who were worried about homeowners defaulting on mortgages by selling bonds to investors and using the funds to purchase mortgages from banks. -
Abu Ghraib Prison
now know as The Baghdad Central Prison, was a prison complex in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km west of Baghdad that operated from its construction -
WMD's
A weapon of mass destruction is a nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological or other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human-made structures, natural structures, or the biosphere. -
Palestinian Liberation Organization
formed with the purpose of creating a homeland for Palestinians in Israel -
Yasser Arafat
leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and his goal was the destruction of Israel. He went to war with Israel, using guerrilla warfare. -
Nuclear Proliferation
the spread of nuclear weapons, fissionable material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information to nations not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT. -
AIDS
a disease in which there is a severe loss of the body's cellular immunity, greatly lowering the resistance to infection and malignancy. -
California v. Bakke
a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. It upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy. -
Moral Majority
a political action group formed in the 1970s to further a conservative and religious agenda, including the allowance of prayer in schools and strict laws against abortion. -
Saddam Hussein
was President of Iraq. A leading member of the revolutionary Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and later, the Baghdad-based Ba'ath Party and its regional organization the Iraqi Ba'ath Party—which espoused Ba'athism, a mix of Arab nationalism and socialism -
Religious Fundamentalism
to the belief of an individual or a group of individuals in the absolute authority of a sacred religious text or teachings of a particular religious leader, prophet,and/ or God . -
Debt Ceiling
an upper limit set on the amount of money that a government may borrow. -
Supply-Side Economics
a macroeconomic theory that argues economic growth can be most effectively created by lowering taxes and decreasing regulation -
Trickle-Down Economics
an economic theory that advocates reducing taxes on businesses and the wealthy in society as a means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term -
Economic Recovery Tax Act
A law that lowered income tax rates and allowed for expensing of depreciable assets, also included several incentives for small business and incentives for saving. -
PATCO Strike
a United States trade union that operated from 1968 until its decertification in 1981 following a strike that was declared illegal and broken by the Reagan Administration -
Sandra Day O'Connor
the first woman to be in the Supreme Court. Appointed by Ronald Regan, O'Connor was an Associate Justice -
Walter Mondale
was the vice president of Carter and when he won the democratic nomination he was defeated by a landslide by Reagan. He was the first presidential candidate to have a woman vice president, Geraldine Ferraro. -
Brady Bill
was an assistant to the U.S. President and White House Press Secretary under President Ronald Reagan -
Ronald Reagan
an American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. -
Boland Amendment
a term describing three U.S. legislative amendments all aimed at limiting U.S. government assistance to the Contras in Nicaragua. -
Beirut Bombings
acts of terrorism that occurred in Beirut, Lebanon, during the Lebanese Civil War. -
Internet
a way for government and universities to share information; in late 80's the term for the connection was renamed to this term; the world wide web was created in 1990 and used this to send graphics and multi-media across the globe; '93 the first browser was created; millions of computer users use this everyday -
Geraldine Ferraro
she was the first woman to appear on a major-party presidential ticket. She was a congresswoman running for Vice President with Walter Modale. -
Strategic Defense Initiative
a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. -
Iran-Contra Affair
also referred to as Irangate, Contragate or the Iran–Contra scandal, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. Senior administration officials secretly facilitated the sale of arms to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo.They hoped, thereby, to fund the Contras in Nicaragua while at the same time negotiating the release of several U.S. hostages. -
Mikhail Gorbachev
a Russian and former Soviet politician. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -
Mikhail Gorbachev
a Russian and former Soviet politician. He was the eighth and last leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -
Glasnost & Perestroika
was a political movement for reformation within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during -
Bob Dole
an American former politician and attorney who represented Kansas in Congress and served as the Republican Leader of the United States Senate -
Enron
was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. -
William Rehnquist
an American lawyer, jurist, and political figure who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States -
Immigration Act of 1986
criminalized the act of engaging in a "pattern or practice" of knowingly hiring an "unauthorized alien" and established financial and other penalties for those employing illegal immigrants under the theory that low prospects for employment would reduce undocumented immigration. -
"Tear Down This Wall"
"Tear down this wall!" is a line from a speech made by US President Ronald Reagan in West Berlin,calling for the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to open up the barrier which had divided West and East Berlin since 1961. -
"Ethnic Cleansing"
the mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society. -
John McCain
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. -
INF Agreement
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) is the abbreviated name of the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles -
Al-Qaeda
a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national organization founded by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan -
"Read my lips, no new taxes."
a phrase spoken by then-American presidential candidate George H. W. Bush at the 1988 Republican National Convention as he accepted the nomination on August 18. Written by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, the line was the most prominent sound bite from the speech. -
Tiananmen Square
a protest, commonly known in mainland China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led demonstrations in Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China. the government declared martial law. In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with automatic rifles and tanks killed at least several hundred demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. The number of civilian deaths has been estimated variously from 180 to 10,454. -
Panama Invasion
Ordered by Bush to remove the autocratic General Manuel Noriega. The said purpose of the invasion was to stop Noriega from using the country as a "drug pipeline" to the US. -
George H.W. Bush
an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. -
Panama Invasion
code named Operation Just Cause It occurred during the administration of President George H. W. Bush and ten years after the Torrijos–Carter Treaties were ratified to transfer control of the Panama Canal from the U.S. to Panama -
Persian Gulf War
codenamed Operation Desert Shield for operations leading to the buildup of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Storm in its combat phase, was a war waged by coalition forces from 35 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait. -
Sandinistas
a member of a left-wing Nicaraguan political organization, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which came to power in 1979 after overthrowing the dictator Anastasio Somoza. Opposed during most of their period of rule by the US-backed Contras, the Sandinistas were voted out of office in 1990. -
Lech Walesa
a retired Polish politician and labour activist. He co-founded and headed Solidarity, the Soviet bloc's first independent trade union, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and served as President of Poland -
Breakup of the Soviet Union
officially granting self-governing independence to the Republics of the Soviet Union. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. -
Americans with Disabilities Act
a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability -
Boris Yeltsin
was a Soviet and Russian politician and the first President of the Russian Federation -
Clarence Thomas
an American judge, lawyer, and government official who currently serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. -
NRA
The National Rifle Association of America is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun rights -
Start I and II
(Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on the reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms -
Bosnia and Kosovo
In the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, Serbian dictator Solobodan Milosevic carried out a series of armed conflicts to suppress independence movements in the former Yugoslav provinces. Hundreds of thousands of members of ethnic and religious minorities were killed in a process that was labeled "ethnic cleansing." -
Ross Perot
an American business magnate and former politician. As the founder of Electronic Data Systems, he became a billionaire -
Bill Clinton
an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States -
EU
The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km², and an estimated population of over 510 million. -
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is an American politician, former diplomat, and First Lady of the United States -
Failure of Health Reform (1990's)
health care reform package under the Clinton Administration that required each US citizen and permanent resident alien to become enrolled in a qualified health plan. Clinton set up a task force led by his wife to come up with a plan to provide universal health care along these lines. The Health Care bill was defended by Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell in Congress but was ultimately defeated in 1994 because there were not enough Democratic Senators behind a single proposal to pass a bill. -
Al Gore
an American politician and environmentalist who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States -
"Don't ask, don't tell"
was the official United States policy on military service by gays, bisexuals, and lesbians -
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. -
Contract with America
a document released by the United States Republican Party during the 1994 Congressional election campaign. -
Taliban
Sunni Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan currently waging war within that country. -
Oklahoma City Bombing
a domestic terrorist truck bombing on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States -
West Bank and the Gaza Strip
Palestinian territories and occupied Palestinian territories are terms often used to describe the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which are occupied or otherwise under the control of Israel -
WTO
The World Trade Organization is an intergovernmental organization that regulates international trade. -
Newt Gingrich
an American politician and author, born in Pennsylvania, later representing Georgia in Congress, and ultimately serving as 50th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives -
Welfare Reform
a movement to change the federal government's social welfare policy by shifting some of the responsibility to the states and cutting benefits. -
Madeleine Albright
an American politician and diplomat. She is the first woman to have become the United States Secretary of State. -
G-8
The G8, reformatted as G7 from 2014 due to Russia's suspension, was an inter-governmental political forum, with the participation of the major industrialized countries in the world, that viewed themselves as democracies. -
Kyoto Accord
an international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that (part one) global warming is occurring and (part two) it is extremely likely that human-made CO2 emissions have predominantly caused it. -
Clinton Impeachment
was initiated by the House of Representatives and led to a trial in the Senate for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, on two charges, one of perjury and one of obstruction of justice. These charges stemmed from a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Clinton by Paula Jones. Clinton was subsequently acquitted of these charges by the Senate -
Bush v Gore
was a decision of the United States Supreme Court that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election. -
Bush Tax Cuts
changes to the United States tax code passed originally during the presidency of George W. Bush and extended during the presidency of Barack Obama, through -
9/11
a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States -
Osama bin Laden
was a founder of al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide -
George W. Bush
an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States -
No Child Left Behind
the name for the most recent update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 -
Homeland Security
a cabinet department of the United States federal government with responsibilities in public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries -
"Axis of Evil"
first used by U.S. President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, and often repeated throughout his presidency, to describe governments that his administration accused of sponsoring terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction. -
Operation Iraqi Freedom
The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict that began in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a United States-led coalition that overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. -
Mitt Romney
an American businessman and politician who served as the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and was the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. -
Hurricane Katrina
an extremely destructive and deadly Category 5 hurricane that caused catastrophic damage along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge and levee failure. -
Housing Bubble
a real estate bubble affecting over half of the U.S. states. Housing prices peaked in early 2006, started to decline in 2006 and 2007, and reached new lows in 2012. -
Sarah Palin
an American politician, commentator, author, and reality television personality, who served as the ninth Governor of Alaska -
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. -
D.C. v. Heller
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm -
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. -
Tea Party
1)A grassroots conservative political movement mobilized in opposition to Barack Obama's fiscal, economic, and heath care policies.
2)Named after the Boston Tea Party of the Revolutionary Era
3)Tea Party protesters first demonstrated in early 2009, and they grew steadily in visibility and power as a pressuring force within the Republican Party through the 2010 midterm elections and beyond. -
Sonia Sotomayor
an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. She has the distinction of being its first justice of Hispanic descent and the first Latina. -
Citizens United
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310, is a landmark U.S. constitutional law, campaign finance, and corporate law case dealing with regulation of political campaign spending by organizations. -
Dodd-Frank Act
The full name of the bill is the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, but it is better known and most often referred to as Dodd-Frank. In simple terms, Dodd-Frank is a law that places major regulations on the financial industry -
Affordable Care Act
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often shortened to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or nicknamed Obamacare, is a United States federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama -
Arab Spring
also referred to as Arab revolutions, was a revolutionary wave of both violent and non-violent demonstrations, protests, riots, coups, foreign interventions, and civil wars in North Africa and the Middle East -
Syrian Civil War
an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria fought primarily between the Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic led by President Bashar al-Assad, along with its allies, and various forces opposing both the government and each other in varying combinations -
Deficit Reduction Budget
refers to taxation, spending, and economic policy debates and proposals designed to reduce the Federal budge deficit -
John Kerry
an American politician who served as the 68th United States Secretary of State -
Boston Marathon Bombing
two homemade bombs detonated 12 seconds and 210 yards apart at 2:49 p.m., near the finish line of the annual Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring several hundred others, including 16 who lost limbs. -
Shelby County v. Holder
a landmark United States Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of two provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Section 5, -
Same-Sex Marriage
Same-sex marriage is the marriage of a same-sex couple, entered into in a civil or religious ceremony.
