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Period: to
Cold War
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Hiroshima
Hiroshima is the largest island of Japan. Hiroshima is perhaps best known as the first city in history to be targeted by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on the city, near the end of World War II. -
Little Boy
This was the code-name for the atomic bomb that was dropped onto Japanese city of Hiroshima. It is nuclear due to uranium or plutonium, brought together to form a critical mass. This can destroy towns and other things that the US wishes to destroy. -
Iron curtain
The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The Soviet Union wanted to block itself with the West and non-Soviet areas. -
Truman Doctrine
Stated that the US should give support to countries or peoples threatened by Soviet forces or communist insurrection. This doctrine was first brought by by President Truman in a speech made to Congress. He was seeking aid for Greece and Turkey, the doctrine was seen by the communists as an open declaration of the Cold War. -
Marshall Plan
This was a program that gave large amounts of economic aid to European countries. Made to help them rebuild after the devastation of World War II. Brought up by the secretary of state, General George C. Marshall. -
Period: to
1950s
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Beat Generation
This was a literary movement started by authors who explored American culture in the post World War ll. They told the story of the post war and how it impacted the country. -
Fair Deal
This deal was the proposal put forward by the President, Harry S. Truman. Generally summarized the agenda of the Truman administration. His Fair Deal recommended that all Americans have health insurance, that the minimum wage be increased, and that, by law, all Americans be guaranteed equal rights. -
Ike Turner
Black artist that was an American singer who was part of the Rock n Roll stage of music. Published "Rocket 88" which was then stolen by a white guy. -
TV Shows
In the 1950s TV was booming, this brought TV Shows the top of the charts. I Love Lucy enjoyed a magical three year run at the top of the ratings, game shows like the $64,000 Question and The Price is Right were becoming very popular too. -
Dr. Jonas Salk
He was a doctor who had developed a cure for polio and introduced it in 1955. He made the first type of polio vaccine that was available. It was made due to him constraining three strains of a virus separately. He used it on monkey tissue to make the vaccine. -
Polio Vaccine
Dr. Jonas Salk is the medical researcher that came up with and founded the vaccine for Polio. Polio is a disease that attacks the nervous system and can cause paralysis in many different ways. In 1952 over 50,000 cases in the US were noted and 3,000 people actually died from it. Salk promised to cure the disease and that is exactly what he did. -
G.I. Bill
A law that was passed in 1944. It provided educational and benefits for people who had served in World War II. Benefits are still available to people who are an honorable discharge. It also provided one year employment pay for veterans who are unable to work. -
Period: to
Civil Rights
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Elvis
Elvis was a American singer that was part of the Rock n Roll stage of music. He was one of the most significant icons in the 20th century. Mostly known as the "King of Rock". He began attracting attention in 1954, when he was only 19. -
News
News channels started to come out during the 1950s. This was made to inform the public about certain events. One of the first TV news shows was "See It Now". Networks had to distribute the shows to the rest of the nation was to point a film camera at a television screen and convert video to film. -
Emmett Till tragedy
While visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier. The two men then beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to the cotton-gin fan with barbed wire, into the river. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks rode at the front of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus on the day the Supreme Court's ban on segregation of the city's buses took effect. A year earlier, she had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. -
ICBMs
An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a guided ballistic missile primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery. allowing a single missile to carry several warheads, each of which can strike a different target. These warheads are different due to their greater range and speed than other ballistic missiles. -
Little Richard
The artist Richard Wayne Penniman went by the name Little Richard. He was an American singer and songwriter during the 1950s. He was introduced into the Rock n Roll hall of fame as a part of its first group. He was a black performer who was one of the first ones. -
Sputnik
Sputnik was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957. It was a 58 cm in diameter, polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. All the machine did was beep, this made it the first orbiting satellite, but not really a helpful one. -
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. He served from 1958 to 1964. Though he largely pursued a detailed policy with the West, he instigated the with the Cuban Missile Crisis. -
NASA
NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It was started in 1958 and was apart of the government. Their job is to find out science and technology that has to do with airplanes or space. It is located at 2 Independence Square in Washington, D.C. -
Period: to
1960s
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Hippies
A person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair and wearing beads, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs.They started around the 1960s and are still going on now a days. -
New Frontier
The term was used by Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy in his speech in 1960. He made this speech during the presidential election to the Democratic National Convention. He announced it at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as a Democratic slogan. he inspired many Americans to support him. -
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps organization is a volunteer program that is ran by the government. The mission is to provide technical assistance, helping others outside the US to understand our culture, and to help Americans to understand other countries religions. -
Bay of Pigs
1400 Cuban exiles launched what became a botched invasion at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of Cuba. However, the invasion did not go well: The invaders were badly outnumbered by Castro’s troops, and they surrendered after less than 24 hours of fighting. -
Freedom Rides
Freedom Riders is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. -
Earl Warren Supreme court
earl was born in 1891 and died in 1974. He was a prominent 20th century leader of American politics and law. Warren’s emphasis on fairness in criminal proceedings also led to Mapp v. Ohio (1961), barring illegally seized evidence and Miranda v. Arizona (1966), requiring warnings to arrested persons of their right to counsel, including appointed counsel if they could not afford one. Under Warren the emphasis shifted to personal rights, placing them in a preferred constitutional position. -
Martin Luther King Jr’s Civil Rights beginning
Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968. King sought equality for African Americans, the economically disadvantaged and victims of injustice through peaceful protest. -
"I Have A Dram Speech"
Is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States and called for civil and economic rights. -
LSD
A synthetic crystalline compound, lysergic acid diethylamide, that is a potent hallucinogenic drug. The drug came out around the time that hippies became present. The hippies were known for trying new things, which resulted into LSD. -
Counter Culture
This was developed in the United States in late 1960s. This approximately started in 1964 and ended in 1972. It was characterized by the rejection of conventional social norms, basically what happened in the 50s. -
Assassination of JFK
The 35th president John F. kennedy was assassinated while traveling through Dallas, Texas in an open top convertible. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m. The killer was Lee Harvey Oswald that allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy. -
Lee Harvey Oswald
He was presumed to be the one who killed President John F. Kennedy. Oswald sllegedly shot Kennedy from a high window of a building in Dallas on November 22, 1963. He was born in 1939 and died in 1963. Designated by a presidential commission to be the lone assassin of John F. Kennedy. -
Jack Ruby
On November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a 52 year old Dallas nightclub operator. Two days earlier from the killing of Oswald, Kennedy was killed by Oswald in Dallas. On November 24, as the suspect was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail, Ruby stepped out of a crowd of onlookers and gunned down the younger man. -
Malcom X
An African-American political leader of the twentieth century. He was assassinated in 1965. A member of the Nation of Islam (1952-1963), he advocated separatism and black pride. After converting to orthodox Islam, he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity (1964) and was assassinated in Harlem. -
Great Society
The great society was a set of domestic programs that the Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson. This started in 1964 and ended in 1965. The main goal of this was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. -
Selma March
In early 1965, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference made Selma, Alabama, the focus of its efforts to register black voters in the South. That March, protesters attempting to march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were met with violent resistance by state and local authorities. -
Watts Riots
A group of violent disturbances in Watts, a largely black section of Los Angeles, in 1965. Over thirty people died in the Watts riots, which were the first of several serious clashes between black people and police in the late 1960s. The riot spurred from an incident on August 11, 1965 when Marquette Frye, a young African American motorist, was pulled over and arrested by Lee W. Minikus -
Death of MLK
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American clergyman and civil rights leader who was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. that evening. -
Stonewall riot
A disturbance that grew out of a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a popular hang-out for gays in Manhattan 's Greenwich Village in 1969. Such raids long had been routine, but this one provoked a riot as the crowd fought back. -
Period: to
1970s
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Stagflation
An economic phenomenon of the late 1960s and 1970s characterized by sluggish economic growth and high inflation. Its basically the decrease in growth with a lot of back up. -
Watergate
Watergate is a name given to the scandal the Nixon administration committed during the '72 presidential election where hired "goons" broke into Democrat HQ at Watergate hotel for any dirt. This scandal revealed several other dirty plays Nixon's administration did the years leading up to the election and forced him to resign. -
Title IX
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." -
Roe v. Wade
The Supreme Court case that held that the Constitution protected a woman's right to an abortion prior to the viability of the fetus; thus, government regulation of abortions must meet strict scrutiny in judicial review. Affirms the legality of a woman's right to have an abortion under the Fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. -
OPEC
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a group consisting of 12 of the world's major oil-exporting nations. OPEC was founded in 1960 to coordinate the petroleum policies of its members, and to provide member states with technical and economic aid. -
The New Right
The "New Right" refers to a late 1970s/1980s onward movement both within and outside of the Liberal/National Coalition which advocates economically liberal and increased socially conservative policies, as opposed to the "old right" which advocated economically conservative policies. -
Beginnings of the Personal Computer
A compact computer that uses a microprocessor and is designed for individual use, as by a person in an office or at home or school, for such applications as word processing, data management, financial analysis, or computer games. Origin of personal computer 1975-1980. The personal computer could be used at home and help people with jobs. -
Panama Canal
On September 7, 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty and Neutrality Treaty promising to give control of the canal to the Panamanians by the year 2000. The treaty ended an agreement signed in 1904 between then-President Theodore Roosevelt and Panama, which gave the U.S. the right to build the canal and a renewable lease to control five miles of land along either side of it. -
Three-Mile Island
The three mile island was and accident caused by nuclear meltdown that occurred on March 28, 1979. It happened in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. It was one of the most significant accident in US. -
Rap Music
Rap music became popular during the 1980s with rappers like NWA. The '80s was hip-hop's first real decade, the era when everything started to blow up. -
Iran hostage Crisis
in U.S. history, events following the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran by Iranian students on Nov. 4, 1979. The overthrow of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi of Iran by an Islamic revolutionary government earlier in the year had led to a steady deterioration in Iran-U.S. relations. -
Period: to
1980s
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Jimmy Carter
As the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter struggled to respond to formidable challenges, including a major energy crisis as well as high inflation and unemployment. in 1980 he was soundly defeated in the general election by Ronald Reagan. -
Ronald Reagan
A political leader of the twentieth century, elected president in 1980 and 1984. Reagan went into politics after a career as a film actor. He served as governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and became a leading spokesman for conservatism in the United States. Promised to work toward a balanced federal budget. -
AIDS Crisis
The epidemic disease AIDS, which began in Sub-Africa in the 1930s. found its way to the shores of the United States as early as 1960. Is the name of the fatal clinical condition that results from infection with the HIV, which progressively damages the body's ability to protect itself from disease organisms. -
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) “Star Wars”
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), also known as Star Wars, was a program first initiated on March 23, 1983 under President Ronald Reagan. The intent of this program was to develop a sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system in order to prevent missile attacks from other countries, specifically the Soviet Union. -
Sandra Day O’Connor
Sandra Day O’Connor was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006, and was the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court. A moderate conservative, she was known for her dispassionate and meticulously researched opinions. -
Home video game systems
The Home video game systems came out around the 1980s. This changed the game for kids in there games. Kids started to get addicted and video games became a thing of the future. The first Nintendo entertainment system came out in 1985 -
Satellite Entertainment
Satellite television allowed the news to get news public. Everyone could see the news due to satellites bringing a signal that is shot from the main building and shot back to peoples TV's. Dishes took off in the very early 1980s. Consumers seemed to be purchasing those 10- to 16-foot monsters as fast as they could be manufactured. -
Challenger Explosion
The American shuttle orbiter Challenger broke up 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 had been selected to join the mission and teach lessons from space to schoolchildren around the country. -
Sam Walton’s Just-in-Time Inventory
Just in time inventory is a management system in which materials or products are produced or acquired only as demand requires. This approach to managing inventory has become increasingly popular in the early 21st century as suppliers and retailers collaborate to try to control inventory costs while still meeting customer demands. -
Period: to
1990s
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E-mails
Electronic mail has been most commonly called email or e-mail since around 1993. Electronic mail, or email, is a method of exchanging digital messages between people using digital devices such as computers, mobile phones and other electronics. -
Persian Gulf War / 1st Iraq War
A war between the forces of the United Nations, led by the United States, and those of Iraq that followed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein 's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Saudi Arabia and Egypt called on the United States and other Western nations to intervene. -
Rodney king Incident
Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) beaten by Los Angeles police in 1991 was caught on camera and sparked riots after the acquittal of the four officers involved, was found dead in his swimming pool Sunday, authorities and his fiancee said. He was 47. The officers pulled him out of the car and beat him brutally, while amateur cameraman George Holliday caught it all on videotape. -
Balkans Crisis
Yugoslavia broke up after the fall of communism (1991). Civil War broke out between Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia (Christian and Muslim). Serbian forces murder thousands of Muslim Bosnians -
George H.W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush (1924-), served as the 41st U.S. president from 1989 to 1993. He also was a two-term U.S. vice president under Ronald Reagan, from 1981 to 1989. His popularity at home was marred by an economic recession, and in 1992 he lost his bid for re-election to Bill Clinton. -
Ross Perot
Perot had experience as the head of several successful corporations and had been involved in public affairs for the previous three decades. He ran for president in 1992, but didn't quite make the polling numbers, they were never fully recovered from his initial exit. -
World Trade Center Attack - 1993
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, carried out on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. A car had exploded in the basement, which the terrorists would think would make he building collapse. The attack was a fail as the towers still stood. -
Period: to
Contemporary
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North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an agreement among the United States, Canada and Mexico designed to remove tariff barriers between the three countries. NAFTA is the world’s largest free trade agreement. Its members contribute more than $20 trillion as measured by gross domestic product. -
Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy
"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service by gays, bisexuals, and lesbians, instituted by the Clinton Administration on February 28, 1994, when Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 issued on December 21, 1993, took effect, lasting until September 20, 2011. -
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)
United States federal law that, prior to being ruled unconstitutional, defined marriage for federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman, ad allowed states to choose whether to make it illegal or not. 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. -
9/11 Attacks
Nineteen members of the Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda took over planes and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center. The others were either flown into the pentagon or were taken over by citizens and crashed in a field. The death toll at the World Trade Center ran to over three thousand people. -
PATRIOT ACT
This law was signed into law by President George W. Bush. Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. It is basically an anagram of itself. -
No Child Left Behind Education Act
This was an act by Congress that would reauthorize Elementary and Secondary education. Includes receive federal school funding, states had to give these assessments to all students at select grade levels.States are required to test students in reading and math in grades 3rd through 8th and once in high school. -
2nd Iraq War
A military conflict in Iraq began in 2003 with an attack by a coalition of forces led by the United States and that resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime. the troops were withdrawn in 2010, but before then they invaded Iraq and rapidly defeated Iraqi military and paramilitary forces. -
Hurricane Katrina Disaster
This event was a the costliest natural disaster and was one of the deadliest hurricanes in history. At least 1,245 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods, making it the deadliest United States hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. -
Housing Bubble
A housing bubble is a run-up in housing prices fueled by demand, speculation and exuberance. Speculators enter the market, further driving demand. At some point, demand decreases at the same time supply increases, resulting in a sharp drop in prices and the bubble bursts. -
Barack Obama
The 44th president of the United States, he took office in 2009. He previously served in the Senate, representing Illinois from 2004 to 2008. Early in his presidency, he increased government spending to address a severe credit crisis and deep recession. In 2009, he was awarded the Nobel peace prize for diplomacy. -
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
Was a stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Made to provide temporary relief programs for those most affected by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy. -
First Hispanic SCOTUS judge - Sonya Sotomayor
She is 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 heritage, the first Latina. She is the first Hispanic to be apart of the SCOTUS judge system. -
Affordable Care Act (ACA) “Obamacare”
Is a United States federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama. And ACA is used to lower costs for households with incomes between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level.
