Unit 6 key terms

  • Dwight D. Eisenhower

    Dwight D. Eisenhower
    was the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe; he had responsibility for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front.
  • Mao Zedong

    Mao Zedong
    was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and the founding father of the People's Republic of China, which he governed as Chairman of the Communist Party of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. His Marxist-Leninist theories, military strategies and political policies are collectively known as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought.
  • Lyndon B. Johnson

    Lyndon B. Johnson
    was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969), a position he assumed after his service as the 37th Vice President (1961–1963). Johnson, a Democrat from Texas, served as a United States Representative from 1937 to 1949 and as a United States Senator from 1949 to 1961, including six years as Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader and two as Senate Majority Whip.
  • Richard Nixon

    Richard Nixon
    was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only US president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
  • Jonas Salk

     Jonas Salk
    was an American medical researcher and virologist. He discovered and developed the first successful inactivated polio vaccine. Born in New York City, he attended New York University School of Medicine, later choosing to do medical research instead of becoming a practicing physician.
  • Jonh F. Kennedy

    Jonh F. Kennedy
    was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. Notable events that occurred during his presidency included the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Space Race—by initiating Project Apollo (which later culminated in the moon landings), the building of the Berlin Wall, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and the increased US involvement in the Vietnam War.
  • Rosenberg Trail

    Rosenberg Trail
    were American citizens executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, relating to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
  • Gary Powers

    Gary Powers
    as an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency[1] U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission over Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 incident.
  • Roy Benavidez

    Roy Benavidez
    was a former member of the United States Army Special Forces (Studies and Observations Group) and retired United States Army master sergeant who received the Medal of Honor (1981) for his valorous actions in combat near Lộc Ninh, South Vietnam on May 2, 1968.
  • Abby Hoffman

    Abby Hoffman
    was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies").
  • House Un- American Activities Committee

    House Un- American Activities Committee
    was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. It was originally created in 1938 to uncover citizens with Nazi ties within the United States.
  • Iron Curtain

    Iron Curtain
    symbolized the ideological conflict and physical 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 term symbolized efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the west and non-Soviet-controlled areas.
  • Truman Doctrine

    was a United States policy to stop Soviet expansion during the Cold War. United States President Harry S. Truman pledged to contain communism in Europe and elsewhere and impelled the US to support any nation with both military and economic aid if its stability was threatened by communism or the Soviet Union.
  • Berlin Airlift

    Berlin Airlift
    was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under allied control.
  • Marhsall Plan

    Marhsall Plan
    was an American initiative to aid Europe and Asia, in which the United States gave $13 billion (approximately $120 billion in current dollar value) in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II
  • Korean War

    Korean War
    was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States of America fought for the South, and China fought for the North, which was also assisted by the Soviet Union. The war arose from the division of Korea at the end of World War II and from the global tensions of the Cold War that developed immediately afterwards.
  • Domino Theory

    Domino Theory
    was a theory prominent from the 1950s to the 1980s, that speculated that if one state in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world.
  • McCarthyism

    McCarthyism
    is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism."
  • Great Society

    was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964-65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan.
  • Containment Policy

    Containment Policy
    was a United States policy to prevent the spread of communism abroad. A component of the Cold War, this policy was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Africa, and Vietnam. It represented a middle-ground position between appeasement and rollback.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis

    Cuban Missile Crisis
    was a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba. It played out on television worldwide and was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.
  • Gulf of Tonkin Resoultion

    Gulf of Tonkin Resoultion
    was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
  • Anti- War Movement

    Anti- War Movement
    is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements.
  • Tet Offensive 1968

    Tet Offensive 1968
    was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies.
  • Vietnamization

    Vietnamization
    was a policy of the Richard Nixon administration during the Vietnam War to end U.S. involvement in the war and "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops"
  • War Power Act

    War Power Act
    s a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States Congress joint resolution; this provides that the U.S. President can send U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress, "statutory authorization," or in case of "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its
  • Vietnam War

    Vietnam War
    was a Cold War-era proxy war[37] that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955[A 1] to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War (1946–54) and was fought between North Vietnam—supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies—and the government of South Vietnam—supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies.[
  • Cold War

    Cold War
    was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact).