1.

The Cold War

1. Hotness Level
1. Level 1: Friends
2. Level 2: Friends in your circle of friends
3. Level 3: Disliked Person
4. Level 4: The ex that broke your heart
5. Level 5: Mortal Enemy
2. Korean War
1. US and USSR forces went to Korea to disarm the
Japanese troops stationed there
2. allies divided Korea at the 38th parallel of latitude
3. communist Korean government was organized, lead by
Kim Il Sung
2. A New Look
1. Dwight D. Eisenhower
2. massive retaliation: threaten the use of nuclear weapons
if a communist state threatens to seize territory
3. military spending cut from $50 billion to $34 billion
4. nuclear arsenal went from 1000 bombs to 18,000 bombs
5. brinkmanship: willingness to go to war to make the
opponent back down
2. Fighting Covertly
1. hidden operations conducted by the CIA to prevent
spread of communism
2. targeted developing nations

1. nations with agricultural economies and blamed

western imperialism for their struggles
3. CIA covertly overthrew anti-American leaders and
replaced with pro-American ones
2. Uprising in Hungary
1. Stalin dies in 1953 and is replaced by Nikita Khrushchev
in 1956
2. Khrushchev attacks Stalin's policies and believed there
was a better way to build a communist society
3. his secret speech is then broadcasted to eastern Europe
and riots begin
4. tanks are brought in to quiet the revolts
2. Hotness Level Rising?
1. 1958: demanded the Western Allies to withdraw their
troops from West Berlin
2. 1960: summit is called to be held in Paris
3. shortly before it began, an American U-2 spy plane is
shot down by the Soviets
4. Khrushchev broke up the summit
2. Truman Presidency
1. GI bill: provided loans for veterans to help them
establish businesses, buy homes, and attend college
2. Taft-Hartley Act: outlawed the practice of forcing
business owners to hire only union members
3. Fair Deal: minimum wage raised to 75 cents an hour,
expansion of Social Security
2. I like Ike
1. dynamic conservatism: balancing economic
conservatism with some activism

2. Tennessee Valley Authority's spending cut from $185

million to $12 million
3. Federal Highway Act: $25 billion project that would span
10 years
4. Social Security expanded to an additional 10 million
people
5. minimum wage raised from 75 cents to $1
2. JFK
1. John F. Kennedy elected 35th president of US
2. New Frontier
1. hoped to increase aid to education, provide health
insurance to the elderly, create a Department of Urban
Affairs, and help migrant workers
2. congress defeated most of his proposals
3. raising the minimum wage
4. redevelopment act and housing act helped clear slums,
create jobs, and create low income housing
5. JFK advocated for women's rights especially the idea of
equal pay for equal work
1. 1963: signed the equal pay act for women
2. Fighting the Cold War
1. flexible response, if nations needed help against
communism, they could receive it
1. build up of traditional weapons and troops
2. alliance for progress: cooperative aid projects with Latin
American countries
1. US pledges $20 billion to help Latin American
countries over a 10 year period
3. Peace Corps: organization where young Americans
perform humanitarian services

2. Bay of Pigs
1. Cuba, 90 miles from American shores, led by Fidel
Castro
2. allied themselves with the Soviets
3. CIA had trained and armed 14000 Cuban exiles
4. April 17, 1961: the force landed at the Bay of Pigs on
the southern shores of Cuba
5. within two days, Castro's forces had killed or captured
the Cuban fighting force
6. makes US look disorganized and aggressive
2. Berlin Wall
1. Khrushchev wanted to stop the flood of Germans
leaving East Germany
2. the wall stood for 30 years as a symbol of the Cold
War's division of East and West
2. Cuban Missile Crisis
1. 1962: Soviet technicians and equipment arrived in Cuba
2. US spy planes had taken images of long range missiles
3. Kennedy orders a naval blockade to prevent more
missiles from being delivered and demanded the
existing missiles be torn down
4. Khrushchev wanted the missiles in Turkey taken down
first
5. eventually, kennedy agreed to dismantle the missiles in
Turkey and Khrushchev removed the missiles in Cuba
2. Death of a President
1. November 22, 1963: while traveling in Dallas, Texas,
JFK was assassinated
2. Lee Harvey Oswald was accused because he was a
bitter Marxist fighting for communism

3. Jack Ruby?
4. Warren Commission: concluded that Oswald was killer,
but left some questions unanswered
2. Vietnam War
1. Domino Theory: if Vietnam fell to communism, so too
would the other nations of Southeast Asia
2. Geneva Accords: temporarily divided Vietnam along the
17th parallel
3. 1956: elections to be held to reunite the country under a
single government
1. never happened
4. nationalist vs nationalist
1. Ho Chi Minh communist vs Ngo Dinh Diem anticommunist/pro western
2. JFK Vietnam
1. Vietcong: Ho Chi Minh's north vietnamese guerrilla
fighting force
2. from 1961 to 1963, American military personnel jumped
from 2,000 to 15,000
1. could not risk losing Vietnam to communism
3. Strategic hamlets: special fortified villages protected by
machine guns
1. proved unpopular
2. Overthrow of Diem
1. discrimination against Buddhism
1. largest religion in the country
2. banned the traditional religious flags for Buddha's
birthday

3. protests occur and police kill 9 people

4. November 1, 1963: generals launch a military coup and
Diem is executed
5. more American involvement
2. Johnson Vietnam
1. gulf of Tonkin resolution: authorized the president to
take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack
against any aggression
2. by the end of 1965, more than 180,000 troops were
fighting in Vietnam
3. Guerrilla tactics were challenging to the US
4. agent orange: turns farmland into wasteland
1. napalm
2. Determined Enemy
1. no intention of surrendering
2. Ho Chi Minh Trail: transportation of supplies from North
to South traveling through Cambodia and Laos
3. President Johnson would not launch a full scale attack
to shut it down
4. bombing by US planes kill 220,000 Vietnamese between
1965 and 1967
5. by 1966, more than 6,700 Americans had been killed
2. Credibility Gap
1. government would report: the enemy is on the brink of
defeat and the end of the war is in sight
2. Tet Offensive
1. The North attacked almost every American airbase in
South Vietnam, as well as the South's major cities

2. however, the North could not hold these areas and

suffered heavy casualties
3. public opinion support fell, as general Westmoreland
called for an additional 206,000 troops to join the
500,000 already in Vietnam
2. Nixon Vietnam
1. Vietnamization: gradual withdraw of US troops
2. increased air strikes in Vietnam and Cambodia
3. ultimately, the invasion of cambodia followed and
sparked controversy at home
2. Legacy of the War
1. war had cost the US $170 billion
2. about 58,000 young Americans had died
3. over 300,000 were injured
4. war powers act: president can still send troops without
declaring war but only for 60 to 90 days
b. Civil Rights Movement
1. Jim Crow Laws
1. statutes or laws created to enforce segregation
2. Jackie Robinson
1. breaks the color barrier in MLB in 1947
2. Brown vs Board of Education
1. Earl Warren: US Supreme Court Justice
2. public schools could not be separated by race
3. reversed Plessy vs Ferguson
2. Montgomery Bus Boycott

1. December 1, 1955: Montgomery, Alabama- Rosa Parks

would not give up her seat to a white passenger
2. Martin Luther King, Jr.: preached to blacks in Mont. to
stop using buses
3. supreme court ruling: segregation on buses becomes
illegal
2. Little Rock, Arkansas
1. the south resisted integration in schools
2. little rock: national guard prevented schools from
opening/integrating
3. federal judge: national guard to be removed
4. sent 1000 paratroopers and opened schools
5. first black students known as the little rock 9
2. Civil Rights Act, 1957
1. first civil rights act since reconstruction
2. bipartisan
2. Riots
1. race riots broke out throughout the US in the 1960's
1. Watts, LA- 1963
2. 1967 saw worst rioting in Detroit, 43 died, 5000
homeless
3. many blacks were frustrated with lack of progress
towards equality
2. Black Leaders
1. MLK Jr.- fought for black rights
1. used nonviolent protests

2. 1967: Thurgood Marshall becomes first black man

appointed to Supreme Court
3. Malcolm X: Malcolm Little, black power movement
1. influenced blacks to take pride in their culture
and believe in their ability
2. 1963: March on Washington
1. organized to pressure congress into passing a civil
rights bill
2. more than 200,000 freedom marchers
2. Civil Rights Strategies
1. sit-ins: used in an effort to help integrate restaurants
2. freedom riders: used to help draw attention to the
South's refusal to integrate buses and bus terminals
3. southern manifesto: 1956, 19 senators and 77 members
of the House signed a resolution condemning the 1954
Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of
Education
2. Selma to Montgomery March
1. MLK was attempting to register black voters in the South
2. the freedom march began March 21, 1965
3. marchers were protected by federal marshals, FBI, and
Alabama National Guard-seen on TV
2. MLK's assassination
1. April 4th, 1968: king assassinated in Memphis,
Tennessee
2. rioting broke out across the nation
3. James Earl Ray: arrested and convicted for the crime
2. Nixon's Domestic Affairs

1. moon walk
1. space program pushed for many years
1. goal: putting man on moon
2. Apollo 11: command ship for Aldrin, Armstrong,
and Collins
3. Eagle: lunar module
4. July 20, 1967: eagle lands on moon
5. both Aldrin and Armstrong walked on the moon,
but Armstrong is first
2. Domestic Policy
1. cut costs of government and balanced the budget
2. made 4 supreme court appointments
3. democrats in charge of congress
4. Nixon had trouble reaching his goals
b. International Problems
1. soviet invasion of Afghanistan
2. US response: embargo of grain to the Soviets and
boycott of 1980 Olympics in Moscow
3. angry mob invaded US embassy in Tehran, taking 52
US hostages
1. lasted 444 days
4. middle east problems continued
5. egypt and israel met at camp David to discuss peace
1. result: camp David accords- established
diplomatic relations between both countries
b. Neo Conservatism

1. election of 1980 republican nominee- Ronald Reagan,

democrat- President Carter, reagan wins
b. Reagan's Domestic Policy
1. the economy: took over during a time of stagflation, cut
many domestic programs, increased military spending
2. dismantle welfare state and shrink size of federal
government
3. new federalism - shifting responsibility to states
4. supply-side or trickle-down economics: tax cuts to
wealthy and businesses
b. By 1984:
1. biggest economic expansion in history up to that point
2. median income grew 15%
3. 5 million new businesses formed
4. 20 million new jobs were created
5. 1989: unemployment rate dropped to 5.5%
b. The Reagan Doctrine:
1. a policy of supporting guerrilla groups that were fighting
to overthrow communism or pro soviet governments
b. Election of 1984:
1. Reagan wins an overwhelming landslide over Walter
Mondale
b. Sandra Day O'Connor
1. appointed to the supreme court by Reagan
1. first woman to serve on the court
b. Troubles Abroad

1. wanted to stop communism and saw the Soviet Union

as the focus of evil in the modern world
1. peace through strength
2. 1983: marine headquarters grew up in Lebanon
1. 241 Americans were killed in the terrorist attack
2. they were sent there on a peacekeeping mission
3. October 1983: Grenada, after a military coup, a
government sympathetic to communist Cuba was
established
4. US invades Grenada, did not want another communist
country in Western Hemisphere
b. Iran Contra
1. Iran Contra Scandal- US sold arms to Iran, Reagan
wanted to free hostages being held in middle east
1. the money went to help support contra rebels in
Nicaragua
b. Election of 1988
1. republican nominee: George H. W. Bush, vice president
under Reagan
2. democratic nominee: Michael Dukakis, governor of
Massachusetts
3. Bush wins easily
b. Foreign Issues Under Bush
1. 1989: Berlin Wall comes down
2. 1991: Soviet Union communist government collapses
1. Cold War comes to an end
b. Persian Gulf War
a. Iraq seizes Kuwait

1. August 2, 1990: Iraq invades and takes Kuwait

2. US sent forces to protect Saudi Arabia
b. The Allies Attack
1. operation desert storm
1. US and allies attack January 17, 1991
2. Iraq:
1. agreed to withdraw after 42 days of fighting
b. Clinton Presidency
a. Domestic Policy
1. struggled with both health care and gays in the military
2. he and the republican congress passed legislation
requiring a balanced budget
1. attempted to reduce deficit
3. December 1998: impeached for perjury and obstruction
of justice
b. Foreign Policy
1. NAFTA: north american free trade agreement
1. eliminated tariffs and other barriers to trade with
canada and mexico
b. Election of 2000
a. George Bush
1. republican nominee, governor of texas
b. Al Gore
1. VP under Clinton
b. Bush Wins!

1. one of the closest elections in history

2. came down to florida, bush won by 537 votes
b. September 11th, 2001
a. coordinated terrorist attack
1. al Qaeda responsible for the attack
2. 4 US commercial planes hijacked
3. 2 flown into world trade centers, NYC; one into the
pentagon; one crashes in PA
4. 2,996 people dead