Mr. Walter
Honors US History 2
Final exam review guide
2014-2015
The most patriotic picture I could find on the internet.
Important details about the exam:

Format: 100 objective questions (multiple choice, document analysis)

Your score on this in-class exam will be added to half of the points you earn on your final
research paper for a total of 150 points. This will become the final exam grade, which counts for
10% of your final course grade.

Chronologically, the content covered on the final picks up after right before Pearl Harbor and
continues until 2012.

Throughout the next week or so, send me emails with “problem items.” On Wednesday, June 10,
we will have a Jeopardy-style review game based mostly on these weak spots you point out to
me.

If you have any remaining questions, stop by to see me when you are in the building throughout
the week. I will probably be in the history office, room 232, or the Media Center… or send me an
email and I’ll tell you where to find me.
Topics to review:
1. Road to WWII
 Totalitarian political ideologies
o Fascism
o Nazism
o Communism
 The rise of Hitler
 Triumph of the Will
 “Road to WWII” timeline of events (reread the long PowerPoint with blue and white slides you
completed)
 Policies and actions directed at German Jews from 1933 on; changes in the lives of
German Jews
 Nuremberg Laws
 1936 Olympics
 Austria and the Anschluss
 Neville Chamberlain, Hitler, and the Munich Conference, appeasement
 Kristallnacht
 Stalin and Hitler’s Non-aggression pact
 Invasion of Poland and beginning of WWII; Blitzkrieg
 Tripartite Pact, Axis and Allies
 The conquest of western Europe, France
 The American Response
 American isolationism, anti-Semitism, and lack of response to refugee problem
 Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, 1937, 1939
 Quarantine speech
 FDR’s methods for preparing for war and rearming at a time of isolationism
 1940 election and FDR
2. Pearl Harbor: the day of infamy
 US/Japan relationship in the 30s and early 40s; Japan’s goals in planning the attack
 The events of the morning of 12/7/41
 How could the attack have happened?
 Differing views on FDR’s role or non-role in the disaster
 The immediate impact of Pearl Harbor on FDR, the nation, the government
3. America gets ready for war!
 War Powers Act
 The draft
 Reorganization of the government for war
 War Production Board and the conversion of industry
 Transformation of America: Sunbelt, etc.
 Paying for the war: taxes and war bonds
 Office of Price Administration: inflation control efforts
 Volunteerism, civil defense efforts

Censorship and propaganda: posters and movies, etc.
4. The social transformation of America during WWII
 What sacrifices, inconveniences, and major life changes were all Americans subject to?
 Japanese American internment
o What were the reasons for Executive Order 9066? Why did FDR feel compelled to sign it?
 How did the war affect women?
 How did the war impact children and teenagers?
 How did the war impact specific ethnic and racial groups in unique ways?
5. General background about the war
 Overall general Allied strategy and geography
 Important Allied nations, important Axis nations
 Differences of opinion among the big three leaders: Stalin, Churchill, FDR
6. Eastern front of battle: Soviets v. Nazis
 Operation Barbarossa
 Importance of the Battle of Stalingrad
7. North African and Mediterranean fronts
 El Alamein, the British, Montgomery
 Operation Torch, Dwight Eisenhower, Patton
 Surrender of the Nazis in Tunisia
 Sicily and Italy
8. Western front in Europe
 The experience of combat for soldiers
 Operation Overlord/D-Day-June 6, 1944; the liberation of Europe in 1944
 Battle of the Bulge: Hitler’s last offensive
 Yalta Conference
 FDR’s death; introduction to a new President: Harry S. Truman!
 The Soviet Union conquers Berlin and liberates all of Eastern Europe
 Hitler commits suicide and Germany surrenders
 V-E Day
9. Pacific front
 The experience of soldiers fighting the Japanese
 Fall of Philippines/Bataan Death March
 Iwo Jima and Okinawa
 Manhattan Project and the atomic bombs
 V-J Day
10. The Holocaust
 Holocaust, pre-US entrance: 1933-41
 Wannsee Conference and Conspiracy; The Final Solution, 1942-45

Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference
o Kurt Klein’s story
o Antisemitism in America and the State Dept; U.S. obstruction of immigration
o War Refugee Board
Post-War America
A. Truman
1. The dawn of the Cold War, and the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union
 The formation of the UN and other international organizations
 The Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe
 Problems with the occupation of Germany among the 4 nations
 George Kennan’s Telegram
 Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech
 The Truman Doctrine and containment; Greece and Turkey civil wars
 The Marshall Plan
 The Berlin Airlift
 The National Security Act
 The Soviet atomic bomb; Truman’s development of the H-bomb
 NSC-68
2. The legacy and the aftermath of The Holocaust
 The Nuremberg Trials
 Founding of Israel
3. The Cold War in Asia
 U.S. Occupation of Japan and MacArthur/US-Japanese Security Treaty
 Communist China; Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong
 The Korean War
o Invasion of the South
o UN involvement, China’s involvement
o Truman vs. MacArthur, his dismissal
o Stalemate, armistice
4. Truman and Civil Rights
 President’s Committee on Civil Rights, 1946
 Desegregation of the federal government and the military: Executive Order 9981
 Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers, 1947
5. Truman, Domestic Politics, and the Economy suggested topics:
 The challenges and problems of post-war demobilization/reconversion
 Republican resurgence
 Truman vs. The 80th Congress
 GI Bill of Rights
 Baby Boom
 The growth of suburbs and “the good life”

The Election of 1948: Dewey Defeats Truman!
6. Truman and The 2nd Red Scare
 Federal Loyalty Program/Loyalty Review Board
 HUAC
 Congressman Richard Nixon
 Alger Hiss/Whittaker Chambers
 The Rosenbergs
 The rise of Joseph McCarthy
 The Red Scare in popular culture
 The Hollywood Blacklist and the Hollywood 10
B. Eisenhower
1. Ike and The Cold War
 The ceasefire in The Korean War
 “New Look”
 The H-Bomb
 Pactomania
 CIA in Iran and elsewhere
 Vietnam
 Domino Theory
 Suez Crisis
 Sputnik
 Kitchen Debate
 Cuba
 Ike’s Farewell Address
2. Ike, Domestic Affairs, and American Life in the 50s
 Interstate Highway Act
 The end of McCarthy
 The American Dream: Suburbs and the “Affluent Society”
 The Baby Boom
 TV, music, consumerism, and pop culture
3. Ike and the early civil rights movement
 Earl Warren
 Brown v. Board of Education
 The story of Emmett Till
 Rosa Parks, MLK, and Montgomery
 Little Rock
 Sit-in movement
The 60s
JFK
1. JFK: Image vs. reality
 Family and background, medical history
2. The Election of 1960: How did JFK win?
 The power of TV and image: The debates
 Winning in the North and South
 Martin Luther King and winning the African American vote
 Message of the Inaugural Address: what was said and what was left out
3. JFK and the Cold War
 Operation Mongoose
 Bay of Pigs
 Berlin Wall
 Cuban Missile Crisis
 JFK and Vietnam
 Special Forces/Green Berets
 Alliance for Progress
 Peace Corps
 Moon mission
 Nuclear test ban treaty
4. JFK and Domestic Affairs
 New Frontier
 The best and the brightest: RFK, McNamara, etc.
 Successes
 Failures
 The economy
 Why didn’t JFK succeed in passing more laws?
 JFK’s civil rights strategy
 Freedom Rides
 James Meredith
 Birmingham movement
 JFK’s June 11 speech and proposal
 Letter from Birmingham Jail
 March on Washington: “I Have a Dream” and more
5. The Assassination
 Where/when
 Zapruder film
 Lee Harvey Oswald
 Jack Ruby
 Warren Commission report, 1964
 House Select Committee on Assassinations report, 1979

Assassination theories- Who the heck do you think did it???
LBJ
Domestic affairs
 LBJ: the man, his background, his personality
 The Beatles arrive!
 The Great Society
 Civil Rights Act of 1964
 War on poverty programs
 Selma, AL and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
 Important Great Society programs: Medicare, Medicaid, Economic Opportunity Act, Food
Stamps, etc.
 Election of 1964 vs. Barry Goldwater
 “Black Power” and Black Panthers
 Opposition to the War
 Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the reaction- riots
 Assassination of Robert Kennedy
 Chicago Democratic Convention, 1968
Foreign affairs
 The road to the Vietnam War
 Why were we there?
 Why did LBJ escalate?
 The Domino Theory
 What was it like for soldiers in Vietnam? What type of war was this?
 Important statistics
 The Gulf of Tonkin incident: the real story
 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
 Who were the American soldiers? What were their backgrounds?
 Tet Offensive
 The credibility gap and the end of Johnson
 Guerrilla war
Nixon, Ford, and The Age of Limits
A. The return of Nixon
o Nixon’s background and career
o His personality flaws
o Vice President Spiro Agnew
o Humphrey and Wallace
o Silent Majority/Southern Strategy/The “middle American”
o The new conservative Republican majority
o The result of the election and reasons for his victory
o His inauguration day
o The “hard hat revolt”
B. Nixon’s domestic policies/American life in the Nixon Years
 Environmental movement; new agencies and regulations created as a result
 New social programs created under Nixon
o The economy
o Nixon’s war on protestors/dissenters
o Enemies list
o The Plumbers
C. Nixon and foreign affairs
o Vietnamization
o Secret bombing of Cambodia and the Kent State Massacre
o Henry Kissinger
o Paris Peace Accords
o POWs/MIAs; the Hanoi Hilton
o The experience of returning veterans
o Détente with Soviets and China
o Nixon and Latin America
D. Watergate and White House Scandals
o Dirty Tricks
o Watergate break-in
o Nixon’s role in the cover-up
o Woodward and Bernstein, Mark Felt
o Articles of impeachment drafted: 3 counts
o Resignation
o Ford and the pardon
America in the late 70s, 80s, 90s, and the New Century
 Reread your video yearbook notes (and rewatch the videos on Schoology) about the
Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama years! Expect 10-15
questions to focus on these years.