Modern America Unit Review Guide
Cold War
United Nations
Chiang Kai-Shek
Mao Zedong
“China Lobby”
Containment Doctrine
George Kennan
Marshall Plan
National Security Act of 1947
Central Intelligence Agency
NATO
Berlin Airlift
Warsaw Pact
NSC-68
Servicemen’s Readjustment Act – 1944
GI Bill
Coal Strike – 1946
Fair Deal
Labor Management Relations Act – 1947
Progressive Party
Thomas Dewey
Korean War
Gen. Douglas Mac Arthur
HUAC
The Hollywood 10
Alger Hiss
Whittaker Chambers
Richard Nixon
J. Edgar Hoover
Klaus Fuchs
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Joseph McCarthy
Red Scare
Adlai Stevenson
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Sputnik
NASA
National Defense Education Act
John Foster Dulles
“Massive Retaliation”
“Brinkmanship”
Shah of Iran
Gammel Abdel Nasser
Suez Crisis
Fidel Castro
Hungarian Revolution
Nikita Khrushchev
U-2
“Military Industrial Complex
The Bay of Pigs
Berlin Wall
Cuban Missile Crisis
Leonid Brezhnev
Dominican Republic
50’s Life
Baby Boom
Keynesian Economics
“The escalator clause”
“Levittown”
Dr. Benjamin Spock, Baby and Child Care
Conformity
William Whyte Jr., The Organization Man
David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd
“Beats”
Allen Ginsberg
Jack Kerouac, On The Road
J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
Michael Harrington, The Other America
“Culture of Poverty”
“Urban Renewal”
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 1954
Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896
“With all deliberate speed”
“Massive Resistance”
Rosa Parks
SCLC
Jackie Robinson
Federal Highway Act, 1956
Army-McCarthy Hearings
Dixiecrats
1960’s
Televised presidential Debates, 1960
New Frontier
Peace Corps
“The Kennedy Round”
Lee Harvey Oswald
Warren Commission Report
Kennedy Legacy
The Great Society
Senator Barry Goldwater
Medicare and Medicaid
Office of Economic Opportunity
Head Start
Food Stamps
Housing Act of 1961
Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 1965
Immigration Act of 1965
Greensboro Sit-Ins
SNCC
CORE
Freedom Rides
SCLC
James Meredith
Birmingham
“Bull” Conner
Gov. George Wallace
“I Have A Dream”
Modern America Unit Review Guide
Freedom Summer
Selma, AL.
Civil Rights Act of 1965 (Voting)
De Jure and De Facto segregation
Affirmative Action
Watts
Black Power
Black Panther Party
Black Muslims
Malcolm X
Eugene McCarthy
Robert Kennedy
James Earl Ray
Richard Nixon
Crisis of Authority
New Left
SDS
Port Huron Statement
Free Speech Movement
Mario Savio
“Weathermen”
Kent State
Counterculture
Teach ins
“The whole world is watching”
Protests at Chicago Democratic Convention
“Hippie”
“Sexual Revolution”
Woodstock
Beatlemania
American Indian Movement – AIM
Indian Civil Rights Act
Wounded Knee
Marielitos
Cesar Chavez - UFW
“chicanos”
La rasa unida
Bilingualism
Stonewall Riot
Gay Liberation Front
New Feminism
The Feminism Mystique by Betty Friedman
NOW
ERA
Roe v. Wade
Griswald v. Connecticut
Richard Nixon
“Checkers speech”
Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh
Dien Bien Phu
The First Indochina War
Vietminh
Geneva Conference
Ngo Dinh Diem
Vietcong
Buddhist Demonstrations
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Quagmire
Robert McNamara
Ho Chi Minh Trail
Pacification Program
Teach ins
Tet Offensive
My Lai Massacre
Nixon – “Peace with honor”
Vietnamization
Cambodian Invasion
Kent State
Daniel Ellsberg
The Pentagon Papers
“Peace is at hand”
“The Christmas Bombing”
Ho Chi Minh City
War Powers Act
70’s and 80’s
SALT I
Spiro Agnew
Helsinki Conference
OPEC
Shuttle Diplomacy
Henry Kissinger
Relations with China
Ping Pong Diplomacy
Watergate
CREEP
“Cover-Up”
“What did the president know?”
“Executive Privilege”
Tapes
Saturday Night Massacre
“Smoking gun”
Stagflation
Gerald Ford
Pardon
“Malaise Speech”
EPA
Love Canal
Three Mile Island
Jimmy Carter
Panama Canal Turnover
Modern America Unit Review Guide
Camp David Accords
Ayatollah Khomeini
Invasion of Afghanistan
“sunbelt”
Evangelicalism
Billy Graham
Moral Majority
Jerry Falwell
New Right
The Reagan Coalition
Neo-conservatives
Nancy Reagan
Teflon President
Supply-side Economics
Or Reaganomics
Strategic Defense Initiative
Reagan Doctrine
Granada
Sandanistas / Contras
Iran Contra Affair
Muammar al-Quaddafi
Sandra Day O’Connor
Geraldine Ferraro
1988 to present
George Bush
“No New Taxes”
Gulf War
Desert Storm
Saddam Hussein
William Jefferson Clinton
NAFTA
Hillary Clinton
Bosnia
Newt Gingrich
“Contract with America”
911
War in Iraq
Patriot Act
Essay Questions
The Size, character, and effectiveness of the organized labor union changed significantly during the late
nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Apply this statement to the following periods:
1870-1915
1915-1935
1935-1950
Analyze the influence of the following on American-Soviet relations in the decade following the Second
World War:
Yalta Conference
Communist Revolution in China
Korean War
McCarthyism
How do you account for the appeal of McCarthyism in the United States in the era following the Second
World War?
To what extent did the decade of the 1950s deserve its reputation as an age of political, social, and cultural
conformity?
What accounted for the growth between 1940 and 1965 of popular and governmental concern for the
position of blacks in American society?
There are people who suggest that President Eisenhower was “cautious in . . . international affairs.” Assess
the validity of this statement in regard to policies toward Korea, Vietnam, the Suez Crisis, Iran, Israel, and the
Soviet Union.
“Reform movements of the twentieth century have shown continuity in their goals and strategies.” Assess
the validity of this statement for the following pairs of reform movements.
Progressivism and the New Deal
Woman’s suffrage and post-Second World War Feminism
The New Deal and the Great Society
Modern America Unit Review Guide
“Although the 1960s are usually considered the decade of greatest achievement for black civil rights, the
1940s and 1950s were period of equally important gains.” Assess the validity of this statement.
Analyze the changes that occurred during the 1960s in the goals, strategies, and support of the movement for
African American civil rights.
“Foreign affairs, rather than domestic issues, shaped Presidential politics in the election year of 1968.”
Assess the validity of this statement with specific reference to foreign and domestic issues.
“1968 was a turning point for the United States.” To what extent was this an accurate statement? In your
answer, discuss the following.
National Politics
Vietnam War
Civil Rights
Compare and contrast the “New Left” and the “counter-culture.” In what ways did they overlap?
Account for the rise of the Native American movement at this time in history.
Compare and contrast the “new feminists” with women’s movements of the past. Evaluate the effectiveness
of this movement since early Colonial days.
Evaluate the role of each president in Vietnam: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford. Discuss in terms
of their objectives, politics, strategies, and outcomes.