History 1302 Final Exam Review

This is the review for my history class final exam.
Final is on Wednesday at 10:30.

Operation Wetback (1954) - federal government sent the military to invade Mexican-American neighborhoods and round up and deport illegal aliens; nearly 1 million Mexicans were deported within a year.

Korean War (1950-1953) - the conflict began in 1950 when communist North Korea invaded South Korea. The fighting, primarily by US forces, continued until an armistice was signed in 1953.

Fair Deal (1945) - the domestic reform proposals of the Truman administration which included civil rights legislation, national health insurance, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act but only extensions of some New Deal programs were actually enacted.

• Proposed by Truman in September 1945 and back by party liberals and organized labor to revive the stalled momentum of the New Deal. They wanted to put the steam back into the incentives brought about the New Deal.
• Focused on improving the social safety net and raising the standard of living for ordinary Americans.
• Truman called on Congress to increase the minimum wage, enact national health insurance, expand public housing, Social Security, and aid education.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) - identified a broad range of rights to be enjoyed by people everything including freedom of speech, religious toleration, protection against arbitrary government, as well as social and economic entitlements such as the right to an adequate standard of living and access to housing, education, and medical care.

• Drafted by committee chair Eleanor Roosevelt
• There was no way to really enforce it, but its core principle (that a nation's treatment of its people should be subject to outside evaluation) slowly became part of the language associated with freedom.

Third World Countries - term invented to describe developing countries aligned with neither of the two Cold War powers (the US and Russia/Soviet Union) and that wanted to find its own model of development somewhere between Soviet centralized economic planning and free market capitalism.

•  These countries were still affected by the political, military, and economic contest that was the Cold War
• Post-WWII saw the crumbling of Europe's overseas empires. India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947 and Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania soon followed.
• The Soviet Union supported the fall of Europe's overseas empires, but the newly independent countries tried to remain neutral and not side with either power.

Massive Resistance - effort by southern states to defy the federally mandated school integration brought about by the Brown decision in 1954.

• Southern Manifesto (1956) - called on the southern states to resist integration by all legal means
• Governor Orval Faubus and Little Rock Central High School (1957) - Governor Faubus used the National Guard in order to prevent the court ordered integration of Little Rock Central HS
• 101st Airborne Decision - President Eisenhower sent Air Force soldiers to escort the students and protect them from mobs.

 Martin Luther King Jr. - promoted peaceful civil disobedience, outlined a philosophy of struggle in which evil must be met with good, hate with Christian love, and violence with peaceful demands for change.

• His speeches resonated deeply not only with the black community but the broader culture
• Invoked the Bible to preach justice and forgiveness, even toward those "who desire to deprive you of freedom"
• Similar to Frederick Douglass, he appealed the white America by stressing the protesters' love for their country and devotion to national values

Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) (1957) - civil rights organization founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders.

• A coalition of black ministers and civil rights activists to press for desegregation

Black Power - the post-1966 rallying cry of a more militant civil rights movement.

• Malcolm X was the intellectual father of Black Power
• Slogan came to national attention in 1966 when SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael used it during a civil rights march in Mississippi 
• Suggested everything from the election of more black officials to the belief that blacks were a colonized people whose freedom could be won only through a revolutionary struggle for self-determination

Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) - US Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public education and declared "separate but equal" unconstitutional

• Reversed the ruling of the Plessy vs. Ferguson case in 1866 that said "separate but equal" was constitutional 
• "Segregation was unequal and stigmatized blacks with a badge of inferiority" - Thurgood Marshall
• Preceded by Mendez vs. Westminster case in 1946 which desegregated schools in Orange County, CA.

Reagan Revolution (1980) - Reagan's 1980's campaign which brought together the many strands of 1970's conservatism; he pledged to end stagflation and restore America's dominant role in the world as well as its confidence in itself

• Appealed to white backlash with a speech in 1964 which emphasized his belief in states' rights; many white southerners understood this to mean that he was against federal intervention with civil rights.
•  Repeatedly condemned welfare "cheats", school busing, and affirmative action
• Won the support of the Religious Right and conservatives who upheld "family values"
• The Reagan Revolution completed the transformation of freedom from the rallying cry of the left/Democrats to a possession of the right/Republicans.

Reaganomics - Reagan's philosophy of "supply side" economics which combined tax cuts with an unregulated marketplace; a big step backwards

• Tax Reform Act - reduced the tax rate of the wealthiest Americans to 28%, because they really needed that
• Reagan appointed conservatives as the heads of regulatory agencies who of course cut back on environmental protection (which is why Republicans today still think fossil fuels are a *great* resource to depend on for centuries) and the workplace safety rules that business complained about so much because it meant they had to actually treat their workers with some kind of dignity
• The Republicans are really trying to revive this, not that it's died out completely

Detente (means 'cooperation') - Nixon and Brezhnev of Russia proclaimed a new era of "peaceful coexistence" which would replace the hostility of the Cold War

• Negotiations with communist China and the Soviet Union regarding the Cold War
• Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) (1969) - froze each country's arsenal of intercontinental missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads since 1969

Watergate (1972-1974) - Washington office and apartment complex associated with the 1972-1974 scandal of the Nixon Administration 

• When Nixon's knowledge of the break-in and subsequent coverup were revealed, he resigned under threat of impeachment
• The public trust had been jeopardized 
• Nixon Tapes - Nixon had recorded every conversation held in the Oval Office during his presidency
• The House Judiciary Committee (1974) - sent to investigate the government
• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (1966) - gives scholars, journalists, and ordinary citizens access to millions of federal agency records