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January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1989

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The rise of religious fundamentalism and the New Right appeared in the 1980s in response to American style liberalism.

Causes: The New Right grew rapidly because the rise of the counterculture and liberal reform movements that white conservative Christians believed threatened traditional values.

Effects: As evangelicals became politically active, the Christian Right emerged that opposed abortion, gay rights, and sex education; criticized Supreme Court rulings banning prayer in the public schools; rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in favor of divine creationism; supported the traditional role of women as mothers and homemakers; and backed a hardline, anti-Communist stand against the Soviet Union.

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On November 4, 1979, the ayatollah ordered fundamentalist Muslim students to seize the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and hold its fifty-two occupants hostage until the United States returned the shah to Iran to stand trial.

Causes: In 1979 revolutionary forces headed by Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, an Islamic fundamentalist exiled by the shah, overthrew his government. When the shah needed treatment for terminal cancer, President Carter invited him to the United States for medical assistance as a humanitarian gesture, despite warnings from the Khomeini government that it would consider this invitation a hostile action.

Effects: President Carter retaliated by freezing all Iranian assets in American banks, breaking off diplomatic relations, and imposing a trade embargo. In response, Khomeini denounced the United States as “the Great Satan.” Carter lost the next election and the revolution under Khomeini seized on its victory to consolidate power and support, and Iran and the United States would become long-term enemies, deeply complicating geopolitics in the oil-rich Middle East.

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Scandal and cover-up that forced the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. The scandal revolved around a break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in 1972 and subsequent efforts to conceal the administration’s involvement in the break-in.

Causes: On June 17, 1972, five men broke into Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C. It was eventually revealed that the break-in had been authorized by the Committee for the Re-Election of the President in an attempt to steal documents from the Democrats. President Nixon may not have known in advance the details of the break-in, but he did authorize a cover-up of his administration’s involvement.

Effects: With Nixon’s cover-up revealed, and impeachment and conviction likely, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. The scandal took a great toll on the administration with many resigning, and twenty-five government officials going to jail. Watergate also damaged the office of the president, leaving Americans wary and distrustful. Ford then pardoned Nixon. Rather than healing the nation’s wounds, this preemptive pardon polarized Americans and cost Ford considerable political capital.

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Causes: U.S. involvement in the struggle between Israel and its Arab enemies exacerbated economic troubles at home. In October 1973, during the midst of the Yom Kippur War, OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the United States as punishment for its support of Israel.

Effects: As a result of the embargo, the price of oil skyrocketed. The effect of high oil prices spread through the economy, leading to increased inflation and unemployment. The crisis lasted until May 1974, when OPEC lifted its embargo following six months of diplomacy by Kissinger.

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In 1948, President Truman issued an executive order to desegregate the armed forces.

Causes: In 1946 violence rose while white people’s determination to preserve the traditional racial order. Groups including the NAACP demanded that the president take action to combat this terror. Truman then formed the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, which did extensive research arguing that racial inequality and unrest could only aid the Soviets in their global anti-American propaganda efforts.

Effects: This was one of the first federal actions of the Civil Rights era to counter discrimination against Black Americans and other racial minorities.

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An easing of tense relations with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Causes: Nixon initiated detente in part to gain leverage against North Vietnam during the peace negotiations as well as to exploit disagreements between the USSR and China. In doing so, both the USSR and the US agreed, in Salt I, to curtail nuclear arms production during the Cold War.

Effects: In June 1979 Carter and the USSR signed SALT II, a new strategic arms limitation treaty. Six months later, however, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to expand Communism. President Carter viewed this action as a violation of international law and a threat to Middle East oil supplies, and he therefore persuaded the Senate to drop consideration of SALT II.

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A set of government programs, designed to help poor Americans, begun by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Causes: He passed the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 which provided job training, food stamps, rent supplements, redevelopment of depressed rural areas, remedial education, a domestic peace corps, and a Community Action Program that empowered the poor to shape policies affecting their own communities. Additionally, Johnson intended to fight the War on Poverty through the engine of economic growth, which would create new jobs for the unemployed without redistributing wealth.

Effects: The antipoverty program helped reduce the proportion of poor people from 20 percent in 1963 to 13 percent five years later. Additionally, Johnson’s tax cut, which applied across the board, stimulated the economy and sent the gross national product soaring from $591 billion in 1963 to $977 billion by the end of the decade.

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President Lyndon Johnson’s vision of social, economic, and cultural progress in the United States. The size and scope of Johnson’s Great Society programs were rivaled only by Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Causes: Awareness of social and economic inequality had increased with the publication of The Other America (1962) in which socialist author Michael Harrington exposed the invisibility of the poor in America. Additionally, Johnson had a modest upbringing which sparked his engagement.

Effects: In Johnson's Great Society Program he passed the Elementary and Secondary School Act (1965) which provided federal funds directly to public schools to improve their quality. The Model Cities program (1966) set up the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs, which coordinated efforts at urban planning and rebuilding neighborhoods in decaying cities. The Department of Transportation sought to ensure a fast, safe, and convenient transportation system. The president pushed Congress to pass hundreds of environmental protection laws, including those dealing with air and water pollution, waste disposal, the use of natural resources, and the preservation of wildlife and wilderness areas.

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in April 1975 North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces captured Saigon, resulting in a Communist victory.

Causes: The agreement when the U.S. left the war did not involve the North Korean army having to leave South Korea. Without the participation of the U.S. military, South Korea fell weak.

Effects: Some 58,000 American soldiers, 215,000 South Vietnamese soldiers, 1 million North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers, and an estimated 4 million South and North Vietnamese civilians were killed in the conflict.

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The intense bombing of North Vietnam ended formal U.S. involvement in the war in early 1973.

Causes: In December 1972, the United States carried out a massive eleven-day bombing campaign of targets in North Vietnam meant to force the North Vietnamese government to come to a peace accord.

Effects: An agreement signed on January 27, 1973 stated that the United States would remove all American troops, the North Vietnamese would return captured U.S. soldiers, and North and South Vietnam would strive for peaceful national unification.

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1973 act that required the president to consult with Congress within forty-eight hours of deploying military forces and to obtain a declaration of war from Congress if troops remained on foreign soil beyond sixty days.

Causes: This act was passed after news leaked out that President Nixon conducted secret bombings of Cambodia during the Vietnam War without notifying Congress.

Effects: This checked the power of the president and his ability to commit to war with another country.

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Classified report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam leaked to the press in 1971. The report confirmed that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations had misled the public about the origins and nature of the Vietnam War.

Causes: In 1971 the New York Times and the Washington Post published a classified report known as the Pentagon Papers.

Effects: This had a profound impact on the American public by exposing the government's extensive deception regarding the Vietnam War, thereby increasing anti-war sentiments.

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The killing of four students and wounding of nine others by the National Guard during a 1970 Kent State campus protest about the U.S. invasion of Cambodia as part of the Vietnam War.

Causes: The invasion of Cambodia in April 1970 sparked widespread campus demonstrations. In this event, the National Gaurd injured innocent protesters.

Effects: The incident sparked further anti-war sentiment and massive protests.

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In 1969, at the same time that American troop levels were being drawn down, Nixon ordered secret bombing raids in Cambodia.

Causes: Cambodia was a neutral country adjacent to South Vietnam that contained enemy forces and parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This was meant to pressure the North Vietnamese into accepting U.S. peace terms.

Effects: In April 1970 Nixon ordered an invasion of eastern Cambodia to destroy enemy bases, which destabilized the country and eventually brought to power the Communist organization. Eventually, Congress reflected growing disapproval for the war by repealing the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1970 after the Cambodian invasion.

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President Richard Nixon’s strategy of turning over greater responsibility for the fighting of the Vietnam War to the South Vietnamese army.

Causes: Increasing discontent towards the war in Vietnam and his promise to the American people led him and Kissinger to create a plan to slowly end the war.

Effects: Vietnamization led to the end of the war because, after the US removed their troops, North Vietnamese forces pushed through South Vietnam and took over cities until they finally ended the war at Saigon.

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March 16, 1968 unprovoked U.S. massacre of nearly 500 of the elderly, women, and children in the South Vietnam area of My Lai during the Vietnam War.

Causes: It occurred when Charlie Company was ordered to enter the village for a search and destroy mission. Still stinging from human losses in their unit during the Tet Offensive, Charlie Company vented their rage on the villagers at My Lai.

Effects: The massacre and other atrocities revealed during the trial divided the U.S. public and contributed to growing disillusionment with the war.

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January 31, 1968 offensive mounted by Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces against population centers in South Vietnam.

Causes: On January 31, 1968, the Buddhist New Year of Tet, some 67,000 Communist forces mounted a surprise offensive throughout South Vietnam that targeted major population centers and even included a dramatic attack on the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

Effects: After being televised, Walter Cronkite of CBS, turned against the war and expressed that the only reasonable conclusion was a stalemate. His report caused a growing change in public sentiment against the war demonstrating the impact of the Tet Offensive in the United States. On March 31, 1968, President Johnson stopped the bombing campaign and called for peace negotiations. He also announced that he would not seek reelection.

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In March 1965, with North Vietnamese forces flooding into the South, the president initiated this massive bombing campaign.

Causes: For more than three years, American planes dropped a million tons of bombs on North Vietnam.

Effects: A largely agricultural country, North Vietnam did not have the type of industrial targets best suited for air attacks. It stored its vital military resources underground and was able to reconstruct rudimentary bridges and roads to maintain the flow of troops. The U.S. military also deployed Agent Orange, a chemical that defoliated the Vietnamese countryside and produced long-term adverse health effects for those who came in contact with it. Additionally, the Vietcong often fought at night and blended in during the day as ordinary residents of cities and villages, making it difficult for U.S. ground forces to distinguish friend from foe.

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1964 congressional resolution giving President Johnson wide discretion in the use of U.S. forces in Vietnam. The resolution followed reported attacks by North Vietnamese gunboats on two American destroyers.

Causes: With the Vietnam War, Johnson feared appearing soft on communism and was concerned that a demonstration of weakness would jeopardize congressional support for his domestic plans. On August 2, North Vietnamese gunboats attacked a U.S. Navy destroyer sixty miles off the North Vietnamese coast in the Gulf of Tonkin in response to South Vietnamese naval raids along the coast. Later, another ship was potentially fired on and Johnson used the opportunity to urge Congress to authorize military action.

Effects: This resolution provided the Johnson with unlimited power to make military decisions regarding Vietnam.

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August 9, 1974 – January 20, 1977

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January 20, 1977 – January 20, 1981

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January 20, 1969 – August 9, 1974

Nixon won in a promise to “an honorable end to the war in Vietnam.”

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January 20, 1953 – January 20, 1961

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January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963

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April 12, 1945 – January 20, 1953

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November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969

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On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated.

Causes: JFK was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

Effects: Vice President Lyndon Johnson became President. He had to respond to the March on Washington.

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Silent Spring is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson, published on September 27, 1962.

Causes: Another outgrowth of 1960s liberal activism that flourished in the 1970s was the effort to clean up and preserve the environment. In her book, she revealed the devastating effects of pesticides on birds and fish, as well as on the human food chain and water supply.

Effects: Carson expanded the concept of conservation to include ecology, which addressed the relationships of human beings and other organisms to their environments. This set the stage for the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, which regulated use of pesticides, and the banning of DDT in 1972.

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The second wave feminism movement took place in the 1960s and 1970s and focused on issues of equality and discrimination.

Causes: The main goals of these feminists were to expose and overcome the casual, systemic racism present in society- unlike the suffragists of the nineteenth century, who focused largely on political equality through suffrage.

Effects: In 1972 Congress passed the Educational Amendments Act. Title IX of this law prohibited colleges and universities that received federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sex, leading to substantial advances in women’s athletics. Many more women sought and received relief against job discrimination through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. NOW membership continued to grow, and the number of women’s shelters and rape crisis centers multiplied. Women saw their ranks increase on college campuses, in both undergraduate and professional schools. Women also began entering politics in greater numbers, especially at the local and state levels. Women of color sought to broaden the definition of feminism to include struggles against race and class oppression as well as sex discrimination. However, Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist, founded the Stop ERA organization to prevent the creation of a “unisex society.” Despite the inroads made by feminists, traditional notions of femininity appealed to many women and to male-dominated legislatures.

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A social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride.

Causes: In the manner of black power, the New Left, and radical feminists, homosexuals organized the Gay Liberation Front, voiced pride in being gay, and demanded equality of opportunity regardless of sexual orientation.

Effects: Gays achieved victories slowly and unevenly. In the decades following the 1960s, gay men and lesbians faced discrimination in employment, could not marry or receive domestic benefits, and were subject to violence for public displays of affection.

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Students for a Democratic Society manifesto written in 1962 that condemned liberal politics, Cold War foreign policy, racism, and research-oriented universities. It called for the adoption of “participatory democracy.”

Causes: SDS condemned mainstream liberal politics, Cold War foreign policy, racism, and research-oriented universities that cared little for their undergraduates. It called for the adoption of “participatory democracy,” which would return power to the people.

Effects: This manifesto popularized the term participatory democracy. It also revealed the 1960s' tension between communitarianism and individualism.

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Student activist organizations formed in the early 1960s that advocated the formation of a “New Left” that would overturn the social and political status quo.

Causes: They considered the “Old Left,” which revolved around communism and socialism, as autocratic and no longer relevant. The New Left’s challenge to liberal politics attracted many students, and the counterculture’s rejection of conventional middle-class values of work, sexual restraint, and rationality captivated even more. Additionally, the Vietnam War accelerated student radicalism, and college campuses provided a strategic setting for antiwar activities.

Effects: SDS advocated for student power through direct action and actively criticized the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. This revitalized the spirit of American democracy by promoting “participatory democracy”. As protests spread and the government restricted dissenters, some activists substituted armed struggle for nonviolence or violence, causing the group to fray.

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1969 uprising after New York City police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gathering place for gay men, and tried to arrest patrons. This uprising helped inspire the gay liberation movement of the 1970s.

Causes: Police regularly cracked down on gay bars like the Stonewall Tavern in New York City’s Greenwich Village. But on June 27, 1969, gay patrons battled back. The Village Voice called the Stonewall riots “a kind of liberation, as the gay brigade emerged from the bars, back rooms, and bedrooms of the Village and became street people.”

Effects: These riots brought worldwide attention to the injustices homosexuals continually faced within society. In the weeks following Stonewall, activists in New York organized the Gay Liberation Front. New LGBT+ activist organizations began to form across the U.S. and internationally.

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An American Indian group, formed in 1968, that promoted “red power” and condemned the United States for its continued mistreatment of American Indians.

Causes: In the U.S. a majority of American Indians suffered from inadequate housing, high alcoholism rates, low life expectancy, staggering unemployment, and lack of education. Conscious of their heritage as the first Americans, they became determined to halt their deterioration by asserting “red power” and pride. Many protested in various locations of significance including Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay, Washington, D.C., and Wounded Knee to fight for increased rights and legislation for better conditions on reservations.

Effects: Demonstrations gained media attention on the plight of American Indians but did little to halt their downward spiral. Nevertheless, courts became more sensitive to American Indian claims and protected mineral and fishing rights on reservations.

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Starting in 1969, Chicanos advocated for job opportunities, bilingual education, and cultural studies programs in universities.

Causes: Chicanos created a new political party, La Raza Unida, to combat institutional racism. The party and its allies sponsored demonstrations to fight for jobs, bilingual education, an increase in voting, equal labor and political rights, and the creation of Chicano studies programs in colleges.

Effects: Ultimately, the Chicano Movement won many reforms including the creation of bilingual and bicultural programs in the southwest, improved conditions for migrant workers, the hiring of Chicano teachers, and more Mexican-Americans serving as elected officials.

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Cesario Estrada Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist.

Causes: In the 1950s, Cesar Chavez had emerged as the leader of oppressed Mexican farmworkers in California. Chavez shared King's nonviolent principles in seeking the right to organize a union and gain higher wages and better working conditions.

Effects: In 1962 Chavez and Dolores Huerta formed the National Farm Workers Association. Then, in 1965 the union called a strike against California grape growers. The strike attracted national support and succeeded after five years. The farm workers union in American history achieved dignity, respect, fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits, and humane living conditions, as well as countless other rights and protections.

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The 1973 Supreme Court decision affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.

Causes: In the case, the high court ruled that states could not prevent a woman from obtaining an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy but could impose some limits in the next two trimesters.

Effects: In furthering the constitutional right of privacy for women, the justices classified abortion as a private medical issue between a patient and her doctor. This decision marked a victory for a woman’s right to choose. However, it also created a fierce debate between those who considered abortion to be the murder of an unborn child.

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A proposed amendment mandating the “equality of rights under law … by the United States or any State on the basis of sex.”

Causes: Three years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment was proposed in Congress in 1923 in an effort to secure full equality for women. It sought to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, employment, and other matters.

Effects: Not enough states had ratified the amendment by 1982, when the ratification period expired, so it was not adopted.

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Feminist organization formed in 1966 by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and other like-minded activists.

Causes: NOW called on the EEOC to enforce women’s employment rights more vigorously and favored passage of an ERA, paid maternity leave for working women, the establishment of child care centers, and reproductive rights.

Effects: NOW brought increased awareness to the Women's Rights Movement. However, while it advocated job training programs and assistance for impoverished women, it attracted a mainly middle-class white membership. Many African American women chose to focus first on eliminating racial barriers that affected black women and men.

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Published on February 19, 1963, The Feminine Mystique is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States.

Causes: In 1957, Friedan was asked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates for their 15th-anniversary reunion. In the results, she found that many of them were unhappy with their lives as housewives. In research on this, The Feminine Mystique, questioned society’s prescribed gender roles and raised the consciousness of mostly college-educated women.

Effects: It gave a voice to millions of American women who felt frustrated with their limited gender roles and helped spark widespread public activism for gender equality.

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The 1968 Act prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, handicap, and family status.

Causes: With the cities rioting after Dr. King's assassination, and violence and destruction mounting across the U.S., the words of President Johnson and Congressional leaders led the House of Representatives to pass the Fair Housing Act.

Effects: The act led to the protection of people from discrimination when they are renting or buying a home, getting a mortgage, seeking housing assistance, or engaging in other housing-related activities.

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In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court ruled that the Constitution of the U.S. protects the liberty of married couples to use contraceptives without government restriction.

Causes: Estelle T. Griswold and Dr. C. Lee Buxton challenged the Connecticut law that banned the use of any contraception for married couples which had received multiple legal challenges prior.

Effects: This case established a constitutional right to privacy regarding reproductive decisions that paved the way for the legalization of birth control for unmarried couples. It paved the way for other uses of contraception, abortion, and LGBTQ rights. This case among others received lots of criticism, especially from religious groups that accused the Warren Court of undermining traditional values of faith and decency.

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In Miranda v. Arizona, the Court ruled that law enforcement in the U.S. must warn a person of their constitutional rights before interrogating them, or else the person's statements cannot be used as evidence at their trial.

Causes: Ernesto Miranda, a Mexican immigrant living in Phoenix, Arizona, was identified in a police lineup by a woman, who accused him of kidnapping and raping her. Miranda was arrested and questioned by the police for two hours until he confessed to the crimes.

Effects: To protect privilege, the Court reasoned that procedural safeguards were required. A defendant was required to be warned before questioning that he had the right to remain silent, and that anything he said can be used against him in a court of law.

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In Gideon v. Wainwright the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own.

Causes: Clarence Gideon was accused of breaking into a bar in Panama City, Florida. The police arrested Gideon and put him in jail. At his trial, Gideon could not afford a lawyer and asked the judge to appoint one for him. The judge refused, and he had to represent himself in court.

Effects: The Supreme Court reversed his conviction, holding that defense counsel is "fundamental and essential" to a fair trial. This then asserted that the 6th Amendment guarantees the right to a fair trial and a lawyer if you can't afford one.

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The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 is a landmark federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Causes: The amendment was intended to remove the racist legacy of immigration laws by replacing the old quotas based on nation of origin with a new system that allocated residence visas based on family reunification and labor force needs.

Effects: Repealed discriminatory national origins quotas established in 1924, resulting in a shift of immigration from Europe to Asia and Central and South America.

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The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 was a direct and dangerous confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Causes: The U.S. continued efforts to dispel Castro despite their failure at the Bay of Pigs. Castro then invited the Soviet Union to install nuclear missiles in Cuba to protect the country against any U.S. incursion. In response, the Kennedy administration decided to blockade Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from supplying the missiles. If Soviet ships defied the blockade, the president would order air strikes and an invasion to destroy the missiles and overthrow Castro.

Effects: Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles, and Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba and secretly promised to dismantle U.S. missile sites in Turkey aimed at the Soviet Union. They also chose to install a "hotline" to increase communication between D.C. and Moscow.

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Physical and ideological barrier between East and West Berlin which existed from 1961 until 1989. The wall was designed to prevent Soviet controlled East Berliners from fleeing to the West.

Causes: Kennedy persuaded Congress to increase the defense budget, dispatch additional troops to Europe, and bolster civil defense.

Effects: The wall made it more difficult for refugees fleeing poverty and oppression in East Berlin to escape to West Berlin. It divided the city of Berlin into two physically and ideologically contrasting zones.

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On April 17, 1961, the invasion force of between 1,400 and 1,500 Cuban exiles, trained by the CIA, landed by boat on Cuba’s southwest coast, launching the unsuccessful attempt under the Kennedy administration to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba.

Causes: Kennedy believed that reform capitalism should become a global model but that Communism posed a fundamental threat to American interests. After becoming president, Kennedy approved the scheme that Eisenhower had set in motion.

Effects: CIA planners had underestimated Cuban popular support for Castro. Instead, it strengthened the position of Castro's administration, which proceeded to openly proclaim its intention to adopt socialism and pursue closer ties with the Soviet Union. The Kennedy administration faced a tough foreign policy defeat.

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The 1953 Iranian coup, was when the U.S. and British instigated the Iranian army-led overthrow of the elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, on 19 August 1953.

Causes: When Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran nationalized foreign oil corporations in 1953, the CIA engineered a coup that ousted his government and installed the pro-American shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in his place.

Effects: Mossadegh was not a Communist, but by overthrowing him American oil companies obtained 40 percent of Iran’s oil revenue.

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The 1956 Suez Crisis was when Britain along with France and Israel invaded Egypt to recover control of the Suez Canal.

Causes: In 1956 Nasser, falling short of funds, sent troops to take over the Suez Canal, the waterway run by Great Britain and through which the bulk of Western Europe’s oil was shipped. He intended to pay for the dam by collecting tolls from canal users. In retaliation, Britain and France, the two European powers most affected by the seizure, invaded Egypt on October 29, 1956. Coming at the same time as the Soviet crackdown against the Hungarian revolution, the British-French-Israeli assault placed the United States in the difficult position of condemning the Soviets for intervening in Hungary while its anti-Communist partners waged war in Suez.

Effects: Eisenhower cooperated with the UN to negotiate a cease-fire and pull out the invading forces in Egypt. Ultimately, the Soviets proved the winners in this Cold War battle. The Suez invasion revived memories of European imperialism and fueled anti-Western sentiments and pan-Arab nationalism, which worked to the Soviets’ advantage.

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The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and marked the end of the Guatemalan Revolution.

Causes: Guatemala had seized 225,000 acres of land held by the United Fruit Company, a powerful American company. According to the owners, the land’s seizure by the Guatemalan government posed a threat to the nearby Panama Canal. Eisenhower allowed the CIA to hatch a plot that resulted in a government overthrow that installed a right-wing military regime in Guatemala, which safeguarded both the Panama Canal and the United Fruit Company.

Effects: The success of the CIA’s covert efforts in Guatemala prompted the Eisenhower administration to plan a similar action in Cuba.

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First artificial satellite, launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union.

Causes: It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program.

Effects: As a result, Eisenhower signed into law the National Defense Education Act in 1958 in hopes to catch with the Soviets. This provided funding for instruction in science, math, and foreign languages and graduate fellowships and loans for college students.

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National Interstates Highway Defense Act

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National Interstates Highway Defense Act

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1956 act that provided funds for the construction of 42,500 miles of roads throughout the United States.

Causes: A new highway system was needed for safety and to accommodate the increasing number of automobiles. They were also developed for defense purposes.

Effects: This encouraged the movement of the middle class from cities to the suburbs. It also allowed for people to move across states leading to a mass migration to the Sun Belt.

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After 1964, SNCC and CORE began exploring new ways of seeking freedom through strategies of black self determination and self-defense. They were greatly influenced by Malcolm X.

Causes: Malcom X had engaged in a life of crime, which landed him in prison. Inside jail, he converted to the Nation of Islam, a religious sect based partly on Muslim teachings and partly on the belief that white people were devils. After his release from jail, Malcolm rejected his “slave name” and substituted the letter X to symbolize his unknown African forebears.

Effects: Minister Malcolm helped convert thousands of disciples in black ghettos by denouncing whites and encouraging black people to embrace their African heritage and beauty as a people. Favoring self-defense over nonviolence, he criticized civil rights leaders for failing to protect their communities.

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Organization founded in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale to advance the black power movement in black communities.

Causes: The Black Panthers took up the cause of Black Power. Their goals were to highlight the importance of the black community and relieve the community of social and economic problems.

Effects: The Black Panthers established day care centers and health facilities, often run by women, which gained the admiration of many in their communities. Much of this good work was overshadowed by violent confrontations with the police, which led to the deaths of Black Panthers in shootouts and the imprisonment of key party officials.

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Initiated in 1966, the Black Power emphasized black self-reliance and self-determination more than integration.

Causes: Black power emerged against a backdrop of riots in black ghettos, which erupted across the nation starting in the mid-1960s. Urban black people, many in the North and West, faced problems of high unemployment, broken-down housing, and police mistreatment that civil rights legislation had done nothing to correct.

Effects: Black militants, inspired by Malcolm X’s ideas, challenged racial liberalism. They renounced integration and nonviolence in favor of black power and self-defense. Instead of welcoming whites within their organizations, black radicals believed that African Americans had to assert their independence from white America. In 1966 SNCC expelled white members and created an all-black organization.

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Wide-ranging civil rights act that, among other things, prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and employment and increased federal enforcement of school desegregation.

Causes: The law prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, increased federal enforcement of school desegregation and the right to vote, and created the Community Relations Service, a federal agency authorized to help resolve racial conflicts. The act also contained a final measure to combat employment discrimination on the basis of race and sex.

Effects: Despite its intentions, the did little to address the main problems of the discriminatory use of literacy tests and poll taxes that kept a majority of southern black people from voting. Voting rights efforts continued to face persistent violence from white supremacists.

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1965 act that eliminated many of the obstacles to African American voting in the South and resulted in dramatic increases in black participation in the electoral process.

Causes: After the march on Selma, President Johnson was emboldened to pass federal legislation that would take up initiatives of the "black cause".

Effects: This law banned the use of literacy tests for voter registration, authorized a federal lawsuit against the poll tax, empowered federal officials to register disfranchised voters, and required seven southern states to submit any voting changes to Washington, D.C. before they went into effect. With strong federal enforcement of the law, by 1968 a majority of black southerners could vote.

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The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery.

Causes: After state troopers shot and killed a black voting rights demonstrator in February 1965, MLK called for a march from Selma to the capital, Montgomery, to petition Governor Wallace to end the violence and allow black people to vote.

Effects: The protesters faced serious violence from the KKK. However, it was successful in prompting President Johnson to take action. This led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Political party formed in 1964 to challenge the all-white state Democratic Party for seats at the 1964 Democratic presidential convention and run candidates for public office.

Causes: Freedom Summer, which worked to increase voter registration and improve education for Black children, inspired the formation of the MFDP. Because the Democratic Party excluded Black people, African Americans wanted a party open to both races that was dedicated to the civil and political rights of Black Southerners. Thier goal was to fight the web of law, intimidation, official and unofficial force, and violence terrorizing Blacks seeking voting rights.

Effects: The MFDP and its convention challenge eventually helped gain congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Their actions resulted in the national party requiring its credentials committee to ban seating delegations that had been chosen through racial discrimination.

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Integrated bus rides through the South organized by CORE in 1961 to test compliance with Supreme Court rulings on segregation.

Causes: Freedom Riders wanted to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. Despite violence against the protesters by the KKK, students from SNCC continued the rides.

Effects: The president and his brother worked out a compromise to let the rides continue with minimal violence and with minimal publicity. The Cold War worked in favor of the protesters. With the Soviet Union publicizing the violence against Freedom Riders in the South, the Kennedy administration attempted to preserve America’s image abroad by persuading the Interstate Commerce Commission to issue an order prohibiting segregated transportation facilities.

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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

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August 28, 1963 rally by civil rights organizations in Washington, D.C. that brought increased national attention to the movement.

Causes: With the white supremacist Eugene “Bull” Connor in charge of law enforcement, civil rights protesters, including children from age six to sixteen, encountered violent resistance, vicious police dogs, and high-powered water hoses. Angered by the events in Birmingham and King’s imprisonment, Kennedy finally embraced the nation’s duty to guarantee equal rights regardless of race. However, on the day of Kennedy's speech, Medgar Evers, the head of the NAACP in Mississippi, was shot and killed by a white supremacist.

Effects: 250,000 black and white peaceful protesters rallied in front of the Lincoln Memorial. During the event, MLK delivered his memorable “I Have a Dream” speech. The march was successful in pressuring JFK to create change in federal legislation. However, weeks later, the KKK dynamited Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a freedom movement staging ground.

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Civil rights organization that grew out of the sit-ins of 1960. The organization focused on taking direct action and political organizing to achieve its goals.

Causes: The young members sought to both challenge racial segregation in the South and create interracial communities based on economic equality and political democracy.

Effects: SNCC members played an integral role in sit-ins, Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, and voter education projects such as the Mississippi Freedom Summer. This all brought increased awareness to the Civil Rights movement and urged young students to voice their concerns.

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These mass got off the ground in February 1960, when four students at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro initiated sit-ins at the whites-only lunch counters inn local department stores.

Causes: With boycotts petering out and white violence rising, African Americans, especially high school and college students, developed new techniques to confront discrimination. This included sit-ins, in which protesters sat in a strategic spot and refused to move until their demands were met or they were forcibly evicted.

Effects: Sit-ins demonstrated the potential strength of grassroots militancy and enabled a new generation of young people to gain confidence in their own leadership. They were successful both in forcing partial integration and in increasing national awareness of injustices African Americans faced.

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Emmett Louis Till was an African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14, after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store.

Causes: The WCC and the KKK created a racial climate in the deep South that encouraged whites to believe they could get away with murder to defend white supremacy.

Effects: In the summer of 1955, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old, was visiting his great-uncle in Mississippi where he was kidnapped and brutally beaten to death because he allegedly flirted with a white woman in a country store. Till’s mother insisted on an open casket funeral which shocked African Americans across the country and brought widespread attention to the injustice of white supremacist violence. Although the two accused killers were quickly brought to trial, an all-white jury acquitted them. In 2007, Till’s accuser confessed that she had lied under oath about Till’s behavior toward her.

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Nine students who, in 1957, became the first African Americans to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Federal troops were required to overcome the resistance of white officials and the violence of white protesters.

Causes: In 1957 a federal court approved a plan submitted by the Little Rock, Arkansas school board to integrate Central High School. However, the state’s governor sent the state National Guard to keep out nine black students attending. President Eisenhower then placed the National Guard under federal control and sent in the 101st Airborne Division to restore order after a mob blocked the students from entering the school.

Effects: The children attended classes for the year under the protection of the National Guard but still encountered harassment from white students. Many counties chose to close their public schools rather than desegregate. By the end of the decade, public schools in the South remained mostly segregated.

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Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Christian minister, activist, and political philosopher who was one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968.

Causes: MLK rose to fame through his leadership in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. King mainly drew his inspiration and commitment to nonviolence and civil disobedience from the black church and secular leaders.

Effects: His personal courage and power of words could inspire nearly all segments of the African American community. In doing so he led the March on Washington and helped bring about the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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Organization founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and other black ministers to encourage nonviolent protests against racial segregation and disfranchisement in the South.

Causes: The group was established with the goal of redeeming “the soul of America” through nonviolent resistance. It coordinated the action of local protest groups throughout the South.

Effects: The organization played a major role in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. By the latter half of the decade, tensions were growing between SCLC and more militant protest groups such as SNCC and the Congress of Racial Equality.

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The boycott started on December 5, 1955 and lasted thirteen months.

Causes: Rosa Parks, a black seamstress and an NAACP activist, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Parks’s arrest rallied civic, labor, and religious groups and sparked a bus boycott that involved nearly the entire black community. Instead of riding buses, black commuters walked to work or joined carpools.

Effects: White officials refused to capitulate and fought back by arresting leaders of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization that coordinated the protest. Other whites insulted and harassed black people. After more than a year of conflict, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the complete desegregation of Montgomery’s buses. The successful protest also bolstered Martin Luther King, Jr. into national prominence as a civil rights leader.

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Landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that overturned the “separate but equal” principle established by Plessy v. Ferguson and applied to public schools. Few schools in the South were racially desegregated for more than a decade.

Causes: All-black schools typically lacked the resources provided to white schools, and the NAACP understood that southern officials would never live up to the “separate but equal doctrine” asserted in Plessy v. Ferguson. African Americans sought to integrate schools not only because they wanted to have their children attend their local public schools, but because they also believed that integration offered the best and quickest way to secure quality education.

Effects: In a unanimous decision, the Court concluded that “in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” This ruling undercut the legal foundation for segregation and officially placed the law on the side of those who sought racial equality. The Brown decision also encouraged African Americans to protest against other forms of racial discrimination.

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Suburban subdivision built in Long Island, New York in the 1950s in response to the postwar housing shortage. Subsequent Levittowns were built in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Causes: In 1948, Levitt persuaded people to move to the suburbs because he claimed that anyone who owned a house could be a Communist because they wouldn't have the time. They then pioneered the idea of adapting Henry Ford’s mass-production principles to the housing industry.

Effects: Levitt closed his subdivisions to African Americans, which the Federal Housing Authority supported by guaranteeing financing for housing sales in all-white communities. White people quickly moved out of neighborhoods in white flight. Additionally, real estate brokers steered minority buyers away from white communities, and banks refused to lend money to black purchasers, an illegal policy called redlining.

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Sharp population increase between 1946 and 1964 as a result of the end of World War II, increased economic prosperity, improvements in healthcare, and a trend toward marriage at younger age.

Causes: Economic prosperity made it easier to support large families, women’s early age at marriage contributed to high fertility, and improved health care led to the survival of more children. Additionally, marriage and parenthood reflected a culture spurred by the Cold War. The media urged young men and women to build nuclear families as they implied it would strengthen the moral fiber of the U.S. in its battle against Soviet communism.

Effects: The Baby Boom had a huge impact on the USA economy. It created huge demand for housing, for higher education, job training, and for jobs to meet the demand for those young people at the time.

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1944 act that offered educational opportunities and financial aid to veterans as they readjusted to civilian life. Known as the GI Bill, the law helped millions of veterans build new lives after the war.

Causes: Immediately after the war, consumers experienced shortages and high prices, businesses complained about tight regulations, and labor unions sought higher wages and a greater voice in companies’ decision-making. Additionally, women who were in the workforce did not want to leave and were unwilling to give up their jobs to men, create more competition.

Effects: The bill put college within reach for many veterans leading to a gain of about 0.3 years of college and an increase in college completion of about 5 percent.

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Term used to describe the harassment and persecution of suspected political radicals. Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of many prominent government figures who helped incite anti-Communist hysteria in the early 1950s.

Causes: In McCarthy's campaign for Republican congressional candidates across the country, he claimed that there were Communists in the government. Then as Senator, McCarthy used his position to harass current and former government employees who, he claimed, collaborated with the Communist conspiracy. His charges were so astounding, that people thought there must be something to them.

Effects: Millions of Americans were forced to take loyalty oaths, activism and labor unions declined, many people became afraid to speak out on public issues, and anti-communism continued to drive foreign policy. McCarthy finally went too far when he began accusing military officials of being Communist.

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Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953.

Causes: When the Russians successfully tested an atomic bomb in 1949, many believed that they must have received assistance from Communist spies. Those accused of helping fell under suspicion. The following year, the Truman administration prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage.

Effects: The Rosenbergs were convicted and received the death penalty. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg became the first spies executed in American history during peacetime.

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U.S. House of Representatives committee established in 1938 to investigate domestic communism. After World War II, HUAC conducted highly publicized investigations of Communist influence in government and the entertainment industry in 1947.

Causes: Congress created the House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate claims of communism in different industries. It hoped to show that these writers were able to insert subversive propaganda into Hollywood films. The committee members branded witnesses as "red" if they refused to comply or hesitated in answering committee questions.

Effects: When the men refused to testify, the Hollywood Ten were arrested and served many months in prison. Later on, they were blacklisted from Hollywood and many of them moved to another country to continue their work.

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Conflict fought between the northern Communist, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United Nations-backed southern Republic of Korea from 1950 to 1953.

Causes: Korea emerged from World War II divided between U.S. and Soviet spheres of influence (North Korea with support from the Soviet Union and South Korea with support from the US). If South Korea fell, the president believed Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to the US.

Effects: This war permitted Truman to expand his powers and augment the strength of the national security state as well as reshape foreign policy along the lines sketched in NSC-68. Additionally, the military draft became a regular feature of American life for young people, and the military budget rose significantly, strengthening the connection between economic growth and permanent mobilization to fight. Also, the war heightened fears of communism throughout the country.

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On 1 October 1949, Mao formally proclaimed the People's Republic of China.

Causes: Communist forces within China led by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai succeeded in overthrowing the U.S.-backed nationalist government of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) and creating the People’s Republic of China.

Effects: This convinced many Americans that the threat posed by communism was escalating rapidly, leading to the development of NSC-68.

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Intelligence organization established by the 1947 National Security Act. The CIA is part of the executive branch and is responsible for gathering and conducting espionage in foreign nations.

Causes: The CIA was responsible for coordinating intelligence gathering and conducting espionage abroad to counter Soviet operations.

Effects: This enhanced the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs with little congressional oversight and out of public view.

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April 1950 National Security Council document that advocated the intensification of the policy of containment both at home and abroad.

Causes: The Soviet development of an atomic bomb and a newly Communist China worried many Americans. In response, the National Security Council met to reevaluate U.S. strategy in fighting the Cold War. In April 1950 the NSC recommended to Truman that the U.S. intensify its containment policy both abroad and at home.

Effects: NSC-68 proposed that the U.S. develop an even more powerful nuclear weapon, increase military spending, and continue to negotiate NATO-style alliances around the globe. In response to Communist North Korea invading U.S.-backed South Korea in 1950, Truman took the opportunity to put into practice the key recommendations of NSC-68.

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The Soviets successfully tested their first nuclear device, called RDS-1 or “First Lightning”, at Semipalatinsk on August 29, 1949.

Causes: After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ending WW2, Stalin initiated and accelerated the building of their own atmoic bomb. Through effective intelligence gathering about the German nuclear weapon project and the American Manhattan Project they were able to do so rapidly.

Effects: The knowledge that both the US and Soviet Union had nuclear weapons created a military doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Adoption of MAD contributed to the escalation of the nuclear arms race during the Cold War. Additionally, many believed that they must have received assistance from Communist spies, and anyone accused of helping them obtain this weapon fell under suspicion. The following year, the Truman administration prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in a sensational court case for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets.

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Cold War military alliance created on April 4, 1949 to enhance the collective security of the United States and Western Europe.

Causes: Desire to create a pact of mutual assistance to counter the risk that the Soviet Union would seek to extend its control of Eastern Europe to other parts of the continent.

Effects: NATO established a collective security pact in which an attack on one member was viewed as an attack on all. In 1949 the Russians followed suit by creating the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact military alliance.

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The mass-scale transport of food and supplies to West Berlin by U.S. and British government air forces during the Soviet blockade of Berlin from 1948 to 1949.

Causes: In mid-1948 the US, the United Kingdom, and France consolidated their occupation zones, created the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), and initiated economic reforms to stimulate a speedy recovery. The Soviet Union saw a strong Germany as a threat to its national security and in turn closed the access roads from the border of West Germany to Berlin, which effectively cut off the city from the West. Without food, fuel, and other resources from the US and its allies in West Germany, West Berliners could not survive.

Effects: Truman ordered a massive airlift, in which American and British planes transported more than 2.5 million tons of supplies to West Berlin. After nearly a year of these flights, the Berlin airlift ended in the spring of 1949 when the Russians lifted the blockade.

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On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the post World War II European economic aid package developed by Secretary of State George Marshall. The plan helped rebuild Western Europe and served American political and economic interests in the process.

Causes: Stalin interpreted the proposed Marshall Plan of economic assistance as a hostile attempt by the United States to gain influence in Eastern Europe. To prevent this possibility, in late February 1948 the Soviets extinguished the remaining democracy in Eastern Europe by engineering a Communist coup in Czechoslovakia. Congressional lawmakers viewed this action as further proof of Soviet aggression. They then approved the Marshall Plan, providing $13 billion in economic assistance to sixteen European countries over the next five years assistance.

Effects: For the United States, the Marshall Plan provided markets for American goods, created reliable trading partners, and supported the development of stable democratic governments in Western Europe. It also generated a resurgence of European industrialization and brought extensive investment into the region.

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Truman proposed his address on March 12, 1947. This was a pledge to contain the expansion of communism around the world. Based on the idea of containment, the Truman Doctrine was the cornerstone of American foreign policy throughout the Cold War.

Causes: From the American vantage point, Soviet actions to expand communism in Eastern Europe appeared to threaten democracies in Western Europe. By contrast, the Soviets viewed the United States as seeking to extend economic control over nations close to their borders and to weaken communism in the Soviet Union. Then, events in Greece allowed Truman to take the offensive and apply Kennan’s policy of containment. He interpreted the civil war in Greece as a titanic struggle between freedom and totalitarianism that threatened the free world and thought the Soviets were behind the Communist rebels.

Effects: This effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts, to positioning the US as the defender of a free world in the face of Soviet aggression. Furthermore, the US committed itself to shoring up governments, whether democratic or dictatorial, as long as they were avowedly anti-Communist.

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On March 5, 1946, Churchill's famed “Iron Curtain” speech ushered in the Cold War and made the term a household phrase.

Causes: On February 9, 1946, Stalin delivered a speech to rally Russians implying that capitalist nations could not coexist with communism and that future wars were unavoidable unless communism triumphed over capitalism. In response, US diplomat George Kennan advised President Harry S. Truman to adopt a policy of containment.

Effects: The ideas in this speech became the basis for Truman's Cold War policy in that unyielding resistance to the Soviet Union was the only way to avoid another world war. It also helped bolster American and Western European opposition to communism and the Soviet Union. Critics voiced concern about taking a “hard line” against the Soviet Union and that he was only doing so to create a sphere of influence.

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Period 8: Cold War America (1945 - 1980)

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Period 8: Cold War America (1945 - 1980)

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Meeting in July of 1945 in Germany, between Truman and Stalin. The two leaders agreed to free elections in Eastern Europe, Soviet withdrawal from Northern Iran, and creation of four Allied occupation zones in Germany.

Causes: While Roosevelt had acceded to demands in the Yalta Agreement, Truman and his Secretary of State, James Byrnes, were determined to mitigate the treatment of Germany by allowing the occupying nations to exact reparations only from their own zone of occupation. The two wanted to avoid a repetition of the situation created by the Treaty of Versailles, which had exacted high reparations payments from Germany following WW1. Additionally, Stalin’s ruthless purges within the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s convinced Truman that the Soviet dictator was paranoid and extremely dangerous and he wanted to deter it.

Effects: Truman and Stalin reaffirmed the concept of free elections in Eastern Europe; Soviet troop withdrawal from the oil fields of northern Iran, which bordered the USSR; and the partition of Germany (and Berlin itself) into four Allied occupation zones.

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The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews during World War II.

Causes: After WWI Germany took on the entire responsibility for the war in the Treaty of Versailles. This left them sour and in debt as they had to pay off millions of dollars in reparations. Hitler advocated for the discrimination of Jews as scapegoats for their problems. This antisemitism spread throughout Germany. Although the US knew about the persecution, they did little to help. They refused to relax immigration laws to allow Jews and other minorities to take refuge in the US and deemed it too risky to send in any military help.

Effects: The Germans systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. Many other demographics the Germans viewed as political dissidents were also brutally murdered.

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On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively.

Causes: In Truman's descion to drop the bomb there were many factors to consider. He claimed that Roosevelt would have dropped it and he didn’t want to reverse a decision already reached by his predecessor. It would also save American lives because the U.S. military would not have to launch a costly invasion of Japan’s home islands. Many Americans also sought retaliation for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and for Japanese atrocities against American soldiers, regarding POWs and those in the Philippines. On the other hand, many considered it a racist decision.

Effects: The bombings killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese citizens. However, it worked in causing Japan's surrender and the official end of the Pacific War.

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The 1945 Yalta Conference by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin was about the fate of postwar Eastern Europe. The Yalta Agreement did little to ease growing tensions between the Soviet Union and its Western Allies.

Causes: With victory in sight in both Europe and the Pacific, the Allies wanted to address problems of postwar relations.

Effects: This led to the establishment of permanent governments in Poland and the rest of eastern Europe through free elections. It also renewed the leaders' commitment to establishing the United Nations. At the meeting, the Soviets reaffirmed their intention to join the war against Japan three months after Germany’s surrender. The powers also agreed that the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and France would divide Germany into four zones, each occupied by one of the powers, and subdivide Berlin into four sectors.

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June 6, 1944 invasion of German-occupied France by Allied forces. The D Day landings opened up a second front in Europe and marked a major turning point in World War II.

Causes: D-Day was born in the immediate aftermath of America's entry into the war. This battle was an offensive on the US and British promise to Stalin to open the second front in order to relieve pressure off of Soviet Union soldiers.

Effects: The bravery and discipline of the troops, along with their superior numbers, overcame the Germans and opened the way for the Allies to liberate Paris in August 1944. By the end of the year, the Allies had regained control of the rest of France and most of Belgium.

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Causes: On May 9, 1942, the military ordered the Korematsu family to report to Tanforan Racetrack in San Mateo, from which they would be transported to internment camps throughout the West. Although the rest of his family complied with the order, Fred refused. Three weeks later, he was arrested and then transferred to the Topaz internment camp in south-central Utah. Found guilty of violating the original evacuation order, Korematsu received a sentence of five years of probation.

Effects: This case was significant because the Supreme Court held that the wartime internment of American citizens of Japanese descent was constitutional.

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1942 executive order issued by President Franklin Roosevelt requiring all people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast to be relocated to internment camps.

Causes: After the Pearl Harbor attack, public fear and anger quickly turned on people of Japanese ancestry. These emotions stemmed, in part, from long-standing racial prejudices and rumors and accusations. However, FDR and other government officials saw Japanese Americans now more than ever, as threats to national security.

Effects: Japanese lives were uprooted as they were stripped away from their homes and families. In doing so, camp residents lost their fundamental rights as Americans. Japense Ameircan tried to make the best out of the situation. After FDR revoked the order, internees returned to their communities and resumed their lives, still intent on pursuing the American dream from which they had been so harshly excluded. However, some 8,000 Japanese Americans renounced their U.S. citizenship and repatriated to Japan in 1945.

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December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. This surprise air and naval assault killed more than 2,400 Americans, seriously damaged ships and aircraft, and abruptly ended isolationism by prompting U.S. entry into World War II.

Causes: This surprise air and naval assault killed more than 2,400 Americans and seriously damaged ships and aircraft. The attack on Pearl Harbor abruptly ended isolationism and rallied the American public behind President Roosevelt. An overwhelming majority of Americans now considered entry into the war as necessary to preserve freedom and democracy against assaults from fascist and militaristic nations. The next day, Congress overwhelmingly voted to go to war with Japan, and on December 11 Germany and Italy, upholding the Tripartite Pact, declared war on the United States in response.

Effects: The entering of the US into WW2 led to US military involvement in the war with troops actively fighting against the Axis Powers and Japan. It also led to an organized homefront which caused rapid industrial wartime efforts as factories and companies supported the manufacturing side of the war. Women now had the opportunity to take on responsibilities men vacated, providing the initial foundation for the women in the workforce. This also led to intense racial discrimination against Japanese Americans and the development of internment camps.

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The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Monday, January 6, 1941.

Causes: A great number of Americans remained committed to isolationism and the belief that the United States should stay out of the war. President Roosevelt understood Britain’s desperate need for American support and attempted to convince the American people to come to the aid of their closest ally. Roosevelt's hope was to provide a rationale for why the United States should abandon the isolationist policies that emerged from World War I. In helping Britain, President Roosevelt stated, the United States was fighting for the universal freedoms that all people deserved.

Effects: As America entered the war these "four freedoms" - the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear - symbolized America's war aims and gave hope in the following years to a war-wearied people because they knew they were fighting for freedom.

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March 1941 law permitting the United States to lend or lease military equipment and other commodities to Great Britain and its allies. Its passage marked the end of American neutrality before the U.S. entered World War II.

Causes: President Roosevelt, who favored U.S. intervention in WWII, advocated creating the program as a way to provide indirect support for the Allies without engaging the U.S. in a war for which there was not yet overwhelming public support. Lend-Lease was designed to serve America's interest in defeating Nazi Germany without entering the war until the American military and public was prepared to fight.

Effects: Lend-Lease effectively ended the United States' pretense of neutrality which had been enshrined in the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s. It was a decisive step away from non-interventionist policy and toward open support for the Allies.

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Isolationist organization founded by Senator Gerald Nye in 1940 to keep the United States out of World War II.

Causes: By the spring of 1940, German armies had launched a lightning war across Europe, defeating and occupying Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. With German victories mounting, committed opponents of American involvement in foreign wars organized the America First Committee. America First tapped into the feeling of isolationism and concern among a diverse group of Americans who did not want to get dragged into another foreign war.

Effects: The committee claimed a membership of 800,000 and attracted such leaders as General Robert E. Wood, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, and Senator Gerald P. Nye. Though failing in its campaigns to block the Lend-Lease Act, the use of the U.S. Navy for convoys, and the repeal of the Neutrality Act, its public pressure undoubtedly discouraged greater direct military aid to Great Britain. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the committee dissolved and urged its members to support the war effort.

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Legislation passed between 1935 and 1937 to make it more difficult for the United States to become entangled in overseas conflicts. The Neutrality Acts reflected the strength of isolationist sentiment in 1930s America.

Causes: The experience of World War I reinforced a brand of political isolationism, which was reflected in an outpouring of antiwar sentiments in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Nye Committee hearings were a major proponent of ensuring the US stayed out of the militaristic side of the war. Roosevelt portrayed all U.S. assistance to Britain as a way to prevent American military intervention by allowing Great Britain to defeat the Germans on its own.

Effects: The 1935 act, passed by Congress on August 31, 1935, imposed a general embargo on trading in arms and war materials with all parties in a war. It also declared that American citizens traveling on warring ships traveled at their own risk. This helped the US stay out of WW2.