Download Goal 8 54. World War I: 1914 to 1918 war, fought primarily in Europe

Goal 8
54. World War I: 1914 to 1918 war, fought primarily in Europe and the Atlantic between the Central Powers of Germany, Austria and their allies and the Triple Entente
of Britain, France, Russia, and their allies. The US attempted to avoid involvement in the war due to strong isolationist tendencies amongst the population, but was
pulled into the war in 1917 when Germany began to use unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic against ships ferrying war supplies from the US to Britain and
attempted to entice Mexico through the Zimmermann Telegram into attacking the US. American forces turned the tide of the war, leading to Germany's defeat. Long
term, the war resulted in the US becoming the world's top economic power due to the scale of destruction in Europe.
55. Fourteen Points / Treaty of Versailles: at the end of WWI, President Woodrow Wilson urged his European allies to incorporate his Fourteen Points, a series of
suggestions designed to prevent future wars, into the peace treaty and to offer Germany favorable terms in order to ensure that no hostilities lingered which might lead
to another conflict; the Allies, however, wanted to see Germany punished and so ignored most of Wilson's suggestions and wrote the Treaty of Versailles which placed
all blame on Germany for WWI and forced Germany to pay reparations as well as give up territory and demilitarize. The Treaty, as Wilson feared, left Germany bitter
and would contribute to the outbreak of WWII just 20 years later. The only major contribution incorporated from Wilson's Fourteen Points was the creation of a League
of Nations whose purpose was to arbitrate international disputes, but the US Senate refused to approve US membership in the League, preferring instead to return to an
isolationist stance following the war.
56. Espionage and Sedition Acts: The 1917 Espionage Act prohibited any attempt to interfere with military operations, support America's enemies during wartime,
promote insubordination in the military, or interfere with military recruitment while the 1918 Sedition Act limited freedom of speech by making it illegal to publicly
express any opposition to the war; both acts placed serious restrictions on civil rights during times of war or national crisis.
57. Schenck v. US / Eugene Debs: Charles Schenck, a socialist, had been sending pamphlets to men urging them not to report if drafted; he was convicted of violating
the Espionage Act, but appealed his case all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1919, the Court upheld Schenck's conviction ruling that an individual’s freedom of speech
can be limited by the government when it presents a "clear and present danger" to the US. Similarly, American Socialist Party leader and former presidential candidate
Eugene Debs was convicted of violating the Sedition Act, with the Court once again upholding the conviction. In both cases, the men's association with socialism
contributed significantly to their convictions, as Americans were growing increasingly suspicious of socialism following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
Goal 9
58. 1920s Economy: throughout the 1920s, the federal government took an increasingly "hands off" or laissez faire approach to the economy, choosing to loosen
restrictions and not interfere with businesses; the result was a booming economy for many (although not farmers, who suffered from the gains of urban factory workers,
which drove up the cost of manufactured goods). As the average standard of living rose, Americans began to buy more luxury goods, especially name brand items
which they saw advertised in popular magazines and newspapers.
59. Easy credit and Speculation: the 1920s saw a booming economy in large part thanks to changes in banking practices which allowed the average consumer much
easier access to credit, allowing them to purchase goods without having to save the money first. Many used this credit, however, to play the stock market, using
borrowed money to purchase stocks in the hopes that the stocks' value would go up faster than the interest rates on their loans, a practice known as buying on the
margin; while some became millionaires this way, the practice led to a volatile stock market which ultimately collapsed in October 1929, triggering the Great
Depression.
60. Harlem Renaissance: African American cultural movement of the 1920s, centered on the Harlem neighborhood of New York City; typified by the literature of
authors such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, and the jazz music of performers like Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. In many ways, the Harlem
Renaissance both celebrated African American culture's distinctiveness and introduced it to a white audience for the first time.
61. The Scopes Monkey Trial: 1925 legal case where Tennessee school teacher John Scopes was placed on trial and convicted for violating state law by teaching
evolution to his students; the trial engrossed the entire nation as the forces of science and the "modern" world faced off against religious fundamentalism, which had
seen tremendous growth as people felt increasingly threatened by new scientific ideas which challenged their long held religious beliefs
62. Mass Media: during the 1920s and '30s, Americans became increasingly influenced by the mass media outlets of radio and motion pictures; both served to
homogenize American culture by exposing people across the country to the same fads and fashions in music, clothing, hairstyles, etc.
63. Flappers: young women during the 1920s who rebelled against the moral standards of their parents' generation by smoking, drinking, dancing to jazz music, dating
without chaperones, and wearing short skirts and short hair; representative of the rapidly changing moral standards in America, a trend which would only increase
throughout the twentieth century.
64. Great Depression: Severe economic recession which began in late 1929 and did not end until the outbreak of WWII; triggered by stock market speculation and
overproduction of consumer goods (more goods mere being manufactured than there was demand for). At its peak in 1932/33, unemployment in the US may have
reached as high as 40%.
65. Hoover’s Response to Depression: President Herbert Hoover hesitated to get the federal government immediately involved in providing any relief to the American
public, choosing instead to encourage businesses to voluntarily take losses rather than lay off employees and cut back production; Hoover also adhered to the policy of
rugged individualism, or the idea that people should take care of themselves and fix their own problems, believing that if the government began any sort of public
welfare programs then people would lose any motivation for self-reliance.
66. Franklin Roosevelt’s Response to Depression: Hoover's successor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose to focus on providing direct government relief to those most
in need, while also developing programs aimed at putting the nation's economy on the path to recovery, and instituting reforms which would safeguard against future
economic recessions. Roosevelt's plan, however, relied on heavy deficit spending, or the government going into debt due to spending more on programs than it earned
in tax revenue.
67. The New Deal: Roosevelt’s massive legislative program aimed at addressing the Great Depression; included programs designed to put people back to work through
the construction of various public works project, programs designed at bank and stock market reform, and the creation of a Social Security system to provide for people
in their old age, among others.
Goal 10
68. Fascism / Nazism: aggressively totalitarian forms of government utilized by Benito Mussolini in Italy (Fascism) and Adolf Hitler in Germany (Nazism);
characterized by the development of strong militaries and imperialist ambitions for world domination.
69. Appeasement: the practice of giving an enemy the concessions he wants in order to avoid having to go to war; Britain and France practiced a policy of appeasement
with Hitler's Nazi Germany in the 1930s, allowing him to remilitarize, annex Austria, and, through the Munich Pact, allowing him to forcibly seize the Sudetenland
region of Czechoslovakia. Finally, after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Britain and France realized that appeasement was not working and declared war
on Germany.
70. Neutrality Acts / Lend-Lease Act: to support US isolationist policy and prevent the US from becoming entangled in another European war like had happened during
WWI, Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts which banned the US from selling weapons to countries at war and required nations at war who purchased nonmilitary goods to pay for them in cash and transport them on their own ships. To get around these restrictions and provide military aid to the British in the early days of
WWII, President Roosevelt devised programs which traded destroyers in exchange for American use of British naval bases and the Lend-Lease Act, in which the US
loaned or leased weapons to the British
71. Pearl Harbor: sneak attack by Japanese forces against the US naval facilities at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Dec. 7. 1941, forcing the US to enter WWII. Japan staged
the attack because they feared that the US would continue to act to prevent Japan from establishing an empire in the Pacific and East Asia, as they had when the US cut
off Japanese access to American steel, oil, and rubber following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
72. D-Day: June 6, 1944; massive amphibious invasion of France by Allied forces, designed to open a second front in Europe and relieve the pressure on the Soviet
Union by the German army. Forcing the Germans to divide their resources over two fronts brought the European portion of WWII to a rapid close, with Germany
surrendering less than a year later.
73. Island Hopping: US strategy of targeting only strategically important islands for invasion, rather than fighting the Japanese for control of every island in the Pacific;
the US plan was to only fight for islands from which heavy bombers could be launched to conduct raids on the Japanese home islands.
74. Turning Points in World War II: In Europe - Operation Torch was the Allied invasion of North Africa which first put Germany on the defensive; the Battle of
Stalingrad in the Soviet Union broke the German armies on the Eastern Front; the Battle of the Bulge broke the German armies on the Western front; In the Pacific The Battle of Midway shattered the Japanese navy and put Japan on the defensive for the remainder of the war
75. Manhattan Project: top-secret US scientific program tasked with the development of an atomic bomb; the weapons developed under the Manhattan Project would
be used to end WWII when President Truman elected to use them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing the Japanese to surrender
76. War on the Home Front: WWII had far-reaching impacts on the US beyond just the military; women entered the industrial workforce and assumed non-combat
military roles; the Bracero Program recruited Latin American immigrants as migrant farm workers, dramatically increasing Hispanic immigration to the US; and after
the war, the GI Bill helped assimilate returning soldiers back into society by providing scholarships for them to gain a college degree and low-interest loans for
purchasing suburban homes or opening small businesses, leading to tremendous growth in the middle-class and a baby boom that rapidly increased the population of the
US.
77. Japanese Internment: during WWII, over 100,000 Japanese-Americans living along the West Coast and in Hawaii were detained by the US government and
relocated to internment camps due to fears about potential espionage and sabotage; these people were not mistreated, but they did lose their jobs, homes, and businesses
and were detained against their will for over three years. One of the detainees, Fred Korematsu, sued the government in the case of Korematsu v United States for
violating his civil rights; the Supreme Court ruled that, while the detention was probably unnecessary, it was permissible for the federal government to detain
individuals in time of war or national emergency in the interest of protecting national security.
78. Containment Policy: anti-communist policy adopted by the US in which the aim was to limit communism to the nations already "infected" and to do all within our
power to prevent it from spreading to new nations. In general, the US was willing to admit that it could do little about communism in the areas where it already existed
without running the risk of open war, so it focused on "containing" it instead. Closely associated with domino theory, or the belief that if you allowed one country to
fall to communism in a region, then its neighboring countries would also fall to communism, much like a row of dominos topples after you push the first one over.
79. Truman Doctrine: pledge by President Harry Truman that the US would come to the aid of nations in Europe who were threatened by communist overthrow; first
put to the test in Greece and Turkey, where massive US foreign aid helped those governments suppress communist rebels; later expanded to include the Middle East by
President Dwight Eisenhower during the 1950s in what is known as the Eisenhower Doctrine, and further expanded in the 1980s by President Ronald Reagan to
include providing American aid to rebel groups attempting to overthrow communist regimes in the Reagan Doctrine.
80. Marshall Plan: massive US economic aid provided to the nations of Southern and Western Europe following WWII; the US provided the financial resources to
rebuild Europe's infrastructure and get European economies back up and running. The purpose of the aid was to forestall the spread of communism by preventing the
conditions in which the poor and disenfranchised might find communist ideologies appealing. The plan was very expensive, but ultimately quite successful, ensuring
the US many allies in the region.
81. Post-WWII international organizations: NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is a mutual defense alliance between the democracies of North America and
Western Europe, which was aimed at discouraging the Soviets from attacking any of the smaller countries of Europe out of fear of war with the US; the Soviets
countered by creating the Warsaw Pact, an alliance of Eastern European communist states. NATO still exists today, but in a different capacity since the Soviet Union
no longer exists. SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organization) likewise was a mutual defense treaty designed to effect the same purpose in South East Asia. The
United Nations, however, was created to replace the failed League of Nations as an international peacekeeping agency and offer a forum where nations could resolve
their disputes without going to war and cooperate in providing aid to under-developed nations and similar peaceful endeavors.
82. Korean War: 1950 to 1953 civil war on the Korean peninsula in East Asia between the communist state of North Korea (backed by their communist Chinese and
Soviet allies) and the republican state of South Korea (backed by the US and its allies). When the North invaded the South in 1950, the US convinced the United
Nations to authorize a military response to protect the independence of the South. After three years of fighting, during which US President Truman decided against
using atomic bombs against the North and China, a cease-fire was agreed upon which still holds even today, re-establishing the border between the North and South in
roughly the same position as before the war and creating a demilitarized zone (DMZ) along the border, manned by US peace-keeping forces. Generally considered a
Cold War victory for the US, since the South was protected and communism was contained.
83. Cuban Missile Crisis: 1962 crisis between the US and Soviet Union over the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, less than 100 miles off the US coast; the
US expressed a willingness to go to war if the missiles were not removed and many Americans began preparations for a third World War. After a two-week standoff, a
secret agreement was reached wherein the Soviets would remove their missiles from Cuba and the US would follow suit by removing American missiles positioned
near the Soviet Union in Turkey. The conflict made President Kennedy appear strong against communism, but cost Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev his position as
head of the Soviet state for his apparent weakness in the face of American military opposition.