Am Literature Kennistoets Flashcards
Theodore Roosevelt
26th President of the USA. Historians admire Roosevelt for rooting out corruption in his administration, but are critical of his 1909 libel lawsuits against the World and the News. His face was carved into Mount Rushmore alongside those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.
WWI Lusitania
British ocean liner, launched in 1906, that a German submarine sank in World War I, causing a major diplomatic uproar.
Henry Ford
American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and the sponsor, not developer, of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. He developed and manufactured the first automobile that many middle class Americans could afford. In doing so, Ford converted the automobile from an expensive curiosity into a practical conveyance that would profoundly impact the landscape of the 20th Century. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry.
Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. During the 19th century, alcoholism, family violence, and saloon-based political corruption led activists, led by pietistic Protestants, to end the liquor (and beer) trade to cure the ill society and weaken the political opposition. Among other things, this led many communities in the late 19th and early 20th century to introduce alcohol prohibition, with the subsequent enforcement in law becoming a hotly debated issue. Prohibition supporters, called drys, presented it as a victory for public morals and health.
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties is a term for Western society and Western culture during the 1920s. It was a period of sustained economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the United States and Western Europe, particularly. In the French, the decade was known as the “années folles” (“Crazy Years”), emphasizing the era’s social, artistic and cultural dynamism. Jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined the modern look for British and American women, and Art Deco peaked. This era saw the large-scale use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, radio, and electric appliances. Aviation became a business. The economies saw rapid industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand, plus significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media focused on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars, as cities rooted for their home teams and filled the new palatial cinemas and gigantic sports stadiums. In most major democratic states, women won the right to vote.
D-Day
The Normandy landings (codenamed Operation Neptune) were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 (termed D-Day) of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, and contributed to the Allied victory on the Western Front.
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941 was the immediate cause of the United States’ entry into World War II.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower was an American politician and soldier who served as the 34th President of the United States from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army during World War II and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45 from the Western Front. In 1951, he became the first Supreme Commander of NATO
Nagasaki
During World War II, the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made Nagasaki the second and, to date, last city in the world to experience a nuclear attack.
