Chapter 27 Vocab

Question 1

Law authorizing the construction of a national highway system. Promoted as essential to national defense and an impetus to economic growth, the national highway system accelerated the movement of people and goods and changed the nature of American communities.

Answer 1

Interstate Highway and Defense System Act of 1956

Question 2

Term for the standoff between the United States and Soviet Union based on the assumption that a nuclear first strike by either nation would result in massive retaliation and mutual destruction for each. Despite this, both countries pursued an ever-escalating arms race.

Answer 2

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

Question 3

Theory of containment articulated by President Eisenhower in the context of Vietnam. He warned that the fall of a non-Communist government to communism would trigger the spread of communism to neighboring countries.

Answer 3

Domino theory

Question 4

Uprising led by Fidel Castro that drove out U.S.-supported dictator Fulgencio Batista and eventually allied Cuba with the Soviet Union.

Answer 4

Cuban Revolution

Question 5

President Eisenhower’s 1957 declaration that the United States would actively combat communism in the Middle East. Following this doctrine, Congress approved the policy, and Eisenhower sent aid to Jordan in 1957 and troops to Lebanon in 1958.

Answer 5

Eisenhower Doctrine

Question 6

A term President Eisenhower used to refer to the military establishment and defense contractors who, he warned, exercised undue influence in city, state, and federal government.

Answer 6

Military-industrial complex

Question 7

1954 Supreme Court ruling that overturned the “separate but equal” precedent established in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. The Court declared that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal and thus violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

Answer 7

Brown v. Board of Education

Question 8

Yearlong boycott of Montgomery’s segregated bus system in 1955–1956 by the city’s African American population. The boycott brought Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence and ended in victory when the Supreme Court declared segregated transportation unconstitutional.

Answer 8

Montgomery bus boycott