Final Exam Flashcards
iron curtain
term coined by Winston Churchill to describe the cold war between western Europe and the Soviet Union’s Eastern European satellites
containment
U.S strategy in the cold war that called for containing Soviet expansion; originally devised in 1947 by U.S diplomat George F. Kennan
No Child Left Behind
President George W. Bush’s education reform plan that required states to set and meet learning standards for students and make sure that all students were “proficient” in reading and writing by 2014. States had to submit anneal reports of students’ standardized test scores. Teachers were required to be “proficient” in their subject area. Schools who failed to show progress would face sanctions. States criticized the lack of funding for remedial programs and noted that poor school districts would find it very difficult to meet the new guidelines.
baby boom
marked higher birth rate in the years following the Second World War; led to the biggest demographic “bubble” in American history.
stagflation
During the Nixon administration, the economy experienced inflation and a recession at the same time, which is syndrome that defies the orthodox laws of economics. Economists named this phenomenon “stagflation”.
Vietnamization
President Nixon’s policy of equipping and training the South Vietnamese so that they could assume ground combat operations in the place of American soldiers. Nixon hoped that a reduction in US forces in Vietnam would defuse the anti-war movement.
Kent State
During the spring of 1970, students on college campuses across the country protested the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. At Kent State University, the National Guard attempted to quell the rioting students. the guardsmen panicked and shot at rock-throwing demonstrators. Four student bystanders were killed.
Pentagon Papers
Informal name for the Defense Department’s secret history of the Vietnam conflict; leaked to the press by former official Daniel Ellsberg and published in the New York Times in 1971.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down racial segregation in public education and declared “separate but equal” unconstitutional.
Iran-Contra Affair
Scandal of the second Reagan administration involving sale of arms to Iran in partial exchange for release of hostages in Lebanon and use of the arms money to aid the Contras in Nicaragua, which had been expressly forbidden by Congress.
