Period 7B Part II (Chapters 11-15) Flashcards
Dawes Plan
Established a cycle of payments flowing from the United States to Germany and from Germany to the Allies. U.S. banks would lend Germany huge sums to rebuild its economy and pay reparations to Britain and France. In turn, Britain and France would use the reparations money to pay their war debts to the United States.
Fascism
The idea that people should glorify their nation and their race through aggressive shows of force.
Neutrality Acts
To ensure that U.S. policy would be strictly neutral if war broke out in Europe, Congress adopted a series of neutrality acts, which Roosevelt signed with some reluctance. Each law applied to belligerent nations, ones that the president proclaimed to be at war.
1935: Authorized the president to prohibit all arms shipments and to forbid U.S. citizens from travel on the ships of belligerents.
1936: Forbade the extension of loans and credits to belligerents.
1937: Forbade the shipment of arms to the opposing sides in the civil war in Spain.
America First Committee
In 1940, after World War II had begun in Asia and Europe, isolationists became alarmed by Roosevelt’s pro-British policies. To mobilize American public opinion against war, they formed the American First Committee and engaged speakers such as Charles Lindbergh to travel the country warning against reengaging in Europe’s troubles.
Four Freedoms
Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Lend-Lease Act
Ended the cash-and-carry requirement of the Neutrality Act and permitted Britain to obtain all the U.S. arms it needed on credit.
Pearl Harbor
On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, while most American sailors were still asleep in their bunks, Japanese planes from aircraft carriers flew over Pearl Harbor, bombing every ship in sight. The surprise attack lasted less than two hours. In that time, Japan killed 2,400 Americans, wounded almost 1,200 people, sank or severely damaged 20 warships, and destroyed approximately 150 airplanes.
War Production Board
Established to manage war industries.
Manhattan Project
The top-secret project that produced the first atomic weapons.
Double V
Civil rights leaders encouraged African Americans to adopt the “Double V” slogan: victory over fascism abroad and the victory of equality at home.
Braceros
Mexican farmworkers who were allowed to enter the United States as temporary residents in the harvest season without going through formal immigration procedures and who were not welcomed to stay permanently.
Korematsu v. United States
The Supreme Court upheld the government’s internment policy as justified in wartime. In 1988, the federal government agreed the ruling was unjust and awarded financial compensation to those still alive who had been interned.
Rosie the Riveter
A figure used to encourage women to take defense jobs.
Executive Order 8802
Banned discriminatory employment practices by federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work. The order also established the Fair Employment Practices Commission to enforce the new policy.
Executive Order 9066
Authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to “relocation centers” further inland, resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Strategic Bombing
The U.S. bombers carried out daylight “strategic bombing” raids on military targets in Europe, while the Germans and Britain attacked population centers.
D-Day
The Allied drive to liberate France began on June 6th, 1944, with the largest invasion by sea in history. On D-Day, as the invasion date was called, British, Canadian, and U.S. forces under the command of General Eisenhower secured several beachheads on the Normandy coast.
Battle of Midway
Intercepting and decoding Japanese messages enabled U.S. forces to destroy four Japanese carriers and 300 planes in this decisive battle on June 4th-7th, which ended Japanese expansion.
Island Hopping
In this strategy, commanders bypassed strongly held Japanese posts and isolated them with naval and air power.
Hiroshima
On August 6th, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, a Japanese city, and on August 9th, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. About 250,000 Japanese died, either immediately or after a prolonged period of suffering, as a result of the two nuclear bombs.
Yalta Conference
In February 1945, the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) conferred again at Yalta, agreeing on several policies to guide them after victory in Europe:
- The Allies would divide Germany into occupation zones. Germany would lose about 1/4 of its territories to Poland and the Soviet Union as their boundaries were moved westward.
- The liberated countries of Eastern Europe would hold free elections, even though Soviet troops controlled this territory.
- The Soviets would enter the war against Japan, which they did on August 8th, 1945.
- The Soviets would control the southern half of Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands in the Pacific and have special concessions in Manchuria.
- Countries would hold a conference in San Francisco to form a new world peace organization (the future United Nations).
Potsdam Conference
Truman, Attlee, and Stalin met in Potsdam and agreed:
1. To demand that Japan surrender unconditionally
2. That Germany and Berlin would be divided into four zones of occupation.
United Nations
Meeting in 1944 at Dumbarton Oaks near Washington, D.C., Allied representatives from the U.S., the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China proposed an international organization to be called the United Nations. Then, in April of 1945, delegates from 50 nations assembled in San Francisco, where they took only eight weeks to draft a charter for the United Nations. The Senate quickly voted to accept U.S. involvement in the UN. On October 24th, 1945, the UN came into existence when the majority of member-nations ratified its charter.
