Cold War

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Capitalism

Capitalism

An economic system in which private individuals and corporations control the means of production and use them to earn profits.

Communism

An economic and political system based on one-party government and state ownership of property.

Containment

The blocking of another nation's attempts to spread it's influence - especially the efforts of the United States to block the spread of Soviet influence during the late 1940s to early 1950s.

Satellite Nations

A country that is dominated politically and economically by another nation.

Iron Curtain

A phrase used by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the imaginary line that separated Communist countries in the Soviet bloc of Eastern Europe from the countries in Western Europe.

Truman Doctrine

A U.S. policy, announced by President Harry Truman in 1947, of providing economic and military aid to free nations threatened by internal or external opponents.

Marshall Plan

The program, proposed by Secretary of State George Marshall in 1947, under which the United States supplied economic aid to European nations to help them rebuild after World War II.

Berlin Airlift

A 327-day operation in which U.S. and British planes flew food and supplies into West Berlin after the Soviets blockaded the city in 1948.

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

Military alliance created in 1949 made up of 12 non-Communist countries including the United States that support each other if attacked.

Warsaw Pact

A Military alliance formed in 1955 by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites.

McCarthyism

The attacks, often unsubstantiated, by Senator Joseph McCarthy and others on people suspected of being Communist in the early 1950s.

Red Scare

Promotion of fear of the potential threat of Communism in the United States.

38th Parallel

Latitude line/boundary between North and South Korea.

John F. Kennedy (JFK)

35th President of the United States. Was in office during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Cuban Missile Crisis and the building of the Berlin Wall.

Fidel Castro

Communist dictator of Cuba who came into power in 1959.

Bay of Pigs

Failed CIA operation in April 1961 to overthrow Castro and take over Cuba using Cuban exiles.

Cuban Missile Crisis

13 Day period in October 1962 when Soviet nuclear missiles were pointed at the United States in Cuba and was the closest the Cold War ever came to an actual fighting war.

Berlin Wall

A concrete wall that separated East Berlin and West Berlin from 1961-1989, built by Communist East German government to prevent its citizens from fleeing to the West.

Korean War

A conflict between North Korea and South Korea, lasting from 1950-1953, in which the United States along with other UN countries, fought on the side of the South Koreans while China fought on the side of the North Koreans.

China

Asian nation that turns to Communism in 1949 after Mao Zedong comes into power and fights with the North in the Korean War.

Hollywood 10

10 witnesses from the film industry who refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of Communist influence in Hollywood.

Joseph Stalin

Soviet leader following World War II, dies in the middle of the Korean War in 1953.

Harry Truman

33rd President of the United States. He fired General Douglass MacArthur over disagreements on the Korean War.

Mao Zedong

Communist leader of China who comes into power in 1949.

Chiang Kai-shek

Nationalist leader of China who even with aid from the United States cannot stop the spread of Communism.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

Married couple who become the first U.S. citizens put to death for espionage in 1953. They were charged with passing Atomic Bomb secrets to the Soviets.

Blacklist

A list of about 500 actors, writers, producers and directors who were not allowed to work on Hollywood films because of their alleged Communist connections.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

A congressional committee that investigated Communist influence inside and outside the U.S. government in the years following World War II.

Brinkmanship

The practice of threatening an enemy with massive military retaliation for any aggression.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

A U.S. agency created to gather secret information about foreign governments.

Reagan Doctrine

US would support freedom fighters trying to overthrow Communist regimes; applied in Nicaragua, Angola, Cambodia and Afghanistan

Potsdam Conference

(1945) a meeting of Allied leaders near Berlin to address issues about the post-World War II Europe

Sputnik

First artificial Earth satellite, it was launched by Moscow in 1957 and sparked U.S. fears of Soviet dominance in technology and outer space. It led to the creation of NASA and the space race.

Nikita Khrushchev

Soviet leader from 1955-1964, responsible for putting missiles in Cuba.

Domino Theory

The idea that if a nation falls under communist control, nearby nations will also fall under communist control

17th Parallel

Line of latitude that separated North and South Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh

Communist leader of North Vietnam, led the fight against the French and then the Americans to reunify the country

Lyndon B. Johnson

Became president after Kennedy's assassination and reelected in 1964; committed the US more heavily to fighting in Vietnam after the Gulf of Tonkin incident; decided not to run for President in 1968 due to the unpopularity of the Vietnam War.

MAD

Mutually Assured Destruction: the idea that the superpowers had so many nuclear weapons that they would completely destroy each other in a war

George Kennan

American advisor, diplomat, political scientist, and historian, best known as "the father of containment" and as a key figure in the emergence of the Cold War. Wrote the "Long Telegram" advising that the Soviet Union couldn't be dealt with as a normal government

Yalta Conference

1945 meeting between US president FDR, British Prime Minister(PM) Winston Churchill, and Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin (("the Big Three") to plan for ending the war and the post-war period

Space race

the competition between the USSR and the USA regarding achievements in the field of space exploration.