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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1933-45

The year was 1933. The country had felt the effects of the Great Depression for four years. Franklin Delano
Roosevelt had just taken office as President of the United States, promising a "New Deal” for the American
people. In his acceptance speech, Roosevelt addressed the problems of the depression by telling the American
people that, "I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people." The New Deal Roosevelt
had promised the American people began to take shape immediately after his inauguration in March 1933. The
New Deal took action to bring about immediate economic relief in areas such as industry, agriculture, finance,
waterpower, labor and housing. Later, a second New Deal was to evolve; it included union protection
programs, the Social Security Act, and programs to aid tenant farmers and migrant workers. Many of the New
Deal acts or agencies came to be known by their acronyms. For example, the Works Progress Administration
was known as the WPA, while the Civilian Conservation Corps was known as the CCC. Many people remarked
that the New Deal programs reminded them of alphabet soup. By 1939, the New Deal had run its course. In the
short term, New Deal programs helped improve the lives of people suffering from the events of the depression.
In the long run, New Deal programs set a precedent for the federal government to play a key role in the
economic and social affairs of the nation.

Alphabet Agencies

The alphabet agencies (also New Deal agencies) were the U.S. federal government agencies created as part of
the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The earliest agencies were created to combat the Great
Depression in the United States and were established during Roosevelt's first one hundred days in office in
1933; many were created throughout the 1930s, such the United States Housing Authority and the Federal
Loan Agency, and some during the 1940s for the war, such as the Office of War Information and Office of
Censorship. In total, at least one hundred offices were created during Roosevelt's terms of office. While
previously all monetary appropriations had been separately passed by acts of congress, as part of their power
of the purse; the National Industrial Recovery Act allowed Roosevelt to allocate $3.3 billion without Congress
(as much as had been previously spent by government in ten years time), through executive orders and other
means. These powers were used to create many of the alphabet agencies. Other laws were passed allowing the
new bureaus to pass their own directives within a wide sphere of authority. After the National Industrial
Recovery Act was found to be unconstitutional, many of the agencies created under it remained. Some
alphabet agencies were established by Congress, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority. Others were
established through Roosevelt executive orders, such as the Works Progress Administration and the Office of
Censorship, or were part of larger programs such as the many that belonged to the Works Progress
Administration. The agencies were sometimes referred to as alphabet soup. Some of the agencies still exist
today, while others have merged with other departments and agencies or were abolished, or found
unconstitutional.

AAA

The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) restricted agricultural production in the New Deal era by paying farmers
to reduce crop area. Its purpose was to reduce crop surplus so as to effectively raise the value of crops, thereby
giving farmers relative stability again. The farmers were paid subsidies by the federal government for letting a
portion of their fields lay fallow. The Act created a new agency, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, to
oversee the distribution of the subsidies. It is considered the first modern U.S. farm bill.
By the time the Agricultural Adjustment Administration began its operations, the agricultural season for many
crops was already under way. The agency oversaw a large-scale destruction of existing cotton crops and
livestock in an attempt to reduce surpluses. No other crops or animals were affected in 1933, but six million
piglets and 220,000 pregnant cows were slaughtered in the AAA's effort to raise livestock prices. Many cotton
farmers plowed under a quarter of their crop in accordance with the AAA's plans. Large farms benefited from
the AAA policy of reducing surpluses, having "gross farm income increase by 50% during the first three years of
the New Deal". This was achieved because large landowners would evict tenant farmers and sharecroppers in
order to keep them from farming their leased acreage; the landowner would then receive the payment for not
farming the land. Furthermore, those same land owners, having forced out some of the competition, would
then use those displaced farmers as cheap farm labor.
The tax underwriting the AAA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the case United States v.
Butler, because, among other stated reasons, it taxed one farmer in order to pay another. Farm leaders

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supported the Butler decision. Congress later achieved part of the original Act's goals with the Soil
Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1935 until the enactment of a second AAA on December 15, 1937.
This second AAA was funded from general taxation, and therefore acceptable to the Supreme Court.

NRA

The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a New Deal agency in the United States. Created under the
National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933, it was one of the first major pieces of the New Deal program of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As part of the "First New Deal," the NRA was based on the idea that the Great
Depression was caused by market instability and that government intervention was necessary to balance the
interests of farmers, business and labor. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which created the NRA,
declared that codes of fair competition should be developed through public hearings, and gave the
Administration the power to develop voluntary agreements with industries regarding work hours, pay rates,
and price fixing. The NRA allowed industries to create "codes of fair competition," which were intended to
reduce "destructive competition" and to help workers by setting minimum wages and maximum weekly hours.
It also allowed industry heads to collectively set price floors.
In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously declared in Schechter Poultry Corporation that the NRA was
unconstitutional, ruling that it infringed the separation of powers under the United States Constitution. The
NRA quickly stopped operations, but many of its labor provisions reappeared in the National Labor Relations
Act (Wagner Act), passed later the same year.
The NRA, symbolized by the Blue Eagle was popular with workers. The first director of the NRA was Hugh
Samuel Johnson, who called on every business establishment in the nation to accept a stopgap "blanket code":
a minimum wage of between 20 and 45 cents per hour, a maximum workweek of 35 to 45 hours, and the
abolition of child labor. Johnson and Roosevelt contended that the "blanket code" would raise consumer
purchasing power and increase employment. In early 1935 the new chairman, Samuel Williams announced that
the NRA would stop setting prices, but businessmen complained. Chairman Williams told them plainly that,
unless they could prove it would damage business, NRA was going to put an end to price control. Williams said,
"Greater productivity and employment would result if greater price flexibility were attained.
The NRA negotiated specific sets of codes with leaders of the nation's major industries; the most important
provisions were anti-deflationary floors below which no company would lower prices or wages, and
agreements on maintaining employment and production. In a remarkably short time, the NRA won agreements
from almost every major industry in the nation. Six months after the NRA went into effect, industrial
production dropped twenty-five percent.
About 23,000,000 people worked under the NRA fair code. However, violations of codes became common and
attempts were made to use the courts to enforce the NRA. The NRA included a multitude of regulations
imposing the pricing and production standards for all sorts of goods and services. Individuals were arrested for
not complying with these codes. For example, a man named Jack Magid was jailed for violating the "Tailor's
Code" by pressing a suit for 35 rather than NRA required 40 cents.

The Blue Eagle

The Blue Eagle, a blue-colored representation of the American "thunderbird," with outspread wings, was a
symbol used in the United States by companies to show compliance with the National Industrial Recovery Act.
It was proclaimed on July 20, 1933, as the symbol of industrial recovery by Hugh Samuel Johnson, the head of
the National Recovery Administration. The design was sketched by Johnson, and based on an
idea utilized by the War Industries Board during World War I.
All companies that accepted President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Re-employment Agreement or a
special Code of Fair Competition were permitted to display a poster showing the Blue Eagle
together with the announcement, "NRA Member. We Do Our Part." Consumers were exhorted
to buy products and services only from companies displaying the Blue Eagle banner. On
September 5, 1935, following the invalidation of the compulsory code system, the emblem
was abolished and its future use as a symbol was prohibited.

The fireside chats

The fireside chats were a series of thirty evening radio speeches given by United States President Franklin D.
Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944.

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Chronological list of Presidential fireside chats

•

On the Bank Crisis - Sunday, March 12, 1933

•

Outlining the New Deal Program - Sunday, May 7, 1933

•

On the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program - Monday, July 24, 1933

•

On the Currency Situation - Sunday, October 22, 1933

•

Review of the Achievements of the Seventy-third Congress - Thursday, June 28, 1934

•

On Moving Forward to Greater Freedom and Greater Security - Sunday, September 30, 1934

•

On the Works Relief Program - Sunday, April 28, 1935

•

On Drought Conditions - Sunday, September 6, 1936

•

On the Reorganization of the Judiciary - Tuesday, March 9, 1937

•

On Legislation to be Recommended to the Extraordinary Session of the Congress - Tuesday, October

12, 1937

•

On the Unemployment Census - Sunday, November 14, 1937

•

On Economic Conditions - Thursday, April 14, 1938

•

On Party Primaries - Friday, June 24, 1938

•

On the European War - Sunday, September 3, 1939

•

On National Defense - Sunday, May 26, 1940

•

On National Security - Sunday, December 29, 1940

•

Announcing Unlimited National Emergency - Tuesday, May 27, 1941 (the longest fireside chat)

•

On Maintaining Freedom of the Seas - Thursday, September 11, 1941

•

On the Declaration of War with Japan - Tuesday, December 9, 1941

•

On Progress of the War - Monday, February 23, 1942

•

On Our National Economic Policy - Tuesday, April 28, 1942

•

On Inflation and Progress of the War - Monday, September 7, 1942

•

Report on the Home Front - Monday, October 12, 1942

•

On the Coal Crisis - Sunday, May 2, 1943

•

On Progress of War and Plans for Peace - Wednesday, July 28, 1943

•

Opening Third War Loan Drive - Wednesday, September 8, 1943

•

On Tehran and Cairo Conferences - Friday, December 24, 1943

•

State of the Union Message to Congress - Tuesday, January 11, 1944

•

On the Fall of Rome - Monday, June 5, 1944

•

Opening Fifth War Loan Drive - Monday, June 12, 1944

Sometimes beginning his talks with "Good evening, friends", Roosevelt urged listeners to have faith in the
banks and to support his New Deal measures. The "fireside chats" were considered enormously successful and
attracted more listeners than the most popular radio shows during the "Golden Age of Radio." Roosevelt
continued his broadcasts into the 1940s, as Americans turned their attention to World War II. Roosevelt's first
fireside chat was March 12, 1933, which marked the beginning of a series of 31 radio broadcasts to the
American people reassuring them the nation was going to recover and shared his hopes and plans for the
country. The chats ranged from fifteen to forty-five minutes and eighty percent of the words used were in the
one thousand most commonly used words in the English dictionary. By the end of his fireside chats in 1944
almost ninety percent of the country owned radios. FDR was a master of words, inspiring Americans during the
Depression and WWII. FDR was confined to a wheelchair after being paralyzed by polio but aware of the new
mass media power in making politicians look dynamic, the press never showed him in his wheelchair.
Roosevelt's "New Deal" measures angered businesspeople and the wealthy that saw it to be socialist but the
Fireside Chats helped maintain widespread support through the Depression years. Roosevelt sharply
contrasted Hitler and Mussolini in that his statements promoted, rather than attacked, faith in democratic
rights and popular government.

The TVA

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by
congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer
manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly impacted by the

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Great Depression. The TVA was envisioned not only as an electricity provider, but also as a regional economic
development agency that would use federal experts and electricity to rapidly modernize the region's economy
and society. The TVA's jurisdiction covers most of Tennessee, parts of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and
small slices of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. It is a political entity with a territory the size of a major
state, and with some state powers (such as eminent domain), but unlike a state, it has no citizenry or elected
officials. It was the first large regional planning agency of the federal government and remains the largest.

The CCC

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program for unemployed men, focused on
natural resource conservation from 1933 to 1942. As part of the New Deal legislation proposed by U.S.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), the CCC was designed to aid relief of high unemployment stemming from
the Great Depression while carrying out a broad natural resource conservation program on national, state and
municipal lands. Legislation to create the program was introduced by FDR to the 73rd United States Congress
on March 21, 1933, and the Emergency Conservation Work Act, as it was known, was signed into law on March
31, 1933. The CCC became one of the most popular New Deal programs among the general public and
operated in every U.S. state and the territories of Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Members
lived in camps, wore uniforms, and lived under quasi-military discipline. At the time of entry, 70% of enrollees
were malnourished and poorly clothed. Very few had more than a year of high school education; few had work
experience beyond occasional odd jobs. The peace was maintained by the threat of "dishonorable discharge."
There were no reported revolts or strikes.

Wagner Act

The National Labor Relations Act (or Wagner Act) is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with
which employers may react to workers in the private sector that organize labor unions, engage in collective
bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in support of their demands. The Act
does not, on the other hand, cover those workers who are covered by the Railway Labor Act, agricultural
employees, domestic employees, supervisors, independent contractors and some close relatives of individual
employers. It was in a context of severe economic troubles that the Wagner Act came into effect. After a
decade of prosperity, during the Great Depression of the 1930s the nation faced an increasingly high
unemployment rate and a rapidly declining standard of living. The Wagner Act was one of many programs put
in place during the Second New Deal to kick the economy back into order. The Wagner-Connery bill was signed
into law by the 32nd President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt on July 5, 1935. The Act
encouraged the rationalization of commerce and industry by establishing minimum wages and maximum hours
of work. It established a federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), with the power to
investigate and decide on charges of unfair labor practices and to conduct elections in which workers would
have the opportunity to decide whether they wanted to be represented by a union. The board also looked into
matters such as improving personnel by better training and the development of standard procedures in
different work fields. The NLRB was given more extensive powers than the much weaker organization of the
same name established under the National Industrial Recovery Act, which the United States Supreme Court
had declared unconstitutional. Federal interventions to regulate relations between labor and capital were
opposed by many who subscribed to a “laissez faire” attitude towards economic order. Workers’ efforts to
organize in the 1920’s were significantly limited by antitrust laws. The Wagner Act marked a significant change
in government policy towards labor organizations in a context of economic depression.

The Court Packing Plan

In February 1937 President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent to Congress a bill to change the composition of the
federal judiciary. This “court-packing bill” was FDR's attempt to expand the membership of the Supreme Court
so that he could nominate justices who would uphold the constitutionality of New Deal legislation. The
court-packing struggle constitutes a critical episode in Roosevelt's presidency and one of the bitterest clashes
between the judiciary and the executive in American history. The appointment of conservative justices in the
1920s created a majority on the Supreme Court that held a restrictive view of federal regulatory power. In his
1932 election campaign, Roosevelt denounced the Court as too Republican. He feared that the justices would
threaten many reform measures needed to deal with the Depression.

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Despite cases in which the Court upheld reform legislation, the president received a shock on the so-called
Black Monday, 27 May 1935, when the Court delivered three unanimous opinions that struck down key
provisions of the New Deal recovery plan. In Louisville Bank v. Radford, the Court declared unconstitutional an
act that provided mortgage relief to farmers. In Humphrey's Executor v. United States, the Court denied the
president the power to replace members of independent regulatory agencies, thus thwarting his ability to bring
the agencies in line with administration regulatory policies (see Appointment and Removal Power). And in
Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States the Court struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act,
holding that Congress could not delegate such sweeping powers to an executive body (see Delegation of
Powers). The Court also held that the Schechters' poultry business was intrastate commerce and thus not
subject to federal commerce power. Roosevelt was troubled because the three liberal justices—Louis D.
Brandeis, Benjamin N. Cardozo and Harlan F. Stone—voted against the government's position. If the Court
were to apply this approach to all regulatory issues, it would cripple the New Deal. FDR avoided a direct
confrontation with the Court during 1936 because he wanted to prevent giving Republicans a campaign issue in
the presidential election that year. But the Court invalidated several more New Deal programs, including the
Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Bituminous Coal Act and a popular New York minimum-wage
statute. The liberal justices in these cases dissented, and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes had often sided
with them, thus leaving Justice Owen Roberts as the swing vote. Following his landslide electoral victory,
Roosevelt instructed his attorney general, Homer Cummings, to come up with a plan to provide a court
majority that would uphold the constitutionality of his regulatory program. They rejected constitutional
amendment as too slow a process and instead drew up a statute that would add one justice for every Supreme
Court justice over age seventy, up to a total of six, as well as up to forty-four lower court judges. FDR's rationale
was that the older justices could not handle the volume of work, and the new justices would improve the
courts' efficiency.
The court-packing plan was a bombshell when Roosevelt announced it on 5 February 1937; a political firestorm
ensued. Republicans, the leaders of the organized bar, Southern and moderate Democrats, and newspaper
editors condemned the proposal. Even the liberal Supreme Court justices denounced the plan. Roosevelt,
however, remained firm and appeared to have the votes in Congress. In March, however, a 5-to-4 majority
upheld a Washington minimum wage law that was almost identical to the one struck down the previous year
(West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish), as well as the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB v.
Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.). Justice Owen Roberts' shift doomed the court-packing legislation because
Americans believed that FDR achieved his goals without tampering with tradition. Additionally, Justice Willis
Van Devanter announced that he would retire, providing Roosevelt five sympathetic votes even without
Roberts. The president, however, would not abandon his plan. He lost the legislative battle, but won the war.
His reforms were thereafter upheld by the Supreme Court. It shook the New Deal coalition that FDR had
created, costing him the support of some Democrats, many in the middle class, and some Republicans as well.
It augured an end to the social and economic reforms Roosevelt had begun. It reinforced the American people's
understanding that law and politics should be separated, and that although the Supreme Court was not wholly
above politics, it must not be converted into a political institution.

The WPA

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was a relief measure established in 1935 by executive order as the
Works Progress Administration, and was redesigned in 1939 when it was transferred to the Federal Works
Agency. Headed by Harry L. Hopkins and supplied with an initial congressional appropriation of $4,880,000,000,
it offered work to the unemployed on an unprecedented scale by spending money on a wide variety of
programs, including highways and building construction, slum clearance, reforestation, and rural rehabilitation.
So gigantic an undertaking was inevitably attended by confusion, waste, and political favoritism, yet the 'pump-
priming' effect stimulated private business during the depression years and inaugurated reforms that states
had been unable to subsidize.
Particularly novel were the special programs. The Federal Writers' Project prepared state and regional guide
books, organized archives, indexed newspapers, and conducted useful sociological and historical investigations.
The Federal Arts Project gave unemployed artists the opportunity to decorate hundreds of post offices,
schools, and other public buildings with murals, canvases, and sculptures; musicians organized symphony
orchestras and community singing. The Federal Theatre Project experimented with untried modes, and scores
of stock companies toured the country with repertories of old and new plays, thus bringing drama to
communities where it had been known only through the radio.

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By March, 1936, the WPA rolls had reached a total of more than 3,400,000 persons; after initial cuts in June
1939, it averaged 2,300,000 monthly; and by June 30, 1943, when it was officially terminated, the WPA had
employed more than 8,500,000 different persons on 1,410,000 individual projects, and had spent about $11
billion. During its 8-year history, the WPA built 651,087 miles of highways, roads, and streets; and constructed,
repaired, or improved 124,031 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks, and 853 airport landing fields.

The HOLC

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a New Deal agency established in 1933 by the Homeowners
Refinancing Act under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its purpose was to refinance homes to prevent
foreclosure. It was used to extend loans from shorter loans to fully amortized, longer term loans (typically 20-
25 years). Through its work it granted long term mortgages to over a million people facing the loss of their
homes. The HOLC stopped lending circa 1935, once all the available capital had been spent. HOLC was only
applicable to nonfarm homes, worth less than $20,000. HOLC also assisted mortgage lenders by refinancing
problematic loans and increasing the institutions liquidity. When the HOLC ended its operations and liquidated
assets in 1951, HOLC turned a small profit.

The SEC

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is an independent agency of the US government which holds
primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the
nation's stock and options exchanges and other electronic securities markets. The SEC was created by section 4
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In addition to the 1934 Act that created it, the SEC enforces the
Securities Act of 1933, the Trust Indenture Act of 1939, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment
Advisers Act of 1940, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and other statutes.
The SEC was established by the United States Congress in 1934 as an independent, non-partisan, quasi-judicial
regulatory agency during the Great Depression that followed the Crash of 1929. The main reason for the
creation of the SEC was to regulate the stock market and prevent corporate abuses relating to the offering and
sale of securities and corporate reporting. The SEC was given the power to license and regulate stock
exchanges, the companies whose securities traded on them and the brokers and dealers who conducted the
trading.
The enforcement authority given by Congress allows the SEC to bring civil enforcement actions against
individuals or companies found to have committed accounting fraud, provided false information, or engaged in
insider trading or other violations of the securities law. The SEC also works with criminal law enforcement
agencies to prosecute individuals and companies alike for offenses which include a criminal violation. To
achieve its mandate, the SEC enforces the statutory requirement that public companies submit quarterly and
annual reports, as well as other periodic reports. In addition to annual financial reports, company executives
must provide a narrative account, called the "management discussion and analysis" (MD&A) that outlines the
previous year of operations and explains how the company fared in that time period. Management will usually
also touch on the upcoming year, outlining future goals and approaches to new projects. Quarterly and annual
reports from public companies are crucial for investors to make sound decisions when investing in the capital
markets. Unlike banking, investment in the capital markets is not guaranteed by the federal government. The
potential for big gains needs to be weighed against equally likely losses. Mandatory disclosure of financial and
other information about the issuer and the security itself gives private individuals as well as large institutions
the same basic facts about the public companies they invest in, thereby increasing public scrutiny while
reducing insider trading and fraud.
The SEC makes reports available to the public via the EDGAR system. SEC also offers publications on
investment-related topics for public education. The same online system also takes tips and complaints from
investors to help the SEC track down violators of the securities laws.

Social Security Act

In 1933 Francis Townsend proposed a scheme whereby the Federal government would provide every person
over 60 a $200 monthly pension. Townsend claimed that his Old Age Revolving Pension Plan could be financed
by a Federal tax on commercial transactions. The plan obtained a great deal of public support and by 1935 his
Townsend Club had over 5 million members. In 1935 Townsend handed in to President Franklin D. Roosevelt a
petition supporting the Old Age Revolving Pension Plan that had been signed by over 20 million people. In

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response to the petition, Congress passed the Social Security Act. It established Old Age and Survivors'
Insurance that provided for compulsory savings for wage earners so that benefits may be paid to them on
retirement at 65. To finance the scheme, both the employer and employee had to pay a 3% payroll tax. The
provisions of the act also encouraged states to deal with social problems. It did this by offering substantial
financial help the states provide unemployment benefits, old-age pensions, aid to the disabled, maternity care,
public health work and vocational rehabilitation. Francis Townsend claimed that Roosevelt's social security
legislation was completely inadequate and in 1936 joined with Father Edward Coughlin and Gerald L. K. Smith
to form the National Union of Social Justice.

Prohibition

In the history of the United States, Prohibition, also known as The Noble Experiment, is the period from 1919 to
1933, during which the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for consumption were banned
nationally as mandated in the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Under substantial
pressure from the temperance movement, the United States Senate proposed the Eighteenth Amendment on
December 18, 1917. Having been approved by 36 states, the 18th Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919
and effected on January 16, 1920. Some state legislatures had already enacted statewide prohibition prior to
the ratification of the 18th Amendment. The "Volstead Act", the popular name for the National Prohibition Act,
passed through Congress over President Woodrow Wilson's veto on October 28, 1919 and established the legal
definition of intoxicating liquor. Though the Volstead Act prohibited the sale of alcohol, it did little to enforce
the law. The illegal production and distribution of liquor, or bootlegging, became rampant, and the national
government did not have the means or desire to enforce every border, lake, river, and speakeasy in America.
Prohibition became increasingly unpopular during the Great Depression, especially in large cities. On March 23,
1933, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law an amendment to the Volstead Act known as the Cullen-
Harrison Act, allowing the manufacture and sale of certain kinds of alcoholic beverages. On December 5, 1933,
the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment repealed the Eighteenth Amendment. Prohibition was a period
of nearly fourteen years of U.S. history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor was made
illegal. It led to the first and only time an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed. Prohibition was
the period in United States history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors
was outlawed. It was a time characterized by speakeasies, glamour, and gangsters and a period of time in
which even the average citizen broke the law. The push for Prohibition began in earnest in the nineteenth
century. After the American Revolution, drinking was on the rise. To combat this, a number of societies were
organized as part of a new Temperance movement which attempted to dissuade people from becoming
intoxicated. At first, these organizations pushed moderation, but after several decades, the movement's focus
changed to complete prohibition of alcohol consumption. The Temperance movement blamed alcohol for
many of society's ills, especially crime and murder. Saloons, a social haven for men who lived in the still
untamed West, were viewed by many, especially women, as a place of debauchery and evil. Prohibition,
members of the Temperance movement urged, would stop husbands from spending all the family income on
alcohol and prevent accidents in the workplace caused by workers who drank during lunch. There were,
however, several loopholes for people to legally drink during Prohibition. For instance, the 18th Amendment
did not mention the actual drinking of liquor. Since Prohibition went into effect a full year after the 18th
Amendment's ratification, many people bought cases of then-legal alcohol and stored them for personal use.
The Volstead Act allowed alcohol consumption if it was prescribed by a doctor. Needless to say, large numbers
of new prescriptions were written for alcohol. For people who didn't buy cases of alcohol in advance or know a
"good" doctor, there were illegal ways to drink during Prohibition. A new breed of gangster arose during this
period. These people took notice of the amazingly high level of demand for alcohol within society and the
extremely limited avenues of supply to the average citizen. Within this imbalance of supply and demand,
gangsters saw profit. Al Capone in Chicago is one of the most famous gangsters of this time period. These
gangsters would hire men to smuggle in rum from the Caribbean (rumrunners) or hijack whiskey from Canada
and bring it into the U.S. Others would buy large quantities of liquor made in homemade stills. The gangsters
would then open up secret bars (speakeasies) for people to come in, drink, and socialize. During this period,
newly hired Prohibition agents were responsible for raiding speakeasies, finding stills, and arresting gangsters,
but many of these agents were under-qualified and underpaid leading to a high rate of bribery. Almost
immediately after the ratification of the 18th Amendment, organizations formed to repeal it. As the perfect
world promised by the Temperance movement failed to materialize, more people joined the fight to bring back
liquor. The anti-Prohibition movement gained strength as the 1920s progressed, often stating that the question

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of alcohol consumption was a local issue and not something that should be in the Constitution. Additionally,
the Stock Market Crash in 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression started changing people's opinion.
People needed jobs. The government needed money. Making alcohol legal again would open up many new
jobs for citizens and additional sales taxes for the government. On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, making alcohol once
again legal.

Brain-trust

Brain trust began as a term for a group of close advisors to a political candidate or incumbent, prized for their
expertise in particular fields. The term is most associated with the group of advisors to Franklin Roosevelt
during his presidential administration. More recently the use of the term has expanded to encompass any
group of advisers to a decision maker, whether or not in politics.
The first use of the term brain trust was in 1899 when it appeared in the Marion (Ohio) Daily Star: "Since
everything else is tending to trusts, why not a brains trust?" This sense was referring to the era of trust-busting,
a popular political slogan and objective of the time that helped spur the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act and was
later a key policy of President Theodore Roosevelt's administration. The term appears to have not been used
again until 1928, when Time magazine ran a headline on a meeting of the American Council on Learned
Societies titled "Brain Trust." Franklin Roosevelt speechwriter and legal counsel Samuel Rosenman suggested
having an academic team to advise Roosevelt in March 1932. This concept was perhaps based on The Inquiry, a
group of academic advisors President Woodrow Wilson formed in 1917 to prepare for the peace negotiations
following World War I. In 1932, New York Times writer James Kieran first used the term Brains Trust (shortened
to Brain Trust later) when he applied it to the close group of experts that surrounded United States presidential
candidate Franklin Roosevelt. The core of the second Roosevelt brain trust sprang from men associated with
the Harvard law school (Cohen, Corcoran, and Frankfurter). These men played a key role in shaping the policies
of the Second New Deal (1935-1936).

Members

•

Adolf Berle - original Brain Trust

•

Benjamin V. Cohen - 2nd New Deal

•

Thomas Gardiner Corcoran - 2nd New Deal

•

Felix Frankfurter - 2nd New Deal

•

Louis Howe*

•

Raymond Moley - original Brain Trust (Moley broke with Roosevelt and became a sharp critic of the

New Deal from the right)

•

Basil O'Connor

•

George Peek

•

Charles William Taussig

•

Rexford Tugwell - original Brain Trust

•

Hugh S. Johnson

•

F. Palmer Weber

•

James Warburg - original Brain Trust

Huey Long

Huey Pierce Long, Jr. (August 30, 1893 - September 10, 1935), nicknamed The Kingfish, was an American
politician from the U.S. state of Louisiana. A Democrat, he was noted for his radical populist policies. He served
as the Governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1932 and as a U.S. senator from 1932 to 1935. Though a backer of
Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election, Long split with Roosevelt in June 1933 and allegedly
planned to mount his own presidential bid. Long created the Share Our Wealth program in 1934, with the
motto "Every Man a King," proposing new wealth redistribution measures in the form of a net asset tax on
corporations and individuals to curb the poverty and crime resulting from the Great Depression. To stimulate
the economy, Long advocated federal spending on public works, public education, old-age pensions and other
social programs. He was an ardent critic of the Federal Reserve System's policies to reduce lending. Charismatic
and immensely popular for his social reform programs and willingness to take forceful action, Long was

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accused by his opponents of dictatorial tendencies for his near-total control of the state government. At the
height of his popularity, the colorful and flamboyant Long was shot on September 8, 1935, at the Louisiana
State Capitol in Baton Rouge; he died two days later at the age of 42. His last words were reportedly, "God,
don't let me die. I have so much left to do”.

Father Charles Coughlin

Father Charles Edward Coughlin (October 25, 1891 – October 27, 1979) was a Canadian-born Roman Catholic
priest at Royal Oak, Michigan's National Shrine of the Little Flower Church. He was one of the first political
leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience, as more than forty million tuned to his weekly broadcasts during
the 1930s. Coughlin used his radio program to promote Franklin D. Roosevelt and his early New Deal proposals,
to issue anti-Semitic commentary, and later to rationalize some of the policies of National Socialist Adolf Hitler
and Fascist Benito Mussolini. The broadcasts have been called "a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to
American culture". His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, with his slogan being
Social Justice, first with, and later against, the New Deal.

Early broadcasts and political activism
Coughlin was born in Hamilton, Ontario, to Irish Catholic parents, and was ordained to the priesthood in
Toronto in 1916. He taught at Assumption College in Windsor, Ontario, before moving to Detroit in 1923. He
began his radio broadcasts in 1926 on station WJR, giving a weekly sermon on a regular program. He strongly
endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1932 Presidential election. He was an early supporter of Roosevelt's
New Deal reforms and coined the phrase "Roosevelt or ruin", which became famous during the early days of
the first FDR administration. Another phrase he became known for was "The New Deal is Christ's Deal." In
January 1934, Coughlin testified before Congress in support of FDR's policies, saying, "If Congress fails to back
up the President in his monetary program, I predict a revolution in this country which will make the French
Revolution look silly!" He further stated to the Congressional hearing, "God is directing President Roosevelt."
Coughlin's support for Roosevelt and his New Deal faded later in 1934, when he founded the National Union
for Social Justice (NUSJ), a nationalistic worker's rights organization which grew impatient with what it viewed
as the President's unconstitutional and pseudo-capitalistic monetary policies. His radio programs preached
more and more about the negative influence of "money changers" and "permitting a group of private citizens
to create money" on the general welfare of the public. He also spoke about the need for monetary reform.
Coughlin claimed that the Depression was a "cash famine". Some modern economic historians, in part, agree
with this assessment. Coughlin proposed monetary reforms, including the elimination of the Federal Reserve
System, as the solution.
By 1934 Coughlin was perhaps the most prominent Roman Catholic speaker on political and financial issues,
with a radio audience that reached millions of people every week. When he began criticizing the New Deal that
year, Roosevelt sent Joseph P. Kennedy and Frank Murphy, prominent Irish Catholics, to try to tone him down.
Ignoring them, Coughlin began denouncing Roosevelt as a tool of Wall Street. Coughlin supported Huey Long
until Long was killed in 1935, and then supported William Lemke's third party in 1936. As Coughlin turned into
a bitter opponent of the New Deal, his radio talks escalated in vehemence against Roosevelt, capitalists and
"Jewish conspirators". He was initially supported, and later – after turning on Roosevelt - opposed in his efforts
by another nationally known priest, Monsignor John A. Ryan. Kennedy, who strongly supported the New Deal,
warned as early as 1933 that Coughlin was "becoming a very dangerous proposition" as an opponent of
Roosevelt and "an out and out demagogue." Kennedy worked with Roosevelt, Bishop Francis Spellman and
Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) in a successful effort to get the Vatican to silence Coughlin in
1936. In 1940-41, reversing his own views, Kennedy attacked the isolationism of Coughlin.
One of Coughlin's campaign slogans was: "Less care for internationalism and more concern for national
prosperity" which went well with the 1930s isolationist movement in the United States. Coughlin's organization
especially appealed to Irish Catholics. In 1936, Coughlin helped found a short-lived political party, the Union
Party, which nominated William Lemke for President. Coughlin promised to retire if Lemke did not get nine
million votes, and when he received only 900,000 Coughlin stopped broadcasting briefly. He resumed in 1937.

Antisemitism
After the 1936 election, Coughlin increasingly expressed sympathy for the fascist policies of Hitler and
Mussolini as an antidote to Bolshevism. His CBS radio broadcasts became suffused with anti-Semitic themes.
He blamed the Depression on an "international conspiracy of Jewish bankers", and also claimed that Jewish

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bankers were behind the Russian Revolution. On November 27, 1938, he said "There can be no doubt that the
Russian Revolution ... was launched and fomented by distinctively Jewish influence."
He began publication of a newspaper, Social Justice, during this period, in which he printed anti-Semitic
polemics such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Like Joseph Goebbels, Coughlin claimed that Marxist
atheism in Europe was a Jewish plot. The December 5, 1938 issue of Social Justice included an article by
Coughlin which closely resembled a speech made by Goebbels on September 13, 1935 attacking Jews, atheists
and communists, with some sections being copied verbatim by Coughlin from an English translation of the
Goebbels speech. At a rally in the Bronx in 1938, he gave a Nazi salute and said, "When we get through with the
Jews in America, they'll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing."
On November 20, 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht, when Jews across Germany were attacked and killed,
and Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues burned, Coughlin said "Jewish persecution only followed after
Christians first were persecuted." After this speech, and as his programs became more anti-Semitic, some radio
stations, including those in New York and Chicago, began refusing to air his speeches without pre-approved
scripts; in New York, his programs were cancelled by WINS and WMCA, leaving Coughlin to broadcasting on the
Newark part-time station WHBI. This made Coughlin a hero in Nazi Germany, where papers ran headlines
claiming "America Is Not Allowed to Hear the Truth". On December 18, 1938 two thousand of Coughlin's
followers marched in New York protesting potential asylum law changes that would allow more Jews (including
refugees from Hitler's persecution) into the US, chanting, "Send Jews back where they came from in leaky
boats!" and "Wait until Hitler comes over here!" The protests continued for several months. Donald Warren,
using information from the FBI and German government archives, has also argued that Coughlin received
indirect funding from Nazi Germany during this period.
After 1936, Coughlin began supporting an organization called the Christian Front, which claimed him as an
inspiration. In January 1940, the Christian Front was shut down when the FBI discovered the group was arming
itself and "planning to murder Jews, communists, and 'a dozen Congressmen'" and eventually establish, in J.
Edgar Hoover's words, "a dictatorship, similar to the Hitler dictatorship in Germany". Coughlin publicly stated,
after the plot was discovered, that he still did not "disassociate himself from the movement", and though he
was never linked directly to the plot, his reputation suffered a fatal decline.

Cancellation of radio show
At its peak in the early 1930s, Coughlin's radio show was phenomenally popular. His office received up to
80,000 letters per week from listeners, and his listening audience was estimated to rise at times to as much as
a third of the nation. Coughlin is often credited as one of the major demagogues of the 20th century for being
able to influence politics through broadcasting, without actually holding a political office himself. The Vatican,
the Apostolic Delegation in Washington, D.C., and the archbishop of Cincinnati all wanted him silenced. They
recognized that only Coughlin's superior, Detroit Bishop Michael Gallagher, had the canonical authority to curb
him, but Gallagher supported the "Radio Priest". Due to Gallagher's autonomy and the prospect of Coughlin
leading a schism, the Roman Catholic leadership did nothing. A radio battle was fought in the late 1930s
between The Reverend Walton E. Cole, a Unitarian minister in Toledo, Ohio, and Coughlin. Cole tried to prevail
upon the Roman Catholic hierarchy to have Coughlin's inflammatory broadcasts stopped. Walton Cole’s widow,
Lorena M. Cole, donated his papers to the Claremont School of Theology with personal notes and
reminiscences about this tense episode. In spite of his early support for Roosevelt, Coughlin's populist message
contained bitter attacks on the Roosevelt administration. The administration decided that although the First
Amendment protected free speech, it did not necessarily apply to broadcasting, because the radio spectrum
was a "limited national resource" and regulated as a publicly-owned commons. New regulations and
restrictions were created to force Coughlin off the air. For the first time, operating permits were required of
those who were regular radio broadcasters. When Coughlin's permit was denied, he was temporarily silenced.
Coughlin worked around the restriction by purchasing air time and having his speeches played via recordings.
However, having to buy the time on individual stations seriously reduced his reach and strained his resources.
According to Marcus' book, Coughlin's opposition to the repeal of a neutrality-oriented arms-embargo law
triggered more successful efforts to force him off the air. In October 1939, one month after the invasion of
Poland, the Code Committee of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) adopted new rules which
placed "rigid limitations on the sale of radio time to spokesman of controversial public issues". Manuscripts
were required to be submitted in advance. Radio stations were threatened with the loss of their licenses if they
failed to comply. This ruling was clearly aimed at Coughlin due to his opposition to prospective American
involvement in World War II. As a result, the September 23, 1939 issue of Social Justice stated that he had been
forced from the air "...by those who control circumstances beyond my reach".

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Coughlin reasoned that although the government had assumed the right to regulate any on-air broadcasts, the
First Amendment still guaranteed and protected freedom of the written press. He could still print his editorials
without censorship in his own newspaper, Social Justice. However, the Roosevelt administration stepped in
again, this time revoking his mailing privileges and making it impossible for Coughlin to deliver the papers to his
readers. He had the right to publish whatever he wanted, but not the right to use the United States Post Office
Department to deliver it. The lack of a conduit to his followers seriously reduced his influence, and after the
attack on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war in December 1941, the anti-interventionist movement (such
as the America First Committee) began to sputter out, and isolationists like Coughlin were seen as being
sympathetic to the enemy. In 1942, the new bishop of Detroit ordered Coughlin to stop his controversial
political activities and confine himself to his duties as a parish priest. Coughlin complied and remained the
pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower until retiring in 1966. He refused numerous interview opportunities,
and continued to write pamphlets denouncing Communism until his death in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in
1979, at the age of 88.

D-day

The Normandy Landings were the first operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy, also known as Operation
Neptune and Operation Overlord, during World War II. The landings commenced on June 6, 1944 (D-Day),
beginning at 6:30 British Double Summer Time (H-Hour). In planning, D-Day was the term used for the day of
actual landing, which was dependent on final approval. The assault was conducted in two phases: an air assault
landing of American, British and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of
Allied infantry and armored divisions on the coast of France commencing at 6:30. The invasion required the
transport of soldiers and materiel from the United Kingdom by troop carrying aircraft and ships, the assault
landings, air support, naval interdiction of the English Channel and naval fire-support. The operation was the
largest single-day amphibious invasion of all time, with 160,000 troops landing on June 6, 1944. 195,700 Allied
naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were involved. The landings took place along a 50-mile
(80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword. The Allies
had previously invaded mainland Europe September 3, 1943 with the landings in Italy.

December 7. 1941 Air Raid on Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941 Japanese planes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory
killing more than 2,300 Americans. The U.S.S. Arizona was completely destroyed and the U.S.S. Oklahoma
capsized. The attack sank three other ships and damaged many additional vessels. More than 180 aircraft were
destroyed. A hurried dispatch from the ranking United States naval officer in Pearl Harbor, Commander in Chief
Pacific, to all major navy commands and fleet units provided the first official word of the attack at the ill-
prepared Pearl Harbor base. It said simply: AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL. The following day
President Franklin Roosevelt, addressing a joint session of Congress, called December 7 "a date which will live
in infamy." Declaring war against Japan, Congress ushered the United States into World War II and forced a
nation, already close to war, to abandon isolationism. Within days, Japan's allies, Germany and Italy, declared
war on the United States, and the country began a rapid transition to a war-time economy in building up
armaments in support of military campaigns in the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe.

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii, was attacked by Japanese torpedo and bomber planes on December 7, 1941,
at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time. The sneak attack sparked outrage in the American populace, news media,
government and the world. On December 8, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the American Congress,
and the nation, to detail the attack. In that address, the president asked Congress to pass a declaration of war.
Congress obliged, voted and passed the U.S. Declaration of War on Japan, on the same day. That was America's
formal entry into World War II.
The attack took place on a sunny Sunday morning. A minimal contingent of soldiers was on duty at the time.
Most offices on the base were closed and many servicemen were on leave for the weekend. The incoming
Japanese attack planes were detected by the radar and reported, but were mistaken for an incoming group of
American planes due from the mainland that morning. While on practice maneuvers outside the harbor that
morning, an American destroyer spotted a Japanese submarine attempting to sneak into the harbor. The
submarine was fired upon, immediately reported — and ignored.

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At the time, the naval base was about 22,000 acres in size. The American fleet was under the command of
Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and the ground troops were commanded by Lt. General Walter C. Short. Pearl
Harbor was the hub of American naval power since King Kalakua gave the right to the U.S. to develop a coal
station there in 1887.
While there were veiled warnings and isolated events of Japanese hostilities in the weeks, days and hours
ahead of the attack, no one in command at Pearl Harbor or in Washington, D.C., expected a Japanese attack on
Pearl Harbor, especially before war was formally declared. Effective cryptography and successful cryptanalysis
were in their infancy at the time. Under-funded, under-manned and under-equipped, cryptanalysts had been
ordered to concentrate on Japanese diplomatic traffic, rather than naval messages. The nation would have had
a much clearer picture of the Japanese military buildup and, with the warning provided by those messages,
might have prevented the disaster of Pearl Harbor.
Indeed, on the morning of December 7, the Japanese ambassador in Washington, D.C., had been ordered by his
government to destroy all official documents and deliver a 14-page document to Secretary of State Cordell Hull
at a specific time that day. After laborious manual decoding and translation, the document was delivered later
than the Japanese government had intended. The news of the attack on Pearl Harbor had already reached the
White House before the Japanese ambassador arrived at the White House. The world was stunned by the
news. Military leaders of the Axis countries, Germany, Italy and Japan, were hell-bent on world domination by
military force. Japan needed natural resources, especially oil, for its planned expansion. The Japanese had
successfully invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China in 1937. Japan's antipathy toward America had been
seething for a long time. The United States' occupation of the Philippines during the Spanish-American War and
America's refusal to acknowledge Japan's authority in occupied China fueled Japanese resentment. Imperial
Japan's sphere of interest in the far western Pacific was being threatened by America's incursions into the
Pacific at the very point in history when Japan itself was vying for dominance in the region. It is a myth to
maintain that strategists of both nations considered Pearl Harbor too shallow, with an average depth of 45
feet, for an attack by torpedoes dropped from airplanes, which usually required about 75 feet of depth. While
it seemed improbable, a Hawaiian Chief of Naval Operations memo states that no harbor is to be considered
safe from attack. Sabotage by Japanese agents was considered to be the greater threat. The Japanese had
developed the technology, attack strategy and skill to successfully accomplish the impossible. The idea to
attack Pearl Harbor had been conceived six months before. The American fleet was perceived as an obstacle to
access the oil fields in Java, so the plan was conceived to affect a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor to destroy
America's Pacific Fleet. Additional targets included warehouses, docks, airfields and aircraft. The Japanese had
developed a shallow running torpedo that would skim the surface of the water in the harbor after being
dropped from a low-flying aircraft. The primary targets were the aircraft carriers and battleships that were
among 92 naval vessels at anchor in the harbor. With data gathered and reported by Japanese spies on Oahu
and Maui, the Japanese admiralty knew the location and quantity of vessels of each type in the harbor. They
had two concerns, the loss of surprise and the whereabouts of two missing American aircraft carriers. The
carriers Enterprise and Lexington had previously been dispatched to Wake and Midway islands. Both aircraft
carriers were hundreds of miles west of the Hawaiian island chain, at the time of the attack. About 360
Japanese attack planes had launched at dawn from aircraft carriers in an attack force of about 33 ships, under
the command of Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo. The strike force had steamed, under the cover of darkness, to
about 275 to 200 miles north of Oahu. Once the bombers sighted the island, they split into two groups. One
group proceeded overland at low altitude across the island and the other flew over the water around the island
to make an approach from the south. At 7:55 a.m., the first bombs and torpedoes were dropped. After two
hours, the U.S. sustained 18 ships sunk or severely damaged, about 170 aircraft destroyed, and there were
about 3,700 casualties. Japanese casualties were minimal. Later that day, American ships were attacked on the
high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. Japanese bombers from mainland bases attacked Malaya, Hong
Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island and Midway Island.
Several investigations were conducted shortly after the attack. Admiral Kimmel and General Short bore the
weight of responsibility imposed by Congress for the extent of the damage caused by the attack. Preparations
to defend the base were based upon veiled warnings and vague directives from the White House and the
Pentagon. Scouting planes dispatched from Pearl Harbor patrolled the vast ocean expanse around the island
chain but had not detected the Japanese fleet heading for the Hawaiian Islands. The early morning radar
sightings of the incoming attack force had been misinterpreted. Much of the American fleet was at dock in
Pearl Harbor, but not as many key battleships and aircraft carriers were in the harbor as the Japanese had
hoped.

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G. I. Joe

G.I. Joe is a line of military-themed articulated "action figures" produced by the toy company Hasbro.
The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces with the
Action Soldier (Army), Action Sailor (Navy), Action Pilot (Air Force) and Action Marine (USMC). The
term "G.I." was incorrectly thought to stand for "Government Issue" and became a generic term for US soldiers,
especially ground forces. The development of G. I. Joe led to the coining of the term "action figure." The G.I.
Joe trademark has been used by Hasbro to title two different toy lines. The original 12-inch line begun in 1964
centered around realistic soldier action figures. This line was known as Action Man, and later Action Force in
the United Kingdom, which evolved into a separate entity. In 1982, the line was relaunched in a 3 3/4-inch scale
complete with vehicles, playsets, and a complex background story involving an ongoing struggle between the
G.I. Joe Team and the evil Cobra Organization. This franchise has spawned numerous comics, cartoons and
films.

The Atlantic Charter

The Atlantic Charter was the blueprint for the world after World War II, and is the foundation for many of the
international treaties and organizations that currently shape the world. The United Nations, General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the post-war independence of British and French possessions, and
much more is derived from the Atlantic Charter.
It was drafted at the Atlantic Conference (codenamed Riviera) by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, aboard warships in a secure anchorage in Ship Harbour, Newfoundland
and was issued as a joint declaration on 14 August 1941. This statement was drafted and agreed while the
British were fighting in World War II against Nazi Germany, however, there was no formal, legal document
entitled "The Atlantic Charter". The United States did not enter the War until the Attack on Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941. Potentially, it would detail the goals and aims of the Allied powers concerning the war and
the post-war world. The ideals expressed through the eight points of the Atlantic Charter were so popular that
the Office of War Information printed 240,000 posters of it in 1943, which was OWI Poster No. 50. Additionally,
it might also be seen as a "changing of the guard" from Britain to the United States as the world's leading
power.

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, (30 November 1874 - January 1965) was a British politician known
chiefly for his leadership of the United Kingdom during World War II. He served as Prime Minister from 1940 to
1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman and orator, Churchill was also an officer in the British
Army, historian, writer, and artist. He is the only British Prime Minister who has ever received the Nobel Prize
for Literature and the first foreigner to be made an Honorary Citizen of the United States. During his army
career, Churchill saw action in India, in the Sudan and the Second Boer War. He gained fame and notoriety as a
war correspondent and through contemporary books he wrote describing the campaigns. He also served briefly
in the British Army on the Western Front in World War I, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots
Fusiliers. At the forefront of the political scene for almost fifty years, he held many political and cabinet
positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary and First
Lord of the Admiralty as part of the Asquith Liberal government. During the war he continued as First Lord of
the Admiralty until the disastrous Battle of Gallipoli caused his departure from government. He returned as
Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War and Secretary of State for Air. In the interwar years, he served
as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Conservative government. After the outbreak of the Second World War,
Churchill was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on
10 May 1940, he became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and led Britain to victory against the Axis
powers. Churchill was always noted for his speeches, which became a great inspiration to the British people
and embattled Allied forces. After losing the 1945 election, he became Leader of the Opposition. In 1951, he
again became Prime Minister before finally retiring in 1955. Upon his death, the Queen granted him the honor
of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of statesmen in the world.

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Lend-lease program

Lend-Lease was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United
Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between
1941 and 1945 in return for, in the case of Britain, military bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the British
West Indies. It began in March 1941, over 18 months after the outbreak of the war in September 1939. It was
called An Act Further to Promote the Defense of the United States. This act also ended the pretense of the
neutrality of the United States. Hitler recognized this and consequently had his submarines attack US ships such
as the SS Robin Moor, an unarmed merchant steamship destroyed by a German U-boat on 21 May, 1941
outside of the war zone.
This program is seen as a decisive step away from American non-interventionism since the end of World War I
and towards international involvement. In sharp contrast to the American loans to the Allies in World War I,
there were no provisions for postwar repayments. Some historians consider it an attempt to bolster Britain and
the other allies as a buffer to forestall American involvement in the war against Nazi Germany.

The axis powers

The Axis powers (also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis) comprised the
countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers - Germany, Italy,
and Japan - were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which
officially founded the Axis powers. At their zenith, the Axis powers ruled empires that dominated large parts of
Europe, Africa, East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean, but World War II ended with their total defeat.
Like the Allies, membership of the Axis was fluid, and some nations entered and later left the Axis during the
course of the war.

Rosie the Riveter

Rosie the Riveter is a cultural icon, whose image was used to promote the WOW's (Woman
Ordnance Workers), of the United States, representing the American women who worked in war
factories during World War II, many of whom worked in the manufacturing plants that produced
munitions and materiel. These women sometimes took entirely new jobs and many a time took
the jobs of the men, which were many, that had gone to join the army. The character is now
considered a feminist icon in the US, and a herald of women's economic power to come. Rosie
inspired many women, and helped them realize that they could do it.

Blitzkrieg

Blitzkrieg means "lightning war". Blitzkrieg was first used by the Germans in World War Two and was a tactic
based on speed and surprise and needed a military force to be based around light tank units supported by
planes and infantry (foot soldiers). The tactic was developed in Germany by an army officer called Hans
Guderian. He had written a military pamphlet called "Achtung Panzer" which got into the hands of Hitler. As a
tactic it was used to devastating effect in the first years of World War Two and resulted in the British and
French armies being pushed back in just a few weeks to the beaches of Dunkirk and the Russian army being
devastated in the attack on Russia in June 1941. Blitzkrieg was based on speed, co-ordination and movement. It
was designed to hit hard and move on instantly. Its aim was to create panic amongst the civilian population. A
civil population on the move can be absolute havoc for a defending army trying to get its forces to the war
front. Doubt, confusion and rumour were sure to paralyse both the government and the defending military.
Once a strategic target had been selected, Stuka dive bombers were sent in to ‘soften’ up the enemy, destroy
all rail lines, communication centres and major rail links. This was done as the German tanks were approaching
and the planes withdrew only at the last minute so that the enemy did not have time to recover their senses
when the tanks attacked supported by infantry. Most troops were moved by half-track vehicles so there was
no real need for roads though these were repaired so that they could be used by the Germans at a later date.
Once a target had been taken, the Germans did not stop to celebrate victory; they moved on to the next target.
Retreating civilians hindered any work done by the army being attacked. Those civilians fleeing the fighting
were also attacked to create further mayhem.
Hitler had given his full backing to Guderian. Ironically, he had got his idea for Blitzkrieg from two officers - one
from France and one from Britain and he had copied and broadened what they had put on paper. In Britain and

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France, the cavalry regiments ruled supreme and they were adamant that the tanks would not get any
influence in their armies. The High Commands of both countries were dominated by the old traditional cavalry
regiments and their political pull was great.
In 1940, Britain and France still had a World War One mentality. What tanks they had were poor compared to
the German Panzers. British and French tactics were outdated and Britain still had the mentality that as an
island we were safe as our navy would protect us. Nazi Germany, if it was to fulfill Hitler's wishes, had to have a
modern military tactic if it was to conquer Europe and give to Germany the 'living space' that Hitler deemed
was necessary for the Third Reich.
It was used to devastating effect in Poland, Western Europe where the Allies were pushed back to the beaches
of Dunkirk and in the attack on Russia - Operation Barbarossa.
In the first phase of World War II in Europe, Germany sought to avoid a long war. Germany's strategy was to
defeat its opponents in a series of short campaigns. Germany quickly overran much of Europe and was
victorious for more than two years by relying on a new military tactic called the "Blitzkrieg" (lightning war).
Blitzkrieg tactics required the concentration of offensive weapons (such as tanks, planes, and artillery) along a
narrow front. These forces would drive a breach in enemy defenses, permitting armored tank divisions to
penetrate rapidly and roam freely behind enemy lines, causing shock and disorganization among the enemy
defenses. German air power prevented the enemy from adequately resupplying or redeploying forces and
thereby from sending reinforcements to seal breaches in the front. German forces could in turn encircle
opposing troops and force surrender.

Despite the continuing war with Great Britain, German forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. At first,
the German Blitzkrieg seemed to succeed. Soviet forces were driven back more than 600 miles to the gates of
Moscow, with staggering losses. In December 1941, Hitler unilaterally declared war on the United States, which
consequently added its tremendous economic and military power to the coalition arrayed against him. A
second German offensive against the Soviet Union in 1942 brought German forces in the east to the shores of
the Volga River and the city of Stalingrad. However, the Soviet Union launched a counteroffensive in November
1942, trapping and destroying an entire German army at Stalingrad.
Germany proved unable to defeat the Soviet Union, which together with Great Britain and the United States
seized the initiative from Germany. Germany became embroiled in a long war, leading ultimately to its defeat
in May 1945.

The Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was the codename for a project conducted during World War II, primarily by the United
States, to develop the first atomic bomb. Formally designated as the Manhattan Engineer District (MED), it
refers specifically to the period of the project from 1942–1946 under the control of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, under the administration of General Leslie R. Groves. The scientific research was directed by
American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.
The project's roots lay in scientists' fears since the 1930s that Nazi Germany was also investigating nuclear
weapons of its own. Born out of a small research program in 1939, the Manhattan Project eventually employed
more than 130,000 people and cost nearly $2 billion USD ($24 billion in 2008 dollars based on CPI). It resulted
in the creation of multiple production and research sites that operated in secret.
The three primary research and production sites of the project were the plutonium-production facility at what
is now the Hanford Site, the uranium-enrichment facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the weapons research
and design laboratory now known as Los Alamos National Laboratory. Project research took place at over thirty
sites across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The MED maintained control over U.S.
weapons production until the formation of the Atomic Energy Commission in January 1947.

The Yalta conference

The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was
the wartime meeting from 4 February 1945 to 11 February 1945 among the heads of government of the United
States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, and Josef Stalin, respectively—for the purpose of discussing Europe's postwar reorganization. Mainly,
it was intended to discuss the re-establishment of the nations of war-torn Europe.

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Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in
Potsdam, occupied Germany, from July 16 to August 2, 1945. The participants were the Soviet Union, the
United Kingdom, and the United States. The three nations were represented by Communist Party General
Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee, and President Harry S
Truman. Stalin, Churchill, Truman and Attlee had gathered to decide how to administer punishment to the
defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier, on May 8 (V-E Day).
The goals of the conference also included the establishment of post-war order, peace treaties issues, and
countering the effects of war.

Joseph Stalin

Josef Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. In the years following Lenin's death in
1924, he rose to become the leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin launched a command economy, replacing the
New Economic Policy of the 1920s with Five-Year Plans and launching a period of rapid industrialization and
economic collectivization. During the late 1930s, Stalin launched the Great Purge (also known as the "Great
Terror"), a campaign to purge the Communist Party of people accused of corruption or treachery; he extended
it to the military and other sectors of Soviet society. Targets were often executed, imprisoned in Gulag labor
camps or exiled. In the years following, millions of ethnic minorities were also deported. In 1939, the Soviet
Union under Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, followed by a Soviet invasion of Poland,
Finland, the Baltics, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. After Germany violated the pact in 1941, the Soviet
Union joined the Allies to play a large role in the Axis defeat, at the cost of the largest death toll for any country
in the war. Thereafter, contradicting statements at allied conferences, Stalin installed communist governments
in most of Eastern Europe, forming the Eastern bloc, behind what was referred to as an "Iron Curtain" of Soviet
rule. This launched the long period of antagonism known as the Cold War.

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953).
As the 34th vice president, he succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died less than three months after he
began his fourth term.
During World War I Truman served as an artillery officer, making him the only president to have seen combat in
World War I. After the war he became part of the political machine of Tom Pendergast and was elected a
county commissioner in Missouri and eventually a United States senator. After he gained national prominence
as head of the wartime Truman Committee, Truman replaced vice president Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's
running mate in 1944.
The disorderly reconversion of the economy of the United States was marked by severe shortages, numerous
strikes, and the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act over his veto. He confounded all predictions to win re-election
in 1948, helped by his famous Whistle Stop Tour of rural America. After his re-election he was able to pass only
one of the proposals in his Fair Deal program. He used executive orders to begin desegregation of the U.S.
armed forces and to create loyalty checks which dismissed thousands of communist supporters from office,
even though he strongly opposed mandatory loyalty oaths for governmental employees, a stance that led to
charges that his administration was soft on communism. Truman's presidency was also eventful in foreign
affairs, with the end of World War II and his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan, the founding of the
United Nations, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, the
beginning of the Cold War, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Korean War.
Corruption in Truman's administration reached the cabinet and senior White House staff. Republicans made
corruption a central issue in the 1952 campaign.
Truman, whose demeanor was very different from that of the patrician Roosevelt, was a folksy, unassuming
president. He popularized such phrases as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better
get out of the kitchen."[1] He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him
unfavorably with his highly regarded predecessor. At different points in his presidency, Truman earned both
the highest and the lowest public approval ratings that had ever been recorded. Despite negative public
opinion during his term in office, popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency became more positive

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after his retirement from politics and the publication of Truman's memoirs. Truman has been consistently
ranked by scholars as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents.

Truman Doctrine

The Truman Doctrine is a set of principles of U.S. foreign policy created on March 12, 1947 by President Harry S
Truman. In this, Truman declared that the United States, as leader of the "free world," must support
democracy worldwide and fight against communism. The approach was conceived with the help of George
Marshall and Dean Acheson, two influential associates of Truman, which generalized his hopes for Greece and
Turkey into a doctrine applicable throughout the world. The Soviet Union was clearly at the heart of Truman's
thoughts, but it was never directly mentioned in his speech. As Truman was attempting to solve Eastern
Europe's instability while making sure the spread of communism would not affect nations like Greece and
Turkey. Many Americans were against the Truman Doctrine, because they thought that the United States could
not handle the situation by itself. The Truman Doctrine represented the harsh aspect of containment policy,
and the Marshall Plan was the soft side. The declaration of the Truman Doctrine was followed by the end of
tripartism (coalition governments that included communists). Truman thought to promote democracy in
Greece and Turkey. He put forth containment in order to obstruct Communism and to stimulate a free and just
government that will protect the basic human rights. The Truman Doctrine was an approach which combines
political, economic, and strategic elements. Truman strived to strengthen the non-Soviet world by encouraging
political liberty and economic prosperity; he also made freedom the centerpiece of the American postwar
foreign policy.

The Marshall Plan

The Marshall Plan (the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the primary plan of the U.S. for rebuilding and
creating a stronger foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling communism after WW II. The
initiative was named for Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department
officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan. George Marshall spoke of the administration's
desire to help European recovery in his address at Harvard University in June 1947. The reconstruction plan,
developed at a meeting of the participating European states, was established on June 5, 1947. It offered the
same aid to the USSR and its allies, but they did not accept it. The plan was in operation for four years
beginning in April 1948. During that period USD 13 billion in economic and technical assistance were given to
help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for European Economic Co-
operation. By the time the plan had come to completion, the economy of every participant state, except for
Germany, had grown well past pre-war levels. Over the next two decades, many regions of Western Europe
would enjoy unprecedented growth and prosperity. The Marshall Plan has also long been seen as one of the
first elements of European integration, as it erased tariff trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the
economy on a continental level.

Iron Curtain

The Iron Curtain was the symbolic, ideological, and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas
from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. At both sides of the Iron Curtain,
the states developed their own international economic and military alliances: the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance and Warsaw Pact on the east side with the Soviet Union as most important member, and North
Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Community on the west with the United States. The Iron Curtain
took the shape of border defenses between the countries of Western and Eastern Europe, most notably the
Berlin Wall, which served as a longtime symbol of the Curtain altogether. The Iron Curtain started to be
demolished in Hungary during the summer of 1989, when thousands of Eastern Germans started to emigrate to
West Germany via Hungary, causing consequently the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Domino theory

The domino theory was a foreign policy theory during the 1950s to 1980s, promoted at times by the
government of the United States, that speculated that if one land in a region came under the influence of
communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino effect suggests that
some change, small in itself, will cause a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change,

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and so on in linear sequence, by analogy to a falling row of dominoes standing on end. The domino theory was
used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to clarify the need for American
intervention around the world. Referring to communism in Indochina, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower put
the theory into words during an April 7, 1954 news conference: “Finally, you have broader considerations that
might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock
over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you
could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.”

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension, and competition that existed after World War II
between the Soviet Union and its satellites and the powers of the Western world under the leadership of the
United States from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s. Throughout this period, the conflict was expressed
through military coalitions, espionage, weapons development, invasions, propaganda, and competitive
technological development, which included the space race. The conflict included costly defense spending, a
massive conventional and nuclear arms race, and numerous proxy wars; the two superpowers never fought
one another directly. Although the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France were allied against the
Axis powers during the last four years of World War II, disagreements existed both during and after the conflict
on many topics, particularly over the shape of the post-war world. At the war's conclusion, most of Europe was
occupied by those four countries, while the U.S. and the Soviet Union possessed the two most powerful
military forces. The Soviet Union created an Eastern Bloc of countries that it occupied, annexing some as Soviet
Socialist Republics and maintaining others as Satellite states that would later form the Warsaw Pact. The
United States and various western European countries began a policy of "containment" of communism and
forged myriad alliances to this end, including NATO. Several of these western countries also coordinated efforts
regarding the rebuilding of Western Europe. In other regions of the world, such as Latin America and Southeast
Asia, the Soviet Union fostered Communist revolutionary movements, which the United States and many of its
allies opposed and, in some cases, attempted to "rollback". Many countries were prompted to align themselves
with the countries that would later either form NATO or the Warsaw Pact, though other movements would
later emerge. The Cold War saw periods of both heightened tension and relative calm. International crises
arose, such as the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the
Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), NATO exercises in November 1983 and
especially the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. There were also periods of reduced tension as both sides sought
détente. Direct military attacks on adversaries were deterred by the potential for mutual assured destruction
using deliverable nuclear weapons. The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The
United States under President Ronald Reagan increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on the
Soviet Union, which was already suffering from severe economic stagnation. In the second half of the 1980s,
newly appointed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the perestroika and glasnost reforms. The Soviet
Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant military power, though Russia retained
much of the massive Soviet nuclear arsenal.

McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason
without proper regard for evidence. The term specifically describes activities associated with the period in the
United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and
characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet
agents. During the post–World War II era of McCarthyism, many thousands of Americans were accused of
being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and
questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of
such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union
activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of
threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many
people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Most of these
punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned, laws that would be declared unconstitutional,
dismissals for reasons later declared illegal or actionable, or extra-legal procedures that would come into
general disrepute. The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and

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hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; the Hollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by the
House Committee on Un-American Activities; and the various anti-communist activities of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthyism was a widespread social and cultural
phenomenon that affected all levels of society and was the source of a great deal of debate and conflict in the
United States.

The Hollywood Ten

In 1947 Roy M. Brewer was appointed to the Motion Picture Industry Council. At this time the House of Un-
American Activities Committee, chaired by J. Parnell Thomas, began an investigation into the Hollywood
Motion Picture Industry. The HUAC interviewed 41 people who were working in Hollywood. These people
attended voluntarily and became known as "friendly witnesses". During their interviews they named nineteen
people who they accused of holding left-wing views. One of those named, Bertolt Brecht, an emigrant
playwright, gave evidence and then left for East Germany. Ten others: Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Albert
Maltz, Adrian Scott, Samuel Ornitz, Dalton Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson
and Alvah Bessie refused to answer any questions.Known as the Hollywood Ten, they claimed that the 1st
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gave them the right to do this. The HUAC and the courts during appeals
disagreed and all were found guilty of contempt of congress and each was sentenced to between 6 and 12
months in prison.
Larry Parks was the only actor in the original nineteen people named. He was also the only person on the list
who the average moviegoer would have known. Parks agreed to give evidence to the HUAC and admitted that
he had joined the Communist Party in 1941 but left it four years later. When asked for the names of fellow
members, Parks replied: "I would prefer, if you would allow me, not to mention other people's names. Don't
present me with the choice of either being in contempt of this Committee and going to jail or forcing me to
really crawl through the mud to be an informer."
The HUAC insisted that Parks answered all the questions asked. Then there was a private session and two days
later it was leaked to the newspapers that Parks had named names. Leo Townsend, Isobel Lennart, Roy
Huggins, Richard Collins, Lee J. Cobb, Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan, afraid they would go to prison, were
willing to name people who had been members of left-wing groups. If these people refused to name names,
they were added to a blacklist that had been drawn up by the Hollywood film studios. In June, 1950, three
former FBI agents and a right-wing television producer, Vincent Harnett, published Red Channels, a pamphlet
listing the names of 151 writers, directors and performers who they claimed had been members of subversive
organizations before the Second World War but had not so far been blacklisted. The names had been compiled
from FBI files and a detailed analysis of the Daily Worker, a newspaper published by the American Communist
Party. A free copy of Red Channels was sent to those involved in employing people in the entertainment
industry. All those people named in the pamphlet were blacklisted until they appeared in front of the House of
Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and convinced its members they had completely renounced their
radical past.
Edward Dmytryk, one of the original Hollywood Ten, had financial problems as a result of divorcing his first
wife. Faced with having to sell his plane and encouraged by his new wife, Dmytryk decided to try to get his
name removed from the blacklist. On 25th April, 1951, Dmytryk appeared before the House of Un-American
Activities Committee again. This time he answered all their questions including the naming of twenty-six former
members of left-wing groups. Dmytryk also revealed how people such as John Howard Lawson, Adrian Scott
and Albert Maltz had put him under pressure to make sure his films expressed the views of the Communist
Party. This was particularly damaging to those members of the original Hollywood Ten were at that time
involved in court cases with their previous employers. If these people refused to name names, they were added
to a blacklist that had been drawn up by the Hollywood film studios. Over 320 people were placed on this list
that stopped them from working in the entertainment industry. This included the following: Larry Adler, Stella
Adler, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Joseph Bromberg, Charlie Chaplin, Aaron Copland, Hanns Eisler,
Edwin Rolfe, Carl Foreman, John Garfield, Howard Da Silva, Dashiell Hammett, E. Y. Harburg, Lillian Hellman,
Burl Ives, Arthur Miller, Dorothy Parker, Philip Loeb, Joseph Losey, Anne Revere, Pete Seeger, Gale
Sondergaard, Louis Untermeyer, Josh White, Zero Mostel, Clifford Odets, Michael Wilson, Paul Jarrico, Jeff
Corey, John Randolph, Canada Lee, Orson Welles, Paul Green, Sidney Kingsley, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright
and Abraham Polonsky. Some blacklisted screenwriters continued to write under assumed names. In 1960
Dalton Trumbo became the first blacklisted writer to use his own name when he wrote the screenplay for film
Spartacus. Based on the novel by another left-wing blacklisted writer, Howard Fast, Spartacus is a film that

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examines the spirit of revolt. Trumbo refers back to his experiences of the House of Un-American Activities
Committee. At the end, when the Romans finally defeat the rebellion, the captured slaves refuse to identify
Spartacus. As a result, all are crucified. Ironically, much of Spartacus was filmed on land owned by William
Randolph Hearst.

Communist Witch Hunts, McCarthyism

When the Cold War broke out between the US and the USSR after 1945, there was an intense fear and hatred
of Communism by many Americans. “Better dead than Red” was a popular slogan. Americans looked abroad
after 1945 and saw Communism taking over in East Europe (1945- 48), China (1949), Korea (1950). President
Truman went along with an anti-Communism policy that was popular with US voters. He introduced the
Federal Employee Loyalty Program (FELP) in 1947 aimed at combating security ‘risks’ (Communists) from
working for the Federal Government. Every person taking on a new job in the civil service or government would
be investigated. Congress set up the House Committee on UN- American Activities (HUAC) that investigated
‘Communist’ involvement in the film industry, education, unions and the government. Witnesses were
supposed to prove their loyalty by naming former Communists they had known, if they didn’t they could face a
jail sentence and be ‘blacklisted’ so they couldn’t get a job.
In 1949, two events greatly increased American’s fears of Communism. Firstly, China went Communist under
Mao Tse Dong. Secondly, the Russians exploded their first ‘A’ bomb, so America had lost their nuclear
monopoly. A year later hysteria peaked, when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of selling nuclear
secrets to the Russians during the WW2. Even though Russia was an ally when this happened, they were
convicted of treason and executed by the electric chair in 1953. It seemed that ‘Witch- Hunts’ were taking place
in America and the scene was set for appearance of Senator Joe McCarthy, the biggest witch- hunter of all. In
1950, McCarthy, a Republican Senator, claimed he had a list of 205 members of the Communist Party of the US,
who worked for the State Department. He never had any evidence, but just waved his list for the cameras. The
HUAC summoned 2,375 men and women, which was enough to cost them their jobs. Soon, however, public
opinion turned against him. He made the outrageous claim that the army was infiltrated with communists!
With the hearings televised, McCarthy came across as a vicious bully and a liar. By 1954, he was forced out of
public life and died three years later, an alcoholic.

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization also called "the (North) Atlantic Alliance”, is a military alliance
established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brussels,
Belgium, and the organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to
mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War
galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S.
supreme commanders. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously stated the organization's goal
was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down". Doubts over the strength of the
relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the
credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion - doubts that led to the development of
the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure
from 1966. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the organization became drawn into the Balkans while
building better links with former potential enemies to the east, which culminated with several former Warsaw
Pact states joining the alliance in 1999 and 2004. On April 1, 2009, membership was enlarged to 28 with the
entrance of Albania and Croatia. Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, NATO has attempted to
refocus itself to new challenges and has deployed troops to Afghanistan as well as trainers to Iraq.
The Berlin Plus agreement is a comprehensive package of agreements made between NATO and the EU on 16
December 2002. With this agreement the EU was given the possibility to use NATO assets in case it wanted to
act independently in an international crisis, on the condition that NATO itself did not want to act – the so-called
"right of first refusal". Only if NATO refused to act would the EU have the option to act.

Berlin Crisis

At the end of World War II Berlin, former capital of the Third Reich, was a divided city in a divided country. The
wartime Allies--the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union--originally intended Berlin's

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division as a symbol of Germany's defeat. Within 3 years, however, Berlin was transformed from the capital of
tyranny to an island of freedom; a symbol, not of Germany's defeat, but of the emerging Cold War. The Berlin
problem was an accident, the result of bad planning and Cold War tensions. On the wrong side of the Iron
Curtain and a victim of the inability of the East and West to agree on German unification, Berlin was caught in a
recurring cycle of crisis and resolution, pitting the legality of Western rights against the reality of Soviet power.
In fact, the history of Berlin--the Berlin Blockade, the East Berlin uprising, the Berlin Quadripartite Agreement,
and the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall--reflects the history of the Cold War itself. The cycle began in June 1948,
when the Soviet Union instituted a blockade of Berlin to protest Western efforts to integrate their zones of
occupation in western Germany. By restricting access to the city, the Soviets hoped to force the Western Allies
to abandon a recently undertaken currency reform and possibly Berlin itself. The United States and its allies
responded with a massive airlift that delivered supplies to the people of Berlin and generated overwhelming
popular support in return. By the time the blockade was lifted in May 1949, the Allies had established not only
the Federal Republic of Germany but also the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Soviets suffered a major
defeat in the first Berlin crisis (1948-49), and the division of Berlin became a permanent picture of Cold War
geography. If the Berlin airlift showed that the West could resist Soviet aggression, the 1953 East Berlin popular
uprising showed that the opportunities for such resistance were limited. On June 16, 1953, in a direct challenge
to East German authority, workers in East Berlin rose to protest government demands to increase productivity.
Although the Soviets quickly suppressed the revolt, the uprising was an unprecedented episode in the Cold
War; it was the first time the people had openly opposed communism in Eastern Europe. The next crisis in
Berlin (1958-1962) demonstrated that neither the Western nor Eastern blocs could unilaterally change the
city's status without the risk of direct confrontation. In November 1958 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev
delivered an ultimatum: if the West did not agree to solve the Berlin problem within 6 months, he would reach
a separate peace agreement with East Germany. The Soviet offensive, which soon included proposals for a
comprehensive German peace treaty, threatened to expose the Allied position not only in Berlin but also in
West Germany, where the politics of reunification frequently clashed with the policy of rearmament. The Allies
quickly responded with an offer of formal negotiations. The two sides were talking in May 1959 when the first
deadline passed without incident. Meanwhile, the exodus of skilled workers from East Germany to the West
threatened to expose the Soviet position in Eastern Europe. At the Vienna Summit in June 1961, Khrushchev
reiterated his threat to sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany if the West did not come to terms over
Berlin by the end of the year. Rather than submit to such pressure, President John F. Kennedy replied that it
would be a "cold winter." When he returned to the United States, Kennedy faced instead a summer of decision.
On July 25 he announced plans to meet the Soviet challenge in Berlin, including a dramatic buildup of American
conventional forces and drawing the line on interference with Allied access to West Berlin. This warning, in
fact, contained the basis for resolving the crisis. On August 13 the East German Government, supported by
Khrushchev, finally closed the border between East and West Berlin by erecting what eventually became the
most concrete symbol of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. Although the citizens of Berlin reacted to the wall with
outrage, many in the West--certainly within the Kennedy administration--reacted with relief. The wall
interfered with the personal lives of the people but not with the political position of the Allies in Berlin. The
result was a "satisfactory" stalemate--the Soviets did not challenge the legality of Allied rights, and the Allies
did not challenge the reality of Soviet power.

Massive retaliation

Massive retaliation, also known as a massive response or massive deterrence, is a military doctrine and nuclear
strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack. The aim of
massive retaliation is to deter an adversary from initially attacking. For such a strategy to work, it must be in
public knowledge of all possible aggressors. The adversary also must believe that the state announcing the
policy has the ability to maintain second-strike capability in the event of an attack. It must also believe that the
defending state is willing to go through with the deterrent threat, which would likely involve the use of nuclear
weapons on a massive scale. Massive retaliation works on the same principles as mutually assured destruction,
with the important caveat that even a minor conventional attack on a nuclear state could conceivably result in
all-out nuclear retaliation. Massive retaliation was a term coined by Eisenhower's Secretary of State John
Foster Dulles in a speech on January 12, 1954. Dulles stated that the U.S. would respond to military provocation
"at places and with means of our own choosing." This was interpreted to mean that the U.S. could respond to
any foreign challenge with nuclear weapons. Dulles also said that "Local defense must be reinforced by the
further deterrent of massive retaliatory power." This quote forms the basis for the term massive retaliation,

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which would back up any conventional defense against conventional attacks with a possible massive retaliatory
attack involving nuclear weapons. In August, 1945, the United States ended World War II with the nuclear
attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. Four years later, on August 9, 1949, the Soviet Union developed its
own nuclear weapons. At the time, both sides lacked the means to effectively use nuclear devices against each
other. However, with the introduction of aircraft like the Convair B-36 and eventually with nuclear triads being
established, both countries were quickly increasing their ability to deliver nuclear weapons into the interior of
the opposing country. The doctrine of massive retaliation was based on the West's increasing fear at the
perceived imbalance of power in conventional forces, and the corresponding inability to defend itself or prevail
in conventional conflicts. By relying on a large nuclear arsenal for deterrence, President Eisenhower believed
that conventional forces could be reduced while still maintaining military prestige and power and the capability
to defend the western bloc. Upon a conventional attack on Berlin, for instance, the United States would
undertake a massive retaliation on the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. The massive response doctrine was
thus an extension of mutually assured destruction to conventional attacks, conceivably deterring the Soviet
Union from attacking any part of the United States' sphere of influence even with conventional weapons. In
theory, as the U.S.S.R. had no desire to provoke an all-out nuclear attack, the policy of massive response likely
deterred any ambitions it would have had on Western Europe. Although the United States and NATO bloc
would be hard-pressed in a conventional conflict with the Warsaw Pact forces if a conventional war were to
occur, the massive response doctrine prevented the Soviets from advancing for fear that a nuclear attack
would have been made upon the Soviet Union in response to a conventional attack. It can be argued that,
however, aside from raising tensions in an already strained relationship with the Soviet bloc, massive
retaliation had little practical effects. A threat of massive retaliation is hard to make credible, and is inflexible in
response to foreign policy issues. Everyday challenges of foreign policy could not be dealt with using a massive
nuclear strike. In fact, the Soviet Union took many minor military actions that would have necessitated the use
of nuclear weapons under a strict reading of the massive retaliation doctrine. Also, if both sides of a conflict
adopt the same stance of massive response, it may result in unlimited escalation (a "nuclear spasm"), each
believing that the other will back down after the first round of retaliation. Both problems are not unique to
massive retaliation, but to nuclear deterrence as a whole. President John F. Kennedy abandoned the policy of
massive retaliation during the Cuban Missile Crisis in favor of flexible response. Kennedy was not willing to
tolerate Soviet aggression. Under the Kennedy Administration, the U.S. adopted a more flexible policy in an
attempt to avert nuclear war if the Soviets did not cooperate with American demands. If the United States' only
announced military reaction to any Soviet incursion (no matter how small) were a massive nuclear strike, and
the U.S. didn't follow through, then the Soviets would assume that the United States would never attack. This
would have made the Soviet Union far more bold in its military ventures against U.S. allies and would probably
have resulted in a full-scale nuclear war. By having other, more flexible policies to deal with aggressive Soviet
actions, the U.S. could opt out of a nuclear strike and take less damaging actions to rectify the problem without
losing face in the international community.

Ho Chi Minh

Hồ Chí Minh (May 19, 1890 – September 2, 1969) was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary and statesman
who was prime minister (1946–1955) and president (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North
Vietnam). Ho led the Viet Minh independence movement from 1941 onward, establishing the communist-
governed Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 and defeating the French Union in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. He
lost political power inside North Vietnam in the late 1950s, but remained as the highly visible figurehead
president until his death. The former capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, after the Fall of Saigon, was renamed Ho
Chi Minh City in his honor.

Viet Cong

The Vietcong or National Liberation Front, was an army in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United
States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1959-75). It had both guerrilla and regular
army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers
were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the Vietnam People's Army, the regular North
Vietnamese army. During the war, communists and anti-war spokesmen insisted the Vietcong was an
insurgency indigenous to the South, while the U.S. and South Vietnamese governments disputed this and
portrayed the group as a tool of Hanoi. Many of its core members were "regroupees," southern Vietminh who

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had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and
sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Vietcong
established National Liberation Front in 1960 to encourage the participation of non-communists. The NLF
called for the "overthrow the camouflaged colonial regime of the American imperialists" and "efforts toward
the peaceful unification." The Vietcong's best-known action was the Tet Offensive, a massive assault on more
than 100 South Vietnamese urban centers in 1968, including an attack on the US embassy in Saigon. The
offensive riveted the attention of the world's media for weeks, but also overextended the Vietcong. Later
communist offensives were conducted primarily by the North Vietnamese army. The group was dissolved in
1976 when North and South Vietnam were officially unified under a communist government.

Ngo Dinh Diem

A Vietnamese political leader (1901-1963) Ngo Dinh Diem was born into an aristocratic, Roman Catholic family
with close ties to the Emperor. He served in Emperor Bao Dai's administration under French colonial rule until
1933. During and after World War II, he opposed both French colonial rule and the communist-led national
independence movement. Already staunchly anticommunist, he rejected an offer to serve in Ho Chi Minh's
brief postwar government in 1945. As independence forces battled the French, he spent several years in exile,
making political contacts and gaining crucial American support in hopes of leading a postwar government. One
chronicler dubbed Ngo "the last Confucian," who believed that Vietnam needed the benevolent, authoritarian
rule of enlightened elites. He became prime minister of South Vietnam in 1954 just as the defeated French
forces left. The peace accord called for elections in 1956 and unification of the divided country. With American
support, Ngo cancelled the elections, knowing full well that Ho Chi Minh would have easily won the presidency.
Over the next seven years, he presided over an increasingly corrupt, nepotistic and repressive regime.
Communist guerrillas backed by North Vietnam launched a new rebellion, but a civil disobedience campaign led
by the country's Buddhist monks contributed more directly to his downfall. Brutal persecution of the dissident
monks in 1963 damaged the regime's already shaky international reputation. With American support,
Vietnamese generals overthrew and assassinated Ngo later that year.

Green Berets

The United States Army Special Forces, also known as Green Berets, is a Special Operations Force (SOF) of the
United States Army tasked with five primary missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense,
special reconnaissance, direct action, and counter-terrorism. The first two emphasize language, cultural, and
training skills in working with foreign troops. Other duties include combat search and rescue (CSAR), security
assistance, peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance, humanitarian demining, counter-proliferation,
psychological operations, and counter-drug operations; other components of the United States Special
Operations Command or other U.S. government activities may also specialize in these secondary areas. Many
of their operational techniques are classified, but some nonfiction works and doctrinal manuals are available.
The original and most important mission of the Special Forces had been "unconventional warfare" were
gradually added.
Their official motto is De Oppresso Liber, a reference to one of their primary missions, training and advising
foreign indigenous forces.
Currently, Special Forces units are deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They are also deployed with other
SOCOM elements as one of the primary American military forces in the ongoing War in Afghanistan. As a
special operations unit, Special Forces are not necessarily under the command authority of the ground
commanders in those countries. Instead, while in theater, SF operators may report directly to United States
Central Command, USSOCOM, or other command authorities.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th President of the United
States from 1953 until 1961 and a five-star general in the United States Army. During the Second World War,
he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and
supervising the successful invasion of France and Germany in 1944–45. In 1951, he became the first supreme
commander of NATO. As President, he oversaw the cease-fire of the Korean War, kept up the pressure on the
Soviet Union during the Cold War, made nuclear weapons a higher defense priority, launched the Space Race,
enlarged the Social Security program, and began the Interstate Highway System. He was the last World War I

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veteran to serve as U.S. president, and the last president born in the 19th century. Eisenhower ranks highly
among former U.S. presidents in terms of approval rating.

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States (1969–
1974) and the only president to resign the office. He was also the 36th Vice President of the United States
(1953–1961). Nixon was born in Yorba Linda, California. After completing undergraduate work at Whittier
College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law in
La Mirada. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the United States Navy and rose to the rank of
Lieutenant Commander during World War II. He was elected in 1946 as a Republican to the House of
Representatives representing California's 12th Congressional district, and in 1950 to the United States Senate.
He was selected to be the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was the Republican Party nominee in
the 1952 presidential election, and Nixon was vice president until 1961. Nixon announced his withdrawal from
politics after losing the presidential election in 1960 and the California gubernatorial election in 1962. However,
in 1968, Nixon was elected president of the United States. The most immediate task facing President Nixon was
the Vietnam War. He initially escalated the conflict, overseeing secret bombing campaigns, but soon withdrew
American troops and successfully negotiated a ceasefire with North Vietnam, effectively ending American
involvement in the war. His foreign policy was largely successful; he opened relations with the People's
Republic of China and initiated détente with the Soviet Union. Domestically, he implemented new economic
policies which called for wage and price control and the abolition of the gold standard. He was reelected by a
landslide in 1972. In his second term, the nation was afflicted with economic difficulties. In the face of likely
impeachment for his role in the Watergate scandal, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Nixon was later
pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, for any federal crimes he may have committed while in office. In his
retirement, Nixon became a prolific author and undertook many foreign trips. He suffered a debilitating stroke
on April 18, 1994, and died four days later at the age of 81.

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK, was
the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. After Kennedy's
military service as commander of the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 during World War II in the South Pacific, his
aspirations turned political. With the encouragement and grooming of his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.,
Kennedy represented Massachusetts's 11th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from
1947 to 1953 as a Democrat, and in the U.S. Senate from 1953 until 1960. Kennedy defeated then Vice
President and Republican candidate Richard Nixon in the 1960 U.S. presidential election, one of the closest in
American history. To date, he is the only Catholic president. He was the second-youngest President (after
Theodore Roosevelt), and the youngest elected to the office, at the age of 43. Kennedy is also the only
president to have won a Pulitzer Prize. Events during his administration include the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the
Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African American Civil Rights
Movement and early events of the Vietnam War. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas,
Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the crime but was murdered two days later by Jack Ruby before he
could be put on trial. The Warren Commission and the 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations
concluded that Oswald was the assassin, with the HSCA allowing for the probability of conspiracy. The event
proved to be an important moment in U.S. history because of its impact on the nation and the ensuing political
repercussions.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, served as the 36th
President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States
from 1961 to 1963. Johnson, a Democrat, succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy, completed Kennedy's term and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large
margin in the 1964 Presidential election. Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party and, as
President, was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil
rights, Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education, and his attempt to help the poor in his "War on Poverty."
Simultaneously, he greatly escalated direct American involvement in the Vietnam War. Johnson served as a

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United States Representative from Texas, from 1937–1949 and as United States Senator from 1949–1961. After
campaigning unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1960, Johnson was selected by John F. Kennedy
to be his running-mate for the 1960 presidential election. Johnson's popularity as President steadily declined
after the 1966 Congressional elections, and his re-election bid in the 1968 United States presidential election
collapsed as a result of turmoil within the Democratic Party related to opposition to the Vietnam War. He
withdrew from the race to concentrate on peacemaking. Johnson was renowned for his domineering
personality and the "Johnson treatment," his arm twisting of powerful politicians. He was a legendary "hands-
on" manager and the very last President to serve out his term without ever hiring a White House Chief of Staff
or "gatekeeper". Johnson died after suffering his third heart attack, on January 22, 1973. He was 64 years old.

Elvis Presley

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) a was an American singer, actor, and musician. A
cultural icon, he is commonly known simply as Elvis and is also sometimes referred to as "The King of Rock 'n'
Roll" or "The King". Presley began his career in 1954 as one of the first performers of rockabilly, an up-tempo
fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong back beat. His novel versions of existing songs, mixing
"black" and "white" sounds, made him popular—and controversial—as did his uninhibited stage and television
performances. He recorded songs in the rock and roll genre, with tracks like "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock"
later embodying the style. Presley had a versatile voice and had unusually wide success encompassing other
genres, including gospel, blues, ballads and pop. To date, he has been inducted into four music halls of fame. In
the 1960s, Presley made the majority of his 31 movies, most of which were poorly reviewed but financially
successful musicals. In 1968, he returned to live music in a television special, and performed across the U.S.,
notably in Las Vegas. In 1973, Presley staged first global live concert via satellite (Aloha from Hawaii), reaching
at least one billion viewers live and an additional 500 million on delay. Throughout his career, he set records for
concert attendance, television ratings and recordings sales. He is one of the best-selling and most influential
artists in the history of music. Health problems, drug addiction and other factors led to his death at age 42.

Rock n roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its
roots lay mainly in blues, rhythm and blues, country, folk, gospel, and jazz. The style subsequently spread to the
rest of the world and developed further, leading ultimately to modern rock music. Classic rock and roll is
usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an
electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either
the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by
guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a boogie woogie blues rhythm with an accentuated
backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare drum. The massive popularity and eventual worldwide
view of rock and roll gave it a unique social impact. Far beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in
movies and in the new medium of television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. It went on
to spawn various sub-genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly
called simply "rock music" or "rock".

McDonalds

McDonald’s is one of the leading restaurant chains in the world, touching the lives of people everyday. The long
journey of the burger brand started in 1940, when two brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald opened the first
McDonald’s restaurant in San Bernardino, California. Initially, they owned a hotdog stand, but after establishing
the restaurant they served around 25 items, which were mostly barbequed. It became a popular and profitable
teen hangout. In 1948, the brothers closed and reopened the restaurant to sell only hamburgers, milkshakes
and French fries. As per the information of the McDonald’s history, the major revenue came from hamburgers,
which were sold at a nominal price of 15 cents. The restaurant gradually became famous and the McDonald
brothers begin franchising their restaurant in the year 1953. The first franchise was taken by Neil Fox and under
it; the second Mc Donald’s restaurant was opened in Fresno, California. It was the first to introduce the Golden
Arch design. The third and fourth restaurants were opened in Saginaw, Michigan and Downey, California,
respectively. The latter is the oldest Mc Donald’s restaurant still in operation. In 1954, an entrepreneur and
milkshake-mixer salesman, Ray Kroc, acquired the franchise of McDonald’s restaurant for outside California
and Arizona. In effect, Kroc opened his first and the overall ninth restaurant in Illinois, Chicago, and gave birth

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to Mc Donald’s Corporation. In 1958, the restaurant chain sold its 100 millionth hamburger. In 1960, Kroc
renamed his company as ‘McDonald’s Corporation’. Later that year, the Hamburger University was opened,
which gave away McDonald's restaurant Bachelor of Hamburgology degrees to students. In 1963, the mascot
Ronald McDonald was born as a part of a marketing strategy in US. In 1967, the first restaurant outside US was
opened in Richmond, British Columbia. In 1974, the 3000th restaurant opened in Woolwich, United Kingdom,
which is the first of the country. Happy Meal was introduced in US in 1979. In 1984, the company became the
main sponsor of the Summer Olympics. The year was also marked by the death of Ray Kroc. In 1988, the first
restaurant opened in a communist country in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, followed by the first Soviet restaurant in
Moscow (1990). In 1992, the largest McDonald’s was opened in Beijing, China, having over 700 seats and was
later demolished. In 1993, the first sea-going restaurant was established, aboard the Finnish Cruise-ferry Silja
Europa, sailing between Helsinki and Stockholm. In 1994, McDonald’s bagged the Catalyst Award for its
program for ‘fostering leadership development in women’. In 1996, the first Indian restaurant was opened. In
2003, the company launched the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ campaign. In 2005, McDonald’s started its McDelivery service in
Singapore.

G I Bill of Rights

On June 22, 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of
1944, also known as the G.I. Bill of Rights. The purpose of the act was to help the nation reabsorb millions of
veterans returning from overseas who had been fighting in WW II. During the decades since its enactment, the
law and its amendments have made possible the investment of millions of dollars in education and training for
a vast number of veterans. The nation has earned many times its investment in return, through increased tax
revenues and a dramatically changed society. A myriad of forces converged to bring about the successful
passage of the G.I. Bill. The end of the war brought reduced demand for the production of wartime goods and
fueled fears of the type of economic slowdown that followed previous wars. The influx of potential laborers
created apprehension regarding job security and economic stability. The bill addressed these and other
problems by providing six benefits, the first three of which were administered by the Veterans Administration
(VA).
In enacting the legislation, lawmakers demonstrated that they had learned from the mistakes made by the
United States government during the period following the World War I, when war veterans marched on the
nation's capital in a crusade for increased compensation from the government. During the last years of World
War II, the federal government began a period of activity designed to smooth the transition of society as a
whole, and individual veterans in particular, to the postwar era. The economic stability provided by these
federal efforts, the centerpiece of which was the G.I. Bill of Rights, boosted Americans' confidence and changed
the way individuals lived, worked, and learned. Initial expectations for the number of veterans who would
utilize the educational benefits offered by the G.I. Bill were quite inaccurate. Projections of a total of several
hundred thousand veterans were revised, as more than 1 million veterans were enrolled in higher education
during each of 1946 and 1947, and well over 900,000 during 1948. Veterans represented between 40 and 50
percent of all higher education students during this period. The increasing numbers of veterans in higher
education created several changes on American college and university campuses. New facilities were
constructed to accommodate the surging enrollments. New programs evolved, ones that were geared to the
vocational and professional emphases that veterans sought from the classroom. The veteran was among the
most successful of all college students academically, and this phenomenon generated a psychological shift for
many within American society: no longer was the college campus seen as the exclusive preserve of elite sons
and daughters.

Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between
approximately 1950 and 1980. It was accompanied by much civil unrest and popular rebellion. The process was
long and tenuous in many countries, and most of these movements did not achieve or fully achieve their
objectives. In its later years, the Civil Rights Movement took a sharp turn to the radical left in many cases.
The African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968) refers to the reform movements in the United States
aimed at outlawing racial discrimination against African Americans and restoring Suffrage in Southern states.
By 1966, the emergence of the Black Power Movement, which lasted roughly from 1966 to 1975, enlarged the
aims of the Civil Rights Movement to include racial dignity, economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom

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from oppression by whites. Many of those who were most active in the Civil Rights Movement, with
organizations such as NAACP SNCC, CORE and SCLC, prefer the term "Southern Freedom Movement" because
the struggle was about far more than just civil rights under law; it was also about fundamental issues of
freedom, respect, dignity, and economic and social equality. During the period 1955-1968, acts of nonviolent
protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities.
Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, educational institutions, and communities often had to
respond immediately to crisis situations which highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans. Forms of
protest and civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956)
in Alabama; "sit-ins" such as the influential Greensboro sit-in (1960) in North Carolina; marches, such as the
Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities. Noted
legislative achievements during this phase of the Civil Rights Movement were passage of Civil Rights Act of
1964, that banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations; the Voting Rights Act
of 1965, that restored and protected voting rights; the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965, that
dramatically opened entry to the U.S. to immigrants other than traditional European groups; and the Civil
Rights Act of 1968, that banned discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. African Americans re-entered
politics in the South, and across the country young people were inspired to action.

Key events

•

Brown v. Board of Education, 1954

•

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955–1956

•

Desegregating Little Rock, 1957

•

Sit-ins, 1960

•

Freedom Rides, 1961

•

Voter Registration Organizing

•

Integration of Mississippi Universities, 1956-1965

•

Albany Movement, 1961-1962

•

Birmingham campaign, 1963-1964

•

March on Washington, 1963

•

St. Augustine, Florida, 1963-1964

•

Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964

•

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, 1964

•

Dr. King Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

•

Boycott of New Orleans by American Football League players, January 1965

•

Selma and the Voting Rights Act, 1965

•

Memphis, King assassination and the Poor People's March, 1968

Rosa Parks

Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an African American civil rights activist
whom the U.S. Congress later called the "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement." On December 1,

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1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks, age 42, refused to obey bus driver James Blake's order that she give up
her seat to make room for a white passenger. Her action was not the first of its kind: Irene Morgan, in 1946,
and Sarah Louise Keys, in 1955, had won rulings before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Interstate Commerce
Commission respectively in the area of interstate bus travel. Nine months before Parks refused to give up her
seat, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to move from her seat on the same bus system. But unlike these
previous individual actions of civil disobedience, Parks's action sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Parks's
act of defiance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement and Parks became an
international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders,
including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights
movement. Parks eventually received many honors ranging from the 1979 Spingarn Medal to the Congressional
Gold Medal, a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall, and the posthumous
honor of lying in honor at the Capitol Rotunda. At the time of her action, Parks was secretary of the
Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and had
recently attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee center for workers' rights and racial equality.
Nonetheless, she took her action as a private citizen "tired of giving in". Although widely honored in later years
for her action, she also suffered for it, losing her job as a seamstress in a local department store. Eventually,
she moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she found similar work. From 1965 to 1988 she served as secretary and
receptionist to African-American U.S. Representative John Conyers. After retirement from this position, she
wrote an autobiography and lived a largely private life in Detroit. In her final years she suffered from dementia
and became embroiled in a lawsuit filed on her behalf against American hip-hop duo OutKast. Her death in
2005 was a front-page story in the United States' leading newspapers.

Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist and prominent
leader in the African-American civil rights movement. His main legacy was to secure progress on civil rights in
the United States and he is frequently referenced as a human rights icon today. King is recognized as a martyr
by two Christian churches. A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the
1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957,
serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I
Have a Dream" speech. There, he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established
himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the
Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience
and other non-violent means. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty
and opposing the Vietnam War, both from a religious perspective. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in
Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and
Congressional Gold Medal in 2004; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. national holiday in
1986.

SNCC

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was one of the principal organizations of the American
Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at
Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina in April 1960. SNCC grew into a large organization with many
supporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC's work in the South, allowing full-time SNCC
workers to have a $10 a week salary. Many unpaid volunteers also worked with SNCC on projects in Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and Maryland. SNCC played a major role in the sit-ins and freedom rides, a leading
role in the 1963 March on Washington, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic
Party over the next few years. SNCC's major contribution was in its field work, organizing voter registration
drives all over the South, especially in Georgia and Mississippi. In the later 1960s, led by fiery leaders such as
Stokely Carmichael, SNCC focused on "black power", and then protesting against the Vietnam War. As early as
1965, Forman said he didn’t know “how much longer we can stay nonviolent” and in 1969, SNCC officially
changed its name to the Student National Coordinating Committee to reflect the broadening of its strategies. It
passed out of existence in the 1970s.

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Sit-ins + Non-violent protest

On February 1, 1960, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond, and Ezell Blair, Jr., walked into an F.W.
Woolworth Company store in Greensboro, North Carolina, purchased some school supplies, then went to the
lunch counter and asked to be served. They knew they probably would not be. The four freshmen at the North
Carolina Agricultural and Technical College were black, and this lunch counter was segregated. Still, as one of
the students told UPI, "We believe, since we buy books and papers in the other part of the store, we should get
served in this part." When they were forced to leave as the store closed, they still had not been served. This
first sit-in had very little effect. C.L. Harris, manager of the store, said of the students, "They can just sit there.
It's nothing to me." But when a larger group of students returned the next day, wire services picked up the
story, and civil rights organizations began to spread the word to other college campuses. Gordon Carey, a
representative from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), came down from New York to organize more sit-
ins. Ella Baker of the SCLC contacted students on many college campuses. In two weeks, students in eleven
cities held sit-ins, primarily at Woolworth's and S.H. Kress stores. Soon stores put signs in the window, saying
"NO TRESPASSING," "We Reserve the Right to Service the Public As We See Fit," and "CLOSED - In the Interest
of Public Safety." The basic plan of the sit-ins was that a group of students would go to a lunch counter and ask
to be served. If they were, they'd move on to the next lunch counter. If they were not, they would not move
until they had been. If they were arrested, a new group would take their place. When Northern students heard
of the movement, they decided to help their Southern counterparts by picketing local branches of chain stores
that were segregated in the South. Martin Smolin, a Columbia student who led picketing at Woolworth's,
explained, "People have asked me why northerners, especially white people, who have been in the majority in
our picketing demonstrations in New York, take an active part in an issue which doesn't concern them. My
answer is that injustice anywhere is everybody's concern." And when a reporter asked Congressman Adam
Clayton Powell of Harlem if he was advocating that Negroes in New York stay out of national chain stores such
as Woolworth's, he answered, "Oh no. I'm advocating that American citizens interested in democracy stay out
of these stores." The first few weeks of sit-ins were fairly quiet. Blacks were not served, but they were not
harassed much either. Then, on February 27, sit-in students in Nashville were attacked by a group of white
teenagers. Police arrived, but they let the white teens go while arresting the protesters for "disorderly
conduct." As each group of protesters was arrested, a new group would take its place. "No matter what they
did and how many they arrested, there was still a lunch counter full of students there," explained Diane Nash,
one of the leaders of the sit-in movement in Nashville. Z. Alexander Looby, a prominent black lawyer,
represented the protesters in court; however, as he began his arguments, the judge literally turned his back.
Looby stopped his argument and said, to the judge's back, "What's the use!" The judge found the defendants
guilty, and they were fined $150 plus court costs. A few days later, 63 protesters were arrested during sit-ins at
Nashville's Greyhound and Trailways bus terminals. Over Easter Weekend, Ella Baker of the SCLC helped
organize a conference of sit-in students from around the nation. Held at Shaw University in Raleigh, North
Carolina, the conference was dubbed the "Sacrifice for Dignity." Older organizations such as SCLC, CORE, and
NAACP hoped that the students would create a youth organization inside of them. Baker, however, encouraged
the students to form an independent organization. They formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) to lead the sit-in effort. On April 19, Z. Alexander Looby's home was destroyed by a
powerful dynamite blast. Looby was considered to be fairly conservative, so the bombing enraged not only the
black community but many whites as well. 2,500 students and community members staged a silent march to
City Hall that day. When they reached it, Mayor Ben West was waiting for them. Diane Nash asked him, "Do
you feel it is wrong to discriminate against a person solely on the basis of their race or color?" West said yes.
He later explained, "It was a moral question -- one that a man had to answer, not a politician." Nashville
merchants were somewhat relieved by West's answer. "The merchants were afraid to move on their own, were
almost looking for an excuse to say `Well if that's what the mayor thinks, then maybe we ought to go ahead,'"
explained Bernie Schweid. A few weeks later on May 10, six Nashville lunch counters began serving blacks. The
students in Nashville had won an important victory. The sit-ins, however, were not over. By August 1961, they
had attracted over 70,000 participants and generated over 3,000 arrests. They continued in some areas of the
South until and even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 declared segregation at lunch counters
unlawful. In addition, the technique of the sit-ins was used to integrate other public facilities, such as movie
theaters, and SNCC, the student group that rose out of the sit-ins, continued to be involved in the civil rights
movement for many years. Perhaps most importantly, the sit-ins marked a change in the civil rights movement.
In the words of journalist Louis Lomax, "They were proof that the Negro leadership class, epitomized by the
NAACP, was no longer the prime mover in the Negro's social revolt. The demonstrations have shifted the

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desegregation battles from the courtroom to the marketplace." They showed that nonviolent direct action and
youth could be very useful weapons in the war against segregation.

Malcolm X

Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was
an African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a
courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest
terms for its crimes against black Americans. His detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He
has been described as one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. Malcolm X was
born in Omaha, Nebraska. By the time he was 13, his father had died and his mother had been committed to a
mental hospital. His childhood, including his father's lessons concerning black pride and self-reliance and his
own experiences concerning race, played a significant role in Malcolm X's adult life. After living in a series of
foster homes, Malcolm X became involved in the criminal underworld in Boston and New York. In 1945,
Malcolm X was sentenced to eight to ten years in prison. While in prison, Malcolm X became a member of the
Nation of Islam. After his parole in 1952, he became one of the Nation's leaders and chief spokesmen. For
nearly a dozen years, he was the public face of the Nation of Islam. Tension between Malcolm X and Elijah
Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam, led to Malcolm X's departure from the organization in March 1964.
After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X became a Sunni Muslim and made a pilgrimage to Mecca. He
traveled extensively throughout Africa and the Middle East. He founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious
organization, and the secular, black nationalist Organization of Afro-American Unity. Less than a year after he
left the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was assassinated while giving a speech in New York.

Peace Corps

The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program that sends people to countries around the world for two-
year stints. It was established by Executive Order 10924 on March 1, 1961, and authorized by Congress on
September 22, 1961, with passage of the Peace Corps Act (Public Law 87-293). The Peace Corps Act declares
the purpose of the Peace Corps to be:

“To promote world peace and friendship through a Peace Corps, which shall make available to interested
countries and areas men and women of the United States qualified for service abroad and willing to serve,
under conditions of hardship if necessary, to help the peoples of such countries and areas in meeting their needs
for trained manpower.”

Since 1960, more than 195,000 people have served as Peace Corps volunteers in 139 countries.

The Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was an African-American
organization established to promote Black Power and self-defense. It was active in the United States from the
mid-1960s into the 1970s.The Black Panther Party achieved national and international presence through their
deep involvement in the local community. The Black Panther Party was an auxiliary of the greater movement,
often coined the Black Power Movement. The Black Power Movement was one of the most significant social,
political and cultural movements in U.S. history. In September 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the
Black Panthers as, "The greatest threat to the internal security of the country." Founded in Oakland, California,
by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton on October 15, 1966, the organization initially set forth a doctrine calling
for the protection of African American neighborhoods from police brutality, in the interest of African-American
justice. Its objectives and philosophy changed radically during the party's existence. While the organization's
leaders passionately espoused socialist doctrine, the Party's black nationalist reputation attracted an
ideologically diverse membership. Ideological consensus within the party was difficult to achieve. Some
members openly disagreed with the views of the leaders. In 1967 the organization marched on the California
State Capitol in Sacramento in protest of a ban on weapons. The official newspaper The Black Panther was also
first circulated that year. The group created a Ten-Point Program, a document that called for "Land, Bread,
Housing, Education, Clothing, Justice and Peace", as well as exemption from military service for African-
American men, among other demands. With the Ten-Point program, “What we Want, What We Believe”, the
Black Panther Party captured in uncompromising language the collective economic and political grievances

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articulated by black radical and many black liberals since the 1930s. This Program was a decree to a nation, that
this party felt lacked respect for their racial group. While firmly grounded in black nationalism and begun as an
organization that accepted only African Americans as members, the party changed as it grew to national
prominence and became an icon of the counterculture of the 1960s. The Black Panthers ultimately condemned
black nationalism as "black racism". They became more focused on socialism without racial exclusivity. They
instituted a variety of community programs to alleviate poverty and improve health among communities
deemed most needful of aid. While the party retained its all-black membership, it recognized that different
minority communities (those it deemed oppressed by the American government) needed to organize around
their own set of issues and encouraged alliances with such organizations. The group's political goals were often
overshadowed by their confrontational and militant tactics, and by their suspicions of law enforcement agents.
“J. Edgar Hoover called the Party “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country,” and he
supervised an extensive program of counter-organizing that included surveillance and eavesdropping,
infiltration, harassment, false testimony, and a laundry list of other tactics designed to jail Party members and
drain the organization of resources.” In draining this organization of resources, it was thought that their
potential for further advancement would diminish and probability of continuing to serve as a threat to the
general power structure of the U.S., or maintain a presence as a strong undercurrent would dwarf.”After party
membership started to decline during Huey Newton's 1968 manslaughter trial, the Black Panther Party
collapsed in the early 1970s. Writers such as Black Panther and socialist Angela Davis and American writer and
political activist Ward Churchill have alleged that law enforcement officials went to great lengths to discredit
and destroy the organization, including assassination.

Freedom ride

Civil Rights activists called Freedom Riders rode on interstate buses into the segregated southern United States
to test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia, (1960). The first Freedom Ride left
Washington D.C. on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17. Boynton v. Virginia
had outlawed racial segregation in the restaurants and waiting rooms in terminals serving buses that crossed
state lines. Five years prior to the Boynton ruling, the Interstate Commerce Commission had issued a ruling in
Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company which had explicitly denounced the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of
separate but equal in interstate bus travel, but the ICC had failed to enforce its own ruling, and thus Jim Crow
travel laws remained in force throughout the South. The Freedom Riders set out to challenge the status quo.
The Riders consisted of African Americans and whites together riding various forms of public transportation in
the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Freedom Rides, and the violent
reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the American Civil Rights Movement and called national
attention to the violent disregard for law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States.
Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with
other alleged offenses. Most of the subsequent rides were sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
while others belonged to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The Freedom Rides followed
on the heels of dramatic "sit-ins" against segregated lunch counters conducted by students and youth
throughout the South, and boycotts beginning in 1960. The United States Supreme Court's decision in Boynton
v. Virginia granted interstate travelers the legal right to disregard local segregation ordinances regarding
interstate transportation facilities. But the Freedom Riders' rights were not enforced and were considered
criminal acts throughout most of the South. For example, upon the Riders' arrival in Mississippi, their journey
ended with imprisonment for exercising their legal rights in interstate travel, and similar arrests took place in
other southern cities. Freedom Riders knew that they faced arrest by authorities determined to stop their
protests and possible mob violence and before starting they committed themselves to a strategy of non-violent
resistance. The riders borrowed this strategy from Gandhi, which has first been used in America by Martin
Luther King Jr. during the bus boycott in Montgomery. The Freedom Riders faced much resistance against their
cause. Some Civil Rights advocates, including Thurgood Marshall, did not agree with the Freedom Riders direct
action approach, and actually believed that the Ride would slow the civil rights process. However, ultimately
they received strong support from people both inside and outside the South for their efforts.

Freedom Summer

Freedom Summer (also known as the Mississippi Summer Project) was a campaign in the United States
launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi, which

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up to that time had almost totally excluded black voters. The project was organized by the Council of Federated
Organizations (COFO), a coalition of four established civil rights organizations: the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), with SNCC playing
the lead role. Freedom summer was possible because of years of earlier work by numerous African Americans
who lived locally in Mississippi. By 1964, students and others had begun the process of integrating public
accommodations, registering to vote, and above all organizing a network of local leadership. Well over 1,000
out-of-state volunteers participated in Freedom Summer alongside thousands of black Mississippians. Most of
the volunteers were young, most of them from the North, most of them were white and many were Jewish.
Two one-week orientation sessions for the volunteers were held at Western College for Women in Oxford,
Ohio (now part of Miami University), from June 14 to June 27. Organizers focused on Mississippi because it had
the lowest percentage of African Americans registered to vote in the country; in 1962 only 6.7 % of eligible
black voters were registered. White officials in the South systematically kept African Americans from being able
to vote by charging them expensive poll taxes, forcing them to take especially difficult literacy tests, making the
application process inconvenient, harassing would-be voters economically (as by denying crop loans), and
carrying out arson, battery, and lynching. During the ten weeks of Freedom Summer, a number of other
organizations provided support for the COFO Summer Project. More than 100 volunteer doctors, nurses,
psychologists, medical students and other medical professionals from the Medical Committee for Human
Rights (MCHR) provided emergency care for volunteers and local activists, taught health education classes, and
advocated improvements in Mississippi's segregated health system. Volunteer lawyers from the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund Inc ("Ink Fund"), National Lawyers Guild, Lawyer's Constitutional Defense Committee (LCDC) an
arm of the ACLU, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCR) provided free legal services —
handling arrests, freedom of speech, voter registration and other matters. And the Commission on Religion and
Race (CORR), an endeavor of the National Council of Churches (NCC), brought Christian and Jewish clergy and
divinity students to Mississippi to support the work of the Summer Project. In addition to offering traditional
religious support to volunteers and activists, the ministers and rabbis engaged in voting rights protests at
courthouses, recruited voter applicants and accompanied them to register, taught in Freedom Schools, and
performed office and other support functions.
Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for citizens and residents to check in with some
central registry specifically for the purpose of being allowed to vote in elections. An effort to get people to
register is known as a voter registration drive. Under the United States Constitution, states may not restrict
voting rights in ways that infringe one's right to equal protection under the law (Fourteenth Amendment), on
the basis of race (Fifteenth Amendment), sex (Nineteenth Amendment), or age for persons age 18 and older
(Twenty-Sixth Amendment). While the federal government has jurisdiction over federal elections, most
election laws are decided at the state level and the true authority to interpret and enforce those laws comes at
the local level. Because of this, the administration of elections can vary widely across jurisdictions. Registering
to vote is the responsibility of individuals in the United States. Voters are not automatically registered to vote
once they reach the age of 18. Every state except North Dakota requires that citizens who wish to vote be
registered. Traditionally, voters had to register at state offices to vote, but in the mid-1990s efforts were made
by the federal government to make registering easier, in an attempt to increase turnout. Some states allow
citizens to register to vote on the same day of the election, known as Election Day Registration. Voter
registration forms may be found at public libraries and registries of motor vehicles. These forms must be filled
out and mailed to the local election department. Also, one may register at a voter registration drive. The only
states with online voter registration are Arizona and Washington, though legislation has been introduced in
other states. Some states prohibit individuals convicted of a felony from voting, known as felony
disenfranchisement. One may register wherever one has an address, regardless of its permanence—for
example, a college student living away from home may register to vote in the college's city, even if that is not a
permanent address. In most states, one must register, usually 30 days before a given election, in order to vote
in it. Seven states, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming, allow for Election
Day Registration. In some states, when registering to vote, one may declare an affiliation with a political party.
This declaration of affiliation does not cost any money, and it is not the same as being a dues-paying member
of a party; for example, a party cannot prevent anybody from declaring his or her affiliation with them, but it
can refuse requests for full membership. Some states, including Michigan, Virginia, and Washington do not
have party affiliation with registration. In general elections, a voter may choose to vote for all of a particular
party's candidates (straight-ticket voting) or to vote for candidates from different parties for different offices

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(Party X's candidate for President, Party Y's candidate for Senator, Party Z's candidate for Governor). In a
general election, one's political party affiliation does not determine which party's candidates one may vote for.

Watt riots

The term Watts Riots of 1965 refers to a large-scale race riot which lasted 6 days in the Watts neighborhood of
Los Angeles, California, in August 1965. It would stand as the worst riot in Los Angeles history until eclipsed by
the Los Angeles riots of 1992. The riots began on August 11, 1965, in Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles,
when Lee Minikus, a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, pulled over Marquette Frye, who Minikus
believed was intoxicated because of his observed erratic driving. Frye failed to pass sobriety tests; including
walking in a straight line and touching his nose, and was arrested soon after. Minikus refused to let Frye's
brother, Ronald, drive the car home, and radioed for it to be impounded. As events escalated, a crowd of
onlookers steadily grew from dozens to hundreds. The mob became violent, throwing rocks and other objects
while shouting at the police officers. A struggle ensued shortly resulting in the arrest of Frye, Ronald, and their
mother. Though the riots began in August, there had previously been a buildup of racial tension in the area.
The riots that began on August 11 resulted from an amalgamation of such events in Watts and the arrest of
three Frye family members broke the tension as violence spilled onto the streets of Watts for six days. After the
news and emerging rumors spread from the angry mob to other residents, aggressive acts of violence broke
out across the city making Watts a serious danger zone. Watts suffered from various forms and degrees of
damage from the looting, fighting, and vandalism that seriously threatened the security of the city. Some
participants chose to intensify the level of violence by starting physical fights with police, blocking the firemen
of the Los Angeles Fire Department from their safety duties, or even beating white motorists. Others joined the
riot by breaking into stores, stealing whatever they could, and some setting the stores themselves on fire. The
majority of the residents simply wandered the streets choosing to encourage the active rioters and give the
police a difficult time rather than getting directly involved. A few did not join in the violence at all just choosing
to continue their daily routine while observing the chaos. LAPD Police Chief William Parker also fueled the
radicalized tension that already threatened to combust, by publicly labeling the people he saw involved in the
riots as "monkeys in the zoo". Overall, an estimate of 40 million dollars in damage was caused as almost 1,000
buildings were damaged or destroyed. Most of the physical damage was confined to white-owned businesses
that were said to have caused resentment in the neighborhood due to perceived unfairness. Homes were not
attacked, although some caught fire due to proximity to other fires.

Civil Rights Act 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed racial
segregation in schools, public places, and employment. Conceived to help African Americans, the bill was
amended prior to passage to protect women, and explicitly included white people for the first time. It also
created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In order to circumvent limitations on congressional
power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause imposed by the Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases, the law
was passed under the Commerce Clause, which had been interpreted by the courts as a broad grant of
congressional power. Once the Act was implemented, its effects were far reaching and had tremendous long-
term impacts on the whole country. It prohibited discrimination in public facilities, in government, and in
employment, invalidating the Jim Crow laws in the southern U.S. It became illegal to compel segregation of the
races in schools, housing, or hiring. Powers given to enforce the bill were initially weak, but were supplemented
during later years.

Voting Rights Act 1965

The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for
the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the United States. Echoing the language of the
15th Amendment, the Act prohibited states from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting,
or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on
account of race or color.” Specifically, Congress intended the Act to outlaw the practice of requiring otherwise
qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote, a principal means by which Southern states
had prevented African-Americans from exercising the franchise. The Act was signed into law by President
Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, who had earlier signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. The Act
established extensive federal oversight of elections administration, providing that states with a history of

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discriminatory voting practices (so-called "covered jurisdictions") could not implement any change affecting
voting without first obtaining the approval of the Department of Justice, a process known as preclearance.
These enforcement provisions applied to states and political subdivisions (mostly in the South) that had used a
"device" to limit voting and in which less than 50 percent of the population was registered to vote in 1964.
Congress has amended and extended the Act several times since its original passage, the most recent being the
25-year extension signed by President George W. Bush. The Act is widely considered a landmark in civil-rights
legislation, though some of its provisions have sparked political controversy. During the debate over the 2006
extension, some Republican members of Congress objected to renewing the preclearance requirement (the
Act's primary enforcement provision), arguing that it represents an overreach of federal power and places
unwarranted bureaucratic demands on Southern states that have long since abandoned the discriminatory
practices the Act was meant to eradicate. Conservative legislators also opposed requiring states with large
Spanish-speaking populations to provide bilingual ballots. Congress nonetheless voted to extend the Act for
twenty-five years with its original enforcement provisions left intact.

Gulf of Tonkin

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was two separate occurrences involving naval forces of the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin that were presented to the
US public as justification for the large-scale involvement of US armed forces in Southeast Asia. On August 2,
1964, the destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731) engaged three North Vietnamese P-4 torpedo boats, resulting in
damage to the three boats. Two days later the Maddox (having been joined by the destroyer USS Turner Joy
(DD-951) reported a second engagement with North Vietnamese vessels. This second report was later claimed
to be in error. The outcome of the incident was the passage by the United States Congress of the Southeast
Asia Resolution (better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson
the authority to assist any Southeast Asian government considered to be jeopardized by "communist
aggression," including the commitment of US forces without a declaration of war. The resolution served as
Johnson's legal justification for escalating US involvement in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). It gave
the US president the exclusive right to use military force without consulting the US Senate. It was based on a
false pretext, as Johnson later admitted. In 2005, an official National Security Agency declassified report
revealed that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese on August 2, but that there may not have been
any North Vietnamese vessels present during the engagement of August 4. The report stated

[I]t is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...]
In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on
August 2.

The silent majority

The silent majority is an unspecified large majority of people in a country or group who do not express their
opinions publicly. The term was popularized (though not first used) by U.S. President Richard Nixon in a
November 3, 1969 speech, where it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations
against the Vietnam War at the time, who did not join in the counterculture, and who did not enthusiastically
participate in public discourse or the media. Nixon along with many others saw this group as being
overshadowed by the more vocal minority. This majority referred mainly to the older generation (those World
War II veterans in all parts of the United States) but it also described many young people in the Midwest, West
and in the South, many of whom did eventually serve in Vietnam. The Silent Majority was mostly populated
with the blue collar people who allegedly didn't have the ability or the time to take an active part in politics
other than to vote. They did, in some cases, support the conservative policies of many politicians. Others were
not particularly conservative politically, but resented what they saw as disrespect for American institutions. The
silent majority theme has been a contentious issue amongst journalists since Nixon used the phrase. Some
thought Nixon used it as part of the Southern strategy; others claim it was Nixon's way of dismissing the
obvious protests going on around the country, and Nixon's attempt to get other Americans not to listen to the
protests. The silent majority has been used to explain a number of Republican victories in areas where no
chance was given to conservative politicians by the media. Other uses of the silent majority include: the
extreme popularity of Ronald Reagan during his presidency and beyond, despite reported attacks by the media
on his tenure; the Republican Revolution in the 1994 elections; and the victories of Rudy Giuliani and Michael

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Bloomberg, both of whom were at the time Republicans, in the New York City Mayoral races of the 1990s and
2000s.

Watergate

The Watergate scandal was an American political scandal during the presidency of Richard Nixon that resulted
in the indictment and conviction of several of Nixon's closest advisors, and ultimately his resignation on August
9, 1974. The scandal began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National
Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington, D.C. on June 17, 1972. Investigations
conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and later by the Senate Watergate Committee, House
Judiciary Committee and the press revealed that this burglary was one of many illegal activities authorized and
carried out by Nixon's staff. They also revealed the immense scope of crimes and abuses, which included
campaign fraud, political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins, improper tax audits, illegal wiretapping on a
massive scale, and a secret slush fund laundered in Mexico to pay those who conducted these operations. This
secret fund was also used as hush money to buy the silence of the seven men who were indicted for the June
17 break-in. Nixon and his staff conspired to cover up the break-in as early as six days after it occurred. After
two years of mounting evidence against the President and his staff, which included former staff members
testifying against them in a Senate investigation, it was revealed that Nixon had a tape recording system in his
offices and that he had recorded many conversations. Recordings from these tapes revealed that he had
obstructed justice and attempted to cover up the break-in. This recorded conversation later became known as
the Smoking Gun. After a series of court battles, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in United
States v. Nixon that the President had to hand over the tapes; he ultimately complied. Facing certain
impeachment in the House of Representatives and the strong possibility of a conviction in the Senate, Nixon
resigned ten days later, becoming the only U.S. president to have resigned from office. His successor, Gerald
Ford, would issue a controversial pardon for any federal crimes Nixon may have committed while in office.

Free speech movement

The Free Speech Movement (FSM) was a student protest which took place during the 1964/1965 academic year
on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio,
Brian Turner, Bettina Apthecker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and others. In protests
unprecedented at the time, students insisted that the university administration lift a ban on on-campus
political activities and acknowledge the students' right to free speech and academic freedom.
In 1958, activist students organized SLATE, a campus political party, to promote the right of student groups to
support off-campus issues. In the fall of 1964, student activists, some of whom had traveled with the Freedom
Riders and worked to register African American voters in Mississippi in the Freedom Summer project, set up
information tables on campus and were soliciting donations for civil rights causes. According to existing rules at
the time, fundraising for political parties was limited exclusively to the Democratic and Republican school clubs.
There was also a mandatory "loyalty oath" required of faculty, which had led to dismissals and ongoing
controversy over academic freedom. On September 14, 1964, Dean Katherine Towle announced that existing
University regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes or candidates, outside political speakers,
recruitment of members, and fundraising by student organizations at the intersection of Bancroft and
Telegraph Avenues would be "strictly enforced."
On October 1, former graduate student Jack Weinberg was sitting at the CORE table. He refused to show his
identification to the campus police and was arrested. There was a spontaneous movement of students to
surround the police car in which he was to be transported. Weinberg did not leave the police car, nor did the
car move for 32 hours. At one point, there may have been 3,000 students around the car. During this period,
the car was used as a speaker's podium and a continuous public discussion was held which continued until the
charges against Weinberg were dropped. The center of the protest was Sproul Hall, the campus administration
building, which protesters took over in a massive sit-in. The sit-in ended on December 3, when police arrested
close to 800 students. About a month later, the university brought charges against the students who organized
the sit-in, resulting in an even larger student protest that all but shut down the university.
After much disturbance, the University officials slowly backed down. By January 3, 1965, the new acting
chancellor, Martin Meyerson, established provisional rules for political activity on the Berkeley campus,
designating the Sproul Hall steps an open discussion area during certain hours of the day and permitting tables.
This applied to the entire student political spectrum, not just the liberal elements that drove the FSM. Most

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outsiders, however, identified the Free Speech Movement as a movement of the Left. Students and others
opposed to U.S. foreign policy did indeed increase their visibility on campus following the FSM's initial victory.
In the spring of 1965, the FSM was followed by the Vietnam Day Committee, a major starting point for the anti-
Vietnam war movement.
The Free Speech Movement had long-lasting effects at the Berkeley campus and was a pivotal moment for the
civil liberties movement in The Sixties. It was seen as the beginning of the famous student activism that existed
on the campus in the 1960s, and continues to a lesser degree today. There was a substantial voter backlash
against the players involved in the Free Speech Movement. Ronald Reagan won an unexpected victory in the
fall of 1966 and was elected Governor; the newly elected governor directed the UC Board of Regents to dismiss
UC President Clark Kerr because of the perception that he had been too soft on the protestors. The FBI had
kept a secret file on Kerr. Reagan had gained political traction by campaigning on a platform to "clean up the
mess in Berkeley". In the minds of those involved in the backlash, a wide variety of protests and a wide variety
of concerned citizens and activists were lumped together.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Often regarded as the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age, the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was a
culmination of several Cold War tensions that had been building for some time. As a result of Cuban leader
Fidel Castro's turn toward Soviet-style communism in the early 1960s and the failed U.S.-sponsored Bay of Pigs
invasion of April 1961, U.S. Cuban relations were openly hostile by 1962. In April and May 1962, the Soviet
premier Nikita Khrushchev decided to deploy Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just ninety miles from Florida. In
an agreement with Castro, the weapons would be shipped and installed secretly, so that when they were
operational, the West would be presented with a fait accompli.
During August and September 1962, U.S. intelligence found evidence of increasing Soviet military aid arriving in
Cuba, including advanced surface-to-air missile installations, IL-28 Beagle nuclear-capable bombers, and several
thousand Soviet "technicians." Refugee reports also suggested that Soviet ballistic missiles were on the island.
Although U.S. intelligence could not confirm these reports, critics of President John F. Kennedy's administration
used them in political attacks during the lead-up to the November congressional elections. In response, in
September, Kennedy publicly warned that if weapons designed for offensive use were detected in Cuba, "the
gravest consequences would arise." On 14 October, a U-2 aerial reconnaissance flight over Cuba returned
photographs of long, canvas-covered objects. As American photo analysts pored over the photos during the
next twenty-four hours and compared their findings to their catalogs of known Soviet weaponry, it became
clear that the Soviets were installing medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and launch pads in Cuba, where
they would be within easy striking distance of much of the mainland United States.
Having just dealt with the civil rights riots at the University of Mississippi, the Kennedy administration again
found itself confronted with a crisis. The president was informed of the discovery on the morning of 16 October
and immediately convened a White House meeting of his top national security advisers, a body that later
became officially known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or ExComm. Kennedy
decided not to confront the Soviets until he and the ExComm could consider and prepare courses of action.
During this series of top secret meetings, several courses of action were considered, ranging from direct
military strikes on the missile sites, a full-scale invasion of Cuba, a quid pro quo removal of American Jupiter
missiles in Turkey, and a blockade of the island. Acutely aware that miscalculation by either side could spark
nuclear war, Kennedy settled upon a blockade of Cuba in tandem with an ultimatum to the Soviets to remove
the missiles, both to be announced during a special national broadcast on television during the evening of 22
October. In that broadcast, Kennedy declared that a naval quarantine of Cuba would go into effect on the
morning of 24 October and would not be lifted until all offensive weapons had been removed. He also
announced that he had ordered increased surveillance of Cuba and, ominously, that he had directed the armed
forces "to prepare for any eventualities."
On 24 October, as U.S. strategic nuclear forces were placed on DEFCON 2, the highest alert status below actual
nuclear war, the world waited anxiously for the Soviet response to the quarantine. Despite some tense
moments, the deadline ultimately passed without serious incident, as several Soviet-chartered ships either
changed course or stopped short of the quarantine line. On 25 October, the U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations, Adlai E. Stevenson, famously confronted his Soviet counterpart, Valerian Zorin, with photographic
evidence and said he would "wait until hell freezes over" for a Soviet explanation. At U.S. insistence, the
Organization of the American States officially condemned the Soviet-Cuban action and thereby formalized
Cuba's hemispheric isolation.

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Over the next few days, U.S. intelligence reported that not only were the MRBMs nearing operational status,
but there were also intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and tactical nuclear weapons on the island.
While U.S. forces continued to mobilize, a series of letters between Kennedy and Khrushchev was
supplemented by several secret unofficial channels, the most notable of which was Attorney General Robert F.
Kennedy's secret meetings with Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to the United States, and Georgi
Bolshakov, the intelligence chief at the Soviet embassy.
On Saturday, 27 October, the crisis was at its peak. During the afternoon, reports came in of an American U-2
being shot down over Cuba by a surface-to-air missile. As tension mounted, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported
that they were ready to launch an invasion of Cuba within twenty-four hours. In communications on 27 and 28
October, Khrushchev formally capitulated by agreeing to dismantle the missiles and ship them back to the
Soviet Union. In turn, Kennedy publicly announced that he had pledged to provide a noninvasion guarantee to
Cuba conditional on the offensive weapons being removed and the implementation of effective international
verification. Secretly, he also agreed to remove the American Jupiter missiles from Turkey. Although the crisis
had been largely defused peacefully, it was not over. Castro refused to allow UN inspectors onto Cuban
sovereign territory, and Khrushchev initially refused to accept that the Soviet IL-28 Beagle bombers were
offensive weapons. Intensive discussions through the United Nations finally led to Khrushchev agreeing on 20
November to remove the bombers in exchange for a lifting of the naval quarantine.
For many, the crisis demonstrated the dangers of the nuclear age. Subsequently, a telephone hotline was
established linking the White House and the Kremlin and efforts were intensified to secure arms control
agreements and détente.

Bay of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs Invasion (known as La Batalla de Girón in Cuba), was an unsuccessful attempt by a U.S.-trained
force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with support from U.S. government armed forces to overthrow
the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Professor and the first post-revolution Prime Minister José Miró
Cardona was chosen to lead the planned provisional government. The plan was launched in April 1961, less
than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency in the United States. The Cuban armed
forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile combatants in three days. The bad
Cuban-American relations were exacerbated the following year by the Cuban Missile Crisis. The invasion is
named after the Bay of Pigs, which is possibly inaccurately translated from the Spanish Bahía de Cochinos. The
main landing at the Bay of Pigs specifically took place at the beach called Playa Girón.

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author, poet and
painter who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan's most celebrated work
dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest.
A number of his songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems of
both the civil rights movements and of the opposition to the Vietnam War. After a lifetime of writing,
recording, and performing, Dylan's latest record—his 33rd studio album—Together Through Life was released
on April 28, 2009. The album reached the number one spot on both the Billboard 200 chart of top selling
albums, and the UK album charts in its first week of release. Dylan's early lyrics incorporated political, social,
philosophical, and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the
counterculture. While expanding and personalizing musical styles, he has explored many traditions of American
song, from folk, blues and country to gospel, rock and roll and rockabilly to English, Scottish and Irish folk
music, and even jazz and swing. Dylan performs with the guitar, piano and harmonica. Backed by a changing
line-up of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the "Never Ending
Tour". Although his accomplishments as performer and recording artist have been central to his career, his
songwriting is generally regarded as his greatest contribution. Throughout his career, Dylan has won many
awards. His records have earned Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards, and he has been inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, a
"Cultural Pathway" was named in Dylan's honor in his birthplace, Duluth. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize jury
awarded him a Special Citation for what they called his "profound impact on popular music and American
culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

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Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed "The Boss", is an American
songwriter, singer and musician. He records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for
his brand of heartland rock infused with pop hooks, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his
native New Jersey. Springsteen's recordings have tended to alternate between commercially accessible rock
albums and somber folk-oriented works. Much of his status stems from the concerts and marathon shows in
which he and the E Street Band perform intense ballads, rousing anthems, and party rock and roll songs,
amongst which he intersperses whimsical or deeply emotional stories. His most famous albums, Born to Run
and Born in the U.S.A., epitomize his penchant for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily life in America. He
has gradually become identified with liberal politics. He is also noted for his support of various relief and
rebuilding efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere, and for his response to the September 11th attacks, on which
his album The Rising reflects. He has earned numerous awards for his work, including nineteen Grammy
Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award, and continues to have a strong global fan base. He has
sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and 120 million worldwide.

The Beatles

The Beatles were a rock and pop band from Liverpool, England that formed in 1960. During their career, the
group primarily consisted of John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George
Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals). Although their initial musical style was rooted in
1950s rock and roll and skiffle, the group worked with different musical genres, ranging from Tin Pan Alley to
psychedelic rock. Their clothes, style and statements made them trend-setters, while their growing social
awareness saw their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s. After the band
broke up in 1970, all four members embarked upon successful solo careers. The Beatles were one of the most
commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music, selling over one billion
records internationally. In the United Kingdom, The Beatles released more than 40 different singles, albums,
and EPs that reached number one, earning more number one albums (15) than any other group in UK chart
history. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, The Beatles have sold more albums in the
United States than any other band. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked The Beatles number one in its list of
100 Greatest Artists of All Time. According to that same magazine, The Beatles' innovative music and cultural
impact helped define the 1960s, and their influence on pop culture is still evident today. In 2008, Billboard
magazine released a list of top-selling Hot 100 artists to celebrate the chart's fiftieth anniversary; The Beatles
topped it.

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in 1962 in London when multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones
and pianist Ian Stewart were joined by vocalist Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards. Bassist Bill Wyman and
drummer Charlie Watts completed the early lineup. Stewart, deemed unsuitable as a teen idol, was removed
from the official lineup in 1963 but continued to work with the band as road manager and keyboardist until his
death in 1985. Early in the band's history Jagger and Richards formed a songwriting partnership and gradually
took over leadership of the band from the increasingly troubled and erratic Jones. At first the group recorded
mainly covers of American blues and R&B songs, but since the 1966 album Aftermath, their releases have
mainly featured Jagger/Richards songs. Mick Taylor replaced an incapacitated Jones shortly before Jones's
death in 1969. Taylor quit in 1974, and was replaced in 1975 by Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood, who has
remained with the band ever since. Wyman left the Rolling Stones in 1992; bassist Darryl Jones, who is not an
official band member, has worked with the group since 1994. First popular in the UK and Europe, The Rolling
Stones came to the US during the early 1960s "British Invasion". The Rolling Stones have released 22 studio
albums in the UK (24 in the US), eight concert albums (nine in the US) and numerous compilations; and have
sold more than 200 million albums worldwide. Sticky Fingers (1971) began a string of eight consecutive studio
albums that charted at number one in the United States. Their latest album, A Bigger Bang, was released in
2005. In 1989 The Rolling Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2004 they were
ranked number 4 in Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Their image of unkempt and surly
youth is one that many musicians still emulate.

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RNB

Rhythm and Blues (also known as R&B, R'n'B or RnB) is the name given to a wide-ranging genre of popular
music created by African Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The term was originally used by record companies to refer to recordings bought predominantly by African
Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more
popular.

The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. Starting in the 1960s, after this style of music
contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term R&B became used - particularly by white groups —
to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music.
By the 1970s, the term rhythm and blues was being used as a blanket term to describe soul and funk. Since the
1990s, the term Contemporary R&B is now mainly used to refer to a modern version of soul and funk-
influenced pop music. Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine coined the term rhythm and blues in 1948 as a
musical marketing term in the United States.

It replaced the term "race music", which originally came from within the black community, but was deemed
offensive in the postwar world. Writer/producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as "a catchall term
referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans". He has used the term R&B as a synonym for
jump blues. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that rhythm and blues was an umbrella
term invented for industry convenience. According to him, the term embraced all black music except classical
music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts.

In 1948, RCA Victor was marketing black music under the name Blues and Rhythm. In that year, Louis Jordan
dominated the top five listings of the R&B charts with three songs, and two of the top five songs were based on
the boogie-woogie rhythms that had come to prominence during the 1940s. Jordan's band, the Tympany Five
(formed in 1939] Lawrence Cohn described the music as "grittier than his boogie-era jazz-tinged blues".
Jordan's cool music, along with that of Big Joe Turner, Roy Brown, Billy Wright, and Wynonie Harris, is now also
referred to as jump blues. Also in 1948, Wynonie Harris' remake of Roy Brown's 1947 recording "Good Rockin'
Tonight" hit the charts in the #2 spot, following band leader Sonny Thompson's "Long Gone" at #1. In 1949, the
term rhythm and blues replaced the Billboard category Harlem Hit Parade. Also in that year, "The Huckle-Buck",
recorded by band leader and saxophonist Paul Williams, was the #1 R&B tune, remaining on top of the charts
for nearly the entire year. Written by musician and arranger Andy Gibson, the song was described as a "dirty
boogie" because it was risque and raunchy.Paul Williams and His Hucklebuckers' concerts were sweaty riotous
affairs that got shut down on more than one occasion. Their lyrics, by Roy Alfred (who later co-wrote the 1955
hit "(The) Rock and Roll Waltz"), were mildly sexually suggestive, and one teenager from Philadelphia said "That
Hucklebuck was a very nasty dance." Also in 1949, a new version of a 1920s blues song, "Ain't Nobody's
Business" was a #4 hit for Jimmy Witherspoon, and Louis Jordan and the Tympany Five once again made the
top 5 with "Saturday Night Fish Fry".

Working with African American musicians, Greek American Johnny Otis, who had signed with the Newark, New
Jersey-based Savoy Records, produced many R&B hits in 1951, including: "Double Crossing Blues", "Mistrustin'
Blues" and "Cupid's Boogie", all of which hit number one that year. Otis scored ten top ten hits that year. Other
hits include: "Gee Baby", "Mambo Boogie" and "All Nite Long". The Clovers, a vocal trio who sang a distinctive
sounding combination of blues and gospel, had the #5 hit of the year with "Don't You Know I Love You" on
Atlantic Records. Also in July 1951, Cleveland, Ohio DJ Alan Freed started a late-night radio show called "The
Moondog Rock Roll House Party" on WJW-AM (850). Freed's show was sponsored by Fred Mintz, whose R&B
record store had a primarily African American clientele. Freed began referring to the rhythm and blues music
he played as rock and roll. In 1951, Little Richard Penniman began recording for RCA Records in the jump blues
style of late 1940s Joe Brown and Billy Wright. A rapid succession of rhythm and blues hits followed, beginning
with "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally", which would influence performers such as James Brown, Elvis Presley,
and Otis Redding. Ruth Brown, on the Atlantic label, placed hits in the top 5 every year from 1951 through
1954: "Teardrops from My Eyes", "Five, Ten, Fifteen Hours", "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean" and
"What a Dream". Faye Adams's "Shake a Hand" made it to #2 in 1952. In 1953, the R&B record-buying public
made Willie Mae Thornton's original recording of Leiber and Stoller's Hound Dog the #3 hit that year. That
same year The Orioles, a doo-wop group, had the #4 hit of the year with Crying in the Chapel. Fats Domino

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made the top 30 of the pop charts in 1952 and 1953, then the top 10 with "Ain't That a Shame". Ray Charles
came to national prominence in 1955 with "I Got a Woman". In 1954 . At Chess Records in the spring of 1955,
Bo Diddley's debut record "Bo Diddley"/"I'm A Man" climbed to #2 on the R&B charts and popularized Bo
Diddley's own original rhythm and blues beat that would become a mainstay in rock and roll. At the urging of
Leonard Chess at Chess Records, Chuck Berry had reworked a country fiddle tune with a long history, entitled
"Ida Red". . Alan Freed, who had moved to the much larger market of New York City, helped the record become
popular with white teenagers. Freed had been given part of the writers' credit by Chess in return for his
promotional activities; a common practice at the time.

In 1956, an R&B "Top Stars of '56" tour took place, with headliners Al Hibbler, Frankie Lymon and the
Teenagers, and Carl Perkins, whose "Blue Suede Shoes" was very popular with R&B music buyers. Some of the
performers completing the bill were Chuck Berry, Cathy Carr, Shirley & Lee, Della Reese, the Cleftones, and the
Spaniels with Illinois Jacquet's Big Rockin' Rhythm Band. In Columbia the concert ended with a near riot as
Perkins began his first song as the closing act. Perkins is quoted as saying, "It was dangerous. Lot of kids got
hurt. There was a lot of rioting going on, just crazy, man! The music drove 'em insane." In Annapolis 70,000 to
50,000 people tried to attend a sold out performance with 8,000 seats. Roads were clogged for seven
hours.Film makers took advantage of the popularity of "rhythm and blues" musicians as "rock n roll" musicians
beginning in 1956. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Big Joe Turner, The Treniers, The Platters, The
Flamingos, all made it onto the big screen. Two Elvis Presley records made the R&B top five in 1957: "Jailhouse
Rock"/"Treat Me Nice" at #1, and "All Shook Up" at #5, an unprecedented acceptance of a non-African
American artist into a music category known for being created by blacks. Benton had a certain warmth in his
voice that attracted a wide variety of listeners, and his ballads led to comparisons with performers such as
Cole, Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Lloyd Price, who in 1952 had a #1 hit with "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" regained
predominance with a version of "Stagger Lee" at #1 and "Personality" at #5 for in 1959. The white bandleader
of the Bill Black Combo, Bill Black, who had helped start Elvis Presley's career, was popular with black listeners.

By the early 1960s, the music industry category previously known as rhythm and blues was being called soul
music, and similar music by white artists was labeled blue eyed soul. Motown Records had its first million-
selling single in 1960 with The Miracles' "Shop Around", and in 1961, Stax Records had its first hit with Carla
Thomas' . In the 1960s, R&B and soul influenced British bands such as The Animals, The Rolling Stones, The
Who, The Creation, The Action and The Beatles. In Jamaica, R&B influenced the development of ska. By the
1970s, the term rhythm and blues was being used as a blanket term to describe soul, funk, and disco. In the
2000s, the initialism R&B is almost always used instead of the full rhythm and blues, and mainstream use of the
term usually refers to contemporary R&B, which is a modern version of soul and funk-influenced pop music
that originated as disco faded from popularity.

Hippies

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s
and spread around the world. The word hippie derives from hipster, and was initially used to describe people
who:

- created their own communities,

- listened to psychedelic rock,

-embraced the sexual revolution,

- used drugs such as cannabis and LSD to explore alternative states of consciousness.

On January 1967, the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco popularized hippie culture leading to
the legendary Summer of Love on the West Coast of the United States and the 1969 Woodstock Festival on the
East Coast. Hippies in Mexico, known as jipitecas, formed La Onda Chicana and gathered at Avándaro, while in
New Zealand, nomadic housetruckers practiced alternative lifestyles and promoted sustainable energy at
Nambassa. In the United Kingdom, mobile "peace convoys" of New age travellers made summer pilgrimages to
free music festivals at Stonehenge. In Australia hippies gathered at Nimbin for the 1973 Aquarius Festival and
the annual Cannabis Law Reform Rally or MardiGrass. In Chile, "Festival Piedra Roja" was held in 1970

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(following Woodstock's success), and was the major hippie event in that country. Hippie fashions and values
had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts. Since the
1960s, many aspects of hippie culture have been assimilated by mainstream society. The religious and cultural
diversity espoused by the hippies has gained widespread acceptance, and Eastern philosophy and spiritual
concepts have reached a wide audience. The hippie legacy can be observed in contemporary culture in myriad
forms — from health food, to music festivals, to contemporary sexual mores, and even to the cyberspace
revolution.

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

"Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" is a song and single by Ian Dury. It was originally released on the 1977 Stiff Records
single BUY 17 "Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll" with "Razzle In My Pocket" as the B-side. on August 26th. The
song was released under the name 'Ian Dury'. Only two members of Ian Dury and the Blockheads appear on the
record, the song's co-writer Chas Jankel and saxophonist Davey Payne.

LSD

Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, LSD-25, or acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family. Its
unusual psychological effects, which include:

- visuals of colored and crawling geometric patterns,

- a sense of time distortion have made it one of the most widely known psychedelic drugs.

It has been used mainly as a recreational drug,, and as a tool to supplement various practices for
transcendence, including in meditation, psychonautics, art projects, and illicit (formerly legal) psychedelic
therapy.

Formally, LSD is classified as a hallucinogen of the psychedelic type.

LSD was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergot, a grain fungus that typically grows on rye.

The short form LSD comes from its early code name LSD-25. LSD is sensitive to oxygen, ultraviolet light, and
chlorine, especially in solution, though its potency may last for years if it is stored away from light and moisture
at low temperature. In pure form it is colorless, odorless, and mildly bitter. LSD is typically delivered orally,
usually on a substrate such as absorbent blotter paper, a sugar cube, or gelatin. In its liquid form, it can be
administered by intramuscular or intravenous injection. The threshold dosage level needed to cause a
psychoactive effect on humans is between 20 and 30 µg (micrograms). Introduced by Sandoz Laboratories as a
drug with various psychiatric uses, LSD quickly became a therapeutic agent that appeared to show great
promise. However, the abuse of the drug in Western society during the mid-twentieth century led to a political
firestorm that resulted in the banning of the substance. A number of organizations, encourage and coordinate
research into its medicinal uses. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction reports that
LSD retail prices range between €5 and €11 per unit in most European countries.

LSD is Schedule I in the United States. This means it is illegal to manufacture, buy, possess, process or distribute
LSD without a DEA license. There can also be substantial discrepancies between the amount of chemical LSD
that one possesses and the amount of possession with which one can be charged in the U.S. This is because LSD
is almost always present in a medium (e.g. blotter or neutral liquid), and the amount that can be considered
with respect to sentencing is the total mass of the drug and its medium. This discrepancy was the subject of
1995 United States Supreme Court case, Neal v. U.S.

United States: 1970–present

American LSD usage declined in the 1970s and 1980s, then experienced a mild resurgence in popularity in the
1990s. Although there were many distribution channels during this decade, the U.S. DEA identified continued
tours by the psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead and the then-burgeoning rave scene as primary venues
for LSD trafficking and consumption. American LSD usage fell sharply circa 2000, following a single major DEA
operation.

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Pickard and Apperson

The decline in prevalence of LSD is correlated with the arrest of two chemists, William Leonard Pickard, a
Harvard-educated organic chemist, and Clyde Apperson. According to DEA reports, black market LSD
availability dropped by 95% after the two were arrested in 2000. These arrests were a result of one of the
largest LSD manufacturing raids in DEA history. Pickard was an alleged member of the Brotherhood of Eternal
Love group that produced and sold LSD in California during the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is believed he had
links to other "cooks" associated with this group — an original source of the drug back in the 1960s — and his
arrest may have forced other operations to cease production, leading to the large decline in street availability.
The DEA claims that these two individuals were responsible for supplying a third of the LSD in the United States
and maybe the world; however, the government-quoted seizure amounts in connection with this case have
been seriously questioned. In November 2003, Pickard was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, and
Apperson was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment without parole, after being convicted in Federal Court of
running a large scale LSD manufacturing operation out of several clandestine laboratories, including a former
missile silo near Wamego, Kansas.

Woodstock

Woodstock Music & Art Fair (informally, Woodstock or The Woodstock Festival) was a music festival, billed as
"An Aquarian Exposition", held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre (2.4 km˛; 240 ha) dairy farm in the rural town of
Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969.

Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km) southwest of the village of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining
Ulster County. Thirty-two of the best-known musicians of the day appeared during the sometimes rainy
weekend in front of nearly half a million concertgoers.

It is widely regarded as one of the greatest moments in popular music history and was listed on Rolling Stone's
50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll. The event was captured in a successful 1970
documentary movie, Woodstock; an accompanying soundtrack album; and Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock",
which commemorated the event and became a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Almont

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was an infamous rock concert held on December 6, 1969, at the
Altamont Speedway in northern California, between Tracy and Livermore. Headlined and organized by The
Rolling Stones, it also featured, in order of appearance: Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito
Brothers, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, with the Stones taking the stage as the final act. The Grateful
Dead were also scheduled to perform between CSN&Y and the Stones, but declined to play shortly before their
scheduled appearance owing to the increasing violence at the venue Approximately 300,000 people attended
the concert, and some speculated it would be a "Woodstock West." Filmmakers Albert and David Maysles shot
footage of the event and incorporated it into a documentary film entitled Gimme Shelter (1970). The event is
best known for having been marred by considerable violence, including one homicide and three accidental
deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident and one by drowning in an irrigation canal. Four births were
reported during the event as well.

Lead singer Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones (who had already been punched by a concertgoer within seconds
of emerging from his helicopter[) was visibly intimidated by the unruly situation, urging everyone to "Just be
cool down in the front there, don't push around." Within a minute of starting their third song, "Sympathy for
the Devil", a fight erupted in the front of the crowd, at the foot of the stage. After a short pause and another
appeal for calm, the band restarted "Sympathy for the Devil" and continued their set without incident until the
start of "Under My Thumb". At that point 18-year-old Meredith Hunter approached the stage where, according
to Gimme Shelter producer Porter Bibb, his girlfriend Patty Bredahoff found him and tearfully begged him to
calm down and move further back in the crowd with her, but he was reportedly enraged, irrational and so high
he could barely walk. Footage from the documentary showed that Hunter (seen in the film in a bright lime-
green suit) moved to the front of the crowd and drew a long-barreled revolver from his jacket. As Hunter's
girlfriend attempted to pull the gun from his hands, a space formed around them from people scrambling to
get away, and Hells Angel Alan Passaro, armed with a knife, ran at Hunter from the side, parrying the gun with

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his left hand and stabbing him five times in the upper back with his right, killing him. Witnesses also reported
Hunter was stomped on by several Hells Angels while he was on the ground. The gun was recovered and turned
over to police. Hunter, whose autopsy confirmed that he was high on methamphetamine when he died, was
reportedly jealous because his girlfriend had mentioned her attraction to Jagger several times during the show.
Passaro was arrested and tried for murder in the summer of 1971, but was acquitted after a jury examined the
video evidence showing Hunter brandishing the revolver and concluded that Passaro had acted in self-defense.
The Rolling Stones - at the time - were unaware that Hunter had been killed; they completed the remaining 8
songs of their set without further incident. Hell's Angel Sonny Barger claims he held a gun to Keith Richards and
said "You keep fuckin' playing or you're dead."[12] This claim is not supported by other eyewitnesses. There
have been rumors[who?] over the years that a second, unidentified assailant had inflicted the fatal wounds,
and, as a result, the police considered the case still open. On May 25, 2005, however, the Alameda County
Sheriff's Office announced that it was officially closing the stabbing case. Investigators, concluding a renewed
two-year investigation, dismissed the theory that a second Hells Angel took part in the stabbing.

The Altamont concert is often contrasted with the Woodstock festival that took place less than four months
earlier. While Woodstock represented "peace and love", Altamont came to be viewed as the end of the hippie
era and the de facto conclusion of 1960s American youth culture: "Altamont became, whether fairly or not, a
symbol for the death of the Woodstock Nation." Jefferson Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden was disillusioned
by Altamont and left the group two months later. Future rock concerts were banned at the site. The Grateful
Dead wrote several songs about, or in response to, what lyricist Robert Hunter called "the Altamont affair",
including "New Speedway Boogie" (featuring the line "One way or another, this darkness got to give") and
"Mason's Children". Both songs were written and recorded during sessions for the early 1970 album
Workingman's Dead, but "Mason's Children" was viewed as too "popular" stylistically and was consequently
not included on the album. It is rumored that Don McLean took moral exception to Mick Jagger and the Rolling
Stones, allegedly referencing the Altamont incident in his song "American Pie" with the following verses: "Oh,
and as I watched him on the stage / my hands were clenched in fists of rage. No angel born in hell /could break
that satan's spell. And as the flames climbed high into the night, / to light the sacrificial rite / I saw Satan
laughing with delight / the day the music died." McLean has never confirmed this interpretation.

Charles Manson

Charles Milles Manson (born November 12, 1934) is an American criminal who led what became known as the
Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was convicted of conspiracy to
commit the Tate/LaBianca murders, carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He was found
guilty of the murders themselves through the joint-responsibility rule, which makes each member of a
conspiracy guilty of crimes his fellow conspirators commit in furtherance of the conspiracy's object. Manson is
associated with "Helter Skelter," the term he took from the Beatles song of that name and construed as an
apocalyptic race war the murders were putatively intended to precipitate. This connection with rock music
linked him, from the beginning of his notoriety, with pop culture, in which he became an emblem of insanity,
violence, and the macabre. Ultimately, the term was used as the title of the book that prosecutor Vincent
Bugliosi wrote about the Manson murders. At the time the Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed
ex-convict, who had spent half his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. In the period before
the murders, he was a distant fringe member of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly via a chance association
with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson. After Manson was charged with the crimes, recordings of songs written and
performed by him were released commercially. Artists including Guns N' Roses and Marilyn Manson have
covered his songs in the decades since. Manson's death sentence was automatically reduced to life
imprisonment when a 1972 decision by the Supreme Court of California temporarily eliminated the state's
death penalty. California's eventual reestablishment of capital punishment did not affect Manson, who is an
inmate at Corcoran State Prison.

Little Rock, 1957

The Little Rock Nine was a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High
School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the
racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of
President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil
Rights Movement. The U.S. Supreme Court issued its historic Brown v. Board of Education, , on May 17, 1954.

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The decision declared all laws establishing segregated schools to be unconstitutional, and it called for the
desegregation of all schools throughout the nation. After the decision the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) attempted to register black students in previously all-white schools in
cities throughout the South. In Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, the Little Rock School Board agreed to
comply with the high court's ruling. Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual
integration to the school board on May 24, 1955, which the board unanimously approved. The plan would be
implemented during the 1958 school year, which would begin in September 1957. By 1957, the NAACP had
registered nine black students to attend the previously all-white Little Rock Central High, selected on the
criteria of excellent grades and attendance. The nicknamed "Little Rock Nine" consisted of Ernest Green (b.
1941), Elizabeth Eckford (b. 1941), Jefferson Thomas (b. 1942), Terrence Roberts (b. 1941), Carlotta Walls
LaNier (b. 1942), Minnijean Brown (b. 1941), Gloria Ray Karlmark (b. 1942), Thelma Mothershed (b. 1940), and
Melba Beals (b. 1941).
Ernest Green was the first African American to graduate from Central High School. Several segregationist
councils threatened to hold protests at Central High and physically block the black students from entering the
school. Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to support the segregationists on
September 4, 1957. The sight of a line of soldiers blocking nine black students from attending high school made
national headlines and polarized the city. Regarding the accompanying crowd, one of the nine black students,
Somebody started yelling, 'Lynch her! Lynch her!' I tried to see a friendly face somewhere in the crowd —
someone who maybe could help. I looked into the face of an old woman and it seemed a kind face, but when I
looked at her again, she spat on me." On September 9, "The Council of Church Women" issued a statement
condemning the governor's deployment of soldiers to the high school and called for a citywide prayer service
on September 12. Even President Dwight Eisenhower attempted to de-escalate the situation and summoned
Governor Faubus to meet him. The President warned the governor not to interfere with the Supreme Court's
ruling.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

The Letter from Birmingham Jail or Letter from Birmingham City Jail, is an open letter written on April 16, 1963,
by Martin Luther King, Jr., an American civil rights leader. King wrote the letter from the city jail in Birmingham,
Alabama, where he was confined after being arrested for his part in the Birmingham campaign, a planned non-
violent protest conducted by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King's Southern Christian
Leadership Conference against racial segregation by Birmingham's city government and downtown retailers.
King's letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen on April 12, 1963, titled "A
Call For Unity". The clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial
segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not in the streets. King responded that without nonviolent
forceful direct actions such as his, true civil rights could never be achieved. As he put it, "This 'Wait' has almost
always meant 'Never.'" He asserted that not only was civil disobedience justified in the face of unjust laws, but
that "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." Extensive excerpts from the letter were published,
without Dr. King's consent, on May 19, 1963 in the New York Post Sunday Magazine. ] The letter was first
published as "Letter from Birmingham Jail" in the June 12, 1963, edition of The Christian Century, and in the
June 24, 1963, issue of The New Leader. It was reprinted shortly thereafter in The Atlantic Monthly. King
included the full text in his 1964 book Why We Can't Wait. The letter includes the famous statement "Injustice
anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," as well as the words attributed to William E. Gladstone quoted by
King: "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Citations

1

"In any nonviolent campaign, there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether

injustice exists; negotiations; self-purification; and direct action."

2

"Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community

which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that
it can no longer be ignored."

3

"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral

responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

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I have a dream

"I Have A Dream" is the popular name given to the public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of
his desire for a future where blacks and whites, among others, would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's
delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered
to over 250,000 civil rights supporters, the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most
notable speeches in history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of
scholars of public address. U.S. Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, At the end of the speech, King departed from his prepared text
for a partly improvised peroration on the theme of "I have a dream", possibly prompted by Mahalia Jackson's
cry, "Tell them about the dream, Martin!". He had delivered a speech incorporating some of the same sections
in Detroit in June 1963, when he marched on Woodward Avenue with Walter Reuther and the Reverend C. L.
Franklin, and had rehearsed other parts.

In popular culture

The "I Have a Dream" speech is shown being broadcast on a TV set in the opening scenes of The Marcus-Nelson
Murders, a 1973 TV movie starring Telly Savalas as police Lt. Theo Kojak, in what was to be the pilot of the
popular Kojak crime drama. The movie itself is based on the real-life investigation into the brutal murders of
Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert (known as the Career Girl Murders case). Wylie and Hoffert were in fact brutally
attacked and stabbed in their Manhattan apartment on the very day that King delivered his speech.

Key excerpts

1

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic

wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a
promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men
as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are
concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check
which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'"

2

"It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of

the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam
and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual."

3

"The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust

of all white people. For many of our white brothers as evidenced by their presence here today have come to
realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and they have come to realize that their freedom is
inextricably bound to our freedom. We can not walk alone."

4

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We

hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"

5

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged

by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

6

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of

former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood."

7

"This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to

hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling
discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work
together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together,
knowing that we will be free one day."

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8

"Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of

brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

9

"Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from

every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of
God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join
hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are
free at last!"

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald (October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963) was, according to three United States government
investigations, the assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. A former
United States Marine who defected to the Soviet Union and later returned, Oswald, age 24, was arrested on
suspicion of killing Dallas police officer J. D. Tippit and later connected to the assassination of President
Kennedy. Oswald denied any responsibility for the murders. Two days later—before he could be brought to
trial for the crimes, while being transferred under police custody from the city jail to the county jail—Oswald
was shot and mortally wounded by Jack Ruby on live television. In 1964 the Warren Commission concluded
that Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy single-handedly, a conclusion also reached by
prior investigations of the FBI and the Dallas Police Department. In 1979, the House Select Committee on
Assassinations (HSCA) concluded, based on disputed acoustic evidence, that Oswald assassinated Kennedy
"probably as a result of a conspiracy."

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali is a retired American boxer and three-time World Heavyweight Champion. As an amateur, he
won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. As a professional,
he was the youngest boxer ever to take the heavyweight title from a reigning champ (a record that stood until
1986), and later became the first to win the lineal heavyweight championship three times. In 1999, Ali was
crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC.
Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali after joining the Nation of Islam in 1964,
subsequently converting to Sunni Islam in 1975 and later Sufism. In 1967, Ali refused to be inducted into the
U.S. military based on his religious beliefs and opposition to the war in Vietnam. He was arrested and found
guilty on draft evasion charges, stripped of his boxing title, and his boxing license was suspended. He was not
imprisoned but did not fight again for nearly four years while his appeal worked its way up to the U.S. Supreme
Court. Ali was well known for his fighting style, which he described as "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee". He
was involved in several historic boxing matches, including three with rival Joe Frazier and one with George
Foreman, whom he beat by knockout to win the world heavyweight title for the second time.

Anti-war protest

The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world against the
imminent invasion of Iraq. Millions of people protested in approximately 800 cities around the world.
According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over
the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million. Some of the
largest protests took place in Europe. The protest in Rome involved around 3 million people, and is listed in the
2004 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest anti-war rally in history. Opposition to the war was highest
in the Middle East, although protests there were relatively small. Mainland China was the only major region not
to see any protests, but small demonstrations attended mainly by foreign students were seen later

Burning draft cards

The burning of Selective Service registration certificates—or "draft cards"—was a brief and dramatic episode
that punctuated the early opposition to the VIETNAM WAR. Many draft registrants, often before television
cameras, publicly burned their cards to demonstrate their refusal to participate in the draft. These events
attracted wide attention and often served as a rallying point for war protesters. Congress responded in 1965 by
amending the Universal Military Training and Service Act to make it a FELONY when any person "knowingly

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destroys [or] knowingly mutilates" his registration certificate. This law was challenged by David O'Brien with
the aid of the AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION. O'Brien had burned his registration certificate before a sizable
Boston crowd, including several FBI agents. He was indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison in the
Massachusetts District Court, but the United States Court of Appeals held that the 1965 law unconstitutionally
abridged FREEDOM OF SPEECH because it interfered with O'Brien's "symbolic" protest against the war. In
United States v. O'Brien (1968), the Supreme Court in an opinion by Chief Justice EARL WARREN reversed the
Court of Appeals and upheld the challenged law and O'Brien's conviction. The Court first ruled that the
Government has a "substantial interest in assuring the continued availability" of draft cards—for example, so
that the individual can prove he has registered and so communication between registrants and local boards can
be facilitated, particularly in an emergency. Second, in a more far-reaching holding, the Court rejected O'Brien's
claim that the 1965 amendment was unconstitutional because Congress sought to suppress freedom of speech.
The Court did not determine whether that in fact was Congress's purpose. Instead it ruled that such a purpose
would not invalidate the law in light of the principle that courts may not "restrain the exercise of lawful
[congressional] power on the assumption that a wrongful purpose or motive has caused the power to be
exercised." Only Justice WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS dissented from the Court's decision, in an opinion that dwelt
less on draft card burning than on the power of Congress to initiate a peacetime draft. The O'Brien case led to a
sharp curtailment of draft card burning and opponents of the Vietnam War turned to other forms of protest.

AIM

The American Indian Movement (AIM), is a Native American activist organization in the United States. AIM
came onto the international scene with its seizure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington,
D.C., in 1972 and the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
AIM was confounded in 1968 by Dennis Banks, George Mitchell, Herb Powless, Clyde Bellecourt, Eddie Benton-
Banai, and many others in the Native American community, almost 200 total. Russell Means was another early
leader. In the decades since AIM's founding, the group has led protests advocating Indigenous American
interests, inspired cultural renewal, monitored police activities and coordinated employment programs in cities
and in rural reservation communities across the United States. AIM has often supported other indigenous
interests outside the United States as well.

NOW

The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest feminist organization in the United States. It was
founded in 1966 and has a membership of 500,000 contributing members and 5987 chapters in all 50 U.S.
states and the District Of Columbia.
NOW was founded on June 30, 1966 in Washington, D.C., by 28 women and men attending the Third National
Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women, the successor to the Presidential Commission on the
Status of Women. It had been three years since the Commission reported findings of women being
discriminated against. However, the 1966 Conference delegates were prohibited by the administration's rules
for the conference from even passing resolutions recommending that the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) enforce its legal mandate to end sex discrimination. The founders included Betty Friedan,
the author of The Feminine Mystique (1963), Rev. Pauli Murray, the first African-American woman Episcopal
priest, and Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for president of the United States of America. Acting
from the liberal tenet that women and men are alike in important respects and, therefore, entitled to equal
rights and opportunities, the movement spawned by Friedan's book is embodied in NOW, the National
Organization for Women, which works to secure political, professional, and educational equality for women.
Founded in 1966 with Betty Friedan acting as an organizer, NOW is a public voice for equal rights for women. It
has been extremely effective in enacting rhetorical strategies that have brought about concrete changes in laws
and policies that enlarge women's opportunities and protect their rights. During the 1970s NOW promoted the
Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. After Congress approved the amendment in 1972, it was
quickly ratified by 28 states, and its passage seemed assured. However, a stop ERA campaign, led by Phyllis
Schlafly and generously financed by conservative political and business interests, stymied progress of the
legislation. By 1973, of the needed 38 states, 35 had ratified the amendment, but the remaining ones-
conservative Southern and Western states-refused to support passage, and the ERA was defeated. The
organization remains active in lobbying legislatures and media outlets on feminist issues.
Betty Friedan and Pauli Murray wrote the organization's Statement of Purpose in 1966 (the original was

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scribbled on a napkin by Friedan). The statement described the purpose of NOW as "The purpose of NOW is to
take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all
privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men." The current membership brochure
paraphrases and expands upon the above excerpt to read: "Our purpose is to take action to bring women into
full participation in society – sharing equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities with men, while living free
from discrimination." This brochure also states: "NOW is one of the few multi-issue progressive organizations in
the United States. NOW stands against all oppression, recognizing that racism, sexism and homophobia are
interrelated, that other forms of oppression such as classism and ableism work together with these three to
keep power and privilege concentrated in the hands of a few." Because its membership is open on the basis of
agreement with principle and not gender alone, its name is "National Organization for Women" and not "of
Women".

Cesar Chavez

César Estrada Chávez was a Mexican American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with
Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm
Workers. Supporters say his work led to numerous improvements for union laborers. His birthday has become
César Chávez Day, a state holiday in eight U.S. states. Many parks, cultural centers, libraries, schools, and
streets have been named in his honor in cities across the United States. Later in life, education became César's
focus. The walls of his office in Keene, California (United Farm Worker headquarters) were lined with hundreds
of books ranging in subject from philosophy, economics, cooperatives, and unions, to biographies of Gandhi
and the Kennedys. He was a vegan. He is buried at 2900 Woodford Tehachapi Road in the Keene community of
unincorporated Kern County, California. There is a portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery in
Washington, D.C.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn starting in most places in 1929 and ending at
different times in the 1930s or early 1940s for different countries. It was the largest and most important
economic depression in the 20th century, and is used in the 21st century as an example of how far the world's
economy can fall. The Great Depression originated in the United States; historians most often use as a starting
date the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The depression had devastating
effects in virtually every country, rich or poor. International trade plunged by half to two-thirds, as did personal
income, tax revenue, prices and profits. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent
on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as
crop prices fell by roughly 60 percent. Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs, areas
dependent on primary sector industries such as farming, mining and logging suffered the most. However, even
shortly after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, optimism persisted; John D. Rockefeller said that "These are days
when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come and gone. Prosperity has always
returned and will again." The Great Depression ended at different times in different countries; for subsequent
history see Home front during World War II. America's Great Depression ended in 1941 with America's entry
into World War II. The majority of countries set up relief programs, and most underwent some sort of political
upheaval, pushing them to the left or right. In some states, the desperate citizens turned toward nationalist
demagogues—the most infamous being Adolf Hitler—setting the stage for World War II in 1939. The Great
Depression was triggered by a sudden, total collapse in the stock market. The stock market turned upward in
early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April, though still almost 30 percent below the peak of September
1929. Together, government and business actually spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the
corresponding period of the previous year. But consumers, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the
stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by ten percent, and a severe drought ravaged the
agricultural heartland of the USA beginning in the summer of 1930. In early 1930, credit was ample and
available at low rates, but people were reluctant to add new debt by borrowing. By May 1930, auto sales had
declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, but wages held steady in 1930, then
began to drop in 1931. Conditions were worse in farming areas, where commodity prices plunged, and in
mining and logging areas, where unemployment was high and there were few other jobs. The decline in the US
economy was the factor that pulled down most other countries at first, then internal weaknesses or strengths
in each country made conditions worse or better. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual

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nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in
other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By late in 1930, a steady decline set in which reached
bottom by March 1933.
The Great Depression began on "Black Tuesday" with the Wall Street Crash of October, 1929 and rapidly spread
worldwide. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits,
deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement.
Although its causes are still uncertain, the basic cause was a sudden loss of confidence in the economic future.
The usual explanations include numerous factors, especially high consumer debt, ill-regulated markets that
permitted malfeasance by banks and investors, cutbacks in foreign trade, lack of high-growth new
industries,and growing wealth inequality, all interacting to create a downward economic spiral of reduced
spending, falling confidence, and lowered production. The initial government response to the crisis
exacerbated the situation; protectionist policies like the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the U.S. strangled
global trade as other nations retaliated against the U.S. Industries that suffered the most included agriculture,
mining, and logging as well as durable goods like construction and automobiles that people postponed. The
economy eventually recovered from the low point of the winter of 1932-33, with sustained improvement until
1937, when the Recession of 1937 brought back 1934 levels of unemployment.

Stock market crash

A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock
market. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors. They often follow speculative
stock market bubbles. Stock market crashes are in fact social phenomena where external economic events
combine with crowd behavior and psychology in a positive feedback loop where selling by some market
participants drives more market participants to sell. Generally speaking, crashes usually occur under the
following conditions[citation needed]: a prolonged period of rising stock prices and excessive economic
optimism, a market where Price to Earnings ratios exceed long-term averages, and extensive use of margin
debt and leverage by market participants. There is no numerically specific definition of a crash but the term
commonly applies to steep double-digit percentage losses in a stock market index over a period of several days.
Crashes are often distinguished from bear markets by panic selling and abrupt, dramatic price declines. Bear
markets are periods of declining stock market prices that are measured in months or years. While crashes are
often associated with bear markets, they do not necessarily go hand in hand. The crash of 1987 for example did
not lead to a bear market. Likewise, the Japanese Nikkei bear market of the 1990s occurred over several years
without any notable crashes.

Okie

Okie is a term, dating from as early as 1907, originally denoting a resident or native of Oklahoma. It is derived
from the name of the state, similar to Texan or Tex for someone from Texas, or Arkie or Arkansawyer for a
native of Arkansas. In the 1930s on the West Coast, especially California, the term (often used in contempt)
came to refer to a migrant who left the South, Midwest, and sometimes, Southeast United States to settle in
large numbers to restart their lives in the region's thriving agriculture and manufacturing industries. Most
worked on farms, and in the shipyards and defense factories leading up to and following World War II. The Dust
Bowl as well as a federal program which took farm land out of production caused many to lose or leave their
homes. Rural Caucasian and American Indian farmers of Oklahoma, and from the Southern and Central states
relocated to the Northeast and west coast since the 1850s, but the "Okie" migration of the 1930s brought in
over a million new displaced residents to California's Central valley and major cities bucked the trend.

Great Depression usage

In the 1930s to the mid-thirties, during the Dust Bowl era, large numbers of farmers fleeing ecological disaster
and the Great Depression migrated from the Great Plains and Southwest regions to California mostly along
historic U.S. Route 66. More of the migrants were from Oklahoma than any other state, and a total of
approximately 15% of the Oklahoma population left for California. Ben Reddick, a free-lance journalist and later
publisher of the Paso Robles Daily Press, is credited with first using the term Oakie, in the mid-1930s, to
identify migrant farm workers. He noticed the "OK" abbreviation (for Oklahoma) on many of the migrants'
license plates and referred to them in his article as "Oakies." Californians began calling all migrants by that
name, even though many newcomers were not actually Oklahomans. Many West Coast residents and some

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politically motivated writers used Reddick's term to disparage these poor, white (including those of mixed
American Indian ancestry, the largest tribal group being Cherokees), migrant workers and their families. The
term was made infamous nationwide by John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath. Will Rogers, an Oakie
immigrant to California himself, once remarked jokingly that the Oakies arriving in California increased the
average intelligence of both states.

Modern usage

It has been said that some Oklahomans who stayed and lived through the Dust Bowl see the Okie migrants as
being quitters who fled Oklahoma; but there is hardly a native Oklahoman who does not have some family
member who made the trip. Most Oklahoma natives are as proud of their Okies who made good in California as
are the Okies themselves—and of the Arkies, West Texans, and others who were cast in with them. In the later
half of the 20th century, there became increasing evidence that any pejorative meaning of the term "Okie" was
changing; former and present "Okies" began to apply the label as a badge of honor and symbol of the Okie
survivor attitude. In one example, Republican Oklahoma Governor Dewey F. Bartlett launched a campaign in
the 1960s to popularize Okie as a positive term for Oklahomans; however, the Democrats used the campaign,
and the fact that Bartlett was born in Ohio, as a political tool against him,[6] and further degraded the term for
a time. However, in 1968, Governor Bartlett made Reddick, the originator of the California usage, an honorary
Okie. And in the early 1970s, Merle Haggard's country song Okie from Muskogee was a hit on national
airwaves. Also during the 1970s, the term Okie became familiar to most Californians as a prototype of a
subcultural group, just like the resurgence of Southern American regionalism and renewal of ethnic American
(Irish American, Italian American or Polish American ) identities in the Northeast and Midwest states at the
time. However, in the early 1990's the California Department of Transportation refused to allow the name of
the "Okie Girl" restaurant to appear on a roadside sign on Interstate 5, arguing that the restaurant's name
insulted Oklahomans; only after protracted controversy (and a letter from the Governor of Oklahoma) did the
agency relent. Since the 1990s, the children and grandchildren of Okies in California changed the very meaning
of Okie to a self-title of pride in obtaining success, as well to challenge what they felt was "snobbery" or "the
last group to make fun of" in the state's urban area cultures. While some Oklahomans refer to themselves as
Okies without prejudice, and it is often used jocularly; in a manner similar to the use of Hoosier by Indianans,
Yankee by New Englanders, or Canuck or Hoser by Canadians, none of whom considers these terms for
themselves particularly insulting, many others still find the term highly offensive. Muskogee Mayor John Tyler
Hammons used the phrase "I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee" as the successful theme of his 2008
mayoral campaign.

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck , born in Salinas, California, came from a family of moderate means. He worked his way through
college at Stanford University but never graduated. In 1925 he went to New York, where he tried for a few
years to establish himself as a free-lance writer, but he failed and returned to California. After publishing some
novels and short stories, Steinbeck first became widely known with Tortilla Flat (1935), a series of humorous
stories about Monterey paisanos. Steinbeck's novels can all be classified as social novels dealing with the
economic problems of rural labor, but there is also a streak of worship of the soil in his books, which does not
always agree with his matter-of-fact sociological approach. After the rough and earthy humour of Tortilla Flat,
he moved on to more serious fiction, often aggressive in its social criticism, to In Dubious Battle (1936), which
deals with the strikes of the migratory fruit pickers on California plantations. This was followed by Of Mice and
Men (1937), the story of the imbecile giant Lennie, and a series of admirable short stories collected in the
volume The Long Valley (1938). In 1939 he published what is considered his best work, The Grapes of Wrath,
the story of Oklahoma tenant farmers who, unable to earn a living from the land, moved to California where
they became migratory workers. Among his later works should be mentioned East of Eden (1952), The Winter
of Our Discontent (1961), and Travels with Charley (1962), a travelogue in which Steinbeck wrote about his
impressions during a three-month tour in a truck that led him through forty American states. He died in New
York City in 1968.

United States Constitution

The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation
and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the Federal

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Government of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States
Government. The document defines the three main branches of the government: The legislative branch with a
bicameral Congress, an executive branch led by the President, and a judicial branch headed by the Supreme
Court. Besides providing for the organization of these branches, the Constitution carefully outlines which
powers each branch may exercise. It also reserves numerous rights for the individual states, thereby
establishing the United States' federal system of government. It is the shortest and oldest written constitution
of any major sovereign state. The United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the
Constitutional Convention (or Constitutional Congress in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and later ratified by
conventions in each U.S. state in the name of "The People"; it has since been amended twenty-seven times, the
first ten amendments being known as the Bill of Rights. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was
actually the first constitution of the United States of America. The U.S. Constitution replaced the Articles of
Confederation as the governing document for the United States after being ratified by nine states. The
Constitution has a central place in United States law and political culture. The handwritten, or "engrossed",
original document penned by Jacob Shallus is on display at the National Archives and Records Administration in
Washington, D.C.

Amendments

The Constitution has a total of twenty-seven amendments. The first ten, collectively known as the Bill of Rights,
were ratified simultaneously. The following seventeen were ratified separately.

The Bill of Rights (1–10)

It is commonly understood that the Bill of Rights was not originally intended to apply to the states, though
except where amendments refer specifically to the Federal Government or a branch thereof (as in the First
Amendment, under which some states in the early years of the nation officially established a religion), there is
no such delineation in the text itself. Nevertheless, a general interpretation of inapplicability to the states
remained until 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was passed, which stated, in part, that: “No State shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The Supreme Court has interpreted this clause
to extend most, but not all, parts of the Bill of Rights to the states. Nevertheless, the balance of state and
federal power has remained a battle in the Supreme Court. The amendments that became the Bill of Rights
were actually the last ten of the twelve amendments proposed in 1789. The second of the twelve proposed
amendments, regarding the compensation of members of Congress, remained unratified until 1992, when the
legislatures of enough states finally approved it and, as a result, it became the Twenty-seventh Amendment
despite more than two centuries of pendency. The first of the twelve—still technically pending before the state
legislatures for ratification—pertains to the apportionment of the United States House of Representatives after
each decennial census. The most recent state whose lawmakers are known to have ratified this proposal is
Kentucky in 1792, during that commonwealth's first month of statehood.

1

First Amendment: addresses the rights of freedom of religion (prohibiting Congressional establishment

of a religion over another religion through Law and protecting the right to free exercise of religion), freedom of
speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of petition.

2

Second Amendment: guarantees the right of individuals to possess firearms. See District of Columbia

v. Heller.

3

Third Amendment: prohibits the government from using private homes as quarters for soldiers during

peacetime without the consent of the owners. The only existing case law regarding this amendment is a lower
court decision in the case of Engblom v. Carey.

4

Fourth Amendment: guards against searches, arrests, and seizures of property without a specific

warrant or a "probable cause" to believe a crime has been committed. Some rights to privacy have been
inferred from this amendment and others by the Supreme Court.

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5

Fifth Amendment: forbids trial for a major crime except after indictment by a grand jury; prohibits

double jeopardy (repeated trials), except in certain very limited circumstances; forbids punishment without
due process of law; and provides that an accused person may not be compelled to testify against himself (this is
also known as "Taking the Fifth" or "Pleading the Fifth"). This is regarded as the "rights of the accused"
amendment, otherwise known as the Miranda rights after the Supreme Court case. It also prohibits
government from taking private property for public use without "just compensation," the basis of eminent
domain in the United States.

6

Sixth Amendment: guarantees a speedy public trial for criminal offenses. It requires trial by a jury,

guarantees the right to legal counsel for the accused, and guarantees that the accused may require witnesses
to attend the trial and testify in the presence of the accused. It also guarantees the accused a right to know the
charges against him. The Sixth Amendment has several court cases associated with it, including Powell v.
Alabama, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, Gideon v. Wainwright, and Crawford v. Washington. In 1966, the
Supreme Court ruled that the fifth amendment prohibition on forced self-incrimination and the sixth
amendment clause on right to counsel were to be made known to all persons placed under arrest, and these
clauses have become known as the Miranda rights.

7

Seventh Amendment: assures trial by jury in civil cases.

8

Eighth Amendment: forbids excessive bail or fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.

9

Ninth Amendment: declares that the listing of individual rights in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is

not meant to be comprehensive; and that the other rights not specifically mentioned are retained by the
people.

10

Tenth Amendment: provides that powers that the Constitution does not delegate to the United States

and does not prohibit the States from exercising, are "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Subsequent amendments (11–27)

Amendments to the Constitution subsequent to the Bill of Rights cover many subjects. The majority of the
seventeen later amendments stem from continued efforts to expand individual civil or political liberties, while a
few are concerned with modifying the basic governmental structure drafted in Philadelphia in 1787. Although
the United States Constitution has been amended a total of 27 times, only 26 of the amendments are currently
in effect because the twenty-first amendment supersedes the eighteenth.

1

Eleventh Amendment (1795): Clarifies judicial power over foreign nationals, and limits ability of

citizens to sue states in federal courts and under federal law.

2

Twelfth Amendment (1804): Changes the method of presidential elections so that members of the

Electoral College cast separate ballots for president and vice president.

3

Thirteenth Amendment (1865): Abolishes slavery and authorizes Congress to enforce abolition.

4

Fourteenth Amendment (1868): Defines a set of guarantees for United States citizenship; prohibits

states from abridging citizens' privileges or immunities and rights to due process and the equal protection of
the law; repeals the Three-fifths compromise; prohibits repudiation of the federal debt caused by the Civil War.

5

Fifteenth Amendment (1870): Forbids the federal government and the states from using a citizen's

race, color, or previous status as a slave as a qualification for voting.

6

Sixteenth Amendment (1913): Authorizes unapportioned federal taxes on income.

7

Seventeenth Amendment (1913): Establishes direct election of senators.

8

Eighteenth Amendment (1919): Prohibited the manufacturing, importing, and exporting of alcoholic

beverages (see Prohibition in the United States). Repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment.

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9

Nineteenth Amendment (1920): Prohibits the federal government and the states from forbidding any

citizen to vote due to their sex.

10

Twentieth Amendment (1933): Changes details of Congressional and presidential terms and of

presidential succession.

11

Twenty-first Amendment (1933): Repeals Eighteenth Amendment. Permits states to prohibit the

importation of alcoholic beverages.

12

Twenty-second Amendment (1951): Limits president to two terms.

13

Twenty-third Amendment (1961): Grants presidential electors to the District of Columbia.

14

Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964): Prohibits the federal government and the states from requiring the

payment of a tax as a qualification for voting for federal officials.

15

Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967): Changes details of presidential succession, provides for temporary

removal of president, and provides for replacement of the vice president.

16

Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971): Prohibits the federal government and the states from forbidding any

citizen of age 18 or greater to vote on account of their age.

17

Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992): Limits congressional pay raises.

Unratified amendments

Over 10,000 Constitutional amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789; in a typical
Congressional year in the last several decades, between 100 and 200 are offered. Most of these concepts never
get out of Congressional committee, and far fewer get proposed by the Congress for ratification. Backers of
some amendments have attempted the alternative, and thus-far never-utilized, method mentioned in Article
Five. In two instances—reapportionment in the 1960s and a balanced federal budget during the 1970s and
1980s—these attempts have come within just two state legislative "applications" of triggering that alternative
method.

Of the thirty-three amendments that have been proposed by Congress, six have failed ratification by the
required three-quarters of the state legislatures—and four of those six are still technically pending before state
lawmakers (see Coleman v. Miller). Starting with the 18th Amendment, each proposed amendment (except the
19th Amendment and the still-pending Child Labor Amendment of 1924) has specified a deadline for passage.
The following are the unratified amendments:

•

The Congressional Apportionment Amendment, proposed by the 1st Congress on September 25, 1789,

defined a formula for how many members there would be in the United States House of Representatives after
each decennial census. Ratified by eleven states, the last being Kentucky in June 1792 (Kentucky's initial month
of statehood), this amendment contains no expiration date for ratification. In principle it may yet be ratified,
though as written it became moot when the population of the United States reached ten million.

•

The so-called missing thirteenth amendment, or "Titles of Nobility Amendment" (TONA), proposed by

the 11th Congress on May 1, 1810, would have ended the citizenship of any American accepting "any Title of
Nobility or Honour" from any foreign power. Some maintain that the amendment was actually ratified by the
legislatures of enough states, and that a conspiracy has suppressed it, but this has been thoroughly debunked
Known to have been ratified by lawmakers in twelve states, the last in 1812, this amendment contains no
expiration date for ratification. It may yet be ratified.

•

The Corwin amendment, proposed by the 36th Congress on March 2, 1861, would have forbidden any

attempt to subsequently amend the Constitution to empower the Federal government to "abolish or interfere"
with the "domestic institutions" of the states (a delicate way of referring to slavery). It was ratified by only Ohio
and Maryland lawmakers before the outbreak of the Civil War. Illinois lawmakers—sitting as a state
constitutional convention at the time—likewise approved it, but that action is of questionable validity. The

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proposed amendment contains no expiration date for ratification and may yet be ratified. However, adoption
of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments after the Civil War likely means that the amendment would be
ineffective if adopted.

•

A child labor amendment proposed by the 68th Congress on June 2, 1924, which stipulates: "The

Congress shall have power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age."
This amendment is highly unlikely to be ratified, since subsequent federal child labor laws have uniformly been
upheld as a valid exercise of Congress' powers under the commerce clause.

Properly placed in a separate category from the other four constitutional amendments that Congress proposed
to the states, but which not enough states have approved, are the following two offerings which—because of
deadlines—are no longer subject to ratification.

The Equal Rights Amendment, or ERA, which reads in pertinent part "Equality of rights under the law shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." Proposed by the 92nd Congress
on March 22, 1972, it was ratified by the legislatures of 35 states, and expired on either March 22, 1979 or on
June 30, 1982, depending upon one's point of view of a controversial three-year extension of the ratification
deadline, which was passed by the 95th Congress in 1978. Of the 35 states ratifying it, four later rescinded their
ratifications prior to the extended ratification period which commenced March 23, 1979 and a fifth—while not
going so far as to actually rescind its earlier ratification—adopted a resolution stipulating that its approval
would not extend beyond March 22, 1979. There continues to be diversity of opinion as to whether such
reversals are valid; no court has ruled on the question, including the Supreme Court. But a precedent against
the validity of rescission was first established during the ratification process of the 14th Amendment when
Ohio and New Jersey rescinded their earlier approvals, but yet were counted as ratifying states when the 14th
Amendment was ultimately proclaimed part of the Constitution in 1868.

The District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment was proposed by the 95th Congress on August 22, 1978.
Had it been ratified, it would have granted to Washington, D.C. two Senators and at least one member of the
House of Representatives as though the District of Columbia were a state. Ratified by the legislatures of only 16
states—less than half of the required 38—the proposed amendment expired on August 22, 1985.

There are currently only a few proposals for amendments which have entered mainstream political debate.
These include the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, the Balanced Budget Amendment, and the Flag
Desecration Amendment. All three of these proposed amendments are primarily supported by conservatives,
but failed during periods of Republican control of Congress to achieve the super majorities necessary for
submission to the states. As such none is likely to be proposed under the current Congress, which is controlled
by the more liberal Democratic Party.

Hearts and minds

Hearts and Minds campaigns typically refer to Liberal, Western governments that are attempting to liberate
oppressed people from communism, fascism or religious theocracies. When an oppressed people live in fear of
local warlords or thugs, liberating forces like the Provincial Reconstruction Teams and U.S. Army Civil Affairs
units try to protect them and help them rebuild schools and infrastructure in order to pry their allegiance away.
The term "hearts and minds" as a method to bring a subjugated population on side was first used during the
Malayan Emergency by the British who employed practices to keep the Malayans' trust and reduce a tendency
to side with the ethnic Chinese communists. The program was inspired by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He
used some version of the phrase "hearts and minds" a total of 28 times. In ten of these instances, Johnson
inverted the words and used the phrase "minds and hearts." The first time he used the phrase in his presidency
was on 16 January 1964, and the last time was 19 August 1968. His use of the phrase is most commonly taken
from the speech "Remarks at a Dinner Meeting of the Texas Electric Cooperatives, Inc." on 4 May 1965. On that
evening he said, "So we must be ready to fight in Viet-Nam, but the ultimate victory will depend upon the
hearts and the minds of the people who actually live out there. By helping to bring them hope and electricity
you are also striking a very important blow for the cause of freedom throughout the world." Johnson's use of
the phrase is most likely based on a quote of John Adams, the American Revolutionary War patriot and second
president of the United States, who wrote in a letter dated 13 February 1818: "The Revolution was effected
before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their

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religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.... This radical change in the principles, opinions,
sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution".

Butter for guns

Police in Bristol Township want your gun. You don't even have to be a township resident. Just bring that rifle,
shotgun or handgun to the township building on a Tuesday or Thursday between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. and you
can swap the weapon for a gift card to a local supermarket. Gun-control advocates have been supporting these
types of buybacks, often conducted in the big cities, for a number of years. This effort in Bristol Township was
started by Mayor Sam Fenton and is funded by a $20,000 casino impact grant. Said Fenton: "There are
hardworking people in Bristol Township who want to do the right thing. I knew that they would want to turn in
these guns if we gave them some incentive." For folks who might have unwanted firearms lying around who
would feel safer NOT having a gun - or for those who might find it necessary to draw down their arsenal for
economic reasons - the buyback is a good deal. It's certainly well intentioned. But we have a problem with
Fenton's equating turning in weapons with "the right thing." There's nothing wrong with owning a gun, or
several. It's a constitutional right. And while people turning in guns may feel further removed from the threat
of an accidental shooting in their home, particularly if there are young children on the premises, whether the
local collection of firearms by law enforcement authorities creates a safer environment vis-a-vis gun-related
crime is an ongoing debate. We're not telling gun owners what to do one way or the other. If you have a gun
and don't want it anymore for whatever reason, by all means take it to Bristol Township for some free
groceries. But don't do it just because you've been led to believe it's the right thing. It can be quite all right if
you decide not to.

The presidents:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

President Franklin D. Roosevelt managed to pull Americans out of the Great Depression and lead them to
victory in World War II. His support of an active federal government shaped American politics through the
remainder of the 20th century. FDR was a Democrat, and his package of federally-supported public works and
social programs was known collectively as the New Deal. Roosevelt was so popular he was elected four times --
a lengthy run which led to the passage of the 22nd Amendment, restricting presidents to two terms. He died in
office only a few months into his fourth term. His successor was Harry Truman.

Harry S. Truman

Harry Truman became president of the United States after the death of Franklin Roosevelt on 12 April 1945.
Roosevelt was already the longest-serving president in U.S. history when he chose Truman, then a senator from
Missouri, to be his vice presidential candidate in 1944. When Roosevelt died suddenly the next year, Truman
became the 33rd president and commander in chief of U.S. forces during World War II.

- He made the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945, finally ending the war.

-Truman steered the U.S. through the post-war period with the no-nonsense Midwestern style and colorful
harangues of Congress that are now his hallmark. (He placed on his desk a plaque reading "The buck stops
here," a reference to the notion of avoiding responsibility by "passing the buck.") Truman was re-elected in
1948 in a contest many expected him to lose to the Republican candidate, Governor Thomas Dewey of New
York.

-Truman tangled diplomatically with the Soviet Union in Berlin and elsewhere,

-found the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

-set the tone for the nearly five decades of the Cold War that followed.

He gave up politics at the end of his second term, due in part to public discontent with the U.S. involvement in
the Korean War. He was succeeded as president by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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Dwight David Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the most famous U.S. Army general of World War II and the 34th president of the
United States. A career Army man, "Ike" rose to the level of five-star general

-oversaw the Allied forces in Europe, including the famous D-Day invasion of France in 1944.

- After the war he served briefly as president of Columbia University, then was chosen over Robert A. Taft as
the Republican candidate for U.S. president in 1952. He won handily in 1952 and again in 1956, defeating
Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson both times.

- His administration is remembered as peaceful and prosperous, despite the rise of the Cold War with the
Soviet Union and China.

Eisenhower was succeeded by John F. Kennedy, who defeated Eisenhower's vice president, Richard Nixon, in
the elections of 1960. Eisenhower survived a half-dozen heart attacks over 15 years before succumbing to a
final attack in 1969.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

John F. Kennedy's 1963 assassination was one of the most shocking public events of the 20th century.

- Kennedy served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, commanding the patrol boat PT-109 and leading his
crew to rescue after the boat was sunk by the Japanese in the Solomon Islands.

-A Democrat, "JFK" was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts' 11th district in 1946.
In 1952 he moved up to the U.S. Senate, defeating Henry Cabot Lodge.

- JFK was elected to replace President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 (narrowly defeating Eisenhower's vice-
president, Richard Nixon); he swept into office with a reputation for youthful charm, impatience, wit and vigor.

-Kennedy's term was sometimes called the New Frontier, a phrase he coined in his acceptance speech at the
1960 Democratic convention.

- Kennedy was shot to death by sniper Lee Harvey Oswald during an open-car motorcade in Dallas, Texas on 22
November 1963; two days later, Harvey was shot and killed by another man, Jack Ruby. Kennedy was
succeeded by Lyndon Johnson.

Lyndon Baines Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson replaced the assassinated John F. Kennedy as United States president

- oversaw major social reforms and the expansion of the Vietnam War.

-Known as a politician's politician, "LBJ" was a senator from Texas who'd been a powerful member of the
Democratic party for two decades when he challenged young Senator Kennedy for the presidential nomination
in 1960. (Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower was stepping down after eight years.) Kennedy beat
Republican candidate (and Eisenhower's vice-president) Richard M. Nixon, and Johnson became vice-president
in 1961.

- Kennedy was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald on 22 November 1963 and Johnson succeeded to the presidency.
Easily re-elected over staunch conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964, LBJ was able to pass sweeping social
legislation including:

* the Civil Rights Act

* the Voting Rights Act.

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- His decision to escalate American involvement in Vietnam, however, proved to be extremely unpopular. He
chose not to seek another term and retired in 1969; he was succeeded by none other than Richard Nixon.

Richard Milhous Nixon

Richard Nixon resigned as United States president in 1974, becoming the first president ever to quit the office.
Nixon was a lawyer and Republican politician who held the posts of U.S. representative (1947-51), senator
(1951-53), vice president (1953-61), and finally president of the United States (1969-74).

- As a fiercely anti-communist senator from California, Nixon was pegged to be Dwight Eisenhower's running
mate in 1952, despite Nixon's relative youth: he was 39 when nominated.

-In 1960 Nixon was the Republican candidate against John F. Kennedy in what became one of the closest
elections in U.S. history. Defeated by Kennedy, he returned to California and ran unsuccessfully for governor in
1962. (After the loss he made his famous bitter farewell to the press, saying "You won't have Nixon to kick
around anymore.")

in a dramatic comeback, Nixon and his running mate, Maryland's Spiro Agnew, defeated Hubert H. Humphrey
in the presidential elections of 1968, then easily won re-election against Democrat George McGovern in 1972.

-Although Nixon had an aggressive foreign policy that included successes with China, the Soviet Union and the
Middle East, a weak national economy and domestic dissent over the Vietnam war plagued his administration.

-: Nixon was either a hard-driving genius or a dirty sneak, depending on the observer's point of view.

-After his 1972 re-election, Nixon's administration was consumed by the developing Watergate scandal, so
named for the hotel and office complex where burglars hired by Nixon's re-election campaign were caught in a
sloppy attempt to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee. The Vice President Agnew had legal
troubles of his own back in Maryland and resigned from office in October of 1973.

-After months of legal wrangling and political drama, Nixon resigned in shame on 9 August 1974, his
involvement in the Watergate cover-up having been proven by recordings he himself had made in the White
House. He was succeeded in office by Gerald Ford, the Michigan congressman who had replaced Agnew.
Shortly after taking office, Ford granted Nixon a full pardon, freeing him of any potential criminal charges.

Gerald Rudolph Ford

Gerald Ford became president of the United States after the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon from
office in 1974. Though he served as president for only 29 months, Ford is now widely credited with restoring
public faith in the office of the president after the scandals of the Nixon years. He was a U.S. Congressman
from Michigan from 1948-73.

- Known as a steady and loyal Republican, Ford was appointed vice president in 1973 when Nixon's previous
vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned after pleading no contest to a tax evasion charge.

-Nixon himself resigned on 9 August 1974, and "Gerry" Ford took office the same day, telling Americans that
"our long national nightmare is over."

-One month later Ford granted Nixon a full pardon for any crimes

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter defeated incumbent Gerald Ford in 1976 to become president of the United States. .

-. In the presidential election of 1976 Carter, a dark horse candidate of the Democratic party, won the
nomination and then defeated the Republican Gerald Ford, who had replaced Richard M. Nixon after Nixon's
resignation.

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-Carter championed human rights and responsible government, but his term was dogged by high inflation, high
unemployment and an energy crisis.

-The last fourteen months of his term were dominated by an ongoing hostage situation at the U.S. Embassy in
Iran.

-Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale ran for a second term in 1980, but they were defeated by
Republicans Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

- Since leaving office, Carter has worked internationally for the disenfranchised, fighting hunger and poverty
through a variety of non-profit organizations. His many books include Negotiation: The Alternative to Hostility
(1984), the Middle East study Blood of Abraham (1985), Living Faith (1996), the controversial Palestine: Peace
Not Apartheid (2006), and the memoirs Keeping Faith (1983) and Hours Before Daylight (2001). He was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his years of humanitarian work.

Carter's best-known achievement as president was the peace treaty he negotiated between Egyptian President
Anwar al-Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin. The treaty is known as the Camp David Accords for the
presidential retreat where the trio negotiated for 13 days before reaching the agreement. Sadat and Begin
shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize...For many years Carter taught Sunday school at the Maranatha Baptist
Church in Plains, Georgia.

Ronald Wilson Reagan

President of the United States from 1981-1989,

-Ronald Reagan was known as a staunch conservative, a cheery optimist, and an implacable foe of Soviet
communism.

- Reagan began his career as a sports announcer on radio, then moved to Hollywood and became a movie star.
Reagan made over fifty movies as a reliable supporting actor or benign leading man, but his real calling seemed
to be in politics.

-He served as the governor of California (1967-75) and then in 1980 defeated Democrat Jimmy Carter to
become the 40th U.S. president.

- He advocated lower taxes

- higher defense spending,

- aggressively challenged the Soviet Union.

-The final years of his administration were clouded by a back-door scheme to fund anti-communist forces in
Central America -- the so-called Iran Contra affair -- but the popular president emerged from the scandal
unscathed.

He stepped down after two full terms and was succeeded by his vice-president, George Bush the elder. In 1994
Reagan announced that he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease. He spent the next ten years in seclusion and
increasingly poor health until his death in 2004

George Walker Bush

George Bush was a former World War II pilot, Texas oil tycoon, Republican congressman, U.N. ambassador and
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency before serving as vice president under Ronald Reagan. In spite of
Bush's near-record popularity after military strikes against Panama and a successful war against Iraq, domestic
discontent over economic and social issues took their toll, and he lost his bid for re-election in 1992 when he
was defeated by Democrat Bill Clinton. Eight years later Bush's son George W. Bush followed Clinton as
president after defeating Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, in the elections of 2000. George W. Bush served two
full terms and was succeeded by Barack Obama in 2009.

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Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton was president of the United States for two terms, from 1993 to 2001, and is best known as the
president who survived impeachment after a sex scandal.

-His first term was characterized by a strong economic recovery,

- in 1996 he beat Republican Bob Dole and was re-elected. His second term was dominated by scandal:
accusations of corruption and investigations into rumors of his marital infidelity.

-On December 19, 1998 the U.S. House of Representatives voted (along party lines) in favor of two articles of
impeachment. Clinton was accused of committing perjury and obstruction of justice in his attempt to cover up
an extra-marital affair with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. In the subsequent senate trial, Clinton was
acquitted of the charges and remained in office. Days before leaving office, Clinton struck a deal with the office
of the special prosecutor in the case: in order to avoid an indictment, Clinton admitted to making misleading
testimony, and he was suspended from practicing law in Arkansas for five years. His wife, Hillary Rodham
Clinton was elected as a U.S. Senator from New York in 2000, the first time a First Lady had ever been elected
to public office (she was re-elected in 2006).

The Vietnam War (1945-1975)

The Vietnam War is likely the most problematic of all the wars in American history. It was a morally ambiguous
conflict from the start, ostensibly a war against Communism yet also a war to suppress nationalist self-
determination. The war was rife with paradoxes: in the name of protecting democracy, the United States
propped up a dictatorial regime in South Vietnam; later in the war, the U.S. military was destroying villages in
order to “save” them. Because U.S. objectives were often poorly defined during the course of the war, U.S.
policy often meandered: indeed, the United States would “Americanize” the war only to “Vietnamize” it five
years later. Not surprisingly, a profound sense of confusion pervaded the entire conflict: the American media
sometimes represented tactical victories as terrible defeats, while the U.S. military kept meticulous enemy
body counts without any clear method of distinguishing the bodies of the hostile Viet Cong from those of the
friendly South Vietnamese.
The U.S. involvement in Vietnam is inseparable from the larger context of the Cold War. Ever since the end of
World War II, the United States and Soviet Union had been in the midst of a worldwide struggle for spheres of
influence, each superpower wanting to exert cultural, political, and ideological control over various regions of
the globe. At the same time, the United States and the USSR each wanted to stop the other country from
gaining any such spheres. Southeast Asia in general, and Vietnam in particular, were important spheres of
influence in the minds of both U.S. and Soviet leaders. With the “fall” of North Vietnam to Communism in 1954,
the United States became committed to stopping the further spread of Communism in the region.
The escalation period of the Vietnam War, from 1955 to 1965, mirrored the Cold War in that the United States
and USSR avoided direct conflict—and thereby the possibility of nuclear war—by operating through proxy
governments and forces. Unfortunately for the United States, the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government
was weak and corrupt, while the Soviet-backed North Vietnamese government was a fiercely proud and
independent group of nationalists willing to fight endlessly against foreign dominance and for Vietnamese
unification.
The United States further antagonized the North Vietnamese by stepping into the power void that France, the
former colonial power in Vietnam, had left behind. In its zeal to battle Communism, the United States
essentially ended up assuming the hated role of imperial master in Vietnam. As a result, when the United
States sent troops into the territory in the mid-1960s, they found a far different situation than any other they
had faced up to that point in the Cold War. Instead of its usual tentative dance of brinksmanship with the USSR,
the United States suddenly faced an enemy that believed deeply in its nationalist as well as Communist cause
and implacably hated U.S. intervention.
Although Lyndon Johnson originally believed that the commitment of U.S. troops would save South Vietnam
from Communist oppression, his policy of escalation, combined with Richard Nixon's later bombing campaigns,
effectively destroyed the country. By the end of the war, the U.S. military had used 7 million tons of bombs on
Vietnam—more than all the bombs dropped on Europe and Japan during World War II. The ultimate human
cost of the Vietnam War was staggering for all sides: an estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians, 1.1 million
North Vietnamese soldiers, 200,000 South Vietnamese soldiers, and 58,000 U.S. soldiers were killed.

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The Vietnam War had a tremendous impact on American society and culture, in large part because it was the
first American war to be televised. As a result, the American press played a significant, unforeseen role in the
war, especially in the arena of public opinion. The photographs, videos, and opinions of American journalists,
coupled with the simple fact that young Americans were dying on foreign soil against an enemy that did not
threaten the United States directly, turned much of the American public against the war. This enormous power
of the media and public distrust of the government have been a mainstay of American society ever since.
Decades later, the war still figures prominently in American film and literature, and the black granite wall of the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., remains one of the most potent symbols of American loss.

Cambodia

In April 1970, during the Vietnam War, President Richard M. Nixon authorized the incursion of U.S. military
forces (accompanied by Republic of South Vietnam forces) into Cambodia in order to disrupt the supply lines of
the Vietcong and to destroy their bases in Cambodia being used to support operations in South Vietnam. The
incursion, which lasted until the end of June 1970, had limited tactical success but aroused strong opposition
among anti-Vietnam War groups in the United States and led to several large demonstrations.

Korean war:

(1950-53) a conflict between North Korean and Chinese armies fought to a stalemate against South Korean and
U.N. forces led by the United States. After back and forth fighting, including the dramatic Inchon Landing, U.N.
armies came close to Korea's northern border, drawing China into the war. After being pushed back again and
suffering 459, 360 casualties, the United Nations, led by newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower, offered
peace talks. Both sides agreed to an armistice that kept Korea divided and is still in effect.
Korean War, 1950-3. On 25 June 1950 the communist North Korean army attacked the Republic of South
Korea, crossing the 38th Parallel, which acted as the artificial boundary. The army of the South was forced to
retreat. On 27 June the United Nations voted to provide military aid and the USA led a fifteen-nation task force
to the peninsula. On 15 September the UN gained the initiative by launching an amphibious assault on Inchon
and pushed north capturing Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. However, by January 1951 the communists,
massively reinforced by China, were marching south again. A cease-fire came into effect on 10 July. The two
Koreas remained implacably opposed until the 21st cent.