Despite Fears of a return to an economic depression or recession, by January 1946, U.S. factories had converted to peacetime manufacturing, and the U.S. unemployment rate stayed between 3% and 4% until the Spring of 1949.
A) U.S. Post-War Boom
4.5 Million union workers went on strike 4,700 times demanding higher wages after World War II ended.
A) Strikes
When the U.S. Government ended the wartime price controls, Shortages ended, but prices for most rose sharply.
D) Inflation
The (G.I. bill of rights) This gave WWII Veterans priority for many jobs, free 4 year education or job training, 52 weeks of unemployment benefits, and low-interest loans to start businesses or buy homes or farms.
A) Servicemen's Readjustment Act
With full employment during most of the 18 years after WWII, there were a record number of marriages and a huge increase in the number of children born which fueled a record number of new schools being built.
C) Post-War Baby Boom
In September 1946, Congress cut taxes by 6 billion which helped increase corporate investment in new factories and equipment, and caused a huge spending increase for new homes, autos and appliances ($140 billion In U.S. bank accounts Dec. 1945)
A) 1946 Tax Cut
(1940 – 1946) With little competition from nations whose factories were in ruins from war, the U.S. trade surplus continued to flourish, with companies exporting consumer products after the war ended, as well as food.
C) Export Trade Boom
For the first time since 1930, Republicans won majorities in the U.S. senate (51 – 45) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (246 – 1884)
B) 1946 U.S. Midterm Elections
(June 23, 1947) Congress overrode Truman’s veto, and this act became law, barring the closed shop (a workplace where only union members could be hired) and permitting the president to call a 60 day cooling off period to delay any strike that might endanger national safety or health.
C) Taft-Hartley Act
Passed by congress in 1947 and ratified by the states February 26, 1951, it limited all U.S. Presidents, after Truman, to only two four – year terms as President, except for a Vice President becoming president who could serve no more than 10 years.
B) 22nd Amendment
(1946 – 1991) In February 1946, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin warned publicly that “there can be no lasting peace with capitalism”. This began the era where the U.S. and its allies used diplomatic, economic, and military measures to halt the spread of communism in the world.
A) Cold War
(1946) U.S. diplomat to the Soviet Union and an expert in Russian History and Foreign Policy, who warned the U.S. state department in a 16 – page telegram that Russia (Soviet Union 1917 – 1991) had always looked for opportunities to expand
its territory when the opportunities occurred. He also stated that WWII had only been a brief truce between the Soviet Union and the Western Republics. (The Long Telegram)
D) George Kennan
In 1947, Kennan wrote the “Mr. X” article to the American Foreign policy journal that the only way to deal with Soviet expansion was “a long – term patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”
D) Containment
(1946) Truman and British prime minister Clement Attlee threatened to send U.S. and British armed forces to this country unless the Soviet Union removed its troops from that nation. Stalin withdrew soviet troops.
a) Iran
b)
A) Iran
(March 5, 1946) Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill went to Westminster college in Fulton, Missouri with Truman and made a speech, warning that the Soviet Union had forced communist governments on all of the Eastern European nations its armed forces had taken near the end of WWII. Churchill also called for a military alliance of the Western European nations, the U.S. and Canada to oppose Soviet expansion and threats.
D) Iron Curtain
(March 12, 1947) President Truman asked congress to approve $400 million in economic
and military aid to help Greece and Turkey resist communists trying to take over or gain bases. Truman stated “It must be the policy of the U.S. to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure.” Congress overwhelmingly passed the funding.
B) Truman Doctrine
(September 18, 1947) Congressional law unifying the U.S. Armed forces under a single department of defense, creating the national Security Council (NSC) and the central intelligence Agency (CIA).
B) National Security Act
(June 5, 1947) U.S. Secretary of state George Marshall made a speech at Harvard University asking Congress to approve spending $12.5 billion to rebuild the economies of Europe to prevent communists from gaining control of more nations.
Congress passed it April 3, 1948.
B) Marshall Plan
(When the Soviet Union cut off land and river access to west Berlin on June 21, 1948, the U.S. and British air forces began transporting food, coal and other goods to West Berlin June 26, 1948 – July 8, 1949 after the communists ended the
blockade on May 12, 1949.
D) Berlin Airlift
(June 24, 1948) Congress restored the draft. All U.S. men 18 – 25 years old had to register, and men 19 years old and older could be drafted for up to 21 months. A peacetime U.S. Armed force of 2 million was authorized.
C) Selective Service Act
Who won the U.S. Presidential Elections on November 2, 1948?
B) Harry Truman
(April 4, 1949) 12 nations, including the U.S. and Canada signed this defensive alliance treaty which the U.S. senate ratified on July 21, 1949. An armed force against one or more member nations shall be considered an attack against them all.
D) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
U.S. unemployment rose during 1949 and the first half of 1950.
B) 1949-1950 Economic Recession
The Soviet Union secretly and successfully tested its first atomic bomb on August 29, 1949. President Truman was informed about it by a U.S. air force testing sample in late September and informed the U.S. media on September 23, 1949.
D) Soviet Atomic Bomb
By the end of 1949 the Chinese communist Army forced the Nationalist Chinese to evacuate the mainland for Formosa (Taiwan) and Mao Zedong became the Chinese dictator until 1976.
B) Communist China
The first was successfully tested on November 1, 1952 at a remote Pacific island that was uninhabited (Elugalab in Eniwetok Atoll) that produced a blast of 10.8 megatons.
D) U.S. Hydrogen Bomb
U.S. Secretary of state from 1949 – 1953. After the U.S. and Soviet Union removed their troops from Korea in 1949, announced in early 1950 that South Korea and Taiwan were outside the U.S. defense perimeter in the Pacific.
A) Dean Acheson
(June 25, 1950 – July 27, 1953) Communist North Korean armies invaded South Korea. Truman ordered General MacArthur to command United Nations forces (Mostly U.S. and South Korean – 75%) to push the communists out of South Korea.
C) Korean War
(September 15, 1950) General MacArthur commanded a surprise U.S. landing at _______ , South Korea, near the capital of Seoul which was liberated along with all of South Korea by the end of September 1950.
C) Inchon
(April 1950) The U.S. National security council recommended secretly to president Truman that the U.S. greatly increase defense spending after the Korean war started, Truman convinced congress to increase the defense budget by the end of 1950. It tripled defense spending to $50 billion and intended on keeping a large permanent U.S. armed forces to stop communist aggression anywhere in the world.
A) NSC-68
(June 27, 1950) Truman ordered 35 U.S. military advisors to go to help the French defeat a communist war in what later became Vietnam Guerrilla , Cambodia, and Laos.
A) French Endo China
(June 19, 1953) Convicted in 1951 for receiving U.S. atomic secrets and passing them on to the Soviet Union, and sentenced to death. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld their conviction and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower refused to commute their sentences to life.
A) Ethel and Julius Rosenburg
Who won the 1952 U.S. Elections?
B) Dwight Eisenhower
(July 27, 1953) The new boundary between North and South Korea is where the two sides cease fire. Thousands of Chinese and North Korean soldiers who were captured choose to become citizens of South Korea. 23 U.S. soldiers who were captured
choose to become citizens of China or North Korea.
D) Korean Armistice
(September 1956) Former German rocket scientist who immigrated to the U.S. in 1945 and was the scientific team leader who developed and successfully tested the first rocket into space that orbited the Earth. (U.S. Army) On January 31, 1958, his team launched the first U.S. Earth orbiting satellite (Explorer I). His team later designed the Saturn 5 rocket that took U.S. astronauts to the moon and back safely (July 1969).
D) Werner Von Braun
He Immigrated to the U.S. from Hungary and developed the basic design for modern
computers that greatly reduced their size, while greatly increasing their output. His work also reduced the size of U.S. missiles and nuclear warheads while at the same time, greatly increasing their output. His work also reduced
the size of U.S. missiles and nuclear warheads while, at the same time, greatly increased their range and power.
A) John Von Neumann
(1945) Because of the Devastation of their economies and near bankruptsy of their treasuries because of World War II, most nations began giving their overseas colonies independence.
C) Europe
(July 30, 1953) Created by congress and signed by Eisenhower, it replaced the former Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
C) Small Business Administration
(August 7, 1953) Signed into law by Eisenhower,
this allowed an additional 214,000 refugees from nations that had become communist to become U.S. citizens.
a) Refugee Admission Bill
b) Communist Control Act
c) Civil Rights Act of 1957
d) Butler vs. Michigan
a) Refugee Admission Bill
(October 5, 1953) When U.S. Supreme Court
justice Frederick Vinson (63) died on September 8, 1953, Eisenhower nominated California Governor ____ ______ to be the new chief justice. He was confirmed by the U.S. senate March 1, 1954.
B) Earl Warren
(January 21, 1954) the first nuclear powered submarine was launched.
B) U.S.S. Nautilus
(March 1, 1954) the first hydrogen bomb that could be carried by bomber was successfully tested in the Pacific at 15 megatons (750 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb).
D) Castle Bravo
(May 13, 1954) Signed into law by Eisenhower, the U.S. and Canada agreed to widen the __. ________ _____ in order to open the Great Lakes to ocean going ships.
A) St. Lawrence Seaway Develpment Act
(May 12, 1954) The U.S. Supreme Court rules 9-0 that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
A) Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka Kansas
(August 24, 1954) This virtually outlaws the U.S. communist party, and denied certain civil rights to communists and communist front organizations.
B) Communist Control Act
(September 8, 1954) The U.S., Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand join together for mutual defense in Asia and the Pacific. Taiwan, South Korea, and South Vietnam joined soon afterward.
C) South East Asia Treaty Organization
remained the majority (or plurality) political party in both the U.S. senate and the U.S. House of Representatives from January 1955 – January 1995.
C) Democrats
(December 2, 1954) Republican U.S. senator from Wisconsin was censored by the U.S. Senate
67 – 22 for falsely claiming that the U.S. Army was allowing communists to become recruits. All of his charges against the Army had been dismissed in a senate report August 31.
D) Joseph McCarthy
(November 7, 1955) The U.S. Supreme court (9-0) ordered the desegregation of all U.S. public parks, playgrounds, and public golf courses.
B) Public Places Desegregation
(November 25, 1955) The U.S. Interstate commerce Commission ordered an end to racial segregation on interstate trains and buses effective January 10, 1956.
B) Desegregation for Interstate Travel
(December 1, 1955) Black woman in Montgomery, Alabama who refused to give up her seat on a local bus to a white man. The NAACP sued in federal court.
A) Rosa Parks
(December 5, 1955 – April 4, 1968) Montgomery, Alabama pastor who was chosen to lead a bus boycott that lasted until the U.S. Supreme Court (9-0) ordered an end to the segregation of local transportation on December 13, 1956.
B) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
(January 3, 1959) was admitted to the Union as the 49th state.
C) Alaska
(August 21, 1959) was admitted to the union as the 50th state.
B) Hawaii
(September 15-27, 1959) The Soviet Premier toured the U.S. and met President Eisenhower for two days at Camp David.
A) Nikita Khrushchev
(May 1, 1960) U.S. Air force pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet Union.
D) Gary Powers
(May 20, 1960) U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic missile (ICBM) was successfully tested, fired from Cape Canaveral Florida and landing 9,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean 55 minutes later.
B) Atlas
(July 20, 1960) the first SLBM (Submarine launched ballistic missile) was successfully fired (Polaris) 1,100 from the sub 30 feet below the Atlantic. (Nuclear Powered)
C) U.S.S. George Washington
(January 1, 1959) Leader of a large army of Cubans who forced Cuban dictator Fulgencio
Batista to leave Cuba. He visits the U.S. from April 15-28, 1959, and tells Vice President Nixon and U.S. reporters on NBC’s meet the press that
“there are no Communists in my government.”
B) Fidel Castro
(July 29, 1958) Established by congress, on April 8, 1959, they tell congress that its space program should place a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth by 1969.
B) National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(February 25, 1957) The U.S. supreme court ruled that a Michigan law banning the sale to the general public of “material that might corrupt minors” was
unconstitutional.
B) Butler v. Michigan
(September 9, 1957) Eisenhower signed the first civil rights bill into law since 1870 establishing a permanent civil rights commission with broad investigatory powers, to protect voting rights.
A) Civil Rights Act of 1957
(September 4-25, 1957) When the Little Rock, Arkansas Board of Education worked out an
integration plan to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus used local police to prevent 9 black students from entering. When President Eisenhower told faubus at a meeting to use the Arkansas National
Guard to protect the students Faubus agreed. Instead, when he returned to little rock, Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to block the 9 black students. Eisenhower then federalized the National Guard and sent the U.S. 101st Army Airborne Division to fly into Little Rock and Protect the 9 students enter the school September 25.
B) Little Rock (Arkansas) High School
(May 6, 1960) Eisenhower signed it into law permitting U.S. federal judges to send U.S. Justice Department officials to supervise voter registration in areas of racial discrimination.
B) 1960 Civil Rights Act
U.S. Breaks diplomatic relations with Cuba.
A) 1960 Presidential Election
(January 3,1961) The U.S. senate confirms the president's younger brother to be the new U.S. Attorney General, while also passing a law, that a member of a U.S. president’s immediate family can never again serve in his brother’s cabinet.
A) Robert Kennedy
(March 29, 1961) the resident U.S. citizens of
Washington D.C. gain the right to vote in U.S. Presidential elections.
D) 23rd Amendment
Invasion (April 16-20, 1961) 1,500 Anti-communist Cubans, trained and equipped by the U.S. & C.I.A. landed on the South Coast of Cuba, but are defeated and forced to surrender to Castro’s army on April 20, 1961.
