Credit Sprint / Study guides / U.S. History Period 8
Credit Sprint's Guide to U.S. History, Period 8: The Cold War and Civil Rights, 1945 to 1980
The United States and the Soviet Union competed for global influence while Americans enjoyed postwar prosperity. At home, the civil rights movement, the Great Society, the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal reshaped politics and trust in government.
What you need to know
- The Cold War began with containment: the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO and the Berlin Airlift. The Korean War ended in a stalemate. The arms race, the space race and Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) brought nuclear fears.
- The Second Red Scare brought loyalty checks, HUAC and McCarthyism. Eisenhower's era saw suburbs (Levittown), the Interstate Highway Act, a baby boom and conformity alongside the Beats and rock and roll.
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ended legal school segregation. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, sit-ins, Freedom Rides, the March on Washington (1963) and Selma led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Malcolm X and Black Power offered different strategies.
- The Great Society under Lyndon Johnson created Medicare, Medicaid, the War on Poverty and federal aid to education. Kennedy's New Frontier set the stage.
- Vietnam escalated after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964). The Tet Offensive (1968), the antiwar movement and the credibility gap turned opinion against the war. Nixon pursued Vietnamization and détente with China and the USSR.
- Other movements grew: the women's movement (Betty Friedan, NOW, Title IX), the Chicano movement, American Indian Movement, gay rights and environmentalism (Silent Spring, the EPA).
- The 1970s brought Watergate and Nixon's resignation, stagflation, the energy crisis and a loss of trust. The Iran hostage crisis hurt Carter.
- Conservatism grew in reaction to liberal programs and cultural change, as Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign and Nixon's "silent majority" showed.
Exam traps
Key terms
- Containment: The U.S. policy of stopping the spread of communism.
- Truman Doctrine (1947): A pledge to support nations resisting communism, starting with Greece and Turkey.
- Marshall Plan: A U.S. program of aid to rebuild Western Europe.
- NATO: A 1949 military alliance of the U.S. and Western European nations.
- Berlin Airlift: A 1948–49 operation that supplied West Berlin by air during a Soviet blockade.
- Korean War (1950–53): A war in which the U.S. and UN defended South Korea; it ended in a stalemate.
- McCarthyism: The practice of making unproven accusations of communism in the 1950s.
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): A confrontation over Soviet missiles in Cuba that brought the world close to nuclear war.
- Levittown: A planned suburb that became a symbol of postwar suburban growth.
- G.I. Bill: A law that gave veterans money for college and home loans.
- Interstate Highway Act (1956): A law that built a national highway system.
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954): The ruling that segregated public schools are unconstitutional.
- Montgomery Bus Boycott: A 1955–56 boycott sparked by Rosa Parks that launched Martin Luther King Jr.
- Civil Rights Act of 1964: A law that banned discrimination in public places and jobs.
- Voting Rights Act of 1965: A law that protected Black voting rights.
- Great Society: Lyndon Johnson's programs to fight poverty and expand education and health care.
Practice questions
Five of the 55 Period 8 questions in Credit Sprint. Every choice is explained in the app.
- rebuilding Germany through direct payments to its people
- supporting free nations resisting communist takeover
- rolling back communism by invading Eastern Europe
- withdrawing from European affairs after World War II
Show answer
supporting free nations resisting communist takeover. Truman asked Congress for aid, framing the Cold War as a struggle between free and totalitarian ways of life and launching the policy of containment.
- showed the power of sustained nonviolent protest
- ended with a local compromise that kept the buses segregated
- ended segregation across the entire South within one year
- was organized by the Ku Klux Klan to resist new integration laws
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showed the power of sustained nonviolent protest. After Rosa Parks was arrested, Black residents stayed off the buses for over a year until the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
- outlawed literacy tests and authorized federal oversight of voter registration in areas
- gave women the right to vote in federal elections
- lowered the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen
- banned poll taxes in state elections alone
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outlawed literacy tests and authorized federal oversight of voter registration in areas. Black registration in Southern states rose sharply, and the law enforced the Fifteenth Amendment that Southern states had long evaded.
- a withdrawal of the United States from the Cold War
- a rollback of communism through direct military force
- arms control talks such as SALT I
- an alliance with the Soviet Union against Chinese power
Show answer
arms control talks such as SALT I. Nixon and Henry Kissinger used diplomacy to ease tensions and to take advantage of the rivalry between the two communist powers.
- move its capital closer to the western states
- increase spending on science education
- end its space program to focus on the economy
- sign a treaty banning satellites
Show answer
increase spending on science education. Congress passed the National Defense Education Act in 1958, and the space race became a central part of the Cold War competition.