Robert F. Kennedy He was Attorney General of the United States under his brother. He was killed while running for President himself.
Robert Jackson This man served as U.S. Attorney General and as a Supreme Court Justice during the 1940s but is best known for his role as chief prosecutor during the Nuremberg Trials.
|
Robert McNamara He was the Secretary of Defense during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and America's build-up in Vietnam for most of the 1960s
|
Robert Oppenheimer This notable scientist is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II program that developed the first nuclear weapons.
|
Rock And Roll This type of music became the dominant form of popular music in the 1950s and 1960s.
|
Roe V. Wade This was the Supreme Court case that declared that most state and federal laws restricting abortion were unconstitutional and violated women's rights according to the 14th amendment.
|
Roger Williams English theologian with unique beliefs in colonial America. He was an advocate for the separation of church and state and Native American rights. He is also the founder of Providence, Rhode Island and the first Baptist church in America.
|
Roosevelt Corollary This policy reasserted the U.S. position as protector of the Western Hemisphere.
|
Roosevelt's Three Rs This term describes the 3 goals of FDR's New Deal programs: relief, recovery, and reform.
|
Rosa Parks She was a Civil Rights leader who, in 1955, refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Her actions led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott that eventually led to the court-ordered end of segregation on the city's busses.
|
Rosie The Riveter This was a fictional woman that represented all the women that took manufacturing jobs during WWII to support the war effort.
|
Rough Riders This was a regiment in the Spanish-American War organized and led by Theodore Roosevelt that included cowboys, miners, policemen, and college athletes.
|
Rousseau He was a French Enlightenment philosopher and author of The Social Contract, which became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the Western tradition.
|
Royal Colony A British settlement in the New World. Many of these eventually became states.
|
Royal Governor A British official appointed by the King to rule over a Royal Colony.
|
Rudolf Hess This prominent German leader served as Deputy to Adolf Hitler in the Nazi Party and was the third-most powerful man in Germany during the Second World War, behind Hitler and Hermann Goering.
|
Rule Of Law This is the legal notion that the power of government is limited and restrained by legal means and is not at the mercy and whims of individuals.
|
Rule Of Man This political concept describes the political condition in which a single ruler or party exercises absolute authority and is not bound by any law.
|
Rural Electrification Act This 1936 law provided federal funding for installation of electrical distribution systems to serve rural areas of the United States.
|
Russian Revolution This began in 1917 when Menshiviks overthrew Tzar Nicholas II and continued when then the Bolsheviks overthrew the Menshiviks.
|
Sacco And Vanzetti Case This was a murder trial in Massachusetts in 1920 which stirred national emotion about the death of two Italian immigrants. Some feel they were victims of the Red Scare of 1919 and 1920. They were known to the authorities as radical militants who had been widely involved in the anarchist movement, labor strikes, political agitation, and anti-war propaganda. They believed themselves to be victims of social and political prejudice.
|
Saddam Hussein He was President of Iraq from 1979 to 2003. He was in power during the Persian Gulf War and repressed independence movements of groups within Iraq.
|
Salem Witch Trials These were a series of court proceedings held in Massachusetts in 1692 in which 20 people were executed for allegedly practicing witchcraft.
|
Salutary Neglect This refers to the unofficial British policy of enforcing few of the restrictions legally placed on their North American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries.
|
Sam Houston Born in Virginia, he was governor of Tennessee in the 1820s, President of the Republic of Texas, Senator from the State of Texas, and the Governor of the State of Texas.
|
Samuel Gompers He was the founder and leader of the American Federation of Labor for 38 years and worked for higher wages for laborers and against socialist and communist presence within the movement.
|
Scalawag This was a white southerner who supported northern Reconstruction policies after the Civil War.
|
Schlieffen Plan This was the name of the strategy employed by Germany at the start of World War I that was intended to knock France out of the war quickly following an invasion through Belgium.
|
SCLC This is a Civil Rights organization that was instrumental in the 60s Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King was its first president and it is rooted in nonviolent civil disobedience.
|
Scopes Trial William Jennings Bryan was a three time Democratic Party candidate for President, orator of the famous "Cross of Gold Speech" in 1896, and won this infamous trial in 1925.
|
SDS This was a youth-centered organization of the 1960s whose purpose was to nonviolently foster a "participatory democracy" in the US that would end wars and racism. It stopped formal protests in 1969 and was disbanded by 1972.
|
Search Engine This is a computer-based tool, usually accessed on the internet, which is used to find webpages containing specified words or phrases.
|
SEATO This is the name of a group of countries, mainly in Southeast Asia, that was created after World War II to act as a mutual defense for the member states. It is similar to NATO in Europe.
|
SEC This regulatory agency of the U.S. Government was created in 1934 to provide oversight of the country's stock market.
|
Secession This was the withdrawal of eleven Southern states from the Union in 1860 that precipitated the American Civil War.
|
Second Continental Congress This convened in May of 1775, drafted the "Olive Branch Petition" two months later, and eventually drafted the Declaration of Independence over a year later.
|
Second Treatise On Government This 1689 book by John Locke asserts that governments exist because of a "social contract theory" based on people's natural rights.
|
Sectionalism This is the political loyalty to one's own region of the country over the entire country. This was a major factor leading up to the Civil War.
|
Segregation This is the separation of daily activities, such as eating in a restaurant, using water fountains, or riding the bus, that is based on (usually) racial makeup.
|
Selective Service Act Required men to register with the government in order to be randomly selected for military service; passed by Congress in 1917
|
Self Determination This is the international legal principle that nations have a right to freely choose their political leaders and sovereignty without any outside influence or pressure.
|
Selma Montgomery March This is the name given to the series of Marches that took place in western and central Alabama in 1965, resulting initially in brutal police action as protesters crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
|
Semi-skilled Labor Workers that may master a specific job with a few weeks of limited training.
|
Seoul This is the capital of South Korea and its largest city with over 11 million people.
|
Separate But Equal This is the name of the legal doctrine of discrimination of the races that was adopted in much of the United States following the "Plessy v. Ferguson" Supreme Court ruling o 1896.
|
Separation Of Powers This is the Constitutional principle that the law making, executive, and judicial powers be held by different groups and people.
|
September 11 This was the series of organized terrorist attacks on the United States by Al Qaeda by suicide commercial plane crashes in New York City, Arlington, Va and Pennsylvania.
|
Sharecropper A person (usually former slave) who farmed a leased portion of land during the Reconstruction era. The planter shared a portion of the crop grown as payment for land, rent, and supplies. Often the farmer under agreement was taken advantage of by the land owner.
|
Sherman Antitrust Act This law was passed in 1890 in order to limit the power and the formation of business monopolies.
|
Sherman's March To The Sea This was a military campaign embarked upon by the United States Army in late 1864 which destroyed property along a wide swath south from Atlanta to the Atlantic Ocean in order to punish the Confederates for starting the war.
|
Silent Spring This is a 1962 novel written by Rachel Carson that helped launch the environmentalism movement.
|
Silicon Valley This is the name for the area in southern California that is known for its high-tech corporations and computer programming businesses.
|
Sioux This is the name given to the Native American ethnic group of the Great Plains, represented by such leaders as Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Red Cloud.
|
Sit Down Strikes This is a protest by a group of workers, usually at a factory, where the organized group would sit at their work stations to prevent production or replacement.
|
Sit-In This is a form of peaceful civil disobedience often taking place in the 1960s in which protesters seat themselves and remain until evicted by force, or their demands are met.
|
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church This was a racist attack on a house of worship in Birmingham, Alabama, Sunday, September 15, 1963, resulting in the death of four girls.
|
Skilled Labor Labor with a high level of training, education, and experience.
|
Slavery This is the term used to describe a system of forced labor in which a person is considered to be the property of another person.
|
SNCC This group was formed in 1960 to organize peaceful disobedience to segregation laws throughout the American South. They played key roles in organizing the Freedom Rides in 1961 and the famous March on Washington two years later.
|
Social Contract Theory This is an agreement between the governed and the government defining and limiting the rights and duties of each.
|
Social Darwinism This was the theory that people are subject to natural selection and wealth was a sign of superiority.
|
Social Gospel This name is given to the intellectual movement in the late-19th and early-20th centuries that sought to address the social problems of the day- child labor, working conditions, etc- through the application of moral and Christian ethics.
|
Social Security This is a federal government program that provides income support to people who are unemployed, disabled, or over the age of 65.
|
Sojourner Truth This abolitionist and women's rights activist is best known for her 1851 speech "Ain't I a Woman?"
|
Soup Kitchens These facilities were organized and sponsored by churches or charities during the Great Depression in an effort to feed the homeless and needy.
|
South Korea This Asian country officially split with its northern neighbor in 1948, fighting a war against them from 1950 to 1953.
|
South Vietnam Also known as the Republic of Vietnam, this was an internationally recognized state which governed Vietnam south of the 17th parallel until 1975. Its capital was Saigon and its origin can be traced to the French colony of Cochinchina, which consisted of the southern third of Vietnam. The US fought the Vietnam war in support of this nation, which was finally dissolved when Saigon was overrun in April 1975.
|
Southern Colonies This colonial region consisted of Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.
|
Sovereignty This is the absolute power of a government within its own territory.
|
Soviet Union This Cold War enemy of the United States "collapsed" in 1991 after years of economic and political turmoil.
|
Space Race This was a Cold War competition between the U.S. and Soviet powers for space exploration.
|
Spanish American War This was a conflict in which the U.S. gained many island territories, especially Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
|
Speakeasy This is the name given to bars and nightclubs that illegally sold alcohol during the era of Prohibition.
|
Speculation This is a buying a commodity such as land or stock with the intention of selling it later when the price goes up.
|
Spirit Of Laws This is the name of the 1748 book by Baron de Montesquieu in which he stresses a government's need to have a separation of power, support of the rule of law, and other Enlightenment-era ideals.
|
Sputnik This was the name for the Soviet Union's program of unmanned space objects that were launched in the 1950s. This satellite's launch in 1957 alarmed the US into speeding up plans for its space program.
|
Square Deal This was Theodore Roosevelt's plans to help safeguard the rights of workers.
|
Standard Oil Company This was the first major oil trust founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and dissolved by the US Supreme Court in 1911.
|
States' Rights This is the political idea the individual states have political powers related to the federal government. It was established in the 10th Amendment.
|
Steffens He was a "muckraker" during the Progressive Era, best known for his "The Shame of the Cities" which exposed the political corruption found in major U.S. cities.
|
Steve Jobs In the late 1970s his company, Apple, developed and released the first "personal" computer.
|
Stevens This member of Congress from Pennsylvania was a leading abolitionist prior to the Civil War and was a major "Radical Republican" after the Civil War.
|
Stock Market Crash This was a famous dramatic loss of value in the shares of stock in corporations that hit the U.S. in 1929.
|
Stokely Carmichael Known as Kwame Ture until his death in 1998, he was a Trinidadian-American activist in the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to prominence first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party. Initially an integrationist, he later became affiliated with black nationalist and Pan-Africanist movements. He is known for having widely promoted the phrase, "Black Power."
|
Stonewall Jackson An admired Confederate general during the American Civil War. He is known for his strong leadership and bold battle tactics.
|
Stono Rebellion This was the earliest known rebellion against slavery in the New World. In 1739, a group of South Carolina slaves gathered to march for freedom.
|
Strategic Defense Initiative A system proposed by U.S. President Reagan to use ground- and space-based systems to protect the U.S. from strategic nuclear ballistic missiles.
|
Strict Interpretation This is the tendency of more narrowing interpreting the meaning of laws, especially Constitutional Amendments.
|
Strom Thurmond He was South Carolina's governor from 1947 to 1951, a former segregationist presidential candidate, and a U.S. Senator from 1956 to 2003.
|
Suburb a residential area on the outskirts of a city
|
Sudetenland This is the name of the western region of Czechoslovakia that was inhabited mostly by German speaking peoples and that was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938.
|
Suffrage This is the right to vote.
|
Sumner Though this Massachusetts Senator was beaten unconscious by Rep. Preston Brooks before the Civil War, he recovered to lead the charge of the "Radical Republicans" during the Reconstruction Era.
|
Supply Side Economics This is the idea that an economy must encourage an increase in production of goods and services, and that this increase in supply will create demand for other products.
|
Supreme Court This court has appellate jurisdiction and limited original jurisdiction; this court is the final court of appeals.
|
|
|
