Nixon, Richard Milhous (1913–1994): Thirty-seventh president of the United States (1969–1974); also served in the House of Representatives and as a senator from California. Nixon was vice president under President Dwight Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961. As president, Nixon negotiated a cease-fire with North Vietnam in 1973, ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. In 1974, he resigned to avoid impeachment after the Watergate scandal erupted.
Parks, Rosa (1913–2005): On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man and move to the back of a city bus. She was arrested for her defiance of the Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation. In protest, Martin Luther King Jr. led the 381-day boycott that ended in desegregation of the buses.
Persian Gulf War (1991): A conflict in the Middle East between Iraq and international forces led by the United States. After Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s forces invaded neighboring Kuwait in August 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush assembled an international coalition of forces that successfully expelled Hussein’s forces from Kuwait and pushed them back to the Iraqi capital.
Powell, Colin (1937–): Four-star general in the U.S. Army and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993) during the Persian Gulf War. President George W. Bush appointed Powell secretary of state (2001–2005), making Powell the first African American to hold that office.
Prokofiev, Sergei (1891–1953): Twentieth-century Russian composer.
Provost: Chief academic officer of a college or university; second-in-command to the university president. Responsible for managing academic resources and the university budget.
Putin, Vladimir (1952–): President of Russia from 1999 to 2008; former member of the Soviet secret police organization known as the KGB (Committee for State Security). Although term limits prevented Putin from running for the office again, he was confirmed as prime minister in 2008 under the new Russian president, Dmitri Medvedev.
Reagan, Ronald (1911–2004): Ronald Reagan was a popular movie actor, TV star, and governor of California before he was elected the fortieth president of the United States (1981–1989). His economic policies reduced government regulation of business and cut taxes; he also cut spending on many social welfare programs and increased military spending. His administration had a tense relationship with the Soviet Union, which he called an evil empire, and his anti-Soviet rhetoric, combined with the U.S. military buildup, escalated the arms race. Gradually, President Reagan began to see Gorbachev as a true reformer and pursued more conciliatory relations with the Soviet leader.
Scowcroft, Brent (1925–): U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who served twice as national security advisor: from 1974 to 1977, under President Gerald Ford, and from 1989 to 1993, under President George H. W. Bush.
Sharecropping: System by which people work on a farm they don’t own in return for a share of the money from the sale of crops. Generally, sharecroppers make little or no money for their efforts.
Shockley, William (1910–1989): Scientist who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics for coinventing the transistor. Later in his career, he promoted a number of controversial theories about differences between races; he believed that blacks were genetically inferior to whites.
Shostakovich, Dimitri (1906–1975): Twentieth-century Russian composer.
Shuttlesworth, Fred (1922–): Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and a founder, along with Martin Luther King Jr., of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Smith, Tommie, and Carlos, John: American track stars. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, Tommie Smith won the gold medal in the 200-meter race and John Carlos won the bronze. During the awards ceremony, they raised their arms in a black power salute. An uproar followed, and the International Olympic Committee suspended Smith and Carlos from the U.S. team.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC): Formed in 1957 by Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, and Martin Luther King Jr., among others, with King as its first president. The goal of the organization was to actively pursue racial equality through nonviolent means.
Stanford University: Institution of higher education based in Silicon Valley in Northern California. Founded in 1891 by former California governor and senator Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, the university counted women, an African American, and future U.S. president Herbert Hoover among the students in its first graduating class.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): Political organization that advocated nonviolent protest against racial injustice through such activities as sit-ins. The SNCC played a major role in organizing the Freedom Riders, interracial activists who took bus trips through the segregated South.
Tet Offensive (1968): On January 31, 1968, in violation of a truce called for the lunar new year, or Tet, North Vietnam launched a major attack on several South Vietnamese cities. Media coverage of the attacks increased U.S. opposition to the Vietnam War.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR): Also known as the Soviet Union. At one time the largest country in the world, comprising fifteen political divisions called republics. Until 1991, when the USSR dissolved, the republics had little autonomy. The Communist Party controlled the central government, which was based in Moscow.
United Nations: International organization founded in 1945 to provide a world forum for all nations to promote peace and security, defend human rights, and alleviate disease and poverty.
Verdi, Giuseppe (1813–1901): Italian composer who wrote popular operas such as Aïda and La Traviata. He is well known for his “Triumphal March.”
Vietnam War (1964–1973): Conflict in Southeast Asia during the Cold War in which the United States fought on behalf of the South Vietnamese government against the Northern Viet Cong and its communist allies. As President Lyndon Johnson escalated America’s military involvement in the region, the war became deeply unpopular at home and sparked nationwide protests. President Richard Nixon withdrew all remaining U.S. troops from Vietnam in 1973; the war ended in 1975 after the fall of Saigon, the Vietnamese capital, and the victory of the North Vietnamese communist forces.
Voting Rights Act of 1965: Landmark civil rights legislation that prohibited literacy tests and poll taxes, which had been used in the Jim Crow South to prevent blacks from voting.
Wallace, George (1919–1998): Four-term governor of Alabama, unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. presidency, and outspoken segregationist during the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1970s, Wallace became religious and changed his views, apologizing to African Americans for his behavior.
Watergate scandaclass="underline" In the summer of 1972, five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C. The men were arrested on charges of burglary and were eventually linked to the reelection campaign of President Richard Nixon. The subsequent effort to cover up these events led to the highest levels of the U.S. government. Eventually, President Nixon was implicated in the cover-up and resigned to avoid impeachment.
X, Malcolm (1925–1965): Born Malcolm Little, he educated himself while in prison for robbery, where he changed his last name to X because it was not a “slave name,” a name given to his ancestors by white slaveholders. He became a leader of the Nation of Islam, gaining fame for speeches urging blacks to defend their rights “by any means necessary.” He left the organization after repeated conflicts with its leadership but did not moderate his outspoken views. Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965; three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of his murder.