Eisenhower
Ali Conte
Election of 1952
• Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower v. Democratic Adlai Stevenson II
• Eisenhower won the electoral college
• 442 to 89, carrying 39 states v. Adlai's 9
Election of 1956
• Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower v. Democrat Adlai Stevenson II
• Eisenhower won the electoral college again
• 457-73, and carried 41 states v. Adlai's 7
Joseph McCarthy
• A Republican Senator from Wisconsin 1947-1957
• Best known as the face for American Communist fears during the early Cold War period
• Ultimately censured by the Senate because of his inability to substantiate his claims
• McCarthyism, coined in 1950 as a reference to McCarthy's ideals, was applied to similar anti-communist activities
Cold War
• Stalin dies
• Armistice ends fighting in the Korean war
• CIA assists a royalist coup in Iran
• Nikita Khrushchev becomes the leader of the Soviet communist party
• USS Nautilus, first nuclear submarine
• McCarthy's communist paranoia over CIA infiltration
• Taiwan Straight Crisis
• Baghdad Pact
• West Germany joins NATO
• Warsaw Pact
• Suez Crisis
• Communist insurgency in South Vietnam
• Eisenhower Doctrine
• Sputnik launched
• Sputnik 2 launched
• NASA formed
Republican Policies
• He favored small government and tried to balance federal government to prevent socialism.
• Operation Wetback- Tried to prevent illegal immigration from Mexico the US for fear of its influence on the branchero program
• Interstate Highway Act of 1956 to improve infrastructure and provide jobs.
Incurred the largest peacetime deficit in the history of the USDesegregation of the South
• Brown vs Board of Education -
1954 Supreme Court decision holding that school segregation in Topeka, Kansas, was unconstitutional because it violated the 14th Amendments separate but equal ruling
• Little Rock Crisis -
Little Rock Nine was a group of African American students who were not allowed to go to school at Central High School until Eisenhower's intervention
• Montgomery Bus Crisis -
Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat at the front of the bus to a white passenger. Martin Luther King Jr. rallied the black community to boycott Montgomery buses, severely hurting their business. It lasted for over a year, finally ending in 1956 when SC declared segregated buses unconstitutional.
• Civil Rights Act of 1957 -
Primarily a voting rights bill, it was passed by Congress, it was the first civil rights bill passed.
Vietnam War
• Vietnamese nationalist movements tried to force the French out of Vietnam
• Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh was becoming more Communist
• Eisenhower was reluctant to take action regarding the nationalist movements, wary of another war like the one in Korea
• Ngo Dinh Diem led the government in the south and was pro-Western; Eisenhower promised aid to the south.
Space Race
• After seeing the USSR's success with Sputnik, Eisenhower began to promote a similar space program for the US; he began advancing technology, science, and education, in addition to creating NASA.
• the National Defense and Education Act (NDEA) was also passed as a result of Sputnik's success, providing more opportunities for higher education and improving colleges
the competition raged on between the two superpowers until the United States landed Apollo 11 on the Moon.