US History B

Course Description

An economic, political and cultural survey of the United States from the Great Depression to the Reagan era.

US History B – Parts 1 & 2.
Unit 4 - The Great Depression

Chapter 14. Depression Begins / Read pp 462 to 484

Outline: section 3. Hoover Struggles

Famous Faces: Herbert Hoover, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Word Wall: price supports; speculation; margin buying, stock market crash; Dow Jones Industrial Average; Black Tuesday; Hawley-Smoot Tariff; shantytowns; soup kitchens; breadlines;

Chapter 15. FDR’s New Deal / Read pp 486 to 523

Outline: section 1. A New Deal

Famous Faces: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, John Maynard Keynes; Father Charles Coughlin; Dr. Francis Townsend; Senator Huey Long of Louisiana; Dorothea Lange;

Word Wall: New Deal; fireside chat; Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933; Civilian Conservation Corps;

Unit 5 - WWII and the Cold War

Chapter 16. War In Europe / Read pp 526 to 558

Outline: section 1. Dictators Threaten

Famous Faces: Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, Charles De Gaulle, Gen George Patton, General Dwight D Eisenhower.

Word Wall: blitzkrieg; Sudetenland; Lend-Lease; Atlantic Charter; Munich Agreement; appeasement, phony war; fascism; Pearl Harbor; Dunkirk; Battle of Britain; Holocaust;

Chapter 17. A Two Front War / Read pp 560 to 598

Outline: section 3. The Atomic Bomb and the Cold War

Famous Faces: Harry Truman, J. Robert Oppenheimer, James Doolittle

Word Wall: D-Day; Manhattan project; A-bomb; island hopping, internment; Nuremburg War Trials. V-E Day; Iwo Jima; Hiroshima; Korematsu v US.

Extra Credit: read one of the following novels. Then write a short essay connecting the book’s themes with those of your textbook. Proofread and spell check your draft.
1. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold – John Le Carre
2. The Best and the Brightest – David Halberstam

MIDTERM EXAM


Chapter 18. Cold War Origins / Read pp 600 to 630

Outline: section 1. Cold War Origins and the Marshall Plan

Famous Faces: George Kennan, George Marshall, Francis Gary Powers, Dwight D Eisenhower; Mao Zedong; Chiang Kai Shek; Gen. MacArthur; Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs; Joe McCarthy

Word Wall: Cold War; brinkmanship; iron curtain, satellite nations; containment; space race; NATO; Sputnik;

Unit 6 - Tumult and Turmoil

Chapter 20. JFK and LBJ / Read pp 668 to 696

Outline: section 1. Kennedy’s Cold War

Famous Faces: John Kennedy, Jacqueline Bouvier, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Dean Rusk, Nikita Khrushchev, Lee Harvey Oswald;

Word Wall: Camelot; Peace Corps; the Hot Line; the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis; Berlin Wall; the Great Society, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; Warren Commission; Medicare

Chapter 21 Civil Rights / Read pp 698 to 726

Outline: secttion 1. Taking On Segregation

Famous Faces: Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King Jr., Gov. George Wallace; Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X

Word Wall: Brown v Board (1954); Civil Rights Act of 1964; sit-ins, freedom riders; “I Have a Dream Speech; Black Panthers, SCLC, SNCC, Jesse Jackson, Bobby Kennedy

Chapter 22 Vietnam / Read pp 728 to 764

Outline: section 1. Origins of the Vietnam Conflict

Famous Faces: Robert McNamara, Ngo Diem, Ho Chi Minh; Gen Westmoreland

Word Wall: domino theory; carpet bombing; Viet Cong, guerrilla war; Cambodia, Laos, body bags, Tet Offensive, credibility gap; Kent State Four; SDS, SEATO, CIA


Unit 7 – Passage to a New Century
Chapter 24. Nixon and Watergate / Read pp 792 to 826

Outline: section 2. Watergate

Famous Faces: John Dean, John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman; Daniel Ellsberg; Sam Ervin, Spiro Agnew, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Richard Nixon.

Word Wall: Watergate break-in; silent majority; Pentagon Papers, Friday Night Massacre; impeachment;

FINAL EXAM


Extra Credit: read one of the following books. Then write a short essay connecting the book’s themes with those of your textbook. Proofread and spell check your draft.
1. We Shall Overcome - Herb Boyd
2. Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years – Taylor Branch
3. All the President’s Men – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

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