An organization founded in 1966 to pursue feminist goals, such as better childcare facilities, improved educational opportunities, and an end to job discrimination.

Favoring the interests of native-born people over foreign-born people.

A series of laws enacted in 1935 and 1936 to prevent U.S. arms sales and loans to nations at war.

President Franklin Roosevelt’s program to alleviate the problems of the Great Depression, focusing on relief for the needy, economic recovery, and financial reform.

An alliance of diverse groups- including Southern whites, African Americans, and unionized workers- who supported the policies of the Democratic Party in the 1930s and 1940s.

President Richard Nixon’s program to turn over part of the federal government’s power to state and local governments.

President Kennedy’s legislative program, which included proposals to provide medical care for the elderly, to rebuild blighted urban areas, to aid education, to bolster the national defense, to increase international aid, and to expand the space program.

A youth-dominated political movement of the 1960s, embodied in such organizations as Students for a Democratic Society and the Free Speech Movement.

A late-20th-century alliance of conservative special interest groups concerned with cultural, social, and moral issues.

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1920, that gives women the right to vote.

A defensive military alliance formed in 1949 by ten Western European countries, the United States, and Canada.

An agreement in which two nations promise not to go to war with each other.

An economic association of oil-producing nations that is able to set oil prices.

Messages sent by Secretary of State John Hay in 1899 to Germany, Russia, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan, asking the countries not to interfere with U.S. trading rights in China.

A 1991 military operation in which UN forces, led by the United States, drove Iraqi invaders from Kuwait.

An artificial waterway cut through the Isthmus of Panama to provide a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, opened in 1914.

An officeholder’s power to appoint people- usually those who have helped him or her get elected- to positions in government.

An agency established in 1961 to provide volunteer assistance to developing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

A law, enacted in 1883, that established a bipartisan civil service commission to make appointments to government jobs by means of the merit system.

A 7,000-page document- leaked to the press in 1971 by the former Defense Department worker- revealing that the U.S. government had not been honest about its intentions in the Vietnam War.

The restructuring of the economy and the government instituted in the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Provisions that, in 1901, the United States insisted Cuba add to its new constitution, commanding Cuba to stay out of debt and giving the U.S. the right to intervene in the country and the right to buy or lease Cuban land for naval and fueling stations.

A 1896 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that separation of the races in public accommodations was legal, thus establishing the “separate but equal” doctrine.

An organized group that controls a political party in a city and offers services to voters and businesses in exchange for political and financial support.

An annual tax that formerly had to be paid in some Southern states by anyone wishing to vote.

A late-19th-century political movement demanding that people have a greater voice in government and seeking to advance the interests of farmers and laborers.

An early-20th-century reform movement seeking to return control of the government to the people, to restore economic opportunities, and to correct injustices in American life.

The period from 1920–1933 during which the Eighteenth Amendment forbidding the manufacture and sale of alcohol was in force in the United States.

A bill passed in California in 1994 that ended all education and non-emergency health benefits to illegal immigrants.

A tax on imported goods that is intended to protect a nation’s businesses from foreign competition.

A country whose affairs are partially controlled by a stronger power.

A system that sets limits on how many immigrants from various countries a nation will admit each year.

The economic policies of President Ronald Reagan, which were focused on budget cuts and the granting of large tax cuts in order to increase private investment.

A foreign policy advocated by Henry Kissinger in the Nixon administration, based on consideration of a nation’s power rather than its ideals or moral principles.

An agency established in 1932 to provide emergency financing to banks, life-insurance companies, railroads, and other large businesses.

Announced by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, under which the United States claimed the right to protect its economic interests by means of military intervention in the affairs of Western Hemisphere nations.

A five-year agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, signed in 1972, that limited the nations’ numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched missiles.

A country that is dominated politically and economically by another nation.

A sensational 1925 court case in which the biology teacher John T. Scopes was tried for challenging a Tennessee law that outlawed the teaching of evolution.

A law, enacted in 1917, that required men to register for military service.

An agency, created in 1934, that monitors the stock market and enforces laws regulating the sale of stocks and bonds.

An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1913, that provides for the election of U.S. senators by the people rather than by state legislatures.

A law, enacted in 1890, that was intended to prevent the creation of monopolies by making it illegal to establish trusts that interfered with free trade.

A name given by President Richard Nixon to the moderate, mainstream Americans who quietly supported his Vietnam War policies.

A form of demonstration used by African Americans to protest discrimination, in which the protesters sit down in a segregated business and refuse to leave until they are served.

A law enacted in 1935 to provide aid to retirees, the unemployed, people with disabilities, and families with dependent children.

An economic and social philosophy- supposedly based on the biologist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection- holding that a system of unrestrained competition will ensure the survival of the fittest.

A 19th-century reform movement based on the belief that Christians have a responsibility to help improve working conditions and alleviate poverty.

An organization formed in 1957 by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders to work for civil rights through nonviolent means.