Unit 4: Contemporary America

Unit Overview: Contemporary America

This unit covers the years 1960 to the present. Key events/themes in the unit:

Unit Essay: Cultural Revolution

In order to get credit for this project you must write an essay on the following topic:

Cultural Revolution

The 1960's was a decade of revolution: the civil rights movement was in full swing during the 1960's, protests against the Vietnam War became mainstream in the late 60's, the women's rights' movement gained momentum, and a counter culture that questioned traditional values and lifestyle showed themselves to the world during 1967's Summer of Love. The revolutionary movements and events of the 1960's had so transformed American society that cultural norms in the 1970's in the US would be hardly recognizable to someone from the 1950's. Using the knowledge you have gained from your lessons in this unit, pick three significant events or movements of the 1960's and write an essay of 600 words or more explaining how America underwent a cultural revolution during this time.

Helpful links:

Civil Rights Movement

Vietnam War Protest Movement

Counterculture of the 1960's

Feminist Movement

Rosa Parks, 1955, after refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus for a white patron.

Unit Primary Sources:

US History Foundations A Unit 4 Key Terms

For this project you must define the terms listed below and explain each term's significance to the unit/era being studied. Your definition should be 2-3 sentences long and may be copied and pasted from a source like Wikipedia, but the significance of the term must be in your own words and based on your own understanding. To fill out a term's significance, ask yourself, "Why is this item included in my study of this unit? Why is this term in a history book?" The answer to this question is your term's significance. 

Unit 4 Key Terms:

1. New Frontier                                    

2. Civil Rights Movement                     

3. Civil Rights Act of 1964                    

4. Summer of Love                              

5. affirmative action                             

6. stagflation

7. 1973 oil crisis

8. detente

9. Election of 1980

10. "supply-side" economics

11. green revolution

12. Iranian Revolution

13. globalization

14. moral majority

15. Revolutions of 1989

16. NAFTA

17. information age

18. global warming

19. War on Terror

20. The Great Recession

Below is an example of a key term done with the proper format:

William the Conqueror: William I (c. 1028[2] – 9 September 1087), also known as William the Conqueror (Guillaume le Conquérant), was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II. Before his conquest of England, he was known as William the Bastard because of the illegitimacy of his birth.To press his claim to the English crown, William invaded England in 1066, leading an army of Normans, Bretons, Flemings, and Frenchmen (from Paris andÎle-de-France) to victory over the English forces of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest.[3] (I copied and pasted this definition from Wikipedia)

Significance: William the Conqueror is significant because his conquest of England created the first nation state in Europe. His rearrangement of English feudal territories to give himself dramatically more power than the the barons and nobles around him caused him to be the most powerful monarch in Europe and eventually led to the rise of other nation states over the next few centuries. (These are my words based on my knowledge of English and European history.)