Unit 4: Contemporary America
Unit Overview: Contemporary America
This unit covers the years 1960 to the present. Key events/themes in the unit:
The Civil Rights Movement
Vietnam Protest Movement and 1960's Counter-Culture
The 1970's
The 1980's
The 1990's
Post 2000 America
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:
Rosa Parks, 1955, after refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus for a white patron.
Unit Videos:
The Century Part 8, The Best Years (45:02)
Eyes on the Prize Part 1, (54:35)
Eyes on the Prize Part 2, (56:36)
American Experience: Freedom Riders (1:51:48)
Vietnam, a Televised History Part 10 (55:41)
Commanding Heights Episode 1 (1:55:31)
Commanding Heights Episode 2 (1:55:25)
Commanding Heights Episode 3 (1:55:31)
Unit Lectures:
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.)