This 20 page lecture designed for an Advanced Placement American History course, covers modern American politics from Truman to Reagan. NOTE: The Civil Rights movement and Cold War foreign policy issues are not included, these two topics are covered in separate lectures.
The topics covered include Truman's Presidency: Recoversion, the GI Bill, the Fair Deal, the Election of 1948, the Taft-Hartley Act. Eisenhower's Presidency: The Federal Highway Act, Modern Republicanism, 1960 Farewell Address and the Military-Industrial Complex. Kennedy's Presidency: the election of 1960, the New Frontier, the Space Race and NASA, Lee Harvey Oswald. Johnson's Presidency: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Affirmative Action, the Great Society, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, the Immigration Reform Act of 1965. The Events of 1968: the Tet Offesnive, the assissinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the Election of 1968, the Silent Majority and "Peace with Honor." The Warren Court: Miranda v. Arizona, Gideon v, Wainwright, Engel v. Vitale. The Nixon Presdency: the Nixon Court, Bakke v. University of Californaia Regents, Roe v. Wade, Furman v. Georgia, US v. Nixon, staglation, OPEC, Watergate, the Imperial Presidency, the Saturdau Night Massacre, Gerald Ford. The Carter Presidency: Camp David Accords, Iran Hostage Crisis, the Crisis of Confidence. The Reagan Presidency: Supply-Side economics, the Moral majority, and Christain Coalition, the Iran-Contra Scandal.