英美国家概况名词解释

➢Boston Tea Party:
➢direct cause to force England to restore to arms. Before 1773, the British East Indian Co., a vital source British wealth, was in financial difficulties because a large amount of its tea was lying in London for the lack of demand. To help Co. to turn the corner, the British government allowed it to sell its tea to the colonies free of import duty. The local businessmen were facing great challenge.
➢When ships loaded with English tea arrived in the colonies, workers refused to unload the tea. Several dozen Boston residents dressed as Indians boarded the ships at night and threw $75,000 worth of tea into the harbor.
➢Red Scarce (1919-1920)
➢In 1917, Oct. Revolution took place in Russia and communist U.S.S.R was founded. U.S.S.R adopted a completely new political system: socialism, which was thought to be against capitalism.
➢This caused fear of the danger of Communism among some American people. In 1919 and 1920, the Justice Department launched two waves of mass arrests.
➢Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
➢ A terrorist organization, first established in 1866, and then reformed in 1867 after the Civil War in the south.
➢One of their aims was to prevent those blacks from enjoying their political rights given by the U.S. government.
➢The KKK attacked not only the black, but also the progressive, labor union organizers, Communists or socialists, etc.
➢The Truman Doctrine
➢The open declaration of the containment policy was made by President Truman on March 12, 1949. The gist is that the U.S.
government would support any country which said it was fighting against Communism.
➢The Marshall Plan
➢In order to protect Western Europe from possible Soviet expansion, the United States decided to offer Western European countries economic aid. This is what we call the Marshall Plan because it was announced by Secretary of State George Marshall on June 5, 1947.
➢The Korean War (1950-1953)
➢Broke out in June, 1950
➢Under the banner of United Nations, the U.S. sent troops to South Korea.
➢In October 1950, the Chinese Volunteers crossed the Yalu River fight side by side with the North Koreans.
➢On July 27, 1953, an armistice was signed.
➢McCarthyism
➢Gist: Anti-communism, Cold War
➢McCarthy was U.S. Senator. He started his campaign by saying that he had the names of over 200 Communists in the State Department. His campaign of accusation and anti-Communist hysteria was called McCarthyism.
➢Alger Hiss was an official of high position in the State Department. He was accused of being a Soviet spy. Later he was declared guilty of making false statements in court. The court also played a role in approving the lawfulness of anti-Communist activity. The Supreme Court decided that Smith Act was in line with the Constitution, which was passed by Congress in the spring of 1940, made it lawful for any group to advocate or teach the violent overthrow of government in the United States, or for any person to belong to such a group. ➢The Cuban Missile Crisis
➢In 1962, the Soviet Union sent both offensive and defensive medium and intermediate missiles with warheads to Cuba and started building missile sites there. President Kennedy finally decided on the use of naval force to prevent military material and arms from getting into Cuba and demanded the removal of the missiles. Then Khrushchev backed down and accepted American conditions.
➢Watergate Scandal
➢ On June 17, 1972, police at the Watergate apartment-office complex in Washington D.C. arrested five men who illegally broke into the offices of the Democratic National committee.
These five men proved to be working for Richard Nixon’s Committee to re-elect the president. At last Nixon was forced to resign. He was the first president to do so in U.S. history. ➢
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