Period 8: 1945–1980

What this unit covers

The topics below follow the published US History course framework for Unit 8. This unit is worth 10–17% of the exam, so budget your time against that rather than against how long the unit takes to teach.

Lessons in this unit

• The Cold War Begins14 min · 3 objectivesExplain the origins of the Cold War and the policy of containment · Analyze how the Cold War shaped American foreign and domestic policy · Describe the impact of anticommunism at home
• The Civil Rights Movement15 min · 3 objectivesTrace the key strategies and milestones of the civil rights movement · Explain the significance of landmark legislation and court decisions · Analyze the tensions between nonviolent and more militant approaches
• The Great Society, Vietnam & the 1970s14 min · 3 objectivesExplain the goals and legacy of Johnson’s Great Society · Analyze the causes and consequences of the Vietnam War · Describe how the war and social movements reshaped American politics

Every term in Unit 8

All 26 terms we publish for Period 8: 1945–1980, with definitions. Reading them through is the fastest way to find the ones you cannot define — then drill those in cram mode until you can produce them without the prompt.

Containment

Kennan's doctrine of resisting Soviet expansion wherever it appeared, without direct war. The organizing principle of US policy for forty years.

Truman Doctrine (1947)

Aid to Greece and Turkey, framed as supporting free peoples against subjugation — the open-ended commitment containment implied.

Marshall Plan (1948)

$13 billion to rebuild Western Europe, reviving trading partners and making communism less attractive.

NATO (1949)

Collective-security alliance in which an attack on one is an attack on all — the first US peacetime military alliance.

Korean War (1950–53)

UN and US forces repelled the North; Chinese entry produced stalemate at the 38th parallel. Militarized containment and tripled defense spending.

McCarthyism

Unsubstantiated accusations of communist infiltration that destroyed careers; collapsed after the televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Held segregated schools inherently unequal, overturning Plessy in education and providing the legal foundation of the civil rights movement.

Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56)

Year-long boycott after Rosa Parks's arrest that desegregated the buses and made King a national figure.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

King's organization using churches as the base for nonviolent direct action across the South.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Youth-led group from the 1960 sit-ins, driving Freedom Rides and voter registration; later turned toward Black Power.

Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

King's answer to white moderates: justice delayed is justice denied, and unjust laws carry a moral duty of disobedience.

Civil Rights Act (1964)

Banned discrimination in public accommodations and employment by race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and created the EEOC.

Voting Rights Act (1965)

Suspended literacy tests and sent federal examiners into resistant counties. Black registration in Mississippi rose from about 7% to nearly 60% in two years.

Great Society

Johnson's program — Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, federal education aid, immigration reform — the largest expansion of federal social policy since the New Deal.

Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

Thirteen days at the edge of nuclear war, resolved by a naval quarantine and a secret trade of Turkish missiles. Led to the hotline and the test-ban treaty.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)

Gave Johnson open-ended authority to use force in Vietnam without a declaration of war; later shown to rest on a disputed incident.

Tet Offensive (1968)

A military defeat for the North that nonetheless destroyed American confidence in official optimism and widened the credibility gap.

Vietnamization

Nixon's policy of transferring combat to South Vietnamese forces while withdrawing US troops and escalating bombing.

The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Friedan's book naming the dissatisfaction of educated suburban housewives; helped launch second-wave feminism and NOW.

Title IX (1972)

Barred sex discrimination in federally funded education, transforming women's access to athletics and professional programs.

Roe v. Wade (1973)

Recognized a constitutional right to abortion under privacy, with a trimester framework. Overturned in 2022.

Stonewall (1969)

Riots against a police raid on a New York gay bar, conventionally marking the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

Environmental Protection Agency (1970)

Created under Nixon after Silent Spring and the first Earth Day; enforced the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Watergate

Break-in and cover-up that produced US v. Nixon, forced the first presidential resignation and led to campaign finance and oversight reform.

Stagflation

Simultaneous high inflation and high unemployment in the 1970s, driven by oil shocks and wage-price spirals. It discredited the Keynesian consensus.

OPEC oil embargo (1973)

Arab oil producers cut supply after US support for Israel; prices quadrupled, exposing American energy dependence.

What examiners penalize here

• Connect Vietnam back to **containment** and the **domino theory**: the U.S. fought to stop communism from spreading in Southeast Asia. Framing Vietnam as containment applied (and overextended) links Period 8 into one coherent Cold War argument.

Practice US History

Our practice bank is drawn from across the whole course rather than filtered to one unit, which is closer to how the exam asks anyway — it will not tell you which unit a question is testing.

Questions about this unit

All 9 units of AP United States History

1. Unit 1 · Period 1: 1491–1607
2. Unit 2 · Period 2: 1607–1754
3. Unit 3 · Period 3: 1754–1800
4. Unit 4 · Period 4: 1800–1848
5. Unit 5 · Period 5: 1844–1877
6. Unit 6 · Period 6: 1865–1898
7. Unit 7 · Period 7: 1890–1945
8. Unit 8 · Period 8: 1945–1980
9. Unit 9 · Period 9: 1980–Present