Watch Topics in American History Series: Political Parties, Part 2

The 20th Century. (continued) 12. World War Two ends the Great Depression. American gunboat diplomacy and control of business interests in Latin America. The Spanish Civil War as a prelude to World War Two. The rise of Nazism in Europe and growing danger of fascist Japan in the Pacific. FDR breaks the 2 term tabu and wins a third term in 1940, is elected a 4th time in 1944 and dies on April 1945 just before the end of the war. 13. President Harry Truman and the onset of the Cold War. Revival of the war economy. 14. Revival of the Republican Party which takes Congress in 1946, and passes the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act. Truman, against odds, is reelected in 1948, desegregates the armed forces. 15. The Red Scare. Truman starts the Red Scare which is made the most of by the Republicans. Red hysteria builds during the Korean War of 1950, the Russian atomic bomb, and the loss of China to the Communists. The rise and fall of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The Dixiecrat Party emerges in the South. Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party tries to stem the Red Scare. 16. Dwight Eisenhower is elected president in 1952 in a landslide and ends the Korean War stalemate in 1953, is reelected in 1956. Desegregation law is enforced by federal troops. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in 1963, Vice President Lyndon Johnson becomes President. 17. 1960s decade of great fervor, change and chaos. The Modern Women's Rights Movement. LBJ pushes civil rights movement, resisted by the Republicans, but Vietnam War diverts this effort. Assassination of Democratic candidate Robert Kennedy. Richard Nixon is elected President in 1968 on promise to end Vietnam War. 18. The 1970s. Nixon is reelected in 1972 but quits in disgrace amid the Watergate scandal, is pardoned by Gerald Ford who replaces him. Democrat Jimmy Carter from the South wins in 1976. 19. The Reagan 1980s.