An American History

GLOSSARY ★ A-77

allowed local governments and housing

authorities to demolish so- called blighted

areas in urban centers to replace them

with more valuable real estate usually

reserved for white people.

USA Patriot Act A 2001 mammoth bill

that conferred unprecedented powers on

law- enforcement agencies charged with

preventing domestic terrorism, including

the power to wiretap, read private mes-

sages, and spy on citizens.

U.S.S. Maine Battleship that exploded

in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898,

resulting in 266 deaths; the American

public, assuming that the Spanish had

mined the ship, clamored for war, and the

Spanish- American War was declared two

months later.

utopian communities Ideal communi-

ties that offered innovative social and eco-

nomic relationships to those who were

interested in achieving salvation.

V- E Day May 8, 1945, the day World

War II officially ended in Europe.

Versailles Treaty The treaty signed at the

Versailles peace conference after World

War I that established President Wood-

row Wilson’s vision of an international

regulating body, redrew parts of Europe

and the Middle East, and assigned eco-

nomically crippling war reparations to

Germany, but failed to incorporate all of

Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

vertical integration Company’s avoid-

ance of middlemen by producing its own

supplies and providing for distribution of

its product.

Vicksburg, Battle of The fall of

Vicksburg, Mississippi, to General

Ulysses S. Grant’s army on July 4, 1863,

after two months of siege; a turning point

in the war because it gave the Union con-

trol of the Mississippi River.

Vietnam Syndrome The belief that

the United States should be extremely

cautious in deploying its military forces

of Ohio and Indiana to the federal gov-
ernment, and which also established the
“annuity” system.
Treaty of Paris Signed on September 3,
1783, the treaty that ended the Revolu-
tionary War, recognized American inde-
pendence from Britain, established the
border between Canada and the United
States, fixed the western border at the Mis-
sissippi River, and ceded Florida to Spain.

Truman Doctrine President Harry S. Tru-
man’s program announced in 1947 of aid to
European countries— particularly Greece
and Turkey— threatened by communism.
trusts Companies combined to limit
competition.

Tubman, Harriet Abolitionist who was
born a slave, escaped to the North, and
then returned to the South nineteen times
and guided 300 slaves to freedom.
Tulsa riot A race riot in 1921—the worst
in American history— that occurred in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, after a group of black
veterans tried to prevent a lynching. Over
300 African-Americans were killed, and
10,000 lost their homes in fires set by
white mobs.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s 1852 antislavery novel that popu-
larized the abolitionist position.
Underground Railroad Operating in
the decades before the Civil War, a clan-
destine system of routes and safehouses
through which slaves were led to freedom
in the North.

United Nations Organization of nations
to maintain world peace, established in
1945 and headquartered in New York.
Uprising of 1622 Unsuccessful uprising
of Virginia Native Americans that wiped
out one- quarter of the settler population,
but ultimately led to the settlers gaining
supremacy.

urban renewal A series of policies sup-
ported by all levels of government that