ME - Key Concepts Lesson

Key Concepts

Before you begin...

Notes are given here as well as in the Readings Document from Boundless that is available to download below. There is 1 presentation to view as well. This key concepts lesson is very important as it covers the main areas of the Advanced Placement frameworks and the Georgia Performance Standards. Many of the test questions will relate to items found here.

 

Key Concepts Quiz iconDownload the key concepts questions that are found below and answer these as you read and view the information. The answers are found in the text on this and the following pages, the Readings Document, and in the presentation. After you have done this you will use these answers to take the assignment check quiz for this module. Again, it is very important that you answer the questions carefully before taking the assignment check.

 


Carter Administration

President Carter with Anwar Sadat at Camp DavidJimmy Carter's presidency was strongly influenced by international issues. He tried to bring peace to the Middle East and, in the Camp David Accords, negotiated a peace agreement between the Egyptian president and the Israeli prime minister at Camp David (a presidential retreat in Maryland) in 1978. This was the first time there had been a signed peace agreement between Middle Eastern nations. Although the agreement left many differences unresolved, it did solve urgent problems facing the two nations. In 1978, the Iranian Revolution replaced a shah (king) friendly to America with a Muslim religious leader unfriendly to America. When Carter let the shah enter the United States for medical treatment, angry Iranian revolutionaries invaded the U.S. embassy in Iran and took 52 Americans captive. The Iranian Hostage Crisis lasted 444 days, until the captives were released after the election of Ronald Reagan as president, and it nurtured anti-Americanism among Muslims around the world.

Reagan Administration

Ronald Reagan was president for much of the 1980s. During that time, many important events helped shape American politics to this day. As a conservative, Reagan wanted to decrease the size and role of the federal government.

-Reaganomics was the nickname for Reagan's economic policy. It included budget cuts, tax cuts, and
increased defense spending. Critics argued that Reagan's programs benefitted the wealthy at the expense of
the poor. Initially the economy remained poor, but the economy soon recovered and boomed for much of
the rest of Reagan's presidency.
-The Iran-Contra Scandal was Reagan's biggest failure in international policy. Administration officials
attempted to secure the release of hostages by selling weapons to Iran-an enemy of the United States-and
then violated more laws by using the profits from those arms sales to fund an anti-communist rebellion in
Nicaragua fought by rebels called the Contras (a Spanish nickname for "counter-revolutionaries"). Details
of this scandal are still largely unknown to the public.
-The collapse of the Soviet Union was Reagan's biggest success in international policy. The Soviet Union's
last leader set up policies allowing freedom of speech and of the press and other reforms putting the
U.S.S.R. on a path to democratic government, but these reforms got out of the leader's control and
eventually led to the breakup of the 15 states that were the Soviet Union. Although communism in Europe
collapsed under Reagan's successor, George Bush, Reagan's policies are often credited with helping cause
the collapse.

(Want a plain text version of this information? Click here Links to an external site. to download it.)

View the presentation on key events from 1988.

 

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.