Political developments in the United States (1945–1980) and Canada (1945–1982)

The Fair Deal — an attempt to extend New Deal-style reforms after 1945.

The Full Employment Act (1946) and a minimum wage rise to 75 cents an hour (1949); Social Security coverage was also extended.

A coalition of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats (Dixiecrats) blocked them in Congress.

Keeping existing New Deal programmes in place while limiting further growth of the federal government.

The Interstate Highway Act (1956), funding 41,000 miles of highways, justified partly as Cold War defence infrastructure.

Little Rock, 1957 — he sent troops only after a state governor defied a federal court order to desegregate a school.

The New Frontier.

They remained stuck in Congress, blocked by the same conservative coalition that had frustrated Truman; most passed only after Kennedy's assassination, under Johnson.

The Great Society — aimed to end poverty and racial injustice in the United States.

Civil Rights Act (1964) banned discrimination in jobs and public places; Voting Rights Act (1965) outlawed literacy tests suppressing Black voters; Medicare/Medicaid (1965) gave health coverage to the elderly and the poor.

His 1964 landslide gave him a larger, more unified congressional majority, he had deep Senate experience managing Congress, and he used the shock of Kennedy's assassination to build political pressure.

Rising war spending and inflation drained money and political attention from domestic programmes, weakening support for the Great Society by the late 1960s.

A break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices (1972) ordered by people connected to Nixon's re-election campaign, followed by a cover-up that Nixon helped direct.

No — the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment, but Nixon resigned on 9 August 1974 before the full House could vote.

He granted Nixon a full pardon for any crimes committed as president, which many Americans saw as unfair and cost Ford public trust.

Creation of the Department of Energy (1977) and deregulation of the airline and trucking industries.

A combination of high inflation and high unemployment happening at the same time — very hard to fix with normal economic policy.

An approach, used from Nixon onward, of appealing to white southern voters uneasy about civil rights, which shifted the once solidly Democratic South toward the Republican Party.

The Canadian Bill of Rights (1960) and extending the vote to Indigenous peoples without conditions (1960).

Universal healthcare (Medicare, 1966) and Canada's new maple leaf flag (1965), replacing the old imperial-style ensign.

A rapid modernisation of Quebec from 1960 under premier Jean Lesage — the state took over from the Catholic Church in schools and hospitals, and Québécois national pride grew fast.

The Front de Libération du Québec, a radical separatist group, kidnapped diplomat James Cross and minister Pierre Laporte in October 1970; Laporte was murdered.

He invoked the War Measures Act, deploying troops in Quebec and suspending civil liberties — the first peacetime use of the Act, ending the crisis but proving highly controversial.

Both involved a leader using extraordinary executive power that divided public opinion — Nixon abused power to cover up a crime, while Trudeau used emergency law to crush a violent separatist threat.