History glossary
Congress
the two-house legislature of the United States, made up of the Senate and House of Representatives.
- Category
- Political institution
- Region
- United States
- Date range
- 1789-present
What it means
Congress is the legislative branch of the United States government. During the Cold War, presidents often needed congressional approval for major aid packages, budgets, investigations, and laws, making it a central arena for foreign-policy debates.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Holocaust
From legal discrimination to genocide, the Holocaust traces twelve years of escalating persecution that killed six million Jews and millions of others across Nazi-occupied Europe.
The American Revolution and Early Republic
From colonial tensions to independence, this traces the birth and early struggles of the United States of America.
The Cold War
Rivalry between East and West shapes global politics - through proxy wars, propaganda, and nuclear tension.
Kievan Rus
The founding of the Rus’ state in the north.
The Kim Dynasty
North Korea’s Kim dynasty built a nuclear-armed regime, maintaining power through crises and control.
The Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia fractured through crisis, nationalism, and war, collapsing violently in the 1990s.
The Russian Revolution
From the 1905 crisis to the creation of the USSR, the Russian Revolution transformed imperial collapse into a new one-party socialist state.
The Soviets
From revolution to superpower, the Soviet Union rose, struggled internally, and collapsed in 1991.
