AP US history review guide

Rock 'n' Roll

"Crossover" musical style that rose to dominance in the 1950s, merging black rhythm and blues with white bluegrass and country. Featuring a heavy beat and driving rhythm, rock 'n' roll music became a defining feature of the 1950s youth culture.

Virginia Plan

"Large state" proposal for the new constitution, calling for proportional representation in both houses of a bicameral Congress. The plan favored larger states and thus prompted smaller states to come back with their own plan for apportioning representation.

National recovery Administration

(1 3) the NRA. Known by its critics as the "National Run Around," the NRA was an early New Deal program designed to assist industry, labor, and the unemployed through centralized planning mechanisms that monitored workers' earnings and working hours to distribute work and establish codes for "fair competition" to ensure that similar procedures were followed by all firms in any particular industrial sector.

Treaty of Tordesillas

(1494) Signed by Spain and Portugal, dividing the territories of the New World. Spain received the bulk of territory in the Americas, compensating Portugal with titles to lands in Africa and Asia.

Noche Triste

(1520) "Sad Night" when the Aztecs attacked Hernan Cortes and his forces in the Aztec capitol, Tenochitlan, killing hundreds. Cortes laid siege to the city the following year, precipitating the fall of the Aztec Empire and inaugurating three centuries of Spanish rule.

Roanoke Island

(1585) Sir Walter Raleigh's failed colonial settlement of the coast of North Carolina.

Spanish Armada

(1588) Spanish fleet defeated in the English Channel in 1588. The defeat of the Armada marked the beginning of the decline of the Spanish Empire.

Edict of Nantes

(1598) Decree issued by the French crown granting limited toleration to French Protestants. Ended religious wars in France and inaugurated a period of French preeminence in Europe and across the Atlantic. Its repeal in 1685 prompted a fresh migration of Protestant Huguenots to North America.

Battle of Acoma

(1599) Fought between Spaniards under Don Juan de Onate and the Pueblo Indians in present-day New Mexico. Spaniards brutally crushed the Pueblo peoples and established the territory as New Mexico in 1609.

Jamestown

(1607) First permanent English settlement in North America founded by the Virginia Company.

First Anglo-Powhatan War

(1614) Series of classes between the Powhatan Confederacy and English settlers in Virginia. English colonists torched and pillaged Indian villages, applying tactics used in England's campaigns against the Irish.

Mayflower Compact

(1620) Agreement to form a majoritarian government in Plymouth, signed aboard the Mayflower. Created a foundation for self-government in the colony.

Great Migration

(1630-1642) Migration of seventy thousand refugees from England to the North American colonies, primarily New England and the Caribbean. The twenty thousand migrants who came to Massachusetts largely shared a common sense of purpose-to establish a model Christian settlement in the New World.

Pequot War

(1636-1638) Series of clashes between English settlers and Pequot Indians in the Connecticut River valley. Ended in the slaughter of the Pequots by the Puritans and their Narragansett Indian allies.

Fundamental Orders

(1639) Drafted by settlers in the Connecticut River Valley, document was the first "modern constitution" establishing a democratically controlled government. Key features of the document were borrowed for Connecticut's colonial charter and later, its state constitution.

English Civil War

(1642-1651) Armed conflict between royalists and parliamentarians, resulting in the victory of pro-Parliament forces and the execution of Charles I.

Second Anglo-Powhatan War

(1644-1646) Last-ditch effort by the Indians to dislodge Virginia settlements. The resulting peace treaty formally separated white and Indian areas of settlement.

Act of Toleration

(1649) Passed in Maryland, it guaranteed toleration to all Christians but decreed the death penalty for those, like Jews and atheists, who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. Ensured that Maryland would continue to attract a high proportion of Catholic migrants throughout the colonial period.

Barbados Slave Codes

(1661) First formal stature governing the treatment of slaves, which provided for harsh punishments against offending slaves but lacked penalties for the mistreatment of slaves by masters. Similar statures were adopted by Southern plantation societies on the North American mainland in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Half-Way Covenant

(1662) Agreement allowing unconverted offspring of church members to baptize their children. It signified a waning of religious zeal among second and third generation.

King Philip's War

(1675-1676) Series of assaults by Metacom, King Philip, on English settlements in New England. The attacks slowed the westward migration of New England settlers for several decades.

Bacon's Rebellion

(1676) Uprising of Virginia backcountry farmers and indentured servants led by planter Nathaniel Bacon; initially a response to Governor William Berkeley's refusal to protect backcountry settlers from Indian attacks, the rebellion eventually grew into a broader conflict between impoverished settlers and the planter elite.

Pope's Rebellion

(1680) Pueblo Indian rebellion which drove Spanish settlers from New Mexico.

Dominion of New England

(1686-1689) Administrative union created by royal authority, incorporating all of New England, New York, and East and West Jersey. Placed under the rule of Sir Edmund Andros who curbed popular assemblies, taxed residents without their consent, and strictly enforced Navigation Laws. Its collapse after the Glorious Revolution in England demonstrated colonial opposition to strict royal control.

Glorious Revolution

(1688) Relatively peaceful overthrow of the unpopular Catholic monarch, James II, replacing him with Dutch-born William III and Mary, daughter of James II. William and Mary accepted increased Parliamentary oversight and new limits on monarchical authority.

Salutary Neglect

(1688-1763) Unofficial policy of relaxed royal control over colonial trade and only weak enforcement of Navigation Laws. Lasted from the Glorious Revolution to the end of the French and Indian War in 1763.

Leisler's Rebellion

(1689-1691) Armed conflict between aspiring merchants led by Jacob Leisler and the ruling elite of New York. One of many uprisings that erupted across the colonies when wealthy colonists attempted to recreate European social structures in the New World.

King William's War

(1689-1697) War fought largely between French trappers, British settlers, and their respective Indian allies from 1689-1697. The colonial theater of the larger War of the League of Augsburg in Europe.

Salem Witch Trials

(1692-1693) Series of witchcraft trials launched in Salem, Massachusetts, claimed to have been bewitched by certain older women of the town. Twenty individuals were put to death before the trials were put to an end by the Governor of Massachusetts.

Protestant Reformation

(16th century) Movement to reform the Catholic Churched launched in Germany by Martin Luther. Reformers questioned the authority of the Pope, sought to eliminate the selling of indulgences, and encouraged the translation of the Bible from Latin, which few at the time could read. The reformation was launched in England in the 1530s when King Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church.

Queen Anne's War

(1702-1713) Second in a series of conflicts between the European powers for control of North America, fought between the English and French colonists in the North, and the English and Spanish in Florida. Under the peace treaty, the French ceded Acadia (Nova Scotia), Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay to Britain.

Tuscarora War

(1711-1713) Began with an Indian attack on Newbern, North Carolina. After the Tuscaroras were defeated, remaining Indian survivors migrated northward, eventually joining the Iroquois Confederacy as its sixth nation.

New York Slave Revolt

(1712) Uprising of approximately two dozen slaves that resulted in the deaths of nine whites and the brutal execution of twenty-one participating blacks.

Great Awakening

(1730-1750) Religious revival that swept the colonies. Participating ministers, most notable Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, placed an emphasis on direct, emotive spirituality. A Second Great Awakening arose in the 19th century.

Poor Richard's Almanack

(1732-1758) Widely read annual pamphlet edited by Benjamin Franklin. Best known for its proverbs and aphorisms emphasizing thrift, industry, morality, and common sense.

Zenger Trial

(1734-1735) New York libel case against John Peter Zenger. Established the principle that truthful statements about public officials could not be prosecuted as libel.

Molasses Act

(1737) Tax on imported molasses passed by Parliament in an effort to squelch the North American trade with the French West Indies. It proved largely ineffective due to widespread smuggling.

South Carolina Slave Revolt

(1739) Uprising, also known as the Stono Rebellion, of more than fifty South Carolina blacks along the Stono River. The slaves attempted to reach Spanish Florida but were stopped by the South Carolina militia.

King George's War

(1744-1748) North American theater of Europe's War of Austrian Succession that once again pitted British colonists against their French counterparts in the North. The peace settlement did not involve any territorial realignment, leading to conflict between New England settlers and the British government.

Albany Congress

(1754) Intercolonial congress summoned by the British government to foster greater colonial unity and assure Iroquois support in the escalating war against the French.

French and Indian War

(1754-1763) The Seven Years' War. Nine-year war between the British and French in North America. It resulted in the expulsion of the French from the North American mainland and helped spark the Seven Years' War in Europe.

Battle of Quebec

(1759) Historic British victory over French forces on the outskirts of Quebec. The surrender of Quebec marked the beginning of the end of French rule in North America.

Pontiac's Uprising

(1763) Bloody campaign waged by Ottawa chief Pontiac to drive the British out of Ohio Country. It was brutally crushed by British troops, who resorted to distributing blankets infected with smallpox as a means to put down the rebellion.

Nonimportation Agreements

(1763) Boycotts against British goods adopted in response to the Stamp Act and, later, the Townshend and Intolerable Acts. The agreements were the most effective form of protest against British policies in the colonies.

Paxton Boys

(1764) Armed march on Philadelphia by Scotts-Irish frontiersmen in protest against the Quaker establishment's lenient policies towards Native Americans.

Sugar Act

(1764) Duty on imported sugar from the West Indies. It was the first tax levied on the colonists by the crown and was lowered substantially in response to widespread protests.

Stamp Act Congress

(1765) Assembly of delegates from nine colonies who met in New York City to draft a petition for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Helped ease sectional suspicions and promote interstate colonial unity.

Quartering Act

(1765) Required colonies to provide food and quarters for British troops. Many colonists resented the act, which they perceived as an encroachment on their rights.

Stamp Tax

(1765) Widely unpopular tax on an array of paper goods, repealed in 1766 after mass protests erupted across the colonies. Colonists developed the principle of "no taxation without representation" which questioned Parliament's authority over the colonies and laid the foundation for future revolutionary claims.

Declaratory Act

(1766) Passed alongside the repeal of the Stamp Act, it reaffirmed Parliament's unqualified sovereignty over the North American colonies.

Townshend Acts

(1767) External, or indirect, levies on glass, white lea, paper, paint and tea, the proceeds of which were used to pay colonial governors who had previously been paid directly by colonial assemblies. Sparked another round of protests in the colonies.

Regulator Movement

(1768-1771) Eventually violent uprising of backcountry settlers in North Carolina against unfair taxation and the control of colonial affairs by the seaboard elite.

Boston Massacre

(1770) Clash between unruly Bostonian protestors and locally stationed British redcoats, who fired on the jeering crowd, killing or wounding eleven citizens.

Boston Tea Party

(1773) Rowdy protest against the British East India Company's newly acquired monopoly on the tea trade. Colonists, disguised as Indians, dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor, prompting harsh sanctions from the British Parliament.

Quebec Act

(1774) Allowed the French residents of Quebec to retain their traditional political and religious institutions, and extended the boundaries of the province southward to the Ohio River. Mistakenly perceived by the colonists to be part of Parliament's response to the Boston Tea Party.

First Continental Congress

(1774) Convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies that convened in Philadelphia to craft a response to the Intolerable Acts. Delegates established Association, which called for a complete boycott of British goods.

The Association

(1774) Non-importation agreement crafted during the First Continental Congress calling for the complete boycott of British goods.

The Intolerable Acts

(1774) Series of punitive measures passed in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, closing the Port of Boston, revoking a number of rights in the Massachusetts colonial charter, and expanding the Quartering Act to allow for the lodging of soldiers in private homes. In response, colonists convened the First Continental Congress and called for a complete boycott of British goods.

Olive Branch Petition

(1775) Conciliatory measure adopted by the Continental Congress, professing American loyalty and seeking an end to the hostilities. King George rejected the petition and proclaimed the colonies in rebellion.

Battles of Lexington and Concord

(1775) First battles of the Revolutionary War, fought outside of Boston. The colonial militia successfully defended their stores of munitions, forcing the British to retreat to Boston.

Battle of Bunker Hill

(1775) Fought on the outskirts of Boston, on Breed's Hill, the battle ended in the colonial militia's retreat, though at a heavy cost to the British.

Second Continental Congress

(1775-1781) Representative body of delegates from all thirteen colonies. Drafted the Declaration of Independence and managed the colonial war effort.

Battle of Long Island

(1776) Battle for the control of New York. British troops overwhelmed the colonial militias and retained control of the city for most of the war.

Model Treaty

(1776) Sample treaty drafted by the Continental Congress as a guide for American diplomats. Reflected the Americans' desire to foster commercial partnerships rather than political or military entanglements.

Common Sense

(1776) Thomas Paine's pamphlet urging the colonies to declare independence and establish a republican government. The widely read pamphlet helped convince colonists to support the Revolution.

Valley Forge

(1777-1778) Encampment where George Washington's poorly equipped army spent a wretched, freezing winter. Hundreds of men died and more than a thousand deserted. The plight of the starving, shivering soldiers reflected the main weakness of the American army- a lack of stable supplies and munitions.

Armed Neutrality

(1780) Loose alliance of nonbelligerent naval powers, organized by Russia's Catherine the Great, to protect neutral trading rights during the war for American Independence.

Articles of Confederation

(1781) First American constitution that established the United States as a loose confederation of states under a weak national Congress, which was not granted the power to regulate commerce or collect taxes. The Articles were replaced by the more efficient Constitution in 1789.

Treaty of Fort Stanwix

(1784) Treaty signed by the United States and the pro-British Iroquois granting Ohio country to the Americans.

Shay's Rebellion

(1786) Armed uprising of western Massachusetts debtors seeking lower taxes and an end to property foreclosures. Though quickly put down, the insurrection inspired fears of "mob rule" among leading Revolutionaries.

Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

(1786) Measure enacted by the Virginia legislature prohibiting state support for religious institutions and recognizing freedom of worship. Served as a model for the religion clause of the first amendment to the Constitution.

New Jersey Plan

(1787) "Small-state plan" put forth at the Philadelphia convention, proposing equal representation by state, regardless of population, in a unicameral legislature. Small states feared that the more populous states would dominate the agenda under a proportional system.

Northwest Ordinance

(1787) Created a policy for administering the Northwest Territories. It included a path to statehood and forbade the expansion of slavery in the territories.

Three-fifths Compromise

(1787) Determined that each slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning taxes and representation. The compromise granted disproportionate political power to Southern slave states.

Great Compromise

(1787) Popular term for the measure which reconciled the New Jersey and Virginia plans at the constitutional convention, giving states proportional representation in the House and equal representation in the Senate. The compromise broke the stalemate at the convention and paved the way for subsequent compromises over slavery and the Electoral College.

The Federalist Essays

(1788) Collection of essays written by John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton and published during the ratification debate in New York to lay out the Federalists' argument in favor of the new Constitution. Since their publication, these influential essays have served as an important source for constitutional interpretation.

Declaration of the Rights of Man

(1789) Declaration of Rights adopted during the French Revolution. Modeled after the American Declaration of Independence.

Bank of the United States

(1791) Chartered by Congress as part of Alexander Hamilton's financial program, the back printed paper money and served as a depository for Treasury funds. It dew opposition from Jeffersonian Republicans, who argued that the back was unconstitutional.

Bill of Rights

(1791) Popular term for the first ten amendments to the U.S. constitution. The amendments secure key rights for individuals and reserve to the states all powers not explicitly delegated or prohibited by the Constitution.

Cotton Gin

(1793) Eli Whitney's invention that sped up the process of harvesting cotton. The gin made cotton cultivation more profitable revitalizing the Southern economy and increasing the importance of slavery in the South.

Neutrality Proclamation

(1793) Issued by George Washington, it proclaimed America's foreign neutrality in the escalating conflict between England and France, a statement that enraged pro-French Jeffersonians.

Reign of Terror

(1793-1794) Ten-month period of brutal repression when some 40,000 individuals were executed as enemies of the French Revolution. While many Jeffersonians maintained their faith in the French Republic, Federalists withdrew their already luke-warm support once the Reign of Terror commenced.

Battle of Fallen Timbers

(1794) Decisive battle between the Miami confederacy and the U.S. Army. British forces refused to shelter the routed Indians, forcing the latter to attain a peace settlement with the United States.

Jay's Treaty

(1794) Negotiate by Chief Justice John Jay in an effort to avoid war with Britain, the treaty included a British promise to evacuate outposts on U.S. soil and pay damages for seized American vessels, in exchange for which Jay bound the United States to repay pre-Revolutionary war debts and to abide by Britain's restrictive trading policies toward France.

Whiskey Rebellion

(1794) Popular uprising of whiskey distillers in southwestern Pennsylvania in opposition to an excise tax on whiskey. In a show of strength and resolve by the new central government, Washington put down the rebellion with militia drawn from several states.

The Age of Reason

(1794) Thomas Paine's anticlerical treatise that accused churches of seeking to acquire "power and profit" and to "enslave mankind"

Pinckney's Treaty

(1795) Signed with Spain which, fearing an Anglo-American alliance, granted Americans free navigation of the Mississippi and the disputed territory of Florida.

Treaty of Greenville

(1795) Under the terms of the treaty, the Miami Confederacy agreed to cede territory in the Old Northwest to the United States in exchange for cash payment, hunting rights, and formal recognition of their sovereign status.

Farewell Address

(1796) George Washington's address at the end of his presidency, warning against "permanent allies" with other nations. Washington did not oppose all alliances, but believed that the young, fledging nation should forge alliances only on a temporary basis, in extraordinary circumstances.

XYZ Affair

(1797) Diplomatic conflict between France and the United States when American envoys to France were asked to pay a hefty bribe for the privilege of meeting with the French foreign minister. Many in the U.S. called for war against France, while American sailors and privateers waged an undeclared war against French merchants in the Caribbean.

Alien Laws

(1798) Acts passed by a Federalist Congress raising the residency requirement for citizenship to fourteen years and granting the president the power to deport dangerous foreigners in times of peace.

Sedition Acts

(1798) Enacted by the Federalist Congress in an effort to clamp down on Jeffersonian opposition the law made anyone convicted of defaming government officials or interfering with government policies liable to imprisonment and a heavy fine. The act drew heavy criticism form Republicans, who let the act expire in 1801.

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

(1798-1799) Statements secretly drafted by Jefferson and Madison for the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia. Argued that states were the final arbiters of whether the federal government overstepped its boundaries and could therefore nullify or refuse to accept, national legislation they deemed unconstitutional.

Midnight Judges

(1801) Federal justices appointed by John Adams during the last days of his presidency. Their positions were revoked when the newly elected Republican Congress repealed the Judiciary Act.

Tripolitan War

(1801-1805) Four-year conflict between the American Navy and the North African nation of Tripoli over piracy in the Mediterranean. Jefferson, a staunch noninterventionist, reluctantly deployed American forces, eventually securing a peace treaty with Tripoli.

Louisiana Purchase

(1803) Acquisition of Louisiana territory from France. The purchase more than doubled the territory of the United States, opening vast tracts for settlement.

Marbury v. Madison

(1803) Supreme Court case that established the principle of "judicial review"- the idea that the Supreme Court had the final authority to determine constitutionality.

Corps of Discovery

(1804-1806) Team of adventures, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, sent by Thomas Jefferson to explore Louisiana Territory and find a water route to the pacific. Louis and Clark brought back detailed accounts of the West's flora, fauna, and native populations, and their voyage demonstrated the viability of overland travel to the west.

Orders in Council

(1806-1807) Edicts issued by the British Crown closing French-owned European ports to foreign shipping. The French responded by ordering the seizure of all vessels entering British ports, thereby cutting off American merchants from trade with both parties.

Chesapeake Affair

(1807) Conflict between Britain and the United States that precipitated the 1807 embargo. The conflict developed when a British ship, in search of deserters, fired on the American Chesapeake off the coast of Virginia.

Embargo Act

(1807) Enacted in response to British and French mistreatment of American merchants, the Act banned the export of all good from the United States to any foreign port. The embargo placed great strains on the American economy while only marginally affecting its European targets, and was therefore repealed in 1809;

Non-Intercourse Act

(1809) Passed alongside the repeal of the Embargo Act, it reopened trade with all but the two belligerent nations, Britain and France. The Act continued Jefferson's policy of economic coercion, still with little effect.

Fletcher v. Peck

(1810) Established firmer protection for private property and asserted the right of the Supreme Court to invalidate state laws in conflict with the federal Constitution.

Battle of Tippecanoe

(1811) Resulted in the defeat of Shawnee chief Tenskwatawa, "the Prophet" at the hands of William Henry Harrison in the Indiana wilderness. After the battle, the Prophet's brother, Tecumseh, forged an alliance with the British against the United States.

War Hawks

(1811-1812) Democratic Republican Congressmen who pressed James Madison to declare war on Britain. Largely drawn from the South and West, the war hawks resented British constraints on American trade an accused the British of supporting Indian attacks against American settlements on the frontier.

War of 1812

(1812-1815) Fought between Britain and the United States largely over the issues of trade and impressment. Though the war ended in a relative draw, it demonstrated America's willingness to defend its interests militarily, earning the young nation newfound respect from European powers.

Hartford Convention

(1814-1815) Convention of Federalists from five New England states who opposed the War of 1812 and resented the strength of Southern and Western interests in Congress and in the White House.

Congress of Vienna

(1814-1815) Convention of major European powers to redraw the boundaries of continental Europe after the defeat of Napoleonic France.

Treaty of Ghent

(1815) Ended the War of 1812 in a virtual draw, restoring prewar borders but failing to address any of the grievances that first brought America into the war.

Battle of New Orleans

(1815) Resounding victory of American forces against the British, restoring American confidence and fueling an outpouring of nationalism. Final battle of the War of 1812.

Era of Good Feelings

(1816-1824) Popular name for the period of one-party, Republican, rule during James Monroe's presidency. The term obscures bitter conflicts over internal improvements, slavery, and the national bank.

Rush-Bagot Agreement

(1817) Signed by Britain and the United States, it established strict limits on naval armaments in the Great Lakes, a first step in the full demilitarization of the U.S.-Canadian border, completed in the 1870s.

Anglo-American Convention

(1818) Signed by Britain and the United States, the pact allowed New England fisherman access to Newfoundland fisheries, established the northern border of Louisiana territory and provided for the joint occupation of the Oregon Country for ten years.

Tallmadge Amendment

(1819) Failed proposal to prohibit the importation of slaves into Missouri territory and pave the way for gradual emancipation. Southerners vehemently opposed the amendment, which they perceived as a threat to the sectional balance between North and South.

McCulloch v. Maryland

(1819) Supreme Court case that strengthened federal authority and upheld the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States by establishing that the State of Maryland did not have the power to tax the bank.

Dartmouth College v. Woodward

(1819) Supreme Court case that sustained Dartmouth University's original charter against changes proposed by the New Hampshire state legislature, thereby protecting corporation from domination by state governments.

Adams-Onis Treaty

(1819) The Florida Purchase Treaty. Under the agreement, Spain ceded Florida to the United States, which, in exchange, abandoned its claims to Texas.

Missouri Compromise

(1820) Allowed Missouri to enter as a slave state but preserved the balance between North and South by carving free-soil Maine out of Massachusetts and prohibiting slavery from territories acquired in the Louisiana purchase, north of the line 36*30'.

Cohens v. Virginia

(1821) case that reinforced federal supremacy by establishing the right of the Supreme Court to review decisions of state supreme courts in questions involving the powers of the federal government.

Monroe Doctrine

(1823) Statement delivered by President James Monroe, warning European powers to refrain from seeking any new territories in the Americas. The United States largely lacked the power to back up the pronouncement, which was actually enforced by the British, who sought unfettered access to Latin American markets.

Russo-American Treaty

(1824) Fixed the line of 54*50' as the southernmost boundary of Russian holdings in North America.

Gibbons v. Ogden

(1824) Suit over whether New York State could grant a monopoly to a ferry operating on interstate waters. The ruling reasserted that Congress had the sole power to regulate interstate commerce.

New Harmony

(1825-1827) Communal society of around one thousand members, established in New Harmony, Indiana by Robert Owen. The community attracted a hodgepodge of individuals, from scholars to crooks, and fell apart due to infighting and confusion after just two years.

Tariff of Abominations

(1828) Noteworthy for its unprecedentedly high duties on imports. Southerners vehemently opposed the Tariff, arguing that it hurts Southern farmers, who did not enjoy the protection of tariffs, but were forced to pay higher prices for manufactures.

Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World

(1829) Incendiary abolitionist track advocating the violent overthrow of slavery. Published by David Walker, a Southern-born free black.

Indian Removal Act

(1830) Ordered the removal of Indian Tribes still residing east of the Mississippi to newly established Indian Territory west of Arkansas and Missouri. Tribes resisting eviction were forcibly removed by American forces, often after prolonged legal or military battles.

McCormick Reaper

(1831) Mechanized the harvest of grains, such as wheat, allowing farmers to cultivate larger plots. The introduction of the reaper in the 1830s fueled the establishment of large-scale commercial agriculture in the Midwest.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

(1831) Virginia slave revolt that resulted in the deaths of sixty whites and raised fears among white Southerners of further uprisings.

The Liberator

(1831-1865) Antislavery newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison, who called for the immediate emancipation of all slaves.

Back War

(1832) Battle between President Andrew Jackson and Congressional supporters of the Bank of the United States over the bank's renewal in 1832. Jackson vetoed the Bank Bill, arguing that the bank favored moneyed interests at the expense of western farmers.

Black Hawk War

(1832) Series of clashes in Illinois and Wisconsin between American forces and Indian chief Black Hawk of the Sauk and Fox tribes who unsuccessfully tried to reclaim territory lost under the 1830 Indian Removal Act.

Nullification Crisis

(1832-1833) Showdown between President Andrew Jackson and the South Carolina legislature, which declared the 1832 tariff null and void in the state and threatened secession if the federal government tried to collect duties. It was resolved by a compromise negotiated by Henry Clay in 1833.

Force Bill

(1833) Passed by Congress alongside the Compromise Tariff, it authorized the president to use the military to collect federal tariff duties.

American Anti-Slavery Society

(1833-1870) Abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison, who advocated the immediate abolition of slavery. By 1838, the organization had more than 250,000 members across 1,350 chapters.

Awful Disclosures

(1836) Maria Monk's sensational expose of alleged horrors in Catholic convents. Its popularity reflected nativist fears of Catholic influence.

Battle of San Jacinto

(1836) Resulted in the capture of Mexican dictator Santa Anna, who was forced to withdraw his troops from Texas and recognize the Rio Grande as Texas's Southwestern border.

Specie Circular

(1836) U.S. Treasury decree requiring that all public lands be purchased with "hard," or metallic, currency. Issued after small state banks flooded the market with unreliable paper currency, fueling land speculation in the West.

Caroline

(1837) Diplomatic row between the United States and Britain. Developed after British troops set fire to an American steamer carrying supplies across the Niagara River to Canadian insurgents, during Canada's short lived insurrection

The American Scholar

(1837) Ralph Waldo Emerson's address at Harvard College, in which he declared an intellectual independence from Europe, urging American scholars to develop their own traditions.

Trail of Tears

(1838-1839) Forced march of 15,000 Cherokee Indians from their Georgia and Alabama homes to Indian Territory. Some 4,000 Cherokee died on the arduous journey.

Amistad

(1839) Spanish slave ship dramatically seized off the coast of Cuba by the enslaved Africans aboard. The ship was driven ashore in Long Island and the slaves were put on trial. Former President John Quincy Adams argued their case before the Supreme Court, securing their eventual release

Aroostook War

(1839-1842) Series of clashes between American and Canadian lumberjacks in the disputed territory of northern Maine, resolved when a permanent boundary was agreed upon in 1942.

Opium War

(1839-1842) War between Britain and China over trading rights, particularly Britain's desire to continue selling opium to Chinese traders. The resulting trade agreement prompted Americans to seek similar concessions from the Chinese.

Liberty Party

(1840-1848) Antislavery party that ran candidates in the 1840 and 1844 elections before merging with the Free Soil party. Supporters of the Liberty party sought the eventual abolition of slavery, but in the short term hoped to halt the expansion of slavery into the territories and abolish the domestic slave trade.

Manifest Destiny

(1840-1860) Belief that the United States was destines by God to spread its "empire of liberty" across North America. Served as a justification for mid 19th century expansionism.

Conscience Whigs

(1840-1860) Northern Whigs who opposed slavery on moral grounds. Sought to prevent the annexation of Texas as a slave state, fearing that the new slave territory would only serve to buttress the Southern "slave power."

Clipper Ships

(1840-1860) Small, swift vessels that gave American shippers an advantage in the carrying trade. Clipper ships were made largely obsolete by the advent of sturdier, roomier iron steamers on the eve of the Civil War

Creole

(1841) American ship captured by a group of rebelling Virginia slaves. The slaves successfully sough asylum in the Bahamas, raising fears among Southern planters that the British West Indies would become a safe haven for runaway slaves.

"Self Reliance"

(1841) Ralph Waldo Emerson's popular lecture-essay that reflected the spirit of individualism pervasive in American popular culture during the 1830s and 1840s.

Brook Farm

(1841-1846) Transcendentalist commune founded by a group of intellectuals, who emphasized living plainly while pursuing the life of the mind. The community fell into debt and dissolved when their communal home burned to the ground in 1846.

Commonwealth v. Hunt

(1842) Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that strengthened the labor movement by upholding the legality of unions.

Treaty of Wanghia

(1844) Signed by the U.S. and China, it assured the United States the same trading concessions granted to other powers, greatly expanding America's trade with the Chinese.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

(1845) Vivid autobiography of the escaped slave and renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Wilmot Proviso

(1846) Amendment that sought to prohibit slavery from territories acquired from Mexico. Introduced by Pennsylvania congressman David Wilmot, the failed amendment ratcheted up tensions between North and South over the issue of slavery.

Spot Resolutions

(1846) Measures introduced by Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln, questioning President James K. Polk's justification for war with Mexico. Lincoln requested that Polk clarify precisely where Mexican forces had attacked American troops.

Walker Tariff

(1846) Revenue-enhancing measure that lowered tariff from 1842 levels thereby fueling trade an increasing Treasury receipts.

California Bear Flag Republic

(1846) Short-lived California republic, established by local American settlers who revolted against Mexico. Once news of the war with Mexico reached the Americans they abandoned the Republic in favor of joining the United States.

"Fifty-Four Forty or Fight"

(1846) Slogan adopted by mid-nineteenth century expansionists who advocated the occupation of Oregon territory, jointly held by Britain and the United States. Through President Polk had pledged to seize all of Oregon, to 54* 40', he settled on the forty-ninth parallel as a compromise with the British.

Battle of Buena Vista

(1847) Key American victory against Mexican forces in the Mexican-American War. Elevated General Zachary Taylor to national prominence and helped secure his success in the 1848 presidential election.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

(1848) Ended the war with Mexico. Mexico agreed to cede territory reaching northwest from Texas to Oregon in exchange for $18.25 million in cash and assumed debts.

Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls

(1848) Gathering of feminist activists in Seneca Falls, New York, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton read her "Declaration of Sentiments," stating that "all men and women are created equal."

Free Soil Party

(1848-1854) Antislavery party in the 1848 and 1852 elections that opposed the extension of slavery into the territories, arguing that the presence of slavery would limit opportunities for free laborers.

California Gold Rush

(1849) Inflow of thousands of miners to Northern California after news reports of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in January of 1848 had spread around the world by the end of that year. The onslaught of migrants prompted Californians to organize a government and apply it for statehood in 1849.

Seventh of March Speech

(1850) Daniel Webster's impassioned address urging the North to support of the Compromise of 1850. Webster argued that topography and climate would keep slavery from becoming entrenched in Mexican Cession territory and urged Northerners to make all reasonable concessions to prevent disunion.

Fugitive Slave Law

(1850) Passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, it set high penalties for anyone who aided escaped slaves and compelled all law enforcement officers to participate in retrieving runaways. Strengthened the antislavery cause in the North.

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

(1850) signed by Great Britain and the United States. it provided that the two nations would jointly protect the neutrality of Central America and that neither power would seek to fortify or exclusively control any future isthmian waterway. Later revoked by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1901, which gave the United States control of the Panama Canal.

The Know-Nothing Party

(1850-1860) Nativist political party, also known as the American party, which emerged in response to an influx of immigrants, particularly Irish Catholics.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

(1852) Harriet Beecher Stowe's widely read novel that dramatized the horrors of slavery. It heightened support for abolition and escalated the sectional conflict.

Gadsden Purchase

(1853) acquired additional land from Mexico for $10 million to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad.

Treaty of Kanagawa

(1854) Ended Japan's two-hundred year period of economic isolation, establishing an American consulate in Japan and securing American coaling rights in Japanese ports.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

(1854) Proposed that the issue of slavery be decided by popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska territories, thus revoking the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Introduced by Stephan Douglass in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad.

Ostend Manifesto

(1854) Secret Franklin Pierce administration proposal to purchase or, that failing, to wrest militarily Cuba from Spain. Once leaked, it was quickly abandoned due to vehement opposition from the North.

Bleeding Kansas

(1856-1861) Civil war in Kansas over the issue of slavery in the territory, fought intermittently until 1861, when it merged with the wider national Civil War.

The Impending Crisis of the South

(1857) Antislavery tract, written by white Southerner Hinton R. Helper, arguing that nonslaveholding whites actually suffered most in a slave economy.

Lecompton Constitution

(1857) Proposed Kansas constitution, whose ratification was unfairly rigged so as to guarantee slavery in the territory. Initially ratified by proslavery forces, it was later voted down when Congress required that the entire constitution be put up for vote.

Dred Scott v. Stanford

(1857) Supreme Court decision that extended federal protection to slavery by ruling that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in any territory. Also declared that slaves, as property, were not citizens of the United States.

Freeport Doctrine

(1858) Declared that since slavery could not exist without laws to protect it, territorial legislatures, not the Supreme Court, would have the final say on the slavery question. First argued by Stephen Douglass in 1858 in response to Abraham Lincoln's "Freeport Question."

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

(1858) Series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglass during the U.S. Senate race in Illinois. Douglass won the election but Lincoln gained national prominence and emerged as the leading candidate for the 1860 Republican nomination.

Constitutional Union Party

(1860) Formed by moderate Whigs and Know-Nothings in an effort to elect a compromise candidate and avert a sectional crisis.

Crittenden Amendments

(1860) Proposed in an attempt to appease the South, the failed Constitutional amendment would have given federal protection for slavery in all territories south of the line 36*30" where slavery was supported by popular sovereignty.

Pony Express

(1860-1861) Short-lived, speedy mail service between Missouri and California that relied on lightweight riders galloping between closely placed outposts.

Molly Maguires

(1860-1880) Secret organization of Irish miners that campaigned, at times violently, against poor working condition in the Pennsylvania mines.

Trent Affair

(1861) Diplomatic row that threatened to bring the British into the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, after a Union warship stopped a British steamer and arrested two Confederate diplomats on board.

Battle of Bull Run

(1861) First major battle of the Civil War and a victory for the South, it dispelled Northern illusions of swift victory.

Morrill Tariff Act

(1861) Increased duties back up to 1846 levels to raise revenue for the Civil War.

Confederate States of America

(1861-1865) Government established after seven Southern states seceded from the Union. Later joined by four more states from the Upper South.

Congressional Committee on the Conduct of War

(1861-1865) established by congress during the Civil War to oversee military affairs. Largely under the control of Radical Republicans, the committee agitated for a more vigorous war effort and actively pressed Lincoln on the issue of emancipation.

Homestead Act

(1862) A federal law that gave settlers 160 acres of land for about $30 if they lived on it for five years and improved it by, for instance, building a house on it. The act helped make land accessible to hundreds of thousands of westward-moving settlers, but many people also found disappointment when their land was infertile or they saw speculators grabbing up the best land.

Merrimack and Monitor

(1862) Confederate and Union ironclads, respectively, whose successes against wooden ships signaled an end to wooden warships. They fought a historic, though inconsequential battle in 1862.

Battle of Fredericksburg

(1862) Decisive victory in Virginia for Confederate Robert E. Lee, who successfully repelled a Union attack on his lines.

Pacific Railroad Act

(1862) Helped fund the construction of the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad with the use of land grants and government bonds.

Battle of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson

(1862) Key victory for Union General Ulysses S. Grant, it secured the North's hold on Kentucky and paved the way for Grant's attacks deeper into Tennessee.

Battle of Antietam

(1862) Landmark battle in the Civil War that essentially ended in a draw but demonstrated the prowess of the Union army, forestalling foreign intervention and giving Lincoln the "victory" he needed to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Peninsula Campaign

(1862) Union General George B. McClellan's failed effort to seize Richmond, the Confederate Capital. Had McClellan taken Richmond and toppled the Confederacy, slavery would have most likely survived in the South for some time.

The Alabama

(1862-1864) British-built and manned Confederate warship that raided Union shipping during the Civil War. One of many built by the British for the Confederacy, despite Union protests.

Gettysburg Address

(1863) Abraham Lincoln's oft quoted speech, delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg battlefield. In the address, Lincoln framed the war as a means to uphold the value of liberty.

Battle of Gettysburg

(1863) Civil War battle in Pennsylvania that ended in Union victory, spelling doom for the Confederacy, which never again managed to invade the North. Site of General George Pickett's daring but doomed charge on the Northern lines.

Emancipation Proclamation

(1863) Declared all slaves in rebelling states to be free but did not affect slavery in non-rebelling Border States. The Proclamation closed the door on possible compromise with the South and encouraged thousands of Southern slaves to flee to Union lines.

A Man Without a Country

(1863) Edward Everett Hale's fictional account of a treasonous soldier's journeys in exile. The book was widely read in the North, inspiring greater devotion to the Union.

"10 percent" Reconstruction Plan

(1863) Introduced by President Lincoln, it proposed that a state be readmitted to the Union once 10 percent o fits voters had pledged loyalty to the United States and promised to honor emancipation.

National Banking System

(1863) Network of member banks that could issue currency against purchased government bonds. Created during the Civil War to establish a stable national currency and stimulate the sale of war bonds.

Laird Rams

(1863) Two well-armed ironclad warships constructed for the Confederacy by a British firm. Seeking to avoid war with the United States, the British government purchased the two ships for its royal navy instead.

Siege of Vicksburg

(1863) Two-and-a-half month siege of a Confederate fort on the Mississippi River in Tennessee. Vicksburg finally fell to Ulysses S. Grant in July of 1863, giving the Union Army control of the Mississippi River and splitting the South in two.

New York Draft Riots

(1863) Uprising, mostly of working-class Irish-Americans, in protest of the draft. Rioters were particularly incensed by the ability of the rich to hire substitutes or purchase exemptions.

Woman's Loyal League

(1863-1865) Women's organization formed to help bring about an end to the Civil War and encourage Congress to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery.

Union Party

(1864) A coalition party of pro-war Democrats and Republicans formed during the 1864 election to defeat anti-war Northern Democrats.

Wilderness Campaign

(1864-1865) A series of brutal clashes between Ulysses S. Grant's and Robert E. Lee's armies in Virginia, leading up to Grant's capture of Richmond in April of 1865. Having lost Richmond, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Sherman's March

(1864-1865) Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's destructive march through Georgia. An early instance of "total war," purposely targeting infrastructure and civilian property to diminish morale and undercut the Confederate war effort.

Thirteenth Amendment

(1865) Constitutional amendment prohibiting all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude. Former Confederate States were required to ratify the amendment prior to gaining reentry into the Union.

Black Codes

(1865-1866) Laws passed throughout the South to restrict the rights of emancipated blacks, particularly with respect to negotiating labor contracts. Increased Northerners' criticisms of President Andrew Johnson's lenient Reconstruction policies.

Freedmen's Bureau

(1865-1872) Created to aid newly emancipated slaves by providing food, clothing, medical care, education, and legal support. Its achievements were uneven and depended largely on the quality of local administrators.

Ex Parte Milligan

(1866) Civil War Era case in which the Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals could not be used to try civilians if civil courts were open.

Civil Rights Bill

(1866) Passed over Andrew Johnson's veto, the bill aimed to counteract the Black codes by conferring citizenship on African Americans and making it a crime to deprive blacks of their rights to sue, testify in court, or hold property.

National Labor Union

(1866-1872) The first national labor organization in U.S. history was founded in 1866 and gained 600,000 members from many parts of the workforce, although it limited the participation of Chinese, women, and blacks. The organization devoted much of its energy to fighting for an eight-hour workday before it dissolved in 1872.

Seward's Folly

(1867) Popular term for Secretary of State William Seward's purchase of Alaska from Russia. The derisive term reflected the anti-expansionist sentiments of most Americans immediately after the Civil War.

Tenure of Office Act

(1867) Required the President to seek approval from the Senate before removing appointees. When Andrew Johnson removed his secretary of war in violation of the act, he was impeached by the house but remained in office when the Senate fell one vote short of removing him.

Fourteenth Amendment

(1868) Constitutional amendment that extended civil rights to freedmen and prohibited states from taking away such rights without due process.

Fifteenth Amendment

(1870) Prohibited states from denying citizens the franchise on account of race. It disappointed feminists who wanted the Amendment to include guarantees for women's suffrage.

Standard Oil Company

(1870-1911) John D. Rockefeller's company, formed in 1870, which came to symbolize the trusts and monopolies of the Gilded Age. By 1877 Standard Oil controlled 95% of the oil refineries in the U.S. it was also one of the first multinational corporations, and at times distributed more than half of the company's kerosene production outside the U.S. By the turn of the century it had become a target for trust-busting reformers, and in 1911 the Supreme Court ordered it to break up into several dozen smaller companies.

Credit Mobilier Scandal

(1872) A construction company was formed by owners of the Union Pacific Railroad for the purpose of receiving government contracts to build the railroad at highly inflated prices-and profits. In 1872 a scandal erupted when journalists discovered that the Credit Mobilier Company had bribed congressmen and even the Vice President in order to allow the ruse to continue.

Battle of Little Bighorn

(1876) A particularly violent example of he warfare between whites and Native Americans in the late 19th century, also known as "Custer's Last Stand." In two days, June 25th and 26th, 1876, the combined forces of over 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians defeated and killed more than 250 U.S. soldiers, including Colonel George Custer. The battle came as the U.S. government tried to compel Native Americans to remain on the reservations and Native Americans tried to defend territory from white gold-seekers. This Indian advantage did not last long, however, as the union of these Indian fighters proved tenuous and the United States Army soon exacted retribution.

Gilded Age

(1877-1896) A term given to the period 1865-1896 by Mark Twain, indicating both the fabulous wealth and the widespread corruption of the era.

Big Sister Policy

(1880s) A foreign policy of Secretary of State James G. Blaine aimed at rallying Latin American nations behind American leadership and opening Latin American markets to Yankee traders. The policy bore fruit in 1889, when Blaine presided over the First International Conference of American States

Chinese Exclusion Act

(1882) Federal legislation that prohibited most further Chinese immigration to the United States. This was the first major legal restriction on immigration in U.S. history.

Pendleton Act

(1883) Congressional legislation that established the Civil Service Commission, which granted federal government jobs on the basis of examinations instead of political patronage, thus reigning in the spoils system.

Haymarket Square

(1886) A May Day rally that turned violent when someone threw a bomb into the middle of the meeting, killing several dozen people. Eight anarchists were arrested for conspiracy contributing to the disorder, although evidence linking them to the bombing was thin. Four were executed, one committed suicide and three were pardoned in 1893.

Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois

(1886) A Supreme Court decision that prohibited states from regulating the railroads because the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. As a result, reformers turned their attention to the federal government, which now held sole power to regulate the railroad industry.

Dawes Severalty Act

(1887) An act that broke up Indian reservations and distributed land to individual households. Leftover land was sold for money to fund U.S. government efforts to "civilize" Native Americans. Of 130 million acres held in Native American reservations before the Act, 90 million were sold to non-Native buyers.

Interstate Commerce Act

(1887) Congressional legislation that established the Interstate Commerce Commission, that compelled railroads to publish standard rates, and prohibited rebates and pools. Railroads quickly became adept at using the Act to achieve their own ends, but the Act gave the government an important means to regulate big businesses.

Battle of Wounded Knee

(1890) A battle between the U.S. Army and the Dakota Sioux, in which several hundred Native Americans and 29 U.S. soldiers died. Tensions erupted violently over two major issues: the Sioux practice of the "Ghost Dance," which the U.S. government had outlawed, and the dispute over whether Sioux reservation land would be broken up because of the Dawes Act.

Sherman Anti-Trust Act

(1890) A law that forbade trusts or combinations in business, this was landmark legislation because it was one of the first Congressional attempts to regulate big business for the public good. At first the law was mostly used to restrain trade unions as the courts tended to side with companies in legal cases. In 1914 the Act was revised so it could more effectively be used against monopolistic corporations.

McKinley Tariff

(1890) Shepherded through Congress by President William McKinley, this tariff raised duties on Hawaiian sugar and set off renewed efforts to secure the annexation of Hawaii to the United States.

Homestead Strike

(1892) A strike at a Carnegie steel plant in Homestead, P.A., that ended in an armed battle between the strikers, three hundred armed "Pinkerton" detectives hired by Carnegie, and federal troops, which killed ten people and wounded more than sixty. The strike was part of a nationwide labor unrest in the summer of 1892 that helped the Populists gain some support from industrial workers.

Plessy v. Ferguson

(1896) A 1896 Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of segregation laws, saying that as long as blacks were provided with "separate but equal" facilities, these laws did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision provided legal justification for the Jim Crow system until the 1950s.

Fourth Party System

(1896-1932) A term scholars have used to describe national politics from 1896-1932, when Republicans had a tight grip on the White House and issues like industrial regulation and labor concerns became paramount, replacing order concerns like civil service reform and monetary policy.

Teller Amendment

(1898) A proviso to President William McKinley's war plans that proclaimed to the world that when the United States had overthrown Spanish misrule, it would give Cuba its freedom. The amendment testified to the ostensibly "anti-imperialist" designs of the initial war plans.

The Maine

(1898) American battleship dispatched to keep a "friendly" watch over Cuba in early 1898. It mysteriously blew up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, with a loss of 260 sailors. Later evidence confirmed that the explosion was accidental, resulting from combustion in one of the ship's internal coal bunkers. But many Americans, eager for war, insisted that it was the fault of a Spanish submarine mine.

Rough Riders

(1898) Organized by Theodore Roosevelt, this was a colorful, motley regiment of Cuban war volunteers consisting of western cowboys, ex-convicts, and effete Ivy Leaguers. Roosevelt emphasized his experience with the regiment in subsequent campaigns for Governor of New York and Vice-President under William McKinley

Anti-Imperialist League

(1898-1921) A diverse group formed in order to protest American colonial oversight in the Philippines. It included university presidents, industrialists, clergymen, and labor leaders. Strongest in the Northeast, the Anti-Imperialist League was the largest lobbying organization on a U.S. foreign policy issue until the end of the nineteenth century. It declined in strength after the United States signed the Treaty of Paris (which approved the annexation of the Philippines). and especially after hostilities broke out between Filipino nationalists and American forces.

Open Door Note

(1899-1900) A set of diplomatic letters in which Secretary of State John Hay urged the great powers to respect Chinese rights and free and open competition within their spheres of influence. The notes established the "Open Door Policy," which sought to ensure access to the Chinese market for the United States, despite the fact that the U.S. did not have a formal sphere of influence in China.

Gold Standard Act

(1900) An act that guaranteed that paper currency would be redeemed freely in gold, putting an end to the already dying "free silver" campaign.

Boxer Rebellion

(1900) An uprising in China directed against foreign influence. It was suppressed by an international force of some eighteen thousand soldiers, including several thousand Americans. The Boxer Rebellion paved the way for the revolution of 1911, which led to the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912.

Foraker Act

(1900) Sponsored by Senator Joseph B. Foraker, a Republican from Ohio, this accorded Puerto Ricans a limited degree of popular government. It was the first comprehensive congressional effort to provide for governance of territories acquired after the Spanish American War, and served as a model for a similar act adopted for the Philippines in 1902.

Hay-Pauncefote Treaty

(1901) A treaty signed between the United States and Great Britain, giving Americans a free hand to build a canal in Central America. The treaty nullified the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, which prohibited British or U.S. from acquiring territory in Central America.

Platt Amendment

(1901) Following its military occupation, the United States successfully pressured the Cuban government to write this amendment into its constitution. It limited Cuba's treaty-making abilities, controlled its debt, and stipulated that the United States could intervene militarily to restore order when it saw fit.

Insular Cases

(1901-1904) Beginning in 1901, a badly divided Supreme Court decreed in these cases that the Constitution did not follow the flag. In other words, Puerto Ricans and Filipinos would not necessarily enjoy all American rights.

Elkins Act

(1903) Law passed by Congress to impose penalties on railroads that offered rebates and customers who accepted them. The law strengthened the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The Hepburn Act of 1906 added free passes to the list of railroad no-no's.

Roosevelt Corollary

(1904) A brazen policy of "preventive intervention" advocated by Theodore Roosevelt in his Annual Message to Congress in 1904. Adding ballast to the Monroe Doctrine, his corollary stipulated that the United States would retain a right to intervene in the domestic affairs of Latin American nations in order to restore military and financial order.

Lochner v. New York

(1905) A setback from labor reformers, this 1905 Supreme Court decision invalidated a state law establishing a ten-hour day for bakers. It held that the "right to free contract" was implicit in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Industrial Workers of the World

(1905) The IWW, also known as the "Wobblies," was a radical organization that sought to build "one big union" and advocated industrial sabotage in defense of that goal. At its peak in 1923, it could claim 200,000 members and could gain the support of 300,000. The IWW particularly appealed to migratory workers in agriculture and lumbering and to miners, all of whom suffered from horrific working conditions.

Pure Food and Drug Act

(1906) A law passed by Congress to inspect and regulate the labeling of all foods and pharmaceuticals. intended for human consumption. This legislation, and additional provisions passed in 1911 to strengthen it, aimed particularly at the patent medicine industry. The more comprehensive Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 largely replaced this legislation.

Meat Inspection Act

(1906) A law passed by Congress to subject meat shipped over state lines to federal inspection. The publication of Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, earlier that year so disgusted American consumers with its description of conditions in slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants that it mobilized public support for government action.

Muller v. Oregon

(1908) A landmark Supreme Court case in which crusading attorney (and future Supreme Court Justice) Louis D. Brandeis persuaded the Supreme Court to accept the constitutionality of limiting the hours of women workers. Coming on the heels of Lochner v. New York, it established a differed standard for male and female workers.

Root-Takahira Agreement

(1908) Signed on November 30, 1908, the United States and Japan agreed to respect each other's territorial possessions in the Pacific and to uphold the Open Door in China. The agreement was credited with easing tensions between the two nations, but it also resulted in a weakened American influence over further Japanese hegemony in China.

Payne-Aldrich Bill

(1909) While intended to lower tariff rates, this bill was eventually revised beyond all recognition, retaining high rates on most imports. President Taft angered the progressive wing of his party when he declared it "the best bill that the Republican party ever passed."

New Freedom

(1912) Platform of reforms advocated by Woodrow Wilson in his first presidential campaign, including stronger anti-trust legislation to protect small business enterprises from monopolies, banking reform, and tariff reductions. Wilson's strategy involved taking action to increase opportunities for capitalist competition rather than increasing government regulation of large trusts.

New Nationalism

(1912) State-interventionist reform program devised by journalist Hebert Croly and advocated by Theodore Roosevelt during his Bull Moose presidential campaign. Roosevelt did not object to continued consolidation of trusts and labor unions. Rather, he sought to create stronger regulatory agencies to insure that they operated to serve the public interest, not just private gain.

Federal Reserve Act

(1913) An act establishing twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks and a Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the president, to regulate banking and create stability on a national scale in the volatile banking sector. The law carried the nation through the financial crisis of the First World War of 1914-1918.

Underwood Tariff

(1913) This tariff provided for a substantial reduction of rates and enacted an unprecedented, gradual federal income tax. By 1917, revenue from the income tax surpassed receipts from the tariff, a gap that has since been vastly widened.

Federal Trade Commission Act

(1914) A banner accomplishment of Woodrow Wilson's administration, this law empowered a standing, presidentially appointed commission to investigate illegal business practices in interstate commerce like the unlawful competition, false advertising, and mislabeling of goods.

Tampico Incident

(1914) An arrest of American sailors by the Mexican government that spurred Woodrow Wilson to dispatch the American navy to seize the port of Veracruz in April 1914. Although war was avoided, tensions grew between the United States and Mexico.

Clayton Anti-Trust Act

(1914) Law extending the anti-trust protections of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and exempting labor unions and agricultural organizations from antimonopoly constraints. The act conferred the long-overdue benefits on labor.

Jones Act

(1916) Law according territorial status to the Philippines and promising independence as soon as a "stable government" could be established. The United States did not grant the Philippines independence until July 4. 1946.

Adamson Act

(1916) This law established an eight-hour day for all employees on trains involved in interstate commerce, with extra pay for overtime. It was the first federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies and was upheld by the Supreme court in Wilson v. New (1917).

Committee on Public Information

(1917) A government office during World War I known popularly as the Creel Committee for its Chairman George Creel, it was dedicated to winning everyday Americans' support for the war effort. It regularly distributed pro-war propaganda and sent out an army of "four-minute men" to rally crowds and deliver "patriotic pep."

Espionage Act

(1917) A law prohibiting interference with the draft and other acts of national "disloyalty." Together with the Sedition Act of 1918, which added penalties for abusing the government in writing, it created a climate that was unfriendly to civil liberties.

Zimmerman Note

(1917) German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmerman had secretly proposed a German-Mexican alliance against the United States. When the note was intercepted and published in March 1917, it caused an uproar that made some Americans more willing to enter the war.

War Industries Board

(1917) Headed by Bernard Baruch, this federal agency coordinated industrial production during World War I, settling production quotas, allocating raw material, and pushing companies to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. Under the economic mobilization of the War industrial Board, industrial production in the United States increased 20 percent during the war.

Bolshevik Revolution

(1917) The second stage of the Russian Revolution in November 1917 when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik party seized power and established a communist state. The first stage had occurred the previous February when more moderate revolutionaries overthrew the Russian Czar.

Meuse-Argonne Offensive

(1918) General John J. "Black Jack" Perishing led American troops in this effort to cut the German railroad lines supplying the western front. It was one of the few major battles that Americans participated in during the entire war, and was still underway when the war ended.

Battle of Thierry Chateau

(1918) The first significant engagement of American troops in World War I and any European War. To weary French soldiers the American doughboys were an image of fresh and gleaming youth.

National War Labor Bond

(1918) This wartime agency was chaired by former President Taft and aimed to prevent labor disputes by encouraging high wages and an eight-hour day. While granting some concessions to labor, it stopped short of supporting labor's most important demand: a government guarantee of the right to organize into unions.

Fourteen Points

(1918) Woodrow Wilson's proposal to ensure peace after World War I, calling for an end to secret treaties, widespread arms reduction, national self-determination, and a new league of nations.

Volstead Act

(1919) A federal act enforcing the 18th amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.

League of Nations

(1919) A world organization of national governments proposed by President Woodrow Wilson and established by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It worked to facilitate peaceful international cooperation. Despite emotional appeals by Wilson, isolationists' objections to the League created the major obstacle to American signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

Treaty of Versailles

(1919) World War I concluded with this vengeful document, which secured peace but imposed sharp terms on Germany and created a territorial mandate system to manage former colonies of world powers. To Woodrow Wilson's chagrin, it incorporated very few of his original Fourteen Points, although it did include the League of Nations that Wilson had long sought. Isolationists in the United States, deeply opposed to the League led the opposition to the Treaty, which was never ratified by the Senate.

18th Amendment

(1919) ratified in 1919, this Constitutional amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. It ushered in the era known as prohibition.

Red Scare

(1919-1920) A period of intense anti-communism lasting form 1919 to 1920. The "Palmer raids" of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer resulted in about six thousand deportations of people suspected of "subversive" activities.

Criminal Syndicalism Laws

(1919-1920) Passed by many states during the Red Scare of 1919-1920, these nefarious laws outlawed the mere advocacy of violence to secure social change. Stump speakers for the International Workers of the World (IWW) were special targets.

Nineteenth Amendment

(1920) This Constitutional amendment, finally passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified in 1920, gave women the right to vote over seventy years after the first organized calls for woman's suffrage in Seneca Falls, New York.

Teapot Dome Scandal

(1921) A tawdry affair involving the illegal lease of priceless naval oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills, California. The scandal, which implicated President Harding's Secretary of the Interior, was one of several that gave his administration a reputation for corruption.

Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act

(1921) Designed to appeal to new women voters, this act provided federally financed instruction in maternal and infant health care and expanded the role of government in family welfare.

Fordney-McCumber Tariff Law

(1922) A comprehensive bill passed to protect domestic production from foreign competitors. As a direct result, many European nations were spurred to increase their own trade barriers.

Nine-Power Treaty

(1922) Agreement coming out of the Washington "Disarmament" Conference of 1921-1922 that pledged Britain, France, Italy, Japan, the United States, China, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Belgium to abide by the Open Door Policy in China. The Five-Power Naval Treaty on ship ratios and the Four-Power Treaty to preserve status quo in the Pacific also came out of the Conference.

Adkins v. Children's Hospital

(1923) A landmark Supreme Court decision reversing the ruling in Muller v. Oregan, which had declared women to be deserving of special protection in the work place.

Dawes Plan

(1924) An arrangement negotiated in 1924 to reschedule German reparation payments. It stabilized the German currency and opened the way for further American private loans to Germany.

McNary-Haugen Bill

(1924-1928) A farm-relief bill that was championed throughout the 1920s and aimed to keep agricultural prices high by authorizing the government to buy up surpluses and sell them abroad. Congress twice passed the bill, but President Calvin Coolidge vetoed it in 1927 and 1928.

Kellogg-Briand Pact

(1928) A sentimental triumph of the 1920s peace movement, this 1928 pact linked sixty-two nations in the supposed "outlawry of war."

Black Tuesday

(1929) The dark, panicky day of October 29, 1929 when over 16,410,000 shares of stock were sold on Wall Street. It was a trigger that helped bring on the Great Depression

Agricultural Marketing Act

(1929) This act established the Federal Farm Board, a lending bureau for hard-pressed farmers. The act also aimed to help farmers help themselves through new producers' cooperatives. As the depression worsened in 1930, the Board tried to bolster falling prices by buying up surpluses, but it was unable to cope with the flood of farm produce to market.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff

(1930) The highest protective tariff in the peacetime history of the United States, passed as a result of good old-fashioned horse trading. To the outside world, it smacked of ugly economic warfare.

Bonus Army

(1932) Officially known as the Bonus Expeditionary Force (BEF), this rag-tag group of 20,000 veterans marched on Washington to demand immediate payment of bonuses earned during World War I. General Douglas MacArthur dispersed them with tear gas and bayonets.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

(1932) The RFC. A government lending agency established under the Hoover administration in order to assist insurance companies, banks, agricultural organizations, railroads, and local governments. It was a precursor to later agencies that grew out of the New Deal and symbolized a recognition by the Republicans that some federal action was required to address the Great Depression.

Norris-La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act

(1932) This law banned "yellow-dog," or anti-union, work contracts and forbade federal courts from issuing injunctions to quash strikes and boycotts. It was an early piece of labor-friendly federal legislation.

Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act

(1933) A law creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured individual bank deposits and ended a century long tradition of unstable banking that had reached a crisis in the Great Depression.

London Economic Conference

(1933) A sixty-nation economic conference organized to stabilize international currency rates. Franklin Roosevelt's decision to revoke American participation contributed to a deepening world economic crisis.

Agricultural Adjustment Administration

(1933) The AAA. A New Deal program designed to raise agricultural prices by paying farmers not to farm. It was based on the assumption that higher prices would increase farmers' purchasing power and thereby help alleviate the Great Depression.

Civilian Conservation Corps

(1933) The CCC. A government program created by Congress to hire young unemployed men to improve the rural, out-of-doors environment with such work as planting trees, fighting fires, draining swamps, and maintaining National Parks. The CCC proved to be an important foundation for the post-World War II environmental movement.

Tennessee Valley Authority

(1933) The TVA One of the most revolutionary of the New Deal public works projects, the TVA brought cheap electrical power, full employment, low-cost housing, and environmental improvements to Americans in the Tennessee Valley.

Hundred Days

(1933) The first hundred days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration stretching from March 9 to June 16, 1933, when an unprecedented number of reform bills were passed by a Democratic Congress to launch the New Deal.

Johnson Debt Default Act

(1934) Steeped in ugly memories of World War I, this spiteful act prevented debt-ridden nations from borrowing further from the United States.

Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act

(1934) This act reversed traditional high-protective-tariff policies by allowing the president to negotiate lower tariffs with trade partners, without Senate approval. Its chief architect was Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who believed that tariff barriers choked off foreign trade.

Social Security Act

(1935) A flagship accomplishment of the New Deal, this law provided for unemployment and old-age insurance financed by a payroll tax on employers and employees. It has long remained a pillar of the "New Deal Order."

Wagner Act

(1935) Also known as the National Labor Relations Act, this law protected the right of labor to organize in unions and bargain collectively with employers, and establish the National Labor Relations Board to monitor unfair labor practices on the part of the employer. Its passage marked the culmination of decades of labor protest.

Rome-Berlin Axis

(1936) Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, and Fascist Italy, led by Benito Mussolini, allied themselves together under this nefarious treaty. The pact was signed after both countries had intervened on behalf of the fascist leader Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

Quarantine Speech

(1937) An important speech delivered by Franklin Roosevelt in which he called for "positive endeavors" to "quarantine" land-hungry dictators, presumably through economic embargos. The speech flew in the face of isolationist politicians.

Court-packing Plan

(1937) Franklin Roosevelt's politically motivated and ill-fated scheme to add a new justice to the Supreme Court for every member over seventy who would not retire. is objective was to overcome the Court's objections to New Deal reforms.

Fair Labor Standards Act

(1938) Important New Deal labor legislation that regulated minimum wages and maximum hours for workers involved in interstates commerce. The law also outlawed labor by children under sixteen. The exclusion of agricultural, service, and domestic workers meant that many blacks, Mexican Americans, and women-who were concentrated in sectors-did not benefit from the act's protection.

Appeasement

(1938) The policy followed by leaders of Britain and France at the 1938 conference in Munich. Their purpose was to avoid war, but they allowed Germany to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

Hitler-Stalin Pact

(1939) Treaty signed on August 12, 1939 in which Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other. The fateful agreement paved the way fro German aggression against Poland and the Western democracies.

Pearl Harbor

(1941) An American naval base in Hawaii where Japanese warplanes destroyed numerous ships and caused 3,000 casualties on December 7, 1941-a day that, in President Roosevelt's words, was to "live in infamy." The attack brought the United States into World War II.

ABC-1 Agreement

(1941) An agreement between Britain and the United States developed at a conference in Washington D.C., between January 29-March 27, 1941, that should the United States enter World War II, the two nations and their allies would coordinate their military planning, making a priority of protecting the British Commonwealth. That would mean "getting Germany first" in the Atlantic and the European Theater and fighting more defensively on other military fronts

Land-Lease Bill

(1941) Based on the motto, "Send guns, not sons," this law abandoned former pretenses of neutrality by allowing Americans to sell unlimited supplies of arms to any nation defending itself against the Axis Powers. Patriotically numbered 1776 the bill was praised as a device for keeping the nation out of World War II.

Atlantic Charter

(1941) Meeting on a warship off coast of Newfoundland in August 1941, Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed this covenant outlining the future path toward disarmament, peace, and a permanent system of general security. Its spirit would animate the founding of the United Nations and raise awareness of the human rights of individuals after World War II.

Fair Employment Practices Commission

(1941) The FEPC. Threatened with a massive "Negro March on Washington" to demand equal job opportunities in war jobs and in the military, Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration issued an executive order forbidding racial discrimination in all defense plants operating under contract with the federal government. The FEPC was intended to monitor compliance with the Executive Order.

Office of Price Administration

(1941-1947) The OPA. A critically important wartime agency charged with regulating the consumer economy through rationing scarce supplies, such as automobiles, tires, fuel, nylon, and sugar, and by curbing inflation by setting ceilings on the price of goods. Rents were controlled as well in parts of the country overwhelmed by war workers. The OPA was extended after World War II ended to continue the fight against inflation, but was abolished in 1947.

Battle of Midway

(1942) A pivotal naval battle fought near the island of Midway on June 3-6, 1942. The victory halted Japanese advances in the Pacific.

Congress of Racial Equality

(1942) CORE. Nonviolent civil rights organization founded in 1942 and committed to the "Double V"-victory over fascism abroad and racism at home. After World War II, CORE would become a major force in the civil rights movement.

Manhattan Project

(1942) Code name for the American commission established in 1942 to develop the atomic bomb the first experimental bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the desert of New Mexico. Atomic bombs were then dropped on two cities in Japan in hopes of bringing the war to an end: Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Executive Order No. 9066

(1942) Order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorizing the War Department to remove Japanese "enemy aliens" to isolated internment camps. Immigrants and citizens alike were sent away from their homes, neighbors, schools, and businesses. The Japanese internment policy was held to be constitutional by the United States Supreme Court in Korematsu v. U.S.

Bracero Program

(1942) Program established by agreement with the Mexican government to recruit temporary Mexican agricultural workers to the United States to make up for wartime labor shortages in the Far West. The program persisted until 1946, by when it had sponsored 4.5 million border crossings.

Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act

(1943) Passed amidst worries about the effects that labor strikes would have on war production this law allowed the federal government to seize and operate plants threatened by labor disputes. It also criminalized strike action against government-run companies.

War Refugee Board

(1944) A United States agency formed to help rescue Jews from German-occupied territories and to provide relief to inmates of Nazi concentration camps. The agency performed noble work, but it did not begin operations until very late in the war, after millions had already been murdered.

D-Day

(1944) A massive military operation led by American forces in Normandy beginning on June 6, 1944. The pivotal battle led to the liberation of France and brought on the final phases of World War II in Europe.

GI Bill

(1944) Known officially as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act and more informally as the GI Bill of Rights, this law helped returning World War II soldiers reintegrate into civilian life by securing loans to buy homes and farms and set up small businesses and by making tuition and stipends available for them to attend college and job training programs. The Act was also intended to cushion the blow of 15 million returning servicemen on the employment market and to nurture the postwar economy.

Bretton Woods Conference

(1944) Meeting of Western allies to establish a postwar international economic order to avoid crisis like the one that spawned World War II. Led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, designed to regulate currency levels and provide aid to underdeveloped countries.

Potsdam Conference

(1945) From July 17 to August 2, 1945, President Harry S Truman met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British leaders Winston Churchill and later Clemet Attlee near Berlin to deliver an ultimatum to Japan: surrender or be destroyed.

Yalta Conference

(1945) Meeting of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, in February 1945 at an old Tsarist resort on the Black Sea, where the Big Three leaders laid the foundations for the postwar division of power in Europe, including a divided Germany and territorial concessions to the Soviet Union.

Nuremberg War Crimes Trial

(1946) Highly publicized proceedings against former Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of the Allies denazification program in postwar Germany. The trials led to several executions and long prison sentences.

Baby Boom

(1946-1964) Demographic explosion from births to returning soldiers and other who had put off starting families during the war. This large generation of new Americans forced the expansion of many institutions such as schools and universities.

Cold War

(1946-1991) The 45 year diplomatic tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that divided much of the world into polarized camps, capitalist against communist. Most of the international conflicts during this time period, particularly in the developing world, can be traced to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Truman Doctrine

(1947) President Truman's universal pledge of support for any people fighting any communist or communist-inspired threat. Truman presented the doctrine to Congress in 1947 in support of his request for $400 million to defend Greece and Turkey against Soviet backed insurgencies

Taft-Hartley Act

(1947) Republican-promoted, anti-union legislation passed over President Truman's vigorous veto that weakened many of labor's New Deal gains by banning the closed shop and other strategies that helped unions organize. It also required union leaders to take a noncommunist oath, which purged the union movement of many of its most committed and active organizers.

Operation Dixie

(1948) Failed effort by the CIO after World War II to unionize southern workers, especially in textile factories.

Marshall Plan

(1948) Massive transfer of aid money to help rebuild postwar Western Europe, intended to bolster capitalist and democratic governments and prevent domestic communist groups from riding poverty and misery to power. The plan was first announced by Secretary of State George Marshall at Harvard's commencement in June 1947.

Berlin Airlift

(1948) Year-long mission of flying food and supplies to blockaded West Berliners, whom the Soviet Union cut off from access to the West in the first major crisis of the Cold War.

National Security Council Memorandum Number 68

(1950) NSC-68. National Security Council recommendation to quadruple defense spending and rapidly expand peace-time armed forces to address Cold War tensions. It reflected a new militarization of American foreign policy but the huge costs of rearmament were expected to interfere with what seemed like the limitless possibilities of postwar prosperity.

Korean War

(1950-1953) First "hot war" of the Cold War. The Korean War began in 1950 when the Soviet-backed North Koreans invaded South Korea before meeting a counter-offensive by the UN Forces, dominated by the United States. The war ended in stalemate in 1953.

Checkers Speech

(1952) Nationally televised address by vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon. Using the new mass medium of television shortly before the 1952 election, the vice presidential candidate saved his place on the ticket by defending himself against accusations of corruption.

Operation Wetback

(1954) A government program to roundup and deport as many as one million illegal Mexican migrant workers in the United States. The program was promoted in part by the Mexican government and reflected burgeoning concerns about non-European immigration to America.

Army-McCarthy Hearings

(1954) Congressional hearings called by Senator Joseph McCarthy to accuse members of the army of communist ties. In this widely televised spectacle, McCarthy finally went too far for public approval. The hearings exposed the Senator's extremism and led to his eventual disgrace.

Policy of Boldness

(1954) Foreign policy objective of Dwight Eisenhower's secretary of state John Foster Dullies, who believed in changing the containment strategy to one that more directly engaged the Soviet Union and attempted to roll back communist influence around the world. This policy led to a build-up of America's nuclear arsenal to threaten "massive retaliation" against communist enemies, launching the Cold War's arms race.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

(1954) Landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and abolished racial segregation in public schools. The Court reasoned that "separate was inherently "unequal," rejecting the foundation of the Jim Crow system of racial segregation in the South. This decision was the first major step toward the legal end of racial discrimination and a major accomplishment for the Civil Rights Movement.

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

(1954)Military engagement in French colonial Vietnam in which French forces were defeated by Viet Minh nationalist loyal to Ho Chi Minh. With this loss, the French ended their colonial involvement in Indochina, paving the way for America's entry.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

(1955) Protest, sparked by Rosa Parks' defiant refusal to move to the back of the bus, by black Alabamians against segregated seating on city buses. The bus boycott lasted from December 1, 1955 to December 26, 1956, and became on of the foundational moments of the Civil Rights Movements. It led to the rise of Martin Luther King Jr. and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision opposing segregating busing.

Suez Crisis

(1956) International crisis launched when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned mostly by French and British stockholders. The crisis led to a British and French attack on Egypt, which failed without aid from the United States. The Suez Crisis marked an important turning point in the post-colonial Middle East and highlighted the rising importance of oil in world affairs.

Hungarian Uprising

(1956) Series of demonstrations in Hungary against the Soviet Union. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev violently suppressed this pro-Western uprising, highlighting the limitations of America's power in Eastern Europe.

Sputnik

(1957) Soviet satellite first launched into Earth orbit on October 4, 1957. This scientific achievement marked the first time human beings had put a man-made object into orbit and pushed the USSR noticeable ahead of the United States in the Space Race. A month later, the Soviet Union sent a larger satellite, Sputnik II, into space, prompting the United States to redouble its space exploration efforts and raising American fears of Soviet superiority.

Kitchen Debate

(1959) Televised exchange in 1959 between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and American Vice President Richard Nixon. Meeting at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, the two leaders sparred over the relative merits of capitalist consumer culture versus Soviet state planning. Nixon won applause for his staunch defense of American capitalism, helping lead him to the Republican nomination for president in 1960.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

(1961) CIA plot in 1961 to overthrow Fidel Castro by training Cuban exiles to invade and supporting them with American air power. The mission failed and became a public relations disaster early in John F. Kennedy's presidency.

Freedom Riders

(1961) Organized mixed-race groups who road interstate buses deep into the South to draw attention to and protest racial segregation, beginning in 1961. This effort by northern young people to challenge racism proved a political and public relations success for the Civil Rights Movement.

New Frontier

(1961-1963) President Kennedy's nickname for his domestic policy agenda. Buoyed by youthful optimism, the program included proposals for the Peace Corps and efforts to improve education and health care.

Apollo

(1961-1975) Program of manned space flights run by America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The project's highest achievement was the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Cuban Missile Crisis

(1962) Standoff between John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962 over Soviet plans to install nuclear weapons in Cuba. Although the crisis was ultimately settled in America's favor and represented a foreign policy triumph for Kennedy, it brought the world's superpowers perilously close to the brink of nuclear confrontation.

Voter Education Project

(1962-1968) Effort by the SNCC and other civil rights groups to register the South's historically disenfranchised black population. The project typified a common strategy of the civil rights movement, which sought to counter racial discrimination by empowering people at grassroots levels to exercise their civic rights through voting.

The Feminine Mystique

(1963) Best-selling book by feminist thinker Betty Friedan. This work challenged women to move beyond the drudgery of suburban housewifery and helped launch what would become second-wave feminism.

March on Washington

(1963) Massive civil rights demonstration in August 1963 in support of Kennedy-backed legislation to secure legal protections for American blacks. One of the most visually impressive manifestations of the Civil Rights Movement, the march was the occasion of Marin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Freedom Summer

(1964) A voter registration drive in Mississippi spearheaded by a collaboration of civil rights groups. The campaign drew the activism of thousands of black and white civil rights workers, many of whom were students from the north, and was marred by the abduction and murder of three such workers at the hands of white racists.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

(1964) Political party organized by civil rights activists to challenge Mississippi's delegation to the Democratic National Convention, who opposed the civil rights planks in the party's platform. Claiming a mandate to represent the true voice of Mississippi, where almost no black citizens could vote, the MFDP demanded to be seated at the convention but were denied by party bosses. The effort was both a setback to civil rights activism in the south and a motivation to continue to struggle for black voting rights.

Great Society

(1964-1968) President Lyndon Johnson's term for his domestic policy agenda. Billed as a successor to the New Deal, the Great Society aimed to extend the postwar prosperity to all people in American society by promoting civil rights and fighting poverty. Great Society programs included the War on Poverty, which expanded the Social Security system by creating Medicare and Medicaid to provide health care for the ages and the poor. Johnson also signed laws protecting consumers and empowering community organizations to combat poverty at grassroot levels.

Six-Day War

(1967) Military conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. The war ended with an Israeli victory and territorial expansion into the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The 1967 war was a humiliation for several Arab states, and the territorial disputes it created formed the basis for the continued conflict in the region.

My Lai Massacre

(1968) Military assault on a small Vietnamese village on March 16, 1968, in which American soldiers under the command of 2nd lieutenant William Calley murdered hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children. The atrocity produced outrage and reduced support for the war in America and around the world when details of the massacre and an attempted cover-up were revealed in 1971.

Philadelphia Plan

(1969) Program established by Richard Nixon to require construction trade unions to work toward hiring more black apprentices. The plan altered Lyndon Johnson's concept of "affirmative action" to focus on groups rather than individuals.

Stonewall Rebellion

(1969) Uprising in support of equal rights for gay people sparked by an assault by off-duty police officers at a gay bar in New York. The rebellion led to rise in activism and militancy within the gay community and furthered the sexual revolution of the late 1960s.

Earth Day

(1970) International day of celebration and awareness of global environmental issues launched by conservationalists on April 22, 1970.

Kent State University Shooting

(1970) Massacre of four college students by National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970, in Ohio. In response to Nixon's announcement that he had expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia, college campuses across the country exploded in violence. On May 14th and 15th, students at historically black Jackson State College in Mississippi were protesting the war as well as the Kent State shooting when highway patrolmen fired into a student dormitory, killing two students.

Force Acts

(1970-1971) Passed by Congress following a wave of Ku Klux Klan violence, the acts banned clan membership, prohibited the use of intimidation to prevent blacks from voting, and gave the U.S. military the authority to enforce the acts.

Southern Strategy

(1972) Nixon reelection campaign strategy designed to appeal to conservative whites in the historically Democratic south. The President stressed law and order issues and remained noncommittal on Civil rights. This strategy typified the regional split between the two parties as white Southerners became increasingly attracted to the Republican party in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement.

Roe v. Wade

(1973) Landmark Supreme Court decision that forbade state from barring abortion by citing a woman's constitutional right to privacy. Seen as a victory for feminism and civil liberties by some, the decision provoked a strong counter-reaction by opponents to abortion, galvanizing the Pro-life movement.

War Powers Act

(1973) Law passed by Congress in 1973 limiting the President's ability to wage war without Congressional approval. The act required the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing troops to a foreign conflict. An important consequence of the Vietnam War, this piece of legislation sought to reduce the President's unilateral authority in military matters.

Proposition 13

(1978) A successful California state ballot initiative that capped the state's real estate tax at 1 percent of assessed value. The proposition radically reduced average property tax levels, decreasing the revenue for the state government and signaling the political power of the "tax revolt," increasingly aligned with conservative politics.

Malaise Speech

(1979) National address by Jimmy Carter in July 1979 in which the President chided materialist and urged a communal spirit in the face of economic hardships. Although Carter intended the preach to improve both public moral and his standings as a leader, it had the opposite effect and was widely perceived as a political disaster for the embattled president.

Iran-Contra Affair

(1987) Major political scandal of Ronald Reagan's second term. An illicit arrangement of selling "arms for hostages" with Iran and using money to support the contras in Nicaragua, the scandal deeply damaged Reagan's credibility.

Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

(1987) the INF Treaty. Arms limitation agreement settled by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev after several attempts. The treaty banned all intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe and marked a significant thaw in the Cold War.

American with Disabilities Act

(1990) Landmark law signed by President George H.W. Bush that prohibited discrimination against people with physical or mental handicaps. It represented a legislative triumph for champions of equal protections to all.

Operation Desert Storm

(1991) U.S.-led multi-country military engagement in January and February of 1991 that drove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army out of neighboring Kuwait. In addition to presaging the longer and more protracted Iraq war of the 2000s, the 1991 war helped undo what some called the "Vietnam Syndrome," a feeling of military uncertainty that plagued many Americans.

North American Free Trade Agreement

(1993) Free trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada, and the United States. A symbol of the increased reality of globalized market place, the treaty passed despite opposition from protections and labor leaders.

Contract With America

(1994) Multi-point program offered by Republican candidates and sitting politicians in the 1994 mid-term election. The platform proposed smaller government, Congressional ethics reform, term limits, great emphasis on personal responsibility, and a general repudiation of the Democratic party. This articulation of dissent was a significant blow to the Clinton Administration and led to the Republican party's takeover of both houses of Congress for the first time in half a century.

World Trade Organization

(1995) The WTO. An international body to promote and supervise liberal trade among nations. The successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, it marked a key world trade policy achievement of the Clinton administration.

Oklahoma City Bombing

(1995) Truck-bomb explosion that killed 168 people in a federal office building on April 19, 1995. The attack was perpetrated by right-wing and anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh, later executed by the U.S. government for the crime.

Welfare Reform Bill

(1996) Legislation that made deep cuts in welfare grants and required able-bodied welfare recipients to find employment. Part of Bill Clinton's campaign platform in 1992, the reforms were widely seen by liberals as an abandonment of key New Deal/Great Society provisions to care for the impoverished.

Lewinsky Affair

(1998-1999) Political sex scandal that resulted in Bill Clintons impeachment trial by Congress. In 1998, Clinton gave sworn testimony in a sexual harassment case that he had never engaged in sexual activity with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. When prosecutors discovered evidence that the President had lied under oath about the affair, to which Clinton admitted, Republicans in Congress began impeachment proceedings. Although Clinton was ultimately not convicted by the Senate, the scandal put a lasting blemish on his presidential legacy.

No Child Left Behind Act

(2001) An education bill created and signed by George W. Bush administration. Designed to increase accountability standards for primary and secondary schools, the law authorized several federal programs to monitor those standards and increased choices for parents in selecting schools for their children. The program was highly controversial, in large part because it linked results on standardized tests to federal funding for schools and school districts.

McCain-Feingold Act

(2001) Bipartisan campaign finance control legislation that sought to limit the amounts and types of money spent by and for candidates for elected office. In particular, the act placed limits on "soft money," or funds raised by groups that are unaffiliated with a candidate but advertise, indirectly, on that candidate's behalf, or against the opponent. McCain-Feingold represented an effort to improve the public's impression of Washington politics by increasing transparency, but was widely criticized by some as an unconstitutional limit on free speech and expression.

9/11

(2001) Common shorthand for the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, in which 19 militant Islamist men hijacked and crashed four commercial aircrafts. Two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, causing them to collapse. One plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the fourth, overtaken by passengers, crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania. Nearly 3000 people were killed in the worst case of domestic terrorism in American history.

USA Patriot Act

(2001) Legislation passed shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that granted broad surveillance and detention authority to the government.

Hurricane Katrina

(2005) The costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States, killing nearly 2000 American. The storm ravaged the Gulf Coast, particularly the city of New Orleans in late August of 2005. In New Orleans, high winds and rain caused the city's levees to break leading to catastrophic flooding, particularly centered on the city's most impoverished wards. A tardy and feeble response by local and federal authorities exacerbated the damage and led to widespread criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Battle of Shiloh

(Apr. 1862) Bloody Civil War battle on the Tennessee-Mississippi border that resulted in the deaths of more than 23,000 soldiers and ended in a marginal Union victory.

Second Battle of Bull Run

(Aug. 1862) Civil War battle that ended in a decisive victory for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who was emboldened to push farther into the North.

Battle of Trenton

(Dec. 1776) George Washington surprised and captured a garrison of sleeping German Hessians, raising the morale of his crestfallen army and setting the stage for his victory at Princeton a week later.

Battle of Saratoga

(Oct. 1777) Decisive colonial victory in upstate New York, which helped secure French support for the Revolutionary cause.

Battle of Yorktown

(Oct. 1781) George Washington, with the aid of the French Army, besieged Cornwallis at Yorktown, while the French naval fleet prevented British reinforcements from coming ashore. Cornwallis surrendered, dealing a heavy blow to the British war effort and paving the way for an eventual peace.

Iroquois Confederacy

(late 1500s) Bound together five tribes-the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas-in the Mohawk Valley of what is now New York State.

Ancient Order of Hibernians

(mid-nineteenth century) Irish semi-secret society that served as a benevolent organization for downtrodden Irish immigrants in the United States.

Conquistadores

16th century Spaniards who fanned out across the Americas, from Colorado to Argentina, eventually conquering the Aztec and Incan empires.

Market Revolution

18th and 19th century transformation from a disaggregated, subsistence economy to a national commercial and industrial network.

Radical Whigs

18th century British political commentators who agitated against political corruption and emphasized the threat to liberty posed by arbitrary power. Their writing shaped American political thought and made colonists especially alert to encroachments on their rights.

Deism

18th century religious doctrine that emphasized reasoned moral behavior and the scientific pursuit of knowledge. Most deists rejected biblical inerrancy and the divinity of Christ, but they did believe that a Supreme being created the universe.

Pullman Strike

A 1894 strike by railroad workers upset by drastic wage cuts. The strike was led by socialist Eugene Debs but not supported by the American Federation of Labor. Eventually President Grover Cleveland intervened and federal troops forced an end to the strike. The strike highlighted both divisions within labor and the government's new willingness to use armed force to combat work stoppages.

Fundamentalism

A Protestant Christian movement emphasizing the literal truth of the 'Bible and opposing religious modernism, which sought to reconcile religion and science. It was especially strong in the Baptist Church and the Church of Christ, first organized in 1906.

Schenck v. United States

A Supreme Court decision that upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts, reasoning that freedom of speech could be curtailed when it posed a "clear and present danger" to the nation.

McCarthyism

A brand of vitriolic, fear-mongering anti-communism associated with the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the early 1950s, Senator McCarthy used his position in Congress to baselessly accuse high-ranking government officials and other Americans of conspiracy with communism. The term named after him refers to the dangers forces of unfairness and fear wrought by anticommunist paranoia.

American Plan

A business-oriented approach to worker relations popular among films in the 1920s to defeat unionization. Managers sought to strengthen their communication with workers and to offer benefits like pensions and insurance. They insisted on an "open shop" in contrast to the mandatory union membership through the "closed shop" that many labor activists had demanded in the strike after World War I.

Holding Companies

A company that owns part or all of the other companies' stock in order to extend monopoly control. Often, a holding company does not produce goods or services of its own but only exists to control other companies. The Clayton-Anti Trust Act of 1914 sought to clamp down on these companies when they obstructed competition.

Good Neighbor Policy

A departure from the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the Good Neighbor Policy stressed nonintervention in Latin America. It was begun by Herbert Hoover but associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Abu Ghraib Prison

A detention facility near Baghdad, Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, the prison was the site of infamous torturing and execution of political dissidents. In 2004, during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the prison become the focal point of a prisoner-abuse and torture scandal after photographs surfaced of American soldiers mistreating, torturing, and degrading Iraqi war prisoners and suspected terrorists. The scandal was one of several dark spots on the public image of the Iraq War and led to increased criticism of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield.

Pragmatism

A distinctive American philosophy that emerged in the late 19th century around the theory that the true value of an idea lay in its ability to solve problems. The pragmatists thus embraced the provisional, uncertain nature of experimental knowledge. Among the most-well known purveyors of pragmatism were John Dewey, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and William James.

Peace Corps

A federal agency created by President Kennedy in 1961 to promote voluntary service by Americans in foreign countries. The Peace Corps provides labor power to help developing countries to improve their infrastructure, health care, educational systems and other aspects of their societies. Part of Kennedy's New Frontier vision, the organization represented an effort by postwar liberals to promote American values and influence through productive exchanges across the world.

Trust

A mechanism by which one company grants control over its operations, through ownership of its stock, to another company. The Standard Oil Company became known for this practice in the 1870s as it eliminated its competition by taking control of smaller oil companies.

Hudson River School

A mid 19th century American artistic movement that produced romantic renditions of local landscapes

Transcendentalism

A mid 19th century literary and intellectual movement that emphasized individualism and self-reliance, predicated upon a belief that each person possesses an "inner-light" that can point the way to truth and direct contact with God.

Tuskegee Institute

A normal and industrial school led by Booker T. Washington in Tuskegee, Alabama. It focused on training young black students in agriculture and the trades to help them achieve economic independence. Washington justified segregated, vocational training as a necessary first step on the road to racial equality, although critics accused him of being to "accomodationist."

Recall

A progressive ballot procedure allowing voters to remove elected officials from office.

Initiative

A progressive reform measure allowing voters to petition to have a law placed on the general ballot. Like the referendum and recall, it brought democracy directly "to the people," and helped foster a shift toward interest-group politics and away from old political "machines."

Referendum

A progressive reform procedure allowing voters to place a bill or on the ballot for final approval, even after being passed by the legislature.

Social Gospel

A reform movement led by Protestant ministers who used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the urban poor. Popular at the turn of the 20th century, it was closely linked to the settlement house movement, which brought middle-class, Anglo-American service volunteers into contact with immigrants and working people.

Grandfather Clause

A regulation established in many southern states in the 1890s that exempted from voting requirements (such as literacy tests and poll taxes) anyone who could prove that their ancestors ("grandfathers") had been able to vote in 1860. Since slaves could not vote before the Civil War, these clauses guaranteed the right to vote to many whites while denying it to blacks.

Yellow Journalism

A scandal-mongering practice of journalism that emerged in New York during the Gilded Age out of the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. The expression has remained a pejorative term referring to sensationalist journalism practiced with unethical, unprofessional standards.

Whitewater

A series of scandals during the Clinton Administration that stemmed from a failed real estate investment from which the Clintons were alleged to have illicitly profited. The accusations prompted the appointment of a special federal prosecutor, though no indictments.

Miranda Warning

A statement of an arrested person's constitutional rights, which police officers must read during an arrest. The warning came out of the Supreme Court's decision in Miranda v. Arizona in 1966 that accused people have the right to remain silent, consult an attorney, and enjoy other protections. The Court declared that law enforcement officers must make sure suspects understand their constitutional rights, thus creating a safeguard against forced confessions and self-implication.

Tweed Ring

A symbol of Gilded Age corruption, "Boss" Tweed and his deputies ran the New York City Democratic party in the 1860s and swindled $200 million from the city through bribery, graft, and vote-buying. Boss Tweed was eventually jailed for his crimes and died behind bars.

Fordism

A system of assembly-line manufacturing and mass production named after Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company and developer of the Model T.

Scientific Management

A system of industrial management created and promoted in the early 20th century by Frederick W. Taylor, emphasizing stopwatch efficiency to improve factory performance. The system gained immense popularity across the United States and Europe.

Australian ballot

A system that allows voters privacy in marking their ballot choices. Developed in Australia in the 1850s, it was introduced to the United States during the progressive era to help counteract boss rule.

Closed Shop

A union-organizing term that refers to the practice of allowing only unionized employees to work for a particle company. The AF of L became known for negotiating close-shop agreements with employers, in which the employer would agree not to hire non-union members.

Panic of 1873

A world wide depression that began in the United States when one of the nation's largest banks abruptly declared bankruptcy, leading to the collapse of thousands of banks and businesses. The crisis intensified debtors' calls for inflationary measures such as the printing of more paper money and the unlimited coinage of silver. Conflicts over monetary policy greatly influenced politics in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Impressment

Act of forcible drafting an individual into military service, employed by the British navy against American seamen in times of war against France, 1793-1815. Impressment was a continual source of conflict between Britain and the United States in the early national period.

Compromise of 1850

Admitted California as a free state, opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty, ended the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in Washington D.C., and introduced a more stringent fugitive slave law. Widely opposed in both the North and the South, it did little to settle the escalating dispute over slavery.

Great Rapprochement

After decades of occasionally "twisting the lion's tail," American diplomats began to cultivate close, cordial relations with Great Britain at the end of the 19th century-a relationship that would intensify further during World War I.

Mining Industry

After gold and silver strikes in Colorado, Nevada, and other Western territories in the second half of the 19th century, fortune seekers by the thousands rushed to the West to dig. These metals were essential to U.S. industrial growth and were also sold into world markets. After surface metals were removed people sought ways to extract ore from underground, leading to the development of heavy mining machinery. This, in turn, led to the consolidation of the mining industry, because only big companies could afford to buy and build the necessary machines.

Convention of 1800

Agreement to formally dissolve the United States' treaty with France, originally signed during the Revolutionary War. The difficulties posed by America's peacetime alliance with France contributed to Americas' longstanding opposition to entangling alliances with foreign powers.

Three-sister Farming

Agricultural system employed by North American Indians as early as 1000 A.D.; maize, beans, and squash were grown together to maximize yields.

Macon's Bill No. 2

Aimed at resuming peaceful trade with Britain and France, the act stipulated that if either Britain or France repealed its trade restrictions, the United States would reinstate the embargo against the nonrepealing nation. When Napoleon offered to lift his restrictions on British ports, the United States was forced to declare an embargo on Britain, thereby pushing the two nations closer toward war.

Corrupt Bargain

Alleged deal between presidential candidates John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay to throw the election, to be decided by the House of Representatives, in Adams' favor. Though never proven, the accusation became the rallying cry for supporters of Andrew Jackson, who had actually garnered a plurality of the popular vote in 1824.

Blue Laws

Also known as sumptuary laws, they are designed to restrict personal behavior in accord with a strict code of morality. Blue laws were passed across the colonies, particularly in Puritan New England and Quaker Pennsylvania.

Immigration Act of 1924

Also known as the "National Origins Act," this law established quotas for immigration to the United States. Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were sharply curtailed, while immigrants from Asia were shut out altogether.

Containment Doctrine

America's strategy against the Soviet Union based on ideas of George Kennan. The doctrine declared that the Soviet Union and communism were inherently expansionist and had to be stopped from spreading through both military and political pressure. Containment guided American foreign policy throughout most of the Cold War.

Loyalists

American colonists who opposed the Revolution and maintained their loyalty to the King; sometimes referred to as "Tories."

Sharecropping

An agricultural system that emerged after the Civil War in which black and white farmers rented land and residences from a plantation owner in exchange for giving him a certain "share" of each year's crop. Sharecropping was the dominant form of southern agriculture after the Civil War, and landowners manipulated this system to keep tenants in perpetual debt and unable to leave their plantations.

Keynesianism

An economic theory based on the thoughts of British economist John Maynard Keynes, holding that central banks should adjust interest rates and governments should use deficit spending and tax policies to increase purchasing power and hence prosperity.

Ku Klux Klan

An extremist, paramilitary, right-wing secret society founded in the mid 19th century and revived during the 1920s. It was anti-foreign, anti-black, anti-Jewish, anti-pacifist, anti-Communist, anti-internationalist, anti-evolutionist, and anti-bootlegger, but pro-Anglo-Saxon and pro-Protestant. Its members, cloaked in sheets to conceal their identities, terrorized freedmen and sympathetic whites throughout the South after the Civil War. By the 1890s, Klan-style violence and Democratic legislation succeeded in virtually disenfranchising all Southern Blacks.

New England Emigrant Aid Campaign

An organization founded in 1854 to facilitate the migration of free laborers to Kansas in order to prevent the establishment of slavery in the territory.

Contras

Anti-Sandinista fighters in the Nicaraguan civil war. The Contras were secretly supplied with American military aid, paid for with money the United States clandestinely made selling arms to Iran.

Al Qaeda

Arabic for "The Base," an international alliance of anti-Western Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations founded in the late 1980s. Founded by veterans of the Afghan struggle against the Soviet Union, the group was headed by Osama Bin Laden and has taken responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks, especially after the late 1990s. Organized the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States, from its headquarters in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Since the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the launch of the "Global War on Terror," the group has been weakened, but still posed a significant threat around the world.

Arminianism

Belief that salvation is offered to all but is conditional on acceptance of God's grace. Different from Calvinism, which emphasized predestination and unconditional election.

Antinomianism

Belief that the elect need not obey the law of either God or man; most notably espoused in the colonies by Anne Hutchinson.

Unitarians

Believe in a unitary deity, reject the divinity of Christ, and emphasize the inherent goodness of mankind. Unitarianism, inspired in part by Deism, first caught on in New England at the end of the 18th century.

Social Darwinists

Believers in the idea, popular in the late 19th century, that people gained wealth by "survival of the fittest." Therefore, the wealthy had simply won a natural competition and owed nothing to the poor, and indeed service to the poor would interfere with this organic process. Some social Darwinists also applied this theory to whole nations and races, explaining that powerful peoples were naturally endowed with gifts that allowed them to gain superiority over others. This theory provided one of the popular justifications for U.S. imperial venture like the Spanish-American War.

Civil Law

Body of written law enacted through legislative statutes or constitutional provisions. In countries where civil law prevails, judges must apply the statutes precisely as written.

Muckrakers

Bright young reporters at the turn of the 20th century who won this unfavorable moniker from Theodore Roosevelt, but boosted the circulations of their magazines by writing exposes of widespread corruption in American society. Their subjects included business manipulation of government, white slavers, child labor, and the illegal deeds of the trusts, and helped spur the passage of reform legislation.

West African Squadron

British Royal Navy forces formed in 1808 to enforce the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. It intercepted hundreds of slave ships and freed thousands of Africans.

Lusitania

British passenger liner torpedoed and sank by Germany on May 7, 1915. It ended the lives of 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and pushed the United States closer to war.

Department of Homeland Security

Cabinet-level agency created in 2003 to unify and coordinate public safety and anti-terrorism operations within the federal government.

Responsorial

Call and response style of preaching that melded Christian and African traditions. Practiced by African slaves in the South.

Shakers

Called "shakers" for their lively dance worship, they emphasized simple, communal living and were all expected to practice celibacy. First transplanted to America from England by Mother Ann Lee, the Shakers counted six thousand members by 1840, though by the 1940s the movement had largely died out.

Predestination

Calvinist doctrine that God has foreordained some people to be saved an some to be damned. Though their fate was irreversible, Calvinists, particularly those who believed they were destined for salvation, sought to lead sanctified lives in order to demonstrate to others that they were in fact members of the "elect."

Land-Grant Colleges

Colleges and universities created from allocations of public land through the Morrell Act of 1862 and the Hatch Act of 1887. These grants helped fuel the boom in higher education in the late 19th century, and many of the today's public universities derive from these grants.

Royal Colonies

Colonies where governors were appointed directly by the King. Though often competent administrators, the governors frequently ran into trouble with colonial legislatures, which resented the imposition of control from across the Atlantic.

Proprietary Colonies

Colonies-Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware- under the control of local proprietors, who appointed colonial governors.

Patriots

Colonists who supported the American Revolution; they were also known as "Whigs."

Erie Canal

Completed in 1825. A New York state canal that linked Lake Erie to the Hudson River. It dramatically lowered shipping costs, fueling an economic boom in upstate New York and increasing the profitability of farming in the Old Northwest.

Guantanamo Detention Camp

Controversial prison facility constructed after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Located on territory occupied by the U.S. military, but not technically part of the United States, the facility serves as an extra-legal holding area for suspected terrorists.

Dominion of Canada

Created in 1867. Unified Canadian government created by Britain to bolster Canadians against potential attacks or overtures from the United States.

Insurrectos

Cuban insurgents who sought freedom from colonial rule. Their destructive tactics threatened American economic interests in Cuban plantations and railroads.

Proclamation of 1763

Decree issued by Parliament in the wake of Pontiac's uprising, prohibiting settlement beyond the Appalachians. Contributed to rising resentment of British rule in the American colonies.

Yamasee Indians

Defeated by South Carolinans in the war of 1715-1716. The Yamasee defeat devastated the last of the coastal Indian tribes in the Southern colonies.

Scalawags

Derogatory term for pro-Union Southerners whom Southern Democrats accused of plundering the resources of the South in collusion with Republican governments after the Civil War.

Black Power

Doctrine of militancy and separatism that rose in prominence after 1965. Black power activists rejected Martin Luther King's pacifism and desire for integration. Rather, they promoted pride in African heritage and an often militant position in defense of their rights.

Calvinism

Dominant theological credo of the New England Puritans based on the teachings of John Calvin. Calvinists believed in predestination-that only "the elect" were destined for salvation.

New Deal

Economic and political policies of Franklin Roosevelt's administration in the 1930s, which aimed to solve the problems of the Great Depression by providing relief for the unemployed and launching efforts to stimulate economic recovery. The New Deal build on reforms of the progressive era to expand greatly an American-style welfare state.

Panic of 1837

Economic crisis triggered by bank failures, elevated grain prices, and Andrew Jackson's efforts to curb overspeculation on western lands and transportation improvements. In response, President Martin Van Buren proposed the "Divorce Bill," which pulled treasury funds out of the banking system altogether, contracting the credit supply.

Capitalism

Economic system characterized by private property, generally free trade, and open and accessible markets. European colonization of the Americas, in particular, the discovery of rust bullion deposits, helped bring about Europe's transition to capitalism.

Mercantilism

Economic theory that closely linked a nation's political and military power to its bullion reserves. Mercantilists generally favored protectionism and colonial acquisition to increase exports.

Supply-Side Economics

Economic theory that underlay Ronald Reagan's tax and spending cuts. Contrary to Keynesianism, supply-side theory declared that government policy should aim to increase the supply of goods and services, rather than the demand for them. It held that lower taxes and decreased regulation would increase productivity by providing increased incentives to work, thus increasing productivity and the tax base.

Revolution of 1800

Electoral victory of Democratic Republicans over the Federalists, who lost their Congressional majority and the presidency. The peaceful transfer of power between rival parties solidified faith in America's political system.

Headright System

Employed in the tobacco colonies to encourage the importation of indentured servants, the system allowed an individual to acquire fifty acres of land if he paid for a laborer's passage to the colony.

Puritans

English Protestant reformers who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic rituals and creeds. Some of the most devout Puritans believed that only "visible saints" should be admitted to church membership.

Royal African Company

English join-stock company that enjoyed a state-granted monopoly on the colonial slave trade from 1672 until 1698. The supply of slaves to the North American colonies rose sharply once the company lost its monopoly privileges.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Established by non-separating Puritans in 1630, it soon grew to be the largest and most influential of the New England colonies.

Triangular Trade

Exchange of rum, slaves, and molasses between the North American Colonies, Africa, and the West Indies. A small but immensely profitable subset of the Atlantic trade.

Society of the Cincinnati

Exclusive, hereditary organization of former officers in the Continental Army founded in 1783. Many resented the pretentiousness of the order, viewing it as a vestige of pre-Revolutionary traditions.

Black Legend

False notion that Spanish conquerors did little but butcher the Indians and steal their gold in the name of Christ.

Harpers Ferry

Federal arsenal in Virginia seized by abolitionist John Brown in 1859. Though Brown was later captured and executed, his raid alarmed Southerners who believed that Northerners shared in Brown's extremism.

Patent Office

Federal government bureau that reviews patent applications. A patent is a legal recognition of a new invention, granting exclusive rights to the inventor for a period of years.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Federal law that banned racial discrimination in public facilities and strengthened the federal government's power to fight segregation in schools. Title VII of the act prohibited employers from discriminating based on race in their hiring practices, and empowered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to regulate fair employment.

Federal Highway Act of 1956

Federal legislation signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower to construct thousands of miles of modern highways in the name of national defense. Officially called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, this bill dramatically increased the move to the suburbs, as white middle-class people could more easily commute to urban jobs.

Panic of 1857

Financial crash brought on by the gold-fueled inflation, overspeculation, and excess grain production. Raised calls in the North for higher tariffs and for free homesteads on western public lands.

Anti-Masonic party

First founded in New York, it gained considerable influence in New England and the mid Atlantic during the 1832 election, campaigning against the politically influential Masonic order, a secret society. Anti-Masons opposed Andrew Jackson, a Mason, and drew much of their support from evangelical Protestants.

Canadian Shield

First part of the North American landmass to emerge above sea level

Tariff of 1816

First protective tariff in American history, created primarily to shield New England manufacturers from the inflow of British goods after the War of 1812.

Border States

Five slave states-Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia-that did not secede during the Civil War. To keep the states in the Union Abraham Lincoln insisted that the war was not about abolishing slavery but rather protecting the Union.

Civilization

Form of political society that traditionally combines centralized government with a high degree of ethnic and cultural unity. The Aztec and Inca empires in South America are early examples of civilizations in the New World.

Declaration of Independence

Formal pronouncement of independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson and approved by Congress. The declaration allowed Americans to appeal for foreign aid and served as an inspiration for later revolutionary movements worldwide.

The Alamo

Fortress in Texas where four hundred American volunteers were slain by Santa Anna in 1836. "Remember the Alamo" became a battle cry in support of Texan independence.

U.S. Sanitary Commission

Founded in 1861 with the help of Elizabeth Blackwell, the government agency trained nurses, collected medical supplies, and equipped hospitals in an effort to help the Union Army. The commission helped professionalize nursing and gave many women the confidence and organizational skills to propel the women's movement in the postwar years.

American Temperance Society

Founded in Boston in 1826 as part of a growing effort of nineteenth-century reformers to limit alcohol consumption.

Huguenots

French Protestant dissenters, they were granted limited toleration under the Edict of Nantes. After King Louis XIV outlawed Protestantism in 1685, many Huguenots fled elsewhere, including to British North America.

Acadians

French residents of Nova Scotia, many of whom were uprooted by the British in 1755 and scattered as far south as Louisiana, where their descendants became known as "Cajuns".

Detente

From the French meaning "reduced tensions," the period of the Cold War thawing when the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated reduced armament treaties under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter. As a policy prescription, détente marked a departure from the policies of proportional response, mutually assured destruction and containment that had defined the earlier years of the Cold War.

Squatters

Frontier farmers who illegally occupied land owned by others or not yet officially opened for settlement. Many of North Carolina's early settlers were squatters, who contributed to the colony's reputation as being more independent-minded and "democratic" than its neighbors.

Land Act of 1820

Fueled the settlement of the Northwest and Missouri territories by lowering the price of public land. Also prohibited the purchase of federal acreage on credit, thereby eliminating one of the causes of the Panic of 1819.

Kristallnacht

German for "night of broken glass," it refers to the murderous pogrom that destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues and sent thousands to concentration camps on the night of November 9, 1938. Thousands more attempted to find refuge in the United States, but were ultimately turned away due to restrictive immigration laws.

U-Boats

German submarines, named for the German Unterseeboot, or "undersea boat," proved deadly for Allied ships in the war zone. U-boats played an important role in drawing the United States into the war.

Hessians

German troops hired from their princes by George III to aid in putting down the colonial insurrection. This hardened the resolve of American colonists, who resented the use of paid foreign fighters.

Central Powers

Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by Turkey and Bulgaria, made up this alliance against the Allies in World War I.

Reform Bill of 1867

Granted suffrage to all male British citizens dramatically expanding the electorate. The success of the American democratic experiment, reinforced by the Union victory in the Civil War, was used as one of the arguments in favor of the Bill.

Allies

Great Britain, Russia, and France, later joined by Italy, Japan, and the United States, formed an alliance against the central powers in World War I

Dust Bowl

Grim nickname for the Great Plans region devastated by drought and dust storms during the 1930s. The disaster led to the migration into California of thousands of displaced "Okies" and "Arkies."

Hoovervilles

Grim shantytowns where impoverished victims of the Great Depression slept under newspapers and in makeshift tents. Their visibility (and sarcastic name) tarnished the reputation of the Hoover administration

House Un-American Activities Committee

HUAC Investigatory body established in 1938 to root out "subversion." Sought to expose communist influence in American government and society, in particular through the trial of Alger Hiss.

World's Columbian Exposition

Held in Chicago, Americans saw this World's Fair as their opportunity to claim a place among the world's most "civilized" societies, by which they meant the countries of western Europe. The Fair honored art, architecture, and science, and its promoters built a mini-city in which to host the fair that reflected all the ideals of city planning popular at that time. For many, this was the high point of the "City Beautiful" movement.

American System

Henry Clay's three-pronged system to promote American industry. Clay advocated a strong banking system, a protective tariff, and a federally funded transportation network.

Incas

Highly advanced South American civilization that occupied present-day Peru until they were conquered by Spanish forces under Francisco Pizarro in 1532. The Incas developed sophisticated agricultural techniques, such as terrace farming, in order to sustain large, complex societies in the unforgiving Andes Mountains.

Ecological Imperialism

Historians' term for the spoliation of Western natural resources through excessive hunting, logging, mining, and grazing.

Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Idealistic American volunteers who served in the Spanish Civil War, defending Spanish republican forces from the fascist General Francisco Franco's nationalist coup. Some 3,000 Americans served alongside volunteers from other countries.

New Immigrants

Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe who formed a recognizable wave of immigration from the 1880s until 1924, in contrast to the immigrants from western Europe who had come before them. These new immigrants congregated in ethnic urban neighborhoods, where they worried many native-born Americans, some of whom responded with nativist anti-immigrant campaigns and others of whom introduced urban reforms to help the immigrants assimilate.

Buffer

In politics, a territory between two antagonistic powers, intended to minimize the possibility of conflict between them. In British North America, Georgia was established as a buffer colony between British and Spanish territory.

Middlemen

In trading systems, those dealers who operate between the original producers of goods and the retail merchants who sell to consumers. After the 11th century. European exploration was driven in large part by a desire to acquire alluring Asian goods without paying heavy tolls to Muslim middlemen.

Underground Railroad

Informal network of volunteers that helped runaway slaves escape from the South and reach free-soil Canada. Seeking to halt the flow of runaway slaves to the North, Southern planters and congressmen pushed for a stronger fugitive slave law.

Reaganomics

Informal term for Ronald Reagan's economic policies, which focused on reducing taxes, social spending, and government regulation, while increasing outlays for defense.

Conversion

Intense religious experience that confirmed an individuals place among the "elect," or the "visible saints." Calvinists who experienced conversion were then expected to lead sanctifies lives to demonstrate their salvation.

Kyoto Treaty

International treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It was negotiated and opened for signatories in 1997, and took effect in 2005. Although signed by 169 out of 192 countries, the Bush Administration rejected the plan as too costly in 2001.

Plantation

Large-scale agricultural enterprise growing commercial crops and usually employing coerced or slave labor. European settlers established plantations in Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and the American South.

Common Law

Laws that originate from court rulings and customs, as opposed to legislative statures. The United States Constitution grew out of the Anglo-American common law tradition and thus only provided a general organizational framework for the new federal government

Irreconcilables

Led by Senators William Borah of Idaho and Hiram Johnson of California, this was a hard-core group of militant isolationists who opposed the Wilsonian dream of international cooperation in the League of Nations after World War I. Their efforts played an important part in preventing American participation in the international organization.

Sandinistas

Leftwing anti-American revolutionaries in Nicaragua who launched a civil war in 1979.

Loose Construction

Legal doctrine which holds that the federal government can use powers not specifically granted or prohibited in the Constitution to carry out its constitutionally mandated responsibilities.

Charter

Legal document granted by a government to some group or agency to implement a stated purpose, and spelling out the attending rights and obligations. British colonial charters guaranteed inhabitants all the rights of Englishmen, which helped solidify colonists' ties to Britain during the early years of settlement.

Limited Liability

Legal principle that facilitates capital investment by offering protection for individual investors, who, in cases of legal claims or bankruptcy cannot be help responsible for more than the value of their individual shares.

Primogeniture

Legal principle that the oldest son inherits all family property or land. Landowner's younger sons, forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere, pioneered early exploration and settlement of the Americas.

Employment Act of 1946

Legislation declaring that the government's economic policy should aim to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power, as well as to keep inflation low. A general commitment that was much shorter on specific targets and rules than its liberal creators had wished. The Act created the Council of Economic advisers to provide the president with data and recommendations to make economic policy.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Legislation pushed through Congress by President Johnson that prohibited ballot-denying tactics, such as literary tests and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act was a successor to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and sought to make racial disenfranchisement explicitly illegal.

Tariff of 1857

Lowered duties on imports in response to a high Treasury surplus and pressure from Southern farmers.

Glasnost

Meaning "openness," a cornerstone along with Perestroika of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's reform movement in the USSR in the 1980s. These policies resulted in greater market liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.

Perestroika

Meaning "restructuring," a cornerstone along with Glasnost of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's reform movement in the USSR in the 1980s. These policies resulted in greater liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.

Liberal Protestants

Members of a branch of Protestantism that flourished from 1875 to 1925 and encouraged followers to use the Bible as a moral compass rather than to believe that the Bible represented scientific or historic truth. Many Liberal Protestants became active in the "social gospel" and other reform movements of the era.

Indentured Servants

Migrants who, in exchange for transatlantic passage, bound themselves to a colonial employer for a term of service, typically between four and seven years. Their migration addressed the chronic labor shortage in the colonies and facilitated settlement.

Vietnamization

Military strategy launched by Richard Nixon in 1969. The plan reduced the number of American combat troops in Vietnam and left more of the fighting to South Vietnamese, who were supplied with American armor, tanks, and weaponry.

New lights

Ministers who took part in the revivalist, emotive religious tradition pioneered by George Whitefield during the Great Awakening.

Cahokia

Mississippian settlement near present-day East St. Louis, home to as many as 25,000 Native Americans

Settlement Houses

Mostly run by middle-class native-born women, settlement houses in immigrant neighborhoods provided housing, food, education, child care, cultural activities, and social connections for new arrivals to the United States. Many women, both native-born and immigrant, developed life long passions for social activism in the settlement houses. Jan Addams's Hull House in Chicago and Lillian Wald's Henry Street Settlement in New York City were two of the most prominent.

West Virginia

Mountainous region that broke away from Virginia in 1861 to form its own state after Virginia seceded from the Union and was admitted to the Union in 1863. Most of the residents of West Virginia were independent farmers and miners who did not own slaves and thus opposed the Confederate cause.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NATO. Military alliance of Western European powers and the United States and Canada established in 1949 to defend against the common threat from the Soviet Union, marking a giant stride forward for European unity and American internationalism.

National American Woman Suffrage Association

NAWSA. An organization founded in 1890 to demand the vote for women. NAWSA argued that women should be allowed to vote because of their responsibilities in the home and family made them indispensable in the public decision-making process. During World War I, NAWSA supported the war effort and lauded women's role in Allied victory, which helped to finally achieve nationwide woman suffrage in the 19th amendment in 1920.

Dollar Diplomacy

Name applied by President Taft's critics to the policy of supporting U.S. investments and political interests abroad. First applied to the financing of railways in China after 1909, the policy then spread to Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua. President Woodrow Wilson disavowed the practice, but his administration undertook comparable acts of intervention in support of U.S. business interests, especially in Latin America.

Aztecs

Native American empire that controlled present-day Mexico until 1521, when they were conquered by Spanish Hernan Cortes. The Aztecs maintained control over their vast empire through a system of trade and tribute, and came to be known for their advances in mathematics and writing, and their use of human sacrifices in religious ceremonies.

Navajo Code Talkers

Native American men who served in the military by transmitting radio messages in their native languages, which were undecipherable by German and Japanese spies.

Silent Majority

Nixon Administration's term to describe generally content, law-abiding middle-class Americans who supported both the Vietnam War and America's institutions. As a political tool, the concept attempted to make a subtle distinction between believers in "traditional" values and the vocal minority of civil rights agitators, student protesters, counter-culturalists, and other seeming disruptors of the social fabric.

Democratic Leadership Council

Non-profit organization of centrist Democrats founded in the mid 1890s. The group attempted to push the Democratic party toward pro-growth, strong defense, and anticrime policies. Among its most influential early members was Bill Clinton, whom it help up as an example of "third war" politics.

Copperheads

Northern Democrats who obstructed the war effort attacking Abraham Lincoln, the draft, and, after 1863, emancipation.

Popular Sovereignty

Notion that the sovereign people of a given territory should decide whether to allow slavery. Seemingly a compromise, it was largely opposed by Northern abolitionists who feared it would promote the spread of slavery to the territories.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

OPEC. Cartel compromising Middle Eastern states and Venezuela first organized in 1960. OPEC aimed to control access to and prices of oil, wresting power from Western oil companies and investors. In the process, it gradually strengthened the hand of non-Western powers on the world stage.

Black Monday

October 19, 1987. Date of the largest single-day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average until September 2001. The downturn indicated instability in the booming business culture of the 1980s but did not lead to a serious economic recession.

Populists

Officially known as the People's party, the Populists represented Westerners and Southerners who believed that U.S. economic policy inappropriately favored Eastern businessmen instead of the nation's farmers. Their proposals included nationalizing the railroads, creating a graduated income tax, and most significantly the unlimited coinage of silver.

Jeremiad

Often-fiery sermons lamenting the waning piety of parishioners first delivered in New England in the mid 17th century; named after the doom-saying Old Testament prophet Jeremiah.

Oneida Community

One of the more radical utopian communities established in the 19th century, it advocated "free love," birth control, and eugenics. Utopian communities reflected the reformist spirit of the age.

Antifederalists

Opponents of the 1787 Constitution, they cast the document as antidemocratic, objected to the subordination of the states to the central government, and feared encroachment on individuals' liberties in the absence of a bill of rights.

Black Panther Party

Organization of armed black militants formed in Oakland, California, in 1966 to protect black rights. The Panthers represented a growing dissatisfaction with the non-violent wing of the civil rights movement, and signaled a new direction to that movement after the legislative victories of 1964 and 1965

Judiciary Act of 1789

Organized the federal legal system, establishing the Supreme Court, federal district and circuit courts, and the office of attorney general.

Mason-Dixon Line

Originally drawn by surveyors to resolve the boundaries between Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, in the 1760s, it came to symbolize the North-South divide over slavery.

Old Lights

Orthodox clergymen who rejected the emotionalism of the Great Awakening in favor of a more rational spirituality.

Greenbacks

Paper currency issued by the Union Treasury during the Civil War. Inadequately supported by gold, Greenbacks fluctuated in value throughout the war, reaching a low of 39 cents on the dollar.

Compromise Tariff of 1833

Passed as a measure to resolve the nullification crisis, it provided that tariffs be lowered gradually, over a period of ten years, to 1816 levels.

Wade-Davis Bill

Passed by Congressional Republicans in response to Abraham Lincoln's, "10 percent plan," it required that 50 percent of a state's voters pledge allegiance to the Union, and set stronger safeguards for emancipation. Reflected divisions between Congress and the President, and between radical and moderate Republicans, over the treatment of the defeated South.

Judiciary Act of 1801

Passed by the departing Federalist Congress, it created sixteen new federal judgeships ensuring a Federalist hold on the judiciary.

Reconstruction Act

Passed by the newly elected Republican Congress, it divided the South into five military districts, disenfranchised former confederates, and required that Southern states both ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and write state constitutions guaranteeing freedmen the franchise before gaining readmission to the Union.

Workingmen's Compensation Act

Passed under Woodrow Wilson, this law granted assistance to federal-service employees during periods of disability. It was a precursor to labor-friendly legislation passed during the New Deal.

Daughters of Liberty

Patriotic group that played a central role in agitating against the Stamp Act and enforcing non-importation agreements.

Sons of Liberty

Patriotic group that played a central role in agitation against the Stamp Act and enforcing non-importation agreements.

Funding at Par

Payment of debts, such as government bonds at face value. In 1790, Alexander Hamilton proposed that the federal government pay its Revolutionary war debts in full in order to bolster the nation's credit.

Treaty of Paris

Peace treaty signed by Britain and the United States ending the Revolutionary War. The British formally recognized American independence and ceded territory east of the Mississippi while the Americans, in turn, promised to restore Loyalist property and repay debts to British creditors.

Carpetbaggers

Pejorative used by Southern whites to describe Northern businessmen and politicians who came to the South after the Civil War to work on Reconstruction projects or invest in Southern infrastructure.

Mestizos

People of mixed Indian and European heritage, notably in Mexico.

Racketeers

People who obtain money illegally by fraud, bootlegging, gambling, or threats of violence. Racketeers invaded the ranks of labor in the 1920s, a decade when gambling and gangsterism were prevalent in American life.

Cult of Domesticity

Pervasive 19th century cultural creed that venerated the domestic role of women. It gave married women greater authority to shape home life but limited opportunities outside of the domestic sphere.

Writ of Habeas Corpus

Petition requiring law enforcement officers to present detained individuals before the court to examine the legality of the arrest. Protects individuals form arbitrary state action. Suspended by Lincoln during the Civil War.

Spoils System

Policy of rewarding political supporters with public office, first widely employed at the federal level by Andrew Jackson. The practice was widely abused by unscrupulous office seekers, but it also helped cement party loyalty in the emerging two-party system.

Moral Majority

Political action committee founded by evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell in 1979 to promote traditional Christian values and oppose feminism, abortion, and gay rights. The group was a major linchpin in the resurgent religious right of the 1980s.

Republicanism

Political theory of representative government, based on the principle of popular sovereignty, with a strong emphasis on liberty and civic virtue. Influential in 18th century American political though, it stood as an alternative to monarchical rule.

Burned-Over District

Popular name for Western New York, a region particularly swept up in the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening.

Pet Banks

Popular term for pro-Jackson state banks that received the bulk of federal deposits when Andrew Jackson moved to dismantle the Bank of the United States in 1833.

Tammany Hall

Powerful New York political machine established in 1789 that primarily drew support from the city's immigrants, who depended on Tammany Hall patronage, particularly social service.

Patronage

Practice of rewarding political support with special favors, often in the form of public office. Upon assuming office, Thomas Jefferson dismissed few Federalist employees, leaving scant openings to fill with political appointees.

Nixon Doctrine

President Nixon's plan for "peace with honor" in Vietnam. The doctrine stated that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but, in the future, countries would have to fight their own wars.

Fair Deal

President Truman's extensive social program introduced in his 1949 message to Congress. Republicans and Southern Democrats kept much of his vision from being enacted, except for raising minimum wage, providing for more public housing, and extending old-age insurance to many more beneficiaries under the Social Security Act.

Turnpike

Privately funded, toll-based public road constructed in the early 19th century to facilitate commerce.

Privateers

Privately owned armed ships authorized by Congress to prey on enemy shipping during the Revolutionary War. Privateers, more numerous than the tiny American Navy, inflicted heavy damages on British shippers.

Affirmative Action

Program designed to redress historic racial and gender imbalances in jobs and education. The term grew from an executive order issued by John F. Kennedy in 1961 mandating that projects paid for with federal funds could not discriminate based on race in their hiring practices. In the late 1960s, President Nixon's Philadelphia Plan changed the meaning of affirmative action to require attention to certain groups, rather than protect individuals against discrimination.

Gag Resolution

Prohibited debate or action on antislavery appeals. Driven through the House by pro-slavery Southerners, the gag resolution passed every year for eight years, eventually overturned with the help of John Quincy Adams.

Maine Law of 1851

Prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol. A dozen other states followed Maine's lead, though most statutes proved ineffective and were repealed within a decade.

Federalists

Proponents of the 1787 Constitution, they favored a strong national government, arguing that the checks and balances in the new Constitution would safeguard the people's liberties.

Tariff of 1842

Protective measure passed by Congressional Whigs, rising tariffs to pre-Compromise of 1833 rates.

Land Ordinance of 1785

Provided for the sale of land in the Old Northwest and earmarked the proceeds toward the repaying the national debt.

Lyceum

Public lecture hall that hosted speakers on topics ranging from science to moral philosophy. Part of a broader flourishing of higher education in the mid 19th century.

Union League

Reconstruction-Era African American organization that worked to educate Southern blacks about civic life, build black schools and churches, and represented African American interests before government and employers. It also campaigned on behalf of Republican candidates and recruited local militias to protect blacks from white intimidation.

American Colonization Society

Reflecting the focus of early abolitionists on transporting freed blacks back to Africa, the organization established Liberia, a West-African settlement intended as a haven for emancipated slaves.

Black Belt

Region of the Deep South with the highest concentration of slaves. The "Black Belt" emerged in the nineteenth century as cotton production became more profitable and slavery expanded south and west.

Mormons

Religious followers of Joseph Smith who founded a communal, oligarchic religious order in the 1830s, official known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Mormons, facing deep hostility from the non-Mormon neighbors, eventually migrated west and established a flourishing settlement in the Utah desert.

Second Great Awakening

Religious revival in the early 19th century characterized by emotional mass "camp meetings" and widespread conversion. Brought about a democratization of religion as a multiplicity of denominations vied for members.

Pentagon Papers

Secret U.S. government report detailing early planning and policy decisions regarding the Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Leaked in the New York Times in 1971, it revealed instances of governmental secrecy, lies, and incompetence in the prosecution of the war.

Congregational Church

Self-governing Puritan congregations without the hierarchical establishment of the Anglican Church..

Navigation Laws

Series of laws passed, beginning in 1651, to regulate colonial shipping; the acts provided that only English ships would be allowed to trade in colonial ports, and that all goods destines for the colonies would first pass through England.

Watergate

Series of scandals that resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation in August 1974 amid calls for his impeachment. The episode sprang from a failed burglary attempt at Democratic party headquarters in Washington's Watergate Hotel during the 1972 election.

Panic of 1819

Severe financial crisis brought on primarily by the efforts of the Bank of the United States to curb overspeculation on western lands. It disproportionately affected the poorer classes, especially in the West, sowing the seeds of Jacksonian Democracy.

Neutrality Act of 1935, 1936, and 1937

Short-sighted acts passed in 1935, 1936, and 1937 in order to prevent American participation in a European War. Among other restrictions, they prevented Americans from selling munitions to foreign belligerents.

Joint-Stock Company

Short-term partnership between multiple investors to fund a commercial enterprise; such arrangements were used to fund England's early colonial ventures.

Appomattox Courthouse

Site where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865 after almost a year of brutal fighting throughout Virginia in the "Wilderness Campaign."

Breakers

Slave drivers who employed the lash to brutally "break" the souls of strong-willed slaves.

Separatists

Small group of Puritans who sought to break away entirely from the Church of England; after initially settling in Holland, a number of English Separatists made their way to Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts in 1620.

Caravel

Small regular vessel with a high deck and three triangular sails. Caravels could sail more closely into the wind, allowing European sailors to explore the Western shores of Africa, previously made inaccessible due to prevailing winds on the homeward journey.

War of Jenkins's Ear

Small-scale clash between Britain and Spain in the Caribbean and in the buffer colony, Georgia, beginning in 1739. It merged with the much larger War of Austrian Succession in 1742.

Fort Sumter

South Carolina location where Confederate forces fired the first shots of the Civil War in April of 1861, after Union forces attempted to provision the fort.

Redeemers

Southern Democratic politicians who sought to wrest control from Republican regimes in the South after Reconstruction.

Encomienda

Spanish government's policy to "commend," or give, Indians to certain colonists in return for the promise to Christianize them. Part of a roader Spanish effort to subdue Indian tribes in the West Indies and on the North American mainland.

Brain Trust

Specialists in law, economics, and welfare, many young university professors, who advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt and helped develop the policies of the New Deal.

Committee of Correspondence

Started in 1772, local committees established across Massachusetts, and later in each of the thirteen colonies, to maintain colonial opposition to British policies through the exchange of letters and pamphlets.

Salt II

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty agreement between Soviet leader Leonid Brazhnev and American president Jimmy Carter. Despite an accord to limit weapons between the two leaders, the agreement was ultimately scuttled in the U.S. senate following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Levittown

Suburban communities with mass-produced tract houses build in the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas in the 1950s by William Levitt and Sons. Typically inhabited by white middle-class people who fled the cities in search of homes to buy for their growing families.

Jim Crow Laws

System of racial segregation in the American South from the end of Reconstruction until the mid 20th century. Based on the concept of "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites, the Jim Crow system sought to prevent racial mixing in public, including restaurants, movie theaters, and public transportation. An informal system, it was generally perpetuated by the custom, violence, and intimidation.

Tariff

Tax levied on imports. Traditionally, manufacturers support tariffs as protective and revenue-raising measures, while agricultural interests, dependent on world markets, oppose high tariffs.

Excise Tax

Tax on goods produced domestically. Excise taxes, particularly the 1791 tax on whiskey, were a highly controversial component of Alexander Hamilton's financial program.

Boll Weevils

Term for conservative southern Democrats who voted increasingly for Republican issues during the Carter Reagan administrations.

Transportation Revolution

Term referring to a series of 19th century transportation innovations- turnpikes, steamboats, canals, and railroads- that linked local and regional markets, creating a national economy.

Old Northwest

Territories acquired by the federal government from the states, encompassing land northwest of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, and south of the Great Lakes. The well-organized management and sale of the land in the territories under the land ordinances of 1785 and 1787 established a precedent for handling future land acquisitions.

Goliad

Texas outpost where American volunteers, having laid down their arms and surrendered, were massacred by Mexican forces in 1836. The incident, along with the slaughter at the Alamo, fueled American support for Texan independence.

Iranian Hostage Crisis

The 444 days, from November 1979 to January 1841, in which American embassy workers were held captive by Iranian revolutionaries. The Iranian Revolution began in 1979 when young Muslim fundamentalists overthrew the oppressive regime of the American-backed shah, forcing him into exile. Deeming the United States "the Great Satan," these revolutionaries triggered an energy crisis by cutting off Iranian oil. The hostage crisis began when revolutionaries stormed the American embassy, demanding that the United States return the shah to Iran for trial. The episode was marked by botched diplomacy and failed rescue attempts by the Carter Administration. After permanently damaging relations between the two countries, the crisis ended with the hostages' release the day Ronald Reagan became President January 20, 1981.

American Federation of Labor

The AF of L. A national federation of trade unions that included only skilled workers, founded in 1886. Led by Samuel Gompers for nearly four decades, the AF of L sought to negotiate with employers for a better kind of capitalism that rewarded workers fairly with better kind of capitalism that rewarded workers fairly with better wages, hours, and conditions. the AF of L's membership was almost entirely white and male until the middle of the twentieth century.

Congress of Industrial Organizations

The CIO. A New Deal-era labor organization that broke away from the American Federation of Labor in order to organize unskilled industrial workers regardless of their particular economic sector or craft. The CIO gave a great boost to labor organizations in the midst of the Great Depression and during World War II. In 1955, the CIO merged with the AF of L

Commonwealth of Independent States

The CIS. Organization formed from the former republics of the Soviet Union in 1991.

European Economic Community

The EEC. Free trade zone in Western Europe created by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Often referred to as the "Common Market," this collection of countries originally included France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The body eventually expanded to become the European Union which included 27 member states by 2005.

Environmental Protection Agency

The EPA. A governmental organization signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1970 designed to regulate pollution, emissions, and other factors that negatively influence the natural environment. The creation of the EPA marked a newfound commitment by the federal government to actively combat environmental risks and was a significant triumph for the environmentalist movement.

Equal Rights Amendment

The ERA, which declared full constitutional equality for women. Although it passed both houses of Congress in 1972, a concerted grassroots campaign by anti-feminists led by Phyllis Schlafly persuaded enough state legislatures to vote against ratification. The amendment failed to become a part of the Constitution.

Strategic Defense Initiative

The SDI. Reagan administration plan announced in 1983 to create a missile-defense system over American territory to black a nuclear attack. Derided as "Star Wars" by critics, the plan typified Reagan's commitment to vigorous defense spending even as he sought to limit the size of government in domestic matters.

Students for a Democratic Society

The SDS. A campus-based political organization founded in 1961 by Tom Hayden that became an iconic representation of the New Left. Originally geared toward the intellectual promise of "participatory democracy," SDS emerged at the forefront of the civil rights, antipoverty, and antiwar movements during the 1960s.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

The SNCC. Youth organization founded by southern black students in 1960 to promote civil rights. Drawing on its members' youthful energies. SNCC in its early years coordinated demonstrations, sit-ins, and voter registration drives.

United Nations

The U. N. International body formed in 1945 to bring nations into dialogue in hopes of preventing further world wars. Much like the former League of Nations in ambition, the UN was more realistic in recognizing the authority of the Big Five Powers in keeping peace in the world. Thus, it guaranteed veto power to all permanent members of the Security Council-Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

United Negro Improvement Association

The UNIA. A black nationalist organization founded in 1914 by the Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey in order to promote resettlement of African Americans to their "African homeland" and to stimulate a vigorous separate black economy within the United States.

Women's Christian Temperance Union

The WCTU. Founded in 1874, this organization advocated for the prohibition of alcohol, using women's supposedly greater purity and morality as a rallying point. Advocates of prohibition in the United States found common cause with activists elsewhere, especially in Britain, and in the 1880s they founded the World Women's Christian Temperance Union, which sent missionaries around the world to spread the gospel of temperance.

War Production Board

The WPB. Established in 1942 by executive order to direct all war production, including procuring and allocating raw materials, to maximize the nation's war machine. The WPB had sweeping powers over the U.S. economy and was abolished in November 1945 soon after Japan's defeat.

WAACs, WAVES, and SPARs

The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, and the U.S. Coast Guard Women's Reserve. The women's branches of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, established during World War II to employ women in noncombatant jobs. Women now participated in the armed services in ways that went beyond their traditional roles as nurses.

Compromise of 1877

The agreement that finally resolved the 1876 election and officially ended Reconstruction. In exchange for the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, winning the presidency, Hayes agreed to withdraw the last of the federal troops from the former Confederate states. This deal effectively completed the southern return to white-only, Democratic-dominated electoral politics.

Mechanization of Agriculture

The development of engine-driven machines, like the combine, which helped to dramatically increase the productivity of land in the 1870s and 1880s. This process contributed to the consolidation of agricultural business that drove many family farms out of existence.

Hetch Hetchy Valley

The federal government allowed the city of San Francisco to build a dam here in 1913. This was a blow to preservationists, who wished to protect the Yosemite National Park, where the dam was located.

Sunbelt

The fifteen-state crescent though the American South and Southwest that experienced terrific population and productivity expansion during World War II and particularly in the decades after the war, eclipsing the old industrial Northeast.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

The last piece of federal civil rights legislation until the 1950s, the law promised blacks equal access to public accommodations and banned racism in jury selection, but the Act provided no means of enforcement and was therefore ineffective. In 1883, the Supreme Court declared most of the Act unconstitutional.

Interlocking Directorates

The practice of having executives or directors from one company serve on the Board of Directors of another company. J. P. Morgan introduced this practice to eliminate banking competition in the 1890s.

Vertical Integration

The practice perfected by Andrew Carnegie of controlling every step of the industrial production process in order to increase efficiency and limit competition.

Horizontal Integration

The practice perfected by John D. Rockefeller of dominating a particular phase of the production process in order to monopolize a market, often by forming trusts and alliances with competitors.

Rendezvous

The principal marketplace of the Northwest fur trade, which peaked in the 1820s and 1830s. Each summer, traders set up camps in the Rocky Mountains to exchange manufactured goods for beaver pelts.

Bible Belt

The region of the American South, extending roughly from North Carolina west to Oklahoma and Texas, where Protestant Fundamentalism and belief in literal interpretation of the Bible were traditionally strongest.

Knights of Labor

The second national labor organization, organized in 1869 as a secret society and opened for public membership in 1881. The Knights were known for their efforts to organize all workers, regardless of skill level, gender, or race. After the mid-1880s their membership declined for a variety of reasons, including the Knights' participation in violent strikes and discord between skilled and unskilled members.

Reservation System

The system that allotted land with designated boundaries to Native American tribes in the west, beginning in the 1850s and ending with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Within these reservations, most land was communally, rather than owned individually. The U.S. government encouraged and sometimes violently coerced Native Americans to stay on the reservations at all times.

Neutrality Act of 1939

This act stipulated that European democracies might but American munitions, but only if they could pay in cash and transport them in their own ships. The terms were known as "Cash-and-Carry." It represented an effort to avoid war debts and protect American arms-carriers from torpedo attacks.

Disestablish

To separate an official state church from its connection with the government. Following the Revolution, all states disestablished the Anglican Church, though some New England states maintained established Congregational Churches well into the 19th century.

Regulars

Trained professional soldiers, as distinct from militia or conscripts. During the French and Indian War, British generals, used to commanding experienced regulars, often showed contempt for ill-trained colonial militiamen.

Middle Passage

Transatlantic voyage slaves endured between Africa and the colonies. Mortality rates were notoriously high.

Assumption

Transfer of debt from one party to another. In order to strengthen the Union, the federal government assumed states' Revolutionary War debts in 1790, thereby tying the interests of wealthy lenders with those of the national government.

Columbian Exchange

Transfer of good, crop, and diseases between the New and Old World societies after 1492.

Coureurs De Bois

Translated as "runners of the woods," they were French fur-trappers, also known as "voyageurs" who established trading post throughout North America. The fur trade wreaked havoc on the health and folkways of their Native American trading partners.

Admiralty Courts

Used to try offenders for violating the various Navigation Acts passed by the crown after the French and Indian War. Colonists argued that the courts encroached on their rights as Englishman since they lacked juries and placed the burden of proof on the accused.

Minstrel Shows

Variety shows performed by white actors in blackface. First popularized in the mid 19th century.

Patroonships

Vast tracts of land along the Hudson River in New Netherlands granted to wealthy promoters in exchange for bringing fifty settlers to the property.

V-J Day

Victory in Japan Day. August 15, 1945 heralded the surrender of Japan and the final end to World War II.

Weapons of Mass Destruction.

WMDs. Refers to weapons-nuclear, biological, and chemical-that can kill large numbers of people and do great damage to the built and natural environment. The term was used to refer to nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The Bush administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had developed WMDs provided the rationale for the United State's invasion of Iraq in 2003. These weapons were never found after the invasion.

Liberia

West-African nation founded in 1822 as a haven for freed blacks, fifteen thousand of whom made their way back across the Atlantic by the 1860s.

Peculiar Institution

Widely used term for the institution of American slavery in the South. Its use in the first half of the 19th century reflected a growing division between the North, where slavery was gradually abolished, and the South, where slavery became increasingly entrenched.

Civic Virtue

Willingness on part of citizens to sacrifice personal self-interest for the public good. Deemed a necessary component of a successful republic.