APUSH

Phillip II (of Spain)

...

Sir Humphrey Gilbert

...

Virginia Company

...

Great Migration

1630-1642 migration of 70k refuses from England to the North American colonies primarily New England and he Caribbean, the 20k migrants who came to Massachusetts largely shared a common sense of purpose- to establish a model Christian settlement in the New World

conquistadores

16th century Spaniards who fanned out across the Americas, eventually conquering the Aztec and Incan Empires

Mayflower Compact 1620

Agreement to form a majoritarian government in Plymouth, signed aboard the Mayflower. It created a foundation for self government in the colony

Hiawatha

Along with Deganawidah, legendary founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, which united the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca tribes in the late sixteenth century.

Anne Hutchinson

Antinomian religious dissenter brought to trial for heresy in Massachusetts Bay after arguing that she need not follow God's laws or man's, and claiming direct revelation from God. Banished from the Puritan colony, she moved to Rhode Island and then New York, where she and her family were then killed by indians

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

Moctezuma

Aztec chieftain at Tenochitlán who at first welcomed the Spanish conquistadores (Cortés) and believed that Cortés was the god Quetzacoatl, but later realized the spanish goal of gold and power and attacked them on "noche triste"

Battle of Acoma 1599

Battle fought between Spaniards under Don Juan de Oñate and the Pueblo Indians in present-day New Mexico. The Spaniards crushed the Pueblo people and established New Mexico in 1609

Tuscaroa War 1711-1713

Began with an Indian attack on Newbern, North Carolina. After the tribe was defeated, remaining Indian survivors migrated north, eventually joining the Iroquois Confederacy as its sixth nation

John Wesley

British founder of the Methodist Church who served for a time as a missionary in colonial Georgia

predestination

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

Yamasee Indians

Defeated by the south Carolinians in the war of 1715-1716, this tribe's defeat devastated the last of the coastal Indian tribes in the Southern Colonies

nation-states

Dense concentrations of populations comparable to that of the Aztec empire...not yet existed in N America outside Mexico during the time of European arrival

capitalism

Economic system charicatarized by private property, generally free trade, and open and accessible markets. European colonization of the Americas, in particular the discovery of vast silver and gold bullion deposits helped bring this about

Aztecs

Empire that controlled present day Mexico until 1521 when they were defeated by Hernán Cortés. These people maintained control of their vast empire thorough trade and tribute, and advanced mathematics, writing, and use of human sacrifices in religious ceremonies (maize)

Puritans

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

Barbados slave code 1661

First formal statute governing the treatment of slaves; harsh punishment against offending slaves, but lacked penalties for the mistreatment of slaves by masters. Similar statutes were adopted in North American mainland in the 17th and 18th centuries

John Winthrop

First governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. An able administrator and devout Puritan who helped ensure prosperity of the colony and enforce Puritan orthodoxy, taking a had line against religious dissenters like Anne Hutchinson

Jamestown 1607

First permanent English settlement in North America, founded by the Virginia Company. Named after King James I.

James I

Formally James VI of Scotland, he became King of England at the death of Elizabeth I. He supported overseas colonization, granting a charter to the Virginia Company in 1606 for a settlement in the New World. He also cracked down on both Catholics and Puritan Separatists, prompting the latter to flee to Holland and, later, to North America.

John Calvin

French Protestant reformer who's religious teachings formed the basis for Puritanism, Scottish Presbyterianism, French Huguenots, and members of the Dutch Reformed Church. He argued in his "Institutes of the Christian Religion" 1536 that humans were inherently weak and wicked, and believed in an all knowing, all powerful God, who predestined select individuals for salvation.

Robert de La Salle

French explorer who led expedition down the Mississippi River in the 1680s

Jacques Cartier

Frenchman who journeyed 100s of miles up the St. Lawrence river in 1534

Martin Luther

German friar who began the Protestant Revolution in 1517 with his 95 Thesis being nailed to the Catholic Wittenberg Cathedral

Columbian Exchange

Globalization and exchange of goods after 1492, such as: gold, silver, corn, potatoes, pineapples, tomatoes, tobacco, beans, vanilla, chocolate, and syphilis from the New World, and: wheat, sugar, rice, coffee, cows, horses, pigs, smallpox, measles, plague, flu, typhus, diphtheria, scarlet fever, and slave labor from the Old World

Incas

Highly advanced S American civilization that occupied present day Peru until they were conquered by Spaniard, Francisco Pizarro, in 1532. These people developed agricultural techniques such as terrace farming to sustain complex societies in the Andes mountains (maize)

buffer (Georgia)

In politics, a territory between two antagonistic powers intended to minimize the possibility of conflict between them. In British North America, ________ was established for this purpose between the British and Spanish (and French) territory

Lake Bonneville

Inland sea left by melting glaciers whose remnant is the Great Salt Lake

Marco Polo

Italian adventurer who returned to Europe in 1295 after a 25 year trip to China, who told his tales of Chinese treasures that peaked interest for a cheaper route to reach Eastern goods

Giovanni da Verrazano

Italian mariner who was dispatched by the French (under Francis I) to probe the eastern seaboard in 1524

Institutes of the Christian Religion 1536

John Calvin's basic Latin doctrine that described his protestant views, including God the all powerful, weak and wicked humans, and predestination

charter of the Virginia Company

Legal document granted by King James I that spelled out the rights to all Englishmen, which helped solidify the colonists' ties to Britain during the early years of settlement

Act of Toleration 1649

Maryland act that guaranteed toleration to all christians but decreed death penalty to those who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ (Jews, atheists). This ensured that Maryland would attract the most catholics though the colonial period.

Cahokia

Mississippian settlement near present day E St. Louis; home to 25k people, large settlement of corn planting; contained Monk's Mound; fell to decline by about 1300 c.e.

plantation system

Portugese large scale commercial agriculture and wholesale exploitation of slave labor in Africa were the origins of this system

caravel

Portuguese vessel with a high deck and 3 triangular sails that could sail more closely into the win which allowed for easier sailing on the African Coast, thus making sub-saharan Africa more accessible that were previously hare to reach because of prevailing winds on the homeward journey

Roger Williams

Salem minister who advocated a complete break from the Church of England and criticized the Massachusetts Bay Colony for unlawfully taking land from the Indians. Banished for his heresy, he established a small community in present day Rhode Island, later acquiring a charter for the colony from England.

King Phillip's War 1675-1676

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

First Anglo-Powhatan War 1614

Series of clashes between the Powhatan Confederacy and English settlers in Virginia. English colonists tortured and pillaged Indian villages, applying tactics used in England's campaigns against the Irish.

Roanoke Island 1585

Sir Walter Raleigh's failed settlement off the coast of North Carolina

James Oglethorpe

Soldier-statesman and leading founder of Georgia. Established Georgia as a haven for debtors seeking to avoid imprisonment. During the War of Jenkins's Ear, he successfully led his colonists in battle, repelling a Spanish attack on British territory

Vasco Nuñez Balboa

Spanish explorer hailed as the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean who boldly claimed the Panama for Spain in 1513

Francisco Pizarro

Spanish explorer who crushed the Incas of Peru in 1532 and brought home bullion to the spanish, thus starting a price revolution

Juan Ponce de León

Spanish explorer who explored Florida in 1513 and 1521

Iroquois Confederacy

The Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and the Senecas made up this group of five tribes in the Mohawk Valley of what is now New York State.

Spanish Armada 1588

The Spanish fleet led by Phillip II that was defeated in the English Channel in ___. The defeat marked the beginning of the Spanish Empire and began England's colonial rise.

Christopher Columbus

This Italian explorer persuaded the Spanish monarchs (Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile) to send him to India, when instead he landed on the coast of the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. He returned in 1493 to Hispanola (Haiti & Dom. Rep) with 1.2k men and cattle, swine, and horses

Vasco de Gama

This Portuguese explorer was the first to reach India and return with jewels and spices in 1498

Bartholomeu Dias

This Portuguese explorer was the first to round the tip of the Cape of Good Hope in Africa in 1488

Treaty of Tordesillas 1494

Treaty signed by Spain and Portugal that gave Spain the territories of the Americas (excl. Brazil) and Portugal the trade in Africa and Asia

Henry VIII

Tudor monarch who launched the Protestant Reformation in England when he broke away from the Catholic Church in order to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon

Metacom (King Phillip)

Wampanoag chief (son of Massasoit) who led a brutal campaign against Puritan settlements in New England between 1675 and 1676. Though he himself was eventually captured and killed, and his wife and son sold into slavery, his assault halted New England's westward expansion for several decades.

antinomianism

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

Captain John Smith

hey

mestizos

people of mixed Indian (Native american) and European heritage, notably in Mexico

"Day of Doom" 1662

poem written by clergyman Michael Wigglesworth who described the fate of the dammed and was popular among the Puritans

Bartolomé de Las Casas

reform minded Dominican friar who wrote "The Destruction of the Indies" in 1542 to protest the Spanish policies, such as the encomienda system, in the New World. He was especially horrified at the effects of disease on the native peoples

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

siege of Vicksburg

1863 2 ½ month siege of a Confederate fort on the Mississippi River in TN. It 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

Emancipation Proclamation

1863 Declared all slaves in rebelling states to be free but did not effect slavery in non-rebelling Border States. It closed the door on possible compromise with the South and encourages thousands of Southern slaves to flee to Union lines

The 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, and inspired by the story of Clement L. Vallandigham

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

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

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

Gettysburg Address

1863 Abraham Lincoln's oft-quoted speech, delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg battlefield. In it, Lincoln framed the war as a means to uphold the values of liberty

Australian Ballot

A system that allow voters privacy in marking their ballot choices. Developed in AUS in the 1850s, it was introduced to the US during the progressive era to help counteract boss rule

patronage

A system, prevalent during the Gilded Age, in which political parties granted jobs and favors to party regulars who delivered voters on election day. It was both an essential wellspring of support for both parties and a source of conflict within the Republican Party

Rachel Carson

American conservationist whose 1962 book "Silent Spring" galvanized the modern environmental movement that gained significant traction in the 1970s.

Earl Warren

Chief Justice during the 1950's and 1960's who used a loose interpretation to expand rights for both African-Americans and those accused of crimes.

John Marshall

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801-1835, he strengthened the role of the courts by establishing the principle of judicial review. During his tenure that court also expanded the powers of the federal gov't through a series of decisions that established federal supremacy over the states,

John Marshall

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801-1835, he strengthened the role of the courts by establishing the principle of judicial review. During his tenure the Court also expanded the powers of the federal gov't through a series of decisions that established federal supremacy over the states.

Roger B. Taney

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1836-1864, he overturned Marshall's strict emphasis on contract rights, ruling in favor of community interest in the famous Charles River Bridge Case in 1837. Born in Maryland, he also presided over the landmark Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Congress had no power to restrict slavery in the territories.

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.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Connecticut born abolitionist and author of the best selling, Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel that awakened millions of Northerners to the cruelty of slavery

Margaret Thatcher

Conservative Prime Minister of Britain from 1979 to 1990. As an ideological partner to President Ronald Reagan, she enacted economic liberalization reforms and attempted to check the powers of labor unions in Britain. She led a successful British military operation in the Falkland Islands war in 1982.

Guantanamo Detention Camp

Controversial prison facility constructed after U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Located on terrorist occupied by the U.S. military, but not technically part of the U.S., it serves as an extra legal holding area for suspected terroritsts

Pontiac

Ottawa chief who led an uprising against the GB in the wake of the French and Indian War. Initially routing GB forces to Detroit, Pontiac and his men succumbed are GB groups distributed small pox infected bankers amount the Indians.

Robert Fulton

PA born painter engineer who constructed the first operating steam boat, the Clermont, in 1807

Thaddeus Stevens

PA congressman who led the Radical Republican faction in the House of Representatives during and after the Civil War, advocating for abolition and later, the extension of civil rights to freed blacks. He also called for land redistribution as a means to break the power of the planter elite and provide African Americans with the economic means to sustain their newfound independence

Lord Sheffield

Parliamentarian who persuaded GB to take a hard line in negotiations with the newly independent US, closing off American trade with the W Indies and continuing to enforce Navigation Laws. His approach prompted many Americans to call for stronger central government, culminating in the 1787 Philadelphia convention

Declaratory act (1766)

Passed alongside the repeal of the Stamp Act, it reaffirmed Parliaments unqualified sovereignty over the North American colonies

Compromise Tariff of 1833

Passed as a measure to resolve the nullification crisis, it proved that tariffs be lowered gradually, over a period of 10 years, to 1816 levels.

Force Acts

Passed by Congress following a wave of KKK violence, that acts banned clan membership, prohibited the use of intimidation to prevent blacks from voting, and gave the US military the authority to enforce the acts

Andrew Hamilton

former indentured servant who defended John Peter Zenger, countering that "the very liberty of both exposing and opposing arbitrary power" was at stake

Newt Gingrich

Republican congressman from Georgia who served as speaker of the house from 1995 to 1999. As the author of the "Contract with America, he led the Republican "revolution" of 1994."

Battle of Antietam

September 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

Neutrality Acts of 1935, `36, `37

Short sighted acts passed in `35-37 in order to prevent American participation in a European War. Among other restrictions they prevented Americans from selling munitions to foreign belligerents.

(Valeriano) Bucher Weyler

Spanish general who arrived in Cuba in 1896 to put down the insurrection. He became notorious for herding many civilians into barbed-wire concentration camps

Francisco Franco

Spanish general who became head of state after his fascistic troops prevailed over the republican Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. He remained head of the Spanish state until his death in 1975.

encomienda system

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

Brain Trust

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

New Nationalism

State-interventionist reform program advocated for by Teddy 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.

Virginia and Kentucky resolutions (1798-1799)

Statements secretly drafted by Jefferson and Madison for the legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia. Argued that the 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

reservation system

The system that allotted land with designated boundaries to Native American tribes in the W, beginning in the 1850s and ending with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Within these _______, most land was used communally, rather than owned individually. The United States government encourages and sometimes violently coerced Native Americans to stay on the ______ at all times

John W. Davis

The unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the 1924 election. Although he was wealthy and connected in Wall Street, he was no less conservative than his opponent, Calvin Coolidge

Horatio Alger

The writer of dozens of novels for children, he popularized the notion of "rags to riches", that by hard work and a bit of luck, even a poor boy could pull himself into the middle class

National Security Act (1947)

This Act established the Department of Defense. The Act created a new cabinet officer, the secretary of defense. It also established the National Security Council to advise the president and the CIA to coordinate the government's foreign fact gathering.

Nineteenth Amendment

This Constitutional Amendment finally passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified by `20, gave women the right to vote over seventy years after the first organized calls for woman's suffrage in Seneca Falls, NY.

Laird rams

Two well armed ironclad warships constructed for the Confederacy by a British firm. Seeking to avoid war with the US, GB purchased the two ships for its royal navy instead. This purchase was put in place by Charles Francis Adams

Martin Luther King Jr.

U.S. Baptist minister and civil rights leader. A noted orator, he opposed discrimination against blacks by organizing nonviolent resistance and peaceful mass demonstrations. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Nobel Peace Prize (1964)

Stephan A. Douglas

US Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate, he played a key role in passing the Compromise of 1850, though he inadvertently reignited the sectional tensions in 1854 by proposing the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In 1858, he famously spare with Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, defeating Lincoln in the senate race that year but losing to him in the Presidential election of 1860

William Seward

US Senator and Secretary of State under Lincoln. An avid opponent of slavery, he was a leading candidate for the Republican nomination in both 1856 and 1860. Later, as one of Lincoln's closest advisors, he helped handle the difficult tasks of keeping European nations out of the Civil War. He is most well known for his negotiation of the purchase of Alaska, dubbed "Seward's Folly" by expansion weary opponents of the deal

Operation Desert Storm

US led multi-country military engagement in Jan and Feb 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

Jefferson Davis

US senator from Mississippi and President of the Confederate States of America. He, a West Point graduate, defended slavery and southern rights throughout his career, but initially opposed secession in 1860. As President of the Confederacy, he faced the formidable task of overcoming southern localism in directing his war effort. After the war, he was briefly imprisoned, but pardoned by Andrew Johnson in 1868

New York Slave Revolt 1712

Uprising of approximately two dozen slaves that resulted in the deaths of nine whites ant the brutal execution of twenty one participating blacks

minstrel shows

Variety shows performed by white actor in black face. First popularized in the mid 19th century

John C. Breckinridge

Vice President under James Buchanan, he ran as a candidate of the Southern wing of the Democratic party in 1860, losing the election to Abraham Lincoln (although he appealed to all the cotton states). As a KY slave owner, he acknowledged the South's rights to secede but worked tirelessly to hammer our a compromise in the weeks before Lincoln's inauguration. Once the Civil War began, he served as a Confederate General, briefly serving as Jefferson Davis's Secretary of War in 1865.

Calvin Coolidge

Vice President, "Silent Cal" became the 30th President when Harding died in office. A friend of business over labor, he served during the boom years of 1923-1929

John C. Calhoun

Vice president under Andrew Jackson, he became a US senator from South Carolina after a public break with the administration. A fierce supporter of state's rights, he advocated South Carolina's position during the nullification crisis. In the 1840's and 50's he staunchly defended slavery, accusing free-state northerners of conspiring to free the slaves. Wrote "The South Carolina Exposition"

Harry S. Truman

Vice president under Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, he assumed the office of the presidency in April of that year, when Roosevelt died from a brain hemorrhage while vacationing in Warm Springs, Georgia. He won another term in his own right in a historically close election in 1948 against Republican Thomas Dewey. As president, he chose to use nuclear weapons against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Richard Henry Lee

Virginia planter and revolutionary, who served as a member of the Continental Congress. He first introduced the motion asserting America's independence from Britain, later supported by Thomas Jefferson's more formal and rhetorically moving declaration. He went on to become the first U.S. senator from Virginia under the new constitution.

Massasoit

Wampanoag chieftain who signed a peace treaty with Plymouth Bay settlers in 1621 and helped them celebrate the First Thanksgiving

King William's War

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 leagues of Augsburg in Europe

Andrew Jackson

War hero (New Orleans), congressmen, and the 7th President. A Democrat, he ushered in a new era in American politics, advocating white manhood suffrage and cementing party loyalties through the soils system, As president, he dismantled the Bank of the United States, asserted federal supremacy in the nullification crisis, and oversaw the harsh policy of Indian removal in the South

Emilio Aguinaldo

Well educated Filipino leader who first tough against Spain and later led the Philippine insurgency against United States colonial rule

Liberia

West African nation founded in 1822 as a haven for free blacks, 15k of who made their way back across the Atlantic by the 1860s.

lumbering; shipbuilding

What was perhaps the most important single manufacturing activity? What did it allow for?

agriculture

What was the leading industry, involving about 90% of the people?

1766

What year did parliament repeal the stamp act?

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 Adam's 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

three-sister farming

an agricultural method in which corn, beans, and squash were grown together; helped with high population density among Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee people

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 the at erupted across the colonies when wealthy colonists attempted to recreate European social structures in the New World.

scalawags

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

Tariff of Abominations

"Black Tariff" or "Yankee Tariff" 1828 Noteworthy for its unprecedentedly high duties on imports. Southerners vehemently opposed the Tariff, arguing that it hurt Southern farmers, who did not enjoy the protection of tariffs, but were forced to pay higher prices for manufacturers

Sam Houston

"Big Drunk" President of the Republic of Texas and US senator, he lef Tx to independence in 1836 as commander in chief of the TX army. As president of the Repiblic, he unsucessfully sought annexation into the US. Once TX officially joined the Union in 1845, he was elevted onto the US senate later returning to serve as Governor of TX until 1861, when he was rwmlvef from office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy

Wilderness Campaign

"Bloody Angle" "Hell's Half Acre" 1864-1865 A series of brutal clashed between Ulysses S. Grant's and Robert E. Lee's armies in VA, leading up to Grant's capture of Richmond, VA, in April of 1865. Having lost Richmond, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse

Force Bill

"Bloody Bill" 1833 Passed by Congress alongside the Compromise Tariff of 1833, it authorized the president to use the military to collect federal tariff duties.

Erie Canal

"Clinton's Big Ditch" Completed 1825, NY state canal that linked lake Erie to the Hudson River. It dramatically lowered shipping costs, fueling an economic boom in upstate NY and increasing the profitability of farming in the Old Northwest

Ku Klux Klan

"Invisible Empire of the South" An extremist, paramilitary, right-wing (radical) 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. However, it was 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, KKK style violence and Democratic legislation succeeded in virtually disenfranchising all Southern blacks

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 appointing representation

Immigration Act of 1924

"National Origins Act" This act established quotas for immigration to the United States. Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were sharply curtailed white immigrants from Asia were shut out all together

James Buchanan

"Old Buck" 15th President of the US, he, a Pennsylvanian born Democrat, sympathized with the South and opposed any federal interference with its "peculiar institution". As president, he supported Kansas's Lecompton Constitution and opposed the Homestead Act, antagonizing northern Democrats and hopelessly splitting the Democratic Party.

Teddy (Theodore) Roosevelt

"Rough Rider _______" was a cowboy hero of the Cuban campaign who rode his popularity into the governorship of NY and then into the Vice Presidency. He became president when McKinley was assassinated in 1901. He won reelection as a Republican in 1904 and then lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912, when he tried for another term as the Progressive Party candidate

coureurs de bois

"Runners of the woods" who were French fur trappers aka voyageurs who established fur trading posts. Fur trade wreaked havoc on the health and folklore of their Native American trading partners

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 plan

Al Qaeda

"The Base" an international alliance of anti western Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organizations founded in the late 1980s. Founded by veterans of the Afghan struggle vs the USSR, it is led by Osama Bin Laden. It organized 9/11, from Taliban controlled Afghanistan. Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the "Global War on Terror" it has been weakened

Maine Law of 1851

"The Law of Heaven Americanized" 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

Franklin Pierce

"The Young Hickory of the Granite Hills"~Democrats Pro-Southern Democrat from NH who became the 14th President on a platform of territorial expansion. As President, he tried to provoke war with Spain and seize Cuba, a plan he quickly abandoned once it was made public. He empathetically supported the Compromise of 1850, vigorously enforced the Fugitive Slave Law, and threw his support behind the Kansas-Nebraska Bill

Martin Van Buren

"Yes man" "Little Magician" Jacksonian Democrat who became the 8th president of the US after serving as Vice President during Andrew Jackson's second term. As president, he presided over the "hard times" wrought by the Panic of 1837, clinging to Jackson's monetary policies and rejecting federal intervention in the economy

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 _________ music became a defining feature of the 1950s youth culture.

detente

"reduced tension": The period of Cold War thawing when the United States and the USSR negotiated reduced armament treaties under presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter. As a policy prescription, it marked a departure from the policies of proportional response, mutually assured destruction, and containment that had defined the earlier years of the Cold War

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

The Age of Reason

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

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

Hartford Convention

(1814-1815) Convention of Federalists from 5 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

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 GB and the US, it established strict limits on naval armaments in the Great Lakes, a first step in the full demilitarization of the US-Canadian border, completed in the 1870s

Anglo American Convention

(1818) Signed by GB and US, 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 10 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 N and S

McCulloch v. Maryland

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

Dartmouth College v. Woodward

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

Missouri Compromise

(1820) Allowed Missouri to enter as a slave state but preserved the balance between N and S by carving free-soil Maine out of MA and prohibiting slavery from territories acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, N of the line of 36*30'

American System

(1820s) Henry Clay's three pronged system to promote US industry. Clay advocated a strong banking system, a protective tariff, and a federally funded transportation network

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 US largely lacked the power to back up the pronouncement, which was actually enforced by the GB, who sought unfettered access to Latin American markets

Gibbons v. Ogden

(1824) "Steamboat Case" Suit over whether NY 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

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 the 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 _________ in the 1830's 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 60 whites and raised fears among white Southerners of further uprisings.

The Liberator

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

American Antislavery 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 1350 chapters.

Battle of San Jacinto

(1836) Battle that resulted in the capture of Mexican dictator, Santa Anna, who was forced to withdraw his troops from TX and recognize the Rio Grande and TX's Southwestern border

Awful Disclosures

(1836) Maria Monk's sensational expose of alleged horrors in Catholic Convents. It particularly reflected Nativist fears of Catholic influences

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

Trail of Tears

(1838-1839) Forced march of 15k Cherokee Indians from their Georgia and Alabama homes to Indian territory. Some 4,000 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 Pres. John Quincy Adams argued their case before the Supreme Court, securing their eventual release.

Opium War

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

Manifest Destiny

(1840's - 1850's) Belief that the U.S. Was destined by God to spread its "empire of liberty" across North America. Served as a justification for mid 19th century expansionism

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 jerk hoped to halt the expansion of slavery into the territories and abolish the domestic slave trade

clipper ships

(1840s-1850s) 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

Commonwealth v. Hunt

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

Treaty of Wanghia

(1844) Signed by the US and China, it assured the US the same trading concessions granted to other powers, greatly expanding the US's trade with the Chinese

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas

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

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 has attacked US troops

California Bear Flag Republic

(1846) short lived California republic, established by local American settlers who revolted vs 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 flight"

(1846) slogan adopted by mid 19th century expansionist who advocated the occupation of Oregon territory, jointly held by GB and the U.S. Though president Polk had pledged to seize all of Oregon, to 54*40', he settled on the 49th parallel as a compromise with the GB

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

Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls

(1848) Gathering of feminist activities in Seneca Falls. NY, 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

Know Nothing Party

(1850's) Nativist political party, also known as the American Party, which emerged in response to an influx of immigrants, specifically the Irish Catholics

Fugitive Slave Law

(1850) "Bloodhound Bill" "Man-Stealing Law" 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 anti-slavery cause in the North

Seventh of March Speech

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

Ostend Manifesto

(1850) Secret Franklin Pierce administration proposal to purchase or, that failing, to wrest militarily Cuba rom Spain. Once proposed, it was quickly abandoned due to vehement opposition from the North.

Clayton-Bulwer Treaty

(1850) Signed by GB and the US, 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 further isthmian waterway. Later revoked by the Hay-Paucefote Treaty of 1901, which gave the US control of the Panama Canal

Gadsden Purchase

(1853) Acquired additional land form Mexico for $10 million to facilitate the construction of a southern transcontinental railroad

Treaty of Kanagwa

(1854) Ended Japan's 200 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 Stephen Douglass in an effort to bring Nebraska into the Union and pave the way for a northern transcontinental railroad

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.

Molly Maguires

(1860's-1870's) Secret organization of Irish miners that campaigned, at times violently, against poor working conditions in the Pennsylvania mines

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. They elected Jefferson Davies as their President, who was a member of the US Senate from Mississippi. (South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas...)

Freedmen's Bureau

(1867-1872) 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

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 it 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 United States. 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 to allow the ruse to continue

Ho Chi Minh

(1890-1969) Vietnamese leader who is responsible for ousting first the French, then the United States from his country. Supported by both communist China and the Soviet Union, he guided Vietnam through decades long warfare to emerge as a communist nation.

Office of Price Administration (OPA)

(1941-1947) A critically important wartime agency charged with regulating the consumer economy through rationing scarce supplies, such as cars, tires, fuel, rubber, nylon, and sugar, and by curbing inflation by setting ceiling prices on goods. Rents were controlled as well as in parts of the country overwhelmed by war worriers. It was extended after WWII to continue the fight against inflation but was abolished in `47

Cold War

(1945-1991) This 45 year diplomatic tension between the United States and the USSR that divided much of the world into polarized camps, capitalist vs. communist. Most of the international conflicts during that period, particularly in the developing world, can be traced to the completion between the United States and the USSR

Executive Order 9981

(1948) Order issued by President Truman to desegregate the armed forces. The president's action resulted from a combination of pressure from civil rights advocates, election-year political calculations, and the new geopolitical context of the Cold War.

Checkers Speech

(1952) National televised address by vice-presidential candidate Richard Nixon during which he defended himself against allegations of corruption. Using the new mass medium of television shortly before the 1952 election, the vice-presidential candidate saved his place on the ticket by saying the only campaign gift he had received was a cocker spaniel named Checkers.

Operation Wetback

(1954) A government program to round up and deport as many as 1 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.

policy of boldness

(1954) Foreign-policy objective of Eisenhower's secretary of state John Foster Dulles, 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 buildup 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 nationalists 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 by black Alabamians against segregated seating on city buses, sparked by Rosa Parks' defiant refusal to move to the back of the bus. The ___________ lasted from December 1, 1955, until December 26, 1956, and became one of the foundational moments of the civil rights movement. It led to the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr., and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision opposing segregated busing.

Suez Crisis

(1956) International crisis launched when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the _____ Canal, which had been owned mostly by British and French shareholders. The _____ led to a British and French attack on Egypt, which failed without aid from the U.S. The ______ 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 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 noticeably ahead of the US in the space race. A month later, the Soviet Union sent a larger satellite, into space, prompting the US to redouble its space exploration efforts and raising American fear of Soviet superiority.

kitchen debate

(1959) Televised exchange in 1959 between Soviet premier 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.

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.

Florida Purchase Treaty

(Adams Onís Treaty) (1819) Under the agreement, Spain ceded Florida to the US, which, in exchange, abandoned its claims to Texas

Aroostook War

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

West Africa Squadron

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

lyceum

(From the Greek name for the ancient Athenian school where Aristotle taught) Public lecture hall that hosted speakers on topics ranging from science to moral philosophy. Part of a broader flourishing of a higher education in the mid-nineteenth century

Battle of New Orleans

(Jan. 1815) Resounding victory of US forces vs GB, restoring American confidence and fueling an outpouring of nationalism. Final battle of the War of 1812

(Randolph)Borne and (Horace) Kallan

(Last Names Only Alphabetical Order) Two early twentieth century commentators who wrote against the grain of "one-hundred-per-cent" Americanism, celebrating ethnic diversity and cultural pluralism. Their essays left behind an important legacy for later writers on pluralism and civil rights.

WAACs (Woman's Army Auxiliary Corps)

(See SPARs and WAVES) The women's branches of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Coast Guard, established during WWII to employ women in noncombatant jobs. Women now participated in the armed services in ways that went beyond their traditional roles as nurses. [army]

California Gold Rush

(beginning in 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 for statehood in 1849

Second Great Awakening

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

Tammany Hall

(est 1789) Powerful NY political machine that primarily drew support from the city's immigrants, who depended on ____________ patronage, particularly social services

popular sovereignty

(in the context of the slavery debate) 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 into the territories

Ancient Order of Hibernians

(mid nineteenth century) Irish semisecret society that serves as a benevolent organization for downtrodden Irish immigrants in the United States

Kent State University

(shooting 1970) Massacre of 4 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 14-15, students at a historically black Jackson State College in Mississippi were protesting the war as well as the ______ shooting when highway patrolmen fired into a student dorm, killing 2 students

Poor Richard's Almanac

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

John Tyler

10th President, a Whig in name only, he opposed central tenets of the Whig platform, including tariffs, internal improvements and a national bank. (Democrat in Disguise)

James K. Polk

11th President. A North Carolina Democrat, largely unknown on the national stage, he campaigned on a platform of American expansion, advocating the annexation of TX and the 'reoccupation' of Oregon. As President, he provoked war with Mexico, adding vast tracts of land to the US but provoking a bitter sectional conflict over the expansion of slavery into newly aquired territories

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

Abraham Lincoln

16th President of the US. An Illinois later wand politician, he briefly served in Congress from 1847-1848 introducing the famous "spot" resolutions in the Mexican War. He gained national prominence in 1858 during the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the Illinois senate race and emerged as the leading contender for the Republican nomination in 1860. His election in 1860 drove South Carolina from the Union, eventually leading to the Civil War.

Protestant Reformation

16th century movement to reform the Catholic Church that was 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 to rote. The reformation launched in England in the 1530's when Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church and established the Anglican Church

Great Awakening

1730's and 1740's religious revival that swept the colonies. Participating ministers, most notably Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, placed an emphasis on direct, emotive spirituality.

Nonimportation agreements

1765 and after: Boycotts vs. 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

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

Committees of correspondence

1772 and after: 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

Andrew Johnson

17th President, NC born, he assumed the presidency after Lincoln's assassination in 1865. Much to the disgust of Radical Republicans in Congress, he, a Democrat, took a conciliatory approach to the South during Reconstruction, granting sweeping pardons to former Confederates and supporting Southern Black Codes against freedmen. In 1868, he was impeached by the House of Representatives for breaching the Tenure of Office Act. Acquitted by the Senate (1 vote), he remained in office to serve out his term

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

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 ___________ territory from France. The purchase ($15 million) more than doubled the territory of the US, opening vast tracts of settlement

Louisiana Purchase

1803 Acquisition of ___________ territory from France. The purchase ($15 million) more than doubled the territory of the US, opening vast tracts of settlement.

Marbury v. Madison

1803 Supreme Court Case that established the principal of Judicial Review (brought upon the court by the Judiciary Act of 1801).

Marbury v. Madison

1803 Supreme court case that established the principal of Judicial Review (brought upon the court by the Judiciary Act of 1801)

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 GB ports, thereby cutting off American merchants from trade with both parties

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 GB ports, thereby cutting off American merchants from trade with both parties.

Embargo Act

1807 Act enacted in response to GB and French mistreatment of American merchants, the Act banned the export of all goods from the US to any foreign port (put in place by Jefferson). This placed great strains on the US economy while only magically affecting its European targets, and was therefore repealed in 1809

Chesapeake affair

1807 Conflict between GB and the US that precipitated the 1807 Embargo Acts. The conflict developed when a British ship, in search of 4 deserters, fired on the American ___________ off the coast of Virginia

Non Intercourse Act

1809 Act passed alongside the repeal of the Embargo Act, it reopened trade with all but GB and France. It continued Jefferson's policy of economic coercion, still with little effect. (put in place 3 days before Jefferson's retirement)

Battle of Tippecanoe

1811 Battle that resulted in the defeat of Shawnee chief, "The Prophet" (Tenskwatawa), at the hands of William Henry Harrison in the indian wilderness. After the battle, "The Prophet's" brother, Temescuh, forged an alliance with GB v. the US

Bank 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 interest 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 tied to reclaim territory lost under the 1830 Indian Removal Act

"Self Reliance"

1841 Ralph Waldo Emerson's popular lecture-essay that reflected the spirit of individualism pervasive in American popular culture during the 1830's and 40's

Wilmot Proviso

1846 Amendement that sought to prohibit slavery from territories acquired from Mexico. Introduced by PA congressman, David Wilmot, the FAILED amendment ratcheted up tensions between North and South over the issue of slavery

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

1848 Ended the War with Mexico. Mexico agreed to cede territory reaching northwest from TX to OR in exchange for $18.25 million in cash and assumed debts

Uncle Tom's Cabin

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

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 a 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 question

1858 Raised during one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates by Abe Lincoln, who asked whether the Court or the people should facile the further of slavery in the territories.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

1858 Series of debated between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas during the US Senate race in Illinois. Douglas won the election but Lincoln gained national prominence and emerged as the leading candidate for the 1860 Republican Presidential nomination

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.

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 amendments would have given federal protection for slavery in all territories out of 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

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 onboard

US Sanitary Commission

1861 Founded 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

Morrill Tariff Act

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

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 5 years and improved it by, for ex, building a house on it. This act helped make land accessible to hundreds of thousands of westward moving settlers, but many people also found disappointment when their land as infertile or they saw speculators grabbing up the best land

Homestead Act

1862 A federal law that gave settlers 160 acres of land for about $30 if they lived on it for 5 years and improved it by, for example, building a house on it. The act helped make land accessible to hundreds of thousands of W-moving settlers, but many people also found disappointment when their land was infertile of they say speculators grabbing up the best land.

Peninsula Campaign

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

Union Party

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

Thirteenth Ammendement

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

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 American 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 This 1st national labor organization in United States history was founded in 1866 and gained 600K members from many parts of the workforce, although it limited the participation of the 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 the Secretary of State William Seward's purchase of Alaska from Russia. The derisive term reflected the anti-expansionisty sentiments of most-Americans immediately after the Civil War

Reconstruction Act

1867 Passed by the newly elected Republican Congress, it divided the South into 5 military districts, disenfranchised former confederates, and required that Southern states both ratify the 14th amendment and write the state constitutions guaranteeing freedmen the franchise before gaining readmission to the Union

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 (Stanton) 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

Battle of the Little Bighorn

1876 "Custer's Last Stand" A particularly violent example of white vs. Native American warfare. On June 25 and 26, the combined forces of over 2k Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians defeated and killed more than 250 United States soldiers, including Colonel George Custer. The battle came as the U.S. gov't tries to compel Native Americans to remain on the reservations and the Natives tried to defend land from the white gold-seekers. The Native advantage does not last long, as the United States Army soon exacted retribution

Gilded Age

1877-1896 A term given to the period 1865-1896 by Mark Twain, indicating both fabulous wealth and the wide-spread corruption of the era

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 Federal legislation that prohibited most further Chinese immigration to the US. This was the first major legal restriction on immigration in US 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. 8 anarchists were arrested for conspiracy contributing to the disorder, although evidence liking them to the bombing was thin. 4 were executed, 1 committed suicide, and 3 were pardoned in 1893

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

1886 A Supreme Court decision that prohibited the stated 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 refer 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. gov't efforts to "civilize" the Native Americans. Of 130 million acres held in Native reservations before the act, 90 million were sold to non-Native buyers

Interstate Commerce Act

1887 Congressional legislation that established the Interstate Commerce Commission, 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 business

Battle of Wounded Knee

1890 A battle between United States Army and the Dakota Sioux, in which several hundred Native Americans and 29 United States soldiers died. Tensions erupted violently over two major issues: 1. the Sioux practice of "Ghost Dance" which the U.S. gov't had outlawed 2. 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 a landmark legislation because it was one of the 1st 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 raided duties on Hawaiian sugar and set off renewed efforts to secure the annexation of Hawaii to the United States

Boxer Rebellion

1900 An uprising in China directed against foreign influence. It was suppressed by an international force of 18k soldiers including several thousand Americans. It paved the way for the revolution of 1911, which led to the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912

Homestead Strike

1892 A strike at Carnegie steel plant in Homestead, PA., that need in an armed battle between the strikers, 300 armed "Pinkerton" detectives hired by Carnegie, and federal troops, which killed 10 people and wounded more than 60. The strike was part of a nationwide wave of labor unrest in the summer of 1892 that helped the Populists gain some support form industrial workers

Pullman Strike

1894 A 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 (see ch 25). Eventually President Grover Cleveland intervened and federal troops forced an end to the strike. The strike highlighted both divisions between labor and the gov'ts new willingness to use armed forces to combat work stoppages

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 An 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 14th amendment. This decision provided legal justification for the Jim Crow system until the 1950s

Teller Amendment

1898 A proviso to 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. This amendment testified to the ostensibly "anti-imperialist" defines of the initial war plans

market revolution

18th and 19th century transformation from a disaggregated, subsistence economy to a national and commercial 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 writings 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 _______ rejected biblical inerrancy and the divinity of Christ, but they did believe that a supreme being created the universe

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" (Populist) campaign

Foraker Act

1900 Sponsored by Senator Joseph B. Foraker, a Republican from OH, this accord 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-Paunceforte 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.

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

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-nos.

Roosevelt Corollary

1904 A brazen policy of "preventative intervention" advocated by Teddy Roosevelt in his Annual Message to Congress in 1904. Adding ballast to the Monroe Doctrine, it 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 for labor reforms, this 1905 Supreme Court Case invalidated a state law establishing a 10 hour work day for bakers. It held that the "right to free contract" was implicit in the due process clause of the 14th amendment

Industrial Workers of the World

1905 The IWW, aka "Wobblies" was a radical organization that ought to build "one big union" and advocated industrial sabotage in defense of that goal. At its peak in 1923, it could clam 100k members and could gain the support of 300k. It particularly appealed to migratory workers in agriculture and lumbering and to miners, all 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 pharmaceutical intended for human consumption. This legislation, and additional provisions passed in 1911 to strengthen it, aimed particularly at the parent 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 the 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 different standard for male and female workers.

New Freedom

1912 Platform of reforms advocated by Wilson in his 1st presidential campaign, including stronger anti-trust legislation to protect small business enterprises from monopolies, banking reforms, and tariff reductions. Wilson's strategy involved taking action to increase opportunities for capitalist competition rather than increasing government regulation of large trusts.

Federal Reserve Act

1913 An act establishing 12 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 crises of WWI (1914-1918)

Underwood Tariff

1913 This tariff provided for a substantial reduction of rates and enacted an unprecedented, graduated 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 practiced in interstate commerce like unlawful competition, false advertising, and mislabeling of goods.

Tampico Incident

1914 An arrest of American soldiers 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 long overdue labor benefits.

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 didn't grant the Philippines independence until July 4, 1946

Adamson Act

1916 This law established an 8 hour day for all employees on trains involved in interstate commerce. with extra pay for overtime. It was the 1st federal law regulating the hours of workers in private companies, and was upheld by the Supreme Court in Wilson v. New in 1917

Committee on Public Information

1917 A government office during WWI known popularly as the Creel Committee for its chairman, 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.

Zimmermann Note

1917 German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann had secretly proposed a GER-MEX alliance vs the US. When the note was intercepted and published in March 1917, it caused an uproar that made some Americans more willing to enter the war.

Bolshevik Revolution

1917 The 2nd 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 occurred the previous February when more moderate revolutionaries overthrew the Russian Czar.

Meuse-Argonne offensive

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

Battle of Chateau-Thierry

1918 The first significant engagement of United States troops in WWI- and, indeed, in any European War. To weary French soldiers, the American doughboys were an image of fresh and gleaming youth.

Fourteen Points

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

League of Nations

1919 A world organization of national governments proposed by Wilson (14 points) and established by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It worked to facilitate peaceful international cooperation. Despite emotional appeals by Wilson, isolationists' objections to it created the major obstacle to America signing the Treaty of Versailles

Eighteenth Amendment

1919 This constitutional amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages, ushering the era known as prohibition.

Treaty of Versailles

1919 WWI concluded with this vengeful document, which secured peace but imposed sharp terms on GER and created a territorial mandate system to manage former colonies of the world powers. To Wilson's chagrin, it incorporated very few of his original 14 points, although it did include the League of Nations. Isolationists opposed to the League of Nations led to the opposition of ______ which was never ratified by the senate.

Volstead Act

1919 A federal act enforcing the 18th Amendment

Radio

1920s invention that allowed for long distance broadcasting. Families gathered around it to listen to programs like "Amos'n' Andy", the news, sports and advertising. It knitted the nation together by making these experiences universal.

Teapot Dome Scandal

1921 A tawdry affair involving the illegal lease of priceless naval oil reserves in Teapot Dome, WY and Elk Hills, CA. 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 the gov't 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 on 1921-`22 that pledged GB, FRA, the US, 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 in the Conference

Dawes Plan

1924 An arrangement negotiated in 1924 to reschedule German reparations payments. It stabilized the GER currency and opened a way for further American private loans to GER

Kellogg-Briand Pact

1928 A sentimental triumph of the `20s peace movement that linked 62 nations in the "outlawry of war" AKA the Pact of Paris

Agricultural Marketing Act

1929 Act that 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

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.

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

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

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

Bonus Army

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

Norris-La Gaurdia 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

London Economic Conference

1933 A 60- nation economic conference organized to stabilize international currency rates. FDR's decision to revoke American participation contributed to a deepening world economic crisis.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

1933 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 ___ proved to be and important foundation for the post WWII environmental movement

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

National Recovery Administration (NRA)

1933 Known by its critics ad the "National Run Around", it 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 established coded for "fair competition" to ensure that similar procedures were followed by all firms in any particular industrial sector

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

1933 One of the most revolutionary of the New Deal public works projects, it brought cheap electric power, full employment, low cost housing, and environmental improvements to Americans in the TN valley

Hundred Days

1933 The first 100 days of FDR's administration, stretching from March 9-June 16th, 1933, when an unprecedented number of reform bills were passed by a Democratic Congress to launch the New Deal

Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA)

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

Johnson Debt Default Act

1934 Steeped in ugly memories of WWI, 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 (of 1935)

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 union and bargain collectively with employers, and established the National Labor Relations Board to monitor unfair labor practiced on the part of employers. 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 (Axis Powers). The pact was signed after both countries has intervened on behalf of the fascist leader Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War

Quarantine Speech

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

Fair Labor Standards Act (Wages and Hours Bill)

1938 Important New Deal Labor legislation that regulated minimum wages and maximum hours for workers involved in interstate commerce. The law also outlawed labor by children under 16. The exclusion of agricultural, service, and domestic workers meant that many blacks, Mexican Americans, and women- who were concentrated in these sectors- did not benefit from the act's protection

Hitler-Stalin pact

1939 Treaty signed on August 23, 1939 in which GER and the Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other. The fateful agreement paved the way for German aggression against Poland and the Western democracies

Pearl Harbor

1941 An American naval base in Hawaii where Japanese war planes destroyed numerous ships and caused 3,000 casualties on December 7, 1941, a day that FDR said was to "live in infamy". Two days later, the United States entered WWII

ABC-1 Agreement

1941 An agreement between Great Britain and the United States developed a a conference in Washington D.C. between Jan. 29-March 27, 1941. Said that should the United States enter WWII, 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/Europe and fighting defensively on other military fronts

Lend-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 WWII

Atlantic Charter

1941 Meeting on a warship off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941. FDR 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 WWII

Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC)

1941 Threatened with a massive march to demand equal job opportunities in war jobs and in the military, FDR's administration issued an executive order forbidding racial discrimination in all defense plants operating under contract with the federal government. It was intended to monitor compliance with the Executive Order.

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

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 Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

1942 Nonviolent civil rights organization founded in 1942 and committed to the "Double V"- victory over racism abroad and racism at home. After WWII, it would become a major force in the civil rights movement

Executive Order No. 9066

1942 Order of President FDR 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 in the United States Supreme Court case Korematsu v. United States

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 1964, by then it had sponsored 4.5 million border crossings

Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act

1943 Passed amidst worries about the effect 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 vs. 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 preformed noble work, but it did not begin operations until very late in the war, and millions had already been murdered.

Bretton Woods Conference

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

GI Bill

1944 Known officially as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act and more informally as the _______ of Rights, this law helped returning WWII solders 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 for college and job training. It was also intended to cushion the blow of 15 million returning servicemen on the employment market and to nurture the postwar economy

D-Day

1944 A massive military operation led by American forces in Normandy, France, beginning on June 6, 1944. The pivotal battle led to the liberation of France and brought on the final phases of WWII in Europe. Germany was no longer on the offensive.

Yalta Conference

1945 Meeting of FDR, Churchill, and Stalin, in February 1945 at an old Tsarist resort on the Black Sea where the Big Three laid the foundations for the post war division of power in Europe, including a divided Germany and territorial concessions to the Soviet Union

Potsdam Conference

1945 From July 17-August 2, 1945, President Harry Truman met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British leaders Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee (when the Labour Party defeated Churchill's conservative party) near Berlin to deliver an ultimatum to Japan: surrender or be destroyed.

Nuremberg war crimes trial

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

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 closed shop and other strategies that helped unions organize. It also required unions to take a noncommunist oath, which purged the union movement of many of its most committed and active organizers.

Marshall Plan

1948 Massive transfer of aid money to help rebuild postwar W 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 C. Marshall at Harvard's commencement in June 1947

Berlin Airlift

1948 Year long mission of flying food and supplies to the blockaded West Berlin citizens, whom the Soviet Union cut off from access to the West in the first major crisis of the Cold War

Operation Dixie

1948 Failed effort by the CIO after WWII to unionize southern workers, especially in textile factories

National Security Council Memorandum Number 68 (NSC-68)

1950 National Security Council recommendation to 4x 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 not expected to interfere with what seemed like the limitless possibilities of postwar prosperity

Korean War

1950-1953 First "hot war" of the Cold War. It began in `50 when the Soviet backed North Koreans invaded South Korea before meeting a counter offensive by UN forces, dominated by the United States. The war ended in a stalemate in `53

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, it was the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr's famous "I Have A Dream" speech.

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 JFK's presidency

Freedom Riders

1961 Organized mixed race groups who rode interstate busses 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.

Cuban missile crisis

1962 Standoff between JFK 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 JFK, it wrought world's superpowers dangerously close to the brink of nuclear confrontation

Freedom Summer

1964 A voter registration drive in Mississippi led 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.

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 dispute it created formed the basis for continued conflict in the region.

My Lai Massacre

1968 Military assault in 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 American and around the world when its details and an attempted coverup were revealed in 1971

Stonewall Rebellion

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

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 states from barring abortion by citing a woman's constitutional rights 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 Presidents ability to wage war without Congressional approval. The act required the President to notify Congress within 48 hours committing troops to a foreign conflict. An important consequence of the Vietnam War, this piece of legislation sought to reduce the Presidents unilateral authority in military matters

malaise speech

1979 National address by Jimmy Carter in July 1979 in which the President chided American materialism and urged a communal spirit in the face of economic hardship. Although he intended the speech to improve both public morale and his standings as a leader, it had the opposite effect and was widely perceived as a political disaster for the embattled president.

Contract With America

1994 Multi point program offered by mid-term Republican candidates. Proposed smaller government, Congressional ethics reform, term limits, personal responsibility, and general repudiation of the Democratic Party. 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 in 1994

World Trade Organization

1995 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

Wellfare Reform Bill

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

Neal S. Dow

19th century temperance activist dubbed "The Father of Prohibition" for his sponsorship of the Maine Law of 1851, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol in the state

Bush v. Gore

2000 Supreme Court decision that gave the White House to Bush in a five-to-four decision along partisan lines. The ruling cast a shadow of illegitimacy over Bush's presidency. For the first time since 1888, a candidate with fewer popular votes than his opponent won the White House.

No Child Left Behind Act 2002

2001 An education bill created by the Bush administration designed to increase and monitor the standards for primary and secondary schools, and increase chooses for parents selecting schools for their kids. It was highly controversial because it linked results on standardized to federal funding for schools and school districts

USA Patriot Act

2001 Legislation passed shortly after the terror attacks of 9/11, 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 U.S. killing nearly 2000. It ravaged the Gulf Coast (New Orleans) in August 2005. It caused New Orleans's levees to break causing flooding in the impoverished parts of the city. Led to criticism of the FEMA due to late and feeble response by authorities

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

2010 Also known as "Obamacare," the act extended health-care insurance to some 30 million Americans, marking a major step toward achieving the century-old goal of providing universal health-care coverage.

Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

2010 Also known as the Dodd-Frank Act, after its Democratic sponsors (Chris Dodd and Barney Frank). In an effort to avoid another financial crisis like the Great Recession, the act updated many federal regulations affecting the financial and banking systems and created some new agencies, such as the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

2010 Supreme Court Decision. In a five-to-four decision the Court ruled that the First Amendment prohibited the government from limiting political expenditures made by corporations, unions, and advocacy group. The decision helped to spur the proliferation of so-called "super-PACS," which by avoiding any direct contributions to candidates and parties, could pour unlimited sums into the political arena. It also enable nonprofit advocacy groups to spend money on elections without disclosing the source of their funds.

Warren G. Harding

29th President from 1921 to his death in `23. He began as a newspaper publisher, then as a senator in Ohio from 1899-1903. He then served as lieutenant governor of Ohio then a U.S. senator. His time as president was beset with scandals, many the result of disloyalty of designing friends

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

32nd President of the United States and only American president to be elected to four terms of office. Won vs. Hoover in `32 during the Great Depression, and was credited with having developed the New Deal that shepherded the nation out of crisis. When WWII broke out in Europe, he steered the United States into war, which in the end proved more effective than the New Deal in helping the nation recover from difficult economic times. His gallant struggle against polio and his enormous talents as a politician mad him a beloved leader.

John F. Kennedy

35th President of the United States; events during his administration include the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, the African American Civil Rights Movement and early events of the Vietnam War; assassinated in Dallas, TX in 1963

(Gerald) Jerry Ford

38th president of the United States. A long-serving Congressman from Michigan, he was appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned in the fall of 1973. He succeeded to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation in August 1974 and focused his brief administration on containing inflation and reviving public faith in the presidency. He was defeated narrowly by Jimmy Carter in 1976.

(James Earl) Jimmy Carter Jr.

39th president of the United States. A peanut farmer and former governor of Georgia, he defeated Gerald Ford in 1976. As president, he arranged the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978 but saw his foreign policy legacy tarnished by the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis in 1979. Domestically, he tried to rally the American spirit in the face of economic decline, but was unable to stop the rapid increase in inflation. After leaving the presidency, he achieved widespread respect as an elder statesman and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Ronald Reagan

40th president of the United States. A former actor and California governor, he was elected in 1980 with a pronounced conservative mandate to fix the American economy by scaling back taxes and the role of government in business. He was a staunch Cold Warrior whose massive defense spending added stress to the Soviet Union's military budget and may ultimately have contributed to the end of the Cold War.

George H. W. Bush

41st president of the United States. A former congressman, diplomat, businessman, Republican party chairman, and director the CIA, he served for eight years as Reagan's vice president before being elected President in 1988. As president, he oversaw the end of the Cold War and the revitalization of the American military in the Persian Gulf War. He faced a severe economic recession late in his term that severely damaged his popularity, and he lost his bid for reelection in 1992.

Iranian hostage crisis

444 days (Nov 1979-Jan 1981) when American embassy workers were held captive by Iranian revolutionists. The Iranian Revolution began in 1971 when young Muslim fundamentalists overthrew the oppressive regime of the American backed shah, forcing him into exile. Deeming the U.S. "The Great Satan" these revolutionaries cut off Iranian oil creating a crisis. It began when the revolutionists stormed the embassy demanding the United States return the shah to Iran for trial. It was marked by botched diplomacy and failed rescue attempts by the Carter Administration. After permanently damaging relations between the two countries, the cases ended with the hostages' release the day that Ronald Reagan became president, January 20, 1981

Charles Darwin

A British naturalist whose 1859 book "On the Origin of Species" outlines a theory of evolution based on natural selection, whereby the strongest individuals of a particular species survived and reproduced while weaker individuals died out. This theory had an enormous impact not just on science but on religion and society too, as people wrestled with the challenge

Father Charles Coughlin

A Catholic priest from Michigan who goaded 40 million radio listeners with his weekly anti-New Deal harangues. He was a well-known opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies

William Jennings Bryan

A Democratic congressman from Nebraska who was an outspoken "free silver" advocate. His "Cross of Gold" speech at the Democratic Convention in 1896 won him the party's nomination. The populists also backed him in a "fusion" ticket with the Democrats. His eloquent advocacy for free silver and farmers' interests earned him millions of devoted followers, but never quite enough to win the Presidency, for which he ran 3 times ('96, '00, '08). Later in life, as Secretary of State, he led the resistance to American entry into WWI and in 1925, and ardent fundamentalist, he gained fame from some quarters, and great disdain from others, for joining the prosecution of high-school biology teacher John T. Scopes for teaching the controversial topic of evolution

Robert F. Wagner

A Democratic senator from New York State from 1927-1949, he was responsible for the passage of some of the most important legislation enacted through the New Deal. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was popularly known as the ____ Act in honor of the senator. He also played a major role in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Wagner-Steagall Housing Act of 1937.

John T. Scopes

A TN high school biology teacher who was prosecuted in 1925 for teaching the theory of evolution. Former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan joined the prosecution. The talented Clarence Darrow served as defense attorney.

Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)

A New Deal-era labor organization that broke away from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in order to organize unskilled industrial workers regardless of their particular economic sector or craft. The ___ gave a great boost to labor organizing in the midst of the Great Depression and during WWII. In 1955 it merged again with the AFL

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

Herbert Hoover

A Quaker humanitarian tapped to head the Food Administration during WWI. During the 1920s he became Secretary of Commerce, promoting economic modernization and responsible leadership by business to hold off further expansion of government power. Elected to the presidency in 1928 as a Republican, he soon faced the crisis of the Great Depression, which he tried to combat with the same voluntary efforts and restrained gov't action that had been his hallmark over the previous decade. He lost the election of 1932 to FDR (Democrat) who advocated a more activist role for the federal government

Jay Gould

A R&R manager who was included in the Black Friday scandal in 1869 and later gained control of many of the nation's largest railroads, including the Union Pacific. He became revered and hated for his ability to manipulate R&R stock for his personal profit and for his ardent resistance to organized labor

Schenck v. United States

A Supreme Court decision that upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts 1917 and `18, reasoning that freedom of speech could be curtailed when it posed a "clear and present danger" to the nation.

J.P. Morgan

A banker who became a national symbol of the power of the banks during the Gilded Age, he helped all the big businesses of the era consolidate their holdings and ultimately bought Carnegie's steel empire for more than $400 million in 1900. He also helped bail the US government out of a currency crunch in 1895 when he organized a loan to the government of $65 million in gold. In 1902 his Northern Securities Company became one of Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting crusades, but Roosevelt's 1907 decision to allow a steel merger under his watch showed the limits of Roosevelt's efforts

United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

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

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 dangerous forces of unfairness and fear wrought by anticommunist paranoia.

American plan

A business oriented approach to worker relations popular among firms in the 1920 to defeat unionization. Managers sought to strengthen their communication with workers and to offer benefit 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 WWI

Students for a Democratic Society (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" it emerged at the forefront of the civil rights, antipoverty, and antiwar movements during the 1960s.

(Fransisco) Pancho Villa

A combination of bandit and Robin Hood, he emerged as a chief rival to the Mexican President Carranza, and tried to provoke the United States into war by going on a killing spree north of the border in NM. President Wilson dispersed Pershing in an attempt to capture him, but this expedition ended in defeat.

holding companies

A company that owns part or all of another company's stock in order to extend monopoly control. Often, it doesn't 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 ______ when they obstructed competition

Lost Generation

A creative circle of expatriate American artists and writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, who found shelter and inspiration in post-WWI Europe.

Harlem Renaissance

A creative outpouring among African American writers, jazz musicians, and social thinkers, centered around Harlem in the 1920s, that celebrated black culture and advocated for a "New Negro" in American social, political, and intellectual life.

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. Thus, its followers embraced the provisional, uncertain nature of experimental knowledge. Among the most well known purveyors were John Dewey, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and William James.

Anti Imperialist League

A diverse group formed in order to protest United States colonial oversight into the Philippines. It included university presidents, industrialists, clergymen, and labor leaders. It was strongest in the North-East and was the largest lobbying organization on U.S. foreign policy until the end of the 19th century. It declined in strength after the U.S. signed the Treaty of Paris which approved the annexation of the Philippines, and especially after hostilities broke out between Filipino nationalists and American forces

McNary-Haugen Bill

A farm relief bill that was championed throughout the 1920's and aimed to keep agricultural prices high by authorizing the government to buy up surpluses and sell them abroad. Congress 2x passed the bill, but Coolidge vetoed it in 1927 and 1928

Peace Corps

A federal agency created by JFK in 1961 to promote voluntary servitude in foreign countries. It provides labor power to help developing countries improve their infrastructure, health care, education, and other aspects of their societies. Part of JFK's New Frontier vision, it represented an effort by postwar liberals to promote American values and influence though productive exchanges across the world.

Harry L. Hopkins

A former NY social worker, he came to be one of the major architects of the New Deal, heading up the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and Works Progress Administration, and serving as a personal confidant to FDR

William McKinley

A former Republican congressman from Ohio who won the presidency in 1896 and again in 1900. He was pro-business, conservative, and unwilling to trouble the waters by voicing unpopular opinions.

Benjamin Franklin Wade

A founder of the Republican Party and senator from OH from 1851-1869. A passionate abolitionist, he pressured President Lincoln throughout the Civil War to pursue harsher policies toward the South. He co-sponsored the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864, which required 50% registered votes to take the loyalty oath for restoration to the Union, rather than the mere 10% previously proposed by Lincoln. As President ProTem of the Senate in 1868, he was next in line for the Presidency should Andrew Johnson be impeached, and the prospect that someone of such radical views might become President may have contributed to the failed effort to impeach Johnson

Gifford Pinchot

A friend of Teddy Roosevelt, he was the head of the federal Division of Forestry and a noted conservationist who wanted to protect, but also use, the nation's natural resources, like forests an rivers. In 1922, he won election to the PA governor's mansion on the Republican ticket

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

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

Tea Party

A grassroots conservative political movement mobilized in opposition to Barack Obama's fiscal, economic and health care policies. Named after the Boston Tea Party of the Revolutionary Era, Tea Party protestors first demonstrated in early 2009, and they grew steadily in visibility and power as a pressuring force within the Republican Party through the 2010 midterm elections and beyond.

Adkins v. Children's Hospital

A landmark Supreme Court decision reversing the ruling in Muller v. Oregon which had declared woman to be deserving of special protection in the workplace

Adkins v. Children's Hospital

A landmark Supreme Court decision reversing the ruling in Muller v. Oregon which had declared women to be deserving of special protection in the workplace

John Dewey

A leader of the pragmatist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he applied the philosophy to education and social reform, advocating "learning by doing" as well as the application of knowledge to solving real-life problems. He became an outspoken promoter of social and political reforms that broadened American democracy

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

American Federation of Labor

A national federation of trade unions that included only skilled workers, founded in 1886. Led by Samuel Gompers for nearly 4 decades, it sought to negotiate with employers for a better kind of capitalism that rewarded workers fairly with better wages, hours, and conditions. Its membership was almost entirely white and male until the middle of the 20th century (AFL)

William R. Hearst

A newspaper magnate who inherited his father's "San Francisco Examiner" and ultimately owned newspapers and magazines published in cities across the United States. He was largely responsible for the spread of sensationalist journalism. The Hearst Corporation still owns dozens of newspapers, magazines, and other media outlets in the United States and around the world.

Tuskegee Institute

A normal and industrial school led by Booker T. Washington in Alabama. It focused on training of black students in agriculture and the trades to hep 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 too "accomodationist"

Al Capone

A notorious Chicago bootlegger and gangster during Prohibition, he evaded conviction for murder but served most of an eleven-year sentence for tax evasion.

red scare

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

Venustiano Carranza

A principal rival and presidential sucessor to the Mexican General Huerta, Woodrow Wilson favored him over Huerta, but he himself resented the US's meddling in Mexican affairs

recall

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

initiative

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

Louis D. Brandeis

A progressive minded confidant of Woodrow Wilson, who was the litigator behind Muller v. Oregon (Ch 28). In 1916, Wilson made him the first Jewish American to be appointed to the United States Supreme Court

referendum

A progressive reform procedure allowing voters to place a bill on the ballot for final approval, even after being railroaded through a compliant legislature by agents of big business.

Frederick W. Taylor

A prominent inventor and engineer who developed "scientific management", a system of shop floor organization that stressed efficient highly supervised labor management and production methods. His methods revolutionized manufacturing across the industrialized world.

Henry Cabot Lodge

A prominent republican senator from MA, he was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a persistent thorn in President Wilson's internationalist side when he crusaded against the League of Nations

Joseph Pulitzer

A publisher whose newspapers, including the "New York World", became a symbol of the sensationalist journalism of the late nineteenth century

Cornelius Vanderbilt

A railroad magnate who made millions in steam-boating before beginning a business consolidating railroads and eliminating competition in the industry

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.

Francis E. Townsend

A retired physician who had lost his savings in the Great Depression and promoted a plan, popular with senior citizens, to pay every person over sixty $200 a month, provided that the money was spent within the month. One estimate had the scheme costing one-half of the national income.

Mark Twain

A satirist and writer, he is best known for his books "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884). His work critiqued American politics and society, especially the racial and economic injustice that he saw in the South and West. He traveled abroad extensively and his work was read and loved around the world.

Albert B. Fall

A scheming anti-conservationist who served as secretary of the interior under Harding. He was one of the key players in the notorious Teapot Dome Scandal

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 were made

Open Door Note

A set of diplomatic letters in which Secretary of State Hay urged the great powers to respect Chinese rights and forced 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 United States did not have a formal sphere of influence in China

Beat Generation

A small coterie of mid-twentieth century bohemian writers and personalities, including Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, who bemoaned bourgeois conformity and advocated free-form experimentation in life and literature.

miranda warning

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

Proposition 13

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

Tweed Ring

A symbol of Gilded Age corruption, "Boss" Tweed and his deputies ran the NYC 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

fourth party system

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 older concerns like civil service reform and monetary policy

Florence Kelley

A tireless crusader for women's and labor rights, she was Illinois's first chief factory inspector and a leader of the National Consumer's League, an organization dedicated to improving working conditions for women and children. She also went on to help found the NAACP.

Eugene Debs

A tireless socialist leader who organized the American Railway Union in the Pullman Strike of 1894. He was later convicted under the First World War's Espionage Act in 1918 and sentenced to 10 years in a federal penitentiary. A frequent presidential candidate on the Socialist Party ticket, in 1920 he won over 900k votes campaigning for president from his prison cell.

Andrew Carnegie

A tycoon who came to dominate the burgeoning steel industry. His company, after named United States Steel, was the biggest corporation in United States history in 1901. After he retired, he donated most of his fortune to public libraries, universities, arts organizations, and other charitable causes.

closed shop

A union-organizing term that refers to the practice of allowing only unionized employees to work for a particular company. The AFL became known for negotiating _________ agreements with employers, in which the employer would agree not to hire a worker unless they were a union member

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

A. Mitchell Palmer

A zealous prosecutor and anti-red, he served as an Attorney General during the post WWI "red scare" when thousands of foreign nationals were deported because of suspected subversive activists

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Abolitionist and woman suffragist, she organized the first Woman's Rights Convention near her home in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848. After the Civil War, she urged Congress to include women in the 14th and 15th amendments, despite urgings from Frederick Douglass to let freedman have their hour. In 1869, she, along with Susan B. Anthony, founded the National Woman Suffrage Association which lobbied for a constitutional amendment granting women the vote.

Lucy Stone

Abolitionist and woman's rights activist who kept her maiden name after marriage inspiring other women, "__________rs", to follow her example. Though she campaigned to include women in the 14th and 15th amendments, she did not join Stanton and Anthony in denouncing the amendments when it became clear the changes would not be made. In 1869, she founded the American Woman Suffrage Association, which lobbied for suffrage primarily at the state level.

Tecumseh

Accomplished Shawnee warrior who sought to establish a confederacy of tribes east of the Mississippi. He opposed individual tribes of selling land to the US, arguing the land belonged to the Native peoples. After 1811, he allied with GB, fighting fiercely vs the US until his death in the War of 1812 in 1813 at the battle of Thames

Impressment

Act of forcibly drafting an individual into military service, employed by the GB navy vs. US seamen in times of war vs. France (1793-1815). This was a continual source of conflict between GB and the US in the early national period.

Alien Laws (1798)

Acts passed by a Federalist Congress raising the residency requirement for citizenship to 14 years and granting the president the power to deport dangerous foreigners in times of peace

Dominion of New England 1686

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 without consent, and strictly enforced the Navigation Laws. Its collapse after the Glorious Revolution in 1689 demonstrated colonial opposition to strict royal control.

Compromise of 1850

Admitted CA as a free state, opened NM and UT 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 South, it did little to settle the escalating dispute over slavery

Phillis Wheatley

African American poet who overcame the barriers of slavery to publish two collections of her powers. As a young girl, she lived in Boston, and was later taken to England where she found a publisher wiling to distribute her work.

Anthony Johnson

African slave who purchased his freedom and became himself a slaveholder in Virginia, serving a testament to the relative fluidity of early colonial society.

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 WWI.

mining industry

After gold and silver strikes in CO, NV, and other Western territories in the 2nd half of the 19th century, fortunes seekers by the thousands rushed to the W to dig. These metals were essential to the 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 _______ because only big companies could afford to buy and build the 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 Americans' longstanding opposition to entangling alliances with foreign powers

Macon's Bill No. 2

Aimed at resuming peaceful trade with GB and France, the bill/act stipulated that if either GB or France repealed its trade restrictions, the US would reinstate the embargo against the non repealing nation. When Napoleon offered to lift his restrictions on GB ports, the US under Madison was forced to declare an embargo on GB, thereby pushing the 2 nations closer toward war.

Quebec Act (1774)

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

Elizabeth Blackwell

America's 1st female physician who helped organize the US Sanitary Commission during the Civil War to aid the Union War effort by training nurses, collecting medical supplies, and equipping hospitals

containment doctrine

America's strategy vs the USSR based on ideas of George Kennan. The doctrine declared that the USSR 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.

John Adams

American Revolutionary, statesmen, and second president of the US. One of the more radical patriots on the eve of the Revolution, MA born _______ helped guide the Continental Congress toward a declaration of independence from Britain. From 1778-1788 he involved himself with international diplomacy, serving as minister to France, GB, and the Netherlands. After serving as Washington's Vice President, he was elected president in his own right in 1796. His administration suffered from Federalist infighting, international turmoil and domestic uproar over the Alien and Sedition acts, all of which contributed to his defeat in the 1800 election

Hudson River School

American artistic movement that produced romantic renditions of local landscapes

Francis Scott Key

American author and lawyer who composed "The Star Spangled Banner" (now the national anthem) purportedly while observing the bombardment of Fort McHenry (NY) form the deck of a British ship where he was detained

Maine

American battleship spaced to keep a "friendly" watch over Cuba in early 1898. It mysteriously blew up in the Havana harbor on Feb 15th, 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 buyers. But many Americans, eager for war, insisted that it was the fault of a Spanish submarine mine

Loyalists

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

George (F.) Kennan

American diplomat who authored the "containment doctrine" in 1947, arguing that the Soviet Union was inherently expansionist and had to be stopped, via political and military force, from spreading throughout the world.

George Rogers Clark

American frontiersman who captured a series of British forts by surprise along the Ohio river during the Revolutionary War

Isaac Singer

American inventor and manufacturer, who made his fortune by improving Elias Howe's sewing machine. His machine fueled the ready-made clothing industry in New England

Alfred Thayer Mahan

American naval officer and author whose 1890 book, "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, impressed a generation of imperialists around the world with its argument that control of the sea was the key to world dominance

Matthew C. Perry

American naval officer sent by Millard Fillmore to negotiate a trade deal with Japan. Backed by an impressive naval fleet, he showered Japanese negotiators with lavish gifts. Combining military bravado with diplomatic finesse, he negotiated the landmark, Treaty of Kanagwa in 1854, ending Japan's 2 centuries of isolation

Thomas Macdonough

American naval officer who secured a decisive victory over a British fleet at the Battle of Plattsburg, halting the British invasion of New York

Oliver Hazard Perry

American naval officer whose decisive victory over a British fleet on Lake Erie during the War of 1812 reinvigorated American morale and paved the way for General William Henry Harrison's victory at the Battle of Thames in 1813

James Fenimore Cooper

American novelist and a member of NY's Knickerbocker Group, he wrote adventure tales, including 'The Last of the Mohicans', which won acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic

Stephen W. Kearny

American officer during the Mexican-American War, who led a detachment of troops into New Mexico, capturing Santa Fe

Benjamin Franklin

American printer, inventor, statesman, and revolutionary. He first established himself in Philadelphia as a leading newspaper printer, inventor, and author of "Poor Richard's Almanac". He later became a leading revolutionary and signatory of the Declaration of Independence. During the Revolutionary War, he served as commissioner to France, securing the nation's support for the American cause

Patrick Henry

American revolutionary and champion of states' rights, ____ became a prominent anti-federalist during the ratification debate, opposing what he saw as despotic tendencies in the new national Constitution

Meriwether Lewis

American soldier and explore who led he famous expedition through Louisiana territory from 1804-1806. After briefly serving as governor for Upper Louisiana territory, he died from apparent suicide in 1809

Meriwether Lewis

American soldier and explorer who led the famous expedition through Louisiana territory from 1804-1806. After briefly serving as governor for Upper Louisiana territory, he died from apparent suicide in 1809.

Robert Livingston

American statesman who served as a US minister to France fem 1801-1804 and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in 1803

Robert Livingston

American statesman who served as a US minister to France from 1801-1804 and negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in 1803

Henry David Thoreau

American transcendentalist and author of "Walden: Or Life in the Woods". A committed idealist and abolitionist, he advocated civil disobedience, spending a night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax to a MA government that supported slavery

World's Columbian Exposition

Americans saw this world's fair, held in Chicago, 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 it the time. For many, this was the high point of the "City Beautiful" movement.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009)

Among the earliest initiatives of the Obama administration to combat the Great Recession. It was based on the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes that called for increased government spending to offset decreased private spending in times of economic downturn. The act was controversial from the outset, passing with no Republican votes in the House and only three in the Senate, and helping to foster the "tea Party movement to curb government deficits, even while critics on the left argued that the act's $787 billion appropriation was not enough to turn the economy around.

Charles A. Lindbergh

An American aviator who made history as the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic. An instant international hero, his reputation was later tarnished by anti-Semitic views that he voiced during WWII.

Sigmund Freud

An Austrian physician who led the way in developing the field of psychoanalysis. One of the most influential minds of the 20th century. He was known for his argument that sexual repression was responsible for a variety of nervous and emotional ills.

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. It 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 GB economist John Maynard Keynes, holding that the central banks should adjust interest rates and governments should use deficit spending and fiscal policies to increase purchasing power and hence prosperity.

abstract expressionism

An experimental style of mid-twentieth-century modern art exemplified by Jackson Pollock's spontaneous "action paintings," created by flinging paint on canvases stretched across the studio floor.

Ku Klux Klan

An extremist, paramilitary, right-wing secret society founded in the mid-nineteenth century and revived during the 1920s. It was anti-foreign, anti-Communist, anti-black, anti-Jewish, anti-pacifist, 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.

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 their responsibilities in the home and family made them indispensable in the public decision making process. During WWI, NAWSA supported the war effort and lauded women's role in the Allied victory which helped to finally achieve nationwide woman suffrage in the Nineteenth Amendment.

contras

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

Nelson Mandela

Anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress. After spending 27 years in prison in South Africa, he became the first black president of South Africa in 1994, dramatically signaling the end of racial apartheid in the country.

Maximilian

Archduke of Austria, he became Emperor of Mexico in 1864, installed by French emperor Napoleon III. Well intentioned yet hapless, he saw his government collapse in 1867 when the French withdrew their support under pressure from the US

William Lloyd Garrison

Ardent abolitionist and publisher of "The Liberator", an anti-slavery newspaper that advocated the immediate emancipation of slaves. In 1833, he founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, the largest abolitionist organization in the North, counting more than 250,000 members by 1838.

Paxton Boys 1764

Armed march on Philadelphia by Scotts-Irish frontiersman in protest against the Quaker establishment's lenient policies tower Native Americans

Shay's Rebellion (1786)

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

Intermediate Rance Nuclear Forces (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.

Booker T. Washington

As head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he advocated for vocational education for African Americans so that they could gain economic security. Believing that southern whites were not yet ready for social equality, he instead concentrated on gaining economic power for blacks without directly challenging the southern racial order.

Stamp Act Congress of 1765

Assembly of delegates from 9 colonies who met in NY city to draft a petition for the repeal of the Stamp Act. Helped ease suspicions an promote intercolonial unity

V-J (Victory in Japan) Day

August 15, 1945 heralded the surrender of Japan and the final end to WWII on this day

Thomas Jefferson

Author of the Declaration of Independence, ambassador to FRA, and 3rd President of the US. One of the leaders of the Democratic-Republican Party, he advocated a limited role for nat'l gov't, particularly pertaining to finance. As President, he oversaw significant expansion of the federal state through the purchase of the Louisiana territory and the enactment of the Embargo Act of 1807

Thomas Jefferson

Author of the Declaration of Independence, ambassador to France, and 3rd President of the US. One of the leaders of the Democratic-Republican Party, he advocated a limited role for nat'l gov't, particularly pertaining to finance. As President, he oversaw significant expansion of the federal state through the purchase of the Louisiana territory and the enactment of the Embargo Act of 1807.

Frederick Jackson Turner

Author of the famous "frontier thesis," in which he argued that the taming of the West had shaped the nation's character. The experience of molding wilderness into civilization, he argued, encouraged Americans' characteristic embrace of individualism and democracy. Although he is now criticized for, among other things, entirely ignoring the role of Native Americans in the West, his argument remains a keystone of thought about the West in American history.

Battle of Long Island (August 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

Lyndon Baines Johnson

Became president after Kennedy's assassination and reelected in 1964; Democrat

War of Jenkin's Ear

Began in 1739, small scale clash between Britain and Spain in the Caribbean and in the buffer colony, Georgia. It merged with the much larger war of Austrian succession in 1742

Insular Cases

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.

Unitarians

Believe in a unitary deity, reject the divinity of Christ, and emphasize the inherent goodness of mankind. Inspired in part by Deism, it 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 also applied this theory to whole nations and races, explaining that powerful peoples were naturally endowed with gifts that allowed them to fain superiority over others. This theory provided one of the popular justifications for United States imperial ventures like the Spanish-American war

Dred Scott

Black Slave who sued his master for freedom, triggering the landmark Supreme Court decision that extended federal protection for slavery in the territories. He, backed by abolitionists, based his case on the five years he spent with his master in free soil Illinois and Wisconsin

Martin Delany

Black abolitionist and advocate of relocating freed blacks to Africa, even visiting West Africa's Niger Valley in search of a suitable location in 1859.

David Walker

Black abolitionist and offered of the incendiary "Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World", which advocated a bloody end to white supremacy.

Sojourner Truth

Black abolitionist, preacher, and woman's rights activist, who worked tirelessly on behalf of slaves and free blacks.

Malcolm X

Black militant, radical minister, and spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964. Having eschewed his family name "Little," he preached a doctrine of no compromise with white society. He was assassinated in New York City in 1965.

Nat Turner

Black slave who led an ill-fated rebellion in Virginia in 1831. The deeply-religious ______ sought a violent overthrow to the sinful institution of slavery. Before they were apprehended, _____ and his followers murdered more than 60 whites, sending a shockwave throughout the south.

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 means to put down the uprising.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Boston born scholar and leading American transcendentalist, whose essays, most notably "Self Reliance" stressed individualism, self-improvement, optimism, and freedom

Samuel Adams

Boston revolutionary who organized Massachusetts committees of correspondence to helps sustain opposition to British policies. A delegate to the First and Second Continental Congress, he continued to play a key role throughout the revolutionary and early national periods, later serving as governor in his home state.

John Hancock

Boston smuggler and prominent leader of the colonial resistance, who served as president of the Second Continental Congress. In 1780 he became the first governor of Massachusetts, a post he held with only brief intermission until his death

Samuel Slater

British born mechanic and father of the American "Factory System", establishing textile mills though out New England

Thomas Paine

British born pamphleteer and author of "Common Sense", a fiery tract that laid out the case for American independence. Later an ardent supporter of the French Revolution, he became increasingly radical in his views, publishing the anticlerical "The Age of Reason" in 1794, which cost him the support of his American allies

The Alabama

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

George Canning

British foreign secretary who proposed what would later become the Monroe Doctrine, a declaration issued by James Monroe, warning European Powers to refrain from acquiring new territories in the Americas

Lord Charles Cornwallis

British general during the Revolutionary War who, having failed to crush Greene's forced in South Carolina, retreated to Virginia, where his defeat at Yorktown marked the beginning of the end for Britain's efforts to suppress the colonial rebellion.

Isaac Brock

British general who helped stave off an American invasion of Upper Canada during the War of 1812. Successfully captured Detroit from American forces in Aug of 1812, but was killed in battle later that year

General John (Gentleman Johnny) Burgoyne

British general who led an ill-fated invasion of upstate New York, suffering a crushing defeat by George Washington at Saratoga

William Howe

British general who, despite victories on the battlefield, failed to deal a crushing blow to Washington's Continental Army. By attacking Philadelphia instead of reinforcing General Burgoyne at Saratoga, he also inadvertently contributed to that crucial American victory

King George III

British monarch during the run-up to the American Revolution, he contributed to the imperial crises with his dogged insistence on asserting Britain's power over her colonial possessions

William Pitt

British parliamentarian who rose to prominence during the French and Indian War as the brilliant tactic behind Briain's victory over France "Great Commoner" "organizer of victory"

Lusitania

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

William Wilberforce

British politician who championed the abolition of the slave trade, and later slavery itself. An evangelical Christian, he delivered rousing speeches on the floor of the Commons, galvanizing public support for abolitionist cause.

George Grenville

British prime minister to fueled tensions between Britain and her North American colonies through his strict enforcement of Navigation Laws and his support for the Sugar and Stamp Acts

Charles ("champagne charley") Townshend

British prime minister whose ill-conceived duties on the colonies, the Townshend Acts, sparked fierce protest int eh colonies and escalated the imperial conflict.

Walt Whitman

Brooklyn, NY born poet and author of "Leaves of Grass", a collection of poems written largely in free verse, which exuberantly celebrated America's democratic spirit

Robert S. McNamara

Businessman turned secretary of defense from 1961 to 1968. he was the author of the "flexible response" doctrine, which created a variety of military options and avoided a stark choice between nuclear warfare and none at all. As defense secretary, he was the chief architect of the Vietnam War.

Hernando de Soto

Spanish explorer who, along with 600 armored men, sought gold from 1539-1542 and crossed the Mississippi River

John Trumbull

CT born painter, who like many of his contemporaries, traveled to England to pursue his artistic ambitions. He was best known for his depictions of key events in the American Revolution, including the signing of the Declaration of Independence

Department of Homeland Security

Cabinet level security 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 "_______" for their lively dance worship, they emphasized simple, communal living and were all expected to practice celibacy. First transplanted into America from England by Mother Ann Lee, they counted 6k members by 1840, though by the 1940s the movement had largely died out

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Cartel comprising Middle Eastern states and Venezuela first organized in 1960. _____ 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.

Duke of York

Catholic English monarch who reigned as James II from 1685 until he was deposed during the Glorious Revolution in 1689. When the English seized New Amsterdam in 1664, they renamed it in the Duke's honor to commemorate his support for the colonial venture

Bank of the United States (1791)

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

Powhatan

Chief of the Powhatan Indians and father of Pocahontas. As a show of force, he staged the kidnapping and mock execution of Captain John Smith in 1607. He later led the Powhatan Indians in the first Anglo-Powhatan War, negotiating a tenuous peace in 1614

Jerry Falwell

Christian evangelical reverend and radical right-wing traditionalist. In 1979, he founded the Moral Majority, a political action committee dedicated to moral values and in opposition to feminism and gay rights.

Second Battle of Bull Run

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

Boston Massacre (1770)

Clash between unruly Bostonian protesters and locally stationed British redcoats, who fired on the jeering crown, killing or wounding 11 citizens.

Nicholas Biddle

Coined Czar Nicholas I with his Bank of the United States his hydra of Corruption, he was a banker, financed and President of the Second Bank of the US from 1823, until the bank's charter expired in 1836

The Federalist (1788)

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

Lord De La Warr

Colonial governor who imposed harsh military rule over Jamestown after taking over in 1610. Veteran of England's brutal campaigns against the Irish; applied harsh "Irish" tactics in his war against the Indians, sending troops to torch Indian villages and seize provisions. The colony of Delaware was named after him

Massachusetts Bay Colony 1630

Colony established by non-separating Puritans, that soon grew to be the largest and most influential of the New England colonies

Albert "Al" E. Smith

Colorful NY governor who was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate in 1928. His Catholicism and "wet" stance on Prohibition made him controversial, even though he was in the traditionally loyal Democratic South. His appeal to urban voters foreshadowed the Northern urban and Souther coalition that would gain FDR to the presidency in 1932

Albert E. Smith

Colorful NY governor who was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate in 1928. His Catholicism and "wet" stance on Prohibition made him controversial, even though he was in the traditionally loyal Democratic South. His appeal to urban voters foreshadowed the Northern urban and Southern coalition that would gain FDR the presidency in 1932

George Dewey

Commander of the American Asiatic Squadron who boldly captured Manilla Bay and the Philippines at the launch of the Spanish American War. His actions ultimately led to fierce debates about the propriety of American imperialism

New Harmony

Communal society of around 1k members, established in ____________, 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

Olive Branch Petition (July 1775)

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

Robert E. Lee

Confederate general in command of, at first, The Army of the Potomac, then, the entire Confederate army during the Civil War. A bold tactician, he kept his army on the offensive throughout most of the war, skillfully outmaneuvering Union armies in key battles. His fortunes reversed after his defeat at Gettysburg, although he continued to battle Union forces throughout VA until his surrender at Appomattox. After the war, he was indicted for treason but never charged, and he actively worked to bring about a peaceful region of North and South.

George Pickett

Confederate general who led the bold but ill-fated charge, "the high tide of the Confederacy" against Union forces at Gettysburg

First Continental Congress 1774

Convention of delegates from 12/13 colonies that convened in Philadelphia to craft a response to the Intolerable acts Delegates established The Association, which called for a complete boycott of British goods.

Northwest Ordinance (1787)

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

Hernán Cortés

Cuban explorer who set sail from Cuba bound for Mexico. After the "noche triste", he sieged the city of Tenochitlán which capitulated on August 13, 1521, thus bringing the Aztec Empire under the rule of the Spanish for 3 centuries (along with the help of small pox)

insurrectos

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

Fidel Castro

Cuban revolutionary leader who overthrew the corrupt regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and soon after established a Communist state. He was prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and has been president of the government and First Secretary of the Communist Party since 1976.

Jacob A. Riis

Danish born police reporter and pioneering photographer who exposed the ills of tenement living in his 1890 book illustrated with powerful photographs "How The Other Half Lives". His work led to the establishment of "model tenements" in NYC

Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson

Daring Confederate general and brilliant tactician, who routinely took men on long marches to the outflank of Union ones. He led his troops to victory at the 1st Battle of Bull Run and protected VA's Shenandoah Valley from Northern invasion in the 1st year of the Civil War. Joining Lee at Richmond, VA, he helped halt the Union's Peninsula Campaign in 1862. He was killed by friendly fire at the battle of Chancellorsville in May of 1863

Pocahontas

Daughter of Chief Powhatan, "saved" Captain John Smith in a dramatic mock execution and served as a mediator between Indians and the colonists. In 1614, she married John Rolfe and sailed with him to England, where she was greeted as a princess, and where she passed away shortly before her planned return to the colonies.

Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794)

Decisive battle between the Miami confederacy and the US Army. British forces refused to shelter the routed Indians, forcing the latter to attain a peace settlement with the US

Battle of Saratoga (October 1777)

Decisive colonial victory in upstate New York, which helped secure French support for the revolutionary cause

Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789)

Declaration of the rights adopted during the French Revolution. Modeled after the American Declaration of Independence

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

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

Proclamation of 1763

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

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 predominance in Europe and across the Atlantic. It was repealed in 1685 and prompted Protestant Huguenot migration to North America

Nancy Pelosi

Democratic congresswoman from California who became, in 2007, the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives. Representing a liberal district, she as Speaker sought to strike a more moderate, yet still Democratic, tone.

Hilary (Rodham) Clinton

Democratic senator from New York who, in 2008, became the first highly competitive female can- didate for president. A lawyer and political activist, she was First Lady from 1993 to 2001, and then became the first former First Lady to serve in elected office when she was elected to the Senate. She tried unsuccessfully to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2008.

war hawks

Democratic-Republian Congressmen who pressed James Madison to declare war on GB. Largely drawn from the South and West, they resented GB constraints on American trade and accused the British of supporting Indian acts vs. American settlement on the frontier

baby boom

Demographic explosion from births due to returning soldiers 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

Abu Ghraib prison

Detention facility near Baghdad, Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, it was the site of infamous torturing and execution of political dissidents. During the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2004, it became the center of an abuse and torture scandal when images surfaced of American soldiers touting Iraqi war prisoners. Led to increased criticism of the War and of secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfielf

three fifths compromise (1787)

Determined that each slave would be counted as 3/5ths of a person for the purpose of apportioning taxes and representation. The compromise granted disproportionate political power to Southern slave trades

XYZ affair (1797)

Diplomatic conflict between France and the US 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 US called for war vs. France, while American sailors and privateers waged an undeclared war vs. French merchants in the Caribbean

Peter Stuyvesant

Director general of Dutch New Netherland from 1645 until the colony fell to the British in 1664. Known as the man with the wooden leg

Black Power

Doctrine of militancy and separatism that rose in prominence after 1965. Their 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 off the teachings of John Calvin. The belief in predestination, that only "the elect" were destined for salvation

Fundamental Orders 1639

Drafted by settlers in the Connecticut River Valley, this document was the first modern constitution, establishing a democratically controlled government. Key fetters of the document were borrower for Connecticut's colonial charter, and later, its state constitution.

George B. McClellan

Dubbed "Young Napoleon" and "Little Mac" and "Tardy George" Union general in command of the Army of the Potomac from 1861-1862, he led the failed Peninsular Campaign in 1861 and later fought Lee to a virtual stalemate at Antietam. He boosted the morale and confidence of his troops, but testes Lincoln's patience by routinely hesitating to send men to battle. In 1864, he ran against Lincoln as the Democratic nominee, campaigning against emancipation and the harsh treatment of the South, while repudiating the antiwar stance of the Copperheads.

Jacobus Arminius

Dutch theologian who rejected predestination, preaching that salvation could be attained through the acceptance of God's grace and was open to all, not just the elect.

Sugar Act (1764)

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

Francis Parkman

Early American historian who wrote a series of volumes on the imperial struggle between Britain and France in North America

Panic of 1837

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

Mercantilism

Economic theory that closely linked a nation's political and military power to its bullion reserves. People who observed this theory generally favored protectionism an colonial acquisition as means to increase exports. More exports than imports.

supply-side economics

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

Voter Education Project

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 exporting people at grassroots levels to exercise their civic rights through voting.

Hiram W. Johnson

Elected Republican governor of CA in 1910, he oversaw numerous progressive reforms, including the passage of woman suffrage at the state level. In 1917, he entered the Senate where he proved an isolationist in foreign affairs. He is famous for declaring that "the first casualty when war comes, is truth"

Chester Arthur

Elected as Vice President in 1880, he became President after Garfield's assassination. He was primarily known for his efforts at civil service reform, culminating in the Pendleton Act

James A. Garfield

Elected to the presidency in 1880, he served as President for only a few months before being assassinated by Charles Guiteau, who claimed to have killed him because he was denied a job through patronage when Garfield was elected. The assassination fueled efforts to reform the spoils system

Revolution of 1800

Electoral victor 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

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.

Nikita Khrushchev

Emerged as a leader in the Soviet Union after the death of dictator Josef Stalin. In 1956, he advocated reform and indirectly criticized Stalin and his methods. He became the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1974.

Sedition Act (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 from Republicans, who let the act expire in 1801 so it could not be used against them if they lost the 1800 election

Valley Forge (1777-1778 winter)

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.

John Rolfe

English colonist whose marriage to Pocahontas in 1614 sealed the peace of the First Anglo-Powhatan War. Known as the father of tobacco

Sir Walter Raleigh

English courtier and adventurer who sponsored the failed settlements of North Carolina's Roanoke Island in 1585 and 1587. Once a favorite of Elizabeth I, he fell out of favor after secretly marrying one of her maids of honor. He continued his colonial pursuits until 1618, when he was executed for treason.

Henry Hudson

English explorer who ventured into New York Bay and up the Hudson River for the Dutch in 1609 in search of a Northwest Passage across the continent

Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot)

English explorer who was sent to explore the northeastern coast of North America in 1497 and 1498

Royal African Company

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

Sir Francis Drake

English sea captain who com- pleted his circumnavigation of the globe in 1580, plundering Spanish ships and settlements along the way

William Bradford

Erudite leader of the Separatist Pilgrims who left England for Holland, and eventually sailed the Mayflower to establish the first English colony in Massachusetts. His account of the colony's founding, "Of Plymouth Plantation", remains a classic of American literature and an indispensable historical source.

Lord Baltimore

Established Maryland as a haven for Catholics. Unsuccessfully tried to reconstitute the English manorial system in the colonies and gave vast tracts of land to Catholic relatives; soon created tensions between the seaboard Catholic establishment and backcountry Protestant planters

Sally Tompkins

Established an infirmary for wounded Confederate soldiers in Richmond, VA. When Confederate hospitals are brought under military control, Jefferson Davis commissioned her as an officer with the rank of captain, making her the first female military officer in history

National War Labor Board (NWLB)

Established by FDR to act as an arbitration tribunal and mediate disputes between labor and management that might have led to work stoppages and thereby undermined the war effort. It was also charged with adjusting wages with an eye to controlling inflation

War Production Board (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. It had sweeping powers over the United States economy and was abolished in November 1945 soon after Japan's defeat

Stephen Austin

Established the first major Anglo settlements in TX under an agreement with the Mexican govt. (indpt. 1821) Though loyal to Mexico, he advocated for local Texans' rights, particularly the right to being slaves into the region. Briefly imprisoned by Santa Anna for inviting rebellion, he returned to TX in 1836 to serve as Secretary of State of the newly independent republic until his death later that year

John C. Fremont

Explorer who helped overthrow the Mexican government in CA after the outbreak of war with Mexico. He later ran for President as a Republican nominee in 1856, but lost to Democratic candidate James Buchanan

Townshend Acts (1767)

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

Court Packing Plan

FDR's politically motivated and ill fated scheme to add a new justice to the Supreme Court for every member over 72 who could not retire. His objective was to overcome the Court's objections to the New Deal reforms

Eleanor Roosevelt

FDR's wife, the most active First Lady the United States had ever seen. She was known for her devotion to the impoverished and oppressed

Harriet Tubman

Famed conductor on the Underground Railroad, she helped rescue more than 300 slaves from bondage. Born into slavery, she fled to the North in 1849 but returned to the South 19 times to guide fellow bondsman to freedom. After the Civil War, she worked to give freedmen access to education in North Carolina

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, and empowered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to regulate fair employment

Benito Mussolini

Fascist leader of Italy from 1922 to 1943. Mussolini launched Italy into World War II on the side of Axis Powers and became a close ally of Adolf Hitler.

Battle of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson

February 1862 Key victory for Union General Ulysses S. Grant, it secured the North's hold on KY and paved the way for Grant's attacks deeper into TN

Harpers Ferry

Federal arsenal in VA seized by abolitionist John Brown in 1859. Though Brown was later captured and hanged, 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

midnight judges

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 of 1801

Midnight Judges

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 of 1801.

Federal Highway Act of 1956

Federal legislation signed by Eisenhower to construct thousands of miles of modern ________ in the name of national defense. This bill dramatically increased the move to the suburbs, as white middle-class people could more easily commute to urban jobs.

Samuel Chase

Federalist Supreme Court Justice who drew the ire of Jeffersonian Republicans for his biting criticism of Republican policies. In 1804, the House of Representatives brought charges of impeachment against him, but fail to make the case that his unrestrained partisanship qualified as "high crimes and misdemeanors" (tried because Jeffersonians wanted revenge for Marbury v. Madison). Acquitted by the senate, he served on the court until his death.

Samuel Chase

Federalist Supreme Court Justice who drew the ire of Jeffersonian Republicans for his biting criticism of Republican policies. In 1804, the House of Representatives brought charges of impeachment against him, but failed to make the case that his unrestrained partisanship qualified as "high crimes and misdemeanors" (tried because Jeffersonians wanted revenge for Marbury v. Madison). Acquitted by the Senate, he served on the court until his death.

Malinche (Doña Marina)

Female Indian slave who knew Mayan and Nahuatl who was taught spanish and baptized as the slave of Hernán Cortés

Theodore Dwight Weld

Fervent abolitionist and author of "American Slavery as It Is", an anti-slavery tract that dramatized the horrors of slave life.

Preston S. Brooks

Fiery South Carolina congressman who senselessly caned Charles Sumner on the Senate floor in 1856. His violent temper flared in response to Sumner's "Crime Against Kansas" speech, in which the MA senator threw bitter insults at the Southern slaveocracy, singling out the much liked SC Senator, Andrew Butler.

panic of 1857

Financial crash brought on by gold-fueled inflation, overspeculation, and excess grain production for the Crimean War. Raised calls in the North for higher tariffs after the passing of the Low tariff of 1857, and for free homesteads on western public lands

Articles of Confederation (ratified 1781)

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

Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 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.

Boris Yeltsin

First president of Russia, taking over as the former Soviet republic became independent in 1991. He led the country through the breakdown of the communist economy and introduced important market reforms.

Ngo Dinh Diem

First president of South Vietnam, where he took power following the Geneva Accords in 1954. He was propped up by the United States until he was overthrown and assassinated by a coup in 1963.

Tariff of 1816

First protective tariff in US history, created primarily to shield New England manufacturers from the deliberate inflow of GB goods after the War of 1812

Border States

Five slave states- MI, KY, MD, DL, WV- that did not secede from the Union during the Civil Ear, To keep the states in the Union, Abraham Lincoln insisted that the war was not about abolishing slavery, but rather protection the Union.

Russo American Treaty of 1824

Fixed the line of 54*40' as the southernmost boundary of Russian holdings in North America (Fort Ross, CA)

Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)

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

George (C.) Marshall

Former World War II general who became secretary of state under President Harry Truman. He was the originator of the concept of the Marshall Plan to provide aid to reconstruct Western Europe in 1947.

Berlin Wall

Fortified and guarded barrier between E and W Berlin erected on orders from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 to stop the flow of people to the W. Until its destruction in 1989, it was a vivid symbol of the divide between the communist and capitalist worlds.

Alamo

Fortress in TX where 400 American volunteers were slain by Santa Anna in 1836 when TX declared its independence. "Remember the Alamo" became a battle cry in support of Texan independence

Barack Obama

Forty-forth president of the United States, and first African American elected to that office. A lawyer and community organizer in Chicago, he served in the Illinois State Senate before being elected to the U.S. senate in 2004. After a protracted primary election campaign against Senator Hillary Clinton, he sealed the Democratic Party's nomination and defeated Senator John McCain on November 4, 2008.

(William Jefferson) Bill Clinton

Forty-second president of the United States. A former Arkansas governor and founding member of the Democratic Leadership Council, he promoted "third way" politics and distanced his policies from traditional Democratic programs. He signed the Welfare Reform Act in 1996 to fulfill a campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it." He was the first Democrat to be reelected since Franklin Roosevelt and first president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson.

George W. Bush

Forty-third president of the United States. The son of former president George H. W. Bush and former governor of Texas, he emerged victorious from the contested election of 2000, where he lost the popular vote. As president, he pursued changes in social security, immigration, and education laws, and appointed two conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Launching and leading the "war on terror" in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he was the architect of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

War of 1812

Fought between GB and US 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 resect from European Powers

Battle of Bunker Hill (June 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

Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

Founded in 1874, this organization advocated for the prohibition of alcohol, using woman'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 Great Britain, and in the 1880s they founded the World version, which sent missionaries around the world to spread the gospel of temperance. (See Ch 25 for more info)

American Temperance Society

Founded in Boston in 1826 as a part of a growing effort of 19th century reformers to limit alcohol consumption

St. Augustine 1565

Founded in ___, the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in United States territory

Jane Addams

Founded the Hull House, United States' first settlement house, to help immigrants assimilate through education, counseling, and municipal reform efforts. She also advocated pacifism throughout her life, including during WWI, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931

Joseph Smith

Founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), the young _______ gained a following after an angel directed him to a set of golden plates, which, when deciphered, became the Book Of Mormon. His communal, authoritarian church and is advocacy of plural marriage antagonized his neighbors in Ohio, Missouri, and finally Illinois, where he was murdered by a mob in 1844

Father Junipero Serra

Franciscan friar and christian missionary leader who founded the first California mission at San Diego in 1769 (first of 21)

William T. Johnson

Free New Orleans black, known as "the barber of Natches", who eventually owned fifteen slaves.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Free Trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. A symbol of the increased reality of a globalized marketplace, it passed despite opposition from protectionists and labor leaders

European Economic Community (EEC)

Free trade zone in W Europe created by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Often referred to as the "Common Market", this collection of countries originally included FRA, W GER, Italy, BEL, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The body eventually expanded to become the European Union (EU) which by 2005 included 27 member states.

Huguenots

French Protestant dissenters who were granted limited toleration under the edict of Nantes. After King Louis XIV outlawed Protestantism in 1685, many fled to British North America

Admiral de Grasse

French admiral, whose fleet blocked British reinforcements, allowing Washington and Rochambeau to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown

John J. Audubon

French born naturalist and author of the beautifully illustrated, "Birds of America"

Napoleon Bonaparte

French emperor who waged a series of wars vs. his neighbors on the European continent until his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. In 1803, having failed to put down the Haitian rebellion, he relinquished France's remaining North American possessions by selling the Louisiana Territory to the US

Napoleon Bonaparte

French emperor who waged a series of wars vs. his neighbors on the European continent until his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. In 1803, having failed to put down the Haitian rebellion, he relinquished Frances remaining North American possessions by selling the Louisiana Territory to the US

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

French foreign minister whose attempts to solicit bribes from American envoys in the infamous XYZ Affair prompted widespread calls for war with France

voyageurs

French fur trappers (travelers)

Marquis de Lafayette

French noblemen who served as a major general in the colonial army during the American Revolution and aided the newly independent colonies in securing French support

Acadians

French residents of Nova Scotia, many o whom were uprooted by the GB in 1755 and scattered as far as Louisiana, where their decedents became known as Cajuns.

Michel Guillaume Jean de Crèvecour

French settler whose essays depicted life in the North American colonies and described what he saw as a new American identity- an amalgam of multiple ethnicities and cultures.

Samuel de Champlain

French soldier and explorer, dubbed the "Father of New France" for establishing the city of Quebec and fighting alongside the Huron Indians to repel the Iroquis

Don't Ask Don't Tell

From 1993 to 2010, the policy affecting homosexuals in the military. It emerged as a compromise between the standing prohibition against homosexuals in the armed forces and President Clinton's push to allow all citizens to serve regardless of sexual orientation. Military authorities were forbidden to ask about a service member's orientation, and gay service personnel could be discharged if they publicly revealed their homosexuality. At President Obama's urging, Congress repealed ___________ in 2010, permitting gays to serve openly in uniform.

Land Act of 1820

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

General Nathanael Greene

General in command go the Continental army in the Carolina campaign of 1781, the "Fighting Quaker" successfully cleared most of Georgia and South Carolina of British troops, despite loosing a string of minor battles

Comte de Rochambeau

General in command of French forces during the American Revolution, he fought alongside George Washington at the Battle of Yorktown

Leonid Brezhnev

General secretary of the Communist Party and premier of the Soviet Union from 1964, when he ousted Khrushchev, to his death in 1982. He engaged in détente with American presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter and in both series of SALT negotiations. He also led the Soviet Union during its initial foray into Afghanistan in 1979.

Battle of Trenton (December 1776)

George Washington surprised and captures a garrison of sleeping German Hessians, raising the moral of his crestfallen army and setting the stage for his victory at Princeton a week later

Farewell Address (1796)

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

Battle of Yorktown (October 1781)

George Washington, with the aid of the French Army, besieged Cornwallis at _____, while the French naval fleet prevented British reinforcements from coming ashore, Cornwallis surrendered, dealing a heavy bow to the British war effort and paving the way for an eventual peace

Baron Von Steuben

German born inspector general of the Continental army, who helped train the novice colonial militia in the art of warfare

Kristallnacht

German for "night of broken glass", it refers to the murderous genocide (pogrom) that destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues and sent thousands to concentration caps 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 laws.

U-Boats

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

Hessians

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

Albert Einstein

German-born scientist who immigrated to the United States in 1933 to escape the Nazis. He helped to persuade FDR to push ahead with preparations for developing the atomic bomb, but later ruefully declared that "annihilation of any life on earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities."

Central Powers

Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by Turkey and Bulgaria, made up this alliance against the Allies in WWI

DeWitt Clinton

Governor of NY state and promotor of the Erie Canal, which linked the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. "Clinton's Big Ditch" as the canal was called, transformed upstate NY into a center of industry and gave rise to the Midwestern cities of Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago

Reform Bill of 1867

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

Eli Whitney

Great American inventor, best known for his Cotton Gin, which revolutionized the Southern economy. __________ also pioneered the use of interchangeable parts in the production of muskets

Allies

Great Britain, Russia and France, later joined by Italy, Japan, and the United States, formed this alliance against the Central Powers in WWI

Dust Bowl

Grim nickname for the Great Plains region devastated by drought and dust storms during the 1930s. This disaster led to the migration into CA of thousands of displaced "Okies" (OK) or "Arkies" (AK)

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.

(Robert M.) Fighting Bob La Follette

Hailing from WI, he was one of the most militant of the progressive Republican leaders. He served in the Senate and in the WI governor's sear, and was a perennial contender for the presidency, keeping progressivism alive into the 1920s

(Robert M.) Fighting Bob La Follette

Hailing from WI, he was one of the most militant of the progressive Republican leaders. He served in the Senate and in the WI governor's seat, and was a perennial contender for the presidency, keeping progressivism alive into the 1920s

(Robert M.) Fighting Bob La Follette

Hailing from Wisconsin, he was one of the most militant of the progressive Republican leaders. He served in the Senate and in the Wisconsin governor's seat, and was a perennial contender for the presidency, keeping the spirit of progressivism alive into the 1920s

Toussaint L'Ouverture (The Opener)

Haitian revolutionary who led a successful slave uprising and helped establish an independent Haiti in 1797. In 1802, he was captured by a French force sent to reestablish control over the island, he was shipped back to France for treason, and he succumbed to pneumonia in 1803

Toussaint L'Ouverture (The Opener)

Haitian revolutionary who led a successful slave uprising and helped establish an independent Haiti in 1797. In 1802, he was captured by a French force sent to reestablish control over the island, he was shipped back to France for treason, and he succumbed to pneumonia in 1803.

Edward Braddock

Hardheaded and imperious British general, whose detachment of British and colonial solders was routed by French and Indian forces at Ford at Duquesne

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Harvard Professor of modern languages and popular mid 19th century poet, who won broad acclaim in Europe for his poetry

W. E. B. Du Bois

Harvard educated leader in the fight for racial equality, he believed that liberal arts education would provide the "talented 10th" of African Americans with the ability to lift their race into full participation in society. From NY, were he was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he relentlessly brought attention to racism in America and demanded legal and cultural change. During his life he published many important books of history, sociology, and poetry and provided intellectual leadership to those advocating for civil rights. One of his deepest convictions was the necessity of American blacks connecting their freedom struggle with African independence and the newly founded nation of Ghana.

Charles II

He assumed the throne with the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. He sought to establish firm control over the colonies, ending the period of relative independence on the American mainland.

old lights

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

Richard M. Nixon

He was a committee member of the House of Representatives, Committee on UnAmerican Activities (to investigate "subversion"). He tried to catch Alger Hiss who was accused of being a communist agent in the 1930's. This brought Nixon to the attention of the American public. In 1956 he was Eisenhower's Vice-President.

Mitt Romney

He was the Republican nominee for President in 2012. He was the former governor of Massachusetts and the first Mormon presidential candidate of a major party in American history. He made his career in management consulting and private equity investing before entering politics. His record as governor of liberal Massachusetts was decidedly moderate.

War Industries Board

Headed by Bernard Baruch, this federal agency coordinated industrial production during WWI, setting production quotas, allocating raw materials, and pushing companies to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. Under the economic mobilization of the ________, industrial production in the US increased 20% during the war.

Pacific Railroad Act

Helped fund the construction of the Union Pacific Transcontinental R&R with the use of land grants and government bonds

William Henry Harrison

Hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe and 9th president of the US. He was a Whig, and won the 1840 election on a "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" campaign, which played up his credentials as a backwoods westerner and indian fighter. He died of pneumonia just 4 weeks after his inaguration

ecological imperialism

Historians' term to describe the exploitation of Western natural resources through excessive hunting, logging, mining, and grazing

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.

Abraham Lincoln Brigade

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

New Immigrants

Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe who formed a recognizable wave of immigration from the `80s until 1924, in contrast with the immigrants from western Europe who had come before them. These people 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

James Meredith

In 1962 became the first black American to attend the University of Mississippi after being blocked several times by segregationist politicians. An icon of the Civil Rights Movement, he receded from public view following his brave steps toward educational integration.

modernism

In response to the demanding conditions of modern life, this artistic and cultural movement revolted against comfortable Victorian standards and accepted chance, change, contingency, uncertainty, and fragmentation. Originating among avant-garde artists and intellectuals around the turn of the twentieth century, modernism blossomed into a full-fledged cultural movement in art, music, literature, and architecture.

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.

Albany Congress

Intercolonial congress summoned by the GB government to foster greater colonial unity and assure Iroquois supporting in the escalatinig war against the church.

United Nations (UN)

International body formed in 1945 to bring nations into dialogue in hopes of preventing further world wars. Much like the former League of Nations, it was more realistic in recognizing the authority of the Big 5 Powers in keeping peace in the world. Thus, it guaranteed veto power to all permanent members of its Security Council, GB, China, France, the USSR and the US

Kyoto Treaty

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

"10 Percent" Reconstruction Plan

Introduced by President Lincoln, it proposed that a state be readmitted to the Union once 10% of its voters had pledged loyalty to the US and promised to honor emancipation

Cyrus McCormick

Inventor of the McCormick mower-reaper, a horse drawn contraption that fueled the development of large-scale agriculture in the trans Allegheny West.

John Deere

Inventor of the steel plow, which revolutionized farming in the Midwest, where fragile wooden plows had failed to be able to break through the thick soil

Samuel F.B. Morse

Inventor of the telegraph and the telegraphic code that bears his name. He led the effort to connect Washington and Baltimore by telegraph and transmitted the first long distance message, "What hath God wrought" in May of 1844

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

Saddam Hussein

Iraqi dictator who led the Ba'ath party in a coup in 1968 and ruled Iraq until the U.S. invasion. He inaugurated hostilities with neighboring Iran in 1980, leading to the protracted and bloody Iran-Iraq War. He invaded Kuwait in 1990, prompting a broad-based military operation led by the United States to liberate the country. After that war, he retained power under strict sanctions and no-fly demilitarized zones throughout the 1990s, but he stymied international atomic weapons inspectors. After his fall in 2003, he went into hiding but was ultimately captured, tried, and executed by the Iraqi government.

General Richard Montgomery

Irish born British army veteran, who served as a general in the Continental army during the revolution. He joined Benedict Arnold in a failed attempt to seize Quebec in 1775

Neutrality Proclamation (1793)

Issued by George Washington, it proclaimed America's formal neutrality in the escalating conflict between GB and France, a statement that enraged pro-French Jeffersonians

Wendell L. Willkie

Known as the "rich man's Roosevelt," he was a novice politician and Republican businessman who lost to Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential campaign. Although he won more votes than any previous GOP candidate, Roosevelt still beat him by a landslide.

(Nicola) Sacco and (Bartolomeo) Vanzetti

Italian anarchists convicted in 1921 of the murder of a MA factory paymaster and his guard. Despite a worldwide public outcry, they were electrocuted in 1927.

George Whitfield

Iterate English preacher whose rousing sermons throughout the American colonies drew vast audiences and sparked a wave of religious conversion, the First Awakening. His emotionalism distinguished him from traditional "old light" ministers who embraced more of a reasoned, stoic approach to religious practice

New Frontier

JFK'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 healthcare.

William Clark

Joined Meriwether Lewis in leading the expedition of the LA territory from 1804-1806. After the expedition, he played a key role in shaping America's Indian population, seeking to strengthen American relations with the Indians through trade

William Clark

Joined Meriwether Lewis in leading the expedition of the LA territory from 1804-1806. After the expedition, he played a key role in shaping America's Indian population, seeking to strengthen American relations with the Indians through trade.

Battle of Bull Run (Manassas Junction)

July 1861 First major battle of the Civil War and a victory for the South (under "Stonewall" Jackson) , it dispelled Northern illusions of a swift victory

Battle of Gettysburg

July 1863 Civil War battle in PA 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, "the high tide of the Confederacy" on Northern lines

noche triste

June 30, 1520 When the Aztecs attacked Cortés and his forces at Tenochitlán, killing hundreds. The following year, Cortés laid siege to the city, and thus the fall of the Aztec Empire and the inauguration of 3 centuries of Spanish rule

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Landmarked law signed by President George HW Bush that prohibited discrimination against people with physical or mental handicaps. It represented a legislative triumph for champions of equal protections to all

Mikhail Gorbachev

Last leader of the Soviet Union. He assumed control in 1985 and ushered in a period of reforms known as glasnost and perestroika. On four occasions, he met U.S. president Ronald Reagan to negotiate arms reduction treaties and other measures to thaw the Cold War. In 1991, after surviving a failed military coup against him, he dissolved the Soviet Union and disbanded the Communist Party.

Second Anglo-Powhatan War 1644-1646

Last-ditch effort by the Indians to dislodge the Virginian settlements. The resulting peace treaty formally separated white and Indian areas of settlement.

blue/sumptuary laws

Laws designed to restrict personal behavior in accord with a strict code of morality. These laws were passed across the colonies, particularly in Puritan New England and Quaker Pennsylvania

Black Codes

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

Daniel Webster

Lawyer, congressmen, and Secretary of State, he teamed up with Henry Clay in the Bank War vs Andrew Jackson in 1832. Hoping to avoid sectional conflict, he also opposed the annexation of Texas but later argued the North to support the Compromise of 1850

Jiang Jieshi

Leader of Chinese Nationalists, also known as Chang kai-shek. He was defeated by Mao Zedong's com- munist revolutionaries in 1949 and was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan, where, with the support of the United States, he became president of the Republic of China.

Osama Bin Laden

Leader of Taliban terrorist group, Al Qaeda, killed in 2011 by U.S. Special forces

John Jay

Leading American revolutionary and diplomat, tho negotiated the Treaty of Paris and later, the much criticized Jay Treaty of 1794, which averted war with Britain but failed to address key American grievances. He also serve as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1789-1795, a post he left to become governor of New York

John Singleton Copley

MA born artist best known for his portraits of prominent colonial Americans, including Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. A loyalist during the Revolutionary war, he spent the rest of his life in London, painting portraits of British aristocrats and depicting scenes from English history.

Irreconcilables

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

Sandinistas

Left wing 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

limited liability

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

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 that its liberal creators had wished. It created the Council of Economic Advisors to provide the president with data and recommendations to make economic policy.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Legislation pushed through Congress by President Lyndon Johnson that prohibited ballot denying tactics, such as literacy tests and intimidation. It was a successor to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and sought to make racial disenfranchisement explicitly evil.

Eugene McCarthy

Liberal anti-war senator from Minnesota who rallied a large youth movement behind his presidential campaign in 1968. Challenging sitting president Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, he captured 41 percent of the vote and helped ensure that Johnson would quit the race.

George McGovern

Liberal senator from North Dakota who lost a landslide election to Richard Nixon in 1972. He eventually lost his senate seat in the conservative revolution that swept Ronald Reagan into the White House in 1980.

King Louis XIV

Long reigning french monarch who took a keen interest in colonization, sending French explorers throughout North America, establishing outposts in present dray Canada and Louisiana, and launching France to global preeminence. He oversaw the construction of the magnificent palace in Versailles , from where he ruled till his death.

Huey P. ("King-fish") Long

Louisiana governor, later senator, whose anti-New Deal "Share Our Wealth" program prom- ised to make "Every Man a King"-that is, until he was gunned down in 1935.

tariff of 1857

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

John Wilkes Booth

MA born actor and Confederate sympathizer who assassinated Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865. He died of a gunshot wound himself a week later, after refusing to surrender to federal troops. though it is unclear if the fatal bullet came from one of the soldiers or his own revolver

Emily Dickinson

MA born poet who, despite spending her life as a recluse, created a vivid inner world through her poetry, exploring themes of nature, love, death, and immortality. Refusing to publish during her lifetime, she left being nearly two thousand poems, which were published after her death.

Clara Barton

MA born teacher and philanthropist who served as a nurse with the Union Army during the civil war. After the war she became involved with the newly formed International Red Cross, serving as the first president of the American branch from 1882-1904

Charles Sumner

MA senator and abolitionist who opposed the extension of slavery, speaking out passionately on the civil war in Kansas. He is best known for the caning he received at the hands of Preston Brooks on the Senate floor in 1856. After his recovery he returned to the Senate against Andrew Johnson during Reconstruction

Iran-Contra affair

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

V-E (Victory in Europe) Day

May 8, 1945, the day after the German government surrendered unconditionally from WWII.

glasnost

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

perestroika

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

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 to the first amendment to the Constitution.

Santa Anna

Mexican general, president, and dictator, who opposed TX's independence and later led the Mexican army in the war sv the US

Victoriano Huerta

Mexican military officer who declared himself president and installed a dictatorship during the Mexican revolution. President Wilson's strong opposition to ______ led him to support United States military intervention in Mexico in 1914

Little Turtle

Miami Indian chief whose warriors routed American forces in 1790 and 1791 along the Ohio frontier. In 1794, ________ and his braces were defeated by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and they were forced to cede vast tracts of the Old Northwest under the Treaty of Greenville

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O)

Military alliance of W 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

Zachary Taylor

Military general and 12th president (Whig), he emerged as a poplar war hero after defeating Santa Anna's forces at Buena Vista ("Hero of Buena Vista") in the war with Mexico. As president, he, a LA slave owner, sought to avoid a sectional confrontation over slavery, though he opposed the Compromise of 1850

Winfield Scott

Military officer and presidential candidate, he first made a name for himself as a hero of the War of 1812. During the war with Mexico, he led the American campaign against Mexico City, overcoming tremendous handicaps to lead his men to victory. He later made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1852 as the Whig candidate

Vietnamization

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

Josef Brant

Mohawk chief and Anglican convert, who sided with the British during the Revolutionary War, believing that only a British victory could halt American westward expansion

settlement houses

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

Sir Edmund Andros

Much loathed administrator of the Dominion of New England, which was created in 1686 to strengthen imperial control over the colonies. He established strict control, got rid of town meetings and popular assemblies, and taxed the people without their consent. When word of the Glorious Revolution reached the colonists, they promptly dispatched him back to England

Millard Fillmore

NY Congressman and Vice President under Taylor, he took over the Presidency (13th) after Taylor's death in 1850. A practical politician, he threw his support behind the Compromise of 1850, ensuring its passage. He was passed over for the Whig nomination in 1852 when the party chose to select the legendary war hero, Winfield Scott ( who was unsuccessful)

Herman Melville

NY author who spent his youth as a whaler on the high sea, an experience which no doubt inspired his epic novel, Moby Dick

John Peter Zenger

NY printer tried for seditious libel against the state's corrupt royal governor. His acquittal set an important precedent for freedom of the press.

dollar diplomacy

Name applied by President Taft's critics to the policy of supporting United States 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 the support of United States business interests, especially in Latin America.

"Occupy Wall Street"

Name of the original protest that launched the populist, anti-Wall Street "Occupy" movement in late 2010 and early 2011. Youthful radicals pitched tents and occupied Zuccotti Park in New York's financial district beginning in September 2010 to protest inequality and corporate political power. This demonstration inspired similar occupations in many other cities.

John Hay

Named U.S. ambassador to England in 1897, when McKinley became president. He later served as McKinley's secretary of state. He was the author of the Open Door Notes, which called for free economic competition in China

Henry A. Kissenger

National Security Advisor and Secretary of State during the Nixon Administration. He was responsible for negotiating an end to the Yom Kippur War as well as the Treaty of Paris that led to a ceasefire in Vietnam in 1973.

Navajo code talkers

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

Adolf Hitler

Nazi dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, Hitler was the mastermind behind the Holocaust. His rapacious quest for power provoked World War II

Jay's Treaty (1794)

Negotiated by Chief Justice John Jay in an effort to avoid war with GB, this treaty included a GB promise to evacuate outposts on US soil and pay damages for seized American vessels, in exchange for which Jay bound the US to repay pre-Revolutionary War debts and to abide by GB's restrictive trading policies toward France

Napoleon III

Nephew of Napoleon I and President of the Second Republic of France, he declared himself Emperor of France in 1852. Hoping to capitalize on American preoccupation in the Civil War, he sent a French army to occupy Mexico in 1863, installing Austrian archduke Maximilian as emperor of Mexico. Under threat from a newly-unified US, he withdrew his support or his puppet in 1867

Salmon Chase

New England born abolitionist who, as secretary of treasury, pushed Lincoln to take a tougher stance on slavery during the Civil War. In 1864, Radical Republicans unsuccesfully tried to replace Lincoln with him on the Republican ballot. Later that year, Lincoln appointed him as chief justice of the Supreme Court, where he served until his death

Louisa May Alcott

New England born author of popular novels for adolescents, most notably "Little Women"

Jonathan Edwards

New England minister whose fiery sermons helped touch off the Great Awakening. He emphasized human helplessness and depravity and touted that salvation could be attained through God's grace alone. His famous sermon was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

Dorthea Dix

New England teacher author and champion of mental health reform, she assembled damming reports on insane asylums and petitioned the MA legislature to improve conditions

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 (slander but in written form)

Horace Greeley

New York newspaper editor who ran for President in 1872 under the mantles of the Liberal Republican and Democratic Parties

French and Indian War (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

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, counterculturalists, and other disruptors of the social fabric.

The Association (1774)

Nonimportation agreement crafted during the First Continental Congress calling for the complete boycott of British goods

King George's War

North American theater of the 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

Copperheads

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

Conscience Whigs

Northern Whigs who opposed slavery on moral grounds. They sought to prevent the annexation of Texas as a alive state, feign that the new slave territory would only serve to buttress the Southern, "slave power"

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Novelist and author of "The Scarlet Letter", a tale exploring the psychological effects of sin in 17th century Puritan Boston

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, it represented Westerners and Southerners who believed that the United States economic policy inappropriately favored E businessman instead of the nation's farmers. Their proposals included: -nationalizing the railroads -creating a graduated income tax - the unlimited coinage of silver

Ulysses S. Grant

Ohio born Union general and 18th President. During the Civil War, he won Lincoln's confidence for his boldness and his ability to stomach the steep casualties that victory for the Union required. First assigned to the West, he attained union victories at Ft. Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg, seizing control of the Mississippi River and splitting the South in 2. After taking command of the Union army, he fought Lee in a series of bloody battles in VA, culminating in Lee's surrender at Appomattox. As President, he took a hard line vs. the South, but economic turmoil and waning support for Reconstruction undermined his efforts.

Sally Hemmings

One of Thomas Jefferson's slaves on his plantation in Monticello. DNA testing confirms that Thomas Jefferson fathered her children

Sally Hemmings

One of Thomas Jefferson's slaves on his plantation in Monticello. DNA testing confirms that Thomas Jefferson fathered her children.

Charles Grandison Finney

One of the leading revival preachers during the Second Great Awakening, he presided over mass camp meeting throughout NY state, championing temperance and abolition, and urging women to play a greater role in religious life.

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

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.

Commonwealth of Independent States

Organization formed from the former republics of the Soviet Union in 1991

Black Panther Party

Organization of armed black militants formed in Oakland, CA in 1966 to protect black rights. The panthers represented a growing dissatisfaction with the non-violent wing of the civil rights movement, and single a new direction to that movement after the legislative victories of 1964 and `65

Rough Riders

Organized by Teddy Roosevelt, this was a colorful group 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 NY and Vice President under William McKinley

Judiciary Act of 1789

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

Wade-Davis Bill

Passed by Congressional Republicans in response to the 10% Reconstruction Plan. It required that 50% 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 16 new federal judgeships ensuring a Federalist hold on the judiciary the night before the end of Adam's presidency

Judiciary Act of 1801

Passed by the departing Federalist Congress, it created 16 new federal judgeships ensuring a Federalist hold on the judiciary the night before the end of Adams' presidency.

Workingmen's Compensation Act

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

Sons/Daughters of Liberty

Patriotic groups that played a central role in agitation against the stamp act and enforcing non-importaiton agreements

Treaty of Paris 1783

Peace treaty signed wit 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

racketeers

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

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

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Political party organized by civil rights activists to challenge Mississippi's delegation to the Democratic National Convention, who posed the civil rights planks in the party's platform. Claiming a mandate to represent the true voice of Mississippi, where almost no black citizen 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 fighting for black voting rights.

Lewinsky Affair

Political sex scandal that resulted in Bill Clinton's impeachment and trial by Congress. In 1998 he gave sworn testimony in a sexual harassment case that he never engaged in sexual activity with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. When prosecutors discovered he lied under oath, Republicans in Congress began impeachment proceedings

Stephen C. Foster

Popular American folk composer, he, a PA born white, popularized minstrel songs, which fused African rhythms with nostalgic melodies

Burned Over Distict

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 deposited when Andrew Jackson moved to dismantle the Bank of the United States in 1833

Bill of Rights (1791)

Popular term for the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution. The amendments secure key rights for individuals and reserve to the states all powers not explicitly elevated or prohibited in the Constitution

Fourteenth Amendment

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

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 of Representatives, and equal representatives in the Senate. This ________ broke the stalemate at the convention and paved the way for subsequent compromises over slavery and the Electoral College

Whiskey Rebellion (1974)

Popular uprising of whiskey distillers in SW 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

Gamal Abdel Nasser

President Gamal Abdel Nasser, of Egypt, needed money to build a dam in the upper Nile and flirted openly with the Soviet side as well as the U.S. and Britain, and upon seeing this blatant communist association, Secretary of State Dulles dramatically withdrew his offer, thus forcing Nasser to nationalize the dam.

Great Society

President Lyndon Johnson's term for his domestic policy agenda. Successor to the New Deal, it aimed to extend the post WWII prosperity to all people by promoting civil rights and fighting poverty. Programs included the War on Poverty which expanded Social Security with Medicare and Medicaid for healthcare for aged and poor. Johnson also signed laws protecting consumers and empowering community organizations to combat poverty at grass-root levels.

Nixon Doctrine

President Nixon's plan for "peace with honor" in Vietnam. It stated that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but in the future countries would have to fight in 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 Securities Act.

Truman Doctrine

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.

Grover Cleveland

President from 1885-1889 and again from 1893-1897 (non-consecutive terms). His first term was dominated by the issues of military pensions and tariff reforms. He lost the election of 1888 but ran again and won in 92. During his second term he faced one of the most serious economic depressions the nation's history but failed to enact policies to ease the crisis.

affirmative action

Program designed to redress historical racial and gender imbalances in jobs and education. The term grew from an executive order form JFK in 1961 mandating that projects paid for with federal fund could to discriminate on race in their hiring. In the late `60's President Nixon's Philadelphia Plan changed the meaning of _______ to require attention to certain groups, rather than protect individuals against discrimination.

Apollo

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

Gag Resolution

Prohibited debate or action on anti-slavery appeals. Driven through the House by proslavery southerners, the _______ passed every year for eight years, eventually overturned with the help of John Quincy Adams.

William Penn

Prominent Quaker activist who founded Pennsylvania as a haven for fellow Quakers in 1681. He established friendly relations with neighboring Indian tribes and attracted a wide array of settlers to his colony with promises of economic opportunity, and ethnic and religious toleration. Known as "the first American advertising man"

Lucretia Mott

Prominent Quaker and abolitionist, she became a champion for women's rights after she and her fellow female delegates were not seated at the London antislavery convention of 1840. She, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, held the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848

Frederick Douglas

Prominent black abolitionist whose autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of _______", detailed his experience in bondage and his daring escape to the North. More practical than many of his fellow abolitionists, he looked to politics to put an end to slavery. After the Civil War, he continued to write and speak on behalf of blacks, calling on the Federal Gov't to help ensure economic independence for newly freed slaves.

Tariff of 1842

Protective measure passed by Congressional Whigs, raising tariffs to pre-Compromise of 1833 rates (under president tyler; clay's doing)

Elizabeth I

Protestant Queen of England, whose forty- five year reign from 1558 to 1603 firmly secured the Anglican Church and inaugurated a period of maritime exploration and con- quest. Never having married, she was dubbed the "Virgin Queen" by her contemporaries

Josiah Strong

Protestant clergyman and other of "Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis". He touted the superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization and helped summon Americans to spread their religion abroad

William III and Mary II

Protestant rulers of the Netherlands that dethroned the unpopular and despotic Catholic James II in England during the Glorious Revolution in 1689

Land Ordinance of 1785

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

Popé's Rebellion 1680

Pueblo Indian rebellion which drove Spanish settlers from New Mexico by destroying every Catholic Church and killing priests and Spanish settlers, and rebuilding a kiva at Santa Fe

John Cotton

Puritan Citadel educated at Cambridge University who emigrated to Massachusetts Bay to avoid persecution and devote his time to learn to defend the government's duty to enforce religious rules

Oliver Cromwell

Puritan general who helped lead parliamentary forces during the English Civil War, and ruled England as Lord Protector (the Protectorate) from 1653 until his death in 1658 (militant)

John Brown

Radical abolitionist who launched an attack on a federal armory at Harper's Ferry, VA in an effort to lead slaves in a violent uprising against their owners. He, who first took up arms against slavery during the Kansas civil War, was captured shortly after he launched his ill-concieved raid on the armory and sentenced to hang, which caused an inflammatory reaction.

The American Scholar

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

Fifteenth Amendment

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

Eighteenth Amendment

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

Strategic Defense Initiative

Reagan administration plan announced in 1983 to create a missile defense system over American territory to block 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.

Union League

Reconstruction Era African American organization that worked to educate Southern Blacks about civic life, built 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 protects blacks from white intimidation

Weapons of Mass Destruction

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 them proved the rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, but the weapons were never found

American Colonization Society

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

Susan B. Anthony

Reformer and woman suffragist, she, with long time fried Elizabeth Cady Stanton, advocated for temperance and woman's rights in NY, established the abolitionist Woman's Loyal League during the Civil War. and founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 to lobby for a constitutional amendment granting women the vote

Amelia Bloomer

Reformer and woman's rights activist, who championed dress reform for women, wearing short skirts and Turkish trousers, or "bloomers", as a healthier and more comfortable alternative to the tight corsets and voluminous skirts popular with women of her day

Black belt

Region of the Deep South with the highest concentration of slaves. The "______"emerged in the 19th century as cotton production became more profitable and slavery expanded south and west.

Glorious (or Bloodless) Revolution 1688

Relatively peaceful overthrow of the unpopular Catholic monarch James II, replacing him with dutch William III of Orange and Mary II (James II's daughter). William and Mary accepted increased Parliamentary oversight and new limits on monarchial authority.

Mormons

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

Second Continental Congress (1775-1781)

Representative body of delegates from all 13 colonies. Drafted the Declaration of Independence and managed the colonial war effort

Edmond Genet

Representative of the French Republic who in 1793 tried to recruit Americans to invade Spanish and British territories in blatant disregard of Washington's Neutrality Proclamation.

John McCain

Republican senator from Arizona who lost the 2008 Presidential election to Democrat Barack Obama. A former Navy fighter pilot who spent five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, he was known as a maverick senator, frequently departing from his own party to cosponsor moderate legislation with Democratic allies. Among his most notable legislative achievements were changes in campaign finance and efforts to reform immigration laws.

Robert Dole

Republican senator from Kansas who ran unsuccessfully against Bill Clinton in 1996. He had previously been the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1976 and served as senate minority leader during the 1980s and 1990s.

"waving the bloody shirt"

Republican slogan that revived gory memories of the Civil War, which became for the first time a prominent feature of a presidential campaign.

Sarah Palin

Republican vice-presidential candidate with John McCain in the 2008 election, the second woman to run for vice president of a major party and the first Republican. She served on the city council and as mayor of her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska from 1996-2002 and then in 2006 was elected governor of the state. Relatively unknown nationally, her social conservatism made her popular among the evangelical wing of the Republican Party, which had been distrustful of McCain.

Quartering Act (1765)

Required colonies to provide food and quarters for British troops. Many colonists resented this act, which they perceived as an encroachment of their rights

Alexander Hamilton

Revolutionary War soldier and 1st treasury secretary of the US. A fierce proponent of a strong national government who attended the Philadelphia convention and convincingly argued for the Constitution's ratification in "the Federalist". As treasury secretary, he advocated the assumption of star debts to bolder the nation's credit and the establishment of a national bank to print sound currency and boost commerce. He died from a gunshot wound suffered during a duel with then Vice President Aaron Burr

Aaron Burr

Revolutionary War soldier and Vice President under Thomas Jefferson, who is perhaps most famous for fatally wounding Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. In 1806, he led a failed plot to separate the trans-Mississippi West from the US. Narrowly acquitted from treason, he fled to France where he tried to convince Napoleon to ally with GB vs. the US

Aaron Burr

Revolutionary War soldier and Vice President under Thomas Jefferson, who is perhaps most famous for fatally wounding Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. In 1806, he led a failed plot to separate the trans-Mississippi West from the US. Narrowly acquitted from treason, he fled to France where he tried to convince Napoleon to ally with GB vs. the US.

Mad Anthony Wayne

Revolutionary War soldier and commander in chief of the US Army form 1792 to 1796, he secured the Treaty of Greenville after soundly defeating the Miami Confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers

James Monroe

Revolutionary War soldier, statesman, and 5th President of the United States. As President, he supported protective tariffs and a national bank, but maintained a Jeffersonian opposition to federally funded internal improvements. Though he sought to transcend partisanship, even undertaking a goodwill tour of the states in 1817, his presidency was rocked by bitter partisan and sectional conflicts

George Washington

Revolutionary war general and first president of the US. Virginia born planter who established himself as a military hero during the French and Indian War. Served as commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, and won at Saratoga and Yorktown. Unanimously elected president under the new national Constitution in 1788, he served 2 terms, focusing primarily on strengthening the national government, establishing a sound financial system, and maintaining American neutrality.

Benedict Arnold

Revolutionary war general turned traitor, who valiantly held off a British invasion of upstate New York at Lake Champlain, but later switched sides, plotting to sell out the Continental stronghold at West Point to the redcoats. His scheme was discovered and the disgraced general fled to British lines

Ethan Allen

Revolutionary war officer who, along with Benedict Arnold, fought British and Indian forces in frontier New York and Vermont

Daniel Shays

Revolutionary war veteran who led a group of debtors and impoverished backcountry farmers in a rebellion vs. the Massachusetts gov't in 1786, calling for paper money, lighter taxes, and an end to property seizures for debt. Though his rebellion was quickly put down, it raised the specter of mob rule, calling for a stronger national government

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

William Berkeley

Royal Governor of Virginia (some interruptions until his death 1641) who drew the ire of backwater settlers for refusing to protect them against Indian attacks, and eventually suppressing Bacon's rebellion.

Thomas Hutchinson

Royal governor of Massachusetts during the run-up to revolution, he misjudged colonial zeal during the Tea Act controversy and insisted that East India company ships unload in Boston Harbor, thereby promoting the Boston Tea Party

Lord Dunmore

Royal governor of Virginia who, in 1775, promised freedom to runaway slaves if they joined the British army

Crispus Attucks

Runaway slave and leader of the Boston protests that resulted in the "Boston Massacre", in which he was the first to die

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

Black Hawk

Sauk war chief who led the Sauk and Fox resistance against eviction under the Indian Removal Act in Illinois and Wisconsin. Brutally crushed but the American forces, he surrendered in 1832 and lived out his days on a reservation in Iowa

Robert Owen

Scottish born textile manufacturer and founder of New Harmony, a short lived communal society of about a thousand people in Indiana

SPARs (United States Coast Guard Women's Reserve)

See WAACs [coast guard]

Brigham Young

Second President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), he led his Mormon followers to Salt Lake City, Utah, after Joseph Smith's death. Under his discipline and guidance, the Utah settlement prospered, and the church expanded to include over 100k members by his death in 1877

Queen Anne's War

Second in a series of conflicts between the European powers for control of N America, fought between English and French colonists in the north, and the English and Spanish in Florida. The colonial theater of the war of Spanish Succession. Under the peace treaty, the French ceded Acadia (Nova Scotia), Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay to Britain

Pentagon Papers

Secret U.S. government report detailing early planning and policy decisions regarding the Vietnam War under Presidents J.F. Kennedy and L.B. Johnson. Leaked to the New York Times in `71, it revealed instances of government secrecy, lies, and incompetence in the prosecution of the war

Henry Clay

Secretary of State and US senator from KY, "the Great Compromiser" helped to negotiate the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise Tariff of 1833, and the Compromise of 1850. As a National Republican, later Whig, he advocated a strong national agenda of internal improvement and protective tariffs, known as the American System

Cordell Hull

Secretary of State under President Roosevelt and chief architect of the low-tariff reciprocal trade policy of the New Dealers. Foreign trade increased appreciably under all the trade pacts that he negotiated. One of the chief architects behind the United Nations, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for "co-initiating the United Nations."

Edwin M. Stanton

Secretary of War under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson, he advocated for stronger measures vs. the South during Reconstruction, particularly after widespread violence vs. African Americans erupted in the region. In 1868, Johnson removed him, thus violating the 1867 Tenure of Office Act, which gave presence for Radical Republicans in the House of Representatives to impeach Johnson

Horace Mann

Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education an a champion of public education, advocating more and better school houses, longer terms, better pay for teachers, and expanded curriculum.

Albert Gallatin

Secretary of the treasury from 1801-1813 under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, he sought to balance the federal budget and reduce the national debt

Albert Gallatin

Secretary of the treasury from 1801-1813 under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, he sought to balance the federal budget and reduce the national debt.

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 solders in private homes. In response, colonists convened the First Continental Congress and established "The Association"

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 US to curb overspeculation on western lands. It disproportionately affected the poorer classes, especially in the West, sowing seeds of Jacksonian Democracy

"The Prophet" (Tenskwatawa)

Shawnee religious leader who led a spiritual revival, emphasizing Indian unity and cultural renewal and urging Indians to limit contact with Americans. He lost his following after 1811 after he and a small army were defeated by William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe

Nullification Crisis

Showdown between President Andrew Jackson and the South Carolina legislature, which declared the 1832 tariff (an edited version of the Tariff of Abominations) null and void in the state and thwarted succession if the federal government tried to collect duties. It was resolved by the Compromise Tariff of 1833 by Henry Clay

Root-Takahira agreement

Signed on Nov. 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. This was credited with easing tensions between the two nations, but it also resulted in a weakened United States influence over Japanese hegemony in China.

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

Appomattox Courthouse

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

Breakers

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

Fransisco Coronado

Spanish explorer who traveled though Arizona, New Mexico, and Kansas in search of "golden cities" (really just pueblos) from 1540-1542. He discovered the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River

John Quincy Adams

Son of 2nd President, John Adams, ________ served as a secretary of state under James Monroe before becoming the 6th President. He was a strong advocate of national finance and improvement, but he faced strong opposition from states' rights advocates in the South and West. His controversial election (the allegedly "corrupt bargain" of 1824), and his lack of political acumen further hampered his political agenda

Fort Sumter

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

Redeemers

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

George C. Wallace

Southern populist and segregationist. As governor of Alabama, he famously defended his state's policies of racial segregation. He ran for president several times as a Democrat, but achieved his greatest influence when he ran as a third-party candidate in 1968, winning five states.

Joseph Stalin

Soviet dictator from Lenin's death in 1922 until his own death in 1953. He led the Soviet Union through World War II and shaped Soviet policies in the early years of the Cold War. He secured protective "satellite states" in Eastern Europe at Yalta Conference and pushed Soviet scientists to develop atomic weapons, escalating an arms race with the United States.

Ferdinand Magellan

Spanish explorer who left with 5 ships in 1519 and was slain in the Philippines, only to have one vessel return in 1522 after it completed the first circumnavigation of the globe (famous Strait named after him)

SALT II

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty agreement between Soviet leader Brezhnev and U.S. 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 USSR invasion of Afghanistan in 1979

Levittown

Suburban communities with mass produced tract houses built in NY 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.

Dwight D. ("Ike") Eisenhower

Supreme commander of U.S. forces in Europe during World War II, the war hero later became the thirty-fourth president of the United States. During his two terms, from 1952 to 1960, he presided over the economically prosperous 1950s. He was praised for his dignity and decency, though criticized for not being more assertive on civil rights.

Jim Crow

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 system sought to prevent racial mixing in public, including restaurants, movie theaters, and public transportation. An informal system, it was generally perpetuated by custom, violence, and intimidation

William Walker

TN born adventurer who made several forays into Central America in the 1850's. After an unsuccessful ploy to take over Baja California in 1853, he ventured into Nicaragua, installing himself as President in 1856. His dream of establishing a planter aristocracy in the Central American nation faltered when neighboring Central American nations allied against him. He met his fate before a Honduran firing squad in 1860

Goliad

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

smoking gun tape

Tapes that had recorded Nixon giving orders to use the CIA to hold back an inquiry by the FBI into the Watergate scandal; Nixon initially refused to hand over the tapes, but was forced to provide them to the House Judiciary Committee.

Molasses Act 1737

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

Reign of Terror (1793-1794)

Ten month period of brutal repression when some 40k individuals were executed as the enemies of the French Revolution. While many Jeffersonians (Dem. Reps.) maintained their faith in the French Republic, Federalists (Hamiltonians) withdrew their already lukewarm support once the Reign of Terror commenced.

Dupuy de Lome

The Spanish minister to the United States who found himself at the center of a scandal where his private latter maligning President McKinley was made public in 1898

New Right

Term for a loose network of conservative political activists and organizations that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. More populist in tone than previous generations of conservatives, the New Right emphasized prayer in school. They also espoused a nationalist foreign policy outlook that rejected detente and international treaties.

boll weevils

Term for the conservative Southern Democratic who voted increasingly for Republican issues during the Carter and Reagan administration

military-industrial complex

Term popularized by President Eisenhower in his 1961 Farewell Address, referring to the political and economic ties between arms manufacturers, elected officials, and the U.S. armed forces that created self-sustaining pressure for high military spending during the Cold War. Eisenhower also warned that this powerful combination left unchecked could "endanger our liberties or democratic process," favoring defense concerns over more peaceful goals that balanced security and liberty.

stagflation

Term referring to the simultaneous occurrence of low employment growth and high inflation in the national economy. The phenomenon characterized the economic troubles of the 1970s and posed both an intellectual challenge to economists and a policymaking challenge to government officials.

Old Northwest

Territories acquired by the federal government from the states, encompassing land NW of the Ohio River, E of the Mississippi River, and S of the Great Lakes. The well organized management and sale of the land in the the _______ under the land ordinances of 1785 and '87 established a precedent for handling future land acquisitions.

9/11

Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, in which 19 Islamic militants hijacked and crashed 4 commercial airlines into the Twin Towers in NYC, causing their collapse. One plane crashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC and the fourth, overtaken by passengers, crashed into a rural field in PA. Nearly 3000 people were killed in the worst case of domestic terrorism in American History

H. Ross Perot

Texas billionaire businessman who ran populist campaigns for the presidency in 1992 and 1996. In 1992, he garnered 19 percent of the popular vote, probably throwing the election to Bill Clinton. His campaigns represented anti- establishment sentiment and desires for "common sense" governance.

Henry Ford

The "Father of the Traffic Jam", he developed the ____ Model T and pioneered its assembly line production. As a founder of the ____ Motor Company, he became one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Sunbelt

The 15 state crescent though the American South and SW that experienced terrific population and productivity expansion during WWII and particularly in the decades after the war, eclipsing the old industrial Northeast (the "Frost-belt")

Hiram Revels

The 1st African American senator, elected in 1870 to the Mississippi seat previously occupied by Jefferson Davis. Born to free black parents in North Carolina, he worked as a minister throughout the South before entering politics. After serving for just one year, he returned to Mississippi to head a college for African Americans

Knights of Labor

The 2nd national labor organization, organized in 1869 as a secret society and opened for public membership in 1881. They were known for their edits to organize all workers, regardless of skill level, gender, or race. After the mid-1880s, their membership declined for various reassigns, including their participation in violent strikes and discord between skilled and unskilled workers

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

William H. Taft

The corpulent civil governor of the Philippines under William McKinley. He went on to become 27th president of the United States in 1909

mechanization agriculture

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

New Deal

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

Black Legend

The false notation that Spanish conquerers did little but butcher the Indians and steal their gold in the name of Christ

Hetch Hetchy Valley

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

Sandra Day O'Connor

The first female justice on the Supreme Court. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she served as an attorney, jurist, and politician in Arizona before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. On the bench, she was known as a moderate, frequently casting crucial swing votes in important cases. She retired in 2005.

Canadian Shield

The first part of the North American landmass to emerge above sea level

Frances Perkins

The first woman cabinet member and secretary of labor under Roosevelt, she helped draw labor into the New Deal coalition.

Douglas MacArthur

The flamboyant, vain, and brilliant American commander in the Philippines and mastermind of the "leapfrogging" strategy for bypassing strongly defended Japanese islands during World War II he would go on to command American troops in the Korean War until he was relieved of his duties by President Harry S Truman for insubordination in 1951.

Rutherford B. Hayes

The former Republican governor of OH, he became President after the contested 1872 election. By 1880 he had lost the support of his party and was not renominated for the office

John D. Rockefeller

The founder of the Standard Oil Company, he developed the technique of horizontal integration and compelled other oil companies to join the Standard Oil "trust". He became the richest person in the world and the United States's first billionaire. He later became known for his philanthropic support of universities and research

Mary McLeod Bethune

The highest-ranking African- American in the Roosevelt administration, she headed up the Office of Minority Affairs and was a leader of the unofficial "Black Cabinet," which sought to apply New Deal benefits to blacks as well as whites.

Alexander Graham Bell

The inventor of the telephone, patented in 1876

Thomas Alva Edison

The inventor of, among other things, the electric light bulb, the phonograph, the mimeograph the moving picture, and a machine capable of taking X-rays. Ultimately he held more than 1000 patents for his inventions

deleveraging

The inverse of "leveraging," whereby businesses increase their financial power by borrowing money (debt) in addition to their own assets (equity). In times of uncertainty or credit tightening, the same businesses seek to improve their debt-to-equity ratios by shedding debt through the sale of assets purchased with borrowed money.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

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

Liliuokalani

The last reigning queen of Hawaii, whose defense of native Hawaiian self-rule led to a revolt by white settlers and to her dethronement

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

Great Migration

The movement of 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the Urban North and West in two major waves. The first, from WWI until the onset of the Great Depression, brought more than 1.5 million migrants to northern cities. From 1940 to 1970, another 5 million left the South, pushed off the land by the mechanization of cotton farming and lured north and west by hopes for greater economic opportunity and more equitable political participation.

American Expeditionary Forces (AEF)

The name given to the U.S. Army force deployed to Europe in WWI commanded by General John J. Pershing and composed mostly of conscripts. Because the U.S. entered the war so late, by the time the AEF was raised, trained, and deployed, the war was in its last year (1918).

Appeasement

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

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

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

Samuel Gompers

The president of the American Federation of Labor for nearly every year from its founding in 1886 until his death in 1924. He was no foe of capitalism but wanted employers to offer workers a fair deal by paying high wages and providing job security

Bible Belt

The region of the American south, extending roughly from NC west to OK and TX, where Protestant Fundamentalism and belief in literal interpretation of the Bible were traditionally strongest.

Clarence Thomas

The second black American to serve on the Supreme Court, conservative justice who adheres to constitutional interpretation based on doctrine of originalism. Appointed by George H. W. Bush in 1991 to replace Thurgood Marshall, he was the subject of controversial nomination proceedings when he was accused of sexual harassment by a former colleague.

Neutrality Act of 1939

This act stipulated that European democracies might by 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

John Muir

This noted naturalist split with conservationists like Pinchot by trying to protect natural "temples" like the Hetch Hetchy Valley from development. In 1892, he founded the Sierra Club, which is now one of the most influential conservation organizations in the United States. His writings and philosophy shaped the formation of the modern environmental movement.

Frances E. Willard

This pious leader of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union wished to eliminate the sale of alcohol and thereby "make the world more homelike". Her ecumenical "do everything" reform sensibility encouraged some women to take the leap toward more radical cases like woman suffrage, while allowing more conservative women to stick comfortably with temperance work

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

disestablished

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

Lord North

Tory prime minister and pliant aid to George III from 1770-1782. His ineffective leadership and dogged insistence on colonial subordination contributed to the American Revoution

Brook Farm

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

Oklahoma City Bombing

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

Treaty of Greenville (1795)

Under the terms of the treaty, the Miami Confederacy agreed to cede territory in the Old Northwest to the US in exchange for cash payment, hunting rights, and formal recognition of their sovereign status

Sherman's march

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

Oliver O. Howard

Union General put in charge of the Freedmen's Bureau during Reconstruction. He later found and served as president of Howard University, an institution aimed at educating African American students

George G. Meade

Union general who led the Army of the Potomac to victory against Lee's army at Gettysburg. He, unable to stomach the immense human costs of his victory, refused to pursue Lee back across the Potomac, and thus lost his post to Ulysses S. Grant shortly thereafter

William Tecumseh Sherman

Union general who led the destructive march through GA in 1864. A pioneer practitioner of "total war", he advocated bringing war to the civilian population to undercut morale and destroy supplies destined for Confederate troops

(Joseph R.) Joe Biden

United States senator from Delaware since 1973 and selected by Barack Obama in 2008 as the Democratic candidate for vice president. He had unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1988 and 2008. As a longtime senator, former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he brought experience and maturity to the Democratic ticket in 2008.

Bacon's Rebellion 1676

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

Anglican and Congregational

Which two "established", or tax supported churches were conspicuous (stand out), in 1775

John Dean III

White House counsel to Richard Nixon from 1970 to 1973 who became deeply involved in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. After pleading guilty to obstruction of justice charges, he became a key witness for the prosecution whose testimony was later corroborated by tape recordings.

Monica Lewinsky

White House intern with whom President Bill Clinton had an extra-marital affair in the late 1990s. She was the center of a protracted scandal during the second Clinton term.

Germans

Who accounted for about 6% of the total population by 1775, and resided in Pennsylvania? (They were also known as the Pennsylvanian Dutch)

Scot-Irish

Who accounted for about 7% of the total population by 1775, and resided along the "great wagon road", creating flimsy log cabins?

Stamp tax

Widely unpopular tax on an array of paper goods, repealed in 1776 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

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 N, where slavery was gradually abolished, and the S, where slavery became increasingly entrenched

civic virtue

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

Woman's Loyal League

Women's organization formed to help bring about an end to the Civil War and encourage Congress to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery

Benjamin Franklin

Wrote "Poor Richard's Almanac", perhaps the only first-rank scientist produced in the American colonies, proved that lightning was a form of electricity, and was condemned by some clergymen

James Wolfe

Young British commander who skillfully outmaneuvered French forces of the Battle of Quebec during the French and Indian War.

Nathaniel Bacon

Young Virginia planter wo led a rebellion against Governor Berkeley in 1676 to protest Berkeley's refusal to protect frontier settlers from Indian attacks

Robert F. Kennedy

Younger brother of John F. Kennedy who entered public life as U.S. Attorney General during the Kennedy administration. Later elected senator from New York, Robert Kennedy became an anti-war, pro-civil rights presidential candidate in 1968, launching a popular challenge to incumbent President Johnson. Amid that campaign, he was assassinated in Cal- ifornia on June 6, 1968.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

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

Good Neighbor Policy

a departure from the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, this policy stressed nonintervention in Latin America. It was begun by Herbert Hoover but is associated with FDR.

Big Sister Policy

a foreign policy of Secretary of State Blaine, aimed at rallying Latin American nations behind American leadership and opening Latin American markers to Yankee traders. The policy bore fruit in 1889, when Blaine presided over the First International Conference of American States.

yellow journalism

a scandal mongering practice of journalism that emerged in NY 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

Fordism

a system of assembly line manufacturing and mass production named after Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Co. and 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

Patronage

a system, prevalent during the Gilded age, in which political parties granted jobs and favors to party regulars who delivered votes on election day. This was both an essential wellspring of support for both parties, and a source of conflict within the republican party

Impressment

act of forcibly drafting an individual into military service, employed by the GB navy vs. US seamen in times of war vs. France (1793-1815). This was a continual ounce of conflict between GB and the US in the early national period

West Virginia

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

freemen

adult males who belonged to the Puritan Congregations, which in time came to be called he Congregational Church. Only Puritans, the visible saints, were considered ____ and were eligible for church membership

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 Puritans.

Arminianism

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

muckrakers

bright young reporters at the turn of the 20th century who won this unfavorable moniker from Teddy Roosevelt, but boosted the circulations of their magazines by writing exposés of widespread corruption in American society. Their subjects included business manipulation of gov't, white slavers, child labor, and the illegal deeds of the trusts, and helped spur the passage of reform legislation

land-grant colleges

colleges and universities created from allocations of public land though the Morrell Act of 1862 and the Hatch Act of 1887. These acts helped fuel the boom in higher education in the late 19th century and many of 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"

headright system

employed in the tobacco colonies to encourage the importation of indentured servants, this system allowed an individual to acquire fifty acres of land if he paid for a laborer's passage to the colony. This system was employed in Virginia and Maryland

Dominion of Canada

est. 1867 Unified Canadian government created by GB to bolster Canadians against potential attack or overtures from the United States

Society of the Cincinnati

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

squatters

frontier farmers who illegally occupied land owned by others or or yet officially opened for settlement. Many of North Carolina's early settlers were ____ who contributed to the colony's reputation as being more independent minded and "democratic" than its neighbors.

conversion

intense religious experience that confirmed an individual's place among the "elect" or the "visible saints". Calvinists who experienced this were then expected to lead sanctified lives to demonstrate their salvation.

common law

laws that originate from court rulings and customs as opposed to legislative statues. The US Constitution grew out of the Anglo-American ______ tradition and thus provided only a general organizational framework for the new federal government

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.

transcendentalism

literary and intellectual movement that emphasized the individualism and self reliance, predicted upon a belied that each person possesses an "inner-light" that can point the way to truth and direct contact with God

Armed Neutrality

loose alliance of nonbelligerent naval powers, organized by Russia's Catherine the Great, to protect neutral trading rights during the war for American independence

Lord Cornbury

made governor of New York and New Jersey in 1702, showed that some governors appointed by the king were incompetent

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 that the Bible represented scientific or historical truth. Many became active in the "social gospel" and other reform movement 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

New lights

ministers who took part in the revivalist, emotive religious tradition pioneered by George Whitfield during the Glorious Revolution

middlemen

muslims who exacted heavy tolls on goods en route from Asia and the Arabian peninsula on the way to Europe

Democratic Leadership Council

nonprofit organization of centrist democrats found in the mid-1980. The group attempted to push toward pro growth, strong defense, anticrime policies. Among its early members was Bill Clinton who used it as an example of "third way" politics

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

antifederalists

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

greenbacks

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

criminal syndicalism laws

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.

Funding at par

payment of debts such as gov't bonds, at face value. In 1790, Alexander Hamilton proposed that the federal gov't pays its Revolutionary War debts in full in oder to bolster national credit.

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 the domestic sphere

writ of habeas corpus

petition requiring law enforcement officers to present detained individuals before court to examine the legality of the arrest. It protects individuals from arbitrary state action. Suspended by Lincoln in 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 officers, but it also helped cement party loyalty in the emerging two party system

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 thought, it stood as an alternative to monarchial rule

turnpike

privately funded, toll based public road constructed in the early ninetieth century to facilitate commerce

privateers

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

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

WAVES (Woman Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service)

see WAACS [navy]

Congregational Church

self governing Puritanical congregations without the hierarchal establishment of the Anglican church

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

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 English and colonial ports. and that all goods destined for the colonies would first pass through England

Salem Witch Trials 1692-1693

series of witchcraft trials launched after a group of adolescent girls in Salem, Massachusetts, claimed to have been bewitched by certain older women of the town. Twenty individuals were put to death before the trails were put to an end by the Governor of Massachusetts

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.

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

Corps of Discovery

team of adventurers led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, sent by Thomas Jefferson to explore Louisiana territory and find a water route to the Pacific Ocean. 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.

Corps of Discovery

team of adventurers led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, sent by Thomas Jefferson to explore Louisiana territory and find a water route to the Pacific ocean. 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

transportation revolution

term referring to a series of ninetieth century transportation innovations-turnpikes, steamboats, canals, and R&R, that linked local and regional markets, creating a national economy

judicial review

the idea that the Supreme Court alone had the last word on the question of constitutionality

judicial review

the idea that the Supreme Court alone had the last word on the question of constitutionality.

the Ohio fever

the siren song of cheap land

regulars

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

middle passage

transatlantic voyage that 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 gov't assumed states' Revolutionary War debts in 1790, thereby tying the interests of wealthy lenders with those of the national government

Treaty of Fort Stanwix 1784

treaty signed by the United States and the Pro-British Iroquois tribes, granting the Ohio country to the Americans.

South Carolina Slave Revolt (Stono River Rebellion) 1739

uprising also known as the ______ of more than 50 South Carolina blacks along the Stono River. The slaves attempted to reach Spanish Florida but were stopped by the South Carolina militia

Admiralty courts

used to try the 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 Englishmen since they lacked juries, made the accused gather evidence, and were guilty until proven innocent

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