(APUSH) The American Dream: Terms & Figures by Jessica Burgess

Social Gospel

Preached by liberal Protestant clergymen in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; advocated the application of Christian principles to social problems generated by industrialization.

the counterculture

"Hippie" youth culture of the 1960s, which rejected the values of the dominant culture in favor of illicit drugs, communes, free sex, and rock music.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

- A plantation owner, author, the drafter of the Declaration Independence, ambassador to France, leader of the Republican party, secretary of state, and the third president of the United States. -As president, he purchased the Louisiana territory from France, withheld appointments made by President Adams leading to Marybury v. Madison, outlawed foreign slave trade - Was committed to a "wise and frugal" government.

Lord North (1732-1792)

- FIRST minister of King George III's cabinet whose efforts to subdue the colonies only brought them closer to revolution. -Helped bring about the Tea Act of 1773, which led to the Boston Tea Party. -In an effort to discipline Boston, he wrote, and Parliament passed, four acts that galvanized colonial resistance

Great Sioux War

- In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel Custard led an exploratory expedition into the Black Hills, which the United States government had promised to the Sioux Indians. - Miners soon followed and the army did nothing to keep them out. - Eventually, the army attacked the Sioux Indians and the fight against them lasted for fifteen months before the Sioux Indians were forced to give up their land and move onto a reservation.

General Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805)

- In charge of British troops in the South during the Revolutionary War. -His surrendering to George Washington at the Battle of Yorktown ended the Revolutionary War.

Paul Revere (1735-1818)

- On the night of April 18, 1775, British soldiers marched towards Concord to arrest American Revolutionary leaders and seize their depot of supplies. Paul Revere famously rode through the night and raised the alarm about the approaching British troops.

Chronology of Chap. 2

-1607: Jamestown, Virginia, the first prominent English colony is established -1616: Pocahontas marries John Rolfe -1619: First Africans arrive in English America -1620: Plymouth colony is founded: Pilgrims agree to the Mayflower Compact -1622: Indian uprising in Virginia -1630: Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded -1634: Settlement of Maryland begins -1637: Pequot War -1642-1651: English Civil War -1660: Restoration of the English Monarchy -1675-1676: King Philip's War -1676: Bacon's Rebellion in VA -1681: Pennsylvania is established -1733: Georgia is founded

Benedict Arnold (1741-1801)

-A traitorous American commander who planned to sell out the American garrison at West Point to the British, but his plot was discovered before it could be executed and he joined the British army.

George Whitfield (1714-1770)

-A true catalyst of the Great Awakening, he sought to reignite religious fervor in the American congregations. -During his tour of the American Colonies in 1739, he gave spellbinding sermons and preached the notion of "new birth"—a sudden, emotional moment of conversion and salvation.

General George Washington (1732-1799)

-1775, the Continental Congress named him the commander in chief of the Continental Army. -Served as an officer in the French and Indian War, but had never commanded a large unit. Initially, his army was poorly supplied and inexperienced, which led to repeated defeats. - Realized that he could only defeat the British through wearing them down, and he implemented a strategy of evasion and selective confrontations. -Developed army into an effective force and, with the aid of the French, defeated the British. -1787, he was the presiding officer over the Constitutional Convention, but participated little in the debates. -1789, the Electoral College chose Washington to be the nation's first president. -Assembled a cabinet of brilliant minds, which included Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. -Helped lay foundations of American government and capitalism. -Faced the nation's first foreign and domestic crises. -1793, the British and French were at war. Washington chose to keep America neutral in the conflict even though France and the United States had signed a treaty of alliance. -A year later, the Whiskey Rebellion erupted in Pennsylvania, and Washington sent militiamen to suppress the rebels. -Served two terms in office, chose to step down; & power of the presidency was peacefully passed to John Adams.

Stamp Act Congress

-27 delegates from nine of the colonies met from October 7 to 25, 1765 and wrote a Declaration of the Rights and Grievances of the Colonies. -A petition to the King and a petition to Parliament for the repeal of the Stamp Act.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

-A Boston-born American -Epitomized Enlightenment for many Americans & Europeans -Wide range of interests led him to become a publisher, inventor, and statesman. -Contributed to writing of the Declaration of Independence, served as the minister to France during the Revolutionary War, & was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

-A German monk, priest, and professor, posted on the door of the Wittenberg church his Ninety-Five Theses in protest against the corruption of Catholic Officials. -Began the Protestant Reformation -He founded "Lutheranism" aka Lutheran Church -Followers: German-speaking people and their rulers.

Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

-A genius of revolutionary agitation, he believed that English Parliament had no right to legislate for the colonies. -Organized the Sons of Liberty & protests in Boston against the British.

Mercantile System

-A nationalistic program that assumed that the total amount of the world's gold and silver remained essentially fixed with only a nation's share of that wealth subject to change.

Half-Way Covenant

-Allowed baptized children of church members to be admitted to a "halfway" membership in the church & secure baptism for their own children. -NOT allowed a vote in the church, nor communion.

General Nathanael Greene (1742-1786)

-Appointed by Congress to command the American army fighting in the South during the Revolutionary War. -Using his patience and his skills of managing men, saving supplies, and avoiding needless risks, he waged a successful war of attrition against the British.

Chronology of Chap. 1

-By 12,000 BC: Humans have migrated to the Americas, most of them from Siberia -A.D. 1492: Columbus, sailing for Spain, makes 1st voyage of discovery -1497: John Cabot explores Newfoundland -1503: First Africans are brought to the Americas -1513: Juan Ponce De León explores Florida -1517-1648; Protestant Reformation

General William Howe (1729-1814)

-Commander of the British army in the Revolutionary War -Seized New York City from Washington's army, but failed to capture it. -He missed several more opportunities to quickly end the rebellion, and he resigned his command after the British defeat at Saratoga.

Second Bank of the United States

-Established in 1816 to 1. Bring stability to the national economy 2. Serve as the depository for national funds 3. Provide the government with the means of floating loans and transferring money across the country.

Great Awakening (1720's - 1740's)

-Fervent religious revival movement in the 1720s through the 1740s that was spread throughout the colonies by ministers like New England Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards & English revivalist George Whitefield

Patrick Henry (1736-1799)

-Inspired the Virginia Resolves: declared that Englishmen could only be taxed by their elected representatives. - March of 1775, he met with other colonial leaders to discuss the goals of the upcoming Continental Congress and famously declared "Give me liberty or give me death." -During the ratification process of the U.S. Constitution, he became one of the leaders of the anti-federalists.

Triangular Trade

-Means by which exports to one country or colony provided the means for imports from another country or colony. -Merchants from colonial New England shipped rum to West Africa and used it to barter for slaves taken to the West Indies. -Slaves were sold or traded for materials that the ships brought back to New England including molasses which is need to make rum.

Sons of Liberty

-Organized by Samuel Adams -Colonialists with a militant view against the British government's control of the colonies.

Indentured Servants

-Settler who signed on for a temporary period of servitude to a master in exchange for passage to the New World; EX: Virginia and Pennsylvania were largely peopled in 17th & 18th centuries by English indentured servants.

Marquis De Lafayette (1757-1834)

-Wealthy French idealist excited by the American cause: -He offered to serve in Washington's army for free in exchange for being named a major general. -Overcame Washington's initial skepticism to become one of his most trusted aides.

Tecumseh (1768-1813)

1. A leader of the Shawnee tribe who tried to unite all Indians into a confederation that could defend their hunting grounds. 2. He believed that no land cessions could be made without the consent of all the tribes since they held the land in common. 3. His beliefs and leadership made him seem dangerous to the American government and they waged war on him and his tribe. 4. He was killed at the Battle of the Thames.

Andrew Jackson (1767-1837)

1. A major general in the Tennessee militia, he defeated the Creek Indians, invaded the panhandle of Spanish Florida and won the Battle of New Orleans. 2. In 1818, his successful campaign against Spanish forces in Florida gave the United States the upper hand in negotiating for Florida with Spain. 3. As president, he vetoed bills for the federal funding of internal improvements and the re-chartering of the Second National Bank. 4. When South Carolina nullified the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832, Jackson requested that Congress pass a "force bill" that would authorize him to use the army to compel the state to comply with the tariffs. 5. He forced eastern Indians to move west of the Mississippi River so their lands could be used by white settlers. 6. Groups of those who opposed Jackson come together to form a new political part called the Whigs.

Jesuits

1. A religious order founded in 1540 by Ignatius Loyola. 2. They sought to counter the spread of Protestantism during the Protestant Reformation and spread the Catholic faith through work as missionaries. 3. Roughly 3,500 served in New Spain and New France.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

1. A representative from New Hampshire, he led the New Federalists in opposition to the moving of the second national bank from Boston to Philadelphia. 2. Later, he served as representative and a senator for Massachusetts and emerged as a champion of a stronger national government. 3. He also switched from opposing to supporting tariffs because New England had built up its manufactures with the understanding tariffs would protect them from foreign competitors.

John Adams (1735-1826)

1. A signer of the Declaration of Independence and a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congress. 2. During the Revolutionary War, worked as a diplomat in France and Holland and negotiated the peace treaty with Britain. 3. After the Revolutionary War, served as the minister to Britain as well as the vice president and the second president of the United States. 4. As president, he passed the Alien and Sedition Acts and endured a stormy relationship with France, which included the XYZ affair.

"Corrupt Bargain"

1. A vote in the House of Representatives decided the deadlocked presidential election of 1824 in favor of John Quincy Adams, who Speaker of the House Henry Clay had supported. 2. Afterward, Adams appointed Clay secretary of state. Andrew Jackson charged Clay with having made a "corrupt bargain" with Adams that gave Adams the presidency and Clay a place in his administration. There was no evidence of such a deal, but it was widely believed.

Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)

1. After distinguishing himself in the western theater of the Civil War, he was appointed general in chief of the Union army in 1864. 2. Afterward, he defeated General Robert E. Lee through a policy of aggressive attrition. 3. He constantly attacked Lee's army until it was grind down. Lee surrendered to Grant on April 9th, 1865 at the Appomattox Court House. 4. In 1868, he was elected President and his tenure suffered from scandals and fiscal problems including the debate on whether or not greenbacks, paper money, should be removed from circulation.

Republicans

1. First used during the early 19th century to describe supporters of a strict interpretation of the Constitution, which they believed would safeguard individual freedoms and states' rights from the threats posed by a strong central government. 2. Idealist Republican vision of sustaing an agrarian-oriented union developed largely by Thomas Jefferson.

Lone Star Republic

1. After winning independence from Mexico, Texas became its own nation that was called the Lone Star Republic. 2. In 1836, Texans drafted themselves a constitution, legalized slavery, banned free blacks, named Sam Houston president, and voted for the annexation to the United States. 3. However, quarrels over adding a slave state and fears of instigating a war with Mexico delayed Texas's entrance into the Union until December 29, 1845.

Citizen Genet (1763-1834)

1. Ambassador to the United States from the new French Republic, he engaged American privateers to attack British ships and conspired with frontiersmen and land speculators to organize an attack on Spanish Florida and Louisiana. 2. His actions and the French radicals excessive actions against their enemies in the new French Republic caused the French Revolution to lose support among Americans.

Nativism

1. Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling in the 1830s through the 1850s; the largest group was New York's Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which expanded into the American, or Know-Nothing, party in 1854. In the 1920, there was a surge in nativism as Americans grew to fear immigrants who might be political radicals. 2. In response, new strict immigration regulations were established.

Andrew Johnson (1808-1875)

1. As President Abraham Lincoln's vice president, he was elevated to the presidency after Lincoln's assassination. In order to restore the Union after the Civil War, he issued an amnesty proclamation and required former Confederate states to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. 2. He fought Radical Republicans in Congress over whether he or Congress had the authority to restore states rights to the former Confederate states. This fight weakened both his political and public support. 3. In 1868, the Radical Republicans attempted to impeach Johnson but fell short on the required number of votes needed to remove him from office.

Andrew W. Mellon (1855-1937)

1. As President Harding's secretary of the Treasury, he sought to generate economic growth through reducing government spending and lowering taxes. 2. However, he insisted that the tax reductions mainly go to the rich because he believed the wealthy would reinvest their money and spur economic growth. 3. In order to bring greater efficiency and nonpartisanship to the government's budget process, he persuaded Congress to pass the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, which created a new Bureau of the Budget and a General Accounting Office.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

1. As a leader of the transcendentalist movement, he wrote poems, essays, and speeches that discussed the sacredness of nature, optimism, self-reliance, and the unlimited potential of the individual. 2. He wanted to transcend the limitations of inherited conventions and rationalism to reach the inner recesses of the self.

Stephen A. Douglas (1812-1861)

1. As a senator from Illinois, he authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Once passed, the act led to violence in Kansas between pro- and antislavery factions and damaged the Whig party. 2. These damages prevented Senator Douglas from being chosen as the presidential candidate of his party. 3. Running for senatorial reelection in 1858, he engaged Abraham Lincoln in a series of public debates about slavery in the territories. 4. Even though Douglas won the election, the debates gave Lincoln a national reputation.

James Knox Polk, "Young Hickory" (1795-1849)

1. As president, his chief concern was the expansion of the United States. 2. In 1846, his administration resolved the dispute with Britain over the Oregon Country border. 3. Shortly, after taking office, Mexico broke off relations with the United States over the annexation of Texas. -Polk declared war on Mexico and sought to subvert Mexican authority in California. 4. The United States defeated Mexico; and the two nations signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which Mexico gave up any claims on Texas north of the Rio Grande River and ceded New Mexico and California to the United States.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)

1. As secretary of state under President Monroe, he negotiated agreements to define the boundaries of the Oregon country and the Transcontinental Treaty. 2. He urged President Monroe to issue the Monroe Doctrine, which incorporated Adams's views. As president, Adams envisioned an expanded federal government and a broader use of federal powers. 3. Adams's nationalism and praise of European leaders caused a split in his party. 4. Some Republicans suspected him of being a closet monarchist and left to form the Democrat party. 5. In the presidential election of 1828, Andrew Jackson claimed that Adams had gained the presidency through a "corrupt bargain" with Henry Clay, which helped Jackson win the election.

Gifford Pinchot (1865-1946)

1. As the head of the Division of Forestry, he implemented a conservation policy that entailed the scientific management of natural resources to serve the public interest. His work helped start the conservation movement. 2. In 1910, he exposed to the public the decision of Richard A. Ballinger's, President Taft's secretary of the interior, to open up previously protected land for commercial use. 3. Pinchot was fired, but the damage to Taft's public image resulted in the loss of many pro-Taft candidates in 1910 congressional election.

Jane Addams (1860-1935)

1. As the leader of one of the best known settlement houses, she rejected the "do-goodism" spirit of religious reformers. Instead, she focused on solving the practical problems of the poor and tried to avoid the assumption that she and other social workers knew what was best for poor immigrants. 2. She established child care for working mothers, health clinics, job training, and other social programs. 3. She was also active in the peace movement and was awarded the Noble Peace Prize in 1931 for her work on its behalf.

Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804)

1. Believed in a strong federal government led him to become a contributor to The Federalist and leader of the Federalists. 2. First secretary of the Treasury, he laid the foundation for American capitalism through his creation of a federal budget, funded debt, a federal tax system, a national bank, a customs service, and a coast guard. 3. Wrote "Reports on Public Credit" and "Reports on Manufactures" outlined his vision for economic development and government finances in America. 4. Died in a duel against Aaron Burr.

"The Federalist Papers"

1. Collection of eighty-five essays that appeared in the New York press in 1787-1788 in support of the Constitution; written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay but published under the pseudonym "Publius.''

Northwest Ordinance

1. Created the Northwest Territory (area north of the Ohio River and west of Pennsylvania) 2. Established conditions for self-government and statehood 3. Included a Bill of Rights, and permanently prohibited slavery.

Missouri Compromise

1. Deal proposed by Kentucky senator Henry Clay to resolve the slave/free imbalance in Congress that would result from Missouri's admission as a slave state; 2. In the compromise of March 20, 1820, Maine's admission as a free state offset Missouri, and slavery was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory north of the southern border of Missouri.

"Pet banks"

1. During President Andrew Jackson's fight with the national bank, Jackson resolved to remove all federal deposits from it. 2. To comply with Jackson's demands, Secretary of Treasury Taney continued to draw on government's accounts in the national bank, but deposit all new federal receipts in state banks. 3. The state banks that received these deposits were called "pet banks."

Martin Van Buren (1782-1862)

1. During President Jackson's first term, he served as secretary of state and minister to London. 2. He often politically fought Vice President John C. Calhoun for the position of Jackson's successor. 3. A rift between Jackson and Calhoun led to Van Buren becoming vice president during Jackson's second term. 4. In 1836, Van Buren was elected president, and he inherited a financial crisis. He believed that the government should not continue to keep its deposits in state banks and set up an independent Treasury, which was approved by Congress after several years of political maneuvering.

Sam Houston (1793-1863)

1. During Texas's fight for independence from Mexico, Sam Houston was the commander in chief of the Texas forces, and he led the attack that captured General Antonio López de Santa Anna. 2. After Texas gained its independence, he was name its first president.

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)

1. During the Mexican War, he scored two quick victories against Mexico, which made him very popular in America. 2. President Polk chose him as the commander in charge of the war. However, after he was not put in charge of the campaign to capture Mexico City, he chose to return home. 3. Later he used his popularity from his military victories to be elected the president as a member of the Whig party.

Francis Scott Key (1779-1843)

1. During the War of 1812, he watched British forces bombard Fort McHenry, but fail to take it. 2. Seeing the American flag still flying over the fort at dawn inspired him to write "The Star-Spangled Banner," which became the American national anthem.

"Force Bill"

1. During the nullification crisis between President Andrew Jackson and South Carolina, Jackson asked Congress to pass this bill, which authorized him to use the army to force South Carolina to comply with federal law.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)

1. Elected during the Great Depression, Roosevelt sought to help struggling Americans through his New Deal programs that created employment and social programs, such as Social Security. 2. Prior to American's entry into the Second World War, he supported Britain's fight against Germany through the lend-lease program. 3. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he declared war on Japan and Germany and led the country through most of the Second World War before dying of cerebral hemorrhage. 4. In 1945, he met with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference to determine the shape of the post-war world.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)

1. Elected president in 1960, he was interested in bringing new ideas to the White House. Despite the difficulties he had in getting his legislation through Congress, he did establish the Alliance for Progress programs to help Latin America, the Peace Corps, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and funding for urban renewal projects and the space program. 2. He mistakenly proceeded with the Bay of Pigs invasion, but he successfully handled the Cuban missile crisis. 3. In Indochina, his administration became increasingly involved in supporting local governments through aid, advisors, and covert operations. In 1963, he was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.

Robert E. Lee (1807-1870)

1. Even though he had served in the United States Army for thirty years, he chose to fight on the side of the Confederacy and took command of the Army of North Virginia. 2. Lee was excellent at using his field commanders; and his soldiers respected him. However, General Ulysses S. Grant eventually wore down his army, and Lee surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

Aaron Burr (1756-1836)

1. Even though he was Thomas Jefferson's vice president, he lost favor with Jefferson's supporters who were Republicans. 2. He sought to work with the Federalists and run as their candidate for the governor of New York. 3. Alexander Hamilton opposed Burr's candidacy and his stinging remarks on the subject led to Burr challenging him to duel in which Hamilton was killed.

Brigham Young (1801-1877)

1. Following Joseph Smith's death, he became the leader of the Mormons and promised Illinois officials that the Mormons would leave the state. 2. In 1846, he led the Mormons to Utah and settled near the Salt Lake. After the United States gained Utah as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, he became the governor of the territory and kept the Mormons virtually independent of federal authority.

Anti-Federalists

1. Forerunners of Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party; opposed the Constitution as a limitation on individual and states' rights, which led to the addition of a Bill of Rights to the document.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973)

1. Former member of the United States House of Representatives and the former Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, assumed the presidency after President Kennedy's assassination. He was able to push through Congress several pieces of Kennedy's legislation that had been stalled including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 2. He declared "war on poverty" and promoted his own social program called the Great Society, which sought to end poverty and racial injustice. In 1965, he signed the Immigration and Nationality Service Act, which abolished the discriminatory quotas system that had been the immigration policy since the 1920s. 3. Johnson greatly increased America's role in Vietnam. By 1969, there were 542,000 U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam and a massive anti-war movement had developed in America. In 1968, Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election.

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

1. He escaped from slavery and become an eloquent speaker and writer against slavery. 2. In 1845, he published his autobiography entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and two years later he founded an abolitionist newspaper for blacks called the North Star.

Richard Nixon (1913-1994)

1. He first came to national prominence as a congressman involved in the investigation of Alger Hiss. Later he served as vice president during the Eisenhower administration. In 1960, he ran as the Republican nominee for president and lost to John Kennedy. In 1968, he ran and won the presidency against Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey. During his campaign, he promised to bring about "peace with honor" in Vietnam. 2. He told southern conservatives that he would slow the federal enforcement of civil rights laws and appoint pro-southern justices to the Supreme Court. After being elected, he fulfilled the latter promise attempted to keep the former. He opened talks with the North Vietnamese and began a program of Vietnamization of the war. He also bombed Cambodia. 3. In 1973, America, North and South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong agreed to end the war and the United States withdrew. However, the cease-fire was broken, and the South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam. In 1970, Nixon changed U.S. foreign policy. He declared that the America was no longer the world's policemen and he would seek some partnerships with Communist countries. 4. With his historic visit to China, he ended twenty years of diplomatically isolating China and he began taking steps towards cultural exchanges and trade. In 1972, Nixon travelled to Moscow and signed agreements with the Soviet Union on arms control and trade. That same year, Nixon was reelected, but the Watergate scandal erupted shortly after his victory. When his knowledge of the break-in and subsequent cover-up was revealed, Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment.

George H. W. Bush (1924-)

1. He had served as vice president during the Reagan administration and then won the presidential election of 1988. During his presidential campaign, Bush promised not to raise taxes. However, the federal deficit had become so big that he had to raise taxes. Bush chose to make fighting illegal drugs a priority. He created the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but it was only moderately successful in stopping drug use. In 1989, Bush ordered the invasion of Panama and the capture of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, who was wanted in America on drug charges. He was captured, tried, and convicted. In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; and Bush sent the American military to Saudi Arabia on a defensive mission. He assembled a multinational force and launched Operation Desert Storm, which took Kuwait back from Saddam in 1991. The euphoria over the victory in Kuwait was short lived as the country slid into a recession. He lost the 1992 presidential election to Bill Clinton.

James Monroe (1758-1831)

1. He served as secretary of state and war under President Madison and was elected president. 2. As the latter, he signed the Transcontinental Treaty with Spain which gave the United States Florida and expanded the Louisiana territory's western border to the Pacific coast. 3. In 1823, he established the Monroe Doctrine. This foreign policy proclaimed the American continents were no longer open to colonization and America would be neutral in European affairs.

Gerald Ford (1913-2006)

1. He was President Nixon's vice president and assumed the presidency after Nixon resigned. President Ford issued Nixon a pardon for any crimes related to the Watergate scandal. The American public's reaction was largely negative; and Ford never regained the public's confidence. He resisted congressional pressure to both reduce taxes and increase federal spending, which sent the American economy into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. Ford retained Kissinger as his secretary of state and continued Nixon's foreign policy goals, which included the signing of another arms--control agreement with the Soviet Union. He was heavily criticized following the collapse of South Vietnam.

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (1824-1863)

1. He was a Confederate general who was known for his fearlessness in leading rapid marches, bold flanking movements, and furious assaults. 2. He earned his nickname at the Battle of the First Bull Run for standing courageously against Union fire. During the battle of Chancellorsville, his own men accidently mortally wounded him.

Osceola (1804-1838)

1. He was the leader of the Seminole nation who resisted the federal Indian removal policy through a protracted guerilla war. 2. In 1837, he was treacherously seized under a flag of truce and imprisoned at Fort Moultrie, where he was left to die.

John Brown (1800-1859)

1. He was willing to use violence to further his antislavery beliefs. 2. In 1856, a pro-slavery mob sacked the free-state town of Lawrence, Kansas. In response, John Brown went to the pro-slavery settlement of Pottawatomie, Kansas and hacked to death several people, which led to a guerrilla war in the Kansas territory. 3. In 1859, he attempted to raid the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. He had hoped to use the stolen weapons to arm slaves, but he was captured and executed. His failed raid instilled panic throughout the South, and his execution turned him into a martyr for his cause.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

1. His participation in the Lincoln-Douglas debates gave him a national reputation and he was nominated as the Republican party candidate for president in 1860. 2. Shortly after he was elected president, southern states began succeeding from the Union and in April of 1861 he declared war on the succeeding states. 3. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves. At the end of the war, he favored a reconstruction strategy for the former Confederate states that did not radically alter southern social and economic life. However, before his plans could be finalized, John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865.

Glorious Revolution

1. In 1688, the Protestant Queen Mary and her husband, William of Orange, took the British throne from King James II in a bloodless coup. 2. Parliament greatly expanded its power and passed the Bill of Rights and the Act of Toleration, both of which would influence attitudes and events in the colonies.

Franciscan Missions

1. In 1769, Franciscan missioners accompanied Spanish soldiers to California and over the next fifty years established a chain of missions from San Diego to San Francisco. 2. At these missions, friars sought to convert Indians to Catholicism and make them members of the Spanish empire. 3. The friars stripped the Indians of their native heritage and used soldiers to enforce their will.

Joseph Smith (1805-1844)

1. In 1823, he claimed that the Angel Moroni showed him the location of several gold tablets on which the Book of Mormon was written. 2. Using the Book of Mormon as his gospel, he founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. Joseph and his followers upset non-Mormons living near them so they began looking for a refuge from persecution. 3. In 1839, they settled in Commerce, Illinois, which they renamed Nauvoo. In 1844, Joseph and his brother were arrested and jailed for ordering the destruction of a newspaper that opposed them. -While in jail, an anti-Mormon mob stormed the jail and killed both of them.

Williams Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879)

1. In 1831, he started the anti-slavery newspaper Liberator and helped start the New England Anti-Slavery Society. 2. Two years later, he assisted Arthur and Lewis Tappan in the founding of the American Anti-Slavery Society. 3. He and his followers believed that America had been thoroughly corrupted and needed a wide range of reforms. 4. He embraced every major reform movement of the day: abolition, temperance, pacifism, and women's rights. He wanted to go beyond just freeing slaves and grant them equal social and legal rights.

General Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794-1876)

1. In 1834, he seized political power in Mexico and became a dictator. 2. In 1835, Texans rebelled against him and he led his army to Texas to crush their rebellion. 3. He captured the missionary called the Alamo and killed all of its defenders, which inspired Texans to continue to resistance and Americans to volunteer to fight for Texas. 4. The Texans captured Santa Anna during a surprise attack and he bought his freedom by signing a treaty recognizing Texas's independence.

George B. McClellan (1826-1885)

1. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him head of the Army of the Potomac and, later, general in chief of the U.S. Army. 2. He built his army into well trained and powerful force. 3. However, he often delayed taking action against the enemy even though Lincoln wanted him to attack. 4. After failing to achieve a decisive victory against the Confederacy, Lincoln removed McClellan from command in 1862.

Fidel Castro (1926-2016)

1. In 1959, his Communist regime came to power in Cuba after two years of guerrilla warfare against the dictator Fulgenico Batista. 2. He enacted land redistribution programs and nationalized all foreign-owned property. 3. The latter action as well as his political trials and summary executions damaged relations between Cuba and America. 4. Castro was turned down when he asked for loans from the United States. However, he did receive aid from the Soviet Union.

Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)

1. In 1980, the former actor and governor of California was elected president. In office, he reduced social spending, cut taxes, and increased defense spending. He was criticized for cutting important programs, such as housing and school lunches and increasing the federal deficit. 2. By 1983, prosperity had returned to America and Reagan's economic reforms appeared to be working, but in October of 1987 the stock market crashed. Some blamed the federal debt, which had tripled in size since Reagan had taken office. In the early 1980s, HIV/AIDS cases were beginning to be reported in America, but the Reagan administration chose to do little about the growing epidemic. Reagan believed that most of the world's problems came from the Soviet Union, which he called the "evil empire." In response, he conducted a major arms build up. Then in 1987, he signed an arms-control treaty with the Soviet Union. He authorized covert CIA operations in Central America. In 1986, the Iran-Contra scandal came to light which revealed arms sales were being conducted with Iran in a partial exchange for the release of hostages in Lebanon. The arms money was being used to aid the Contras.

Henry Clay (1777-1852)

1. In first half of the nineteenth century, he was the foremost spokesman for the American system. 2. As speaker of the House in the 1820s, he promoted economic nationalism, "market revolution," and the rapid development of western states and territories. He formulated the "second" Missouri Compromise, which denied the Missouri state legislature the power to exclude the rights of free blacks and mulattos. 3. In the deadlocked presidential election of 1824, the House of Representatives decided the election. Clay supported John Quincy Adams, who won the presidency and appointed Clay to secretary of state. Andrew Jackson claimed that Clay had entered into a "corrupt bargain" with Adams for his own selfish gains.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924)

1. In the 1912 presidential election, Woodrow Wilson ran under the slogan of New Freedom, which promised to improve of the banking system, lower tariffs, and break up monopolies. 2. He sought to deliver on these promises through passage of the Underwood-Simmons Tariff, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and new anti-trust laws. 3. Though he was weak on implementing social change and showed a little interest in the plight of African Americans, he did eventually support some labor reform. 4. At the beginning of the First World War, Wilson kept America neutral, but provided the Allies with credit for purchases of supplies. 5. However, the sinking of U.S. merchant ships and the news of Germany encouraging Mexico to attack America caused Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on Germany. Following the war, Wilson supported the entry of America into the League of Nations and the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles; but Congress would not approve the entry or ratification.

Warren G. Harding (1865-1923)

1. In the 1920 presidential election, he was the Republican nominee who promised Americans a "return to normalcy," which would mean a return to conservative values and a turning away from President Wilson's internationalism. 2. His message resonated with voters' conservative postwar mood; and he won the election. Once in office, Harding's administration dismantled many of the social and economic components of progressivism and pursued a pro-business agenda. 3. Harding appointed four pro-business Supreme Court Justices and his administration cut taxes, increased tariffs and promoted a lenient attitude towards government regulation of corporations. 4. However, he did speak out against racism and ended the exclusion of African Americans from federal positions. His administration did suffer from a series of scandals as the result of him appointing members of the Ohio gang to government positions.

George W. Bush (1946-)

1. In the 2000 presidential election, Texas governor George W. Bush ran as the Republican nominee against Democratic nominee Vice President Al Gore. The election ended in controversy over the final vote tally in Florida. Bush had slightly more votes, but a recount was required by state law. However, it was stopped by Supreme Court and Bush was declared president. 2. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, he launched his "war on terrorism." President George W. Bush adapted the Bush Doctrine, which claimed the right to launch preemptive military attacks against enemies. The United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq with unclear outcomes leaving the countries divided. In the summer of 2006, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and left destruction across several states and three-quarters of New Orleans flooded. Bush was attacked for the unpreparedness of the federal government to handle the disaster as well as his own slowness to react. In September 2008, the nation's economy nosedived as a credit crunch spiraled into a global economic meltdown. Bush signed into law the bank bailout fund called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), but the economy did not improve.

Mountain Men

1. Inspired by the fur trade, these men left civilization to work as trappers and reverted to a primitive existence in the wilderness. 2. They were the first whites to find routes through the Rocky Mountains, and they pioneered trails that settlers later used to reach the Oregon country and California in the 1840s.

Eli Whitney (1765-1825)

1. Invented the cotton gin which could separate cotton from its seeds. 2. One machine operator could separate fifty times more cotton than worker could by hand, which led to an increase in cotton production and prices. 3. These increases gave planters a new profitable use for slavery and a lucrative slave trade emerged from the coastal South to the Southwest.

Jimmy Carter (1924-)

1. Jimmy Carter, an outsider to Washington, capitalized on the post-Watergate cynicism and won the 1976 presidential election. He created departments of Energy and Education and signed into law several environmental initiatives. However, his efforts to support the Panama Canal Treaties and his unwillingness to make deals with legislators caused other bills to be either gutted or stalled in Congress. 2. Despite his efforts to improve the economy, the recession continued and inflation increased. In 1978, he successfully brokered a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt called the Camp David Accords. 3. Then his administration was plagued with a series of crises. Fighting in the Middle East produced a fuel shortage in the United States. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan and Carter responded with the suspension of an arms-control treaty with the Soviets, the halting of grain shipments to the Soviet Union, and a call for a boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow. In Iran, revolutionaries toppled the shah's government and seized the American embassy, taking hostage those inside. Carter struggled to get the hostages released and was unable to do so until after he lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to further peace and democratic elections around the world.

Hartford Convention

1. Meeting of New England Federalists on December 15, 1814, to protest the War of 1812; 2. Proposed seven constitutional amendments (limiting embargoes and changing requirements for officeholding, declaration of war, and admission of new states), but the war ended before Congress could respond.

Corps of Discovery

1. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led this group of men on an expedition of the newly purchased Louisiana territory, which took them from Missouri to Oregon. 2. As they traveled, they kept detailed journals and drew maps of the previously unexplored territory. 3. Their reports attracted traders and trappers to the region and gave the United States a claim to the Oregon country by right of discovery and exploration.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense

1. Pamphlet refocused the blame for the colonies' problems on King George III rather than on Parliament 2. Advocated a declaration of independence, which few colonialists had considered prior to its appearance.

Greenbacks

1. Paper money issued during the Civil War. After the war ended, a debate emerged on whether or not to remove the paper currency from circulation and revert back to hard-money currency (gold coins). 2. Opponents of hard-money feared that eliminating the greenbacks would shrink the money supply, which would lower crop prices and make it more difficult to repay long-term debts. 3. President Ulysses S. Grant, as well as hard-currency advocates, believed that gold coins were morally preferable to paper currency.

James Madison (1751-1836)

1. Participated in the Constitutional Convention during which he proposed the Virginia Plan. 2. Believed in a strong federal government and was a leader of the Federalists and a contributor to The Federalist. 3. Presented to Congress the Bill of Rights and drafted the Virginia Resolutions. 4. As the secretary of state, he withheld a commission for William Marbury, which led to the landmark Marbury v. Madison decision. 5. During his presidency, he declared war on Britain in response to violations of American shipping rights, which started the War of 1812.

Barbary Pirates

1. Plundering pirates off the Mediterranean coast of Africa; 2. President Thomas Jefferson's refusal to pay them tribute to protect American ships sparked an undeclared naval war with North African nations, 1801-1805.

Herbert Hoover (1874-1964)

1. Prior to becoming president, Hoover served as the secretary of commerce in both the Harding and Coolidge administrations. 2. During his tenure at the Commerce Department, he pursued new markets for business and encouraged business leaders to share information as part of the trade-association movement. 3. The Great Depression hit while he was president. 4. Hoover believed that the nation's business structure was sound and sought to revive the economy through boosting the nation's confidence. He also tried to restart the economy with government constructions projects, lower taxes and new federal loan programs, but nothing worked.

Federalists

1. Proponents of a centralized federal system and the ratification of the Constitution. 2. Most Federalists were relatively young, educated men who supported a broad interpretation of the Constitution whenever national interest dictated such flexibility. 3. Notable Federalists included Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.

Bank of the United States

1. Proposed by the first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, the bank opened in 1791 and operated until 1811 to issue a uniform currency, make business loans, and collect tax monies. 2. The second Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816 but was not renewed by President Andrew Jackson twenty years later.

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)

1. Served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate for South Carolina before becoming secretary of war under President Monroe and then John Quincy Adams's vice president. 2. Introduced the bill for the second national bank to Congress and led the minority of southerners who voted for the Tariff of 1816. 3. However, he later chose to oppose tariffs. 4. During his time as secretary of war under President Monroe, he authorized the use of federal troops against the Seminoles who were attacking settlers. 5. As John Quincy Adams's vice president, he supported a new tariffs bill to win presidential candidate Andrew Jackson additional support. Jackson won the election, but the new tariffs bill passed and Calhoun had to explain why he had changed his opinion on tariffs.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

1. She redefined the role of the presidential spouse and was the first woman to address a national political convention, write a nationally syndicated column and hold regular press conferences. 2. She travelled throughout the nation to promote the New Deal, women's causes, organized labor, and meet with African American leaders. 3. She was her husband's liaison to liberal groups and brought women activists and African American and labor leaders to the White House.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

1. She was a prominent reformer and advocate for the rights of women, and she helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention to discuss women's rights. 2. The convention was the first of its kind and produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which proclaimed the equality of men and women.

Dorothea Lande Dix (1802-1887)

1. She was an important figure in increasing the public's awareness of the plight of the mentally ill. 2. After a two-year investigation of the treatment of the mentally ill in Massachusetts, she presented her findings and won the support of leading reformers. 3. She eventually convinced twenty states to reform their treatment of the mentally ill.

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

1. She was born into slavery, but New York State freed her in 1827. 2. She spent the 1840s and 1850s travelling across the country and speaking to audiences about her experiences as slave and asking them to support abolition and women's rights.

Robert Morris (1734-1806)

1. Superintendent of finance for the Congress of the Confederation during the final years of the Revolutionary War. 2. Envisioned a national finance plan of taxation & debt management, but the states did not approve the necessary amendments to the Articles of Confederation need to implement the plan.

Oregon Country

1. The Convention of 1818 between Britain and the United States established the Oregon Country as being west of the crest of the Rocky Mountains and the two countries were to jointly occupy it. 2. In 1824, the United States and Russia signed a treaty that established the line of 54°40′ as the southern boundary of Russia's territorial claim in North America. 3. A similar agreement between Britain and Russia finally gave the Oregon Country clearly defined boarders, but it remained under joint British and American control.

Pontiac's Rebellion

1. The Peace Treaty of 1763 gave the British all French land east of the Mississippi River. -Area included the territory of France's Indian allies who were not consulted about the transfer of their lands to British control. 2. In an effort to recover their autonomy, Indians captured British forts around the Great Lakes and in the Ohio Valley as well as attacked settlements in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.

William Jefferson Clinton (1946-)

1. The governor of Arkansas won the 1992 presidential election against President George H. W. Bush. In his first term, he pushed through Congress a tax increase, an economic stimulus package, the adoption of the North America Free Trade Agreement, welfare reform, a raise in the minimum wage, and improved public access to health insurance. However, he failed to institute major health-care reform, which had been one of his major goals. 2. In 1996, Clinton defeated Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. Clinton was scrutinized for his investment in the fraudulent Whitewater Development Corporation, but no evidence was found of him being involved in any wrongdoing. 3. In 1998, he was revealed to have had a sexual affair with a White House intern. Clinton had initially lied about the affair and tried to cover up it, which led to a vote in Congress on whether or not to begin an impeachment inquiry. 4. The House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton, but the Senate found him not guilty. Clinton's presidency faced several foreign policy challenges. In 1994, he used U.S. forces to restore Haiti's democratically elected president to power after he had been ousted during a coup. In 1995, the Clinton Administration negotiated the Dayton Accords, which stopped the ethnic strife in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkan region. Clinton sponsored peace talks between Arabs and Israelis, which culminated in Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat signing the Oslo Accords in 1993. This agreement provided for the restoration of Palestinian self-rule in specific areas in exchange for peace as provided in UN Security Council resolutions.

Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844)

1. The president of the second Bank of the United States. 2. In response to President Andrew Jackson's attacks on the bank, Biddle curtailed the bank's loans and exchanged its paper currency for gold and silver. -He was hoping to provoke an economic crisis to prove the bank's importance. 3. In response, state banks began printing paper without restraint and lent it to speculators, causing a binge in speculating and an enormous increase in debt.

Peggy Eaton Affair (1796-1879)

1. The wife of John Eaton, President Jackson's secretary of war, was the daughter of a tavern owner with an unsavory past. 2. Supposedly her first husband had committed suicide after learning that she was having an affair with John Eaton. 3. The wives of members of Jackson's cabinet snubbed her because of her lowly origins and past. The scandal that resulted was called the Eaton Affair.

Anti-Masonic Party

1. This party grew out of popular hostility toward the Masonic fraternal order and entered the presidential election of 1832 as a third party. 2. It was the first party to run as a third party in a presidential election as well as the first to hold a nomination convention and announce a party platform.

Tariff of 1832

1. This tariff act reduced the duties on many items, but the tariffs on cloth and iron remained high. South Carolina nullified it along with the tariff of 1828. 2. President Andrew Jackson sent federal troops to the state and asked Congress to grant him the authority to enforce the tariffs. 3. Henry Clay presented a plan of gradually reducing the tariffs until 1842, which Congress passed and ended the crisis.

Jay's Treaty

1. Treaty with Britain negotiated in 1794 by Chief Justice John Jay; Britain agreed to vacate forts in the Northwest Territories, and festering disagreements (border with Canada, prewar debts, shipping claims) would be settled by commission.

Abigail Adams (1744-1818)

1. Wife of John Adams, she endured long periods of separation from him while he served in many political roles. 2. During these times apart, she wrote often to her husband; and their correspondence has provided a detailed portrait of life during the Revolutionary War.

Chronology of Chap. 3

1619: First Africans arrive at Jamestown 1636: Harvard College is established 1662: Virginia enacts law declaring that children of slave women are slaves 1691: Royal Charter for Massachusetts is established 1692: Salem witchcraft trials 1730s-1740s: Great Awakening 1735: John Peter Zenger is tried for seditious libel 1739: Stono Uprising 1739: George Whitfield preaches his 1st serum in America, in Philadelphia 1741: Jonathan Edwards preaches "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

Tariff of 1816

First true protective tariff, intended strictly to protect American goods against foreign competition.

Hernando de Soto (estimated 1500-1542)

A conquistador who explored the west coast of Florida, western North Carolina, and along the Arkansas river from 1539 till his death in 1542.

Proprietary Colonies

A colony owned by an individual, rather than a joint-stock company.

Tea Party

A decentralized, nationwide movement of limited-government conservatives that emerged during the early twenty-first century. Its members sent thousands of tea bags into congressional offices to draw a parallel between President Obama's "tax-and-spend" liberalism and the British tax policies that led to the famous Boston Tea Party of 1773.

Massive Retaliation

A doctrine of nuclear strategy in which the United States committed itself to retaliate with "massive retaliatory power" (nuclear weapons) in the event of an attack. Developed by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles during the Eisenhower administration to prevent communist aggression from the Soviet Union and China.

Occupy Wall Street

A grassroots movement protesting a capitalist system that fostered social and economic inequality. Begun in Zuccotti Park, New York City, during 2011, the movement spread rapidly across the nation, triggering a national conversation about income inequality and protests of the government's "bailouts" of the banks and corporations allegedly responsible for the Great Recession.

Beats

A group of writers, artists, and musicians whose central concern was the discarding of organizational constraints and traditional conventions in favor of liberated forms of self expression. - They came out of the bohemian underground in New York's Greenwich Village in the 1950s and included the writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. - Their attitudes and lifestyles had a major influence on the youth of the 1960s.

Virginia Company

A joint stock enterprise that King James I chartered in 1606. The company was to spread Christianity in the New World as well as find ways to make a profit in it.

Security Council

A major agency within the United Nations which remains in permanent session and has the responsibility of maintaining international peace and security. Originally, it consisted of five permanent members, (United States, Soviet Union, Britain, France, and the Republic of China), and six members elected to two-year terms. After 1965, the number of rotating members was increased to ten. In 1971, the Republic of China was replaced with the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union was replaced by the Russian Federation in 1991.

Unterseeboot (or U-Boat)

A military submarine operated by the German government in the First World War, used to attack enemy merchant ships in war zone waters. The sinking of the ocean liner Lusitania by a German submarine caused a public outcry in America, which contributed to the demands to expand the United States' military.

Paternalism

A moral position developed during the first half of the nineteenth century which claimed that slaves were deprived of liberty for their own "good." Such a rationalization was adopted by some slave owners to justify slavery.

Black Power Movement

A more militant form of protest for civil rights that originated in urban communities, where nonviolent tactics were less effective than in the South. Black power encouraged African Americans to take pride in their racial heritage and forced black leaders and organizations to focus attention on the plight of poor inner-city blacks.

Nativist

A native-born American who saw immigrants as a threat to his way of life and employment. During the 1880s, nativist groups worked to stop the flow of immigrates into the United States. Of these groups, the most successful was the American Protective Association who promoted government restrictions on immigration, tougher naturalization requirements, the teaching of English in schools and workplaces that refused to employ foreigners or Catholics.

Industrial War

A new concept of war enabled by industrialization that developed from the early 1800s through the Atomic Age. New technologies, including automatic weaponry, forms of transportation like the railroad and airplane, and communication technologies such as the telegraph and telephone, enabled nations to equip large, mass-conscripted armies with chemical and automatic weapons to decimate opposing armies in a "total war."

Staple Crop, or Cash Crop

A profitable market crop, such as cotton or tobacco

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

A radical union organized in Chicago in 1905, nicknamed the Wobblies; its opposition to World War I led to its destruction by the federal government under the Espionage Act.

Phyllis Schafly (1924-)

A right-wing Republican activist who spearheaded the anti-feminism movement. She believed feminist were "anti-family, anti-children, and pro-abortion." She worked against the equal-rights amendment for women and civil rights.

Reform Darwinism

A social philosophy that challenged the ruthlessness of Social Darwinism by asserting that humans could actively shape the process of evolutionary social development through cooperation and innovation.

Captain John Smith (1580-1631)

A swashbuckling soldier of fortune with rare powers of leadership and self-promotion, he was appointed to the resident council to manage Jamestown.

Contract With America

A ten-point document released by the Republican party during the 1994 Congressional election campaigns, which outlined a small-government program featuring less regulation of business, diminished environmental regulations, and other core values of the Republican revolution.

"Jazz Age"

A term coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald to characterize the spirit of rebellion and spontaneity that spread among young Americans during the 1920s, epitomized by the emergence of jazz music and the popularity of carefree, improvisational dances, such as the Charleston and the Black Bottom.

Yellow Journalism

A type of journalism, epitomized in the 1890s by the newspaper empires of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, that intentionally manipulates public opinion through sensational headlines about both real and invented events.

Homestead Steal Strike

A violent labor conflict at the Homestead Steel Works near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that occurred when its president, Henry Clay Frick, refused to renew the union contract with Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. The strike, which began on June 29, 1892, culminated in an attempt on Frick's life and was swiftly put down by state militias. The strike marks one of the great setbacks in the emerging industrial-union movement.

Arab Awakening

A wave of spontaneous democratic uprisings that spread throughout the Arab world beginning in 2011, in which long-oppressed peoples demanded basic liberties from generations-old authoritarian regimes.

36 degrees 30'

According to the Missouri Compromise, any part of the Louisiana Purchase north of this line (Missouri's southern border) was to be excluded from slavery.

Harlem Renaissance

African American literary and artistic movement of the 1920s and 1930s centered in New York City's Harlem district; writers Langston Hughes, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, and Countee Cullen were among those active in the movement.

Food Administration

After America's entry into World War I, the economy of the home front needed to be reorganized to provide the most efficient means of conducting the war. The Food Administration was a part of this effort. Under the leadership of Herbert Hoover, the organization sought to increase agricultural production while reducing civilian consumption of foodstuffs.

John J. Pershing (1860-1948)

After Pancho Villa had conducted several raids into Texas and New Mexico, President Woodrow Wilson sent troops under the command of General John J. Pershing into Mexico to stop Villa. However, after a year of chasing Villa and not being able to catch him, they returned to the United States. During the First World War, Pershing commanded the first contingent of U.S. soldiers sent to Europe and advised the War Department to send additional American forces.

"Silent Cal" Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

After President Harding's death, his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, assumed the presidency. Coolidge believed that the nation's welfare was tied to the success of big business, and he worked to end government regulation of business and industry as well as reduce taxes. In particular, he focused on the nation's industrial development.

Operation Desert Shield

After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, President George H. W. Bush sent American military forces to Saudi Arabia on a strictly defensive mission. They were soon joined by a multinational coalition. When the coalition's mission changed to the retaking of Kuwait, the operation was renamed Desert Storm.

Great Migration

After World War II, rural southern blacks began moving to the urban North and Midwest in large numbers in search of better jobs, housing, and greater social equality. The massive influx of African American migrants overwhelmed the resources of urban governments and sparked racial conflicts. In order to cope with the new migrants and alleviate racial tension, cities constructed massive public-housing projects that segregated African Americans into overcrowded and poor neighborhoods.

Alfred Thayer Mahan's "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1600-1783"

Alfred Thayer Mahan was an advocate for sea power and Western imperialism. In 1890, he published The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 in which he argued that a nation's greatness and prosperity comes from maritime power. He believed that America's "destiny" was to control the Caribbean, build the Panama Canal, and spread Western civilization across the Pacific.

Popular Sovereignty

Allowed settlers in a disputed territory to decide the slavery issue for themselves.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

An African American Baptist minister, activist and noted orator, who advocated social change through non-violent means. A powerful speaker and a man of great spiritual strength, he shaped the African American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. -Specifically he opposed discrimination against African Americans by organizing non-violent resistance and peaceful demonstrations. -His most famous speech is known as "I Have A Dream" -He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. -Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.

Iroquois League

An alliance of the Iroquois tribes that used their strength to force Europeans to work with them in the fur trade and to wage war across what is today eastern North America.

Gilded Age (1800-1896)

An era of dramatic industrial and urban growth characterized by loose government oversight over corporations, which fostered unfettered capitalism and widespread political corruption.

Social Justice

An important part of the Progressive's agenda, social justice sought to solve social problems through reform and regulation. Methods used to bring about social justice ranged from the founding of charities to the legislation of a ban on child labor.

Frederick Jackson Turner

An influential historian who authored the "Frontier Thesis" in 1893, arguing that the existence of an alluring frontier and the experience of persistent westward expansion informed the nation's democratic politics, unfettered economy, and rugged individualism.

Whigs

Another name for revolutionary Patriots.

Nativism

Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling in the 1830s through the 1850s; the largest group was New York's Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, which expanded into the American, or Know-Nothing, party in 1854. In the 1920, there was a surge in nativism as Americans grew to fear immigrants who might be political radicals. In response, new strict immigration regulations were established.

Fundamentalism

Anti-modernist Protestant movement started in the early twentieth century that proclaimed the literal truth of the Bible; the name came from The Fundamentals, published by conservative leaders.

Social Darwinism

Application of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection to society; used the concept of the "survival of the fittest" to justify class distinctions and to explain poverty.

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Approved in 1993, the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico allowed goods to travel across their borders free of tariffs; critics argued that American workers would lose their jobs to cheaper Mexican labor.

Burned-over District

Area of western New York strongly influenced by the revivalist fervor of the Second Great Awakening; Disciples of Christ and Mormons are among the many sects that trace their roots to the phenomenon.

Continental Army

Army authorized by the Continental Congress, 1775-1784, to fight the British; commanded by General George Washington.

John Foster Dulles (1888-1959)

As President Eisenhower's secretary of state, he institutionalized the policy of containment and introduced the strategy of deterrence. He believed in using brinkmanship to halt the spread of communism. He attempted to employ it in Indochina, which led to the United States' involvement in Vietnam.

James Gillespie Blaine (1830-1893)

As a Republican congressman from Maine, he developed close ties with business leaders, which contributed to him losing the presidential election of 1884. He later opposed President Cleveland's efforts to reduce tariffs, which became a significant issue in the 1888 presidential election. Blaine served as secretary of state under President Benjamin Harrison and his flamboyant style often overshadowed the president.

Margaret Sanger (1883-1966)

As a birth-control activist, she worked to distribute birth control information to working-class women and opened the nation's first family-planning clinic in 1916. She organized the American Birth Control League, which eventually changed its name to Planned Parenthood.

William McKinley (1843-1901)

As a congressman, he was responsible for the McKinley Tariff of 1890, which raised the duties on manufactured products to their highest level ever. Voters disliked the tariff and McKinley, as well as other Republicans, lost their seats in Congress the next election. However, he won the presidential election of 1896 and raised the tariffs again. In 1898, he annexed Hawaii and declared war on Spain. The war concluded with the Treaty of Paris, which gave America control over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Soon America was fighting Filipinos, who were seeking independence for their country. In 1901, McKinley was assassinated.

Reparations

As a part of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was required to confess its responsibility for the First World War and make payments to the victors for the entire expense of the war. These two requirements created a deep bitterness among Germans.

J Pierpont Morgan (1837-1919)

As a powerful investment banker, he would acquire, reorganize, and consolidate companies into giant trusts. His biggest achievement was the consolidation of the steel industry into the United States Steel Corporation, which was the first billion-dollar corporation.

Modernism

As both a mood and movement, modernism recognized that Western civilization had entered an era of change. Traditional ways of thinking and creating art were being rejected and replaced with new understandings and forms of expression.

Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868)

As one of the leaders of the Radical Republicans, he argued that the former Confederate states should be viewed as conquered provinces, which were subject to the demands of the conquerors. He believed that all of southern society needed to be changed, and he supported the abolition of slavery and racial equality.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

As the assistant secretary of the navy, he supported expansionism, American imperialism and war with Spain. He led the First Volunteer Cavalry, or Rough Riders, in Cuba during the war of 1898 and used the notoriety of this military campaign for political gain. As President McKinley's vice president, he succeeded McKinley after his assassination. His forceful foreign policy became known as "big stick diplomacy." Domestically, his policies on natural resources helped start the conversation movement. Unable to win the Republican nomination for president in 1912, he formed his own party of progressive Republicans called the "Bull Moose" party.

A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936)

As the attorney general, he played an active role in government's response to the Red Scare. After several bombings across America, including one at Palmer's home, he and other Americans became convinced that there was a well-organized Communist terror campaign at work. The federal government launched a campaign of raids, deportations, and collecting files on radical individuals.

George C. Marshall (1880-1959)

As the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he orchestrated the Allied victories over Germany and Japan in the Second World War. In 1947, he became President Truman's secretary of state and proposed the massive reconstruction program for western Europe called the Marshall Plan.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

As the first major proponent of social Darwinism, he argued that human society and institutions are subject to the process of natural selection and that society naturally evolves for the better. Therefore, he was against any form of government interference with the evolution of society, like business regulations, because it would help the "unfit" to survive.

Florence Kelley (1859-1932)

As the head of the National Consumer's League, she led the crusade to promote state laws to regulate the number of working hours imposed on women who were wives and mothers.

New South

Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady's 1886 term for the prosperous post-Civil War South: democratic, industrial, urban, and free of nostalgia for the defeated plantation South.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Caused when the United States discovered Soviet offensive missile sites in Cuba in October 1962; the U.S.-Soviet confrontation was the cold war's closest brush with nuclear war.

Trail of Tears

Cherokees' own term for their forced march, 1838-1839, from the southern Appalachians to Indian lands (later Oklahoma); of 15,000 forced to march, 4,000 died on the way.

March on Washington

Civil rights demonstration on August 28, 1963, where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

General John Burgoyne (1722-1792)

Commander of Britain's northern forces during the Revolutionary War. He and most of his troops surrendered to the Americans at the Battle of Saratoga.

Compromise of 1850

Complex compromise mediated by Senator Henry Clay that headed off southern secession over California statehood; to appease the South it included a stronger fugitive slave law and delayed determination of the slave status of the New Mexico and Utah territories.

Stalwarts

Conservative Republican party faction during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877-1881; led by Senator Roscoe B. Conkling of New York, Stalwarts opposed civil service reform and favored a third term for President Ulysses S. Grant.

Crédit Mobilier Scandal

Construction company guilt of massive overcharges for building the Union Pacific Railroad were exposed; high officials of the Ulysses S. Grant administration were implicated but never charged.

Compromise of 1877

Deal made by a special congressional commission on March 2, 1877, to resolve the disputed presidential election of 1876; Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, who had lost the popular vote, was declared the winner in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, marking the end of Reconstruction.

Dixiecrats

Deep South delegates who walked out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention in protest of the party's support for civil rights legislation and later formed the States' Rights (Dixiecrat) party, which nominated Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for president.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Defensive alliance founded in 1949 by ten western European nations, the United States, and Canada to deter Soviet expansion in Europe.

New Freedom

Democrat Woodrow Wilson's political slogan in the presidential campaign of 1912; Wilson wanted to improve the banking system, lower tariffs, and, by breaking up monopolies, give small businesses freedom to compete.

Tuskegee Airmen

During the Second World War, African Americans in the armed forces usually served in segregated units. African American pilots were trained at a separate flight school in Tuskegee, Alabama, and were known as Tuskegee Airmen.

General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)

During World War II, he and Admiral Chester Nimitz dislodged the Japanese military from the Pacific Islands they had occupied. Following the war, he was in charge of the occupation of Japan. After North Korea invaded South Korea, Truman sent the U.S. military to defend South Korea under the command of MacArthur. Later in the war, Truman expressed his willingness to negotiate the restoration of prewar boundaries which MacArthur attempted to undermine. Truman fired MacArthur for his open insubordination.

Chief Justice John Marshall (1755-1835)

During his long tenure as chief justice of the supreme court (1801-1835), he established the foundations for American jurisprudence, the authority of the Supreme Court, and the constitutional supremacy of the national government over states.

Committee on Public Information

During the First World War, this committee produced war propaganda that conveyed the Allies' war aims to Americans as well as attempted to weaken the enemy's morale.

Federal Writers' Project

During the Great Depression, this project provided writers, such as Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and Saul Bellow, with work, which gave them a chance to develop as artists and be employed.

Winfield Scott (1786-1866)

During the Mexican War, he was the American general who captured Mexico City, which ended the war. Using his popularity from his military success, he ran as a Whig party candidate for President.

Stagflation

During the Nixon administration, the economy experienced inflation and a recession at the same time, which is syndrome that defies the orthodox laws of economics. Economists named this phenomenon "stagflation."

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)

During the Second World War, he commanded the Allied Forces landing in Africa and was the supreme Allied commander as well as planner for Operation Overlord. In 1952, he was elected president on his popularity as a war hero and his promises to clean up Washington and find an honorable peace in the Korean War. His administration sought to cut the nation's domestic programs and budget, but he left the basic structure of the New Deal intact. In July of 1953, he announced the end of fighting in Korea. He appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court whose influence helped the court become an important force for social and political change. His secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, institutionalized the policies of containment and deterrence. Eisenhower supported the withdrawal of British forces from the Suez Canal and established the Eisenhower doctrine, which promised to aid any nation against aggression by a communist nation. Eisenhower preferred that state and local institutions to handle civil rights issues, and he refused to force states to comply with the Supreme Court's civil rights decisions. However, he did propose the legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Women's Army Corps (WAC)

During the Second World War, the increased demand for labor shook up old prejudices about gender roles in workplace and in the military. Nearly 200,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps or its naval equivalent, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES).

Alger Hiss (1904-1996)

During the second Red Scare, Alger Hiss, who had served in several government departments, was accused of being a spy for the Soviet Union and was convicted of lying about espionage. The case was politically damaging to the Truman administration because the president called the charges against Hiss a "red herring." Richard Nixon, then a California congressman, used his persistent pursuit of the case and his anti-Communist rhetoric to raise his national profile and to win election to the Senate.

Kent State

During the spring of 1970, students on college campuses across the country protested the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia. At Kent State University, the National Guard attempted to quell the rioting students. The guardsmen panicked and shot at rock--throwing demonstrators. Four student bystanders were killed.

New Netherland

Dutch colony conquered by the English to become four new colonies New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

Raleigh's Roanoke Island Colony

English expedition of 117 settlers, including Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the New World; colony disappeared from Roanoke Island in the Outer Banks sometime between 1587 and 1590.

Puritans

English religious group that sought to purify the Church of England; founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony under John Winthrop in 1630.

Oregon Fever

Enthusiasm for emigration to the Oregon Country in the late 1830s and early 1840s.

Reformation

European religious movement that challenged the Catholic Church and resulted in the beginnings of Protestant Christianity. During this period, Catholics and Protestants persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, and killed each other in large numbers.

First Red Scare

Fear among many Americans after the First World War of Communists in particular and noncitizens in general, a reaction to the Russian Revolution, mail bombs, strikes, and riots.

American Indian Movement

Fed up with the poor conditions on Indian reservations and the federal government's unwillingness to help, Native Americans founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1963. In 1973, AIM led 200 Sioux in the occupation of Wounded Knee. After a ten-week standoff with the federal authorities, the government agreed to reexamine Indian treaty rights and the occupation ended.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

Federal program established in 1932 under President Herbert Hoover to loan money to banks and other institutions to help them avert bankruptcy.

Panic of 1819

Financial collapse brought on by sharply falling cotton prices, declining demand for American exports, and reckless western land speculation.

Bill of Rights

First 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1791 to guarantee individual rights and to help secure ratification of the Constitution by the states.

Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures"

First Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's 1791 analysis that accurately foretold the future of American industry and proposed tariffs and subsidies to promote it.

"Marbury v. Madison" (1803)

First U.S. Supreme Court decision to declare a federal law—the Judiciary Act of 1801—unconstitutional; President John Adams's "midnight appointment'' of Federalist judges prompted the suit.

Fort Sumter

First battle of the Civil War, in which the federal fort in Charleston (South Carolina) Harbor was captured by the Confederates on April 14, 1861, after two days of shelling.

Battle of Bull Run (First and Second Manassas)

First land engagement of the Civil War took place on July 21, 1861, at Manassas Junction, Virginia, at which surprised Union troops quickly retreated; one year later, on August 29-30, Confederates captured the federal supply depot and forced Union troops back to Washington.

Free-Soil party

Formed in 1848 to oppose slavery in the territory acquired in the Mexican War; nominated Martin Van Buren for president in 1848, but by 1854, most of the party's members had joined the Republican party.

House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)

Formed in 1938 to investigate subversives in the government; best-known investigations were of Hollywood notables and of former State Department official Alger Hiss, who was accused in 1948 of espionage and Communist party membership.

Battle of Gettysburg

Fought in southern Pennsylvania, July 1-3, 1863; the Confederate defeat and the simultaneous loss at Vicksburg spelled the end of the South's chances in the Civil War.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons)

Founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, the sect was a product of the intense revivalism of the burned-over district of New York; Smith's successor Brigham Young led 15,000 followers to Utah in 1847 to escape persecution.

Whig Party

Founded in 1834 to unite factions opposed to President Andrew Jackson, the party favored federal responsibility for internal improvements; the party ceased to exist by the late 1850s, when party members divided over the slavery issue.

Knights of Labor

Founded in 1869, the first national union picked up many members after the disastrous 1877 railroad strike, but lasted under the leadership of Terence V. Powderly, only into the 1890s; supplanted by the American Federation of Labor.

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Founded in 1881 as a federation of trade unions made up of skilled workers, the AFL under president Samuel Gompers successfully pushed for the eight-hour workday.

National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) party

Founded in the 1920s, this party gained control over Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler in 1933 and continued in power until Germany's defeat at the end of the Second World War. It advocated a violent anti-Semitic, anti-Marxist, pan-German ideology. The Nazi party systematically murdered some 6 million Jews along with more than a million others.

Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)

Four measures passed during the undeclared war with France that limited the freedoms of speech and press and restricted the liberty of noncitizens.

First New Deal

Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign promise, in his speech to the Democratic National Convention of 1932, to combat the Great Depression with a "new deal for the American people;'' the phrase became a catchword for his ambitious plan of economic programs.

XYZ Affair

French foreign minister Tallyrand's three anonymous agents demanded payments to stop French plundering of American ships in 1797; refusal to pay the bribe led to two years of sea war with France (1798-1800).

Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

Gave federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves; so much more punitive and prejudiced in favor of slaveholders than the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act had been that Harriet Beecher Stowe was inspired to write Uncle Tom's Cabin in protest; the new law was part of the Compromise of 1850, included to appease the South over the admission of California as a free state.

Quakers

George Fox founded the Quaker religion in 1647. They rejected the use of formal sacraments and ministry, refused to take oaths and embraced pacifism. Fleeing persecution, they settled and established the colony of Pennsylvania.

Nineteenth Amendment (1920)

Granted women the right to vote.

Dust Bowl

Great Plains counties where millions of tons of topsoil were blown away from parched farmland in the 1930s; massive migration of farm families followed.

Fourteenth Amendment (1868)

Guaranteed rights of citizenship to former slaves, in words similar to those of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

Teapot Dome

Harding administration scandal in which Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall profited from secret leasing to private oil companies of government oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California.

John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865)

He assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at the Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865. He was pursued to Virginia and killed.

Stephen F. Austin (1793-1836)

He established the first colony of Americans in Texas, which eventually attracted 2,000 people.

Huey P. Long (1893-1935)

He began his political career in Louisiana where he developed a reputation for being an unscrupulous reformer. As a U.S. senator, he became a critic of President Roosevelt's New Deal Plan and offered his alternative called the Share-the-Wealth program. He was assassinated in 1935.

Horace Mann (1796-1859)

He believed the public school system was the best way to achieve social stability and equal opportunity. As a reformer of education, he sponsored a state board of education, the first state-supported "normal" school for training teachers, a state association for teachers, the minimum school year of six months, and led the drive for a statewide school system.

George Creel (1876-1953)

He convinced President Woodrow Wilson that the best approach to influencing public opinion was through propaganda rather than censorship. As the executive head of the Committee on Public Information, he produced propaganda that conveyed the Allies' war aims.

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)

He criticized Booker T. Washington's views on civil rights as being accommodationist. He advocated "ceaseless agitation" for civil rights and the immediate end to segregation and an enforcement of laws to protect civil rights and equality. He promoted an education for African Americans that would nurture bold leaders who were willing to challenge discrimination in politics.

William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)

He delivered the pro-silver "cross of gold" speech at the 1896 Democratic Convention and won his party's nomination for president. Disappointed pro-gold Democrats chose to walk out of the convention and nominate their own candidate, which split the Democratic party and cost them the White House. Bryan's loss also crippled the Populist movement that had endorsed him.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

He founded a leading college for African Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama, and become the foremost black educator in America by the 1890s. He believed that the African American community should establish an economic base for its advancement before striving for social equality. His critics charged that his philosophy sacrificed educational and civil rights for dubious social acceptance and economic opportunities.

Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

He founded the American Railway Union, which he organized against the Pullman Palace Car Company during the Pullman strike. Later he organized the Social Democratic party, which eventually became the Socialist Party of America. In the 1912 presidential election, he ran as the Socialist party's candidate and received more than 900,000 votes.

Jacques Cartier (1491-1557)

He led the first French effort to colonize North America and explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence and reached as far as present day Montreal on the St. Lawrence River.

Albert Gore Jr. (1948-)

He served as a senator of Tennessee and then as President Clinton's vice president. In the 2000 presidential election, he was the Democratic candidate and campaigned on preserving Social Security, subsidizing prescription-medicine expenses for the elderly, and protecting the environment. His opponent was Governor George W. Bush, who promoted compassionate conservatism and the transferring of power from the federal government to the states. The election ended in controversy. The close election came down to Florida's electoral votes. The final tally in Florida gave Bush a slight lead, but it was so small that a recount was required by state law. While the votes were being recounted, a legal battle was being waged to stop the recount. Finally, the case, Bush v. Gore, was presented to the Supreme Court who ruled 5-4 to stop the recount and Bush was declared the winner.

Samuel Gompers (1850-1924)

He served as the president of the American Federation of Labor from its inception until his death. He focused on achieving concrete economic gains such as higher wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions.

Henry Kissinger (1923-present)

He served as the secretary of state and national security advisor in the Nixon administration. He negotiated with North Vietnam for an end to the Vietnam War. In 1973, an agreement was signed between America, North and South Vietnam, and the Viet Cong to end the war. The cease-fire did not last; and South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam. He helped organize Nixon's historic trips to China and the Soviet Union. In the Middle East, he negotiated a cease-fire between Israel and its neighbors following the Yom Kippur War and solidified Israel's promise to return to Egypt most of the land it had taken during the 1967 war.

Joseph Pulitzer's "New York World"

In the late 1890s, the New York World and its rival, New York Journal, printed sensationalism on the Cuban revolution as part of their heated competition for readership.

Emilio Aguinaldo (1869-1964)

He was a leader in Filipino struggle for independence. During the war of 1898, Commodore George Dewey brought Aguinaldo back to the Philippines from exile to help fight the Spanish. However, after the Spanish surrendered to Americans, America annexed the Philippines and Aguinaldo fought against the American military until he was captured in 1901.

George A. Custer (1839-1876)

He was a reckless and glory-seeking Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Army who fought the Sioux Indians in the Great Sioux War. In 1876, he and his detachment of soldiers were entirely wiped out in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919)

He was a steel magnate who believed that the general public benefited from big business even if these companies employed harsh business practices. This philosophy became deeply ingrained in the conventional wisdom of some Americans. After retiring, he devoted himself to philanthropy in hopes of promoting social welfare and world peace.

John C. Fremont, "The Pathfinder" (1813-1890)

He was an explorer and surveyor who helped inspire Americans living in California to rebel against the Mexican government and declare independence.

Chief Powhatan-Wahunsonacock

He was called Powhatan by the English after the name of his tribe, and was the powerful, charismatic chief of numerous Algonquian-speaking towns in eastern Virginia representing over 10,000 Indians.

Joseph Brant (1742-1807)

He was the Mohawk leader who led the Iroquois against the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

Ho Chi Minh (1860-1969)

He was the Vietnamese communist resistance leader who drove the French and the United States out of Vietnam. After the Geneva Accords divided the region into four countries, he controlled North Vietnam, and ultimately became the leader of all of Vietnam at the conclusion of the Vietnam War.

Henry Cabot Lodge (1850-1924)

He was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who favored limiting America's involvement in the League of Nations' covenant and sought to amend the Treaty of Versailles.

Sigmund Freud (1865-1939)

He was the founder of psychoanalysis, which suggested that human behavior was motivated by unconscious and irrational forces. By the 1920s, his ideas were being discussed more openly in America.

Nat Turner (1800-1831)

He was the leader of the only slave revolt to get past the planning stages. In August of 1831, the revolt began with the slaves killing the members of Turner's master's household. Then they attacked other neighboring farmhouses and recruited more slaves until the militia crushed the revolt. At least fifty-five whites were killed during the uprising and seventeen slaves were hanged afterwards.

Marcus Garvey (1887-1940)

He was the leading spokesman for Negro Nationalism, which exalted blackness, black cultural expression, and black exclusiveness. He called upon African Americans to liberate themselves from the surrounding white culture and create their own businesses, cultural centers, and newspapers. He was also the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association.

"Scarface" Al Capone (1899-1947)

He was the most successful gangster of the Prohibition era whose Chicago-based criminal empire included bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling.

Jefferson Davis (1808-1889)

He was the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. When the Confederacy's defeat seemed invitable in early 1865, he refused to surrender. Union forces captured him in May of that year.

Model T. Ford

Henry Ford developed this model of car so that it was affordable for everyone. Its success led to an increase in the production of automobiles which stimulated other related industries such steel, oil, and rubber. The mass use of automobiles increased the speed goods could be transported, encouraged urban sprawl, and sparked real estate booms in California and Florida.

Dr. Walter Reed (1851-1902)

His work on yellow fever in Cuba led to the discovery that the fever was carried by mosquitoes. This understanding helped develop more effective controls of the worldwide disease.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Hoping to restart the weak economy, President Obama signed this $787-billion economic stimulus bill in February of 2009. The bill included cash distributions to states, funds for food stamps, unemployment benefits, construction projects to renew the nation's infrastructure, funds for renewable-energy systems, and tax reductions.

Share-the-Wealth Program

Huey Long, a critic of President Roosevelt, offered this program as an alternative to the New Deal. The program proposed to confiscate large personal fortunes, which would be used to guarantee every poor family a cash grant of $5,000 and every worker an annual income of $2,500. Under this program, Long promised to provide pensions, reduce working hours, pay veterans' bonuses, and ensures a college education to every qualified student.

HIV/AIDS

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a virus that attacks the body's T-cells, which are necessary to help the immune system fight off infection and disease. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) occurs after the HIV virus has destroyed the body's immune system. HIV is transferred when body fluids, such as blood or semen, which carry the virus, enter the body of an uninfected person. The virus appeared in America in the early 1980s. The Reagan administration was slow to respond to the "AIDS Epidemic," because effects of the virus were not fully understood and they deemed the spread of the disease as the result of immoral behavior.

Manifest Destiny

Imperialist phrase first used in 1845 to urge annexation of Texas; used thereafter to encourage American settlement of European colonial and Indian lands in the Great Plains and Far West.

Francisco Pizarro (estimated birth 1478-1541)

In 1531, he lead his Spanish soldiers to Peru and conquered the Inca Empire

War Hawks

In 1811, congressional members from the southern and western districts who clamored for a war to seize Canada and Florida were dubbed "war hawks."

Cyrus Hall McCormick (1809-1884)

In 1831, he invented a mechanical reaper to harvest wheat, which transformed the scale of agriculture. By hand a farmer could only harvest a half an acre a day, while the McCormick reaper allowed two people to harvest twelve acres of wheat a day.

Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872)

In 1832, he invented the telegraph and revolutionized the speed of communication. -1st telegraph was sent in 1844

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903)

In 1858, he constructed New York's Central Park, which led to a growth in the movement to create urban parks. He went on to design parks for Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and many other cities.

John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937)

In 1870, he founded the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, which was his first step in creating his vast oil empire. Eventually, he perfected the idea of a holding company: a company that controlled other companies by holding all or at least a majority of their stock. During his lifetime, he donated over $500 million in charitable contributions.

Mississippi Plan

In 1890, Mississippi instituted policies that led to a near-total loss of voting rights for blacks and many poor whites. In order to vote, the state required that citizens pay all their taxes first, be literate, and have been residents of the state for two years and one year in an electoral district. Convicts were banned from voting. Seven other states followed this strategy of disenfranchisement.

Queen Liliuokalani (1838-1917)

In 1891, she ascended to the throne of the Hawaiian royal family and tried to eliminate white control of the Hawaiian government. Two years later, Hawaii's white population revolted and seized power with the support of American marines.

Nicola Sacco (1891-1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888-1927)

In 1920, he and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants who were arrested for stealing $16,000 and killing a paymaster and his guard. Their trial took place during a time of numerous bombings by anarchists and their judge was openly prejudicial. Many liberals and radicals believe that the conviction of Sacco and Vanzetti was based on their political ideas and ethnic origin rather than the evidence against them.

Roaring Twenties

In 1920s, urban America experienced an era of social and intellectual revolution. Young people experimented with new forms of recreation and sexuality as well as embraced jazz music. Leading young urban intellectuals expressed a disdain for old-fashioned rural and small-town values. The Eastern, urban cultural shift clashed with conservative and insular midwestern America, which increased the tensions between the two regions.

Jackie Robinson (1919-1972)

In 1947, he became the first African American to play major league baseball. He won over fans and players and stimulated the integration of other professional sports.

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (1908-1957)

In 1950, this senator became the shrewdest and most ruthless exploiter of America's anxiety of communism. He claimed that the United States government was full of Communists and led a witch hunt to find them, but he was never able to uncover a single communist agent.

Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

In 1955, she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, which a local ordinance required of blacks. She was arrested for disobeying the ordinance. In response, black community leaders organized the Montgomery bus boycott.

Viet Cong

In 1956, these guerrilla forces began attacking South Vietnam's government and in 1960 the resistance groups coalesced as the National Liberation Front.

Freedom Riders

In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality had this group of black and white demonstrators ride buses to test the federal court ruling that had banned segregation on buses and trains and in terminals. Despite being attacked, they never gave up. Their actions drew national attention and generated respect and support for their cause.

James Meredith (1933-present)

In 1962, the governor of Mississippi defied a Supreme Court ruling and refused to allow James Meredith, an African American, to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Federal marshals were sent to enforce the law which led to clashes between a white mob and the marshals. Federal troops intervened and two people were killed and many others were injured. A few days later, Meredith was able to register at the university.

Pottawatomie Massacre

In retaliation for the "sack of Lawrence," John Brown and his abolitionist cohorts hacked five men to death in the pro-slavery settlement of Pottawatomie, Kansas, on May 24, 1856, triggering a guerrilla war in the Kansas Territory that cost 200 settler lives.

Woodstock

In 1969, roughly a half a million young people converged on a farm near Bethel, New York, for a three-day music festival that was an expression of the flower children's free spirit.

Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)

In 2008 President George W. Bush signed into law the bank bailout fund called Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which required the Treasury Department to spend $700 billion to keep banks and other financial institutions from collapsing.

Taylorism

In his book The Principles of Scientific Management, Frederick W. Taylor explained a management system that claimed to be able to reduce waste through the scientific analysis of the labor process. -This system called Taylorism, promised to find the optimum technique for the average worker and establish detailed performance standards for each job classification.

Open Door Policy

In hopes of protecting the Chinese market for U.S. exports, Secretary of State John Hay unilaterally announced in 1899 that Chinese trade would be open to all nations.

Ohio Gang

In order to escape the pressures of the White House, President Harding met with a group of people, called the "Ohio gang," in a house on K Street in Washington D.C. Members of this gang were given low-level positions in the American government and they used their White House connection to "line their pockets" by granting government contracts without bidding, which led to a series of scandals, most notably the Teapot Dome Scandal.

Redeemers

In post-Civil War southern politics, redeemers were supporters of postwar Democratic leaders who supposedly saved the South from Yankee domination and the constraints of a purely rural economy.

Bourbons

In post-Civil War southern politics, the opponents of the Redeemers were called Bourbons. They were known for having forgotten nothing and learned nothing from the ordeal of the Civil War.

Horace Greeley (1811-1872)

In reaction to Radical Reconstruction and corruption in President Ulysses S. Grant's administration, a group of Republicans broke from the party to form the Liberal Republicans. In 1872, the Liberal Republicans chose Horace Greeley as their presidential candidate who ran on a platform of favoring civil service reform and condemning the Republican's Reconstruction policy.

Massive Resistance

In reaction to the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, U.S. Senator Harry Byrd encouraged southern states to defy federally mandated school integration.

"Bull Moose" progressive party

In the 1912 election, Theodore Roosevelt was unable to secure the Republican nomination for president. He left the Republican party and formed his own party of progressive Republicans, called the "Bull Moose" party. Roosevelt and Taft split the Republican vote, which allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win.

"Return to Normalcy"

In the 1920 presidential election, Republican nominee Warren G. Harding campaigned on the promise of a "return to normalcy," which would mean a return to conservative values and a turning away from President Wilson's internationalism.

New Negro

In the 1920s, a slow and steady growth of black political influence occurred in northern cities where African Americans were freer to speak and act. This political activity created a spirit of protest that expressed itself culturally in the Harlem Renaissance and politically in "new Negro" nationalism.

Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944)

In the 1928 presidential election, he won the Democratic nomination, but failed to win the presidency. Rural voters distrusted him for being Catholic and the son of Irish immigrants as well as his anti-Prohibition stance.

détente

In the 1970s, the United States and Soviet Union began working together to achieve a more orderly and restrained competition between each other. Both countries signed an agreement to limit the number of Intercontinental Long Range Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that each country could possess and to not construct antiballistic missiles systems. They also signed new trade agreements.

Barack Obama (1961)

In the 2008 presidential election, Senator Barack Obama mounted an innovative Internet based and grassroots orientated campaign that garnered him enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination. As the nation's economy nosedived in the fall of 2008, Obama linked the Republican economic philosophy with the country's dismal financial state and promoted a message of "change" and "politics of hope," which resonated with voters. He decisively won the presidency and became America's first person of color to be elected president.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-)

In the 2008 presidential election, Senator Hillary Clinton, the spouse of former President Bill Clinton, initially was the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, which made her the first woman with a serious chance to win the presidency. However, Senator Barack Obama's Internet-based and grassroots-orientated campaign garnered him enough delegates to win the nomination. After Obama became president, she was appointed secretary of state.

"Jim Crow" Laws

In the New South, these laws mandated the separation of races in various public places that served as a way for the ruling whites to impose their will on all areas of black life.

Planters

In the antebellum South, the owner of a large farm worked by twenty or more slaves.

Abolition

In the early 1830s, the anti-slavery movement shifted its goal from the gradual end of slavery to the immediate end or abolition of slavery.

William Randolph Hearst's "New York Journal"

In the late 1890s, the New York Journal and its rival, the New York World, printed sensationalism on the Cuban revolution as part of their heated competition for readership. The New York Journal printed a negative letter from the Spanish ambassador about President McKinley and inflammatory coverage of the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor. These two events roused the American public's outcry against Spain.

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-)

In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to reform the Soviet Union through his programs of perestroika and glasnost. He pursued a renewal of détente with America and signed new arms-control agreements with President Reagan. Gorbachev chose not to involve the Soviet Union in the internal affairs of other Communist countries, which removed the threat of armed Soviet crackdowns on reformers and protesters in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev's decision allowed the velvet revolutions of Eastern Europe to occur without outside interference. Eventually the political, social, and economic upheaval he had unleashed would lead to the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Pentagon Papers

Informal name for the Defense Department's secret history of the Vietnam conflict; leaked to the press by former official Daniel Ellsberg and published in the New York Times in 1971.

Atlantic Charter

Issued August 12, 1941, following meetings in Newfoundland between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the charter signaled the allies' cooperation and stated their war aims.

Amerigo Vespucci (1455-1512)

Italian explorer who reached the New World in 1499 and was the first to suggest that South America was a new continent. Afterward, European mapmakers used a variant of his first name, America, to label the New World.

Standard Oil Company of Ohio

John D. Rockefeller founded this company in 1870, which grew to monopolize 90 to 95 percent of all the oil refineries in the country. It was also a "vertical monopoly" in that the company controlled all aspects of production and the services it needed to conduct business. For example, Standard Oil produced their own oil barrels and cans as well as owned their own pipelines, railroad tank cars, and oil-storage facilities.

New Frontier

John F. Kennedy's program, stymied by a Republican Congress and his abbreviated term; his successor Lyndon B. Johnson had greater success with many of the same concepts.

Surrender at Yorktown

Last battle of the Revolutionary War; General Lord Charles Cornwallis along with over 7,000 British troops surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 17, 1781

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Law sponsored by Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas to allow settlers in newly organized territories north of the Missouri border to decide the slavery issue for themselves; fury over the resulting nullification of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 led to violence in Kansas and to the formation of the Republican party.

Black Codes

Laws passed in southern states to restrict the rights of former slaves; to combat the codes, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment and set up military governments in southern states that refused to ratify the amendment.

Sixteenth Amendment (1913)

Legalized the federal income tax.

Battle of Saratoga

Major defeat of British general John Burgoyne and more than 5,000 British troops at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777.

Baby Boom

Markedly higher birth rate in the years following the Second World War; led to the biggest demographic "bubble" in American history.

Shay's Rebellion

Massachusetts farmer Daniel Shays and 1,200 compatriots, seeking debt relief through issuance of paper currency and lower taxes, stormed the federal arsenal at Springfield in the winter of 1787 but were quickly repulsed.

Pequot War

Massacre in 1637 and subsequent dissolution of the Pequot Nation by Puritan settlers, who seized the Indians' lands.

Yalta Conference

Meeting of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin at a Crimean resort to discuss the postwar world on February 4-11, 1945; Soviet leader Joseph Stalin claimed large areas in eastern Europe for Soviet domination.

Aztec Empire

Mesoamerican people who were conquered by the Spanish under Hernando Cortés, 1519-1528.

Erie Canal

Most important and profitable of the barge canals of the 1820s and 1830s; stretched from Buffalo to Albany, New York, connecting the Great Lakes to the East Coast and making New York City the nation's largest port.

Operation Desert Storm

Multinational allied force that defeated Iraq in the Gulf War of January 1991.

Know-Nothing Party

Nativist, anti-Catholic third party organized in 1854 in reaction to large-scale German and Irish immigration; the party's only presidential candidate was Millard Fillmore in 1856

Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933)

New Deal legislation that established the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) to improve agricultural prices by limiting market supplies; declared unconstitutional in United States v. Butler (1936).

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

New England Congregationalist minister, who began a religious revival in his Northampton church and was an important figure in the Great Awakening.

Carpetbaggers

Northern emigrants who participated in the Republican governments of the reconstructed South.

Teller Amendment

On April 20, 1898, a joint resolution of Congress declared Cuba independent and demanded the withdrawal of Spanish forces. The Teller amendment was added to this resolution, and it declaimed any designs the United States had on Cuban territory.

George Dewey (1837-1917)

On April 30, 1898, Commodore George Dewey's small U.S. naval squadron defeated the Spanish warships in Manila Bay in the Philippines. This quick victory aroused expansionist fever in the United States.

Bear Flag Republic

On June 14, 1846, a group of Americans in California captured Sonoma from the Mexican army and declared it the Republic of California whose flag featured a grizzly bear. In July, the commodore of the U.S. Pacific Fleet landed troops on California's shores and declared it part of the United States.

9/11

On September 11, 2001, Islamic terrorists, who were members of al Qaeda terrorist organization, hijacked four commercial airliners. Two were flown into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon. A fourth plane was brought down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when its passengers attacked the cockpit. In response, President George W. Bush launched his "war on terrorism." His administration assembled an international coalition to fight terrorism, and they invaded Afghanistan after the country's government would not turn over al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden. However, bin Laden evaded capture. Fearful of new attacks, Bush created the Office of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration. Bush and Congress passed the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which allowed government agencies to try suspected terrorists in secret military courts and eavesdrop on confidential conversations.

Underground Railroad

Operating in the decades before the Civil War, the "railroad'' was a clandestine system of routes and safehouses through which slaves were led to freedom in the North.

League of Nations

Organization of nations to mediate disputes and avoid war established after the First World War as part of the Treaty of Versailles; President Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points'' speech to Congress in 1918 proposed the formation of the league.

Ku Klux Klan

Organized in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866 to terrorize former slaves who voted and held political offices during Reconstruction; a revived organization in the 1910s and 1920s stressed white, Anglo-Saxon, fundamentalist Protestant supremacy; the Klan revived a third time to fight the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the South.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment.

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

Passed by Congress in reaction to supposedly unprovoked attacks on American warships off the coast of North Vietnam; it gave the president unlimited authority to defend U.S. forces and members of SEATO.

Navigation Acts (1650-1775)

Passed by the English Parliament to control colonial trade and bolster the mercantile system, 1650-1775; enforcement of the acts led to growing resentment by colonists.

Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798-1799)

Passed in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the resolutions advanced the state-compact theory that held states could nullify an act of Congress if they deemed it unconstitutional.

National Industrial Recovery Act (1933)

Passed on the last of the Hundred Days; it created public-works jobs through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration and established a system of self-regulation for industry through the National Recovery Administration, which was ruled unconstitutional in 1935.

Camp David Accords

Peace agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, brokered by President Jimmy Carter in 1978.

Mulattoes

People of mixed racial ancestry, whose status in the Old South was somewhere between that of blacks and whites.

Colonization

People who supported the efforts to ship slaves and freed blacks to Africa

Lend-lease Bill (1941)

Permitted the United States to lend or lease arms and other supplies to the Allies, signifying increasing likelihood of American involvement in the Second World War.

Transcendentalism

Philosophy of a small group of mid-nineteenth-century New England writers and thinkers. -Included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller; they stressed "plain living and high thinking."

New Nationalism

Platform of the Progressive party and slogan of former President Theodore Roosevelt in the presidential campaign of 1912; stressed government activism, including regulation of trusts, conservation, and recall of state court decisions that had nullified progressive programs.

Granger Movement

Political movement that grew out of the Patrons of Husbandry, an educational and social organization for farmers founded in 1867; the Grange had its greatest success in the Midwest of the 1870s, lobbying for government control of railroad and grain elevator rates and establishing farmers' cooperatives.

Populist/People's Party

Political success of Farmers' Alliance candidates encouraged the formation in 1892 of the People's party (later renamed the Populist party); active until 1912, it advocated a variety of reform issues, including free coinage of silver, income tax, postal savings, regulation of railroads, and direct election of U.S. senators.

Reaganomics

Popular name for President Ronald Reagan's philosophy of "supply side" economics, which combined tax cuts, less government spending, and a balanced budget with an unregulated marketplace.

Emancipation Proclamation

President Abraham Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862, freeing the slaves in the Confederate states as of January 1, 1863, the date of the final proclamation.

No Child Left Behind

President George W. Bush's education reform plan that required states to set and meet learning standards for students and make sure that all students were "proficient" in reading and writing by 2014. States had to submit annual reports of students' standardized test scores. Teachers were required to be "proficient" in their subject area. Schools who failed to show progress would face sanctions. States criticized the lack of funding for remedial programs and noted that poor school districts would find it very difficult to meet the new guidelines.

Truman Doctrine

President Harry S. Truman's program of post-Second World War aid to European countries—particularly Greece and Turkey—in danger of being undermined by communism.

Monroe Doctrine

President James Monroe's declaration to Congress on December 2, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to colonization but that the United States would honor existing colonies of European nations.

Vietnamization

President Nixon's policy of equipping and training the South Vietnamese so that they could assume ground combat operations in the place of American soldiers. Nixon hoped that a reduction in U.S. forces in Vietnam would defuse the anti-war movement.

Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904)

President Theodore Roosevelt announced in what was essentially a corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that the United States could intervene militarily to prevent interference from European powers in the Western Hemisphere.

Fourteen Points

President Woodrow Wilson's 1918 plan for peace after World War I; at the Versailles peace conference, however, he failed to incorporate all of the points into the treaty.

"Separate But Equal"

Principle underlying legal racial segregation, which was upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and struck down in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

"Good Neighbor" Policy

Proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first inaugural address in 1933, it sought improved diplomatic relations between the United States and its Latin American neighbors.

Settlement Houses

Product of the late nineteenth-century movement to offer a broad array of social services in urban immigrant neighborhoods; Chicago's Hull House was one of hundreds of settlement houses that operated by the early twentieth century.

American System

Program of internal improvements and protective tariffs promoted by Speaker of the House Henry Clay in his presidential campaign of 1824; his proposals formed the core of Whig ideology in the 1830s and 1840s.

Wilmot Proviso

Proposal to prohibit slavery in any land acquired in the Mexican War, but southern senators, led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, defeated the measure in 1846 and 1847.

John Winthrop

Puritan leader and Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who resolved to use the colony as a refuge for persecuted Puritans and as an instrument of building a "wilderness Zion" in America.

Roger Williams (1603-1683)

Puritan who believed that the purity of the church required a complete separation between church and state and freedom from coercion in matters of faith. In 1636, he established the town of Providence, the first permanent settlement in Rhode Island and the first to allow religious freedom in America.

Ellis Island

Reception center in New York Harbor through which most European immigrants to America were processed from 1892 to 1954.

Freedmen's Bureau

Reconstruction agency established in 1865 to protect the legal rights of former slaves and to assist with their education, jobs, health care, and landowning.

Mugwumps

Reform wing of the Republican party that supported Democrat Grover Cleveland for president in 1884 over Republican James G. Blaine, whose influence peddling had been revealed in the Mulligan letters of 1876.

Second Great Awakening

Religious revival movement of the early decades of the nineteenth century, in reaction to the growth of secularism and rationalist religion; began the predominance of the Baptist and Methodist churches.

Twenty-first Amendment (1933)

Repealed prohibition on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages, effectively nullifying the Eighteenth Amendment.

Enlightenment

Revolution in thought begun in 17th century that emphasized reason and science over the authority of traditional religion. -REASON & SCIENCE over RELIGION

Iran-Contra Affair

Scandal of the second Reagan administration involving sale of arms to Iran in partial exchange for release of hostages in Lebanon and use of the arms money to aid the Contras in Nicaragua, which had been expressly forbidden by Congress.

Lincoln-Douglas debates

Series of senatorial campaign debates in 1858 focusing on the issue of slavery in the territories; held in Illinois between Republican Abraham Lincoln, who made a national reputation for himself, and incumbent Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, who managed to hold onto his seat.

Freeport Doctrine

Senator Stephen Douglas' method to reconcile the Dred Scott court ruling of 1857 with "popular sovereignty," of which he was a champion. Douglas believed that so long as residents of a given territory had the right to pass and uphold local laws, any Supreme Court ruling on slavery would be unenforceable and irrelevant.

Radical Republicans

Senators and congressmen who, strictly identifying the Civil War with the abolitionist cause, sought swift emancipation of the slaves, punishment of the rebels, and tight controls over the former Confederate states after the war.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Settlement in 1842 of U.S.-Canadian border disputes in Maine, New York, Vermont, and in the Wisconsin Territory (now northern Minnesota).

Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947)

She was a leader of a new generation of activists in the women's suffrage movement who carried on the work started by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Mary Elizabeth Lease (1850-1933)

She was a leader of the farm protest movement who advocated violence if change could not be obtained at the ballot box. She believed that the urban-industrial East was the enemy of the working class.

Alice Paul (1885-1977)

She was a leader of the women's suffrage movement and head of the Congressional Committee of National Women Suffrage Association. She instructed female suffrage activists to use more militant tactics, such as picketing state legislatures, chaining themselves to public buildings, inciting police to arrest them, and undertaking hunger strikes.

Harriet Tubman (1820-1913)

She was born a slave, but escaped to the North. Then she returned to the South nineteen times and guided 300 slaves to freedom.

Secession

Shortly after President Abraham Lincoln was elected, southern states began dissolving their ties with the United States because they believed Lincoln and the Republican party were a threat to slavery.

Battle of the Alamo

Siege in the Texas War for Independence of 1836, in which the San Antonio mission fell to the Mexicans. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were among the courageous defenders. (page 581)

Yeomen

Small landowners (the majority of white families in the South) who farmed their own land and usually did not own slaves.

Spirituals

Songs, often encoded, which enslaved peoples used to express their frustration at being kept in bondage and forged their own sense of hope and community.

glasnost

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev instituted this reform, which brought about a loosening of censorship.

perestroika

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced these political and economic reforms, which included reconstructing the state bureaucracy, reducing the privileges of the political elite, and shifting from a centrally planned economy to a mixed economy.

De Lome letter

Spanish ambassador Depuy de Lôme wrote a letter to a friend in Havana in which he described President McKinley as "weak" and a seeker of public admiration. This letter was stolen and published in the New York Journal, which increased the American public's dislike of Spain and moved the two countries closer to war.

Conquistadores

Spanish term for "conqueror," applied to European leaders of campaigns against indigenous peoples in central and southern America.

Minutemen

Special units organized by the militia to be ready for quick mobilization.

Pullman Strike

Strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company in the company town of Pullman, Illinois, on May 11, 1894, by the American Railway Union under Eugene V. Debs; the strike was crushed by court injunctions and federal troops two months later.

Tet Offensive

Surprise attack by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese during the Vietnamese New Year of 1968; turned American public opinion strongly against the war in Vietnam.

Encomienda

System under which officers of the Spanish conquistadores gained ownership of Indian land.

Great Society

Term coined by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1965 State of the Union address, in which he proposed legislation to address problems of voting rights, poverty, diseases, education, immigration, and the environment.

Moral Majority

Televangelist Jerry Falwell's political lobbying organization, the name of which became synonymous with the religious right—-conservative evangelical Protestants who helped ensure President Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory.

Iron Curtain

Term coined by Winston Churchill to describe the cold war divide between western Europe and the Soviet Union's Eastern European satellites.

Tories

Term used by Patriots to refer to Loyalists, or colonists who supported the Crown after the Declaration of Independence.

Tejanos

Texas settlers of Spanish or Mexican descent.

Operation Overlord

The Allies' assault on Hitler's "Atlantic Wall," a seemingly impregnable series of fortifications and minefields along the French coastline that German forces had created using captive Europeans for laborers.

Joseph Stalin (1879-1953)

The Bolshevik leader who succeeded Lenin as the leader of the Soviet Union in 1924 and ruled the country until his death. During his totalitarian rule of the Soviet Union, he used purges and a system of forced labor camps to maintain control over the country. During the Yalta Conference, he claimed vast areas of Eastern Europe for Soviet domination. After the end of the Second World War, the alliance between the Soviet Union and the Western powers altered into the tension of the cold war and Stalin erected the "iron curtain" between Eastern and Western Europe.

Impressment

The British navy used press-gangs to kidnap men in British and colonial ports who were then forced to serve in the British navy.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

The British prime minister who led the country during the Second World War. Along with Roosevelt and Stalin, he helped shape the post-war world at the Yalta Conference. He also coined the term "iron curtain," which he used in his famous "The Sinews of Peace" speech.

Rough Riders

The First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, led in battle in the Spanish-American War by Theodore Roosevelt; they were victorious in their only battle near Santiago, Cuba; and Roosevelt used the notoriety to aid his political career.

Blitzkrieg (the Blitz)

The German "lightening war" strategy used during the Second World War; the Germans invaded Poland, France, Russia, and other countries with fast-moving, well-coordinated attacks using aircraft, tanks, and other armored vehicles, followed by infantry.

Benito Mussolini, "Il Duce" (1883-1945)

The Italian founder of the Fascist party who came to power in Italy in 1922 and allied himself with Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers during the Second World War.

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

The Italian sailor who persuaded King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to fund his expedition across the Atlantic to discover a new trade route to Asia. Instead of arriving at China or Japan, he reached the Bahamas in 1492.

"Final Solution"

The Nazi party's systematic murder of some 6 million Jews along with more than a million other people including, but not limited to, gypsies, homosexuals, and handicapped individuals.

Contras

The Reagan administration ordered the CIA to train and supply guerrilla bands of anti-Communist Nicaraguans called Contras. They were fighting the Sandinista government that had recently come to power in Nicaragua. The State Department believed that the Sandinista government was supplying the leftist Salvadoran rebels with Soviet and Cuban arms. A cease-fire agreement between the Contras and Sandinistas was signed in 1988.

Osama Bin Laden (1957-2011)

The Saudi-born leader of al Qaeda, whose members attacked America on September 11, 2001. Years before the attack, he had declared jihad (holy war) on the United States, Israel, and the Saudi monarchy. In Afghanistan, the Taliban leaders gave bin Laden a safe haven in exchange for aid in fighting the Northern Alliance, who were rebels opposed to the Taliban. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States asked the Taliban to turn over bin Laden. Following their refusal, America and a multinational coalition invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban. In May 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by American special forces during a covert operation in Pakistan.

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547)

The Spanish conquistador who conquered the Aztec Empire and set the precedent for other plundering conquistadores.

Pueblos

The Spanish term for the adobe cliff dwellings of the indigenous people of the southwestern United States.

Dollar Diplomacy

The Taft administration's policy of encouraging American bankers to aid debt-plagued governments in Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.

ethnic cleansing

The act of killing an entire group of people in a region or country because of its ethnic background. After the collapse of the former Yugoslavia in 1991, Serbs in Bosnia attacked communities of Muslims, which led to intervention by the United Nations. In 1998, fighting broke out again in the Balkans between Serbia and Kosovo. Serbian police and military attacked, killed, raped, or forced Muslim Albanian Kosovars to leave their homes.

Anne Hutchinson (1591-1643)

The articulate, strong-willed, and intelligent wife of a prominent Boston merchant, who espoused her belief in direct divine revelation. She quarreled with Puritan leaders over her beliefs; and they banished her from the colony.

Tenochtitlán

The capital city of the Aztec Empire. The city was built on marshy islands on the western side of Lake Tetzcoco, which is the site of present-day Mexico City.

King Philip, or Metacomet

The chief of the Wampanoages, who the colonists called King Philip. He resented English efforts to convert Indians to Christianity and waged a war against the English colonists in which he was killed.

Dien Bien Phu

The defining battle in the war between French colonialists and the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh's victory secured North Vietnam for Ho Chi Minh and was crucial in compelling the French to give up Indochina as a colony.

New Jersey Plan

The delegations to the Constitutional Convention were divided between two plans on how to structure the government: -New Jersey wanted one legislative body with equal representation for each state.

Virginia Plan

The delegations to the Constitutional Convention were divided between two plans on how to structure the government: -Virginia called for a strong central government and a two-house legislature apportioned by population.

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

The first federal law to restrict immigration on the basis of race and class. Passed in 1882, the act halted Chinese immigration for ten years, but it was periodically renewed and then indefinitely extended in 1902. Not until 1943 were the barriers to Chinese immigration finally removed.

Saddam Hussein (1937-2006)

The former dictator of Iraq who became the head of state in 1979. In 1980, he invaded Iran and started the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War. In 1990, he invaded Kuwait, which caused the Gulf War of 1991. In 2003, he was overthrown and captured when the United States invaded. He was sentenced to death by hanging in 2006.

Buying Stock on Margin

The investment practice of making a small down payment (the "margin") on a stock and borrowing the rest of money need for the purchase from a broker who held the stock as security against a down market. If the stock's value declined and the buyer failed to meet a margin call for more funds, the broker could sell the stock to cover his loan.

Adolf Hitler "Furhrer" (1889-1945)

The leader of the Nazis who advocated a violent anti-Semitic, anti-Marxist, pan-German ideology. He started World War II in Europe and orchestrated the systematic murder of some 6 million Jews along with more than a million others.

Malcom X (1925-1964)

The most articulate spokesman for black power. Originally, the chief disciple of Elijah Muhammad, the black Muslim leader in the United States, Malcolm X broke away from him and founded his own organization committed to establishing relations between African Americans and the nonwhite peoples of the world. Near the end of his life, he began to preach a biracial message of social change. In 1964, he was assassinated by members of a rival group of black Muslims.

Separation of Powers

The powers of government were split between three separate branches (executive, legislative, and judicial) who check and balance each other.

Election of 1912

The presidential election of 1912 featured four candidates: Wilson, Taft, Roosevelt, and Debs. Each candidate believed in the basic assumptions of progressive politics, but each had a different view on how progressive ideals should be implemented through policy. In the end, Taft and Roosevelt split the Republican party votes and Wilson emerged as the winner.

Treaty of Ghent

The signing of this treaty in 1814 ended the War of 1812 without solving any of the disputes between Britain and the United States.

Conestoga Wagons

These large horse-drawn wagons were used to carry people or heavy freight long distances, including from the East to the western frontier settlements.

Fifteenth Amendment

This amendment forbids states to deny any person the right to vote on grounds of "race, color or pervious condition of servitude." Former Confederate states were required to ratify this amendment before they could be readmitted to the Union.

Thirteenth Amendment

This amendment to the U.S. Constitution freed all slaves in the United States. After the Civil War ended, the former confederate states were required to ratify this amendment before they could be readmitted to the Union.

National Recovery Administration

This organization's two goals were to stabilize business and generate purchasing power for consumers. The first goal was to be achieved through the implementation industry-wide codes that set wages and prices, which would reduce the chaotic competition. To provide consumers with purchasing power, the administration would provide jobs, define workplace standards, and raise wages.

Ghost Dance Movement

This spiritual and political movement came from a Paiute Indian named Wovoka (or Jack Wilson). He believed that a messiah would come and rescue the Indians and restore their lands. To hasten the arrival of the messiah, the Indians needed to take up a ceremonial dance at each new moon.

"Peculiar Institution"

This term was used to describe slavery in America because slavery so fragrantly violated the principle of individual freedom that served as the basis for the Declaration of Independence.

Bonus Expeditionary Force

Thousands of World War I veterans, who insisted on immediate payment of their bonus certificates, marched on Washington in 1932; violence ensued when President Herbert Hoover ordered their tent villages cleared.

Second New Deal

To rescue his New Deal program form judicial and political challenges, President Roosevelt launched a second phase of the New Deal in 1935. He was able to convince Congress to pass key pieces of legislation including the National Labor Relations act and Social Security Act. Roosevelt called the latter the New Deal's "supreme achievement" and pensioners started receiving monthly checks in 1940.

Overland (Oregon) Trails

Trail Route of wagon trains bearing settlers from Independence, Missouri, to the Oregon Country in the 1840s to 1860s.

Farmers' Alliances

Two separate organizations (Northwestern and Southern) of the 1880s and 1890s that took the place of the Grange, worked for similar causes, and attracted landless, as well as landed, farmers to their membership.

Sharecroppers

Type of farm tenancy that developed after the Civil War in which landless workers—often former slaves—farmed land in exchange for farm supplies and a share of the crop; differed from tenancy in that the terms were generally less favorable.

Webster-Hayne Debate

U.S. Senate debate of January 1830 between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina over nullification and states' rights.

Fred Scott v. Sandford (1857)

U.S. Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ruled that slaves could not sue for freedom and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories, on the grounds that such a prohibition would violate the Fifth Amendment rights of slaveholders.

Miranda v. Arizona (1966)

U.S. Supreme Court decision required police to advise persons in custody of their rights to legal counsel and against self-incrimination.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)

U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public education and declared "separate but equal" unconstitutional.

Marshall Plan

U.S. program for the reconstruction of post-Second World War Europe through massive aid to former enemy nations as well as allies; proposed by General George C. Marshall in 1947.

Containment

U.S. strategy in the cold war that called for containing Soviet expansion; originally devised in 1947 by U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan.

Bolsheviks

Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin, this Marxist party led the November 1917 revolution against the newly formed provisional government in Russia. After seizing control, the Bolsheviks negotiated a peace treaty with Germany, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and ended their participation in World War I.

William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea"

Union General William T. Sherman believed that there was a connection between the South's economy, morale, and ability to wage war. During his March through Georgia, he wanted to demoralize the civilian populace and destroy the resources they needed to fight. His army seized food and livestock that the Confederate Army might have used as well as wrecked railroads and mills and burned plantations.

Anaconda Strategy

Union General Winfield Scott developed this three-pronged strategy to defeat the Confederacy. Like a snake strangling its prey, the Union army would crush its enemy through exerting pressure on Richmond, blockading Confederate ports, and dividing the South by invading its major waterways.

Spanish Flu

Unprecedentedly lethal influenza epidemic of 1918 that killed more than 22 million people worldwide.

Bacon's Rebellion

Unsuccessful 1676 revolt led by planter Nathaniel Bacon against Virginia governor William Berkeley's administration, because it had failed to protect settlers from Indian raids.

McNary-Haugen Bill

Vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927 and 1928, the bill to aid farmers would have artificially raised agricultural prices by selling surpluses overseas for low prices and selling the reduced supply in the United States for higher prices.

Whiskey Rebellion

Violent protest by western Pennsylvania farmers against the federal excise tax on corn whiskey, 1794.

Watergate

Washington office and apartment complex that lent its name to the 1972-1974 scandal of the Nixon administration; when his knowledge of the break-in at the Watergate and subsequent cover-up was revealed, Nixon resigned the presidency under threat of impeachment.

Francisco Pancho Villa (1877-1923)

While the leader of one of the competing factions in the Mexican civil war, he provoked the United States into intervening. He hoped attacking the United States would help him build a reputation as an opponent of the United States, which would increase his popularity and discredit Mexican President Carranza.

George F. Kennan (1904-2005)

While working as an American diplomat, he devised the strategy of containment, which called for the halting of Soviet expansion. It became America's choice strategy throughout the cold war.

Scalawags

White southern Republicans—some former Unionists—who served in Reconstruction governments.

Great Depression

Worst economic depression in American history; it was spurred by the stock market crash of 1929 and lasted until the Second World War.

Muckrakers

Writers who exposed corruption and abuses in politics, business, meat-packing, child labor, and more, primarily in the first decade of the twentieth century; their popular books and magazine articles spurred public interest in progressive reform.

Lowell Girls

Young female factory workers at the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts, which in the early 1820s provided its employees with prepared meals, dormitories, moral discipline, and educational opportunities.

"Spoils System"

—meaning the filling of federal government jobs with persons loyal to the party of the president —originated in Andrew Jackson's first term; the system was replaced in the Progressive Era by civil service