US History

Russian Revolution

Prompted by labor unrest, personal liberties, and elected representatives, this political revolution occurred in 1917 when Czar Nicholas II was murdered and Vladimir Lenin sought control to implement his ideas of socialism. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was one of the most explosive political events of the twentieth century. The violent revolution marked the end of the Romanov dynasty and centuries of Russian Imperial rule. During the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks, led by leftist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, seized power and destroyed the tradition of csarist rule. The Bolsheviks would later become the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. When Was the Russian Revolution? In 1917, two revolutions swept through Russia, ending centuries of imperial rule and setting into motion political and social changes that would lead to the formation of the Soviet Union. While the two revolutionary events took place within a few short months, social unrest in Russia had been simmering for decades. In the early 1900s, Russia was one of the most impoverished countries in Europe with an enormous peasantry and a growing minority of poor industrial workers. Much of Western Europe viewed Russia as an undeveloped, backwards society. The Russian Empire practiced serfdom—a form of feudalism in which landless peasants were forced to serve the land-owning nobility—well into the nineteenth century. In contrast, the practice had disappeared in most of Western Europe by the end of the Middle Ages. In 1861, the Russian Empire finally abolished serfdom. The emancipation of serfs would influence the events leading up to the Russian Revolution by giving peasants more freedom to organize. Russian Revolution of 1905 Russia industrialized much later than Western Europe and the United States. When it finally did, around the turn of the 20th century, it brought with it immense social and political changes. Between 1890 and 1910, for example, the population of major Russian cities such as St. Petersburg and Moscow nearly doubled, resulting in overcrowding and destitute living conditions for a new class of Russian industrial workers. A population boom at the end of the 19th century, a harsh growing season due to Russia's northern climate, and a series of costly wars—starting with the Crimean War (1854-1856)—meant frequent food shortages across the vast empire. Large protests by Russian workers against the monarchy led to the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1905. Hundreds of unarmed protesters were killed or wounded by the czar's troops. The massacre sparked the Russian revolution of 1905, during which angry workers responded with a series of crippling strikes throughout the country. Nicholas II After the bloodshed of 1905, Czar Nicholas II promised the formation of a series of representative assemblies, or Dumas, to work toward reform. Russia entered into World War I in August 1914 in support of the Serbs and their French and British allies. Their involvement in the war would soon prove disastrous for the Russian Empire. Militarily, imperial Russia was no match for industrialized Germany, and Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Food and fuel shortages plagued Russia as inflation mounted. The economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort. Czar Nicholas left the Russian capital of Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in 1915 to take command of the Russian Army front. (The Russians had renamed the imperial city in 1914, because the name "St. Petersburg" had sounded too German.) Rasputin and the Czarina In her husband's absence, Czarina Alexandra—an unpopular woman of German ancestry—began firing elected officials. During this time, her controversial advisor, Grigory Rasputin, increased his influence over Russian politics and the royal Romanov family. Russian nobles eager to end Rasputin's influence murdered him on December 30, 1916. By then, most Russians had lost faith in the failed leadership of the czar. Government corruption was rampant, the Russian economy remained backward and Nicholas repeatedly dissolved the Duma, the toothless Russian parliament established after the 1905 revolution, when it opposed his will. Moderates soon joined Russian radical elements in calling for an overthrow of the hapless czar. February Revolution The February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian calendar until February 1918) began on March 8, 1917 (February 23 on the Julian calendar). Demonstrators clamoring for bread took to the streets of Petrograd. Supported by huge crowds of striking industrial workers, the protesters clashed with police but refused to leave the streets. On March 11, the troops of the Petrograd army garrison were called out to quell the uprising. In some encounters, the regiments opened fire, killing demonstrators, but the protesters kept to the streets and the troops began to waver. The Duma formed a provisional government on March 12. A few days later, Czar Nicholas abdicated the throne, ending centuries of Russian Romanov rule. The leaders of the provisional government, including young Russian lawyer Alexander Kerensky, established a liberal program of rights such as freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the right of unions to organize and strike. They opposed violent social revolution. As minister of war, Kerensky continued the Russian war effort, even though Russian involvement in World War I was enormously unpopular. This further exacerbated Russia's food supply problems. Unrest continued to grow as peasants looted farms and food riots erupted in the cities. Bolshevik Revolution On November 6 and 7, 1917 (or October 24 and 25 on the Julian calendar, which is why the event is often referred to as the October Revolution), leftist revolutionaries led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin launched a nearly bloodless coup d'état against the Duma's provisional government. The provisional government had been assembled by a group of leaders from Russia's bourgeois capitalist class. Lenin instead called for a Soviet government that would be ruled directly by councils of soldiers, peasants and workers. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in Petrograd, and soon formed a new government with Lenin as its head. Lenin became the dictator of the world's first communist state. Russian Civil War Civil War broke out in Russia in late 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution. The warring factions included the Red and White Armies. The Red Army fought for the Lenin's Bolshevik government. The White Army represented a large group of loosely allied forces, including monarchists, capitalists and supporters of democratic socialism. On July 16, 1918, the Romanovs were executed by the Bolsheviks. The Russian Civil War ended in 1923 with Lenin's Red Army claiming victory and establishing the Soviet Union.

Italian Fascism

Mussolini emphasized nationalism and led the Blackshirts to seize power as a dictator, removing freedoms and other political parties. From his birth in 1883 to the day of his death in 1945 Benito Mussolini was many things to many men. Son of a blacksmith of radical persuasion, Mussolini was a born revolutionary. He was named after Benito Juarez, the Mexican revolutionary leader. As he grew up he knew the hunger and hardships of the laboring class. He was s one of them, a natural leader, and a firebrand of the first order. Through successive stages of radicalism and anticlericalism—including several years of exile in Switzerland because, as a confirmed pacifist, he refused to undergo military training—Mussolini became a leader of the Socialist party and editor of its newspaper. He broke with the party over the issue of Italian neutrality in the first World War—he was for participation alongside the Allies—and was expelled from it. Thereupon Mussolini founded his own newspaper, enlisted in the Italian army, was wounded, and returned to run the paper. He made it into the voice of all the elements—the veterans, the unemployed, the renegade socialists, the nationalists, and so forth—who were discontented and disillusioned with democracy. More crust than votes Around Mussolini's banner there rapidly grew up an army of followers—from gangsters to sincere patriots. Some of them were organized into strong-arm squads, armed and uniformed as "Blackshirt Militia." The money for this came from alarmed industrialists and others of wealth who saw in the Mussolini movement a tool to suppress the radical revolution they feared and that Mussolini kept assuring them was on the way. The proclaimed aims and principles of the fascist movement are perhaps of little consequence now. It promised almost every thing, from extreme radicalism in 1919 to extreme conservatism in 1922. In the main its program was centered on the idea of action, but in reality it meant for Italy naked personal power, achieved and maintained through violence. The Fascists put up candidates in the parliamentary elections of 1921. They were not very successful, despite undercover support from some elements of the government. Altogether they received only about 5 percent of the total popular vote. But they succeeded in planting the impression that they had the solution to all of Italy's postwar ills. The existing government had none, and so the March on Rome—a Colossal bluff—turned out a colossal success. The early mask falls away When the king called on Mussolini to form a government in October 1922, very few people in the world had any idea of what was meant by a totalitarian form of government. Mussolini himself probably did not know what he was going to do—except stay in power. A parliamentary majority backed the fascist government at the beginning, and most of the people thought fascism was a temporary interlude. They thought Italy could later return to freedom, and in the meantime fascism could take care of the crisis. When Mussolini stepped into power, fascism had none of the superior-race, blood-and-soil trappings that came to Germany with Hitlerism. All the other elements of fascism were there, however: belief in violence, disbelief in legal processes, rabid nationalism, and so on. But the regime was not totalitarian in its first three years. Opposition parties were still legal, a strong opposition press operated under difficulties, and Mussolini kept talking about a return to normalcy. It was only in 1925 that fascism fully threw off the mash. The murder of a socialist leader by the name of Matteotti, a fearless parliamentary opponent of fascism, was the signal. Through every device of open violence and concealed trickery the totalitarian machine was built up. This meant complete state control of every phase of human activity. It meant fostering the idea that the Fascist party and the Italian state were one and the same. It meant deifying the nation and the leader. It meant the nourishing of nationalistic and warlike passions. It meant, in the end, alliance with the other great totalitarian power in Europe, acceptance of the debased and debasing theories of Nazism, and finally, active participation in the war. Responsibilities and consequences How shall we measure the consequences of fascism and its rule over Italy? How much responsibility for it shall we lay on the mass of the Italian people? There are a number of items that weigh on either side of the balance. First of all, quite clearly, we remember that Italy—and that means the people of Italy—took to fascism when other nations as hard hit in the postwar era did not. Fascism in Italy, we recall, arrived long before the Nazis took over in Germany, and fascism taught the world and Hitler many of the tricks of totalitarian misrule—including the use of castor oil. We remember Ethiopia and the way Italians shouted themselves hoarse sending their army off to the attack or greeting news of victories. That undisguised example of aggression not only snuffed out the independence of a free nation but also delivered a deathblow to the League of Nations. Italian aid to Franca helped overthrow democratic government in Spain where Mussolini and Hitler perfected their tactics for the second World War. In passing we shall note that Italy treacherously seized Albania. And finally, we recall Italy's entrance into this war for the basest of motives—a share of the spoils—at what seemed to be the last possible moment. The "stab in the back" when France was falling and the cowardly attack against Greece will not be forgotten, either. All this can be chalked up against the Fascist government, of course; on the grounds that it was a gangster outfit that abused and misled the Italian people. Of these things the government was certainly guilty—but were the people innocent? They were not untainted with the same guilt and they cannot escape shine share of the responsibility. They were not always opposed to what the government did in their name. They often applauded its actions and rarely showed signs of trying to stop its misrule. During the very years when fascism was at its worst in foreign aggression and internal oppression many Italians hailed Mussolini as a great man and firmly believed that fascism was a good thing for Italy. Some of them still do. A nation that is willing to share the gains of political gamblers cannot expect to escape wholly when they lose. The other side of the picture On the other hand, there are at least five points we might keep in mind as we assess Italy's past and future: From 1919 to 1923 many Italians fought against fascism. They fought in parliament, in the press, and in the streets. The fight ceased only when all the opposition leaders had been imprisoned, exiled, or murdered, when the physical instruments of opposition had been destroyed—the printing presses, the trade unions and their offices, the cooperatives, and so on. It ceased openly only when the overwhelming pressure of the fascist police made open opposition impossible. Later, fascism turned to more subtle means to win the support of the Italian people. Open violence gave way to legal violence under a veneer of respectability that fooled many people. An era of prosperity arrived that dulled the appetite for political freedom: The outside world praised Mussolini and his works. Many Italians were baffled and their resistance to the slow moral poisoning of fascism broke down. The period of the Ethiopian war, beginning in 1935, rallied the nationalists more strongly than ever around the fascist regime. On the other hand, it woke many other Italians to the sudden realization that fascism meant war in earnest—not just bombastic threats of war for defensive purposes, but wrongful aggression that must in the end lead to the country's destruction. During the period between 1936 and 1943 the lines were drawn more sharply between fascism and antifascism. As the depth of the disaster into which fascism had led Italy became clearer, more people joined the ranks of opposition. The underground movements gained in strength even if they never became overwhelming in numbers. The final collapse of fascism, though set off when Mussolini's frightened lieutenants threw him overboard, was brought about by allied military victories plus the open rebellion of the people. Among the latter the strikes of industrial workers in Nazi-controlled northern Italy led the way. Nothing of this sort happened in Germany.

Cuba Missile Crisis 1962

USSR put missile in Cuba Kenedy threatened them to take the missiles of out cuba; a terrifying standoff between the US and the soviet Union that brought these super powers to the brink of nuclear war During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy(1917-63) notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war. However, disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's (1894-1971) offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. Discovering the Missiles After seizing power in the Caribbean island nation of Cuba in 1959, leftist revolutionary leader Fidel Castro (1926-2016) aligned himself with the Soviet Union. Under Castro, Cuba grew dependent on the Soviets for military and economic aid. During this time, the U.S. and the Soviets (and their respective allies) were engaged in the Cold War (1945-91), an ongoing series of largely political and economic clashes. Did you know? The actor Kevin Costner (1955-) starred in a movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis titled "Thirteen Days." Released in 2000, the movie's tagline was "You'll never believe how close we came." The two superpowers plunged into one of their biggest Cold War confrontations after the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane piloted by Major Richard Heyser making a high-altitude pass over Cuba on October 14, 1962, photographed a Soviet SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile being assembled for installation. President Kennedy was briefed about the situation on October 16, and he immediately called together a group of advisors and officials known as the executive committee, or ExComm. For nearly the next two weeks, the president and his team wrestled with a diplomatic crisis of epic proportions, as did their counterparts in the Soviet Union. A New Threat to the U.S. For the American officials, the urgency of the situation stemmed from the fact that the nuclear-armed Cuban missiles were being installed so close to the U.S. mainland-just 90 miles south of Florida. From that launch point, they were capable of quickly reaching targets in the eastern U.S. If allowed to become operational, the missiles would fundamentally alter the complexion of the nuclear rivalry between the U.S. and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which up to that point had been dominated by the Americans. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had gambled on sending the missiles to Cuba with the specific goal of increasing his nation's nuclear strike capability. The Soviets had long felt uneasy about the number of nuclear weapons that were targeted at them from sites in Western Europe and Turkey, and they saw the deployment of missiles in Cuba as a way to level the playing field. Another key factor in the Soviet missile scheme was the hostile relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. The Kennedy administration had already launched one attack on the island-the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961-and Castro and Khrushchev saw the missiles as a means of deterring further U.S. aggression. Kennedy Weighs the Options From the outset of the crisis, Kennedy and ExComm determined that the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba was unacceptable. The challenge facing them was to orchestrate their removal without initiating a wider conflict-and possibly a nuclear war. In deliberations that stretched on for nearly a week, they came up with a variety of options, including a bombing attack on the missile sites and a full-scale invasion of Cuba. But Kennedy ultimately decided on a more measured approach. First, he would employ the U.S. Navy to establish a blockade, or quarantine, of the island to prevent the Soviets from delivering additional missiles and military equipment. Second, he would deliver an ultimatum that the existing missiles be removed. In a television broadcast on October 22, 1962, the president notified Americans about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact the blockade and made it clear that the U.S. was prepared to use military force if necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following this public declaration, people around the globe nervously waited for the Soviet response. Some Americans, fearing their country was on the brink of nuclear war, hoarded food and gas. Showdown at Sea: U.S. Blockades Cuba A crucial moment in the unfolding crisis arrived on October 24, when Soviet ships bound for Cuba neared the line of U.S. vessels enforcing the blockade. An attempt by the Soviets to breach the blockade would likely have sparked a military confrontation that could have quickly escalated to a nuclear exchange. But the Soviet ships stopped short of the blockade. Although the events at sea offered a positive sign that war could be averted, they did nothing to address the problem of the missiles already in Cuba. The tense standoff between the superpowers continued through the week, and on October 27, an American reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba, and a U.S. invasion force was readied in Florida. (The 35-year-old pilot of the downed plane, Major Rudolf Anderson, is considered the sole U.S. combat casualty of the Cuban missile crisis.) "I thought it was the last Saturday I would ever see," recalled U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (1916-2009), as quoted by Martin Walker in "The Cold War." A similar sense of doom was felt by other key players on both sides. A Deal Ends the Standoff Despite the enormous tension, Soviet and American leaders found a way out of the impasse. During the crisis, the Americans and Soviets had exchanged letters and other communications, and on October 26, Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy in which he offered to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for a promise by U.S. leaders not to invade Cuba. The following day, the Soviet leader sent a letter proposing that the USSR would dismantle its missiles in Cuba if the Americans removed their missile installations in Turkey. Officially, the Kennedy administration decided to accept the terms of the first message and ignore the second Khrushchev letter entirely. Privately, however, American officials also agreed to withdraw their nation's missiles from Turkey. U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy (1925-68) personally delivered the message to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, and on October 28, the crisis drew to a close.

Civil War 1861-1864:

a war between citizens of the same country.

1929: Black Tuesday

Black Tuesday was the fourth and last day of the stock market crash of 1929. It took place on October 29, 1929.1 Investors traded a record 16.4 million shares. They lost $14 billion on the New York Stock Exchange, worth $206 billion in 2019 dollars.2 3 On Black Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped almost 12% closing at $230.4 After the crash, the Dow continued sliding for three more years. It finally bottomed on July 8, 1932, closing at 41.22.4 All told, it lost almost 90% of its value since its high on September 3, 1929. In fact, it didn't reach that high again for 25 years until November 23, 1954. Losses from the stock market crash helped create the Great Depression. Causes Part of the panic that caused Black Tuesday resulted from how investors played the stock market in the 1920s. They didn't have instant access to information via the internet. Stock prices were printed by a ticker tape machine onto a strip of paper. As share prices dropped the ticker tapes literally could not keep up with the pace. Panic ensued because no one knew how bad it was. It was pandemonium on the floor of the stock exchange. Buyers roared and screamed. Some collapsed onto the ground when they got bad news about a stock price. Crowds formed outside of the NYSE. The police were called to keep order. The other reason for the panic was the new method for buying stocks, called buying on margin. Investors could place huge stock orders with only 10% to 20% down.8 They used the money they borrowed from their brokers. When stock prices fell, the brokers called in the loans. Many people found paying off the loans wiped out their entire life savings. How It Helped Cause the Great Depression Black Tuesday's losses destroyed confidence in the economy. That loss of confidence led to the Great Depression. In those days, people believed the stock market was the economy. What was good for Wall Street was thought to be good for Main Street. The stock market crash created bank runs. People withdrew all their savings at once. Many banks didn't have enough cash on hand and were forced to close. There was no Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to insure savings.9 Investors abandoned the stock market and started putting their money in commodities. As a result, gold prices soared.10 At that time, the United States was on the gold standard and promised to honor each dollar with its value in gold.11 As people began turning in dollars for gold, the U.S. government began to worry it would run out of gold. The Federal Reserve tried to come to the rescue by increasing the value of the dollar. It did this by raising interest rates, which reduced liquidity to businesses.12 But, without funds to grow, companies started laying off employees. That created a vicious downward economic spiral that became the Great Depression.

German National Socialism

Hitler and the Nazi Party, hated Jews and Marxists HITLER'S LEGACY Adolf Hitler's dream for a new world order under the Nazi party ended the day he put a bullet in his brain in April 1945. Unfortunately, Nazism - or National Socialism - did not die with him and there are a frightening number of Neo Nazi groups espousing Hitler's evil political ideals throughout the globe. But just what are the ideals behind National Socialism, and what was it that that struck a chord with so many deluded German individuals during the 1930s and 40s? INFLUENTIAL WORKS The key works that influenced Nazi ideology include the racist doctrines of the comte de Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, combined with the nationalism of Heinrich von Treitschke, and the hero-cult of legendary philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The Nazi dogma that Hitler espoused was also elaborated on by the fanatical Alfred Rosenberg. Vague and mystical, it was not a system of well-defined principles but rather a glorification of prejudice and myth, combined with elements of nihilism. In general terms, the principal doctrines of National Socialism were that of racial inequality and of adherence to the leader, or Führer, while its constant theme was that of nationalist expansion. HITLER AND DARWIN: UNLIKELY BEDFELLOWS Out of all the philosophies and ideas that influenced Hitler's views, one particularly influential strand of thinking was Social Darwinism, which as you may be able to tell, emerged from the groundbreaking evolutionary research of scientist Charles Darwin. Darwin in no way shared the same murderous views as Hitler; rather, Social Darwinism was an ideology that was drawn out from various elements of Darwinian thought; it suggested a relation between his teaching of evolution by natural selection and the way humanity functions. Basically, the notion of 'survival of the fittest', a phrase coined by its leading proponent Herbert Spencer, implied that it was the biological right for 'stronger' cultures to dominate and eventually wipe out those weaker societies. WWII Soldiers ESSENCE OF EVIL The essential National Socialist principals of Hitler can be found in Mein Kampf (My Struggle), the work he penned while imprisoned in the 1920s. Hitler believed that ethnic and linguistic diversity had weakened the fortunes of Germany. Further, he saw that democracy was a corrosive force, because it placed power in the hands of ethnic minorities, who he claimed had further "weaken and destabilize" the success of his people. Simply put, in order for Germany to be great again, it needs to be made up of a master race, a pure Aryan people who have not been polluted by outside forces and insidious immigrants. ARYAN SUPREMACY Hitler's Nazi theory believed that a nation is the highest creation of a race, and great nations were the creation of great races. For Hitler, these nations, such as the Nordic people, developed cultures that naturally grew from races with "natural good health, and aggressive, intelligent, courageous traits." Contrastingly, he wrote that the weakest nations were those of 'impure or mongrel races', because they have divided, quarrelling, and therefore weak cultures. Worst of all were seen to be the parasitic Untermensch, a group mainly comprised of Jews, but also Gypsies, homosexuals the disabled and other 'antisocials' were considered lebensunwertes Leben (Life-unworthy life), owing to their perceived deficiency and inferiority. Electric Fences at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp THE ROAD TO WAR Why were people taken in by this hate-filled ideology to the extent that it led them on the road to war? Well, the Nazi rationale was heavily invested in the militarist belief that great nations grow from military power, which in turn grows "naturally" from "rational, civilized cultures." Hitler's calls appealed to many disgruntled German Nationalists, eager to save face for the failure of World War I, and to salvage the militaristic nationalist way of thinking that had previously dominated that previous era. After Austria's and Germany's defeat of World War I, many Germans still had heartfelt ties to the goal of creating a greater Germany, and thought that the use of military force to achieve it was necessary. Hitler's misguided views that championed a stronger, purer race of Germans, had sadly struck a chord with many people and the rest is history...

Rise of Labor

Exploiting their dominant position in national politics, Democrats used legislation and tax dollars to cement the allegiance of blocs of voters to their party. One of their prize targets were the millions of workers with ties to the labor movement. The new industrial age and the resulting growth of the U.S. economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries affected nearly everyone in America. Industrial combination and concentration became the norm, with huge trusts appearing in almost every industry. The workplace was changing as machines became common and the demand for unskilled workers brought new groups into the workforce, including immigrants, women, and children. By 1920, nearly 20 percent of all manufacturing workers were women, and 13 percent of all textile workers were younger than 16 years old. The abundance of laborers available for these unskilled factory jobs made individual workers expendable and led to decreased wages. Most industrial laborers worked at least a ten-hour day, yet earned 20 to 40 percent less than the minimum wage necessary for a decent life. Many Americans feared that the great industrialists were reducing "freemen" to "wage slaves." Class division between the corporate giants and laborers became increasingly apparent throughout America. Little of the fortune that the industrial growth of the nation had generated went to the workers. In 1900, it was estimated that ten percent of Americans owned over three-fourths of the nation's wealth. Many feared that the United States was on the brink of a disastrous class war. Health and safety conditions in the workplace were poor and workers had limited recourse. Federal laws offered little protection, and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was often used to stop the organization of laborers. It was not until the 1930s that the federal government would become actively involved in regulating labor. State and local authorities were usually more responsive to the interests of wealthy industrialists than the needs of laborers. The social transformation brought on by the new industrial age affected every aspect of life in America. With women toiling alongside men, marriages were often delayed, resulting in smaller families. It was not uncommon for a single company to own an entire town. The company could increase prices at the local grocery store and give laborers easy credit, keeping workers in debt and stuck working at the same low-paying job. The crowded, dirty tenements in these towns led to high disease and death rates. The workplace became regimented and impersonal. Any time workers would protest the working conditions, corporations would blacklist the uncooperative workers and replace them with workers who would often work for lower pay and without any benefits. Individual workers were not able to battle against the corporate monster. The process of industrialization transformed the nation's economy and social structure, but in doing so it provoked the emergence of an organized labor movement. Union Organizations In the 1842 case Commonwealth v. Hunt, the Massachusetts Supreme Court held that it was not illegal for workers to organize a union or try to compel recognition of that union with a strike. This was certainly an important step for labor, but the idea of permanent unions was slow to catch on. Since many laborers were immigrants, they often spoke different languages and harbored racial and cultural biases. Many only planned to stay in America long enough to earn sufficient money to return to their homelands and live comfortably, and therefore saw no point in joining a union. For nearly 20 years after the Commonwealth v. Hunt ruling, labor unions tended to be small and limited to skilled trades. Eventually, the increase in cost of living after the Civil War, coupled with the rising number of large corporations that decreased wages, lead industrial laborers to organize into unions. In 1866, the first national coalition of these unions was founded—The National Labor Union. The struggle for the right to unionize was a remarkable event in the history of the United States labor movement. It not only involved overcoming resistance from the corporations, but also cultural divisions within the working class itself. The National Labor Union consisted of delegates from labor and reform groups who supported an eight-hour workday, arbitration of industrial disputes, and inflationary greenbacks—the printing of paper money to expand the supply of currency and relieve debtors. The National Labor Union lasted approximately six years and attracted nearly 600,000 members. It included skilled and unskilled laborers, farmers, and some women and blacks, but excluded the Chinese. The depression of the 1870s, along with the sudden death of its leader, put an end to the union. During its existence, the union persuaded Congress to enact an eight-hour workday for federal employees and to repeal the Contract Labor Law (a law that was passed during the Civil War to encourage importation of labor). Many industrialists had employed the Contract Labor Law to recruit immigrants who were willing to work for lower wages than Americans. Another national union group emerged in 1869 called the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor. The organization was founded by Uriah S. Stephens and a group of Philadelphia garment workers. Stephens made the Knights a secret organization with an elaborate initiation ritual, which kept membership to a minimum until his successor, Terence V. Powderly, discarded secrecy. At that time membership increased greatly.

KKK (Ku Klux Klan)

Hate group/America 's first terrorist group Ku Klux Klan, either of two distinct U.S. hate organizations that employed terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. One group was founded immediately after the Civil Warand lasted until the 1870s. The other began in 1915 and has continued to the present. Ku Klux Klan: 2016 rallyMembers of the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross and a swastika at a rally near Cedartown, Georgia, April 23, 2016.Mike Stewart/AP Images Ku Klux KlanThe Ku Klux Klan burning a cross in Tennessee, 1948.© Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com Ku Klux Klan members parading along Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., Aug. 18, 1925MPI/Hulton Archive/Getty Images The 19th-century Klan was originally organized as a social club by Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1866. They apparently derived the name from the Greek word kyklos, from which comes the English "circle"; "Klan" was added for the sake of alliteration and Ku Klux Klan emerged. The organization quickly became a vehicle for Southern white underground resistance to Radical Reconstruction. Klan members sought the restoration of white supremacy through intimidation and violence aimed at the newly enfranchised black freedmen. A similar organization, the Knights of the White Camelia, began in Louisiana in 1867. Ku Klux KlanTwo members of the Ku Klux Klan, illustration from Harper's Weekly, December 19, 1868.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-USZ62-119565) In the summer of 1867, the Klan was structured into the "Invisible Empire of the South" at a convention in Nashville, Tennessee, attended by delegates from former Confederate states. The group was presided over by a grand wizard (Confederate cavalry general Nathan Bedford Forrest is believed to have been the first grand wizard) and a descending hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans, and grand cyclopses. Dressed in robes and sheets designed to frighten superstitious blacks and to prevent identification by the occupying federal troops, Klansmen whipped and killed freedmen and their white supporters in nighttime raids. The 19th-century Klan reached its peak between 1868 and 1870. A potent force, it was largely responsible for the restoration of white rule in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. But Forrest ordered it disbanded in 1869, largely as a result of the group's excessive violence. Local branches remained active for a time, however, prompting Congress to pass the Force Act in 1870 and the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Subscribe today The bills authorized the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, suppress disturbances by force, and impose heavy penalties upon terrorist organizations. Pres. Ulysses S. Grantwas lax in utilizing this authority, although he did send federal troops to some areas, suspend habeas corpus in nine South Carolina counties, and appoint commissioners who arrested hundreds of Southerners for conspiracy. In United States v. Harris in 1882, the Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Klan Act unconstitutional, but by that time the Klan had practically disappeared. It disappeared because its original objective—the restoration of white supremacy throughout the South—had been largely achieved during the 1870s. The need for a secret antiblack organization diminished accordingly. The 20th-century Klan had its roots more directly in the American nativist tradition. It was organized in 1915 nearAtlanta, Georgia, by Col. William J. Simmons, a preacher and promoter of fraternal orders who had been inspired by Thomas Dixon's book The Clansman(1905) and D.W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation (1915). The new organization remained small until Edward Y. Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler brought to it their talents as publicity agents and fund raisers. The revived Klan was fueled partly by patriotism and partly by a romantic nostalgia for the old South, but, more importantly, it expressed the defensive reaction of white Protestants in small-town America who felt threatened by the Bolshevikrevolution in Russia and by the large-scale immigration of the previous decades that had changed the ethnic character of American society. scene from The Birth of a NationScene from The Birth of a Nation (1915), directed by D.W. Griffith.David W. Griffith Corporation This second Klan peaked in the 1920s, when its membership exceeded 4,000,000 nationally, and profits rolled in from the sale of its memberships, regalia, costumes, publications, and rituals. A burning cross became the symbol of the new organization, and white-robed Klansmen participated in marches, parades, and nighttime cross burnings all over the country. To the old Klan's hostility toward blacks the new Klan—which was strong in the Midwestas well as in the South—added bias against Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners, and organized labour. The Klan enjoyed a last spurt of growth in 1928, when Alfred E. Smith, a Catholic, received the Democratic presidential nomination. Ku Klux Klan: meetingA Ku Klux Klan meeting, 1920s.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. A Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony, 1920s.© Jack Benton—Hulton Archive/Getty Images During the Great Depression of the 1930s the Klan's membership dropped drastically, and the last remnants of the organization temporarily disbanded in 1944. For the next 20 years the Klan was quiescent, but it had a resurgence in some Southern states during the 1960s as civil-rights workers attempted to force Southern communities' compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. There were numerous instances of bombings, whippings, and shootings in Southern communities, carried out in secret but apparently the work of Klansmen. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnsonpublicly denounced the organization in a nationwide television address announcing the arrest of four Klansmen in connection with the slaying of a civil-rights worker, a white woman, in Alabama. Ku Klux Klan: initiation ceremonyKu Klux Klan members holding an initiation ceremony near Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Ku Klux Klan: nooseA Ku Klux Klan member dangling a noose from an automobile in an effort to intimidate African American voters in Miami, Florida, May 3, 1939.AP Images The Klan was unable to stem the growth of a new racial tolerance in the South in the years that followed. Though the organization continued some of its surreptitious activities into the early 21st century, cases of Klan violence became more isolated, and its membership had declined to a few thousand. The Klan became a chronically fragmented mélange made up of several separate and competing groups, some of which occasionally entered into alliances with neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist groups.

1960-1963 JFK

May 29, 1917 Birth of John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy—known in his family as Jack—is born in Brookline, Massachusetts, a wealthy suburb of Boston. He is the second of Rose and Joseph Kennedy's nine children. 1919 Scarlet Fever Young Jack contracts scarlet fever just before his third birthday and is hospitalized for two months. 1931 Choate Boarding School Jack Kennedy begins high school at Choate, an elite boarding school in Connecticut. Despite his high intelligence and academic potential, Jack earns only mediocre grades. Jun 1940 Graduation from Harvard John F. Kennedy graduates from Harvard with a degree in International Affairs. His senior thesis, a critique of Britain's preparedness for World War II, will later serve as the foundation for his first book, Why England Slept. Oct 1941 Navy Enlistment On the eve of America's entry into World War II, JFK enlists in the Navy. His older brother, Joe Jr., is already training to be a navy pilot. Mar 6, 1943 Command of PT Boat After an eight-week training course in Rhode Island, Kennedy is assigned to take command of a patrol boat stationed in the South Pacific. He sails west from San Francisco, but does not arrive at his final destination—the Solomon Islands—for another month and a half. Aug 2, 1943 Sinking of PT 109 Kennedy's patrol boat, (PT 109, collides with a Japanese destroyer. Two of his men are killed instantly; the remaining crewmembers, including Kennedy himself, are severely injured. Jack orders all the men to abandon ship and leads them to shore on a nearby island. Aug 12, 1944 Death of Brother Joe, Jr. Joseph Kennedy, Jr., Jack's older brother, is killed while fighting in Europe. Jack, the second oldest Kennedy child, is now "next in line" for political leadership within the powerful Kennedy clan. Nov 1946 Election to Congress With the help of his father's campaign financing, Jack is elected to the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts' 11th District. 1947 Addison's Disease At the age of 30, John F. Kennedy is diagnosed with Addison's disease, a potentially fatal disorder of the adrenal glands. In order to manage the illness, Jack is prescribed a strict regimen of medications. May 13, 1948 Death of Sister Kathleen Kennedy's sister, Kathleen, is killed in a plane crash. Her tragic death reminds Jack of his mortality and inspires him to pursue politics with greater fervor and dedication. Jun 1952 Bobby Kennedy Becomes Campaign Manager Jack Kennedy's younger brother, Bobby, becomes his campaign manager in the 1952 Senate race, signaling the birth of an enduring political partnership between the two brothers. Nov 1952 Election to US Senate Largely due to Bobby Kennedy's effective strategic planning in the campaign, John F. Kennedy is elected to the United States Senate. Joe Sr., Jack, and Bobby all consider the Senate seat to be a key step in Jack's political ascendancy. Sep 12, 1953 Marriage to Jackie Kennedy John F. Kennedy marries Jacqueline Bouvier, a beautiful young journalist from a wealthy New England family. 1954 Back Surgery Jack undergoes risky back surgery to address his excruciating and constant back pain, a legacy of the injuries he suffered when PT 109 was sunk during World War II. During his recovery, he begins work on Profiles in Courage. Aug 1956 Failure to Win VP Nomination At the Democratic National Convention, Jack unsuccessfully vies for the vice presidential spot on Adlai Stevenson's ticket. Another senator, Estes Kefauver, earns the VP nomination. 1957 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Kennedy gains a plum assignment to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, allowing him to gain valuable political experience and increase his prestige within Congress. Nov 27, 1957 Birth of Caroline Kennedy Jack and Jackie's first child, Caroline Kennedy, is born in New York City. Sep 26, 1960 Kennedy-Nixon TV Debate John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon participate in the first-ever televised presidential debate. The debate, which showcases Jack's youth and charm, marks a turning point in the campaign. Nov 8, 1960 Kennedy Defeats Nixon in 1960 Election John F. Kennedy is elected the 35th President of the United States, defeating his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, by a slim margin of only 118,000 votes nationwide. Nov 25, 1960 Birth of JFK, Jr. Jack and Jackie's second child—and first son—is born. He is named John F. Kennedy, Jr., after his father. Jan 20, 1960 Kennedy Inaugural JFK is sworn into the Presidency and delivers his inaugural address, a landmark speech in which he urges Americans to seek out opportunities to serve their country. Mar 1, 1961 Peace Corps John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps by executive order. Apr 17, 1961 Bay of Pigs Less than three months into JFK's presidency, a group of CIA-trained Cuban exiles attempts to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The Cuban army quickly thwarts their efforts, and the Kennedy-approved fiasco becomes a major embarrassment for the new president. Sep 12, 1962 Mission to the Moon Kennedy announces his goal of putting a man on the moon. Oct 16, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis JFK is shown photos of Soviet nuclear missile sites being installed in Cuba. To minimize Soviet power in the West, the president initiates a blockade of Cuba the following week. For nearly two weeks, the Cuban Missile Crisis will bring the world closer to nuclear war than ever before or after. Oct 28, 1962 Khrushchev Pulls Missiles Out of Cuba After a week of extreme U.S.-Soviet tension, the Cuban Missile Crisis ends when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev finally agrees to remove the missiles from Cuba. Jun 11, 1963 Civil Rights In a televised address to the nation, Kennedy proposes the enactment of civil rights legislation, marking his first decisive action on civil rights. Aug 5, 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty U.S. and Soviet officials sign the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreeing not to test nuclear bombs in air, space, or water. Aug 9, 1963 Death of Patrick Kennedy Jack and Jackie's third child, Patrick, dies from a lung ailment only two days after his birth. Nov 22, 1963 JFK Assassination Lee Harvey Oswald shoots and kills John F. Kennedy in Dallas, where the president is campaigning for re-election.

The 80s

Reagan Administration Reaganomics Rust Belt Post Cold War US Policy Start of the Gulf Wars

1929-41 Great Depression

The initial economic collapse which resulted in the Great Depression can be divided into two parts: 1929 to mid-1931, and then mid-1931 to 1933. The initial decline lasted from mid-1929 to mid-1931. During this time, most people believed that the decline was merely a bad recession, worse than the recessions that occurred in 1923 and 1927, but not as bad as the Depression of 1920-21. Economic forecasters throughout 1930 optimistically predicted an economic rebound come 1931, and felt vindicated by a stock market rally in the spring of 1930. [1] The stock market crash in the first few weeks had a limited direct effect on the broader economy, as only 16% of the U.S. population was invested in the market in any form. But thousands of investors and banks lost money when 10% of invested wealth was lost almost overnight, with prospect of further losses. The crash created uncertainty in people's minds about the future of the economy. This distrust in future income reduced consumption expenditure. As demand for commodities decreased, so did their prices.[2] However, many banks that had engaged in risky investments in the stock market, and/or had lent money to individuals engaged in trading, suffered balance sheet losses that reduced their capital ratios. Mounting losses from further stock market declines and a worsening macro-economy would further strain the banking system. Over $34 million in wealth would be lost from the collapses in leverage investment products in 1929 offered by Goldman Sachs alone. An increasing number of bank failures in late-1930 interrupted the process of credit creation and reduced the money supply, harming consumption. After a second round of banking panics in mid-1931, there was a major change in people's expectations about the future of the economy.[2] This fear of reduced future income coupled with the Fed's deflationary monetary policy resulted in a deflationary spiral that cratered consumer spending, business investment, and industrial production. This further depressed the economy until Roosevelt stepped into office in 1933 and ended the gold standard, thereby ending the deflationary policy.[3] A true understanding of the Great Depression requires not only knowledge of the U.S. monetary system but also the implications of the gold standard on its participatory nations. The gold standard made the involved nations interdependent on each other's policies. Due to a fixed exchange rate, the only way to affect the demand for gold was through interest rates. For example, if interest rates were high in one country, then investors would have no reason to exchange currency for gold and the gold reserves would remain stable. However, if interest rates were low in a different country then its investors would elect to move their funds abroad where interest rates were higher. In order to stop this from happening, each nation within the gold standard union had no choice but to raise its interest rates in correspondence with its fellow nation.[3] This interconnectivity of deflationary policy amongst so many nations resulted in the prolongation of the greatest economic downturn.[4] This article focuses on the economic milestones, with some mention of the political and social impact of the depression on nations and classes in a global context.

7 Year War 1754

War between British and French colonists regarding mainly territory. French ended up being defeated. 756 Crossing the Saxon frontier with 70,000 Prussians on August 29, 1756, Frederick entered Dresden, the Saxon capital, on September 10. The Saxon army, numbering no more than 20,000, fell back to Pirna, in the southeast. Prussiaoffered assurances of its good intentions to Saxon elector Frederick Augustus and his minister, Heinrich, Reichsgraf (imperial count) von Brühl, but those promises, quite naturally, were greeted with mistrust, and an Austrian force of 32,000 under Maximilian Ulysses, Reichsgraf Browne, moved from Bohemia to reinforce the Saxons. To prevent that union, Frederick advanced southward into Bohemia, where he soundly defeated Browne at Lobositz (now Lovosice, Czech Republic) on October 1. Returning to Saxony, Frederick received the capitulation of the Saxons at Pirna (October 16), whereupon he took nearly all of them into his own service. Frederick Augustus and Brühl retired to the former's kingdom of Poland. Heinrich, Reichsgraf von BrühlHeinrich, Reichsgraf (imperial count) von Brühl, detail from an engraving by J.J. Balechou, 1750, after a portrait by Louis Silvestre.Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin READ MORE ON THIS TOPIC Austria: Seven Years' War, 1756-63 While Maria Theresa and her advisers focused on internal reform, her new state chancellor, Wenzel Anton, Graf (count) von Kaunitz (subsequently... Russia might have dispatched forces to assist Austria at once, but the most-direct route to the conflict lay across Poland, a country that was within the French sphere of influence and largely opposed to Russian designs. For the perfect achievement of an anti-Prussian coalition, it was most desirable, as Kaunitz saw, for Russia and France to come to terms. The Russians, however, saw the new development as an occasion for extracting concessions from France with regard not only to Poland but also to Sweden and Turkey. The French foreign ministry was ready to admit swift passage of Russian troops across Polish territory and thus relieve France of the obligation to help Austria. However, that came into conflict with le Secret du roi, a primary purpose of which was to exclude the Russians from Poland at any cost. In Great Britain the accession of William Pitt the Elder to office as virtual prime minister in November 1756 would have a decisive effect on the development of the war. 1757 After weeks of negotiation at cross-purposes, Mackenzie, having returned to St. Petersburg as France's official agent, obtained Russia's accession to the First Treaty of Versailles by secretly pledging that France would assist Russia in the event of an attack by Turkey (December 31, 1756 [January 11, 1757, New Style]). That contradiction of the long-standing Franco-Turkish entente was immediately disavowed by the French government. A personal letter from Louis XV to Elizabeth, the first of an important series, finally secured Russia's accession to the treaty without the objectionable appendix (April 19). An Austro-Russian offensive alliance against Prussia was concluded on February 2, 1757, with each party undertaking to put 80,000 men into the field and forswearing any separate peace, while secret articles provided for a partition of Prussia. On May 1, 1757, Austria and France signed the Second Treaty of Versailles, an offensive alliance against Prussia that additionally provided for significant territorial adjustments. Austria was to recover Silesia but would cede the Netherlands to Louis XV and his Spanish Bourbon cousin, Philip, duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. Philip's Italian possessions would then revert to Austria. Militarily, France was to maintain 105,000 men in Germany, in addition to the contingent to be supplied to Austria (which was raised from 24,000 to 30,000), and would grant an annual subsidy of 12 million livres to Austria. Shortly after the treaty was concluded, Bernis was named French foreign minister. By a large majority of votes in the Council of Princes of the Reich, Austria secured the declaration of a "war of the Empire" against Prussia. Though Hesse-Kassel, Brunswick, and, naturally, Hanover opposed it, some Protestant states supported Austria, despite Frederick's attempt to pose as the champion of Protestantism against an Austro-French Roman Catholic coalition. In April 1757 the Prussians again advanced into Bohemia. On May 6 the 66,000 Austrians under Browne and Charles, prince of Lorraine and Bar,were routed by Frederick's force of 64,000 at the Battle of Prague. An Austrian force under Leopold Joseph, Graf von Daun, arrived too late to affect the outcome of the battle, and the Austrians lost more than 14,000 men. Some 16,000 escaped to join Daun while the rest took refuge in Prague itself, which the Prussians, who had taken comparable losses, proceeded to besiege. A month later Daun, with more than 50,000 men, moved to relieve Prague, and Frederick met him with a force of 34,000. On June 18 the two groups met at the Battle of Kolín, and Daun won a great victory, inflicting 13,000 Prussian casualties while suffering just 8,000 of his own. Raising the siege of Prague, the Prussians evacuated Bohemia. Prussia, meanwhile, was exposed to attack from several directions. The French began their spring campaign by sending Louis-Charles-César le Tellier, comte d'Estrées, with 100,000 men against the so-called Army of Observation, a force of Hanoverians and their allies under the command of William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, a younger son of George II. Defeated at Hastenbeck on July 26, 1757, Cumberland withdrew to Stade, near the Elbe estuary, abandoning the defense of the electorate and Brunswick. French command then passed to Louis-François-Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, and on September 8 he forced Cumberland to sign the Convention of Klosterzeven, which stipulated the disbanding of the Army of Observation and the evacuation of Hanover. Richelieu then advanced on Prussia's western frontier while another French army, of 24,000, under Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise, was crossing Franconia to join Austria's German allies under Joseph Frederick William of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Furthermore, Sweden, having signed an alliance with France and Austria on March 21, invaded Prussian Pomerania in September with the intention of annexing it. A Russian army of 90,000 men, which had begun to cross Polish territory in May, at last entered East Prussia in August 1757. On August 30 Russian commander Stepan Apraksin inflicted a crushing defeat on the Prussians under Hans von Lehwaldt at Gross-Jägerndorf, west of Gumbinnen (now Gusev, Russia). In a puzzling move, Apraksin then began a retreat, pleading difficulties of supply. It seems that his conduct was caused, partly at least, by a consideration that was long to bedevil Russian affairs—the fact that the empress Elizabeth, who hated Prussia, was in notoriously uncertain health, while her heir, the future emperor Peter III, adored Frederick and opposed the anti-Prussian war. Any Russian general or statesman who did too much harm to Prussia was therefore risking the displeasure of his future master. Frederick, with Saxony as his main base, decided first to confront the danger from the west, leaving Frederick Francis of Brunswick-Bevern to face the Austrians in Silesia. To prevent Richelieu from joining forces with Soubise and Saxe-Hildburghausen, Frederick marched first toward Halberstadt, but Austrian successes in Silesia, where Brunswick-Bevern was defeated at Moys (near Görlitz) on September 7, made him turn eastward again. Meanwhile, Frederick's nephew Charles William Ferdinand of Brunswickremained to observe Saxe-Hildburghausen, and a daring Austrian raid on Berlin caused further diversion of Frederick's forces. Finally, hearing that Soubise and Saxe-Hildburghausen were in Thuringia, Frederick moved to engage them. The Battle of Rossbach followed on November 5, 1757. The combined strength of the French and the Army of the Reich was at least 41,000 against just 21,000 Prussians, but the aggressive Saxe-Hildburghausen and the more-cautious Soubise were at odds. When at last the battle was joined, the greatly superior mobility of the Prussians, with the brilliant cavalryleadership of Friedrich Wilhelm, Freiherr (baron) von Seydlitz won the day. In less than two hours' fighting, the Prussians inflicted 7,000 casualties on the allies while losing only 550 men. Encouraged by the news of Rossbach, the British government repudiatedCumberland's Convention of Klosterzeven. The British decided to reinforce the Hanoverians and to transfer the command in western Germany to Frederick's brother-in-law, Field Marshal Ferdinand of Brunswick. In September a British naval expedition against the French base of Rocheforthad been a failure. Seydlitz, Friedrich Wilhelm, Freiherr vonFriedrich Wilhelm, Freiherr (baron) von Seydlitz, detail from a portrait by an unknown artist; in the parish church of Oława, Poland.Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin In Silesia the Austrians took Schweidnitz (now Świdnica, Poland) on November 11 and Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) on November 22. Frederick then force-marched his army from Thuringia to support Brunswick-Bevern, and at the Battle of Leuthen (December 5, 1757), he won the greatest of his victories. With 43,000 men, he attacked the 72,000 under Charles of Lorraine and utterly routed them with an unexpected cavalry charge followed by an artillery bombardment. Frederick suffered 6,000 casualties, but Charles lost 22,000 men, including 12,000 who were taken prisoner. Shortly thereafter the Prussians reclaimed Breslau. In the course of the winter, Lehwaldt drove the Swedes back into their own part of Pomerania, where they were able to hold the Prussians outside Stralsund. Frederick's masterful handling of well-disciplined troops, combined with Apraksin's retreat, saved Prussia from a situation which, after Kolín, had appeared desperate.

Industrial Revolution

A series of improvements in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods. A period of rapid growth in the use of machines in manufacturing and production that began in the mid-1700s

Federalists & Anti-Federalists

Anti-Federalists wanted states' rights, bill of rights, unanimous consent, reference to religion, more power to less-rich and common people; Federalists wanted strong central government, more power to experienced, separation of church and state, stated that national government would protect individual rights

20th Century

Progressive Era Ford & Wright Brothers W.E.B. Duois Upton Sinclair World War 1 Central & Allied Powers Russian Revolution 19th Amendment The Roaring Twenties 1929: Black Tuesday 1929-41 Great Depression 1933-39 FDR & The New Deal FDIC SEC WPA Dust Bowl

Effects of the Great Awakening

The Great Awakening notably altered the religious climate in the American colonies. Ordinary people were encouraged to make a personal connection with God, instead of relying on a minister. Newer denominations, such as Methodists and Baptists, grew quickly. While the movement unified the colonies and boosted church growth, experts say it also caused division among those who supported it and those who rejected it. Many historians claim that the Great Awakening influenced the Revolutionary War by encouraging the notions of nationalism and individual rights. The revival also led to the establishment of several renowned educational institutions, including Princeton, Rutgers, Brown and Dartmouth universities. The Great Awakening unquestionably had a significant impact on Christianity. It reinvigorated religion in America at a time when it was steadily declining and introduced ideas that would penetrate into American culture for many years to come.

15th Amendment (1870)

U.S. cannot prevent a person from voting because of race, color, or creed Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

World War 1

first truly global conflict, sometimes called the Great War, which was fought between 1914 and 1918

textile

A fabric made by weaving, used in making clothing Great Britain had it's Industrial Revolution well before the United States did. This is because they did not want to let their industrial ideas leave the country. They made sure industrial technology did not leave the country either. This policy was upheld for many years. Other countries, especially the United States, did not industrialize because Britain contained its ideas. In the 1780s, American textile companies offered rewards to English mill workers to bring knowledge of textile mills to America. Samuel Slater was one of these Englishmen. Since it was illegal to export textile technology from Britain, Slater memorized the construction plans of a textile factory. Slater built the machinery for a textile mill from memory. His factory produced cotton of great quality. In the 1790s, Slater and his partners opened many other textile mills. He is considered the founder of the American textile industry because his bringing of English technology to the United States began the Industrial Revolution. Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin When Eli Whitney moved to Georgia in 1792, he saw slaves work relentlessly to separate cotton seeds from cotton fibers by hand. He wanted to invent a machine that would do the same task, but easily. In just a year, he invented the Cotton Gin. His cotton gin had teeth that pulled on the cotton fiber to separate the seeds. His cotton gin immediately became popular. A person could produce 50 times the amount of cotton previously produced, with the cotton gin. All southern plantations and farms demanded this new invention. These farms then supplied vast amounts of cotton to the textile mills in the Northeast. Eli Whitney's cotton gin increased cotton production from 4,000 bales in 1790 to 1,400,000 bales in 1840. The only negative effect the cotton gin had on the industrial revolution was that it increased slavery, which Whitney wanted to stop. Francis Cabot Lowell Samuel Slater had established factories in the 1790s after building textile machinery. Francis Cabot Lowell took it a step further. In 1810, Francis Cabot Lowell visited the textile mills in England. He took note of the machinery in England that was not available in the United States, and he sketched and memorized details. One machine in particular, the power loom, could weave thread into cloth. He took his ideas to the United States and formed the Boston Manufacturing Company in 1812. With the money he made from this company, he built a water-powered mill. Francis Cabot Lowell is credited for building the first factory where raw cotton could be made into cloth under one roof. This process, also known as the "Waltham-Lowell System" reduced the cost of cotton. By putting out cheaper cotton, Lowell's company quickly became successful. After Lowell brought the power loom to the United States, the new textile industry boomed. The majority of businesses in the United States by 1832 were in the textile industry. Lowell also found a specific workforce for his textile mills. He employed single girls, daughters of New England farm families, also known as The Lowell Girls. Many women were eager to work to show their independence. Lowell found this convenient because he could pay women less wages than he would have to pay men. Women also worked more efficiently than men did, and were more skilled when it came to cotton production. This way, he got his work done efficiently, with the best results, and it cost him less. The success of the Lowell mills symbolizes the success and technological advancement of the Industrial Revolution.

Post-Cold War US Policy

Post-Cold War era is the period after the end of the Cold War. Because the Cold War was not an active war but rather a period of geopolitical tensions punctuated by proxy wars, there is disagreement on the official ending of this conflict and subsequent existence of the post-Cold War era. Some scholars claim the Cold War ended when the world's first treaty on nuclear disarmament was signed in 1987, the end of the Soviet Union as a superpower amid the Revolutions of 1989or when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.[1] Despite this ambiguity, the end of the Cold War symbolized a victory of democracy and capitalism, giving a boost to the rising world powers of the United States and China. Democracy became a manner of collective self-validation for countries hoping to gain international respect: when democracy was seen as an important value, political structures began adopting the value[1]. The era has mostly been dominated by the rise of globalization (as well as nationalism and populism in reaction) enabled by the commercialization of the Internet and the growth of the mobile phone system. The ideology of postmodernism and cultural relativism has according to some scholars replaced modernism and notions of absolute progress and ideology.[2] The Post-Cold War era has enabled renewed attention to be paid to matters that were ignored during the Cold War. The Cold War has paved the way for nationalist movements and internationalism[1]. Following the nuclear crises of the Cold War, many nations found it necessary to discuss a new form of international order and internationalism, where countries cooperated with one another instead of using nuclear scare tactics. The period has seen the United States become by far the most powerful country in the world and the rise of China from a relatively weak developing country to a fledgling potential superpower. Reacting on the rise of China, the United States has strategically sought to "rebalance" the Asia-Pacific region. It has also seen the merger of most of Europe into one economy and a shift of power from the G7to the larger G20. Accompanying the NATO expansion, Ballistic Missile Defense(BMD) systems were installed in East Europe. These marked important steps in military globalization. The end of the Cold War intensified hopes for increasing international cooperation and strengthened international organizations focused on approaching global issues.[3] This has paved way for the establishment of international agreements such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and the Paris Climate Agreement. Environmentalismhas also become a mainstream concern in the post-Cold War era following the circulation of widely accepted evidence for human activity's effects on Earth's climate. The same heightened consciousness is true of terrorism, owing largely to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and their global fallout.

LBJ & Great Society

Programs of social and political reform that were successful in creating and implementing legislative programs. Helped drop the percent of impoverished Americans from 22% in 1959 to 12% in 1969. he Great Society was an ambitious series of policy initiatives, legislation and programs spearheaded by President Lyndon B. Johnson with the main goals of ending poverty, reducing crime, abolishing inequality and improving the environment. In May 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson laid out his agenda for a "Great Society" during a speech at the University of Michigan. With his eye on re-election that year, Johnson set in motion his Great Society, the largest social reform plan in modern history. Riding A Wave of Empathy On November 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as President of the United States after the killing of John F. Kennedy. The assassination of Kennedy left American citizens reeling. They felt empathy, even sympathy for Johnson as he became president under such difficult circumstances. Johnson took advantage of this support to push through key elements of Kennedy's legislative agenda—in particular, civil rights legislation and tax cuts. By the time he became President, Johnson wasn't a green politician nor a pushover. After serving stints in the U.S. House of Representative and the U.S. Senate—where he was the youngest Senate minority leader and then Senate majority leader—he'd earned a reputation as a powerful leader who knew how to get things done. He became Kennedy's running mate in 1960 and was sworn in as Vice President of the United States in January 1961. By the time Kennedy was killed, the public knew Johnson could get things done and was prepared to back him. War On Poverty In March 1964, Johnson introduced the Office of Economic Opportunity and the Economic Opportunity Act during a special message to Congress. He'd hoped to help the underprivileged break the poverty cycle by helping them develop job skills, further their education and find work. To do this, he created a Job Corps for 100,000 disadvantaged men. Half would work on conservation projects and the other half would receive education and skills training in special job training centers. In addition, Johnson tasked state and local governments with creating work training programs for up to 200,000 men and women. A national work study program was also established to offer 140,000 Americans the chance to go to college who could otherwise not afford it. Other initiatives the so-called War on Poverty offered were: a Community Action program for people to tackle poverty within their own communities the ability for the government to recruit and train skilled American volunteers to serve poverty-stricken communities loans and guarantees for employers who offered jobs to the unemployed funds for farmers to purchase land and establish agricultural co-ops help for unemployed parents preparing to enter the workforce Johnson knew battling poverty wouldn't be easy. Still, he said, "...this program will show the way to new opportunities for millions of our fellow citizens. It will provide a lever with which we can begin to open the door to our prosperity for those who have been kept outside." Many Great Society programs fell under the War on Poverty umbrella. Medicare and Medicaid By the time Johnson took office, mainly two groups of Americans were uninsured: the elderly and the poor. Despite Kennedy championing health care for the needy during his 1960 Presidential campaign and beyond, and public support for the cause, many Republicans and some southern Democrats in Congress shot down early Medicare and Medicaid legislation. After Johnson became President and Democrats took control of Congress in 1964, Medicare and Medicaid became law. Medicare covered hospital and physician costs for the elderly who qualified; Medicaid covered healthcare costs for people getting cash assistance from the government. Both programs served as safety nets for America's most vulnerable. Head Start and Education Reform To empower parents and make sure every child had a shot of success in life no matter their social or economic circumstances, Johnson, politician and activist Sargent Shriver, and a team of child development experts launched Project Head Start. The Head Start program started as an eight-week summer camp run by the Office of Economic Opportunity for 500,000 children ages three to five. Since the program's inception, it has served over 32 million vulnerable children in America. Education reform was also a key part of the Great Society. In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed. It guaranteed federal funding for education in school districts whose student majority was low-income. It also: funded preschool programs supported school libraries purchased school textbooks provided special education services Urban Renewal The mass exodus to suburbia after World War II left many major cities in poor condition. Affordable, dependable housing was hard to find, especially for the poor. The Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 provided federal funds to cities for urban renewal and development. For cities to receive the funds, they had to establish minimum housing standards. The law also provided easier access to home mortgages and a controversial rent-subsidy program for vulnerable Americans who qualified for public housing. Support for Arts and Humanities In September 1965, Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act. It declared "the arts and humanities belong to all the people of the United States" and that culture is a concern of the government, not just private citizens. The law also established the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts to study the humanities and fund and support cultural organizations such as museums, libraries, public television, public radio and public archives. Environmental Initiatives To help battle worsening water pollution, Johnson signed the Water Quality Act in 1965 to help set national water quality standards. Also signed in 1965, the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act formed the first vehicle emissions standards. Furthermore, Johnson's administration passed laws to protect wildlife and rivers and form a network of scenic trails among historic landmarks. On the consumer protection front, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Child Safety Act were created to develop consumer product safety rules to make sure products were safe for both children and adults. The Immigration and Naturalization Act was passed in October 1965. It ended immigration nationality quotas, although it focused on reuniting families and still placed limits on immigrants per country and total immigration. The Great Society Backlash and Vietnam Not every American citizen or politician was satisfied with the results of Johnson's Great Society agenda. And some resented what they saw as government handouts and felt the government should butt out of American's lives altogether. In 1968, President Richard M. Nixon set out to undo or revamp much of the Great Society's legislation. He and other Republicans still wanted to help the poor and the needy, but wanted to cut the red tape and reduce costs. Nixon wasn't completely successful, however, and the political infighting for social reform has been raging ever since. Despite Johnson's Great Society having a lasting impact on almost all future political and social agendas, his success was overshadowed by the Vietnam War. He was forced to divert funds from the War on Poverty to the War in Vietnam. And despite the enormous amount of legislation passed by his administration, Johnson is seldom remembered as a champion of the underprivileged and at-risk. Instead, he's arguably better known as the commander-in-chief who forced America into an unwinnable war that resulted in over 58,000 American military fatalities.

Treaty of Versailles

Treaty that ended WW I. It blamed Germany for WW I and handed down harsh punishment. Treaty of Versailles, peace document signed at the end of World War I by the Allied and associated powers and by Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, France, on June 28, 1919; it took force on January 10, 1920. "Big Four"The "Big Four" (left to right): David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States, the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles.National Archives, Washington, D.C. TOP QUESTIONS What was the Treaty of Versailles? Who were the key people involved in drafting the Treaty of Versailles? What were the main provisions of the Treaty of Versailles? What were the results of the Treaty of Versailles? A brief treatment of the Treaty of Versailles follows. For full treatment, see international relations: Peacemaking, 1919-22. When the German government asked U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson to arrange a general armistice in October 1918, it declared that it accepted the Fourteen Points he had formulated as the basis for a just peace. However, the Allies demanded "compensation by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea and from the air." Further, the nine points covering new territorial consignments were complicated by the secret treaties that England, France, and Italy had made with Greece, Romania, and each other during the last years of the war. Examine how Allied powers dismembered the Central Powers in World War I treaty but failed to prevent World War IIU.S. President Woodrow Wilson was among the statesmen who gathered in France in June 1919 to sign the Treaty of Versailles, an agreement that did little to heal the wounds of World War I and set the stage for World War II. From "The Second World War: Prelude to Conflict" (1963), a documentary by Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.See all videos for this article The treaty was drafted during the Paris Peace Conference in the spring of 1919, which was dominated by the national leaders known as the "Big Four"—David Lloyd George of Britain, Georges Clemenceau of France, Woodrow Wilson of the United States, and Vittorio Orlando of Italy. The first three in particular made the important decisions. None of the defeated nations had any say in shaping the treaty, and even the associated Allied powers played only a minor role. The German delegates were presented with a fait accompli. They were shocked at the severity of the terms and protested the contradictions between the assurances made when the armistice was negotiated and the actual treaty. Accepting the "war guilt" clause and the reparation terms was especially odious to them. The population and territory of Germany was reduced by about 10 percent by the treaty. In the west, Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France, and the Saarland was placed under the supervision of the League of Nationsuntil 1935. In the north, three small areas were given to Belgium, and, after a plebiscite in Schleswig, northern Schleswig was returned to Denmark. In the east, Poland was resurrected, given most of formerly German West Prussia and Poznań (Posen), given a "corridor"to the Baltic Sea (which separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany), and given part of Upper Silesia after a plebiscite. Gdańsk (Danzig) was declared a free city. All Germany's overseas colonies in China, in the Pacific, and in Africa were taken over by Britain, France, Japan, and other Allied nations (see mandate). The war guilt clause of the treaty deemed Germany the aggressor in the war and consequently made Germany responsible for making reparations to the Allied nations in payment for the losses and damage they had sustained in the war. It was impossible to compute the exact sum to be paid as reparationsfor the damage caused by the Germans, especially in France and Belgium, at the time the treaty was being drafted, but a commission that assessed the losses incurred by the civilian population set an amount of $33 billion in 1921. Although economists at the time declared that such a huge sum could never be collected without upsetting international finances, the Allies insisted that Germany be made to pay, and the treaty permitted them to take punitive actions if Germany fell behind in its payments.

(1730s) Great Awakening

(1730s) Led by Jonathan Edwards, a Yale minister who refused to convert to the Church of England, became concerned about SECULARISM. "God was such an angry judge, and humans were sinners!" -George Whitefield (Toured the colonies) The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. Christian leaders often traveled from town to town, preaching about the gospel, emphasizing salvation from sins and promoting enthusiasm for Christianity. The result was a renewed dedication toward religion. Many historians believe the Great Awakening had a lasting impact on various Christian denominations and American culture at large. First Great Awakening In the 1700s, a European philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, was making its way across the Atlantic Ocean to the American colonies. Enlightenment thinkers emphasized a scientific and logical view of the world, while downplaying religion. In many ways, religion was becoming more formal and less personal during this time, which led to lower church attendance. Christians were feeling complacent with their methods of worship, and some were disillusioned with how wealth and rationalism were dominating culture. Many began to crave a return to religious piety. Around this time, the 13 colonies were religiously divided. Most of New England belonged to congregational churches. The Middle colonies were made up of Quakers, Anglicans, Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, the Dutch Reformed and Congregational followers. Southern colonies were mostly members of the Anglican Church, but there were also many Baptists, Presbyterians and Quakers. The stage was set for a renewal of faith, and in the late 1720s, a revival began to take root as preachers altered their messages and reemphasized concepts of Calvinism. (Calvinism is a theology that was introduced by John Calvin in the 16th century that stressed the importance of scripture, faith, predestination and the grace of God.) Jonathan Edwards Most historians consider Jonathan Edwards, a Northampton Anglican minister, one of the chief fathers of the Great Awakening. Edwards' message centered on the idea that humans were sinners, God was an angry judge and individuals needed to ask for forgiveness. He also preached justification by faith alone. In 1741, Edwards gave an infamous and emotional sermon, entitled "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." News of the message spread quickly throughout the colonies. Edwards was known for his passion and energy. He generally preached in his home parish, unlike other revival preachers who traveled throughout the colonies. Edwards is credited for inspiring hundreds of conversions, which he documented in a book, "Narratives of Surprising Conversions." George Whitefield George Whitefield, a minister from Britain, had a significant impact during the Great Awakening. Whitefield toured the colonies up and down the Atlantic coast, preaching his message. In one year, Whitefield covered 5,000 miles in America and preached more than 350 times. His style was charismatic, theatrical and expressive. Whitefield would often shout the word of God and tremble during his sermons. People gathered by the thousands to hear him speak. Whitefield preached to common people, slaves and Native Americans. No one was out of reach. Even Benjamin Franklin, a religious skeptic, was captivated by Whitefield's sermons, and the two became friends. Whitefield's success convinced English colonists to join local churches and reenergized a once-waning Christian faith. Other Leaders Several other pastors and Christian leaders led the charge during the Great Awakening, including David Brainard, Samuel Davies, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Gilbert Tennent and others. Although these leaders' backgrounds differed, their messages served the same purpose: to awaken the Christian faith and return to a religion that was relevant to the people of the day.

Emancipation Proclamation

(AL) , Issued by abraham lincoln on september 22, 1862 it declared that all slaves in the confederate states would be free Proclamation issued by Lincoln, freeing all slaves in areas still at war with the Union.

Colonies & American Revolution

1586 Roanoke - Lost Colony 1607 Jamestown Colony 1620 Pilgrims 1629 Massachusetts Bay Colony 1636 Roger Williams & R.I. 1637 Anne Hutchinson 1675 King Phillip's War 1692 Salem Witch Trials 1730's Great Awakening 1754 7 Year War The 13 Colonies Road to Revolution Sugar Act Currency Act Stamp Act Quartering Act Boston Massacre Boston Tea Party Intolerable Acts First Continental Congress Declaration of Independence American Revolution Battles French Revolution

Abraham Lincoln 1860-1865

16th president of the United States; helped preserve the United States by leading the defeat of the secessionist Confederacy; an outspoken opponent of the expansion of slavery.

Progressive Era

1890 - 1920, Progressives tended to be women, middle class, and live in urban areas. Progressives sought to use government influence to solve societal problems. time at the turn of the 20th century in which groups sought to reform America economically, socially, and politically

70's Women's Suffrage Movement

1970 Kate Millett's book "Sexual Politics" was published. The first Women's Studies department began at San Diego State University, followed shortly by a Women's Studies program at Cornell. "Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From the Women's Liberation Movement" gathered many prominent feminists' essays into one volume. February: Members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) stood up in the U.S. Senate gallery to demand attention for the Equal Rights Amendment. March 18: Feminists staged a sit-in at the Ladies' Home Journal offices, demanding changes in the feminine mystique propaganda of women's magazines. August 26: The Women's Strike for Equality featured demonstrations in cities across the nation. The strike was held on the fiftieth anniversary of women's suffrage. 1971 The short-lived feminist art journal Women and Art began publication. NOW staged nationwide demonstrations against AT&T's discriminatory employment and pay practices. A NOW resolution recognized lesbian rights as a legitimate concern of feminism. November 22: Supreme Court case Reed v. Reed declared sex discrimination a violation of the 14th Amendment. 1972 Cindy Nemser and other feminist artists founded Feminist Art Journal, which lasted through 1977. January: Ms. magazine publishes its first issue. January - February: Feminist art students staged the provocative exhibit "Womanhouse" in an abandoned house in Los Angeles. March 22: The ERA passed the Senate and was sent to the states for ratification. March 22: Eisenstadt v. Baird overturned laws that restricted unmarried persons' access to contraception. November 14 and 21: The famous two-part "abortion episode" of "Maude" aired and drew protest letters. Some affiliate stations refused to air it. Abortion was legal in New York, where the sitcom took place. 1973 The International Feminist Planning Conference was held in Massachusetts. January 22: Roe v. Wade legalized first-trimester abortion and struck down many state restrictions on abortions in the United States. May 14: The Supreme Court ruled in Frontiero v. Richardson that denying military benefits for male spouses was illegal sex discrimination. November 8: Mary Daly's book "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation" was published. 1974 The Fair Housing Act of 1968 was amended to prohibit discrimination based on sex along with race, color, religion, and national origin. The Combahee River Collective began as a group of black feminists who wanted to clarify their place in the politics of feminism. Ntozake Shange wrote and developed her "choreopoem" play "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf." (September) NOW President Karen DeCrow and other women's group leaders met with President Gerald Ford in the White House. 1975 The United Nations declared 1975 International Women's Year and organized the first World Conference on Women, held in Mexico City. Susan Brownmiller's "Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape" was published. The Supreme Court ruled in Taylor v. Louisiana that it was unconstitutional to deny women jury service. 1976 Take Back the Night marches began, continuing annually in cities around the world. NOW established its Task Force on Battered Women. In Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, the Supreme Court struck down a requirement for written spousal consent before a woman could obtain an abortion. 1977 NOW began an economic boycott of states that had not yet ratified the ERA. Chrysalis: A Magazine of Women's Culturebegan publication. Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics began publication. (February) Women Employed held a protest to support legal secretary Iris Rivera, who was fired for not making coffee in her office. (November) The National Women's Conference was held in Houston. 1978 (February) NOW declared a state of emergency on the ERA, committing all available resources to the ratification of the amendment as the original 1979 ERA deadline fast approached. (March) President Jimmy Carter established the National Advisory Committee for Women. (June) The ERA deadline for ratification was extended from 1979 to 1982, but the amendment ultimately fell three states short of being added to the Constitution. 1979 The first Susan B. Anthony dollar coins were minted. Major organizations such as the AFL-CIO refused to hold their conferences in Miami and Las Vegas, in protest of Florida's and Nevada's failure to ratify the ERA. The Supreme Court ruled in Cannon v. The University of Chicago that individuals have the right under Title IX to bring private lawsuits to fight discrimination.

popular sovereignty

A belief that ultimate power resides in the people. majority rule consent of the givernemt is one. of our most cherished ideal

Erie Canal 1823

A canal between the New York cities of Albany and Buffalo, completed in 1825. The canal, considered a marvel of the modern world at the time, allowed western farmers to ship surplus crops to sell in the North and allowed northern manufacturers to ship finished goods to sell in the West. 1. The Erie Canal opened the Midwest to settlement. Prior to the construction of the Erie Canal, most of the United States population remained pinned between the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Appalachian Mountains to the west. By providing a direct water route to the Midwest, the canal triggered large-scale emigration to the sparsely populated frontiers of western New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois. 2. It sharpened the divide between the North and South over slavery. Before the opening of the Erie Canal, New Orleans had been the only port city with an all-water route to the interior of the United States, and the few settlers in the Midwest had arrived mostly from the South. "Southerners had been moving up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers into southern Ohio and southern Indiana, which did become sympathetic to slavery," according to Jack Kelly, author of the new book "Heaven's Ditch: God, Gold and Murder on the Erie Canal." The Erie Canal checked that trend as the new settlers from New England, New York and Europe brought their abolitionist views with them to the newly established Midwest states. "The New Englanders and Europeans beginning to stream across the canal were opposed to slavery, and it set up this confrontation," Kelly says. "Southerners became more hardened and Northerners more adamant." Kelly adds that the transformation of the Midwest into America's breadbasket by the new settlers also "reduced the dependence of the industrial North on the agriculturally dominant South." 3. The Erie Canal transformed New York City into America's commercial capital. Believing the Erie Canal to be a pork-barrel project that would only benefit upstate towns, many of New York City's political leaders tried to block its construction. Good thing for them that they failed. "The Erie Canal really made New York City," Kelly says. Prior to the canal's construction, ports such as New Orleans, Philadelphia and even Baltimore outranked New York. "The success of a port depends on how big a region it can draw from inland," Kelly says. "It gave New York City access to this huge area of the Midwest, and that was an enormous factor in establishing New York City as a premier port in the country." As the gateway to the Midwest, New York City became America's commercial capital and the primary port of entry for European immigrants. The city's population quadrupled between 1820 and 1850, and the financing of the canal's construction also allowed New York to surpass Philadelphia as the country's preeminent banking center. 4. It gave birth to the Mormon Church. The Erie Canal brought not only rapid change, but anxiety, to towns along its path. Kelly says that apprehension sparked an evangelical religious revival in the 1820s and 1830s along the canal route as well as the birth of religions such as Adventism and Mormonism. "Many people don't realize Mormonism started right on the Erie Canal since it's so associated with Utah," Kelly says. It was along the canal route in 1823 that Joseph Smith claimed to have been visited by a Christian angel named Moroni and where in 1830 he published the Book of Mormon and founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Like Smith himself, many of the religion's early followers were drawn from the underclass who missed out on the prosperity brought to some by the canal. The new waterway, though, proved to be a 19th-century "information superhighway" that aided the spread of the new religion. 1847 painting of the Erie Canal. (Credit: The New York Historical Society/Getty Images) 5. The Erie Canal helped to launch the consumer economy. In addition to providing an economic boost by allowing the transport of goods at one-tenth the previous cost in less than half the previous time, the Erie Canal led to a transformation of the American economy as a whole. "Manufactured goods had been pretty much unknown on the frontier until transportation costs became cheaper. Farmers could grow wheat in western New York, sell it and have cash to buy furniture and clothing shipped up the canal that they otherwise would have made at home," Kelly says. "That was the first inklings of the consumer economy." 6. It led to the advent of the presidential nominating convention. In 1826, Freemasons in Batavia, New York, were suspected in the kidnapping and likely murder of William Morgan, who had vowed to expose the order's secrets in a new book. The failure of any Freemasons to be brought to justice ignited such outrage along the canal route that it led to the creation of America's first "third party"—the Anti-Masonic Party. As the 1832 presidential election approached, the grassroots movement lacked the elected representatives in Congress and state legislatures that traditionally selected candidates, so it staged a nominating convention instead. The Whigs and Democrats quickly followed suit. "The other parties saw this as a great morale booster and publicity, so they staged their own conventions beginning in that same year," Kelly says. Although the Anti-Masonic Party quickly disappeared, it left behind a considerable political legacy. 7. The Erie Canal boosted the nascent tourism industry. The Erie Canal is purely a tourist attraction today, but it also attracted vacationers when it opened as well. Thousands of tourists, including Europeans such as Charles Dickens, flowed down the canal on excursions from New York City to Niagara Falls. Instead of staying at inns along the way, sightseers slept on packets boats pulled by mules through the night. "It was considered a real novelty to sleep while traveling," Kelly says. 8. It sparked a boom in canal construction. Within a decade of the opening of the Erie Canal, tolls paid by barges had paid back the construction debt. The Erie Canal's commercial success, coupled with the engineering knowledge gained in its building, led to the construction of other canals across the United States. None, however, could replicate the success of the New York waterway. "They became filled with political pork," Kelly says. "Plus, they were expensive to build and maintain and had to be closed in the winter, so the railroad eventually took on a lot of the transportation function of the canals."

U.S. Constitution (1787)

A document that embodies the fundamental laws and principles by which the United States is governed. The Bill of Rights were 10 amendments guaranteeing basic individual protections, such as freedom of speech and religion, that became part of the Constitution in 1791. To date, there are 27 constitutional amendments.

market economy

A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production and distribution are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. an economy that allocates resources through the decentralized decisions of many firms and households as they interact in markets for goods and services

entrepreneur

A person who organizes, manages, and takes on the risks of a business. Entrepreneurs occupy a central position in a market economy. For it's the entrepreneurs who serve as the spark plug in the economy's engine, activating and stimulating all economic activity. The economic success of nations worldwide is the result of encouraging and rewarding the entrepreneurial instinct.

democracy

A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them rule of the people

War of 1812

A war (1812-1814) between the United States and England which was trying to interfere with American trade with France.

The Revolutionary War

A war between the British and the colonists. The colonists wanted to be free of British rule. insurrection by American Patriots in the 13 colonies to British rule, resulting in American independence.

Western Expansion

America's desire of the western territories that were either not claimed or claimed by other countries 1803 Louisiana Purchase War of 1812 1823 Erie Canal 1830 Indian Removal Act 1838 Trail of Tears 1845 Potato Famines 1845 Texas Annexation 1846 Mexican American War 1848 The Gold Rush 1869 Transcontinental Railroad

1838 Trail of Tears

Cherokees forced to move to the West The Cherokee Indians were forced to leave their lands. They traveled from North Carolina and Georgia through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas-more than 800 miles (1,287 km)-to the Indian Territory. More than 4, 00 Cherokees died of cold, disease, and lack of food during the 116-day journey.

Road to Revolution

Colonists faced tax increases after the French and Indian War, colonists lacked direct representation in parliament, colonial leaders formed the Continental Congress to address abuses of the English Crown Sugar Act Currency Act Stamp Act Quartering Act Boston Massacre Boston Tea Party Intolerable Acts First Continental Congress The Road to RevolutionGreat Britain had ousted the other European countries from North America. The British were in control, North America was added to the British empire and American colonists were subject to British rule, British Laws and British Taxes. American Road to Revolution Following their victory over France in the French and Indian Wars the British were faced with clearing a massive War Debt. Great Britain set about clearing the debt by taking various actions in the British Colonies following the Peace Treaty of Paris 1763. Additional taxes were levied on the American colonists, there were objections and dissension - the actions of Great Britain were leading America down the Road to Revolution. Road to Revolution Begins Great Britain issued the Proclamation of 1763 that was designed to appease the Native Indians by halting the westward expansion by colonists whilst expanding the highly lucrative fur trade. The colonists in America believed that the British King had sided with the Native Americans, against the interests of the settlers. This is one of the first British actions that led the Americans to take the Road to Revolution and Independence from British rule. The Road to Revolution American soldiers The Road to Revolution & the Struggle for IndependenceThe Royal Proclamation of 1763 resulted in a massive border, or boundary, referred to as the Proclamation Line that ran west of the Appalachian Mountains and south of Hudson Bay to Florida. The colonial governors were ordered not to grant land or allow settlements to be made west of the Proclamation Line. Great Britain then increased the British army in North America in order to take possession of the new territory and build defences along the Proclamation Line. Then, adding insult to injury the British passed a law called the 1765 Quartering Actdemanding that British troops were to be given food and shelter at the expense of the American colonists. New taxes were then levied on the American colonists and British policies changed to the detriment of the colonists. There were objections and dissension but the actions and attitudes of Great Britain were leading America down the Road to Revolution and the struggle for Independence... Map British North America 1763 - 1775 The Road to Revolution & the Struggle for IndependenceThis overview describes many of these incidents that occurred on the Road to Revolution. Refer to Causes of the American Revolutionary War for a comprehensive article on this subject - we have detailed 38 separate causes of the War of Independence. The following chart details some of the major events that led the American colonists down the Road to Revolution. The Road to Revolution & Struggle for Independence The Road to Revolution Fact 1The British had gained victory in the French and Indian Wars which had lasted for 75 years, the final conflict was the French Indian War from 1754 to 1763. The Road to Revolution Fact 2The British incurred a massive war debt and raise revenue from the American colonies to help reduce the debts. The Road to Revolution Fact 3The British decided to keep, and increase the standing army in America, and meet the costs of this by taxing the colonists and making them pay for the food and lodgings of the hated Redcoats The Road to Revolution Fact 4The British reversed its policy of Salutary Neglectenabling them to tighten their control in America and enforce the Navigation Acts and other laws that existed and imposing new taxes on goods The Road to Revolution Fact 5Great Britain then imposed new taxes on goods. The 1689 English Bill of Rights had put into place a constitutional form of government in which the rights and liberties of the individual were protected under English law. The Americans argued that they were not afforded the same rights. The Road to Revolution Fact 6The most notorious of the new taxes was the Stamp Act of 1765 which imposed taxes on legal papers, newspapers and pamphlets. The Road to Revolution Fact 7The colonists reacted violently and refused to pay the Stamp tax, and the British Parliament repealed it the following year. Refer to the Reaction to the Stamp Act The Road to Revolution Fact 8Violent opposition and the Reaction to the Stamp Act resulted in the British repealing the act in 1766 The Road to Revolution Fact 9The American colonists denied the right of the British Parliament to tax them. Britain disagreed and determined to establish its right and authority over the American colonies passed the Townshend Acts that placed taxes on items imported by the colonists including glass, lead, paints, paper and tea The Road to Revolution Fact 10The American colonists refused to buy imported British goods, and Parliament repealed all the Townshend duties except the tax on tea... The Road to Revolution Fact 11The American colonists reaction to the Tea Act was to boycott British goods. They would not order tea from London but the the East India Company was still allowed to send it. Five towns to which the tea was sent the tea back or destroyed it. The Road to Revolution Fact 12In 1773 Massachusetts patriots called the Sons of Liberty, dressed as Mohawk Indians, protesting against the British Tea Act and destroyed the tea loaded on ships in Boston Harbor. This act of defiance became known as the Boston Tea Party The Road to Revolution Fact 13The British Parliament responded by attempting to punish Massachusetts by passing a series of laws which the American called the Intolerable Acts. The Road to Revolution Fact 14The actions by the British led to the calling and the meeting of the First Continental Congress. The Road to Revolution Fact 15All of the 13 American colonies became united by the establishment of the Committees of Correspondence that communicated the dangers of 'taxation without representation' to all Americans The Road to Revolution Fact 16In accordance with one of the Intolerable Acts, General Gage became governor of Massachusetts in 1774 The Road to Revolution Fact 17General Gage realized that the colonists were gathering stores and cannon. He attempted to destroy the stores, and this brought on the Battle of Lexington and the Battle of Concord, which opened the American War for Independence. The Road to Revolution Fact 18The Road to Revolution had reached its destination The Road to Revolution & Struggle for Independence Road to Revolution Interesting facts about the American Road to Revolution The American Road to Revolution history Fast Info about the Road to Revolution with a timeline The Road to Revolution is a great history timeline resource for kids Social Studies Homework help for kids detailing the American Road to Revolution

Robert E. Lee

Confederate general who had opposed secession but did not believe the Union should be held together by force Why is Robert E. Lee significant? Lee commanded the Army of Northern Virginia, the most successful of the Southern armies during the American Civil War, and ultimately commanded all the Confederate armies. As the idol of the defeated Confederacy, Leebecame an enduring symbol for people of the American South.

Monopolies

Corporations that gain complete control of the production of a single good or service. Rockefeller and standard oil JP. Morgan -powerful banker-helped with great depression carnage and steel-used Bessemer process to help him get steel company wrote gospel of wealth

FDIC

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: a federally sponsored corporation that insures accounts in national banks and other qualified institutions

1960 Greensboro sit-ins

Four African men ordered coffee and following store policy, the lunch counter staff refused to serve the African American men at the "Whites only" counter. The store manager asked them to leave, but they refused and sat there until served.

Alexander Graham Bell

Inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell, (born March 3, 1847, Edinburgh, Scotland—died August 2, 1922, Beinn Bhreagh, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada), Scottish-born American inventor, scientist, and teacher of the deaf whose foremost accomplishments were the invention of the telephone(1876) and the refinement of the phonograph (1886).

1675 King Phillip's War

King Philip's War. King Philip's War — also known as the First Indian War, the Great Narragansett War or Metacom's Rebellion — took place in southern New England from 1675 to 1676. It was the Native Americans' last-ditch effort to avoid recognizing English authority and stop English settlement on their native lands.Nov 13, 2019 Metacom led a war against English settlers in retaliation for their taking of Native American land.

gilded age

Late 1800s to Early 1900s - time of large increase in wealth caused by industrialization Alexander Bell Thomas Edison Monopolies Rise of Labor

Black Codes

Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves; passed by southern states following the Civil War Southern laws designed to restrict the rights of the newly freed black slaves The Black Codes, sometimes called Black Laws, were laws governing the conduct of African Americans (free blacks). The best known of them were passed in 1865 and 1866 by Southern states, after the American Civil War, in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and to compel them to work for low wages. However, Black Codes existed before the Civil War, and many Northern states had them. In 1832, "in most of the United States, there is a distinction in respect to political privileges, between free white persons and free coloured persons of African blood; and in no part of the country do the latter, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites, in the exercise of civil and political rights."[1] Black Codes were part of a larger pattern of whites trying to maintain political dominance and suppress the freedmen, newly emancipated African-American slaves. Black codes were essentially replacements for slave codes in those states. Before the war, Northern states that had prohibited slavery also enacted Black Codes: Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,[2] and New York enacted laws to discourage free blacks from residing in those states. They were denied equal political rights, including the right to vote, the right to attend public schools, and the right to equal treatment under the law. Some of the Northern states[which?] repealed such laws around the same time that the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished by constitutional amendment.

Causes of Texas Revolution

Mexico allowed anglos to run their own affairs in governemnt both sides feel they are better than one another -racism Mexicans and christians and speak Spanish -angols refuse to leran Mexico culture

1845 Texas Annexation

President James K. Polk added this former republic to the Union as our 28th state, knowing very well it would expand slave territory and would risk war with Mexico. Mexico and the United States would eventually go to war. In 1836, Texas declared its independence from Mexico. In 1845, the Texas Republic joined the U.S. as the 28th state.

1846: Mexican-American War

President Polk declared war on Mexico over the dispute of land in Texas. At the end, American ended up with 55% of Mexico's land. The Mexican-American War, waged between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848, helped to fulfill America's "manifest destiny" to expand its territory across the entire North American continent.

Reagan Administration

Probably his greatest accomplishment was to bring down the Soviet Union. He embarked the US on a massive military build-up, spending spree that the USSR simply could not keep up with. Coupled with his friendship with Premier Mikhail Gorbachev - the USSR broke into many individual countries. Advocated supply-side economics arguing that tax cuts reduced govnt. spending, would increase investment by the private sector, and lead to increased production, jobs and prosperity Elected in 1980, focused on denouncing "Big Government", decreasing taxes, increased military spending ased on supply-side economics, Reagan implemented his economic policies in 1981. The four pillars of the policies were to: Reduce marginal tax rates on income from labor and capital. Reduce regulation. Tighten the money supply to reduce inflation. Reduce the growth of government spending. By reducing or eliminating decades-long social programs, while at the same time lowering taxes and marginal tax rates, Reagan's approach to handling the economy marked a significant departure from that of many of his predecessor's Keynesian policies. Milton Friedman, the monetarist economist who was an intellectual architect of free-market policies, was a primary influence on Reagan.[4] When Reagan entered office, the country faced the highest rate of inflation since 1947 (average annual rate of 13.5% in 1980), and interest rates as high as 13% (the Fed funds rate in Dec. 1980). These were considered the nation's principal economic problems and were all considered components of "stagflation." Reagan sought to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts [5][6] The expansionary fiscal policies soon became known as "Reaganomics",[5] and were considered by some to be the most serious attempt to change the course of U.S. economic policy of any administration since the New Deal. His radical tax reforms, in combination with a curb on domestic social spending, harsh restraints applied by the Federal Reserve Board under Paul Volcker on the nation's money supply, and heavy government borrowing required to finance the budget and trade deficits, as well as military expenditures, produced significant economic expansion and reduced inflation. Inflation was reduced by more than ten percentage points, reaching a low of 1.9% annual average inflation in 1986.[7][8] One of the Reagan administration's strategies to reduce government spending was privatization of government functions, paying contractors to do work that government agencies had formerly done.[

W.E.B. Duois

Scholar and activist W.E.B. Du Bois became the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1895. He wrote extensively and was the best-known spokesperson for African American rights during the first half of the 20th century. Du Bois co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

SEC

Securities and Exchange Commission - established regulations to stock market

1965 Selma march

Selma March, also called Selma to Montgomery March, political march from Selma, Alabama, to the state's capital, Montgomery, that occurred March 21-25, 1965. Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the march was the culminating event of several tumultuousweeks during which demonstrators twice attempted to march but were stopped, once violently, by local police. As many as 25,000 people participated in the roughly 50-mile (80-km) march. Together, these events became a landmark in the American civil rights movement and directly led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Selma MarchArm in arm, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King (in light-coloured suit), leading the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, March 1965.Maurice Sorrell—Ebony Collection/AP Images Selma MarchSelma March.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny Chmielewski

Declaration of Independence

Signed in 1776 by US revolutionaries; it declared the United States as a free state. The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation's people asserting their right to choose their own government. When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775, the Americans were ostensibly fighting only for their rights as subjects of the British crown. By the following summer, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue. In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies' intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence—written largely by Jefferson—in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence. America Before the Declaration of Independence Even after the initial battles in the Revolutionary War broke out, few colonists desired complete independence from Great Britain, and those who did-like John Adams- were considered radical. Things changed over the course of the next year, however, as Britain attempted to crush the rebels with all the force of its great army. In his message to Parliament in October 1775, King George IIIrailed against the rebellious colonies and ordered the enlargement of the royal army and navy. News of his words reached America in January 1776, strengthening the radicals' cause and leading many conservatives to abandon their hopes of reconciliation. That same month, the recent British immigrant Thomas Paine published "Common Sense," in which he argued that independence was a "natural right" and the only possible course for the colonies; the pamphlet sold more than 150,000 copies in its first few weeks in publication. Did you know? Most Americans did not know Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence until the 1790s; before that, the document was seen as a collective effort by the entire Continental Congress. In March 1776, North Carolina's revolutionary convention became the first to vote in favor of independence; seven other colonies had followed suit by mid-May. On June 7, the Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee introduced a motion calling for the colonies' independence before the Continental Congress when it met at the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. Amid heated debate, Congress postponed the vote on Lee's resolution and called a recess for several weeks. Before departing, however, the delegates also appointed a five-man committee-including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklinof Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York-to draft a formal statement justifying the break with Great Britain. That document would become known as the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson Writes the Declaration of Independence Jefferson had earned a reputation as an eloquent voice for the patriotic cause after his 1774 publication of "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," and he was given the task of producing a draft of what would become the Declaration of Independence. As he wrote in 1823, the other members of the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught [sic]. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections....I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress."

Dred Scott Case 1857

Supreme Court case which ruled that slaves are not citizens but are property, affirmed that property cannot be interfered with by Congress, slaves do not become free if they travel to free territories or states, fueled abolitionist movement, hailed as victory for the south

1948 Chinese Civil War

The Chinese Civil war took place over a long period of time between 1927 and 1950. The war was interrupted when Japan invaded China in 1936 and by World War II. The war was fought between the nationalist government of China, also called the Kuomintang (KMT), and the Communist Party of China (CPC). Dates: 1927-1936, 1945 - 1950 Leaders The Kuomintang was founded by Sun Yat-sen. The group was led by Chiang Kai-shek throughout the civil war. Important generals included Bai Chongxi and Chen Cheng. The Communist Party of China, or CPC, was led by Mao Zedong. Other important leaders included second in command Zhou Enlai and generals Zhu De and Peng Dehuai. Chiang Kai-shek by Unknown Before the War After the Qing Dynasty collapsed in 1911 there was a vacuum of power in China. Two major parties formed, the nationalist Kuomintang Party and the Communist Party (CPC). Some areas of the country were controlled by warlords. The Kuomintang and the CPC united for a time. They wanted to unify China. They both received help from the Soviet Union. Although they were somewhat united, they continued to have an internal rivalry between the two major parties. The Civil War Begins In 1927 the rivalry became a war. Chiang Kai-shek of the Kuomintang decided to get rid of the CPC. The Kuomintang killed and arrested many of the CPC leaders in what is today called the Shanghai Massacre. Mao Zedong of the CPC led an uprising against the Kuomintang called the Autumn Harvest Uprising. The uprising failed, but the civil war had begun. Ten Years Civil War Advertisement | Report Ad Over the next ten years, from 1927 to 1936 the two sides fought. Mao Zedong led peasants and common people in uprisings against the Kuomintang. At the same time Chiang Kai-shek tried to put down the uprisings and eliminate Mao and the CPC Army. The Long March In 1934, Mao and the CPC army had to retreat from the Kuomintang. They went on a series of long marches that lasted an entire year, from October of 1934 to October of 1935. They traveled around 7,000 miles. They began the Long March at Jiangxi province in south China and finally stopped at the Shaanxi province of northern China. Out of around 80,000 soldiers that began the march, only 8,000 or so made it to the end. Long March Survivors by Unknown World War II When the Japanese invaded China in 1937, the CPC and the Kuomintang once again united in order to defend their homeland. This uneasy alliance continued throughout World War II, but the two sides still hated and mistrusted each other. The Civil War Renewed After the end of World War II in 1945, the two sides resumed their civil war. With American support, Chiang Kai-shek took control of China's major cities. However, the CPC was heavily funded by the Soviet Union and quickly gained support in the rural areas. The CPC launched an assault in Northern China where the Soviets had control. The Soviets helped them by letting them have the weapons left by the Japanese. For the first few years the United States tried to broker a peace between the two sides where the country would be split. However, neither side was willing to give in. The End of the Fighting By 1948 the CPC was gaining momentum. They continued to take nationalist cities and, with each victory, they were gaining support within the population of China. In October of 1949, the CPC captured Beijing. They declared victory and said that China was now under the rule of the People's Republic of China. The nationalists fled to the island of Taiwan where they established their own government called the Republic of China. Facts About the Chinese Civil War Even today both governments lay claim to being the legal government of China. In some ways the civil war is not over, but there hasn't been fighting for many years. It was the third largest war in the history of the world after World War I and World War II. It was during the Long March that Mao Zedong gained total control of the CPC as its primary leader. Mao Zedong was a follower of Marxism. His version of communism is often referred to as Maoism today.

1787 Great Compromise

The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman Compromise) was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States ... This compromise was between the large and small states of the colonies. The Great Compromise resolved that there would be representation by population in the House of Representatives, and equal representation would exist in the Senate. Each state, regardless of size, would have 2 senators. All tax bills and revenues would originate in the House. This compromise combined the needs of both large and small states and formed a fair and sensible resolution to their problems.

1950-53 Korean War

The Korean war began on June 25, 1950, when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea's behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself. After some early back-and-forth across the 38th parallel, the fighting stalled and casualties mounted with nothing to show for them. Meanwhile, American officials worked anxiously to fashion some sort of armistice with the North Koreans. The alternative, they feared, would be a wider war with Russia and China-or even, as some warned, World War III. Finally, in July 1953, the Korean War came to an end. In all, some 5 million soldiers and civilians lost their lives in what many in the U.S. refer to as "The Forgotten War" for the lack of attention it received compared to more well-known conflicts like World War I and II and the Vietnam War. The Korean peninsula is still divided today. North vs. South Korea "If the best minds in the world had set out to find us the worst possible location in the world to fight this damnable war," U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson (1893-1971) once said, "the unanimous choice would have been Korea." The peninsula had landed in America's lap almost by accident. Since the beginning of the 20th century, Korea had been a part of the Japanese empire, and after World War II it fell to the Americans and the Soviets to decide what should be done with their enemy's imperial possessions. In August 1945, two young aides at the State Department divided the Korean peninsula in half along the 38th parallel. The Russians occupied the area north of the line and the United States occupied the area to its south. Did you know? Unlike World War II and Vietnam, the Korean War did not get much media attention in the United States. The most famous representation of the war in popular culture is the television series "M*A*S*H," which was set in a field hospital in South Korea. The series ran from 1972 until 1983, and its final episode was the most-watched in television history. By the end of the decade, two new states had formed on the peninsula. In the south, the anti-communist dictator Syngman Rhee (1875-1965) enjoyed the reluctant support of the American government; in the north, the communist dictator Kim Il Sung (1912-1994) enjoyed the slightly more enthusiastic support of the Soviets. Neither dictator was content to remain on his side of the 38th parallel, however, and border skirmishes were common. Nearly 10,000 North and South Korean soldiers were killed in battle before the war even began. The Korean War and the Cold War Even so, the North Korean invasion came as an alarming surprise to American officials. As far as they were concerned, this was not simply a border dispute between two unstable dictatorships on the other side of the globe. Instead, many feared it was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world. For this reason, nonintervention was not considered an option by many top decision makers. (In fact, in April 1950, a National Security Council report known as NSC-68 had recommended that the United States use military force to "contain" communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring, "regardless of the intrinsic strategic or economic value of the lands in question.") "If we let Korea down," President Harry Truman (1884-1972) said, "the Soviet[s] will keep right on going and swallow up one [place] after another." The fight on the Korean peninsula was a symbol of the global struggle between east and west, good and evil, in the Cold War. As the North Korean army pushed into Seoul, the South Korean capital, the United States readied its troops for a war against communism itself. At first, the war was a defensive one to get the communists out of South Korea, and it went badly for the Allies. The North Korean army was well-disciplined, well-trained and well-equipped; Rhee's forces in the South Korean army, by contrast, were frightened, confused and seemed inclined to flee the battlefield at any provocation. Also, it was one of the hottest and driest summers on record, and desperately thirsty American soldiers were often forced to drink water from rice paddies that had been fertilized with human waste. As a result, dangerous intestinal diseases and other illnesses were a constant threat. By the end of the summer, President Truman and General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), the commander in charge of the Asian theater, had decided on a new set of war aims. Now, for the Allies, the Korean War was an offensive one: It was a war to "liberate" the North from the communists. Initially, this new strategy was a success. The Inch'on Landing, an amphibious assault at Inch'on, pushed the North Koreans out of Seoul and back to their side of the 38th parallel. But as American troops crossed the boundary and headed north toward the Yalu River, the border between North Korea and Communist China, the Chinese started to worry about protecting themselves from what they called "armed aggression against Chinese territory." Chinese leader Mao Zedong (1893-1976) sent troops to North Korea and warned the United States to keep away from the Yalu boundary unless it wanted full-scale war. "No Substitute for Victory" This was something that President Truman and his advisers decidedly did not want: They were sure that such a war would lead to Soviet aggression in Europe, the deployment of atomic weapons and millions of senseless deaths. To General MacArthur, however, anything short of this wider war represented "appeasement," an unacceptable knuckling under to the communists. As President Truman looked for a way to prevent war with the Chinese, MacArthur did all he could to provoke it. Finally, in March 1951, he sent a letter to Joseph Martin, a House Republican leader who shared MacArthur's support for declaring all-out war on China-and who could be counted upon to leak the letter to the press. "There is," MacArthur wrote, "no substitute for victory" against international communism. For Truman, this letter was the last straw. On April 11, the president fired the general for insubordination.

The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring Twenties was a decade of economic growth and widespread prosperity, driven by recovery from wartime devastation and deferred spending, a boom in construction, and the rapid growth of consumer goods such as automobiles and electricity in North America and Europe and a few other developed countries such as ... Was a time when many people defied Prohibition, indulged in new styles of dancing and dressing, and rejected many traditional moral standards. Nickname for the 1920s becasue of the booming economy and fast pace of life during that era

Reaganomics

The federal economic polices of the Reagan administration, elected in 1981. These policies combined a monetarist fiscal policy, supply-side tax cuts, and domestic budget cutting. Their goal was to reduce the size of the federal government and stimulate economic growth.

The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy

The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and tighten the money supply in order to reduce inflation.[2]

French Revolution

The revolution that began in 1789, overthrew the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons and the system of aristocratic privileges, and ended with Napoleon's overthrow of the Directory and seizure of power in 1799.

Scapegoating

The tendency for individuals, when frustrated or unhappy, to displace aggression onto groups that are disliked, visible, and relatively powerless tendency to direct prejudice and discrimination at out-group members who have little social power or influence

Union Civil war generals

Ulysses S. Grant General Ulysses S. Grant led the Union Army during the later years of the civil war, and with his victory at Appomattox Courthouse, effectively ended the civil war. Learn more about Ulysses S. Grant George Mcclellan General George McClellan led the Army Of the Potomac during the early years of the civil war. Learn more about George McClellan Robert Anderson Starting as a Major and ending as a Brigadier General, Robert Anderson is best known for surrendering Fort Sumter. Learn more about Robert Anderson Nathaniel Banks General Nathaniel Banks was a hapless leader of the Union Army, suffering one defeat after another. Learn more about Nathaniel Banks General William Tecumseh Sherman General William Tecumseh Sherman fought in many battles and his best known for taking Atlanta followed by his brutal by effective "march to the sea." Learn more about William Tecumseh Sherman George Custer General George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer who served in the civil war and Indian wars, meeting his end at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Read more about George Custer Winfield Scott Hancock General Winfield Scott Hancock was a US Army officer for his entire career and eventually a nominee for the office of President of the US in 1880. He served in the army for a total of four decades and is considered a war hero for his Gettysburg service. His nickname is "Hancock the Superb." He died at Governor's Island in 1886 because of complications from diabetes and an infected carbuncle. He was buried at the Montgomery Cemetery in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Read more about Winfield Scott Hancock Abner Doubleday Though there is a myth saying that Abner Doubleday was the inventor of baseball, he never said that he did. Doubleday was a big supporter of Abraham Lincoln. He died of a heart condition and was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Read more about Abner Doubleday Ambrose Burnside General Ambrose Burnside Ambrose, besides being a soldier, was an industrialist, railroad executive and an inventor, eventually becoming the governor of Rhode Island as well as US Senator. In 1881, Burnside died of a heart attack and was buried at Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island.. Read more about Ambrose Burnside Arthur Macarthur General Arthur Macarthur was one of five men to ever be promoted to a five star rank of the general army. Eventually, MacArthur became the governor general for the military for the Philippines in 1900. He died of a heart attack at the age of 67 and though he was originally laid to rest in Milwaukee, his remains were moved to the Arlington National Cemetery. Read more about Arthur Macarthur Benjamin Butler General Benjamin Butler was not only a soldier but also a lawyer and eventually a politician for the state of Massachusetts. He still ranks as one of the, if not the, most controversial political generals during the Civil War. Butler died in court at the capital, Washington DC. He is buried at his in-laws' cemetery in Lowell, Massachusetts. Read more about Benjamin Butler Daniel Sickles General Daniel Sickles was a Union general during the Civil War as well as a controversial politician. Sickles was injured during battle and his leg was amputated. Even then he did all he could to boost the morale of his soldiers. After the war, he served as a Minister to Spain and as the New York State Board of Civil Service Commissioners' President until 1889. He was sheriff of New York and eventually a representative for Congress. He died in New York City and was buried at the Arlington National Cemetery. Read more about Daniel Sickles George Meade General George Gordon Meade was a civil engineer and an army officer before serving as a Union general during the Civil War. He was successful in defeating General Lee but was criticized for not pursuing the Confederate Army when in his grasp. He became a commissioner of Fairmont Park in Philadelphia until his death. He died from a combination of pneumonia and old wounds and now rests at the Laurel Hill Cemetery. Read more about George Meade George Thomas General George Thomas served as an army officer throughout his career and a Union general at the time of the American Civil War. His career was an overall success even if he did not get the fame that other contemporaries did. Thomas died of a stroke while he was writing an answer to a critique of his military career. He was laid to rest at Oakwood Cemetery in upstate New York. Read more about George Thomas Irvin Mcdowell General Irvin Mcdowell was an army officer who is better known for the defeat at First Battle of Bull Run. McDowell had at his disposal the army of Northeastern Virginia which unfortunately was inexperienced and not ready. He launched his attack due to pressure from Washington and though the strategy was imaginative, his troops were not ready to carry it out. McDowell died in 1885 and was buried at the San Francisco National Cemetery. Read more about Irvin Mcdowell John Buford General John Buford was an officer of the Union Cavalry during the Civil War and one of his most important roles took place at Gettysburg. Buford is known for selecting the right field of battle during Gettysburg. He died at the age of 37 due to contracting typhoid. Even in his death bed he was thinking of military strategy as his last words were "Put guards on all the roads and don't let the men run to rear." Read more about John Buford John Pope General John Pope was a general for the Union during the Civil War and a career army officer. He is mostly known for the defeat at Second Battle of Bull Run in the east, after which he was sent to Minnesota. John Pope eventually became major general in the regular army and would die at the Ohio Soldiers' Home in Sandusky, Ohio. He was then buried at the Belle Fontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. Read more about John Pope John Reynolds General John Reynolds was an army officer and a general during the Civil War. He was a very respected senior commander and is known for committing the Army of the Potomac to Gettysburg. Reynolds was killed early in that same battle. He was buried in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1863. Read more about John Reynolds Joseph Hooker General Joseph Hooker was a major general for the Union during the Civil War and a career army officer. Hooker was known for his audacious battle strategies, one of which took place against Robert E. Lee. However, he lost that Battle at Chancellorsville. Hooker led the procession for the funeral of President Lincoln. He died while visiting Garden City in Long Island, New York and was laid to rest at the Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. Read more about Joseph Hooker Joshua Chamberlain General Joshua Chamberlain was a college professor and eventually a brigadier general and brevet major general for the Union army during the Civil War. He is known for having been given the command of Union troops for the surrender ceremony with Robert E. Lee. He served as the governor of his state of Maine. He died in 1914 in Portland, Maine and was buried at Pine Grove Cemetery in Brunswick. Read more about Joshua Chamberlain Philip Sheridan General Philip Sheridan was a Union general and an army officer throughout his career. He is known for his association with Ulysses S. Grant and for his fast assent to major general. He was also very instrumental to the development of Yellowstone National Park. He died of heart failure in Dartmouth, Massachusetts in 1888 and he was buried near Arlington House in the Arlington National Cemetery. Read more about Philip Sheridan Oliver Howard General Oliver Howard was a Union general in the Civil War and a career army officer. He suffered defeats at Gettysburg and Chancellorsville but at Western Theater his reputation went back up. Howard would base a lot of his policy decisions on his religion and that is why he was nicknamed "The Christian General." Howard died in Vermont and is buried at the Lake View Cemetery in Burlington. Read more about Oliver Howard William Starke Rosecrans General William Starke Rosecrans was not only a general for the Union during the Civil War, but also a coal and oil company executive, an inventor, a politician and a diplomat. His early military career was full of success, however, later suffered humiliating defeats. He was considered a possibility for a Vice Presidential run with Abraham Lincoln. He served as a congressman from California and eventually died in Redondo Beach, California. Read more about William Starke Rosecrans

Central & Allied Powers

World War One is a conflict between the Central Powers and the Allies. The Central Powers (red) consist of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Important allied powers (yellow) are Serbia, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and the United States.

1620 Pilgrims

landed off Cape Cod trying to get to Virginia; religious freedom; called Separatists because they wanted to separate, or break away, from the Church of England The people we know as Pilgrims have become so surrounded by legend that we are tempted to forget that they were real people. Against great odds, they made the famous 1620 voyage aboard the ship Mayflower and founded Plymouth Colony, but they were also ordinary English men and women. To understand them, it is important that we look beyond the legend. This story will help you get to know these people, now known as the Pilgrims, through their first years in New England. England was a Roman Catholic nation until 1534, when King Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1547) declared himself head of a new national church called the Church of England. Although he and his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603), changed some things that made the Church of England different from the Roman Catholic Church, a few people felt that the new Church retained too many practices of the Roman Church. They called for a return to a simpler faith and less structured forms of worship. In short, they wanted to return to worshipping in the way the early Christians had. Because these people wanted to purify the church, they came to be known as "Puritans." Another group, considered very radical, went even further. They thought the new Church of England was beyond reform. Called "Separatists," they demanded the formation of new, separate church congregations. This opinion was very dangerous; in England in the 1600s, it was illegal to be part of any church other than the Church of England. The Separatist church congregation that established Plymouth Colony in New England was originally centered around the town of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire, England. Members included the young William Bradford and William Brewster. Like others who refused to follow the Church of England's teachings, some of them were harassed, fined or even sent to jail. When they felt they could no longer suffer these difficulties in England, they chose to flee to the Dutch Netherlands. There, they could practice their own religion without fear of persecution from the English government or its church. The Pilgrims in Holland (the Netherlands) Although they had religious freedom, life in the Netherlands was not easy. The Separatists had to leave their homeland and friends to live in a foreign country without a clear idea of how they would support themselves. The congregation stayed briefly in Amsterdam and then moved to the city of Leiden. There they remained for the next 11 or 12 years. Most found work in the cloth trades, while others were carpenters, tailors and printers. Their lives required hard work. Even young children had to work. Some older children were tempted by the Dutch culture and left their families to become soldiers and sailors. Their parents feared that they would lose their identity as English people. To make matters worse, the congregation worried that another war might break out between the Dutch and Spanish. They decided to move again. The Move to America After careful thought, the congregation decided to leave Holland to establish a farming village in the northern part of the Virginia Colony. At that time, Virginia extended from Jamestown in the south to the mouth of the Hudson River in the north, so the Pilgrims planned to settle near present-day New York City. There they hoped to live under the English government, but they would worship in their own, separate church. Because their own money wasn't enough to establish their village, they entered into an agreement with financial investors. The company of investors would provide passage for the colonists and supply them with tools, clothing and other supplies. The colonists in turn would work for the company, sending natural resources such as fish, timber and furs back to England. All assets, including the land and the Pilgrims' houses, would belong to the company until the end of seven years when all of it would be divided among each of the investors and colonists. The colonists and investors had many disagreements, but eventually the Pilgrims were able to leave Europe for America. The entire congregation could not come to America together. Those who could settle their affairs in Leiden went first while the greater number, including their pastor John Robinson, remained behind. The congregation purchased a small ship, Speedwell, to transport them across the sea and to use for fishing and trading in America. At Southampton, a port in England, they were joined by a group of English colonists who had been gathered by the investors. Speedwell and Mayflower - a ship rented by the investors - departed for America together. After twice turning back to England because Speedwell leaked, they were forced to leave the ship. As a result, many families were divided when some passengers had to be turned back for lack of space. A month after first leaving England, on September 6, 1620, Mayflower set out alone with 102 passengers. For more information on the voyage of Mayflower and the Mayflower Compact, please visit Mayflower: The Journey, the People, the Ship and the Mayflower Compact. Arrival at Plymouth Mayflower arrived in New England on November 11, 1620 after a voyage of 66 days. Although the Pilgrims had originally intended to settle near the Hudson River in New York, dangerous shoals and poor winds forced the ship to seek shelter at Cape Cod. Because it was so late in the year and travel around Cape Cod was proving difficult, the passengers decided not to sail further and to remain in New England. It was here, in Cape Cod Bay, that most of the adult men on the ship signed the document that we know as the Mayflower Compact. It laid the foundation for the community's government. A party of the most able men began exploring the area to find a suitable place to settle. After several weeks, the exploring party arrived at what appeared to be an abandoned Wampanoag community. The plentiful water supply, good harbor, cleared fields, and location on a hill made the area a favorable place for settlement. Mayflower arrived in Plymouth Harbor on December 16, 1620 and the colonists began building their town. While houses were being built, the group continued to live on the ship. Many of the colonists fell ill. They were probably suffering from scurvy and pneumonia caused by a lack of shelter in the cold, wet weather. Although the Pilgrims were not starving, their sea-diet was very high in salt, which weakened their bodies on the long journey and during that first winter. As many as two or three people died each day during their first two months on land. Only 52 people survived the first year in Plymouth. When Mayflower left Plymouth on April 5, 1621, she was sailed back to England by only half of her crew. Building a Town & Relationships with Native People Although they occasionally caught glimpses of Native People, it wasn't until four months after their arrival that the colonists met and communicated with them. In March 1621, they made a treaty of mutual protection with the Pokanoket Wampanoag leader, Ousamequin (also known as Massasoit to the Pilgrims). The treaty had six points. Neither party would harm the other. If anything was stolen, it would be returned and the offending person returned to his own people for punishment. Both sides agreed to leave their weapons behind when meeting, and the two groups would serve as allies in times of war. Squanto, a Wampanoag man who had been taken captive by English sailors and lived for a time in London, came to live with the colonists and instructed them in growing Indian corn. In the fall of 1621, the colonists marked their first harvest with a three-day celebration. Massasoit and 90 of his men joined the English for feasting and entertainment. In the 1800s this famous celebration became the basis for the story of the First Thanksgiving. Over the next six years, more English colonists arrived and many of the people who had to stay behind in England or Holland when Mayflower left England were able to join their families. By 1627, Plymouth Colony was stable and comfortable. Harvests were good and families were growing. In 1627, about 160 people lived in Plymouth Colony.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

organized teritiroet between missile rivers provided path to territoty status and admission as a new state no slavery guaranteed natural rights- billl of rghts stablished township system Created the Northwest Territory (area north of the Ohio River and west of Pennsylvania), established conditions for self-government and statehood, included a Bill of Rights, and permanently prohibited slavery Federal order that divided the Northwest Territory into smaller territories and created a plan for how the territories could become states.

1896 Plessy v. Ferguson

ruled that segregation was allowed, as long as the facilities were "separate but equal" In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a Louisiana law passed in 1890 "providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races." The law, which required that all passenger railways provide separate cars for blacks and whites, stipulated that the cars be equal in facilities, banned whites from sitting in black cars and blacks in white cars (with exception to "nurses attending children of the other race"), and penalized passengers or railway employees for violating its terms. Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the case, was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black, and had the appearance of a white man. On June 7, 1892, he purchased a first-class ticket for a trip between New Orleans and Covington, La., and took possession of a vacant seat in a white-only car. Duly arrested and imprisoned, Plessy was brought to trial in a New Orleans court and convicted of violating the 1890 law. He then filed a petition against the judge in that trial, Hon. John H. Ferguson, at the Louisiana Supreme Court, arguing that the segregation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbids states from denying "to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," as well as the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery. The Court ruled that, while the object of the Fourteenth Amendment was to create "absolute equality of the two races before the law," such equality extended only so far as political and civil rights (e.g., voting and serving on juries), not "social rights" (e.g., sitting in a railway car one chooses). As Justice Henry Brown's opinion put it, "if one race be inferior to the other socially, the constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane." Furthermore, the Court held that the Thirteenth Amendment applied only to the imposition of slavery itself. The Court expressly rejected Plessy's arguments that the law stigmatized blacks "with a badge of inferiority," pointing out that both blacks and whites were given equal facilities under the law and were equally punished for violating the law. "We consider the underlying fallacy of [Plessy's] argument" contended the Court, "to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it." Justice John Marshall Harlan entered a powerful -- and lone -- dissent, noting that "in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." Until the mid-twentieth century, Plessy v. Ferguson gave a "constitutional nod" to racial segregation in public places, foreclosing legal challenges against increasingly-segregated institutions throughout the South. The railcars in Plessy notwithstanding, the black facilities in these institutions were decidedly inferior to white ones, creating a kind of racial caste society. However, in the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the "separate but equal" doctrine was abruptly overturned when a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that segregating children by race in public schools was "inherently unequal" and violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Brown provided a major catalyst for the civil rights movement (1955-68), which won social, not just political and civil, racial equality before the law. After four decades, Justice Harlan's dissent became the law of the land. Following Brown, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled racial segregation in public settings to be unconstitutional.

1848 Gold Rush

vital to the nations economic development and fulfillment of Manifest Destiny California California Gold Rush, rapid influx of fortune seekers in California that began after gold was found at Sutter's Mill in early 1848 and reached its peak in 1852. According to estimates, more than 300,000 people came to the territory during the Gold Rush. Sutter's Fort State Historic Park, Sacramento, California, U.S.Hans Hannau—Rapho/Photo Researchers Travel across the United States with gold miners to explore the dynamics of the California Gold RushFind out how the California Gold Rush started and how it quickly took hold of the whole country.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.See all videos for this article In 1848 John Sutter was having a water-powered sawmill built along the American River in Coloma, California, approximately 50 miles (80 km) east of present-day Sacramento. On January 24 his carpenter, James W. Marshall, found flakes of gold in a streambed. Sutter and Marshall agreed to become partners and tried to keep their find a secret. News of the discovery, however, soon spread, and they were besieged by thousands of fortune seekers. (With his property overrun and his goods and livestock stolen or destroyed, Sutter was bankrupt by 1852.) From the East, prospectors sailed around Cape Horn or risked disease hiking across the Isthmus of Panama. The hardiest took the 2,000-mile (3,220-km) overland route, on which cholera proved a far greater killer than the Native Americans. By August1848, 4,000 gold miners were in the area, and within a year about 80,000 "forty-niners" (as the fortune seekers of 1849 were called) had arrived at the California goldfields. By 1853 their numbers had grown to 250,000. Although it was estimated that some $2 billion in gold was extracted, few of the prospectors struck it rich. The work was hard, prices were high, and living conditions were primitive. John Augustus Sutter.Bettmann/Corbis California Gold Rush: Sutter's MillA replica of Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. During construction of the mill, gold was discovered, which triggered a gold rush.© Betty Sederquist/Fotolia Explore different panning methods employed by gold prospectors such as cradling and using a sluice boxSee what life was like for the men trying to strike it rich in a mining camp at the height of the California Gold Rush.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.See all videos for this article In what was a typical pattern, the Gold Rush slackened as the most-workable deposits were exhausted and organized capital and machinery replaced the efforts of individual miner-adventurers with more efficient and businesslike operations. Likewise, the lawless and violent mining camps gave way to permanent settlements with organized government and law enforcement. Those settlements that lacked other viable economic activities soon became ghost towns after the gold was exhausted. The California Gold Rush peaked in 1852, and by the end of the decade, it was over. California Gold RushThe gold-mining camp at Poverty Bar, California, 1859.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. The Gold Rush had a profound impact on California, dramatically changing its demographics. Before the discovery of gold, the territory's population was approximately 160,000, the vast majority of whom were Native Americans. By about 1855, more than 300,000 people had arrived. Most were Americans, though a number of settlers also came from China, Europe, and South America. The massive influx gave rise to numerous cities and towns, with San Francisco gaining particular prominence. The Gold Rush was credited with hastening statehood for California in 1850.

Boston Tea Party

A 1773 protest against British taxes in which Boston colonists disguised as Mohawks dumped valuable tea into Boston Harbor. Boston Tea Party, (December 16, 1773), incident in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown from ships into Boston Harbor by American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians. The Americans were protesting both a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company. Boston Tea PartyIllustration of the Boston Tea Party.© North Wind Picture Archives TOP QUESTIONS Did the Boston Tea Party happen during the American Revolution? How did the Boston Tea Party start? What did the Boston Tea Party lead to? The Townshend Acts passed by Parliament in 1767 and imposing duties on various products imported into the British colonies had raised such a storm of colonial protest and noncompliance that they were repealed in 1770, saving the duty on tea, which was retained by Parliament to demonstrate its presumed right to raise such colonial revenue without colonial approval. The merchants of Boston circumvented the act by continuing to receive tea smuggled in by Dutch traders. In 1773 Parliament passed a Tea Act designed to aid the financially troubled East India Company by granting it (1) a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies, (2) an exemption on the export tax, and (3) a "drawback" (refund) on duties owed on certain surplus quantities of tea in its possession. The tea sent to the colonies was to be carried only in East India Company ships and sold only through its own agents, bypassing the independent colonial shippers and merchants. The company thus could sell the tea at a less-than-usual price in either America or Britain; it could undersell anyone else. The perception of monopoly drove the normally conservative colonial merchants into an alliance with radicals led by Samuel Adams and his Sons of Liberty. The Boston Tea Party (1773) in Boston Harbor, as depicted in a Currier & Ives lithograph.MPI/Hulton Archive/Getty Images In such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, tea agents resigned or canceled orders, and merchants refused consignments. In Boston, however, the royal governor Thomas Hutchinsondetermined to uphold the law and maintained that three arriving ships, the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver, should be allowed to deposit their cargoes and that appropriate duties should be honoured. On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of about 60 men, encouraged by a large crowd of Bostonians, donned blankets and Indianheaddresses, marched to Griffin's wharf, boarded the ships, and dumped the tea chests, valued at £18,000, into the water. Broadside that encouraged the Boston Tea Party, 1773.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. In retaliation, Parliament passed the series of punitive measures known in the colonies as the Intolerable Acts, including the Boston Port Bill, which shut off the city's sea trade pending payment for the destroyed tea. The British government's efforts to single out Massachusetts for punishment served only to unite the colonies and impel the drift toward war.

Vietnam War 1957-1975

A prolonged war (1954-1975) between the communist armies of North Vietnam who were supported by the Chinese and the non-communist armies of South Vietnam who were supported by the United States. The Vietnam War started in the 1950s, according to most historians, though the conflict in Southeast Asia had its roots in the French colonial period of the 1800s. The United States, France, China, the Soviet Union, Cambodia, Laos and other countries would over time become involved in the lengthy war, which finally ended in 1975 when North and South Vietnam were reunited as one country. The following Vietnam War timeline is a guide to the complex political and military issues involved in a war that would ultimately claim millions of lives.

Dust Bowl

A nickname for the Great Plains regions hit by drought and dust storms in the early 1930s he Dust Bowl was a natural disaster that devastated the Midwest in the 1930s. It was the worst drought in North America in 1,000 years.1 Unsustainable farming practices worsened the drought's effect, killing the crops that kept the soil in place. When winds blew, they raised enormous clouds of dust. It deposited mounds of dirt on everything, even covering houses. Dust suffocated livestock and caused pneumonia in children. At its worst, the storm blew dust to Washington, D.C. The drought and dust destroyed a large part of U.S. agricultural production. The Dust Bowl made the Great Depression even worse. Timeline The Balance The Dust Bowl affected the entire Midwest.2 The Oklahoma panhandle was hit the worst. It also devastated the northern two-thirds of the Texas panhandle. It reached the northeastern part of New Mexico, most of southeastern Colorado, and the western third of Kansas. It covered 100 million acres in an area that was 500 miles by 300 miles. There were four waves of droughts, one right after another. They occurred in 1930-1931, 1934, 1936, and 1939-1940, but it felt like one long drought. The affected regions could not recover before the next one hit: 1930-1931: The first drought ravaged 23 states in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. It reached as far east as the mid-Atlantic region and hit eight Southern states. Deflation during the Depression drove cotton prices down from 16.79 cents per pound in 1929 to 5.66 cents per pound in 1931. The drought reduced cotton yields from six bales an acre to two bales an acre during the same period. It cost farmers more to plant cotton than they could get selling it. Between 30% and 50% of Arkansas crops failed. Farmers could not produce enough food to eat. President Herbert Hooverprovided no help. The Red Cross supplied $5 million to plant seeds. The only crop that would grow was turnips. As the drought continued, Congress appropriated $45 million for seed and $20 million for food rations. In 1932, there were 14 dust storms. In 1933, that increased to 48 storms. 1934: This was the hottest year on record until 2014.3 There were 29 consecutive days with temperatures higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Almost 80% of the country recorded bone-dry conditions. On April 15, 1934, the worst dust storm occurred. It was later named Black Sunday.4 Several weeks later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the Soil Conservation Act to help farmers learn how to plant in a more sustainable way. 1936: The drought returned with the hottest summer on record.5 In June, eight states—Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, and Tennessee—experienced temperatures of 110 degrees or higher. In July, the heatwave hit 12 more states—Iowa, Kansas with 121 degrees, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota with 121 degrees, Oklahoma with 120 degrees, Pennsylvania, South Dakota with 120 degrees, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. All of these states broke or tied their record temperatures. In August, Texas saw 120-degree record-breaking temperatures. It also was the deadliest heatwave in U.S. history, killing 1,693 people. Another 3,500 people drowned while trying to cool off. 1939-1940: Heat and drought returned. Louisiana experienced 115 consecutive days of 90-degree days between June 9 and Sept. 29, 1939. That was a record for the Southeast. 6 By 1941, rainfall levels had returned to near-normal levels. The rains helped to end the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.

19th Amendment

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1920) extended the right to vote to women in federal or state elections.

Propaganda

Ideas spread to influence public opinion for or against a cause. information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (perhaps lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or using loadedmessages to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information presented. The term propaganda has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most manipulative and jingoistic examples.

1959 -1969 NASA & Moon Walk

July 1969. It's a little over eight years since the flights of Gagarin and Shepard, followed quickly by President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon before the decade is out. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong working at an equipment storage area on the lunar module. This is one of the few photos that show Armstrong during the moonwalk. Click image to enlarge. Credits: NASA Smoke and flames signal the opening of a historic journey as the Saturn V clears the launch pad. Click image to enlarge. Credits: NASA Buzz Aldrin climbs down the Eagle's ladder to the surface. Click image to enlarge. Credits: NASA Crater 308 stands out in sharp relief in this photo from lunar orbit. Click image to enlarge. Credits: NASA It is only seven months since NASA's made a bold decision to send Apollo 8 all the way to the moon on the first manned flight of the massive Saturn V rocket.Now, on the morning of July 16, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins sit atop another Saturn V at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The three-stage 363-foot rocket will use its 7.5 million pounds of thrust to propel them into space and into history.At 9:32 a.m. EDT, the engines fire and Apollo 11 clears the tower. About 12 minutes later, the crew is in Earth orbit. (› Play Audio)After one and a half orbits, Apollo 11 gets a "go" for what mission controllers call "Translunar Injection" - in other words, it's time to head for the moon. Three days later the crew is in lunar orbit. A day after that, Armstrong and Aldrin climb into the lunar module Eagle and begin the descent, while Collins orbits in the command module Columbia. Collins later writes that Eagle is "the weirdest looking contraption I have ever seen in the sky," but it will prove its worth.When it comes time to set Eagle down in the Sea of Tranquility, Armstrong improvises, manually piloting the ship past an area littered with boulders. During the final seconds of descent, Eagle's computer is sounding alarms.It turns out to be a simple case of the computer trying to do too many things at once, but as Aldrin will later point out, "unfortunately it came up when we did not want to be trying to solve these particular problems."When the lunar module lands at 4:17 p.m EDT, only 30 seconds of fuel remain. Armstrong radios "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Mission control erupts in celebration as the tension breaks, and a controller tells the crew "You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, we're breathing again." (› Play Audio)Armstrong will later confirm that landing was his biggest concern, saying "the unknowns were rampant," and "there were just a thousand things to worry about."At 10:56 p.m. EDT Armstrong is ready to plant the first human foot on another world. With more than half a billion people watching on television, he climbs down the ladder and proclaims: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." (› Play Audio)Aldrin joins him shortly, and offers a simple but powerful description of the lunar surface: "magnificent desolation." They explore the surface for two and a half hours, collecting samples and taking photographs.They leave behind an American flag, a patch honoring the fallen Apollo 1 crew, and a plaque on one of Eagle's legs. It reads, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."Armstrong and Aldrin blast off and dock with Collins in Columbia. Collins later says that "for the first time," he "really felt that we were going to carry this thing off."The crew splashes down off Hawaii on July 24. Kennedy's challenge has been met. Men from Earth have walked on the moon and returned safely home.In an interview years later, Armstrong praises the "hundreds of thousands" of people behind the project. "Every guy that's setting up the tests, cranking the torque wrench, and so on, is saying, man or woman, 'If anything goes wrong here, it's not going to be my fault.'" (› Read 2001 Interview, 172 Kb PDF)In a post-flight press conference, Armstrong calls the flight "a beginning of a new age," while Collins talks about future journeys to Mars.Over the next three and a half years, 10 astronauts will follow in their footsteps. Gene Cernan, commander of the last Apollo mission leaves the lunar surface with these words: "We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace, and hope for all mankind."

1963 "I have a dream" speech

Martin Luther King Jr. ended the March on Washington rally. He spoke against racial segregation and fought for civil rights with words, not violence. In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure. At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

1954 Red Scare & McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the term describing a period of intense anti-Communist suspicion in the United States that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the mid to late 1950s. ... The period of McCarthyism is also referred to as the Second Red Scare. practice of making accusations of disloyalty, especially of pro communist activity in many instances unsupported bye proof or based on slight, doubtful or irrelevant evidence during this era, thousands of Americans were accused of being a communist sympathizers and were forced to undergo investigations and questioning before government or private- industry panel hundreds were imprisoned and lost job

Pearl Harbor 1941

Military base on Hawaii that was bombed by Japan bringing the United States into WW II United States military base on Hawaii that was bombed by Japan, bringing the United States into World War II. Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.

1933-39 FDR & The New Deal

President Roosevelt signed in this program to help with the problems that stemmed from the Great Depression. The goals were 1) Provide relief for the needy 2)help the economy recover 3) create financial reform New Deal, domestic program of the administration of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1939, which took action to bring about immediate economic relief as well as reforms in industry, agriculture, finance, waterpower, labour, and housing, vastly increasing the scope of the federal government's activities. The term was taken from Roosevelt's speech accepting the Democratic nomination for the presidency on July 2, 1932. Reacting to the ineffectiveness of the administration of Pres. Herbert Hoover in meeting the ravages of the Great Depression, American voters the following November overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Democratic promise of a "new deal" for the "forgotten man." Opposed to the traditional American political philosophy of laissez-faire, the New Deal generally embraced the concept of a government-regulated economy aimed at achieving a balance between conflicting economic interests. TOP QUESTIONS What was the purpose of the New Deal? What were the New Deal programs and what did they do? What were the most important results of the New Deal? What New Deal programs remain in effect? Much of the New Deal legislation was enacted within the first three months of Roosevelt's presidency, which became known as the Hundred Days. The new administration's first objective was to alleviate the suffering of the nation's huge number of unemployed workers. Such agencies as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were established to dispense emergency and short-term governmental aid and to provide temporary jobs, employment on construction projects, and youth work in the national forests. Before 1935 the New Deal focused on revitalizing the country's stricken business and agricultural communities. To revive industrial activity, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was granted authority to help shape industrial codes governing trade practices, wages, hours, child labour, and collective bargaining. The New Deal also tried to regulate the nation's financial hierarchy in order to avoid a repetition of the stock market crash of 1929 and the massive bank failures that followed. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) granted government insurance for bank deposits in member banks of the Federal Reserve System, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was formed to protect the investing public from fraudulent stock-market practices. The farm program was centred in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration(AAA), which attempted to raise prices by controlling the production of staple crops through cash subsidies to farmers. In addition, the arm of the federal government reached into the area of electric power, establishing in 1933 the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which was to cover a seven-state area and supply cheap electricity, prevent floods, improve navigation, and produce nitrates. Civilian Conservation CorpsNew members of the Civilian Conservation Corps waiting to be fitted for shoes at Camp Dix, New Jersey, 1935.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. In 1935 the New Deal emphasis shifted to measures designed to assist labour and other urban groups. The Wagner Act of 1935 greatly increased the authority of the federal government in industrial relations and strengthened the organizing power of labour unions, establishing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to execute this program. To aid the "forgotten" homeowner, legislation was passed to refinance shaky mortgages and guarantee bank loans for both modernization and mortgage payments. Perhaps the most far-reaching programs of the entire New Deal were the Social Security measures enacted in 1935 and 1939, providing old-age and widows' benefits, unemployment compensation, and disability insurance. Maximum work hours and minimum wages were also set in certain industries in 1938. Certain New Deal laws were declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that neither the commerce nor the taxing provisions of the Constitution granted the federal government authority to regulate industry or to undertake social and economic reform. Roosevelt, confident of the legality of all the measures, proposed early in 1937 a reorganization of the Court. This proposal met with vehement opposition and ultimate defeat, but the Court meanwhile ruled in favour of the remaining contested legislation. Despite resistance from business and other segments of the community to "socialistic" tendencies of the New Deal, many of its reforms gradually achieved national acceptance. Roosevelt's domestic programs were largely followed in the Fair Deal of Pres. Harry S. Truman (1945-53), and both major U.S. parties came to accept most New Deal reforms as a permanent part of the national life.

First Continental Congress

September 1774, delegates from twelve colonies sent representatives to Philadelphia to discuss a response to the Intolerable Acts The first Continental Congress met in Carpenter's Hallin Philadelphia, from September 5, to October 26, 1774. Carpenter's Hall was also the seat of the Pennsylvania Congress. All of the colonies except Georgia sent delegates. These were elected by the people, by the colonial legislatures, or by the committees of correspondence of the respective colonies. The colonies presented there were united in a determination to show a combined authority to Great Britain, but their aims were not uniform at all. Pennsylvania and New York sent delegates with firm instructions to seek a resolution with England. The other colonies voices were defensive of colonial rights, but pretty evenly divided between those who sought legislative parity, and the more radical members who were prepared for separation. Virginia's delegation was made up of a most even mix of these and not incidentally, presented the most eminent group of men in America. Colo. George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, Colo. Benjamin Harrison, Richard Bland, and at the head of them Peyton Randolph — who would immediately be elected president of the convention. The objectives of the body were not entirely clear but, with such leadership as was found there, a core set of tasks was carried out. It was agreeable to all that the King and Parliament must be made to understand the grievances of the colonies and that the body must do everything possible to communicate the same to the population of America, and to the rest of the world. The first few weeks were consumed in discussion and debate. The colonies had always, up to this time, acted as independent entities. There was much distrust to overcome. The first matter to be considered by all was A Plan of Union of Great Britain and the Colonies, offered by Joseph Galloway of Pennsylvania. The plan was considered very attractive to most of the members, as it proposed a popularly elected Grand Council which would represent the interests of the colonies as a whole, and would be a continental equivalent to the English Parliament. Poised against this would be a President General, appointed by the crown, to represent the authority of the king in America. Conflict in Boston overcame the effort at conciliation. The arrival of the Suffolk County (Boston) resolves just prior to the vote on the Plan of Union, caused it to be discarded by a narrow margin. On October 14, the Declaration and Resolves established the course of the congress, as a statement of principles common to all of the colonies. Congress voted to meet again the following year if these grievances were not attended to by England. Several days later, on the 20th, came The Association, which was patterned after the Virginia Association and others that followed. This was a pact for nonimportation of English goods, to establish mechanisms throughout the colonies to enforce and regulate the resistance to Great Britain, and to keep the channels of communication open. It was to become effective on December 1, 1774 unless parliament should rescind the Intolerable Acts.

Salem Witch Trials

Several accusations of witchcraft led to sensational trials in Salem, Massachusetts at which Cotton Mather presided as the chief judge. 18 people were hanged as witches. Afterwards, most of the people involved admitted that the trials and executions had been a terrible mistake. 1629 outbreak of witchcraft accusations in a puritan village marked by an atmosphere of fear, hysteria and stress The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem's Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months. By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials. Though the Massachusetts General Court later annulled guilty verdicts against accused witches and granted indemnities to their families, bitterness lingered in the community, and the painful legacy of the Salem witch trials would endure for centuries. Context & Origins of the Salem Witch Trials Belief in the supernatural-and specifically in the devil's practice of giving certain humans (witches) the power to harm others in return for their loyalty-had emerged in Europe as early as the 14th century, and was widespread in colonial New England. In addition, the harsh realities of life in the rural Puritan community of Salem Village (present-day Danvers, Massachusetts) at the time included the after-effects of a British war with France in the American colonies in 1689, a recent smallpox epidemic, fears of attacks from neighboring Native American tribes and a longstanding rivalry with the more affluent community of Salem Town (present-day Salem). Amid these simmering tensions, the Salem witch trials would be fueled by residents' suspicions of and resentment toward their neighbors, as well as their fear of outsiders. Did you know? In an effort to explain by scientific means the strange afflictions suffered by those "bewitched" Salem residents in 1692, a study published in Science magazine in 1976 cited the fungus ergot (found in rye, wheat and other cereals), which toxicologists say can cause symptoms such as delusions, vomiting and muscle spasms. In January 1692, 9-year-old Elizabeth (Betty) Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams (the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, minister of Salem Village) began having fits, including violent contortions and uncontrollable outbursts of screaming. After a local doctor, William Griggs, diagnosed bewitchment, other young girls in the community began to exhibit similar symptoms, including Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Elizabeth Hubbard, Mary Walcott and Mary Warren. In late February, arrest warrants were issued for the Parris' Caribbean slave, Tituba, along with two other women-the homeless beggar Sarah Good and the poor, elderly Sarah Osborn-whom the girls accused of bewitching them. Salem Witch Trials: The Hysteria Spreads The three accused witches were brought before the magistrates Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne and questioned, even as their accusers appeared in the courtroom in a grand display of spasms, contortions, screaming and writhing. Though Good and Osborn denied their guilt, Tituba confessed. Likely seeking to save herself from certain conviction by acting as an informer, she claimed there were other witches acting alongside her in service of the devil against the Puritans. As hysteria spread through the community and beyond into the rest of Massachusetts, a number of others were accused, including Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse-both regarded as upstanding members of church and community-and the four-year-old daughter of Sarah Good. Like Tituba, several accused "witches" confessed and named still others, and the trials soon began to overwhelm the local justice system. In May 1692, the newly appointed governor of Massachusetts, William Phips, ordered the establishment of a special Court of Oyer (to hear) and Terminer (to decide) on witchcraft cases for Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties. Presided over by judges including Hathorne, Samuel Sewall and William Stoughton, the court handed down its first conviction, against Bridget Bishop, on June 2; she was hanged eight days later on what would become known as Gallows Hill in Salem Town. Five more people were hanged that July; five in August and eight more in September. In addition, seven other accused witches died in jail, while the elderly Giles Corey (Martha's husband) was pressed to death by stones after he refused to enter a plea at his arraignment. READ MORE: 5 Notable Women Hanged in the Salem Witch Trials Salem Witch Trials: Conclusion and Legacy Though the respected minister Cotton Mather had warned of the dubious value of spectral evidence (or testimony about dreams and visions), his concerns went largely unheeded during the Salem witch trials. Increase Mather, president of Harvard College (and Cotton's father) later joined his son in urging that the standards of evidence for witchcraft must be equal to those for any other crime, concluding that "It would better that ten suspected witches may escape than one innocent person be condemned." Amid waning public support for the trials, Governor Phips dissolved the Court of Oyer and Terminer in October and mandated that its successor disregard spectral evidence. Trials continued with dwindling intensity until early 1693, and by that May Phips had pardoned and released all those in prison on witchcraft charges. In January 1697, the Massachusetts General Court declared a day of fasting for the tragedy of the Salem witch trials; the court later deemed the trials unlawful, and the leading justice Samuel Sewall publicly apologized for his role in the process. The damage to the community lingered, however, even after Massachusetts Colony passed legislation restoring the good names of the condemned and providing financial restitution to their heirs in 1711. Indeed, the vivid and painful legacy of the Salem witch trials endured well into the 20th century, when Arthur Miller dramatized the events of 1692 in his play "The Crucible" (1953), using them as an allegory for the anti-Communist "witch hunts" led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

Lowell Mills

Textile mills located in a *factory town* in Massachusetts; employed mostly women between the ages of 16 and 35 known as *Lowell Mill Girls*. *Historical Significance:* Workers actively participated in early labor reform by circulating legislative petitions, forming labor organizations, contributing essays and articles to a pro-labor newspaper, and participating in "turn-outs" or strikes.

Start of the Gulf Wars

The timeline of the Gulf War details the dates of the major events of the 1990-1991 war. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 and ended with the Liberation of Kuwait by Coalition forces. Iraq subsequently agreed to the United Nations' demands on 28 February 1991. The war officially concluded with the signing of the armistice on 11 April 1991. Major events in the aftermath include anti-Saddam Hussein uprisings in Iraq, massacres against the Kurds by the regime, Iraq formally recognizing the sovereignty of Kuwait in 1994, and eventually ending its cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission in 1998.

Stamp Act

an act passed by the British parliment in 1756 that raised revenue from the American colonies by a duty in the form of a stamp required on all newspapers and legal or commercial documents 1765; law that taxed printed goods, including: playing cards, documents, newspapers, etc. The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt from the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source. Arguing that only their own representative assemblies could tax them, the colonists insisted that the act was unconstitutional, and they resorted to mob violence to intimidate stamp collectors into resigning. Parliament passed the Stamp Act on March 22, 1765 and repealed it in 1766, but issued a Declaratory Act at the same time to reaffirm its authority to pass any colonial legislation it saw fit. The issues of taxation and representation raised by the Stamp Act strained relations with the colonies to the point that, 10 years later, the colonists rose in armed rebellion against the British. Why The Stamp Act Was Passed British Parliament passed the Stamp Act to help replenish their finances after the costly Seven Years' War with France. Part of the revenue from the Stamp Act would be used to maintain several regiments of British soldiers in North America to maintain peace between Native Americans and the colonists. Moreover, since colonial juries had proven notoriously reluctant to find smugglers guilty of their crimes, violators of the Stamp Act could be tried and convicted without juries in the vice-admiralty courts. Raising Revenue The Seven Years' War (1756-63) ended the long rivalry between France and Britain for control of North America, leaving Britain in possession of Canada and France without a footing on the continent. Victory in the war, however, had saddled the British Empire with a tremendous debt. Since the war benefited the American colonists (who had suffered 80 years of intermittent warfare with their French neighbors) as much as anyone else in the British Empire, the British government decided that those colonists should shoulder part of the war's cost. Britain had long regulated colonial trade through a system of restrictions and duties on imports and exports. In the first half of the 18th century, however, British enforcement of this system had been lax. Starting with the Sugar Act of 1764, which imposed new duties on sugar and other goods, the British government began to tighten its reins on the colonies. Shortly thereafter, George Grenville (1712-70), the British first lord of the treasury and prime minister, proposed the Stamp Act; Parliament passed the act without debate in 1765. Stamp Act opponent Patrick Henry is known for his "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech, delivered before a meeting of Virginia's colonial leaders in 1775 in an effort to mobilize a militia against a possible attack by the British. He later served as Virginia's governor (1776-79, 1784-86). Instead of levying a duty on trade goods, the Stamp Act imposed a direct tax on the colonists. Specifically, the act required that, starting in the fall of 1765, legal documents and printed materials must bear a tax stamp provided by commissioned distributors who would collect the tax in exchange for the stamp. The law applied to wills, deeds, newspapers, pamphlets and even playing cards and dice. The Roots of Colonial Resistance Coming in the midst of economic hardship in the colonies, the Stamp Act aroused vehement resistance. Although most colonists continued to accept Parliament's authority to regulate their trade, they insisted that only their representative assemblies could levy direct, internal taxes, such as the one imposed by the Stamp Act. They rejected the British government's argument that all British subjects enjoyed virtual representation in Parliament, even if they could not vote for members of Parliament. The colonists also took exception with the provision denying offenders trials by jury. A vocal minority hinted at dark designs behind the Stamp Act. These radical voices warned that the tax was part of a gradual plot to deprive the colonists of their freedoms and to enslave them beneath a tyrannical regime. Playing off traditional fears of peacetime armies, they wondered aloud why Parliament saw fit to garrison troops in North America only after the threat from the French had been removed. These concerns provided an ideological basis that intensified colonial resistance. Colonists React to the Stamp Act An angry mob protest against the Stamp Act by carrying a banner reading 'The Folly of England, the Ruin of America' through the streets of New York. MPI/Getty Images Parliament pushed forward with the Stamp Act in spite of the colonists' objections. Colonial resistance to the act mounted slowly at first, but gained momentum as the planned date of its implementation drew near. In Virginia, Patrick Henry (1736-99), whose fiery orations against British tyranny would soon make him famous, submitted a series of resolutions to his colony's assembly, the House of Burgesses. These resolutions denied Parliament's right to tax the colonies and called on the colonists to resist the Stamp Act. Newspapers throughout the colonies reprinted the resolutions, spreading their radical message to a broad audience. The resolutions provided the tenor for the proclamations of the Stamp Act Congress, an extralegal convention composed of delegates from nine colonies that met in October 1765. The Stamp Act Congress wrote petitions to the king affirming both their loyalty and the conviction that only the colonial assemblies had the constitutional authority to tax the colonists. While the Congress and the colonial assemblies passed resolutions and issued petitions against the Stamp Act, the colonists took matters into their own hands. The most famous popular resistance took place in Boston, where opponents of the Stamp Act, calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, enlisted the rabble of Boston in opposition to the new law. This mob paraded through the streets with an effigy of Andrew Oliver, Boston's stamp distributor, which they hanged from the Liberty Tree and beheaded before ransacking Oliver's home. Oliver agreed to resign his commission as stamp distributor. Similar events transpired in other colonial towns, as crowds mobbed the stamp distributors and threatened their physical well-being and their property. By the beginning of 1766, most of the stamp distributors had resigned their commissions, many of them under duress. Mobs in seaport towns turned away ships carrying the stamp papers from England without allowing them to discharge their cargoes. Determined colonial resistance made it impossible for the British government to bring the Stamp Act into effect. In 1766, Parliament repealed it. The Stamp Act's Legacy The end of the Stamp Act did not end Parliament's conviction that it had the authority to impose taxes on the colonists. The British government coupled the repeal of the Stamp Act with the Declaratory Act, a reaffirmation of its power to pass any laws over the colonists that it saw fit. However, the colonists held firm to their view that Parliament could not tax them. The issues raised by the Stamp Act festered for 10 years before giving rise to the Revolutionary War and, ultimately, American independence.

1869 Transcontinental Railroad

connects the coasts of the United States; greatest transportation achievement 1860s- central pacific goes east, Union Pacific goes west -meets in utah 5 continental railroads a ton of employees killed and injuried

scapegoating in holocaust

germans used jews as scapegoats for all of their countries because they had different beliefs than everyone else in europe mass explosion or killing of meambers go an unwantedethnicor religious group in society

1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution

started US combat in Vietnam US congress passed the tinker gulf resolution gave president Johnson to take whatever action he deems necessary it was used to defend Southeast Asia including the use of armed forces president Johnson signed the Tonkin gulf resolution into the law on august 10

Sugar Act

(1764) British deeply in debt partl to French & Indian War. English Parliament placed a tariff on sugar, coffee, wines, and molasses. colonists avoided the tax by smuggling and by bribing tax collectors. On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed a modified version of the Sugar and Molasses Act (1733), which was about to expire. Under the Molasses Act colonial merchants had been required to pay a tax of six pence per gallon on the importation of foreign molasses. But because of corruption, they mostly evaded the taxes and undercut the intention of the tax — that the English product would be cheaper than that from the French West Indies. This hurt the British West Indies market in molasses and sugar and the market for rum, which the colonies had been producing in quantity with the cheaper French molasses. The First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Grenville was trying to bring the colonies in line with regard to payment of taxes. He had beefed up the Navy presence and instructed them to become more active in customs enforcement. Parliament decided it would be wise to make a few adjustments to the trade regulations. The Sugar Act reduced the rate of tax on molasses from six pence to three pence per gallon, while Grenville took measures that the duty be strictly enforced. The act also listed more foreign goods to be taxed including sugar, certain wines, coffee, pimiento, cambric and printed calico, and further, regulated the export of lumber and iron. The enforced tax on molasses caused the almost immediate decline in the rum industry in the colonies. The combined effect of the new duties was to sharply reduce the trade with Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands, and the French West Indies (Guadelupe, Martinique and Santo Domingo (now Haiti)), all important destination ports for lumber, flour, cheese, and assorted farm products. The situation disrupted the colonial economy by reducing the markets to which the colonies could sell, and the amount of currency available to them for the purchase of British manufactured goods. This act, and the Currency Act, set the stage for the revolt at the imposition of the Stamp Act.

1955 Emmett Till

14 year old Till was from Chicago. He visited his uncle Mose Wright in Mississippi. He broke a custom and said bye baby to a white woman. Till was black and he didn't understand. He was murdered. Mamie Till (his mother) insisted on an open casket funeral "so the world would see what they did to my boy" (Mamie Till, Eyes on the Prize). Mose Wright testified in front of an all white jury. His courage made no difference and the men were found innocent. Till's murder was a spark for the Civil Rights Movement. Till's murder symbolized for many African Americans the inherent racism and disparity of justice they continued to face in the aftermath of World War II. Because of the media and particularly the coverage by the African American press, the murder gained national and international attention that prompted public discourse on segregation, racial violence, and social, political, and economic equality.

Cold War & US Policies 1946-80s

1946 Iron Curtain 1946 The Truman Doctrine 1948 Chinese Civil War 1950-53 Korean War 1954 Red Scare & McCarthyism 1954 Domino Theory 1957-1975 Vietnam War 1960-1963 JFK 1962 Cuba Missile Crisis LBJ & Great Society 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution 1959 -1969 NASA & Moon Walk

1946 The Truman Doctrine

1947: truman declared that US foreign policy would be to "support. free peoples who are resisting. tempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures" Truman essentially declared war on the spread of communismm, lunching a "Cold War" that would last into the 1990s after Truman's speech, congress approved $400 million in economic aid to Greece and turkey

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 - The Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson, declared that racially segregated facilities are inherently unequal and ordered all public schools desegregated Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, case in which on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9-0) that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the states from denying equal protection of the laws to any person within their jurisdictions. The decision declared that separate educational facilities for white and African American students were inherently unequal. It thus rejected as inapplicable to public education the "separate but equal" doctrine, advanced by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), according to which laws mandating separate public facilities for whites and African Americans do not violate the equal-protection clause if the facilities are approximately equal. Although the 1954 decision strictly applied only to public schools, it implied that segregation was not permissible in other public facilities. Considered one of the most important rulings in the court's history, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka helped to inspire the American civil rights movement of the late 1950s and 1960s.

Checks and Balances

A system that allows each branch of government to limit the powers of the other branches in order to prevent abuse of power Checks and Balances. ... With checks and balances, each of the three branches of government can limit the powers of the others. This way, no one branch becomes too powerful. Each branch "checks" the power of the other branches to make sure that the power is balanced between them.Aug 6, 2018

Sharecropping

A system used on southern farms after the Civil War in which farmers worked land owned by someone else in return for a small portion of the crops. Sharecropping is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. This encouraged tenants to work to produce the biggest harvest that they could, and ensured they would remain tied to the land and unlikely to leave for other opportunities. In the South, after the Civil War, many black families rented land from white owners and raised cash crops such as cotton, tobacco, and rice. In many cases, the landlords or nearby merchants would lease equipment to the renters, and offer seed, fertilizer, food, and other items on credit until the harvest season. At that time, the tenant and landlord or merchant would settle up, figuring out who owed whom and how much

scapegoating Armenians

Armenians iin Turkey were deported and one and a half million were killed by turks they were a christian minority in the country Armenians were blamed. because of the. decline of the Ottoman Empire

14th Amendment (1868)

Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the maleinhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state. Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

1791 Bill of Rights

First 10 Amendments to the Constitution guarantee individual liberties guaranteed the right to practice religion from government interference as well as freedom from an established state church. During the debates on the adoption of the Constitution, its opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would open the way to tyranny by the central government. Fresh in their minds was the memory of the British violation of civil rights before and during the Revolution. They demanded a "bill of rights" that would spell out the immunities of individual citizens. Several state conventions in their formal ratification of the Constitution asked for such amendments; others ratified the Constitution with the understanding that the amendments would be offered. On September 25, 1789, the First Congress of the United States therefore proposed to the state legislatures 12 amendments to the Constitution that met arguments most frequently advanced against it. Articles 3 to 12, ratified December 15, 1791, by three-fourths of the state legislatures, constitute the first 10 amendments of the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. Article 2 concerning "varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives" was finally ratified on May 7, 1992 as the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. The first amendment, which concerned the number of constituents for each Representative, was never ratified.

Jamestown Colony 1607

First successful English colony in the New World First permanent English Colony in North America 1607 John smith-went to help save Jamestown he gained support from local native Americans they were taught how to grow crops that could sustain swampy soil tabacoo- became Jamestown's big cash crop --At Jamestown Settlement, beans and squash are later planted around the emerging corn stalks, a Powhatan practice also adopted by English colonists. Tobacco, Virginia's premier cash crop during the colonial period, is grown at both museums, with seedlings planted in mid-spring. africans were shipped to Virginian to become slaves -Atlantic slavered

Secrete Police

From the beginning of their regime, the Bolsheviks relied on a strong secret, or political, police to buttress their rule. The first secret police, called the Cheka, was established in December 1917 as a temporary institution to be abolished once Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power. The original Cheka, headed by Feliks Dzerzhinskii, was empowered only to investigate "counterrevolutionary" crimes. But it soon acquired powers of summary justice and began a campaign of terror against the propertied classes and enemies of Bolshevism. Although many Bolsheviks viewed the Cheka with repugnance and spoke out against its excesses, its continued existence was seen as crucial to the survival of the new regime. Once the Civil War (1918-21) ended and the threat of domestic and foreign opposition had receded, the Cheka was disbanded. Its functions were transferred in 1922 to the State Political Directorate, or GPU, which was initially less powerful than its predecessor. Repression against the population lessened. But under party leader Joseph Stalin, the secret police again acquired vast punitive powers and in 1934 was renamed the People's Comissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD. No longer subject to party control or restricted by law, the NKVD became a direct instrument of Stalin for use against the party and the country during the Great Terror of the 1930s. Lavrenti Beria Joseph Stalin and Lavrenti Beria, a Soviet political leader and official in the secret police during the Stalin era of leadership, enjoying a rest at a dacha (a Russian country cottage). After Stalin's death in 1953 the loyal Beria was purged from the Communist Party and power and later executed. (The young girl in Beria's lap is Stalin's daughter Svetlana; the man at right, rear, is unidentified.) The secret police remained the most powerful and feared Soviet institution throughout the Stalinist period. Although the post-Stalin secret police, the KGB, no longer inflicted such large-scale purges, terror, and forced depopulation on the peoples of the Soviet Union, it continued to be used by the Kremlin leadership to suppress political and religious dissent. The head of the KGB was a key figure in resisting the democratization of the late 1980s and in organizing the attempted putsch of August 1991.

Basic Themes of the Great Awakening

The Great Awakening brought various philosophies, ideas and doctrines to the forefront of Christian faith. Some of the major themes included: All people are born sinners Sin without salvation will send a person to hell All people can be saved if they confess their sins to God, seek forgiveness and accept God's grace All people can have a direct and emotional connection with God Religion shouldn't be formal and institutionalized, but rather casual and personal

1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Montgomery Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama was a crucial event in the 20th Century Civil Rights Movement. On the evening of December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks, a Montgomery seamstress on her way home from work, refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white man and was subsequently arrested. The President of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), E.D. Nixon, used the arrest to launch a bus boycott to fight the city's segregated bus policy. Together with Jo Ann Robinson of the Women's Political Council, and other black leaders, Nixon set plans for the boycott. The idea of the boycott had been floating around for months. Both Nixon and Robinson were waiting for a test cast to challenge the segregated bus policy in Court. They knew that they would have large support from black women who made up a majority of the bus users. The only thing missing was a good test candidate and respectable, middle-class Rosa Parks seemed perfect for the role. On Friday December 2, Robinson created a flyer which she distributed to black families around Montgomery. The flyer told of the arrest of Parks and mentioned that 75% of the bus riders were blacks and if there was a boycott of the bus system then the city would be forced to pay attention to these customers. It then called for a boycott of the buses on Monday December 5th. Robinson arranged a meeting with Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the ministers of two of the largest black churches in the city. While they hesitated at first, they ultimately agreed to participate and held a meeting at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, King's church, to plan the boycott. A new organization, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), was created to lead the boycott and Rev. King was appointed its president. It was also decided that the boycott should continue until the buses were no longer segregated. In order to get people around town during the boycott, the churches bought or rented cars and station wagons to transport people. Meanwhile boycott supporters challenged the legality of bus segregation in court. Their case, Browder v. Gayle, was eventually heard by the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled on November 13, 1956, in favor of the plaintiffs. The boycott ended on December 20, 1956, 381 days after it had begun. The buses in Montgomery were now integrated.

How did the United States respond to pearl harbor

The United States responded rapidly to the attack. Many Americans were outraged and wanted revenge. Therefore, on the day after the attack, President Roosevelt talked to Congress, and addressed December 7 as a "date which will live in infamy". Congress immediately declared war on Japan, and President Roosevelt signed it later the same day.American citizens began to loose faith in the Japanese race, including Japanese Americans. This loss of faith ca, the United States government searched Japanese homes and confiscated "suspicious" items. However, the government seized ridiculous items, such as radios or flashlights, without any evidence. Japanese discrimination escalated into the signing of United States Executive Order 9066, by President Roosevelt. This order required Japanese Americans to report to internment camps.

Atomic Bomb 1945

The atomic bomb was successfully built in 1944 and was employed in bombing the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bomb unleashed terrible fury on the two cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people through the incinerating heat and radiation poisoning. There was also debate on whether such a potent and powerful weapon should have been unleashed before proper tests were conducted on the long-term effects. Powerful weapon dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 14, Japan surrendered. Journalist George Weller was the "first into Nagasaki" and described the mysterious "atomic illness" (the onset of radiation sickness) that was killing patients who outwardly appeared to have escaped the bomb's impact. Controversial at the time and for years later, Weller's articles were not allowed to be released until 2006.

Extreme nationalism

The belief by a group of people that their country is better than any other country Whereas cosmopolitan conservativesoften supported international cooperation and admired elite culture in other countries, fascists espoused extreme nationalism and cultural parochialism. Fascist ideologues taught that national identity was the foundation of individual identity and should not be corrupted by foreign influences, especially if they were left-wing. Nazism condemned Marxist and liberal internationalisms as threats to German national unity. Fascists in general wanted to replace internationalist class solidarity with nationalist class collaboration. The Italian, French, and Spanish notion of integral nationalism was hostile to individualism and political pluralism. Unlike democratic conservatives, fascists accused their political opponents of being less "patriotic" than they, sometimes even labeling them "traitors." Portuguese fascists spoke of "internal foreigners" who were "antination." In the 1930s some French fascist organizations even rejected the label "fascist," lest they be perceived as beholden to Germany.

The 13 Colonies

The colonies that composed the original United States in 1776: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia.

1954 Domino Theory

The domino theory was a Cold War policy that suggested a communist government in one nation would quickly lead to communist takeovers in neighboring states, each falling like a perfectly aligned row of dominos. In Southeast Asia, the U.S. government used the now-discredited domino theory to justify its involvement in the Vietnam War and its support for a non-communist dictator in South Vietnam. In fact, the American failure to prevent a communist victory in Vietnam had much less of an impact than had been assumed by proponents of the domino theory. With the exception of Laos and Cambodia, communism failed to spread throughout Southeast Asia.

rust belt

The manufacturing region in the United States that is currently debilitated because many manufacturing firms have relocated to countries offering cheaper labor and relaxed environmental regulations. The term "Rust Belt" refers to what once served as the hub of American Industry. Located in the Great Lakes region, the Rust Belt covers much of the American Midwest (map). Also known as the "Industrial Heartland of North America", the Great Lakes and nearby Appalachia were utilized for transportation and natural resources. This combination enabled the thriving coal and steel industries. Today, the landscape is characterized by the presence of old factory towns and post-industrial skylines. At the root of this 19th-century industrial explosion is an abundance of natural resources. The mid-Atlantic region is endowed with coal and iron ore reserves. Coal and iron ore are used to produce steel, and corresponding industries were able to grow through the availability of these commodities. Midwestern America has the water and transportation resources necessary for production and shipment. Factories and plants for coal, steel, automobiles, automotive parts, and weapons dominated the industrial landscape of the Rust Belt. Between 1890 and 1930, migrants from Europe and the American South came to the region in search of work. During the World War II era, the economy was fueled by a robust manufacturing sector and a high demand for steel. By the 1960s and 1970s, increased globalization and competition from overseas factories caused the dissolution of this industrial center. The designation "Rust Belt" originated at this time because of the deterioration of the industrial region. States primarily associated with the Rust Belt include Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. Bordering lands include parts of Wisconsin, New York, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Ontario, Canada. Some major industrial cities of the Rust Belt include Chicago, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit.

how dust bowl Affected the Economy

The massive dust storms caused farmers to lose their livelihoods and their homes. Deflation from the Depression aggravated the plight of Dust Bowl farmers. Prices for the crops they could grow fell below subsistence levels. In 1932, the federal government sent aid to the drought-affected states. In 1933, farmers slaughtered 6 million pigs to reduce supply and boost prices. The public protested the waste of food. In response, the federal government created the Surplus Relief Corporation. That made sure excess farm output went to feed the poor. After that, Congress appropriated the first funds earmarked for drought relief. By 1934, farmers had sold 10% of all their farms.2 Half of those sales were caused by depression and drought. By 1937, more than one out of five farmers were on federal emergency relief. Families migrated to California or cities to find work that had disappeared by the time they got there. Many were left homeless. Others lived in shantytowns called "Hoovervilles" named after then-President Herbert Hoover. By 1936, 21% of all rural families in the Great Plains received federal emergency relief. In some counties, it was as high as 90%. In 1937, the Works Progress Administration reported that drought was the main reason for relief in the Dust Bowl region. More than two-thirds were farmers. Total assistance was estimated at $1 billion in 1930s dollars.2 The Dust Bowl worsened the effects of the Great Depression.

1964 Civil Rights Act

This act prohibited Discrimination because of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin by employers or labor unions Civil Rights Act, (1964), comprehensive U.S. legislation intended to end discrimination based on race, colour, religion, or national origin. It is often called the most important U.S. lawon civil rights since Reconstruction(1865-77) and is a hallmark of the American civil rights movement. Title I of the act guarantees equal voting rightsby removing registration requirements and procedures biased against minorities and the underprivileged. Title II prohibits segregation or discrimination in places of public accommodation involved in interstate commerce. Title VII bans discrimination by trade unions, schools, or employers involved in interstate commerce or doing business with the federal government. The latter section also applies to discrimination on the basis of sex and established a government agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), to enforce these provisions. The act also calls for the desegregation of public schools (Title IV), broadens the duties of the Civil Rights Commission (Title V), and assures nondiscrimination in the distribution of funds under federally assisted programs (Title VI).

Loyalists vs. patriots

What are patriots? The colonists living in the British North American colonies who rebelled against the authority of the crown were known as patriots, revolutionaries, continentals, colonials, rebels, Yankees, or Whigs. What are loyalists? Those who lived in the colonies and remained faithful to the Crown were known as loyalists, Royalists, King's Men, or Tories

WPA

Work Progress Administration: Massive work relief program funded projects ranging from construction to acting; disbanded by FDR during WWII hired people to construct highways, airports and public builings hired actors, writer, artists and musicians to work

Communist Totalitarianism

advocates achieving socialism through totalitarian dictatorship There are several characteristics that are common to totalitarian regimes, including: Rule by a single party. Total control of the military. Total control over means of communication (such as newspapers, propaganda, etc...)Jul 23, 2015 Methods of Enforcement. • police terror • indoctrination • censorship • persecution. Modern Technology. • mass communication to spread propaganda • advanced military weapons. State Control of Society. ... Dynamic Leader. ... Ideology. ... State Control of Individuals. ... Dictatorship and One-Party Rule.

Ulysses S. Grant

an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869-1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War. Ulysses S. Grant is best known as the Union general who led the United States to victory over the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. As a two-term President, he is typically dismissed as weak and ineffective; historians have often ranked Grant's presidency near the bottom in American history.

free enterprise

an economic system in which private business operates in competition and largely free of state control. Economic system in which individuals and businesses are allowed to compete for profit with a minimum of government interference

rise of fascism/ Causes

authoritarian govt. that is not communist, leader doesn't have the same amount of power as a totalitarian leader, extreme nationalism, anti-democratic, aggressive expansion, , survival of the fittest causes: 1. resentment of treaty of Versailles- Italy did not get promised territory - rise of nationalist feeling 2. economic depression- rising inflation 3. social unrest-strikes for higher wages, land seizers by peasant ss in the south 4. weakness of parlimentary- large number of parties leading to unstable government 5. fear of communism after Russian revolution 6. propaganda and indimitadtion by blackshirts -attachs on striking workers

Confederate and Union strengths

confederacy : had to create new government war fought on their turf more men trained to fight slave labor union: modern infrastructure: communication, transportation, industry) existing government existing military service economic strength wealth and nations banking and financial centers were located in NYC

1946 Iron Curtain

describes division of Communist Eastern Europe from Western Europe On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill gave a speech declaring that an "iron curtain" had descended across Europe, pointing to efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West. The antagonism between the Soviet Union and the West that came to be described as the "iron curtain" had various origins, including events going back to the Russian Revolution of 1917, disagreements during and immediately after WWII, and various annexations of Eastern European nations by the Soviet Union. The Iron Curtain specifically refers to the imaginary line dividing Europe between Soviet influence and Western influence, and symbolizes efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On either side of the Iron Curtain, states developed their own international military alliances, namely the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Physically, the Iron Curtain took the form of border defenses between the countries of Europe in the middle of the continent, most notably the Berlin Wall.

due process of law

forbids government taking life, liberty, or property without due process procedural due process-notice and right be heard substantive due process fair and reasonable laws denies the government the right, without due process, to deprive people of life, liberty, and property the right of every citizen against arbitrary action by national or state governments

Intolerable Acts

in response to Boston Tea Party, 4 acts passed in 1774, Port of Boston closed, reduced power of assemblies in colonies, permitted royal officers to be tried elsewhere, provided for quartering of troop's in barns and empty houses INTOLERABLE ACTS Boston Port ActAn act to discontinue, in such manner, and for or such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town, and within the harbour, of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America.Massachusetts Government ActAn Act for the better regulating the government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England.Administration of Justice ActAn act for the impartial administration of justice in the case of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.Quebec ActAn Act for making effectual Provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec in North America. Throughout the colonies, the message was clear: what could happen in Massachusetts could happen anywhere. The British had gone too far. Supplies were sent to the beleaguered colony from the other twelve. For the first time since the Stamp Act Crisis, an intercolonial conference was called. It was under these tense circumstances that the FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS convened in Philadelphia on September 5, 1774.

rise of totalitarianism

is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible. dictator one party struct government few freedom Treaty of Versailles Causes of Rise of Fascism Italian Fascism German National Socialism Communist Totalitarianism Extreme nationalism Propaganda Secrete Police Scapegoating Causes of WWII Holocaust 1933-1945 World War II 1941-1945 Pearl Harbor 1941 FDR, Stalin, Churchill D-DAY 1944 Atomic Bomb 1945

Legislative Branch Executive Branch Judicial Branch

legislative: makes laws 2 seniors for each state approves presidential apponents excectuitve: signs laws/vetoes laws elected every 4 years judicial: decides if laws are constitutional appointed by present can over turn rulings by other judges

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe

publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is published. The novel sold 300,000 copies within three months and was so widely read that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862, he reportedly said, "So this is the little lady who made this big war."

1965 The Voting Rights Act

suspended literacy tests; federal examiners order registration of blacks where fewer than 1/2 population registered; criminal penalties for interfereing with right to vote Voting Rights Act, U.S. legislation (August 6, 1965) that aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States. The act significantly widened the franchise and is considered among the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.

FDR, Stalin, Churchill

the "Big 3" leaders Many of the major decisions that Soviet Premier Josef Stalin came to with U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill occurred at the Yalta Conference. When the three country leaders met at Yalta, the countries already felt certain that they would defeat the Nazi influence in Europe.

D-DAY 1944

the Battle of Normandy A massive military operation led by American forces in Normandy beginning on June 6, 1944. The pivotal battle led to the liberation of France and brought on the final phases of World War II in Europe. The Battle of Normandy was fought during World War II in the summer of 1944, between the Allied nations and German forces occupying Western Europe. More than 60 years later, the Normandy Invasion, or D-Day, remains the largest seaborne invasion in history, involving nearly three million troops crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy in occupied France. Twelve Allied nations provided fighting units that participated in the invasion, including Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of northwest Europe. The assault phase, or the establishment of a secure foothold, was known as Operation Neptune. Operation Neptune began on D-Day (June 6, 1944) and ended on June 30, when the Allies had established a firm foothold in Normandy. Operation Overlord also began on D-Day, and continued until Allied forces crossed the River Seine on August 19. The battle began months before the invasion, when Allied bombers began to pound the Normandy coast and farther south, to destroy transportation links, and disrupt the German army's build-up of their military strength. More than 300 planes dropped 13,000 bombs over Normandy in advance of the invasion. Six parachute regiments, with more than 13,000 men, also went ahead to cut railroad lines, blow up bridges, and seize landing fields. Gliders also brough in men, light artillery, jeeps, and small tanks. There has been some confusion regarding the meaning of the Â"DÂ" in D-Day. The most likely explanation is offered by the U.S. Army in their published manuals. The Army began to use the codes Â"H-hourÂ" and Â"D-DayÂ" during World War I, to indicate the time or date of an operationÂ's beginning. So the Â"DÂ" may simply refer to the Â"dayÂ" of invasion. With the invasion of Normandy, GeneralDwight D. Eisenhowerfaced a task of magnitude and hazards never before attempted. He would have to move his forces 100 miles across the English Channel and storm a heavily fortified coastline. His enemy was the weapon-and-tank-superior German army commanded by Erwin Rommel, one of the most brilliant generals of the war. Less than 15 percent of the Allied forces coming aboard the ships had ever seen combat.

Causes of the Great Depression

- Factories and farms produce more goods than people can buy. - Banks make loans that borrowers cannot pay back. - After the stock market crash, many businesses cannot find people who will invest in their growth.

causes of dustbowl

-overuse of land -use of machines on land -drought -loose soil -wind Causes In 1930, weather patterns shifted over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans causing the Pacific to grow cooler than normal and the Atlantic warmer. The combination weakened and changed the direction of the jet stream. That air current carries moisture from the Gulf of Mexico up toward the Great Plains. It then dumps rain when it reaches the Rockies. This combination also creates tornadoes. When the jet stream moved south, the rain never reached the Great Plains. Tall prairie grass once protected the topsoil of the Midwest, but once farmers settled the prairies, they plowed over 5.2 million acres of the deep-rooted grass. Years of over-cultivation meant the soil lost its richness. When the drought killed off the crops, high winds blew away the remaining topsoil. Parts of the Midwest still have not recovered. As the dust storms grew, they intensified the drought. The airborne dust particles reflected some sunlight back into space before it could reach the earth. As a result, the land cooled. As temperatures dropped, so did the amount of evaporation. The clouds never received enough moisture to create rain.

Causes of WW2

Hitler violating Treaty of Versailles, Great Depression, Munich appeasement policy, annexation of Austria, rise of dictatorship, non-aggression pact. Among the causes of World War II were Italian fascism in the 1920s, Japanese militarism and invasions of China in the 1930s, and especially the political takeover in 1933 of Germany by Hitler and his Nazi Party and its aggressive foreign policy.

impact of Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution paved the way for the rise of communismas an influential political belief system around the world. It set the stage for the rise of the Soviet Union as a world power that would go head-to-head with the United States during the Cold War. First red scare, fear of communism allowed germans troops on western front, pressure on allies + US enters war around same time and sends US troops to fight against germans

Why did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor?

he Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor for several reasons. The tensions between Japan and the United States escalated until the U.S decided to place an embargo on Japan. This embargo blocked the Japanese from receiving crucial materials, such as steel and aviation fuel. The United States placed this embargo because Japan tried to take over more territory. In 1941, Japan had two goals. The first was to get the embargo lifted, since Japan needed oil to fuel it's military. The second goal was to get territory and to prepare for war.The Japanese began to plan a war. They asked to conquer Burma, Malaya, the East Indies, and the Philippines. However, the Japanese feared that the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor would come and disrupt their plans. As a result, the Japanese army decided to attack Pearl Harbor, a U.S. Base, as a precaution, in a surprise air attack.

The Civil Rights Movement

movement in the United States beginning in the 1960s and led primarily by Blacks in an effort to establish the civil rights of individual Black citizens 1954 Brown v. Board of Education 1955 Emmett Till 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott 1960 Greensboro sit-ins 1963 "I have a dream" speech 1964 Civil Rights Act 1965 Selma march 1965 The Voting Rights Act 70's Women's Suffrage Movement

Effects of the War of 1812

-U.S. gained international respect for withstanding the British attack -improved the professionalism of the U.S. Army -creation of a cotton-manufacturing industry and other manufacturing establishments making the U.S. industrially independent of Europe.

U.S. Government & Economy

1781 Articles of Confederation 1787 Great Compromise 1781 Northwest Ordinance 1787 U.S. Constitution Legislative Branch Executive Branch Judicial Branch Checks and Balances Article 5 of U.S. Constitution Federalists & Anti-Federalists 1791 Bill of Rights due process of law popular sovereignty democracy free enterprise market economy capitalism entrepreneur

Pre & Post Civil War

1794 Cotton Gin 1820 Missouri Compromise 1850 Fugitive Slave Act 1857 Dred Scott Case 1845 Frederick Douglas 1846 Henry David Thoreau 1849 Harriet Tubman 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe 1860-1865 Abraham Lincoln 1861-1864: Civil War Confederacy & Union Robert E. Lee Ulysses S. Grant Emancipation Proclamation 1865- 1877: Reconstruction Black Codes KKK 13th Amendment 14th Amendment 15th Amendments Sharecropping 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson

capitalism

An economic system based on private ownership of capital Capitalism is an economic systembased on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.[1][2][3][4]Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets.[5][6] In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by every owner of wealth, property or production ability in financial and capital markets whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.[7][8]

1820 Missouri Compromise

Preserves balance between free and slave states This law provided for: 1. Missouri's admission as a slave state. 2. Maine was carved out of Massachusetts and admitted as a free state. 3. The latitude line of 36° 30' across the Louisiana Purchase was drawn so slavery would not be permitted north of that boundary, except for Missouri. Maine entered as a free state, Missouri entered as a slave state and the remaining territory of the LA purchase was closed to slavery above the 36' 30' line (the southern border of Missouri) Missouri Compromise, (1820), in U.S. history, measure worked out between the North and the South and passed by the U.S. Congress that allowed for admission of Missouri as the 24th state (1821). It marked the beginning of the prolonged sectional conflict over the extension of slavery that led to the American Civil War.

Harriet Tubman 1849

United States abolitionist born a slave on a plantation in Maryland and became a famous conductor on the Underground Railroad leading other slaves to freedom in the North (1820-1913) Between 1850 and 1860, Tubman made 19 trips from the South to the North following the network known as the Underground Railroad. She guided more than 300 people, including her parents and several siblings, from slavery to freedom, earning the nickname "Moses" for her leadership. Tubman first encountered the Underground Railroad when she used it to escape slavery herself in 1849. Following a bout of illness and the death of her owner, Tubman decided to escape slavery in Maryland for Philadelphia. She feared that her family would be further severed and was concerned for her own fate as a sickly slave of low economic value.

1830 Indian Removal Act

resulted in the removal of 45,000 Indians from the American Southwest. The Cherokee trail of tears is the most famous and deadly removal. Americanized Native American nations of the east were uprooted and forced west. Indian Removal Act, (May 28, 1830), first major legislative departure from the U.S. policy of officially respecting the legal and political rights of the American Indians. The act authorized the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories within state borders (especially in the Southeast), from which the tribes would be removed. The rapid settlement of land east of the Mississippi River made it clear by the mid-1820s that the white man would not tolerate the presence of even peaceful Indians there. Pres. Andrew Jackson (1829-37) vigorously promoted this new policy, which became incorporated in the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Although the bill provided only for the negotiation with tribes east of the Mississippi on the basis of payment for their lands, trouble arose when the United States resorted to force to gain the Indians' compliance with its demand that they accept the land exchange and move west.

Seneca Falls

(1848) the first national women's rights convention at which the Declaration of Sentiments was written Women's suffrage in the United States of America, the legal rightof women to vote, was established over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920. The demand for women's suffragebegan to gather strength in the 1840s, emerging from the broader movement for women's rights. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, passed a resolution in favor of women's suffrage despite opposition from some of its organizers, who believed the idea was too extreme. By the time of the first National Women's Rights Convention in 1850, however, suffrage was becoming an increasingly important aspect of the movement's activities. The first national suffrageorganizations were established in 1869 when two competing organizations were formed, one led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the other by Lucy Stone. After years of rivalry, they merged in 1890 as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Anthony as its leading force. The Women's Christian Temperance Union(WCTU), which was the largest women's organization at that time, was established in 1873 and also pursued women's suffrage, giving a huge boost to the movement.[2][3] Hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that women had a constitutional right to vote, suffragists made several attempts to vote in the early 1870s and then filed lawsuits when they were turned away. Anthony actually succeeded in voting in 1872 but was arrested for that act and found guilty in a widely publicized trial that gave the movement fresh momentum. After the Supreme Court ruled against them in the 1875 case Minor v. Happersett, suffragists began the decades-long campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would enfranchise women. Much of the movement's energy, however, went toward working for suffrage on a state-by-state basis. In 1916 Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP), a militant group focused on the passage of a national suffrage amendment. Over 200 NWP supporters, the Silent Sentinels, were arrested in 1917 while picketing the White House, some of whom went on hunger strike and endured forced feeding after being sent to prison. Under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, the two-million-member NAWSA also made a national suffrage amendment its top priority. After a hard-fought series of votes in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920.[4] It states, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

Frederick Douglas

Famous black abolitionist that escaped from slavery who would later right a narrative of his own life that described his life. He promoted the abolitionist cause and drew the line where evil must be denounced. Frederick Douglass stood at the podium, trembling with nervousness. Before him sat abolitionists who had travelled to the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. Only 23 years old at the time, Douglass overcame his nervousness and gave a stirring, eloquent speech about his life as a slave. Douglass would continue to give speeches for the rest of his life and would become a leading spokesperson for the abolition of slavery and for racial equality. On January 1, 1836, Douglass made a resolution that he would be free by the end of the year. He planned an escape. But early in April he was jailed after his plan was discovered. Two years later, while living in Baltimore and working at a shipyard, Douglass would finally realize his dream: he fled the city on September 3, 1838. Travelling by train, then steamboat, then train, he arrived in New York City the following day. Several weeks later he had settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, living with his newlywed bride (whom he met in Baltimore and married in New York) under his new name, Frederick Douglass.

Massachusetts Bay Colony

1629 - King Charles gave the Puritans a right to settle and govern a colony in the Massachusetts Bay area. The colony established political freedom and a representative government. One of the first settlements in New England; established in 1630 and became a major Puritan colony. Became the state of Massachusetts, originally where Boston is located. It was a major trading center, and absorbed the Plymouth community Massachusetts Bay Colony, one of the original English settlements in present-day Massachusetts, settled in 1630 by a group of about 1,000 Puritanrefugees from England under Gov. John Winthrop and Deputy Gov. Thomas Dudley. In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company had obtained from King Charles I a charter empowering the company to trade and colonize in New England between the Charles and Merrimack rivers. The grant was similar to that of the Virginia Company in 1609, the patentees being joint proprietors with rights of ownership and government. The intention of the crown was evidently to create merely a commercial company with what, in modern parlance, would be called stockholders, officers, and directors. By a shrewd and legally questionable move, however, the patentees decided to transfer the management and the charter itself to Massachusetts. By this move, they not only paved the way for local management, but they established the assumption that the charter for a commercial company was in reality a political constitution for a new government with only indefinable dependence upon the imperial one in England. Among the communities that the Puritans established were Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester, Medford, Watertown, Roxbury, and Lynn.

Currency Act

1764 Stopped colonial printing of paper money & forced colonists to pay in gold and silver 1764 British act forbidding the American colonies to issue paper money as legal tender; act was repealed in 1773 by the British as an effort to ease tensions between themselves and the colonies. The colonies suffered a constant shortage of currency with which to conduct trade. There were no gold or silver mines and currency could only be obtained through trade as regulated by Great Britain. Many of the colonies felt no alternative to printing their own paper money in the form of Bills of Credit. But because there were no common regulations and in fact no standard value on which to base the notes, confusion ensued. The notes were issued by land banks, or loan offices, which based the value of mortgaged land. Some notes paid interest, others did not, some could be used only for purchase and not to repay debt. Some were issued only for public debts and could not be used in private transactions. There was no standard value common to all of the colonies. British merchant-creditors were very uncomfortable with this system, not only because of the obvious complexity, but because of the rapid depreciation of the notes due to regular fluctuations in the colonial economy. On September 1, 1764, Parliament passed the Currency Act, effectively assuming control of the colonial currency system. The act prohibited the issue of any new bills and the reissue of existing currency. Parliament favored a "hard currency" system based on the pound sterling, but was not inclined to regulate the colonial bills. Rather, they simply abolished them. The colonies protested vehemently against this. They suffered a trade deficit with Great Britain to begin with and argued that the shortage of hard capital would further exacerbate the situation. Another provision of the Currency Act established what amounted to a "superior" Vice-admiralty court, at the call of Navel [sic] commanders who wished to assure that persons suspected of smuggling or other violations of the customs laws would receive a hearing favorable to the British, and not the colonial, interests.

Roanoke Colony 1586

A base set up off the North Carolina coast in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh. The first attempted colony in the Americas (1584). it ultimately failed The Roanoke Colony(/ˈroʊəˌnoʊk/) refers to two attempts by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America. The first colony was established by governor Ralph Lane in 1585 on Roanoke Island in what is now Dare County, North Carolina, United States.[1]:45, 54-59 Following the failure of the 1585 settlement, a second colony led by John Whitelanded on the same island in 1587, and became known as the Lost Colony due to the unexplained disappearance of its population.[1]:xx,89,276 Lane's colony was troubled by a lack of supplies and poor relations with the local Native Americans. While awaiting a delayed resupply mission by Richard Grenville, Lane decided to abandon the colony and return to England with Francis Drake in 1586. Grenville arrived two weeks later and left a small detachment to protect Raleigh's claim.[1]:70-77 In 1587 Raleigh sent White on an expedition to establish the Cittie of Raleigh in Chesapeake Bay. However, during a stop to check in on Grenville's men, the flagship's pilot Simon Fernandes insisted that White's colonists remain on Roanoke.[1]:81-82, 89 White returned to England with Fernandes, intending to bring more supplies back to his colony in 1588.[1]:93-94 Instead, the Anglo-Spanish War delayed his return to Roanoke until 1590.[1]:94, 97 Upon his arrival, he found the settlement fortified but abandoned. The word "CROATOAN" was found carved into the palisade, which White interpreted to mean the colonists had relocated to Croatoan Island. Before he could follow this lead, rough seas forced the rescue mission to return to England.[1]:100-103 The fate of the approximately 112-121 colonists remains unknown. Speculation that they may have assimilated with nearby Native American communities appears as early as 1605.[1]:113-114 Investigations by the Jamestown colonists produced reports that the Roanoke settlers were massacred, as well as stories of people with European features in Native American villages, but no hard evidence was produced.[1]:116-125 Interest in the matter fell into decline until 1834, when George Bancroft published his account of the events in A History of the United States. Bancroft's description of the colonists, particularly White's infant granddaughter Virginia Dare, cast them as foundational figures in American culture and captured the public imagination.[1]:128-130 Despite this renewed interest, modern research still has not produced the archaeological evidence necessary to solve the mystery.[1]:270

The Irish Potato Famine 1845

A famine in 1845 when the main crop of Ireland, potatoes, was destroyed by disease. Irish farmers grew other food items, such as wheat and oats, but Great Britain required them to export those items to them, leaving nothing for the Irish to live on. As a result, over 1 million Irish died of starvation or disease, while millions of others migrated to the United States. When the crops began to fail in 1845, as a result of P. infestansinfection, Irish leaders in Dublin petitioned Queen Victoria and Parliament to act—and, initially, they did, repealing the so-called "Corn Laws" and their tariffs on grain, which made food such as corn and bread prohibitively expensive. Still, these changes failed to offset the growing problem of the potato blight. With many tenant farmers unable to produce sufficient food for their own consumption, and the costs of other supplies rising, thousands died from starvation, and hundreds of thousands more from disease caused by malnutrition. Complicating matters further, historians have since concluded, was that Ireland continued to export large quantities of food, primarily to Great Britain, during the blight. In cases such as livestock and butter, research suggests that exports may have actually increasedduring the Potato Famine. In 1847 alone, records indicate that commodities such as peas, beans, rabbits, fish and honey continued to be exported from Ireland, even as the Great Hunger ravaged the countryside. The potato crops didn't fully recover until 1852. By then, the damage was done. Although estimates vary, it is believed as many as 1 million Irish men, women and children perished during the Famine, and another 1 million emigrated from the island to escape poverty and starvation, with many landing in various cities throughout North America and Great Britain.

steam engine

A machine that turns the energy released by burning fuel into motion. Thomas Newcomen built the first crude but workable one in 1712. James Watt vastly improved his device in the 1760s and 1770s. It was then applied to machinery. Society Shifts The invention of a practical steam engine had an immediate effect on employment, first in Great Britain and later around the world. England had huge natural resources of coal that could fuel steam engines, and this drove the creation of mills and factories that turned out the goods that people had been creating by hand. Ships and trains powered by steam moved manufactured goods and people from place to place quickly and more efficiently. Western society, which had long been agrarian, began to center on cities as laborers who had worked in cottage industries or on farms moved there in search of jobs. The Growing Middle Class and Working Poor Steam, as it drove the Industrial Revolution, had differing effects on people's lives. A middle class sprang up around the factories, mills, transportation hubs, and financial centers created by the Industrial Revolution; these people worked less and enjoyed an improved standard of living. But those who worked in "the dark satanic mills," as the English poet William Blake called the factories, labored at low wages and for long hours under working conditions that were unhealthy and dangerous. A Laboring Class of Children Another change in working habits was the fact that young children began working along with adults in textile mills. Since the repetitive tasks they did there were considered easy, they could be paid less. In 1841, the British census found that the three most common occupations for boys were agricultural laborer, domestic servant and cotton manufacturer -- the latter two driven by the need of the new middle class for servants, and of the mills for cheap labor. In the burgeoning coal mines providing the fuel that fed the steam engines, a third of the workers were boys and girls under the age of 18.

13th Amendment (1865)

Abolition of slavery w/o compensation for slave-owners The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures. The necessary number of states ratified it by December 6, 1865. The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." In 1863 President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamationdeclaring "all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Nonetheless, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation. Lincoln recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment in order to guarantee the abolishment of slavery. The 13th amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union and should have easily passed the Congress. Although the Senate passed it in April 1864, the House did not. At that point, Lincoln took an active role to ensure passage through congress. He insisted that passage of the 13th amendment be added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming Presidential elections. His efforts met with success when the House passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119-56. With the adoption of the 13th amendment, the United States found a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery. The 13th amendment, along with the 14th and 15th, is one of the trio of Civil War amendments that greatly expanded the civil rights of Americans.

Thomas Edison

American inventor best known for inventing the electric light bulb, acoustic recording on wax cylinders, and motion pictures. Thomas Edison, seen late in life in this video, was the most famous inventor in American history. Though he is best known for his invention of the phonograph and incandescent electric light, Edison took out 1,093 patents in a variety of fields, including electric light and power, telephony and telegraphy, and sound recording. His public image as a homespun, untutored genius actually concealed a thinker who was quite systematic and methodical and who collaborated closely with machinists, designers, and scientists in his laboratory at Menlo Park, N.J.See all videos for this article He began his career in 1863, in the adolescence of the telegraph industry, when virtually the only source of electricity was primitive batteriesputting out a low-voltage current. Before he died, in 1931, he had played a critical role in introducing the modern age of electricity. From his laboratories and workshops emanated the phonograph, the carbon-button transmitter for the telephone speaker and microphone, the incandescent lamp, a revolutionary generator of unprecedented efficiency, the first commercial electric light and power system, an experimental electric railroad, and key elements of motion-picture apparatus, as well as a host of other inventions.

1846 Henry David Thoreau

American transcendentalist who was against a government that supported slavery. He wrote down his beliefs in Walden. He started the movement of civil-disobedience when he refused to pay the toll-tax to support him Mexican War. Social reformer — Naturalist — Philosopher — Transcendentalist — Scientist. These are just some of the terms by which the work of Henry David Thoreau can be categorized. It is perhaps the many "lives" of Thoreau, both individually and collectively, that beckon such a diversity of people to his writings. As a social reformer whose words echo the principles on which the United States was founded — that it is a person's duty to resist injustice where it is found — Thoreau's writings influenced Gandhi's work in India, Tolstoy's philosophy in Russia, and King's civil rights stand in the United States. Wherever in the world individuals and groups embrace human rights over political rights, they invoke the name of Henry David Thoreau and the words of his essay. "Civil Disobedience": "Can there not be a government in which the majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? . . . Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?" As a naturalist, Thoreau understood that the path to a greater understanding of our life on earth is through an understanding of the natural world around us and of which we are part: "We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander." — "I suppose that what in other men is religion is in me love of nature."

1637 Anne Hutchinson

Anne Hutchinson, née Anne Marbury, (baptized July 20, 1591, Alford, Lincolnshire, England—died August or September 1643, Pelham Bay, New York [U.S.]), religious liberal who became one of the founders of Rhode Island after her banishment from Massachusetts Bay Colony. TOP QUESTIONS Why is Anne Hutchinson famous? What did Anne Hutchinson believe? Who killed Anne Hutchinson? Anne Marbury was the daughter of a silenced clergyman and grew up in an atmosphere of learning. She married William Hutchinson, a merchant, in 1612, and in 1634 they migrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne Hutchinson soon organized weekly meetings of Boston women to discuss recent sermons and to give expression to her own theological views. Before long her sessions attracted ministers and magistrates as well. She stressed the individual's intuition as a means of reaching God and salvation, rather than the observance of institutionalized beliefs and the precepts of ministers. Her opponents accused her of antinomianism—the view that God's grace has freed the Christian from the need to observe established moralprecepts. Hutchinson's criticism of the Massachusetts Puritans for what she considered to be their narrowly legalistic concept of morality and her protests against the authority of the clergy were at first widely supported by Bostonians. John Winthrop, however, opposed her, and she lost much of her support after he won election as governor. She was tried by the General Court chiefly for "traducing the ministers," was convicted in 1637, and was sentenced to banishment. For a time in 1637-38 she was held in custody at the house of Joseph Weld, marshal of Roxbury, Massachusetts. Refusing to recant, she was then tried before the Boston Church and formally excommunicated. With some of her followers Hutchinson established a settlement (now Portsmouth) on the island of Aquidneck(now part of Rhode Island) in 1638. After the death of her husband in 1642, she settled on Long Island Sound, near present Pelham Bay, New York. In 1643 she and all her servants and children save one were killed by Indians, an event regarded by some in Massachusetts as a manifestation of divine judgment.

Ford & Wright Brothers

During the progressive era many accomplishments occur in the world of sciences. Most of the new inventions were made to help people in need and to conduct a massive flow of production, in the growth of "Good" Capitalism. many of the famous inventers that grew during the progressive were: The Wright brothers , Henry ford, Albert Einstein , Alexander Graham Bell and many others. Ideas that came from this time consist with the idea of an easier and industrial growth which were a better help to the failing economy in the early 1900s . Inventions like the telephone, The Photostat machine and the automobile were a few of the objects that created a better life and work station to many of the business and city workers. Inventions like the airplane, the special theory of relativity, and the Kodak brownie revolutionized the people thoughts and what us as humans can achieve. It is true that the progressive era contained some of the most important invention and sciences of the modern world. One of the most eye opener invention of the progressive era is The Wright brother's first successful airplane. They made the first practical fixed-wing aircraft which was able to control a mechanical fixed wing which made flight possible. the brothers' made a fundamental breakthrough was their big invention of the "three axis control ", which mad it able for the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium in the air. This method became standard on fixed wing aircraft of all kinds. From the beginning of their aeronautical work, the Wright brothers focused on unlocking the secrets of control to conquer "the flying problem", rather than developing more powerful engines as some other experimenters did. Their careful wind tunnel tests produced better aeronautical data than any before, enabling them to design and build wings and propellers more effective than any before which helped them make a successful airplane. There breakthrough made it possible to fly all over the world, fight in wars and enjoy this incredible invention that is still use to this day.

1781 Articles of Confederation

First written constitution of the United States. The Articles stemmed from wartime urgency and were slowed by fears of central authority and extensive land claims by the states. Ratified March 1, 1781. States remained sovereign and independent. Congress could make treaties/alliances. The central govt. could not levy taxes nor regulate commerce; led to Constitutional Convention in 1787 The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States, on November 15, 1777. However, ratification of the Articles of Confederation by all thirteen states did not occur until March 1, 1781. The Articles created a loose confederation of sovereign states and a weak central government, leaving most of the power with the state governments. The need for a stronger Federal government soon became apparent and eventually led to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The present United States Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation on March 4, 1789.

Quartering Act

Law that required colonists to feed and shelter British troops 1765 - Required the colonials to provide food, lodging, and supplies for the British troops in the colonies. Quartering Act, (1765), in American colonial history, the British parliamentary provision (actually an amendment to the annual Mutiny Act) requiring colonial authorities to provide food, drink, quarters, fuel, and transportation to British forces stationed in their towns or villages. Resentment over this practice is reflected in the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids it in peacetime. British warships landing troops in Boston, 1768; engraving by Paul Revere.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (neg. no. LC-USZ62-134241) READ MORE ON THIS TOPIC American colonies: The Quartering Act Together with the Stamp Act, the Bedford-Grenville ministry also pushed through important amendments to the annual Mutiny Act. One of these... The Quartering Act was passed primarily in response to greatly increased empire defense costs in America following the French and Indian War and Pontiac's War. Like the Stamp Act of the same year, it also was an assertion of British authority over the colonies, in disregard of the fact that troop financing had been exercised for 150 years by representative provincial assemblies rather than by the Parliament in London. The act was particularly resented in New York, where the largest number of reserves were quartered, and outward defiance led directly to the Suspending Act as part of the Townshend Acts of 1767. After considerable tumult, the Quartering Act was allowed to expire in 1770.

1636 Roger Williams & R.I.

Left the MBS (Massachusetts Bay Company) and founded Rhode Island. Only colony to offer religious freedom. Roger Williams, (born 1603?, London, England—died January 27/March 15, 1683, Providence, Rhode Island [U.S.]), English colonist in New England, founder of the colony of Rhode Island and pioneer of religious liberty. The son of a merchant tailor, he was a protégé of the jurist Sir Edward Cokeand was educated at Cambridge. In 1630 he left his post as chaplain to Sir William Masham, which had brought him into contact with such politically active Puritans as Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Hooker, to pursue his by-then completely Nonconformist religious ideals in New England. Arriving in Boston in 1631, Williams refused to associate himself with the Anglican Puritans and in the following year moved to the separatist Plymouth Colony. In 1633 he was back in Salemafter a disagreement with Plymouth in which he insisted that the king's patent was invalid and that only direct purchase from the Indians gave a just title to the land. Invited by the church at Salem to become pastor in 1634, Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay by the civil authorities for his dangerous views: besides those on land rights, he held that magistrates had no right to interfere in matters of religion. Consequently, in January 1636 Williams set out for Narragansett Bay, and in the spring, on land purchased from the Narragansett Indians, he founded the town of Providence and the colony of Rhode Island. Providence became a haven for Anabaptists, Quakers, and others whose beliefs were denied public expression. Williams was briefly an Anabaptist but in 1639 declared himself a Seeker. He remained a steadfast believer in Calvinist theology. Williams went to England in 1643 to obtain a charter for Rhode Island and again in 1651-54 to have it confirmed, during which visit he became a friend of the poet John Milton. He was the first president of Rhode Island under its charter and until his death always held some public office. He was of constant service to Rhode Island and neighbouring colonies as a peacemaker with the Narragansett Indians, whose language he knew and whose trust he had earned, although he helped defend Rhode Island against them during King Philip's War (1675-76). From 1636 until his death he supported himself by farming and trading.

Confederate Civil War Generals

Robert E. Lee General Robert E. Lee was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia and is considered the most successful confederate general. Learn more about Robert E. Lee Stonewall Jackson General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson fought brilliantly from First Bull Run to his death at the battle of Chancellorsville from friendly fire. Learn more about Stonewall Jackson J.E.B. Stuart General J.E.B. Stuart was a famous cavalry commander known for his reconnaissance. Read more about Jeb Stuart Nathan Bedford Forrest Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest was an innovative cavalry commander, and was the only general on either side who began as a private. Read more about Nathan Bedford Forrest James Longstreet General James Longstreet led the First Corps of the Army Of Northern Virginia is considered one of the most capable generals on either side. Read more about James Longstreet Braxton Bragg General Braxton Bragg led the Army Of Mississippi and Tennessee from Shiloh to Chattanooga. Read more about Braxton Bragg George Pickett General George Pickett is best remembered for his futile and bloody assault on Cemetery Ridge On Day 3 of the Battle of Gettysburg. Read more about George Pickett Bloody Bill Anderson William T. "Bloody Bill" Anderson started life as a brutal killer, leading pro-confederate units on attacks against Union forces. Read more about Bloody Bill Anderson John Mosby John S. Mosby was a Confederate Cavalry Commander known for his speed and elusiveness. Read more about John Mosby P.G.T. Beauregard Pierre Gustave Toutant (PGT) Beauregard was a Confederate General best known for starting the civil war with his attack on Fort Sumter. Read more about P.G.T. Beauregard A.P. Hill A.P. Hill was a confederate General best known for commanding the "Light Division," and fighting ably with his commander Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Read more about A.P. Hill Kirby Smith Edmund Kirby Smith commanded armies in Tennessee and the Trans-Mississippi Theaters. Read more about Kirby Smith John Bell Hood John Bell Hood (1831-1879) was reputed for his aggressive and bold commands, a reputation which continued in battles despite his physical disabilities. Read more about John Bell Hood Albert Sidney Johnston Albert Sidney Johnston fought and battled in five wars. He was mortally wounded at age 59 during the civil war at the Battle of Shiloh. Read more about Albert Sidney Johnston Barnard Bee Barnard Elliot Bee Jr. died at age 37 in action at First Bull Run and is known for giving the nickname "Stonewall" to Brigadier general Thomas J. Jackson. Read more about Barnard Bee Joseph Johnston General Joseph Johnston was the highest ranking officer to leave the U.S. army to join the Confederacy. He fought in many of the Civil War's major battles and died of pneumonia. Read more about Joseph Johnston Jubal Early Jubal Anderson Early was known for his aggressive and sometimes reckless style. Read more about Jubal Early Lewis Armistead Lewis Addison was a successful Confederate General who fought and died during Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg. Read more about Lewis Armistead Porter Alexander Edward Porter Alexander was a Brigadier General known for being the first man to use signal flags to send messages using signal flags. Read more about Porter Alexander Richard Ewell Richard Stoddert Ewell led numerous battles during the Civil War, but his failure to capture Cemetery Hill on day one at Gettysburg led to his men and himself to be captured and imprisoned at Richmond. Read more about Richard Ewell

Article 5 of U.S. Constitution

Spells out the ways that the Constitution can be amended, or changed. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

American Revolution Battles

The Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts were the first battle between American Minutemen and the British army. It was an American victory that forced a British widthdrawal from the countryside back to Boston. The first shot of the battle became known in American history as "the shot heard round the world." The Battle of Bunker Hill was one of the first battles of the American Revolution. Colonial forces originally captured Bunker (and nearby Breed's) Hill as part of the siege of Boston, with the intention of trapping the British. Colonial forces widthstood two assaults by the British army but ran out of ammunition by the third attack. Though seen as a defeat for colonial forces at the time, in retrospect the Battle severely weakened British forces who had lost a large number of men in ultimately capturing Bunker (and Breed's) Hill. The Battle of Saratoga in 1777 was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. American forces surrounded and defeated the British army under General Hohn Burgoyne at Saratoga in New York State. Burgoyne had intended to split the new country in half, cutting off New England from the rest of the country but failed. The Battle of Saratoga also marked the point when foreign powers, especially France, decided to give support to the American cause. Valley Forge is where George Washington and the Continental Army camped during the winter of 1777-1778. The troops suffered from harsh cold, starvation, and disease. Washington managed to miraculously hold the army together and together with news that the French would enter the war on the American side, the tempered army was able to leave in the spring of 1778 and recapture Philadelphia. After the various battles in South Carolina left his army in terrible condition, General Charles Cornwallis retreated to the Virginia city of Yorktown. It was there in 1781 that a combined French and American army led by George Washington defeated and captured General Cornwallis and his army. This defeat was the last major battle of the Revolutionary War and forced Great Britain to decide to come to the negotiating table. The Revolutionary War was officially ended by the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States and ceded territory to the new country that included everything between the Appalachian mountains and the Mississippi river. Britain also made peace with France through this treaty as well. The British would however remain in violation of the treaty by maintaining forts in the Midwest that would not be removed until the end of the War of 1812.

Boston Massacre

The first bloodshed of the American Revolution (1770), as British guards at the Boston Customs House opened fire on a crowd killing five Americans incident in 1770 in which British troops fired on and killed American colonists The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. "The Bloody Massacre" engraving by Paul Revere. Note that this is not an accurate depiction of the event. The presence of British troops in the city of Boston was increasingly unwelcome. The riot began when about 50 citizens attacked a British sentinel. A British officer, Captain Thomas Preston, called in additional soldiers, and these too were attacked, so the soldiers fired into the mob, killing 3 on the spot (a black sailor named Crispus Attucks, ropemaker Samuel Gray, and a mariner named James Caldwell), and wounding 8 others, two of whom died later (Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr). A town meeting was called demanding the removal of the British and the trial of Captain Preston and his men for murder. At the trial, John Adams and Josiah Quincy II defended the British, leading to their acquittal and release. Samuel Quincy and Robert Treat Paine were the attorneys for the prosecution. Later, two of the British soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. The Boston Massacre was a signal event leading to the Revolutionary War. It led directly to the Royal Governor evacuating the occupying army from the town of Boston. It would soon bring the revolution to armed rebellion throughout the colonies. Note that the occupation of Boston by British troops in 1768 was not met by open resistance.

1803 Louisiana Purchase

Thomas Jefferson purchased land from France for $15 million. This land was west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains and nearly doubled the size of the U.S. The presence of Spain was not so provocative. A conflict over navigation of the Mississippi had been resolved in 1795 with a treaty in which Spain recognized the United States' right to use the river and to deposit goods in New Orleans for transfer to oceangoing vessels. In his letter to Livingston, Jefferson wrote, "Spain might have retained [New Orleans] quietly for years. her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place would be hardly felt by us." He went on to speculate that "it would not perhaps be very long before some circumstance might arise which might make the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth to her."3 Napoleon Bonaparte by Paul Delaroche Jefferson's vision of obtaining territory from Spain was altered by the prospect of having the much more powerful France of Napoleon Bonaparte as a next-door neighbor. France had surrendered its North American possessions at the end of the French and Indian War. New Orleans and Louisiana west of the Mississippi were transferred to Spain in 1762, and French territories east of the Mississippi, including Canada, were ceded to Britain the next year. But Napoleon, who took power in 1799, aimed to restore France's presence on the continent. The Louisiana situation reached a crisis point in October 1802 when Spain's King Charles IV signed a decree transferring the territory to France and the Spanish agent in New Orleans, acting on orders from the Spanish court, revoked Americans' access to the port's warehouses. These moves prompted outrage in the United States. 1815 Plan of New Orleans by I. Tanesse; courtesy the Library of Congress While Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison worked to resolve the issue through diplomatic channels, some factions in the West and the opposition Federalist Party called for war and advocated secession by the western territories in order to seize control of the lower Mississippi and New Orleans.

Upton Sinclair

muckraker who shocked the nation when he published The Jungle, a novel that revealed gruesome details about the meat packing industry in Chicago. The book was fiction but based on the things Sinclair had seen. Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. His description of diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws. Before the turn of the 20th century, a major reform movement had emerged in the United States. Known as progressives, the reformers were reacting to problems caused by the rapid growth of factories and cities. Progressives at first concentrated on improving the lives of those living in slums and in getting rid of corruption in government. By the beginning of the new century, progressives had started to attack huge corporations like Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, and the Armour meat-packing company for their unjust practices. The progressives revealed how these companies eliminated competition, set high prices, and treated workers as "wage slaves." The progressives differed, however, on how best to control these big businesses. Some progressives wanted to break up the large corporations with anti-monopoly laws. Others thought state or federal government regulation would be more effective. A growing minority argued in favor of socialism, the public ownership of industries. The owners of the large industries dismissed all these proposals: They demanded that they be left alone to run their businesses as they saw fit. Theodore Roosevelt was the president when the progressive reformers were gathering strength. Assuming the presidency in 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley, he remained in the White House until 1909. Roosevelt favored large-scale enterprises. "The corporation is here to stay," he declared. But he favored government regulation of them "with due regard of the public as a whole." Roosevelt did not always approve of the progressive-minded journalists and other writers who exposed what they saw as corporate injustices. When David Phillips, a progressive journalist, wrote a series of articles that attacked U.S. senators of both political parties for serving the interests of big business rather than the people, President Roosevelt thought Phillips had gone too far. He referred to him as a man with a "muck-rake." Even so, Roosevelt had to admit, "There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake." The term "muckraker" caught on. It referred to investigative writers who uncovered the dark side of society. Few places had more "filth on the floor" than the meat- packing houses of Chicago. Upton Sinclair, a largely unknown fiction writer, became an "accidental muckraker" when he wrote a novel about the meat-packing industry.

1850 Fugitive Slave Act

required Northerners to help capture runaway slaves or face fines or jail; angered Northerners against the South & slavery more. Fugitive Slave Acts, in U.S. history, statutes passed by Congress in 1793 and 1850 (and repealed in 1864) that provided for the seizure and return of runaway slaves who escaped from one state into another or into a federal territory. The 1793 law enforced Article IV, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution in authorizing any federal district judge or circuit court judge, or any state magistrate, to decide finally and without a jury trial the status of an allegedfugitive slave. The demand from the South for more effective legislation resulted in enactment of a second Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Under this law fugitives could not testify on their own behalf, nor were they permitted a trial by jury. Heavy penalties were imposed upon federal marshals who refused to enforce the law or from whom a fugitive escaped; penalties were also imposed on individuals who helped slaves to escape. Finally, under the 1850 act, special commissioners were to have concurrentjurisdiction with the U.S. courts in enforcing the law. The severity of the 1850 measure led to abuses and defeated its purpose. The number of abolitionists increased, the operations of the Underground Railroad became more efficient, and new personal-liberty laws were enacted in many Northern states. These state laws were among the grievances officially referred to by South Carolina in December 1860 as justification for its secession from the Union. Attempts to carry into effect the law of 1850 aroused much bitterness and probably had as much to do with inciting sectional hostility as did the controversy over slavery in the territories.

1794 Cotton Gin

short for cotton engine, this invention by Eli Whitney expedited the process of deseeding cotton and thus increased the demand for slaves The patent laws of the time had loopholes that made it difficult for Whitney to protect his rights asan inventor. Even though the laws were changed a few years later, Whitney's patent expired before he ever realized much profit. Still, the cotton gin had transformed the American economy. For the South, it meant that cotton could be produced plentifully and cheaply for domestic use and for export, and by the mid-19th century, cotton was America's leading export. For the North, especially New England, cotton's rise meant a steady supply of raw materials for its textile mills. One inadvertent result of the cotton gin's success, however, was that it helped strengthen slavery in the South. Although the cotton gin made cotton processing less labor-intensive, it helped planters earn greater profits, prompting them to grow larger crops, which in turn required more people. Because slavery was the cheapest form of labor, cotton farmers simply acquired more slaves. Interchangeable Parts Patent-law issues prevented Whitney from ever significantly profiting from the cotton gin; however, in 1798, he secured a contract from the U.S. government to produce 10,000 muskets in two years, an amount that had never been manufactured in such a short period. Whitney promoted the idea of interchangeable parts: standardized, identical parts that would make for faster assembly as well as easier repair of various objects and machines. At the time, guns were typically built individually by skilled craftsmen, so that each finished device was unique. Although it ultimately took Whitney some 10 years, instead of two, to fulfill his contract, he was credited with playing a pioneering role in the development of the American system of mass-production.