APUSH Vocab Units 1-9 (Plus Territory Acquisition Vocab)

Old Immigrants

Arriving prior to 1880, these immigrants were composed of modestly educated and wealthy Northern/Western Europeans (British, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians) who generally headed to the western parts of the United States upon arrival to farm (except the Irish).

Hurricane Katrina

Considered to be a crisis of the Bush administrations second term and its inefficiency to deal with the crisis that destroyed 80% of New Orleans, more than 1300 people died, and the damages were valued at $150 billion.

Dominion of New England

Consolidation into a single colony of the New England colonies—later New York and New Jersey—by royal governor Edmund Andros in 1686 to bring the colonies under stricter royal control but the dominion reverted to individual colonial governments three years later; this demonstrated the inability of England to impose long-term control over the colonies as domestic issues (the Glorious Revolution) shattered the control and concern of Britain about colonial America and led to a policy of Salutary Neglect.

Second Continental Congress

Convened in May 1775 after fighting broke out in Massachusetts between the British and the colonists. Most delegates opposed the drastic move toward complete independence from Britain. In an effort to reach a reconciliation, the Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition to King George III, offering peace under the conditions that there be a cease-fire in Boston, that the Coercive Acts (part of the Intolerable Acts) be repealed, and that negotiations between the colonists and Britain begin immediately. When King George III rejected the petition, the Congress created the Continental Army and elected George Washington its commander in chief.

Warren Court

Court created when Eisenhower appointed the previously conservative Earl Warren as chief justice the court became a vehicle for social change and advocated for individual rights.

Chinese Exclusion Act/ Immigration Act of 1882

Denied any additional Chinese laborers to enter the country while allowing students and merchants to immigrate and stemmed from fear of Americans that jobs would be taken.

Compromise of 1850

Designed by Henry Clay and pushed through Congress by Stephen A. Douglas, this law aimed to resolve sectional conflict over the distribution of slave-holding versus free states by stipulating the admission of California as a free state; the division of the remainder of the Mexican cession into two separate territories, New Mexico and Utah, without federal restrictions on slavery; the continuance of slavery but abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia; and a more effective Fugitive Slave Law but the compromise proved incapable of stemming controversy over slavery's expansion.

Senate

Each state would be given equal representation regardless of population.

Buffalo herds

Estimated at a 15 million strong population, within 35 years of rapid European settlement into the area made this animal group nearly extinct.

Televangelists

Evangelical ministers were able to reach large nationwide audiences as Baptist Billy Graham and Roman Catholic Fulton J. Sheen took to the television airwaves to spread Christianity.

Christopher Columbus

Exploring for the Spanish crown in 1492, his reports of gold and slaves prompted European investment in conquering the America's, which resulted in the enslavement and near extinction of Native Americans.

Afghanistan/Taliban

Extreme conservative Muslims protected Osama bin Laden by allowing him to hide in this country after he masterminded the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States and harbored and encouraged Al-Qaeda

1819; $5 million; Spain; Adams-Onis Treaty

Florida

Hamid Karzai

Following the attacks of 9-11, the U.S. and NATO forces toppled the Taliban government and established a new Afghan government under the leadership of Hamid Karzai (who has been found to be very corrupt).

Margaret Sanger

In 1921 this woman encouraged women to talk openly about pregnancy prevention, founded the Birth Control Clinic, and attempted to end poverty and abuse among young women.

22nd Amendment

In 1951 a new amendment was passed to limit the president to 2 terms.

Gideon v Wainwright

In 1963 a person was charged with breaking and entering and was denied a lawyer because it wasn't a 'capital offense' but the Supreme Court ruled that 14th amendment included state and federal defendants.

Pinkney Treaty

A 1795 Treaty that settled boundaries and allowed US navigation rights along the Mississippi and the "right of deposit" in New Orleans, which essentially confirmed the neutral foreign policy Washington sought by removing Spain as a threat to further American settlement in the west.

Alexander Graham Bell/ Telephone

Inventor most famous for the telephone, he also was an innovator in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics and later became a founding member of the National Geographic Society, demonstrating the period of creativity and invention which characterized this time period in US History.

Speculation

Investment in stocks/property, or other ventures in the hope of gain but with the risk of loss.

Saddam Hussein

Iraq's dictator who challenged President Bush's hopes for a "new world order" of peace and democracy by conquering his oil rich neighbor Kuwait and taking over significant amounts of the world's oil reserves.

Monroe Doctrine

Issued by President Monroe in December 1823, the doctrine asserted that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization or influence, and paved the way for U.S. dominance of the Western Hemisphere.

Brook Farm

"An experiment in Utopian socialism, it lasted for six years (1841-1847) in New Roxbury, Massachusetts and was another example of the Romantic Impulse affecting the nation in the antebellum years."

Frederick Taylor/ Scientific management

"The original ""efficiency expert"" who, in the book The Principles of Scientific Management from 1911, preached the gospel of efficient management of production time and costs, the proper routing and scheduling of work, standardization of tools and equipment."

Anti-union tactics

(1. Scab /2.Lockout /3.Blacklist /4.Yellow-Dog Contract /5.Injunction)

Economic Recovery Tax Act

A major revision of the federal income tax system that cut income taxes by 25% over a 2.5 year period.

Operation Desert Storm

A massive operation in which over half a million Americans were joined by military units from 28 other nations and after just five weeks of air strikes, and 100 hours of a brilliant ground war conducted by US general Norman Schwarzkopf resulted in Iraq conceding defeat.

Yalta

A meeting between the Big Three (FDR, Churchill, and Stalin) from February 4 to February 11, 1945, Stalin agreed to declare war on Japan after Germany surrendered and plans for a United Nations conference in April 1945 were also approved but how to reorganize post-war Europe was left largely undecided.

Constitutional Convention

A meeting intended to amend the Articles of Confederation, delegates came to the convention from every state except Rhode Island in May 1787 and decided to draft an entirely new framework of government that would give greater powers to the central government which ultimately became known as the Constitution.

De Lome Letter

A message from the Spanish Ambassador in Cuba that described McKinley in unflattering terms, riling popular support against the Spanish and added motivation to declare war against the Spanish.

Redeemers

Largely former slave owners who were the most bitter opponents of the Republican program in the South, they staged a major counterrevolution to "redeem" the south by taking back southern state governments based upon the idea of racism and white supremacy.

Civil Rights Act of 1875

Last major piece of Reconstruction legislation this law prohibited racial discriminations in all public accommodations, transportation, places of amusement, and juries but was poorly enforced.

War Powers Act

Law passed after Vietnam that requires the president to withdraw troops from battle after 60 days unless he receives congressional authorization.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Law passed in 1933, it gave the government the authority to curb speculation by banks as well as paved the way for the FDIC, which would ensure banking deposits up to $5,000, both of which bolstered public confidence in banking.

Bush Tax Cuts

Laws passed in 2001 and 2003 that reduced taxes for virtually every American by : 1) cut income tax rates; 2) eliminate estate tax; 3) reduce taxes on capital gains and dividends which had the effect of concentrating wealth in favor of those already well off.

"City Beautiful movement"

Lead by "Great White" architect, Burnham, they tried to create a more artistic city center in order to create a moral and civic virtue among city dwellers but it was difficult for architects to overcome urban politics/private owners.

Levittown

Levittowns were new American suburbs where almost anyone could afford a small house built using mass production techniques.

Jingoism

Means extreme patriotism and favors an aggressive, warlike foreign policy.

Gifford Pinchot

The first Chief of the United States Forest Service by Theodore Roosevelt, his authority was severely undermined by President Taft and later fired for speaking out against the policies of the Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger and helped lead to Taft's unpopularity among progressive voters.

Liberty Party

The first abolitionist party, it never campaigned on ending slavery entirely but did campaign on limiting the expansion of slavery.

Radio/Phonograph

The first airing was made by KDKA it Pittsburgh, this device spread out from being local, to powerful national shows that often drowned out the local stations and standardized Americans in a way never before possible—everyone could hear the same news at exactly the same time.

Sputnik

The first artificial satellite to orbit the earth that was launched by the USSR on October 4, 1957, this prompted the space race between the US and USSR, and Americans were jealous of Soviet technological skill and afraid that the same rockets that launched Sputnik could be used to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere on the globe.

Bill of Rights: Amendments

The first ten amendments of the Constitution, which guarantee the civil rights of all American citizens, promoted by anti-federalists and were designed to protect individuals from the tyranny they felt the Constitution might permit.

Sandra Day O'Connor

The first woman to be in the Supreme Court appointed by Ronald Regan, O'Connor was an Associate Justice from 1981 until 2006

Madeleine Albright

The first woman to serve as secretary of state who proved to be very assertive in the use of American power in a number of humanitarian missions around the world.

Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1639)

The first written constitution in American history (1638) provided for representative government, which demonstrated the expectation of self-government by the people.

Harlem Renaissance

The flowering of black culture in New York's Harlem neighborhood during the 1920s, as African American writers and artists produced plays, poetry, and novels that often reflected the unique African American experience in America and in Northern cities in particular.

Samuel Gompers

The founding leader of the American Federation of Labor, under his leadership the AFL rarely went on strike, and instead took a more pragmatic approach based on negotiating for gradual concessions.

Geneva Conference 1954

The increasingly international response to major worldwide problems led some to believe that the Cold War might end as the US and SU worked together.

Square Deal

The name Theodore Roosevelt gave to his social policies, especially his intended relationships with capital and labor where everyone was treated fairly and eliminate government favors to big business.

Great White Fleet

The nickname given to the United States Navy battleships which were sent on a worldwide tour in 1907, demonstrating the growing power and reach of the United States navy and capability to foreign nations.

"enemies list"

The nickname given to the group of people singled out by the Nixon administration in the early 1970s for harassment and prosecution by government agencies.

Rutherford B. Hayes

The nineteenth president of the United States and former Governor of Ohio, he won the election in 1876 though it was marred with the Compromise of 1877 and the railroad strike in 1877.

Camp David Accords

The peace plan to finally end the Israeli-Egyptian disputes, this achievement by Carter is considered his greatest achievement in office.

Selective Training and Service Act

This act forced men between 21 and 35 to register for the army and caused the training of 1.2 million troops as America prepared for war.

Quota Laws of 1921/1924

This act set a 3 percent immigration on individuals from each nation of origin based on the 1910 census, which essentially began to restrict Southern and Eastern European immigrants. In 1924 this law expanded to maximum quotas for immigration into the United States by severely restricting immigration from southern and eastern Europe while almost excluding Asians entirely.

Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW)

This administration was created in 1953 was the first administration of the US government dedicated to the well being of the citizens.

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

This agency provided work for the unemployed of all backgrounds, from industrial engineers to authors and artists and helped bring unemployment down another 5%.

Office of Price Administration

This agency tried to keep the wartime economy under control by setting price floors and ceilings, regulating the tax code, and instituting rationing, which not only enabled a successful war drive but forced people to save their money enabling a strong postwar economy as well.

Edward Bellamy/Looking Backward

Written in 1888, it envisioned a future era in which a cooperative society had eliminated poverty, greed, and crime.

Key Democratic Platform 1880s

1. States-rights/limited government 2. Jeffersonian Tradition 3. Immigrant vote 4. Against prohibition 5. Catholics, Lutherans, Jewish people

1. Melting pot vs 2. Mixed Salad

1. The idea that people come to the United States and assimilate into the same culture. 2. The idea that people come to the United States and retain their ethnic heritage and remain unique from other ethnicities.

Key Republican Platform 1880s

1. Whig tradition, pro-business 2. Hamiltonian tradition 3. Social reformers, temperance 4. Anglo-Saxon heritage 5. Protestant religion 6. African Americans

Washington's Farewell Address

This speech was made in 1797 as the president left office, warning the new nation to remain neutral with regard to European affairs, avoid entangling alliances, and refrain from the formation of political parties to prosper in the future.

Two-term tradition

This tradition originated from George Washington, basically every president would work for a limited time and then voluntarily resign, even though there were no laws that said that they had to resign at a specific time.

Millard Fillmore

Vice president to Zachary Taylor until Taylor's death, he took over as the 13th president and served from 1850-1853 as a moderate politician and helped push the Compromise of 1850 through Congress.

Abigail Adams

Wife of John Adams who during the Revolutionary War wrote letters to her husband describing life on the home front and urged her husband to remember America's women in the new government he was helping to create.

"The Star Spangled Banner"

Written by Francis Scott Key and later became our national anthem.

Congress of Racial Equality

A Civil Rights organization that was assembled by young African Americans influenced by the radicalism of Malcolm X.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

A French philosopher who believed that human beings are naturally good and should rely on their instincts; government should be democratic and exist only to protect common good.

Samuel de Champlain

A Frenchman, explored the Great Lakes and established the first French colony in North America at Quebec in 1608.

Whiskey Rebellion

A July 1794 riot that broke out in western Pennsylvania in response to a high excise tax on whiskey initiated by Alexander Hamilton, President Washington personally led a force of militiamen to crush the rebellion in a show of national strength under the Constitution that was lacking under the Articles of Confederation.

Dorothea Dix

A Massachusetts schoolteacher, she studied the condition of the insane in poorhouses and prisons and her efforts of reform helped bring about the creation of asylums, where the mentally ill could receive better treatment.

Halfbreeds

A branch of the Republican party in the late 19th century that argued for basic reforms of machine politics (civil service jobs in return for votes).

Medicaid

A federal and state assistance program that pays for health care services for people who cannot afford them (low-income families).

Absolute Monarch

A form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government; his or her powers are not limited by a constitution or by the law and wields unrestricted political power over the sovereign state and its people.

Jazz, blues, ragtime

A form of music that combined African rhythms with western-style instruments and mixed improvisation within a structured band format.

Harriet Tubman

A former slave who helped establish and run the Underground Railroad, a network of safe houses and escorts throughout the North to help escaped slaves to freedom.

George Kennan

A leading expert of Soviet affairs in the 1940s whose "Long Telegram" and development of the theory of containment were the heart of the American Cold War.

Mann-Elkins Act

A progressive law supported by Taft, this law extended the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission to include communications as well as the long-short haul clause more effective, strengthening the government regulation of railroads.

Martin Luther King Jr.

A prominent Civil Rights leader who rose to fame during the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott, he tirelessly led the struggle for integration and equality through nonviolent means until he was assassinated in 1968.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A prominent author during the Roaring Twenties, he wrote stories and novels that both glorified and criticized the wild lives of the carefree and prosperous including his most famous works This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby.

Virginia House of Burgesses

A representative assembly was founded in 1619, which essentially relaxed the colony's military regime and established "Americans" as having the rights of Englishman including a representative assembly.

"Bleeding Kansas"

A result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the decision to allow slavery or not turned violent as proponents of both sides flooded into Kansas territory and violence followed very disputed elections in 1855.

Black Panthers

A revolutionary socialist movement that advocated self-rule for African Americans that was organized by Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and other militants.

Nazi Party

A right-wing political group that believed that the Treaty of Versailles had to be overturned and Communism combated and formed the German brand of fascism.

John Davenport/ Connecticut

A royal charter in 1662 merged New Haven and this River Valley area into one colony/ founded by John Davenport

John Kerry

Decorated Vietnam War veteran and US Senator of Massachusetts who lost the 2004 presidential election.

Thomas Cole

Emphasized the heroic beauty of American landscapes.

John Adams

Adams served as the second President of the United States and was the last Federalist president.

Initiative

Inspired by the progressive reformers, this allowed voters to propose and approve laws without legislative action, allowing reformers to circumvent corrupt government institutions to enact needed changes.

Referendum

Inspired by the progressive reformers, this provided a method by which actions of the legislature could be returned to the electorate for approval, allowing reformers to review the laws of corrupt politicians.

Appomattox Court House

It was at this location on April 9, 1865, that the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia officially surrendered to Union forces.

Seneca Falls Convention

Organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848, this meeting issued the Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men and women were created equal.

Jamestown

Organized by the Virginia Company in London in 1607, Virgina, this became the first permanent settlement in the Americas sustained by the cash-crop of tobacco and the work of indentured servants/slaves.

1783; $0; Britain; Treaty of Paris 1783

Original 13 Colonies

Internet/e-commerce

Originally created in the '60's as a way for government and universities to share information the World Wide Web was created in 1990 and used this to send information in the form of graphics and multimedia across the globe.

Dutch

Migration from other European countries increased to populate the American colonies, ensuring a heterogeneous mixture of nationalities that ultimately loosened the social ties to England.

Greenbacks

Name given to paper money issued by the government during the Civil War, so called because the backside was printed with green ink and were not redeemable for gold.

Sexual Revolution

Participants in the counterculture demanded more lifestyle freedom and rejected many traditional behavioral restrictions including their new view of sexual conduct which helped lead to a rise in single parent families.

Americans with Disabilities Act

Passed by Congress in 1991, this act banned discrimination against the disabled in employment and mandated easy access to all public and commercial buildings.

Peace of Paris (1763)

Peace treaty signed to end the French and Indian War (1763) where Britain gained French Canada and Spanish Florida and France gave Spain its western territory.

13th Amendment

Ratified December 1865, this amendment prohibited slavery in the United States.

17th Amendment/ Direct Election of Senators

Ratified in 1913, this provided for the direct election of U.S. senators rather than their selection by state legislatures, giving people more control of the government.

"Evil Empire"

Ronald Reagan's description of the Soviet Union because of his fierce anti-communist views and the USSRs history of violation of human rights and aggression.

Silent Spring

Written by Rachel Carson in 1962 this book criticized chemical dumping by major countries and noted "if the song bird gets sick, humans aren't far behind" as well as "we're all toxic from conception to death".

Huey Long

A Senator from Louisiana and one of the most vocal critics of FDR's New Deal, his liberal "Share Our Wealth" program proposed a 100 percent tax on all income over $1 million, and large redistribution measures winning him many followers and enemies: he was assassinated in September of 1935 at the capitol building in Baton Rouge.

Juan Gines de Sepulveda

A Spaniard who justified enslaving the Native Americans for gold, ore deposits, and for God's sake and man's faith in him.

Iraqi Civil War

A Sunni-led insurgency was determined to prevent a government of Shiites allied with the Kurds of northern Iraq so they organized a campaign of disruption, targeting police, soldiers and officials and led to mass casualties.

Crittenden Compromise

1860 compromise proposal designed to defuse tension between the North and the South which would have allowed slavery to continue in the South and would have denied Congress the power to regulate interstate slave trade, but on the advice of newly elected President Lincoln Republicans in Congress voted against it.

George McClellan

1862 Commander of Union forces, this man was known as both an excellent trainer of soldiers but hesitant to commit them into battle and he was in charge of the overly complicated Peninsular Campaign and was eventually replaced by Grant.

Morrill Land Grant Act 1862

1862 Federal act designed to fund state "land-grant" colleges (like OSU) where state governments were given large amounts of land in the western territories that was then sold to individual settlers and the profits of these lands could establish the colleges, which could research "useful" topics that were practical to farmers.

Ex Parte Milligan

1866 Supreme Court ruling that military trials in areas where civil courts existed were unconstitutional (unless the region was under Marshall Law) in order to prevent the President from becoming too powerful and disrupt the system of checks and balances.

Eugene McCarthy

1968 Democratic candidate for President who ran to succeed incumbent Lyndon Baines Johnson on an anti-war platform but ultimately lost.

Jay Treaty

A 1794 treaty that provided for the removal of British troops from American land, but failed to resolve the issue of British seizure of American ships and/or the impressments of American sailors which infuriated the public even though it was arguably the greatest diplomatic feat of the Washington administration since it preserved peace with Britain.

Specie Circular

A 1836 executive order issued by President Jackson in an attempt to stabilize the economy which had been dramatically expanding since the early 1830s due to state banks' excessive lending practices and over-speculation, this required that all land payments be made in gold and silver rather than in paper money/credit which would ultimately cause the economic depression known as the panic of 1837.

John Philip Sousa

A 19-20th Century Marine Corps bandmaster whose famous works include: Semper Fidelis, Stars and Stripes Forever, Washington Post March, El Capitan.

Munich Conference

A 1938 agreement between Britain, France, Italy, and Germany that permitted Germany to annex the Czech Sudetenland after Hitler declared he would take it by force, in order to both appease Hitler and avoid war but the pact only emboldened him further.

NSC-68

A 1950 secret policy statement that called for a large, ongoing military commitment to contain Soviet Communism that was accepted by Truman after the North Korean invasion of South Korea.

Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)

A 1954 international organization for collective defense, it was primarily created to block further communist gains in Southeast Asia.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

A 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision that reversed the "separate but equal" segregationist doctrine established by the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the court ruled that separate facilities were inherently unequal and ordered public schools to desegregate nationwide.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act

A 1965 law that provided education aid to states based on the number of children from low-income homes, the most well known part is called Head Start (a program to help poor preschoolers read).

Medicare

A 1965 law that provides for health care for those 65 and over.

Clean Air Act

A 1970 law that established national standards for states, strict auto emissions guidelines, and regulations, which set air pollution standards for private industry.

Kyoto Accord

A 2005 international treaty that limited the greenhouse gas emissions that President Bush thought too costly (the countries that did sign on have also voided the treaty in 2013).

David Walker

A Boston free black man who published "Walker's Appeal... to the Colored Citizens" and advocated the violent overthrow of the slave system in 1829, showing black abolitionists were leaders in the crusade against slavery as well.

Lusitania

A British vessel sunk by a German U-boat in 1915 that killed more than 120 American citizens, which prompted President Woodrow Wilson to plan for a military buildup and encouraged an American alliance with Britain and France in opposition to Germany.

Father Charles Coughlin

A Catholic priest, he argued that the money supply should be dramatically increased to resolve the nations' financial problems with inflation by the issuance of greenbacks and the use of silver as money, but his anti-Semitism later drove many people away.

Clarence Darrow

A Chicago trial lawyer, he earned fame in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial but even though his client Scopes lost the case, he argued well in court and in so doing weakened the influence and popularity of fundamentalism nationwide.

Franklin Pierce

A Democrat who served as president of the United States from 1853 to 1857, he was the last president until 1932 to win the popular and electoral vote in both the North and South but did little in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Lakota Sioux

A Native American confederacy located in the western United States, they migrated from Minnesota to the Dakotas and became nomadic hunters of buffalo living in tepees and fierce warriors as European colonizers came (in the late 1800s they would fight the US Army).

American Indian Movement/AIM

A Native American organization founded in 1968 to protest government policies and injustices suffered by Native Americans that in 1973 organized the armed occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

Jonathan Edwards

A New Light preacher in the 1740s, appealed to Christians to repent and live holy lives for fear of hell giving many colonists a shared religious experience, and is frequently associated with his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

Trent Affair

A Union frigate stopped and searched the British ship Trent and captured two Confederate ambassadors aboard it that possibly prevented a Confederate-British alliance but risked angering Britain to join the war on the side of the Confederacy until Lincoln apologized and paid the British.

Ho Chi Minh

A Vietnamese communist nationalist leader, he rallied the Vietnamese against the French in order to win independence.

JP Morgan

A Wall Street financier and business leader during the era of industrialization, in 1901 he bought Carnegie Steel and established the world's first billion-dollar corporation, U. S. Steel Corporation.

Welfare reform

A bill that made reductions in welfare grants and required able welfare recipients to find employment.

The Catcher in the Rye

A book written by Salinger about a sixteen-year-old boy who goes to New York City where he reflects on the phoniness of adults and heads toward a nervous breakdown.

Stalwarts

A branch of the Republican party in the late 19th century that argued for "traditional"/professional machine politics and favored civil service jobs in return for votes from their supporters and opposed all reform efforts to fix the system.

Bowles-Simpson plan

A broad plan to reduce the federal deficit by cutting spending and raising taxes.

Vertical integration

A business tactic developed by Andrew Carnegie in steel production, a business-owner single-handedly controls every aspect of the production process for a product in order to achieve maximum efficiency and lower prices to outsell the competition (from the mining of the resources to the distribution of the final product to the customer).

Horizontal integration

A business tactic that is a form of monopoly, occurring when one person/company gains control of one aspect of an entire industry, and was developed by John D. Rockefeller in relation to refining oil.

Engel v. Vitale

A case that ruled that state laws requiring prayers and Bible readings in the Public schools violated the First Amendment's provision for separation of church and state.

Space Race

A competition of space exploration between the United States and Soviet Union that led to great scientific advances particularly in rockets.

New Harmony/Robert Owen

A completely equal utopian settlement in Indiana lasting from 1825 to 1827, it had 1,000 settlers but a lack of political authority and complete economic failure caused it to break up, but demonstrated the romantic impulse sweeping through American culture.

Fraud and Corruption—Credit Mobilier

A construction company owned by the stockholders of the Union Pacific Railroad, this company was "hired" in 1867 by Union Pacific to complete the actual construction but charged the federal government nearly twice the actual cost of the project and worse, when discovered, attempted to bribe Congress to stop the investigation and led to greater public awareness of government corruption.

Modernism vs Fundamentalism

A cultural movement during the early 1900's where people went against traditional ideals, and promoted technology that increasingly faced people who fought for a literal interpretation of a spiritual book, usually the Bible, and greatly opposed evolutionism.

Suez Canal Crisis

A North-south waterway in Egypt that connects the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, in 1956 Egypt tried to nationalize the British and French canal, prompting Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt but pressure from the U.S., United Nations, and USSR forced them to withdraw their forces.

Henry Cabot Lodge/ Lodge Corollary

A Republican senator from Massachusetts who passed the Lodge Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, it stated non-European powers would be excluded from owning territory in the Western Hemisphere.

March on Washington

A large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963 where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony at the Lincoln Memorial during the march which led to the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the National Voting Rights Act (1965).

James Otis

A lawyer in colonial Massachusetts who was an early advocate of the political views that led to the American Revolution, making the phrase "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny" is usually attributed to him and was strongly against the writs of assistance.

Sam Houston

A leader of Texas independence, he defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto and claimed independence and requested both Jackson and Van Buren to recognize Texas as a state but both declined in fear that it would become another slave state and lead to an imbalance in Congress infuriating the Northerners.

Samuel Adams

A leader of the Sons of Liberty, he suggested the formation of the Committees of Correspondence and fought for colonial rights throughout New England and is credited with provoking the Boston Tea Party.

Ralph Waldo Emerson/American Scholar

A leader of the transcendentalist movement and an advocate of American literary nationalism. He published a number of influential essays during the 1830s and 1840s, including "Nature" and "Self Reliance."

Daniel Webster

A leading Whig Senator during the nation's Antebellum Era, he beautifully articulated his nationalistic views and sought to preserve the Union with his most famous debate considered the most eloquent speech ever delivered in the Senate.

Henry Clay

A leading Whig Senator during the nation's Antebellum Era, he beautifully articulated his nationalistic views and sought to preserve the Union with his most famous debate considered the most eloquent speech ever delivered in the Senate.

Susan B. Anthony

A leading member of the women's suffrage movement, she helped draw parallels between slavery and the plight of women, and co-founded the National Women's Suffrage Association with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1869.

William Randolph Hearst

A leading newspaperman of his times, he ran The New York Journal and helped create and propagate "yellow (sensationalist) journalism" and competed for news circulation with Pulitzer.

Ralph Nader

A leftist American politician who promoted the environment, fair consumerism, and social welfare programs while drawing attention to the lack of safety in American automobiles in his book Unsafe at Any Speed.

Matthew C. Perry: Japan

A long-serving naval admiral, he commanded a modern warship which he used to impress the Japanese into signing the Treaty of Kanagawa, which opened Japan to American trade.

Korean Armistice

A longstanding but temporary end to the Korean conflict, a demilitarization zone on the 38th parallel leaving the North as communist and the South democratic.

Braceros Program

A program by which braceros or contract laborers would be admitted to the US for a limited time allowing some to work as migrant farm laborers, but many Mexicans were able for the first time to find factory jobs in the wartime economy.

Henry David Thoreau/Walden/Civil Disobedience

A prominent transcendentalist writer, his two most famous writings are Civil Disobedience (1849) and Walden (1854), where he advocated living life according to one's conscience (complete independence), removed from materialism and repressive social codes.

Birth of a Nation

A racist silent film from 1915, it portrayed the Ku Klux Klan trying to protect American values by reigning in free Southern blacks, demonstrating the racism of the time period.

Religious fundamentalism

A religious movement whose objectives were to return to the foundations of the faith and to influence legal policy to mirror their faith.

Buying on the margin

A risky financing technique where the purchase of stock is made with borrowed money, using the value of the shares as collateral on the idea that the stocks would go up and the person could sell for more money, thus earning a profit and repay the initial loan.

Ghost Dance movement

A ritual originated in 1870 and promised a rebirth of Native American tradition and a repelling of white incursion that frightened the whites into outlawing its existence, and the US Army violently responded to this activity and led to the Battle of Wounded Knee.

Algonquian

A semi-nomadic people that used hunting, fishing and gathering as opposed to agriculture and occupied the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Maine with very different dialects.

Bombing of US Embassies

A series of attacks in which hundreds of people were killed in truck bomb explosions at the United States embassies in Kenya.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

A series of seven debates held from August 21 and October 15, 1858 between senatorial candidates, the debates pitted Abraham Lincoln, a free-soil Republican, against Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat in favor of popular sovereignty and resulted in hard-fought, highly attended, and ultimately inconclusive debates but they crystallized the dominant positions of the North in regard to slavery and propelled Lincoln into the national arena.

Al-Qaeda

A shadowy terrorist network that organized 9/11 and was associated with earlier attacks on American embassies in East Africa and on the USS Cole in Yemen as the group sought to fight against US power.

Southern Manifesto

A southern document that argued the states could nullify fed laws that they didn't like and pressured southern states to ignore and reject the Brown decision.

Ku Klux Klan

A southern vigilante group founded in 1866 in Tennessee, they operated in all Southern states and often conducted raids and lynchings to intimidate black voters and Republican officials demonstrating the South's resistance to African American equality but faded away in the late nineteenth century until later in 1915.

Transcendentalists

A spiritual movement that arose in the 1830s as a challenge to rationalism, the goal was to achieve a personal/emotional understanding of God rather than a rational, institutionalized one and believed concepts such as absolute truth and freedom were accessible through intuition and sudden insight.

Protestant Reformation

A split in Christian unity under the Pope led by Martin Luther in 1517, which ultimately challenged Spain's religious-backed American Empire as national rivalries intensified.

Segregated black troops/Massachusetts 54th Regiment

A state militia in Massachusetts; Massachusetts was the first state to enlist black soldiers; 180,000 blacks served (10%) but free blacks were only 1% of total Union population; this was an all-color regiment commanded by white officers and soldiers were not paid equally; still, proved that African Americans can fight/win battles.

Anthracite Coal Miner's strike

A strike between the coal miners and business operators in 1902, President Roosevelt used the government to intervene and determine the facts of the situation, and ultimately raised both the price of coal for the owners and the wages for the miners which was the first labor event where the federal government intervened as a neutral arbitrator.

Land Ordinance

A success under the Articles of Confederation, this allowed Congress to sell land in the Northwest United States in an orderly manner in square miles of land while also providing needed revenue to the government.

Fascism

A system of government characterized by strict social and economic control and a strong, centralized government usually headed by a dictator as seen in Italy and Germany in the 1930s.

Poll taxes

A tax of a fixed amount per person and payable as a requirement for the right to vote, since many African Americans were poor sharecroppers this effectively barred many African Americans from participating in elections.

Protective Tariff

A tax on imported goods that is intended to protect a nation's businesses from foreign competition.

Woodrow Wilson

Democratic president from 1913 to 1921, he was an enthusiastic progressive reformer who supported measures to limit corporate power/protect laborers/aid poor farmers, and internationally encouraged democracy and capitalism worldwide while maintaining US neutrality in the early years of WWI and composed the Fourteen Points to help end the conflict.

Boland Amendment

Democrats opposed to the administrations policies in Nicaragua passed this to prohibit further aid to the contras.

New Immigrants

Arriving after 1880, these immigrants were composed of relatively poor and uneducated Southern/Eastern Europeans (Italians, Greeks, Slavs, Slovaks, Russian Jews, Armenians) and often settled in industrial cities where they took unskilled jobs.

Samuel F.B. Morse

Artist and inventor, he is most famous for his invention in telegraphy in 1844 that allowed for fast and cheap transfers of news connecting every major town and also allowed for better coordination of business.

Denmark Vesey

As a slave he won the lottery and bought his own freedom and grew wealthier over time, but was ultimately accused of plotting a violent slave revolt with fellow church members and was hung as a symbol to other African Americans.

Market Revolution

As as a result of the Industrial/Agricultural/Transportation Revolutions, new market developments resulted in increased trade between people who produce the item and those who use it, and refers to the trade between different regions in the country with each section producing items for the other sections: the North producing manufactured goods, the South producing cash crops (notably cotton), while the West produced food.

Extinction

As settlers moved into an area they would clear entire forest and after only two generations exhausted the soil with poor farming methods while fur trappers decimated beaver, buffalo to the brink of extinction.

German occupation zones

At the war's end, Germany had been separated into four military occupation zones, each assigned to one of the Big Four powers placing Germany on the frontlines of the Cold War.

Little Big Horn

At this battle, the Sioux wiped out an overconfident Custer and his men.

Thurgood Marshall

Attorney who successfully argued the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in front of the Supreme Court in 1954, he later became the first African American appointed to the Supreme Court.

Helen Hunt Jackson

Author and later muckraker, her books portrayed the unsettled portions of the West as a Utopian Garden of Eden that was quickly vanishing and exposed the unjust manner in which the US government had treated the Native Americans as well as protested the Dawes Severalty Act.

Thomas Jefferson

Author of the Declaration of Independence and a patriot during the American Revolution.

Roger Williams

Banished for the belief of a complete separation between church and state he led a group to help found Rhode Island, which offered complete religious freedom and demonstrated religious differences/conflicts led to New England's colonial expansion.

Protestant Work Ethic

Based upon the Calvanist emphasis on the necessity of hard work to demonstrate that a person had been saved, some Protestants worked tirelessly in order to demonstrate (to themselves and others) they had received salvation.

Battle of the Thames River

Battle led by Harrison whose victory broke the British alliance with the Native Americans when Tecumseh was killed.

Fall of Saigon

Battle where North Vietnam captured this capital of South Vietnam and renamed it Ho Chi Mihn City, which marked the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

John Tyler

Became president of the United States in 1841 after William Harrison died, (a former Democratic-Republican) drifted from the Whig ideas and policies and instead replaced his cabinet with Democrats as well resulting in little change from previous presidents policies.

Andrew Jackson

Before becoming president, he gained popularity as a general who launched aggressive military campaigns against Native Americans and led the U.S. to a stunning victory over British forces at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815, persuading many Americans they had won the entire war.

Deism

Belief in a supreme being who created the universe who no longer actively intervenes in his creation. It is similar to a clockmaker who built, set and started the clock, and then let it go.

Cultural Pluralism

Belief that immigrants to the U.S. maintain their own cultural identity and thus the U.S. is a type of society in which diverse ethnic, racial, national groups co-exist while maintaining their own cultural heritage.

Conservationists

Believed in scientific management and regulated use of natural resources over time.

Albany Plan of Union

Benjamin Franklin's plan to form a military alliance between the colonies with a General/President lacking powers to impede on state constitutions failed, which demonstrated that while the colonial bonds were loosening to Britain the colonies still were not united with each other as well as provided the concept of uniting in the face of a common threat.

Election of 1888

Benjamin Harrison ran against President Grover Cleveland and won on a platform that argued a lower tariff tax would ruin business prosperity.

Unemployment

Between 25-40% of the nation was without paid work during the Great Depression, leading to a shift away from consumerism towards saving (which only made the economy worse) and reduced the need for more employed workers.

Tuskegee Institute

Black educational institution founded by Booker T. Washington to provide training in agriculture and crafts.

George Fitzhugh/Sociology of the South

Boldest and most well known of proslavery authors, questioned the principle of equal rights for unequal men and attacked the capitalist wage system as worse than slavery.

Prohibitory Act

Britain rejected the Olive Branch Petition and passed this act in 1775, which closed the colonies to all overseas trade (enforced with a naval blockade of colonial ports) and made no concessions to American demands except an offer to pardon repentant rebels.

Soviet Union Breakup

Brought about by the swift march of events and the nationalist desire for self determination, Gorbachev was overwhelmed and not able to check this tide against the Soviet system.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Built on the ideas of the Chicago School, this created the "Prairie School" of architecture, due to the use of horizontal lines and the fusing of buildings into landscapes (organic architecture).

John Roberts

Bush appointed this conservative federal judge at age 51 as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court when William Renquist died.

WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction)

Bush claimed that Iraq had possession of these weapons and ties to terrorists, which would allow for a more deadly terrorist attack than 9-11, but the failure to find these during the invasion led people to think the war was a mistake.

2007 Troop Surge

Bush's gutsy increase of troops in 2007 to protect Iraqi civilians that caused a dramatic drop in violence against civilians and provided Iraq with much needed stability.

Overproduction

Business growth had produced a volume of goods that workers didn't have the income to buy helping lead to the Great Depression.

Cooperatives

Businesses owned and run by the farmers to save the costs charged by middlemen.

Disease

By far the most devastating impact of the Columbian exchange, this significantly weakened entire Native American groups who were exposed, decimating the population which allowed for forests and animals to grow and significantly increase in number while contributing to a labor shortage that would be resolved by the mass importation of African slaves (who brought different diseases that further wiped out the Native Americans).

Henry the Navigator

By the 1430s this Portuguese explorers' work established Portugal as a naval power in control of the African coast, thus preventing other European powers from lucrative eastern-sea route trade with Asia.

Single-parent families

By the 1990s the traditional family unit was disintegrating because the divorce rate had increased, the number of single parent households had risen, parent-substitutes had assumed the role of child rearing, and the family no longer served many of its traditional social functions.

Direct Primary

Bypassing politicians and placing the nominating process directly in the hands of the voters.

Proposition 13

California tax revolt in 1978 which slashed property taxes and forced huge cuts in government services and set the stage for Reagan to bring this idea to the national level.

John Muir, Sierra Club

Campaigned for awareness of the environment, inspired creation of Yosemite National Park, became President of Sierra Club and was a preservationist.

Japanese Internment

Carried out through Executive Order 9066, which took many Japanese families away from their homes and was at least partially motivated by racism and fear of spying.

Nicholas Biddle

Chairman of the Bank of the United States, he fought Jackson to re-charter the bank by causing an economic downturn but ultimately gave up and let the bank expire, allowing the country to lose a flawed but stable financial system.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

Created in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal, this agency pumped money into the economy by employing the millions of young men in by helping create national parks.

War Production Board

Created in 1942, this group oversaw the production of the thousands of planes, tanks, artillery pieces, and munitions that FDR requested once the U.S. entered the war by allocating resources and shifted domestic production from civilian to military goods.

NASA

Created in 1958 to manage the US side of the space race with the Soviet Union.

Kerner Commission

Created in July, 1967 by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of the 60s race riots, it blamed them on an "explosive mixture" of poverty, slum housing, poor education, and police brutality caused by "white racism" and advised federal spending to create new jobs for urban blacks, construct additional public housing, and end school segregation.

Samuel Slater

Created the first modern factory (a spinning mill) in 1790 at Rhode Island, bringing advanced English technology into America and helped jump-start American industrial development.

Environmental Superfund

Created to clean up toxic dumps such as Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY.

Sir Edmund Andros

Crown appointed governor of the Dominion of New England seeking to reassert strict crown rule over the American colonies who ultimately lost power due to the Glorious Revolution in Britain, which reinforced the colonial idea of local self-government and salutary neglect from Britain.

Fidel Castro

Cuban socialist leader who overthrew a dictator in 1959 and established a Marxist socialist state in Cuba.

Transatlantic Cable

Cyrus W. Field's invention of an improved communication in 1866 suddenly made it possible to send messages across the seas in an instant's time and by 1900 cables linked all continents of the world in an electronic network of instantaneous, global communication.

Pocahontas

Daughter of Chief Powhatan who helped the settlers (including saving John Smith's life), later marrying John Rolfe and visited England where she died of smallpox in 1619.

The Great Migration

Decreasing cotton prices, the lack of immigrant workers in the North, increased manufacturing as a result of the war, and the strengthening of the KKK led many African Americans from the South to the industrial centers of the Northeast and the Midwest and generally led to higher wages, more educational opportunities, and better standards of life.

Socialist Party of America/ Eugene Debs

Dedicated to the welfare of the working class, their platform called for more radical reforms than the Progressives favored like the public ownership of the railroads, utilities, and even of major industries such as oil and steel. Led by Eugene Debs in the early 1900s.

Election of 1992

Democrat Bill Clinton won over Republican George H.W. Bush because of the economy's problems after the Gulf War ended as Independent Ross Perot split Republicans votes allowing Clinton to win the presidency with less than 50% of the vote with a campaign focused on the economy.

Election of 1996

Democrat President Clinton ran on a campaign that offered no major programs while Republican Dole called for a large tax cut that led to a Clinton reelection but Republicans kept control of Congress.

Freeport Doctrine

Democrat Stephen A. Douglas's attempt to reconcile his belief in popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision, Douglas argued that territories could effectively forbid slavery by failing to enact slave codes.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Democrat, president from 1933 until his death in 1945, he was the architect of the New Deal, which required that he exercised greater authority than perhaps any president before him, giving rise to a new understanding of the role and responsibility of the president as well as put together a lasting Democratic coalition (labor unions, African Americans, urban workers, and farmers).

William Jennings Bryan

Democratic candidate for president in 1896 and 1900, his goal of "free silver" (unlimited coinage of silver) won him the support of the Populist Party and though he was a gifted orator he was unable to win the election.

Budget and trade deficits

During Reagan's presidency the national debt rose from around $900 billion to about $2.7 trillion due to the tax cuts that were to help stimulate investments, the US trade deficit reached a staggering $150 billion a year.

Reverse discrimination

During the 1970's, white workers and students felt that they were being discriminated against by employers and admission offices because too much weight was put on race and ethnic background.

Transcontinental Railroads

During the Civil War, Congress authorized land grants and loans for the building of these to tie California to the rest of the Union and before 1900 four others were constructed across the West.

Sherman's March

During the Civil War, Union general led his forces on a march from Atlanta to Savannah and then to Richmond, he brought the South "to its knees" by ordering large-scale destruction known as a "scorched-earth" policy.

Anti-Federalists

During the ratification process in 1788, these people opposed the Constitution on the grounds that it gave the federal government too much political, economic, and military control and instead advocated a decentralized governmental structure that granted most powers to the states.

Poland

East European nation whose September 1939 invasion by Hitler officially set off WWII in Europe.

European Union

Economic association between countries in Europe for mutual gain that has struggled to place effective and unified political control into place.

Panic of 1857

Economic calamity that began with the failure of the Ohio Life Insurance Company and spread to the urban east, the depression greatly affected the industrial east and the agricultural west but did little damage to the South, reinforcing the South's view that their economic system was superior to that of the North.

Adam Smith/ Laissez Faire

Economist who argued that business should be regulated, but not by government, instead by the "invisible hand" of the law of supply and demand. This idea turned the government into a "hands-off" approach to the economy, allowing markets to regulate themselves.

massive retaliation

Eisenhower's Cold War strategy for containment, he preferred deterrence to shrink the military's ground forces and enlarge the stockpile of nuclear missiles to respond to a Soviet attack.

Modern Republicanism

Eisenhower's government plan "conservative when it comes to economics, more Liberal when it comes to social programs."

Richard Nixon

Elected President in 1968 and 1972 representing the Republican Party, he got the United States out of the Vietnam War by using "Vietnamization", and was the first President to ever resign due to the Watergate scandal.

Television

Electronic technology advanced, allowing broadcasters to transmit video images cheaply across vast distances, demonstrating the explosion of technology in post-war America.

Railroads/Federal Land Grants

Emerged as America's largest industry and helped unite distant areas of the country together through the largest infrastructure project the United States had ever attempted. Because of the immense amounts of capital and labor required, the Federal Government provided millions of acres of land to railroad companies allowing them to sell the land to finance the project.

John Locke

His ideas of governments were formed to protect the natural rights to "life, liberty, and land" (considered in the time as the pursuit of happiness since farming was many people's jobs) and that any government not fulfilling those duties could be overthrown became the basis upon which the American Revolution was based.

Betty Friedan

Feminist author of "The Feminine Mystique" in 1960 that sparked a new consciousness among suburban women who were unable to employ their full talents and were being stifled by middle class and helped launch the second-wave feminist movement against the "cult of domesticity."

Newt Gingrich

First Republican Speaker of the House in 40 years he promoted the ideas behind "Contract with America".

Horatio Alger stories—Self made man

His stories of "rags to riches" emphasized that anyone could become wealthy and successful through hard work and a little luck, and helped inspire young Americans to be like Andrew Carnegie in novels such as Ragged Dick.

Assimilationists

Historians like Helen Hunt Jackson who emphasized formal education and training and conversion to Christianity.

Historians: Traditionalists vs. Revisionists

Historical interpretation to who was at fault for the Cold War: 1) Soviets were at fault for the Cold War 2) Truman made a series of mistakes to heighten the Cold War while Stalin was more flexible

Mexcian Cession

Historical name for the region of the present day southwestern United States that was ceded to the U.S. by Mexico in 1848 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo following the Mexican-American War and was significant because the question of extending slavery into newly acquired territories had become the leading national political issue.

Langston Hughes

Hughes was a gifted writer who wrote humorous poems, stories, essays and poetry in the 1920s, and is widely considered part of the Harlem Renaissance celebrating African American culture.

Rosenberg Case

Husband and wife who, in 1950, were accused of spying for the Soviets, they were convicted and sentenced to death demonstrating how serious the government was taking subversive threats.

Fair Employment Practices Committee

Implemented under FDR's Executive Order, this required companies with government contracts to not discriminate on the basis of race or religion, and was intended to help African Americans and other minorities obtain jobs in the home-front industry.

Treaty of Tordesillas

In 1494 the Catholic Pope divided the world into Eastern Portuguese and Western Spanish hemispheres, ensuring the Americas were initially a mostly Spanish sphere of exploration and settlement though the eventual flood of immigrants proved the treaty unworkable.

King Phillip's War

In 1676 the expansion of the New England colonies drove Metacomet and Indian allies into losing a war of attempting to exterminate whites from America, which demonstrated the superiority of European military technology and the inability of Native Americans to stop the colonization process of their land.

Ronald Reagan

First elected president in 1980 and elected again in 1984, he was able to get Iran to release its hostages, instituted trickle down economics while reducing welfare and public works programs, and significantly increased the military and budget deficit but ushered in the end of the Cold War.

Popular Sovereignty/ Lewis Cass

First espoused by Democratic presidential candidate Lewis Cass in 1848 and eventually championed by Stephen A. Douglas, this principle stated that Congress should not interfere with the issue of slavery in new territories and instead each territory would draw up a constitution declaring slavery legal or illegal as it saw fit which ultimately became the core of the Democratic position on slavery's expansion during the 1850s.

Cecil Calvert/Lord Baltimore

First proprietary colony charter granted to this person, who sought to establish a safe area for Roman Catholics in Maryland in 1634 but resulted in a mixture of Catholics and Protestants, necessitating the need for the Act Concerning Religion.

Cold War

For almost forty-five years this dominated international relations, as political and economic differences between the United States and Soviet Union resulted in tension between the two Superpowers in terms of an arms race, the division of the world into economic and military spheres, and conflict in the Third World.

Chicago Convention

For eight days, protesters and police battled for control of the streets of Chicago, while the Democratic Party met at the convention leading to the successful nomination of Hubert Humphrey.

Oregon Territory/"Fifty-four Forty or Fight!"

For twenty years, the British and the United States agreed to jointly occupy this region, but in the mid-1840s this region became a political issue in the United States, with many expansionists willing to risk war to get all of the territory, including present-day British Columbia.

New England Confederation

Formed in 1643 as a defense against local Native American tribes and encroaching Dutch. The colonists formed the alliance without the English crown's authorization.

Populist Party

Formed in 1892 through farmers' alliances in the Midwest and South, this organization agitated for reforms that supported farmers and the poor, including "free silver" (the unlimited coinage of silver)-which would ease debt payments; a national income tax; direct election of senators; regulation of railroads; and other government reforms to help farmers which in 1896 the Democratic nominee for president William Jennings Bryan supported.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Formed in 1949 to counter the Soviet threat in Eastern Europe, the members agreed to be a part of a unified coalition in the event of an attack on one of the nations, and throughout the Cold War, this organization was the primary Western alliance in opposition to communist forces.

Students for a Democratic Society

Formed in 1962 in Port Huron, Michigan, this group condemned anti-Democratic tendencies of large corporations, racism and poverty, and called for a participatory democracy.

Nye Committee

Formed to investigate whether or not munitions manufacturers and bankers were pro-war in WWI solely to make profit, this committees findings increased anti-war atmosphere in the United States and created a push to pass Neutrality Acts as WWII was beginning.

Dwight Eisenhower

Former U.S General who led the Allied forces in D-Day during WWII who won the presidency later and authorized the interstate highway system while leaving business alone to prosper while taking on a foreign policy mostly concerned the Cold War.

Jefferson Davis

Former secretary of war, he was elected president of the Confederacy shortly after its formation though he was never able to garner adequate public support and faced great difficulties in uniting the Confederate states under one central authority.

Indian Removal Act

Granted Jackson the funds and authority to move Native Americans to assigned lands in the West, this 1830 law primarily targeted the Cherokee tribe in Georgia as part of the federal government's broad plan to claim Native American lands inside the boundaries of the existing states.

Black Codes

Granted freedmen a few basic rights but also enforced heavy civil restrictions based on race, these laws were enacted in Southern states under Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan and convinced many Radical Republicans that his plan was inadequate.

Brady Bill

Gun-control law named for a presidential aid that had been wounded and disabled by gunfire in the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981.

Federalist Era

Hamilton dominated the 1790s and favored a national financial programs, a loose interpretation of Constitution and a strong central government.

1898; $0; Hawaii; Annexation

Hawaii

George Washington

He defined the role of the president and intervened little in legislative affairs and concentrated mostly on diplomacy as well as supporting the financial policies of Alexander Hamilton and set the precedent of presidents serving only two terms of office.

Mikhail Gorbachev; glasnost/perestroika

Soviet statesman whose foreign policy brought an end to the Cold War and whose domestic policy introduced major reforms of open political discussion and economic restructuring.

Women in the workplace/Clara Barton

Superintendent of nurses for the Union Army during the Civil War and later founded the American Red Cross in 1881, she symbolized the increased opportunities for women during this time period as the war forced people to adjust their social expectations.

Civil Rights Cases of 1883

Supreme Court ruled that Congress could not legislate against the racial discrimination practiced by private citizens.

New Frontier

The campaign program advocated by JFK in the 1960 election, he promised to revitalize the stagnant economy and enact reform legislation in education, health care, and civil rights.

Stokely Carmichael

The chairman of the SNCC who repudiated nonviolence and advocated "black power" and racial separatism.

Mark Twain

He lived from 1835 to 1910 and was America's most popular author who used "romantic" type literature with comedy to entertain his audiences, invented the term The Gilded Age, and captured the frontier realism and humor through the dialect his characters use.

John Deere

He made the steel plow that helped a farm family was more efficient and could plant many more acres, needing only to supplement its labor with a few hired workers at harvest.

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

He took control of Mexico and established his dictatorship, where he launched an attack on the Alamo in 1836 but was later defeated by Sam Houston at the battle of San Jacinto where he was forced to sign a treaty granting Texas independence.

Milton Friedman

He was a famous American economist who strongly promoted the idea of free trade and condemned government regulation which led to a number of free trade agreements between the United States and other countries.

Chester Arthur

He was a traditional supporter of the spoil system but quickly enacted the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act when he became President after Garfield was assassinated in 1881.

J. Strom Thurmond

He was nominated for president on a States' Rights Party (Dixiecrats) in the 1948 election and ultimately split southern Democrats from the party due to Truman's stand in favor of Civil Rights for African American.

Winifield Scott

He was the General-in-chief of the Union Army who instituted the Anaconda Plan to destroy the southern rebellion.

Paul Volcker—high interest rates

He was the chairman of the Federal Reserve under President Carter and President Reagan who tightened the money supply in order to wring inflation out of the economy causing interest rates to shoot up and caused the sales of homes and automobiles to plummet which led to an increase in unemployment.

Rationalism

Heavily influenced by the Enlightenment, rationalists criticized most traditional religion as irrational and thus unfounded. Proponents of rationalism held that religious beliefs should not simply be accepted but should instead be acquired through investigation and reflection.

Potsdam

Held July 17-August 2, 1945, Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met to coordinate the division of Germany into occupation zones and plan for the Nuremberg Trials and was the final meeting between the Big Three powers under the pretense of a wartime alliance.

"New South"/ Henry Grady

Henry Grady made an 1886 speech in which he asserted the South wanted to grow, embrace industry, eliminate racism and Confederate separatist feelings in an attempt to get Northern businessmen to invest in the South (notably Birmingham Alabama/Memphis Tennessee/Richmond, Virginia).

Mary McCauley (Molly Pitcher)

Heroine of the American Revolution who carried water to soldiers during the Battle of Monmouth Court House and took over her husband's gun when he was overcome by heat.

Political machines

Highly organized groups that held power receiving votes by rewarding basic jobs and services for immigrants.

Yates v. United States

This case said that the 1st amendment protected radical and revolutionary speech, even by Communists, unless it was a "clear and present danger" to the safety of the country.

Jacob Riis

This muckraker and photojournalist displayed the condition of New York's tenements in his book, How the Other Half Lives, which prompted widespread political and social reform.

Battle of the Atlantic

This naval battle largely pitted German U-Boats against Allied convoys of merchant ships in an effort to isolate the island-nation of Britain and force their surrender to Axis forces.

Advertising

This new marketing technique not only promoted a consumer economy but also created a consumer culture in which "going shopping" became a favorite pastime.

Michael Harrington, The Other America

This novel was an influential study of the poverty in the U.S., & it was the driving force behind the "war on poverty" with revelations that 20% of the U.S. was living below the poverty line.

Ida B. Wells

This person protested against lynching and spoke out in the newspaper Free Speech, asking the federal government for an anti-lynching law.

Al Gore

This person was Clinton's vice-president and a candidate for the 2000 presidential election who lost in one of the closest elections in history.

James Garfield

This president attempted to defy the Stalwarts and enact basic civil service reform efforts, but that ultimately led to his assassination.

American Colonization Society

This society purchased a tract of land in Africa and sought to return free Blacks there.

Election of 2008

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought for the Democratic nomination that ultimately pitted Obama vs. the Republican John McCain, the backdrop of a failing economy was the centerpiece of the election and led to an easy Obama victory.

Joseph Pulitzer

His New York World newspaper was the first newspaper to exceed a million in circulation by filling in his newspaper with stories of crimes and disasters and feature stories about political and economic corruption.

Federal Trade Commission

In 1914 this created the organization to monitor and investigate firms involved in interstate commerce and to issue "cease and desist" orders when business practices violated free competition, this was a central part of Wilson's plan to aggressively regulate business.

Dawes Plan 1924

In 1924 this arrangement scaled back U.S. demands for debt payments and reparations from World War I, and established a cycle of U.S. loans to Germany for its payment to the Allies, thus funding Allied debt payments to the U.S.

Scopes Trial/ Clarence Darrow

In 1925, Tennessee teacher John T. Scopes willfully violated a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public schools which led to a court case where William Jennings Bryan and Scopes' lawyer Clarence Darrow faced off during the highly publicized trial, and although Darrow lost the case he made a fool out of Bryan which substantially weakening the anti-evolution cause throughout the U.S.

Indian Reorganization (Wheeler Howard Act)

In 1934 this legislation reversed the Dawes Act's privatization of common holdings of American Indians and a return to local self-government on a tribal basis and included provisions intended to create a sound economic foundation for the inhabitants of Indian reservations.

Ethiopia

In 1935, Mussolini brutally attacked this area with bombers and tanks while natives were left to defend their country with spears and outdated weapons and could have been avoided had the League of Nations declared an oil embargo on Italy.

Spanish Civil War

In 1936 General Franco succeeded in overthrowing the republican government with some help from Germany and Italy.

Employment Act of 1946

In 1946 the government passed this law, where its main purpose was to lay the responsibility of economic stability on the federal government who gained a larger part in helping develop macro-economic growth.

Desegregation of Armed Forces

In 1947 Truman banned racial discrimination in federal practices and used his position as Commander in Chief to order the Armed forces to be leaders in this new policy.

Dennis et al v. United States

In 1951 the Supreme Court found that Eugene did not have a right under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States to exercise free speech if he used that speech to further a conspiracy to overthrow the government.

Iranian Overthrow

In 1953 the CIA helped overthrow a government in Iran bringing the return of Reza Pahlavi as shah in response to the attempts at nationalizing the holding of foreign oil companies and in return provided the West with favorable oil prices and made enormous purchases of American arms.

Mapp v Ohio

In 1961 federal forces searched a house without a warrant and the evidence found could not be used since it was obtained illegally and violated people's 14th amendment rights.

Escobedo v Illinois

In 1964 the Supreme Court ruled that a defendant must be allowed access to a lawyer before questioning by police.

Civil Rights Act 1964

In 1964 this law made segregation illegal at all public facilities & gave federal government to additional powers to enforce school desegregation, and set up the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to end racial discrimination in employment.

Miranda v. Arizona

In 1966 the Supreme Court ruled that those subjected to in-custody interrogation be advised of their constitutional right to an attorney and their right to remain silent.

Woodstock

In 1969 on a farm in New York State Hippies gathered for a three-day party that involved sex, drugs, and rock and roll including artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez whose protest songs galvanized the counterculture.

Watergate (cover-up)

In 1972 Nixon's election campaign feared a loss so they approved the Commission to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) to spy on the Democrats, where a security guard foiled an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee Headquarters and exposed the scandal.

Pardon of Nixon

In 1974 this was the most significant presidential pardon in US History, given by Gerald Ford, this pardon removed all punishment towards Richard Nixon for his involvement in covering up Watergate and is significant as this was the first and only pardon of a presidential impeachment.

Berlin Wall falls 1989

In 1989, this famous wall came down and marked an end to Soviet influence in the country and allowed for Germany to become reunited.

Yugoslavia Civil War

In 1992 Bosnia voted on independence but the Serbs were against it and as fighting broke out the Serbs used ethnic cleansing to remove all non-Serbs from their territory.

START II

In 1993, Bush signed this accord with Yeltsin, pledging both nations to reduce their long-range nuclear arsenals by two-thirds within ten years.

Bush Doctrine

In 2002 in response to the September 11th terrorist attacks President Bush sought to create a stable democracy in the Arab world whose laws are secular with a strong economy who would serve as an example of a high quality of life and neighboring countries will want to adopt the same kind of government and society.

Battle of Horseshoe Bend

In Alabama on March 1814, Andrew Jackson led the United States Army and Native American allies to victory over the Creek Indian tribe, effectively ending the Creek War and destroying the hopes of an Indian state that could resist future white settlement.

Infant Industries

In Alexander Hamilton's Financial Program, these newly developing businesses needed to be protected from foreign competition in the form of tariffs on imported goods

Shay's Rebellion

In August 1786 western Massachusetts's farmers were angered over new taxes and violently attempted to shut down the county courthouses to prevent foreclosure proceedings on their farms, but more importantly exposed the weaknesses of the National Government under the Articles of Confederation and led many to call for a new Constitution.

Soviet Afghanistan invasion

In December 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan; this action ended a decade of improving US-Soviet relations as Carter reacted by placing an embargo on grain exports and the sale of high technology to the Soviet Union and boycotting the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

Military-Industrial Complex

In Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell speech to the nation the retiring president warned of the dangers of a symbiotic relationship between a nation's military, economy, and politics with the idea being that if the military becomes the biggest client for manufacturers then the nation will begin to invest more of its economy into military contracts for the economic profitability that this relationship seems to create.

Four Freedoms Speech

In January 1941 FDR addressed Congress where he outlined the four essential freedoms everyone should have: speech, religion, freedom from want & fear.

Chesapeake Leopard Affair

In June 1807, the British naval frigate HMS Leopard opened fire on the American naval frigate USS Chesapeake for refusing to allow British to board, killing three men and wounding twenty then boarding and hanging four more suspected deserters which outraged Jefferson who responded with the Embargo Act.

Beirut Bombings

In Lebanon 1983 a suicide bomber crashed a bomb-filled truck into U.S. Marine barracks killing over 200 marines and in response Reagan had to withdraw the troops though he suffered no political damage.

Truman Doctrine

In March 1947, Truman proclaimed before Congress that the U.S. would support people anywhere in the world facing "attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures" and essentially committed the U.S. to a role of global policeman.

Three Mile Island

In March 1979 a mechanical failure and human error at this power plant in Pennsylvania combined to permit an escape of radiation over a 16-mile radius.

Tobacco farms

In North Carolina these were typically small farms, but larger plantations were found in other parts of the colonies.

Battle of Saratoga

In October 1777 General Benedict Arnold rallied the Continental Army to take the strategic British positions and secured the surrender of British General Burgoyne's army, thus giving the French enough proof of military success to have them form a military alliance with the United States as an ally against Great Britain

Battle of Yorktown

In October 1781 the British forces under command of General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington's colonial army, pinned between the French fleet on the Atlantic and Washington's army, which signaled victory for Americans and was the end of combat between the British and American forces.

Elias Howe

Invented the sewing machine in 1846, which made sewing faster and more efficient demonstrating the technological innovations occurring within the vibrant commercial and industrial areas during the 1840s.

Thomas Edison/ Menlo Park/ Electric Power

Inventor in the late 19th century, he invented the phonograph, motion picture, and incandescent light bulb at his research laboratory in New Jersey, which demonstrated America's budding innovation and improved the standard of living in America. His most famous invention, electricity, allowed cities to power factories and homes that allowed for safety and greater productivity (lighting could be had in factories 24/7 which allowed for more work shifts instead of depending on the sun).

Emancipation Proclamation

Issued by Abraham Lincoln in January of 1863, this announcement freed all slaves under rebel (Confederate) control, but did not affect the slave states within the Union or Confederate states under Union control, and therefore in practice freed no slaves but did give the war a new objective and helped ensure Europe would stay out of the Civil War.

Stamp Act

Issued by England in 1765, the act required colonial Americans to buy special watermarked paper for newspapers and all legal documents and violators faced juryless trials in vice-admiralty courts (as under the 1764 Sugar Act), which provoked so much anger it generated the first organized response and resistance to British law.

Australian Ballot

Issuing ballots printed by the state and requiring voters to mark their choices secretly within the privacy of a curtained booth.

Indian Reorganization Act of 1934

It returned lands to the control of tribes and supported the preservation of Native American cultures.

Massachusetts Circular Letter

It urged the various colonies to petition Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts. British officials in Boston ordered the letter retracted, threatened to dissolve the legislature, and increased the number of British troops in Boston.

Rotation in Office

Jackson's idea to prevent corruption in government positions was to move government workers from one position to another frequently, and ultimately democratize the government and lead to reform by allowing the "common folk" to run the government.

Embargo Act

Jefferson endorsed this law that forbade all importation and exportation in response to the Chesapeake-Leopard affair in hope that the ban would economically force Britain and France to recognize US neutrality, but resulted in damaging the American economy more than it did Britain or France's eventually leading to the acts repeal.

Revolution of 1800

Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, was elected to replace a federalist and the transfer of power went smoothly and changed the direction of government.

Gospel of Wealth

Justification for the growing gap between rich and poor during the Industrial Revolution, this philosophy centered on the claim that anyone could become wealthy with enough hard work and determination which writers like Horatio Alger incorporated into their novels.

Sumner-Brooks incident

Kansas senator Charles Sumner gave cruel speech that attacked democrats. Congressman Preston Brooks beat Sumner and northerners enraged at Brooks and south.

Alliance for Progress

Kennedy's foreign aid proposal for Latin America that would contain communism by helping Latin American nations grow economically.

Election of 1964

LBJ beat "New Right" Senator Goldwater who voted against the civil rights act and was a conservative republican.

Tenements

Landlords divided up poorly constructed inner-city housing into small, rooms with ventilation shafts in the center to provide windows for each room and could cram over 4,000 people into one city block and served as housing for poor factory workers.

Alice Paul/ National Woman's party

Leader of National Woman's party who used militant tactics to persuade Congress and the public for women's suffrage and used mass pickets, parades, and hunger strikes.

Henry Cabot Lodge

Leader of a group of senators known as "reservationists" during the 1919 debate over the League of Nations, he and his followers supported U.S. membership in the League of Nations only if major revisions were made to the covenant (part of the Treaty of Versailles) but President Wilson refused to compromise and the treaty was rejected.

Chiang Kai-shek

Leader of the Nationalist forces in China, he ultimately lost to Mao Tse-Tung, establishing China as a Communist country and represented an epic failure in containing communism.

John Winthrop

Leader of the Puritan migration in Boston who planned the colony as a Christian model to the world (City on a Hill), which resulted in a relatively stable and prosperous city very quickly that was controlled by the people and never underwent a starving period like other colonies before it—a model for other colonization efforts).

Nikita Khruschev

Leader of the Soviet Union during the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis, he and President Kennedy signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963 temporarily easing Cold War tensions.

Federalists

Led by Alexander Hamilton, Federalists believed in a strong central government at the expense of state powers and were staunch supporters of the Constitution during the ratification process and were popular for approximately thirty years afterward but went into decline after the presidency of Thomas Jefferson and disappeared altogether after the Hartford Convention.

Standard Oil Trust

Led by John D. Rockefeller, this company grew to control nearly all of the United States' oil production and distribution and demonstrated the consolidation of businesses into larger, nationally based units of production.

Battle of Fallen Timbers

Led by a former general of the Continental army, Wayne went looking to battle Native Americans for attacking US citizens and won this battle (near Toledo, Ohio today) in August 1794 which paved the way for settlement of the Ohio Valley.

Battle of Tippecanoe

Led by future president William Henry Harrison, U.S. forces defeated Shawnee forces in the battle which lessened the Native American threat in Ohio and Indiana.

Black Muslims

Led by leader Elijah Muhammad who preached a more confrontational black nationalism, separatism, and self-improvement that attracted thousands of followers.

Hungarian revolt

Led by students and workers, it installed Liberal Communist Imre Nagy who attempted to force Soviet Soldiers to leave and promised free elections but the revolution was crushed by the Soviet Union.

William Henry Harrison

Led by the future president, U.S. forces defeated Shawnee forces in the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, which curtailed the Native American threat in Ohio and Indiana encouraging more settlement and enraging the Native Americas.

Pancho Villa

Led raids across the U.S.-Mexican border to destabilize Mexico's government and murdered a number of people in Texas and New Mexico, prompting Wilson to dispatch General Pershing (did not capture Villa because he was ultimately sent to WWI).

Writs of Assistance

Legalized by Parliament during the French and Indian War, these were general search warrants that allowed British customs officers to search any colonial building or ship that they believed might contain smuggled goods, even without probable cause for suspicion which outraged the colonists who considered the writs to be a grave infringement upon their personal liberties.

Campaign Finance Reform

Legislation aimed at placing limits on political candidates accepting money and gifts from individuals and special interest groups.

1842; $0; Britain; Webster Ashburton Treaty

Little Hunk of Maine

Pottawatomie Creek

Location where John Brown killed 5 pro-slavery men in Kansas and helped make the Kansas border war a national issue.

Alger Hiss

Longtime government employee who, in 1948, was accused by Time editor Whitaker Chambers of spying for the USSR and after a series of highly publicized hearings and trials, Hiss was convicted of perjury in 1950 and sentenced to five years imprisonment, emboldening conservatives to redouble their efforts to root out subversives within the government.

1803; $15 million; France; Louisiana Purchase Treaty

Louisiana Purchase

China/India/Brazil

Low wage jobs shifted to these countries, undercutting the lower-middle class positions many Americans with lower levels of education depended upon.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

MLK and nearly 100 other African American ministers from this organization encouraged nonviolent protest to provoke segregationists and win support from moderate southern whites.

March to Montgomery

MLK organized a march in Selma where tens of thousands of black protesters petitioned for the right to vote and marched to the governors' mansion where police met them with tear gas and clubs and shocked the rest of the country into action.

Patrick Henry

Made a dramatic speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses in May 1765. "Virginia Resolves" were his resolutions for the colonies on taxes. No taxing unless by the Virginia House.

Macon's Bill #2

Madison's 1810 ploy to get Britain or France to lift trade restrictions, which stated US trade sanctions were lifted with the promise that if one country agreed to free trade with the US than sanctions would be re-imposed against the other nation which France quickly agreed to.

Mail order—Sears

Mail-order companies like this one used the improved rail system to ship to rural customers everything from hats to houses ordered from their thick catalogs, which were known to millions of Americans as the "wish book."

No Child Left Behind

Meant to fix a broken public education system this linked federal money to state action that required states to have high standards for all students and to measure progress through standardized testing.

Cult of Domesticity

Men dominated American families as the legal guardians of the children, owned whatever family members produced or earned, and had the legal authority to oppose his daughter's choice of husband. In the 1830's women gained the right to own and convey property, write a will, and keep possession of her own property instead of giving it her husband. A woman who achieved mastery in religion, morality, domestic arts, and music and literature lived up to the middle class ideal of the cult of domesticity.

Vaqueros

Mexican cowboys who established the cattle business which Texas took over after the Mexican-American War.

Asymmetric Warfare

Military action between a superpower using strategies dependent on high-technology weapons compared to the low technology and guerilla tactics used by small insurgent groups, this strategy allowed smaller forces to attack the weak points of a much larger military for a fraction of the cost.

My Lai

Military assault of a small Vietnamese village in 1968 where American soldiers murdered hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, which produced outrage and reduced support for the war in America and around the world when details of the massacre and an attempted cover-up were revealed in 1971.

Vietnamization

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

2nd Great Migration

More than 5 million African Americans from the South moved to the other regions of the United States during WWII seeking better job and educational opportunities.

Texas

Originally refused as a state in 1837, it remained a sovereign nation but was later annexed via a joint resolution through Congress, supported by President-elect Polk, and approved in 1845 and ultimately helped lead to war with Mexico.

Bank failures

Over 30,000 banks failed, which plummeted the poor economy into dire straits as even employed people lost their life savings and were unable to purchase items to help the economy grow (and unemployed people lost everything).

City Manager Plan

Over 400 cities had elected officials hire an outside expert, usually a trained business manager or engineer, to take charge of the government in order to stay away from the corrupting influence of politics, which demonstrated the widespread political reform occurring in the Progressive era.

Proprietary colonies

Owned by an individual (not a joint-stock company) with the power to make laws with the consent of the people.

Ashcan School

Paintings of rugged realism that focused on the downtrodden and other elements of urban life that was popular in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Continentals

Paper money issued by Congress which was almost worthless due to inflation.

Tennessee Valley Authority

Part of FDR's New Deal, this agency worked to develop energy production sites and conserve resources by pumping money into the economy and completed a number of major projects, but eventually faced heavy criticism from environmentalists, advocates of energy conservation, and opponents of nuclear power.

Slave Trade

Part of the triangular trade, rum from the colonies was traded for African slaves.

Reconstruction Acts

Passed by Congress over Johnson's vetoes, these acts placed the South under military occupation. They divided the former Confederate states into five military districts and increased the requirements for getting readmitted to the Union. Each ex-Confederate state had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment and place guarantees in its constitution from granting the right to vote for all males. The acts did not include Tennessee, which had already passed the Fourteenth Amendment and was readmitted.

Alien and Sedition Acts

Passed by Federalists in 1798 in response to the XYZ Affair and growing Democratic-Republican support on the basis of "national security," this law increased the number of years required to gain citizenship, allowed for the imprisonment and deportation of aliens, and virtually suspended freedom of speech which led to massive popular dissatisfaction and secured Republican Thomas Jefferson's bid for presidency in 1800 as well as the undoing of the Federalist Party.

Herbert Hoover

President from 1929 to 1933, as a conservative he made only limited efforts to control the economic and social problems of the nation as it experienced the Great Depression—efforts that were generally considered to be too little, too late but later set the stage for many future New Deal measures.

Gerald Ford

President from 1974-77, he is the only person not voted into the White House since Nixon appointed him vice president and became president after Nixon resigned.

Boris Yeltsin

President of the Russian Republic.

Abraham Lincoln

President of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865, this president's victory in the election precipitated the secession of the first southern states, paving the way for the Civil War where his primary mission was to restore the Union and later planned for a lenient Reconstruction in 1863, but was assassinated before it could be fully implemented.

Lyndon Johnson

President that signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to win the "war on poverty" he created the Great Society, the economic opportunity act, food stamps and welfare to needy families, a department of housing and urban development, as well as seeing to medical needs with the creation of Medicare and Medicaid.

Jimmy Carter

President who stressed human rights, he also enacted an embargo on grain shipments to the USSR because of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

Benito Mussolini

Prime Minister and dictator of Italy from 1922 until 1943 he valued nationalism, militarism, anti-liberalism and anti-communism combined with strict censorship and state propaganda and became a close ally of German dictator Adolf Hitler

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

Proposed amendment to the U.S. constitution passed by Congress and submitted to the states for ratification in 1971, it outlawed discrimination based on gender and initially seen as a great victory by women's-rights groups but the amendment fell 3 states short of the 38 required for ratification (many states have adopted similar amendments to their state constitutions however).

Kent State

Protests broke out at this college in Ohio in 1970 as Nixon expanded the Vietnam War to Cambodia leading to large protests where the National Guard killed four college students.

Anti-Crime Bill

Provided federal funds to more police officers on the streets but on the condition that the increased money for prison construction would be tied to mandating life in prison for 3rd felon conviction.

Bank Holiday

Public confidence in financial institutions plummeted so people raced to withdraw their money before they permanently lost it, and it was only resolved by the "Bank Holidays" FDR instituted after assuming the Presidency.

Henry George/Progress and Poverty

Published in 1879 and became an instant bestseller, it proposed placing a single tax on land as the solution to poverty while jostling readers to look more critically at the effects of laissez-faire economics.

Great Migration

Puritans sent 17 ships and over 1,000 followers to Massachusetts Bay in the 1630s to establish Boston, which established large family groups (which allowed the population to increase naturally instead of depending upon immigration) and self-government in the New World.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Questioned the intolerance and conformity in American life by writing "The Scarlet Letter".

"De facto" segregation

Racial separation that exists as a matter of custom rather than as a legal requirement. "De jure" segregation is when there is segregation by law.

Railroad strike of 1877

Railroad companies cut wages in order to reduce costs because of an economic depression, and a strike on the B&O Railroad spread across 11 other states and shut down 2/3 of the country's rails until ultimately Rutherford B. Hayes used federal troops to end the violence.

McKinley Tairff

Raised protective duties by nearly 50 percent in 1890 (the highest rise in U.S. history), this Republican backed measure led to stunning election defeats of the Republican party led by discontent farmers.

Electoral College System

Rather than having the people elect a president directly, the delegates decided to assign to each state a number of electors equal to the total of that state's representatives and senators.

Sixteenth Amendment—federal income tax

Ratified in 1913, this allowed the federal government to collect a direct income tax, which shortly afterwards Congress instituted a graduated income tax with an upper tax rate of 7 percent.

19th Amendment

Ratified in 1919, this granted women the right to vote after women applied intense pressure on President Wilson during World War I.

14th Amendment

Ratified in July 1868, this constitutional change guaranteed the rights of citizenship to all people, black or white, born or naturalized in the United States and also provided for the denial of congressional representation for any state that denied suffrage to any of its male citizens and requires that the laws must provide equal protection to all people.

15th amendment

Ratified in March 1870, this constitutional change prohibited the denial of voting rights to any citizen based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

21st Amendment*

Ratified to the constitution in 1933, this repealed prohibition and allowed the sale of alcohol to continue, in part to create jobs and end the depression.

Coxey's Army

Reacting to the Depression of 1893, this Populist leader had a swarm of jobless and the homeless people that proposed federally funded public works projects to employ those who needed work, and though they were ignored by the government initially the idea would later gain traction in the 1930s under President F. Roosevelt.

Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI/Star Wars)

Reagan's intent to pursue a high technology missile defense system which was referred to as Star Wars because it would use lasers on satellites to shoot down incoming nuclear missiles.

Election of 1984

Reagan's reelection confirmed his new policies were widely popular as stagflation receded, America's military was rebuilt after Vietnam, and the Soviet Union began to crumble.

Nicaragua: Sandinistas

Rebel group in Nicaragua who set out to oust the long-term dictator of Nicaragua.

Federal land grants and loans

Recognizing that western railroads would lead the way to settlement, the federal government provided railroad companies with these huge subsidies with the expectation that the railroad would make every effort to sell land to new settlers to finance construction and make government land more valuable with an effective transportation system but had the effect of promoting hasty and poor construction as well as widespread corruption in all levels of government

Connecticut Compromise/Great Compromise

Reconciled the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan for determining legislative representation in Congress, this plan established equal representation for all states in the Senate and proportional representation by population in the House of Representatives.

1818; $0; Britain; Convention of 1818

Red River Basin

Asylum Movement

Reformers proposed setting up new public institutions such as state-supported prisons, mental hospitals, and poorhouses; hope was that the inmates of these institutions would be cured of their antisocial behavior by being treated to a disciplined pattern of life in some rural setting.

Rhineland

Region between Germany and France demilitarized by Treaty of Versailles; Hitler occupied and re-militarized the region in preparation for foreign conquests.

Clayton Anti-trust Act

Spearheaded by Woodrow Wilson in 1914, this law improved the vague Sherman Antitrust Act by enumerating a series of illegal business practices that would be punished, allowing the government to more actively regulate the economy.

Impressment

The 1800s British policy of boarding American ships in search of British naval deserters whom they would force back into service but would often seize Americans as well, provoking outrage in America who felt the British were violating their neutrality and ultimately was a major cause of the War of 1812.

United States v. Nixon

The 1974 case in which the Supreme Court unanimously held that the doctrine of executive privilege was implicit in the Constitution but could not be extended to protect documents relevant to criminal prosecutions

Manifest Destiny

The 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent and was used by Democrats in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs. First used for the annexation of Texas issue. Opposed by Clay, Webster and Lincoln, but supported by Polk.

Bill Clinton

The 42nd President advocated economic and healthcare reform (failed) and ended up as the second president to be impeached (but not removed from office), and his few domestic and international successes were overshadowed by the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal that led to his impeachment and eventual acquittal but he did manage to balance the federal budget and finished with federal government running a surplus.

Iranian Hostage Crisis

The 444 days in which American embassy workers were held captive by Iranian revolutionaries after young Muslim fundamentalists overthrew the oppressive regime of the American-backed shah, which triggered an energy crisis by cutting off Iranian oil while Carter botched rescue attempts and that was ultimately resolved when the hostage's were released the day Ronald Reagan became president.

Act of Toleration

The Act passed in 1649 assured freedom for all Christian worship that included teachings of the Trinity, which began to establish the basis of religious toleration in America.

PACTO strike

The Air Traffic Controllers was a union that was decertified following a strike which was broken by the Reagan Administration and significantly weakened the power of labor unions in the country.

D-Day

The Allied air, land, and sea assault on German occupied France, this was an invasion on June 6, 1944 where Allied forces sustained heavy casualties but eventually took the beach and gradually moved inland.

Island-Hopping

The American military fought for strategic bases held by the Japanese in the Pacific Ocean in order to launch bombing missions and an invasion of Japan.

OPEC Oil Embargo

The Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) placed an embargo on oil sold to Israel's supporters, which caused a worldwide oil shortage and long lines at gas stations in the United States.

Hiroshima; Nagasaki

The August 6th and 9th nuclear attack on these cities were planned to end the war months sooner than otherwise possible and to save many lives.

Parliament

The British legislature where issues are discussed and national policy decided.

California; Bear Flag Republic

The California Republic, also called this, is the name used for a revolt against Mexico proclaimed by California settlers on June 14, 1846, in Sonoma in the then-Mexican province of California.

Glorious Revolution

The Catholic-Protestant battle continued in Britain resulting in a new King and a focus on (British) domestic issues while allowing the American colonies to continue in salutary neglect.

People's Republic of China

The Chinese Civil War ended in 1949 with this Communist government in charge.

Failure of Health reform

The Clinton health care plan was controversial in that its goal was to come up with a comprehensive plan to provide universal health care for all Americans to mandate employers to provide health insurance coverage to all of their employees through competitive but closely regulated health maintenance organizations.

Cambodia genocide

The Communist Rebels Khmer Rouge who took over the government in Cambodia and desired to transform the country into a communist society so he slaughtered 2 million people—anyone who had an education greater than 7th grade (they weren't in his plan for a new Cambodia).

Tammany Hall

The Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in controlling New York City politics.

"Graying America"

The aging of the American population, or increase of the proportion of elderly citizens, caused by a declining birth rate and increased life expectancy and has caused an increase in cost of Social Security pensions, in health costs, and meant the elderly would carry a greater political impact.

Axis Powers

The alliance between Italy, Japan, and Germany where they agreed to fight Soviet Communism and not to stop each other from making foreign conquests.

"regime change"

The believed real purpose of the war in Iraq established by critics of the policy of war instead of weapons of mass destruction.

Taft-Hartley Act

The centerpiece of a congressional effort to restrict union activity, this 1947 law banned certain union practices and allowed the president to call for an eighty-day cooling off period to delay strikes thought to pose risks to national safety.

John C. Fremont

The civil governor of California, he led the Army exploration with rumors of the Mexican-American War coming and thought he could take California but he ultimately joined Colonel Kearny and successfully took California

Third World

The colonial empires collapsed after WWII and this area formed because they were often not industrialized and lacked stable political and economic institutions while looking for foreign aid from either the U.S or the Soviet Union, making them easy pawns of the Cold War.

Scotch-Irish

The colonial population also grew with the increased large influx of immigration by them, diversifying the nationalities of the population, increasing Presbyterianism, and ultimately loosened the ties to England.

Confederate States of America

The confederation formed in 1861 by the Southern states after their secession from the Union: South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana.

US Steel

The country's first billion dollar corporation created by J.P. Morgan, it is still headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and remains one of the world's top producers in steel.

Middle Passage

The dangerous trip from Africa to the Americas, marked by the brutal treatment of slaves, transported millions of Africans between continents (with about 5% residing in the United States).

Abolitionism

The desire to rid the nation of slavery.

Mining frontier

The discovery of gold in CA in 1848 caused the first flood of newcomers to the West. A series of gold strikes and silver strikes in what became the states of Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and South Dakota kept a steady flow of hopeful young prospectors pushing into the Western mountains.

Mining Frontier

The discovery of precious metals attracted many to this previously sparsely populated region resulting in a number of boom towns (towns started quickly as well as quickly abandoned in the pursuit of money).

Saddam Hussein

The leader of Iraq during the middle of the Cold War and initially supported by the U.S. to fight Iran, his invasion of Kuwait made him a prime enemy of America and ultimately George W. Bush crushed his government.

Business Deregulation

The lifting of restrictions on business, industry, and professional activities for which government rules had been established and bureaucracies administered.

Abu Ghraib Prison

The main US controlled prison in Baghdad, when photographs of American guards abusing suspected insurgents it caused outrage in the Middle East and hurt the United States reputation.

Slave Codes

The massive increase in the slave population led to written laws regarding the treatment of slaves which created a racial hierarchy of European supremacy and African inferiority.

Causes of "Indian Wars"

The massive migration and settlement of thousands of ranchers, miners, and homesteaders on American Indian lands led to violence breaking out into a series of brutal engagements.

George III

The mentally unstable King of England from 1760-1820, whom the colonists were torn between loyalty and resistance, but after his rejection of the Olive Branch Petition he was largely considered a tyrant.

Aztecs

The most advanced civilization in the America's, their defeat by Europeans left the America's relatively uncoordinated and undefended to halt European exploration and conquest.

Horses

The most beneficial trade for the Native Americans in the Columbian exchange, this animal revolutionized Native American life allowing for tribes to become more nomadic and hunt buffalo efficiently as well as help with travel.

Rough Riders

The most famous cavalry unit in the Spanish-American War, it was personally commanded by Theodore Roosevelt and led the charge up Kettle Hill where they lost over 100 men but succeeded, which was vividly reported in the yellow press. (part of the San Juan Hill battle).

Battle of Midway

The most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, in 1942 the US Navy decisively defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet (4 aircraft carriers) and forcing Japan to defensive warfare.

Iroquois Confederation

The most powerful Native American group in the Ohio Valley since the 1640s, they were able to remain aloof from both the British and the French as they traded successfully with both groups and played them against each other, which resulted in their maintaining power in the Great Lakes region.

Copperheads

The name for Northern and Western Democrats in Congress who wished for an end to what they deemed an "unjust war" were named after the poisonous snake because Lincoln felt they were waiting to get him, end his broad use of executive power and end the Civil War without saving the Union.

Ross Perot

This billionaire was a third-party candidate in the 1992 presidential election won 19 percent of the popular vote. His strong showing that year demonstrated voter disaffection with the two major parties and opposed the NAFTA trade agreement that he argued would take jobs from the United States.

Bush v. Gore

This case was during the 2000 presidential election between Bush and Gore over Florida's 25 electoral votes stopping a statewide recount and acknowledging Bush as president (later recounts by the press did show that Bush won Florida).

Chinese Civil War

This civil war from the 1930s was renewed after the end of WWII between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong, and while the U.S had supported the Nationalists in WWII the Communists appealed to poor landless peasants and ultimately mainland China fell to the Communists in 1949 and the Nationalists resided on the island of Taiwan.

The Federalist Papers

This collection of essays by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, explained the importance of a strong central government and was published to convince New York to ratify the Constitution.

Anasazi and Pueblo Cultures

This culture originated in the first century B.C in the Four Corners of the US. The people harvested crops, lived in permanent villages, and made pottery. They became the most powerful people in the southwest. The advanced architecture is still used in Pueblo Indian culture in the southwest. The demise of thei people was drought.

Horace Greeley

This man's ownership of the Tribune Newspaper in 1846 represented the growing forms of journalism that gave serious attention to national and international events that would ultimately help unify American life.

Treaty of Paris

This officially ended the Spanish-American War, effectively ending the Spanish Empire in the Americas and Pacific Ocean as Spain ceded Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States and gave Cuba independence signifying the beginning of an overseas American Empire.

Grange Movement

This organization began as a social group in the 1860s to learn improved agriculture techniques led by Oliver Kelley, but turned political as farmers sought to redress grievances with railroad companies in a political manner by passing many laws (in Midwestern states) but a combination of returning agricultural prosperity and an unsupportive court system led to the decline of the movement.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

This organization was formed in 1910 by a group of people seeking to end racial discrimination by using lawsuits in the federal courts as weapons to achieve equality and end segregation and disenfranchisement.

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)

This organization, established by activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in 1890, combined the once rival National Woman Suffrage Association and American Woman Suffrage Association to fight for a woman's right to vote.

Susan B. Anthony/NAWSA

This organization, established by activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in 1890, combined the once rival National Woman Suffrage Association and American Woman Suffrage Association to fight for a woman's right to vote.

War Industry Board

This panel, headed by Bernard Baruch, sought to control production, wages, and prices of manufactured goods to more efficiently mobilize the US for World War I, and was able to increase American production by a staggering 22% by the end of the war.

Greenback party/ James B. Weaver

This political party was active between 1874 and 1884, which had a strong anti-monopoly ideology and who opposed a shift back to a bullion-based (gold) monetary system and desired to continue using greenbacks since that would leave the government in control of the money supply as opposed to banks which they believed would help assist farmers and therefore businesses led by James B. Weaver.

Bessemer Process

This process removed air pockets from iron allowing steel to be made cheaply, which opened up mass production possibilities in the construction of railroad tracks, skyscrapers, advancements in shipping.

Berlin Airlift

This program delivered supplies to a German city every day for 11 months after being cut off from Western contact by Stalin, and this incident demonstrated the resolve of Allied commitment to the containment policy.

Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP)

This provided $700 billion to troubled banks to bail out banks that were perceived "too big to fail" to prevent major financial collapse even as "main street" America continued to lose houses, cars, jobs, wealth, and became very angry at the Bush administrations bail-out of wealthy financiers.

Wildcat Banks

This refers to the unusual practices of chartering banks under state law from 1816 to 1863, and the federal government did not regulate banks (only the states did) and regulation varied greatly from state to state and led to frequent closure of banks who also issued their own money in this time making that money worthless (wildcat was a symbol on some of the money and that picture was the only worth of the bill as some said).

Neutrality Acts 35, 36, 37

This series of laws were designed to preserve isolationism by preventing a reoccurrence of events that many Americans believed had led them into WWI, including an arms embargo and that people traveling did so at their own risk, and later amended the arms embargo to allow payment in cash only.

Anaconda Plan

This successful military strategy was developed by Union General Winfield Scott who sought to crush the Southern rebellion by imposing a naval blockade that would cut the South off from supplies/trade and then take the Mississippi, which would cut the Confederacy in half.

King Caucus

This system allowed congressmen to hold informal meetings and decide who to nominate for president with little or no input from the electorate and was they way every presidential candidate from 1796-1824 went, until the system ground to a halt with westward expansion decentralizing the existing political parties.

Headright system

This system gave about 50 acres of land to individuals immigrating to Virginia who brought indentured servants, which significantly expanded the Colonial immigrant population as during that time social status was primarily determined by land ownership.

Indentured servants

This system made immigration available to Britain's poor by letting them work-off their transportation debt after they traveled to America (usually 7 years), but their poor treatment led to resentment and rebellion would ultimately lead to need for slavery in America.

Escort Convoys

Used in both the First and Second World Wars, this strategy held that several cargo ships would together sail from Canada to the UK protected by naval escort ships to reduce vulnerability to German submarines.

Election of 2000

Vice President Al Gore was the Democratic candidate against Republican Governor George W. Bush of Texas and the results were contested in this Supreme Court case as votes in Florida were disputed and a recount was ordered by the Florida courts but the Supreme Court ordered a halt to the recount giving Bush the victory (later recounts by the press did show that Bush won Florida).

Martin Van Buren

Vice President and later President from 1837 to 1841, he took over as the panic of 1837 began and unable to win support from his platform from the Whigs, and lost his bid for reelection in 1840.

John McCain

Vietnam War veteran who survived in a prison for 5 years, he is a Senator from Arizona who ran for President in 2008 on the Republican ticket, his background was an independent thinker who could be explosive at times and was known as a plain speaker who had a reputation for honesty.

Red Scare/ Palmer Raids

Vigorous repression of radicals, political subversives, and "undesirable" immigrant groups in the years immediately following WWI, as the American public feared revolution from Communist agitators and 6,000 people were arrested and held without charge while others were deported. This ultimately led a series of raids of suspected radicals and the headquarters of radical organizations in thirty-two cities and resulted in more than 6,000 arrests, 550 deportations, and uncountable violations of civil rights.

Uneven income distribution

Wages had risen relatively little compared to huge increases in corporate profits, and the top 5% of the population had accumulated 33% of income.

Temperance

Wanted people to abstain from alcoholic drinks.

National Bank

Washington supported Hamilton on issue to propose bank and it was voted into law (Bank of U.S) privately owned and the federal govt. could print paper currency and use federal deposits to stimulate business

Proclamation of Neutrality (1793)

Washington's declaration that the U.S. would not take sides in the French Revolution sought to avoid conflict for the unprepared United States but also violated the Franco-American Treaty of 1778.

Isolationism

Washington's long-lasting foreign policy was for the United States to avoid "entangling alliances" with foreign nations that might drag us into wars that would not be beneficial to the people.

Hollywood blacklists

When Hollywood attempted to protect its public image they adopted this and kept record of "suspicious loyalty" and those on the list were barred from employment in the industry.

Webster-Hayne Debate

When Robert Hayne debated Senator Daniel Webster in 1830 over the issue of states rights, and served to expose the conflict between New England and the Southern states to light and the bitter resentment on both sides.

Injunction

When the courts would rule strikes illegal.

Party Nominating Convention

Where party politicians and voters would gather in a large meeting hall to nominate the party's candidates.

Yellow-Dog Contract

Where workers must sign an agreement never to join a union.

Streetcar cities

Whereas in the pre-Civil War era people had little choice but to live within walking distance of their shops or jobs, now people could live in residences many miles from their jobs and commuted to work using various means of transportation.

Limited democracy

White women, poor white men, slaves and free blacks, formed the majority of the population but couldn't vote.

1848; $15 million; Mexico; Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

Mexican Cession

Great Society/War on Poverty

President Johnson's program to fight impoverishment.

Chinese Exclusion Act 1882

Prohibited the further immigration to the United States by Chinese laborers.

Kim Il Sung

The Communist leader of North Korea.

Common Man

The average person of the time period with limited education, land, and wealth.

Fletcher v. Peck

1810 Marshall Supreme Court ruling over Georgia's legislative attempt to revoke a land grant on the grounds that it had been obtained by corruption, the Court ruled that a state cannot arbitrarily interfere with a person's property rights which marked the first time a state law was voided on the grounds that it violated a principle of the United States Constitution.

McCulloch v. Maryland

1819 Supreme Court case that determined states could not tax federal institutions such as the Second Bank of the United States, this ruling asserted that the federal government wielded supreme power in its sphere and that no states could interfere with the exercise of federal powers which angered many Democratic-Republicans who favored states' rights.

Gibbons v. Ogden

1824 Supreme Court case involving state versus federal licensing rights for passenger ships between New York and New Jersey, devoted Federalist Marshall ruled that the states could not interfere with Congress's right to regulate interstate commerce by interpreting the "commerce" broadly to include all business, not just the exchange of goods.

Worchester v. Georgia

1832 Supreme Court where Chief Justice John Marshall ruled the Cherokee tribe comprised a "domestic dependent nation" within Georgia and thus deserved protection from harassment—in this case, from forced migration out of Georgia but that did little to deter Andrew Jackson who removed all Native Americans by 1838.

Africans

Unlike other groups, was largely forced to relocate to the Americas and work on European styled farms.

Hohokam

A culture that emerged during the third century, these people built irrigation canals that enabled them to grow two crops a year in the arid environment. They built permanent towns, some of which joined confederations which linked the towns by canals. The central village in each confederation coordinated labor, trade, religion, and political life. The Hohokam culture drew extensively on Mesoamerican ideas and materials.

Public Works Administration (PWA)

A department created by the National Industrial Recovery Act, this agency spent over $4 million on projects designed to employ the jobless and reinvigorate the economy.

U.S.S. Cole

A destroyer that was attacked by Al-Qaeda suicide bombers in Aden.

Declaration of the Causes and Necessities for Taking Up Arms

A document issued by the Second Continental Congress on July 6, 1775, to explain why the Thirteen Colonies had taken up arms in what had become the American Revolutionary War. The final draft of the Declaration was written by John Dickinson.

Bay of Pigs

A failed invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro's Cuban Regime, the CIA trained Cubans were quickly trapped on the beach and forced to surrender after Kennedy refused to send in US forces to save them.

Upton Sinclair/The Jungle

A famous muckraker who published The Jungle, his novel exposed the unsanitary conditions in several meatpacking plants and his other works led to the passage of laws designed to ensure the safety of foods and medicines.

Sit-down strike

A form of protest in which workers remain in the workplace but refused to work until a settlement is reached between workers and managers thus preventing scabs from being used.

Alamo

A former Spanish mission converted into a fort, it was besieged by Mexican troops in 1836 for thirteen days, but the final battle killed all of the Texan defenders by the significantly larger Mexican force (including renown frontiersman Davy Crockett).

Marshall Plan

A four-year plan (begun in 1948) to provide American aid for the economic reconstruction of post-war Europe, the U.S. government hoped that this plan would prevent further communist expansion by eliminating economic insecurity and political instability in Europe and appropriated some $17 billion resulting in the recovery of the Western European economy.

Conquistadores

A general term for any one of a group of Spanish explorers in the New World who sought to conquer the native people, establish dominance over their lands, and prosper from their natural resources, including gold. The Conquistadors established a large Hispanic empire stretching from Mexico to Chile and wreaked havoc among native populations.

Lehman Brothers

A global financial services firm that was the fourth-largest investment bank in the US that filed for bankruptcy protection following the massive exodus of most of its clients, drastic losses in its stock, and devaluation of its assets by credit rating agencies and is thought to have played a major role in the unfolding of the late-2000s global financial crisis.

Operation Wetback

A government program to roundup and deport as many as one million illegal Mexican migrant workers in the United States and reflected burgeoning concerns about non-European immigration of America.

Barack Obama

A graduate from Harvard Law School, he worked as a community activist in Chicago and served in US Senate 3 years before becoming the first black President on a campaign of hope and change, expanded TARP to bail out auto companies and passed comprehensive health care bill.

National Organization for Women

A group founded by Betty Friedan in 1966, this organization formed to work for economic and legal rights of women by demanding equality in educational and job opportunities, wages, and political representation; creation of childcare facilities and pushed for an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce its legal mandate to end sexual discrimination

Bonus Army

A group of 17,000 WWI veterans who marched on Washington D.C. in 1932 to demand the military bonuses they were promised but were ultimately driven from their camps by the US Army and increased the public perception that the Hoover administration cared little about the poor.

Mugwumps

A group of Republicans who felt they could not support the presidential campaign of Blaine (whose desire to truly reform the patronage system was questionable) instead switched their support to the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland helping him win the election.

Beatniks

A group of rebellious writers and intellectuals. They advocated spontaneity, use of drugs, and rebellion against social standards.

War Hawks

A group of western and southern settlers who advocated fighting to resolve disputes with Britain of impressment and the arming of Native Americans on the Frontier, that was led by John Calhoun and Henry Clay, who hoped to acquire western, southwestern, and Canadian territories as well.

Boxer Rebellion

A group of zealous Chinese nationalists terrorized foreigners and Chinese Christians, which threatened European and American interests in Chinese markets so the United States committed 2,500 men to an international force that crushed the rebellion in August 1900.

Nativists

A group who feared and hated foreigners, particularly religious or ethnic minorities, emerged and even formed organizations that led to large street fights, printed materials, and even a dedicated political party named the American/Know-Nothing party.

Nuclear proliferation

A growing concern in the 1990s, especially when North Korea accelerated its nuclear reactor and missile programs and India and Pakistan tested Nuclear weapons for the first time in 1998.

Earth Day

A holiday conceived by environmental activist and Senator Gaylord Nelson to encourage support for and increase awareness of environmental concerns that was first celebrated on March 22, 1970.

Baker v. Carr

A landmark United States Supreme Court case that retreated from the Court's political question doctrine, deciding that reapportionment issues present judicial questions, thus enabling federal courts to intervene in and to decide reapportionment cases

Hartford Convention

A meeting of Federalists that ultimately destroyed the political party near the end of the War of 1812, the New England-based party enumerated its complaints against the ruling Republican Party and proposed seven amendments and hoped that antiwar sentiment would return them to power but news of the successful Battle of New Orleans made their actions in Hartford seem traitorous and antagonistic to the unity and cooperation of the Union.

Shakers

A millennial group in the 1840s who believed in both Jesus, Ann Lee, equal gender roles, and celibacy, they believed in social discipline more than freedom and were more trying to escape a society they viewed as chaotic and disorderly, like many other Utopian groups during this time.

George Whitefield

A minister credited as the catalyst of the Great Awakening, his celebrated missionary trip to the New World in the 1730s sparked enthusiasm for religion.

Thomas Hooker

A minister of Cambridge who defied the Massachusetts government eventually left and led followers to establish Hartford Connecticut, demonstrating the religious differences/conflicts led to New England's colonial expansion.

Radical Republicans

A minority group that emerged in Congress during the Civil War, they were led by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and Senator Charles Sumner, and demanded a harsh Reconstruction policy in order to punish the Southern states for seceding, and called for extended civil rights in the South and remained powerful until the mid-1870s.

James Buchanan

A moderate Democrat with support from both the North and South who served as 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861, he failed to stem the tide of sectional conflict that eventually erupted into Civil War.

Separatists

A more extreme group of Puritans who either wanted to separate from the Church of England or destroy it, they started their own congregations in Plymouth because they felt the Church of England could not be saved.

Romantic Movement

A movement in response to the cold rationality of the Enlightenment that stressed poetic, religious, and visionary human experience; sought to combine the "reason" of the Enlightenment with a renewed "faith" in the poetic powers of the human being.

Mercantilism

A nationalistic program which assumed that the total of the world's wealth (gold and silver during this time) remained essentially fixed, with only a nation's share in that wealth subject to change which resulted in Europe's drive for colonies (like America) and a desire to transfer wealth to the "home" (Britain) country through a series of laws (like the Navigation Acts).

Underground Railroad

A network of safe houses and escorts established by Northern abolitionists to foil enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, this helped escaped slaves reach freedom in the North and in Canada.

William Rehnquist

A new chief justice who scaled back affirmative action in hiring and promotions limited Roe v. Wade.

New Federalism

A new federal/state relationship that returned many administrative powers to the state governments.

Title IX

A part of the Education Amendments that prohibited sex discrimination in any educational programs or activities that are funded by the federal government.

Irish potato famine

A period of mass starvation in the 1840s that led to the island's population to decrease approximately 25% and proved to be a push-factor for immigrants to leave their home country and seek refuge in other countries like the United States and was part of a broader trend of mass immigration from Europe.

Stagflation

A period of slow economic growth and high unemployment (stagnation) while prices rose (inflation) which happened during the 1970's and 1980's and many believe that government spending on social welfare and the Vietnam War started it.

Declaration of Rights and Grievances

A petition to the king urging him to redress colonial grievances and restore colonial rights; recognized Parliament's authority to regulate commerce.

Rhode Island

A place for religious dissenters/ criminals/debtors etc. to go

Containment Policy

A policy established during Truman's presidency that called for the prevention of further Soviet expansion by any means and soon evolved into a justification for U.S. global involvement against communism.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

A political and paramilitary organization regarded by the Arab league since October 1974 as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

Free-soil movement/Free soil party

A political party opposed to the extension of slavery into new territories and supported national improvement programs with small tariffs, it was formed from the merger of a northern faction of the Democratic Party, the abolitionist Liberty Party, and antislavery Whigs who nominated Martin Van Buren as their candidate for president and received 10 percent of the national popular vote demonstrating that slavery had become a central issue in national politics.

Andrew Carnegie

A poor Scottish immigrant who eventually became an investor, entrepreneur, industrialist and founded Carnegie Steel (at the time the world's largest corporation), and later donated more than $300 million to charity during his lifetime.

Rosie the Riveter

A popular advertising character during World War II, she was a well-muscled woman carrying a rivet gun and symbolized the important role American women played in the war effort at home as well as the new, hard-working, independent woman.

Josiah Strong/Spreading religion and science

A popular minister who claimed it was our divine mission to spread liberty and Christianity to less civilized people.

George Wallace

A pro-segregation governor of Alabama who ran for president in 1968 on American Independent Party ticket of segregation and law and order, but lost to Nixon (in his 1972 run he got shot and is left paralyzed).

Whip Inflation Now (WIN)

A program by the Ford administration to curb inflation and dramatic price increases by putting pressure on businesses to lower prices and deter consumers from hording goods

Zimmerman Telegram

A telegram sent in 1917 from the German foreign minister to the German ambassador in Mexico, this memo was intercepted by British intelligence and revealed Germany's plans to urge Mexico to enter the war against the U.S. in exchange for a pledge to help restore Mexico's former territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas which coupled with Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare and the Russian Revolution, pushed the U.S. into World War I.

"Axis of Evil"

A term coined by President Bush in his 2002 State of the Union address which included Iraq, North Korea, and Iran.

Iron Curtain

A term coined by Winston Churchill for the area of Eastern Europe controlled indirectly by the USSR, usually through puppet governments and cut off from the rest of Europe.

New England Emigrant Aid Company

A transportation company set up to transport emigrants to Kansas Territory to shift the balance of power so that Free-Staters rather than slave holders would decide whether Kansas would enter the Union in regards to the slavery question.

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

A treaty signed by the Soviet Union and the United States (and roughly 100 other countries) that ended the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.

John Peter Zenger

A trial of this man for printing negative facts about the government was found not-guilty, which emboldened other editors afterwards to criticize government officials more freely and is the basis for freedom of the press.

Berlin Wall

A wall built by the East Germans around West Berlin to stop East Germans from fleeing to West Germany that quickly became a symbol of the division of the world in the Cold War.

Salvation Army

A welfare organization imported from England to the U.S. in 1880, this organization provides food, shelter, and employment to the urban poor while preaching temperance and morality in an attempt resolve the problems of urban poverty.

Sojourner Truth

A woman who emerged as a powerful and eloquent spokeswoman for the abolition of slavery and women's rights, and made the famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" at a convention held in Ohio.

Longhouses

A wooden structure between approximately 8 to 200 feet long and 20 feet wide which contained multiple fire places around which two related nuclear families gathered (when a man was married, he went to live in his wife's).

Malcolm X

A young man who was serving a prison sentence at the time he converted to the Black Muslim religion, he acquired a reputation as the movement's most controversial voice as he advocated self-defense, black violence vs. white violence and was later assassinated in 1965.

John Brown/ Harper's Ferry Raid

Abolitionist/religious zealot who believed God had ordained him to end slavery, he is famous for his 1856 attack against pro-slavery government officials in Kansas that killed five and sparked months of violence (Bleeding Kansas) as well as later in 1859 when he led twenty-one men in seizing a federal arsenal in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in a failed attempt to incite a slave rebellion (He was caught and hanged).

Joseph Smith

According to the Mormon beliefs, the angel Moroni visited this man in his western New York bedroom one night and told him of a sacred text which Smith found, translated, and formed the Mormon church around but his followers were ostracized and caused some violence (including the murder of Smith himself) by their surrounding community for practices and beliefs (like polygamy) that were counter to mainstream Christian faith.

Force Acts

Acts that gave power to federal authorities to stop Ku Klux Klan violence and protect the civil rights of citizens in the South.

Battle of Bunker Hill

Actually fought on Breed's Hill, the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 was the first major fight of the Revolutionary War with the Colonial Army valiantly fighting against trained professional British soldiers, and though the British eventually won the battle they lost over 1,000 soldiers compared to the Colonists 400.

Articles of Confederation

Adopted in 1777 during the Revolutionary War, this document established the first limited central government of the United States, reserving most powers for the individual states which in the long run didn't grant enough federal power to manage the country's budget or maintain internal stability, and were eventually replaced.

Department of the Interior

Advocated for the creation of forest reserves and a federal forest service to protect federal lands from economic exploitation.

National Rifle Association (NRA)

Advocates for the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and the promotion of firearm ownership rights.

Booker T. Washington

African American leader and the first principal of the Tuskegee Institute, he adopted a moderate approach to addressing racism by urging his fellow African Americans to learn vocational skills that would gain gradual improvements in their social, political, and economic status.

Booker T. Washington/ Economic Cooperation

African American leader and the first principal of the Tuskegee Institute, he adopted a moderate approach to addressing racism by urging his fellow African Americans to learn vocational skills that would gain gradual improvements in their social, political, and economic status. Only by working with Caucasian people, instead of confrontational tactics, would ultimately be successful in overcoming the prevalent racism.

Marcus Garvey

African American leader who advocated "black nationalism," and financial independence for Blacks, he started the "Back to Africa" movement and believed African Americans would not get justice in mostly white nations.

Jelly Roll Morton

African American pianist/composer/arranger, and band leader from New Orleans that bridged a gap between the piano styles of ragtime and jazz and was known as the first important jazz composer.

Industrial Technology

After 1840, industrialization spread rapidly into the Northeast. The new factories produced shoes, tools, and iron products.

Clinton Impeachment

After Clinton confessed before a jury that he and Lewinsky had an improper relationship the House narrowly approved 2 counts of impeachment (lying to the grand jury and obstructing justice), and the matter moved to the Senate where a trial continued for weeks without generating any significant public support and ended with a decisive acquittal of the president.

Election of 1956

After Eisenhower suffered heart attack and major surgery Democrats questioned his health and re-nominated Stevenson but Eisenhower won by an even great margin.

Brigham Young

After Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob in Illinois, this new Mormon leader collected the followers and moved into (present day) Utah in 1847.

Montgomery bus boycott

After Rosa Parks was arrested, MLK rallied the African American community to walk to work and economically hurt the bus companies and ended in '56 when the SC declared segregated buses unconstitutional.

Atoms for peace

After Stalin's death Eisenhower called for a slowdown in the arms race at the UN and the Soviets seemed interested in a reduction of Cold War tensions as well.

Bull Moose Party

After being rejected at the Republican convention in favor of Taft, Theodore Roosevelt decided to run his own independent bid for the Presidency, which split the vote between Republicans and Progressive and allowed the Democratic nominee Wilson to win the 1912 election.

Treaty of Greenville

After devastating losses in the Battle of Fallen Timbers the Native American peoples signed this treaty which surrendered their claims to the Ohio territory.

Ostend Manifesto

After failing to purchase Cuba from Spain failed, some suggested the U.S. take Cuba by force but this outraged the Northerners who thought the South was just trying to extend slavery into more territories, symbolizing the emerging crisis in relations between sections of the country over the slavery issue.

Sharecropping

After slavery was abolished, the South's agricultural economy was in turmoil since there was its source of cheap labor was gone, thus this new labor supply emerged where the landlord provided the seed and other needed farm supplies in return for a share of the harvest. While this gave poor whites and black a chance to earn money, it also made them dependent on their landowners and/or in debt to merchants and was very similar to slavery.

White juries

After the Civil War, the south disregarded the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and excluded African Americans from juries, calling into question whether the juries decision in cases involving African Americans were unbiased.

Frederick Jackson Turner

After the census of 1890 showed the "western frontier" had essentially been settled, Turner made his Frontier Thesis, which foresaw the threat and challenges of a new era where people could no longer simply move to the western frontier to create a new life/town where they had complete freedom.

Preservationists

Aimed to preserve natural areas from human interference.

1867; $7.2 million; Russia; Treaty

Alaska

Sarah Palin

Alaskan governor chosen as McCain's running mate in 2008, she was very popular with "Tea-Party" Republicans but failed to gain traction in the wider population as she appeared unprepared on key national and international issues and policies.

Aaron Burr

Alexander Hamilton's arch-nemesis and one of the leading Democratic-Republicans, he tied Jefferson in the Electoral College in the 1800 Presidential election but the presidency was awarded to Jefferson and he became vice-president.

Farmers Alliance

Alliances formed in different states and regions to serve farmers' needs for education in the latest scientific methods as well as for organized economic and political action.

Grandfather clauses

Allowed only man who's grandfather were able to vote before reconstruction to be able to vote which effectively barred many African Americans from participating in elections.

Corrupt Bargain

Although Andrew Jackson won the highest percentage of popular and electoral votes in the 1824 election, he failed to win the required majority and the election was thrown to the House of Representatives where Clay backed Quincy Adams for president ensuring Adams's victory and in return rewarded Clay by making him secretary of state.

Battle of New Orleans

Although it ended in stalemate with the Treaty of Ghent, the American public believed the U.S. had won the war after news spread of General Andrew Jackson's decisive victory at this battle, which occurred two weeks after the signing of the treaty.

Erie Canal

America's first major canal project, New York Governor Dewitt Clinton began its construction in 1817 and completed it in 1825 linking the Hudson River to the Great Lakes which dramatically lowered the cost of shipping and led to the growth of port cities along the length of the canal and its terminal points.

Frederick Douglass/The North Star

American abolitionist and journalist who escaped from slavery and became an influential lecturer in the North and abroad, he wrote his autobiography and ran an abolitionist newspaper

Jack London

American author during the Progressive movement, his famous books include White Fang and Call of the Wild, which explore how people's environment affects their well-being.

Jacqueline Kennedy

American first lady and wife of president Kennedy, she was known for her style and social grace and was used to create a favorable public opinion about JFK's presidency.

Revivalists: Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple, McPherson

American fundamentalist ministers, they used colorful language and powerful sermons to drive home the message of salvation through Jesus and to oppose radical and progressive groups.

Colonial Families

Approximately 90 percent lived on farms and had a higher standard of living than in Europe; landowning for men, who dominated politics; wife performed wide range of tasks; cooked, cleaned, made clothes; educated children.

Hawaii/Queen Liliuokalani/ Pearl Harbor

American sugar planters were economically devastated by the elimination of Hawaiian sugar from tariffs and staged a coup against Queen Liliuokalani, contacted the local American Embassy for US Marines and took control of the islands and immediately asked the US to annex the islands which demonstrated the United States growing imperialistic actions. The United States established a naval base here to guard the Pacific Frontier.

Tariff of 1816

An 1816 protective duty that effectively limited competition from abroad on a wide range of manufactured items drawing criticism from agricultural areas but forging an important American industrial economy prevailed.

Church of Latter-Day Saints; Mormons

An 1830 religion founded by Joseph Smith Jr., as Smith claimed to have received sacred writings that he organized his church around, but his declaration that sections of Christianity were incorrect and polygamy made many Mormons shunned or attacked and they eventually sought refuge near the Great Salt Lake that formed the basis of Utah.

Commonwealth v. Hunt

An 1842 case heard by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, this was the first judgment in the US that recognized the conspiracy law was inapplicable to unions and that strikes for a "closed shop" are legal, as well as that unions were no responsible for the illegal acts of their members.

Haymarket Bombing

An 1866 rally in Chicago to protest police brutality at McCormick Harvesting Company that became violent after someone threw a bomb that killed seven policemen which prompted a violent backlash not only among the police, but completely discredited the Knights of Labor with their leaders placed into prisoned.

Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 (and repeal)

An 1890 law requiring the government to purchase (but not to coin) silver and to pay for it in gold, which allowed people to essentially exchange silver for gold at a ratio favorable to them and led to a rapid shrinkage of the gold monetary supply which led to an economic depression.

Plessy v. Ferguson

An 1896 Supreme Court decision which legalized segregation so long as the facilities for blacks and whites were equal.

Blanche K. Bruce

An African American Republican senator from the South during the Reconstruction Era.

Hiram Revels

An African American from Mississippi who took the Senate seat once held by Jefferson Davis, he was a Republican, and many ex-Confederates resented him and other black representatives.

Clarence Thomas

An African American judge who is a strict critic of affirmative action, he was nominated by George H. W. Bush to be on the Supreme Court in 1991, and is the second African American to hold a seat in the Supreme Court.

Rosa Parks

An African American seamstress who sparked the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to give up her bus seat for a white man in December 1955.

Phillis Wheatley

An African domestic in the colonies, and a well-known colonial poet, her ornate and elaborate writing challenged negative views towards African Americans.

Siouan

An American Indian language that was widespread throughout Americas which has led researchers to believe it was connected to the language Asian-Americans used when crossing the landbridge to the Americas.

Alfred Thayer Mahan/ Steel and steam navy

An American Naval officer/historian, he is most famous for his book "The Influence of Sea Power on History" (1890) which argued all great nations in history had the strongest navy and resulted in an igniting of naval races between countries.

George H.W. Bush

An American Republican politician who served as the 41st President of the United States from 1989 to 1992 and continued Reagan's policies and Reaganomics.

Colin Powell

An American military general and leader during the Persian Gulf War he became Secretary of State during Bush's administration and helped convince the UN to go to war against Iraq in 2003.

Pearl Harbor

An American naval base in Hawaii that was bombed by Japan on December 7, 1941, this surprise attack resulted in the loss of more than 2,400 American lives as well as many aircraft and sea vessels and in the following days the U.S. declared war against Japan, officially entering World War II.

Benjamin West

An American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American Revolution, he also painted the royal family of King George III and co-founded the Royal Academy of Arts.

Nat Turner

An American slave who led a rebellion in Virginia 1831 that resulted in 56 whites being killed as well as his own execution, and new laws prohibiting education, worship, and assembly as the South became increasingly united in their support of fugitive slave laws.

William Graham Sumner/Survival of the Fittest

An American social Darwinist at Yale University, he argued that help for the poor was misguided because it interfered with the laws of nature and would only weaken the evolution of the species by preserving the unfit.

Ameilia Bloomer

An American women's rights and temperance advocate, she presented her views in her own monthly paper, The Lily, which she began publishing in 1849 to make a change in dress standards for women so that they would be less restrictive.

Henry Hudson

An English explorer sponsored by the Dutch East India Company, he sailed up the river that now bears his name in 1609, nearly reaching present-day Albany. His explorations gave the Dutch territorial claims to the Hudson Bay region.

Townshend Acts

An act in 1767 that created taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea entering the colonies; while the acts were external taxes the colonists resented that the act was clearly designed to raise revenue exclusively for England rather than to regulate trade in a manner favorable to the entire British Empire and ultimately led to boycotts by Boston merchants and was a key contributor towards the Boston Massacre.

Ethnic neighborhoods

Areas of cities characterized by slums and tenement apartments, a place where immigrants could maintain their culture and language by cohabitation.

John Wilkes Booth

An actor who supported the Confederacy, he originally planned to abduct Lincoln near the start of the war but ultimately shot Lincoln at Ford's Theatre and shouted, "Sic Sempter Tyrannis!" (Thus always to tyrants!") then broke his leg when he jumped from the balcony and got caught in the American flag and was killed several days later in a barn surrounded by soldiers.

Destroyers for bases

An agreement between the U.S. and the UK in 1940 that transferred fifty mothballed destroyers from the United States Navy in exchange for military base rights on British outposts.

Washington Conference/Four Power Treaty

An agreement between the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan at the Washington Naval conference where each party agreed to respect the Pacific holdings of the other countries, not seek further territorial expansion, and mutual consultation with each other in the event of a dispute; it essentially sought to maintain the status quo in the Pacific region.

Atlantic Charter

An agreement in 1941 between the US and UK to promote democracy and create clear intentions for worldwide improvements after WWII.

Five Power Naval Treaty

An agreement made between the US, Japan, France, Great Britain, and Italy in an attempt to prevent a naval arms race (that was alarmingly similar to the buildup prior to WWI) by limiting the amount of ships each country could construct (allowing the US and Britain to construct the most).

Little Rock Crisis

An angry white mob attempted to stop the first African Americans from attending formerly all-white schools in 1957, demonstrating the intense hostility and racism in the South that would fuel the Civil Rights movement.

Peggy Eaton Affair

An attractive woman who was said had an extra-marital affair circulated in Washington that led to her being socially shunned, enraged her friend Andrew Jackson, and ultimately led Jackson to choose Van Buren as his next vice president and ended Calhoun's chance at the presidency.

Enlightenment

An eighteenth-century movement in Western philosophy, it was less a set of ideas than it was a set of attitudes that emphasized reason and critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals.

Francis Townsend

An elderly California physician and active critic of the New Deal, he made his own plan that all Americans over the age of sixty would receive monthly government pensions of $200, provided they retired and spend the entire amount in full each month (which would open jobs for young people and boost the economy).

Literacy tests

An examination of one's ability to read and write in order to vote, which effectively barred many African Americans from participating in elections.

Henry Clay

An important political figure during the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson, he engineered and championed the American System, as Speaker of the House he was instrumental in crafting much of the legislation that passed through Congress including the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1833, and the Compromise of 1850 until he died in 1852.

EPA

An independent federal agency established to coordinate programs aimed at reducing pollution and protecting the environment.

The Liberator

An influential abolitionist newspaper published by radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison from 1831 to 1865, this newspaper expressed controversial opinions, such as the belief that blacks deserved legal rights equal to those of whites and the immediate, uncompensated, emancipation for all slaves.

Social Gospel/ Walter Rauschenbusch

An influential reform movement, this was the philosophy that Christians had an obligation to improve the lives of those less fortunate and directly gained support for many progressive reforms in the era. Rauschenbusch led the Social Gospel Movement and wrote several books urging organized religions to take up the cause of social justice and helped link Christianity with the Progressive movement.

Scalawags

An insulting term that Democrats gave to Southern moderates who cooperated with Republicans during Reconstruction.

Weathermen

An offshoot of SDS, they were responsible for cases of arson and bombings that destroyed campus buildings and claimed several lives.

Lucretia Mott

An outspoken proponent of women's rights, she organized the Women's Rights Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 with Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Joseph McCarthy

An undistinguished first-term Republican Senator from Wisconsin, he claimed to know about Communist spies that had infiltrated the government, he emerged as the nation's leader against domestic subversion.

Spoils System

Andrew Jackson wholeheartedly supported this system, claiming it was necessary to liberty for the removal and replacement of high-ranking officials from the previous president's term with loyal members of the winning party. (the name is from the old adage "to the victor go the spoils")

Eisenhower Doctrine

Announced in 1957, this doctrine committed the U.S. to preventing Communist aggression in the Middle East, and authorized the use of force if necessary.

Reivalism

Appealed to people's emotions with the fear of hell and persuaded thousands to publicly their revived faith; preachers would travel from one location to another and attract thousands.

Halfway Covenant

Applied to those members of the Puritan colonies who were the children of church members, but who hadn't achieved grace themselves which allowed them to participate in some church affairs.

Harry Daugherty

Appointed Secretary General by Harding not on account of merit, but rather because he had helped Harding become a political success and his involvement in a number of scandals nearly led to him being sentenced to prison.

Horace Mann

Appointed secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837, he reformed the public school system by increasing state spending on schools, lengthening the school year, dividing the students into grade levels, and introduced standardized textbooks that quickly set the standard for public school reform throughout the nation.

Second Bank of the United States

Chartered in 1816 this institution served as a depository for federal funds and a creditor for state banks but was blamed for the panic of 1819, and corruption/mismanagement haunted it until its charter was let to expire under President Jackson in 1836 who proclaimed it to be an unconstitutional extension of the federal government and a tool that rich capitalists used to corrupt American society.

John Marshall

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 until his death in 1835, it was under his leadership the Court became an equally powerful federal force as the executive and legislative branches by establishing the principle of judicial review.

Burger Court

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986, he was responsible for bringing the Court somewhat back to the right after the Earl Warren years as he presided over major cases involving abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, and school desegregation.

Roger Taney

Chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1836 to 1864, he was a strong supporter of the South and slavery laws that were evident in his famous decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford.

Earl Warren

Chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969, his liberal court made a number of important decisions, primarily in the realm of civil rights, including Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

Clinton's military policy of allowing gays as long as they don't say they are.

Counterculture/ Hippies

Closely related to the New Left, this was a new youth culture openly scornful of the values and conventions of middle-class society often visibly displayed by significant changes in personal styles.

Lockout

Closing of a factory to break a labor movement before it can get organized.

Manhattan Project

Codename for the secret WWII development of the atomic bomb, it was designed to attain the weapon for the US before Germany or Japan and led not only to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki but to the nuclear nature of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union following WWII.

Chesapeake colonies

Colonies created in 1632 when Charles I subdivided what had been Virginia into Virginia and Maryland.

Loyalists

Colonists who disagreed with the Revolution for independence and did not support the independence movement.

Royal Colonies

Colony directly formed and controlled by the King, so the government had total control over those who lived there.

George Washington

Commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution, Washington led the Continental Army to victory against the superior British military with French military/financial aid.

Oliver Hazard Perry

Commander of US Navy forces at the Battle of Lake Erie courageously led his men into battle and scored a decisive victory for the United States against the vaunted British Navy.

Ulysses S. Grant

Commanding general of western Union forces for much of the war and for all Union forces during the last year of the war using the strategy of attrition, he later became the nation's eighteenth president, serving from 1869 to 1877 and presiding over the decline of Reconstruction and a corrupt administration.

Warren Commission

Commission led by Chief Justice Warren under the orders of LBJ after killing of Kennedy that concluded Oswald killed Kennedy on his own.

Lewis and Clark Expedition

Commissioned by Jefferson to map and explore the Louisiana Purchase region they produced extensive maps of the area and recorded many scientific discoveries, greatly facilitating later settlement of the region and travel to the Pacific coast.

Congress

Comprised of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Civil Rights Double V

Congress of Racial Equality was founded in 1942 and committed to this campaign that wanted a victory over fascism abroad and racism at home and established a major organization to push for civil rights when the war was over.

Arthur Laffer

Conservatives promoted his belief that tax cuts would promote greater economic growth for the country.

First Continental Congress

Convened on September 5, 1774, with all the colonies but Georgia sending delegates chosen by the Committees of Correspondence, the congress endorsed the Suffolk Resolves (directly challenged the Coercive Acts and advocated that colonists disobey them), voted for an organized boycott of British imports, and sent a petition to King George III that conceded to Parliament the power of regulation of commerce but stringently objected to Parliament's arbitrary taxation and unfair judicial system.

Union Pacific/ Central Pacific

Created as a federally chartered corporation, this railroad company was to build westward from Omaha (Central Pacific built eastward from California) and create a transcontinental railroad that would facilitate western settlement, shortening to a single week a coast-to-coast journey that once took approximately 7 months by wagon (tracks met at Promontory Point, Utah)

World Bank

Created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, the initial purpose was to fund rebuilding of a war-torn world.

Federal Housing Administration (FHA)

Created by Congress to insure long-term, low-interest mortgages for home construction and repair in 1934.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation

Created by President Hoover in 1932 to make loans to large economic institutions such as railroads and banks, the organization loaned over $2 billion in 1932, but that amount was too little/too late in the fight against the Great Depression.

Committee on Public Information

Created by Woodrow Wilson to mobilize public opinion and financial support for the war, this was the most intensive use of propaganda by the United States up to this time, and employed posters, speeches, and "liberty leagues" throughout the country to create social unity in support of the war.

Granger laws

Designed to address various abuses by the railroad companies including short/long haul rates and rebates, these laws were passed in a variety of Midwestern states and while they survived their first challenge in Munn v. Illinois, they were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Wabash case (essentially replaced with the Interstate Commerce Act).

Supreme Court Reorganization Plan/Court Packing Scheme

Designed to allow the president to appoint an additional Supreme Court justice for each current justice over the age of seventy, up to a maximum of six appointments, it was clear the proposal was an obvious attempt to dilute the power of the conservative justices and resulted in a loss of credibility for FDR, helping slow the New Deal to a standstill.

Recall

Designed to reign in the power and actions of elected officials before the next election cycle by giving the voters the right to remove a public official from office if a designated number of citizens petitioned and voted for them to be removed.

Trade and Navigation Acts

Designed upon mercantilist economic theory to prevent wealth from transferring between nations and designed to support the "mother" country (Britain), these acts stipulated goods like sugar/cotton/tobacco be provided only to England and all goods to the colonies must ship from British ports.

Trail of Tears

Despite the Supreme Court decision in Worcester v. Georgia, federal troops forced bands of Cherokee Indians to move west of the Mississippi between 1835 and 1838 in which 2,000-4,000 of the 16,000 Cherokee died.

Lowell System (Factory System)

Developed in the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts in the 1820s that spread across the nation, in these factories as much machinery as possible was used so that few skilled (largely women) workers were needed in the process that allowed for the cheaper production of products by paying lower wages.

William Penn

Devout Quaker who gained the land as the British King's repayment of debt established the "Holy Experiment" of religious freedom for Pennsylvania through careful planning and resulted in a very peaceful, prosperous, and liberty endowed territory in the colonies.

Joseph Stalin

Dictator of the Soviet Union from 1928 to 1953 he led the Soviet Union with an iron fist using Five-Year Plans to increase industrial production and terror to crush opposition while Truman and Eisenhower had to deal with him during the Cold War.

Sectionalism

Different parts of the country developing unique and separate cultures (as the North, South and West) which led to conflict.

John Rolfe

Discovered that a strain of tobacco native to the Americas could be grown in Jamestown, which gave Virginia a major cash crop that could make it profitable which made Virginia an economically successful colonies.

Wilmot Proviso

Dispute over whether any Mexican territory that America won during the Mexican War should be free or a slave territory, Representative David Wilmot introduced an amendment stating that any territory acquired from Mexico would be free but the law did not pass and became a symbol of how intense dispute over slavery was in the U.S.

Frame of Government (1682)

Document provided to Pennsylvania colony by William Penn that guaranteed a representative assembly elected by landowners in 1682.

Town meetings

Dominant form of government in New England, where people would meet to vote directly on public issues.

Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur was an American general who commanded the United States army in the Pacific during World War II who after the war oversaw the American occupation of Japan and later led American troops in the Korean War where he pushed for the use of nuclear weapons against China publicly, so he was relieved of command.

Douglas MacArthur

Douglas MacArthur was an American general who commanded the United States army in the Pacific during World War II who after the war oversaw the American occupation of Japan.

John Dickinson

Drafted a declaration of colonial rights and grievances, and also wrote the series of "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" in 1767 to protest the Townshend Acts. Although an outspoken critic of British policies towards the colonies, Dickinson opposed the Revolution, and, as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776, refused to sign the Declaration of Independence.

John Dickinson; "Letters from a farmer"

Drafted a declaration of colonial rights and grievances, and also wrote the series of "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" in 1767 to protest the Townshend Acts. Although an outspoken critic of British policies towards the colonies, Dickinson opposed the Revolution, and, as a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1776, refused to sign the Declaration of Independence.

Declaration of Independence

Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, this document was approved by Congress on July 4, 1776 and enumerated the reasons for the split with Britain with eloquently written Enlightenment ideals (best expressed by John Locke) of natural rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" upon which the American Revolution was based.

Panic of 1873

Due to overexpansion of railroads and over-speculation from financial institutions the nation's largest bank collapsed, which caused many smaller banks, businesses, and the stock market to crash and resulted in a five year national depression and a return to the gold standard.

Panic of 1873 (Crime of 73)

Due to overexpansion of railroads and over-speculation from financial institutions the nation's largest bank collapsed, which caused many smaller banks, businesses, and the stock market to crash and resulted in a five year national depression and a return to the gold standard.

Oil and Steel Embargo

Due to the Japanese aggression in South East Asia, America decides to stop trading important oil and metal to Japan, which Japan viewed as a threat to their Empires ability to conquer others and as a result Japan secretly planned an attack on Pearl Harbor.

House Un-American Activities Committee

During McCarthyism, this organization provided the congressional forum in which many hearings about suspected communists in the government took place.

Second Great Awakening

Emerged in the early 1800s as part of a backlash against America's growing secularism and rationalism, a wave of religious revivals stressing self-determination and individual empowerment spread throughout the nation giving rise to a number of new (largely Protestant) denominations during the second quarter of the nineteenth century.

Tenure of Office Act

Enacted by the radical Congress in 1866, it forbade the president from removing federally appointed people without the consent of the Senate and was meant to prevent President Johnson from removing radical-supporting administration figures, but Johnson broke the law and was impeached for his crime.

Immigrant Act

Ended immigration quotas based on national origin and instead places occupation and skills as the most important criteria used to judge entry into the US.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Ended literacy tests and provided federal registrars in areas in which blacks were kept from voting allowing many African Americans the right to vote for first time since reconstruction era.

Benjamin Franklin

Epitome of the American Enlightenment who focused on scientific advancement and demonstrated the principle of rationalism as well as the belief that humankind possessed adequate understanding to end mankind's problems.

Ocala Platform of 1890

Essentially a national platform for the Farmer's Alliance (successor to the Grange), it was a program designed to help farmers in both the North and South, and candidates with the Alliance's support won many elections in 1890.

Judiciary Act (1789)

Established a Supreme Court with one chief justice and five associate justices; provided for a system of 13 district courts and 3 courts of appeal.

North American Free Trade Agreement/NAFTA

Established a free trade zone between Canada, United States and Mexico, and resulted in a net gain in jobs due to the opening of Mexican markets.

Charter of Liberties

Established a representative assembly in Pennsylvania, and stated that the lower counties (Delaware) of the colony could establish their own representative assembly.

Judicial Review

Established by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison (1803), this principle held that the Supreme Court could declare an act of Congress unconstitutional dramatically increasing the power of the Supreme Court.

Providence (Rhode Island)

Established by Roger Williams as a place where there was religious freedom and a clear separation between church and state after being banished from Massachusetts.

Loyalty Review Boards

Established by Truman, this group investigated alleged communists holding government jobs.

Freedmen's Bureau

Established in 1865 and staffed by Union army officers, this agency provided food, clothing, education, medical care, and employment to Southern blacks.

Social Security Act

Established in August 1935, this provides benefits to the elderly and disabled paid for by income tax withholdings.

Roe v. Wade

Established national abortion guidelines based on trimesters, where the 1st trimester allows for no state interference, the 2nd trimester a state may regulate to protect health of mother, and in the 3rd trimester a state may regulate to protect health of unborn child.

Quarantine Speech

FDR tried to call for an international isolation of aggressor nations (Germany, Japan, Italy) in 1937, but the speech intensified isolationist movements in the US and elsewhere.

New Deal (Relief/Recovery/Reform)

FDR's strategy for economic relief, recovery, and reform in the United States during the Great Depression, most measures emerged during the first hundred days of FDR's presidency.

Hollywood

Famous actors like Charlie Chaplin got their start in the growing movie industry as it made a base in California and became big in the 1920s as going the movies became a common past time for Americans.

Cyrus McCormick

Famous for building the mechanical reaping machine in 1831, this invention made farming dramatically more efficient and allowed an agricultural revolution to coincide with the industrial revolution by allowing a single family/corporation to substantially increase the acreage that could be farmed.

Cesar Chavez

Farm worker, labor leader, and civil-rights activist who helped form the National Farm Workers Association and helped to improve conditions for migrant farm workers and unionize them.

Subsistence (sustenance) farming

Farming in which only enough food to feed one's family is produced; most popular in the New England colonies.

Loose Interpretation

Favored a broad/general reading of the Constitution in order to expand the powers of the central government to include implied constitutional powers (not just enumerated ones), those who supported this view were led by Alexander Hamilton and comprised the ideological core of the Federalist Party

Strict Interpretation

Favored a literal reading of the Constitution in order to limit the powers of the central government, those who supported this view were led by Thomas Jefferson and comprised the ideological core of the Republican Party.

Clean Water Act

Federal Law setting a national goal of making all natural surface water fit for fishing and swimming by 1983, banned polluted discharge into surface water and required the metals be removed from waste.

DOT (Department of Transportation) and HUD (Housing and Urban Development)

Federal programs to develop and execute policies on housing and metropolises.

Draft Riots

Feeling threatened by an increasingly active national government forcing people into military service and a shifting rationale for war (from preservation of the Union to emancipation of African Americans), widespread violence broke out in New York largely by angry Irish-Americans against African Americans and were stopped only by federal troops.

War of 1812/Mr. Madison's War

Fought between the U.S. and Great Britain from 1812-14, the war was essentially a stalemate but the American public believed the U.S. had won the war after news spread of General Andrew Jackson's decisive victory at the Battle of New Orleans (which occurred two weeks after the signing of the treaty) which led to an exuberant spirit of nationalism and optimism for years in America.

Antietam

Fought in Maryland in September 1863, this battle was considered the single bloodiest day of the Civil War with over 8,000 dead and 18,000 wounded and though Union forces failed to defeat Lee and the Confederates, they did halt the Confederate advance through Northern soil and provided Lincoln an opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

Henan Cortes

Found the highly advanced Aztec society and defeated them in 1519, which resulted in the conquest of Central America for Spain, the Columbian exchange, and a racial hierarchy.

Oneida Community/Joseph Henry Noyes

Founded by John Noyes in 1848 sought to be the shining example of equality between all members but was controversial because they shared EVERYTHING including spouses, children, and property which many considered immoral and ultimately the community died out. (Demonstrates the Romantic Impulse in American culture)

American Anti-slavery society

Founded in 1833 by William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists, Garrison burned the Constitution as a proslavery document and argued for "no Union with slaveholders" until they repented for their sins by freeing their slaves.

Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)

Founded in 1874, this organization worked alongside the Anti-Saloon League to push for prohibition and included notable activists like Susan B. Anthony and Frances Elizabeth Willard.

Antisaloon League

Founded in 1893, it became a powerful political force and by 1916 had persuaded 21 states to close down all saloons and bars.

James Oglethorpe/ Georgia

Founded the colony both as a refuge for British debtors and to act as a military border to Spanish Florida (hence his rules against alcohol, slaves, and Catholicism), which demonstrated British resolve to protect the colonies they had over the Spanish Empire.

Mao Zedong

Founder of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921, by 1949 he defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces and established the People's Republic of China (PRC).

William Lloyd Garrison

Founder of the abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, he was the most famous white abolitionist of the 1830s and was known as a radical because he pushed for equal legal rights for blacks and later pushed for women's equal rights as well.

Executive Departments/Cabinets

Four of these position were created by Washington when he became president: Thomas Jefferson-Secretary of State, Alexander Hamilton-Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Knox-Secretary of War, Edmund Randolph-Attorney General.

James Madison

Fourth president of the United States (1809-1817), he began his political career as a Federalist and a staunch advocate of a strong central government but later became critical of excessive power in the central government and left the Federalist Party to join Thomas Jefferson in leading the Republican Party and later was the leader of the War of 1812.

"barnburners"

Free-Soilers whose defection threatened to destroy the Democratic party., conscience Whigs and anti-slavery Democrats were known as this.

Huguenots

French Protestants who attempted to flee religious persecution came to reside in America, diversifying the nationalities of the population and loosened the ties to England.

XYZ Affair

French harassment of American shipping in 1797 led John Adams to send a diplomat to negotiate for peace but the French foreign minister Charles de Talleyrand refused to meet and instead sent three anonymous agents (X, Y, and Z) to try to extort over $12 million from the Americans in exchange for negotiation rights which outraged the American people and resulted in an undeclared "quasi-war".

Napoleon Bonaparte

French ruler whose constant battles against Britain ultimately would snare the United States into a war.

Seven Years' War/French and Indian War

From 1754-1763 this was the last of the colonial wars fought between England and France for control of North America resulted in a clear British victory for control of North America and large war debts even while their rule over the American colonists was increasingly questioned now that no hostile European powers remained.

Indochina

From 1946-1954 France came back to their colonial holdings after WWII but the Vietnamese resisted and ultimately ended with the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu.

Political Action Committees (PACs)

Funding vehicles created by the 1974 campaign finance reforms these allowed corporations/unions/interest groups to create a political committees to advocate for political decisions favorable to their group.

Mountain Men

Fur trappers that spearheaded the western movement in the early 1800s, these tough individuals moved into the far western areas of the continent in search of furs that were becoming scarce in the east.

1853; $10 million; Mexico; Gadsden Purchase Treaty

Gadsden Purchase

Hepburn Act

Gave the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) the power to regulate railroad bookkeeping and end the practice of free passes to loyal shippers, establishing greater government control of business.

Indian Self-Determination Act

Gave tribal governments more control over social programs (such as Welfare), law enforcement, and education.

Adolf Hitler

German leader of Nazi Party he rose to power by promoting racist and nationalist views.

INF Agreement

Gorbachev & Reagan agreed to remove and destroy all intermediate-range missiles.

World Trade Organization

International trade organization that prompted strong protests from anti-global trade forces in Seattle, Washington in 1999 as people became more concerned with jobs being outsourced to other countries.

Stamp Act Congress

In 1765 representatives of nine colonial assemblies met in anger over the Stamp Act and agreed that Parliament could not impose external taxes nor could they deny anyone a fair trial, both of which had been dictates of the Stamp Act; this reflected a new level of colonial political organization and opposition to Great Britain.

Coercive Acts (Port Act, Massachusetts Government Act, Administration of Justice Act, Quebec Act)

In 1774 these (four) Acts revoked the charter of Massachusetts, closed the Port of Boston (in response to the Boston Tea Party) until citizens paid for the tea, increased the power of Massachusetts Royal governor at the expense of the elected legislature, allowed Royal officials accused of crimes in Massachusetts to be tried elsewhere (Britain), and allowed a former French region to gain more autonomy and land at the English colonists expense which had the effect of galvanizing colonial resistance as most colonies feared Britain would soon take away their rights as well and led to the formation of the First Continental Congress.

Intolerable Acts

In 1774 these (four) Acts revoked the charter of Massachusetts, closed the Port of Boston (in response to the Boston Tea Party) until citizens paid for the tea, increased the power of Massachusetts Royal governor at the expense of the elected legislature, allowed Royal officials accused of crimes in Massachusetts to be tried elsewhere (Britain), and allowed a former French region to gain more autonomy and land at the English colonists expense which had the effect of galvanizing colonial resistance as most colonies feared Britain would soon take away their rights as well and led to the formation of the First Continental Congress.

Intolerable Acts/Coercive Acts

In 1774 these (four) Acts revoked the charter of Massachusetts, closed the Port of Boston (in response to the Boston Tea Party) until citizens paid for the tea, increased the power of Massachusetts Royal governor at the expense of the elected legislature, allowed Royal officials accused of crimes in Massachusetts to be tried elsewhere (Britain), and allowed a former French region to gain more autonomy and land at the English colonists expense which had the effect of galvanizing colonial resistance as most colonies feared Britain would soon take away their rights as well and led to the formation of the First Continental Congress.

"Citizen Genet"

In 1793 this French diplomat came to the United States to ask the government for money and troops to aid the French Revolution but secretly began recruiting men and arming ships in US ports which Washington took firm action to send Genet back to France, firmly establishing neutrality as the foreign policy of the United States. (Ultimately Washington let Genet stay to save his life).

Eli Whitney/Cotton Gin/ Interchangeable Parts

In 1793 this man dramatically changed the economy with his inventions of interchangeable parts and the cotton gin, which revolutionized both the southern agricultural economy and the need for slaves as well as the northern industrial system to make standardized products.

Robert Fulton

In 1807 this inventor was responsible for perfecting the steamboat and bringing it to the attention of the nation, which further aided industrial development by allowing goods to quickly and profitably move around the nation.

Stephen Austin

In 1822 he founded the first settlement of Americans in Texas and by 1833 he was sent by the colonists to negotiate with the Mexican government for Texan independence and was imprisoned in Mexico until 1835, when he returned to Texas and became the commander of the settlers' army in the Texas Revolution.

American Temperance Society

In 1826 Protestant ministers and others concerned with the high rate of alcohol consumption and the effects of such excessive drinking, founded this society; wanted people to completely abstain from drinking alcohol

Dred Scott v. Sandford

In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that no black, whether slave or free, could become a citizen of the United States or sue in federal court and further argued that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifth Amendment's protection of property (including slaves) from being taken away without due process so slavery was legally in the entire United States.

Bull Run

In 1861 this was the first major battle between Confederate and Union forces, where the Confederate army stopped an invading Union army and sent the Union in retreat to Washington DC and waking everyone up that this would be a harsh conflict.

Gettysburg

In 1863 Lee invaded Pennsylvania from Virginia, where Union and Confederate forces clashed in the largest battle of the Civil War, and is widely considered to be the war's turning point and marked the Union's first major victory in the East, and lasted three days (July 1-4) that resulted in 51,000 casualties.

Yellowstone

In 1872 located in the border area between Wyoming and Montana, the first national park in the United States was created and became famous for the Old Faithful geyser and wildlife.

Eastman's Kodak camera

In 1888 George Eastman created this device which allowed people to take pictures and freeze a moment in time forever (not perfected until selfies developed in the 2000s).

Homestead Strike

In 1892 Pittsburgh steel workers' strike against the Carnegie Steel Company to protest a pay cut and a 70-hour workweek turned violent as workers and Pinkerton detective "scabs" clashed until finally Federal troops were called in to suppress the violence.

Pullman Strike/ Eugene Debs

In 1894 a strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company occurred after wages were slashed and union representatives fired, the railroad workers boycotted their duties, which crippled railroad traffic in Chicago that Federal courts ruled strikers must stop; when strikers led by Eugene Debs refused federal troops were used to crush the strike.

Factory wage earners

In 1900 2/3s of all working Americans worked for wages at jobs that required them to work 10 hours a day 6 days a week and were generally paid just above what they needed to survive since so many immigrants were coming into the country.

Women/ Women clerical workers

In 1900 one woman out of five was working (most young and single, as married woman were expected to maintain the home if the family could afford it) but women made large gains in clerical and secretarial positions, though jobs where women became the majority of workers generally lost status and received lower wages.

Enron/Corporate corruption

In October 2001 this was when the bankruptcy of this major energy corporation, and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen which was one of the five largest audit partnerships in the world, after both were found fixing the books in the corporations favor. After such a large bankruptcy more laws were established in order to crack down on corporate corruption.

Bloody Shirt

In US History, this is a reference to war heroes/martyrs to criticize opponents suggesting they had something to do with the others death (in this instance, Republicans would reference the Civil War and Democrats) which gained its name because one Senator was alleged to have shown the whipped/bloody shirt of a carpetbagger by the Ku Klux Klan.

Wage and price controls

In a move widely applauded by the public and a fair number of economists, President Nixon tried to stop wages and prices from growing for nearly 1,000 days but turned into a monumental failure.

Hubert Humphrey

In a renowned speech he told the 1948 Democratic National Convention, "The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights," winning support for a pro-civil rights plank in the Party's platform and was VP under Johnson.

Rebates/Pools

In a ruthless scramble to survive, railroads competed by offering rebates (discounts) and kickbacks to favored shippers while charging exorbitant freight rates to smaller customers such as farmers. They also attempted to increase profits by forming pools, in which competing companies agreed secretly and informally to fix rates and share traffic.

Espionage Act/ Sedition Act

In order to suppress dissent, the government passed this WWI era regulation that ordered severe penalties for citizens who criticized the war effort or the government, and though it limited free speech the Supreme Court upheld the law stating acts representing "a clear and present danger" were not protected forms of speech which limited dissent in the US. Another portion, passed in 1918 as an amendment to the Espionage Act, this provided for the punishment of anyone using "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" in regard to the U.S. government, flag, or military effectively eliminating dissent to the war effort in the US.

Sons and Daughters of Liberty

In response to the Stamp Act Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and other radicals formed this secret organization in the 1760s where they harassed tax collectors and conducted events such as the Boston Tea Party, demonstrating the increasingly organized resistance and conflict towards British policies.

New Left

In the 1960s, American students formed this group to voice their demands and were determined to build a new type of politics.

Sudetenland

In the conference the allies voted for appeasement and gave Hitler the Czechoslovakian land that contained mostly German language speakers without a fight in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.

Marbury v. Madison

In this 1803 case, Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Judiciary Act of 1789 was unconstitutional because Congress had granted the Supreme Court powers beyond what the Constitution permitted and established the principle of judicial review.

Korematsu v. US

In this 1944 case, the Supreme Court upheld FDR's 1942 executive order for the evacuation of all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast into internment camps until March 1946 as constitutional.

Munn v. Illinois

In this case, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a state to regulate businesses of a public nature, such as railroads.

Election of 1860

In this crowded presidential election, the primary issue was slavery and its expansion debated by Democrats Stephen Douglas & John C Breckenridge, Constitutional Union John Bell, and the winner Republican Abraham Lincoln who opposed the expansion of slavery which Southerners viewed as a threat to their way of life.

Compromise of 1877

In this deal Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote but allowed Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to win, which in return for Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction by removing federal troops from the last two occupied states in the South.

Election of 1960

In this election Kennedy (due to televised charisma) won over Nixon (pale and nervous) allowing for more New Deal type legislation.

Crop price deflation

Increased crop production and global competition drove prices down while farmers still had mortgages to pay with high interest rates.

(Expanding) Middle Class

Industrialization helped expand this class of society by creating jobs for accountants, clerical workers, and salespersons, and these middle-class employees increased the demand for services from other middle-class workers: professionals (doctors and lawyers), public employees, and storekeepers.

Albert Fall/Teapot Dome

Infamous Secretary of the Interior and scandal which secretly leased government oil reserves to two businessmen in exchange for a $400,000 payment which was exposed after Harding's death and symbolized government corruption.

Fireside chats

Informal talks given by FDR over the radio to calm the population to explain what steps the government was taking to fix the depression and helped to restore the confidence of the people.

Mayas

Inhabitants of the Yucatan Peninsula whose civilization was at it's height from AD 300 to AD 900, their civilization included a unique system of writing, math, architecture, and astronomy.

Good Neighbor Policy

Initialized in 1933, this was FDR's foreign policy toward Latin America where he pledged that no nation, not even the U.S., had the right to interfere in the affairs of any other nation in order to gain support among Latin American nations as the US focused on Germany and Japan.

Slavery

Initiated by Portugal where Africans were forced to work on sugar plantations and were subjected to new extremes of dehumanization, this type of labor system treated people as property in order to maximize economic output from struggling colonies.

Olive Branch Petition

Most delegates sought reconciliation with Britain so this petition was sent to King George III offering peace under the conditions that there be a cease-fire in Boston, that the Coercive Acts (part of the Intolerable Acts) be repealed, and that negotiations between the colonists and Britain begin immediately; King George III rejected the petition, so Congress created the Continental Army and elected George Washington its commander in chief.

Washington Irving

Most famous author of his time who wrote stories like "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", he was the first American writer to be recognized in Europe and reflected an increasing American nationalism as he set the stories based in American settings

Ida Tarbell

Muckraker journalist who famously wrote The History of the Standard Oil Company, concerning the ruthless business tactics of John D. Rockefeller in order to bring about political and business reform.

Lincoln Steffens

Muckraker journalist who famously wrote The Shame of the Cities, chronicled the corrupt local governments throughout America in order to bring about political reform.

Rock and roll

Musical style that rose to dominance in the 1950s merging rhythm and blues with white bluegrass and country and became the defining music of the 1950s youth generation.

Tariff of 1828/Tariff of Abominations

Name given by Southern politicians to the 1828 duty because it seriously hurt the South's economy while benefiting Northern and Western industrial interests, and popular resistance to the tariff in South Carolina led to the Nullification Crisis.

Jim Crow Laws

Name given to state laws that institutionalized segregation in the South from the 1880s through the 1960s, it segregated schools, buses, and other public accommodations, which made it difficult/impossible for Southern blacks to vote.

Blacklist

Names of pro-union workers circulated among employers who would then refuse to hire them.

Henry Kissinger

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

Stonewall Inn/Gay Liberation Movement

New York City bar that triggered activist protests among gays and lesbians when police raided the bar and people fought back which quickly became the symbol of oppression of gays and the beginning of the gay pride movement.

Tammany Hall

New York City's Democratic Organization, where Irish were initially exclude from joining and generally noted for its corruption.

Thomas Nast

Newspaper cartoonist who produced satirical cartoons, he invented "Uncle Sam," came up with the elephant/donkey for the political parties, and drew scathing commentaries regarding the machine's corruption and greed which helped bring down Boss Tweed.

Baby Boom/ Early Marriages

Nickname for the 1950s, when economic prosperity caused U.S. population to swell from 150 million to 180 million.

Carpetbaggers

Nickname given to northerners who moved South during Reconstruction in search of political and economic opportunity, the term was coined by Southern Democrats who said that these northern opportunists had left home so quickly that they were able to carry all their belongings in rough suitcases made from carpeting materials.

Détente

Nixon and Kissinger strengthened the U.S. position in the world by taking advantage of the rivalry between the two Communist giants, China and the Soviet Union, and helped reduce of Cold War tensions.

China Visit

Nixon took the bold step of improving relations with "Red" China (Mao Zedong's Communist regime) by traveling to Beijing to meet with Mao, where he initiated diplomatic exchanges that ultimately led to U.S. recognition of the Communist government.

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT)

Nixon used his new relationship with China to put pressure on the Soviets to agree to a treaty limiting antiballistic missiles (ABMs), which if left unchecked would have significantly expanded the arms race, so they agreed at SALT to a freeze the number of ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads that helped reduce Cold War tensions.

Southern Strategy

Nixon's re-election campaign strategy designed to appeal to conservative whites in the historically Democratic south as the President stressed law and order issues and remained noncommittal on civil rights so white Southerners became increasingly attracted to the Republican party in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement.

Universal White Male Suffrage

No religious or property owning restrictions on voting. All white males could vote.

Great Plains Tribes

Nomadic tribes such as the Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Crow, and Comanche had given up farming in colonial times after the introduction of the horse and developed a way of life centered around hunting buffalos.

1842; $0; Britain; Webster Ashburton Treaty

Northeast Hunk of Minnesota

Chernobyl meltdown

Nuclear accident in Ukraine in 1986 that released huge volumes of radioactive materials that made people question the validity of nuclear power.

Exxon Valdez Accident

Oil tanker whose 1989 spill off the coast of Alaska sparked deep concern over oil drilling and transportation on the world's oceans.

"malaise" speech

On July 15, 1979, Carter gave this nationally-televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a "crisis of confidence" among the American people.

Korean War

On June 24, 1950, troops from the Soviet-supported North Korea invaded South Korea, and without asking for a declaration of war Truman committed U.S. troops as part of a United Nations "police action" under the command of General Douglas MacArthur until June 1953, when an armistice restored the prewar border between North and South Korea.

Yom Kippur War

On the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur the Syrians and Egyptians launched a surprise attack on Israel in an attempt to recover the lands lost in the Six-Day War of 1967 and Nixon responded by ordering the U.S. nuclear forces on alert while airlifting almost $2 billion in arms to Israel which quickly shifted the war in our favor and was soon over.

Ellis Island/ Angel Island

On the east coast, European immigrants were processes through Ellis Island. On the west coast, Asian immigrants were processed through Angel Island.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff 1930

One of Herbert Hoover's early efforts to protect the nation's farmers following the onset of the Great Depression, it unfortunately raised rates to an all-time high, hurting farmers more than it helped them.

John Jay

One of the American Diplomats in France who helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris, he later went on to author some of The Federalist Papers and was instrumental in drafting of the Constitution.

Alexander Hamilton

One of the authors of The Federalist Papers and the outspoken leader of the Federalists, he supported the formation of the Constitution and later, as secretary of treasury under Washington, spearheaded Federalist initiatives, most importantly the creation of the Bank of the United States.

Ernest Hemmingway

One of the best-known writers of the 1920s' "lost generation," he produced a number of famous works during the 1920s, including The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929) where he reflected the disillusionment and despair of the time period.

Plymouth Colony

One of the earliest successful colonies to be founded by the English in North America in the New England territory.

Winifield Scott

One of the finest generals to serve in the US Army, he led the US forces' march on Mexico City during the Mexican American War and successfully took the city which ended the war (he never lost one battle, kept American casualties low, and was consistently outnumbered).

Northwest Ordinance

One of the great successes produced under the Articles of Confederation, this act defined the process by which new states could be admitted into the Union and forbade slavery.

Patronage Politics

One of the key inducements used by party machines, this was when a job, promotion, or contract is given for political reasons rather than for merit or competence alone.

Battle of Lake Erie

One of the largest naval battles in the War of 1812 occurred in September 1813, when Commander Oliver Perry led the US Navy to defeat six British vessels, which ensured American control of the lake, and ultimately allowed the US to recover Detroit as well as break the Indian confederation of Tecumseh.

White primaries

One of the means used to discourage African-American voting that permitted political parties in the heavily Democratic South to exclude African Americans from primary elections, thus depriving them of a voice in the real contests.

McGuffey Readers

One of the nations first textbooks and widely used helping create an increasingly similar school experience for students across the country and sold over 122 million copies (only the Bible and Webster's Dictionary sold more copies) written by an American professor and college president William McGuffey.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

One of the principal organizations fighting for civil rights in the south composed primarily of young people who played a major role in the sit-ins and freedom rides, a leading role in the 1963 March on Washington, and the Freedom Summer.

Jay Gould

One of the richest Americans in history, he made his fortune in consolidating railroad companies into his Union Pacific Railroad Company and later he attempted to control the gold market through his brother in law, Ulysses S. Grant.

John D. Rockefeller

One of the richest men in American history, he was Chairman of the Standard Oil Trust, which grew to control nearly all of the United States' oil production and distribution and formulated the horizontal integration business tactic.

Charter/Corporate Colonies

One of three types of colonies (royal and proprietary are the others), they were largely private enterprises who were granted authority to rule a certain area in America and generally had more control over their area than did the other types of colonies.

African American Migration

One way to deal with the discrimination African Americans faced was to move away from the heart of the south—some African Americans moved back to Africa while others moved to Kansas and Oklahoma.

Anne Hutchinson

Openly taught religious doctrine contrary to the Puritan doctrine and ultimately forced out of the colony and established Rhode Island, she demonstrates how religious differences and conflict led to New England's colonial expansion.

Operation Iraqi Freedom

Operation where U.S. troops invaded Iraq and Saddam's forces collapsed almost immediately, the capital Baghdad fell, and Saddam and other Iraqi leaders went into hiding but were largely captured in the following months.

W.E.B. Du Bois

Opposed to Booker T. Washington's "gradualist" approach to equality, he argued for full equality socially, politically, and economically and co-founded the Niagara Movement which became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which is still in existence today (NAACP).

W.E.B. DuBois

Opposed to Booker T. Washington's "gradualist" approach to equality, he argued for full equality socially, politically, and economically and co-founded the Niagara Movement which became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People which is still in existence today (NAACP).

Panama Invasion 1989

Ordered by Bush in December 1989 to remove the autocratic General Manuel Noriega the purpose of the invasion was to stop Noriega from using the country as a "drug pipeline" to the US.

1846; $0; Britain; Agreement with Britain

Oregon

Tea Act

Passed in 1773, this Act lowered the price of British tea to below that of smuggled tea (by cutting out local American merchants with the British East India Trading Company), which the British hoped would end the boycott while providing new revenue to the British government to pay the salaries of royal governors in the colonies, a plan that outraged many colonists and prompted the Boston Tea Party.

Declaratory Act

Passed in 1776 just after the repeal of the Stamp Act, this Act stated that Parliament could legislate for the colonies in all cases, which colonists interpreted as a face-saving mechanism and nothing more while Parliament would repeatedly interpret the act in order to control the colonies, which signaled a growing divide between Britain and its American colony.

Fugitive Slave Law

Passed in 1793 and strengthened as part of the Compromise of 1850, this act allowed Southerners to send slave hunters into Northern soil to retrieve runaway slaves, but by the 1850s the Northerners mounted resistance to the act by aiding escaping slaves and passing personal liberty laws.

Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

Passed in 1854, this act divided the Nebraska territory into two parts (Kansas and Nebraska) and left the issue of slavery in the territories to be decided by popular sovereignty while also nullifying the prohibition of slavery above the 36-30' latitude established by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

Homestead Act

Passed in 1862, this law encouraged settlement of the West by offering 160 acres of land to anyone who would pay $10, live on the land for five years, and cultivate and improve it.

Homestead Act 1862

Passed in 1862, this law encouraged settlement of the West by offering 160 acres of land to anyone who would pay $10, live on the land for five years, and cultivate and improve it.

Pendleton Act of 1881/ Civil Service Reform

Passed in 1883, this act established a civil service exam for public jobs and created hiring systems based on merit rather than on patronage in hope of eliminating corrupt hiring practices, and while the law was initially limited in reach initially it grew steadily to incorporate most jobs.

Dawes Act of 1887

Passed in 1887, this law called for the breakup of Indian reservations and the treatment of Native Americans as individuals rather than as tribes, giving individuals 160 acres of farmland or 320 acres of grazing land and was guaranteed U.S. citizenship in twenty-five years, this law ultimately intended to help Native Americans integrate into white society but in practice caused widespread poverty and homelessness.

Interstate Commerce Act of 1886

Passed in 1887, this law forbade price discrimination, required railroads publish their haul rates, prohibited other monopolistic practices and established a commission to continually regulate railroad company practices.

Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

Passed in 1890 with the intention of breaking up business monopolies, this outlawed "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in the restraint of trade" but was initially used to break up union strikes in the 1890s but by the early 1900s the government launched an aggressive antitrust campaign.

Pure Food and Drug Act

Passed in 1906 in response to questionable packaging and labeling practices of food and drug industries, this act prohibited the sale of adulterated or inaccurately labeled foods and medicines.

Meat Inspection Act

Passed in 1906, this law set federal regulations for meatpacking plants and established a system of federal inspection after the muckrakers' exposés revealed the unsanitary and hazardous conditions of food processing plants.

Fair Labor Standards Act

Passed in 1938, this law provided for a minimum wage and restricted shipment of goods produced with child labor, and symbolized the FDR administration's commitment to working with labor forces.

Panama Canal Treaty

Passed in 1978 by President Carter, this called for the gradual return of the Panama Canal to the people and government of Panama and guaranteed its neutrality.

Immigration law reform 1965/1986

Passed in 1986, it was an update of the 1965 act and outlawed the hiring of undocumented immigrants, but offered legal status to aliens who had lived in the U.S. for five years.

Wade -Davis Bill

Passed in July 1864, this law set forth stringent requirements for Confederate states' readmission to the Union so President Lincoln, who supported a more lenient Reconstruction policy, vetoed this bill by leaving it unsigned more than ten days after the adjournment of Congress.

Lend-Lease Act

Passed in March 1941, this law allowed the president to loan supplies to any nation deemed "vital to the defense of the United States," (such as Britain) and was a key move in support of the Allied cause before the U.S. formally entered World War II and was ultimately extended to Russia.

Welfare Capitalism

Paternalistic techniques employed by some bosses to improve working conditions to lead to a more stable workforce. (Ex: Henry Ford shortened workweek, raised wages, paid vacations, US Steel improved safety and sanitation).

Deborah Sampson

Patriot who disguised herself as a man and served in the Continental Army.

Pennsylvania/ Holy Experiment

Pennsylvania, founded by William Penn

Housing Bubble

People bought houses with "balloon" mortgage loans but weren't able to ultimately afford when the low entry price "ballooned" into the real rate three years later leading many people to buy houses they could not afford and driving the housing/real estate prices sky high before crashing the national economy and the value of their homes.

Puritans

People who thought the Anglican Church retained too many Catholic traditions ( sought to purify the church by their actions), many fled to the New World in the early 1600s and established religious communities with a heavy emphasis on family values and strict morality.

"Plumbers"

People whose job it was to stop leaks of what Nixon was trying to achieve from being let out of the White House.

Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson

Perhaps one of the most gifted generals in American history, this Confederate general is well-known for his Valley Campaign but was accidentally shot (by his own side!) at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, and his death shortly thereafter greatly affected the southern military and public morale for the war.

National Recovery Administration

Perhaps the most important element of the first New Deal, this established a forum in which business and government officials met to set regulations for fair competition, these regulations were in effect from 1933 until 1935, when the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional.

Mayflower Compact

Pilgrim leaders entered into a formal agreement to abide by the laws made by leaders of their choosing in 1620, which provided colonists with the expectation of self-government in the Americas.

Communist Satellites

Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, all of these were nations under the control of the Soviet Union.

John C. Calhoun

Political figure throughout the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson, he served as James Monroe's secretary of war, as John Quincy Adams's vice president, and then as Andrew Jackson's vice president for one term but his firm belief in states' rights and nullification ultimately brought him into conflict with Jackson.

John C Calhoun

Political figure throughout the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson, he served as James Monroe's secretary of war, as John Quincy Adams's vice president, and then as Andrew Jackson's vice president for one term, he was a firm believer in states' rights that ultimately clashed with Jackson, most notably over nullification.

Democratic-Republican Party

Political party led by Thomas Jefferson who feared centralized political power, supported states' rights, opposed Hamilton's financial plan, and supported ties with France and largely supported by the agrarian interests in the south.

Abstract Art

Popular in the first half of the 20th century, this modernism focused on the human ability to create, improve and reshape the world and was presented in many diverse formats.

McKinley victory--Gold Standard/higher tariff

Populists prediction of a financial disaster were averted when foreign crop failures sent U.S. farm prices surging upward, more gold was discovered, and American business entered another cycle of expansion, which in the mind of many linked the gold standard to prosperity.

Incas

Powerful South American Empire that was destroyed by Pizzaro and resulted in Spanish control of South America.

New Jersey Plan

Presented at the Constitutional Convention, this plan proposed a unicameral Congress with equal representation for each state that tended to favor small states who had small populations.

Election of 2004

President Bush ran for a second term against Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Vietnam War hero who turned against the war which ultimately Bush won by demonstrating Kerry's questionable war record, inconsistency on issues, and high voter turnout gave Bush a sizeable popular vote but a narrower electoral victory.

Election of 1976

President Ford was re-nominated despite a challenge from conservative Ronald Reagan and he faced former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter the Democratic nomination who ran as an outsider and promised never to lie to the American people while Ford was hurt by the pardon of Nixon and his performance in debates leading to a narrow Carter win.

John Hay/ Open Door Policy

President McKinley's Secretary of State, he helped negotiate the end of the Spanish-American War and more importantly formulated the Open Door Policy in China which allowed multiple imperial powers access to China with no one power controlling the country.

Nixon Doctrine

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

Gentlemen's Agreement

President Theodore Roosevelt crafted this agreement between the San Francisco School Board and the Japanese Government where the school board would allow Japanese students to enter public school if the Japanese government would stem the tide of immigrants coming to the United States.

James Monroe

President from 1817 until 1825, his presidency was the core of the Era of Good Feelings, characterized by a one-party political system, increasing economic opportunity, expansion westward, an upsurge of American nationalism, and his own efforts to avoid political controversy and conflict.

James K. Polk

President from 1845 to 1849. A firm believer in expansion, he led the U.S. into the Mexican War in 1846, after which the U.S. acquired Texas, New Mexico, and California. Many Northerners saw him as an agent of Southern will aiming to expand the nation in order to extend slavery into the West.

Andrew Johnson

President from 1865 (after Lincoln's assassination) until 1869, his plan for Southern Reconstruction was considered too lenient by Radical Republicans and Congress fought his initiatives and undertook a harsh Reconstruction plan that frayed relationships and culminated in impeachment proceedings in 1868 that he was ultimately acquitted for.

William Howard Taft

President from 1909 to 1913, he was not enthusiastic about progressive reform but rather allied himself with the conservative wing of the Republican Party by raising tariffs, which offended many Progressive Republicans and precipitated a split in the Republican Party.

Warren Harding

President from 1921 until his death in 1923, he ushered in a decade of Republican dominance where the needs of big business were accommodated and simultaneously scaled back government involvement in social programs as well as an administration rife with corruption.

Calvin Coolidge

President from 1923 to 1929, this quiet person believed the government should interfere with the economy as little as possible and spent his time in office fighting congressional efforts to regulate business.

Great Awakening

Religious revival movement in the 1720s through the 1740s that was spread throughout the colonies which weakened the status of old-fashioned clergy, encouraged believers to exercise individual judgment, heightened the need for tolerance (many dominations created), created demand for New Light ministers, and brought about the American religious aspect of revivalism.

Non-intercourse Act

Replaced the Embargo Act in 1809, this law only forbade trade with France and Britain in attempt to heal the damage done by the Embargo Act but keep economic pressure on Britain and France but did not succeed.

Republican Party

Replacing the Whig Party, this political party was formed in the mid-1850s and focused primarily on free-soil issues, elected Abraham Lincoln president, and dominated politics during the Civil War and Reconstruction and held the African-American vote for over 60 years.

Security Council

Represented by five permanent major powers (US, Britain, France, China, Russia), this UN organization was supposed to help prevent future conflicts and maintain international peace and security.

Contract with America

Republican candidates signed a document in which they pledged their support for such things as a balanced budget amendment, term limits for members of Congress, and a middle-class tax cut.

Richard Nixon

Republican congressman from California, and later president, who helped lead the crusade against Communist subversion in the United States as a member of HUAC and ensured that spy Alger Hiss served jail time for passing state secrets to the Soviet Union and helped spread the belief that communist operatives had infiltrated the government.

Barry Goldwater

Republican contender against LBJ for presidency in 1964, his platform included lessening federal involvement and opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Election of 1994

Republicans made "Contract with America" in this election allowing Republicans to win control of both the house and senate for first time since 1954.

Election of 1952

Republicans nominated Dwight Eisenhower and Nixon to run against Adlai Stevenson of the Democrats, where Eisenhower's popularity helped him win in a landslide

Interstate Commerce Commission

Required railroad rates to be "reasonable and just", it also set up the first federal regulatory agency, the Interstate Commerce Commission, or the ICC, which had the power to investigate and prosecute pools, rebates, and other discriminatory practices.

Asiento system

Required the Spanish to pay a tax to their king on each slave they imported to the Americas

White Backlash

Resistance to African demands led by "law and order" advocates who challenged the turbulent times of assassinations, protests, and radical court rulings occurring during the 1960s.

Missouri Compromise

Resolved the conflict surrounding the admission of Missouri to the Union as either a slave or free state, this made Missouri a slave state, admitted Maine as a free state, and prohibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory but allowed it below the 36-30 line.

Watts riots

Riots in sections of LA that resulted in the deaths of 34 people and the destruction of over 700 buildings.

Iran-Contra Affair

Robert Mcfarland came up with the secret plan of selling US antitank and antiaircraft missiles to Iran for its help in freeing the Americans held hostage by Arabs and Oliver North proposed using profits of the arms deal with Iran to illegally fund the Contras in Nicaragua.

Election of 1980

Ronald Reagan won over Jimmy Carter because of the Iranian hostage crisis and America's economic stagflation.

Recession of 1937/Roosevelt Recession

Roosevelt and his economists decided to reduce government spending and begin laying off large numbers of government employees in order to balance the budget, resulting in severe economic decline.

Bad vs. Good Trusts

Roosevelt's litmus test as he sought to dissolve monopolistic trusts through vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws, he boiled everything down to a case of right versus wrong: if a trust controlled an entire industry but provided good service at reasonable rates, it was a "good" trust to be left alone but if the company raised rates and exploited consumers would come under anti-trust attack.

Stephen A. Douglas

Rose to national prominence as Speaker of the House, when he pushed the Compromise of 1850 through Congress and was the leading Northern Democrat of his day, a supporter of popular sovereignty and the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act who even politically battled Abraham Lincoln for a seat in the Senate (successfully) in 1858, and for president (unsuccessfully) in 1860.

U-2 Incident

Russia shot down a US reconnaissance spy plane over Soviet airspace, which forced Eisenhower to admit spying on the Soviets and kept relations between the two Superpowers tense.

John F. Kennedy

Second youngest president, he entered presidency as tensions of the Cold War increased and was unable to get major initiatives through Congress due to conservatives but did get tax cuts (economic stimulation), reluctantly got involved in civil rights, and set the goals for the Space Race.

Paris Accords of 1973

Secret meetings with North Vietnam's foreign minister Le Duc Tho stalled when the Vietnamese failed to compromise, so Nixon ordered massive bombing of North Vietnam to force a settlement which led to an armistice, in which the United States could withdraw the last of its troops and get back the prisoners of war (POWs) while also promising a cease-fire and free elections, allowing the United States to extricate itself from this war.

William Seward

Secretary of State in 1867, he was an eager expansionist who supported the Alaskan purchase and negotiator of the deal though it was criticized since Alaska was not fit for settlement or farming.

Andrew Mellon

Secretary of Treasury under Harding and Coolidge, he advocated a business-friendly government atmosphere by working for reductions in taxes, profits, personal incomes, taxes, and cut the federal budget while paying back the deficit acquired for World War I.

Article X

Senator Lodge's primary complaint about the League of Nations, he argued it would force the United States to enter into international conflicts if a member of the League of Nations was attacked, which would be unconstitutional since it bypassed the checks and balances system establishing Congress as the only body who could declare war.

John Foster Dulles

Served as Secretary of State for President Eisenhower, he advocated an aggressive stance against communism throughout the world, involving the US in a number of conflicts (like Vietnam) designed to contain the Soviets and expand US influence.

Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction 1863

Set up by Lincoln in 1863, this "ten percent plan" shaped his picture for political Reconstruction that was very moderate: 1) Presidential pardons would be given to southerners (except highly ranked Confederates) who took an oath of allegiance to the Union and accepted the emancipation of slaves 2) When 10% of the voters had taken the oath, the state government could be reestablished and recognized Lincoln meant to shorten the war and add weight to his Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation was criticized for being too lenient by the Radical Republicans.

Germans

Settled mainly in Pennsylvania; known as Pennsylvania Dutch; clung to their native language and customs (no loyalty to Britain).

Election of 1864

Several northern military victories rejuvenated northern morale and boosted the Republicans/Lincoln to victory in this election, with a vast majority of states voting for Lincoln (popular vote was much closer) which ensured the war would continue.

Carrie Chapman Catt/ League of Women Voters

She became the new president of the National American woman Suffrage Association in 1900, and made efforts to educate women about political issues and candidates running for office.

Carrie Nation

She did not want to wait for the law of banning saloons to become in affected, therefore created a sensation by raiding saloons and smashing barrels of beer with a hatchet.

Florence Kelley/ National Consumer League

She fought for protection of women as workers so they did not need to depend on a husband and against child labor. Her organization attempted to mobilize the power of women as consumers to force retailers and manufacturers to improve wages and working conditions for women workers.

Jane Addams/settlement houses

She started the Hull House in Chicago in 1889, which taught immigrants English, pioneered early childhood education, taught industrial arts, and established neighborhood theaters and music schools which rapidly spread to other cities.

Margaret Fuller

She was a leader in the women's movement and editor of The Dial (1840-1842), which was a publication of the transcendentalists and appealed to people who wanted "perfect freedom" in hope that progress in philosophy would make the future better than the past.

Panama Canal

Shipping canal built by the U.S from 1904-1914 that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Kellogg-Briand Treaty (1928)

Signed in 1928, this agreement made offensive wars illegal throughout the world but as a result did not have any enforcement mechanisms—it did not prohibit defensive warfare or provide punishment to countries that disobeyed the pact.

Warsaw Pact

Signed in 1954 between the USSR and its Eastern European satellites—Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania, this agreement allowed the stationing of Soviet troops in each participating country and was largely was seen as the Soviet response to the formation of NATO.

Treaty of Paris (1783)

Signed in September 1783 and ratified by Congress in January 1784, this treaty ended the Revolutionary War which granted the United States its independence, gave the U.S. all land east of the Mississippi River, promised to compensate loyalists for property damage incurred during the war, and to allow British creditors to collect debts accrued before the war.

Treaty of Ghent

Signed on Christmas Eve in 1815, this treaty ended the War of 1812 and returned relations between the U.S. and Britain to the status quo (the way things were before the war).

Paul Revere

Silversmith and patriot who alerted the colonists that the British were coming before Lexington and Concord by taking a midnight horse ride to spread the word and to prepare colonists.

Nonviolent protest

Sit-ins, protests at colleges, boycott of segregated businesses in order to bring about a harsh action to show the people enforcing the laws were out of control, not the people breaking the laws.

Fort Sumter

Site of the opening engagement of the Civil War, South Carolina had seceded from the Union and had demanded all federal property be surrendered to state authorities, but Union Major Anderson refused to surrender and the Confederate Army began bombarding the fort which surrendered two days later which prompted Congress to declare war on the Confederacy April 15, 1861.

Liberty Bonds

Sold to United States civilians during World War I, a holder could buy one and receive more money back if they held the certificate when the bond matured, providing a critical way to finance the war effort.

John Quincy Adams

Son of John Adams, secretary of state to James Monroe and president from 1825 to 1829, he worked to expand the nation's borders and authored the Monroe Doctrine but his presidency was largely ineffective due to lack of popular support resulting in a Congress that blocked many of his proposed programs.

Francisco Franco

Spanish general whose armies took control of Spain in 1939 and who ruled as a dictator until his death.

Encomienda system

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

Bartolome de Las Casas

Spanish missionary who was appalled by the encomienda system in Hispaniola and called it "a moral pestilence invented by Satan"

Impeachment/Resignation

Special committee led by Ervin began impeachment talks about Nixon and recommended 3 articles of impeachment against Nixon: taking part in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, "repeatedly" failing to carry out his constitutional oath, and unconstitutional defiance of committee subpoenas which led Nixon to resign on August 9.

UN Police Action

Started by the invasion of South Korea by North Korea, Truman took action immediately by applying his containment policy and the UN police action was advocated by the Security council.

Persian Gulf War

Started when Hussein invaded the oil-rich but weak Kuwait and threatened Western oil sources in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, the UN joined together to put an embargo on Iraq and ultimately led to an US led invasion of Iraq.

Joint-stock company

Stock-holders (not the government) invested into a common pool of money used to colonize lands and shared in the financial risks/profits of the colony, which led to profitable English colonization in the 16th and 17th century.

Boston Police Strikes

Strike by poorly paid policemen in the fall of 1919, the police abandoned their posts and chaos ensued; after two days, Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge called in the National Guard to restore order and the public sided with Coolidge, demonstrating popular hostility toward labor militancy in the wake of the war.

Samuel M. Jones

Strived to follow the "Golden Rule", he advocated for a minimum wage and opened kindergartens demonstrating corruption did not have to exist at the local levels.

Griswold v. Connecticut

Struck down a state law that banned the use of contraceptives, even by married couples, creating a "right to privacy."

Harry S. Truman

Succeeded FDR as president after FDR's death in April 1945, he served until 1953 and is most famous for ordering the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at home attempting to extend the New Deal policies of his predecessor in what he called the Fair Deal.

Harry Truman

Succeeded FDR as president after FDR's death in April 1945, he served until 1953 and is most famous for ordering the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at home attempting to extend the New Deal policies of his predecessor in what he called the Fair Deal.

New Lights

Supported the Great Awakening and founded many universities (well known, like Harvard) primarily for the purpose of training ministers and underlined the self-rule the colonies developed in religion.

Democrats

Supporters were led by Andrew Jackson and harked back to the old party of Jefferson and supported agrarian lifestyles, a weak central government and strong states rights.

Tariffs; excise taxes

Taxes to raise enough revenue to pay government's debts.

Printing Press

Technology improved this device which helped spread information faster and more widely which allowed Europe to more quickly take advantage of new information.

Compass

Technology improved this device which made traveling by ocean more accurate while in open waters which ultimately helped encourage greater exploration by the Europeans.

Consumer culture

Televisions made it much easier to advertise nationwide, and spread consumer crazes across the country quickly while economically consumers had more spending power than ever before because of increased credit cards as well as easy payment plans.

Teller/Platt Amendment

Teller Amendment- This amendment was added to the Declaration of War against Spain by President McKinley stating the United States would give Cuba independence once the war ended but was later overrode by the Platt Amendment, indicating the imperialistic motives of the United States during the timeperiod. Platt Amendment-Passed in 1901, this authorized American withdrawal from Cuba only on the following conditions: Cuba must make no treaty with a foreign power; the U.S. reserved the right to intervene in Cuba when it saw fit; and the U.S. could maintain a naval base at Guantánamo Bay—together these effectively limited Cuba's independence.

Appeasement

Term for the British-French policy of attempting to prevent war by granting German demands.

Peaceful coexistence

Term used by Khrushchev in 1963 to describe a situation in which the United States and Soviet Union would continue to compete economically and politically without launching a thermonuclear war.

Peculiar Institution

Term used to describe slavery (the word slavery was fast becoming "improper"), used in association with a defense of slavery and advocated slavery was a "positive good" establishing both an economic positive and social positive by "establishing the proper relation between races."

Louisiana Purchase

Territory procured from Napoleon by the U.S. in 1803 for $15 million, this nearly doubled the size of the nation, opened the West to exploration and settlement, increased the power of the Democratic-Republicans, and removed France as a threat, but also caused border disputes with foreign powers as well as congressional debates over the admission of new free/slave states from the region.

1845; $0; Texas; Annexation

Texas

James Madison

The "Father of the Constitution", he helped secure the Constitutional Convention in 1786 with Hamilton, helped write the Constitution, and was one of the lead authors of The Federalist Papers and believed in a strong, central government and eventually became the fourth President of the United States.

Nullification Crisis

The "Tariff of Abominations" hurt the Southern economy while benefiting Northern and Western industries, which led Vice President John C. Calhoun to denounce the tariff as unconstitutional on the grounds that federal laws must benefit all states equally, and urged that states rid themselves of the tariff within their own borders that sparked a heated national debate over tariffs and states' rights.

Division of Vietnam

The 17th parallel was the latitude line marking the border of North and South Vietnam.

Salutary Neglect

The English government's policy of not enforcing certain trade laws it imposed upon the American colonies throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, with the purpose being to ensure the loyalty of the colonists in the face of the French territorial and commercial threat in North America. (Note that following British victory in the French and Indian War, the English ceased practicing salutary neglect).

Suffolk Resolves

The First Continental Congress endorsed Massachusetts's Suffolk Resolves, which declared that the colonies need not obey the 1773 Coercive Acts, since they infringed upon basic liberties.

Adena-Hopewell

The Hopewell civilization (also called Adena in some regions) is a prehistoric culture of the American middle west. Recent evidence has pretty much proven that Adena is indistinguishable from the Hopewell of the central North American continent, although there may some regional variations. Village settlements date between 500 BC-AD 200; large shaped burial mounds and extensive trade networks are Adena/Hopewell characteristics.

Flexible Response

The Kennedy Administration's response to the "brushfire wars" that occurred during and following the Cold War, Kennedy decided to increase spending on conventional arms and mobile military forces instead of more nuclear weapons.

Holocaust

The Nazi program of exterminating Jews under Hitler.

Monitor vs. Merrimac

The North needed to blockade the South (Anaconda Plan) South had the Merrimac, an ironclad ship, which could easily sink northern wooden ships so the North created the Monitor, an ironclad, which fought the Merrimac—while the fighting ended in a draw the South no longer had a ship to prevent blockades.

Yasser Arafat

The Palestine Liberation Organization leader who and forged an agreement on self-rule for the Palestinians within Israel in a meeting with Clinton and the Israeli prime minister.

Omaha Platform

The Populist party program as adopted in 1892 included support for free-currency monetary issues to support farmers and explicitly demonstrated support for the goals of the Knights of Labor and achieved limited success by winning 11 seats in Congress.

Lech Walesa

The President of Poland in 1990, he was able to eventually bring down the Communist government and instituted democratic government, this move initiated the end of Communist domination in Eastern Europe.

Tecumseh

The Prophet's brother and a Shawnee chief who tried to unite Native American tribes in Ohio and Indiana to thwart white settlement, his forces were ultimately defeated in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe but later allied with the British during the War of 1812 (died in the Battle of Thames, 1813).

George W. Bush

The Republican nominee in the election of 2000, he was the eldest son of George H. W. Bush who challenged research on global warming, didn't support abortions, limited research on embryonic stem cells, cut taxes, and began wars in the Afghanistan and Iraq.

US v E.C. Knight

The Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act could be applied only to commerce, not to manufacturing which resulted in few convictions until the law was strengthened during the Progressive era

Dartmouth College v. Woodward

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the state of New Hampshire could not convert Dartmouth College to a state university because doing so would violate the college's contract granted by King George III in 1769, and the Constitution forbids states from interfering with contracts which Democratic-Republicans interpreted as a shocking defeat for states' rights and exposed the political conflicts still occurring during the "Era of Good Feelings."

Schenck v. United States

The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act in a case involving a man who had been imprisoned for distributing pamphlets against the draft, with the conclusion that the right to free speech could be limited when it represented a "clear and present danger" to the public safety.

Mexican War

The U.S. annexation of Texas quickly led to diplomatic trouble with Mexico and Polk sent John Slidell to Mexico City to persuade Mexico to sell California and New Mexico and settle the dispute over the Texas border.

Sinking of the Maine

The U.S. battleship sunk by an explosion in Havana harbor in February 1898, the popular rumor was that the Spanish were responsible and its sinking combined with sensationalist news reports of Spanish atrocities led the American public to push for war against Spain.

State of Israel

The UN in 1947 created a partition of Middle Eastern land for a Jewish state, which prompted an immediate Arab rejection and declaration of war, but the Arabs lost.

Florida Purchase Treaty

The US agreed to purchase Florida by assuming $5 million dollars worth of Spanish debt as part of the Adams-Onis Treaty.

"Spirit of Geneva"

The USSR and US agreed to suspend nuclear tests but couldn't agree on demilitarization or Open Skies, leading some to believe a possible thaw in the Cold War was possible to end the arms race between the two Superpowers.

Chinese/Irish/veterans

The Union and Central Pacific used these groups to construct the railroads.

Whigs

The Whigs arose in opposition to President Jackson in the mid-1830s whose members consisted of the National Republican Party as well as some Northern Democrats, and sought protective tariffs, federal funding for internal improvements, and other measures that strengthened the central government/industrialization but the party disappeared by the 1850s, when its Northern and Southern factions irrevocably split over the slavery issue.

Social Mobility

The ability to move up or down easily in social circles was common in America, preventing the social unrest between people that was occurring with common frequency in Europe.

Desegregation

The abolishment of racial segregation, which happened due to the work of Civil Rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The discrimination against her inspired her to become a women's rights leader, and with her effort along with Lucretia she organized America's first woman's rights convention at the Seneca Falls Convention, became editor of the temperance newspaper the Lily, and eventually created the Women's Loyal National League to help end slavery.

Unilateralist Approach

The doctrine that nations should conduct their foreign affairs individualistically without the advice or involvement of other nations.

Supply-side economics/Reaganomics

The economic theory that emphasized cutting taxes and government spending in order to stimulate investment, productivity, and economic growth by private enterprise

Yellow Journalism

The exaggerated and sensationalized stories about Spanish military atrocities against Cuban rebels that the New York World and New York Journal (among other newspapers) published in the period leading up to the Spanish-American War, which ultimately swayed American public opinion in favor of war against Spain.

McCarthyism

The extreme anti-communist sweep in American politics and society during the early 1950s, this refers to an intense campaign against alleged subversives in the country.

"Cross of Gold" speech

The famous speech given by William Jennings Bryan (and is one of the most famous speeches in all US History), his single speech convinced the Democratic Party to incorporate Populist demands and make Bryan the presidential candidate.

Alabama

The fearsome British-made vessel that fought for the Confederacy and destroyed over 60 Northern ships in 22 months and later the United States diplomatically challenged Britain for violating neutrality and demanded repayment for the damage they inadvertently caused (Britain expressed regret for the "escape" of the ship from England).

Jackie Robinson

The first African American player in the major league of baseball, his actions helped to bring about other opportunities for African Americans.

Grover Cleveland/ Election of 1884

The first Democrat nominated after the Civil War (serving two non-consecutive terms), his reputation as an enemy of government corruption overcame the Republican party and allowed him to seek lower tariff rates, sign the Interstate Commerce Act, and send in federal troops against striking railroad workers in Chicago.

Roanoke Island

The first English settlement in the New World was on this island, off the coast of North Carolina, established in 1587. Virginia Dare, the first English child born in America was born on this island. The settlement failed, and no one knows what became of the people who first settled there.

Lancaster Turnpike

The first highway that was developed, it was a response to the ineffectiveness of slow water transportation and uncertain road transportation that stretched from Philadelphia to Lancaster and inspired many other turnpike projects.

Virginia Company

The first joint-stock company in the colonies that founded Jamestown on promises gold, conversion of Natives to Christianity, and passage to the Indies.

Virginia Plan

The first major proposal presented to the Constitutional Convention concerning congressional representation, this plan proposed the creation of a bicameral legislature with representation in both houses proportional to population, which obviously favored the large states who would have a much greater voice than the small states.

Lexington and Concord

The first shots fired in the Revolutionary War in April 1775 near Boston as British General Gage sought to confiscate colonial weaponry, and resulted in approximately 100 militiamen and 250 British soldiers killed (the colonial militia retreated).

Newlands Reclamation Act

The government began to become more involved with the environment with this law, which provided funds for the construction of dams, reservoirs, and canals in the West that ultimately opened new lands for cultivation.

New Deal Coalition

The group forged by the Democrats who dominated American politics from the 1930's to the 1960's, its basic elements were the urban working class, Catholics, Jews, the poor, Southerners, African Americans, intellectuals, southern conservatives, religious, and ethnic minorities.

Anti-imperialist League

The growing reaction to the American Empire among a mixture of business people and academics, who opposed annexing the newly acquired territories won in the Spanish-American War on grounds as various as racism to immorality.

White-Collar Workers

The growth of large corporations introduced the need for thousands of white-collar workers (salaried workers whose jobs generally do not involve manual labor) to fill the highly organized administrative structures, creating a new middle management that was needed to coordinate the operations between the chief executives and the factories

16:01

The historic ratio of gold to silver exchange rate that came into question in the late 1800s as silver became worth more commercially, so people stopped selling it to the mint and resulted in no silver coins, ultimately leading farmers and other indebted people to seek a return to "bimetallism" to inflate their way out of debt.

Antinomianism

The idea that members of a particular religious group are under no obligation to obey the laws of morality as presented by religious authorities best demonstrated by Anne Hutchinson.

Lynch mobs

The killing of African Americans by white mobs because they were accused of committing crimes or because they had angered the whites, most were done secretly by small mobs.

Hereditary aristocracy

The lack of nobility that inherited special privileges and masses of hungry poor in the New World allowed for more rapid social mobility than in Europe.

House of Representatives

The larger legislative body where each state would be represented according to the size of its population.

America First Committee

The largest anti-war group in American history, it pressured against the US entry into WWII and popular hero Charles Lindbergh was the most effective speaker.

Barbary Pirates

The name given to several renegade countries on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa who demanded tribute in exchange for refraining from attacking ships in the Mediterranean---from 1795-1801, the U.S. paid the Barbary states for protection against the pirates but Jefferson stopped paying the tribute, and the U.S. fought the Barbary Wars (1801-1805) but did not achieve decisive wins and went back to paying the tribute.

Patriots

The name given to the colonists who fought for independence from the British

Dust-bowl/ The Grapes of Wrath

The name given to the southern Great Plains region (Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma) during the 1930s, when a severe drought and fierce winds led to violent dust storms that destroyed farmland, machinery, and houses, and led to many injuries as well as migrants fleeing the conditions. This time in American History was most successfully chronicled in this 1939 book told of the story of the Joad family who were migrants from the Dust Bowl to California who endured an unending string of calamities but gave tribute to those who continued enduring.

Frances Perkins

The nation's first woman cabinet member, she was named the Secretary of Labor by FDR in 1933.

National War Labor Board

The need for wartime supplies was used by workers to gain important concessions from businesses through this wartime agency, which sought to resolve labor disputes (8 hour workday, equal pay, rights of unions, etc) without disrupting production.

American Expeditionary Force/ John Pershing

The official title of the American army sent to Europe to aid England and France after the United States entered WWI and was ably commanded by General John J. Pershing, who used the force to help push the Central Powers into surrendering and ending the conflict.

Gold rush/Silver rush

The period of time where Americans were flocking to the Far West to find gold which mainly took place in California, Colorado, Nevada, the Black Hills of the Dakotas, and other western territories; almost one-third of western miners were Chinese.

Director of National Intelligence

The person in charge of coordinating all government intelligence in an effort to more effectively identify and respond to threats facing the American people.

Supreme Court

The pinnacle of the American judicial system. The court ensures uniformity in interpreting national laws, resolves conflicts among states, and maintains national supremacy in law. It has both original jurisdiction and appellate jurisdiction, but unlike other federal courts, it controls its own agenda.

Peace Corps

The plan devised by Kennedy where young men and women would travel abroad and help develop Third World nations.

Rugged Individualism

The political ideology that promoted self-reliance, not to rely on government or charity, to fix problems and (like the ones experienced in the Great Depression).

38th Parallel

The pre- and post-war dividing line between North and South Korea.

Checks and Balances

The principles established by the Constitution to prevent any one branch of government (legislative, executive, and judicial) from gaining too much power, trying to resolve the problem of how to empower the central government while also protecting against corruption.

George Wallace

The pro-segregation governor of Alabama who ran for president in 1968 on American Independent Party ticket of segregation and law and order but lost to Nixon.

Lecompton Constitution

The pro-slavery Kansas constitution was written by a group of Missourians who traveled across the border to Kansas and organized it around slavery but free-soilers boycotted the convention which made Congress reject the constitution and return it to Kansas for a revote where free-soilers would vote on it as well (Buchanan, on the other hand, supported the original constitution).

United Nations

The replacement for the League of Nations, all member nations were to discuss any question and vote in the General Assembly with the required approval from the Security Council and its five permanent members: U.S., GB, FR, the Soviet Union, (SU) and China.

Habeas corpus

The right to be informed of the specific charges against you before being held in prison; during the Civil War Lincoln suspended this right.

Sir William Berkeley

The royal governor of Virginia who adopted policies that favored large planters and neglected the needs of recent settlers in the 'backcountry' that ultimately led to Bacon's Rebellion,

Congressional Reconstruction

The second "round" of Reconstruction that began after the congressional elections of 1866 when the dominant Republicans in Congress unified and took a more radical stance (fearing that the Democrats would gain power). During this period of reconstruction, the southern states were occupied by the Union army and many steps to guarantee the rights of blacks were taken. The Radical Republicans also had Johnson impeached in 1867.

Samuel Alito

The second Bush appointment to the Supreme Court, this 55 year old conservative confirmed as junior associate justice when Sandra Day O'Connor resigned from the supreme court.

Mayflower

The ship that carried the Pilgrims across the Atlantic from the Netherlands to Plymouth Plantation in 1620.

Panic of 1819

The start of a two-year depression caused by extensive land speculation, the loose lending practices of state banks, a decline in European demand for American staple goods, and mismanagement within the Second Bank of the United States, this economic downturn exacerbated social divisions within the United States and is often called the beginning of the end of the Era of Good Feelings.

Stock Market Crash/Black Tuesday

The stock market crash of October 24, 1929, after a decade of great prosperity the market dropped in value by an astounding 9 percent, representing the economic decline of the coming Great Depression.

Selective Service Act

This bill was passed in May 1917 and required all men aged 21 to 30 to register for military duty in order to conduct drafts to quickly build-up U.S. military forces for participation in WWI.

Race Riots

The summer of 1919 a black teenager swimming in Lake Michigan happened to drift toward a white beach where whites stoned him unconscious and he sank and drowned. Angry blacks gathered in crowds and marched into white neighborhoods to retaliate so the whites formed an even larger crowd and roamed into black neighborhoods resulting in 120 dead people in three months.

Sunbelt

The sunbelt states stretch from Florida to California and have warmer climates, lower taxes, and increased economic opportunities that prompted families uprooted by the war to move to these areas.

American System

The system devised by Henry Clay after the War of 1812 supported industrialization and included using federal money for internal improvements (roads, bridges, industrial improvements, etc), enacting a protective tariff to foster the growth of American industries, while also strengthening the national bank but was not backed by Monroe but gained support with John Quincy Adams.

"Imperial Presidency"

The term used to describe the modern presidency of the United States that served as the title of a 1973 volume by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., who the book out of two concerns; first that the US Presidency was out of control and second that the Presidency had exceeded the constitutional limits.

9/11/2001

The terrorist attacks in which 19 militant Islamist men hijacked and crashed four commercial aircraft into the trade towers, the Pentagon, and a field in the worst case of domestic terrorism in American history.

Domino Theory

The theory that if any nation fell to communism the surrounding nations would likely fall as well was extolled by Dwight D. Eisenhower and served to justify U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

Gross National Product

The total value of goods and services produced by a country, and during the Great Depression our economy dropped from 104 billion to 56 billion in four years.

Triangular trade

The trade between Britain, America, and Africa of finished goods, natural resources, and slaves effectively brought America into a global economic market (3 continents tied together in 1 economic system).

Great American Desert

The vast arid territory that included the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the Western Plateau that was largely settled after the Homestead Act of 1862 for farming and mining. The 100th meridian marked the spot it was difficult to grow crops past since there were 15 inches per year rainfall in the area and prior to the Civil War few (besides Native Americans forced there) had settled in the area.

Era of Good Feelings

The years of Monroe's presidency people had strong nationalistic pride after the Battle of New Orleans and second war for Independence with British, only one political party was present (Democratic-Republicans), on the surface everything looked fine.

Robert Kennedy

The younger brother of JFK who was an elected senator from New York whose anti-war, pro-civil rights platform propelled him into being a presidential candidate in 1968, but was assassinated in 1968.

Quakers

Their pacifism, unwillingness to deference to "social superiors", and their aggressive denouncing of established institutions brought them into social conflict often and sought to establish a religious colony in the New World in Pennsylvania.

New Nationalism vs. New Freedom

Theodore Roosevelt's new plan (New Nationalism) to actively regulate businesses, it essentially confirmed Herbert Croly's view that businesses should be allowed to continue consolidating (& therefore become more powerful) but the government should also grow as well to check corporate power and advocate for the common welfare (child labor laws, graduated income tax, minimum wage laws, industrial accident compensation, etc) led by a strong president. -Wilson's campaign pledge (New Freedom) was based upon three pillars: anti-trust legislation, banking reform, and tariff reduction and fundamentally agreed with Louis Brandeis belief that large corporate power was negative to society.

International Darwinism

Theories of evolution and survival of the fittest applied to human societies (where the least affluent members were deserving of their status because of their genetic inferiority), which Andrew Carnegie and others cited to justify the widening gap between the rich and the poor during the era of industrialization.

Social Darwinism

Theories of evolution and survival of the fittest applied to human societies (where the least affluent members were deserving of their status because of their genetic inferiority), which Andrew Carnegie and others cited to justify the widening gap between the rich and the poor during the era of industrialization.

Forest Reserve Act of 1891/Forest Management Act of 1897

These 1890s acts withdrew federal timberlands from development and regulated their use.

Cattle Drives

These ended in the 1880s when overgrazing destroyed the grass and a winter blizzard and drought of 1885-1886 killed 90% of the cattle.

Fannie May/Freddie Mac

These government backed institutions reassured investors who were worried about homeowners defaulting on mortgages by selling bonds to investors and using the funds to purchase mortgages from banks.

Ferdinand and Isabella

These monarchs combined their Christian kingdoms in order to fight back the Moors, would carry out the Reconquista, gave Columbus funds and ships to attempt traveling west to find India.

Grimke Sisters

These women voiced their opposition to male dominance, and supported prison reform, the temperance movement, and the abolitionist movement in the 1840s.

Thomas Jefferson

Third president of the United States (1801-1809), he was opposed to Alexander Hamilton's efforts to centralize power in the national government by strictly interpreting the constitution and advocated the limitation of federal power EXCEPT with his purchase of the Louisiana territory and his struggle to maintain neutrality in foreign affairs.

Vicksburg

This "western" city was besieged by Grant and surrendered after six months of fighting as the residents were literally starving to death and the Union gained control of the whole length of the Mississippi River and the Confederacy was split into two in 1863.

Proclamation of 1763

This 1763 Act barred American settlement west of the Appalachians in order to reduce conflict between Native Americans and settlers (prompted in the first place by Pontiac's Rebellion), but while this act was seen as an easy fix for the British officials it outraged the American colonists who largely ignored the law.

Sugar Act

This 1764 British law outraged colonists with its methods of enforcements and stipulations which lowered the duty on foreign-produced molasses as an attempt to discourage colonial smuggling and that Americans could export many commodities— including lumber, iron, skins, and whalebone—to foreign countries only if the goods passed through British ports first.

Quartering Act

This 1765 Act required colonial citizens to provide room and board for British soldiers stationed in the colonies, which generated fear among colonists of a large standing army and potentially high costs (the 3rd Amendment of the US Constitution specifically protects against this).

Bank of the United States

This 1816 institution served to stabilize the financial system but became unpopular after being blamed for the panic of 1819, corruption, and mismanagement until its charter expired in 1836 when Jackson proclaimed it to be an unconstitutional extension of the federal government and a tool that rich capitalists used to corrupt American society.

American Party/ Know Nothing Party

This 1840s-1850s political group was an extreme wing of the nativist movement that opposed immigration and the election of Roman Catholics to political office (when asked what their party stood for, they were told to say, "I know nothing" hence the alternative name for the group).

Know-Nothing Party

This 1840s-1850s political group was an extreme wing of the nativist movement that opposed immigration and the election of Roman Catholics to political office (when asked what their party stood for, they were told to say, "I know nothing" hence the alternative name for the group).

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

This 1848 treaty required Mexico to cede the American Southwest, including New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California, to the U.S. while the U.S. gave Mexico $15 million in exchange, so that it would not look like conquest and was ratified after a bitter debate over the expansion of slavery officially ending the Mexican-American War.

Knights of Labor

This 1869 organization was the first truly national labor union under the direction of Terrence Powderly, who accepted skilled/unskilled workers as well as women and African Americans, in order to pursue a loose goal of cooperative business (workers own the business and vote on what to do), the 8 hour workday, termination of child labor, and equal pay for women/African Americans that ultimately failed after a series of unsuccessful strikes.

American Federation of Labor

This 1886 organization became the largest labor organization built around membership of skilled workers and was led by Samuel Gompers, who focused on better wages and working conditions through the tactic of collective bargaining.

Volstead Act/Al Capone

This 1919 law was the enforcement portion of the Eighteenth Amendment, which established prohibition and was continuously underfunded leading to widespread crime. People like infamous Chicago crime bosses ran a network of illegal activities that began with alcohol and soon connected with drugs, prostitution, and illegal gambling that often resulted in violent turf wars between rival gangs and made Chicago one of the most dangerous cities in the US.

National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act

This 1935 law provided a framework for collective bargaining and granted workers the right to join unions and bargain, and forbade employers from discriminating against unions and demonstrates FDR's support for labor needs and unionization.

National Security Act

This 1947 act created the Department of Defense (formally the Department of War), the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in order to organize a government response to the nation's international goals.

Endangered Species Act

This 1973 law identified threatened and endangered species in the U.S., and puts their protection ahead of economic considerations.

Amnesty Act of 1872

This Act that removed the last of the restrictions on ex-Confederates, except for the top leaders and allowed many of these conservative Democrats to retake control of state governments.

Regents of University of California v. Bakke

This Supreme Court case involved a University Medical School and a white applicant who was rejected twice even though there were minority applicants admitted with significantly lower scores than his who were accepted and the justices imposed limitations on affirmative action to ensure that providing greater opportunities for minorities did not come at the expense of the rights of the majority.

Wabash v. Illinois

This Supreme Court decision in 1886 declared that Granger state laws were unconstitutional because they regulated interstate trade, which only the Federal Government is authorized to do in the US Constitution.

24th Amendment

This abolished the practice of collecting a poll tax, one of the measures that had discouraged poor persons from voting.

Cash and Carry

This act declared the United State's neutrality, but also provided for the sale of US weapons on a "cash and carry" basis.

Valladolid Debate

This argument concerned the treatment of natives of the New World where Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas argued that the Amerindians were free men in the natural order and deserved the same treatment as others while scholar Juan Gines de Sepulveda, who insisted that "in order to uproot crimes that offend nature" the Indians should be punished and therefore reducing them to slavery or serfdom was in accordance with Catholic theology and natural law.[2]

Payne-Aldrich Tariff

This began as a way to lower foreign duties in order to help the "common man" afford products at more reasonable prices, but the final law did little to lower the rates and in many cases actually raised rates, which contributed to a growing Progressive backlash against Taft as people questioned his commitment to reform.

Dwight Eisenhower

United States general who supervised the invasion of Normandy and the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Proclamation to the People of South Carolina/South Carolina Exposition

This document, written by John C. Calhoun, outlined the anger of the South in the face of the "Tariff of Abominations" and expressed the Southern contention that the tariff was unconstitutional, as it severely altered trade with Europe on which Southern farmers had become dependent.

Highway Act (1956)

This dramatically reduced the time necessary to travel from one place to another by constructing over 40,000 miles of roads between cities in 1956.

Election of 1972

This election saw "silent majority" leader Nixon against Democrat George McGovern who was the embodiment of the radical, resulting in a landslide victory for Nixon.

Election of 1988

This election saw Republican Vice President George H.W. Bush against the Democrat Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts and Bush pledged not to raise taxes and portrayed Dukakis as a soft-on-crime liberal leading to a Bush victory but Democrats controlled Congress.

Panic of 1893

This event began when a quarter of the railroad industry went bankrupt during the early 1890s, sparking the collapse of many related industries such as banking, plunging the value of the dollar and lasted roughly four years.

Panic of 1893

This event began when the railroad industry faltered during the early 1890s, sparking the collapse of many related industries such as banking, plunging the value of the dollar and lasted roughly four years.

Pontiac's Rebellion

This event occurred in 1763 for approximately 18 months when Chief Pontiac launched devastating attacks on colonial settlements and forts and was finally ended when the British agreed to the Proclamation of 1763.

Panic of 1837

This event punctured the economic boom sparked by state banks' loose lending practices and over-speculation, the contraction of the nation's credit in 1836 led to widespread debt and unemployment which forced President Van Buren to spend most of his time in office attempting to stabilize the economy and ameliorate the economic crisis.

Bacon's Rebellion

This event was an armed rebellion over Gov. Berkley's inaction concerning Indian raids on the western frontier in 1676, which resulted in new western lands opening and wealthy planters shifted labor demands from poor white indentured servants who would become free (and potentially troublesome) to permanently enslaved African people.

Roosevelt Corollary/ "Big Stick" Policy

This extended the Monroe Doctrine by declared that the United States, not Europe, should dominate the affairs of Latin America, and that although the U.S. had no expansionist intentions, any "chronic wrongdoing" by a Latin American nation would justify U.S. intervention as a global police power.

Triangle Shirtwaist fire

This fire in 1911 killed 146 people, mostly women, because the doors were locked and the windows were too high for them to get to the ground and significantly dramatized poor working conditions and let to federal regulations to protect workers.

Pilgrims

This group felt they needed to abandon the Church of England, and boarded the Mayflower with Bradford in 1620 and ultimately settled Plymouth Plantation.

National (Cumberland) Road

This helped fulfill a pressing need to improve the transportation system in 1825 by building a path from Cumberland, Maryland to the Ohio River and allowed unprecedented amounts of manufactured goods and people move about the country contributing to an expanding economy.

Tiananmen Square

This incident was a suppression of Chinese seeking democracy by the People's Army and caused much condemning from western nations including the U.S.

Barbed wire/Joseph Glidden

This invention resolved the problem of how to fence in vast amounts of western lands without the availability of lumber, thus changing the American West from open plains to fenced areas suitable for cattle.

"Brinksmanship"

This is the practice of pushing dangerous events to the verge of disaster in order to achieve the most beneficial outcome for your side, but is particularly dangerous when this involves military strategy including the use of nuclear weapons.

Equal Pay Act

This law prohibited employers from paying unequally on the basis of gender.

Affordable Care Act

This law requires everyone to have healthcare and caused controversy as Republicans say the law is unconstitutional but the Supreme Court upheld the law and said it was constitutional because it was essentially a tax.

Osama bin Laden

This leader harbored venomous resentment towards the US for its growing military presence in the Middle East and its support for Israel in the face of Palestinian nationalism that was ultimately assassinated May 2, 2011 by a commando raid.

Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill)

This legislation gave benefits to returning World War II veterans, including financial assistance for veterans wanting to go to college or enter other job training programs, special loan programs for veterans wanting to buy homes, and preferential treatment for veterans who wished to apply for government jobs and was very successful in helping the economy convert from wartime to peacetime production.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

This man amassed a fortune by modernizing railroad lines by converting them to common gauge steel rails and creating linkages of major cities in the East and Midwest.

Henry Ford/Assembly Line

This man employed Frederick Taylor's principles of scientific management that allowed workers to remain in one place and master one repetitive action, maximizing output and became the production method of choice by the 1930s to produce his Model-T automobile, he was also known for paying his employees well as well as dramatically increasing the use of the automobile and he generally represents the economic boom of the 1920s.

William (Boss) Tweed

This man led the political machine known as Tammany Hall in New York City in the 1860s and 1870s, who aided voters in his district with groceries, jobs, money, in exchange for votes to get elected and the potential to make money off of government contracts.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842)

This treaty was signed in August 1842 and settled US-Canadian boundary disputes including the Maine-New Brunswick border, established a detailed border between Lake Superior, resolved the Caroline steamship issue, as well as called for a final end to the slave trade on the high seas to be enforced by both countries which allowed America to focus on westward expansion and symbolized growing US-English rapprochement.

French Revolution

This war took place between 1789 and 1793 and indirectly challenged America's sovereignty, as George Washington had to decide whether to commit troops to the cause (as they had done for our war earlier) and risk upsetting Britain or remain neutral, and while some initially celebrated the spreading of Enlightenment ideals it became clear this was a very different war that was both bloody and ruthless.

Three-Fifths Compromise

This was a compromise between Northern and Southern states that would count 60% of slaves as people to be represented concerning representation in the House of Representatives, ensuring the Constitution to be ratified at the expense of slaves who were denied political rights.

Hudson River School

This was a group of American landscape painters who depicted America's landscapes in a romantic (magical/mystical) manner and included artists like Thomas Cole and Thomas Doughtery.

Moral Majority

This was a political group made up of fundamentalist Christians who, while not legally accomplishing many of their goals, did show that Americans were starting to worry about the moral fabric of society.

Lost Generation

This was a term used to characterize a general idea of disillusionment, noted by the American literary notables who lived in Europe after the First World War.

Impact of Corn

This was one of the most important crops grown by Native American peoples in Mexico and South America. Early Native American people even worshipped a good the crop. The growth of this in the Americas helped shape the shift of people from nomadic hunting bands to settled agricultural villagers. This had a huge impact on Pueblo culture as well.

Harriet Beecher Stowe/Uncle Tom's Cabin

This woman famously wrote the divisive Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852, which was praised by the North and convinced many Northerners that slavery was morally wrong while simultaneously it was denounced in the South as Southerners grew in their convictions to protect the slave institution.

Federal Reserve

Tightened the monetary supply in the United States which made the recession much worse and led the economy into depression.

Dodd-Frank Act

To promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system to end "too big to fail" and protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts.

Francisco Pizarro

Took over the Incan Empire in 1632, expanding the Spanish Empire's land and wealth at the expense of Native Americans.

Pentagon Papers

Top-secret documents, published by The New York Times in 1971 that showed the deception on why the war began and consistent blunders in the execution of the Vietnam War which further reduced support for the war.

Old Lights

Traditionalists in the Congregational Church who rejected the Great Awakening teachings.

1783; $0; Britain; Treaty of Paris 1783

Trans-Appalachian West

Oklahoma City Bombing

Truck/bomb explosion that killed 168 people in a federal office building on April 19, 1995 that was perpetrated by anti-government militant Timothy McVeigh.

Fair Deal

Truman's attempt to extend the policies of the New Deal, his 1949 plan included measures to increase the minimum wage, expand Social Security, and construct low-income housing.

Zachary Taylor

Twelfth President of the United States and a famous general during the Mexican-American War, he was a Whig President who opposed the spread of slavery and encouraged territories to organize and seek admission directly as states to avoid the issue of slavery but his impact was limited as he died suddenly in 1850, being replaced by Millard Fillmore.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Two anarchist Italian immigrants who were charged with murder in Massachusetts in 1920 and sentenced to death, the case against them was circumstantial and poorly argued and was significant because it showcased nativist and conservative forces at work in America. (evidence now suggests that they were in fact guilty).

Martin Luther King Jr.

U.S. Baptist minister, civil rights leader, a noted orator, he opposed discrimination against blacks by organizing nonviolent resistance and peaceful mass demonstrations but was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1964.

Gadsden Purchase

U.S. acquisition of land south of the Gila River from Mexico for $10 million; the land was needed for a possible transcontinental railroad line through the southern United States but the route was never used.

Homeland Security Department

US federal agency created in 2002 to coordinate national efforts against terrorism.

Cuban Missile Crisis

US reconnaissance planes discovered Russian-built underground sites in Cuba for the launching of offensive missiles that could reach the US in minutes, which prompted Kennedy set up a naval blockade of Cuba until the weapons were removed in response. After days of tension, Nikita Khrushchev removed the missiles in return for Kennedy's promise not to invade the island and removal of US missiles from Turkey.

Sharecropping; tenant farmers

Under this system the landlord provided the seed and other needed farm supplies in return for a share (usually half) of the harvest, and while this system gave poor people of the rural South (whites as well as blacks) the opportunity to work a piece of land for themselves, sharecroppers usually remained either dependent on the landowners or in debt to local merchants which meant this system essentially evolved into a new form of servitude

Scab

Unemployed people used to replace striking workers.

Jazz

Uniquely American music that emerged from African American communities that was accepted in both white America and Europe.

Robert E. Lee

Widely regarded as the best general of the Civil War, the commanding general of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Civil War he was a brilliant strategist, commander, and fighter that was victorious in the Second Battle of Bull Run, Fredericksburg but faced devastating losses at Gettysburg and was forced to retreat back and ultimately surrendered to General Grant.

Suburban Growth

William J. Levitt led in the development of postwar housing led to this, along with the building of an efficient network of roads, highways and superhighways, and the underwriting of mortgages for suburban one-family homes.

John Smith

With his strong brand of leadership he imposed a dictatorship over Jamestown in 1608, he kept Jamestown from collapsing like Roanoke and ensured Jamestown would survive organized work gangs to gather food and build shelters, thereby dramatically lowering the mortality rates among Jamestown colonists.

Political polarization

With the gerrymandered seats of Congress ensuring politicians near guaranteed election wins, both political parties became more extreme in their views resulting in a collapse of compromise and the inability of either party to effectively work in the political system efficiently.

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's 1918 idealistic peace program, his plan called for unrestricted sea travel, free trade, arms reduction, an end to secret treaties, the territorial reorganization of Europe in favor of self-rule, and most importantly, the creation of a League of Nations to protect peace and resolve conflicts.

League of Nations

Woodrow Wilson's idea for a collective security body meant to provide a forum for the resolution of conflict and to prevent future world wars, which was written into the Treaty of Versailles but the U.S. Senate voted against joining the League, making it a weak international force.

Federal Reserve Act/Run by the Federal Reserve Board

Woodrow Wilson's most notable legislative success, the 1913 Federal Reserve Act reorganized the American banking system by creating a network of twelve Federal Reserve banks authorized to distribute currency and thereby allowing the US government to more effectively control the economy through the money supply.

Poor Richard's Almanack

Written by Benjamin Franklin and the most popular secular book in the colonies, it was filled with witty, insightful, and funny bits of observation and common sense advice (the saying, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," first appeared in this almanac).

Common Sense

Written by Thomas Paine in 1776, he argued the colonists should free themselves from British rule and establish an independent government based on Enlightenment ideals, which became so popular and influential that many historians credit it with dissolving the final barriers to the fight for independence.

Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions

Written in 1798 by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, these resolves condemned the Federalists' broad interpretation of the Constitution and instead put forth a compact theory of the Union, which stated that states' rights superseded federal powers, originally to protest the Alien and Sedition Acts though would be drawn upon later by advocates of slavery.

Robert Kennedy

Younger brother of JFK who entered public life as U.S. Attorney General during the Kennedy Administration and was anti-war, pro-civil rights presidential candidate in 1968 until he was assassinated in 1968.

Yugoslavia breakup/ Balkan Wars: Bosnia/Kosovo/ "Ethnic Cleansing"

Yugoslav provinces of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo imploded as hundreds of thousands of members of ethnic and religious minorities were killed ultimately leading to the formation of new countries.