Chapters 1-32

Berlin Airlift

"Operation Vittles" was undertaken by the US and British governments to counter the Soviet blockade of Berlin. The operation was both an important incident of the cold war and the most extraordinary peacetime military operation in history. The Soviet Union closed all land and water communication routes from the western zones to Berlin. The western Allies in turn responded by supplying their sectors of Berlin with all necessities by cargo aircraft. More than 277,264 flights were made into Berlin carrying 2,343,315 tons of food and coal. The Soviets ended the blockade on May 12, 1949 and conceded defeat.

Civil Rights Act

A bill by this name became law in 1866 when Congres overrode a veto by President Johnson. The law protected the rights of newly freed blacks before the passage of the 14th Amendment. Another law by this name was passed in 1875 to prohibit racial discrimination in jury selection and public accomodations, but the Supreme Court in 1883 declared that law unconstitutional.

Panic of 1857

A boom in the American economy ended in this economic recession. Some historians believe the political struggle between 'free soil' and slavery in the territories, beginning with the Supreme Court's ruling in the Dred Scott case, may have helped bring about the Panic. According to this theory, the Court's decision threatened to open up all western territories to slavery, prompting the bonds of east-west running railroads to plummet in value, which in turn helped motivate a run on the major New York banks. And when grain prices fell, demand for railroad services and manufactures fell off. The upper Mississippi Valley was hardest hit, but the Panic did not last long and it hardly affected the South at all.

free silver

A major political issue during the late 19th century, this was a movement in support of the unlimited coinage of silver by the U.S. government to inflate the money supply. Opponents insisted on strict adherence to the more conservative gold stanard. The issue came to a head in the election of 1896 when Populists and Democrats united behind William Jennings Bryan who proclaimed to all opponents,"You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!" Although this issue helped Bryan garner over 6 million votes, he lost the election to William McKinley.

John Brown

A militant abolitionist, he believed that slavery must be overthrown by force. In 1859, he led an unsuccessful raid against the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to spark a local slave rebellion. He was captured and put on trial for treason. His dignified bearing during his trial won him much sympathy in the North. He was convicted of treason and then hanged on December 2, 1859.This event, perhaps more than any other single event, polarized the North and South and led directly to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Dred Scott Decision

A slave had brought the lawsuit demanding his freedom based on his residence in a free state and a free territory with his master. In this 1857 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that blacks were not citizens and could not sue in a federal court, and that Congress had no constitutional authority to ban slavery from a territory, that, in effect, the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The decision threatened both the central plank of the Republican party platform and the concept of popular sovereignty.

Toleration Act

Act passed in 1649 to allow a degree of religious freedom in Maryland

Fugitive Slave Act

Congress passed this law as part of the Compromise of 1850. Under it, federal commissioners were authorized to compel citizens to assist in the return of runaway slaves; fugitives could not testify in their own behalf, and they were denied a jury trial. This was the strongest concession to the South in return for accepting California as a free state.

Hiroshima/Nagasaki

After the Japanese rejected a final surrender ultimatum issued on July 26, 1945, President Harry Truman decided to employ the atomic bomb. These two cities were the ultimate targets. The first atomic bomb, code-named "Little Boy," was dropped on this port city of on August 6. More than 70,000 people were killed instantly, only about a third of whom were military personnel. The United States again demanded surrender, but Japan, dismissing the threat as American propaganda, refused. Three days later, a second atomic bomb, codenamed "Fat Man," was dropped on this city, killing more than 70,000 people. Five days later, on August 14, Japan surrendered unconditionally.

President Jimmy Carter

After the Vietnam War debacle and the Watergate scandal, this candidte promised to return the government to the decency its citizens had every right to expect. In domestic policy however, he failed to improve the poor economy: unemployment, inflation, and the costs of energy continued to increase. The two foreign policy successes of the his administration—the negotiation and ratification by the Senate of a new Panama Canal treaty in 1978 and the Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1979—were overshadowed by events in Iran where 52 American citizens were seized at the American embassy and held hostage for 444 days. He proved unable to shake his image as a vacillator, unsure of how to cope with domestic economic turmoil and foreign policy crises.

President George Washington

After the new government was organized, he was unanimously chosen to be president. He assumed the office of president on April 30, 1789, acutely aware that everything he did established a precedent. He hoped to prevent the rise of divisive partisanship and sectionalism by appointing the most talented people available to his Cabinet. Before he left office in 1797, the nation had a sound currency, adequate tax revenue to meet government expenses, an internationally respected credit rating, an adequate network of sound banks, and the start of a tax system designed to aid the development of manufacturing and maritime commerce. He decided not to seek reelection in 1796, thereby establishing the tradition of two terms for the presidency upheld until Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to a third term in 1940.

Federalist Papers

Alexander Hamilton, with the help of James Madison and John Jay wrote this--a brilliant series of essays explaining and defending the national government created by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. These essays serve as a primary source for interpretation of the Constitution, as they outline the philosophy and motivation of the proposed system of government. According to historian Richard B. Morris, they are an "incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer."

Compromise of 1877

Allegedly, a deal was struck to settle the disputed outcome of the 1876 presidential election. In this compromise, Democrats accepted the election of the Republican, Rutherford Hayes. In return, Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South and end Reconstruction.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Along with John Marshall, he is often considered considered one of the greatest justices in Supreme Court history. His opinions and famous dissents in favor of individual liberties are still frequently quoted today. He argued that current necessity rather than precedent should determine the rules by which people are governed; that experience, not logic, should be the basis of law.

U.S. v. E.C. Knight

Also known as the "'Sugar Trust Case,'" this Supreme Court case that limited the government's power to control monopolies. In 1892 the American Sugar Refining Company gained control of a 98% monopoly of the American sugar refining industry. President Grover Cleveland directed the national government to sue the Company under the provisions of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The court ruled that manufacturing was a local activity not subject to congressional regulation of interstate commerce.

Fair Labor Standards Act

Also known as the Wages and Hours Law, this New Deal legislation abolished child labor and established a national minimum wage of 40 cents per hour and a maximum work week of 40 hours.

Payne-Aldrich Tariff

Although President Taft called this tariff a reform measure, former President Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin had fought the law because it continued protective rates. The Republican Progressives in Congress had introduced the tariff act at lower rates. Before it passed, however, the Senate attached 847 amendments to the bill, 600 of these providing increases. Consequently, the rates averaged 40.8% of value, lower than the Dingley Tariff of 1897, but still significantly protective of most US products. Taft's acceptance of this bill was one factor causing progressive Republicans to look for a new Presidential candidate in 1912.

Alfred T. Mahan

America's foremost naval historian and theorist in the 19th century, he wrote, "The Influence of Sea Power upon History" in 1890. He was among the leading advocates of American overseas expansion and naval power, and his theories were employed by President Theodore Roosevelt and other expansionists to further their imperial ambitions for America.

Judiciary Act of 1789

Article Three of the United States Constitution created the Supreme Court and gave Congress the power to establish inferior courts. This landmark statute was adopted on September 24, 1789 in the first session of the First United States Congress. The law established the U.S. federal judiciary: it set the number of Supreme Court justices at six: one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices; it established a circuit court and district court in each judicial district; and it created the office of Attorney General.

Henry Kissinger

As National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State, he was the principal architect of U.S. foreign policy during the administrations of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He played a major role in the successful opening of diplomatic relations between China and the United States in 1971 and in the implementation of the policy of coexistence with the Soviet Union known as détente. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Paris Peace Accords, which ended America's involvement in the Vietnam War in 1973.

Martin Van Buren

As President Andrew Jackson's campaign manager, political confidant, secretary of state, vice president, and finally, handpicked successor, this man played a major role in national politics and the establishment of Jacksonian democracy as a significant political force. Elected president in 1836, he promised to adhere to Jackson's policies, but a severe economic depression, the Panic of 1837, lasted throughout his administration and quickly undermined his popularity. He was defeated by the first Whig president, William Henry Harrison in 1840. By 1848, a coalition disgruntled Democrats and Whigs met in Buffalo, New York, formed the Free Soil Party, which was pledged to a platform against slavery, and nominated this former president as their candidate. After losing again, he retired from politics.

Eugene Debs

As a leader of organized labor and a presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, he passionately fought for radical social change in the United States. By 1893, he had organized the American Railway Union (ARU) and called a national strike that quickly tied up the nation's railroads to support the Pullman strike in Chicago. He was arrested and indicted on the charge of interfering with the mail. During the six months he spent in jail, he read socialist literature. Between 1904 and 1920, he ran as the Socialist candidate for president five times.

Horace Greeley

As editor of the New York Tribune and one of the early members of the new Republican Party, he supported the anti-slavery cause. A strong supporter of the Radical Republican Reconstruction program and an advocate of the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, he at first applauded Grant's election to the presidency, but he soon denounced the new administration as corrupt and illiberal toward the South. When the Liberal Republicans split from the party in 1872, he became their candidate; the Democratic Party also nominated him for president that year. Urging a conciliatory attitude toward the South, he failed to carry a single Northern state. Crushed by the magnitude of his defeat, he went insane and died on November 29 of that same year, only a few weeks after the election.

Jacob Riis

As his colleague observed, he was a reporter who "not only got the news, but cared about it." Armed with a pencil, a notebook, and a camera, he documented the overcrowding, lack of proper sanitation, and grinding poverty of the slums. In 1890, his first and most famous book, How the Other Half Lives, was published. Packed with harrowing details and illustrated with drawings based on his photographs, How the Other Half Lives was a powerful indictment of slum conditions. His exposés of conditions in New York City's slums influenced a generation of investigative reporters, known as muckrakers, and set the standard for future photojournalists.

John Foster Dulles

As secretary of state in the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he became famous for his strong anticommunist views and insistence that the United States help small countries to withstand aggression. In 1954, he articulated a "NEW LOOK" foreign policy that increased reliance on a nuclear weapons to deter communist aggression through threats of "Massive Retalliation"

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

As supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in World War II, he directed the invasions of North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany. He was not a colorful figure like Gen. George S. Patton or Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. However, his style of firm, calm leadership proved to be ideally suited for welding the disparate forces of the Allies into an efficient military machine capable of accomplishing the largest amphibious invasion in history at Normandy in 1944 and then crushing Nazi Germany.

John D. Rockefeller

As the moving force behind the Standard Oil Company, he helped create the American petroleum industry. His ruthless and cutthroat business practices brought him tremendous wealth, but his reputation with the public became severely damaged. Although he paid fair market value for many companies he acquired, he drove others into submission through cutthroat attacks. He pioneered large-scale, systematic philanthropy, giving away millions of dollars for the advancement of education, medicine, and science.

Dixiecrats

At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, a group of delegates stormed out of the arena when Hubert H. Humphrey urged the Democratic Party to support President Harry Truman's civil rights platform. Those delegates formed the States' Rights Party, commonly known by this nickname because of the traditional Southern views. Their platform reflected the ideology of many Southern segregationists, as it opposed integration and civil rights, and it championed each state's right to regulate racial issues.

Tippecanoe and Tyler too

At the Whig's first national nominating convention in 1840, the party chose William Henry Harrison as its presidential nominee because he was a military hero, and he did not have a political record that indicated how he felt about controversial issues. The Whigs realized that as a party representing largely upper-income and business voters who stood in opposition to Jackson's and Van Buren's egalitarian democracy, they needed a candidate who would appeal to a wide electorate. Forshadowing modern campaign tactics, the Whigs portrayed Harrison was a man of the people. Model log cabins and kegs of hard cider became Whig campaign symbols, along with this slogan which reminded voters of Harrison's heroics before and during the War of 1812.

salutary neglect

British colonial policy that relaxed supervision of internal colonial affairs by royal bureacrats contributed significantly to the rise of American self government

spheres of influence

By 1900, Japan and several European nations were carving China into areas by this name, within which each country dominated trade relations. The United States Secretary of State, John Hay issued his Open Door Policy in an effort to encourage and maintain free trade between these foreign dominated markets in China.

unrestricted submarine warfare

By January 1917, the German High Command decided to resume this policy, believing that Germany could win the war against the exhausted Allies before the United States could bring its full force to bear in the conflict. It was the use of submarines that would eventually bring the United States into the war, and in his request to Congress for a declaration of war in 1917, Wilson described the actions of German submarines as "warfare against mankind."

Franklin Pierce

Chosen as a Democratic candidate from the North who could please the South, he won the election of 1852 and became the 14th president of the United States. His success in securing the Gadsden Purchase was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the Ostend Manifesto, the Kansas Nebraska Act and "Bleeding Kansas." Passions over slavery had been further inflamed, and the North and South were more irreconcilable than before. He succeeded only in splitting the country further apart.

Mexican War

Claiming that Mexico had "invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil," President Polk stirred Congress into declaring war against Mexico on May 13, 1846. This war marked the pinnacle of U.S. expansionist feeling (Manifest Destiny). On February 2, 1848, representatives from both countries signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In return for $15 million, Mexico surrendered New Mexico and California—the "Mexican Cession"—to the United States. Would slavery be allowed in this land? The war had tremendously important consequences in the growing sectional controversy and contributed substantially to the coming of the Civil War in 1861.

SALT II

Completed in 1979, this was the first nuclear arms treaty between the US and USSR which assumed real reductions in strategic forces. Six months after the signing, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan; in protest, the United States Senate never ratified the treaty. Its terms were, nonetheless, honored by both sides until 1986 when the Reagan Administration withdrew from SALT II after accusing the Soviets of violating the pact.

Force Acts

Congress attacked the Ku Klux Klan with these acts passed in 1870-1871. They placed state elections under federal jurisdiction and imposed fines and imprisonment on those guilty of interfering with any citizen exercising his right to vote. They were designed to protect black voters in the South.

Kansas Nebraska Act

Congress passed this act on May 30, 1854 to promote the rapid settlement of the American West. As a concession to the South, Senator Stephen A. Douglas suggested that territory previousy closed to slavery by the Missouri Compromise now be opened to popular sovereignty. Few issues stirred greater passion in the decades prior to the Civil War than the status of slavery, and the disastrous results of this act illustrated that fact, as antislavery and proslavery forces within Kansas literally went to war with one another in an effort to determine the new state's status. This act fanned the flames of sectionalism that led to the the division of the Democrats into Northern and Southern wings, and the birth of the Republican Party, which was formed in 1854 in opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories.

Wade-Davis Bill

Congress passed this bill in 1864 as a substitute for Lincoln's ten percent plan. It required a majority of voters in a southern state to take a loyalty oath in order to begin the process of Reconstruction and guarantee black equality. It also required the repudiation of the Confederate debt. The president exercised a pocket veto, and it never became law.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Congressional resolution passed in 1964 which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to take "all necessary measures" to ensure the security of US armed forces and to defeat aggression in South-East Asia. It arose from an attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats upon US naval vessels and, although technically not a declaration of war, it was interpreted by Johnson as offering a legal basis for his commitment of US troops to Vietnam.

President Grant

Considering his military success in the Civil War, his nomination for president by the Republican Party in 1868 seemed almost inevitable. On matters of Reconstruction, he supported the efforts of the Radical Republicans to enfranchise African Americans and spoke out for the need to control secret societies known as the Ku Klux Klan in the South. Shortly after he was reelected in 1872, the nation sank into a deep depression, and corruption scandals began to plague the administration.

Horace Mann

Declaring that "In a republic, ignorance is a crime," he set out to reform the system of public education in Massachusetts until it became a model for the rest of the country. The progress he made in remedying the shortcomings of the educational system during his 12 years in office earned him the title of "the father of American public education."

Thomas Edison

Despite a limited formal education, he became one of the nation's most prolific pioneers in the development of electronic inventions that have transformed the lives of people all over the world. Even during his lifetime, the character of such inventions as electric light, the phonograph, and motion pictures gave him an almost heroic stature in the common view, and a virtual mythology grew up about the events of his life and career. He organized companies to make and sell his various inventions that were eventually merged into what is now the General Electric Company.

Voting Right Act of 1965

Despite the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, Southern states had used a variety of means to deny African Americans the right to vote. This 1965 law authorized the use of federal voting registrars and prevented states from changing their election laws without clearance from the national government. Furthermore, the act suspended the use of literacy tests in portions of eight states. Within two years, the act helped to raise African-American voter registration rates to 62%.

sharecropping

During Reconstruction, southerners adopted this labor system. In it, the landowners provided land, tools, housing, and seed to a farmer who provided his labor. The resulting crop was divided between them (i.e., shared). Most laborers in this system were newly released slaves and poor, white farmers. A difficult and unrewarding system, this system perpetuated the economic inequalities in the South after the Civil War.

Election of 1916

During his first term, Woodrow Wilson fulfilled many progressive aspirations for reform and expanded presidential authority. But as this presidential election approached, another issue concerned the electorate even more than progressive reform: the "Great War" broke out in 1914. From the war's outset, Wilson implored Americans to remain "impartial in thought as well as in deed" and a campaign slogan, "He kept us out of war" was a popular refrain during this election. Wilson won this election as the peace candidate, but less than six months after this election, America had entered the war.

Alexander Hamilton

During the American Revolution, he helped lead the assault at Yorktown that resulted in a British surrender. In the 1780s, he became a vocal critic of the Articles of Confederation, condemning them for their ineffectiveness. At the Constitutional Convention, he, with such notables as James Madison and Benjamin Franklin pushed for a powerful executive and federal supremacy. He rallied support for the new constitution through writing of several articles that, along with those of Madison and John Jay, became known as the Federalist Papers. With the Constitution ratified and Washington elected, he was appointed secretary of the treasury. As Treasury Secretary, he immediately confronted the main problem facing the new government, namely its finances. In building support for his program, Hamilton created the Federalist Party. In 1804, he was killed in a duel with his political nemesis, Aaron Burr.

Freeport Doctrine

During the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, Douglas declared that, even in the face of the Dred Scott decision, the people of a territory could exclude slavery simply by not passing the local laws essential for holding blacks in bondage. This attempt to reconcile the Dred Scott Decision with popular sovereignty was unpopular in both the North and South, as antislavery sentiment grew in the North and proslavery sentiment hardened in the South. Although he defeated Lincoln in the senatorial contest in November 1858, Douglas lost any hope of securing the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1860, mostly because this doctrine grew increasingly unpopular.

Crittenden Compromise

During the Secession Crisis in 1860-1861, a Kentucky Senator proposed this North-South compromise on slavery. He proposed a constitutional amendment recognizing slavery in all territory south of 36° 30' (the "Missouri Compromise line"), and an unamendable amendment guaranteeing slavery in slave states. President-elect Lincoln and the Republicans rejected the proposals. The failure of compromise suggested that all hope for a peaceful resolution was lost.

U.S. v Nixon

During the Watergate investigation the special prosecutor asked the White House to turn over certain specific tape recordings of oval office conversations about the Watergate cover-up. President Nixon refused, citing "executive privilege." A unanimous Supreme Court ordered the tapes to be handed over as evidence. The decision is now considered a crucial precedent limiting the power of any U.S. president.

Denmark Vesey

Educated, proud, and charismatic, he became a leader of Charleston's free African-American community and began forming plans for a slave rebellion. The date for the insurrection was set for July 15, 1822, but a house servant who had discovered the plot informed his master of the plan. He was arrested a few days later and executed by hanging. Throughout the summer, more than 100 African Americans were arrested and tried in connection with the plot; 35 were executed. As a result of the conspiracy, restrictions on African Americans (both slave and free) were tightened in South Carolina.

William Seward

Elected governor of New York in 1838, this Whig became strongly identified with the growing antislavery movement when he refused to surrender three African-American sailors for extradition to Virginia as runaway slaves. When the old Whig Party merged with the new Republicans in 1855, he became one of the most outspoken representatives of the antislavery North. As a U.S. senator from 1849 to 1861, he believed the issue of extending slavery into the territories was not negotiable because slavery was prohibited by "a higher law than the Constitution." As secretary of state during Abraham Lincoln's presidency, he eventually became Lincoln's closest adviser and consistently supported him in the dark days of the Civil War.

James Buchanan

Elected president in 1856, this Democrat was blamed by critics for the outbreak of the Civil War. His administration was marked with controversy; he attempted to recognize the Lecompton Constitution and he supported the Dred Scott Decision. He will be remembered most, however, for his refusal to take steps to prevent the South from seceding in the last months of his term.

Espionage and Sedition Acts

Enacted in 1917 and 1918 respectively, these laws mandated stricter punishments for those who attempted to undermine the U.S. war effort during World War I. Intended primarily to curb the activities of socialists and pacifists, the acts made it a crime to aid enemies of the United States or to interfere with the war effort or with military recruitment. In additon, speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds was made illegal. Considered "the nation's most extreme antispeech legislation," some fifteen hundred prosecutions were carried out under these acts.

Interstate Commerce Commission

Established in 1887, this was the first federal regulatory agency. It arose in response to public outrage over malpractice and profiteering by the railroad companies. The agency was primarily used to regulate the railroads and it sought to make sure prices were fair.

Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique

Few individuals played as important a role in the 1960s rise of the feminist movement as did this author of The Feminine Mystique (1963) which described the contemporary alienation of the middle-class American woman. She encouraged women to embrace a new feminine lifestyle based on valuing a career outside of the home as of equal importance to their husbands' careers. Women should no longer accept being secretaries and not executives, nurses and not doctors, church workers and not ministers. She also founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966 and served as its first president.

President Gerald Ford

Following Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation in 1973, President Nixon selected this man to be the first vice president appointed according to the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. As vice president, he defended Nixon throughout the long Watergate scandal ordeal. Upon Nixon's resignation in August 1974, he assumed the presidency. In September, he granted "a full, free and absolute pardon" to Nixon. Facing a depressed economy at home, he ineffectively acted to curb inflation and lower the deficit. In foreign affairs, he oversaw the withdrawal of U.S. forces from a defeated South Vietnam. He lost his bid to be elected president in 1976 when he was defeated by Democrat Jimmy Carter.

Edward Bellamy

He attracted a huge following with his utopian novel, Looking Backward (1888). The novel's hero falls asleep in 1887 and wakes up in 2000 to discover that the poverty and suffering of late-19th-century industrial America have been replaced by a perfect society. The government owns the means of production and all members of society share equally in the nation's wealth. The book had a powerful impact, inspiring large numbers of reformers to take on the cause of reform.

Commonwealth v Hunt

In this court case, the Massachusetts Supreme Court established the legality of labor unions, refuting the notion that they were inherently criminal conspiracies guilty of restraining trade. Other state courts followed this precedent.

Theodore Roosevelt

Following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, he became the youngest president in American history. A lifelong champion of the strenuous life, he preached time and again, "I always believe in going hard at everything." During his two terms from 1901 to 1909, he was one of the most activist presidents in U.S. history. In pursuit of his "Square Deal," he tackled the social and economic problems created by a modern industrial society; railroads, labor, and the processed food industry came under his scrutiny. His greatest domestic concerns were the regulation of business trusts and the conservation of natural resources. Perhaps the most notable events in foreign affairs during his administration was his foreign policy transition to an "international police power" and the building of the Panama Canal. He ran for president again in 1912 as the Progressive "Bull Moose" candidate, but lost to Progressive Democrat, Woodrow Wilson.

Oregon Territory

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 (54 40 or fight!). In 1846, Britain and the United States agreed to extend the 49th Parallel, forming the modern border between Canada and the United States. The settlers quickly applied for territorial status, which Congress granted in 1849. The territory was gradually split up, and in 1859, it—with its present borders—became the 33rd state.

Anti-Imperialist League

Formed in 1898, this organization opposed U.S. imperialism during a time when the United States was negotiating for control of Hawaii, fighting the Spanish-American War, and suppressing a rebellion for independence in the Philippines. Instead, this group advocated free trade without aggression or conquest of foreign territory. Mark Twin was the most famous member of the organization.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Founded in 1957 at the conclusion of the Montgomery bus boycott, this civil rights organization was led by Martin Luther King Jr. The group sought through nonviolent protest to appeal to the moral conscience of white Americans and end discrimination against blacks. Their efforts included the desegregation of Birmingham, Alabama; the March on Washington; the voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama; and many sit-ins and voter registration drives.

OPEC Oil Embargo

Founded in 1960, this organization comprises nations whose main export income comes from the sale of petroleum. In support of the Arab invasion of Israel that occurred in October 1973, the Arab oil producing countries decided to cut their oil production; this action raised oil prices by some 300% by the end of the year.

John F. Kennedy

He became, at 43, the youngest man ever to be elected President, as well as the first Catholic. His domestic program, the New Frontier, called for new civil rights legislation, more comprehensive welfare, social security, and health insurance; and urban development and renewal. In foreign affairs he recovered from the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba to demand successfully the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from the country, and negotiated the Test-Ban Treaty of 1963 with the USSR and the UK. He was assassinated while riding in a motorcade through Dallas, Texas, in November 1963.

Cornelius Vanderbilt

From steamboats to railroads, he built the infrastructure crucial to America's late-19th-century industrialization. A tough business leader and bold financial operator, he created transportation systems that stimulated and supported America's tremendous industrial growth. He ranked among that era's dominant business leaders and was one of America's richest men.

gold rush

Gold was discovered on January 24, 1848 in a stream at Sutter's Mill, California. The news prompted this stampede of settlers from the eastern United States and all over the world to pour into the California gold fields in search of their fortunes. Miners who rushed to California after the discovery of gold in the northern part of the territory in 1848 were called "forty-niners." By the end of 1849, the population of California had increased from about 15,000 to more than 150,000. Over the next 10 years, some $550 million was extracted from the California mines. The rapid population growth led to California's application for statehood, which Congress eventually accepted on September 9, 1850 when it forged the controversial "Compromise of 1850."

Whiskey Rebellion

Hamilton, unmoved by the plight of the farmers, convinced President George Washington to call up the militia and make a show of force against the farmers. The farmers chose not to fight, but the militia occupied some western Pennsylvania counties for months. This rebellion tested the principles of representative government and the powers of taxation in the new nation.

Calvin Coolidge

Harding's death in August 1923 made this man president. He moved quickly to neutralize the effects of the Harding scandals and secure the 1924 presidential nomination for himself. His victory seemed to confirm the popularity of the conservative policies that he claimed were responsible for a growing national prosperity. In the domestic policy sphere, his pro-business policies helped secure further cuts in federal taxes and expenditures, maintain a high protective tariff. Among his administration's diplomatic achievements were the Dawes Plan and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. In 1927 he announced that he would not run for president again.

Trenton

Having lost at Newport, Rhode Island and been driven out of New York, the Continental Army's morale was very low. But Washington's bold decision to cross the icy Delaware on Christmas night, 1776 produced a victory here against Hessian soldiers and helped turned the tide for the Americans.

Harry S Truman

He assumed the office of president after the unexpected death of Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. He became president during an extraordinarily difficult period with very little preparation. Roosevelt had not included him in Cabinet or important policy meetings. During his first two years in office, he had to decide whether to use the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan and he had to confront the immensely difficult tasks of rebuilding the nations ravaged by World War II and containing the powerful appeal of communism.

General Douglas MacArthur

He commanded Allied troops in the Pacific during World War II. He was forced to surrender the Philippines in 1941 and was thereafter obsessed with its recapture, which he accomplished in 1944. He later commanded the American occupation of Japan and United Nations troops in the Korean War.

William Randolph Hearst

He copied Joseph Pulitzer's methods and made his "New York Journal" newspaper even more popular than Pulitzer's "New York World." The circulation war between the two papers produced "yellow journalism," or an excessively lurid style of reporting. Also, by firing public sentiment against Spain, he helped cause the Spanish-American War of 1898. His journalistic empire grew through buying or starting newspapers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Seattle, and other cities. He also acquired such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and Harper's.

Cyrus McCormick

He developed a mechanical, horse-drawn reaper that multiplied several times over the acreage of wheat that a farmer could harvest in a given time. This machine opened vast new lands to farming and provided the food that fed Union soldiers during the Civil War and the urban dwellers in America's burgeoning cities.

W.E.B. DuBois

He earned a PhD from Harvard in 1895 and became a staunch advocate of African-American rights. He came into conflict with Booker T Washington, opposing Washington's policy of compromise on the issue of race relations. In 1905 he founded the Niagara Movement, which was merged with the newly founded NAACP in 1909. His book Souls of Black Folk (1903) emphasized his revolt against the principles of Booker T Washington. He was also a pioneer of Pan-Africanism, the belief that all people of African descent should join together to fight against discrimination.

Cesar Chavez

He formed the first effective and enduring migrant worker union in the United States. Previous efforts to mount farmworker strikes had always failed for two basic reasons: the workers did not have enough money to outlast the growers, and the growers could easily replace the striking workers with imported Mexican farmworkers. To help overcome these weaknesses, he formed United Farm Workers of America (UFW) union and shrewdly sought out the assistance of other labor unions and liberal politicians across America.

Henry George

He helped launch an entire generation of economic and social reform with his best-selling book, Progress and Poverty (1880). He advocated a single tax on land as a means of dealing with the wide disparity between enormous wealth and poverty in California.

Dr. Benjamin Spock

He influenced generations of parents who reared the children of the baby boom with his best-selling manual, Baby and Child Care. In contrast to the traditional manuals with their rigid rules, he emphasized permissiveness in child rearing, in striking contrast to earlier child-rearing guides that stressed harsh discipline. Critics have blamed him for contributing to an unhealthy child-centeredness that they felt produced guilt-ridden mothers and spoiled children.

Alexander Graham Bell

He is best remembered for his invention of the "electrical speech machine"—the telephone—which quickly became the industrialized world's only means of long-distance vocal communication. He also founded the National Geographic Society in 1888 and served as its president from 1896 to 1904.

James Madison

He is often called the "Father of the Constitution" for his critical role in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. In addition to his remarkable contributions at the Constitutional Convention, he dedicated his life to public service: he authored many of the Federalist Papers; he crafted and sponsored the Bill of Rights; he joined Jefferson in founding the Democratic-Republican Party; he drafted the Virginia Resolves; (as Secretary of State) he guided the successful negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase; and (as president) he successfully guided the United States through the War of 1812.

Billy Graham

He is regarded as America's foremost modern-day evangelist. In 1950, he began preaching on an ABC radio show called The Hour of Decision. He further spread his message by producing religious films, writing a daily newspaper column, and publishing numerous books. He increased his fame by becoming associated with various presidents, including Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Sam Houston

He moved into Texas and took up residence among the Anglo settlers there in 1832; he was chosen to head the Texas rebel army against Mexico in March 1836. He commanded the troops that defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 20-21, 1836. He was then elected president of the Republic of Texas, serving from 1836 to 1838 and again from 1841 to 1844. After Texas was annexed by the United States in 1845, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and served in that body for the next 14 years. In 1859 he became governor in the state but he was forced to resign as governor on March 18, 1861 for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.

Stokley Carmichael

He popularized the slogan 'Black is Beautiful', and promoted a distinctive Black-African heritage. His radical stance was seen as unnecessarily hostile to whites, and he became distanced from the leadership of Martin Luther King. He coined the term "Black Power." As leader of the Black Panthers (1967-69), he demanded black liberation rather than integration, and called for armed revolution. He became 'prime minister' of the Black Panthers in 1968, but left the United States in 1969 to live in Guinea, West Africa.

Admiral Chester Nimitz

He was commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet throughout World War II. As rapidly as ships, men, and material became available, he shifted to the offensive and defeated the Japanese navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the pivotal Battle of Midway. He culminated his long-range island-hopping strategy by successful amphibious assaults on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. On September 2,1945 he signed for the United States when Japan formally surrendered on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

Andrew Carnegie

He rose from poverty to become one of the richest men in the world by gaining virtual control of the U.S. steel industry. He had begun the process of vertical integration, by which he came to control raw materials, transportation, and distribution within the steel industry, managing every stage of the production process from beginning to end. U.S. steel production increased until the nation surpassed Great Britain as the foremost steel producer in the world. He was also notable as a philanthropist, who gave millions of dollars to advance education, establish public libraries, and promote world peace.

Martin Luther King

He was a US civil-rights campaigner, black leader, and Baptist minister. He first came to national attention as leader of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955-56, and was one of the organizers of the march of 200,000 people on Washington, DC in 1963 to demand racial equality, during which he delivered his famous 'I have a dream' speech. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1964 for his work as a civil-rights leader and an advocate of nonviolence. He was assassinated on 4 April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

John Deere

He was a blacksmith who, in 1839, invented the steel plow. His plow cut easily through the tough and sticky prairie sod of the upper Mississippi Valley and opened it to extensive farming.

Nicholas Trist

He was a chief clerk in the State Department whne President Polk sent him to negotiate a peace treaty with a defeated Mexico in 1847. Before he could open negotiations he was summoned to return, but he ignored the order and stayed to negotiate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

Henry David Thoreau

He was a leading literary romantic and Transcendentalist in the early nineteenth century. He is best known for his account of two years spent in seclusion in the Massachusetts woods. In Walden (1854) and elsewhere, he gave memorable expression to a social theory that stressed self-reliance and close communion with nature as a route to meaning in life. As a protest against the war with Mexico, he had refused to pay a poll tax owed to the federal government. This act of resistance resulted in his arrest; the experience led Thoreau to write an essay, "Civil Disobedience," which held that individuals were obliged under certain circumstances to offer nonviolent resistance to unjust laws. the essay became influential in the 20th century among such political leaders as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi.

General Nathaniel Greene

He was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. When the war began, he was a militia private, the lowest rank possible; he emerged from the war with a reputation as George Washington's most gifted and dependable officer. He commanded Patriot armies in the backcountry of North and South Carolina in 1778-1781. His guerrilla tactics harassed General Cornwallis's army as it moved toward Virginia and the decision at Yorktown in 1781.

William Rainey Harper

He was a noted academic who was selected by John D. Rockefelelr to organize the University of Chicago. As its first President, he set the standards very high; he elevated the compensation of academic professions above that of school teacher, and by doing so attracted the best and the brightest to the University. One of his ideas, that students should be able to study the first two years of college in their own communities to be better prepared for the rigors of college, helped lead to the creation of the community college system in the United States.

Nat Turner

He was a religious mystic who felt that he was ordained by God to lead the struggle to destroy slavery. His plan was to murder as many whites as possible in the process. In one August night in 1831, some 55 whites were killed before most of the slave rebels were killed or captured. On November 5, this leader was tried and convicted; six days later, he was executed by hanging. His rebellion caused a wave of vindictive legislation in the South against all African Americans, which limited their few privileges and restricted their activities. It also ended all discussions of gradually emancipating slaves in the Upper South and virtually destroyed any hopes of ending slavery by reform.

John Wilkes Booth

He was an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. He was a Confederate sympathizer vehement in his denunciation of the Lincoln Administration and outraged by the South's defeat in the American Civil War. He strongly opposed the abolition of slavery in the United States and Lincoln's proposal to extend voting rights to recently emancipated slaves. After shooting the president, he shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!"

George Whitfield

He was an Anglican minister with great oratorical skills. His emotion-charged sermons were a centerpiece of the Great Awakening in the American colonies in the 1740s.

General George Washington

He was appointed by the Second Continental Congress as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in 1775. His ability to learn under duress and refusal to accept defeat kept an American army in the field. At the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 with French troop and naval support, he was able to entrap the British troops and force surrender. At the end of the war in 1783, he was the most famous man in America.

Louis Sullivan

He was arguably America's most important modern architect. His contributions were the development of high-rise commercial buildings at the end of the 19th century. He was determined to unite the priorities of commercial endeavor with aesthetic imperatives. "[The high rise] must be tall," he wrote in 1896. "It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation . . . from bottom to top . . . without a single dissenting line." The "skyscraper" as a new thing under the sun, an entity with . . . beauty all its own, was born.

Benedict Arnold

He was arguably the finest tactical commander in the Continental Army and directly responsible for several important American victories. But his tempestuous disposition alienated friends and superiors alike. Furious because of a lack of recognition, he threatened to resign and ultimately considered joining with the British. When he offered to betray West Point to the British for a large cash sum, he fled to the safety of a British warship, completing the most notorious episode of treason in U.S. history.

Chief Joseph

He was chief of the Nez Perce Indians who conducted one of the most epic retreats in military history. Across 1,700 miles of foreboding terrain, they evaded 10 columns of U.S. Army troops and beat them in 18 skirmishes, only to succumb to exhaustion. This leader's surrender to the US Army marked a turning point in Native Americans' attempt to maintain their sovereignty. The Nez Perce were then sent to reservations in Oklahoma.

William Westmoreland

He was commander of the 500,000 American forces in South Vietnam and he directed the American ground effort until March 1968. His strategy remains the subject of heated debate. Critics suggest that he misunderstood the nature of the war, which required small-unit pacification operations rather than large-scale, main force attacks. Others continue to endorse his strategy, arguing that the civilian-imposed limits on operations led to its failure.

William McKinley

He was elected president in 1896. His first priorities in office were to defend the gold standard and secure the passage of a new high protective tariff, but he is more remembered as the president when the United States became a world power at the turn of the 20th century. During his administration, the country defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War, annexed the Hawaiian Islands, and acquired other overseas colonial possessions. He won reelection in 1900, but was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901.

Malcolm X

He was important in shaping a Black Muslim and black power movement that challenged the nonviolent and integrationist struggle for African-American equality favored by Martin Luther King Jr. Instead of integration and equality, advocated black separatism and self-dependence, using violent means if necessary for self-defense. But in 1964 he modified his views and publicly broke with the Black Muslims and preached racial solidarity. A year later he was assassinated while addressing a rally in Harlem, New York. Three Nation of Islam members were convicted of his murder.

Matthew Perry

He was one of the foremost naval officers of his generation. His experiments with steam vessels rendered him the "father of the steam navy." But his dramatic visit to Japan was the catalyst for dramatic global change. Japan existed in a state of self-imposed isolation dating back to 1640 when the Tokugawa shogunate, recognizing the danger foreign influence represented to its rule, sealed the county off from the outside world. But this American Naval Commander recognized that the Tokugawa regime would respect force. His squadron made its unannounced appearance in Japan on July 8, 1853. After two and a half centuries of isolation, Japan was "opened" to world trade and technology and it began to assume its role as a world player.

Pancho Villa

He was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals. His reputation as a "bandit" grew when he seized hacienda land for distribution to peasants and soldiers and robbed and commandeered trains. In 1916, he led a raid on the New Mexico town of Columbus. His gang killed 10 civilians and 8 soldiers, and burned the town, took many horses and mules, seized available machine guns, ammunition and merchandise, before they returned to Mexico. On March 15, on orders from President Woodrow Wilson, General John J. Pershing led an expeditionary force of 4,800 men into Mexico to capture this leader. While Pershing failed to caputre his target, he and his troops reduced Mexican incursions in to the United States.

J.P. Morgan

He was one of the richest men in America and was a dominant figure in the U.S. economy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He reorganized American railroads, becoming the greatest railroad magnate of his day. He also funded mergers between several prominent American companies, creating large American corporations, including General Electric Company, AT&T, and the United States Steel Corporation. His growing success and power frightened many people and prompted the U.S. government to take a more active part in regulating the economy.

Frederick Jackson Turner

He was the author of a provocative essay, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," that opened up a new period in the interpretation of American history. He believed that the frontier had shaped the American character; from it stemmed the American's toughness, resourcefulness, and individualism, as well as American democracy. He is also remembered as a historian who brought to historical research a scientific and interdisciplinary approach.

Robert Kennedy

He was the brother of President John F. Kennedy and served as his Attorney General and advisor. After JFK's assassination, he resigned as attorney general and was elected senator for New York. When running for president in 1968, he advocated social justice and civil rights at home and an end to the Vietnam War. On 5 June 1968, after winning the Californian primary election, he was shot by Sirhan Bissara Sirhan who alleged that he supported the Zionist cause against the Arabs. He died the following day.

John J. Pershing

He was the commander of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in World War I. Eventually commanding a force of 2 million men, he landed in France on June 14, 1917. He initially resisted attempts by Allied generals to disperse American forces along the front, instead insisting that the AEF remain a "distinct and separate component" in compliance with his orders. He returned to the United States in September 1919 as a national hero.

John Tyler

He was the first vice president to become president following the death of the incumbent. He served only for the remainder of William Henry Harrison's term in the early 1840s because of a fierce battle with political rivals in Congress from within his own Whig Party. He could not bring himself to support Clay's American System because of his apprehension over its intrusion upon the rights of the states. After he vetoed two bills authorizing a new Bank of the United States, Clay engineered the resignation of the entire Cabinet. The crowning achievement of his administration was the annexation of Texas.

James Fenimore Cooper

He was the first writer to capture the popular imagination with stories rooted in America's own history. He wrote romances, the heroes of which embodied the ideals—courage, integrity, and love of the wilderness—of a nation destined to expand and prosper. His stories, like Last of the Mohicans, constitute an American epic, as they relate the story of the exploration of the frontier in terms of human heroism, a majestic landscape, and a sense of national destiny.

Andy Warhol

He was the foremost prophet and practitioner of the American pop art movement of the late 1950s and 1960s. His art was intentionally devoid of emotional and social comment. He produced more than 2,000 images, including a silk-screen series of star portraits and a series of sculptures that duplicated product wrappings. His famous dictum, "I like boring things," was evidenced in repetition and duplication (210 Coke Bottles and Twenty-Five Colored Marilyns) to alter our concepts of meaning in art.

Boss Tweed

He was the leader of New York's Tammany Hall and the most notorious of all late nineteenth-century corrupt politicians. He controlled thousands of patronage jobs and millions of dollars in contracts and government benefits. He could and did steer city contracts to those who paid the biggest bribes or kickbacks or did the biggest favors for his Tammany political machine. He was lampooned by cartoonist Thomas Nast, and eventually jailed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

He was the leading transcendentalist thinker of the early nineteenth century. Optimism and self-confidence marked his philosophy, and, like other romantics, he glorified individualism. His essay "Self-Reliance" articulated a particularly American notion of the independence of the individual within society. He is widely regarded as the father of American literature.

Gilbert Stuart

He was the most important and the most technically accomplished portrait painter in the years after the American Revolution, and his many paintings of the new country's president, George Washington, were in great demand. In the early fall of 1796, the president sat for a portrait. Commissioned by Martha Washington, it was never finished. Nevertheless, it became the most popular image of Washington, and it appears on the United States' $1 bill. Following the national government to Washington, D.C., he painted Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.

Thomas Nast

He was the most important political cartoonist in 19th-century America, known for exposing government corruption. His legacy lives on—it was he who made the donkey and the elephant the symbols of the Democratic and Republican parties and who created the roly-poly image of Santa Claus, modeled on himself. His greatest triumph occurred in 1869, when he launched a campaign to expose the corruption of the Tweed Ring, which under the leadership of Tammany Hall boss William Marcy Tweed had robbed New York City of $100 million.

General George Patton

He was the most outstanding American combat general of World War II. Known as much for his showmanship and eccentric behavior as for his boldness, he was an extraordinarily intellectual and cultured man who employed his encyclopedic knowledge of history to fight his battles. His command of the U.S. Seventh Army during the Sicily campaign in the summer of 1943 brought him fame. He then commanded the Third Army, which spearheaded the breakout from the Normandy bridgehead in early August 1944. His finest hour occurred during the Battle of the Bulge when he turned Third Army to the north in record time to relieve Bastogne and help ensure the failure of the German attack.

Joseph Pulitzer

He was the publisher of the first newspaper publisher to reach a truly mass audience--the "New York World." He did it with a combination of sensationalism, solid political and financial coverage, and civic crusading. His sensational coverage and fierce competitiveness with William Randolph Hearst led to the spread of yellow journalism at the end of the 19th century.

William Jennings Bryan

He was the voice of the Democratic Party at the turn of the 20th century and a leading advocate of free silver and as a loyal spokesman for the Midwest and West. Nominated by Democrats and Populists in 1896, he campaigned energetically, staging one of the first national traveling campaigns, before losing to his Republican opponent, William McKinley. A fundamentalist crusader, he took a militant position against the theory of evolution. In the summer of 1925, he appeared as prosecutor in the famous Scopes trial and won his case against the teaching of evolution in schools. He died in his sleep on July 26, 1925, a few days after the trial ended.

William Howard Taft

His experience as governor of the newly acquired Philippines and then Secretary of War led President Theodore Roosevelt to support his nomination as President in 1908. Having to serve after the immensely popular Roosevelt was perhaps his greatest handicap. Although he instituted twice as many anti-trust suits as Roosevelt, and although the supported the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments, he lost support of Progressives when he compromised the tariff issue and forced the resignation of Gifford Pinchot. In foreign affairs, he replaced the Roosevelt "Big Stick" military posturing for an economic influence called "Dollar Diplomacy." He lost his bid for re-election in 1912 because of the defection of Roosevelt, who ran on a "Bull Moose" ticket. The split vote helped Woodrow Wilson win the presidency in 1912. He later became the 10th Chief Justice on the United States Supreme Court. He was the only man to hold both positions.

George Washington

His first military action occurred on the frontier in 1754. During a campaign to dislodge French and Indian troops in the Ohio Valley, his troops were overwhelmed at Fort Necessity by a larger and better positioned French and Indian force. Released by the French, he later becme an aide to British General Edward Braddock. By 1758, he participated in the expedition that prompted French evacuation of Fort Duquesne, and British establishment of Pittsburgh.

John Jay

His involvement in the First Continental Congress drew him into full-time public service. He was elected president of the Second Continental Congress on December 10, 1778. Along with Ben Franklin and John Adams, he successfully negotiated the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. Convinced that the Articles of Confederation did not provide a strong enough central government, he wrote five Federalist Papers in support of the new Constitution. President George Washington named him to be the first chief justice of the Supreme Court. Washington then asked him in 1794 to negotiate a treaty with Great Britain that recognized U.S. neutrality rights. His success was limited. The treaty he returned with bought time and helped avoid a war, but it did not contain British acceptance of American neutrality rights or halt the impressment of American seamen. He resigned as chief justice in 1795 to become governor of New York.

President Ronald Reagan

His presidency may well be regarded as one of the most important in 20th-century U.S. history. He lowered taxes and increased defense spending. Unemployment dropped and inflation declined. From 1983 to 1990, the nation enjoyed one of the longest stretches of uninterrupted economic growth in its history. On the other hand, by 1988, the national debt had soared past $3 trillion. In the area of foreign policy, he adopted a hostile attitude toward the Soviet Union, which he described as the "Evil Empire." His vast defense expenditures and determination to battle communist aggression everywhere contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union.

Washington Irving

His stories and sketches made him the first American writer with an international reputation as a man of letters. His two best-known pieces, "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," became legends and are the first fully developed examples of the American short story.

Black Panthers

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded this group in October 1966. Its 10-point program demanded freedom, full employment for African Americans, decent housing and education, an end to capitalist exploitation and police brutality, and the release of all African Americans in jail. They promoted the use of physical force and armed confrontation for black liberation.

Abraham Lincoln

In 1858, the Illinois Republican Party nominated him to run for the Senate against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. In his acceptance speech, he identified slavery as the most serious threat to the union:"A house divided against itself cannot stand." He hoped that by preventing the expansion of slavery, its ultimate extinction could be gradually obtained. He challenged Senator Douglas to a series of debates. What they said was reported across the nation. Though he lost the Senate election to Douglas, he was again nominated by the Republican Party to run for president in 1860. His victory in that contest prompted South Carolina to secede from the union. The Civil War dominated his presidency.

Boston Tea Party

In 1773, patriot colonists led by the Sons of Liberty protested the Tea Act and the monopoly granted to the British East India Company by boarding three British ships in Boston Harbor and destroying 342 chests of Britsh Tea.

Citizen Genet

In 1793 he was dispatched to the United States to promote American support for France's wars with Spain and Britain. His goals in were to recruit and arm American privateers which would join French expeditions against the British. He also organized American volunteers to fight Britain's Spanish allies in Florida. His actions endangered American neutrality in the war between France and Britain, which Washington had pointedly declared in his Neutrality Proclamation.

Specie Circular

In 1836, President Jackson issued this executive order to halt a speculative land mania fueled by the easy availability of paper currency issued by pet banks and state banks. This order provided that purchasers must pay for public land in gold and silver. It abruptly halted the speculative boom and contributed to the Panic of 1837.

John C. Fremont

In 1838 this second lieutenant in the U.S. Topographical Corps became famous after writing a lively account of a journey he made with the frontiersman Kit Carson. In 1843, his adventures exploring Oregon created a sensation, and his account became an important travel guide to the American West. In early 1846, while on another exploratory journey in northern California, he received word from President Polk that war with Mexico was imminent. He took part in the Bear Flag Revolt against Mexican rule in June. He then took command of the Bear Flag Republic, the nickname of the newly independent Republic of California. American troops arrived in California in July, and soon California was proclaimed to be a part of the United States. In December 1850, he was elected one of California's first U.S. senators. In 1856, he was nominated as the new Republican Party's first antislavery presidential candidate.

Wilmot Proviso

In 1846 a Pennsylvania Congressman introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill that provided for banning slavery from any territory the United States might acquire from Mexico as a result of war. It never passed Congress, but it reignited the slavery debate by generating questions about the authority of the federal government to ban slavery from the territories.

Zachary Taylor

In 1846, President Polk ordered him to lead a small American army to Texas to defend the Rio Grande as the southern border. Fighting broke out between his forces and the Mexican Army in April 1846. His victory against a Mexican army four times the size as his at Buena Vista was his most spectacular victory and he was embraced as a national hero. He was elected president in 1848- at a time of national crisis. The central issue concerned whether slavery was going to be allowed into the territory acquired from Mexico. This Whig president made it clear that he did not support the extension of slavery. He met Southern threats of secession with the promise that if any state tried to leave the Union, he would personally lead the U.S. Army against it. He promised to veto the proposed Compromise of 1850. His tragic death on July 9, 1850 enabled his successor, Millard Fillmore, to secure the passage of the Compromise of 1850.

Republican Party

In 1854, Northern outrage over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act prompted several independent political factions—including the Free Soil Party, the Know-Nothings, former Whigs, and other smaller groups—to come together to form this political party. The party was formed to oppose what its members perceived as the growing political power of the South during the 1850s and to oppose the extension of slavery into newly acquired Western territories. In 1860, the party chose Abraham Lincoln, an unknown moderate and former Whig from Illinois, for the presidency. In the mid-19th century, the party was known for leading the Union war effort during the Civil War and supporting the rights of newly freed African Americans during Reconstruction.

Little Big Horn

In 1876, Colonel George A. Custer and 260 of his men were killed by Sioux Indians led by Sitting Bull at this battle in southern Montana. "Custer's Last Stand" became enshrined in American mythology as a symbol of the brutality of the Indian wars, although there is substantial evidence that Custer acted recklessly in attacking the large Indian encampment.

The trust

In 1882, this new business organization was designed by Standard Oil. All shares of stock from participating companies were held for the company owners by a small number of trustees. The trustees established prices and divided markets, thus eliminating competition and financially disastrous price wars among the participating companies. Owners profited from better earnings, stockholders profited from better dividends, and trustees profited from the fees they collected. Before long, many industires adopted this form of business organization. But their growing power and influence led newspapers, politicians, and the public to increasingly attack these business organizations, especially Standard Oil.

Jane Addams

In 1889, she moved into a mansion donated by Charles Hull on the west side of Chicago. She then transformed the mansion into the "Hull House," the nation's first settlement house. Hull House helped new immigrants and others in need with a variety of programs. At one time or another, it offered kindergarten and daycare facilities for children of working mothers, an employment bureau, an art gallery, libraries, music and art classes, a theater, and a meeting place for trade unions. In 1931, this founder became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sherman Anti-Trust Act

In 1890, Congress passed the first federal law to regulate large corporations and trusts and eliminate monopolies. It based on the constitutional power of Congress to oversee interstate commerce. The act outlawed any contract, combination, or conspiracy that restrained trade or monopolized any market. The act established a precedent for subsequent antitrust legislation and laid the groundwork for the trust-busting campaigns of President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 20th century.

Front Porch Campaign

In 1896, William McKinley conducted this low-key campaign wherein he never left his Canton, Ohio home. Large crowds of spectators were brought to his home to meet the candidate. This campaign contrasted sharply with McKinley'sopposing candidate, William Jennings Bryan, who gave over 600 speeches and traveled many miles all over the United States to campaign. McKinley outdid this by spending about twice as much money. McKinley won this election.

Square Deal

In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt introduced this domestic program, which emphasized the conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. Among its accomplishments, this program helped the middle class by attacking powerful trusts and monopolies. Roosevelt also created a new Department of Commerce and Labor, and managed to quell a number of labor strikes.

Northern Securities Case

In 1904, a Supreme Court decision ruled that this giant railroad holding Company had violated the Sherman Act. The case, the first successful federal prosecution of a single interstate corporation, was a signal victory for Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt did not want to eliminate large corporations, he used antitrust prosecutions to enhance the authority of the executive branch. With this and other successful suits, Roosevelt won acclaim as the great "trustbuster."

Warren G. Harding

In 1920, Republican presidential candidate promised "less government in business and more business in government" to help bring back prosperity after the recession and inflation that followed World War I. He promised to keep America out of the League of Nations and to return the country to "normalcy," or the way it used to be before the traumas of World War I, postwar inflation, labor unrest, and recession. It was precisely the right theme for the time. But prosperity was no substitute for leadership, as his incompetent, scandal-ridden administration would soon prove.

Warren Harding

In 1920, this Republican presidential candidate promised "less government in business and more business in government" to help bring back prosperity after the recession and inflation that followed World War I. But prosperity was no substitute for leadership. After becoming president, he admitted to his friend, "I knew that this job would be too much for me." He was right. The widespread abuse of the public trust by his cronies shocked the nation. The most notorious abuse was the Teapot Dome scandal by Secretary of Interior, Albert Fall.

Andrew Mellon

In 1921, President Harding selected this man to be secretary of the treasury. He proved so competent at dealing with the broad range of complicated economic issues that he was retained in this position in the succeeding Coolidge and Hoover administrations. He reduced individual and corporate tax rates and substantially cut the federal budget. He also significantly lowered the national debt, from $24 billion to $16 billion. His policies were hailed by many Americans during the prosperous 1920s but drew criticism as the country sank into a deep depression in the early 1930s.

Court Packing Plan

In 1937 in one of his fireside chats, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced this plan to the public. In the preceding years, the U.S. Supreme Court had declared several components of his New Deal program unconstitutional, so Roosevelt wanted to appoint additional justices to the Court who would be more sympathetic to his policies. This plan met with widespread public and congressional condemnation, as Roosevelt was accused of suggesting a major constitutional reform without sufficient cause, and the plan was ultimately defeated.

Four Freedoms

In 1941, before the United States entered World War II, President Roosevelt enumerated these goals for world peace and for which World War II was being fought--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

Marshall Plan

In 1947, the Secretary of State proposed a massive economic aid program to rebuild the war-torn economies of European nations. The plan was motivated both by humanitarian concern for the conditions of those nations' economies and by fear that their economic dislocation would promote the spread of communism in Europe, particularly Western Europe. More than any other enterprise, the $17 billion in American aid under this program stimulated the speedy recovery of Europe from the dislocation of war.

Alger Hiss

In 1948, "this former State Department officer was accused of having been a communist in the 1930s. He was convicted of perjury sentenced to a five-year term in prison. This case fed the fears of many Americans that a communist underground was operating in the United States and had agents within the government. .

NATO

In 1948, the United States, Canada, and ten European nations formed this a military mutual-defense pact. General Eisenhower was the first commander of these forces. The Soviet Union countered this alliance with the formation of the Warsaw Pact. Originating as an anticommunist alliance during the cold war, this alliance has recently sought to redefine its role as East-West tensions have eased.

McCarran Internal Security Act

In 1950, Congress passed this law over President Truman's veto. This measure required communists and other groups deemed subversive to register with the U.S. attorney general. Furthermore, it prevented members of these identified organizations from holding government or defense employment and denied them passports. Additionally, it prohibited any alien's entry to the United States if he or she had ever belonged to the Communist Party. The act is indicative of the anti-communist fear of the 1950s.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

In 1950, this former member of the American Communist Party was arrested for spying and providing Russia with secrets about the atomic bomb. His wife, a homemaker and political activist, was also arrested and charged with assisting her husband with his espionage activities. The trial ended in1951, and the jury found both guilty of espionage. Their death sentence was pronounced and they were electrocuted at on June 19, 1953—the only civilians ever to be executed for spying.

Watergate

In 1972, several men were caught breaking into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C. It was soon revealed that at least some of the burglars had ties to people in the presidential administration of Richard Nixon. Senate inquiries revealed that Nixon himself had directed a cover-up of the crime. Secret recordings made by Nixon of Oval Office conversations revealed the extent to which Nixon himself was involved. By 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted three articles of impeachment against Nixon. Rather than face that certainty, on August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first U.S. president ever to resign from office.

March on Washington

In August 1963, this rally was arranged to push for a comprehensive civil rights bill in Congress, to call for national desegregation of schools, and to demand a higher minimum wage. Leaders of the event included A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In all, some 200,000 people marched to Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech. The procession gave a new and fresh impetus to the growing civil rights movement and showed the government that action was needed quickly.

Tet Offensive

In February 1968, the North Vietnamese and Vietcong (communist guerrillas) in South Vietnam launched a major offensive against Saigon and more than ninety other towns and fifty small villages, hoping to provoke widespread rebellion in the country. The name is derived from the word for the lunar new-year celebrations, during which the attack was launched. The effort failed, but the psychological impact on South Vietnam and the United States made it a great victory for the Vietcong and North Vietnam. The United States thereafter reversed its policy of escalation and began to Vietnamize the war.

Stephen A. Austin

In January 1822, he established the first legal settlement of Anglo-Americans in Texas. Largely through his efforts, by 1830 there were over 20,000 Americans living in Texas. As an empresario, he did more than settle colonists. He also mapped and charted bays and rivers, promoted commerce with the United States, and encouraged the growth of commercial enterprises and the establishment of schools. He is considered the founder of Anglo-American Texas.

Open Door Policy

In January 1900, Secretary of State John Hay announced this policy. It emphasized the economic development of China, which would preserve China's independence and political unity. It called for free access for all nations to the Chinese ports, in contrast to the practice of claiming exclusive spheres of influence by individual powers. Actually, few nations--including the United States--adhered to it in practice.

impeachment

In the constitutional system of checks and balances, this power is given to the House of Representatives as a check against the executive branch. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson became the first president to be formally accused of crimes by the House. In all of American history, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee is one of only two presidents (Bill Clinton is the other) who have been formally accused of crimes serious enough to stand trial in the Senate.

Proclamation of 1763

In an effort to avoid any future conflict with the Native Americans after the French and Indian War, the British issued this proclamation--that no English colonists shall be allowed to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains. Passed in the wake of Pontiac's Rebellion, the edict forbade private citizens and colonial governments alike to buy land from or make any agreements with natives; the empire would conduct all official relations. Theoretically the act protected colonists from Indian rampages, the measure was also intended to shield Native Americans from increasingly frequent attacks by white settlers. The majority of colonists despised the proclamation because it restricted their freedom to settle on western lands. It became one in a long list of colonial grievances against the British.

Stagflation

In economics, this term is a situation in which the inflation rate is high and the economic growth rate is low. It raises a dilemma for economic policy since actions designed to lower inflation may worsen economic growth and vice versa. The Misery Index (derived by the simple addition of the inflation rate to the unemployment rate) reflected the dire economic circumstances. Presidents of the time--Nixon, Ford and Carter--all proved incapable of finding a remedy for this troublesome economy that characterized the 1970s.

Hinton Helper

In his book, The Impending Crisis of the South, he blamed the South's economic stagnation on slavery, which he claimed hindered the development of a free white labor sector. He did not concern himself with the immorality of slavery or its harmful effects on African Americans; his only concern was improving the lot of nonslaveholding Southern whites. He violently denounced slaveholders and threatened a slave uprising. Although written by a native of North Carolina, this book infuriated Southerners and intensified the sectional conflict that led to the Civil War.

Underwood Tariff

In order to end the Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909, President Wilson called a special session of Congress to meet in April, 1913, to revise the tariff bill downwards. This progressive tariff provided for a cut in average rates from 40.8% to 27%, reducing duties on 900 items and creating new free items such as raw wool and steel rails. While partly protective, this was the first substantial reduction below 30% rates since the Civil War.

Brown v. Board of Education

In this controversial 1954 decision, the Supreme Court reversed the 1896 "Plessy v. Ferguson" decision that established the "separate but equal" doctrine. The decision found segregation in schools inherently unequal and in violation of the Constitution. This landmark ruling paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.

Mugwumps

In the 1884 presidential election, this group of eastern Republicans, disgusted with corruption in the party, campaigned for the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland. They switched parties because they rejected the financial corruption associated with Republican candidate James G. Blaine. In a close election, they supposedly made the difference in New York state and swung the election to Cleveland.

Joseph McCarthy

In the early 1950s, this Wisconsin Senator conducted a witch-hunt of government employees that he charged with being communists or communist sympathizers. In the early years of the Cold War, his power and influence grew. Although he never unearthed a single communist spy, he became so powerful that even Dwight D. Eisenhower did not dare to criticize him. Televised Senate hearings eventually exposed his erratic behavior and made it obvious to the television audience that his charges were without foundation. After the televised hearings and his public humiliation, a majority of senators finally felt sufficiently secure enough to vote to censure him in 1954.

muckrakers

In the early twentieth century, this group of journalists was committed to exposing the social, economic, and political ills of industrial life. In 1906 they were given this nickname by President Theodore Roosevelt, who described them as those who raked filth rather than look up to nobler things. Their articles and books heightened moral indignation among middle-class Americans over the corruption of big business and politicians. They rallied public support for several progressive federal regulatory measures and they were the impetus for uniting fragmented local and national reform movements into a single, more potent national political movement: provressivism.

Lecompton Constitution

In the fall of 1857, proslavery delegates met to draft a state constitution for Kansas. Antislavery advocates boycotted this Constitution. In December, without the participation of antislavery advocates, the referendum on statehood easily passed. Kansas then petitioned the federal government to join the Union as a slave state. President Buchanan supported federal acceptance of this state constitution. But key Congressional leaders, led Senator Stephen A. Douglas, refused to accept this fraudulent Constitution. Kansas' application for statehood was defeated in Congress and a new referendum for all voters was held in January 1858. At that time, the voters of Kansas overwhelmingly voted to reject the Constitution. The disagreement between Buchanan and Douglas over this document further divided the Democratic party.

Okinawa

In the spring of 1945, it was the site of the largest and final confrontation between the United States and Japanese imperial forces during World War II. The Americans hoped to capture the island so it could be used to stage raids against the Japanese mainland. The Japanese, having dug into caves and bunkers, ambushed every U.S. force. Japanese resistance included kamikaze attacks. After three months of severe fighting, the Americans finally prevailed on June 21, 1945 at a cost of 13,000 dead. Approximately150,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians died. . The tenacity of the Japanese forces convinced President Harry Truman to drop the atomic bomb on Japan rather than invade and suffer potentially horrendous losses.

Independent Treasury Act

In the wake of the Specie Circular and the Panic of 1837, President Van Buren proposed, and Congress passed this act. The system that was created took the federal government out of banking. All payments to the government were to be made in hard cash and it was to be stored in government vaults until needed.

Saratoga

In this 1777 battle, British General Burgoyne surrendered his force to American General Horatio Gates. The American victory proved to be a turning point in the American Revolution because it thwarted a British plan to divide the colonies and it convinced France to recognize the United States and sign the Treaty of Amity and Commerce.

Cuban Missile Crisis

In this 1962 event, the United States and Soviet Union came close to nuclear war when the United States insisted that the Soviets remove their missiles from Cuba. The Soviets eventually did so, nuclear war was averted, and the crisis passed. The repercussions of this event were considerable. Having come closer to nuclear war than ever before, both the United States and the Soviet Union were more cautious about offensive deployment of nuclear arms during the remainder of the cold war.

Munn v. Illinois

In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that a business that served a public interest (like a railroad or grain elevator) could be regulated by state laws. The decision seemed to hold that Granger laws were constitutional.

Civil Rights Cases

In this group of five similar cases, the Supreme Court held that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which provided that "all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations" was unconstitutional. The Court held that the language of the 14th Amendment, which prohibited denial of equal protection by a state, did not give Congress power to regulate these private acts. The decision put an end to the attempts by Republicans to ensure the civil rights of blacks and ushered in the widespread segregation of blacks in housing, employment and public life that confined them to second-class citizenship throughout much of the United States until the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Election of 1960

In this landmark presidential election, youthful John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard Nixon. Kennedy was just 43 years old and a member of the US Senate. Nixon and Kennedy agreed on most basic issues, which meant the campaign boiled down to varying perceptions of the men's images. For the first time, television was a deciding factor in the outcome of an election. The largest television audience in history—an estimated 70 million adults—tuned in to a debate between Kennedy and Nixon—the first presidential debate in US history. During the debate, the two seemed evenly matched, but television viewers credited Kennedy with the win. Radio listeners felt Nixon had won. In the Novembeer election, Kennedy received 34.2 million votes to Nixon's 34.1, a difference of just 115,000 votes.

Election of 1856

In this presidential election, Democrat James Buchanan defeated Republican candidate John C. Fremont. He won the general election by denouncing the abolitionists, promising not to allow any interference with the Compromise of 1850, and supporting the principle of noninterference by Congress with slavery in the territories.

Election 1852

In this presidential election, the Whig party fieded a candidate for the last time. Whig candidate Winfield Scott was defeated decisively by Democrat Franklin Pierce in this contest for president. The Whigs split between northern "Conscience Whigs" and southern "Cotton Whigs" over the terms of the Compromise of 1850. The demise of a national political party over issues regarding slavery was an ominous sign for the nation.

Insular Cases

In this series of cases, federal courts held that "the Constitution does not follow the flag." In other words, the courts determined that full constitutional rights did not automatically extend to all areas under American control. Those who lived in American possessions were given only the rights Congress would grant.

Interstate Highway Act

Inis1956, President Eisenhower signed this bill into law. With an original authorization of 25 billion dollars over a 20-year period, it was the largest public works project in American history through that time. A significant side effect of the law was the development of suburbs--furthering the flight of citizens and businesses from inner cities, and compounding vehicle pollution and excessive petroleum use problems.

Winfield Scott

Known as "Old Fuss and Feathers" for his meticulous dress and behavior, he was the founder of America's professional army. He led the United States through the triumphant Mexican-American War of 1846-1847 and influenced a remarkable generation of military men who would command both sides of the fighting in the Civil War. In 1852, as sectional tension threatened to rip the country apart, the Whig Party nominated him as its presidential candidate. His unsuccessful candidacy marked the last time that the Whig Party would field a presidential candidate before its decline shortly thereafter.

Indentured Servants

Laborers who agreed to work for a contracted period of time, usually seven years, in exchange for passage to America.

Potsdam

Last Allied conference of World War II, held at Potsdam outside Berlin from 11 July to 2 August 1945 between British Prime Minister Churchill (replaced by Attlee during the course of the conference), Joseph Stalin of the USSR and President Truman. The Allies agreed at the conference to the partitioning of Germany between themselves into zones of military occupation. An ultimatum was also sentto Japan demanding unconditional surrender on pain of utter destruction.

Chautauqua movement

Organized in 1874, and named for the original location in New York State, these meetings sprang up in various locations across North America. The movement may be regarded as a successor to the Lyceum movement earlier in the 19th Century. It offered instruction, texts, and lectures on many subjects, and it provided educational opportunities for thousands who were seeking intellectual stimulation in the new industrial age.

Stalwarts

Led by New York Senator Roscoe Conkling, this anti-reform faction of the Republican party believed in the blatant pursuit of the spoils of office. They were pitted against the "Half-Breeds" (moderates) for control of the Republican Party. The only real issue between this group and Half-Breeds was patronage. Chester A. Arthur, sympathetic to the cause, was the vice president for Half-Breed James A. Garfield. He became president after Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881.

Gospel of Wealth

Millionaire and industrialist Andrew Carnegie advanced this philosophy that held that those who had accumulated wealth were morally and socially obligated to redistribute that wealth back into the community and help those less fortunate than themselves. During his lifetime, Carnegie reportedly donated more than $350 million to build schools, libraries, and public buildings, as well as supporting causes devoted to working for world peace.

American Indian Movement (AIM)

Modeled on African-American civil rights organizations, this organization was the Native American effort to advance the cause of Native American rights. During the 1970s, the organization succeeded in restoring Native Americans to the public consciousness and raising awareness of their plight. The group was involved in the major Native American protests of the early 1970s—including the Trail of Broken Treaties (1972), which declared their opposition to government policy toward Native Americans, and the invasion of Wounded Knee (1973), which led to gunfights between protesters and government agents that left three people dead.

Manila Bay

On May 1, 1898, Naval Commander George Dewey launched a devastating surprise attack against Spanish forces in the Philippines. This resulting battle was one of the most one-sided naval engagements in history. Dewey's modern steel squadron easily destroyed the aging Spanish ships without significant American losses. With this decisive battle, the United States acquired the Philippines, though the Filipinos themselves continued with a guerrilla struggle against U.S. land forces that dragged on for years. The battle extended U.S. influence in the western Pacific and marked the emergence of the United States as a world power.

Treaty of Versailles

Negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference throughout the spring of 1919, this treaty formally brought World War I to an end. Its lengthy and complicated provisions placed severe penalties on Germany. Although U.S. President Woodrow Wilson had been an active participant in the conference and enthusiastically supported the treaty and the League of Nations it created, the U.S. Senate felt differently and after fierce debate, voted down ratification. Instead, the United States made a separate peace with Germany and its allies.

Kent State University

On May 4th, 1970 four students were shot dead by National Guardsmen on the campus of this University near Cleveland, Ohio during a violent demonstration by students against the recent movement of US troops into Cambodia. It was the most notorious and bloody episode in the widespread unrest over the war which affected American universities at that period.

Henry Demarest Lloyd

One of the early muckrakers, this crusading journalist and author exerted a major influence on reform in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1894, he published Wealth Against Commonwealth, a thoroughly researched attack on Standard Oil and other monopolies. He advocated government regulation of industry and public ownership of all monopolies.

Fugitive Slave Act

One of the provisions of the Compromise of 1850, this act mandated that Northerners were constitutionally required to assist slave owners in recapturing runaway slaves. The law infuriated many Northerners, even those who had not previously supported the abolition movement, mainly because they believed such a mandate violated their liberty. As Northerners raged over the law's passage and Southerners fumed at the Northern response to the law, the country moved closer to the outbreak of the Civil War.

15th Amendment

One of three Reconstruction amendments enacted in the years immediately following the Civil War, this amendment was adopted by the U.S. Congress on February 26, 1869 to protect the voting rights of African-American men. It was intended to guarantee blacks the right to vote in the South.

Watts Riots

On August 11, 1965, a riot broke out in this African-American ghetto of Los Angeles. Violence erupted as the residents protested police brutality, white oppression, and the generally miserable, impoverished condition of their lives. Over the course of one week, 34 people were killed as masses of angry people looted their own neighborhoods, burned and destroyed white-owned buildings and homes, and attacked police officers and the National Guard. This event symbolized the continued dissatisfaction and alienation of urban minorities, even in the era of Civil Rights reform.

The Maine

On February 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor. Some 266 crewmen lost their lives in the incident, which had its roots in the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain and was one of the triggers of the Spanish-American War. The rallying slogan "Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain!" swept the country. In April 1898, Congress called for Spain to relinquish authority over Cuba and declared war. The Spanish-American War ended later in 1898.

Zimmerman Telegram

On January 16, 1917, German foreign minister sent a telegram to the German minister to Mexico. The German government attempted to forge a German-Mexican alliance in case the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies. British intelligence decoded this telegram and handed its contents over the U.S. State Department, which in turn announced it to the American press on March 1, 1917. U.S. outrage over Germany's dealings with Mexico served to heighten the calls for American entry into the war, which were answered when the United States declared war on Germany on April 6.

Executive Order 8802

On June 25, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed this executive order, "Reaffirming Policy Full Participation in the Defense Program by All Persons, Regardless of Race, Creed, Color, or National Origin, and Directing Certain Act in Furtherance of Said Policy." It ended discriminatory practices in the defense industry, as the United States prepared for its possible entry into World War II.

Texas Annexation

On March 1, 1845, the U.S. Congress passed this joint resolution extending an offer to the Republic of Texas. The Texas legislature accepted the offer at a convention on July 4. The people of Texas ratified the convention's acceptance on October 13, and Texas officially joined the Union on December 29, 1845. The Mexican government was infuriated by this and soon the United States and Mexico were at war.

Robert LaFollette

Over the course of a 25-year political career, "Fighting Bob" never let the lure of wealth or political power deter him from his successful efforts to champion progressive reforms in Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. Elected governor of Wisconsin in 1900, he introduced open nominating primaries, state regulation of railroads and public utilities, and management of public resources in the public interest. Journalists publicized the "Wisconsin Idea," and his continual struggle to implement it soon marked him as a rising star in the nationwide progressive movement. In 1905 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he remained until his death. In 1912, he sought to challenge the incumbent William Howard Taft, but his bid was preempted by that of the resurgent "Bull Moose" candidacy of Theodore Roosevelt

Declaratory Act

Parliament passed this act in 1766 when it repealed the Stamp Act. It stated that the colonies were entirely subordinate to Parliament's authority, and that Parliament had the authority to legislate for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever."

Coercive Acts

Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by passing these acts in 1774. They intended to punish Boston and Massachusetts generally for the crime committed by a few individuals. Colonists called these the Intolerable Acts.

Taft-Hartley Act

Passed in 1947, this was the strongest anti-union measure in fifteen years. The Act, passed over President Truman's veto forbade closed shops, outlawed certain strikes or boycotts (including sympathy strikes and strikes by federal employees) and restricted the amount unions could pay on political activity. The Act has never been repealed.

John Slidell

Polk appointed him commissioner to Mexico shortly after taking office in 1845. His mission was to negotiate a settlement of the dispute over the southern border of the Republic of Texas and the purchase of New Mexico and California but the Mexican government refused to accept his appointment. This diplomatic rejection paved the way for Mexican-American War of 1846-1847.

Eisenhower Doctrine

President Dwight D. Eisenhower became convinced that the tumultuous political situation in the Middle East had become a battleground of the cold war. His foreign policy commitment in the middle east became known by this term. Eisenhower demanded that Congress grant him the military and financial resources to aid those Middle Eastern powers attempting to fend off communism. Congress complied, thus initiating a period of extensive U.S. involvement in the Middle East that continues to this day.

"Reaganomics" : supply side economics

President Reagan supported this economic theory (derisively nicknamed Reaganomics by critics). The idea was that reduced taxes would spur investment, which would increase productivity and jobs. More people working and increased business revenue would produce greater tax revenues. Social programs could be cut because fewer people would need them.

Fourteen Points

President Wilson outlined this plan for a permanent peace in the wake of the First World War. His dream was to implement a permanent "peace without victory." Wilson's proposed terms included: open diplomacy; freedom of the seas; removal of trade barriers; international disarmament; adjustment of colonial claims; European territorial adjustments; and a general association of nations (which was to become the League of Nations). Although Wilson noticeable did not punish Germany, he was obliged to compromise on many of the points. The Germans, having agreed to the armistice largely on the basis of the Wilson's plan, felt betrayed by subsequent decisions imposed upon them by the Treaty of Versailles.

William Jennings Bryan

President Woodrow Wilson selected this man to be Secretary of State. Although he had no foreign policy experience, he was the Democratic (and Populist Party) nominee for president in 1896. As a pacifist, he disagreed with Wilson's strong stand against German aggression and resigned in 1915 when asked to send a stern note protesting the sinking of the Lusitania.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Pubished in 1852, this book was the first by an American author to have as its hero an African American. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel appealed strongly to 19th-century readers, and because the book presented the horrors of slavery in vivid human terms, it had a powerful impact. More than 300,000 copies were sold within the first year. While fueling antislavery sentiment in the North,it infuriated Southerners, who charged that Stowe knew nothing about plantation life and grossly misrepresented it.

Nullification Crisis

Ratification of the U.S. Constitution (1787) left unresolved the issue of whether the federal or state governments were sovereign. This crisis began when President Jackson signed the Tariff Act of 1832. Vice President John C. Calhoun resigned in protest and went to South Carolina, which declared the tariff unconstitutional and therefore null. Congress passed the Force Act, and Jackson threatened to send troops to enforce the tariff. Henry Clay eased the crisis by enacting a compromise that produced a degree of tariff reduction in 1833. Sectional tension, however, remained and would eventually culminate in the Civil War.

Articles of Confederation

Ratified in 1781, this was the United States's first constitution. It sharply limited central authority by denying the national government any coercive power including the power to tax and to regulate trade. The articles set up the loose confederation of states that comprised the first national government from 1781 to 1788.

Phyllis Schlafly

She is a leading spokesperson for the conservative viewpoint on women's rights issues. She played a major role in defeating the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution which demanded equality of rights for women under the law. She argued that ERA represented a serious threat to women and the family, because it would thrust mothers into military combat and make wives responsible for providing 50% of the financial support of their families.

Frances Perkins

She was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. During her term as Secretary of Labor, she championed many aspects of the New Deal, including the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Public Works Administration. Through the Fair Labor Standards Act, she established the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, and defined the standard 40-hour work week.

Queen Liliuokalani

She was the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii. In 1893, a group composed of Americans and Europeans formed a Committee of Public Safety in opposition to the Queen. The Queen was deposed on January 17, 1893 and temporarily relinquished her throne to "the superior military forces of the United States". On July 4, 1894, the Republic of Hawaii was proclaimed and Sanford B. Dole became president.

Executive Order 9066

Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, this executive order to authorize the internment of over 100,000 Japanese Americans during the war. Both the U.S. government and much of the public feared that Japanese Americans would commit acts of sabotage in the United States to undermine the U.S. war effort and assist the Japanese. Instead, the government forced Japanese Americans into camps throughout the West, where they suffered from deprivation, despair, and disease for much of the war, even as Japanese-American units distinguished themselves in the U.S. military.

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Signed in 1842, this treaty was negotiated by Secretary of State Daniel Webster of the United States and the Special Minister of Great Britain to settle disputes of the northeastern border between America and Canada. The treaty established the current borders between Canada and Maine, New York, and Vermont. The U.S. Senate approved the treaty on August 20 by a vote of 39 to 9.

3/5 Compromise

Southerners wanted to count slaves as part of their overall population as a way to increase their representation in Congress. Northern delegates opposed to slavery generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state. This was the compromise between Southern and Northern states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in which a fraction of the population of slaves would be counted for enumeration purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives.

Ku Klux Klan

Southerners who objected to congressional Reconstruction policies founded several secret terrorist societies; this was the most notorious. It was organized in Tennessee in 1866 and became a vigilante group dedicated to driving blacks out of politics by using intimidation and violence.

Electoral College

Specified in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, this group elects the nation's president. It was a compromise worked out during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that allowed small and large states, and Federalists and Antifederalists, to feel that their interests were being met. It placed power in the hands of the states by allowing state delegates to choose the president. It is an important invention of the early republic and signifies the Founding Fathers' distrust of popular sovereignty by keeping the presidency out of the reach of direct democracy.

John Dewey

The "father" of progressive education, he argued for the need for an education that was practical and useful. He insisted that education should be child centered and that schools should build character, teach good citizenship, and be instruments of social reform. He abandoned the tradition of rote learning and recitation, focusing instead on problem-solving activities ("learning by doing") that encouraged children to think creatively.

Tenure of Office Act

The 1867 Act prohibited the president from removing any official who had been appointed with the consent of the Senate without obtaining Senate approval. President Johnson challenged the act in 1868 when he dismissed Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. For this, the House of Representatives impeached Johnson.

Bay of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs invasion was one of the first attempts sponsored by the U.S. government to overthrow the Castro government of Cuba following the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Though the troops that fought in the invasion were exiles from Cuba, the operation was organized and funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The invasion was a disaster, both for the fighters, who were easily defeated and imprisoned, and for the administration of President John F. Kennedy, which had authorized the mission.

checks and balances

The Constitution contains ingenious devices of countervailing power. These checks on centralized power balance the authority of government between the co-equal branches of the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court. This is sometimes called the separation of powers.

Sussex Pledge

The German policy of "unrestricted submarine warfare" led to the attack on a French passenger ferry without warning on March 24, 1916; the ship was severely damaged and about 50 lives were lost. Although no U.S. citizens were killed in this attack, it prompted President Woodrow Wilson to declare that if Germany were to continue this practice, the United States would break diplomatic relations with Germany. Fearing the entry of the United States into World War I, Germany attempted to appease the United States by issuing this pledge, which promised an end to "unrestricted submarine warfare." However, in 1917 Germany became convinced they could defeat the Allied Forces by instituting unrestricted submarine warfare before the United States could enter the war. The this pledge was therefore rescinded in January 1917. The resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare caused the United States to declare war on Germany on April 6, 1917.

Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

The fire on March 25, 1911 in New York City killed 146 garment workers, nearly all of them young women, and was the worst industrial fire in New York history. The disaster proved to be a seminal event in both the labor and progressive movements, as it galvanized support for government regulation of factory safety and working conditions.

transcontinental railroad

The Pacific Railroad Act, passed in June 1862 by the U.S. Congress, authorized the building of this--a railroad across the continental United States. The Union Pacific Railroad worked westward from Omaha, Nebraska to meet the rails of the Central Pacific, which had built eastward from Sacramento, California. The railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, when crews of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroad lines met and joined tracks at Promontory Summit, Utah.

President Woodrow Wilson

The Progressive governor from New Jersey was elected president of the United States in 1912. As a Progressive Democrat, he secured passage of a lower Underwood Tariff and the first progressive income tax. The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Trade Commission were also noteworthy accomplishments of his domestic agenda. After the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, he gradually became preoccupied with foreign policy issues. Initially, the position of his administration was to adopt a policy of strict neutrality. But three years later, he asked Congress for a declaration of war on April 2, 1917. "The world," he said, "must be made safe for democracy." His "Fourteen Points" became the basis of peace negotiations that led to the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.

Sputnik

The Soviets expanded their space program during the cold war and beginning in 1957, they launched this first artificial satellite to successfully orbit the Earth. This success in space fed fears of Soviet technological superiority and prompted the U.S. government to vastly increase its dedication to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Montgomery Bus Boycott

The first major instance of black activism during the Civil Rights Movement. It began after a black woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested for sitting in the white section of a bus. Mobilized by Martin Luther King, the black community boycotted the bus service in Montgomery, Alabama, for 381 days until the bus company was persuaded by a 65 per cent drop in revenue, and a Supreme Court decision that declared bus segregation unconstitutional. The event also marked the beginning of King's rise as a Civil Rights leader.

Iran Hostage Crisis

The anti-American anger and the ability of the fundamentalist Muslim leaders and their followers to stand up to U.S. power inspired others in the Middle East. During the convoluted course of Iran's Islamic Revolution, 52 American citizens were seized at the American embassy and held hostage for 444 days. President Carter pledged not to use military force that might endanger the lives of the hostages. This crisis was viewed by many Americans and others as proof of the ineffectiveness of President Jimmy Carter and the decline of the United States after the Vietnam War.

13th Amendment

The first of three Reconstruction Amendments enacted in the years immediately following the Civil War, this Amendment officially prohibited slavery in the United States and its territories. Ironically, by negating the Three-fifths Clause in the Constitution, it had the effect of increasing the representation of the southern states in Congress.

Bank Holiday

The day after becoming president in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt called for this—a temporary closure of all banks while they were investigated by federal examiners. In this time, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act of 1933. When banks reopened depositors stood in line to return their stashed cash to neighborhood banks. On March 15, 1933, the first day of trading after the extended closure, the New York Stock Exchange recorded the largest one-day percentage price increase ever. With the benefit of hindsight, this action ended the bank runs that had plagued the Great Depression and signaled the vigorous executive action associated with Roosevelt's New Deal.

common schools

The early nineteenth-century movement was grounded in the belief that a successful republican government depended on an educated citizenry. This defined a need for free tax-supported public schools, which all children were expected to attend. Horace Mann was the recognized leader of this movement.

Plymouth

The first permanent English settlement in New England, established by a group of Puritan separatists known as the Pilgrims, who sailed on the Mayflower and landed near present day Cape Cod.

Argonne Forest

The greatest AEF engagement in World War I came here in September, 1918. 1.2 million doughboys fought for over a month through dense forest and formidable German defenses. When the AEF finally broke through, they broke the German center at the cost of 120,000 AEF casualties. The war ended weeks later.

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

The most radical union in U.S. history, it was dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism. It was formed in Chicago in 1905 and its members were nicknamed "Wobblies" It was active in mainstream politics (its Detroit Conference of 1909 agreed to support the presidential campaign of the Socialist Eugene Debs), but other sections of the movement indulged in sabotage and sought to foment strikes. Such actions resulted in prosecutions and alienation of many potential supporters, allowing the government to label the IWW as "red fanatics." Between 1912 and 1915, when its influence was strongest, the union had 100,000 members but it declined rapidly after the Red Scare.

The Reagan Revolution

The presidency of Ronald Reagan during 1981-1989 marked the first time since President Herbert Hoover's administration that a Republican president made an effort to implement genuinely conservative policies. President Reagan's successful rejection of liberal economic philosophies led to a major resurgence of conservatism in the United States, and his two terms in office are sometimes known by this term.

Camp David Accords

The product of negotiations held in September 1978 between Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, these accords established an agreement by which the two countries could work to secure peace in the Middle East. The talks were hosted by President Jimmy Carter at his presidential retreat and are generally considered a high point of his administration.

Populist Party

The rise of this political party was the culmination of two decades of agrarian distress among farmers of the South and West. This party advocated policies to relieve the hardships of farmers, including especially the unlimited coinage of silver to increase the money supply. In 1896, they struck an unofficial truce with the Democratic Party in support of William Jennings Bryan for president. Although the political movement lost momentum after the electoral loss in 1896, many ideas survived and were enacted into law over the span of the next 20 years. The graduated income tax, the direct election of senators, the secret ballot, and government subsidies to farmers all had origins with this party.

New Nationalism

Theodore Roosevelt formulated this platform in the election of 1912 when he ran as the Progressive "Bull Moose" candidate. Roosevelt argued that the federal government had an interventionist role to play in the advancement of progressive democracy. Roosevelt argued that corporations should not be dismantled but should be controlled and regulated in the public interest. Roosevelt also proposed a comprehensive program of labor and social legislation. Despite Roosevelt's loss to Woodrow Wilson, this was the most progressive platform proposed by the three presidents of the Progressive Era.

Irreconcilables

These Republican members of the US Senate, led by Senator Borah of Idaho, opposed the Treaty of Versailles when it was submitted for ratification in 1919, largely on the grounds that the United States' membership of the League of Nations would have been unconstitutional. The treaty was never in fact ratified and the United States therefore did not become a member of the League, despite the idea of it having been one of President Wilson's Fourteen Points.

Townshend Acts

These acts of Parliament, passed in 1767, imposed duties on colonial tea, lead, paint, paper, and glass. Designed to take advantage of the supposed American distinction between internal and external taxes, these duties were to help support government in America. The act prompted a successful colonial nonimportation movement. Parliament gradually rescinded the tax on all of the items enumerated in the laws except tea. The episode served as another important step in the coming of the American Revolution.

Lexington and Concord

These battles, fought on April 19, 1775 were the opening engagements of the American Revolution. Though there had been increasing violence and unrest throughout New England for several years, the colonists killed 73 British soldiers and wounded 174 and therefore brought the American patriots into open rebellion.

freedom rides

These bus trips were taken by black and white civil-rights advocates in the 1960s to test the enforcement of federal regulations that prohibited segregation in interstate public transportation. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision that had rendered victorious the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956, CORE and SNCC decided that the time was right to force the Southern states to uphold the federal law. As the buses traveled farther south, the hostility and violence they met escalated. Beatings and further arrests greeted them in South Carolina and Alabama; local authorities did nothing to prevent or stop the rampaging violence perpetrated against the riders by the Ku Klux Klan.

sit-ins

These civil rights demonstrations began when four African-American college students asked for service at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro. After they were refused service, they stayed quietly in their seats. They were jeered at and insulted by groups of whites but did not leave until the restaurant closed. Word spread that night on the college campus; the next day, 27 students arrived at Woolworth's to sit at the counter, and by the end of the week, the protesters overflowed Woolworth's. These demonstrations were widely reported and led to similar protests against segregated facilities in 70 cities across the United States.

Lincoln Douglas Debates

These debates took place in Illinois during 1858 between the Republican Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, and the incumbent Democratic Party candidate. Because the primary topic of the debates was whether slavery could legally be extended into free territories, they were widely covered in the national press. Although the Republican ultimately lost the election, the publicity surrounding the debates gained him national attention and helped him to obtain the Republican Party's nomination for the presidency in 1860.

Navigation Acts

These laws were passed by Parliament to implement mercantilistic assumptions about trade. They were intended to regulate the flow of goods in imperial commerce to the greater benefit of the mother county. One of these laws, for example, called for imperial trade to be conducted using English or colonial ships with mainly English crews. Another law created vice-admiralty courts in the colonies.

Neutrality Acts

These laws were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure US neutrality by forbidding arms trade and loans to belligerent countries.

Navajo Code Talkers

These marines developed and implemented one of the few unbroken codes in history. The language was largely unwritten and not a subject of linguistic study. They based the code on nature as a reference. Birds indicated planes, a buzzard was a bomber, and fish denoted types of ships. They worked with all six marine divisions in the Pacific and served with distinction on the islands of Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Guadalcanal. The code was finally declassified in 1968.

Dynamic Conservatism

This term characterized President Eisenhower's domestic program. "IKE" claimed he was liberal toward people, but conservative about spending public money. He sought to balance the federal budget and lower taxes without destroying existing social programs or hurting military spending.

Medicaid/Medicare

These programs are the hallmarks of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program. Established in 1965, the former is a U.S. health insurance program that provides care for indigent Americans and is administered mainly by state governments. The latter provides elderly people with insurance against hospitalization and lets older citizens buy inexpensive insurance to cover doctor bills and other health-related costs.

Black Codes

These were highly restrictive laws that Southern states adopted after the Civil War to deny many rights of citizenship to free blacks. The laws regulated the freedom and movement of former slaves. The adoption of these laws convinced many Northerners that federal legislation and constitutional amendments (as well as federal military districts in the South) would be necessary to secure the rights of African Americans.

enumerated articles

These were specific goods, including sugar, cotton, and tobacco, that, under the Navigation Act of 1660, colonists could ship only to British ports.

Anti-Federalists

They were a loosely organized group that arose after the American Revolution to oppose the Constitution and the strong central government that it created. They feared the potential of strong governments to infringe on the liberties of the people and the rights of the states.

Bacon's Rebellion

This 1676 uprising in in the Virginia Colony was the first rebellion in the American colonies in which discontented frontiersmen violently protested against the governor of Virginia, William Berkeley, accusing him of levying unfair taxes, of appointing friends to high positions, and of failing to protect outlying farmers from Indian attack. After months of conflict, Jamestown was burned to the ground.

Sugar Act

This 1764 Act initiated prime minister George Grenville's plan to place tariffs on some colonial imports as a means of raising revenue needed to finance England's expanded North American empire. It also called for more strict enforcement of the Navigation Acts. The end of "salutary neglect" and the effort to curb smuggling led to many of the early colonial protests against British interference in colonial affairs.

Stamp Act

This 1765 Act of Parliament was the first purely direct (revenue) tax Parliament imposed on the colonies. It was an excise tax on printed matter, including legal documents, publications, and playing cards, and the revenue produced was supposed to defray expenses for defending the colonies. Americans opposed it as "taxation without representation" and prevented its enforcement; Parliament repealed it a year after its enactment.

Pendleton Act

This 1883 act brought civil service reform to federal employment, thus limiting the spoils system. It classified many government jobs and required competitive examinations for these positions. It also outlawed forcing political contributions from appointed officials.

Dawes Severalty Act

This 1887 law revised official government policy with regard to Indian lands. The law terminated tribal ownership of land and alloted some parcels of land to individual Indians. By dividing reservation lands into privately-owned parcels, legislators hoped to complete the assimilation process by forcing the deterioration of the communal life-style of the Native societies; it was hoped that Natve Americans would learn the benefit of owning and cultivating property. Most allotment land, which could be sold after a statutory period of 25 years, was eventually sold to non-Native buyers at bargain prices.

Anthracite Coal Strike

This 1902 strike was led by the United Mine Workers of America in the coal fields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners worked in deplorable conditions and were poorly paid. When the owners rejected demands for higher wages, an eight-hour day and recognition of the union, the miners went on strike. The strike threatened to shut down the winter fuel supply to all major cities President Theodore Roosevelt called both sides together in Washington and urged a compromise. When no agreement was reached, Roosevet threatened to send federal troops to take over the mines. The miners went back to work in March 1903 and were awarded a 10% wage increase and a reduction in hours, though not an eight-hour day or recognition of the union. Previous presidents had intervened in labor disputes only to break strikes, as Cleveland had done in the Pullman Strike of 1894. Roosevelt had intervened to get a negotiated settlement and his prestige rose.

Hay Bunau-Varilly Treaty

This 1903 treaty established the terms for the United States to construct a trans-oceanic canal across the isthmus of Panama. According to the terms of the treaty, the United States was to receive rights to a canal zone which was to extend six miles on either side of the canal route in perpetuity; Panama was to receive a payment from US up to $10 million and an annual rental payments of $250,000.

Hepburn Act

This 1906 act put teeth in the regulator power of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It gave the Commission power to inspect railroad companies' records, set maximum rates, and outlaw free passes, which were often used to influence politicians. Scholars generally consider the Hepburn Act the most important piece of legislation regarding railroads in the first half of the 20th century. It illustrated the trend of the Progressive Era: reform through regulation.

Clayton Anti-trust Act

This 1914 Act strengthened the Sherman Anti-trust Act. In addition to imposing even more severe restrictions against monopolies, the law declared that labor unions were not combinations working in restraint of trade and therefore were exempt from much of the antitrust legislation that had previously kept them from effectively representing the concerns of laborers. Union organizer Samuel Gompers referred to this act as the "Magna Carta of American labor."

Common Sense

This 50-page pamphlet, written by Thomas Paine, inspired the Declaration of Independence. Even after fighting broke out in April 1775, many Americans were reluctant to break their ties to England. Paine's publication in January 1776 helped remove that obstacle by convincing the colonists that further association with the English king was undesirable. It was highly influential and sold more than 120,000 copies in the first three months, making it the biggest best-seller of its time.

Lend-Lease Act

This Act (March, 1941) provided for the extension of credit, weapons, and supplies to the British government, as Great Britain struggled against the aggression of Nazi Germany in World War II. Technically, the law allowed the president to grant aid to any country whose defense the president believed to be vital to U.S. security. Over the course of the war and under the auspices of this bill, the United States granted more than $50 billion of aid to its allies.

Federal Reserve Act

This Act, passed in 1913 during Wilson's administration, established the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as the "Fed." The Federal Reserve System is still the central bank of the United States and is charged with the responsibility of developing and administering monetary and credit policies for the nation. The Fed provides the nation with central banking functions that include handling of government deposits, managing the federal debt, and supervising and regulating private banks. Its most important function in terms of the nation's economic well-being is that of determining the supply of money and credit in the system.

A. Philip Randolph

This African American leader met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 to press for integration of the armed forces and the employment of black workers in the defense plants. To force an executive order to end discriminatory hiring practices in defense plants, he called for a show of strength: a massive march on Washington in July 1941. On July 1, six days before the march was to occur, Roosevelt signed an executive order barring discrimination in defense plants and in government service. Though integration of the armed forces was not achieved, thousands of jobs in defense industries were opened up for blacks.

National War Labor Board

This Agency was originally created during WWI by President Woodrow Wilson. In 1942, President Roosevelt reestablished the commission for WWII. It was charged with acting as an arbitration tribunal in labor-management dispute cases, thereby preventing work stoppages which might hinder the war effort.

21st Amendment

This Amendment to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment which had mandated nationwide Prohibition. It was ratified on December 5, 1933.

Joseph Glidden

This American farmer patented barbed wire, a product that forever altered the development of the American West. Barbed wire made it affordable to fence much larger areas than before, so intensive animal husbandry was practical on a much larger scale. Within 25 years, nearly all of the open range had been fenced in under private ownership. For this reason, some historians have dated the end of the Old West era of American history to the invention and subsequent proliferation of barbed wire. The inventor gave 63 acres of his homestead as a site for a small school that would become Northern Illinois University.

Dr. Francis Townsend

This American physician was best known for his proposal for a revolving old-age pension plan during the Great Depression. This proposal is often considered an important influence on the establishment of the Social Security system during the Roosevelt Administration

Geronimo

This Apache chief was a skillful, fearless guerrilla warrior who thwarted thousands of American soldiers. His capture in 1886 helped bring a close to the late nineteenth-century suppression of Indian resistance to white migration into the Trans-Mississippi West.

A. Mitchell Palmer

This Attorney General, concerned that the United States was threatened by the spread of Communism, ordered a series of raids that led to mass arrests and deportation of those accused of being disloyal Americans. Although his authorization of raids, arrests, and deportations were deplored by defenders of civil liberties, they brought him popular acclaim. In historical perspective, his zeal appears excessive, though it must be understood as part of a wave of antiradical and anti-immigrant hysteria that swept through the nation during the Red Scare following World War I.

General Charles Cornwallis

This British general was second in command to Henry Clinton. His 1781 defeat by a combined American-French force at the Siege of Yorktown is generally considered the de-facto end of the war, as the bulk of British troops surrendered with him.

Lusitania

This British steamship was sunk on 7 May 1915 off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, after being torpedoed by a German U-boat. The ship had left New York on 1 May 1915 bound for Liverpool. Of the 785 passengers lost, 124 were American. The incident was a diplomatic disaster for the Germans, with the American government coming close to breaking off relations. It had a major influence on the eventual decision of the USA to enterWorld War I.

Fidel Castro

This Communist leader of the Cuban Revolution successfully overthrew the US-backed dictatorship in 1959. He then led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. In 1960, he forged a relationship with the USSR which increased opposition to his government in the U.S. At various times, the US government attempted to assassinate him, overthrow his regime, and restrict trade and travel to Cuba. All of these efforts failed, and his regime continues to rule Cuba (under his brother's rule) to this day.

14th Amendment

This Constitutional amendment was one of three Reconstruction amendments enacted in the years immediately following the Civil War. Passed by Congress in April 1866, it expanded the definition of U.S. citizenship to include people of all races, specifically African Americans; and it commanded the federal government to ensure the protection of certain fundamental rights at the state level.

Andrew Johnson

This Democratic Senator from Tennessee was Lincoln's vice-presidential running mate in 1864. He succeeded to the presidency when Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. His Reconstruction policies infuriated Radical Republicans in Congress, and he was impeached and nearly removed from office in 1867. While he retained office, his power was reduced. None of his vetoes were upheld during his last year in office. One of his last acts as president was to grant amnesty "without limitation to all who had participated in the rebellion."

George Kennan

This Foreign Service officer was the key idea man behind the containment doctrine. His knowledge of Soviet history led him to conclude that the Soviets saw capitalist-communist conflict as inevitable. The only way to deal with that mentality was for the United States to contain communism by resisting Soviet aggression and expansion wherever it might occur. His recommendation provided the rationale for the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Battle of the Bulge

This German counter-offensive was launched in December, 1944 as a final effort to turn the tide of the war. A successful surprise attack on the thin Allied line would enable Germany to recapture the Allied supply port at Antwerp, and it would also separate the British forces from the American troops. The German ambush caught the Allies off guard and temporarily drove them back. However, Allied reinforcements and air superiority led to a major defeat for the German Army; it opened the door for Allied invasion of Germany itself.

Head Start

This Great Society Program was initiated in 1964 to prepare low-income children for school. It was the foundation of President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty, One reason for low-income children's educational disadvantage is that they have had less exposure than other children to such educational building blocks as numbers and the alphabet. This program furnishes that exposure and allows them to begin their formal school training on a more nearly equal footing with other students. Since its inception, nearly 18 million children have participated in the program.

Huey Long

This Louisiana Senator was a left-wing critic of the New Deal, contending it did too little to help the poor. He advocated a "Share Our Wealth" program to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. He made it clear that he hoped to run for the presidency at the head of the Democratic Party in 1936 or 1940, but that if he could not secure the nomination he would run as an independent. He never had the chance. He was assassinated on September 8, 1935 by the son-in-law of a political opponent he was attempting to destroy. He died two days later.

Santa Anna

This Mexican leader supporrted the revolution that resulted in independence from Spain in 1821. By 1833, he was elected president of Mexico, but by 1834, he declared himself dictator. In 1836, with an army of 6,000 men, he defeated Texan rebels at the Alamo but was badly beaten by Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto. He ultimately signed the Treaties of Velasco, which granted Texas its freedom from Mexico. Returning from exile in 1846, he commanded Mexican forces again--this time against United States troops in the Mexican war. But he was again unsuccessful; Mexico city fell to General Winfield Scott in 1847.

Guadalcanal

This Pacific Island became the focus of the first U.S. offensive of World War II. The battle here, which was waged from early August 1942 to mid-February 1943, was a decisive Allied victory over the Empire of Japan. The battle was also the first Japanese land defeat of the conflict. It also revealed the incredible resilience of the Japanese fighters and their unwillingness to surrender, which led many U.S. leaders to support the use of the atomic bomb to end the war.

Josiah Strong

This Protestant clergyman and author wrote "Our Country," a racist and religious justification for American expansion. He argued that the Anglo-Saxon people were divinely ordained to dominate mankind--a case of survival of the fittest. He intended to promote missionary activity and he encouraged support for imperialistic United States policy.

Lyndon B. Johnson

This Texas Senator was elected vice president in 1960 and became president when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. He was then elected president in 1964. His Great Society sought to use the nation's wealth to eradicate poverty and his civil-rights programs did more for African-American equality than any president since Abraham Lincoln. But these domestic accomplishments were overshadowed by his controversial decisions that mired the United States in the Vietnam War. He declined to run for re-election in 1968 after the TET Offensive in Vietnam.

Treaty of Alliance

This Treaty was a pact between France and the Second Continental Congress

Reuben James

This US Navy destroyer was the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II. The destroyer was part of the convoy escort force established to promote the safe arrival of materiel to the United Kingdom. On October 31st, 1941, while escorting a convoy, this ship was torpedoed by a German submarine. Of the 159-man crew, only 44 survived.

Jefferson Davis

This US Senator and Secretary of War from Mississippi vocally supported the rights of slaveholders. When southern states seceeded in early 1861, he was elected president of the Confederate States of America. Short-tempered and opinionated, he quickly amassed political enemies within the South and throughout the war, he attempted to maintain control over the unwieldy Confederate government, frequently quarreling with both the Confederate Congress and state governments throughout the South. After the Confederacy collapsed in April 1865, he was arrested by federal troops. He was released after serving two years in the federal prison at Fortress Monroe, without ever going to trial or being convicted on any charge.

NAACP/The Crisis

This US civil-rights organization was dedicated to ending inequality and segregation for blacks. Founded in 1909, it campaigned to end segregation and discrimination in education, public accommodations, voting, and employment, and to protect the constitutional rights of blacks. It has made the most significant gains for civil rights through groundbreaking judicial cases. In 1909 it merged with the Niagara Movement founded in 1905 by W E B Du Bois, who went on to edit the organization's journal The Crisis.

Bull Moose Party

This US political party was founded 1912 by supporters of the former president Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" platform included legislation for workers' protection and strict regulation of corporations. The new progressive party and Roosevelt's candidacy split the Republican Party completely; as a consequence the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, won the 1912 presidential election by an overwhelming majority.

Barry Goldwater

This United States Senator from Arizona was the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure, he was known as "Mr. Conservative". He rejected the legacy of the New Deal and fought through the conservative coalition to defeat the New Deal coalition. His fiscally conservative and socially moderate campaign platform ultimately failed to gain the support of the electorate and he lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by one of the largest landslides in history.

Election of 1912

This United States presidential election was fought among three major candidates. Incumbent President William Howard Taft was renominated by the Republican Party. Former President Theodore Roosevelt failed to receive the Republican nomination and called his own convention and created the Progressive Party (nicknamed the "Bull Moose Party"). Woodrow Wilson won the Democratic nomination. The split between Roosevelt and Taft helped Wilson win the election. Wilson was the second of only two Democrats to be elected President between 1860 and 1932. This was also the last election in which a candidate who was not a Republican or Democrat came second in either the popular vote or the Electoral College.

Battle of Coral Sea

This WWII battle occurred between U.S. and Japanese aircraft carriers in May 1942 and served to halt the Japanese advance toward Australia during World War II. The battle was the first major naval battle in which the opposing fleets did not sight each other; aircraft carried out all combat. This ushered in a new style of naval warfare: carrier-versus-carrier.

Half-Breeds

This a political faction of the United States Republican Party that existed in the late 19th century. These moderates were opponents of the Stalwarts, the other main faction of the Republican Party. The main issue that separated them from the Stalwarts was political patronage. The Stalwarts were in favor of political machines and spoils system-style patronage, while the this group, led by Maine senator James G. Blaine, were in favor of civil service reform and a merit system.

Office of War Mobilization

This agency of the United States government coordinated all government agencies involved in the war effort during World War II. This office took over from the earlier War Production Board to shift the country from a peacetime to a wartime economy. The United States was soon outproducing the Axis powers. Unemployment, the scourge of ten years earlier, had all but vanished, as Americans went to work to fuel the war machine.

Gentlemen's Agreement

This agreement between the United States and Japan in 1907-1908 represented an effort by President Theodore Roosevelt to calm growing tension between the two countries over the immigration of Japanese workers. A treaty with Japan in 1894 had assured free immigration, but as the number of Japanese workers in California increased, they were met with growing nativist hostility. In the Agreement, Japan agreed not to issue passports for Japanese citizens wishing to work in the continental United States, thus effectively eliminating new Japanese immigration to America. In exchange, the United States agreed to accept the presence of Japanese immigrants already residing in America, and to permit the immigration of wives, children and parents, and to avoid legal discrimination against Japanese children in California schools.

Platt Amendment

This amendment to the Cuban Constitution barred Cuba from making a treaty that gave another nation power over its affairs. Also, the United States could intervene in Cuban affairs to keep order or maintain independence, and could buy or lease sites for naval and coaling stations (the main one was Guantánamo Bay). Later in 1901, under American pressure, Cuba included the amendment's provisions in its Constitution.

Horatio Alger

This author wrote books with rags-to-riches themes to reinforce the prevailing business philosophy of late-19th-century America. This philosophy held that any individual, however humble his or her beginnings, could become president or a millionaire by dint of hard work and good deeds. The legend embodied by his heroes became the basis of the "American Dream" of success through individual effort.

John Steinbeck

This author wrote the famous novel, The Grapes of Wrath in 1939, a book that captured the economic despair of the 1930s and spawned popular outrage against conditions faced by migrant farm workers. In the book, the Joad family characterized typical "Oakies" who moved from Oklahoma to California, like to escape the droughts and Dust Bowl conditions that ruined farmers in the Midwest. By 1950, four million people, or one quarter of all persons born in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, or Missouri, like Steinbeck's Joad family, lived outside the region. Most went to California.

Berlin Wall

This barrier was constructed by East Germany in 1961, to completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin. The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls. The purpose of the barrier was to prevent the massive emigration and defection (3.5 million people!) of East Germans who crossed the border from East Berlin into West Berlin. Between 1961 and 1989, this barrier prevented almost all such emigration. The fall of this barrier in 1989 paved the way for German reunification, and served as a symbol of the end of the Cold War.

Chateau-Thierry

This battle was fought on July 18, 1918 and was one of the first actions the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) under General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing. The Germans were only 50 miles outside of Paris, but the AEF stopped the German offensive. For the first time in more than a year the Germans were on the defensive.

Midway

This battle, fought in June, 1942 is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Japanese admiral Yamamoto anticipated that the attack would lure those American aircraft carriers that had escaped from the Pearl Harbor attack into open waters, where they could be sunk. However, this battle marked the first clear-cut Japanese defeat since the outbreak of World War II; it ended Japan's ability to expand its control in the Pacific, and forced the Japanese to be on the defensive for the remainder of the war. Japan was unable to recover from the loss of four aircraft carriers, the best in the navy's fleet, and the loss of so many skilled pilots.

GI Bill of Rights

This bill provided many benefits to veterans of World War II. From 1944 to 1949, nearly 9 million veterans received close to $4 billion from the bill's unemployment compensation program. The education and training provisions existed until 1956, providing benefits to nearly 10 million veterans. The Veterans' Administration offered insured loans until 1962, and they totaled more than $50 billion. The economic assistance provided by this bill accelerated the postwar demand for goods and services.

Henry Cabot Lodge

This chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led a group of "reservationists" in the successful fight against American participation in the League of Nations. He maintained that membership in the world peacekeeping organization would threaten the political freedom of the United States by binding the nation to international commitments it would not or could not keep. His defeat of Wilson in the fight over the League humiliated the president and dealt a bitter blow to Wilson's pretensions as an international statesman.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

This civil rights group was founded in 1960 to organize the protests of African-American college students against segregation in the Deep South. The group was inspired by the Greensboro sit-in and the protest technique became the main weapon of the group. In addition, the group coordinated voter registration drives for African Americans. In 1966, however, Stokely Carmichael assumed the leadership and helped to oversee its transition from a nonviolent organization to one that embraced a militant, separatist, and revolutionary program. The new leader advocated black power as a worthier goal than the integration of blacks into white society.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

This civil rights organization was founded in 1942 by members who envisioned a nonviolent, interracial civil rights organization that emphasized integration with whites. Over the next several years, chapters of the group spread across the United States, applying the same techniques to knock down discriminatory barriers. It became famous in the 1960s, when it emerged as a leading force within the civil rights movement—particularly with its sponsorship of the Freedom Rides of 1961. In the mid-1960s, the group acquired a more militant, separatist stance and advocafed self-government by African Americans in black-majority areas.

Kerner Commission

This commission was assembled by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967 following racial riots in Newark and Detroit. The Commission's report, released in 1968, started with one dramatic conclusion: "Our nation is moving toward two separate societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal." Its finding was that the riots resulted from black frustration at lack of economic opportunity. Its results suggested that one main cause of urban violence was white racism and suggested that white America bore much of the responsibility for black rioting and rebellion.

Secession

This concept was based largely on the logic of John C. Calhoun. In his compact theory of government, states retained the essence of their sovereignty when they joined the Union, and they had constitutional authority to leave the Union when it served their interests to do so. South Carolina pursued this in 1860.

French and Indian War

This conflict had its focal point in North America and pitted the French and their Native American allies against the English and their Native American allies. Althought it lasted from 1754-1763, the event was known in Europe as the Seven Years' War. This struggle drove the French from North America.

rationing

This controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services was implemented in the U.S. in 1942. Targeted items included food and other necessities in short supply, including materials needed for the war effort such as rubber tires, leather shoes, clothing and gasoline. Some items, such as sugar, were distributed evenly based on the number of people in a household. Other items, like gasoline or fuel oil, were rationed only to those who could justify a need.

James K. Polk

This dark horse candidate, was elected president in 1844 on a platform of territorial expansion. His election secured the annexation of Texas in 1845. The Mexican War, fought during his term, resulted in the United States' acquisition of New Mexico and California in 1848. During his administration, more than a million square miles of new territory were added to the United States. Exhausted and prematurely aged due to his overwork and poor health, he decided not to run for reelection in 1848. He died on June 15, 1849, only a few months after retiring from office, but today he is remembered as one of the most effective chief executives in American history.

carpetbaggers

This disparaging term was applied to northerners who went to the South after the Civil War. They were a mixed lot of idealists and self-interested seekers of political and economic opportunity, many of whom became involved in Republican politics. According to the stereotype, this was a seeker of power and plunder whotook advantage of the Reconstruction Acts to sway the easily exploitable black voters and lowborn Southern white traitors known as scalawags.

Romanticism

This early nineteenth-century literary movement believed that change and growth were the essence of life, for individuals and for institutions. They valued feeling and intuition over reason and pure thought, and they stressed the differences between individuals, rather than their similarities.

Treaty of Portsmouth

This ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and was signed in New Hampshire, owing to the mediation of the President of the USA, Theodore Roosevelt. President Roosevelt earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

Spanish Influenza

This epidemic of 1918 was the most serious epidemic in U.S. history; it infected 20 million Americans, causing more than half a million deaths in the United States and an estimated 30 million fatalities around the world. World War I ended on November 11, 1918; returning troops brought home a resurgence of virus, and the many public victory celebrations helped the disease spread once more. More American civilians were killed by the disease than all the U.S. combat deaths during the 20th century combined. Ultimately, the death rate shortened the average life span in the United States by 10 years before the illness mysteriously disappeared.

Haymarket Riot

This event ocurred on May 4, 1886 in Chicago. A bomb exploded among a group of policemen as they attempted to disperse a giant labor rally. The explosion killed seven policemen and injured 70 people. The incident received considerable nationwide publicity and seriously damaged the image of the growing labor movement--especially the Knights of Labor which was branded as a breeding ground for political dissidents rather than an organization of workers trying to secure better conditions.

Booker T. Washington

This former slave became a major spokesperson for his race in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1881, he became principal of a new school for African Americans at Tuskegee, Alabama. Tuskegee offered training in a variety of skilled trades and emphasized the practical applications of learning rather than learning for its own sake. He delivered his most famous speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. He believed that African Americans should advance through education and effort instead of seeking social and political equality with whites. Critics called this "Atlanta Compromise" a policy of submission.

NSC-68

This formerly classified report was issued by the United States National Security Council in1950, during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. It shaped U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War for the next 20 years. It recommended policies that emphasized military over diplomatic action and it called for significant peacetime military spending, in which the U.S. possessed "superior overall power."

Committee of Public Information

This government agency was a propaganda body whose purpose was to mobilize public support for U.S. participation in World War I. The goal was to make sure citizens' loyalty to the United States stayed strong. The agency was in charge of staging a national campaign to encourage service in the military and the purchase of war bonds to fuel the massive military effort. 75,000 speakers and100 million copies of pamphlets outlined the U.S. stance on the war. George Creel, a progressive journalist and publicist, led the agency and was instrumental in engineering the image the American public came to have of Kaiser Wilhelm III and his countrymen as "barbaric Huns.

War Labor Board

This government agency was created to make sure industrial disputes ended through voluntary, peaceful arbitration. Its main purpose was to keep labor disputes from disrupting the country's many large contracts for war supplies. The board's actions when confronted with a labor crisis were to abandon lockouts and strikes, preserve the right of collective bargaining, determine hours and wages according to prevailing local standards, perform adjustment through mediation and conciliation, maintain maximum production, and uphold the right of workers to make a living wage. The board was abolished in 1919, by which time it had successfully disposed of all but 33 of its 1,244 cases.

Federal Trade Commission

This government agency was established in 1914 as part of President Woodrow Wilson's progressive effort to ensure free and fair competition among the nation's businesses. It is an independent regulatory agency formed to combat trusts and protect the public against false advertising. Its functions were initially similar to those of the earlier Bureau of Corporations, which it absorbed, but the it was given considerably more power than the bureau to do its work, including unprecedented access to corporate records and the right to issue cease-and-desist orders.

War Industries Board

This government agency was established in1917, during World War I to coordinate the purchase of war supplies, to encourage the use mass-production techniques, to increase efficiency, and to eliminate waste by standardizing products. The board set production quotas and allocated raw materials. Under this government board, industrial production in the U.S. increased 20 percent.

Radical Republicans

This group in Congress, headed by Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Wade, insisted on black suffrage, equal rights for Freedmen, and federal protection of the civil rights of blacks. They gained control of Reconstruction in 1867 and demanded harsh, punitive policies toward the Confederate State and ex-Confederates.

Central High School

This high school was the scene of a civil rights showdown. After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the school board announced its intention to comply with federal constitutional requirements. When nine African American students arrived on the first day of school, the Arkansas National Guard blocked their entrance, thus directly challenging the federal government. On September 24, 1957, President Eisenhower ordered 1,000 federal troops to Little Rock.. Troops continued to patrol the school for the rest of the school year. The press coverage focused national attention on enforcement of the Brown decision and also added fuel to the fire of the growing civil rights movement.

Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars)

This idea was proposed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 as a space-based defensive umbrella against incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. Scientists developed the program throughout the 1980s, to provide the United States with a protective shield from nuclear attack as part of the largest peacetime military buildup in U.S. history. The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD). The ambitious initiative was widely criticized as being unrealistic.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

This immensely popular WWII hero and commander of NATO was elected president in 1952 on the promise to end the war in Korea. His administration is remembered chiefly for its lack of legislative initiatives and calm style of consensus management during a period of national prosperity. He had campaigned on the promise of cutting back on government—on the size of the budget, on taxes, and on regulation of the nation's business. But he also recognized how popular the New Deal programs were and instead of ending them actually expanded some, such as Social Security benefits. In foreign policy he managed Cold War crises while avoiding stark confrontation with the Soviet Union.

Ballinger-Pinchot Controversy

This incident during the administration of President William Howard Taft, was a public dispute between the secretary of the interior (appointed by Taft) and the chief of the U.S. Forestry Service (appointed by Roosevelt). The issue involved the use of public lands, and Taft sided with his secretary of the interior who favored greater use over conservation. The affair led to a split in the Republican Party between Taft's conservative faction and Roosevelt's progressive faction and gave rise to Roosevelt's Bull Moose presidential run in 1912.

U-2 Incident

This incident occurred during the Cold War on May 1, 1960, during the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower when an American spy plane was shot down over Soviet Union airspace. The United States government at first denied the plane's purpose and mission, but then was forced to admit its role when the Soviet government produced the surviving pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Coming just over two weeks before the scheduled opening of an East-West summit in Paris, the incident was a great embarrassment to the United States and prompted a marked deterioration in its relations with the Soviet Union.

Rosa Parks

This individual has been called the mother of the U.S. civil rights movement because of her courage when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. That act of resistance set off a boycott of the Montgomery, Alabama bus system, which in turn activated the larger movement against segregation throughout the country.

Underground Railroad

This informal network of abolitionists (mostly free African Americans in the North) guided fugitive slaves across the Canadian border to safety during the years prior to the Civil War. Conductors like Harriet Tubman helped slaves to elude capture by hiding them at safe houses and other secret places, known as stations.

League of Nations

This international organization was established as part of the Treaty of Versailles to preserve the peace and settle disputes through negotiation. Although President Woodrow Wilson strongly advocated for this organization, the United States refused to participate. It was virtually powerless to stop renewed aggression in the 1930s. The organization was extremely important, however, as a forerunner of the United Nations, developing ideas and procedures that have aided the UN.

Roosevelt Corollary

This interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. Roosevelt asserted that the United States would exercise an "international police power" to intervene in the Western Hemisphere in an effort to protect the nations of Latin America from European aggression.

Détente

This is a French term meaning the relaxation of tensions. The word was used to identify U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-Chinese relations in the 1970s, as the superpowers pursued friendlier relations with each other to ease Cold War threats of nuclear war. This resulted in increased contact between East and West in the form of trade agreements and cultural exchanges.

Transcendentalism

This is a philosophy that asserts the primacy of the spiritual over the material and empirical. It was a mystical, intuitive way of looking at life that subordinated facts to feelings. They argued that humans could move reason and intellectual capacities by having faith in themselves; they were complete individualists. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the principal spokesperson of this American philosophical movement of that began in New England during the 1830s and sparked the American Renaissance in literature in the mid-19th century.

No Taxation without Representation

This is a principle dating back to the Magna Carta that means if citizens are not represented in the government, then the government should not have the authority to tax them. The American colonists cited this principle when they opposed the authority of the British Parliament to tax them.

NOW

This is a special-interest organization promotes the rights and interests of women. Its founder, Betty Friedan, scribbled the organization's statement of purpose on a napkin: "To take action to bring women into the full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men." Its official priorities include the passing of an equal rights amendment to the U.S. Constitution, advocating for abortion and reproductive rights, supporting lesbian and gay rights, and ending violence against women.

Leyte Gulf

This is generally considered to be the largest naval battle of World War II and, by some criteria, possibly the largest naval battle in history. Fought between 23-26 October 1944, the Imperial Japanese Navy had suffered its greatest loss of ships and crew ever. Japan's failure to repulse the Allied invaders meant the inevitable loss of the Philippines to the Allies, which in turn meant that Japan would be all but cut off from its occupied territories in Southeast Asia.

Roe v. Wade

This is one of the most controversial and far-reaching decisions of the 20th century, striking down state laws that restricted abortion with a seven to two majority. The Supreme Court based its decision on the constitutional right of privacy, which it had recognized in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and other cases.

Wagner Act

This is the more common name for the National Labor Relations Act (1935) which created the National Labor Relations Board to aid unions by prohibiting employers from engaging in unfair labor practices. The law set the stage for the development of collective bargaining for labor organizations during the 1930s. One of the key pieces of legislation during the New Deal, this act, among other things, created the National Labor Relations Board, which heard thousands of cases of alleged unfair labor practices. The passage of this law elevated the standing of labor unions across the country.

Log Cabin Campaign

This is the name given to the 1840 Presidential campaign of William Henry Harrison. Harrison was the first president to campaign actively for office. Whigs, eager to deliver what the public wanted, declared that Harrison was "the ___ ___ and hard cider candidate," a man of the common people from the rough-and-tumble West. They depicted Harrison's opponent, President Martin Van Buren, as a wealthy snob who was out of touch with the people. In fact, it was Harrison who came from a wealthy, prominent family while Van Buren was from a poor, working family. But the election was during the worst economic depression to date, and voters blamed Van Buren. Harrison served only one month as president before dying of pneumonia on April 4, 1841.

"Great Migration"

This is the term given to the large-scale relocation of African Americans from the southern United States to the industrial states of the north and the mid-west in the early 20th century. Events such as the First World War caused a massive growth in American war industries which contributed to an increased demand for industrial workers in the northern states that was filled by African Americans who were trying to escape the memories of slavery and servitude. The northern states offered greater opportunities for education as well as increased wages and better standards of living in general. In all, approximately 4.1 million African Americans moved out of the Southern United States to the North, Midwest and West from 1910 to 1930.

Dollar Diplomacy

This is the term used to describe America's efforts--particularly under President William Howard Taft--to further its foreign policy aims in Latin America and the Far East through the use of economic power. In Nicaragua, for example, American intervention included funding the country's debts to European bankers. As another example, the State Department persuaded four American banks to refinance Haiti's national debt, setting the stage for further intervention in the future. This approach to foreign policy was repudiated by President Woodrow Wilson within a few weeks of his inauguration in 1913.

AFL

This labor organization was an association of trade unions representing skilled workers in many industries. By the end of the 19th century, it was the dominant organization representing the interests of skilled labor in the United States. Under the leadership of Samuel Gompers, the union focused on improving the day-to-day conditions for workers and bargained for higher wages and shorter hours, rather than on social or political issues.

CIO

This labor union was formed in 1938 as an organization of semi-or unskilled labor from mass-production industries that was composed of industrial unions rather than craft unions like the AFL. This meant that labor recruiters would organize all of the workers in one industry or plant into a single union, rather than organizing them on the basis of their industrial craft skills.

Gadsden Purchase

This land acquisition transferred ownership of a small strip of land covering approximately 30,000 square miles in the Southwest (part of present-day New Mexico and Arizona) from Mexico to the United States for the sum of $10 million. The United States wanted the land for the southern route of the transcontinental railroad. This was the final acquisition in the continental expansion of the United States. It also served as one more inflammatory issue in the ongoing sectional controversy, as Northerners objected to the transcontinental railroad being constructed on a southern route.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

This landmark in American legal history, provided much of the legal basis for the modern civil rights movement. It outlawed discrimination in employment and public accommodations on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It strengthened the federal government's ability to guarantee voting rights and end school segregation.

Smith Connally Act

This law was passed on June 25, 1943, over President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto. The Act allowed the federal government to seize and operate industries threatened by or under strikes that would interfere with war production.

Louis Brandeis

This lawyer was passionately committed to Progressive social reform. Nicknamed the People's Attorney, he frequently donated his legal services on behalf of a great variety of worthy causes. He insisted on breaking with tradition and introducing statistical and sociological information into his legal briefs. This evidence was used to demonstrate the need for legislation to protect women and children in the workplace.

Emilio Aguinaldo

This leader of the Filipino rebels fought for Philippine Independece. He was a close ally with the United States when the Spanish American War began and he helped Commodore Dewey defeat the Spanish at Manila. After the Spanish American War, he still fought for independence, this time against the United States in the "Philippine Insurrection."

DeLome Letter

This letter was written by the Spanish Minister in Washington, D.C. The letter, which was intended to be private, was sent to a Spanish official in Havana and was stolen and released by Cuban revolutionists to Hearst's newspaper. In it, the minister wrote disparagingly of US President William McKinley. In1898, the letter was published in the New York Journal, headlining it "THE WORST INSULT TO THE UNITED STATES IN ITS HISTORY". The Yellow Press helped foment public sentiment in favor of the Cuban revolution against the Spanish, and is seen as one of the principal causes of the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Fireside Chats

This term described the national radio addresses delivered by President Franklin Roosevelt that were intended to reassure the public and inform them of any national issues or crises. After the success of the first radio address on March 12, 1933, Roosevelt went on to give 28 more over the next 10 years. Not only did these speeches garner him wide support as an understanding president, but they also promoted New Deal programs.

Father Charles Coughlin

This magnetic radio personality quickly won enormous popularity, and by 1930 his broadcasts attracted as many as 40 million listeners. His attention soon turned from religious to political issues. Initially a supporter of FDR, by 1934, he launched his own political organization--the National Union for Social Justice--and gradually turned it into a vehicle for challenging the president. His radio sermons attacked the New Deal as a communist conspiracy and an incipient dictatorship. In 1938, he added a harsh anti-Semitism to his broadcasts. Although he retained a devoted following, his new extremism drove away most of his traditional supporters; in 1940, no longer able to afford radio time, he ceased his broadcasts.

Second Continental Congress

This meeting gathered in May 1775 in Philadelphia. It was immediately faced with the pressure of rapidly unfolding military events. It served as the colonial government during the American Revolution. It issued paper money, made decisions that controlled the Continental Army, established committees to acquire war supplies, and investigated the possibilities of foreign assistance. This became the crucial governmental body of revolutionary America.

Social Security Act

This monumental piece of New Deal legislation (1935) established a system of old-age, unemployment, and survivors insurance funded by wage and payroll taxes. At age sixty-five workers could retire with a modest benefit. Because agricultural laborers and domestic servants were excluded from coverage, three-fifths of African American workers were ineligible for these benefits, as were most Native Americans. Also excluded were teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians, and social workers--all predominantly female occupations.

The Granger Movement

This movement began in 1867 to improve the status of farmers. Also known as The Patrons of Husbandry, the primary concerns of the movement were declining crop prices, an increase in indebtedness among farmers, and the sporadic rate system for freight imposed by the railroads. Gradually, other organizations like the Farmers' Alliances and the Populist Party emerged to support agricultural concerns, and by 1880, the membership declined.

lyceum movement

This movement in the United States flourished in the mid-19th century, particularly in the northeast and middle west. Hundreds of informal associations were established for the purpose of improving the social, intellectual, and moral fabric of society. Noted lecturers, entertainers and readers would travel the "circuit," going from town to town or state to state to entertain, speak, or debate. Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau gave speeches at many local events. As a young man, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at one of these gatherings in Springfield, Illinois. This movement — with its lectures, dramatic performances, class instructions, and debates — contributed significantly to the education of the adult American in the nineteenth century.

Niagra Movement

This movement was a black civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. It was named for the "mighty current" of change the group wanted to effect (and the location of the first meeting in July 1905). The movement was a call for opposition to racial segregation and disenfranchisement as well as policies of accommodation and conciliation promoted by African American leaders such as Booker T. Washington. The movement led to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

New Frontier

This name was given to the domestic agenda of President John F. Kennedy. He called for: expansion of unemployment benefits, federal aid to cities to improve housing and transportation, a water pollution control act, and an agricultural act to raise farmers' incomes. Major expansions and improvements were also made in Social Security , hospital construction, library services, family farm assistance and reclamation. By some estimates, more new legislation was actually approved and passed into law than at any other time since the New Deal in the Thirties.

Free Soil Party

This national political party was launched in 1848. It was comprised of anti-slavery Democrats (Barnburners) and andi-slavery Whigs (Conscience Whigs). The party's fundamental issue was the restriction of slavery. For president in 1848, the party nominated former president Martin Van Buren. Although Van Buren lost, the party won nine House seats and two Senate seats. After the political upheavals associated with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, most of this party's adherents joined the newly formed Republican Party.

"In God We Trust"

This official motto of the United States was adopted by Congress in 1956, just one year after the phrase "under God" was incorporated into the Pledge of Allegiance. The motto has appeared on U.S. coins since 1864 and on paper currency since 1957. These developments represent the great growth in religion after WWII as new churches were built and services were attended by baby boomers and their parents in the ever-burgeoning suburbs. Church attendance increased from 64.5 million in 1940 to 110 million by 1958.

Grand Army of the Republic

This organization was founded by former Union soldiers after the Civil War. It lobbied Congress for aid and pensions for former Union soldiers. It was also a powerful lobbying influence within the Republican party.

National Women's Suffrage Association

This organization was founded in May 1869 by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The organization advocated the adoption of a national amendment granting women's suffrage, as well as embracing many other social reforms. The association saw to it that a women's suffrage amendment was introduced into Congress every year from 1878 forward. It set a precedent for women interested in organizing independently of male-dominated politics.

SDS: Port Huron Statement

This organization, founded in 1960 by Tom Hayden and others, represented the "New Left." In 1962, they drafted a sixty-three-page political platform called the Port Huron Statement that presented a critique of the cold war and the materialistic complacency of postwar American life. The Port Huron Statement proposed that universities should be the locus of a new movement for "participatory democracy." The group then turned to antiwar activism. On April 17, 1965 they held the first of several mass demonstrations against the Vietnam War. By 1968, the group achieved a level of power and prominence unprecedented for a student organization, but in 1969, it collapsed. What remained became a small revolutionary sect known as the Weathermen.

Federalist Party

This party was formed during Washington's first administration in the heat of conflict over Hamilton's proposals to salvage the finances of the new republic. Under the leadership of George Washington and the intellectual guidance of Alexander Hamilton, this political party envisioned policies that would promote a thriving union based on a mixed economy of agriculture and manufacturing, a strong central banking system, opposition to widespread suffrage, and alliance with Britain—all to be directed by a strong national government. But opposition to the War of 1812 and the Hartford Convention of 1814 ensured a dive in the party's popularity. In the election of 1816, the party fielded a candidate for president for the last time.

pragmatism

This philosophy, closely identified with William James, held that in a world of constant change (evolution), absolutes were difficult to justify, and that abstract concepts were useful only in terms of their practical effects. This inspired much of the reform movement of late nineteenth century America.

"city beautiful" movement

This phrase first entered popular use in the United States in 1899 among New York City reformers who wanted to adorn their city with civic sculpture, public fountains, waterfront parks, indoor murals and statuary, artistic street fixtures, and much more. It quickly became a catch-phrase used throughout the nation for all manner of efforts to upgrade the appearance of towns and cities. The cultural movement reflected Progressive Era reform impulses to revitalize public life and instill civic awareness.

Lincoln's 10% Plan

This plan devised by President Lincoln in 1863 promised a quick and moderate method for readmitting the seceding states to the Union; it required just 10 percent of a state's prewar voters to swear allegiance to the Union and a new state constitution that banned slavery. Many congressional Republicans considered this standard too thin to support a general reconstruction of the Union and responded with the Wade-Davis Bill.

Virginia Plan

This plan set the agenda for much of the Constitutional Convention. The plan was believed to have been written chiefly by James Madison. It was devised as a means to correct and enlarge the Articles of Confederation. Although the plan underwent many modifications, key principles like the separation of powers and bicameralism, and key institutions like the executive and judicial branches, clearly originated in this plan. It is most remembered now for its rejected proposal that representation within the national legislature be based solely on population.

Truman Doctrine

This policy set the course for U.S. foreign policy throughout the Cold War. It committed the United States to containing the spread of communism around the world. President Truman believed that the Soviet Union was directly funding communist forces within Greece and Turkey and felt the United States should support the anticommunists. The aid Truman envisaged was primarily financial, which Congress granted by appropriating $400 million to the two countries.

Democratic Party

This political party evolved out of the Democratic-Republican Party of the early 19th century. Calling upon the political heritage of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Andrew Jackson became the first leader of the this party following his election to presidency in 1828. The core of its membership was composed of farmers, immigrants, and white Southerners. Jackson's presidency has traditionally been called the "Era of the Common Man," an era that reflected two decades of expanding the suffrage, economic change, and Western expansion. Jackson and the newly constituted party embraced this rough and tumble democratic culture. This party controlled the presidency for much of the 1840s and 1850s, with James K. Polk serving a single term from 1844 to 1848, Franklin Pierce serving a single term from 1852 to 1856, and James Buchanan serving a single term from 1856 to 1860.

Know Nothing Party

This political party, formally named the American Party, was a short-lived third political party in the 1850s that was based on the growing tide of anti-immigrant feeling of the 1840s. The party derived its famous name from the determination of its members to remain mysterious about their activities. This party reached the height of their power in the mid-1850s. In the 1856 presidential election, they nominated former president Millard Fillmore as their candidate. Fillmore tried to downplay the party's nativist tendencies but ran a disappointing third. The party dissolved shortly after its poor showing in the 1856 election, and many members joined the Republican Party.

Whigs

This political party, formed in 1834 and lasting until 1854, was the major political party opposing Andrew Jackson, who they called, "King Andrew," and his Democratic Party in the antebellum era. The party inherited the Federalist belief in a strong federal government and adopted many Federalist and National Republican policy ideas, including federal funding for internal improvements (building roads, canals, bridges; improving harbors), a central bank, and high tariffs to protect the growth of manufacturing enterprises. Famous members of this party included President William Henry Harrison, President Zachary Taylor, and Henry Clay.

Election of 1860

This presidential contest was a four-way race with two dominant issues: the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and slavery. Although Lincoln, with strong support in the North and Midwest, won a clear majority of the electoral college, he garnered only 40% of the overall vote. Seven Southern states (later joined by four others) seceded from the Union even before Lincoln's inauguration. Determined to uphold his oath to support the Constitution and preserve the Union, Lincoln stood firm against the secessionists, and the Civil War began.

Election of 1876

This presidential election was a close contest between Rutherford B. Hayes adn Samuel Tilden. This election is an example of the winner of the popular vote not winning the electoral college. The compromise that settled the election brought Hayes to the White House and brought military Reconstruction to an end.

Bessemer Process

This process, named after its inventor in the 1850s, was the first method by which steel could be mass produced. The process involved injecting air into molten pig iron to remove impurities. The resulting steel, relatively easy and inexpensive to produce, was also lighter and stronger than iron. This process revolutionized steel manufacture by decreasing its cost; the availability of cheap steel allowed large bridges to be built and enabled the construction of railroads, skyscrapers, and large ships.

Iran-Contra Arms Deal

This scandal broke in the fall of 1986 when members of President Ronald Reagan's administration had secretly sold military parts and ammunition to Iran. In exchange, the Iranian government was to help free several U.S. citizens who were being held hostage by pro-Iranian groups. The money raised from the sale of the military supplies was passed to the Nicaraguan contras, a rebel group fighting against the government of Nicaragua. This complex arrangement violated several U.S. laws that banned both the sale of military supplies to Iran and the provision of funds to the contra rebels. The incident damaged the reputation and legacy of President Reagan.

Ashcan art

This school of art evolved during the early years of the twentieth century in New York City and was the first important American art movement of the twentieth century. Departing from the staid portraiture and genteel landscapes of the nineteenth century, these artists focused on urban scenes, particularly those exposing the shabbier aspects of city life. Their intent, however, was not muckraking social commentary but the portrayal of urban vitality. Reviled by critics as the "apostles of ugliness," they are also described by this term.

Reconstruction Acts

This series of acts was passed by Congress over the veto of President Johnson in 1867. This legislation established the guidelines for Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. The South was divided into five military districts, each governed by a general. It required southern states to guarantee black suffrage, and it disfranchised many former Confederates. Southern states were required to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of their readmission to the Union.

Social Gospel

This social reform movement combined the social welfare agenda of the Progressive Era with Christian charity. Founded by Washington Gladden, a Congregationalist minister in Ohio, the movement rejected the older idea that the poor were responsible for their poverty. Among its social aims were an end to child labor, a weekly day off, a living wage, improved working conditions for women, and religious and moral education for the poor.

Pullman Strike

This strike began in 1894 when workers walked out on a Chicago manufacturer of passenger railway cars. The American Railway Union, headed by Eugene V. Debs, was in sympathy with the striking workers, and led 125,000 workers in a nationwide boycott. Interference with the delivery of the U.S. mail gave the federal government cause to enter the dispute. President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops, who opened fire on a crowd of strikers, killing some 30 people. The federal courts then granted an injunction against the strike and the activities of the leaders of the American Railway Union. Debs went to jail for violating the injunction, and the American Railway Union called off the failed boycott two month later.

Homestead Strike

This strike started on June 29, 1892 when the entire workforce of the Carnegie steel manufacturing plant stopped working. Fearful of losing their jobs and angry over pay cuts, they seized the steel plant. Management hired Pinkerton detectives and later gained the assistance of the state militia to put down the strike. Within days many were dead or injured. Within weeks, the strike was broken, and the union demolished. In many ways, the union's debacle at Homestead revealed the limited ability of organized labor to improve the conditions for America's workers during the Industrial Revolution.

Federalists

This term applied to those who advocated ratification of the Constitution; they were centralizing nationalists who were convinced that America's survival required the new, stronger government outlined in the Constitution.

Gilded Age

This term applies to the period in American history from 1865 to 1900. The period includes depictions of weak and forgettable presidents, corrupt politicians, and corporate magnates, or "robber barons." The name itself indicates a time in which greed and corruption ran rampant, while displays of respectability, generosity, and reform provided a distracting overlay to that decadence. In fact, Mark Twain's first novel lent its name to the era.

New Lights

This term applies to those who embraced the revivals that spread through the colonies during the Great Awakening as opposd who supported more traditional services and congregations.

Great Society

This term describes President Johnson's ambitious, multifaceted program of social and economic reforms designed to promote social equality and economic fairness for all Americans. His central goal was bold: he declared "unconditional war on poverty" and committed himself to eliminating poverty as it then existed. These programs expanded the role of the federal government in the nation's domestic policies. Whereas Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was a response to the deepest economic crisis in U.S. history, President Johnson planned to extend the affluence that the country was enjoying in the 1960s to those citizens who traditionally had been left behind. The president's antipoverty initiative included significant programs such as Head Start, Medicare, Medicaid.

Kitchen Debate

This term describes a series of impromptu exchanges (through interpreters) between then U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the opening of the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. For the exhibition, an entire house was built that the American exhibitors claimed anyone in America could afford. It was filled with labor-saving and recreational devices meant to represent the fruits of the capitalist American consumer market. Nixon and Khrushchev debated the merits of their respective countries at this location.

federal system

This term describes a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units (like states or provinces). The Constitution embodies this principle, as opposed to the confederation established under the Articles.

"Missile Gap"

This term describes the alleged strategic superiority of the Soviet Union, created by the Soviet development of intercontinental missiles and rockets in the late 1950s and the launching of Sputnik in October 1957. President Eisenhower tried to downscale the meaning and implication of the Soviet success, but the public reacted with fear. Furthermore, the issue became partisan, with the Democrats seizing upon it as a subject with which they could attack the president and campaign for the election of 1960.

Bleeding Kansas

This term describes the civil disorders that occurred in Kansas after the U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. The act allowed the residents of the territory of Kansas to vote on whether slavery would be allowed (popular sovereignty). Both proslavery and antislavery factions promoted the emigration of settlers to Kansas in an attempt to swing the territory's balance of political power to slaveholders or nonslaveholders. There were even rival state legislatures and state constitutions. A steady stream of killings, robberies, and other forms of violence between the two factions continued right up to the outbreak of the Civil War.

Great Awakening

This term describes the widespread evangelical revival movement of the 1740s and 1750s. Sparked by the tour of the English evangelical minister George Whitefield, revival divided congregations and weakened the authority of established churches in the colonies.

D-Day

This term designates June 6, 1944, the day Allied troops launched Operation Overlord and crossed the English Channel and opened a second front in Western Europe. The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in world history, with nearly 200,000 troops and 5,000 ships involved. The landings took place along a 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the Normandy coast . The success of this invasion led to the liberation of France in late August 1944 and to the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945.

Sand Creek Massacre

This term refers to the 1865 massacre of more than 200 Cheyenne Indians, many of them women and children. The attack was led by U.S. Army Colonel John M. Chivington, who ordered his troops to slaughter every Indian in the village and to accept no prisoners. Chivington's order was even more diabolical as the Indians had previously surrendered to the U.S. government and were ostensibly under U.S. protection at the time. The massacre compelled the Cheyenne to break off peace talks with the Americans and led to a vicious war during 1867-1869.

Hundred Days

This term refers to the early part of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, when he initiated legislation to relieve economic pressures during the Great Depression. In this time, Roosevelt called Congress into a special session and he proposed more legislative programs than any previous president had done in a comparable time period. The New Deal significantly reoriented America's understanding of the responsibility of the national government for social welfare. This period remains an example of unparalleled exercise of presidential powers in a time of peace and has served as inspiration for later presidents.

Bill of Rights

This term refers to the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. James Madison, considered the "father of the Constitution," guided the amendments through the new Congress. The amendments were ratified by the requisite number of states on December 15, 1791 and went into effect on March 1, 1792. The amendments protect individual liberties and states' rights against the power of the national government.

hippies

This term was applied to young people in the 1960s who chose to drop out and alienate themselves from mainstream culture in America. They generally retreated to communes, drugs, and mystic religions--forming what was known as the "counterculture." They rejected materialism, political activism, and conventional authority and behavior. Depending on whom you talked to at the time, young people in the 1960s were seen as passionate idealists seeking to establish a more equitable and loving world, as dangerous radicals fomenting revolution, or as bizarre nonconformists refusing to live by society's rules

scalawags

This term was given to southern whites--mainly small landowning farmers and well-off merchants and planters--who supported northern policies of reconstruction and cooperated with the congressionally imposed Reconstruction governments set up under the Reconstruction Acts for diverse reasons.

Coxey's Army

This term was given to supporters of Jacob Coxey. Coxey vividly dramatized the plight of the unemployed in the United States by leading a march on Washington to demand relief during the depression of the mid-1890s. His march may well have contributed to the groundswell of support for the Populist Party that enabled it to elect six senators and seven congressmen in 1894.

Atlanta Compromise

This term was used by cirtics to refer to a speech given by black leader Booker T. Washington in 1895. He urged blacks to concentrate on learning useful skills. He viewed black self-help and self-improvement, not agitation over segregation, disfranchisement, and racial discrimination, as the surest way to social and economic advancement for blacks.

Oregon Trail

This trail played a significant role in the westward expansion of the United States in the 19th century. The trail, which extended from Independence, Missouri, to the Columbia River and the Oregon Territory, originated with fur traders but soon became a main route for settlers migrating west. The 2,000-mile route usually took settlers about six months to complete by wagon train. All told, in the mid-19th century, more than a half million settlers used the trail in search of farmland or gold and helped settle the West. The heyday of the trail rail finally came to an end in 1869, with the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

This treaty ended the Mexican-American War. Mexico had suffered badly in the war and was compelled to relinquish vast amounts of land as well as abandoning all claims on Texas. In exchange, the United States paid Mexico $15 million. In the United States, the additional territory secured by the treaty reunited the fires of sectional controversy by raising questions regarding the expansion of slavery.

Burlingame Treaty

This treaty with China was ratified in 1868. It encouraged Chinese immigration to the United States at a time when cheap labor was in demand for U.S. railroad construction. It doubled the annual influx of Chinese immigrants between 1868 and 1882. The treaty was reversed in 1882 by the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Sit-Down Strikes

This type of strike by General Motors workers in Flint, Michigan energized the new CIO and labor union movement during the Roosevelt administration. GM was the largest and most profitable U.S. corporation, the very epitome of twentieth-century corporate power. From December 29, 1936, until February 11, 1937, GM workers occupied several key GM plants. The strike was widely supported and skillfully publicized. The auto workers' stunning victory came to symbolize CIO solidarity and militancy, galvanizing not only auto workers but all labor.

Schecter v United States

This unanimous Supreme Court decision declared the National Industrial Recovery Act, a main component of President Roosevelt's New Deal, was unconstitutional. Speaking to aides of Roosevelt, Justice Louis Brandeis remarked that, "This is the end of this business of centralization, and I want you to go back and tell the president that we're not going to let this government centralize everything."

Schenck v United States

This unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, upheld the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917. The plaintiff had mailed revolutionary pamphlets to potential draftees during World War I urging them to resist the draft. Acknowledging that this act would be protected in ordinary times and places, Holmes argued that the limits of free speech were exceeded in this case, when a "clear and present danger" was apparent.

My Lai Massacre

This village in Vietnam was the site of the most notorious U.S. military atrocity of the War. American soldiers massacred between 300-450 unarmed Vietnamese villagers (including women and children) at the village. Equally infamous was the cover-up of the incident perpetrated by the brigade and division staffs. The incident raised further questions about the morality of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Boston Massacre

This violent confrontation between British troops and a Boston mob occurred on March 5, 1770. Five citizens were killed when the troops fired on the crowd that had been harassing them. The incident inflamed anti-British sentiment in the colony.

Korean War

This war began when North Korean communists—supported with Soviet supplies--invaded South Korea in June 1950. The United Nations condemned the attack and U.S. troops and appointed Gen. Douglas MacArthur to lead them and multinational troops in defending South Korea. Heavy fighting continued for about a year, when the Chinese joined the North Korean side. Battle lines once again took shape around the 38th parallel, where they stagnated as truce talks began in July 1951. It took two years to hammer out an armistice to end the war in July 1953, during which fighting erupted periodically.

Emancipation Proclamation

This war measure was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862 to take effect on January 1, 1863. It freed the slaves in all areas rebelling against the Union at that point. Slaves in areas still within the control of the Confederacy were obviously not affected by this order, nor were slaves residing in the border states that had remained loyal to the Union. Despite the limited practical impact, however, it had an enormous psychological impact, elevating the abolition of slavery to one of the North's stated war aims and leading the way for the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment after the war ended in Union victory in 1865.

Compromise of 1850

This was Congress's attempt to settle several outstanding issues involving slavery. It banned the slave trade in Washington, D.C.; admitted California as a free state; applied popular sovereignty to the remaining Mexican Cession territory; and passed a more stringent Fugitive Slave Act. Although many other men played important roles in hammering out the compromise, this controversy is remembered as the last crisis in which the three congressional titans of the day—Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun—all played a part.

Waving the Bloody Shirt

This was a campaign tactic used by post-Civil War Republicans to remind northern voters that the Confederates were Democrats. The device was used to divert attention away from the competence of candidates and from serious issues. It was also used to appeal to black voters in the South.

Ostend Manifesto

This was a confidential dispatch sent in 1854 to the U.S. State Department from U.S. ambassadors in Europe. It suggested that if Spain refused to sell Cuba to the United States, the United States would be justified in seizing the island. Northerners claimed it was a plot to expand slavery and the proposal was disavowed.

Freedman's Bureau

This was a federal agency set up to aid former slaves after the Civil War. It provided them food, clothing, and other necessities as well as helping them find work and set up schools. Initiated by President Lincoln in 1865, Congress extended the bill by overriding President Johnson's veto of a renewal bill in 1866.

realism

This was a literary genre that emerged in the late nineteenth century. It was the product of industrialism, Darwinian evolution, and scientific empiricism. Novelists undertook the examination of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation.

Panic of 1837

This was a nationwide, financial depression that gripped the country between 1837 and 1843. The United States had experienced unprecedented growth during the early part of the 19th century, but speculation had soared as investors financed new ventures. In an effort to slow down excessive financial speculation, President Andrew Jackson issued the Specie Circular. As a result, many banks halted gold payments to the public, which caused a panic and a general loss of confidence in the banking system.

progressive movement

This was a period of widespread political reform that lasted from the 1890s through the first two decades of the 20th century. The movement actually comprised a number of efforts on the local, state, and national levels, and included both Democrats and Republicans who championed such causes as tax reform, woman suffrage, political reform, industrial regulation, the minimum wage, the eight-hour work day, and workers' compensation. The reform-minded enthusiasm of this era came to an end as the United States entered World War I in 1917, and energies were redirected into the war effort.

King Cotton

This was a phrase used mainly by Southern politicians and authors who wanted to illustrate the importance of the cotton crop to the southern economy. By the time of the Civil War, cotton accounted for almost 60% of American exports, representing a total value of nearly $300 million a year. Southern plantations generated three-fourths of the world's cotton supply. However, the attempt to use this trade as a diplomatic weapon to force Europe's hand in the American Civil War failed.

blacklists

This was a tactic used by management to circulate names of troublesome workers-often labor organizers-to prevent or deny their future employment. These lists were used to discorage labor challenges to management.

yellow-dog contracts

This was a type of labor contract stating that an employee would not join a labor union; many employers forced employees to sign such contracts as a condition of employment.

The Alamo

This was an 18th-century Spanish colonial mission located in San Antonio, Texas. It was the site of one of the most dramatic battles of the Texas Revolution, which involved Texans fighting for independence from Mexico. All 187 Texan defenders, including Bowie and Crockett, were killed by Mexican General Santa Anna's army; but estimates put the number of Mexican Army casualties at anywhere from 600 to 2,000. The fall of this mission became a rallying cry for those fighting to secure Texas' independence and the 13-day siege quickly became enshrined in the public's mind as one of America's most heroic moments.

Teller Amendment

This was an amendment to a joint resolution of the United States Congress, enacted on April 19, 1898, in reply to President William McKinley's War Message. It placed a condition of the United States participation in the Spanish American War. According to the clause, the U.S. could not annex Cuba but only leave "control of the island to its people."

Shay's Rebellion

This was an armed rebellion of western Massachusetts farmers to prevent state courts from foreclosing on debtors unable to pay their taxes in1786-7. Fears generated by this rebellion helped to convince states to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in 1787.

island hopping

This was the American strategy in the Pacific during World War II. It involved a leapfrogging movement of American forces from one strategic island to the next until American forces were in control of the Pacific and prepared to invade Japan.

Vietnamization

This was the Richard M. Nixon administration strategy to pursue "peace with honor" in Vietnam. After the TET offensive, Nixon planned to "expand, equip, and train South Vietnam's forces and assign to them an ever-increasing combat role, at the same time steadily reducing the number of U.S. combat troops." He began to withdraw American troops in his first year as president.

Pearl Harbor

This was the U.S. naval base in Hawaii that was attacked by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. It was the worst naval disaster in U.S. history, with more than 2,000 casualties, dozens of aircraft destroyed, and 16 ships damaged or destroyed. While Americans had previously been divided over whether to enter World War II or maintain a policy of isolationism, Japan's surprise attack effectively ended the debate. On December 8, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appeared before Congress, where he called December 7 "a date which will live in infamy" and asked for a declaration of war against Japan.

Manifest Destiny

This was the belief of nineteenth-century Americans that their nation's territorial expansion was inevitable and ultimately a good thing, even for those being conquered. Some proponents of the idea even suggested that the country should absorb Canada, Mexico, and the nations of Central America and the Caribbean. This conviction helped Americans justify the aggressive acquisition of new territories in the 1840s.

Manhattan Project

This was the code name for the American effort to develop the atomic bomb. Under the auspices of Gen. Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army, the project involved roughly 125,000 people and cost more than $2 billion, yet it remained top secret throughout the course of World War II. The project culminated in the detonation of the first atomic weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico (16 July 1945).

Comstock Lode

This was the first major U.S. deposit of silver ore, discovered under what is now Virginia City, Nevada. After the discovery was made public in 1859, prospectors rushed to the area to stake their claims. Excavations yielded about $400 million in silver and gold.

Railway Strike of 1877

This was the first rail strike and general labor strike in U.S. history. In response to wage cuts, railroad workers went on strike in West Virginia in 1877. The strikers blocked freight trains from moving and threatened to continue until pay cuts were reversed. The strikes spread wherever there were railroads and in many areas, evolved into a general labor strike. After over a month of constant rioting and bloodshed, President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal troops to end the strikes. The strike led to increased regulation of the railroad industry and better organization of the labor movement.

Hudson River School

This was the first real landscape painting movement in the United States. It was a uniquely American movement that hoped to separate American artists and painting styles from those in Europe. From the 1830s-1860s, the movement celebrated the wildness of the American frontier and led the way toward a more realistic portrayal of nature. The founder and most influential artist was Thomas Cole. He sensed both the power and fragility of nature before man. After the Civil War, the movement went into decline. By the 1870s, it was considered old fashioned and provincial by artists and critics. It is now regarded as an artistic movement that reflects the optimism and sensibilities of its time.

Jamestown

This was the first successful English colony in the Americas--settled in 1607. However, it faced great hardships due to disease and interference from surrounding Indian tribes.

Knights of Labor

This was the largest and most powerful labor union in America during the last half of the 19th century. It represented all workers—men and women, white and black, citizen and immigrant, and skilled and unskilled—in all industries. It was founded by Uriah Stephens, and under the leaderhsip of Terence Powderly, the union reached its peak strength of 750,000 members. The union's image was hurt when union members were blamed for the violence at Chicago's Haymarket Square riot in May 1886.

Rough Riders

This was the name given to The First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, formed in 1898 on the eve of the Spanish-American War by Assistant Secretary to the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt recruited 1,250 cowboys, Native Americans, Eastern aristocrats, and Ivy League athletes, among others. On June 30, Roosevelt was promoted to the rank of colonel and the following day, led the charge on Kettle Hill to help drive the Spanish from their fortifications on San Juan Hill. On September 16, 1898, the men were shipped home after 137 days of service. In the end, one out of three Rough Riders was either killed, wounded, or afflicted by disease, the highest casualty rate among troops who served in the Spanish-American War.

Brain Trust

This was the name given to a diverse group of academics who served as advisers to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. These men played a key role in shaping the New Deal. Although this group represented a variety of ideologies, they shared a basic, somewhat self-justifying belief that organized intelligence could restore the political, economic, and social health of society.

William Levitt; Levittown

This was the name given to three suburban developments constructed in the post-World War II decades by the most important private builder of this period. Using mass production techniques, this builder turned home building from a cottage industry into a major manufacturing process, and his low-cost, mass-production methods were copied by builders nationwide. These subdivisions had planted trees on each plot, community pools, parks, and playgrounds. In the post-war economy, thousands of middle-class families bought in quickly and eagerly. Some observers criticized the monotonous uniformity of the these subdivisions, charging that they promoted listless personalities, conformity, and escapism.

American Expeditionary Force

This was the name of the American army sent to France to fight in World War I. Beginning in June 1917, under Gen. John J. Pershing, 2 million American men traveled to France to support the Allied troops on the western front. Under the direct and independent command of Pershing throughout the war, the American Army played a vital role in Allied victory. The American Army remained in France until November 1918, and by the end of the war had lost nearly 120,000 men.

Red Scare

This was the period of popular fear of a communist or socialist uprising in the United States in 1919. Following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and World War I, there was a fierce swing in public opinion against foreigners, trades unionists and the political parties of the left. Industrial strikes were violently suppressed and Congress and state legislatures passed laws banning many socialist and syndicalist organizations.

Tammany Hall

This was the popular name for the Democratic Party political machine that dominated much of New York City's political life until 1933. Under the leadership of corrupt political manipulators like "Boss" Tweed and Richard Croker, it evolved into a powerful political machine after 1860 and used patronage and bribes to control the city administration for decades.

Yalta

This was the site of a wartime conference in February 1945, where U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met. The Allies agreed to final plans for the defeat of Germany and its subsequent division into zones of occupation. The Soviets agreed to allow free elections in Poland, but the elections were never held. The Soviet Union promised to enter the war against Japan three months after the war with Germany ended.

doughboys

This was the slang term for a United States Army infantryman, best known from its use in World War I, although it dates back to the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. The origin of the term is unclear. The most often cited explanation is that it arose during the Mexican-American War, after observers noticed U.S. infantry forces were constantly covered with chalky dust from marching through the dry terrain of northern Mexico, giving the men the appearance of unbaked dough. The AEF frequently referred to themselves by the name, and the term was widely used in contemporary media, both in the United States and in Europe.

popular sovereignty

This was the term applied to the principle of allowing the people of a territory to decide for themselves whether to ban or to permit slavery in their territory. The idea originated with Michigan Senator Lewis Cass in 1848. He urged it as a solution to the question of slavery in the territories. It called for Congress to organize territories without mention of slavery, thus leaving it to settlers within the territories to determine the status of slavery among them. Later, Senator Stephen Douglas also embraced this concept in the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

"New" Immigration

This wave of immigration lasted from 1866-1915 and brought 25 million to the United States, mostly from southern and eastern Europe. "Pushed" out of Europe by economic hardship and political persecution and "pulled" to the United States by the availability of jobs, these immigrants entered the country through gateways like Ellis Island and settled in America's teeming cities to take jobs made available by the Second Industrial Revolution.

Marcus Hanna

This wealthy businessman and political leader was a master political organizer and financier who introduced modern campaign techniques to the American political system. With the help of his financial backing and organizational management skills, William McKinley was elected governor of Ohio in 1891 and reelected in 1893. He then supported McKinley for president in 1896. As chairman of the Republican National Committee, he managed McKinley's "front porch" campaign and raised several million dollars that helped to ensure McKinley's election over Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan.

crop-lien system

To finance the sharecropping system, southerners turned to this system of borrowing and debt. Landowners and sharecroppers borrowed (at high interest rates) against the future harvest. Lenders insisted that they produce cash crops like cotton. The system made landowners and sharecroppers dependent on local merchants, and it prevented the development of diversified farming in the South.

Sons of Liberty

Wealthy merchants John Hancock and Samuel Adams formed this radical patriot organization in Boston in 1765. This group engaged in direct action against British rule, more or less covertly. In 1773, for example, they organized and executed the Boston Tea Party. Throughout the revolutionary period, they continued to fight, eventually disbanding in 1783 with the end of the war.

New Jersey Plan

When James Madison offered the Virginia plan at the Constitutional Convention, calling for proportional representation in Congress, James Paterson responded with this plan, hoping to protect the less populous states. This plan called for equal representation for each state in a unicameral legislature. The controversy was resolved in the Great Compromise.

"missionary diplomacy"

While President Wilson pursued his "New Freedom" for domestic policy, this term describes his approach to foreign policy. To Wilson, nations, like individuals, should adhere to high ethical and moral standards. Democracy, Wilson thought, was the most Christian of governmental systems, suitable for all peoples. The democratic United States thus had a moral mandate for world leadership.

Teapot Dome Scandal

With the possible exception of the Watergate scandal, few political scandals in American history have stirred as much controversy as this scandal that took place during the presidency of Warren Harding. President Harding transferred control of naval oil reserves held at in Wyoming from the Navy to his friend Albert Fall, Secretary of the Interior, who subsequently leased them to oil companies in return for a bribe. Fall was eventually imprisoned in 1929, following a Senate investigation, the first Cabinet minster to be criminally convicted.

New Freedom

Woodrow Wilson advocated this domestic platform in the election of 1912. Wilson called for freedom from raw capitalism, in which so much wealth was concentrated in the hands of so few. He also focused on breaking up monopolies, limiting corporate campaign contributions, and establishing a federal income tax. In the campaign, Wilson denounced Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" as paternalistic; it would sap entrepreneurial initiative and that it was potentially despotic. Untrammeled free enterprise had to remain the basis of American freedom, and that principle became the basis for his campaign platform.

Declaration of Independence

Written by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, this justified the American Revolution by reference to republican theory and to the many injustices of King George III toward the colonies. The indictment of the king provides a remarkably full catalog of the colonists' grievances, and Jefferson's eloquent and inspiring statement of the contract theory of government makes the document one of the world's great state papers.