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Japan Signed First Trade Agreement With US
In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay with a bunch of warships and tried to open up trade with Japan, who was very isolationist at this time.
With a combination of the threat of the gunboats in the harbor, and the showering of gifts to the Emperor, the Japanese finally signed a trade agreement with America. -
The Transcontinental Railroad
In 1862, Congress gave charters to two companies to build these tracks. The Central Pacific was to push eastward from Sacramento, over the Sierra Nevada mountains. The Union Pacific was to start from Omaha Nebraska. cross the great plains and cut through the Rockies -
13th Amendments
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States ot any place subject to their jurisdiction. -
Reconstruction Acts of 1867
Command of the Army Act
-The President must issue all Reconstruction orders through the commander of the military.
Tenure of Office Act
-The Presidnt could not remove any officials without the Senate's consent, if the position originally required Senate approval. -
Alaska became US territory
Secretary of State William Seward bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867. It became a state on January 3rd, 1959 -
14th Amendment
Provide a constitutional guarantee of the rights and security of freed people. -
15th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. -
Election of 1876
Neither candidate, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes or Democrat Samuel Tilden, had enough electoral votes to win the election. -
Battle of Little Bighorn 1876
Gold found in the Sioux Black Hills. Custer sent to round up Indians and the Sioux leader Sitting Bull refised to move and gathered Sioux and Cheyenne warriors at Little Bighorn River where they were joined by another chief Crazy horse and his followers. -
Jim Crow Laws
Laws passed by southerners to segregate public place, such as schools, restaurants, threaters, trains, hospitals, water fountains, and cemeteries. -
Statue of Liberty
- Frederic Auguste Bartholdi -The Statue of Liberty is a figure of a robed woman representing Libertas, a Roman goddess. She holds a torch above her head with her right hand, and in her left hand carries a tabula ansata inscribed in Roman numerals with "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776), the date of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The statue became an icon of freedom and of the United States, and was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.
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Compromise of 1877
-Hayes gets Southern states to help him get elected.
-He withdraws federal troops (abandons southern blacks politically&economically)
- The end of Reconstruction -
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
-The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 effectively ends Chinese immigration. -
The Dawes Act of 1887
The law aimed to give Native Americans privates individual ownership of land,eliminate their nomadic lifestyle, and encourage them to become farmers. -
Ellis Island
Federal Goverment establishes Bureau of Immigration & selects Ellis Island as site of new immigration station for port of New York. -
The Spanish- American War Started
- Congress declared war on Spain
- Spain was accused of destroying the Maine, even though it hadn't been proved.
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Progressive Era
-The beginning of the Progressive Era, was dominated by big business, political corruption, and extremes of wealth and poverty.
- During the Gilded Age, the United States changed from a predominantly rural agrarian nation to an urban industrial one. -
The End of the Spanish-American War
On March 2, 1901, the Platt Amendment was passed as part of the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill. It stipulated seven conditions for the withdrawal of United States troops remaining in Cuba at the end of the Spanish–American War, and an eighth condition that Cuba sign a treaty accepting these seven conditions. -
The Brooklyn Bridge
-The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest bridges in the United States. Started in 1869 and completed fourteen years later in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River.
- John A. Roebling -
17th Amendment
- Direct election of senators
- Congress passed the 17th Amendment in 1913 and eough states ratified it to add it to the Consititution.
- This amendment took a lot of power away from the states, which some people would say was not a good thing.
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First State Grant Women Voting
Illinois became the first state east of Mississippi to grant women the vote -
The Federal Reserve Board
The Federal Reserve Board was created by Congress in response to the Banking Crisis of 1907 and it was supposed to serve as a protective system of the nation's economy, also it had the power to set the interest rate for loans issued by banks. -
World War I started
The trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. -
America Joined the WWI
1.The Germans responded to American outrage by promising to end the “sink on sight” policy. But they started it up again in 1917.
2.In 1917, Germany announced “unlimited submarine warfare” in the war zone.
3. Zimmerman Note -
Espionage Act
-forbade actions that obstructed recruitment or
efforts to promote insubordination in the military.
-ordered the Postmaster General to remove Leftist materials
from the mail.
- fines of up to $10,000 and/or up to 20 years in prison. -
1918 Suffrage Amendment Almost Passed
In 1918, in the midst of the war, the House of Representatives passed the federal suffrage amendment, but the Senate voted it down.

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Sedition Act
it was a crime to speak against the purchase of war bonds or willfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or
abusive language about this form of US Govt., the US Constitution, or the US armed forces or to willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of production of things necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war...with intent of such curtailment to cripple or hinder, the US in the prosecution of the war. -
World War Ended
After a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. On 4 November 1918, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to an armistice, and Germany, which had its own trouble with revolutionaries, agreed to an armistice on 11 November 1918, ending the war in victory for the Allies. -
18th Amendment
After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited. -
19th Amendment
Ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote—a right known as woman suffrage. At the time the U.S. was founded, its female citizens did not share all of the same rights as men, including the right to vote. -
Scopes Trial
In March 1925, Tennessee passed the nation’s first law that made it a crime to teach evolution.The ACLU promised to defend any teacher willing to challenge the law – John Scopes did.
Trial opened on July 10, 1925 and became a national sensation -
First Sounds Movies--Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. As the first feature-length motion picture with not only a synchronized recorded music score, but also lip-synchronous singing and speech in several isolated sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of sound films and the decline of the silent film era. -
"Black Tuesday"--the stock market crash
On Oct. 29, 1929, the Stock Market crashed, over 16 million shares sold in massive selling frenzy and losses $26 billion total. actually, the "crash" was by means a one-day event. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 was only a symptom,not the cause of the Great Depression. -
Smoot-Hawley Tariff
The most protectionist legislation in history, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 raised tariffs on U.S. imports up to 50%. the Smoot- Hawley Tariff was the greatest mistake of the Hoover administration. -
The Revenue Act of 1932
President Hoover with the support of a Democratic House of Representatives, passes the largest peacetime tax increase in history. Income taxes were raised from 1% to 4% at low end and from 23% to 63% at the top of the scale. -
The Election of 1932
Since Americans were blaming President Hoover for the country's economic woes, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the Democratic Party's Nomination, and he promised relief for the poor an more public works programs to provide jobs. -
21st Amendment
Although the Constitution has been formally amended 27 times, the Twenty-First Amendment (ratified in 1933) is the only one that repeals a previous amendment, namely, the Eighteenth Amendment (ratified in 1919), which prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” -
World War II started in Europe
Germany invades Poland on September 1,1939. (World War Two in Europe began on 3rd September 1939, when the Prime Minister of Britain, Neville Chamberlain, declared war on Germany. It involved many of the world's countries. The Second World War was started by Germany in an unprovoked attack on Poland.) -
Pearl Harbor
Japanese attack on US Navy at Pearl Harbour bring the USA into the war against Japan and Germanys -
War is Declared--USA
The United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. Roosevelt had been elected American President on his promises to avoid war at all costs, but Pearl Harbor was a really good reason for him to pull the USA into the war. -
D-Day JUNE 6,1944
D-Day was the largest land-sea-air operation in military history, Despite air support, German retaliation was brutal, within a month, the Allies had landed 1 million troops, 567,000 tons of supplies and 170,000 vehicles. -
Cold War
The Cold War was one of perception where neither side fully understood the intentions and ambitions of the other. -
V-E DAY
General Eisenhower accepted the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich, On May 8, 1945, the Allies celebrated V-E Day--victory in Europe day. -
Fall of China--1949
In June, Chang Kai-Shek defeated by Mao Zedong. Oct 1, Mao proclaims People's Republic of China. Two months later, Mao travel to Moscow -
The National Liberation Front
The Communists supported the creation of a broad-base united front to helo mobilized southerners in opposition to the government in South Vietnam.On December 20, 1960, the National Liberation Front was born. It brought together Communists and non-Communsts in an umbrella organization that had limited, but important goals. -
December 1961 White Paper
In 1961, President Kennedy sent a team to Vietnam to report on conditions in the South and to assess future American aid requirements. "White Paper" argued for, an increase in military, technical, and economic aid. -
Berlin Wall
On August 15, communist authorities begin construction on the Berlin Wall to prevent East Germans from fleeing to West Berlin -
The Kennedy Assassination
After the Cuban Missile Crisis, 62% of Americans were unhappy with Kennedy's policies on Cuba prior, On Novermber 22, 1963, JFK was in Dallas trying to get support for next year's election, Lee Harvey Oswald shoot him on his head from a school Book Depositroy 6th floor. -
U.S. Lands On The Moon
On July 20,1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to reach the moon. -
The Vietnam War Ended
On the morning of April 30, Communist forces captured the presidential palace in Saigon, ending the Vietnam War
