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1450
The Age of Discovery
an informal and loosely defined European historical period marking the time period in which extensive overseas exploration emerged as a powerful factor in European culture and the beginning of globalization. It also marks the rise of the period of widespread adoption in Europe of colonialism and mercantilism. -
1451
Iroquois Confederacy
an association of six linguistically related tribes in the northeastern woodlands, was a sophisticated society of some 5,500 people when the first white explorers encountered it at the beginning of the seventeenth century. -
1492
Columbian Exchange
Period of cultural and biological exchanges between the New and Old Worlds. Exchanges of plants, animals, diseases and technology transformed European and Native American ways of life. -
1499
Encomienda System
a labor system in Spain and the Spanish Empire. It rewarded conquerors with the labor of particular groups of subject people -
House of Burgesses
It was the first elected assembly of representatives of English colonists in North America. It was established in the Virginia Colony in 1619 by the Virginia Company -
King Phillip's War
the last major effort by the Native Americans of southern New England to drive out the English settlers. With tensions spilling over following the collapse of trade partnerships and aggressive expansion of colonist territories, Pokunoket chief Metacom/King Phillip led a bloody uprising of Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Pocumtuck and Narragansett tribes. -
Bacon's Rebellion
The first rebellion in the American Colonies in which the frontiersmen took part. Also, it hastened the hardening of racial lines dealing with slavery, because this rebellion involved both black and white indentured servants which worried the ruling class. -
Salem Witch Trials
a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging. -
Triangular Trade
Trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that involved shipping goods from Britain to West Africa to be exchanged for slaves, these slaves being shipped to the West Indies and exchanged for sugar, rum, and other commodities, which were in turn shipped back to Britain. -
Proclamation of 1763
document that set out guidelines for European settlement of Aboriginal territories in what is now North America. The Royal Proclamation was initially issued by King George III in 1763 to officially claim British territory in North America after Britain won the Seven Years War. -
Sugar Act
Parliament imposed new regulations and taxes on the colonists to pay for the debt they had after the French and Indian War. The first was the Sugar Act of 1764, whihc established a number of new duties and which also contained provisions aimed at deterring molasses smugglers. -
Boston Tea Party
Incident in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown from ships into Boston Harbor by American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians. -
Intolerable Acts
Harsh laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774. They were meant to punish the American colonists for the Boston Tea Party and other protests. -
Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War, also known as the American War of Independence, was a global war that began as a conflict between Great Britain and her Thirteen Colonies, which declared independence as the United States of America. -
Declaration of Independence
Formal statement written by Thomas Jefferson declaring the freedom of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain. An example of the Declaration of Independence was the document adopted at the Second Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776. -
Battle of Yorktown
It is considered the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army, led by General George Washington, won a decisive victory against the British Army, led by General Lord Charles Cornwallis. He surrendered and the war was over in a few weeks. -
Articles of Confederation
Written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. It established a weak central government that mostly, but not entirely, prevented the individual states from conducting their own foreign diplomacy. -
Treaty of Paris
This treaty ended the Revolutionary War, recognized the independence of the American colonies, and granted the colonies the territory from the southern border of Canada to the northern border of Florida, and from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River -
Shay's Rebellion
Armed uprising in Massachusetts during 1786 and 1787. Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels in an uprising against perceived economic and civil rights injustices. -
Second Great Awakening
In addition to a religious movement, other reform movements such as temperance, abolition, and women's rights also grew in antebellum America. The temperance movement encouraged people to abstain from consuming alcoholic drinks in order to preserve family order. -
Whiskey Rebellion
Formal display of American individuality against an unjust taxation on the purchase of whiskey. The tax was imposed by treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton to fund the national debt and centralize the country's financial problems. -
Bill of Rights
Popular term for the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The amendments secure key rights for individuals and reserve to the states all powers not explicitly delegated or prohibited by the Constitution. -
War of 1812
Great Britain was locked in a long and bitter conflict with Napoleon Bonaparte's France. In an attempt to cut off supplies from reaching the enemy, both sides attempted to block the United States from trading with the other. -
Era of Good Feelings
period in the political history of the United States that reflected a sense of national purpose and a desire for unity among Americans in the aftermath of the War of 1812. -
Missouri Compromise
an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. -
Indian Removal Act
signed into law by President Andrew Jackson authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. -
Nat Turner Rebellion
a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, during August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 people, the largest and deadliest slave uprising in U.S. history. -
Nullification Crisis
political crisis in 1832-33, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, which involved a confrontation between South Carolina and the federal government. It ensued after South Carolina declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of the state. -
Annexation of Texas
was the 1845 incorporation of the Republic of Texas into the United States of America, which was admitted to the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. The Republic of Texas declared independence from the Republic of Mexico on March 2, 1836. -
Compromise of 1850
This was an attempt to seek a compromise and advert a crisis between North and South. Four part compromise that instated the Fugitive Slave Act, banned slave trade in DC, admitted California as a free state and instated popular sovereignty in Utah and Mexico. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
Civil War
result of a long-standing controversy over slavery, war broke out in April 1861, when Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, shortly after President Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated. The nationalists of the Union proclaimed loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States of America, who advocated for states' rights to expand slavery. -
Emancipation Proclamation
granted freedom to the slaves in the Confederate States if the States did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863. In addition, under this proclamation, freedom would only come to the slaves if the Union won the war. -
Reconstruction Era
implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union, and defining the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society. -
Gettysburg Address
a speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the November 19, 1863, dedication of Soldier's National Cemetery, a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle Of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. -
Transcontinental Railroad
1,776 miles long and served for the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States to be connected by rail for the first time in history. -
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
an active temperance organization that was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity."It was influential in the temperance movement, and supported the 18th Amendment. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. -
Wounded Knee Massacre
The battle between U.S. military troops and Lakota Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota on December 29, 1890, resulted in the deaths of perhaps 300 Sioux men, women, and children. The massacre at Wounded Knee was the last major battle of the Indian Wars of the late 19th century. -
Homestead Strike
Homestead Strike, also called Homestead riot, violent labour dispute between the Carnegie Steel Company and many of its workers that occurred on July 6, 1892, in Homestead, Pennsylvania. A gun battle resulted in which a number of Pinkerton agents and strikers were killed and many were injured. -
Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States on May 11, 1894. It was a turning point for US labor law. -
Atlanta Compromise
The Atlanta compromise was an agreement struck in 1895 between Booker T. Washington, president of the Tuskegee Institute, other African-American leaders, and Southern white leaders. It was first supported, and later opposed by W. E. B. DuBois -
Plessy v. Fergusson
Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". -
Teddy Roosevelt Elected
succeeded to the presidency upon the assassination of William McKinley in September 1901 -
Model T Invented
Ford's Model T was successful not only because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale, but also because the car signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of America's age of modernization. -
The Great Depression
severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s -
Dust Bowl
period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion caused it -
Social Security Act Enacted
Social Security Act established a system of old-age benefits for workers, benefits for victims of industrial accidents, unemployment insurance, aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind, and the physically handicapped. -
D-Day
The day of the Normandy landings during WWII initiating the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi Germany. -
China Falls to Communism
They followed the example of the soviet model of development through heavy industry with surpluses extracted from peasants. This results in a plan called "Containment" to be created in an attempt to prevent the spread of communism to other countries which may potentially change the way Americans in the U.S. live their lives if they're not successful. -
NSC-68 is issued to President Truman
The USA's nuclear monopoly ended as the USSR tested its own atomic bomb in September 1949.NSC-68 was a 58-page top secret policy paper by the United States National Security Council presented to President Harry S. Truman on April 14, 1950. It was one of the most important statements of American policy that launched the Cold War. -
Brown V. Board of Education Decision
This ruling overturned the Plessy v. Fergusson decision. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown V. Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. This is important because the phrase "Separate but equal" is no longer okay. -
Federal Troops Were Sent To Protect The Little Rock 9.
In 1957, a famous battle over desegregation of the public school system occurred in Little Rock, Arkansas. Arkansas governor Orval Faubus sent state troops to block them from entering Central High School. However President Eisenhower sent is federal troops to enforce the Supreme Court's decision. This event is important because it show how the president has the power to enforce federal decisions. -
Freedom Rides
People boarded busses in the south and protested against practices of segregation on public transportation. This is important because it shows a way that people are trying to change the way that they are being treated, because they are tired of being treated like animals rather than humans -
Environmental Movement Book "Silent Spring"
Rachel Carson wrote a book called "Silent Spring". This work of literature brought attention to human pollution and harm to the environment. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The world was on the brink of war for 13 days. Both sides were ready to fire their missiles. This resulted in a "Red phone" installed to connect Washington D.C and Moscow so the world leaders could have immediate contact in the event of emergency. -
MLK's "I Have a Dream Speech"
He delivered this speech on the steps of the memorial. The basic message he was trying to convince people to believe in "Freedom For All", This is is important because John F. Kennedy gave SCLC permission to organize Civil Rights protest in D.C. No president before him supported Civil Rights. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Lyndon B. Johnson had two reasons for supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the death of JFK and response to the March on Washington. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ensured equality for all African Americans by racial integration in schools, out lawing racial discrimination in job sectors, prohibited unequal application of voting requirements. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
It was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin incident.It gave President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly unlimited powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia. -
SALT I Adopted
SALT 1 was an agreement between the U.S and the Soviet Union to restrain the arms race in strategic (long-range or intercontinental) ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons. If this was not put into place things would've been scary for both countries. -
Watergate Scandal
The Watergate scandal reverted the changes that were made after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Richard Nixon was attempting to be reelected but he was afraid he that he wasn’t going to win so he tried to get his campaign workers to steal the Democrats’ “Game plan” in the DNC Headquarters. But unfortunately they got caught breaking into the Watergate complex. -
War Powers Act
Shortly after the weakening of the executive branch caused by the Watergate scandal over President Nixon's veto, the War Powers Resolution was an attempt by Congress to rein in the power of the executive in times of war and retain their power to declare war. This is important because this gets rid of the power given to the president after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. -
Ratification of SALT II
Salt II was impeded because the U.S.S.R invaded Afghanistan. The U.S thought the Soviets' intentions for the invasions was to take control of all transportation. The U.S responded by stopping the supply of grain in the U.S.S.R and withdrew SALT II, and didn't participate in the Olympics held in Moscow.
