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Pueblo Revolt
Pueblo's revolt, also known as Pope's Rebellion in 1680, was an uprising of 46 Native American Pueblos against Spanish rule Spaniards were driven out of New Mexico when they returned in the 1690s. They granted more autonomy to the Pueblos they claimed to rule. 400 Spaniards were killed and the remaining fled south. New Mexico was in Pueblo hands under the leadership of Diego de Vargas the Spanish return in captured Santa Fe in 1693 -
Enlightenment
the enlightenment was in 18th century philosophical movement that emphasized the use of reason to reevaluate previously accepted doctrines and traditions and the power of reason to understand and shape the world. Christians believed that the earth stood at the center of the universe and God intervened directly in human affairs the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries challenged these ideas and educated people Most of them Christians began to modify their views accordingly. -
glorious revolution
A quick and nearly bloodless cube in 1688 in which members of parliament invented William of Orange to overthrow James II with politicians forced the new King William and Queen Mary to accept the declaration of rights, creating a constitutional mark monarchy that enhanced the powers of the house of commons Add the expensive the crown. -
Board of Trade
This board was part of the Privy Council, a committee formed by the British Parliament. In 1793 Britain's Privy Council sent orders that any foreign ships caught trading with the French Islands located in the Caribbean be automatically captured and taken away. They deliberately waited to publish these instructions so that American ships would be seized, causing over 250 ships to be captured. -
Slave codes
Slave codes were laws passed by southern enslaved people to keep slaves from either running away or rebelling. These laws forbade slaves to gather in groups of three or more. They couldn't leave their owner's land without a written pass. enslaved people were not allowed to own guns. And unfortunately, could not learn to read or write. They could also not testify in court. -
Dummer's War
Dummer's War was a series of battles in North America with little leadership. The conflict was over land ownership of northern New England. The French were the first to explore Maine, but the English had begun to colonize Maine. The French didn't like this, allied with Abenaki Indians, and began attacks against the English settlers. To protect themselves, the English built a fort called Fort Dummer in 1724. The French and the Abenakis lost, and Old Town was burned. -
Hat Act
The Hat Act is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain enacted in 1732 to control hat production by the Americans in the Thirteen Colonies. It specifically placed limits on manufacturing, selling, and exporting American-made hats. The act also restricted hiring practices by limiting the number of workers hat makers could employ and setting limits on apprenticeships by only allowing two apprentices. -
Stono Rebellion
Slave Uprising in 1739 along the Stono River in South Carolina, a group of enslaved people armed themselves, plundered six plantations and killed more than 20 colonists. Colonists quickly suppress the rebellion. The largest slave uprising in the mainland colonies, South Carolina Stone or Rebellion of 1739, illustrates the impossibility of success. The Catholic governor of Spanish Florida instigated the revolt by promising freedom to fugitive slaves. -
Old lights vs. New lights
The old lights were conservative ministers opposed to the passion displayed by Evangelical new lights creatures. They prefer to emphasize the importance of cultivating a virtuous Christian life. The new lights were Evangelical preachers who decried the Christian faith that was merely intellectual. They emphasized the importance of spiritual rebirth instead. Old lights condemn the crying out, fainting, and convulsions, and the new lights claim to work miracles or speak with tongues. -
Sons of Liberty
Sons of Liberty were colonists, primarily middling merchants and artisans who abandoned together to protest the stamp act and other imperial reforms of the 1760s. The group originated in Boston in 1765 but soon spread to all the colonies. They acted as a sometimes violent group. The Sons of Liberty where it organizing crowd activities in cities and towns throughout the colonies in no time. -
Sugar Act
The sugar act of 1764 was the British law that lowered the duty of French molasses and raised penalties for smuggling. New England merchants opposed the attacks and the provision that they would be tried in a vice-admiralty court. This carefully crafted policy received little support from America. New England merchants among the John Hancock of Boston had made their fortunes smuggling French molasses. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was a British law imposing a tax on all paper used in the colonies. Widespread resistance to the stamp act prevented it from taking effect, leading to its repeal in 1766. The act sparked the first great Imperial crisis. Greenville hoped this stamp act would raise 60,000 euros per year. The act would require a tax stamp on all printed items from college diplomas. Court documents, land titles, and contracts to the newspaper and playing cards. It was ingeniously designed. -
declaratory act
The Declaratory Act of 1766 is a law asserting parliament's right to legislate for its British colonies in all cases. The declaratory act of 1766, which explicitly reaffirmed parliament's full power of authority to make the laws and statutes to bind the colonies and people of America by swiftly ending the stamp act prices rocking him, hoped it would be it forgotten just as quickly. -
Townshend Act
The act of 1767 was a British law that established new duties on tea glass led paper and painter colors imported into the colonies. The Townshend Duties led to boycotts and heightened tensions between Britain and the American colonies. -
Tea Act
The tea act of May 1773 was an act that provided financial relief for the East Indian Company, a chartered private corporation that served as an instrument of British imperialism. The company was deeply in debt and had a massive surplus of tea due to high import duties, which led Britain and colonists to elect to drink smuggled Dutch tea. Instead, the tea act gave the company a government loan and, to boost its revenue canceled the import duties on tea. -
Coercive Acts
Early in 1774, parliament passed four coercive acts to force Massachusetts to pay for the tea act and submit to impartial authority. The Boston Port bill closed Boston Harbor to shipping. The Massachusetts government act annulled the colonies' charter. It prohibited most town meetings, and the new quartering act mandated new barracks for British troops. The justice act allowed trials for capital crimes to be transferred to other colonies or Britain. -
Battle of Long Island
In August 1776, we defeated the Americans in the Battle of Long Island and forced their retreat to Manhattan Island. That's how we outflank Washington's troops and nearly trapped them, outgunned and outmaneuvered the continental army again, and retreated, eventually crossing the Hudson River to New Jersey. By December, the British Army had pushed the Rebels across New Jersey and over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. -
Battle of Saratoga
The battle of Saratoga in 1777 was a multi-stage battle in New York, ending with the surrender of British General John Burgoyne The victory ensured American representatives' diplomatic success in Paris, who won a military alliance with France. The victory at the Battle of Saratoga was the war's turning point. The Patriots captured more than 5,000 British troops and ensured the diplomatic success of American representatives. -
Battle of Yorktown
The Battle of Yorktown 1781 was a battle in which French and American troops and a French fleet trapped the British Army under the command of General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. The Franco-American Victory broke the resolve of the British government and led to peace negotiations. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 signed in Great Britain formally recognized American independence and relinquish its claims to lands south of the Great Lakes and East of the Mississippi River the British negotiators did not insist on separate territory for the Indian allies. -
Northwest Ordinance
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 created the territories that would eventually become the states of Ohio Indiana Illinois and Wisconsin The ordinance prohibited slavery and earmarked funds from land sales for the support of schools It also specified that Congress would appoint a governor and judges to administer each territory until the population reached 5,000 free adult men at which point this is a sense could elect a territorial legislator. -
judiciary act
The judiciary act established a three-tiered system. It created federal district courts in each state and three circuit courts above them to which the decisions of the district courts could be appealed. The Supreme Court would then serve as that appellate court of last resort in the federal system. The judiciary act also specified that cases arising in the state courts that involve federal laws could be appealed to the specific court. -
Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights safeguard fundamental personal rights including freedom of speech and religion and mandate legal procedures such as trial by jury by protecting it individual citizens the amendments eased anti-federalists' fears of an opera recipe national government and secured the legitimacy of the Constitution They also addressed the issue of federalism the proper balance between that authority of the national and state governments. -
proclamation of neutrality
The proclamation of neutrality allowed at US citizens to trade with all belligerents as neutral carrots American merchant ships claim day right to pass through Britain's naval blockade of French ports in American Forbes quickly took over the lucrative sugar trade between France and its West Indian islands commercial earnings grow spectacularly averaging 20 million annually and 1790s twice the value of cotton and tobacco exports. -
Jay's treaty
Jay's treaty was a 1795 treaty between the United States and Britain negotiated by John Jay that treaty accepted Britain's rights to stop neutral ships in required the US government to provide restitution for the pre-revolutionary war that's for British versions and return it allowed Americans to submit claims for illegal seizures and require the British to remove their troops and Indian agents from the Northwest Territory. -
XYZ Affair
The XYZ affair was a 1797 incident in which American negotiators in France were rebuffed for refusing to pay a substantial abide the incident led to the United States into an undeclared war that curtailed American trade with the French West Indies. It resulted in the capture of nearly 200 French and American merchant vessels. -
Louisiana purchase
Louisiana Purchase was the 1803 purchase of French territory at West of the Mississippi River that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and nearly doubled the size of the United States The purchase required President Thomas Jefferson to exercise powers not explicitly granted to him by the constitution. Jefferson pragmatically accepted they lose interpretation of the constitution and used its treaty making power to complete the deal with France. -
embargo act
The Embargo act of 1807 prohibited American ships from leaving their home ports for foreign destinations until Britain and France stopped restricting US trade a drastic maneuver the embargo over estimated their reliance of Britain and France on American shipping and underestimated the residents of merchants who feared the embargo would ruin them and in fact the embargo cut the American gross national product by 5% and weakened the entire economy. -
Battle of Tippecanoe
Battle of Tippecanoe was an attack on the Shawnee Indians and their allies at prophase town on the Tippecanoe River in 1811 by American forces headed by William Henry Harrison Indiana's territorial governor the governor's troops traded heavy casualties with the Confederacy Warriors and then destroyed the Holy Village. -
American colonization society
Henry Clay founded the American Colonization Society in 1817. Its leaders argued for gradual emancipation plans such as the ones adopted in northern states after the revolution. Most believed emancipation should include compensation to masters and that freed people conceived as alien Africans should be deported from the United States. Their society was popular with many white Americans who held moderate anti-slavery views. -
Panic of 1819
The Panic of 1819 was the first major economic crisis of the United States Farmers and Planters faced an abrupt 30% drop in the world agriculture prices and as farmers income declined they could not pay debts owed to stores and banks many of which would bankrupt. The panic gave Americans their first taste of a business cycle the periodic boom and bus inherited rent to a modern market economy. -
Great American Desert
Settlers from the south had carried both small farming and plantations slavery into Arkansas Missouri between their states and the Rocky Mountains stretched great grasslands and army explorer majors Steven H Long thought the planes region almost holy unfit for the cultivation and in 1820 labeled it the Great American Desert The label stuck Americans looking for land turned south to Mexican territory at the same time elite planters struggled to control state governments in the cotton South. -
Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine was the 1823 declaration by President James Monroe that the Western Hemisphere was closed to any further colonization or interference by European powers. In exchange Monroe pledge that the United States would not become involved in European struggles. The United States had successfully asserted its diplomatic leadership in the Western Hemisphere and one international acceptance of its northern and western boundaries. -
tariff of abominations
The new tariff put cost them about 1 million a year. Planters had to buy higher-cost American textiles and iron goods that enriched northeastern businesses and workers or highly taxed British imports that paid the national government's expenses. The new tariff was a little less than a legalized village, and Alabama legislators declared calling it a tariff of abominations ignoring the Jacksonian support for the tariff of 1828, most southerners heaped blame on President Adams. -
spoils system
The spoils system was the widespread award of public jobs to political supporters after an electoral victory in 1829 Andrew Jackson institute of the system on the national level arguing that the rotation of office holders was preferable to a permanent group of bureaucrats. -
Indian Removal Act
The removal act created the Indian Territory on the national lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and located in present-day Oklahoma in Kansas It promised money and reserved land to Native American people's who would give up their ancestral holdings east of the Mississippi River government officials promised the Indians that they could live on their new land They and all their children as long as grass grows in water runs . -
Alamo
hearing central control of the war party provoked a rebellion that most of the Americans settlers ultimately supported On March 2nd 1836 the American Rebels proclaimed to the independence of Texas and adopted a constitution legalizing slavery to put down the rebellion president Santa Anna led an army that wiped out the Texan Garrison defending the Alamo in San Antonio. Newspapers urged Americans to remember the Alamo. -
positive good
with an eight generation of the revolution Southern Nepali just rejected the view that slavery was at best a necessary evil in 1837 South Carolina Senator John Calhoun argued that the institution was a positive good because it's subsidized an elegant lifestyle for a white elite and provided tutelage for genetically inferior Africans. -
Trail of Tears
President Martin van Buren ordered General Winfield Scott to enforce the treaty Scott's Army rounded up for 14,000 Cherokees and March them 1,200 mi in Arduous Journey that became known as the Trail of Tears along the way 3,000 Indians died of starvation and exposure. Nearly a quarter of the Cherokees died. -
fifty four, forty, or fight
Democrat selected Governor James K Polk of Tennessee a slow owner and about expansionists. Accepting the false claim in the credit party platform that both areas already belonged to the United States pull campaign for the reoccupation of Oregon and their re-annexation of Texas He insisted that the United States defy British claims and occupy the whole of the territory of Oregon to the Alaskan border 5440 or fight became his cry -
manifest destiny
Expansionists developed continental ambitions. The term manifest destiny captured those dreams. Manifest destiny was a sense of anglo-American culture, and racial superiority that inferior people who lived in the far west Native Americans and Mexicans would be subjected to American Dominion taught Republicanism in converted to Protestantism. -
Seneca Falls
Seneca Falls Convention issued a rousing manifest dough extending to women the Eagleiterian Republican ideology of the Declaration of Independence all men and women are created equal. The declaration called for women's higher education property rights, access to the professions, the opportunity to divorce, and an end to sexual double standards. It also claims women's rights to the elective franchise. -
Maine law
By the early 1850s, they turned toward prohibition lost to forbid the manufacturing and sale of alcohol. In 1851 the Maine electric trader outlawed the sale of alcoholic beverages in the state. The Maine supreme court held the statute, arguing that the legislator had the right to regulate by law the sale of any article, the use of which would be detrimental to the people's morals. The success of this Maine law shaped the reformers' goals. -
Dred Scott decision
The Dred Scott decision was the 1857 Supreme Court decision that the rule of the Missouri compromise was unconstitutional. The court ruled against slave Dred Scott who claimed that travels with his master into free states and territories made him and his family accessible. The decision also denied the federal government the right to exclude slit very from the territories and declared that African Americans were not citizens. -
Homestead Act
The homestead act gave 160 acres of federal land to any applicant who occupied and improved the property Republicans hoped the bill would help build up the interior west, inhabited by Indian people that remained empty on US government survey maps. Implementing this plan required innovative policies. -
emancipation proclamation
The emancipation proclamation was a proclamation President Abraham Lincoln issued on January 1st 1863 that legally abolished slavery in all states that remained out of the union while the emancipation proclamation did not immediately free a single slave it signaled and into the institution of slavery. -
Battle of Little Bighorn
The Battle of Little Bighorn Began when American Calvary under George Armstrong Custer attacked an encampment of Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Indians who resisted removal to a reservation Custer's forces was annihilated. Still, with whites calling for US soldiers to retaliate, the Native American military victory was short-lived. -
Dawes Severalty Act
Dawes Severalty Act Gave Native Americans severalty by dividing reservations into homesteads the law was a disaster for native people's resulting over several decades in the loss of 66% of lands held by Indians at the time of the laws passage. -
Ghost Dance Movement
Inspired by American Indian people's hope that they could, through sacred dances, resurrect the bison and call an incredible storm to drive whites back across the Atlantic. The ghost dance drew on Christian elements as well as native ones as movements read from reservation to reservation. Indigenous people developed new forms of pan-Indian identity and cooperation. White responses to the ghost dance showed continued misunderstanding and lethal reactions to native self-assertion. -
Lone Wolf vs. Hitchcock
The US Supreme Court ruled in Lone Wolf vs. Hitchcock. Congress could make whatever Indian policies it shows, ignoring all existing treaties that same year in ex parte crow dog, the court ruled that no Indian was a citizen unless Congress designated him so. Indians were henceforth wards of the government. These ruins remained in force until the new deal of the 1930s. -
Antiquities Act of 1906
the Antiquities Act (1906), enabled the U.S. president, without congressional approval, to set aside “objects of historic and scientific interest” as national monuments. Two years later, Roosevelt used these powers to preserve 800,000 acres at Arizona’s magnificent Grand Canyon. The act proved a mixed blessing for conservation. Monuments received weaker protection than national parks did; many fell under the authority of the U.S. Forest Service, which permitted logging and grazing. -
Muller V. Oregon
Muller v. Oregon, upheld an Oregon law limiting women’s workday to ten hours. They won this case.The arguments rested on data gathered by the NCL describing the toll that long work hours took on women’s health. The Muller decision encouraged women and organizations to lobby for further reforms. Their achievements included the first law providing public assistance for single mothers with dependent children and the first minimum wage law for women. -
Triangle Fire
The Triangle Fire quickly spread through the three floors the company occupied at the top of a ten-story building. Panicked workers discovered that, despite fire safety laws, employers had locked the emergency doors to prevent theft. Dozens of Triangle workers, mostly young immigrant women, were trapped in the flames. Many leaped to their deaths; the rest never reached the windows. The average age of the 146 people who died was just nineteen -
Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act made the banking system more resistant to such crises. It created twelve district reserve banks funded and controlled by their member banks, with a central Federal Reserve Board to impose regulation. It thus indirectly set the money supply level, influencing the rate of growth in the U.S. economy. The act strengthened the banking system’s stability and, to a modest degree, discouraged risky speculation on Wall Street. -
Zimmerman Telegram
The Zimmermann telegram urged Mexico to join the Central Powers, promising that if the United States entered the war, Germany would help Mexico recover “the lost territory of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.” With Pancho Villa’s border raids still fresh in Americans’ minds, this threat jolted public opinion. Meanwhile, German U-boats began to attack U.S. ships without warning, sinking three on March 18 alone. -
Sedition Act of 1918
the Sedition Act of 1918, prohibited any words or behavior that might “incite, provoke, or encourage resistance to the United States, or promote the cause of its enemies.” Because this and an earlier Espionage Act (1917) defined treason loosely, they led to the conviction of more than a thousand people. The Justice Department prosecuted members of the Industrial Workers of the World, whose opposition to militarism threatened to disrupt war production of lumber and copper. -
Fourteen Points
The Fourteen Points, are a blueprint for peace that he had presented a year earlier in a speech to Congress. They called for open diplomacy; “absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas”; arms reduction; removal of trade barriers; and national self-determination for peoples in the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and German empires. Essential to Wilson’s vision — the fourteenth of his Fourteen Points — was the creation of a “general association of nations” — eventually called the League of Nations -
Treaty of Versailles
Wilson managed to influence the Treaty of Versailles in important ways. He intervened repeatedly to soften conditions imposed on Germany. In accordance with the Fourteen Points, he worked with the other Allies to fashion nine new nations, stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. Elsewhere in the world, the Allies dismantled their enemies’ empires but did not create independent nations, keeping colonized people subordinate to European power. -
Maternity and infancy
The Sheppard-Towner Federal Maternity and Infancy Act. Sheppard-Towner provided federal funds for medical clinics, prenatal education programs, and visiting nurses, leading to improved health care for the poor and significantly lower infant mortality rates. It also marked the first time that Congress designated federal funds for the states to encourage them to administer a social-welfare program. But other reforms stalled, and the decade proved not to be a watershed of welfare legislation. -
National Origins Act
The National Origins Act used backdated census data to establish a quota system: in the future, annual immigration from each country could not exceed 2 percent of that nationality’s total in the 1890 census. Since only small numbers of Italians, Greeks, Poles, Russians, and other Southern and Eastern European immigrants had arrived before 1890, the law drastically curtailed immigration from those places. -
Smoot-Hawley Tariff
The Smoot- Hawley Tarriff was a high tariff on imports enacted in 1930, during the Great Depression, that was designed to stimulate American manufacturing. Instead it triggered retaliatory tariffs in other countries, which hindered global trade and led to greater economic contraction. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff triggered retaliatory tariffs in other countries, which further hindered global trade and worsened economic contraction throughout the industrialized world. -
Glass Steagall Act
the Glass-Steagall Act, frestored public confidence by creating the (FDIC), which insured deposits up to $2,500 . The act also prohibited banks from making risky investments with the deposits of ordinary people. And in an important economic and symbolic gesture, Roosevelt removed the U.S. Treasury from the gold standard in June 1933. This allowed the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, which gave farms and businesses an economic lifeline in the form of low-cost loans. -
Nazi Party
The Nazi regime posed the gravest threat to the existing world order. Staggering war debt and reparation payments, economic depression, fear of communism, labor unrest, and rising unemployment in Germany fueled the ascent of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party. When Hitler became chancellor in 1933, the Reichstag (German legislature) granted him dictatorial powers to deal with the economic crisis. Under Nazi control, the Reichstag invested all legislative power in Hitler’s hands -
Social Security Act
the Social Security Act of 1935 created an old-age pension system. Children’s welfare advocates, concerned about the fate of fatherless families, also pressured the president. The resulting Social Security Act had three main provisions: old-age pensions for workers, a joint federal-state system of compensation for unemployed workers, and a program of payments to widowed mothers and the disabled. Roosevelt, however, reined in the scope of reforms. -
Fair Labor standards
the Fair Labor Standards Act, which outlawed child labor, standardized the forty-hour workweek, mandated overtime pay, and established a federal minimum wage. FDR considered this labor law nearly as important as the Social Security Act because of its implications for how Americans worked and what they earned. It would be the last major legislative achievement of the New Deal era. -
Lend lease Act
the Lend-Lease Act authorized the president to “lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of” arms and equipment, without a cash payment and with a promise of future reimbursement to country's vital to the United States. When Hitler abandoned his nonaggression pact with Stalin and launched an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the United States extended lend-lease to the Soviets. This policy marked the unofficial entrance of the United States into the European war. -
Pearl Harbor
Early on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the headquarters of the American Navy’s Pacific Fleet. The raid killed nearly 2,400 Americans and destroyed or heavily damaged battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and two hundred airplanes. Although the assault was devastating, it had the unintended consequence of uniting the American people. President Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. The Senate voted unanimously for war -
Revenue Act
The Revenue Act of 1942 expanded the number of people paying income taxes from 3.9 million to 42.6 million. Taxes on personal incomes and business profits paid half the cost of the war. The government borrowed the rest, both from wealthy Americans and ordinary citizens alike, who invested in popular treasury bonds (known as “war bonds”). -
Servicemen's readjustment Act
The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, an extraordinarily influential program popularly dubbed the “GI Bill of Rights,” provided education, job training, medical care, pensions, and home loans for men and women who had served in the armed forces. The Servicemen's Readjustment Bill was more commonly known as the G.I Bill. This Bill helped so many veterans get the education after they served and it is still in place today. -
D-Day
The long-promised invasion of France finally came on D-Day, June 6, 1944. That morning, the largest armada ever assembled moved across the English Channel under the command of General Eisenhower. American, British, and Canadian soldiers suffered terrible casualties storming the beaches of Normandy, but their bravery secured a foothold on Hitler’s Much to the Allies’ advantage, they never faced more than one-third of the Wehrmacht, thanks to Soviet pressure on the Eastern Front. -
United Nations
At the Yalta Conference, the Big Three also agreed to establish an international body to replace the discredited League of Nations. The new organization, to be known as the United Nations, would have both a General Assembly, in which all nations would be represented, and a Security Council composed of the five nations that prevailed over Germany and Japan — the United States, Britain, France, China, and the Soviet Union — and six other nations elected on a rotating basis. -
Truman Doctrine
the president announced what became known as the Truman Doctrine. In a speech on March 12, he asserted an American responsibility “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” To that end, Truman proposed large-scale financial assistance for Greece and Turkey. Congress quickly approved Truman’s request for $300 million in aid to Greece and $100 million for Turkey. -
NATO
In April 1949, the United States secured that pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the country’s first peacetime military alliance outside the Western hemisphere. Under the NATO treaty, twelve nations — Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States — agreed that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” -
NSC-68
Truman turned to a new government advisory board for a strategic reassessment. Congress had established the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) via the National Security Act of 1947 — which brought together the State and Defense Departments, as well as intelligence analysts from the military branches and CIA. In April 1950, the NSC delivered the report Truman had requested, known as NSC-68. Bristling with alarmist rhetoric, the document marked a decisive turning point in U.S. Cold War strategy. -
Brown V. Topeka
In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), Marshall contended that such segregation was unconstitutional because it denied Linda Brown the “equal protection of the laws” guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. In a unanimous decision on May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court agreed, overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine at last. In the decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote: “We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. -
Eisenhower Doctrine
the Eisenhower Doctrine, stated that American forces would assist any nation in the region that required aid against communism Invoking the doctrine later that year, Eisenhower helped King Hussein of Jordan put down a Nasser-backed revolt and propped up a pro-American government in Lebanon. The Eisenhower Doctrine was further evidence that the United States had extended the global reach of containment. In search of regional allies, always with an eye on the West’s vital oil supply. -
Sputnik
When the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, the startled United States went into high gear to catch up. Alarmed that the United States was falling behind in science and technology, Eisenhower persuaded Congress to appropriate additional money for college scholarships and university research. The National Defense Education Act of 1958 funneled millions of dollars into American universities, helping institutions. -
Peace Corps
the Peace Corps, which embodied the call to public service put forth in his inaugural address. Thousands of men and women agreed to devote two or more years as volunteers for projects such as teaching English to Filipino schoolchildren or helping African villagers obtain clean water. The Peace Corps also proved a low-cost Cold War weapon and an extension of American “soft power” that showed the developing world an alternative to communism. -
Cuban missile crisis
Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba, and Khrushchev promised to dismantle the missile bases. Kennedy also secretly ordered U.S. missiles to be removed from Turkey, at Khrushchev’s insistence. The Cuban missile crisis proved the closest the Cold War came to a nuclear exchange. The terrifying stakes led to a slight thaw in U.S.-Soviet relations. As National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy put it, both sides were chastened by “having come so close to the edge.” -
March on Washingtion
Civil rights leaders took advantage of a long-planned event for a massive demonstration in Washington set for that August to marshal support for Kennedy’s bill. Thousands of volunteers across the country coordinated car pools, “freedom buses,” and “freedom trains” that delivered a quarter of a million people to the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. Officially named the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event became known as the March on Washington. -
Kerner commission
To those enjoying suburban prosperity, urban residents were an "Other America" To those living in poverty, and isolated by racial segregation, suburban prosperity was all too visible, yet inaccessible. When a wave of destructive riots swept the country in the summer of 1967, President Johnson formed the National Advisory. Commission on Civil Disorders The group’s report appeared in 1968 and warned that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal.” -
La Raza Unida
La Raza Unida, an alternative to the two major parties that would promote Chicano interests and that eventually expanded to other states. Young Chicana feminists formed a number of organizations, including Las Hijas (The Daughters), to organize women both on college campuses and in the barrios. In California and many southwestern states, students staged demonstrations to press for bilingual education, the hiring of more Chicano teachers, and the creation of Chicano studies programs. -
Title IX
Title IX in 1972, Congress broadened the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include educational institutions, prohibiting colleges and universities that received federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sex. Title IX guaranteed women access to the same educational opportunities as men and all but eliminated male-only institutions of higher education. By requiring comparable funding for sports programs, Title IX also made women’s athletics a significant presence on college campuses. -
Energy Crisis
The United States scrambled to cope with this energy crisis. Just two months after the OPEC embargo began, there was a national speed limit of 55mph Americans began to buy smaller, more fuel-efficient imported cars while sales of gas-guzzling American-made cars slumped. With one of every six jobs in the country generated directly or indirectly by the auto industry, a downturn for Detroit rippled across the entire economy. Compounding the distress was runaway inflation set off by the oil shortage -
Roe v. Wade
In the early 1960s, abortion was illegal in virtually every state. The women’s movement made reproductive rights a major goal mounting both legislative and judicial strategies to legalize abortion. By the mid-1970s, thanks to intensive lobbying by women’s organizations, liberal ministers, and physicians, a handful of states (New York, Hawaii, California, and Colorado) passed laws making legal abortions easier to obtain. But progress after that was slow, and women’s advocates turned to the courts -
Freedom of Information
As Watergate unfolded, Congress pursued an array of legislation designed to limit the power of the executive branch: the War Powers Act (1973), which reined in the president’s ability to deploy military forces without congressional approval; amendments strengthening the Freedom of Information Act (1974), which gave citizens access to federal records. -
Ethics in Government
The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 is organized into six titles. It created mandatory, public disclosure of financial, and employment history of public officials as well as their immediate families. It also created restrictions on lobbying efforts by public officials for a set period after leaving public office. -
Three Mile Island
The Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, came close to meltdown. More than 100,000 people fled their homes. A prompt shutdown saved the plant, but the near catastrophe enabled environmentalists to slow the rapid expansion of nuclear energy. After the incident at Three Mile Island, no new nuclear plants were authorized for thirty years, though a handful that were already planned were built in the 1980s and 1990s. -
Economic Recovery Tax
Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA), a massive tax cut that put supply-side principles into practice. The act reduced income tax rates for most Americans by 23 percent over three years. For the wealthiest Americans — those with millions to invest — the highest marginal tax rate dropped from 70 to 50 percent. The act also slashed estate taxes, levies dating from the Progressive Era aimed at curtailing the transmission of huge fortunes from one generation to the next. -
Republican convention
At the 1964 Republican National Convention, the conservative groundswell won the nomination for Goldwater — and shocked both moderate Republicans and reporters in the convention hall. However, Goldwater’s strident tone and militarist foreign policy were too much for a nation still committed to liberalism. Aided by the legacy of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Goldwater in a historic landslide. Many believed that Goldwater conservatism would wither away after its brief moment. -
Election of 1984
Reagan’s 1984 campaign slogan, “It’s Morning in America,” reflected his political mythology: the sun was forever coming up on an optimistic nation of small towns, close-knit families, and kindly neighbors. “The success story of America,” he once said, “is neighbor helping neighbor.” The reality of the nation — which was overwhelmingly urban and suburban, with hard knock capitalism holding down as many as it elevated — mattered little. -
Webster V. Health
Reproductive rights led the way, with abortion rights activists challenging the constitutionality of post-Roe state laws limiting access to the procedure. In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Supreme Court upheld the authority of state governments to limit the use of public funds and facilities for abortions. . In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the Court upheld a law requiring a twenty-four-hour waiting period prior to an abortion. -
HIV and AIDS
Within the United States, AIDS took nearly one hundred thousand lives in the 1980s — more than the Korean and Vietnam Wars combined. However, because its most visible early victims were gay men, President Reagan, emboldened by New Right conservatives, hesitated in declaring a national health emergency. Some presidential advisors even asserted that this “gay disease” might be a divine retribution against homosexuals. -
Persian Gulf War
The 1991 Persian Gulf war between Iraq and a U.S.-led international coalition that was sparked by the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. A forty-day bombing campaign against Iraq followed by coalition troops storming into Kuwait brought a quick coalition victory. To avoid a protracted struggle and retain French and Russian support for the UN coalition, Bush decided against occupying Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power. Instead, he won passage of UN Resolution 687. -
North American Free Trade Agreement
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. This treaty, as ratified by the U.S. Congress, created a free-trade zone covering all of North America — where goods could cross borders without tariffs or duties. Though NAFTA would eventually stimulate the economies of all three nations, critics charged that the agreement provided few protections for workers — including when manufacturing left the United States for Mexico or Canada, creating joblessness. -
World Trade Organization
the World Trade Organization (WTO), a large intergovernmental economic organization that served as one of the principal advocates of unrestrained global trade. Protestors raised a question both fundamental and complicated: In whose interest was the global economy structured? Many of the Seattle activists took inspiration from the five-point “Declaration for Global Democracy,” issued by the human rights organization Global Exchange during the WTO’s Seattle meeting. -
Proposition 209
voters approved Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in state employment and public education. In 1995, at the height of the controversy, President Bill Clinton delivered a major speech reminding Americans that Richard Nixon, a Republican president, had endorsed affirmative action, and Clinton concluded by saying the nation should “mend it,” not “end it.” -
9/11
As the twenty-first century enters its third decade, three significant developments have profoundly shaped the American present: the long war in the Middle East that began with the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 (also known as 9/11); the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first African American president; and the 2016 election to the White House of the brazenly contrarian businessman and television personality, Donald Trump. -
Lawrence V. Texas
in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), where the Supreme Court limited the power of states to prohibit private homosexual activity between consenting adults, and in Windsor v. United States (2013), which declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. To be certain, the court did move to the right, but it remained within the broad mainstream of American public opinion, particularly on the issues of reproduction and marriage equality. -
American Recovery Act
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an economic stimulus bill that provided $787 billion to state and local governments — one of the largest single packages of government spending in American history. Congress next passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a complex law that regulated the financial industry and established new consumer protections. The president’s signal accomplishment.