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This was the first major fight of the American Revolutionary War, and it was fought between colonists and British forces. The British won because they had more weapons and manpower. Back down bunker hill, the colonists retreated. -
General George Washington's army destroyed a force of Hessian mercenaries at Trenton after crossing the Delaware River in a dangerous storm. The win improved the morale of the American troops and paved the ground for another triumph at Princeton a week later. This was a little combat, but it was significant because it demonstrated that the colonists were capable of beating the British troops.
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During the second year of the American Revolution, the Battle of Saratoga took place in September and October 1777. It was a major win for the Continental Army and a pivotal turning point in the Revolutionary War, with two critical battles fought eighteen days apart. This victory demonstrates to the rest of the world that the United States is a force to be reckoned with, and that France should assist them in their fight against the British.
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This conflict represents the United States defeating the United Kingdom in combat. The fact that Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington when French and American forces cornered the British at Yorktown made the fight significant. The American Revolutionary War came to a conclusion when the British surrendered at the Battle of Yorktown. -
The first constitution established a national government with a congress that had the authority to declare war, select military officers, negotiate treaties, form alliances, appoint foreign ambassadors, and control relations with Indians. -
In western Massachusetts, a revolt against high taxes and harsh economic conditions erupted. Armed groups forced the closure of various courts in order to halt foreclosures and debt collection proceedings. -
With 69 of the 69 first-round votes cast in the electoral college, George Washington was elected as the first president of the United States.
George Washington was the only president of the United States who was elected by a unanimous vote. -
President George Washington signed the Act to Establish the United States Judicial Courts into law on September 24, 1789. The Supreme Court was established by Article III of the Constitution, although Congress retained the power to construct lower federal courts as needed. -
The Whiskey Rebellion was a 1794 revolt in western Pennsylvania by farmers and distillers in protest of a federally imposed whiskey tax. Opposition to the whiskey tax, as well as the revolt itself, helped the Republicans gain power in 1802 over Washington's Federalist Party. -
Whitney saw the potential for a machine to clean green-seed cotton to bring prosperity to the South and make its inventor wealthy. He got to work and built a rough model. The cotton gin did minimize the effort of extracting seeds, but it did not eliminate the necessity for slaves to grow and pick cotton. In fact, the exact reverse happened. Cotton farming became so profitable for the planters that demand for both land and slave labor skyrocketed. -
The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident that took place in 1797 between the United States and France. In retaliation, France seized American ships. Attempts to reach an agreement with France were thwarted when American officials declined to pay a fee to meet with Talleyrand, the French Foreign Minister. -
In 1798, the Federalist Congress passed a set of laws known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, which were signed into law by President John Adams. These legislation gave the government more authority to deport foreigners and made it more difficult for new immigrants to vote. These statutes increased the residency requirement for citizenship from five to fourteen years, gave the President the power to remove aliens, and allowed for their arrest, detention, and deportation during times of war. -
According to the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, each state has the authority to declare federal laws unlawful and void. The Virginia Resolutions of 1798 employ the term "interposition" to describe the idea that states have the authority to intervene to prevent unconstitutional legislation from causing injury. -
Because it was the first time authority in America changed from one party to another, Thomas Jefferson dubbed his election "the Revolution of 1800." He promised to govern as the Founders intended, with decentralized governance and faith in the people's ability to make the best decisions for themselves. -
The Louisiana Purchase effectively doubled the size of the United States, considerably strengthened the country materially and strategically, fueled westward development, and confirmed the federal Constitution's idea of implied powers. President Thomas Jefferson had a long-term objective of acquiring Louisiana, and he was especially eager to take control of the vital Mississippi River port of New Orleans. -
The notion of judicial review was established in the United States Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison (1803), which gave federal courts the power to find legislative and executive acts unlawful. Chief Justice John Marshall penned the unanimous decision. -
From May 1804 through September 1806 was the duration of the expedition. They were unable to uncover a canal connecting the Mississippi and the Pacific, but they did manage to catalog over 100 new creatures and 178 plants, as well as provide 140 maps of the region. -
The Embargo Act was rapidly debated and enacted by both chambers of Congress in December 1807, at Jefferson's request. All U.S. ports were closed to export ships in either domestic or foreign boats, while imports from the United Kingdom were restricted. It had the opposite effect in Europe than Jefferson had planned. -
The United States and the United Kingdom were at odds over British infringement of American maritime rights. It came to a close with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent. By successfully protecting its North American possessions, Britain effectively won the War of 1812. The British, on the other hand, saw the war with America as a mere sideshow in comparison to their life-or-death struggle with Napoleon in Europe. -
The Lowell System was a labor-production model developed in Massachusetts in the nineteenth century by Francis Cabot Lowell. Every step of the manufacturing process was completed under one roof, and the labor was carried out by young adult women rather than youngsters or young men. -
The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings held in Hartford, Connecticut, from December 15, 1814, to January 5, 1815, by the New England Federalist Party to examine their grievances about the ongoing War of 1812 and the political challenges coming from the federal government's growing power. -
The Treaty of Ghent was signed on December 24, 1814, at Ghent, Belgium, by British and American representatives, putting an end to the War of 1812. All seized area was to be returned under the terms of the treaty, and commissions were to be formed to determine the US-Canada border. -
The Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815, around 5 miles southeast of New Orleans' French Quarter, near the current suburb of Chalmette, Louisiana, between the British Army under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and the United States Army under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson. -
One of the first and most important Supreme Court cases on federal power is McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). The Supreme Court ruled in this case that Congress possesses implied powers based on those mentioned in Article I, Section 8. Congress was given the authority to create a national bank under the "Necessary and Proper" Clause. -
The Panic of 1819 was the first broad and long-lasting financial crisis in the United States, slowing westward progress in the Cotton Belt and leading to a general economic collapse that lasted until 1821. -
A market revolution was revolutionizing American industry and global trade in the 1820s and 1830s. Independent craftspeople were progressively supplanted by factories and mass production. Farms flourished and produced items for distant, rather than local, markets, shipping them via cheap transportation such as the Erie Canal. -
Within the context of slavery on a plantation, the gang system is a system of labor division. It is the more ruthless of the two primary labor regimes. The gang structure allowed for constant, consistent work throughout the day. For the fittest slaves, the first gang, or "great gang," was assigned the most difficult work. -
The ruling marked a watershed moment in the interpretation of the Constitution's commerce clause, removing any monopoly control from the equation. The elimination of navigational monopolies, particularly in New York and Louisiana, made the settlement of the American West more easier. -
Jackson blamed Clay for the election, telling anybody who would listen that the Speaker had approached him with a deal: Clay would back Jackson in exchange for Jackson's appointment of Clay as secretary of state. When Jackson declined, Clay is said to have arranged a bargain with Adams. -
The National Origins Act, sometimes referred to as the Johnson-Reed Act, represented the culmination of early twentieth-century anti-immigration sentiment. The act sharply restricted the total number of immigrants who could come to the United States and established quotas for various nationality groups. -
In May 1828, the United States passed the Tariff of 1828, which was an extremely high protective tariff. Because of the consequences it had on the Southern economy, it was dubbed "Tariff of Abominations" by its opponents. It imposed a tax of 38% on some imported commodities and a tariff of 45 percent on certain imported raw materials. -
When presidential administrations changed in the nineteenth century, the practice of recruiting and discharging federal employees was dubbed "The Spoils System." The patronage system is another name for it. The tradition originated under President Andrew Jackson's administration, which began in March 1829. -
On May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law, allowing him to transfer territory west of the Mississippi in return for Indian holdings inside existing state limits. While a few tribes relocated quietly, many others opposed the strategy. -
Cyrus McCormick invented the mechanical reaper in 1831. Farmers used this machine to harvest crops mechanically. The McCormick motorized reaper took the place of scythes and sickles, which were used to manually chop the harvest. Wheat might now be harvested more quickly and with fewer workers thanks to this innovative idea. -
The court also stated in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) that indigenous polities' political sovereignty was intrinsically dependant on the federal government, classifying them as domestic dependent countries rather than foreign independent states. -
Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515, was a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court overturned Samuel Worcester's conviction and declared the Georgia felony statute prohibiting non-Native Americans from entering Native American territory without a state license illegal. -
Clay's Compromise Tariff, which was supported by Calhoun, called for a steady lowering of levies to a revenue level of 20%. At President Jackson's request, the Force Bill authorized the use of military force, if necessary, to prevent nullification in South Carolina. -
Mexican General Santa Anna defeated a small party of Texans in 1836. Houston's troops won a brief battle against the Mexican forces at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, remembering how terribly the Texans had been humiliated at the Alamo. This gave Texas freedom. -
From February 23, 1836, to March 6, 1836, the Republic of Texas fought Mexico in the Battle of the Alamo. It took place at the Alamo, a fort in San Antonio, Texas. The battle was won by the Mexicans, who killed all of the Texan soldiers within the fort. -
The Cherokee nation was forced to give up its holdings east of the Mississippi River and migrate to a territory in present-day Oklahoma as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal strategy in 1838 and 1839. Because of its catastrophic consequences, the Cherokee people named this trip the "Trail of Tears." -
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo terminated the conflict between the United States and Mexico on February 2, 1848. Mexico agreed to hand over 55 percent of its territory to the United States, including sections of modern-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. -
The Mexican-American War lasted from April 1846 to February 1848 and was fought between the United States and Mexico. It arose from the United States' acquisition of the Republic of Texas in 1845, as well as a debate over whether Texas terminated at the Nueces River (the Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (the American claim). -
The Free Soil Party's greatest important impact came in 1848, when its improbable presidential nominee, former President Martin Van Buren, helped sway the election. Those who were involved in the creation and emergence of the new Republican Party in the 1850s were members of the Free Soil Party. -
The Fugitive Slave Act was altered and the slave trade in Washington, D.C. was prohibited as part of the 1850 Compromise. In addition, California became a free state, and a territorial government was established in Utah. -
The Missouri Compromise was abolished, two new territories were created, and popular sovereignty was granted. It also sparked the "Bleeding Kansas" revolt, in which pro- and anti-slavery campaigners surged into the territory to affect the vote. -
Gadsden's Purchase supplied property for a southern transcontinental railroad while also attempting to resolve post-Mexican-American War issues. -
The Bessemer Steel Process was a method of producing high quality steel by shooting air into molten steel to burn off carbon and other impurities. It was names after the British inventor Sir Henry Bessemer, who worked to develop the process in the 1850's. While Bessemer was working on his process in England, an American, William Kelly, developed a process using the same principle, which he patented in 1857.
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The 1860 election revealed the differences that existed within the United States right before the Civil War. The Constitutional Union Party was likewise new; it ran a presidential candidate for the first and only time in 1860. The 1860 election results pushed the country into war. -
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal union. The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 sparked calls for secession from the slave-holding South. -
The Battle of First Manassas, also known as the First Battle of Bull Run, was the American Civil War's first significant battle. On July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, about north of Manassas and about 30 miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C., the fight was fought. -
On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, as the country entered its third year of deadly civil war. "All persons kept as slaves" within the insurgent states "are, and henceforth shall be free," the declaration said. -
On May 20, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. Daniel Freeman filed the first claim under the Act on January 1, 1863, which allowed citizens or future citizens to claim up to 160 acres of public land if they lived on it, improved it, and paid a nominal registration fee. -
Early in the American Civil War, Union General Winfield Scott presented the Anaconda plan as a military strategy. The strategy planned for a naval blockade of the Confederate littoral, a push down the Mississippi, and Union land and naval troops strangling the South. -
The WCTU was one of the largest and most influential women's groups of the 19th century, by expanding its platform to campaign for labor laws, prison reform, and suffrage. The group slowly started moving away from only feminist groups after the death of Frances Willard, instead they started focusing on prohibition. Throuhg it was declined due to the 18th amendment, it continued to operate through the 19th century.
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The Dawes Act of 1887 authorized the federal government to break up tribal lands by partitioning them into individual plots. Only those Native Americans who accepted the individual allotments were allowed to become US citizens -
The Ohio Anti-Saloon League hoped to reduce alcohol consumption, if not outright prohibit it, by enforcing existing laws and by implementing new ones. This organization also sought to eliminate bars, taverns, and saloons, believing that these businesses promoted the consumption of alcohol.
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The Platt Amendment was made in 1901 to resolve the US congress. It said that all treaties with Cuba had to be approved by the U.S senate and the US had the right to interfere in Cuba's affairs if order broke down within Cuba. It also declared Guantanamo Bay to be US territory
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President Theodore Roosevelt’s assertive approach to Latin America and the Caribbean has often been characterized as the “Big Stick,” and his policy came to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. Although the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was essentially passive, by the 20th century a more confident United States was willing to take on the role of regional policeman.
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The Roosevelt Corollary was a United States foreign policy established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. It stated that the U.S. would intervene in Latin American countries where European powers sought to collect debts or whose governments were thought to be unstable.
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The treaty gave Japan control of Korea and much of south Manchuria, including Port Arthur and the railway that connected it with the rest of region, along with southern half of Sakhalin Island; Russian Power was curtailed in the region, but it was not required to pay Japan's war costs.
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It called for U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to force San Francisco to repeal its Japanese-American school segregation order in exchange for Japan agreeing to deny emigration passports to Japanese laborers, while still allowing wives, children and parents of current immigrants to enter the United States.
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President Theodore Roosevelt's "Great White Fleet," a force of sixteen battleships bristling with guns and painted sparkling white, steam out of Hampton Roads, Virginia to begin its 43,000-mile, 14-month circumnavigation of the globe "to demonstrate to the world America's naval prowess." The four-mile-long armada's world tour included 20 port calls on six continents, and is widely considered one of the greatest peacetime achievements of the U.S. Navy.
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Dollar diplomacy is the term applied to American foreign policy under President William Howard Taft and his secretary of state, Philander C. Knox, to ensure the financial stability of Latin American and East Asian countries, while also expanding U.S. commercial interests in those regions.
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The fire was believed to be started by a discarded cigarette in a waste bin full of highly flammable fabric on the 8th floor. As the workers were getting ready to go home, someone shouted "FIRE"! This sent all the workers into panic. They desperately tried to break down the door that lead to the stairs. The people on the 10th floor had survived because they were told first about the fire. However the workers on the 9th floor only had 2 options, jump, or be burned alive.
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Trench warfare is a type of fighting where both sides build deep trenches as a defense against the enemy. These trenches can stretch for many miles and make it nearly impossible for one side to advance. During World War I, the western front in France was fought using trench warfare.
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Henry Ford began paying his auto employees an astounding $5 per day in January 1914. Doubling the average wage helped to keep the workforce stable and likely increased sales because the workers could now afford to buy the automobiles they were producing. It created the groundwork for a market economy based on customer demand. -
Unrestricted submarine warfare is the practice of using submarines to attack and sink all forms of enemy shipping, whether they are military or civilian. It is most closely associated with the First World War when Germany's decision to use USW brought the US into the war and led to their defeat.
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The Great Migration was the movement of some six million African Americans from rural areas of the Southern states of the United States to urban areas in the Northern states between 1916 and 1970. It occurred in two waves, basically before and after the Great Depression.
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The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany.
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In the spring of 1917, shortly after the United States declared war on Germany, the War Department, taking advantage of the temperate climate and newly opened Houston Ship Channel, ordered two military installations built in Harris County—Camp Logan and Ellington Field. The Illinois National Guard was to train at Camp Logan, located on the northwest outskirts of the city.
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The War Industries Board existed from July 1917 to December 1918 to coordinate and channel production in the United States by setting priorities, fixing prices, and standardizing products to support the war efforts of the United States and its allies
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The Committee on Public Information, also known as the Creel Committee after its chairman, George Creel, served as the first large-scale propaganda agency of the U.S. government. President Woodrow Wilson established the committee in April 1917 through Executive Order 2594 in response to the U.S. entry into World War I in an attempt to mobilize public opinion behind the war effort with every available form of mass communication.
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The Espionage Act of 1917 makes it a crime to interfere with or attempt to undermine or interfere with the efforts of the U.S. armed forces during a war, or to in any way assist the war efforts of the nation's enemies.
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The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919.
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The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson.
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United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the Espionage Act of 1917 and concluded that a defendant did not have a First Amendment right to express freedom of speech against the draft during World War I.
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The Treaty of Versailles is one of the most controversial armistice treaties in history. The treaty's so-called “war guilt” clause forced Germany and other Central Powers to take all the blame for World War I. This meant a loss of territories, reduction in military forces, and reparation payments to Allied powers.
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On July 14, 1921, after a few hours of discussion, the jury found Sacco and Vanzetti guilty of first-degree murder and the trial judge sentenced them to death. The verdict was suspected of being substantially influenced by anti-Italian, anti-immigrant, and anti-Anarchist bias. -
Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison; no one was convicted of paying the bribes. Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics". -
The National Origins Act, a component of the Immigration Act of 1924, was a law enacted on May 26, 1924, to greatly reduce the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States by setting immigration quotas for each European nation -
The law made it a crime punishable by fine to "teach any theory that opposes the tale of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals," according to the law, which was passed in March. Scopes had collaborated with local businessman George Rappleyea to be charged with this offense, and following his arrest, the two solicited the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to put together a defense. -
As a result of Kellogg's suggestion, nearly all of the world's governments eventually signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, promising to abstain from using war as a tool of national policy and to settle all international problems through peaceful methods. -
The Dust Bowl was a 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 the aeolian processes caused the phenomenon -
Keynesian economics is a macroeconomic economic theory of total spending in the economy and its effects on output, employment, and inflation. Keynesian economics was developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes during the 1930s in an attempt to understand the Great Depression -
On November 8, 1932, Franklin Roosevelt became the first Democrat in 80 years to win the presidency by a majority vote, rather than a plurality. On Capitol Hill, House Democrats gained 97 seats for a nearly three-to-one margin over the Republicans. -
The programs focused on what historians refer to as the "3 R's": relief for the unemployed and for the poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. -
The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing the 18th Amendment and bringing an end to the era of national prohibition of alcohol in America. At 5:32 p.m. EST, Utah became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, achieving the requisite three-fourths majority of states' approval. -
During its brief existence, the AAA accomplished its goal: the supply of crops decreased, and prices rose. It is now widely considered the most successful program of the New Deal. Though the AAA generally benefited North Carolina farmers, it harmed small farmers–in particular, African American tenant farmers. -
The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the President to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It also established a national public works program known as the Public Works Administration -
The Emergency Banking Act was a federal law passed in 1933. Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 9, 1933, the act granted the president, the comptroller of the currency, and the secretary of the treasury broader regulatory authority over the nation's banking system -
It included programs to redistribute wealth, income, and power in favor of the poor, the old, farmers and labor unions. The most important programs included Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act ("Wagner Act"), the Banking Act of 1935, rural electrification, and breaking up utility holding companies. -
An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment -
The 1936 Supreme Court case United States v. Butler declared the AAA unconstitutional by a 6–3 vote. The Court ruled it unconstitutional because of the discriminatory processing tax. In reaction, Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, which eliminated the tax on processors. -
The bill came to be known as Roosevelt's "court-packing plan," a phrase coined by Edward Rumely. In November 1936, Roosevelt won a sweeping re-election victory. In the months following, he proposed to reorganize the federal judiciary by adding a new justice each time a justice reached age 70 and failed to retire. -
The Great Migration of African-Americans to northern cities between 1919 and 1926 was one of the elements that contributed to the Harlem Renaissance's emergence. Jim Crow segregation laws in the south and the outbreak of World War I were two main factors that fuelled the Great Migration. -
The Board was composed of 12 members, four representatives each of industry, labor, and the public. The Board's primary responsibility was to peacefully settle labor disputes in order to prevent strikes or lock-outs in war industries.
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A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. It is often characterized as political propaganda. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which are referred to by this name.
