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The Great Awakening
The leaders of the Great Awakening, including Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, aimed to revive man's relationship with God. Their purpose was to convince people that religious power was in their own hands, not the hands of the Church. -
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American History
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Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a raid that took place in the Boston Harbor in 1773, during which American colonists dumped shiploads of tea into the water to protest a British tax on tea. -
Revolutionary War Begins
700 British troops marched into Lexington to seize a Patriot arsenal and found 77 minutemen waiting for them. The minutemen were ordered to leave and as they were doing so an unidentified gun fired (Battle of Lexington) which began the Revolution. -
George Washington as Commander
Washington was selected over other candidates such as John Hancock based on his previous military experience and the hope that a leader from Virginia could help unite the colonies. -
Declaration of Independence
In the Declaration of Independence, the 13 colonies announce their independence from Britain and make colonists realize that they shouldn't be loyal to Britain because it was time for separation. The founding fathers also used the Declaration to try to gain foreign recognition. -
Articles of Confederation
The first Constitution of the United States. It had many flaws: there was a weak central government under the Articles and it failed to address economic issues. There was reduced foreign trade and the states were heavily in debt because of the Revolution. The government couldn't levy taxes and was printing worthless paper money. States had increased rivalry and suspicion of one another. -
Battle of Yorktown
Virginia marked the conclusion of the last major battle of the American Revolution and the start of a new nation's independence. It also cemented Washington's reputation as a great leader and eventual election as first president of the United States. -
Revolutionary War Ends/Treaty of Paris
The American victory at Yorktown led to American and British negotiators signing the treaty of Paris. The British recognized the independence of the United States. Britain surrendered all of its territory in North America besides its Canadian possession and the colonists were required to give Loyalists their property, but the colonists didn't follow through. -
The Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening (1790–1840) was a time of evangelical fervor and revival in the newly formed nation of America. The British colonies were settled by many individuals who were looking for a place to worship their Christian religion free from persecution. -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. President Thomas Jefferson had many reasons for wanting to acquire the Louisiana Territory. The reasons included future protection, expansion, prosperity, and the mystery of unknown lands. -
Andrew Jackson inauguration
Andrew Jackson liked to be known as a hero of the common man. He allowed all tax-paying white men to vote and had what is called a "kitchen cabinet" because he hired his supporters. Jackson was a War Hero from the War of 1812 in the Battle of New Orleans and claimed Florida for the U.S. Jackson didn't support the U.S. bank and preferred pet banks which were small state banks. He evicted all Indian tribes east of The Mississippi to western lands. -
Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was when the United States government forced the Cherokee, Muscogee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes to be marched at gunpoint across hundreds of miles to reservations. to move from their homelands in the Southern United States to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. -
Mexican-American War Ends
The U.S. was victorious in the Mexican-American War. To end the war, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. The U.S. gained a major portion of Mexico's land (Mexican cession) which is now the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and portions of New Mexico and Colorado. The U.S. accomplishes Manifest Destiny. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. -
The Anaconda Plan
The Anaconda Plan hoped to establish a naval blockade on the Confederacy's Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico ports. in doing so, the South's trade would be cut off. The economy would be crippled, and the Confederacy would soon run out of resources. This river was the main transportation method in the South. -
The Civil War Begins/Fort Sumter
The Union had a military base (Fort Sumter) in South Carolina. The fort was cut off from necessary supplies and Lincoln announced he was sending food over. Southerners fired at the fort and captured it which is what is known to have started the War. -
The Pacific Railway Act
The Pacific Railway Act, which became law on July 1, 1862, offered government incentives to assist “men of talent, men of character, men who are willing to invest” in developing the nation's first transcontinental rail line. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln. It freed all slaves in the Confederate states, so it didn't actually free any slaves at all. It allowed border states still loyal to the union to keep their slaves. It also enlarged the purpose of the war; they were now also fighting to abolish slavery. -
End of the Civil War
General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate troops to the Union's Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, marking the beginning of the end of the grinding four-year-long American Civil War. -
Early Expansion
The purchase of Alaska in 1867 marked the end of Russian efforts to expand trade and settlements to the Pacific coast of North America, and became an important step in the United States rise as a great power in the Asia-Pacific region. -
The 14th Amendment
the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws,” extending the provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states. -
The 15th Amendment
the Fifteenth Amendment secured the right to vote for African American men. As many as one million African American men registered to vote throughout the South, where in many districts African Americans constituted the majority or near-majority of the population. -
The Populist Party
A US political party that sought to represent the interests of farmers and laborers in the 1890s, advocating increased currency issue, free coinage of gold and silver, public ownership of railroads, and a graduated federal income tax. -
The Spanish American War
The Spanish–American War was an armed conflict between Spain and the United States. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. -
Annexed - Hawaii
Dole declared Hawaii an independent republic. Spurred by the nationalism aroused by the Spanish-American War, the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898 at the urging of President William McKinley. -
Theodore Roosevelt's at War
He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley and in 1898 helped plan the highly successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish army in Cuba to great publicity. -
The 18th Amendment
Eighteenth Amendment, an amendment to the Constitution of the United States imposing the federal prohibition of alcohol. -
Western Settlement & The Indian Wars
In the late 19th century, white settlers in the West clashed with Native American people over land and natural resources. When several tribes resisted settlement on reservations, the U.S. government fought for control in a series of conflicts called the ''Indian Wars. -
The Civil Service Reform Act
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 is intended to provide Federal managers with the flexibility to improve Government operations and productivity while, at the same time, protect employees from unfair or unwarranted practices.