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Missouri Compromise
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state.In 1854, the Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. -
Monroe Doctrine
If a European nation would try to interfere with a nation in the Western Hemisphere, the United States would view that as a hostile act and respond accordingly. Basically, then, the Monroe Doctrine decreed that the United States would handle the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. -
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Battle of the Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission. -
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Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down while unemployment went up. Pessimism abounded during the time. -
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Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was a series of forced removals of Native American nations from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to an area west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory. -
Pre-Emption Act
Preemption Act, statute passed by the U.S. Congress in response to the demands of the Western states that squatters be allowed to preempt lands. Pioneers often settled on public lands before they could be surveyed and auctioned by the U.S. government. -
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US - Mexican War
The Mexican–American War, also known as the Mexican War and in Mexico the American intervention in Mexico, was an armed conflict between the United States of America and the United Mexican States from 1846 to 1848. -
Fugitive Slave Law
The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. Abolitionists nicknamed it the "Bloodhound Law" for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves. -
Dred Scott Decision
Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled that a slave who had resided in a free state and territory was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States. -
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Civil War
The Civil War, also known as “The War Between the States,” was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, a collection of eleven southern states that left the Union in 1860 and 1861 and formed their own country in order to protect the institution of slavery. -
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Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. -
Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, one of the best-known in American history. -
13th Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
