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California Gold Rush (sparked massive westward migration)
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Rise of the Cattle Kingdom (cattle drives, open range ranching)
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Homestead Act signed (provided free land in the West to settlers)
The Homestead Act granted 160 acres of public land to any U.S. citizen on May 20, 1862. -
Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln
John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President, while he was attending a play in Washington, D.C. -
Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad (related to railroads & robber barons)
This project connected the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad. -
Hiram Revels becomes the first African American U.S. Senator
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Railroads & Robber Barons
(economic powerhouses like Vanderbilt) -
Gilded Age
(term by Mark Twain; era of rapid industrialization, corruption, wealth gap) -
Ratification of the 15th Amendment (not 5th): gave African American men the right to vote
Amendment grants African Americans the right to vote. -
Election of 1876
Controversial results, led to the Compromise of 1877 and end of Reconstruction -
Carnegie & Business Integration Models
(vertical integration in steel industry) -
Rise of J.P. Morgan
(banking, industrial consolidation, General Electric U.S. Steel) -
Panic/Depression of 1893
(economic depression triggered by rail overbuilding and bank failures) -
Election of 1896
(William McKinley vs. William Jennings Bryan) -
The Great Migration
(African Americans move from South to Northern cities) -
World War I
(U.S. joins in 1917) -
The Jazz Age
(Roaring Twenties, cultural revolution, Harlem Renaissance) -
The New Deal
FDR's programs to combat the Great Depression -
World War II
U.S. enters in 1941 after Pearl Harbor -
Post-War Prosperity
economic boom, suburban growth, GI Bill