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George Washington - Jay Treaty
On this day in 1795, President George Washington signs the Jay (or "Jay's") Treaty with Great Britain.
This treaty, known officially as the "Treaty of Amity Commerce and Navigation, between His Britannic Majesty; and The United States of America" attempted to diffuse the tensions between England and the United States that had risen to renewed heights since the end of the Revolutionary War. The U.S. government objected to English military posts along America's northern and western borders and Bri -
Pinckney's Treaty,
Pinckney's Treaty, also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on October 27, 1795 and established intentions of friendship between the United States and Spain. -
Traty of Tripoli
The Treaty of Tripoli (Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary) was the first treaty concluded between the United States of America and Tripolitania, signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796 -
XYZ Affair
The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident between French and United States diplomats that resulted in a limited, undeclared war known as the Quasi-War. U.S. and French negotiators restored peace with the Convention of 1800, also known as the Treaty of Mortefontaine -
Treaty of Mortefontaine
Convention of Mortefontaine ñ September 30,1800. During the "Directoire", the relationship between the United States and France deteriorated. From 1798 to 1800, a type of undeclared maritime war existed between the two countries, with harassment and capture of commercial vessels. -
Thomas Jefferson - Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (1803) 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 dollars.
President Thomas Jefferson wrote this prediction in an April 1802 letter to Pierre Samuel du Pont amid reports that Spain would retrocede to France the vast territory of Louisiana. As the United States had expanded westward, navigation of the Mississippi River and access to the port of New -
Embargo Act of 807
The Embargo Act of 1807 was a general embargo that made illegal any and all exports from the United States. It was sponsored by President Thomas Jefferson and enacted by Congress. The goal was to force Britain and France to respect American rights during the Napoleonic Wars. They were engaged in a major war; the U.S. wanted to remain neutral and trade with both sides, but neither side wanted the other to have the American supplies. -
War of 1812
War of 1812 definition. A war between Britain and the United States, fought between 1812 and 1815. The War of 1812 has also been called the second American war for independence. -
The Adams-Onís Treaty
The Adams-Onís Treaty between the United States and Spain was negotiated by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and the Spanish Minister to the United States, Don Luis de Onís, and signed in February 1819. -
Monroe doctrine
Monroe Doctrine, 1823. In his December 2, 1823, address to Congress, President James Monroe articulated United States' policy on the new political order developing in the rest of the Americas and the role of Europe in the Western Hemisphere. -
Webster-Ashburton Treaty
The Webster–Ashburton Treaty, signed August 9, 1842, was a treaty resolving several border issues between the United States and the British North American colonies. It resolved the Aroostook War, a nonviolent dispute over the location of the Maine–New Brunswick border. -
Mexican American War
The Mexican–American War, also known as the Mexican War, the U.S.–Mexican War or the Invasion of Mexico, was an armed conflict between the United States and the Centralist Republic of Mexico from 1846 to 1848. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed by the United States and Mexico on February 2, 1848, ending the Mexican War and extending the boundaries of the United States by over 525,000 square miles -
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
The Clayton–Bulwer Treaty was a treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom, negotiated in 1850 by John M. Clayton and Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, later Lord Dalling. It was negotiated in response to attempts to build the Nicaragua Canal, a canal in Nicaragua that would connect the Pacific and the Atlantic. -
Gadsden Purchase
Meeting in Mexico City on December 30, 1853, James Gadsden, U.S. Minister to Mexico, and General Antonio López de Santa Anna, president of Mexico, signed the Gadsden Purchase. -
Kanagawa Treaty
The Treaty of Kanagawa was an 1854 agreement between the United States of America and the government of Japan. The treaty, which was essentially imposed on the Japanese by threat of force, opened two Japanese ports for trade with American ships. The treaty was the first modern treaty Japan had with a western nation. And while it was limited in scope, it did open Japan to trade with the west for the first time. And the treaty led to other treaties with repercussions for Japanese society. -
Alaska Purchase Treaty
On March 30, 1867, the United States reached an agreement to purchase Alaska from Russia for a price of $7.2 million. The Treaty with Russia was negotiated and signed by Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister to the United States Edouard de Stoeckl. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882. It was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in US history, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. -
Hawaiian Annexation
Spurred by the nationalism aroused by the Spanish-American War, the United States annexed Hawaii in 1898 at the urging of President William McKinley. Hawaii was made a territory in 1900, and Dole became its first governor. -
Open Door Policy
Secretary of State John Hay first articulated the concept of the “Open Door” in China in a series of notes in 1899–1900. These Open Door Notes aimed to secure international agreement to the U.S. policy of promoting equal opportunity for international trade and commerce in China, and respect for China’s administrative and territorial integrity. British and American policies toward China had long operated under similar principles, but once Hay put them into writing, the “Open Door” became the offi -
Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion, officially supported peasant uprising of 1900 that attempted to drive all foreigners from China. “Boxers” was a name that foreigners gave to a Chinese secret society known as the Yihequan (“Righteous and Harmonious Fists”). -
Big Srick Diplomacy
Big Stick ideology, Big Stick diplomacy, or Big Stick policy refers to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy: "speak softly, and carry a big stick." -
Platt Amendment
Approved on May 22, 1903, the Platt Amendment was a treaty between the U.S. and Cuba that attempted to protect Cuba's independence from foreign intervention. It permitted extensive U.S. involvement in Cuban international and domestic affairs for the enforcement of Cuban independence. -
Algeciras Conference
The Algeciras Conference of 1906 took place in Algeciras, Spain, and lasted from 16 January to 7 April. The purpose of the conference was to find a solution to the First Moroccan Crisis of 1905 between France and the German Empire, which arose as Germany attempted to prevent France from establishing a protectorate over Morocco in what was known as the Tangier Crisis. -
Veracruz Incident
The United States occupation of Veracruz, which began with the Battle of Veracruz, lasted for seven months and was a response to the Tampico Affair of April 9, 1914 -
Zimmermann Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note) was a 1917 diplomatic proposal from the German Empire for Mexico to join an alliance with Germany in the event of the United States entering World War I against Germany. The proposal was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. -
14 points
In this January 8, 1918, address to Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proposed a 14-point program for world peace. These points were later taken as the basis for peace negotiations at the end of the war. -
Washington Naval Conference
The Washington Naval Conference, also called the Washington Arms Conference or the Washington Disarmament Conference, was a military conference called by President Warren G. Harding and held in Washington from 12 November 1921 to 6 February 1922. -
Dawes Plan
The Dawes Plan was an attempt following World War I for the Triple Entente to compromise and collect war reparations debt from Germany. -
The Kellogg–Briand Pact
The Kellogg–Briand Pact (also called the Pact of Paris, formal name: General Treaty for the Renunciation of War) was signed on August 27, 1928 by the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, and a number of other states. -
Smooth-Hawley Tariff
The Tariff Act of 1930 (codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 4), otherwise known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff or Hawley–Smoot Tariff, was an act sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley and signed into law on June 17, 1930, that raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels. -
Neutrality Act of 1937
In January 1937, the Congress passed a joint resolution outlawing the arms trade with Spain. The Neutrality Act of 1937, passed in May, included the provisions of the earlier acts, this time without expiration date, and extended them to cover civil wars as well. -
atlantic charter
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941 following a meeting of the two heads of state in Newfoundland. -
casablanca conference
From January 14 to January 24, 1943, the first war conference between the Allied Powers, was held in Casablanca, Morocco. The purpose of the conference was relatively vague. It took steps toward planning the allied strategy and the end of the war. Initially, it was to be a Big Three meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. It became a Big Two meeting when Stalin declined the invitation. With his country besieged by both Hitler and the harsh winter, Stalin didn't feel that he could leave -
The Yalta Conference,
The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, held February 4–11, 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States -
The Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 17 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave $17 billion (approximately $160 billion in current dollar value) in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II. -
Korean War
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. -
New Look Policy
The New Look was the name given to the national security policy of the United States during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It reflected Eisenhower's concern for balancing the Cold War military commitments of the United States with the nation's financial resources. -
SEATO
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in September 1954 in Manila, Philippines. -
Eisenhower Doctrine
Eisenhower Doctrine, (Jan. 5, 1957), in the Cold War period after World War II, U.S. foreign-policy pronouncement by President Dwight D. Eisenhower promising military or economic aid to any Middle Eastern country needing help in resisting communist aggression. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
The Bay of Pigs Invasion, known in Latin America as Invasión de Bahía de Cochinos, was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. -
Alliance for Progress
The Alliance for Progress (Spanish: Alianza para el Progreso) initiated by U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1961 aimed to establish economic cooperation between the U.S. and Latin America. -
Cuban Missle Crisis
The Cuban missile crisis—known as the October Crisis, The Missile Scare or the Caribbean Crisis was a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union over Soviet ballistic missiles deployed in Cuba -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or the Southeast Asia Resolution, Pub.L. 88–408, 78 Stat. 384, enacted August 10, 1964, was a joint resolution that the United States Congress passed on August 7, 1964, in response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. -
Tet Offensive
The Tet Offensive was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against the forces of South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies -
Détente
Détente (a French word meaning release from tension) is the name given to a period of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1971 and took decisive form when President Richard M. Nixon visited the secretary-general of the Soviet Communist party, Leonid I. Brezhnev, in Moscow, May 1972 -
Fall of Saigon
The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975 -
The Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following thirteen days of secret negotiations at Camp David. -
SALT
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) Negotia- tions started in Helsinki, Finland, in 1969 between the United States and the Soviet Union to limit the countries' stock of nuclear weapons. The treaties resulting from these negotiations are called SALT I and SALT II. -
Moscow Olympics Boycott
President Jimmy Carter informs a group of U.S. athletes that, in response to the December 1979 Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, the United States will boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. It marked the first and only time that the United States has boycotted the Olympics. -
Strategic Defense Initiative
The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was proposed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983, to use ground-based and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles. -
The Iran hostage crisis
The Iran hostage crisis, referred to within Iran in Persian as تسخیر لانه جاسوسی امریکا, was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States. -
Iran-Contra Affair
the Iran-Contra affair. ; the name given to a series of secret and illegal actions by US government officials under President Ronald Reagan. In 1985, officials in the National Security Council sold military weapons to Iran so it would help in freeing US prisoners in Lebanon. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall: The Fall of the Wall. On November 9, 1989, as the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. -
Persian Gulf War
Persian Gulf War definition. A war between the forces of the United Nations, led by the United States, and those of Iraq that followed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein 's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The United Nations forces, called the Coalition, expelled Iraqi troops from Kuwait in March 1991. -
The Oslo Agreement,
The Oslo Agreement, also knows as the Oslo Accords, is an agreement signed between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on September 13, 1993 -
NAFTA
NAFTA passed the Senate 61-38. Senate supporters were 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats. Clinton signed it into law on December 8, 1993; it went into effect on January 1, 1994. -
9/11
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks launched by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 -
Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act.
President Bush Signed The United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act. This Act will strengthen the partnership between the world's two largest democracies and help our countries meet the energy and security challenges of the 21st century.
