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The Election of 1800
Thomas Jefferson wins the election of 1800 against John Adams and brings the Jeffersonian era. This brought a political change called "The Revolution of 1800." Federalists lose the congressional power in this election, in an attempt to hold onto the judicial branch, Adams, on his last day in office, fills all federal courts with loyal federalists. -
Marbury v. Madison
James Madison, a member of Jefferson's cabinet finds the letter granting John Marbury a federal judgeship. Jefferson orders Madison not to deliver it, so Marbury sues. Supreme Court sides with Madison, in doing so, they grant themselves the right of 'judicial review'. -
Embargo Act of 1807
This act stops all foreign trade, which hurts port cities, but encourages domestic production. Once the War of 1812 ended, all the investment money began to flow back into American businesses. Interchangeable parts are invented and make mass production possible. -
The Battle of Tippecanoe
The Americans won this battle against the Native Americans. However, because of this defeat, Tecumseh allied his remaining forces with Great Britain for the Battle of 1812. -
The Battle of Thames
The British and Native American forces join together to fight the Americans in the Battle of Thames. This battle ends up being a win for the Americans in present-day Canada. Tecumseh's death in this battle ends Indian resistance in the Ohio River Valley. -
British Burn the Capital
The British Army invades the U.S. and marches on Washington D.C. After a brief fight, the city surrenders, and nearly all government buildings are erased. Dolly Madison becomes a national hero and saves many things from the white house. -
The Battle of New Orleans
The American forces are a multicultural motley band of experienced soldiers and warriors. They go against the British, a trained army, who are virtually mauled by American forces hiding behind earthworks, using land to their advantage. American forces at New Orleans are lead by General Andrew Jackson whose army inflicts great casualties on the British Army. -
The American Colonization Society
Henry Clay founded the American Colonization Society in 1817. Its leaders argued for gradual emancipation plans, such as the ones adopted in northern states after the revolution. Most believed emancipation should include compensation to masters and that freed people conceived as Alien Africans should be deported from the United States. Their society was popular with many white Americans who held moderate anti-slavery views. -
The Panic of 1819
The Panic of 1819 was the first major economic crisis in the United States. Farmers and Planters faced an abrupt 30% drop in world agriculture prices and as farmers' income declined they could not pay debts owed to stores and banks many of which went bankrupt. The panic gave Americans their first taste of a business cycle the periodic boom and bus inherited rent to a modern market economy. -
The Great American Desert
Settlers from the South had carried both small farming and plantation slavery into Arkansas and Missouri between their states. The Rocky Mountains stretched great grasslands and army explorer Major Steven H. Long thought the plane region, almost holy unfit for cultivation. In 1820 he labeled it the Great American Desert The label stuck Americans looking for land turned south to Mexican territory at the same time elite planters struggled to control state governments in the cotton South. -
The Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine was the 1823 declaration by President James Monroe that the Western Hemisphere was closed to any further colonization or interference by European powers. In exchange, Monroe pledged that the United States would not become involved in European struggles. The United States had successfully asserted its diplomatic leadership in the Western Hemisphere and one international acceptance of its northern and western boundaries. -
The Election of 1824
Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and William H. Crawford are running in this election. No candidate received a majority of the electoral votes, so the House of Representatives got the vote, so Henry Clay dropped out since he was the Speaker of the House. Adams and Clay met privately, no one knew what was said, but the following days, the House elected Adams as president and Clay as secretary of state. -
The Tariff of 1828
This tariff raised taxes on imported manufactures, so foreign competition with American manufacturing was reduced. The positive side is foreign goods are more expensive, so people buy more U.S. goods, increasing the Northern industrial states' profit from increased business. But, on the negative side, European countries retaliate, therefore buying less of the South's cotton, causing the South's economy to suffer. -
The Spoils System
The Spoils System was the widespread award of public jobs to political supporters after an electoral victory in 1829. Andrew Jackson instituted the system nationally, arguing that the rotation of officeholders was preferable to a permanent group of bureaucrats. -
The Indian Removal Act
The Removal Act created the Indian Territory on the national lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase, located in present-day Oklahoma, Kansas. It promised money and reserved land to Native American people who would give up their ancestral holdings east of the Mississippi River government officials promised the Indians that they could live on their new land They and all their children as long as grass grows in water runs. -
The Reaper
McCormick Co. created the Reaper. It revolutionized the way they harvested wheat and other grains. It increased crop yields, decreased the number of farmhands needed, and helped turn the Midwest into the "breadbasket" region. -
The Ordinance of Nullification
The Ordinance of Nullification, passed by South Carolina declared that the 1829 and 1832 Tariffs were unconstitutional and thus null and void. It was based on the doctrine of nullification that Vice President John C. Calhoun constructed. This doctrine provided the basis for the Confederate political ideology. -
Oberlin College
It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States, and the second-oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. It inspired many other universities to open up to women. -
The Battle of Goliad
This battle was the second of the Texas Revolution, fought between the Texans and Mexicans. They defeated the Mexican troops at Goliad and Fort Lipantitlán. The majority of the Texan troops followed General Sam Houston where they initiated a siege of the Mexican garrison. -
The Alamo
Hearing central control of the war party provoked a rebellion that most of the American settlers ultimately supported. On March 2nd, 1836 the American Rebels proclaimed the independence of Texas and adopted a constitution legalizing slavery to put down the rebellion. President Santa Anna led an army that wiped out the Texan Garrison defending the Alamo in San Antonio. Newspapers urged Americans to remember the Alamo. -
The Trail of Tears
President Martin van Buren ordered General Winfield Scott to enforce the Treaty of Scott's Army. He rounded up 14,000 Cherokees and marched them 1,200 miles in an arduous journey that became known as the Trail of Tears along the way 3,000 Indians died of starvation and exposure, and nearly a quarter of the Cherokees died. -
The Election of 1840
In this presidential election, Whig General William Henry Harrison defeated Democratic President Martin Van Buren. Harrison won by a margin of 5% in the popular vote, however he dominated the electoral college votes. -
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty
This treaty established the present boundary between Maine and New Brunswick, it granted the U.S. navigation rights on the St. John River, and provided for extradition in enumerated nonpolitical criminal cases. It also established a joint naval system for suppressing the slave trade off the African coast. -
Fifty Four, Forty, or Fight
Democrat elected Governor James K Polk of Tennessee, a slow owner and expansionist. Accepting the false claim in the credit party platform, that both areas already belonged to the United States pull campaign for the reoccupation of Oregon, and their re-annexation of Texas. He insisted that the United States defy British claims and occupy the whole of the territory of Oregon to the Alaskan border 54-40 or fight. -
Manifest Destiny
Expansionists developed continental ambitions, forming the term manifest destiny that captured those dreams. Manifest destiny was a sense of Anglo-American culture, and racial superiority that inferior people who lived in the far west, Native Americans and Mexicans, would be subjected to American Dominion taught Republicanism and would be converted to Protestantism in their expansion. -
The Seneca Falls Convention
Seneca Falls Convention issued a rousing manifesto, extending to women the Eagleiterian Republican ideology of the Declaration of Independence, that all men and women are created equal. The declaration called for women's higher education property rights, access to the professions, the opportunity to divorce, and an end to sexual double standards. It also claims women's rights to the elective franchise. -
The Maine Law
By the early 1850s, they turned toward prohibition to forbid the manufacturing and sale of alcohol. In 1851, the Maine Electric Trader outlawed the sale of alcoholic beverages in the state. The Maine Supreme Court held the statute, arguing that the legislator had the right to regulate by law, the sale of any article, the use of which would be detrimental to the people's morals. The success of this Maine law shaped the reformers' goals. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
This act repealed the Missouri Compromise, created two new territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty. It also produced a violent uprising known as “Bleeding Kansas,” as pro-slavery and antislavery activists flooded into the territories to sway the vote. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
In this decision, the Supreme Court decision ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. The court ruled against slave Dred Scott who claimed that travels with his master into free states and territories made him and his family accessible. The decision also denied the federal government the right to exclude slit very from the territories and declared that African Americans were not citizens. -
The Great Slave Auction
The single largest sale of slaves in U.S. history. It had more than 400 people sold, taking place near Savannah, Georgia. These slaves were sold from slave plantations located on Butler Island, owned by the Butlers. -
The Homestead Act
The Homestead Act gave 160 acres of federal land to any applicant who occupied and improved the property. Republicans hoped the act would help build up the interior West, inhabited by Indian people, that remained empty on U.S. government survey maps. Implementing this plan required innovative policies. -
The Emancipation Proclimation
The Emancipation Proclamation was a proclamation that President Abraham Lincoln issued on January 1, 1863, that legally abolished slavery in all states that remained out of the Union. While the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free a single slave, it signaled the institution of slavery. -
The 13th Amendment
Passed by President Lincoln, this amendment made chattel slavery forbidden across the U.S. As well as every territory under its control, except as a criminal punishment. It was ratified by December of 1865 -
The Reconstruction Acts
These acts outlined the terms for readmission for representation of rebel states. These acts divided the former Confederate states, except for Tennessee, into 5 military districts. -
The 15th Amendment
This amendment granted the right to vote for all male citizens. It doesn't matter their ethnicity or prior slave status. This was the last of the Reconstruction Amendments. This inspired many African Americans in the South to vote and take political leadership roles. -
The Election of 1872
This presidential election was between Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley. This election ended with Grant's victory with his second term. He became the only president to serve 2 full terms between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson. -
The Battle of Little Bighorn
The Battle of Little Bighorn began when american calvary, under George Armstrong Custer, attacked an encampment of Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne Indians who resisted removal to a reservation of Custer's forces, was annihilated. Still, with whites calling for U.S. soldiers to retaliate, the Native American military victory was short-lived. -
The Invention of the First Long Lasting Light Bulb
Thomas Edison is credited with the invention of the first long-lasting lightbulb. It harnesses electric power, pushing oil lamps and other light sources out of households worldwide. This made light sources much cheaper, more efficient, and longer lasting, so they were available to almost every household. -
The Immigration Act of 1882
The Immigration Act of 1882 levies a 50-cent tax on each non-citizen arriving at a U.S. port of entry to defray the costs of implementing immigration laws. It also restricted certain classes of people from immigrating to America, including criminals, the insane, or "any person unable to take care of him or herself." -
Alternating Current
Nicola Tesla invented alternating current, improving on Edison's electric power system. The alternating current is much safer, causing none or less overheating, and allowing power to be transmitted at very high voltages. -
The Ghost Dance Movement
Inspired by American Indians' hope that they could, through sacred dances, resurrect the bison and call an incredible storm to drive whites back across the Atlantic. The ghost dance drew on Christian elements as well as native ones as movements read from reservation to reservation. Indigenous people developed new forms of pan-Indian identity and cooperation. White responses to the ghost dance showed continued misunderstanding and lethal reactions to native self-assertion. -
The Pullman Strike
This was a widespread strike and boycott that severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest of the U.S. In response to this, marked the first time an injunction was used to break a strike. This ended in a national holiday, we now refer to as Labor Day, as a gesture towards the movement. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy bought a 1st class ticket on a train, but he was told he couldn't sit there because it was a "white car." He was then arrested and kicked off. He took this case all the way to the Supreme Court, however, the Supreme Court voted against him, ruling that it's okay as long as everything is separate but equal. This case is known to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest, mistake the Supreme Court had made. -
Kicking Off the Spanish-American War
The conflict that initially made Americans want to start this war is the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine, where 260 crewmen died. Another motivator was Cuba wanting independence form Spain, while we have economic interest in Cuba. However, what really sparked the war was The de Lome Letter, stating that Spain had no intentions of honoring their deal with the U.S. -
The Tenement Housing Act of 1901
This act outlawed the construction of the "dumbbell-shape" style tenement housing and set minimum size requirements for tenement housing. Requiring the dangerous and unsanitary conditions to be changed and mandated. -
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lone Wolf vs. Hitchcock. Congress could make whatever Indian policies it shows, ignoring all existing treaties that same year in ex parte crow dog, the court ruled that no Indian was a citizen unless Congress designated him so. Indians were henceforth wards of the government. These ruins remained in force until the New Deal of the 1930s. -
The Antiquities Act of 1906
Without congressional approval, the Antiquities Act of 1906 enabled the U.S. president to set aside “objects of historic and scientific interest,” as national monuments. Roosevelt used these powers two years later to preserve 800,000 acres at Arizona’s magnificent Grand Canyon. The act proved a mixed blessing for conservation. Monuments received weaker protection than national parks, many fell under the authority of the U.S. Forest Service, which permitted logging and grazing. -
Muller v. Oregon
Muller v. Oregon, upheld an Oregon law limiting women’s workday to ten hours. They won this case.The arguments rested on data gathered by the NCL describing the toll that long work hours took on women’s health. The Muller decision encouraged women and organizations to lobby for further reforms. Their achievements included the first law providing public assistance for single mothers with dependent children and the first minimum wage law for women. -
The Triangle Fire
The Triangle Fire quickly spread throughout 3 floors, that the company occupied, at the top of a ten-story building. Panicked workers discovered that, despite fire safety laws, employers had locked the emergency doors to prevent theft. Dozens of Triangle workers, mostly young immigrant women, were trapped in the flames. Many leaped to their deaths, the rest never reached the windows. The average age of the 146 people who died was just nineteen. -
The Federal Reserve Act
The Federal Reserve Act made the banking system more resistant to such crises. It created twelve district reserve banks funded and controlled by their member banks, with a central Federal Reserve Board to impose regulation. It thus indirectly sets the money supply level, influencing the growth rate in the U.S. economy. The act strengthened the banking system’s stability and, to a modest degree, discouraged risky speculation on Wall Street.