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The COVID-19 pandemic is now considered an ongoing, established health issue rather than a global public health emergency. While the emergency phase ended in May 2023 -
The Persian Gulf War (1990–1991) was an international conflict triggered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, which resulted in a decisive victory for a U.S.-led coalition of 35 nations -
The Vietnam War was a prolonged, Cold War-era conflict (1954–1975) between the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies, and the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. -
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal that led to President Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public places, employment, and education -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) is a landmark U.S. federal law that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. -
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13-day confrontation in October 1962 between the United States and the Soviet Union that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The crisis was triggered by the secret deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S. coast. -
A stock market crash is defined as a sudden, severe, and often unexpected drop in stock prices that occurs over a short period. -
The Roaring Twenties began in 1920 and is a nickname for the 1920s in the United States, a decade of significant economic prosperity, cultural change, and social upheaval. -
The Spanish-American War was a brief conflict in 1898 between the United States and Spain that led to Spain relinquishing its colonial empire and the U.S. gaining new territories -
Reconstruction ended in 1877 with the Compromise of 1877, an agreement that resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election -
The Compromise of 1850 was a series of five laws passed by the U.S. Congress to settle disputes over slavery and territorial expansion after the Mexican-American War, ultimately postponing the Civil War -
The Mexican-American War was a conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848, fought primarily over territorial disputes following the U.S. annexation of Texas. -
The American Revolution was an epic political and military struggle waged between 1765 and 1783 when 13 of Britain's North American colonies rejected its imperial rule -
The Declaration of Independence described the principles of a new government and the reasons the thirteen American colonies were separating from British rule. -
The Articles of Confederation were the first constitution of the United States, adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and ratified in 1781. -
The Constitution was ratified by the states between 1787 and 1790, starting with Delaware on December 7, 1787, and ending with Rhode Island on May 29, 1790. -
The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia was a meeting of delegates in 1787 to address the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation by creating a new, stronger federal government. -
George Washington's election as the first president of the United States refers to his unanimous selection by the Electoral College in the 1789 election, making him the first person to hold the office under the new Constitution. -
The process by which the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution were formally approved by the states to become part of the law of the land -
Eli Whitney's cotton gin was a machine with a rotating cylinder and wire teeth that separated cotton fibers from seeds much faster than manual labor. -
Thomas Jefferson's election as president in 1800 is defined by the Election of 1800, which resulted in the first peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another in American history. -
The Louisiana Purchase was the 1803 acquisition by the United States from France of 828,000 square miles of territory west of the Mississippi River for $15 million -
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain from 1812 to 1815. -
The Missouri Compromise was a series of U.S. laws passed in 1820 to temporarily resolve the conflict over the expansion of slavery. -
The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy established in 1823 that warned European powers to not interfere with the Western Hemisphere -
Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828 in a landslide victory against incumbent John Quincy Adams, an election that is remembered for its harsh campaigning and historic expansion of the voting electorate -
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was a law signed by President Andrew Jackson that authorized the U.S. President to negotiate treaties with Native American tribes for their relocation from ancestral lands in the east to federal territory west of the Mississippi River -
The Alamo was a Spanish mission in San Antonio, Texas, that is most famous as the site of an 1836 battle during the Texas Revolution. -
Texas annexation was the process by which the Republic of Texas was incorporated into the United States as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. -
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was a U.S. law that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allowed settlers in those territories to decide for themselves whether to allow slavery, a principle known as popular sovereignty. -
The 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court decision was a landmark ruling that declared African Americans were not citizens and could not sue in federal court. -
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an October 1859 attempt by abolitionist John Brown to incite a slave uprising by seizing a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Abraham Lincoln's election as president in 1860 was the first time a Republican held the office, and it was a pivotal moment that led directly to the secession of several Southern states and the start of the American Civil War. -
A civil war is a violent conflict fought between organized groups within the same country, often over political power, control of the government, or separatist goals -
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, that declared all enslaved people in Confederate-held territory were to be freed. -
The 13th Amendment, which permanently abolished slavery throughout the United States, was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the necessary three-fourths of the states on December 6, 1865. -
The 14th Amendment grants citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and requires states to provide "equal protection of the laws" to all individuals within their jurisdiction. -
The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified on February 3, 1870, declares that the right of U.S. citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. This effectively guaranteed African-American men the right to vote. -
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 is a U.S. federal law prohibiting activities that restrict interstate commerce and competition. As the first federal legislation against monopolistic business practices, it emerged from concerns about the power of large corporations during the Gilded Age. -
The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". -
World War I began on July 28, 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary on June 28, 1914, by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo. -
The United States officially entered World War I on April 6, 1917, after Congress declared war against Germany. -
The 19th Amendment grants women the right to vote, while the Treaty of Versailles ended World War I. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the United States in March 1933, beginning his New Deal, a series of programs designed to combat the Great Depression. -
World War II is generally considered to have begun on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. -
The Pearl Harbor attack occurred on December 7, 1941, and the United States formally entered World War II the next day, December 8, 1941, when Congress declared war on Japan. -
World War II officially ended with Japan's formal surrender on September 2, 1945, and the United Nations was officially founded shortly after on October 24, 1945. -
The Korean War was a major military conflict from June 25, 1950, to July 27, 1953, which pitted communist North Korea -
The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education on May 17, 1954, unanimously declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. -
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, at approximately 12:30 p.m. CST. He was shot while riding in an open-top motorcade limousine with his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Texas Governor John Connally and his wife.
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The first moon landing was the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969, when American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their lunar module, the "Eagle," on the Moon's surface. -
Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed the first female Supreme Court Justice by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. -
ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to license marriages between two people of the same sex and to recognize marriages lawfully performed out-of-state -
The September 11 attacks (known as 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by 19 militants -
The "Afghanistan War" as a large-scale conflict between the US and its allies and the Taliban ended in 2021 with the withdrawal of international forces. -
The Iraq War (2003-2011) was a prolonged armed conflict that began with a U.S.-led invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime, followed by a long occupation and insurgency. -
Barack Obama was elected as the first African American President of the United States on November 4, 2008. -
The Affordable Care Act is a comprehensive U.S. healthcare reform law enacted in March 2010 designed to increase the affordability and availability of health insurance, expand Medicaid, and implement protections for consumers -
Joe Biden became the 46th President of the United States on January 20, 2021, the date of his inauguration.