U.S. History 1877-2008

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    Early American History

    July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence signed
    September 17, 1787: Constitution written
    December 15, 1792: Bill of Rights ratified
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    Civil War/ Reconstruction

    1869: Transcontinental Railroad completed
    1876: Telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell
    13th Amendment: abolished slavery
    14th Amendment: citizenship & due process
    15th Amendment: voting for all male citizens
    Plessy V. Ferguson: legalized segregation, established "separate but equal"
    Homestead Act (1862): provided 160 acres to anyone willing to settle on land in the west
    Sherman Antitrust Act (1890): outlawed business monopolies
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    The Gilded Age

    Rockefeller/Carnegie (Captains of Industry vs. Robber Barons)
    Philanthropy
    Monopoly
    Jane Addams
    Laissez-Faire
    1889: Hull House founded, first of many settlement houses
    1869-1899: Klondike Gold Rush (Alaska)
    Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
    Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
    Dawes Act (1887)
    Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883)
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    The Progressive Era

    Muckrakers
    Initiative, Referendum, Recall
    The Great Migration
    NAACP
    Immigration Issues (Assimilation and Nativism)
    1906: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is published
    1909: NAACP Founded
    1916: National Parks System created
    16th Amendment: established the federal income tax
    17th Amendment: direct election of U.S. Senators
    Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
    Meat Inspection Act (1906)
    Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
    Federal Reserve Act (1914)
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    Imperialism

    Theodore Roosevelt
    Rough Riders
    Foreign Policy
    Immigration Quotas
    Yellow Journalism
    1898: USS Maine explodes off the coast of Cuba, starting the Spanish American War
    1898: Hawaii is annexed as a territory of the United States
    1904-1914: Panama Canal Built
    Open Door Policy (1899): initiated free trade with China
    Roosevelt Corollary (1904): an addition to the Monroe Doctrine
    Dollar Diplomacy (1909): Taft’s policy of paying for peace in Latin America
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    World War I

    Alvin York
    Homefront
    M.A.I.N. (Causes of WWI)
    Sussex Pledge
    American Expeditionary Forces
    President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918)
    Treaty of Versailles (1919)
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    Roaring Twenties

    Social Darwinism
    The Red Scare
    Assembly Line
    Return to Normalcy
    Harlem Renaissance
    1922: Teapot Dome Scandal uncovered by Wall Street Journal
    1925: Scopes Monkey Trial
    1927: Lindbergh makes history by making a nonstop flight from New York to Paris
    18th Amendment: prohibition is enacted and alcohol is illegal
    19th Amendment: women are given the right to vote
    20th Amendment: adjusted the dates of the presidential terms
    21st Amendment: repeals the 18th Amendment
    American Indian Citizenship Act 1924
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    Great Depression

    Hoovervilles
    The New Deal
    Causes of the Great Depression (5)
    Court Packing
    Eleanor Roosevelt
    1929: Stock Market Crash
    1930-1936: Dust Bowl
    1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt elected
    1932: Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established
    1933: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) established
    1934: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) established
    1935: Works Progress Administration (WPA) established
    Social Security Act (1935)
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    World War II

    Island Hopping
    Liberation of Concentration Camps
    Dwight Eisenhower
    Douglas MacArthur
    Chester W. Nimitz
    Navajo Code Talkers
    Tuskegee Airmen
    Flying Tigers
    The Manhattan Project
    Rosie the Riveter
    Executive Order 9066 (1942): incarceration of Japanese Americans for the duration of WWII
    G.I. Bill (1944): gives military veterans financial and educational benefits
    Interstate Highway Act (1956): authorized the building of a national highway system
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    Early Cold War

    Containment
    Arms Race/Space Race
    The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
    Communism
    Domino Theory
    1945: United Nations formed
    1948: Berlin Airlift
    1949: NATO established
    1950-1953: Korean War
    1951: Rosenbergs trial
    1952: First H-Bomb detonated by the United States
    1955: Jonas Salk invents the Polio Vaccine
    1957: USSR launches Sputnik
    22nd Amendment: prohibits anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected again
    Truman Doctrine (1947)
    Marshall Plan (1948)
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    Civil Rights Era

    1955-1956: Montgomery Bus Boycott
    1957: Little Rock Nine
    1961: Bay of Pigs
    1961: Berlin Wall built
    1963: Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” at the March on Washington
    1963: John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, TX
    1968: Martin Luther King is assassinated
    1969: First Man on the Moon
    24th Amendment
    Civil Rights Act of 1964
    Voting Rights Act of 1965
    Civil Rights Act of 1968
    Title IX
    Sweatt v. Painter
    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
    Hernandez v. Texas
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    Vietnam War

    Oct 16-28 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis
    July 30, 1965: Medicare and Medicaid established
    Jan 31- Sept 23, 1968: Tet Offensive
    June 1971: Pentagon Papers leaked
    April 30, 1975: Fall of Saigon, marks the end of the Vietnam War
    July 1, 1971 26th Amendment: moved the voting age from 21 years old to 18 years old
    Tinker v. Des Moines: defined the First Amendment rights for students in the United States Public Schools
    Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964): begins undeclared war in Vietnam
    War Powers Act (1973)
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    End of the Cold War

    1970: Kent State University shooting
    1974: Watergate Scandal, which leads to Nixon’s Resignation
    1978: Camp David Accords
    1979-1981: Iran Hostage Crisis
    1979: Three Mile Island Disaster
    1985-1987: Iran Contra Affair
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    1990s-21st Century