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George Washington
George Washington (1732-99) was commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) and served two terms as the first U.S. president, from 1789 to 1797. The son of a prosperous planter, Washington was raised in colonial Virginia. As a young man, he worked as a surveyor then fought in the French and Indian War (1754-63). During the American Revolution, he led the colonial forces to victory over the British and became a national hero. -
John Adams
John Adams (1735-1826) was a leader of the American Revolution, and served as the second U.S. president from 1797 to 1801. The Massachusetts-born, Harvard-educated Adams began his career as a lawyer. Intelligent, patriotic, opinionated and blunt, Adams became a critic of Great Britain’s authority in colonial America and viewed the British imposition of high taxes and tariffs as a tool of oppression. During the 1770s, he was a delegate to the Continental Congress. -
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), author of the Declaration of Independence and the third U.S. president, was a leading figure in America’s early development. During the American Revolutionary War (1775-83), Jefferson served in the Virginia legislature and the Continental Congress and was governor of Virginia. He later served as U.S. minister to France and U.S. secretary of state, and was vice president under John Adams (1735-1826). -
16th Amendment
Amendment that allows the federal (United States) government to levy (collect) an income tax from all Americans. Income tax allows for the federal government to keep an army, build roads and bridges, enforce laws and carry out other important duties. -
James Madison
James Madison (1751-1836) was a founding father of the United States and the fourth American president, serving in office from 1809 to 1817. An advocate for a strong federal government, the Virginia-born Madison composed the first drafts of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and earned the nickname “Father of the Constitution.” In 1792, Madison and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) founded the Democratic-Republican Party, which has been called America’s first opposition political party. -
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Imperialism Era
Development of modern technologies, like steam-powered ships to aid in the expansion of European empires. Exploring unknown territory in order to start scientific experiments and medical searches. -
John Tyler
John Tyler (1790-1862) served as America’s 10th president from 1841 to 1845. He assumed office after the death of President William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), who passed away from pneumonia after just a month in the White House. Nicknamed “His Accidency,” Tyler was the first vice president to become chief executive due to the death of his predecessor. A Virginian, he was elected to the state legislature at age 21 and went on to serve in the U.S. Congress and as governor of Virginia. -
John Quincy Adams
After serving in the Massachusetts State Senate and the U.S. Senate, the younger Adams rejoined diplomatic service under President James Madison, helping to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent (1814), which ended the War of 1812. As secretary of state under James Monroe, Adams played a key role in determining the president’s foreign policy, including the famous Monroe Doctrine. -
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Temperance Movement
Period following the American Revolution many Americans drank to excess. The movement started to advocate for the total abstinence of all alcohol—that is to urge people to stop drinking completely. -
Martin Van Buren
Unlike the seven men who preceded him in the White House, Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) was the first president to be born a citizen of the United States and not a British subject. He rose quickly in New York politics, winning a U.S. Senate seat in 1821 and presiding over a sophisticated state political organization. Van Buren helped form the new Democratic Party from a coalition of Jeffersonian Republicans who backed the military hero and president Andrew Jackson -
James Monroe
James Monroe (1758-1831), the fifth U.S. president, oversaw major westward expansion of the U.S. and strengthened American foreign policy in 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine, a warning to European countries against further colonization and intervention in the Western Hemisphere. Monroe, a Virginia native, fought with the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) then embarked on a long political career. -
Andrew Jackson
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become America’s most influential–and polarizing–political figure during the 1820s and 1830s. -
Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), the son of a onetime governor of New Hampshire, entered politics at a young age. He served as speaker of the state legislature before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1833. After two terms in the House and one in the Senate, Pierce returned to practicing law, only to emerge in 1852 as the Democratic presidential candidate. -
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a self-made steel tycoon and one of the wealthiest businessmen of 19th century. He later dedicated his life to philanthropic endeavors. Andrew Carnegie was born on November 25, 1835, Scotland. Worked a series of railroad jobs. The largest steel manufacture of its kind in the world. In 1901 he sold his business and dedicated his time to expanding his philanthropic work, including the establishment of Carnegie-Mellon University in 1904. -
John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), founder of the Standard Oil Company, became one of the world’s wealthiest men and a major philanthropist. In 1870, he established Standard Oil, which by the early 1880s controlled some 90 percent of U.S. refineries and pipelines. During his life Rockefeller donated more than $500 million to various philanthropic causes. -
James K. Polk
James Polk (1795-1849) served as the 11th U.S. president from 1845 to 1849. During his tenure, America’s territory grew by more than one-third and extended across the continent for the first time. Before his presidency, Polk served in the Tennessee legislature and the U.S. Congress; in 1839 he became governor of Tennessee. A Democrat who was relatively unknown outside of political circles, Polk won the 1844 presidential election as the dark horse candidate. -
William Henry Harrison
William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), America’s ninth president, served just one month in office before dying of pneumonia. His tenure, from March 4, 1841, to April 4, 1841, is the shortest of any U.S. president. Harrison, who was born into a prominent Virginia family, joined the Army as a young man and fought American Indians on the U.S. frontier. He then became the first congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory, a region encompassing much of the present-day Midwest. -
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) served in the army, commanding troops in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War and the second of the Seminole Wars. He became a full-fledged war hero through his service in the Mexican War, which broke out in 1846 after the U.S. annexation of Texas. Elected president in 1848, Taylor entered the White House at a time when the issue of slavery and its extension into the new western territories (including Texas) had caused a major rift between the North and South. -
Millard Fillmore
Born of humble origins in New York State, Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) became a lawyer and won election to the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 1833. He served four terms in Congress but left in 1843 to mount an unsuccessful run for the governorship of New York. In 1848, he emerged as the Whig Party candidate for vice president and after Taylor’s victory he presided over months of early debate in Congress over the controversial Compromise of 1850. -
Chester Arthur
Chester Arthur (1829-1886), the 21st U.S. president, took office after the death of President James Garfield (1831-1881). As president from 1881 to 1885, Arthur advocated for civil service reform. A Vermont native, he became active in Republican politics in the 1850s as a New York City lawyer. In 1871, an era of political machines and patronage, Arthur was named to the powerful position of customs collector for the Port of New York. -
James Buchanan
James Buchanan (1791-1868), America’s 15th president, was in office from 1857 to 1861. During his tenure, seven Southern states seceded from the Union and the nation teetered on the brink of civil war. A Pennsylvania native, Buchanan began his political career in his home state’s legislature and went on to serve in both houses of the U.S. Congress; he later became a foreign diplomat and U.S. secretary of state. -
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught lawyer, legislator and vocal opponent of slavery, was elected 16th president of the United States in November 1860, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Lincoln proved to be a shrewd military strategist and a savvy leader: His Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for slavery’s abolition, while his Gettysburg Address stands as one of the most famous pieces of oratory in American history. -
Ku Klux Klan
Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and black Republican leaders. -
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Suffrage Movement
The struggle for the right of women to vote. Women's Suffrage summary: The women's suffrage movement was the struggle for the right of women to vote and run for office and is part of the overall women's rights movement. -
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) was a self-made multi-millionaire who became one of the wealthiest Americans of the 19th century. As a boy, he worked with his father, who operated a boat that ferried cargo between Staten Island, New York, where they lived, and Manhattan. After working as a steamship captain, Vanderbilt went into business for himself in the late 1820s, and eventually became one of the country’s largest steamship operators. -
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Gilded Era
Time periods that played an important role in the development of the American society. Era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and capitalism. -
James Garfield
James Garfield (1831-81) was sworn in as the 20th U.S. president in March 1881 and died in September of that same year from an assassin’s bullet, making his tenure in office the second-shortest in U.S. presidential history, after William Henry Harrison (1773-1841). Born in an Ohio log cabin, Garfield was a self-made man who became a school president in his mid-20s. During the U.S. Civil War (1861-65), he fought for the Union and rose to the rank of major general. -
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses Grant (1822-1885) commanded the victorious Union army during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and served as the 18th U.S. president from 1869 to 1877. An Ohio native, Grant graduated from West Point and fought in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). During the Civil War, Grant, an aggressive and determined leader, was given command of all the U.S. armies. After the war he became a national hero, and the Republicans nominated him for president in 1868. -
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893), the 19th president of the United States, won a controversial and fiercely disputed election against Samuel Tilden. He withdrew troops from the Reconstruction states in order to restore local control and good will, a decision that many perceived as a betrayal of African Americans in the South. He served a single term, as he had promised in his inaugural address. -
Grover Cleveland
The First Democrat elected after the Civil War, Grover Cleveland was the only President to leave the White House and return for a second term four years later. He vetoed many private pension bills to Civil War veterans whose claims were fraudulent. When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland vetoed it, too. -
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Progressive Era
Period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States. The main objective was to eliminate corruption in government. -
William McKinley
Born in Niles, Ohio, in 1843, McKinley briefly attended Allegheny College, and was teaching in a country school when the Civil War broke out. Enlisting as a private in the Union Army. The depression of 1893 had almost run its course and with it the extreme agitation over silver. Deferring action on the money question, he called Congress into special session to enact the highest tariff in history. -
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Spanish-American War
War between Spain and America. War started over the country Cuba. Spain first had control over Cuba, America won and U.S ended with control. -
USS Maine
At 9.40 pm on the night of February 15th, 1898 the United States battleship Maine, riding quietly at anchor in Havana harbor, was suddenly blown up, apparently by a mine, in an explosion which tore her bottom out and sank her, killing 260 officers and men on board. -
Theodore Roosevelt
The Republican politician Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in September 1901, after the assassination of McKinley. He brought a new energy to the White House, and won a second term on his own merits in 1904. Roosevelt confronted the bitter struggle between management and labor head-on and became known as the great “trust buster” for his strenuous efforts to break up industrial combinations under the Sherman Antitrust Act -
The Jungle
Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities -
J.P. Morgan
One of the most powerful bankers of his era, J.P. (John Pierpont) Morgan (1837-1913) financed railroads and helped organize U.S. Steel, General Electric and other major corporations. The Connecticut native followed his wealthy father into the banking business in the late 1850s, and in 1871 formed a partnership with Philadelphia banker Anthony Drexel. Morgan used his influence to help stabilize American financial markets during several economic crises, including the panic of 1907. -
William Howard Taft
Distinguished jurist, effective administrator, but poor politician, William Howard Taft spent four uncomfortable years in the White House. Large, jovial, conscientious, he was caught in the intense battles between Progressives and conservatives, and got scant credit for the achievements of his administration. -
Invention of Radio
Radio has transformed society three times, not to mention giving birth to the entire field of electronics. Perhaps no invention of modern times has delivered so much while initially promising so little. When radio arrived at the end of the 19th century, few thought that “wireless” communications, in which intangible signals could be sent through the air over long distances, would be competitive in a world dominated by the telegraph and telephone. -
Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire
Deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in US history. Increased safety regulations. -
Woodrow Wilson
Like Roosevelt before him, Woodrow Wilson regarded himself as the personal representative of the people. "No one but the President," he said, "seems to be expected ... to look out for the general interests of the country." He developed a program of progressive reform and asserted international leadership in building a new world order. In 1917 he proclaimed American entrance into World War I a crusade to make the world "safe for democracy." Wilson had seen the frightfulness of war. -
17th Amendment
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures. -
Allied Powers
The major Allied powers in World War I were Great Britain (and the British Empire), France, and the Russian Empire, formally linked by the Treaty of London of September 5, 1914. Other countries that had been, or came to be, allied by treaty to one or more of those powers were also called Allies: Portugal and Japan by treaty with Britain; Italy by the Treaty of London of April 26, 1915, with all three powers. -
Trench Warfare
Trench warfare, warfare in which opposing armed forces attack, counterattack, and defend from relatively permanent systems of trenches dug into the ground. The opposing systems of trenches are usually close to one another. Trench warfare is resorted to when the superior firepower of the defense compels the opposing forces to “dig in” so extensively as to sacrifice their mobility in order to gain protection. -
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World War I
First world involved war against the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) and the Allies (Serbia, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and the United States) of America. America stayed neutral. -
Central Powers
Central Powers, World War I coalition that consisted primarily of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, the “central” European states that were at war from August 1914 against France and Britain on the Western Front and against Russia on the Eastern Front. The Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers on October 29, 1914. Bulgaria came in on October 14, 1915. -
Babe Ruth
Ruth has been called an American original, undoubtedly the game’s first great slugger and the most celebrated athlete of his time. Soon after honing his skills at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore, he came to the big leagues as a lefty hurler with the Red Sox, where he won 89 games in six years while setting the World Series record for consecutive scoreless innings. -
Jazz Age
The period that in the U.S. extended roughly from the Armistice of 1918 to the stock-market crash of 1929 and was notable for increased prosperity, liberated or hedonistic social behavior, Prohibition and the concomitant rise in production and consumption of bootleg liquor, and the development and dissemination of jazz and ragtime and associated ballroom dances. -
Treaty of Versailles
World War I officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Negotiated among the Allied powers with little participation by Germany, its 15 parts and 440 articles reassigned German boundaries and assigned liability for reparations. After strict enforcement for five years, the French assented to the modification of important provisions. -
Roaring 20s
The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.” People from coast to coast bought the same goods (thanks to nationwide advertising and the spread of chain stores), listened to the same music, did the same dances and even used the same slang! -
Nazi Party
Under the leadership of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party, grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany through totalitarian means from 1933 to 1945. Founded in 1919 as the German Workers’ Party, the group promoted German pride and anti-Semitism, and expressed dissatisfaction with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the 1919 peace settlement that ended World War I and required Germany to make numerous concessions and reparations. -
League of Nations
In 1914, a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of the most costly war ever fought to that date. As more and more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. President Woodrow Wilson became a vocal advocate of this concept. -
Prohibition
The ratification of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution–which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of intoxicating liquors–ushered in a period in American history known as Prohibition. The result of a widespread temperance movement during the first decade of the 20th century, Prohibition was difficult to enforce, despite the passage of companion legislation known as the Volstead Act. -
18th Amendment
Established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol illegal. -
19th Amendment
Important amendment to the constitution as it gave women the right to vote in 1920. You may remember that the 15th amendment made it illegal for the federal or state government to deny any US citizen the right to vote -
Warren G. Harding
A Democratic leader, William Gibbs McAdoo, called Harding's speeches "an army of pompous phrases moving across the landscape in search of an idea." Their very murkiness was effective, since Harding's pronouncements remained unclear on the League of Nations, in contrast to the impassioned crusade of the Democratic candidates, Governor James M. Cox of Ohio and Franklin D. Roosevelt. -
Eleanor Roosevelt
After her husband suffered a polio attack in 1921, Eleanor stepped forward to help Franklin with his political career. When her husband became president in 1933, Eleanor dramatically changed the role of the first lady. Not content to stay in the background and handle domestic matters, she showed the world that the first lady was an important part of American politics. -
The Bonus Army
In 1924, a grateful Congress voted to give a bonus to World War I veterans - $1.25 for each day served overseas, $1.00 for each day served in the States. The catch was that payment would not be made until 1945.
Members of the Bonus Army encamp within sight of the
Capitol, 1932 However, by 1932 the nation had slipped into the dark days of the Depression and the unemployed veterans wanted their money immediately. -
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), the 30th U.S. president, led the nation through most of the Roaring Twenties, a decade of dynamic social and cultural change, materialism and excess. He took office on August 3, 1923, following the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), whose administration was riddled with scandal. -
Black Tuesday
During the 1920s, the U.S. stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929, a period of wild speculation. By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stocks in great excess of their real value. Among the other causes of the eventual market collapse were low wages, the proliferation of debt, a weak agriculture, and an excess of large bank loans that could not be liquidated. -
The Great Depression
The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939, and was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. -
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), America’s 31st president, took office in 1929, the year the U.S. economy plummeted into the Great Depression. Although his predecessors’ policies undoubtedly contributed to the crisis, which lasted over a decade, Hoover bore much of the blame in the minds of the American people. As the Depression deepened, Hoover failed to recognize the severity of the situation or leverage the power of the federal government to squarely address it. -
Hollywood's Golden Age
By the 1930s, Hollywood was one of the most visible businesses in America, and most people were attending films at least once a week. With better sound and film technology emerging, the industry was able to pursue new creative directions, entering a “Golden Age” of creativity and exploration. -
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl refers to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a dry period in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region. The Dust Bowl intensified the crushing economic impacts of the Great Depression and drove many farming families on a desperate migration in search of work and better living conditions. -
Boxing
Boxing became respectable and even a social event during the 1920s. Many states legalized boxing as an official sport. It also became a social event for many politicians, business executives and social leaders who wanted to be seen at these championship fights with their ladies in hand.1 While boxing became a social event for the upper class and elite, members of the working class enjoyed boxing in their own ways. Instead of attending expensive matches, neighborhoods came together. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation’s 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or “fireside chats.” His ambitious slate of New Deal programs and reforms redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans. -
The Holocaust
To the anti-Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Jews were an inferior race, an alien threat to German racial purity and community. After years of Nazi rule in Germany, during which Jews were consistently persecuted, Hitler’s “final solution”–now known as the Holocaust–came to fruition under the cover of world war, with mass killing centers constructed in the concentration camps of occupied Poland. -
Nuremburg Laws
The Nuremberg Laws were anti-Jewish statutes enacted by Germany on September 15, 1935, marking a major step in clarifying racial policy and removing Jewish influences from Aryan society. -
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was an American aviator who set many flying records and championed the advancement of women in aviation. She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and the first person ever to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland. During a flight to circumnavigate the globe, Earhart disappeared somewhere over the Pacific in July 1937. -
Child Labor Laws
Laws passed over many decades, beginning in the 1830s, by state and federal governments, forbidding the employment of children and young teenagers, except at certain carefully specified jobs. -
War Admiral
War Admiral was an American thoroughbred racehorse, best known as the fourth winner of the American Triple Crown and Horse of the Year in 1937, and rival of Seabiscuit in the 'Match Race of the Century' in 1938. -
Sea Biscuit
Seabiscuit was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse in the United States. A small horse, Seabiscuit had an inauspicious start to his racing career, but became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression. -
World War Two
Coming just two decades after the last great global conflict, the Second World War was the most widespread and deadliest war in history, involving more than 30 countries and resulting in more than 50 million military and civilian deaths (with some estimates as high as 85 million dead). Sparked by Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, the war would drag on for six deadly years until the final Allied defeat of both Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945. -
Kristallnacht
On November 9 to November 10, 1938, in an incident known as “Kristallnacht”, Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed close to 100 Jews. In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, also called the “Night of Broken Glass,” some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. German Jews had been subjected to repressive policies since 1933, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) became chancellor of Germany. -
Pacific World War II
The Japanese war plan, aimed at the American, British, and Dutch possessions in the Pacific and in Southeast Asia, was of a rather makeshift character. The first draft, submitted by the chiefs of the Army and Navy General Staff, was accepted by Imperial General Headquarters early in September 1941. The lateness of the draft was due largely to the long indecision about going to war with such powerful countries, but partly to the complicated system of command. -
Wizard of Oz: Released
Best american film at the time -
Cold War-Red Scare
The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939, and was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. -
Adolf Hitler
Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was one of the most powerful and infamous dictators of the 20th century. After World War I, he rose to power in the National Socialist German Workers Party, taking control of the German government in 1933. His establishment of concentration camps to inter Jews and other groups he believed to be a threat to Aryan supremacy resulted in the death of more than 6 million people in the Holocaust. -
Killing Centers
In German-occupied Europe during World War II, the killing center was a facility established exclusively or primarily for the assembly-line style mass murder of human beings. Those few prisoners who were selected to survive, temporarily, were deployed in some fashion in support of this primary function. The killing centers are sometimes referred to as "extermination camps" or "death camps." -
European World War II
The major event that occurred was The Holocaust that also involved the many deaths of Jews and non-Aryan people. With the involvement of American forces apart of the Allies side. After the war German soldiers and officials were tried for their crimes. -
Nuremburg Trials
Nuremberg, Germany, was chosen as a site for trials that took place in 1945 and 1946. Judges from the Allied powers—Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States—presided over the hearings of twenty-two major Nazi criminals. Twelve prominent Nazis were sentenced to death. -
Alaska joins the Union
On January 3, 1959, President Eisenhower signs a special proclamation admitting the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th and largest state. The European discovery of Alaska came in 1741. -
Hawaii joins the Union
Statehood became effective on August 21, 1959. Hawaii remains the most recent state to join the United States. Dole declared Hawaii an independent republic. 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.