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The creation of the cotton gin
In 1794 Eli Whitney created the cotton gin. The cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds. The fibers are processed into clothing or other goods. Seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil and meal. -
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was a United States federal statute devised by Henry Clay. It was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri. It regulated slavery in the country's western territories by prohibiting the practice in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north, except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. -
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was a term for the attitude that the US not only could, but was destined to strech from coast to coast. The phrase was first employed by John L. O'Sullivan in an article on the annexation of Texas published in the July-August 1845 edition of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement. It allowed white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery or not. The act was designed by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The main purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska Act was to open up many thousands of new farms and make feasible a Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. -
Spoils System
The Spoils System is a practice in which a political party gives government jobs to its supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward victory. Its also used as an incentive to keep working for the party. As opposed to a merit system, where offices are awarded on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity. -
Anaconda Plan
The Anaconda Plan was a strategy created by Union General Winfield Scott in 1861. It called for strangling the Southern Confederacy, much like an Anaconda. It was never officially adopted by the Union government. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the US entered their 3rd year of the civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Sherman's March to the Sea
Sherman's March to the Sea is the name commonly given to the military Savannah Campaign in the American Civil War. It lasted from November 15 to December 21, 1864. Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman conducted the Union Army. -
Robert E. Lee's Surrender
At Appomattox, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. This official ended the United States civil war. Lee had no other choice considering the cercumstances of the war. -
Assationation of Abraham Lincoln
On April 15, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, official ending the American Civil War.
