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American Commodore Matthew Perry led his four ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay, seeking to re-establish for the first time in over 200 years regular trade and discourse between Japan and the western world. This showed the Japenses that they needed to become more westernized before they ended up like China.
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The United States sugar producers started trading with Hawaii for their much wated sugar because the businiessmen didnt have to pay the same taxes that they would have if they were getting Sugar from inside the United States .
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Secretary of State William Seward was able to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million from Russia, and it would later become a producer of oil and a trading post.
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France was the first country to attempt the task. Led by Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, who belatedly realized that a sea-level canal was too difficult and funding was pulled from the project in 1888.
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Mahan wrote a book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, in which his ideas resonated with leading politicians, including Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, and Secretary of the Navy Herbert Tracy.
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Due in large part of American interferance, the Hawaiian economy collapsed and the U.S. allowed Hawaii a tariff-free trade. This made the Hawaiians dependent upon the U.S.
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The Wilson-Gorman Tariff essentially established the McKinley Tariff ane it is considered a cause of the Spanish-American War.
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Once Hawaii was dependent on the U.S., the American' s imposed high tarrifs which greatly deminished that Hawaiian exports and led the white minority to overthrow the the native government. Then the United States anaxed Hawaii.
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When the American's went into war with the Spanish, they took the side of the humanitarian for trying to help the Cubans get rid of the Spanish. This helped the war stay popular and it was given the nick name "The Splended Little War".
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When America Declared War against Spain they attacted on all fronts wich allowed them to gain more territory: Cuba, Guam, Philippians, Puerto Rico.
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The Spanish minister in Washington, Enrique Dupuy de Lóme, wrote a letter criticizing President McKinley, and it was intercepted and published in the news papers. This is a noted reason for the start of the Spanish-American War.
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President McKinley sent a battle ship, the Maine, to a Cuban port and while it was docked there the battle ship expolded and the Spanish were blamed. It was seen as an act of war.
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When America saw the brutal treatment of the Cubans, the U.S. passed the Teller amendment which delared war with Spain.
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In the Spanish-American war the American's alined with Emilio Aguinaldo to rebell against the Spanish and promised them freedom after the war was won.
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Just two days before the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty, fighting broke out between American forces and Filipino nationalists led by Emilio Aguinaldo who sought independence rather than a change in colonial rulers.
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The Unites Satates wanted to get in on the trading with China, but many European countries had already taken the land, so The U.S. came up with the Open Door policy, which was an international agreement to promoting equal opportunity for international trade and commerce in China.
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The Boxers, Chinese nationalists who opposed foreign influence, rose up against foreign traders, officials, and missionaries, and massacred many of them. The United States and the European powers intervened with troops and put down the rebellion.
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The Big Stick Diplomacy was a method of negotiating, used by Theodore Roosevelt, where it is approached peacefully, but also recognizing the possible need for force.
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The Platt amendment overruled the Teller amendment, as it said that Cuba was essentially free, but it could only deal with the U.S. and that if they do, the U.S. gets to step in and handle it.
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A result of tensions with Britain and Germany, a blockade by these two forces was put into action in Latin America, and Roosevelt got involved denouncing the blockade and asked for it to be ended. To back up his request for the end of the blockade, he created a naval presence near Cuba.
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The United States signed a deal with Cuba that allowed the U.S. to have a navy base at Guantanamo Bay if they paid a yearly lease. This left a perminate U.S. presence in Cuba.
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When a proposed treaty over rights to build in what was then a Colombian territory was rejected, the U.S. military backed a Panamanian independence movement, eventually negotiating a deal with the new government that gave them rights to the canal zone.
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The goal of diplomacy was to create stability and order abroad that would best promote American commercial interests.
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A conscienceless group murdered the popluar new revolutionary president and installed General Victoriano Huerta, an Indian, in the president's chair, which led to a mass mirgation of MExicans to America.
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President Wilson allowed the American arms to flow to Huerta's principal rivals, Venustiano Carranza adn "Pancho" Villa.
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On the Western front the armies of both sides dug trenches into the ground and fought by crossing over them. This led to many stalemates and many lives lost for little land gain.
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A young Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Sarajevo, Bosnia. This was one of the key started events that started World War 1.
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A German U-boat torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner en route from New York to Liverpool, England. More than 120 Americans died when the ship sank.
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British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the Germans. This message helped draw the United States into the war.
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Mustard gas, introduced by the Germans, blistered the skin, eyes, and lungs, and killed thousands on the battle feild.
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Germany had formally surrendered on November 11, 1918, and all nations had agreed to stop fighting while the terms of peace were negotiated in Versailles.
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The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms and the nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929.
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Hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S., led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society.
