US History 1887-2008

By Gracie.smith
  • Period: to

    Early American History

  • Declaration of Independence signed

  • Constitution written

  • Bill of Rights ratified

  • Period: to

    Civil War/Reconstruction

  • Homestead Act

    Provided 160 acres to anyone willing to settle on land in the west.

  • 13th Amendment

    Abolished slavery

  • 14th Amendment

    Citizenship and due process

  • Transcontinental Railroad Completed

  • 15th Amendment

    Voting for all male citizens

  • Telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell

  • Period: to

    The Gilded Age

    1) Rockefeller/Carnegie (Captains of Industry vs. Robber Barons) A Captain of Industry was a business leader whose income contributed positively to the country while robber barons develop monopolies and keep the money to themselves
    2) Philanthropy something done to better humanity
    3) Monopoly a business that is the only provider of a good/service
    4) Jane Addams an American activist for reform
    5) Laissez-Faire letting companies take their own course without government interference.

  • Chinese Exclusion Act

    prohibited immigration of skilled or unskilled Chinese laborers, first US national immigration act

  • Pendleton Civil Service Act

    awarded government jobs based on merit

  • Interstate Commerce Act

    ensure railroad set "reasonable and just" rate and the first time government stepped in to regulate business

  • Dawes Act

    gave individual ownership of land to native Americans instead of the tribe owning things collectively

  • Hull House founded, first of many settlement houses

  • Sherman Antitrust Act

    Outlawed business monopolies

  • Sherman Anti-Trust Act

    outlawed trusts to promote economic fairness
  • Period: to

    The Progressive Era

    1) Muckrakers journalists who exposed institutions
    2) Initiative, Referendum. Recall powers reserved to voters to propose repeal or remove elected official
    3) The Great Migration massive movement of African Americans out of South into North for economic opportunities
    4) NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People civil right organization
    5) Immigration Issues (Assimilation and Nativism) attempts to make everyone like the white man

  • Klondike Gold Rush (Alaska)

  • Plessy v. Ferguson

    Legalized segregation, established "separate but equal"

  • USS Maine explodes off the coast of Cuba, starting the Spanish American War

  • Hawaii is annexed as a territory of the United States

  • Period: to

    Imperialism

    1) Theodore Roosevelt 26th president, conservationist, naturalist, historian, writer
    2) Rough Riders first U.S. volunteer cavalry under TR
    3) Foreign Policy interactions with foreign nations
    4) Immigration Quotas limited the number of immigrants allowed entry to the United States
    5) Yellow Journalism style of journalism that emphasized sensationalism over facts

  • Open Door Policy

    initiated free trade with China

  • Panama Canal Built

  • Roosevelt Corollary

    an addition to the Monroe Doctrine

  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is published

  • Meat Inspection Act

    law that makes it illegal to adulterate or misbrand meat

  • Pure Food and Drug Act

    regulation of the preparation of foods and the sale of medicines

  • NAACP Founded

  • Dollar Diplomacy

    Taft's policy of paying for peace in Latin America

  • 16th Amendment

    established the federal income tax

  • 17th Amendment

    direct election of U.S. Senators

  • Federal Reserve Act

    established the Federal Reserve, which helped stabilize the banking industry

  • Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated, starting WWI

  • Period: to

    World War I

    1) Alvin York one of the most decorated US Army soldiers of WWI
    2) Homefront those who stay in a country and work while that country's soldiers are fighting in foreign country
    3) M.A.I.N. (Causes of WWI) militarism, alliances, imperialism and nationalism
    4) Sussex Pledge agreed to give adequate warning before sinking merchant and passenger ships
    5) American Expeditionary Forces troops serving in Europe during WWI

  • Sinking of the Lusitania

  • National Parks System created

  • The United States enters WWI on the Allied side

  • Bolshevik Revolution in Russia begins, causing Russian troops to exit the war

  • Germany surrenders to the Allied Powers

  • Battle of Argonne Forest, considered the turning point of the war

  • President Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points

    statement of principles for peace after World War I, included no colonialism, freedom of the seas, and a League of Nations

  • Treaty of Versailles

    peace treaty that ended World War I, required Germany to accept full blame and pay war reparations as well as demilitarize

  • 18th Amendment

    prohibition is enacted and alcohol is illegal

  • 19th Amendment

    women are given the right to vote
  • Period: to

    Roaring Twenties

    1) Social Darwinism ideologies of evolution by natural selection
    2) The Red Scare fear of potential rise of communism or anarchism
    3) Assembly Line manufacturing process
    4) Return to Normalcy return to the way of life before WWI and Spanish Flu pandemic
    5) Harlem Renaissance time for cultural celebration for African Americans through their art

  • Teapot Dome Scandal uncovered by the Wall Street Journal

  • American Indian Citizenship

    granted citizenship to any Native Americans born within the U.S.

  • Scopes Monkey Trial

  • Charles Lindbergh makes history by making a nonstop solo flight from New York to Paris

  • Stock Market Crash

  • Period: to

    Great Depression

    1) Hoovervilles towns for those effected economically
    2) The New Deal series of domestic programs to combat the effects of the Great Depression on the economy
    3) Causes of the Great Depression Stock Market Crash of 1929, banking panics, reduction in purchasing across the board, American economic policy with Europe, Drought conditions
    4) Court Packing TR's attempt to pass a bill allowing him to appoint new justices
    5) Eleanor Roosevelt driving force in creating the 1948 charter of liberties

  • Dust Bowl

  • Franklin D. Roosevelt elected

  • Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established

  • 20th Amendment

    adjusted the dates of the presidential terms

  • 21st Amendment

    repeals the 18th Amendment and prohibition ends

  • Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) established

  • Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) established

  • Works Progress Administration (WPA) established

  • Social Security Act

    established the Social Security Administration, which provides unemployment insurance, aid to the disabled, old age pensions, and insurance for families

  • Adolf Hitler invades Poland, starting WWII

  • Period: to

    World War II

    1)sland Hopping military strategy
    2Liberation of Concentration Camps Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau
    3Dwight Eisenhower 34th president
    4Douglas MacArthur American general
    5Chester W. Nimitz admiral used aircrafts
    6Navajo Code Talkers used codes to send sensitive military messages
    7Tuskegee Airmen first black military aviators
    8Flying Tigers nickname for fighter pilots
    9The Manhattan Project code for American effort for atomic weapon
    10 Rosie the Riveter iconic female poster for working women

  • Attack in Pear Harbor

  • Battle of Midway

  • Bataan Death March

  • Executive Order 9066

    incarceration of Japanese Americans for the duration of WWII

  • "D-Day" - Invasion of Normandy

  • G.I. Bill

    gives military veterans financial and educational benefits

  • The atomic bomb, "Little Boy" is dropped in Hiroshima, Japan (August 6)

  • The atomic bomb "Fat Man" is dropped in Nagasaki, Japan ending WWII (August 9)

  • United Nations formed

  • Period: to

    Early Cold War

    1)Containment US policy preventing spread of communism abroad
    2)Arms Race/Space Race competition between US and USSR to make weapons and make it to space first
    3)The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics federal socialist state in Northern Eurasia
    4)Communism socio-economic political movement where factories and farms are shared without rules or money
    5)Domino Theory if it happen to one it'd eventually happen to all

  • 22nd Amendment

    prohibits anyone who has been elected president twice form being elected again

  • Truman Doctrine

    U.S. policy that gave military and economic aid to countries threatened by communism

  • Berlin Airlift

  • Marshall Plan

    program to help European countries rebuild after WWII

  • NATO established

  • Korean War

  • Sweatt v. Painter

    ruled the separate law school at the University of Texas failed to qualify as "separate but equal"
  • Period: to

    Civil Rights Era

  • Rosenbergs trial

  • First H-Bomb detonated by the United States

  • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

    overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and mandated desegregation

  • Hernandez v. Texas

    Mexican Americans and all other races provided equal protection under the 14th Amendment
  • Period: to

    Vietnam War

  • Jonas Salk invents the Polio Vaccine

  • Montgomery Bus Boycott after Rosa Parks' arrest

  • Interstate Highway Act

    authorized the building of a national highway system

  • USSR launches Sputnik

  • Little Rock Nine integrated into an all-white school in Little Rock, AK

  • Cuban Missile Crisis

  • Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba

  • Berlin Wall built to prevent people from leaving communist East Berlin

  • Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech" at the March on Washington

  • John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, TX

  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    begins undeclared war in Vietnam

  • 24th Amendment

    Abolishes the poll tax

  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Made discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin in public places illegal and required employers to hire on an equal opportunity basis.

  • Medicare and Medicaid established

  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Eliminated literacy tests for voters

  • Tet Offensive

  • Martin Luther King is assassinated

  • Civil Rights Act of 1968

    Prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of housing

  • Tinker v. Des Moines

    Defined the First Amendment rights for students in the United States Public Schools

  • First Man on the Moon

  • Title IX

    protects people from discrimination based on gender in education programs

  • Kent State University shooting

  • Period: to

    End of Cold War

  • Pentagon Papers leaked

  • 26th Amendment

    Moved the voting age from 21 years old to 18 years old

  • War Powers Act

    law limited the President's right to send troops to battle without Congressional approval

  • Watergate Scandal, which leads to Nixon's Resignation

  • Fall of Saigon, marks the end of the Vietnam War

  • Camp David Accords

  • Three Mile Island Disaster

  • Iran Hostage Crisis

  • Iran Contra Affair

  • Persian Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm)

  • Period: to

    1990’s - 21st Century

    1. Barack Obama not only was he the first African American president but he created the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. 2. Al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11. 3. No Child Left Behind Act brought test-based school accountability to scale across the United States. 4. President Clinton's Impeachment stemmed from a sexual harassment lawsuit. 5. Presidential Election of 2000 Bush won the election against Al Gore; the first candidate to lose the popular vote but still win the election.

  • Fall of the USSR - Official end of the Cold War

  • NAFTA created free trade between Mexico, the United States and Canada

  • Attack on World Trade Center and Pentagon

  • USA PATRIOT Act

    tightened the national security, particularly as it was related to foreign terrorism

  • Hurricane Katrina

  • Zimmerman Telegram intercepted by the British, warned the U.S. of a proposed ally between Mexico and Germany