US History: 1887-2008

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    Early American History

  • July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence

    July 4, 1776: Declaration of Independence was sigined
  • September 17, 1787: Constitution written

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    Civil War/Reconstruction

  • Homestead Act (1862)

    provided 160 acres to anyone willing to settle on land in the west
  • 13th Amendment

    abolished slavery passed at January 31, 1865,
  • 1869: Transcontinental Railroad Completed

  • 15th amendment

    passed at February 3, 1870, voting for all male citizens
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    The Gilded Age

    Rockefeller/Carnegie (Captains of Industry vs. Robber Barons)
    Philanthropy
    Monopoly
    Jane Addams
    Laissez-Faire
  • chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

    chinese Exclusion Act (1882): prohibited immigration of skilled or unskilled Chinese laborers, first US national immigration act
  • Interstate Commerce Act (1887)

    Interstate Commerce Act (1887): ensure railroad set “reasonable and just” rate and the first time government stepped in to regulate business
  • Dawes Act (1887)

    Dawes Act (1887): gave individual ownership of land to native americans instead of the tribe owning things collectively
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    The Progressive Era

    Muckrakers
    Initiative, Referendum, Recall
    The Great Migration
    NAACP
    Immigration Issues (Assimilation and Nativism)
  • Sherman Antitrust Act 1890

    outlawed business monopolies
  • Plessy v. Ferguson

    legalized segregation, established “separate but equal”
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    Imperialism

    Theodore Roosevelt
    Rough Riders
    Foreign Policy
    Immigration Quotas
    Yellow Journalism
  • Klondike Gold Rush (Alaska)

    1896-1899: Klondike Gold Rush (Alaska)
  • The Jungle

    1906: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is published
  • Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)

    Pure Food and Drug Act (1906): regulation of the preparation of foods and the sale of medicines
  • NAACP Founded

    1909: NAACP Founded
  • 16th Amendment

    16th Amendment: established the federal income tax
    passed at 1913
  • 17th Amendment

    17th Amendment: direct election of U.S. Senators
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    World War I

  • National Parks System created

    1916: National Parks System created
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    Roaring Twenties

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    Great Depression

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    World War II

  • United Nations formed

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    Early Cold War

    Containment: stopping the spread of communism
    Arms Race/Space: was an informal 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals
    The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Russia
    Communism :a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their skills
    Domino Theory:the theory that a political event in one country will cause similar events in neighboring countries
  • Truman Doctrine (1947)

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

  • Marshall Plan (1948)

    program to help European countries rebuild after World War II
  • NATO established

  • 1950-1953: Korean War

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    Civil Rights Era

  • 22nd Amendment: prohibits anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected again

    prohibits anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected again
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    Vietnam War

  • 1957: USSR launches Sputnik

  • 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis

  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    authorizing President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and to promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia
  • 1965: Medicare and Medicaid established

  • 1968: Tet Offensive

  • Tinker v. Des Moines

    February 24, 1969
    Supreme Court's majority ruled that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” The Court took the position that school officials could not prohibit only on the suspicion that the speech might disrupt the learning
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    End of the Cold War

  • 1971: Pentagon Papers leaked

  • 26th Amendment

    ratified July 1, 1971
    The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
  • War Powers Act

    is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress.
  • 1975: Fall of Saigon, marks the end of the Vietnam War

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    1990s-21st Century