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The Declaration of Independence was a document created by the 13 American colonies declaring independence from Great Britain. -
"E Pluribus Unum" was the motto proposed for the first Great Seal of the United States by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson in 1776. It is a Latin phrase that means ¨One from many." -
The Constitution of the United States is a document that serves as the fundamental law of the country. It established how the federal and state governments should be organized, and it guarantees a number of basic rights and liberties to American citizens. -
The Bill of Rights is the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. -
Nativism is the political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native or indigenous inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the support of immigration-restriction measures. -
Alexis de Tocqueville's five values crucial to America's success as a constitutional republic are liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez-faire. The key insight of Alexis de Tocqueville's Tocqueville on democracy was that American democracy really represented an important cultural shift. -
Tenement buildings were constructed with cheap materials, had little or no indoor plumbing, and lacked proper ventilation. The living conditions in a tenement building were cramped, poorly lit, under-ventilated, and usually without indoor plumbing, and many diseases. -
The Homestead Act of 1862 was one of the most significant and enduring events in the westward expansion of the United States. By granting 160 acres of free land to claimants, it allowed nearly any man or woman a "fair chance." -
Political machines allied with both rich and poor in major urban areas in exchange for votes and support. Political machines have been responsible for restructuring city governments to centralize authority, improving facilities and services, helping to assimilate immigrant groups, and encouraging the growth of business -
the theory that human groups and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin perceived in plants and animals in nature. -
the physical location of the New York City-centered music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. -
A muckraker was any of a group of American writers identified with pre-World War I reform and exposé writing. The muckrakers provided detailed, accurate journalistic accounts of the political and economic corruption and social hardships caused by the power of big business in a rapidly industrializing the United States. -
The Homestead Strike was an industrial lockout and strike which began on July 1, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. -
Skookum Jim and his family found gold near the Klondike River in Canada's Yukon Territory. Their discovery sparked one of the most frantic gold rushes in history. -
The Spanish-American War was an 1898 conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America. -
The Big Stick Policy refers to President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: "speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." -
The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1913 and allows Congress to levy a tax on income from any source without apportioning it among the states and without regard to the census. -
The 17th Constitution allowed voters to cast direct votes for U.S. senators. It was passed by Congress on May 13, 1912, and ratified on April 8, 1913. -
The Panama Canal was built because the U.S. wanted to ship goods quickly and cheaply between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. -
The National Park Service is an agency of the United States federal government that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properties with various title designations. -
The United States entered World War I in April 1917, more than two and a half years after the war began in Europe. The entry of the United States was the turning point of the war because it made the eventual defeat of Germany possible. -
The Settlement House Movement began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in England and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and social interconnectedness. -
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics, and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. -
The 18th Amendment declared the production, transport, and sale of intoxicating liquors illegal. The 18th Amendment was later repealed by the 21st Amendment. -
The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. -
The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding from 1921 to 1923. -
all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States -
The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota -
The Great Depression of the 1930s hit Mexican immigrants especially hard. Along with the job crisis and food shortages that affected all U.S. workers, Mexicans and Mexican Americans had to face an additional threat: deportation. -
The American eugenics movement was formed during the late nineteenth century and continued as late as the 1940s. The American eugenics movement embraced negative eugenics, with the goal to eliminate undesirable genetic traits in the human race through selective breeding. -
The group was notable for its unusual mission: Its members were mercenaries hired by China to fight against Japan. Eighty years ago this week, a small group of American aviators fought in their first battle in World War II. Their mission was unusual: They were mercenaries hired by China to fight against Japan. -
Executive Order 9066 authorized the evacuation of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to relocation centers further inland. -
The forced march of 70,000 U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war (World War II) was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines. 829 died in battle, while prisoners, or immediately after liberation. There were 987 survivors. -
The Bracero Program permitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts -
The first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico as part of the U.S. government program called the Manhattan Project. The United States then used atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan on August 6 and 9, respectively, killing about 210,000 people. -
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of defeated Nazi Germany for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries and other crimes in World War II. -
A case in which the Court held that compulsory exclusion of citizens during times of war is justified in order to reduce the risk of espionage. -
On July 30, 1956, two years after pushing to have the phrase “under God” inserted into the pledge of allegiance, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a law officially declaring “In God We Trust” to be the nation's official motto.