US History EOC Timeline

  • Pinckney Treaty

    –Spain gives U.S. navigation rights on Mississippi River, New Orleans
  • Three Mile Island

    – nuclear power accident causes concern of nuclear safety
  • Judiciary Act of 1789

    – Established the Supreme Court
  • George Washington Elected President

  • French Revolution

    – Federalists oppose it, Anti-Federalists support (U.S. Neutral)
  • Rhode Island becomes 9th state to officially ratify the Constitution

  • Alexander Hamilton creates Bank of the United States

    (opposed by Jefferson)
  • All states unanimously ratify the Bill of Rights

  • Fugitive Slave Act

    – illegal to help slaves escape
  • Proclamation of American Neutrality

    –Keeps America neutral after France declares war on Britain, Spain, and Holland (example of U.S. foreign policy)(by George Washington)
  • Eli Whitney invents Cotton Gin

    -Creates massive increase of slaves in the South
  • Whiskey Rebellion

    –1st time U.S. Government uses Federal troops to subdue domestic issues (Farmers did not like new excise taxes)
  • Treaty of Greenville

    – U.S. cheaply pays 12 Native American tribes for Ohio territory
  • Adams vs. Jefferson

    -John Adams (Federalist) defeats Thomas Jefferson (Republican) in first contested Presidential Election; Jefferson becomes Vice President
  • XYZ Affair

    –French try to extort U.S. for diplomatic meetings – public wants war
  • Alien & Sedition Acts

    – expands Gov’t power, limit dissent and weakening of Gov’t, ruled unconstitutional
  • Kentucky & Virginia Resolutions

    – increase state rights over Federal rights, written by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
  • 2nd Great Awakening

    – major religious reform movement; helps increase abolition
  • Thomas Jefferson defeats John Adams (controversy); Aaron Burr is VP

  • Alexander Hamilton suggests U.S. capital moves to Washington, D.C.

    move helps gain Southern support for Hamilton’s economics
  • John Marshall becomes first chief justice of the Supreme Court

  • Judiciary Act/Midnight Judges

  • Adams attempt to secure the Federalist party days before he is to leave office by appointing Federalists into office Westward Expansion and Strained Neutrality

  • Marbury vs. Madison establishes Judicial Review

  • Louisana Purchase

    – not known to Jefferson if it was constitutional to annex land, Congress approves purchase from France, doubles the size of U.S.
     Lewis and Clark Expedition sets to survey land of Louisana Purchase (Sacagawea guided)
    Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel
  • Embargo Act

    – placed by Jefferson on Britain/France; fails – hurts U.S. economy
  • James Madison elected President

  • Tecumseh establishes union of Native Americans to resist westward movement of U.S.

  • William Henry Harrison leads attack on Tecumseh at Battle of Tippecanoe

  • (wins) War of 1812 (1812-1815)

    -Congress declares war on Britain (issues – impressments, blockades, economy, Native Americans)
    -Native Americans begin attacking U.S. settlers (weapons provided by Britain)
    -Treat of Ghent ends War of 1812
    -Harford Convention – New England’s states threaten secession; Federalist Party is no more
    -‘Era of Good Feelings’ (one party politics) begins in the U.S.
    – U.S independence finally confirmed – Good relations with Britain begins (i.e. sharing of Oregon Territory)
  • Underground Railroad provides Northern escape for slaves

  • James Monroe elected 5th President (reelected in 1820)

  • Period: to

    Westward Expansion across North America

    – transportation revolution
    -Sectional Tension between North and South increases over Slavery
    -Major economic differences develop b/n North and South related to slavery
  • Erie Canal

    – construction begins (connects Great Lakes to Atlantic Ocean)
  • McCulloch vs. Maryland

    – ruling confirms Congresses’ right to found the 2nd
    Bank of the United States
  • Spain cedes Florida to the U.S.

  • Missouri Compromise

    – sets dividing line between free and slaves states at
    latitude 36’30’ o Above line (free), Below line (slave)
  • Stephen F. Austin establishes first U.S. Settlement in Texas

  • Monroe Doctrine

    – claims western hemisphere closed to European intervention (first major U.S. foreign diplomacy)
  • Andrew Jackson elected 7thPresident

  • Gibbons vs. Ogden

    – establishes federal control of interstate commerce
  • Thomas Jefferson and John Adams die on same day (50th anniversary of Dec. of Independence)

  • Period: to

    Age of Jackson

    -Two party system fully emerges in U.S. politics for first time
    -Indian Removal Act
    – authorizes westward relocation of Native Americans
    -Cyrus McCormick – invents mechanical reaper – transforms agriculture
    -Ralph Waldo Emerson – transcendentalism (individualism)
    – Thoreau – Civil Disobedience
    -Spoils System – giving government positions to friends or colleagues (Andrew Jackson)
    -Horace Mann – reforms in education
    – Cherokee tribes sent on forced removal to Oklahoma, 4,000 die on way
  • First Jim Crow Laws established (legal segregation)

  • Manifest Destiny

    – U.S. destiny and duty to expand and conquer the west
  • William Lloyd Garrison

    – wants immediate emancipation (he was white)
  • Frederick Douglass

    – creates North Star abolitionist newspaper, writes Narratives
  • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

    – ends Mexican War, Mexico cedes Texas and all land north of the Rio Grande to U.S. (creates modern border of the U.S. with Gadsden Purchase)
  • Compromise of 1850

    – North gets California as free states, ban of sale of slaves in D.C.
    -South gets stricter enforcement of Fugitive Slave Act, $10 mil to Texas
  • Period: to

    Antebellum Period (pre-civil war)

  • Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin

  • Kansas-Nebraska Act

    – repeals Missouri Compromise, popular sovereignty to determine slave/free states
  • “Bleeding Kansas”

    – John Brown leads antislavery massacre at Pottawatomie Creek, fight over slavery in Kansas
  • Dred Scott vs. Sanford

    – ruling effectively nullifies Missouri Compromise, declares that slaves are property – cannot sue.
  • Lincoln-Douglas Debates

    – Stephen Douglas wins Illinois Senate seat. Lincoln a household name
  • John Brown

    -leads attack on arsenal at Harper’s Ferry; later captured and hanged
  • Abraham Lincoln elected 16th President; South Carolina secedes the Union = Civil War

  • Period: to

    The Civil War

  • Confederate States formed

    -Jefferson Davis – 1st and only President
  • Fort Sumter (S.C.)

    – confederates attack Union
    – war starts
  • Homestead Act

    – 160 acres to each farmer willing to cultivate land in West
  • Battle of Antietam

    – bloodiest battle of the Civil War
  • Battle of Gettysburg

    – turning point of Civil War; South never recovers
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    – frees slaves in only Confederate states; foreign diplomacy!
  • William Sherman

    – ‘March to Sea’
    – Atlanta to Savannah
    – destroys everything!
  • 13th Amendment

    – abolishes slavery
  • General Lee Surrenders

    Gen. Robert E. Lee (confederacy) surrenders at Appomattox Court House to Union Gen. Ulysses Grant
  • Abraham Lincoln assassinated

    by John Wilkes Booth; Andrew Johnson now President
    Reconstruction (1865-1877)
  • South establishes Black Codes

    – limits rights of freed blacks
  • Civil Rights Act of 1866

    – grants citizenship to all people born in U.S. (14th Amendment)
  • Tenure of Office Act

    – used to impeach Andrew Johnson (said he had violated it)
  • U.S. purchase Alaska from Russia (becomes 49th state in 1959)

  • Transcontinental Railroad

    – connects the coasts of the United States; greatest transportation achievement
  • 15thAmendment

    – grants protection of voting rights to black males
  • Hiram Revels

    – first black senator
    – Mississippi
  • William “Boss” Tweed

    – greatest example of a political machine (NYC)
  • Slaughter House Cases

    – authority of state governments over individuals
  • Whiskey Ring Scandal

    – corruption in Grants administration & Republican party
  • Battle of Little Bighorn

    Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse lead Sioux to crushing victory of General George Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn
  • Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone

  • Period: to

    The Gilded Age

  • Susan B. Anthony

    – gets women’s suffrage vote to Congress – leads to 19th Amendment
  • Thomas Edison creates the electric light

  • President James Garfield assassinated

  • Booker T. Washington

    – gradual approach to equal rights – prove yourself W.E.B Dubois – changes in civil rights now; founds the NAACP
  • Chinese Exclusion Act

    – bans Chinese immigration for 10 years
  • John D. Rockefeller

    – Standard Oil Trust; Andrew Carnegie – Steel
  • Dawes Severalty Act

    – denies tribal rights, advances forced assimilation, opens lands to whites
  • Wounded Knee

    – Federal forces massacre 200 Sioux Indians
  • Sherman Antitrust Act

    – outlaws monopolies, price-fixing, other trade restraints
  • Populist Party

    – formed specifically to give farmers a voice in government
  • Yellow Journalism

    – journalism that features unethical or unprofessional practices by news media
    organizations or individual journalists.
  • Plessy vs. Ferguson

    – ‘Separate but Equal’ is constitutional (overturned by Brown vs. Board of Education)
  • Grandfather Clause

    – voting rights of blacks challenged with literacy tests and poll taxes
  • Spanish-American War

    – Teddy Roosevelt leads Rough Riders, U.S. crushes Spain’s Navy
  • Treat of Paris

    – ends the Spanish-American War
  • Open Door Policy

    – U.S. attempt to gain foothold in Chinese markets
  • President McKinley assassinated

    -Teddy Roosevelt now 26th President
  • Period: to

    Progressive Era

  • Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine

    – increases U.S. presence in Latin America
  • Muckraker

    – writers who expose big business corruption
  • Pure Food and Drug Act

    Meat Inspection – set food quality standards
  • Panama Canal

    – connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (opens in 1914)
  • Henry Ford introduces the Model T car, assembly lines introduced

  • 16th Amendment

    – establishment of income tax , 17th Amend.– direct election of senators
  • World War I begins in Europe

  • German U-Boat sinks British passenger liner Lusitania, Americans killed on board

  • Period: to

    U.S. Involvement in World War I

  • JFK launches New Frontier platform to help America

  • Germany continues unrestricted submarine warfare

    – gets warning from U.S.
  • Zimmerman Telegram

    – intercepted by British, asks for Germany/Mexico alliance against U.S.;
    US. Enters WWI
  • Selective Service Act

    • establishes the draft
  • Fourteen Points

    – by Woodrow Wilson, 14th pt most important – calls for League of Nations
  • Treaty of Versailles

    – ends WWI; calls for heavy reparations on Germany, disarmament, and creation of League of Nations; U.S. Senate rejects it
  • 18th Amendment

    – outlaws purchase, sale, and transport of alcohol
  • 19th Amendment

    – women’s suffrage (right to vote)
  • Period: to

    The Roaring Twenties

  • Teapot Dome Scandal

    – exposes massive corruption in Harding Administration
  • Dawes Plan

    – ease war reparations on Germany
  • Scopes Monkey Trial

    – popularizes debate over teaching evolution in schools
    – outlawed
  • Charles Lindbergh

    – completes world’s first solo flight across Atlantic
    – seen as a hero
  • Sacco and Vanzetti

    – executed for murder; controversial because the were anarchists, politically
    motivated and unjustified
  • Stock Market Crash

    – ‘Black Tuesday’ – launches Great Depression Great Depression and New Deal (1930-1939)
  • Bonus Army

    (WWI vets) march on Washington demanding compensation – forced out
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt elected President

  • U.S. unemployment rate reaches 25%

    -FDR claims Bank Holiday to fix banks
  • Fireside Chats

    – FDR address public on radio – continues to 1944 – gives public hope
  • 1st 100 Days

    – creation of countless jobs, most productive of any president’s 1st 100 days
  • Unemployment Relief Act and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

    • to employ public works oAAA – controls crop production, compensates farmers for cooperation oTVA – established to construct dams in Tennessee River to generate electricity oNIRA – sets nationwide business practices oNRA – manage industry recovery oPWA – employ jobless
  • 20thAmendment

    – shifts presidential inaugurations from March to January
  • 21st Amendment

    – repeals 18th amendment (prohibition)
  • Huey Long

    – criticizes FDR, “Share Our Wealth” proposes large tax burden on wealthy
  • Wagner Act

    – supports union rights, protects collective bargaining
  • Social Security Act

    – establishes funds for unemployed and elderly
  • Germany (led by Adolf Hitler) invades Poland; WWII begins

  • U.S. attempts isolationism from war in Europe

  • Atlantic Charter

    – agreement b/n U.S President FDR and Britain Prime Minister Churchill
  • FDR elected for unprecedented 3rd Term

  • Lend-Lease Act

    – provides U.S. loan aid to Britain, USSR & allied powers
  • Period: to

    World War II

  • Propaganda

    – motivate U.S. citizens to support war efforts
  • Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

    – U.S. enters the War
  • Interment of Japanese Americans

    – imprisonment of Japanese in California
  • Battle of Midway

    – U.S. defeats Japan, seen as turning point in the war in the Pacific
  • Manhattan Project

    – creation of the Atomic Bomb
  • Allies invade Normandy

    -France on D-DAY, June 6, 1944 (largest land/sea invasion)
  • Battle of the Bulge

    – begins to break down Axis position on western front
  • Allies liberate Nazi concentration camps in Eastern Europe

  • FDR dies, Harry Truman becomes President; Adolf Hitler commits suicide

  • Germany surrenders on V-E-DAY(victory in Europe day)

  • U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug 9) – Japan surrenders

  • United Nations created with 51 founding nations

  • Nuremberg Trials

    – prosecute Nazi war criminals Baby Boom, Economic Prosperity, and the Cold War (1946-1960)
  • “Iron Curtain”

    – describes division of Communist Eastern Europe from Western Europe
  • Truman Doctrine

    – U.S. intent to fight Communism by helping free nations resist it.
  • Marshal Plan

    – postwar economic recovery to help Western Europe; largest relief aid given by the U.S. in U.S. history
  • Berlin Blockade

    – USSR
    -blocks all aid into West Berlin; Berlin Airlift – U.S. drops food and supplies by air to West Berlin
  • Harry Truman orders desegregation of military

  • NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) created

    – alliance system of 26 countries in North America and Europe
  • Korean war begins

    -U.S. aids South Korea against North Korea; Peace Treaty in 1953
  • Joseph McCarthy

    – begins rabid anti-communist campaign; hurt when he accuses military of having communists; alcoholic
  • Communist Fear in U.S.

    – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed for espionage;
  • Brown vs. Board of Education

    – overturns Plessy vs. Ferguson; says separate but equal is unconstitutional
  • “Containment”

    -(Truman) must stop spread of all communism; “Domino Theory” (Eisenhower) – fears that Indochina must not go communist or it will spread all over the world
  • Geneva Peace Accords

    – temporally divides Vietnam at 17th parallel
  • Rosa Parks arrested

    • for not giving up seat on bus to whites; sparks Montgomery Bus Boycott
  • Jonas Salk

    – creates polio vaccine
  • USSR launches first satellite in space

    – Sputnik
  • 1st televised Presidential debate

    – JFK vs. Nixon (JFK wins); JFK president 1960
  • Lunch Counter “Sit-Ins”

    • spark waves of civil rights protest; SCLC created by MLK, Jr.
  • Bay of Pigs

    – failed invasion of Cuba by U.S. (CIA) trained military
  • Berlin Wall

    – divides East and West Berlin (East was communist)
  • Period: to

    Civil Rights, Nixon, and Vietnam

  • Cuban Missile Crisis

    – standoff b/n U.S. and USSR after Soviets placed missiles in Cuba pointed at the United States; no fighting incurs
  • “I have a dream”

    -speech given by MLK
    – speech for civil rights
  • Lee Harvey Oswald assassinates JFK in Dallas, TX

  • Lyndon Johnson President

    – launches “Great Society” program to end poverty and racism
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    – bans discrimination in education, employment, & public places
  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

    – broadens LBJ’s military powers in Vietnam – no declare war
  • Malcom X (Nation of Islam)

    – blamed whites for African American problems; assassinated
  • Miranda vs. Arizona

    • police must read suspects their rights
  • Thurgood Marshall

    – first black justice of the Supreme Court
  • Tet Offensive launched by North Vietnamese Army

    – turning point of U.S. in Vietnam
  • James Earl Ray assassinated MLK, Jr.

    – hurts Civil Rights movement
  • Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy, JFK’s brother; Richard Nixon voted President

  • Apollo 11 lands on the moon, Neil Armstrong first to walk on moon

  • My Lai Massacre

    – U.S. soldiers kill 200 innocent men, women, and children
  • Pentagon Papers

    – 7,000 page document outlining U.S. government plan in Vietnam; shows gov’t was not telling truth to public.
  • Watergate Scandal

    – Nixon authorizes break-in and wiretapping of Democratic National Committee headquarters in Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.
  • Roe vs. Wade

    – legalizes abortion (up to 3 months)
  • U.S. Energy Crisis

    – fuel shortage in U.S. due to OPEC raising prices
  • U.S. withdraws from Vietnam

    -North Vietnam overtakes South after departure
  • Richard Nixon resigns to avoid impeachment; Gerald Ford President

    – pardons Nixon; Ford is only President never voted into office.
  • Period: to

    Present

  • Jimmy Carter elected President

  • Camp David Accords

    – Carter negotiates peace between Egypt and Israel
  • Ronald Reagan elected 40th President

  • Iran releases U.S. embassy hostages released after 444 days in captivity.

  • Strategic Defense Initiative (a.k.a. STAR WARS)

    – space based missile defense proposed
  • Space Shuttle Challenger explodes on takeoff

    -crew killed; space program never the same
  • U.S. bombs Libya for supporting Palestinians

  • Osama Bin Laden founds Islamist group Al Qaeda

  • Chinese government crushes pro-democracy revolt in Tiananmen Square

  • Berlin Wall falls (Reagan feels its U.S.’s great est accomplishment of the era)

  • Saddam Hussein orders invasion of Kuwait

    -starts Operation Desert Storm
  • Bill Clinton President

    -appoints Janet Reno first female attorney genera