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U.S. Expansionism
The United States had originally been very against expanding empires, however, around the 19th century, the United States decided to take a lot of island territory to gain resources. The U.S. took many Pacific islands for trading purposes. The U.S. also bought Alaska during the time of expansion and it has since become its own state.
Further reading: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/pacific-expansion -
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Communism
Communism is an economic ideal that is somewhat modified from its original form and used to govern many countries in the modern world including super powers China and Russia. Communism began with Karl Marx publishing the Communist Manifesto. Marx dreamed of a perfect society where everything was equal. Communism became a hot topic that influenced the Russian Revolutions and the Cold War.
Further reading: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2007-08/communism-computing-china/ -
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VHS Summer Topics
This marks the start and finish of the whole timeline. All of the material covered in the VHS summer course will be between these years. Source for cover image: http://dereklow.co/across-the-usa-by-train-for-just-213/ -
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Chinese Exclusion Act
Most Chinese people at this time were barred from living in or gaining citizenship in the United States. This was the first official act in the U.S. barring immigration of any specific nationality. Chinese people were still allowed into America, however, they could not live here unless they were born here. Many American-born Chinese were still barred from acquiring full citizenship status at this time.
Further reading: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/exclusion.html -
Haymarket Square Riot
American laborers were upset with the working conditions they faced as well as the length of the work day. The night before the riot police had killed multiple protestors. The Haymarket Square Riot started as a meeting of laborers but turned violent when a bomb was thrown as police came in to split up the meeting. Eight men were arrested without evidence and four were executed in 1887. Image source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/HaymarketRiot-Harpers.jpg -
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Imperialism
Imperialism is the concept of a nation claiming territories into it's fold. The nation will not integrate the territory to equality, but will instead exploit it for geo strategic and economic gains. Examples of this are the actions of the Japanese empire during the 20s-40s where it conquered much of the south east Asia as well as Pacific nations.
Further reading: http://www.smplanet.com/teaching/imperialism/ -
Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War was a war that the United States was very underprepared for. The war took place in the colonies of Spain and lasted less than 4 months. The major results of the war came in the Treaty of Paris that ended the war and gave independence to Cuba and other territories to the U.S. among other things.
Image Source: https://www.nps.gov/prsf/learn/historyculture/images/Maine-pin-copy_1.jpg -
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World War 1
The first World War was a great turning point for a lot of the world. During this time the United States was forced to give up the theory of isolationism to intervene which created a lot of turmoil inside the country. After the war, Germany agreed to the treaty of Versailles which created a difficult financial situation for their nation.
Further Reading: https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/world-war-1.cfm -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was an agreement of peace between Germany and the allies after the conclusion of World War 1. The name of the treaty comes from the fact that the representatives met in Versailles, France. The treaty boils down to Germany making a great number of reparations to the rest of the world. Germany was required to accept total blame for the war amongst many other more economic agreements.
Image source: http://historycooperative.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/newspaper.jpg -
Stock Market Crash of 1929
October of 1929 the American stock market took a huge nosedive that would later lead to the Great Depression. Investors began rapidly selling stocks on the 24th, a day called Black Thursday. Shortly after that, the value of shares plummeted until investors were no longer interested in trading stocks. This crash ruined the stock market and caused the Great Depression.
Image source: https://userscontent2.emaze.com/images/b077d21c-aa1b-47ae-8b90-a4b845757bfd/eb82d600-4f6a-4584-baed-087ca19dfc4f.jpg -
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The Great Depression
The Great Depression occurred in the years following the stock market crash of 1929. During the Depression, many families were left with no savings and many businesses failed. The economic stability of the United States was at an all-time low. There was a huge thirst for change in these years and Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President. He planned to create The New Deal in order to fix the economic problems threatening the nation.
Further reading: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1569.html -
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U.S. Isolationism
U.S. isolationism was a political ideology held by the many U.S. politicians including the nations first president, George Washington. This strategy involved staying out of global politics and only acting in our best interest at home. This strategy was upheld until the our involvement in WW2 began, after which the united states was the global superpower and could no longer feasibly maintain it
Further reading: http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1601.html -
Berlin Airlift
The Berlin Airlift was caused by the Soviet Union blockading capitalist Berlin from receiving shipments from the railroad. The U.S. decided to stand up to the Soviets by flying things into Berlin and dropping them from planes to bypass the blockade. The British and French air forces helped the U.S. to pull this off. Planes were transporting more cargo than the rail had been and the blockade lifted.
Image source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/static.history.state.gov/milestones/berlin-airlift.jpg -
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World War 2
The second world war began with Germany's invasion of Poland. France and Britain declared war on Germany, however, after the first world war, the United States did not want to be involved in another war in Europe. The U.S. was later plunged into the war by the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. World War 2 had many of the largest battles the earth has seen and ended with the first use of an atomic bomb on Japan.
Further reading: http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/world-war-ii-history -
Pearl Harbor
The Pearl Harbor bombings were an aerial attack from the Japanese on one of the largest U.S. naval bases. The attack came as a great surprise to the United States and caused the nation to vote to enter the second world war. Pearl Harbor is considered by many Americans one of the greatest tragedies the country has ever faced and it will not be forgotten.
Image source: http://cdn.history.com/sites/2/2015/04/hith-5-things-pearl-harbor-uss-arizona-A.jpeg -
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McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of accusing someone for treason without any verifiable evidence or proof. This practice originated from Joseph McCarthy a senator who consistently did this from 1945 to 1952. This was known as the second red scare and was a period of massive fright for the american public.
Further reading: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/global-citizen/mccarthy-era/ -
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The Cold War
The Cold War was a conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union over the differences between communism and capitalism. The Cold War inspired many significant events including the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Berlin Airlift. The Cold War was a great danger to the world because of the production of nuclear weapons on both sides. The idea of mutually assured destruction was created at this time.
Further reading: https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Cold-War.aspx -
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Korean War
The Korean War was a conflict between the northern and southern half of Korea. The United States intervened on the side of the south and the Chinese intervened on the side of the North. Some people in the U.S. at the time wanted to use nuclear weapons on North Korea but did not for fear of global nuclear war. The war concluded dividing North Korea and South Korea into two countries one communist one capitalist.
Further reading: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/korea_hickey_01.shtml -
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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a war technically between the two sides of Vietnam, the Soviet friendly, communist north and the United States friendly, Capitalist south. The Vietnam War was one of the more significant and scarring aspects of the Cold War. The war was defined by the heavy use of guerrilla tactics by the communist Vietnamese.
Further reading: http://www.historynet.com/vietnam-war -
Roe VS Wade
Roe vs. Wade was a Supreme Court decision on the issue of abortion. Roe vs. Wade prompted a large dispute over pro life vs. pro choice which is still going on today. The issue went to the supreme court when Texas criminalized doctors assistance in abortions. The court ruled 7-2 in favor of women being able to have abortions.
Image source: http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2010/top10_court_cases/roe_wade.jpg -
Watergate Standal
The watergate scandal, commonly referred to as simply watergate, was a scandal where the current president, Richard Nixon had men break into the watergate hotel in order to conduct business such as wiretapping political opponents offices in the Democratic National Committee. The Nixon administration then went to great lengths in order to cover up involvement which eventually ended up forcing him to resign before he was impeached.
Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
