Zachary Taylor wins the election of 1848. The Whigs chose him as their candidate for presidency. He didn't have an official stance on slavery but he owned many slaves.
By txe
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Monroe Doctrine
- The Western Hemisphere was no longer open for European colonization
- The political system of the Americas was different from Europe (democracy vs. monarchy)
- The United States would regard any interference in Western hemispheric affairs as a threat to its security
- The United States would keep out of European wars and would not disturb existing colonies in the Western Hemisphere.
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Gold Discovered in California
In 1848 gold was found in California. Violence and Disease overwhelmed the small government in California. In 1849 they applied to join the union as a free state. The southerners didn't like this because it upset the balance of free vs slaves states in the senate. -
UNDERGROUND RAILROAD!!!!!
An illiterate run away slave named Harriet Tubman helped rescue hundreds of slaves. There were many anti slavery homes that helped slaves get from the south up to Canada -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was a popular book that made the North dislike slavery and therefore the south even more -
Contest for Kansas
North going into Kansas enraged the south since they thought it would be a slave state since they supported the Compromise of 1850. Many southerners from Missouri flooded the polls and set up government in Shawnee. -
Hackers
A crazy guy named John Brown led his followers to Pottawatomie Creek and hacked 5 pro slavery supporters to death. Even some of the more serious abolitionists were surprised by this violence. This event truly earned the name Bleeding Kansas -
Black Codes
The Black Codes was a series of laws designed to regulate the affairs of the emancipated slaves. The Black Codes aimed to ensure a stable and subservient labor force. The Black Codes mocked the idea of freedom and imposed terrible hardships on the blacks who were struggling against mistreatment and poverty to make their way as free people. -
Freedmen's Bureau
Because many freed slaves were unskilled, without property or money, and had little knowledge of how to survive as free people, Congress created the Freedmen's Bureau on March 3, 1865. It provided clothing, medical care, food, and education to both freedmen and white refugees. Union general Oliver O. Howard led the bureau. The bureau's greatest success was teaching blacks to read. -
Business of Amusement
The circus emerged in the 1880s. Baseball was also emerging as the national pastime, and a professional league was created in the 1870s. Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith. -
Liberal Republican Revolt of 1872
The Liberal Republican Party was formed in 1872 in response to the political corruption in Washington and their dissatisfaction with military Reconstruction. -
Gospel of Wealth
The wealthy used "survival of the fittest" to explain why they were financially successful and why poor people were poor. -
New Immigration
The New Immigrants of the 1880s came from southern and eastern Europe. They came from countries with little history of democratic government, where people had grown accustomed to harsh living conditions.Some Americans feared that the New Immigrants would not assimilate into American culture. They began asking if the nation had become a melting pot or a dumping ground. -
Revolution by Railways
The railroad stimulated the industrialization of the country in the post-Civil War years. It created an enormous domestic market for American raw materials and manufactured goods. Railroad companies also stimulated immigration. Until the 1880s, every town in America had its own local time. To keep schedules and avoid wrecks, the major rail lines proposed, on November 18, 1883, dividing America into 4 times zones - most towns accepted the new time method. -
Spanish American War
Cubans rebelled in Civil War against the Spanish. America helped because it reminded them of the Revolutionary War or because they needed the land. -
USS Maine Blows Up
McKinley sent USS Maine to Havana to protect American citizens in Cuba. It blew up and people blamed Spain. 266 people died. -
Muckrackers
Muckrakers were reform-minded journalists who wrote articles in magazines that exposed corruption and scandal. President Roosevelt coined this term. These reporters went after trusts and politicians. In 1902, New York reporter, Lincoln Steffens wrote "The Shame of the Cities" which unmasked the corrupt alliance between big business and municipal government. -
Meat Inspection Act of 1906
After botulism was found in American meats, foreign governments threatened to ban all American meat imports. President Roosevelt passed the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The act stated that the preparation of meat shipped over state lines was subject to federal inspection. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was designed to prevent the adulteration and mislabeling of foods and pharmaceuticals. -
Taft the Trustbuster
Taft brought 90 lawsuits against trusts during his 4 years in office, as opposed to Roosevelt's 44 suits in 7 years. In 1911, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company, stating that it violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890. Also in 1911, the Supreme Court laid out its "rule of reason" doctrine. This stated that a trust was illegal only if it unreasonably restrained trade. -
Red Scare
Fear of Russia swept across the country in the years following the communist Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The "red scare" of 1919-1920 resulted in a nationwide crusade against people whose Americanism was suspect. -
Farm Failures
Many American farmers were already having a hard time before the Depression, mostly because they were producing too much and farm product prices were too low. The situation was so bad in some areas that farmers burned corn for fuel rather than sell it. -
Too Many Poor People
While the overall economy had soared in the 1920s, most of the wealth was enjoyed by relatively few Americans. In 1929, 40 percent of the families in the country were still living at or below the poverty level.That made them too poor to buy goods and services and too poor to pay their debts. With no markets for their goods, manufacturers had to lay off tens of thousands of workers, which, of course, just created more poor people. -
Government Inaction
Rather than try to jumpstart the economy by pushing the Federal Reserve System to lend money to banks at low interest rates and pumping money into the economy through federal public works projects, the Hoover Administration did nothing at first, then took small and tentative actions that weren’t enough to head things off. -
Stock Market Crash
The stock market soared throughout most of the 1920s. Many people bought on margin, which meant they paid only part of a stock’s worth when they bought it and the rest when they sold it. But when the market crashed in late October 1929, they were forced to pay up on stocks that were worth far less than what they had paid for them. Many had borrowed to buy stock, and when the stock market went belly-up, they couldn’t repay their loans and the lenders were left holding the empty bag. -
KKK
The Ku Klux Klan grew in the early 1920s out of the growing intolerance and prejudice of the American public.The Klan was antiforeign, anti-Catholic, anti-black, anti-Jewish, antipacifist, anti-Communist, anti-internationalist, antievolutionist, antibootlegger, antigambling, antiadultery, and anti-birth control. It was pro-Anglo-Saxon, pro-"native" American, and pro-Protestant.It fell apart in the late 1920s after it was discovered that Klan official were embezzling money. -
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Antiredism and antiforeignism were reflected in the criminal case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The two men were convicted in 1921 of the murder of a Massachusetts paymaster and his guard. Although given a trial, the jury and judge were prejudiced against the men because they were Italians, atheists, anarchists, and draft dodgers. Despite criticism from liberals and radicals all over the world, the men were electrocuted in 1927. -
1932 Election
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Democrat
Herbert Hoover (Republican)
Big Issue was the depression -
Prohibtion
Lightly lifted by Roosevelt. Congress allowed beer and wine with an alcohol content under 3.2%. Taxed at $5 d barrel. He believed this would create jobs and boost the economy through taxes. Prohibition officially repealed in 1933 under the 21st Amendment -
Dust Bowl
Prolonged drought in Great Plains (Eastern Colorado to Western Mississippi). Drought and wind triggered the storms themselves, but the initial issue was the removal of the Native Americans and buffalo as well as overproduction. Too much dependency on quick farming and technology destroyed the land. 350,000 people left in 5 years. -
Eisenhower wins Presidency
Lacking public support for Truman, the Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson for the election of 1952 and the Republicans nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower was already well-liked by the public. Eisenhower won the election of 1952 by a large majority. President Eisenhower attempted to end the Korean War. -
Foreign Policy
In 1954, secretary of state John Foster Dulles proposed a policy of boldness in which a fleet of superbombers would be built and equipped with nuclear bombs. This would allow the U.S. to threaten countries such as the Soviet Union and China with nuclear weapons. -
Desegregating the South
All aspects of black life in the South were governed by the Jim Crow laws. Blacks were segregated from whites, economically inferior, and politically powerless. In Sweatt v. Painter (1950), the Supreme Court ruled that separate professional schools for blacks failed to meet the test of equality.In December 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. -
Consumer Innovation
The innovations of the credit card, fast-food, and new forms of recreation highlighted the emerging lifestyle of leisure and affluence. In 1946, there were only 6 TV stations, but there were 146 by 1956. "Televangelists" like Baptist Billy Graham used the TV to spread Christianity. As the population moved west, sports teams also moved west. Popular music was transformed during the 1950s. Elvis Presley created a new style known as rock and roll. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government more power to enforce school-desegregation orders and to prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations and employment. President Johnson realized the problem that few blacks were registered to vote. The 24th Amendment, passed in 1964, abolished the poll tax in federal elections. -
Black Power
Racially-motivated violence continued to spread as the militant Black Panther party emerged. It openly carried weapons in the streets of Oakland, California. Stokely Carmichael preached the doctrine of Black Power, which emphasized racial pride and the creation of black political and cultural parties. -
Assassination of MLK
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed by a sniper in Memphis, Tennessee. Black voter registration eventually increased, and by the late 1960s, several hundred blacks held elected positions in the South. -
Stagnation
The growth of the American economy slowed down in the 1970s. More women and teens were entering the works force; these groups typically made less money than males. Deteriorating machinery and new regulations also hindered growth. The Vietnam War and on the Great Society program also contributed to inflation. Countries like Japan and Germany started to dominate industries that had traditionally been led by the Americans (steel, automobiles, and consumer electronics). -
Watergate Scandal
On June 17, 1972, five men working for the Republican Committee for the Re-election of the President were caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel and bugging Democrats' rooms. After the Watergate Scandal, it was discovered that the Nixon administration was involved in many other cases of corruption and "dirty tricks." -
First Unelected President
Gerald Ford became the first unelected president. President Ford's popularity and respect sank when he issued a full pardon of Nixon, thus setting off accusations of a "buddy deal." In July 1975, Ford signed the Helsinki accords, which recognized Soviet boundaries and helped to ease tensions between the two nations. -
Religious Right
In 1979, Reverend Jerry Falwell founded a political organization called the Moral Majority. He preached against sexual permissiveness, abortion, feminism, and the spread of gay rights. The organization became an aggressive political advocate of conservative causes. -
Election of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was a neoconservative who opposed a big government, supported the "common man's" rights, and opposed favoritism for minorities. He also supported free-market capitalism, supported anti-Soviet policies, opposed liberal welfare programs and affirmative-action policies, and he called for the reassertion of traditional values of individualism and the centrality of family. Ronald Reagan overwhelmingly won the election of 1980, beating Democratic president Jimmy Carter. -
Persian Gulf Crisis
On August 2, 1990, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, seeking oil. The United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and on August 3, it demanded the immediate withdrawal of Iraq's troops. After Hussein refused to comply with the mandatory date of January 15, 1991, the United States led a massive international military deployment, sending 539,000 troops to the Persian Gulf region. On January 16, 1991, the U.S. and the U.N. launched a 37-day air war against Iraq.
