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The founding of Jamestown
In 1607, 104 Englishmen arrived in North America, the "New World", to start a settlement. The place the Englishmen took to settle was unnamed at the time. Hence, they decided to call this place Jamestown, now Jamestown Virginia, after their King, James I. This marked the beginning of settlement/colonization of other lands in the "New World". -
Slavery Begins
About 20-30 African Americans landed at Point Comfort, today's Fort Monroe in Hampton, Va., aboard the English privateer ship White Lion. In Virginia, these Africans were traded in exchange for supplies. Several days later, a second ship arrived in Virginia with additional enslaved Africans. The year 1619 marked the beginning of something that would, at first, enrich The U.S. but later tare the U.S., apart, turning the hearts of sons against their fathers and daughters against their mothers. -
Plymouth and Pilgrims
Aboard the Mayflower (an English ship) came groups of families, known as pilgrims, from England that are traveling to America. These pilgrims established the Plymouth Colony in what is today Plymouth, Massachusetts. -
Bacon's Rebellion (1676-1677)
A group of armed Virginia settlers led by Nathanial Bacon against colonial Governor William Berkeley after Berkeley refused Bacon's request to drive Native Americans out of Virginia. Bacon's Rebellion was the first rebellion in the North American Colonies in which discontented frontiersmen took part. -
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was an outburst of Protestant Revivalism that started in Europe and spread throughout the world. A Puritan minister by the name of George Whitefield used raw emotional sermons to reach every colonist in the "New World" preaching to them that if they follow "God's will " and live "Godly lives" it would bring them salvation. He among many other preachers was well known and loved for their views many colonists would come to hear these "Godly Men" speak. -
Seven Years War (1756-1763)
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the Carnatic Wars, and the Anglo-Spanish War (1762–1763). The opposing alliances were led by Great Britain and France respectively, both seeking to establish global pre-eminence at the expense of the other. -
Sugar Act
The Sugar Act 1764, also known as the American Revenue Act 1764 or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on 5 April 1764. Parliament, desiring revenue from its North American colonies, passed the first law specifically aimed at raising colonial money for the Crown. The act increased duties on non-British goods shipped to the colonies. The Colonists were furious about not having a voice in Parliament, and not being heard. -
Declaratory Act
The American Colonies Act 1766 (6 Geo. III c 12), commonly known as the Declaratory Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765 and the amendment of the Sugar Act. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal and save face. The declaration stated that the Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre (known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which a group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing them verbally and throwing various projectiles. The event was heavily publicized as "a massacre" by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1773. The target was the Tea Act, of 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts. The Sons of Liberty strongly opposed the taxes in the Townshend Act as a violation of their rights. Some disguised as indigenous people dumped crates of tea in the Boston river. -
Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. Enacted during the American Revolution, the Declaration explains why the Thirteen Colonies are at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain and regarded themselves as thirteen INDEPENDENT sovereign states, no longer subject to British colonial rule, thus forming the United States. -
Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America. -
Continental Army
The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War and was established by a resolution of Congress on June 14, 1775. The Continental Army was created to coordinate the military efforts of the Colonies in their war for independence against the British, who sought to keep their American lands under control. George Washington was the commander-in-chief. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 Colonies of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification. Since the Colonists were new at this, to being free, the Articles of Confederation didn't work as well as it should've, but it did manage to set some guidelines for future politicians. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ended the American Revolutionary War and the overall state of conflict between the two countries. -
The Great Compromise
The Great Compromise was an agreement reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation each state would have under the United States Constitution. It retained the bicameral legislature as proposed by Roger Sherman, along with a proportional representation of the states in the lower house or House of Representatives, each state would have two representatives in the Senate. -
Three-Fifths Compromise
The Three-fifths Compromise was an agreement over the counting of slaves in order to determine a state's total population which was reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. This count would determine the number of seats in the House of Representatives; the number of electoral votes which each state would be allocated; and how much money each state would pay in taxes. The compromise counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population. -
Federalists Papers
The Federalist Papers is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. -
George Washington's Presidency (1789-1797)
The presidency of George Washington began on April 30, 1789, when Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1797. Washington took office after the 1788–1789 presidential election, the nation's first quadrennial presidential election, in which he was elected unanimously. Washington was also elected unanimously again in the 1792 election, during his presidency, he set up general guides for future presidents, and advised future politicians. -
Judiciary Act
The Judiciary Act of 1789 was a United States federal statute enacted on September 24, 1789, during the first session of the First United States Congress. It established the federal judiciary of the United States. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution prescribed that the "judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and such inferior Courts" as Congress saw fit to establish. -
Alexander Hamilton's Financial Plans
Pay off the war debt to develop the trust of the other nations for trade (Assumption of state debt)
Raise the federal government’s revenues through tariffs and taxes (Tariffs: a tax on imported goods)
Tariffs would: encourage the growth of American industry(buy American-made), and raise money for the federal government.
Create a National Bank: a safe place to keep the government’s money; can make loans to businesses; would issue paper currency; strengthen the government. -
Whiskey Rebellion (1791-1794)
The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as the Whiskey Insurrection) was a violent tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. -
The First Bank of the United States
The First Bank of the United States was a national bank, chartered for a term of twenty years, by the United States Congress on February 25, 1791. It followed the Bank of North America, the nation's first de facto national bank. However, neither served the functions of a modern central bank: They did not set monetary policy, regulate private banks, hold their excess reserves, or act as a lender of last resort. -
The XYZ Affair (1797-1798)
Early into John Adams's presidency, the U.S. and France were not on good terms, so President Adams decided to send diplomats to negotiate a treaty to repair the relationship between France and the U.S. On their arrival in France, the diplomats were demanded a "gift" of $250,000 Napoleon Bonaparte and his companions, before they could listen to the diplomats because they were at war at the time and they needed money, the diplomats refused to pay and many Americans wanted to go to war with France. -
The Revolution of 1800
The 1800 United States presidential election was the fourth quadrennial presidential election. It was held from October 31 to December 3, 1800. In what is sometimes called the "Revolution of 1800", Vice President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party defeated incumbent president John Adams of the Federalist Party. The election was a political realignment that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican leadership. -
The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana made under the presidency of Thomas Jefferson by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. Jefferson only wanted to buy New Orleans from France but France needed money at that time so they decided to sell the whole of Louisiana territory in return for fifteen million dollars or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi in Middle America. -
The Embargo Act of 1807
The Embargo Act of 1807 was a general trade embargo on all foreign nations that was enacted by the U.S. Congress. As a successor or replacement law for the 1806 Non-importation Act and passed as the Napoleonic Wars continued, it represented an escalation of attempts to coerce Britain to stop any impressment of American sailors and to respect American sovereignty and neutrality but also attempted to pressure France and other nations in the pursuit of general diplomatic and economic leverage. -
War of 1812
Tensions originated in long-standing differences over territorial expansion in North America and British support for Native American tribes who opposed US colonial settlement in the Northwest Territory. These escalated in 1807 after the Royal Navy began enforcing tighter restrictions on American trade with France and press-ganged men they claimed as British subjects, even those with American citizenship certificates. on June 18, 1812, the U.S. declared war on the U.K. and its allies. -
Treaty of Ghent
The Treaty of Ghent was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands (now in Belgium). The treaty restored relations between the two parties to the "status quo ante Bellum" by restoring the pre-war borders of June 1812. -
The Monroe Doctrine
At the time, nearly all Spanish colonies in the Americas had either achieved or were close to independence. Monroe asserted that the New World and the Old World were to remain distinctly separate spheres, and thus further efforts by European powers to control or influence sovereign states in the region would be viewed as a threat to U.S. security. In turn, the United States would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries. -
Corrupt Bargain (Election fo 1824)
After the votes were counted in the U.S. presidential election of 1824, no candidate had received the majority needed of the Presidential Electoral votes, although Andrew Jackson had the most, thereby putting the outcome in the hands of the House of Representatives. There were four candidates
John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and William H. Crawford. Henry Clay got eliminated so it is believed that he convinced Congress to elect Adams, in return Adams elected him Secretary of State. -
Tariffs of Abominations
It was a bill designed to not pass Congress because it was seen by free trade supporters as hurting both industry and farming, but surprisingly, it passed. The bill was vehemently denounced in the South and escalated to a threat of civil war in the Nullification Crisis of 1832–1833. The tariff was replaced in 1833, and the crisis ended.It was called the "Tariff of Abominations" by its Southern detractors because of the effects it had on the Southern economy. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law on May 28, 1830, by United States President Andrew Jackson. The law, as described by Congress, provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi." During the Presidency of Jackson and his successor Martin Van Buren more than 60,000 Indians from at least 18 tribes were forced to move west of the Mississippi River where they were allocated new lands. -
The Bank War (1832-1836)
The Bank War was a political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States a second time during the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1829–1837). The affair resulted in the shutdown of the Bank and its replacement by state banks because Jackson himself was not a fan of the U.S> having one National bank he wanted every state to have its own banks, for the money of the country to be divided between the people, not just sitting in the hands of the elites. -
The "Whig" Party
Alongside the slightly larger Democratic Party, he Whig Party was one of the two major parties in the United States between the late 1830s and the early 1850s as part of the Second Party System. Four presidents were affiliated with the Whig Party for at least part of their terms.Other influential party leaders that were members of the Whigs include Henry Clay,Daniel Webster,William Seward,John J. Crittenden, andJohn Quincy Adams. It was supported by the elites, social reformers, but not farmers. -
Abolitionism
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British abolitionist movement started in the late 18th century when English and American Quakers began to question the morality of slavery. -
Trancendentalism (late 1820s-1830s)
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. A core belief is in the inherent goodness of people and nature, and while society and its institutions have corrupted the purity of the individual, people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. Transcendentalists saw divine experience inherent in every day, rather than believing in a distant heaven, and saw physical and spiritual phenomena as part of dynamic processes. -
Schism of 1840
The Schism of 1840 was a split within the American anti-slavery society (the abolitionists). At the 1840 annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, abolitionists split over such questions as women's right to participate in the administration of the organization and the advisability of nominating abolitionists as independent political candidates. -
The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to the mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into the free states and Canada. The network was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the peace treaty that was signed on 2 February 1848, between the United States and Mexico that ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). The treaty called for the United States to pay $15 million to Mexico and to pay off the claims of American citizens against Mexico up to $5 million. It gave the United States the Rio Grande as a boundary for Texas, and gave the U.S. lands all the way to the Pacific Ocean, making the U.S. a bicontinental country. -
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". Held in the Wesleyan Chapel of the town of Seneca Falls, New York, it spanned two days over July 19–20, 1848. Attracting widespread attention, it was soon followed by other women's rights conventions, including the Rochester Women's Rights Convention in Rochester, New York, two weeks later. -
The Gold Rush (1848-1855)
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. The sudden influx of gold into the money supply reinvigorated the American economy; the sudden population increase allowed California to go rapidly to statehood, in the Compromise of 1850. -
Manifest Destiny (1812-1867)
Manifest destiny was a cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. There were three basic concepts to the idea: (1) The special virtues of the American people and their institutions, (2)The mission of the United States to redeem and remake the West in the image of the East (3)An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty. -
Bleeding Kansas (1854-1859)
Bleeding Kansas was a series of violent civil confrontations in the Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. Abolitionists wanted Kansas to be a free state because it would give them more free states and slave states, upsetting the balance and vice versa for the Anti-abolitionists. -
The Know-Nothing Party (Mid 1850s)
The Know Nothing party was a nativist political party and movement in the United States in the mid-1850s. The Know-Nothings proposed ending poor relief to non-citizens, creating literacy tests before people could vote, banning foreigners from holding public office, and extending the residency requirement to 21 years before an immigrant could become a citizen. The Know-Nothings were Anti-immigration to the U.S. they didn't like foreigners even though their lineage was once foreigners to the U.S. -
The Homestead Act
The Homestead Act, enacted during the Civil War in 1862, provided that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Claimants were required to live on and “improve” their plots by cultivating the land and living on it for at least 5 years. -
The Transcontinental Railroad (1863-1869)
North America's first transcontinental railroad was a 1,911-mile continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay. The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. The building was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company-issued mortgage bonds -
Sand Creek Massacre
The Sand Creek massacre (a.k.a. the Chivington massacre or the massacre of Cheyenne Indians) was a massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho people by the U.S. Army in the American Indian Wars that occurred, when a 675-man force of the Third Colorado Cavalry under the command of U.S. Volunteers Colonel John Chivington attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 69 to over 600 Native American people. -
The Crime of 1873
The Coinage Act of 1873,was a general revision of laws relating to the Mint of the United States.By ending the right of holders of silver bullion to have it coined into standard silver dollars while allowing holders of gold to continue to have their bullion made into money,the act created a gold standard by default.It also authorized a Trade dollar,with limited legal tender,intended for export,mainly to Asia,and abolished three small-denomination coins.The act came to know as the "Crime of '73". -
The Exodusters
Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Kansas in the late nineteenth century, as part of the Exoduster Movement or Exodus of 1879. It was the first general migration of black people following the Civil War. As many as 40,000 Exodusters left the South to settle in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado. -
Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is a United States federal law passed by the 47th United States Congress and signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur on January 16, 1883. The act mandates that most positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political patronage. -
Election of 1884
The 1884 United States presidential election was the 25th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1884. It saw the first Democrat elected President of the United States since James Buchanan in 1856, and the first Democratic president to hold the office since Andrew Johnson, who assumed the presidency after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Governor Grover Cleveland of New York defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. -
Haymarket Square Riot
The Haymarket riot was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day, the day after the events at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, during which one person was killed and many workers injured. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police resulting in the deaths of many many citizens and the end of the Knights of Labor. -
Sherman's Anti-trust Act
Named after Senator John Sherman, the act broadly prohibits (1) anticompetitive agreements and (2) unilateral conduct that monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the relevant market. The Act authorizes the Department of Justice to bring suits to prohibit conduct violating the Act and additionally authorizes private parties injured by conduct violating the Act to make suits pay for three times as much in damages. -
McKinley Tariff
During the late nineteenth century, Republicans strongly supported tariffs to protect growing industries within the United States from foreign competition. The McKinley Tariff was passed into law in 1890, dramatically increasing the tax rate on foreign products. The cause of this tariff was to raise revenue for the federal government and to protect domestic manufacturers and workers from foreign competition, known as protectionism. -
The Depression of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a national economic crisis set off by the collapse of two of the country's largest employers, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and the National Cordage Company. Following the failure of these two companies, a panic erupted in the stock market. It deeply affected every sector of the economy and produced political upheaval that led to the political realignment of 1896 and the presidency of William McKinley. -
Imperialism
American imperialism refers to the expansion of American political, economic, cultural, media, and military influence beyond the boundaries of the United States. Depending on the commentator, it may include imperialism through outright military conquest; gunboat diplomacy; unequal treaties; subsidization of preferred factions; regime change; or economic penetration through private companies, potentially followed by diplomatic or forceful intervention when those interests are threatened. -
The De Lome Letter
The De Lôme Letter, a note written by Señor Don Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, the Spanish Ambassador to the United States, to Don José Canalejas y Méndez, the Foreign Minister of Spain, reveals de Lôme’s opinion about the Spanish involvement in Cuba and U.S. President McKinley’s diplomacy. -
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a period of armed conflict between Spain and the United States. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States' intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. -
Annexation of the Philippines
In Paris on December 10, 1898, the United States paid Spain $20 million to annex the entire Philippine archipelago. The outraged Filipinos, led by Aguinaldo, prepared for war. Once again, MacArthur was thrust to the fore and distinguished himself in the field as he led American forces in quashing the rebellion. -
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is the United States diplomatic policy established in the late 19th and early 20th century that called for a system of equal trade and investment and to guarantee the territorial integrity of Qing China. -
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. IWW ideology combines general unionism with industrial unionism, as it is a general union, subdivided between the various industries which employ its members. The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to socialist, syndicalist, and anarchist labor movements. -
Meat Inspection Act of 1906
The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 was enacted to prevent adulterated or misbranded meat and meat products from being sold as food and to ensure that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. -
Pure Food and Drug Act 1906
The Pure Food and Drug Act 1906, which the Bureau of Chemistry was charged to administer, prohibited the interstate transport of unlawful food and drugs under penalty of seizure of the questionable products and/or prosecution of the responsible parties. Which led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). -
The Red Scare
The Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of far-left movements, including Bolshevism and anarchism, due to actual and imagined events; actual events included the Russian 1917 October Revolution and anarchist bombings. Concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and the alleged spread of socialism, communism, and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of concern. -
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, better known as the Volstead Act, defined an intoxicating beverage as anything that contained more than one-half of one percent alcohol. By contrast, Canadian prohibition laws set the limit at 2.5 percent. -
Harlem Renaissance 1920s
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. Around this time Jazz also came to be the most popular played/listened to music genre at the time. A key figure in this development was trumpeter Louis Armstrong. -
National Origins Act
The National Origins Act was a federal law passed in 1924 that limits annual immigration from each foreign country to no more than 2 percent of that nationality's percentage of the U.S. population as it had stood in 1890. The law severely limited immigration, to Japan, China, and Southern and Eastern Europe, while there were no laws permitting immigrants from the western hemisphere to migrate to the U.S. -
The Bonus Army
The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – 17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I, their families, and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C., in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates because of the economic struggles Americans were facing 'cause of the Great Depression. -
Public Works Administration (PWA)
The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 to supply employment, stabilize buying power, and help revive the economy in response to the Great Depression. It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. -
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 regulates secondary financial markets to ensure a transparent and fair environment for investors. It prohibits fraudulent activities, such as insider trading, and ensures that publicly traded companies must disclose important information to current and potential shareholders. -
The Social Security Act
The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The law created the Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment, and protect make a way so that the old can retire knowing that some of the money that they worked when they were young would be given to them once retired and leave job spaces for the youngsters. -
Munich Conference
The Munich conference was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of land on the border between Czechoslovakia and Germany called the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. As soon as Britain's Prime Minister was giving a speech about how there would be peace, Adolf Hitler ordered the invasion of the rest of Czechoslovakia. -
House Un-American Committee Activities (HUAC)
The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and rebel activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and organizations suspected of having Communist ties. Citizens suspected of having ties to the communist party would be tried in a court of law. -
Four Freedoms
The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Monday, January 6, 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms speech, he proposed four fundamental freedoms that people "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy:
Freedom of speech
Freedom of worship
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear -
Executive Order 8802
Executive Order 8802 was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, to prohibit ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation's defense industry. It also set up the Fair Employment Practice Committee. The order was only followed by government-sponsored industries but private industries refused to abide by the order. -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941. The United States was a neutral country then; the attack led to its formal entry into World War II the next day. One of the reasons for this attack was Japan's attack on free trade, interrupting trade between the U.S. and China, Japan, etc. -
Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. "This order authorized the forced removal of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to "relocation centers" further inland- resulting in the incarceration of Japanese Americans." Two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens, born and raised in the United States. -
Bracero Program
An executive order called the Mexican Farm Labor Program established the Bracero Program in 1942. This series of diplomatic accords between Mexico and the United States permitted millions of Mexican men to work legally in the United States on short-term labor contracts. -
Operation Overlord "D-Day"
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings. -
G.I. (Government Issue) Bill of Rights
The G.I. Bill, formally known as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans. The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, but the term "G.I. These benefits included free college, low-rate home mortgages, loans, etc. -
International Monetary Fund
A fund established to stabilize currencies and provide a predictable monetary environment for trade, with the United States dollar serving as the benchmark. -
Yalta Conference
After the end of World War II, the three (3) Allie powers met at Yalta, Lividya, which later came known as the Yalta Conference. The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe -
Levittowns
A Long Island, New York, suburb, built by the famous William J. Levitt in the late 1940s, that used mass-production techniques to make modest, affordable houses. Other Levittowns were built in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. -
Taft-Hartley Act
The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. It was enacted by the 80th United States Congress over the veto of President Harry S. Truman, becoming law on June 23, 1947. -
Shelley v. Kraemer
A 1948 Supreme Court decision outlawed racially restrictive housing occupancy covenants. However, racial discrimination persisted until the passage of the Faur Housing Act in 1968. -
Marshall Plan
On April 3, 1948, President Truman signed the Economic Recovery Act of 1948. It became known as the Marshall Plan, named for Secretary of State George Marshall, who in 1947 proposed that the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economic infrastructure of postwar Europe. -
State's Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrat)
The States' Rights Democratic Party (whose members are often called the Dixiecrats) was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States, active primarily in the South. It arose due to a Southern regional split in opposition to members of the Democratic Party in the North. -
Shelley v. Kraemer
In 1948, in Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court held that courts could not enforce real estate covenants that restricted the purchase or sale of property based on race. Also, the decision was made on the idea that whites and blacks could be separated from one another as long as things are equal on both sides, but that was never the case. White restrooms were far-better than black/colored restrooms, same goes for apartments, libraries, shops, etc. -
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Formed in 1949 with the signing of the Washington Treaty, NATO is a security alliance of 30 countries from North America and Europe. NATO's fundamental goal is to safeguard the Allies' freedom and security by political and military means. -
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republics of Central and Eastern Europe in May 1955, during the Cold War. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott (Dec. 05, 1955 - Dec. 20, 1956)
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott occurred from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. -
National Interstate and Defense Highways Act
Americans had more cars, and thanks to the federal government more roads on which to drive. In 1956, the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act authorized $26 billion over a ten-year period to fund a vast expansion of the national highway network and the integration of newly constructed highways into a single system. -
Eisenhower Doctrine
Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from the USSR or any communist lead nations. -
Freedom Rides
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
For thirteen days in October 1962, the world waited—seemingly on the brink of nuclear war—and hoped for a peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis. In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. -
March On Washington
The march's purpose was to advocate for African Americans' civil and economic rights. At the march, the final speaker Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech in which he called for an end to racism. The march was organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, who built an alliance of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations that came together under the banner of "jobs and freedom." -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. This was a great victory for all African Americans and other people of color, since the reconstruction years after Civil War. -
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)
In April 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was founded. Open to all without regard to race, it was a parallel political party designed to simultaneously encourage Black political participation while challenging the validity of Mississippi's lily-white Democratic Party. -
Economic - Opportunity Act
The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 authorized the formation of local Community Action Agencies as part of the War on Poverty. These agencies are directly regulated by the federal government. "It is the purpose of The Economic Opportunity Act to strengthen, supplement, and coordinate efforts in furtherance of that policy". -
Voting Rights of 1965
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
Vietnam War
In 1965, the United States rapidly increased its military forces in South Vietnam, prompted by the realization that the South Vietnamese government was losing the Vietnam War as the communist-dominated Viet Cong (VC) gained influence over much of the population in rural areas of the country. -
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is a national non-profit civil rights organization formed in 1968 by Jack Greenberg to protect the rights of Latinos in the United States. -
American Indian Movement (AIM)
AIM's leaders spoke out against high unemployment, slum housing, and racist treatment, fought for treaty rights and the reclamation of tribal land, and advocated on behalf of urban Indians whose situation bred illness and poverty. -
My Lai Massacre
The Mỹ Lai massacre was the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by United States troops in Sơn Tịnh district, South Vietnam, on 16 March 1968 during the Vietnam War. Upon returning from Vietnam American troops were not welcomed by Americans instead they protested against their actions. -
Watergate Scandal
The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's persistent attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972 break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Washington, D.C., Watergate Office Building. -
Saturday Night Massacre
The Saturday Night Massacre refers to U.S. President Richard Nixon's orders to fire independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox, which led to the resignations of Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus on October 20, 1973, during the Watergate scandal. -
Camp David Accords 1978
The Camp David Accords were a pair of political agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David, the country retreat of the President of the United States in Maryland. -
Iran-Contra Affair ('85 - '87)
The Iran-Contra Affair was a secret U.S. arms deal that traded missiles and other arms to free some Americans held hostage by terrorists in Lebanon but also used funds from the arms deal to support armed conflict in Nicaragua.