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Early American History
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Civil War/Reconstruction
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The Gilded Age
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Chinese Exclusion Act
prohibited immigration of skilled or unskilled Chinese laborers, first US national immigration act -
Pendleton Civil Service Act
awarded government jobs based on merit -
Interstate Commerce Act
ensure railroad set “reasonable and just” rate and the first time government stepped in to regulate business -
Dawes Act
gave individual ownership of land to native Americans instead of the tribe owning things collectively -
Hull House founded, first of many settlement houses
In 1889, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr established Hull-House in Chicago, the first settlement house in the United States. By the late 1800s, Chicago had begun its transformation into the manufacturing hub of the United States. -
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The Progressive Era
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USS Maine explodes off the coast of Cuba, starting the Spanish American War
On February 15, 1898, an explosion of unknown origin sank the battleship U.S.S. Maine in the Havana, Cuba harbor, killing 266 of the 354 crew members. The sinking of the Maine incited United States' passions against Spain, eventually leading to a naval blockade of Cuba and a declaration of war. -
Hawaii is annexed as a territory of the United States
On July 12, 1898, the Joint Resolution passed and the Hawaiian islands were officially annexed by the United States. The Hawaiian islands had a well-established culture and long history of self-governance when Captain James Cook, the first European explorer to set foot on Hawaii, landed in 1778 -
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Imperialism
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Klondike Gold Rush (Alaska)
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. -
Open Door Policy
initiated free trade with China -
Roosevelt Corollary
an addition to the Monroe Doctrine -
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is published
The Jungle is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. The novel portrays the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. -
NAACP Founded
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey and Ida B. Wells. -
Dollar Diplomacy
Taft’s policy of paying for peace in Latin America -
Panama Canal Built
The Panama Canal is an artificial 82 km waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit for maritime trade -
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World War I
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National Parks System created
The National Park Service is an agency of the federal government of the United States that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. -
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Roaring Twenties
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Great Depression
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World War II
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Early Cold War
Containment: Stopping the spread of communism
Arms Race/Space Race: Race to space between US and Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: Post revolutionary Russia
Communism: What you have is everyone's
Domino Theory: When one country falls to communism surrounding countries fall to communism -
United Nations Formed
The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization that aims to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. -
NATO established
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 European and North American countries. The organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949. -
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Civil Rights Era
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Rosenbergs trial
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were accused of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines and valuable nuclear weapon designs. -
First H-Bomb detonated by the United States
On November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated “Mike,” the world's first hydrogen bomb, on the Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and insurrections in the south. The war ended unofficially on 27 July 1953 in an armistice -
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Vietnam War
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Jonas Salk invents the Polio Vaccine
Jonas Salk announces polio vaccine. On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. -
USSR launches Sputnik
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I. The successful launch came as a shock to experts and citizens in the United States, who had hoped that the United States would accomplish this scientific advancement first. -
Kent State University shooting
The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre, were the killings of four and wounding of nine other unarmed Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970 in Kent, Ohio, 40 miles south of Cleveland -
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End of the Cold War
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Watergate Scandal, which leads to Nixon’s Resignation
He fired White House Counsel John Dean, who went on to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee and said that he believed and suspected the conversations in the Oval Office were being taped. This information became the bombshell that helped force Richard Nixon to resign rather than be impeached. -
Three Mile Island Disaster
The Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor, near Middletown, Pa., partially melted down on March 28, 1979. This was the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history, although its small radioactive releases had no detectable health effects on plant workers or the public. -
Iran Hostage Crisis
The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic standoff between the United States and Iran. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of militarized Iranian college students. -
Berlin AirLift
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
Camp David Accords
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
The Iran–Contra affair, popularized in Iran as the McFarlane affair, the Iran–Contra scandal, or simply Iran–Contra, was a political scandal in the United States that occurred during the second term of the Reagan Administration. -
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1990s-21st Century
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Persian Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm)
The Gulf War was a war waged by coalition forces from 35 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait arising from oil pricing and production disputes. -
Fall of the USSR - Official end of the Cold War
Thirteen months later, on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved. President Bush and his chief foreign policy advisers were more pro-active toward Russia and the former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Communist monolith than while it was teetering. -
NAFTA created free trade between Mexico, the United States, and Canada
Provisions. The goal of NAFTA was to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The implementation of NAFTA on January 1, 1994, brought the immediate elimination of tariffs on more than one-half of Mexico's exports to the U.S. and more than one-third of U.S. exports to Mexico. -
USA PATRIOT Act
tightened the national security, particularly as it was related to foreign terrorism -
Attack on World Trade Center and Pentagon
The September 11 attacks, often referred to as 9/11, were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Wahhabi terrorist group Al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 -
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was a large Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 deaths and $125 billion in damage in August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the costliest tropical cyclone on record, and is now tied with 2017's Hurricane Harvey.