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The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was a land deal between the United States and France for 15 million dollars. It doubled the size of the US. -
Invention of the first successful Steamboat
Robert Fulton built the first successful steamboat called the Clermont. Its first trip was up the Hudson River in New York at the "fast" speed of 5 mph. Steamboats helped in the commercial success of the US. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was written to address the growing sectional tensions over the issue of slavery. President Monroe signed the law and it maintained a delegate balance of admitting free and slave states. For example, at the time, Missouri was admitted as a slave state and Maine as a free state. -
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Trail of Tears
Almost 60,000 American Indians were forced and displaced off their ancestral land, by the United States government, to areas west of the Mississippi River that had been designated Indian Territory. -
Invention of the Telegraph
Samuel Morse patented the telegraph in 1834. However, the first telegraph was not sent until 1844. It read, "What Hath God Wrought?" It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. -
The Battle of the Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo is considered a pivotal moment in The Texas Revolution. Although the Mexican army was victorious in recapturing the fort and almost all of the 200 Texan defenders were killed; it rallied the rest of Texas to fight against the Mexican army eventually leading to a victory over Santa Ana. -
Texas Becomes a State
Texas became the 28th state in the United States. Texas entered the United States as a slave state, broadening the irrepressible differences in the United States over the issue of slavery and setting off the Mexican-American War. -
Abraham Lincoln: 16th President of the US
Abe Lincoln was an American lawyer and statesman. As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. He was known for "preserving the union." -
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The Civil War
Conflict began primarily as a result of the long-standing disagreement over the issue of slavery, westward expansion and states rights. The Civil War was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, a collection of eleven southern states that left the Union between 1860-1861. -
Gettysburg Address
President Lincoln delivered the inspirational and famously short (272 word) Gettysburg Address was praised for reinvigorating national ideals of freedom, liberty and justice amid a Civil War that had torn the country into pieces. -
Assassination of President Lincoln
While attending the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth. He was a Southern sympathizers who believed that the Confederacy could be restored and that Lincoln was determined to overthrow the Constitution and to destroy his beloved South. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment forever abolished slavery as an institution in all of the U.S.