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“E Pluribus Unum”
"E Pluribus Unum" - Latin for "Out of many, one" - was the motto proposed for the first Great Seal of the United States by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson in 1776. -
Declaration of Independence
Document that was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and that announced the separation of 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. -
U.S. Constitution
The oldest written national constitution in use, the Constitution defines the principal organs of government and their jurisdictions and the basic rights of citizens. -
Bill of Rights
In the United States, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which were adopted as a single unit on December 15, 1791, and which constitute a collection of mutually reinforcing guarantees of individual rights and of limitations on federal and state governments. -
Homestead Act of 1862
In U.S. history, significant legislative action that promoted the settlement and development of the American West. It was also notable for the opportunity it gave African Americans to own land. -
Eminent Domain
The U.S. Supreme Court first examined fed eminent domain power in 1876 in Kohl v. United States. It requires no constitutional recognition it is an attribute of sovereignty.” But the 5th Amendment to the U.S Constitution stipulates: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, w/o just compensation.” So, whenever the United States acquires a property thru eminent domain, it has a constitutional responsibility to compensate the property owner for the fair market value of the property. -
Social Darwinism
The theory that human groups and races are subject to the same laws of natural selection as Charles Darwin perceived in plants and animals in nature. According to the theory, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the weak were diminished and their cultures delimited while the strong grew in power and cultural influence over the weak. -
Tin Pan Alley
A genre of American popular music that arose in the late 19th century from the American song-publishing industry centered in New York City. The genre took its name from the byname of the street on which the industry was based, being on 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Broadway in the early 20th century; around Broadway and 32nd Street in the 1920s; and ultimately on Broadway between 42nd and 50th streets. -
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Homestead Strike 1892
Also called Homestead riot, violent labor dispute between the Carnegie Steel Company and many of its workers that occurred on July 6, 1892, in Homestead, Pennsylvania. -
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Spanish-American War
Conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America. -
16th Ammendment
Amendment (1913) to the Constitution of the United States permitting a federal income tax. -
17th Amendment
Amendment (1913) to the Constitution of the United States that provided for the direct election of U.S. senators by the voters of the states -
Causes of WW1
The immediate cause of World War I that made the aforementioned items come into play (alliances, imperialism, militarism, nationalism) was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. In June 1914, a Serbian-nationalist terrorist group called the Black Hand sent groups to assassinate the Archduke. -
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The German invasion of Belgium ( Reasons for US entry into WW1 )
So-called “atrocity propaganda” spread far and wide, painting the Germans as a barbaric nation bent on ruthless, indiscriminate destruction. This propaganda was soon sweeping the US, firing anti-German sentiment. -
The Lusitania ( Reasons for US entry to WW1 )
The loss of the liner and so many of its passengers, including 128 U.S. citizens, aroused a wave of indignation in the US, and it was fully expected that a declaration of war would follow. -
The Zimmerman telegram ( Reasons for US entry into WW1 )
The German diplomatic representative in Mexico received a secret telegram penned by German Foreign Sec. Arthur Zimmermann. It proposed a secret alliance between Ger. and Mex., should the US enter the war. Unfortunately for Germany, the telegram was intercepted by the British and decrypted by Room 40. The British passed the document to Washington and it appeared on the front page of American newspapers on 1st March. On 6 April, the United States declared war on Germany and began to mobilize. -
American Loans ( Reasons for US entry into WW1 )
The US had a vested financial interest in the outcome of the war in Europe. American businesses and banks made huge loans to the Allies. If they didn’t win then they were unlikely to get their money back. -
18th Amendment
Amendment (1919) to the Constitution of the United States imposing the federal prohibition of alcohol. -
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Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance, a blossoming (c. 1918–37) of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history. Embracing literary, musical, theatrical, and visual arts, participants sought to reconceptualize “the Negro” apart from the white stereotypes that had influenced Black peoples’ relationship to their heritage and to each other. -
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Teapot Dome Scandal
The Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s shocked Americans by revealing an unprecedented level of greed and corruption within the federal government. The scandal involved ornery oil tycoons, poker-playing politicians, illegal liquor sales, a murder-suicide, a womanizing president and a bagful of bribery cash delivered on the sly. -
19th Amendment
Amendment (1920) to the Constitution of the United States that officially extended the right to vote to women. -
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. -
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Dust Bowl
Name for both the drought period in the Great Plains that lasted from 1930 to 1936 and the section of the Great Plains of the United States that extended over southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, and northeastern New Mexico. -
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Italo-Ethiopian War
An armed conflict that resulted in Ethiopia’s subjection to Italian rule. Often seen as one of the episodes that prepared the way for World War II, the war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the League of Nations when League decisions were not supported by the great powers. Ethiopia (Abyssinia), which Italy had unsuccessfully tried to conquer in the 1890s, was in 1934 one of the few independent states in a European-dominated Africa. -
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Tuskegee Airmen
Black servicemen of the U.S. Army Air Forces who trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama during World War II. They constituted the first African American flying unit in the U.S. military. -
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Bracero Program
The official title Mexican Farm Labor Program, series of agreements between the U.S. and Mexican governments to allow temporary labourers from Mexico, known as braceros, to work legally in the United States. The program ran from 1942 to 1964, and during that time more than 4.5 million Mexicans arrived in the United States, most going to work in Texas and California, either in agriculture or on the railroads. -
Bataan Death March
March in the Philippines of some 66 miles (106 km) that 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos, 10,000 Americans) were forced by the Japanese military to endure in April 1942, during the early stages of World War II. -
Korematsu v. United States
A legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court, on December 18, 1944, upheld (6–3) the conviction of Fred Korematsu—a son of Japanese immigrants who was born in Oakland, California—for having violated an exclusion order requiring him to submit to forced relocation during World War II. -
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Nuremberg Trials
Held for the purpose of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg trials were a series of 13 trials carried out in Nuremberg, Germany, between 1945 and 1949. The defendants, who included Nazi Party officials and high-ranking military officers along with German industrialists, lawyers and doctors, were indicted on such charges as crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. -
"In God We Trust"
Two years after pushing to have the phrase “under God” inserted into the pledge of allegiance, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a law officially declaring “In God We Trust” to be the nation’s official motto. The law, P.L. 84-140, also mandated that the phrase be printed on all American paper currency.