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Indentured Servants
An indentured servant is a person under contract to work for another person for a definite period of time. The servant is without pay but in exchange for free passage to a new country. -
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Freedom of Consciences
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom. -
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The Middle Passage
The Middle Passage was a leg of the Triangular Trade Route. It was the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of Africans were shipped to the New World as part of the Atlantic slave trade. -
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Salutary Neglect
Salutary neglect refers to the unofficial, long-term British Crown policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws meant to keep American colonies obedient to England. -
House of Burgesses
The London Company granted Virgina the right to establish a local government in 1619. It was based after the English Parliament and gave the colonies a taste of independence. -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was signed by 41 Englishmen. Tis compact was the first written framework of government established in the United States. -
New England Confederation
The New England Confedereation was a short-lived military alliance of the English colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. -
Trade and Navigation Acts
The English Parliament passed the Navigation Acts of 1651. These acts were designed to tighten the government's control over trade between England and colonies. -
Halfway Covenant
The Halfway Covenant was created to give partial church membership in New England because some ministers felt that the people of the colonies were drifting away from the original religious purpose. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rbellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers. The rebellion was led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. -
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Salem Witch Trials
The Salem Witch Trials were a series of trails that prosecuted people of witchcraft in Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. Mainly young women were accused. -
Iroquios Confederacy
The Iroquois Confederacy was an alliance of five, later six, American Indian tribes located in modern-day New York state. It was also known as "The Five Nations." -
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George Whitefield
During the 1730-40s, George Whitefield helped spread the Great Awakening throughout Britain and the colonies. He was born in 1714 in England. -
Peter Zenger Trial
Zenger criticized the governor and was accused of "seditious libel." He claimed what he printed was the truth and help establish the ideas of freedom of the press. -
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"No taxation without representation"
This slogan was used throughout the 1750s and 1760s by the American colonists. This led to the Revolutionary War. -
Albany Plan of Union
The Albany Plan of Union was a plan to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin,. -
Paxton Boys
The Paxton Boys consisted of Scots-Irish men in central Pennsylvania. The Paxton Boys were against Quaker tolerance of Indians. -
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Pontiac's Rebellion
Specific groups of people in the colonies were displeased with the policies that the British placed on them after the war. The rebellion was also known as Pontiac's War. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III. This proclamation forbade settlement past the Appalachian Mountains. -
Sugar Act 1764
The Sugar Act is a modified act of the Sugar and Molasses Act of 1733. This act placed an excessive tax of sugar for colonists. -
Sons of Liberty
The Sons of Liberty was an organization created by American colonists in the 13 original colonies. The group was a rebel group against taxes. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament. This act required all American colonists to pay a tax on every printed piece of paper used. -
Quartering Act
The British Parliament passed the quartering act for Americans. The act stated that if there was no room in barracks for soldiers, the citizens were forced to let them stay in their homes. -
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Tecumseh
Shawnee leader who attempted to establish a confederacy to unify Native Americans against white encroachment. -
Boston Massacre
Five colonists were killed by British soldiers. The British were trying to enforce a heavy tax on the colonists. -
Gaspee Affair
The colonists thought that there was a conspiracy against them. A group of colonists disguised as Native Americans, ordered the British crew ashore and then set their ship on fire. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act was the final policy of all the unpopular policies placed on the colonists by the British. The Tea Act led to the Boston Tea Party. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was organized by the Sons of Liberty as a form of protest. Americans attacked a British ship before the Revolutionary War. -
Visual Representation
This was the British response to the First Continental Congress in the American colonies. Visual representation was the idea that the British represented British colonists by speaking for all instead of just the district they were from. -
Olive Branch Petition
The Second Continental Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petiition to attempt a full on war between the colonies and Britain . The petition confirmed American loyalty to Great Britain. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is defined as the formal statement written by Thomas Jefferson declaring the freedom of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain. An example of the Declaration of Independence was the document adopted at the Second Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battle of Saratoga was the turning point of the Revolutionary War. British and Hessian troops surrendered their arms. -
Perpetual Union
The Perpetual Union is a feature of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, which established the United States of America as a national entity. -
Treaty of Aliiance
The Treaty of Alliance with France was a defensive alliance between France and the United States of America, formed in the midst of the American Revolutionary War, which promised America of French military support in case of attack by British forces indefinitely into the future. -
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The Critical Period
the period between the end of the revolutionary war and the ratification of the constitution -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 ended the revolutionary war and recognized American independence. The Continental Congress named a five-member commission to negotiate a treaty–John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens. -
Shy's Rebellion
An uprising led by a former militia officer, Daniel Shays, which broke out in western Massachusetts in 1786. Shays's followers protested the foreclosures of farms for debt and briefly succeeded in shutting down the court system. -
Annapolis Convention
The Annapolis Convention, formally titled as a Meeting of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government was a national political convention -
3/5 Compromise
The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise reached between delegates from southern states and those from northern states during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. -
Deism
The belief that God has created the universe but remains apart from it and permits his creation to administer itself through natural laws. Deism thus rejects the supernatural aspects of religion, such as belief in revelation in the Bible, and stresses the importance of ethical conduct. -
Bank of the US
The President, Directors and Company, of the Bank of the United States, commonly known as 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. -
Pinckney's Treaty
Pinckney's Treaty as signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on October 27, 1795 and established intentions of friendship between the United States and Spain. -
Washington's Farewell Address
The final address by George Washington to his fellow citizens as he was leaving the presidency. He wrote the address in 1796 but never delivered it. -
XYZ Affair
The XYZ Affair was a political and diplomatic episode early in the administration of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and Republican France that led to an undeclared war called the Quasi-War. -
Interchangable Parts
Interchangeable parts are parts (components) that are, for practical purposes, identical. They are made to specifications that ensure that they are so nearly identical that they will fit into any assembly of the same type -
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Undeclared Naval War
The Quasi-War was an undeclared naval war between the United States and France during the Presidency of John Adams. -
Revolution of 1800
In what is sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800," Vice President Thomas Jefferson defeated President John Adams. -
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Barbary Pirates
pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. -
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Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Lynde Dix was an American activist on behalf of the indigent insane who, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums. -
Louisiana Purchase
The purchase by the United States from France of the huge Louisiana Territory in 1803. President Thomas Jefferson ordered the purchase negotiations, fearing that the French, then led by Napoleon, wanted to establish an empire in North America. -
Lewis and Clark
A journey made by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, to explore the American Northwest, newly purchased from France, and some territories beyond. -
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Hartford Convention
The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings i Hartford, Connecticut, United States, in which the New England Federalist Party met to discuss their grievances concerning the ongoing War of 1812 -
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. -
American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society, founded in 1816 to assist free black people in emigrating to Africa, was the brainchild of the Reverend Robert Finley, a Presbyterian minister from Basking Ridge, New Jersey. -
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Trail of Tears
The route along which the United States government forced several tribes of Native Americans, including the Cherokees, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks, to migrate to reservations west of the Mississippi River in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s. -
Monroe Doctrine
a principle of US policy, originated by President James Monroe in 1823, that any intervention by external powers in the politics of the Americas is a potentially hostile act against the US -
Corrupt Bargain
When the 1824 election ended without any candidate receiving a majority in the electoral college, the House of Representatives awarded the election to John Quincy Adams. -
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a canal in New York that is part of the east-west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System (formerly known as the New York State Barge Canal). Originally it ran about 363 miles (584 km) from Albany, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, at Lake Erie. -
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Bank War
The Bank War refers to the political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States (BUS) during the Andrew Jackson administration (1829–1837). -
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Waldo Emerson. -
Charles River Bridge Case
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, 36 U.S. 420 (1837), was a case regarding the Charles River Bridge and the Warren Bridge of Boston, Massachusetts, heard by the United States Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. -
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Trail of Tears
As a part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. -
Gag Rule
strict rule passed by pro-southern Congressmen in 1836 to prohibit all discussion of slavery in the House or Representatives -
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Mexican American War
A war fought between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. The United States won the war, encouraged by the feelings of many Americans that the country was accomplishing its manifest destiny of expansion. -
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Independent Treasury
The Independent Treasury (IT) was a system for the retaining of government funds in the United States Treasury and its subtreasuries, independently of the national banking and financial systems. In one form or another, it existed from 1846 to 1921. -
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was designed to eliminate slavery within the land acquired as a result of the Mexican War -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (officially entitled the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic, is the peace treaty signed on February 2, 1848 -
Mexican Cession
The Mexican Cession of 1848 is a historical name in the United States for the region of the modern day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S. -
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. It was held in Seneca Falls, NY. -
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Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge was an American Republican Senator and historian from Massachusetts. Lodge received his PhD in history from Harvard. Lodge was a long-time friend and confidant of Theodore Roosevelt. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 -
Maine Laws
The Maine Law (or "Maine Liquor Law"), passed in 1851 in Maine, was one of the first statutory implementations of the developing temperance movement in the United States. -
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase, or Treaty, was an agreement between the United States and Mexico, finalized in 1854, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. -
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Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements in Kansas between 1854 and 1861. -
Dred Scott v Sandford
In Dred Scott v. Sandford (argued 1856 -- decided 1857), the Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. -
Freeport Doctrine
FREEPORT DOCTRINE was Stephen Douglas's doctrine that, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, slavery could be excluded from territories of the United States by local legislation. -
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Crop Lien System
The crop-lien system was a credit system that became widely used by cotton farmers in the United States in the South from the 1860s to the 1930s. Sharecroppers and tenant farmers who did not own the land they worked obtained supplies and food on credit from local merchants. -
Trent Affair
The Trent Affair was the diplomatic crisis that potentially brought Great Britain and the United States closest to war during the first year of the American Civil War. -
Homestead Act
Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act encouraged Western migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Emancipation Proclamation
A presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln. In a single stroke, it changed the federal legal status of more than 3 million enslaved persons in the designated areas of the South from "slave" to "free". -
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Black Codes
In the United States, the Black Codes were laws passed by Southern states in 1865 and 1866, after the Civil War. These laws had the intent and the effect of restricting African Americans' freedom, and of compelling them to work in a labor economy based on low wages or debt. -
13th Amendment
the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States and provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States -
KKK
a secret organization of White Protestant Americans, mainly in the South, who use violence against Black people, Jewish people, and other minority groups. -
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National Labor Union
The National Labor Union (NLU) was the first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, it paved the way for other organizations, such as the Knights of Labor -
Tenure of Office Act
The Tenure of Office Act was a United States federal law (in force from 1867 to 1887) that was intended to restrict the power of the President of the United States to remove certain office-holders without the approval of the Senate. -
Seward's Folly
The Treaty with Russia was negotiated and signed by Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister to the United States Edouard de Stoeckl. Critics of the deal to purchase Alaska called it "Seward's Folly” or “Seward's Icebox." -
Radical Reconstruction
The 1866 Congressional elections turned on the issue of Reconstruction, producing a sweeping Republican victory in the North, and providing the Radical Republicans with sufficient control of Congress to override Johnson's vetoes and commence their own "Radical Reconstruction" in 1867. -
14th Amendment
The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
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The Gilded Age
The Gilded Age is defined as the time between the Civil War and World War I during which the U.S. population and economy grew quickly, there was a lot of political corruption and corporate financial misdealings and many wealthy people lived very fancy lives. -
Force Act
The Enforcement Act of 1870, also known as the Civil Rights Act of 1870 or First Ku Klux Klan Act, or Force Act was a United States federal law written to empower the President with the legal authority to enforce the first section of the Fifteenth Amendment throughout the United States. -
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Sioux Wars
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations which occurred between 1876 and 1877 involving the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. -
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election, pulled federal troops out of state politics in the South, and ended the Reconstruction Era. -
Bland-Allison Act
The Bland–Allison Act, also referred to as the Grand Bland Plan of 1878, was an act of United States Congress requiring the U.S. Treasury to buy a certain amount of silver and put it into circulation as silver dollars. -
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Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. -
A Century of Dishonor
A Century of Dishonor is a non-fiction book by Helen Hunt Jackson first published in 1881 that chronicled the experiences of Native Americans in the United States, focusing on injustices. -
Haymerket Incident
The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. -
Dawes Act
A federal law intended to turn Native Americans into farmers and landowners by providing cooperating families with 160 acres of reservation land for farming or 320 acres for grazing. -
The Gospel of Wealth
"The Gospel of Wealth", is an article written by Andrew Carnegie in June of 1889 that describes the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich. -
Yellow Journalism
journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers; popularized in the late nineteenth century by Jospeh Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst -
Populist Party
A third-party movement that sprang up in the 1890s and drew support especially from disgruntled farmers. The Populists were particularly known for advocating the unlimited coinage of silver. -
Jingoism
extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy. -
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Spanish American War
a war in 1898 between the US and Spain, which the US started because it wanted Cuba to be independent from Spain and because the US battleship Maine was mysteriously destroyed by an explosion near Havana, Cuba. -
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the United States policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, as enunciated in Secretary of State John Hay's Open Door Note, dated September 6, 1899 and dispatched to the major European powers. -
Social Gospel
the religious doctrines preached by those who believed that the churches should directly address economic and social problems -
Boxer Rebellion
In 1900, in what became known as the Boxer Rebellion (or the Boxer Uprising), a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led an uprising in northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there -
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Muckrakers
The term muckraker was used in the Progressive Era to characterize reform-minded American journalists who wrote largely for all popular magazines. The modern term is investigative journalism, and investigative journalists today are often informally called "muckrakers." -
Platt Amendment
The Platt Amendment was passed as part of the 1901 Army Appropriations Bill. It stipulated seven conditions for the withdrawal of United States troops remaining in Cuba at the end of the Spanish–American War, and an eighth condition that Cuba sign a treaty accepting these seven conditions. -
Big Stick Policy
Big Stick ideology, Big Stick diplomacy, or Big Stick policy refers to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy: "speak softly, and carry a big stick." -
Anthracite Coal Strike
The Coal strike of 1902, also known as the anthracite coal strike, was a strike by the United Mine Workers of America in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners were on strike asking for higher wages, shorter workdays and the recognition of their union. -
Roosevelt Corollary
The Roosevelt Corollary was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine articulated by President Theodore Roosevelt in his State of the Union address in 1904 after the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–03. -
The Jungle
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968).[1] Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
a law passed in 1906 to remove harmful and misrepresented foods and drugs from the market and regulate the manufacture and sale of drugs and food involved in interstate trade. -
Great White Fleet
The Great White Fleet was the popular nickname for the United States Navy battle fleet that completed a circumnavigation of the globe from December 16, 1907, to February 22, 1909, by order of United States President Theodore Roosevelt. -
Gentlemen's agreement
an arrangement or understanding which is based upon the trust of both or all parties, rather than being legally binding. -
Dollar Diplomacy
the use of a country's financial power to extend its international influence. -
NAACP
The NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is a civil rights organization founded in 1909 to fight prejudice, lynching, and Jim Crow segregation, and to work for the betterment of "people of color." W. E.B. -
Mann Elkins Act
The 1910 Mann-Elkins Act was a federal law passed during the Progressive Movement that extended the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act and the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to set railroad rates and regulate the telecommunications industry. -
Bull Moose Party
It was formed by former President Theodore Roosevelt, after a split in the Republican Party between him and President William Howard Taft. The party also became known as the Bull Moose Party after journalists quoted Roosevelt saying that he felt "fit as a bull moose" shortly after the new party was formed. -
New Nationalism
New Nationalism was Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive political philosophy during the 1912 election. -
16th Amendment
The 16th amendment is an important amendment that allows the federal (United States) government to levy (collect) an income tax from all Americans. Income tax allows for the federal government to keep an army, build roads and bridges, enforce laws and carry out other important duties. -
17th Amendment
The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution established the popular election of United States Senators by the people of the states. The amendment supersedes Article I, §3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. -
Panama Canal
The Panamá Canal ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) to the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. -
Federal Trade Commission
a federal agency, established in 1914, that administers antitrust and consumer protection legislation in pursuit of free and fair competition in the marketplace. -
Clayton Antitrust Act
The Clayton Antitrust Act is an amendment passed by the U.S. Congress in 1914 that provides further clarification and substance to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Clayton Antitrust Act attempts to prohibit certain actions that lead to anti-competitiveness. -
Lusitania
a British luxury liner sunk by a German submarine in the North Atlantic on May 7, 1915: one of the events leading to U.S. entry into World War I. 2. an ancient region and Roman province in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding generally to modern Portugal. Lusitanian, adjective, noun. -
Zimmerman Note
The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note) was an internal diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January, 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico in the event of the United States' entering World War I against Germany. -
Creel Committee
The Committee on Public Information, also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States created to influence U.S. public opinion regarding American participation in World War I. -
Fourteen Points
Fourteen goals of the United States in the peace negotiations after World War I. President Woodrow Wilson announced the Fourteen Points to Congress in early 1918. -
18th Amendment
The Eighteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution effectively established the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States by declaring the production, transport, and sale of alcohol -
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Volstead Act
The Volstead Act is defined as the act by Congress that enforced prohibition from 1919 to 1933. An example of the Volstead Act was the law that prevented people from selling alcohol. YourDictionary definition and usage example. -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were a series of raids by the United States Department of Justice intended to capture, arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. -
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organisation founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. -
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Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. During this period Harlem was a cultural center, drawing black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. -
19th Amendment
The 19th amendment is a very important amendment to the constitution as it gave women the right to vote in 1920. -
Quota System
a system, originally determined by legislation in 1921, of limiting by nationality the number of immigrants who may enter the U.S. each year. -
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Washington Naval Conference
a military conference called by U.S. President Warren G. Harding and held in Washington, D.C. -
National Origins Act
A law that severely restricted immigration by establishing a system of national quotas that blatantly discriminated against immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and virtually excluded Asians. -
Scopes Trial
The trial of John Scopes, a high school teacher in Tennessee, for teaching the theory of evolution in violation of state law. The trial was held in 1925, with eminent lawyers on both sides — William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. -
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Martin Luther King Jr.
An African-American clergyman and political leader of the twentieth century; the most prominent member of the civil rights movement. -
New Deal
A group of government programs and policies established under President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s; the New Deal was designed to improve conditions for persons suffering in the Great Depression. -
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Hoovervilles
a shantytown built by unemployed and destitute people during the Depression of the early 1930s. -
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenagers accused in Alabama of raping two White American women on a train in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. -
Bonus March
The Bonus Army was the popular name of an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers—17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who gathered in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1932 to demand cash-payment redemption of their service certificates. -
20th Amendment
The 20th amendment is a simple amendment that sets the dates at which federal (United States) government elected offices end. In also defines who succeeds the president if the president dies. -
TVA
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley -
21st Amendment
The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment. -
Indian Reorganization Act
U.S. federal legislation that dealt with the status of Native Americans (known in law as American Indians or Indians). It was the centerpiece of what has been often called the "Indian New Deal." -
National Labor Relations Act
protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy. -
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Neutrality Acts
The Neutrality Acts were laws passed in 1935, 1936, 1937, and 1939 to limit U.S. involvement in future wars. They were based on the widespread disillusionment with World War I in the early 1930s and the belief that the United States had been drawn into the war through loans and trade with the Allies. -
Wagner Act
a foundational statute of United States labor law which guarantees basic rights of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining for better terms and conditions at work -
Social Security Act
A law enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 to create a system of transfer payments in which younger, working people support older, retired people. -
Fair Labor Standards Act
establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments. -
Destroyer Deal
Through this deal, the United States transferred destroyers to the British Navy in exchange for leases for British naval and air bases. -
Lend Lease Act
Congress authorized the sale, lease, transfer, or exchange of arms and supplies to 'any country whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the United States. -
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Hippies
a person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair and wearing beads, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs. -
Affirmative Action
In institutions of higher education, affirmative action refers to admission policies that provide equal access to education for those groups that have been historically excluded or underrepresented, such as women and minorities. -
Bay of Pigs
Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1961, an unsuccessful invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles, armed force of about 1,500 Cuban exiles landed in the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) on the south coast of Cuba. -
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is a volunteer program run by the United States government. The stated mission of the Peace Corps includes providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand American culture, and helping Americans to understand the cultures of other countries. -
Cuban Missle Crisis
A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. -
War on Poverty
The War on Poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national poverty rate of around nineteen percent. -
Economic Opp. Act
United States Public Law 88-452, 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. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. -
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
In August 1964 Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (78 Stat. 384), approving and supporting President Lyndon B. Johnson's determination to repel any armed attack against U.S. forces in Southeast Asia. Johnson subsequently relied on the measure as his chief authorization for the escalation of the Vietnam War. -
Great Society
a domestic program in the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson that instituted federally sponsored social welfare programs. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
A law passed at the time of the civil rights movement. It eliminated various devices, such as literacy tests, that had traditionally been used to restrict voting by black people. -
Miranda v Arizona
the Supreme Court ruled that detained criminal suspects, prior to police questioning, must be informed of their constitutional right to an attorney and against self-incrimination. -
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Stagflation
persistent high inflation combined with high unemployment and stagnant demand in a country's economy. -
Kent State
A controversial incident in 1970, in which unarmed students demonstrating against United States involvement in the Vietnam War were fired on by panicky troops of the National Guard. Four students were killed and nine wounded. The shooting occurred at Kent State University in Ohio. -
Equal Rights Amendment
a proposed amendment to the US Constitution stating that civil rights may not be denied on the basis of one's sex. -
SALT 1 Treaty
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. -
War Powers Act
a US law passed in 1973 which allows Congress to limit the President's use of military forces. It states that the President must tell Congress within 48 hours if he sends armed forces anywhere, and Congress must give approval for them to stay there for more than 90 days. -
Roe v Wade
The Supreme Court case that held that the Constitution protected a woman's right to an abortion prior to the viability of the fetus; thus, government regulation of abortions must meet strict scrutiny in judicial review. -
Helsinki Accords
The Helsinki Accords were primarily an effort to reduce tension between the Soviet and Western blocs by securing their common acceptance of the post-World War II status quo in Europe. -
Mayaguez Incident
The Mayaguez incident took place between the Democratic Kampuchea and the United States from May 12–15, 1975, less than a month after the Khmer Rouge took control of the capital Phnom Penh ousting the U.S. backed Khmer Republic. It was the last official battle of the Vietnam War. -
Washington Outsiders
Jimmy Carter: Washington Outsider in the White House. Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, was elected president in a narrow victory over Gerald Ford in 1976. A former governor of Georgia, Carter presented himself as a political outsider, uncorrupted by Washington. -
Bakke v Board of Regents
was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. It upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy. -
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David. The two framework agreements were signed at the White House, and were witnessed by United States President Jimmy Carter. -
Supply Side Economics
An economic theory that holds that, by lowering taxes on corporations, government can stimulate investment in industry and thereby raise production, which will, in turn, bring down prices and control inflation. -
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Reaganomics
the economic policies of the former US president Ronald Reagan, associated especially with the reduction of taxes and the promotion of unrestricted free-market activity.