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Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine
[Experience History: Interpreting America's Past](Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff)When the Dominican Republic defaulted on its debts, Roosevelt added the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine by claiming the right to intervene directly if Latin Americans failed to keep their finances in order. This was significant because the United States assumed responsibility for several Carribbean states, including the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Panama (p. 623). -
Mexican Revolution
[Experience History: Interpreting America's Past](Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff)A revolution overthrew the aged dictator Porfirio Diaz and plunged the country into turmoil. Just as Wilson was entering the White House in 1913, the ruthless general Victoriano Huerta emerged as head of the government. Wealthy landowners and foreign investors endorsed Huerta. Soon a bloody civil war was raging between Huerta and his rivals. This was significant because the Mexican Revolution began as a movement of middle-class protest against the long-standing dictatorship of Diaz (p.625). -
World War I begins
[Experience History: Interpreting America's Past](Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff)Europe responded to the increased competition with an arms race and a set of military alliances. Great Britain became convinced that its mastery of the seas depended on maintaining a navy equal in power to the combined navies of its closest rivals, France and Germany. The true significance was that the war was righly named the "Great War" because it transformed the continent and left a bitter legacy that shaped the rest of the twentieth century (p.626). -
Panama Canal opens
[Experience History: Interpreting America's Past](Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff)The Panama Canal opened without fanfare, but one could miss its significance: the new American empire now spanned the globe, stretching from the Caribbean to the Pacific and linked by a waterway between the seas (p. 645). -
Wilson's Fourteen Points
[Experience History: Interpreting America's Past](Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff)Wilson's bright vision of peace encompassed his "Fourteen Points." The key provisions called for open diplomacy, free seas and free trade, disarmament, democratic self-rule, and an "association of nations" to guarantee collective security. The significance of this was a new world order to end selfish nationalism, imperialism, and war (p. 636). -
Paris Peace Conference
[Experience History: Interpreting America's Past](Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff)Wilson's call for "peace without victory" gave way to a "guilt clause" that saddled Germany with responsibility for the war. Worse still, the victors imposed an impoverishing debt of $33 billion in reparations on the vanquished. The Paris Peace Conference, also called the Versailles Conference, was the most important diplomatic meeting of the 20th century (p. 641). -
Red Scare
[Experience History: Interperting America's Past](Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff)Mobs in a dozen cities broke up Socialist parades, injured hundreds, and killed three people. On the floor of the Senate Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee advocated sending citizens with radical beliefs to a penal colony on the Pacific island of Guam. The importance of the first Red Scare was that it was about worker (socialist) revolution and political radicalism (p. 643). -
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Palmer raids
[Experience History: Interpreting America's Past](Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, & Stoff)Palmer launched raids in cities across the US. In a single night, government agencies invaded private homes, meeting halls, and pool parlors in 33 cities. They took 4,000 people into custody without warrants. Many were Russians, some were communists, but most were victims of suspicion run amok. The significance of this was that it was essentially the death of the Socialist Party (p. 644).
