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Northwest Ordinance of 1787
Was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States, passed July 13, 1787. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory, the first organized territory of the United States, from lands south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. It provided a method for admitting new states to the Union from the territory, and listed a bill of rights guaranteed in the territory. -
Louisiana Purchase
With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the United States purchased approximately 828,000,000 square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Canadian border in the north. -
Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the first American expedition to cross what is now the western portion of the United States, departing in May, 1804 from St. Louis on the Mississippi River, making their way westward through the continental divide to the Pacific coast. The expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson shortly after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Their perilous journey lasted from May 1804 to September 1806. -
War of 1812
War of 1812 was a 32-month military conflict between the United States on one side, and on the other Great Britain, its colonies and its Indian allies in North America. The outcome resolved many issues which remained from the American War of Independence, but involved no boundary changes. The United States declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions brought about by Britain's continuing war with France, the impressment of American merchant sailors into the Royal Navy, -
Purchase of Florida from Spain
It was part of the Adam's Onis Treaty of 1819. It was an acquisition of Florida of the US. It happened because the United States wanted the land and wanted Spain out of the land. It happened in Florida -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory. -
Mormon Movement
Mormons /ˈmɔrmənz/ are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity, which began with the visions of Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844 the Mormons followed Brigham Young to what would become the Utah Territory. Today Mormons are understood to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some Mormons are also either independent or -
Erie Canal
A canal running from Albany, New YOrk to Buffalo, NEw York. That let goods be shipped between the Eastern seaboard and the great lakes. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson. The act authorized him to negotiate with the Native Americans in the Southern United States for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their homelands. -
Trail of Tears
At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida--land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. Very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles. Now called the Trail of Tears. -
Annexation of Texas
The annexation of Texas to the United States became a topic of political and diplomatic discussion after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and became a matter of international concern between 1836 and 1845, when Texas was a republic. -
California Gold Rush
The first to hear confirmed information of the Gold Rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to the state in late 1848. All told, the news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was officially called the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic. The peace treaty signed in Guadalupe Hidalgo between the U.S. and Mexico that ended the Mexican War. With the defeat of its army With the defeat of its army and the fall of the capital, Mexico entered into negotiations to end the war. -
Oregon Territory
The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. -
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase is a 29,670-square-mile (76,800 km2) region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United States in a treaty signed by James Gadsden, the American ambassador to Mexico at the time -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory.The initial purpose of the Kansas–Nebraska Act was to open up many thousands of new farms and make feasible a Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Acts were several United States federal laws that gave an applicant ownership of land, typically called a "homestead", at little or no cost. The United States Homestead Acts were initially proposed as an expression of the "Free Soil" policy of Northerners who wanted individual farmers to own and operate their own farms, as opposed to Southern slave-owners who could use groups of slaves to economic advantage. -
Transcontinental Railroad
In the United States of America, transcontinental railroads created a nation-wide transportation network that united the country. This network replaced the wagon trains of previous decades and allowed for the transportation of larger quantities of goods over longer distances. -
The Dawes Act
The Act was named for its creator, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes of Massachusetts. The stated objective of the Dawes Act was to stimulate assimilation of Indians into mainstream American society. Individual ownership of land was seen as an essential step. The act also provided that the government would purchase Indian land "excess" to that needed for allotment and open it up for settlement by non-Indians. -
Spanish-American War
It was a war between Spain and the United States. It was a result of American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. American naval power proved decisive, allowing U.S. expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already brought to its knees by nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and further wasted by yellow fever.
