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Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was and effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and poilitical rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time the U.S. contained 22 states, equally divided by free and slave. Missouri became a slave state and to keep the balance, Maine became a free state. -
Henry Flagler
American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, made a forutne with John D. Rockefeller. He moved to Florida and built a series of luxury hotels. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway. He died May 20th, 1913. -
Compromise of 1850
The Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. Also, California entered the Union as a free state and a territorial government was created in Utah. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
This was a bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state’s borders. It became part of the political whirlwind of sectionalism and railroad building, splitting two major political parties and helping to create another, as well as worsening North-South relations. -
Dred Scott Decision
A lgeal case that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a slave, Dred Scott, that stayed in a free state and territory (where slavery was prohibited) was not entitled his freedom. The decision inflamed regional tensions, which evcentually exploded into the Civil War. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper"s Ferry
This was an attempt by a white abolitionist (John Brown) to start an armed slave revolt by siezing a U.S. Arsenal. The raid went on for 2 days. -
Presidential Election of 1860
Democrats were divided. Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln won the election with only 39% of the popular vote and no electoral votes from the Southern states. South Carolina and six other states immediately seceded , and the seceding states formed the Confederate States of America. -
Civil War
This war basically decieded the survival of either the Union or independence for the Confederacy. The Civil War ended April 9th, 1865 because General Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. The last battle of the civil war was at Palmito Ranch, Texas. -
Homestead Act
A law enabling persons who settled on undeveloped 160-acre tracts of land to gain title after meeting certain criteria. To meet that criteria you must reside on and cultivate the land for five years after the initial claim. -
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation announced the emancipation of slaves in those states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. The Battle of Antietam (aka Sharpsburg) provided the necessary Union victory to issue the Emancipation Proclomation. It changed the focus of the war. -
The Battle of Gettysburg
This was the turning point of the war. Grant became Union commander. Lee surrendered Appomattox in April 1865. -
Sand Creek Massacre
This was an event from Westward Expantion. The Sand Creek Massacre (aka Chivinton Massacre) consisted of 700 members of the Colorado Territory militia embarked on an attack of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian villages. The militia was led by U.S. Army Col. John Chivington, a Methodist preacher, as well as a freemason. -
Lincoln's Assassination
Shortly after 10p.m., actor John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential box and fatally shot President Lincoln. An hour after dawn the next morning, Lincoln died. He was the first president to be assassinated. -
Black Codes
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 U.S. It was passed by Congress January 31st, ratified December 6, later that year. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act attempted to help the Indians. It gave them the right to create private property from reservation land and tried to "Americanize" them. However, it was a failure because it lacked respect for Indian traditions. It led to a massive sell-off of Indian lands. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. This included former slaves recently freed. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote. It declared that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Chinese Exclusion Act
Asian immigrants faced special challenges. Chinese men began arriving after the California Gold Rush and helped to build the railroads in California. The Chinese Exclusion Act banned almost all immigrants from the U.S. -
Haymarket Riot
This was a labor protest rally near Chicago’s Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least 8 people died as a result of the violence that day. Despite a lack of evidence against them, 8 radical labor activists were convicted in connection with the bombing. The Haymarket Riot was viewed a setback for the organized labor movement in America, which was fighting for such rights as the eight-hour workday. At the same time, the men convicted in connection with the -
Interstate Commerce Act
This is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates. Basically designed to prevent unfair practices by railroads. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
This law was the first federal act that outlawed monopolistic buisness practices. It allowed the government to break up monopolies that engaged in harmful buisness practices against the public interest. -
Sherman Silver Purchase Act
The Act is an attempt to reduce the financial constraints of farmers due to fall in price of the silver. The Act has entrusted the treasury to carry out the actions set forth by the Act. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy could easily pass for white but under Louisiana law, he was considered black despite his light complexion and therefore required to sit in the "Colored" car. This event was taken to court and upholded the constitutionality of the state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctine of "seperate but equal." -
Homestead Strike
This was a bitterly faught labor dispute. Aka Homestead Steel Strike, this industrial lockout and strike culminated in a battle between strikers and private security agents because Andrew Carnegie was determined to break the Union after the first strike in 1889 and his plant manager, Henry Clay Frick, stepped up production demands, and when the union refused to accept the new conditions, Frick began locking the workers out of the plant. -
Populist Platform of 1892
The People's party, more commonly known as the Populist party, was organized in St. Louis in 1892 to represent the common folk—especially farmers—against the entrenched interests of railroads, bankers, processers, corporations, and the politicians in league with such interests. It's also know as the Omaha Platform. -
Pullman Strike
This was a nationwide railroad strike that happened in the summer of 1894. The employees striked because the owner, George Mortimer Pullman, had places for his employees to live so they could stay closer to work without going far distances. The pay was decent and enough to survive and still pay rent. But over time he decreased their pay and highered the rent and then the living conditions weren't fair so they striked because he changed up the regulations for them and pt them into hardships. -
Jose Marti Lands in Cuba
Marti was a Cuban patriot, a freedom fighter and poet. When he landed in Cuba he launched a war for independence. -
De Lome Letter
The De Lome Letter was written by the Spanish Ambassador to the U.S. to the Foreign Minister of Spain, and it reveals De Lomes opinion about the Spanish involvement in Cuba and U.S. President McKinley's diplomacy. The letter called him weak and concerned with only earning the favor of the crowd. -
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy declares that trading rights in China should remain open to all foreign powers. In 1900, an international military expiditon , which included U.S. forces, put down the Boxer Rebellion and Hay announced that the U.S. would oppose any attempt to divide China into colonies. -
Boxer Rebellion
A Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led uprising in Northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there. It's also known as the Boxer Uprising. -
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 President's assertive approach to Latin America and the Caribbean has often been characterized as the “Big Stick” policy. -
Treaty of Portsmouth
The treaty of Portsmouth basically ended the Russo-Japanese War. The negotiations took place in August in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and were brokered in part by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. -
Lusitania Sank
The Lusitania, a British passenger ship, was torpedoed by a German submarine on off the coast of Ireland and the Americans were force to join WW1. Americans tried to stay out of the war. In 1916, Germany pledged not to use submarine warfare against passenger ships but in 1917 it resumed "unrestricted submarine warfare." -
Espionage Act of 1917
The Espionage Act of 1917 allowed government cencorship of the mails and imprisonment for those who interfered with the draft. IMore soecifically it prescribed a $10,000 fine and 20 years' imprisonment for interfering with the recruiting of troops or the disclosure of information dealing with national defence. Additional penalties were included for the refusal to perform military duty. Over the next few months bafter the enactment of this act, around 900 went to prison under the Espionage Act. -
Sedition Act of 1918
The Sedition Act made it crime to use "disloyal" language. More specifically, it was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds. -
Korean War
The Korean War was a war between North and South Korea, in which a United Nations force led by the United States of America fought for the South, and China fought for the North, which was also assisted by the Soviet Union. some 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People's Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People's Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. -
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The war became increasingly unpopular at home, and ended with the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973 and the unification of Vietnam under Communist control two years later. More than 3 million people, including 58,000 Americans, were killed in the conflict. -
Kennedy Assassination
Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. By the fall of 1963, President John F. Kennedy and his political advisers were preparing for the next presidential campaign. -
Civil Rights Act
This act oassed over Johnson's veto and Grants freedom rights of citizenship . It overturned the Black Codes. The civil rights movement encompassed a social, political, and legal struggle to gain equal rights for African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. The battle was primarily a challenge to the system of laws and customs enforced by whites to control and separate blacks. The movement grew in strength first through spoken word and later through worldwide publicity created by violent scenes. -
HIV/AIDS
In 1983, scientists discovered the virus that causes AIDS. The virus was at first named HTLV-III/LAV (human T-cell lymphotropic virus-type III/lymphadenopathy-associated virus) by an international scientific committee. This name was later changed to HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). It is a chronic immune system disease usually spread by sexual contact.
