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Monroe Doctrine
was a United States policy that opposed European colonialism in the Americas. It began in 1823, however the term "Monroe Doctrine" itself was not coined until 1850. The Doctrine was issued on December 2, at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved, or were at the point of gaining, independence from the Portuguese and Spanish Empires. -
“Influence of Sea Power Upon History”
is a history of naval warfare published in 1890 by Alfred Thayer Mahan. It details the role of sea power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and discussed the various factors needed to support and achieve sea power, with emphasis on having the largest and most powerful fleet. -
Yellow journalism
and the yellow press are American terms for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales.Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion. -
Jingoism
is nationalism in the form of aggressive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. -
Anti-Imperialist League
was an organization established on June 15, 1898, to battle the American annexation of the Philippines as an insular area. The anti-imperialists opposed expansion, believing that imperialism violated the fundamental principle that just republican government must derive from "consent of the governed." -
Initiative, referendum & Recall
Initiative, Referendum and Recall are three powers reserved to the voters to enable them, by petition, to propose or repeal legislation or to remove an elected official from office. the initiative is a process that enables citizens to bypass their state legislature by placing proposed statutes and, in some states, constitutional amendments on the ballot. The first state to adopt the initiative was South Dakota in 1898. -
Hawaiian Annexation
America's annexation of Hawaii in 1898 extended U.S. territory into the Pacific and highlighted resulted from economic integration and the rise of the United States as a Pacific power. For most of the 1800s, leaders in Washington were concerned that Hawaii might become part of a European nation's empire. During the 1830s, Britain and France forced Hawaii to accept treaties giving them economic privileges. -
De Lome Letter
a note written by Señor Don Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, the Spanish Ambassador to the United States, to Don José Canalejas, the Foreign Minister of Spain, reveals de Lôme’s opinion about the Spanish involvement in Cuba and US President McKinley’s diplomacy. -
Sinking of the Maine
was a United States Navy ship that sank in Havana Harbor in February 1898, contributing to the outbreak of the Spanish–American War in April. American newspapers, engaging in yellow journalism to boost circulation, claimed that the Spanish were responsible for the ship's destruction. -
Teller Amendment
was an amendment to a joint resolution of the United States Congress, enacted on April 20, 1898, in reply to President William McKinley's War Message. It placed a condition on the United States military's presence in Cuba. -
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 that would allow for a system of trade in China open to all countries equally. It was used mainly to mediate the competing interests of different colonial powers in China. -
Square Deal
was President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program, which reflected his three major goals: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection. -
Insular Cases
are a series of opinions by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1901, about the status of U.S. territories acquired in the Spanish–American War, and the periods shortly thereafter. When the war ended in 1898, the United States had to answer the question of whether or not people in newly acquired territories were citizens, a question the country had never faced before. -
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. -
Socialist Party of America
was a democratic socialist and social democratic political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America which had split from the main organization in 1899. -
Newlands Reclamation Act
The act at first covered only 13 of the western states as Texas had no federal lands. Texas was added later by a special act passed in 1906. The act set aside money from sales of semi-arid public lands for the construction and maintenance of irrigation projects. The newly irrigated land would be sold and money would be put into a revolving fund that supported more such projects. -
Support of Panamanian Revolt
was formalized on 3 November 1903, with the establishment of the Republic of Panama. From the Independence of Panama from Spain in 1821, Panama had simultaneously declared independence from Spain and joined itself to the confederation of Gran Colombia through the Independence Act of Panama. -
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 1902–1903. The corollary states that the United States will intervene in conflicts between the European countries and Latin American countries to enforce legitimate claims of the European powers, rather than having the Europeans press their claims directly. -
Russo-Japanese War
was fought during 1904 and 1905 between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and Korea. -
Pure Food & Drug Act
was the first of a series of significant consumer protection laws which was enacted by Congress in the 20th century and led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. Its main purpose was to ban foreign and interstate traffic in adulterated or mislabeled food and drug products, and it directed the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry to inspect products and refer offenders to prosecutors. -
Meat Inspection Act
is an American law that makes it a crime to adulterate or misbrand meat and meat products being sold as food, and ensures that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under strictly regulated sanitary conditions. -
The Jungle
is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. His primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. -
Spheres of influence
is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military, or political exclusivity. -
Great White Fleet
was the popular nickname for the powerful United States Navy battleships which completed a journey around the globe from 16 December 1907, to 22 February 1909, by order of United States President Theodore Roosevelt. Its mission was to make friendly courtesy visits to numerous countries, while displaying new U.S. naval power to the world. -
NAACP
is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as a bi-racial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey and Ida B. Wells. -
Triangle Shirtwaist fire
in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. -
Bull Moose Party
was a third party in the United States formed in 1912 by former president Theodore Roosevelt after he lost the presidential nomination of the Republican Party to his former protégé and conservative rival, incumbent president William Howard Taft. -
17th Amendment
) to the United States Constitution established the popular election of United States senators by the people of the states. -
16th Amendment
to the United States Constitution allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population.The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on February 3, 1913, and effectively overruled the Supreme Court's ruling in Pollock. -
Federal Reserve Act
The 1913 Federal Reserve Act is U.S. legislation that created the current Federal Reserve System. Congress developed the Federal Reserve Act to establish economic stability in the United States by introducing a central bank to oversee monetary policy. -
Panama Canal
waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit for maritime trade. The United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914. -
Clayton Antitrust Act
The Clayton Antitrust Act is a piece of legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in 1914. The act defines unethical business practices, such as price-fixing and monopolies, and upholds various rights of labor. -
Federal Trade Commission
is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) U.S. antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC was established in 1914 with the passage of the Federal Trade Commission Act, Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson -
Lusitania
was a British ocean liner that was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat 11 miles off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 passengers and crew. The sinking presaged the United States declaration of war on Germany. -
NWP
is an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NWP advocated for other issues including the Equal Rights Amendment. -
Sussex Pledge
was a promise made by Germany to the United States in 1916, during World War I before the latter entered the war. Early in 1915, Germany had instituted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare,allowing armed merchant ships, but not passenger ships, to be torpedoed without warning. Despite this avowed restriction, a French cross-channel passenger ferry, the Sussex, was torpedoed without warning on March 24, 1916 -
Submarine warfare
is one of the four divisions of underwater warfare, the others being anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare and mine countermeasures. Played a large role in the United States entering the war in April 1917. -
Zimmerman telegram
was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. If the United States entered World War I against Germany, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The telegram was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. -
War Industries Board
was a United States government agency established on July 28, 1917, during World War I, to coordinate the purchase of war supplies between the War Department (Department of the Army) and the Navy Department. -
Selective Service Act
enacted May 18, 1917) authorized the United States federal government to raise a national army for service in World War I through conscription. -
Espionage Act
is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War) but is now found under Title 18, Crime. -
Red Scare
is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism or anarchism by a society or state. The name refers to the red flags that the communists used. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which are referred to by this name. The First Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War I, revolved around a perceived threat from the American labor movement, anarchist revolution and political radicalism. -
National War Labor Board
was an agency of the United States government established on April 8, 1918 to mediate labor disputes during World War I. -
Sedition Act
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. -
WWI Armistice
was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, sea and air in World War I between the Allies and their opponent, Germany. Previous armistices had been agreed with Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. -
Fourteen Points
was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918, speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. -
Committee on Public Info
also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States created to influence public opinion to support US participation in World War I
In just over 26 months from April 14, 1917, to June 30, 1919, it used every medium available to create enthusiasm for the war effort and to enlist public support against the foreign and perceived domestic attempts to stop America's participation in the war. It used mainly propaganda to accomplish its goals. -
Schenck v U.S.
was a landmark United States Supreme Court case concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., concluded that defendants who distributed flyers to draft-age men urging resistance to induction could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense. -
Treaty of Versailles
was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919 in Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which had directly led to the war. -
Jones Act
is a United States federal statute that provides for the promotion and maintenance of the American merchant marine. Among other purposes, the law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act is known as the Jones Act and deals with coastwise trade -
League of Nations
was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. -
Palmer Raids
were a series of raids conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 during the First Red Scare by the United States Department of Justice under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson to capture and arrest suspected leftists, mostly Italian and Eastern European immigrants and especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States. -
Teapot Dome Scandal
was a bribery scandal involving the administration of United States President Warren G. Harding from 1921 to 1923. Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall had leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming, and two locations in California, to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. -
Cuban Revolt
was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement and its allies against the military dictatorship of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in July 1953 and continued sporadically until the rebels finally ousted Batista on 31 December 1958, replacing his government with a revolutionary socialist state. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as the Day of the Revolution. -
NCLC
is an American nonprofit organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in consumer issues on behalf of low-income people. Legal services, government and private attorneys, as well as community organizations, work with the center to advocate for consumer reform.
