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George Washington - Whiskey Rebellion (Military Power)
The Whiskey Rebellion was an insurrection in 1794 by settlers in the Monongahela Valley in western Pennsylvania who fought against a federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks. The ineffective government of the United States under the Articles of Confederation was replaced by a stronger federal government under the United States Constitution in 1788. This new government inherited a huge debt from the American Revolutionary War. Washington sent military troops to end the violence. -
Thomas Jefferson - Louisiana Purchase (Diplomatic)
Jefferson was president and decided to double the size of the Union, by buying land from the France, to support their war. Jefferson paid $60 million dollars for 828,000 square miles, west of the MS River. Although it doubled the size of the U.S. It also created a lot of tension with the economy and Great Britain. -
James Madison - War of 1812 (Military)
In 1812, the U.S. declared war on Britain. Americans wanted to stop impressment. They also wanted Britain to stop arming the Indians, preventing the scalping of Americans -
James Monroe - Monroe Doctrine (Executive)
The Doctrine stated any intervention by external powers in the politics of the Americas is a potentially hostile act against the US. -
James Polk - Mexican America War (Military)
President James Polk orders Gen. Zachery Taylor and half the then American standing army to the Rio Grande. Mexican forces, asserting that the Rio Grande area is part of Mexico, cross the Rio Grande and ambush an American cavalry patrol, allowing the US to declare war on Mexico. Taylor invades Mexico from the north. -
Andrew Jackson - Indian Removal Act (Legislative/Military)
The Act enforced general resettlement of Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River to lands west (Indian Territory). Although the removal was supposed to be voluntary, removal became mandatory whenever the government thought necessary. The government used deadly forced to moved the Natives. -
Abraham Lincoln - Civil War (Judiciary/Military)
Lincoln declared South Carolina's secession illegal and pledged to go to war to protect the federal union in 1861. During the four years of the American Civil War, the president steered the North to victory and authored the Emancipation Proclamation, which dealt a severe blow to the institution of slavery in the U.S. -
William McKinley - Spanish American War (Diplomatic/Military)
On April 21, 1898, the United States declared war on Spain following the sinking of the Battleship Maine in the Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. The U.S. also supported the ongoing struggle of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines for independence against Spanish rule. -
Woodrow Wilson - World War 1(Legislative)
Wilson tried to keep the United States neutral during World War I but ultimately called on Congress to declare war on Germany in 1917. After the war, he helped negotiate a peace treaty that included a plan for the League of Nations. -
Woodrow Wilson - Treaty of Versailles (Diplomatic)
Germany was forced to give up much of the territory that it had gained in the years of the war. Land was conceded back to France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The country's army was limited to a maximum of 100,000 men and the navy could not have any boats over 100,000 tons. -
Franklin Roosevelt - New Deal Legislation (Executive)
The New Deal was a series of programs and policies of Relief, Recovery, and Reform to combat the effects of the Great Depression during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. -
Franklin Roosevelt - World War Two
Roosevelt supported the allies with funds and effectively halting the progression fo the axis powers. -
Franklin Roosevelt - Executive Order 9066
This order authorized the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones, clearing the way for the internment of Japanese Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans to concentration camps in the United States. -
Harry Truman - Hiroshima & Nagasaki (Military)
The U.S., with Truman's approval, dropped an atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and one on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. As more information has become available regarding the Japanese peace effort, the Japanese fear of losing their emperor (whom they believed was a god). Shortening the war, saving American lives, and revenge are the main reasons he gave for using them -
Harry Truman - Executive Order 9981 (Executive)
By January 1948, internal White House memos indicated that the President was determined to end military segregation by executive order. However, it was not until the delegates at the 1948 Democratic National Convention called for a liberal civil rights plank that included desegregation of the armed forces that Truman felt comfortable enough to issue Executive Order No. 9981 on July 26. -
Harry Truman - Korean War (Military)
Fearing that the Soviets intended to seize the entire peninsula from their position in the north, the United States quickly moved its own troops into southern Korea. Japanese troops surrendered to the Russians in the north and to the Americans in the south. In an effort to avoid a long-term decision regarding Korea's future, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Korea temporarily along the 38th parallel, a latitudinal line that bisected the country. -
Dwight Eisenhower - Federal Highway Act (legislative)
The bill created a 41,000-mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” that would, according to Eisenhower, eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams and all of the other things that got in the way of “speedy, safe transcontinental travel.” -
Dwight Eisenhower - Little Rock Nine (Executive)
Can you imagine armed troops blocking you from going to school? That's what happened in Little Rock, Arkansas in the fall of 1957. Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling at Central High School. Central High was an all white school. -
John Kennedy - Cuban Missile Crisis (Military)
In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union on the island of Cuba. President Kennedy did not want the Soviet Union and Cuba to know that he had discovered the missiles.
After many long and difficult meetings, Kennedy decided to place a naval blockade, or a ring of ships, around Cuba. The aim of this "quarantine," as he called it, was to prevent the Soviets from bringing in more military supplies. -
John Kennedy - Limited Test Ban Treaty (Legislative)
The Test Ban Treaty of 1963 prohibits nuclear weapons tests "or any other nuclear explosion" in the atmosphere, in outer space, and underwater. While not banning tests underground, the Treaty does prohibit nuclear explosions in this environment if they cause "radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the State under whose jurisdiction or control" the explosions were conducted. -
Lyndon Johnson - Great Society Programs (Legislative)
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. President Johnson first used the term "Great Society" during a speech at Ohio University, then unveiled the program in greater detail at an appearance at University of Michigan. -
Lyndon B Johnson - Civil Rights Act (Legislative/Judiciary)
On June 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The Act prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. -
Richard Nixon - Visits China (Diplomatic)
On his visit to China, Nixon met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. The two leaders agreed to expand cultural contacts between their two nations. Nixon also established plans for a permanent U.S. trade mission in China. -
Richard Nixon - Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty (Diplomatic/Legislative)
SALT I, the first series of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, extended from November 1969 to May 1972. During that period the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the first agreements to place limits and restraints on some of their central and most important armaments. In a Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems, they moved to end an emerging competition in defensive systems that threatened to spur offensive competition to still greater heights. -
Gerald Ford - Pardons Richard Nixon
Congress had accused Nixon of obstruction of justice during the investigation of the Watergate scandal, which began in 1972. White House tape recordings revealed that Nixon knew about and possibly authorized the illegal break-in and wiretapping of the Democratic National Committee offices, located in the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. Rather than face impeachment and removal from office, Nixon chose to resign on August 8, 1974. Ford pardoned him. -
Jimmy Carter - Camp David Accords (Diplomatic)
Egyptian President Sadat decided it was time to start talks with Israel (he previously supported fighting Israel). He met with Israeli leader MMenachemBegin. The talks stalled and US President Carter stepped in and moderated meetings of these leaders at Camp David, Pres. Carters hideaway for privacy. -
Ronald Reagan - Appoints Sandra Day O' Connor (Executive)
Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Reagan on August 19, 1981, thus fulfilling his 1980 campaign promise to appoint the first woman to the highest court in the United States. At the time of her nomination, the fifty-one-year-old O'Connor was a judge in the Arizona Court of Appeals and had a distinguished career to her credit. -
George H Dubya Bush - Persian Gulf War (Military)
Kuwait had loaned Iraq billions of $ in the war against Iran, unable to repay the loan Iraq sought to regain control of Kuwaiti oil fields and reestablish itself as a major oil producing country.
The Invasion began August 2nd 1990. -
Bill Clinton - NAFTA (Diplomacy/Legislative)
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Clinton said he hoped the agreement would encourage other nations to work toward a broader world-trade pact.
NAFTA, a trade pact between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, eliminated virtually all tariffs and trade restrictions between the three nations. -
Bill Clinton - Appoints Madeline Albright
Madeleine Albright became the first woman to represent the U.S. in foreign affairs as the secretary of state.
