The History of the United States

By renstep95

  • Bessemer process patented

    made possible the mass production of steel
  • Period: to

    Industrial Revolution

  • Period: to

    Rise of Big Business

  • Period: to

    Civil War "Reconstruction"

  • National Labor Union forms

  • Transcontinental Railroad

    the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad meet at Promontory Point, Utah

  • Thomas Edison discovers a workable filament for his electric lamp

    http://www.google.com/patents?vid=223898
  • Period: to

    Settlement Movement

  • Naval Advisory Board established

    increased Navy's budget

  • Haymarket riot

  • "How the Other Half Lives" is published

    By Jacob Riis; Written to generate public support for reform of the tenement living system in cities

  • "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History" published

    Alfred T. Mahan said that gaining new markets abroad was important for the economic future of the U.S.

  • Sherman Antitrust Act

  • Period: to

    Progressive Era

  • Chilean mob incident

    A Chilean mob attacks U.S. sailors on shore leave; U.S. government demands compensation to the families of killed or injured sailors

  • Homestead Strike

  • Pullman Strike

  • Hearst buys the New York morning Journal

    turns it into a success through yellow journalism

  • Acknowledgement of Monroe Doctrine

    Secretary of State Richard Oldney demands that Britain acknowledge the Monroe Doctrine; Britain backs down, realizing they must remain on good terms with U.S.

  • Plessy vs. Ferguson

    Ruled "separate but equal" doctrine for whites and blacks

  • Annexation of Hawaii

    U.S. overthrew the queen and annexed Hawaii

  • Explosion of the U.S.S. Maine

  • Military action against Spain

    Roosevelt prepared the Navy for military action against Spain
  • Period: to

    Spanish-American War

  • Anti-Imperialist League founded

  • Treaty of Paris signed

    Spanish government recognizes Cuba's independence; U.S. gains Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam

  • Open Door Policy

    Secretary of State John Hay persuades European powers to keep an "open door" to China; U.S. would have equal access to China's consumers

  • U.S. government authorized Cuba to draft a constitution

  • Socialist Party of America formed

  • National Reclamation Act

    built irrigation systems in dry states

  • Roosevelt's Square Deal

    Roosevelt insisted that both sides of a strike submit to arbitration
  • Period: to

    Construction of Panama Canal

  • Roosevelt Corollary

    denied that the U.S. wanted any more territory

  • Gifford Pinchot named head of U.S. Forest Service

  • "The Jungle" published

    based on investigations of the horrible conditions in the meat-packing industry

  • Hepburn Act

    gave ICC strong enforcement powers; ICC became the first true federal regulatory agency

  • Pure Food and Drug Act

  • Meat Inspection Act

  • Two thirds of states abolished child labor

  • Great White Fleet sails

    demonstrated the naval power of the U.S. to the world

  • Taft wins 1908 election

  • Ford Model T

    Henry Ford builds the Model T

  • NAACP founded

    NAACP's purpose was to abolish segregation and discrimination and to gain civil rights for blacks

  • NAACP formed

  • Boy Scouts movement in U.S.

  • National Urban League founded

    helped African Americans find homes and jobs in cities

  • Triangle Shirtwaist fire

    146 workers dead

  • Minimum wage

    Massachusetts and eight other states adopted a minimum wage

  • Seventeenth Amendment ratified

    requires the direct election of senators

  • Sixteenth Amendment ratified

    Authorization to collect federal income taxes

  • Cabinet-level Department of Labor added

  • The Teapot Dome Scandal

    Harding scandal
  • Period: to

    Mexican Revolution

    Woodrow Wilson; American intervention in Mexico; led to anti-American feeling in Latin America
  • Period: to

    World War I

  • Archduke Francis Ferdinand assassinated

    ignited World War I

  • Invasion of Belgium by Germany

    brought Britain into the war

  • Ottoman Empire enters the war

    on the side of the Central Powers

  • Italy enters the war

    on the side of the Allies

  • Bulgaria enters war

    on the side of the Central Powers

  • American Union Against Militarism founded

    part of the peace movement in the U.S.

  • Woodrow Wilson wins election of 1916

    "He kept us out of war."

  • Romania enters the war

    on the side of the Allies

  • German U-boat torpedoes the Sussex

    leads to Sussex pledge

  • Large increase in U.S. armed forces

  • Jones Act

    U.S. granted American citizenship to puerto Ricans

  • George Creel promotes the purchase of Liberty Bonds

  • Espionage Act

    made it illegal to interfere with the draft

  • End of Sussex pledge

    Germany informs U.S. that it will end the Sussex pledge and resume unrestricted submarine warfare

  • U.S. breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany

  • Russia's autocratic leader is forced to give up the throne

  • U.S. enters war

    on the side of the Allies

  • Selective Service Act

    authorized a draft of young men for military service

  • Lever Food and Fuel Control Act

    managed production and distribution of foods and fuels vital to war effort

  • Sedition Act

    prohibited obstruction of the sale of Liberty Bonds and discussing anything disloyal towards America

  • Wilson introduces Fourteen Points

    acted as a global peacemaker

  • International peace conference in Paris

  • Eighteenth Amendment: Prohibition

    prohibited sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol in the U.S.; ended in 1933

  • Hitler joins the Nazi Party

  • Period: to

    Red Scare

    fear of Communism in the U.S.

  • Versailles Treaty

    demanded reparations (payment) from Germany from the war

  • The Boston Police Strike

  • Nineteenth Amendment ratified

    Women's suffrage

  • Women's Bureau added

  • Sacco and Vanzetti case

    Red Scare
  • Period: to

    Boom to Bust

  • Period: to

    Harlem Renaissance

  • Harding becomes president

  • Stalin leads the Soviet Union

    Following Lenin's death

  • Stalin takes over the Soviet Union

    Lenin dies

  • Scopes trial

  • Kellogg-Briand Pact

  • Chinese Civil War

  • Charles Lindbergh flight

    Spirit of St. Louis

  • Amelia Earhart

    first woman to fly across the Atlantic

  • Hoover becomes president

  • Period: to

    Great Depression

  • Stock Crash

    Black Tuesday

  • Hawley-Smoot tariff passed

  • Period: to

    Dust Bowl

  • Empire State Building opens

  • Reconstruction Finance Corporation

    RFC set up by Hoover

  • Manchurian Incident

    Japanese imperialization

  • Election of 1932

    FDR wins with his "New Deal" approach

  • March of the Bonus Army

  • Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany

  • Twenty-first Amendment

    Prohibition is repealed
  • Period: to

    Holocaust

  • Civilian Conservation Corps established

  • Period: to

    "The hundred days"

    Roosevelt pushed programs through Congress to provide relief, create jobs, and stimulate economic recovery.

  • FDR's first inaugural address

    "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

  • FDIC established

    Glass-Steagall Banking Act

  • Agricultural Adjustment Administration established

  • Tennessee Valley Authority created

  • Civil Works Administration established

    public works program

  • American Liberty League founded

    opposed the New Deal

  • Second New Deal

  • Social Security Act

    established a Social Security system
  • Period: to

    American Neutrality Acts

  • Hitler signs alliance with Mussolini

    known as the Axis Powers

  • German troops illegally enter the Rhineland

    action banned by the Versailles Treaty

  • Recession begins

    slow business activity, rising national debt

  • Japan resumes invasion of China

  • HUAC established

  • Kristallnacht

    "Night of Broken Glass"

  • Stalin's purges

    By this point in time, Stalin's purges have led to the arrest of more than 7 million people from all levels of society.

  • Spanish civil war ends

    Nationalist army takes Spanish capital of Madrid

  • Hitler occupied western Czechoslovakia

  • Hitler invades Poland

  • World War II begins

    Britain and France declare war on Germany
  • Period: to

    World War II

  • Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

    led by Japan

  • Germany defeats France

  • Battle of Britain

  • Tripartite Pact

    Japan allies itself with Axis Powers: Germany and Italy

  • Lend-Lease Act

    aided any nation whose defese was vital to American security

  • Office of Price dministration established

    controlled inflation by limiting prices and rents

  • Atlantic Charter

    set of principles to guide Britain and the U.S. through the years ahead

  • Attack on Pearl Harbor

  • China joins the Allies

  • Germany and Italy declare war on the U.S.

  • War Production Board

    directed the conversion of peacetime industries to industries that produced war goods

  • Nazi Wannsee Conference

  • CORE founded

    against segregation

  • Manhattan Project organized

    creation of the atomic bomb

  • Battle of the Coral Sea

    Pacific Theater

  • Bataan Death March

  • Battle of Midway

    Pacific Theater

  • Battle of Guadalcanal

    Pacific Theater

  • Battle of Stalingrad

  • "sit-in" created

    to desegregate a coffee house in Chicago

  • invasion of Sicily

    U.S. Seventh Army under General George S. Patton

  • War Refugee Board created

    to help people threatened by the Nazis

  • D-Day

  • Battle of Leyte Gulf

    Pacific Theater

  • Battle of the Bulge

  • Korea divided at 38th parallel

  • U.S. national debt reaches $259 billion

  • Period: to

    Cold War

  • Battle of Iwo Jima

    Pacific Theater

  • Battle of Okinawa

  • Potsdam conference

    Truman's first meeting with Stalin

  • A-Bomb on Hiroshima

  • A-Bomb on Nagasaki

  • Japan surrenders

  • Nuremberg Trials

    former Nazi leaders put on trial

  • Marshall Plan

  • Truman Doctrine

  • Hollywood Ten

  • Berlin airlift

  • Berlin airlift

  • Soviet atomic threat

  • China falls to communism

  • Loyalty program

    against communism

  • NATO formed

  • Period: to

    Korean War

  • McCarran-Walter Act

  • Death of Stalin

  • Brown vs. Board of Education

    against segregation in American public schools

  • Dwight D. Eisenhower's "domino theory"

  • Geneva Accords

    Vietnam divided into two nations

  • Warsaw Pact formed

  • Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man

  • Montgomery bus boycott

  • Emmett Till murdered

    (for whistling at a white woman)
  • Period: to

    Vietnam War

  • Sputnik launched

  • Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded

    under Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee formed

    student organization for civil rights

  • Kennedy wins election of 1960

  • U-2 incident

  • Freedom Rides

    tested whether southern states accepted new African American rights

  • African American James Meredith enrolled at University of Mississippi

  • Bay of Pigs invasion

    on Cuba

  • Berlin Wall built

  • Cuban Missile Crisis

  • Astronaut John Glenn completes three orbits around Earth

  • Protests in Birmingham, Alabama

    violence against protesters shocked the nation

  • March on Washington

    Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his speech

  • Warren Commission

    decided that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the Kennedy assassination

  • Kennedy is assassinated

  • Johnson wins election of 1964

  • LBJ's "Great Society"

    major legislative initiatives, including the Economic Opportunity Act and Medicare

  • Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

  • Selma March

    State troopers attacked marchers

  • Americans introduced B-52 bomber into Vietnam War

  • Tet Offensive

    surprise attacks against Americans in Vietnam War

  • Vietnamization

    removal of American forces; South Vietnamese forces to take their place

  • Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to walk on the moon

  • Detente between U.S. and Soviet Union

  • SALT I

    limited ICBMs and SLBMs

  • Watergate Scandal

    Nixon's Watergate Break-In

  • Vietnam War agreement

    formal agreement signed by the U.S., South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong; removal of U.S. forces

  • War Powers Act

    limited Predident's power to involve the country in foreign conflicts

  • Embargo on oil shipping to the U.S. from the Middle East

    imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

  • Nixon resigns

  • Helsinki Accords

    agreements on European security

  • Camp David Accords

    leaders of Egypt and Israel shook hands

  • Reagan wins 1980 election

  • New Right

    powerful political coalition; conservative
  • Period: to

    Reagan tax cuts

  • Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) announced

    by Reagan

  • Iran-Contra affair

  • INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty)

    U.S. and Soviet Union must destroy their missiles and launchers

  • George H. W. Bush wins 1988 election

  • Berlin Wall comes down

  • S & L (savings and loan banks) scandal

  • Tiananmen Square

    attack on protesters

  • Panama invasion

    launched by Bush

  • Iraqi invasion of Kuwait

    under Saddam Hussein
  • Period: to

    Persian Gulf War

  • START I

    reductions in Soviet and U.S. nuclear supplies

  • Soviet Union collapses

  • Clinton wins 1992 election

  • START II

    right to inspect former INF missile sites

  • Contract with America

    endorsed by Newt Gingrich; lead to many elections of Republicans

  • Whitewater affair

    Clinton scandal

  • reform of welfare system

    under Clinton and Congress

  • Clinton is impeached

    sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky

  • George W. Bush wins election of 2000

  • 9/11 terrorist attacks

    collapse of World Trade Center and damage to the Pentagon; led to War on Terror
  • Period: to

    War on Terror

  • Patriot Act

    limited U.S. citizens' rights in order to make it easier for the federal government to track down terrorists

  • Homeland Security Act

    created Department of Homeland Security; enhanced American security

  • Barack Obama wins election of 2008

  • Osama bin Laden's death