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The Construction of Central Park
Landscape designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition in 1858 and set precedent in an extreme improvement of Central Park in New York City -
Homestead Act
This act allowed settlers to buy 160 acres worth of land for a monetary fee. This, above all, was supposed to stimulate the economy because new markets would form in the newly settled territories. This is significant because it essentially makes Manifest Destiny a tangible ideal. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
This prejudicial act disallowed Chinese from entering the U.S. and also forbade any Chinese already in the country from citizenship. This Act was passed because of the violence of anti-Chinese sentiment that was prevalent most strikingly on the Western frontier. -
Pendleton Act
Certain government positions were to be filled based on competitive written exams rather than the continued extension of patronage. -
The Dawes Severalty Act
The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 was made to get rid most tribal ownership of land and the allotment of tracts to individual owners. They tried to move Indians into their own land and also took some of their children away and sent them to boarding schools. White administration of the Dawes Act was so corrupt that is did not get enforced. -
Settlement House Movement
The famous Hull settlement House headed by Jane Adams opened its doors in Chicago in 1889. This house strove to help immigrant workers make the transition into American life in areas such as language and customs. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
In the summer of 1890, the House and the Senate both easily passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. This gave the government the power to break up powerful monopolies. -
Wounded Knee Massacre
In Wounded Knee South Dakota, Custer's Seventh Calvalry made an attempt to gather 350 suffering Sioux Indians. Shots were fired, and the advanced weaponry of the white soldiers decimated the Sioux devastatingly. -
Panic of 1893
When both the Reading and Philadelphia Railroad companies defaulted on their loans, they were declared bankrupt. Because America’s economy, at that time, was very much interconnected, these two bankrupt companies alone set off a severe stock market collapse. -
Columbian Exposition
Visitors experienced then-modern marvels including the premier of the Barnum & Bailey circus act and the illustrious Great White City, which consisted of neoclassical buildings arranged symmetrically around a formal lagoon. -
The U.S.S. Maine Explodes
The true cause of the explosion, however, would not be known for years to come, but yellow journalists were quick to blame the Spanish. Roughly two months later, Congress officially declared war with Spain -
Germ Theory Accepted
In essence, this theory the basis for modern medicine because it paved the way for actual scientific treatment to develop, and for tradition-based methodical treatment to die out. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
President Teddy Roosevelt took action. He pushed for the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act by Congress that would restrict the sale of dangerous and ineffective medicines. -
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
W.E.B Du Bois. This organization was at the forefront of the equal rights movement with the persisting mission “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination” -
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
In New York City, on the 8th floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, tragety struck when a fire broke out and both exits were locked. This killed 146 of its workers. -
The Red Scare
In April the post office began to receive packages for politicians and businessmen that were rigged to explode when opened. It was not long after that incident that eight bombs went off in eight cities all around the same time causing a large conspiracy. -
Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points
During his speech he spoke about eight specific recommendations for adjusting boundaries after a war and creating new nations to replace the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires. -
The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
Organized crime flourished and bootleg alcohol was omnipresent, leaving the government with problems to solve and decreased tax revenue. This, ultimately, leads to the need for a Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the only repeal of any Constitutional Amendment. -
The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
This monumental amendment was ratified out the efforts of the persistent women’s suffrage movement. Women had been trying for decades to gain the right to vote on the platform that they were inalienably allowed to do so, but in the twentieth century they changed their tone to the language of separate spheres. -
The Prominence of the Klan
The Klan primarily focused on terrifying black people, but then they went after Catholics, Jews and foreigners. The membership of the Klan expanded rapidly in both small towns and in industrial cities. By 1924 there were about 4 million members, including women. -
Teaching Evolution Becomes Illegal In Tennessee
The legislature in Tennessee adopted a law making it illegal for any teacher in a public school to teach any theory that denies the story of divine creation of man as taught in the bible. -
Stock Market Crash
The industrial index dropped 43 points after sixteen million shares of stock were traded. This was important because our country’s great stock market went down, costing many people and businesses a lot of money. -
Clearing Out the Bonus Marchers
The Bonus Army marchers were a group of veterans who marched into Washington demanding that their $1,000 dollar bonus be paid to them immediately instead of the 1945 promised date. -
Battle of Midway
Turning point of the Pacific front for the United States. The American navy sank four Japanese air craft carriers. This lead to several more U.S. victories over the Japanese in the Pacific. -
Yalta Conference
Meeting between Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt to discuss the world after the war. During the conference, Roosevelt allowed negotiations to favor Stalin with the idea that Stalin would assist the United States in the Pacific. -
Germany Surrenders
Germany realized they could no longer continue fighting on two fronts. The Germans wanted an armistice with Allied forces but wanted to continue fighting against the Russians. -
Japan Surrenders
One month after the controversial decision was made by the United States to drop two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan formally surrenders. -
House Un-American Activities Committee
HUAC was a political assault by the Republicans that conducted investigations with intention to prove that the Communists had infiltrated the lasting Democratic administration. -
Labor-Management Relations Act
Also known as the Taft-Hartley Act, it gave power to the president to authorize a ten-week period of calm before any strike if the halt in production would pose a risk to national safety/health. -
The Election of 1948
Leading up election, there was a split in the Democratic Party. It saw two dissident groups form, one of a civil right's platform, as well as the states' rights "Dixiecrat." Truman wins. -
NATO established
Created an alliance between the United States, Great Britain, France and several other nations. This alliance was created to protect against aggression from the Soviet Union. -
Senator Joseph McCarthy
Mid-speech, junior senator McCarthy claimed that he held a list of 205 Communists that were working in the American government. This accusation would ignite what is now known as McCarthyism -
Korean War
North Korean forces begin to invade South Korean territory, coming to South Korea's aid. The U.S. wanted to contain Communism at any cost, and, to do so, they needed to keep Communism out of South Korea. -
Brown vs Board of Education
Ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. This ruling went against the ruling of the 1896 Plessy v Ferguson case. The conclusion was that separate but equal was not equal in terms of education. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white passanger and was subsequently arrested. This ignited outrage in the African American community, who organized a full scale boycott of the transportation system. -
Federal Highway Act of 1956
Authorized a staggering $25 billion to build 40,000 miles of interstate highways over a ten-year period. This was funded via trust fund that harbored tax revenue from the automobile-related industries. -
Castro seizes power in Cuba
Starting in 1957, Castro lead resistance against then current dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista fled and Castro took power. This event would further strain U.S. and Soviet relations down the line. -
Berlin Wall Built
Affter the Potsdam conference, Germany was split into fours. This was the same for Berlin. The U.S,, France, and Britain allowed their parts of Berlin to combine, forming West Berlin. Citizens of the Soviet East Berlin were fleeing the city rapidly causing economic turbulence. To combat this, the Soviet Government built the Berlin Wall to physically keep citizens from crossing freely. -
Cuban Missle Crisis
The Soviet Union had begun to build missile installations in Cuba. The United States discovered this through reconnaissance and created a naval quarantine around Cuba. -
March on Washington
A collassal organization of 200,000 demonstrators marched on Washington to numerate the Civil Rights Movement to the government. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his most famous "I have a dream" speech at this march. -
JFK Assassinated
Lee Harvey Oswald shoots president John F. Kennedy, fatally injuring him. Lyndon Johnson becomes the new president. -
Medicare and Medicaid Enacted
Still in action to this day, Medicare and Medicaid are important social welfare programs that extend health coverage to the elderly, disabled, and poor. -
Vietnam War
Lasting from 1959 when Vietnamese attacks began, America later became involved, which was arguably a dire mistake. The objective was to stop the communist influence of the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam. -
Antiwar Movement
In opposition to the Vietnam War, college-aged individuals became a political force to be reckoned with. In huge peace marches, draft cards were symbolically burned and denounced the brutal nature of the combat going on in Vietnam. -
Moon Landing
Under the Apollo program, Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins traveled via space capsule ultimately orbiting the moon. A smaller craft was detached, and Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the surface.
