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Westward Expansion
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Cotton Gin invented
The modern mechanical cotton gin was invented in the United States of America in 1793 by Eli Whitney (1765–1825). Whitney applied for a patent on October 28, 1793; the patent was granted on March 14, 1794, but was not validated until 1807. -
XYZ Affair-begins
The XYZ Affair was a political and diplomatic episode in 1797 and 1798, early in the administration of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and Republican France that led to an undeclared war called the Quasi-War. -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (French: Vente de la Louisiane "Sale of Louisiana") was the acquisition of the Louisiana territory (828,000 square miles) by the United States from France in 1803. -
Adams-Onis Treaty
The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. -
Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy regarding domination of the American continent in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. -
Indian Removal Act/Trail of Tears
At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a spec -
Texas Claims Independence
On March 2, 1836, Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico. The Texas Declaration of Independence was signed at Washington-on-the-Brazos, now commonly referred to as the “birthplace of Texas.” Similar to the United States Declaration of Independence, this document focused on the rights of citizens to “life” and “liberty” but with an emphasis on the “property of the citizen.” -
Trail of Tears
In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. -
The Battle of the Alamo
For the site of this battle, see Alamo Mission in San Antonio. For other uses, see Alamo (disambiguation). The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. -
Annexation of Texas
The Annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 1845–1848. During his tenure, U.S. President James K. Polk oversaw the greatest territorial expansion of the United States to date. -
Mexican-American War
A war between the U.S. and Mexico spanned the period from spring 1846 to fall 1847. The war was initiated by Mexico and resulted in Mexico's defeat and the loss of approximately half of its national territory in the north. -
Agreement of 49th Parallel
By the middle 1840s, the tide of U.S. immigration, as well as a U.S. political movement to claim the entire territory, led to a renegotiation of the agreement. The Oregon Treaty in 1846 permanently established the 49th parallel as the boundary between the United States and British North America to the Pacific Ocean. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo in Spanish), officially entitled the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits and Settlement between the United States of America and the Mexican Republic, is the peace treaty signed on February 2, 1848, in the Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo -
California becomes a state
California, a western U.S. state, stretches from the Mexican border along the Pacific for nearly 900 miles. It's known for its dramatic terrain encompassing cliff-lined beaches, redwood forest, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Central Valley farmland and the arid Mojave Desert. Its cities include sprawling Los Angeles, seat of the Hollywood entertainment industry, and hilly San Francisco, home to the Golden Gate Bridge. -
Gadsden Purchase
It was the Gadsden Purchase that settled the main boundaries of the United States of America (though Alaska was added in 1867). The Louisiana Purchase of fifty years earlier, the biggest land sale in history, had transferred an area of 827,000 square miles between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains from theoretical French sovereignty to the United States. The federal government went on to expand the borders by diplomacy, purchase, annexation and war. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´.
