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1492
The Columbian Exchange
The Columbian Exchange was the massive global exchange of living things, including people, animals, plants, and diseases, between the Eastern and western Hemispheres. The exchange really helped to shape how America would grow. -
Headright System
Was a system to encourage people to move to the new land. It granted 50 acres of land to anyone who paid passage of a new immigrant to the colonies. -
House of Burgesses
Was a system of Government put in place in Virginia. It could make laws and levy taxes. -
Navigation Act
Was an act put in place by British Officials on the colonies. It stated that all goods had to be shipped on British ships and go through British ports. This was meant to benefit English merchants. -
Natural Rights
Was a new way of thinking that came around in the First Great Awakening. It said that people were born with rights to life, liberty and property. -
Benjamin Franklin
Was born on January 17th, 1706. When he grew up he would become one of the Founding fathers. He would also help in resisting British rule in many ways. -
George Washington
Was born on February 22, 1732. He would serve as a British solider then lead the Continual Army in the Revolutionary war. He would then be the country's first president and would sent many presidents. -
John Adams
Was born on October 30th, 1735. He was one of the founding fathers and was one of the people who help negotiate peace for the Revolutionary war. He was then the country's second President of the US. -
Thomas Jefferson
Was born on April 13th, 1743. He was one of the founding fathers and was the writer of the Constitution. He was the first secretary of state and then he was then the 3rd president. -
Sons of Liberty
Was a group of people in the colonies that resisted the British in many was. Like the Boston tea party, burning buildings and protests. Some of their members were founding fathers. -
Eli Whitney
was born on December 8th, 1765. He was an American inventor during the Industrial Revolution. He made the cotton gin which changed the economy of the south drastically. -
Andrew Jackson
was born on March 15th, 1767. He was the 7th US president. Before that he served in the army and was best known for his victory at the Battle of New Orleans. -
Tea Act
Was an act enacted by the British on the colonies that was meant to save the East India Company. The act made tea cheaper to entice colonists to buy it. -
Quartering Act
Was an act that stated that colonists had to house British troops no matter what. This Act enraged colonists and motivated them to take action against Britain. -
Continental Congress
Was A group of American officials ranging from merchants, politicians, and others. They were the leaders of the continental army and drafted the constitution and would be reworked into the Federal government after the Revolutionary war. -
Declaration of Independence
Was created by the Continental Congress. It declared that The colonies were their own separate power and were no longer a part of Britain. This was the last straw for Britain and next was war. -
Henry Clay
Was born on April 12th, 1777. Henry Clay was a very prominent and important political figure in Americas history. He held the Union together for many years and stopped war many times. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battle of Saratoga was fought from Sep 19, 1777 through Oct 17, 1777. The battle was a very important victory for the American's. This marked a turning point of the war. After this battle France agreed to helping the American's in the war. -
Articles of Confederation
Was the fist laws put in place by the 13 colonies as the frames of its government. They were very flawed but lasted well enough until the constitution was made. -
John C. Calhoun
Was born on March 18th, 1782. He was a politician from South Carolina and adamantly protected southern interests. He was on of the leading figures of the south during the Civil war period. -
Treaty of Paris
Was the treaty between England and the Colonies that ended the Revolutionary war. This granted America its official freedom from England. -
Second Great Awakening
Was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The awakening brought comfort in the face of uncertainty as a result of the socio-political changes in America. -
Federalists
The Federalist Party was the first political party in the United States. Under Alexander Hamilton, it dominated the national government from 1789 to 1801. They advocated for a stronger centralized Government. -
Anti-Federalists
Was in early U.S. history, a loose political coalition of popular politicians, who opposed the strong central government envisioned in the U.S. Constitution of 1787 and whose agitations led to the addition of a Bill of Rights. -
Bill of Rights
It comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. It was written to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power. -
Proclamation of Neutrality
Was a formal announcement issued by U.S. President George Washington that declared the nation neutral in the conflict between France and Great Britain. It threatened legal proceedings against any American providing assistance to any country at war. -
Naturalization, Alien, and Sedition Acts
Were four acts passed and signed into law by President John Adams. They made it harder for an immigrant to become a citizen, allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous. -
Marbury VS Madison
Was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States. Meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws and statutes that they find to violate the Constitution of the United States. -
Louisiana Purchase
Was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from Napoleonic France. In return for fifteen million dollars the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq. mi. This greatly increased Americas size and had lots of opportunity to expand. -
Robert E Lee
Was an American Confederate general best known for his service to the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. During which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army -
Manifest Destiny
The 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable. This belief really took hold during the expansion out west. -
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-1800s. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, and was the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments. -
Commonwealth System
Was a broad system of state mercantilism. This system included legislative support for road and canal companies and grants of limited liability to help businesses start up. -
Missouri Compromise
Was a United States federal legislation that stopped northern attempts to forever prohibit slavery's expansion by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. in exchange for legislation which prohibited slavery in the remaining Louisiana Purchase lands north of the 36°30′ parallel except for Missouri. The 16th United States Congress passed the legislation on March 3, 1820, and President James Monroe signed it on March 6, 1820. -
Political Machines
A political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives that is characterized by a high degree of leadership control over member activity. The machine's power is based on the ability of the boss or group to get out the vote for their candidates on election day. In the late 19th century, large cities in the United States were accused of using political machines. During this time cities experienced rapid growth under inefficient government. -
Corrupt Bargain
In the 1824 presidential contest, Jackson did not publicly advocate for his own election, in keeping with the tradition of the day. Though Jackson won the popular vote, he did not win enough Electoral College votes to be elected. The decision fell to the House of Representatives, who met on February 9, 1825. They elected John Quincy Adams, with House Speaker Henry Clay as Adams’ chief supporter. Jackson graciously accepted his defeat until rumors swirled that Clay and Adams had struck a deal. -
Divisions of Labor
The separation of a work process into a number of tasks, with each task performed by a separate person or group of persons. The start of this system greatly increased America's industrial production. -
Spoils System
Was instituted by Democratic President Andrew Jackson. In politics and government, a spoils system is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends, and relatives as a reward for working. -
Abolitionism
Was the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. -
Inland System
The inland system that fed slaves to the Cotton South was less visible than the coastal trade but more extensive. Professional slave traders went from one rural village to another buying "young and likely blacks." -
Indian Removal Act
Was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. -
Gag Rule
Was a series of rules that forbade the raising, consideration, or discussion of slavery in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1836 to 1844. -
The Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar, killing most of the Texians and Tejanos inside. -
Tenement Housing
A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. In the United States, the term tenement initially meant a large building with multiple small spaces to rent. As cities grew in the nineteenth century, there was increasing separation between rich and poor. With rapid urban growth and immigration, overcrowded houses with poor sanitation gave tenements a reputation as slums. -
Seneca Falls Convention
Was an assembly held on July 19–20, 1848, at Seneca Falls, New York, that launched the woman suffrage movement in the United States. The convention passed 12 resolutions—11 unanimously—designed to gain certain rights and privileges that women of the era were denied. -
Compromise of 1850
Was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. -
Dred Scott VS. Sandford
Was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that the United States Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for people of African descent, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free, and so the rights and privileges that the Constitution confers upon American citizens could not apply to them. -
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was an American politician, statesman, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from . He previously served as the 25th vice president under William McKinley from, and as the 33rd governor of New York from. Having assumed the presidency after McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the Republican Party and became a driving force for anti-trust and Progressive policies. -
Anaconda Plan
Was a military strategy proposed by Union General Winfield Scott early in the American Civil War. The plan called for a naval blockade of the Confederate littoral, a thrust down the Mississippi, and the strangulation of the South by Union land and naval forces. -
Abraham Lincoln Election
Saw Lincoln take office. This election was the last straw for the south before they succeeded. This election was the first step to the Civil War. -
Greenbacks
Were emergency paper currency issued by the United States during the American Civil War that were printed in green on the back. They were in two forms: Demand Notes, issued in 1861–1862, and United States Notes, issued in 1862–1865. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Ten Percent Plan
Lincoln’s blueprint for Reconstruction included the Ten-Percent Plan, which specified that a southern state could be readmitted into the Union once 10 percent of its voters swore an Oath Of Allegiance to the Union. All southerners except for high-ranking Confederate army officers and government officials would be granted a full pardon. Lincoln guaranteed southerners that he would protect their private property, though not their slaves. -
Sherman's March to the Sea
Was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by William Tecumseh Sherman, major general of the Union Army. His forces followed a "scorched earth" policy, destroying military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property, disrupting the Confederacy's economy and transportation networks. -
Appomattox
The Battle of Appomattox Court House was fought on April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and led to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender of his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. This Surrender spelled the end of the souths capability to fight the Civil War. -
W.E.B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, MA, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and integrated community, and after completing graduate work at the University of Berlin and Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the founders of the (NAACP) in 1909. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. -
Sharecropping
Is a system where the landlord/planter allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. This encouraged tenants to work to produce the biggest harvest that they could, and ensured they would remain tied to the land and unlikely to leave for other opportunities. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870 as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments. -
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover was an American politician and engineer who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Great Depression. Before serving as president, Hoover led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the third U.S. secretary of commerce. -
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Best known for his wartime leadership as Prime Minister, Churchill was also a Sandhurst-educated soldier, and one of the longest-serving politicians in British history. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. -
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As a member of the Democratic Party. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. -
Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act is a United States federal law passed by the 47th United States Congress and signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur on January 16, 1883. The act mandates that most positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political patronage. -
Munn VS. Illinois
A case in which the Supreme Court upheld the power of government to regulate private industry. The case developed as a result of pressure from the the National Grange by setting maximum rates that private companies could charge for the storage/transport of agriculture products. The firm of Munn and Scott was found guilty of violating the law but appealed the conviction on the grounds that the Illinois regulation represented an unconstitutional deprivation of property without due process of law. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Was born on October 14, 1890, and would grow p to be an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, and achieved the five-star rank of General of the Army. He planned and supervised the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy from the Western Front in 1944–1945. -
Depression of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression in the United States that began in 1893 and ended in 1897. It deeply affected every sector of the economy, and produced political upheaval that led to the political realignment of 1896 and the presidency of William McKinley. -
U.S.S. Maine
Maine was a US Navy ship that sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 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. The phrase, "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" became a rallying cry for action. Although the Maine explosion was not a direct cause, it served as a catalyst that accelerated the events leading up to the war. -
Platt Amendment
The Platt Amendment was passed as part of the Army Appropriations Bill. It stipulated 7 conditions for the removal of US troops remaining in Cuba at the end of the Span–American War, and an 8th condition that Cuba signs a treaty accepting these seven conditions. It defined the terms of Cuban–U.S. relations essentially to be an unequal one of U.S. dominance over Cuba. On June 12, 1901, Cuba amended its constitution to contain, word for word, the 7 applicable demands of the Platt Amendment. -
Zimmermann Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. The telegram was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. Revelation of the contents enraged Americans, especially after German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann publicly admitted on March 3 that the telegram was genuine. It helped to generate support for the American declaration of war on Germany in April. -
Sedition Act
The 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. -
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were a series of raids conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 by the United States Department of Justice under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson to capture and arrest suspected socialists, especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States. The raids particularly targeted Italian immigrants and Eastern European Jewish immigrants with alleged leftist ties, with particular focus on Italian anarchist and immigrant leftist labor activists. -
Harlem Renaissance Start
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. The movement also included the new African American cultural expressions across the urban areas in the Northeast and Midwest United States affected by a renewed militancy in the general struggle for civil rights. -
League of Nations
The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organization ceased operations on 20 April 1946 but many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
Was born on January 15th 1929, and would later become an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesman and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. An African American church leader and the son of early civil rights activist and minister Martin Luther King Sr., King advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through nonviolence and civil disobedience. -
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves: 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. -
Agricultural Adjustment Act
The AAA was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluse. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land. The Act created a new agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to oversee the distribution of the subsidies. The AAA, along with other New Deal programs, represented the federal government's first substantial effort to address economic welfare in the United States. -
TVA
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the United States. The TVA was created by Congress in 1933 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Its initial purpose was to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, regional planning, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region which was significantly affected by the Great Depression relative to the rest of the nation. -
Public Works Administration
Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression. It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Its goals were to supply employment, stabilize buying power, and help revive the economy. -
Wagner Act
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (also known as the Wagner Act) is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes. Central to the act was a ban on company unions. The act was written by Senator Robert F. Wagner, passed by the 74th United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. -
Social Security Act
The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the 74th United States Congress and signed into law by US President FDR. The law created the Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment. The law was part of FDR's New Deal domestic program. By the 1930s, the United States was the only modern industrial country without any national system of social security. -
Neutrality Act of 1935
The Neutrality Acts were a series of acts passed by the US Congress in 1935-37, and 1939 in response to the growing threats and wars that led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following the US joining WWI, and they sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts. The Neutrality Acts is regarded as generally negative since they limited the US ability to aid Britain and France against Nazi Germany. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
Johnson was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States. He had previously served as the 37th vice president. He holds the distinction of being one of the few presidents who served in all elected offices at the federal level. Johnson's domestic policy was aimed at expanding civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education and the arts, urban and rural development, and public services. -
Munich Conference
The Munich Agreement was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany of the Sudeten German territory" of Czechoslovakia, despite the existence of a 1924 alliance agreement and 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic. Most of Europe celebrated the Munich agreement, which was presented as a way to prevent a major war on the continent. -
Executive Order 8802
Was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941, to prohibit ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation's defense industry. It also set up the Fair Employment Practice Committee. It was the first federal action, though not a law, to promote equal opportunity and prohibit employment discrimination in the United States. -
Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, just before 08:00 a.m., on Sunday, December 7, 1941. The United States was a neutral country at the time; the attack led to its formal entry into World War II the next day. The attack prompted the US to join WWII to eventually defeat Japan. -
Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942. This order authorized the secretary of war to prescribe certain areas as military zones, clearing the way for the incarceration of nearly all 120,000 Japanese Americans during the war. Two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens, born and raised in the United States. -
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of MG Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the place name gradually superseded the official codename. -
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. -
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, also known as the Crimea Conference and codenamed Argonaut, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The aim of the conference was to shape a postwar peace that represented not only a collective security order but also a plan to give self-determination to the liberated peoples of Europe. -
Hollywood 10
The Hollywood Ten, were 10 motion-picture producers, directors, and screenwriters who appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in October 1947, refused to answer questions regarding their possible communist affiliations, and, after spending time in prison for contempt of Congress, were mostly blacklisted by the Hollywood studios. The 10 were Alvah B, Herbert B, Lester C, Edward D, Ring L, Jr., John L, Albert M, Samuel O, Adrian S, and Dalton T. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion in economic recovery programs to Western European economies after the end of World War II. The goals of the United States were to rebuild war-torn regions, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, improve European prosperity, and prevent the spread of communism. -
N.A.T.O
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. NATO was the first peacetime military alliance the United States entered into outside of the Western Hemisphere. -
Korean War (start)
The Korean War was fought between North Korea and South Korea from 1950 to 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea. North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union while South Korea was supported by the United Nations, principally the United States. The fighting ended with an armistice on 27 July 1953. -
Cuban Revolt
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castro and his fellow revolutionaries of the 26th of July Movement and its allies against the military dictatorship of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in July 1953,[8] and continued sporadically until the rebels finally ousted Batista on 31 December 1958, replacing his government. The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist–Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956, when the federal ruling Browder v. Gayle took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws that segregated buses were unconstitutional. -
National Interstate and Defense Highway Act
On June 29, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The bill created a 41,000-mile Highways that would eliminate unsafe roads. At the same time, highway advocates argued, “in case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net would permit quick evacuation of target areas.” For all of these reasons, the 1956 law declared that the construction of an elaborate expressway system was “essential to the national interest.” -
National Defense Education Act
NDEA provided funding to United States education institutions at all levels. NDEA was among many science initiatives implemented by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 to increase the technological sophistication and power of the United States. It followed a growing national sense that U.S. scientists were falling behind scientists in the Soviet Union. The early Soviet success in the Space Race catalyzed a national sense of unease with Soviet technological advances -
Equal Pay Act
The Equal Pay Act is a US labor law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. It was signed by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program. In passing the bill, Congress stated that sex discrimination: depresses wages and living standards for employees necessary for their health and efficiency; prevents the maximum utilization of the available labor resources. -
Baby Boom
Baby boomers are the generation following the Silent Generation and preceding Generation X. The generation is often defined as people born from 1946 to 1964, during the post–World War II baby boom. The baby boom has been described variously as a "shockwave" and as "the pig in the python". People of this generation became very influential and led to big change from the previous gen. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history. -
Economic Opportunity Act
The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 authorized the formation of local Community Action Agencies as part of the War on Poverty. These agencies are directly regulated by the federal government. "It is the purpose of The Economic Opportunity Act to strengthen, supplement, and coordinate efforts in furtherance of that policy". -
Operation Rolling Thunder
Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained aerial bombardment campaign conducted by the US 2nd Air Division, U.S. Navy, and South Vietnam against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The four objectives of the operation were to boost the sagging morale; to persuade NV to cease its support for the communist insurgency in SV: to destroy NV's transportation system, industrial base, and air defenses; and to halt the flow of men and materiel into SV. -
The Marchs to Selma
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three marches, held in 1965, along the highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the desire of African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression. By highlighting racial injustice, they contributed to passage that year of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal achievement of the civil rights movement. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South. -
Equal Rights Act
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. Proponents assert it would end legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters. The first version of an ERA was written by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman and introduced in Congress in December 1923. -
War Powers Act
The War Powers Resolution is a federal law intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. The resolution was adopted in the form of a United States congressional joint resolution. It provides that the president can send the U.S. Armed Forces into action abroad only by declaration of war by Congress. -
Tax Revolts
Tax resistance, the practice of refusing to pay taxes that are considered unjust, has probably existed ever since rulers began imposing taxes on their subjects. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a taxpayer revolt swept across the United States. Taxpayers frustrated with ever-rising property taxes sought to control government spending by denying the government easy mechanisms to increase tax receipts.
