AP US History vocabulary list

US History and AP US History Running Vocabulary List: Terms, Concepts, Names and Events

Note: see Talk page for to do list and suggestions

General terms to know for US History

• abolitionism

• aristocratic
• authority

• blue collar v. white collar

• cession

• chain migration

• class warfare

• ''de facto'' v. ''de jure''

• delegate (as noun and verb)

• direct tax

• disenfranchised

• dissent

• domestic

• duties

• emancipation

• embargo

• equity

• excise tax

• federal

• franchise

• hegemony/hegomonic

• imperialism

• indemnity

• infringe / infringement

• intolerance

• laissez-faire
• legitimacy

• mercantilism

• nativism

• nullify / nullification

• Old World v. New World

• political

• political expediency

• popular sovereignty

• precedent

• prohibition

• "Republican motherhood"

• state

• states rights

• segregation

• socialism

• sovereignty

• suffrage

• tariff

• temperance movement

• unalienable

• unintended consequence

• United States

• western expansion

Wars timeline

• wars are the effect or cause of change
• knowing wars and their dates and geography provides context and points of comparison

Major Wars

• French-Indian War, 1754-1768:
• American Revolution, 1764-1783
• American Revolutionary War, 1775-1781
• War of 1812, 1812-1815
• Mexican-American War, 1846-1848
• Civil War, 1861-1865
• Spanish-American War, 1898
• Philipine Insurgeny, 1899-1902
• World War I (U.S.), 1917-1918
• White Russian War, 1917
• Wolrd War II (U.S.) 1941-1945
• Korean War, 1950-1953
• Vietman War, 1959-1975
• Vietnam, U.S. ground war: 1965-1972
• Gulf War, 1990-1991
• War on Terror, 2001-2021
• Afghanistan War, 2001-2021
• Iraq War, 2003-2011
• Iraqi Insurgency, 2003-2006

Colonial Wars

• Anglow-Powhatan Wars (1610-1646)

• Jamestown Massacre, 1622
• Pequot War (1634-1638)
• King Philip's War, 1675-1678 | Metaomb's War
• King William's War, 1689-1897
• Queen Anne's War, 1702-1713

• Anglow-Powhatan Wars (1610-1646)

British Colonial Era Frontier / Indian Wars

These wars were generally over lands, trade resources, tribal-disputes, or European disputes

• Beaver Wars, 1609-1701
• Chickawaw Wars, 1721-1763
• Dummer's War, 1722-25
• Pontiac's War, 1763-1766
• Lord Dunmore's War, 1774

US Indian Wars

• Creek War (Tecumhsah)
• Seminole Wars
• see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars

Slave Revolts

• New York Slave Revolt of 1712

• Stono Rebellion, 1739

• Nat Turner's Rebellion, 1826

Frontier Wars

• Bacon's Rebellion 1676

• Regulator Insurrection, 1766-1771

• Whiskey Rebellion, 1791-1794

• Fries's Rebellion, 1799-1800

Minor Wars or US Military actions

• Quasi-War, 1798-1800

• First Barbary War, 1801-1805

• Second Barbary War, 1815

• Panama Revolution, 1903

• Russian White Revolution, Vladistok, 1918
• Berlin Airlift, 1946 << date?
• Greece, 1948
• Iran, 1950s
• Grenada, 1980s
• Panama, 1990 < confirm
• Syria, 2010-12
• Libya, 2012

Important non-American Wars

• Thirty Years War, 1618-1648
• Anglo-Spanish War, 1625-1630
• English Civil War, 1642-1644
• Anglo-Dutch War, 1652-1654
• Anglo-Spanish Wars, 1654-1660, 1665-1667
• Pueblo Revolt, 1680
• French Revolution, 1789-1795

• Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804

• Napoleonic Wars, 1803-1815
• Russo-Japanese War, 1904-1905
• Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920
• Russian Revolution, 1917
• World War I, 1914-1918
• Japanese Invasion of Manchuria, 1931-32:
• World War II, 1939-1945
• Suez Crisis, 1957 <<confirm

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Vocabulary, Terms, and Periods

Pre-Columbian

• Algonquian

• Hopewell tradition

• indigenous

• Iroquois

• Iroquois Confederacy

• Mississippian period/ culture

• Mound Builders

• reciprocal relations

• Woodland Period

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Colonial Periods

Age of Exploration

• caravel

• Henry Hudson

• conquistador

• St. Lawrence River

Spanish colonialism

• asiento

• De Las Casas

• encomienda

• Florida (or Spanish Florida)

• hacienda

• Mit'a (Inca)

• New Laws of 1542

• Pueblo Revolt

• repartimiento

• Saint Augustine

• Sepúlveda

• Spanish social heirarchies (terms)

• Treaty of Tordesillas

Dutch and French colonialism

• Beaver War

• ''couriers de bois''

• fur trade

• New Amsterdam

• New France

African slave trade

• Middle Passage

• Olaudah Equiano

• seasoning camps

• triangle trade

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English colonial periods

Note:

• Britain held colonial possessions in the Caribbean region, as well as the thirteen colonies
• following smaller wars and the worldwide French-Indian War (Seven Years War), Britain sequentially took France's Canadian possessions as well as its landholdings between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.
• Levels of British control of the colonies rose and fell according to domestic British politics and its international priorities.
• The American Revolution was largely the result of the excercise of direct control of colonial affairs that followed the French-Indian War.

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Colonial political, economic and social

Types of Colonies

• Corporate Charter
• Proprietary Colony
• Royal Colony

Colony Characteristics

• Maryland
• Massachussets Bay Colony
• Pennsylvania
• Virginia

British colonial period terms & events

Appalachian Mountains

• Bacon’s Rebellion

• the Great Awakening

• headright system

• House of Burgesses

• indentured servitude

• Jamestown

• John Rolfe

• John Smith

• Joint Stock Compnany

• Jonathan Edwards

• King Philip’s War, 1675-1678

• Lord Baltimore

• "Lost Colony"

• Massachusetts Bay Colony

• migration push/ pull factors

• Native American & English relations

• Navigation Acts, 1663, 1673, 1696

• New England town meetings

• Pequot War, 1636-37

• Puritan

• Queen Anne's War, 1702-1713

• salutary neglect

• slave codes

• William Penn

• yoeman

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American Revolution

• ABC Boards

• Admiralty Court

• Albany Conference, 1754

Albany Plan|proposed by Benjamin Frank

• Boston Massacre
• Boston Tea Party
• Common Sense
• Declaration of Independence
• Enlightenment philosophers
• First Continental Congress
• Fort Duquesne
• Gadsden flag
• French and Indian War
• John Locke
• Lexington/Concord
• Loyalist
• Montesquieu
• natural rights
• Navigation Acts
• Patrior
• Proclamation of 1763
• Saratoga
• social contract theory
• Sons of Liberty
• Stamp Act
• Stamp Act Congress
• Sugar Act
• Thomas Paine
• Townsend Acts
• Treaty of Paris of 1783
• Valley Forge
• Yorktown
• Continental Congress/es

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Early Republic

Articles of Confederation Period

• Articles of Confederation
• Shay’s Rebellion
• confederation
• sovereignty
• supermajority
• unicameral

U.S. Constitution

• 3/5ths Compromise
• amendment process
• anti-Federalists
• bicameral
• Bill of Rights
• checks and balances
• Connecticut Compromise
• Constitution
• elastic clause
• electoral college
• Federalists
• Federalism
• Federalist no. 10
• Federalist no. 51
• Federalist Papers
• Federalists
• George Washington
• Great Compromise
• impeachment
• James Madison
• New Jersey Plan
• Northwest Ordinance
• preamble
• preamble to the Constitution
• ratification
• separation of powers
• strict vs. loose interpretation
• unwritten Constitution
• Virginia Plan

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Early Republic

• 12th Amendment
• American System
• Cabinet
• Democratic-Republicans
• election of 1800
• Era of Good Feelings
• Federalists
• George Washington
• Hamilton
• impressment
• Jefferson
• John Marshall
• Louisiana Purchase
• Marbury v. Madison
• McColluch v. Maryland
• Monroe Doctrine
• Mossouri Compromise
• National Bank
• nullification
• political parties
• Republican motherhood
• Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
• War of 1812
• Whiskey Rebellion

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Antebellum period

Jacksonian period

• John Quincy Adams
• Bank War
• Corrupt Bargain
• Force Bill
• Henry Clay
• Jacksonian democracy
• Indian Removal Act
• Nullification Crisis
• Petticoat affair
• Postal Service
• Panic of 1837
• Second Party System
• spoils system
• Tariff of 1833
• Trail of Tears
• Daniel Webster
• Worcester v. Georgia

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Antebellum

Social reform

• cult of domesticity
• Declaration of Sentiments
• emancipation
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Second Great Awakening
• Seneca Falls Convention
• suffrage
• transcendentalism
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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Antebellum

• Compromise of 1850
• Dred Scott decision
• Gadsden Purchase
• Gold Rush of 1849
• Kansas-Nebraska Act
• manifest destiny
• Mexican American War
• popular sovereignty
• sectionalism
• Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

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Latter 19th Century

Civil War

• 1860 Election
• Anaconda Plan
• Appomattox
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Ft. Sumter
• Gettysburg
• Gettysburg Address
• Lincoln’s pre-war stance on slavery
• Sherman’s March
• U.S. Grant

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Reconstruction

• 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
• black codes
• Compromise of 1877
• 40 acres and a mule
• Freedman’s Bureau
• grandfather clause
• homestead
• Jim Crow laws
• land grant
• literacy tests
• Morill Land-Grant Act (1862)
• Plessy v. Ferguson
• poll taxes
• Radical Republicans
• Reconstruction Act of 1867
• Reconstruction programs:
  • Lincoln's plan
  • Johnson's program
  • Congressional program

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Post-Reconstruction

Economic & Political

• Andrew Carnegie
• Battle of Wounded Knee
• bimetallism
• Chinese Exclusion Act
• Dawes Act /assimilation
• Gentlemen’s Agreement
• Great Migration
• Homestead Act of 1862
• laissez-faire capitalism
• melting pot
• monopoly
• nativism
• Nelson Rockefeller
• political bosses
• political machine
• Populist Party
• robber barons
• Sand Creek Massacre
• Sherman Anti-trust Act
• social Darwinism
• Standard Oil
• transcontinental railroad
• U.S. Steel

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Imperialism

• Battle of Manila
• “Big Stick Policy”
• Cuba
• de Lôme Letter,
• imperialism
• William McKinley
• Open Door Policy
• Panama Canal
• Roosevelt Corollary
• Spanish-American War
• yellow journalism
• USS Maine

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First half 20th Century

Labor

• American Federation of Labor (AFL)
• Samuel Gompers

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Progressive Era

• "Square Deal”
• 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th Amendments
• Bull Moose Party
• Elkins Act (1903)
• Eugene V. Debs
• Direct democracy
• Federal Reserve Act (1913)
• Gifford Pinchot
• Hepburn Act
• initiative
• Jacob Riis
• Jane Addams
• Meat Inspection Act
• muckrakers
• New Freedom
• New Nationalism
• Newlands Act of 1902
• Progressive Party
• Progressives / progressivism
• Pure Food and Drug Act
• recall
• referendum
• Rule of Reason
• Settlement houses
• socialism
• Square Deal
• Upton Sinclair
• Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt
• "Three Cs": Conservation, Corporate law, Consumer protections
• William Howard Taft

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World War I era

WWI

• Bolsheviks
• Espionage and Sedition Acts (1917)
• "He kept us out of the war" (1916)
• Jones Act (1916)
• Liberty Loans
• Lusitania sinking (1915)
• Pancho Villa (1914)
• Russian Revolution
• Sussex Pledge (1916)
• U-Boats
• War bonds
• War Industries Board
• Zimmerman Note

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WWI aftermath

• Collective Security
• Depression of 1920-1921
• Fourteen Points
• League of Nations
• Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• Treaty of Versailles

post-WWI & 1920s

• "America First"
• Black Tuesday
• Court-packing scheme
• deficit spending
• Dust Bowl
• Harlem Renaissance
• Hoover
• Immigration Act of 1924
• League of Nations
• Lusitania/Zimmerman Note
• National Origins Act
• New Deal

• Palmer Raids

• Proclamation of Neutrality
• prohibition
• pump-priming

• Red Scare

• Return to ‘normalcy’
• Roarding Twenties
• Sacco and Vanzetti
• Scopes Trial
• Teapot Dome Scandal
• Wilsonianism

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1920s

• automobiles
• consumerism
• credit
• Bathtub gin
• Harlem Renaissance
• Jazz Age
• Klu Klux Klan
• Margin buying
• radio
• refrigerators
• Scopes "Monkey" Trial

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Great Depression & FDR

• Black Monday
• Black Thursday
• Hawley-Smoot Tariff
• Hoovervilles

FDR & New Deal

• 100 Days
• 20th Amendment
• 21st Amendment
• fireside chats
• NRA
• "New Deal"

• Social Security
• Supreme Court

Roosevelt Administration/s

• Brain Trust
• Francis Perkins
• Harry Hopkins

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World War II

pre-WWII

• A Philip Randolph
• America First Committee
• appeasement
• Battle of Britain
• “cash and carry”
• election of 1940
• isolationism
• Lend-Lease Act
• Lindburgh
• Maginot Line
• Munich Agreement
• "Peace for our time"
• Poland invasion
• Sudetenland
• U.S. Neutrality Acts
• "war footing"
• war preparations

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WWII

• "arsenal of democracy"
• D-Day
• Eastern Front
• Hiroshima, Nagasaki
• Homefront
• Island Hopping
• Japanese Internment Camps
• Korematsu v. U.S.
• Manhattan Project
• mechanized warfare
• propaganda
• rationing
• recycling
• Rosie the Riviter
• Truman’s decision
• "Victory Gardens"
• war bonds

Post-War plans/ conferences

• Potsdam Conference

• Tehran Conference

• Yalta Conference

End of WWII

• 22nd amendment
• Nuremburg Trials
• United Nations

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Latter-half 20th Century

Notes:

• WWII was the last conflict entered by official Declaration of War by Congress
  • all other post-WWII "wars" have been without actual declaration of war
  • the U.S. has entered most of these wars through a combination of Executive Action and Congressional approval, either for a military action or funding thereof
• a key component of post-WWII US History for students to grapple with is the dramatic change to worldwide involvement and/or adventurism and the various justifications for them
  • students should understand American "hegemony" and reaons for American worlwdide dominance and the extent to which it may be considered economic, political cultural imperialism

Early Cold War Foreign Affairs

• Berlin crisis / Berlin airlift
• Bretton Woods Conference
• capitalism
• Chiang Kai-shek
• China, loss of
• communism
• containment policy
• George F. Kennan
• Greek Civil War
• ideology/ ideological
• Iron Curtain / Iron Curtain speech
• Israel/ Palestine
• Long Telegram / Article “X”
• Mao Zedong
• Marshall Plan
• NATO
• NATO/Warsaw Pact
• NSC-68
• proxy war
• SEATO
• sphere/s of influence
• Suez Canal Crisis
• Truman Doctrine
• Turkey
• United Nations
• UK sterling crisis
• Warsaw Pact

Atomic age

• atmospheric testing
• atomic testing
• bombers
• A-bomb
• Chinese bomb (Taiwan incident)
• German scientists
• H-bomb
• brinkmanship
• ICBM
• Nike missile system
• MAD/ mutually-assured destruction
• anti-ballistic missile
• nuclear shield

Korean War

• Truman v. Gen. MacArthur
• Chinese Revolution

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Cold War diplomacy

• East, the
• hegemony / hegemonic power
• nation-building
• Palestine partition
• Security Council
• Third World
• unaligned nations
• United Nations
• West, The

Eisenhower period

• CIA
• containment
• containment in Asia
• containment in Europe
• containment in Latin America
• containment in the Middle East
• Cuba
• Domino Theory
• Dwight Eisenhower
• Eisenhower Doctrine
• HUAC Committee
• Joseph McCarthy
• Marshall Plan
• McCarthyism
• "military industrial complex" (1958/9?)
• Suez crisis

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Domestic US Cold War

• Executive Order 9835
• Second Red Scare
• McCarthyism
• HUAC
• Hollywood 10
• McCarren Act
• Rosenbergs
• Alger Hiss
• Space Race

Kennedy

• Bay of Pigs Invasion
• Berlin Wall
• CIA activity under Kennedy
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Domino Theory
• Bay of Pigs
• Hot-Line
• Robert F. Kennedy
• Limited Test Ban Treaty
• quarantine v. blockade
• Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
• Peace Corps

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Vietnam War

• French involvement, 1954-1955
• US involvement, 1959-1973

Eisenhower period of Vietnam War

• Dien Bien Phu

Kennedy period of Vietnam War

• JFK
• Robert McNamara
• "Whiz Kids"
• “flexible response”
• advisors
• Camelot
• assassination

Johnson period of Vietnam War

• bombing campaigns
• escalation
• Gulf of Tonkin Incident (1964)
• Tet Offensive (1968)
• Walter Cronkite
• U.S. public opinion
• Vietnamization
• War Powers Acts
• Gulf of Tonkin
• Attrition
• Hearts and Minds
• Rolling Thunder
• My Lai Massacre
• Escalation

Nixon period of Vietnam War

• China
• Operation Linebacker II
• Christmas bombings
• "silent majority”
• Paris Peace Accords
• Bombing of Laos and Cambodia
• Paris Peace Accords
• opening of China
• Kissinger
• Pentagon Papers
• White House protests

Vietnam War protest movements

• draft, the
• hippies
• protests
• Kent State
• Jackson State

post-Nixon

• Fall of Saigon
• Cambodian genocide
• Pol Pot

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post-WWII Domestic U.S

1950s culture

• baby boom
• "Fair Deal" (1945-49)
• suburbia
• rock'n'roll
• conformity
• Interstate Highway Act

Civil Rights

• “Little Rock Nine”
• Brown v. Board of Education
• civil disobedience
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Executive Order 9981
• Jackie Robinson
• Malcolm X
• March on Washington
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Montgomery bus boycott
• nonviolence
• Voting Rights Act of 1965

Other Civil Rights and Political Movements

• Silent Spring
• Michael Harrington
• Roe v. Wade
• women’s liberation movement (NOW)
• Cesar Chavez
• Grapes Boycott
• Chicano Movement
• American Indian Movement (AIM)
• Wounded Knee Incident

Johnson

• Great Society
• War on Poverty

1970s: Nixon, Ford & Carter

• Watergate
• pardoning of Nixon
• stagflation
• Afghanistan
• Olympic boycott
• Iranian hostage crisis
• OPEC
• oil embargo
• Camp David Accords

Reagan era

• Iran-Contra Affair
• John Stockton
• Landslide
• Star Wars
• "Reagan Revolution”
• Reaganomics
• Supply-side economics

End of the Cold War

• George HW Bush
• Military spending cuts
• Gulf War
• Bill Clinton
• Peace Dividend
• NAFTA
• service sector economy
• New Immigration
• Haiti
• Yugoslavia and Bosnia
• Rwanda

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21st Century

War on Terror

• September 11th
• Al Queda
• Afghanistan War
• Iraq
• Patriot Act

Obama Administration

• Great Recession
• ISIS
• Affordable Care Act
• Obama Care
• DREAM Act

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