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


File to do:
Note: see Talk page for to do list and suggestions
* add dates and definitions to terms
* use <nowiki><ul><li>{{#tip-text:term|explanation}}</ul></li></nowiki>
* create Wars timeline
 
== General terms to know for US History ==
== General terms to know for US History ==
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Revision as of 13:12, 2 May 2024

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[edit | edit source]

  • abolitionism
  • aristocratic
  • 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
  • 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

Colonial Periods[edit | edit source]

Pre-Columbian[edit | edit source]

  • Algonquian
  • Hopewell tradition
  • indigenous
  • Iroquois
  • Mississippian period/ culture
  • reciprocal relations
  • Woodland Period



Age of Exploration[edit | edit source]

  • caravel
  • Henry Hudson
  • conquistador
  • St. Lawrence River

Spanish colonialism[edit | edit source]

  • asiento
  • De Las Casas
  • encomienda
  • Florida (or Spanish Florida)
  • New Laws of 1542
  • Pueblo Revolt
  • repartimiento
  • Saint Augustine

Sepúlveda

  • Spanish social heirarchies (terms)

Dutch and French colonialism[edit | edit source]

  • Beaver War
  • ''couriers de bois''
  • New Amsterdam
  • New France

African Slave trade[edit | edit source]

  • Middle Passage
  • Olaudah Equiano
  • seasoning camps
  • triangle trade



English colonial period[edit | edit source]

Note that Britain held colonial possessions in the Caribbean region, as well as the thirteen colonies; following small 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.


  • Appalachian Mountains


  • Bacon’s Rebellion
  • Lord Baltimore
  • term
  • term


Colonial political, economic and social characteristics[edit | edit source]

Maryland| proprietary colony Massachussets Bay Colony Pennsylvania Virginia colonies


  • headright system
  • House of Burgesses
  • indentured servitude
  • Jamestown
  • John Rolfe
  • John Smith
  • Jonathan Edwards
  • King Philip’s War
  • Massachusetts Bay Colony
  • miration push/ pull factors
  • Native American-European interactions, including disease, treatment of
  • Navigation Acts
  • New England town meetings
  • Pequot War
  • Puritan
  • Queen Anne's War
  • salutary neglect
  • the Great Awakening
  • types of colonies: proprietary, royal, corporate
  • William Penn



American Revolution[edit | edit source]

  • ABC Boards
  • Admiralty Court
  • Albany Conference
  • 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



Early Republic[edit | edit source]

Articles of Confederation Period[edit | edit source]

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

U.S. Constitution[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Early Republic[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Antebellum period[edit | edit source]

Jacksonian period[edit | edit source]

  • 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




Antebellum[edit | edit source]

Social reform[edit | edit source]

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



Antebellum[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Latter 19th Century[edit | edit source]

Civil War[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Reconstruction[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Post-Reconstruction[edit | edit source]

Economic & Political[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Imperialism[edit | edit source]

  • 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



First half 20th Century[edit | edit source]

Labor[edit | edit source]

  • American Federation of Labor (AFL)
  • Samuel Gompers



Progressive Era[edit | edit source]

  • "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



World War I era[edit | edit source]

WWI[edit | edit source]

  • 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



WWI aftermath[edit | edit source]

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

post-WWI & 1920s[edit | edit source]

  • "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



1920s[edit | edit source]

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



Great Depression & FDR[edit | edit source]

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

FDR & New Deal[edit | edit source]

  • 100 Days
  • 20th Amendment
  • 21st Amendment
  • fireside chats
  • NRA
  • "New Deal"
  • Social Security
  • Supreme Court

Roosevelt Administration/s[edit | edit source]

  • Brain Trust
  • Francis Perkins
  • Harry Hopkins



World War II[edit | edit source]

pre-WWII[edit | edit source]

  • 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



WWII[edit | edit source]

  • "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

Post-WWII[edit | edit source]

  • 22nd amendment
  • Nuremburg Trials
  • United Nations



Latter-half 20th Century[edit | edit source]

Early Cold War Foreign Affairs[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

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

Korean War[edit | edit source]

  • Truman v. Gen. MacArthur
  • Chinese Revolution



Cold War diplomacy[edit | edit source]

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

Eisenhower period[edit | edit source]

  • 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"
  • Suez crisis



Domestic US Cold War[edit | edit source]

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

Kennedy[edit | edit source]

  • Bay of Pigs Invasion
  • Berlin Wall
  • CIA
  • 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



Vietnam War[edit | edit source]

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

Eisenhower period of Vietnam War[edit | edit source]

  • Dien Bien Phu

Kennedy period of Vietnam War[edit | edit source]

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

Johnson period of Vietnam War[edit | edit source]

  • Gulf of Tonkin Incident
  • Tet Offensive
  • Walter Cronkite
  • U.S. Public support of the War
  • Vietnamization
  • War Powers Acts
  • Gulf of Tonkin
  • Attrition
  • Hearts and Minds
  • Rolling Thunder
  • My Lai Massacre
  • Escalation

Nixon period of Vietnam War[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

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

post-Nixon[edit | edit source]

  • Fall of Saigon
  • Cambodian genocide



post-WWII Domestic U.S[edit | edit source]

1950s culture[edit | edit source]

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

Civil Rights[edit | edit source]

  • “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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • Great Society
  • War on Poverty


1970s: Nixon, Ford & Carter[edit | edit source]

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

Reagan era[edit | edit source]

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


End of the Cold War[edit | edit source]

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



21st Century[edit | edit source]

War on Terror[edit | edit source]

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

Obama Administration[edit | edit source]

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