AP US History vocabulary list

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

Additional keywords: AP U.S. History, APUSH, AP us, apush, note: see Talk page for to do list and suggestions

This page may be used as an all-round study guide for the AP US History exam.

Primary goals of this study guide:

1. Knowledge of periods
2. Knowledge of terms, people and places
3. Knowledge of dates

• See here for map review of US History

For Multiple Choice section (MCQ), students are to:

• identify document source, date, historical context
• contextuals document and not confuse it for wrong period or context in wrong possible answer
• idenify other errors in wrong possible answers

For Free Response sections (FRQ, DBQ), students are to:

• demonstrate historical factual knowledge
  • provide examples, describe and explain
  • write to an uninformed audience
    • as in math, "show your work" -- i.e., explain everything
• contextualize through cause and effect
• compare/contrast to other periods, persons, and events
• conceptualize facts into large ideas

US History: BIG IDEAS for American self-conception and historical choices

Students may address historican themes, events, and periods using the various notions of self-conception of Americans across history. Note that these concepts change over time. A short list of topics/ core ideas includes:

the American Dream

American exceptionalism

Americanism (and What is it to be an American?)

Civil liberties

Civil Rights

"City on a Hill"

Debate

Dissent

Due process

Duty

E pluribus unam

Equality

Expansionism (including westerd expansion, overseas expansion; also economic)

Foreign non-Intervention / Intervention

Freedom/ Freedoms, esp. movement, protest, religion, speech

Freedom of conscience

Idealism

Intellectual property

Innovation

Issues focus

Justice

Limited government

Patriotism

Personal autonomy

Personal / public safety

Politics

Practicality / Self-interest

Push- / pull- factors (migration)

Regionalism

Self-reliance

Self-rule/ self-governance

Technology

War

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Implications of a Democracy

In 1835, the French aristocrat, Alexis de Tocqueville published the first of two volumes, "Democracy in America". Tocqueville was intrigued by the social, cultural and political implications of a democratic society -- by which he meant, generally,

• absence of social classes or heirarchies among citizens
• members of that dominant social class consider themselves one another's equal

Tocqueville's analysis yields enormous insight into the American character of the 1830s as well as today:

• notion of equality
• individualism
• emphasis on local governance
• civic activity and associations
• spirit of religion

These characteristics of a democracy can be applied to historical analysis on the AP exam and for understanding US History generally.

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American Slogans or Famous Utterances

A day that will live in infamy

A republic, if you can keep it!

The American way

Equal justice under law

Getting the government you deserve

Give me liberty or give me death!

Go west, young man!

I am a Berliner / Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

In God we trust

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happines

Live free or die

Nothing to fear but fear itself

Of the people, by the people, for the people

Outdoing the Joneses

Remember the Alamo!

Taxation without representation

United we stand, divided we fall

We shall overcome

We the people

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Historical textual analysis: approaches and strategies

When reviewing an historical document, consider:

• date / historical context
• author
• publisher
• audience
• author point of view & purpose

Review fine print, sources, in cartoons anything written, and apply your PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

• what do you know about the period?
• what came before it?
• what followed?
• what events, periods, persons may be compared or contrasted to it?

Analytical tools

HAPPy or HIPP

Historical context

(Intended) Audience

Purpose

Point of View

y

OPVL

Origin

Perspective

Value

Limitations

SPRITE

Social

Political

Religious

Intellectual

Technological

Economics

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)

• democracy

• direct tax

• disenfranchised

• dissent

• domestic

• duties
• Electoral College

• emancipation

• embargo

• equity

• excise tax

• federal

• franchise

• hegemony/hegomonic

• imperialism

• indemnity

• infringe / infringement

• intolerance

• laissez-faire
• landmark court case
• legitimacy

• mercantilism
• nativism

• nullify / nullification

• Old World v. New World

• political

• political expediency

• popular sovereignty

• precedent

• power

• prohibition

• republic

• "Republican motherhood"

• republican principles

• state

• states rights

• segregation

• socialism

• sovereignty

• suffrage

• tariff

• temperance movement
• two-party system

• 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

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Major Wars

• French-Indian War, 1754-1763
• American Revolutionary War, 1775-1781
• War of 1812, 1812-1815
• Mexican-American War, 1846-1848
• Civil War, 1861-1865
• Spanish-American War, 1898
• Phillipine Insurgency, 1899-1902
• World War I (U.S.), 1917-1918
• White Russian War, 1917
• World War II (U.S.) 1941-1945
• Korean War, 1950-1953
• Vietnam 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)

• Beaver Wars, 1609-1701 (French/Dutch)
• 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

• Yamasee War, 1715-1717

• Chickasaw Wars, 1721-1763

• Dummer's War, 1722-25
• Pontiac's War, 1763-1766
• Lord Dunmore's War, 1774

American settlers or frontier wars

• Bacon's Rebellion 1676

• Regulator Insurrection, 1766-1771

• Whiskey Rebellion, 1791-1794

• Fries's Rebellion, 1799-1800

US Indian Wars

(see above for colonial-era Indian wars)

• Creek War (Tecumseh)
• Seminole Wars
• Sioux Wars (including Pine Ridge Campaign / Dance movement / Battle of Wounded Knee)
• 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

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

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

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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</ul
• St. Lawrence River

Spanish colonialism

• asiento
• De Las Casas
• casta (system)
• encomienda
• Florida (or Spanish Florida)
• hacienda
• Mit'a (Inca)
• New Laws of 1542
• Jesuits
• Pueblo Revolt
• repartimiento
• Saint Augustine
• Sepúlveda
• Spanish social hierarchies (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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Early Colonial period flowcharts

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English Colonial Migration Pull factors

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** Note that French push/pull factors were more directly related to trade, economic opportunity and Catholic evangelization

English colonial period

Note:

• Britain held colonial possessions in the Caribbean region, as well as the thirteen colonies and portions of Canada
• 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 exercise 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
• Massachusetts Bay Colony
• Pennsylvania
• Virginia

British colonial period terms & events

Appalachian Mountains

• Bacon’s Rebellion

• Deism

• Jonathan Edwards

• the Great Awakening

• headright system

• House of Burgesses

• indentured servitude

• Jamestown

• redemptioner system

• John Rolfe

• John Smith

• Joint Stock Company

• 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/s

• Queen Anne's War, 1702-1713|}}

• salutary neglect

• slave codes

• William Penn

• yeoman

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French Indian War (Seven Years War)

1754-1763

• the immediate cause of the war was the growing presence of English colonials across the Appalachian Mountains and into the Ohio Valley
  • the French and their Indian allies opposed these settlements
  • a site of considerable contention was Fort Duquesne at present-day Pittsburg, as the location was at the confluence of two major rivers leading into the Ohio River
• sparked by an unsuccessful British and colonial attacks on French forts in Pennsylvania
• in 1753, George Washington 1753 delivered a message to the French at another Fort in Pennsylvania demanding French evacuation from the region
• on July 3, 1754, as a colonel in the Virginia Militia, Washington led an attack upon the French Ford Necessity; he lost and had to surrender
• British regular Army, along with colonial militias (and including Washington), reorganized and attacked another French fort, Fort Duquesne on Sept. 14, 1758, and also lost
  • there were 500 French and Indian soldiers
  • and 400 British regulars and 350 colonial militia
• the British eventually took Ft. Duquesne in 1758 (renaming it Ft. Pitt), and the focus of the war moved toward Canada and the St. Lawrence River waterways, particularly the French city Quebec.
• the American-sparked war turned global as Britain and France squared off against one another and their allies in Continental Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, India and China
• after going well for France and its allies at first, the British scored significant victories starting 1758 and, especially, in 1759 ("Annus Mirabillus") and 1762.
• depleted financially and in resources, both France and England met at Paris to negotiate an end to the War, resulting in the Treaty of Paris of 1763, which divided up colonial holdings, giving Britain control of North America east of the Mississippi.
• the French-Indian War and the British government response to its aftermath set the conditions for the American Revolution.

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French-Indian War terms

French and British positions at the start of the War   British North America and New France and Allies. This Map also shows both the Iroquois and Wabanaki Confederacies, who were both influential in the war on the British and French sides respectively.

• Albany Conference, 1754

• Albany Plan

• Algonquian Indians

• Annus Mirabilis of 1759

• Fort Duquesne

• Iroquois Confederacy

• Proclamation of 1763

• Treaty of Paris of 1763

• Paxton Boys

• William Pitt

• Regulators

Origins of the French-Indian War

• Indirect causes:
  • English v. French rivalry over easter and central North American lands and trade routes
  • Treaty of Utrecht, 1713: France ceded Nova Scotia to the British and abandoned its claims to Newfoundland
  • Indian rivalries and warfare, especially between French-aligned Algonquins and British-aligned Iroquois tribes and nations
• Long term causes:
  • French colonial expansion across the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley and along the Mississippi River
  • English colonial expansion in western New York and Pennsylvania
  • • Ohio Company of 1748
  • : a land grant of 1748 which included land claimed by France; as a result of the grant, numerous surveyors and militia expeditions were sent to explore, map and open the lands for American settlement, including to build a fort that played an important part in the outbreak of the French-Indian War.
    • Direct causes:
      • 1753-54: Virginia militia expeditions sent to challenge French expansion in the Ohio Valley via building of a series of forts
      • May 1754: fighting breaks out at Ft. Duquesne and Ft. Necessity
    
    

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    American Revolution

    Timeline of the American Revolution

    Year	Major Events
    Example	Example
    Example	Example
    Example	Example

    Notes on the American Revolution

    • the "American Revolution" refers generally to the period between the French-Indian War and, either the breakout (1775/76) or end of the Revolutionary War (1781/83)
    • the war itself is called "The Revolutionary War"
      • the logic for the terminology is that the pre-War period was "revolutionary" in the sense that the colonists went from identifying as "Englishmen" (subjects of the King of England) to an independent "American" people;
      • their choices, rebellions, self-identity, philosophy, etc. went through a "revolutionary" change
      • "revolution" is from Latin revolvere for "turn, roll back" and in its political sense means a "great change in affairs" or "overthrow of an established political order"
    • students will be expected to evaluate the origins, causes and consequences of the American Revolution
      • and, less importantly but expected nonetheless, of the events and outcomes of the Revolutionary War

    Influence of Enlightenment thought and thinkers

    • Enlightnment
  • John Locke
  • Montesquieu
  • natural rights
  • Social contract

  
  

  American Revolution general terms

  • ABC Boards
  • Boston Massacre
  • Boston Tea Party
  • Circulatory Letter
  • committees of correspondence
  • Common Law
  • Common Sense
  • Continental Association
  • Continental Congresses
  • Continental Association
  • Declaration of Independence
  • direct representation
  • Enlightenment philosophers
  • First Continental Congress
  • Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms
  • Dunmore's War
  • ''Gaspee'' affair
  • Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer
  • Lexington/Concord
  • Loyalist
  • Minutemen
  • Navigation Acts
  • Nonimportation movement
  • Olive Branch Petition
  • Patriot
  • Popular Sovereignty
  • Revolutionary flags
  • social contract theory
  • Sons of Liberty
  • Stamp Act Congress
  • Vice admiralty courts
  • Vice admiralty court
  • virtual representation
  • Writs of Assistance

  British Laws & Regulations

  The laws passed by Parliament following the French-Indian War were designed for two primary purposes:

  1. raise revenue from the colonies in order to defer the costs of the Seven Years War
  2. exercise greater control over colonial affairs and governance

  Notably, new taxes and rules marked a shift away from "mercantilism," which was designed to trade relations between the Britain and the colonies would benefit Britain. Instead, these new taxes were intended to maximize revenue, which meant many of them were actually lower than before (under the theory that lower taxes would result in greater compliance and less smuggling and corruption).

  Chronology of Colonial Acts

  Year	Act
  1763	Sugar Act
  1764	Currency Act
  1765	Stamp Act
  1765	Quartering Act
  1766	Declaratory Act
  1767	Townshend Acts
  1767	Revenue Act
  1773	Tea Act
  1774	Quebec Act
  1775	Coervice Acts ("Intolerable Acts")

  Below are these acts, alphabetically. Students should memorize their dates and chronology (thus the definition list does not immediately show dates) in order to build a strong sense of causality between them and the larger context of the American Revolution as it turned into the Revolutionary War.

  • Coercive Acts
  • Currency Acts
  • Declaratory Act
  • Intolerable Acts
  • Quartering Act
  • Quebec Act
  • Stamp Act
  • Revenue Act
  • Sugar Act
  • Tea Act
  • Townshend Acts

  Revolutionary Era people

  English

  British Leaders

  Leader	Dates	Policy
  Pitt the Elder	prosecution of Seven Years War
  Lord Bute	1760-1763	mild reform
  George Grenville	strong reform	strong reform
  Lord Rockingham	1765-1766	compromise
  William Pitt (the younger) & Charles Townshend	1766-1770	strong reform
  Lord North	1770-1782	coercion
  reform = adjust policy to exercise British interests over those of colonies compromise = attempting to meet colonial demands while pleasing hard-liners in England coercion = demanded full colonial compliance

  English leaders who played important roles in the American Revolution

  • George Grenville
  • Lord North
  • Charles Townshend

  American Revolutionary Era leaders

  • John Adams
  • Samuel Adams
  • John Dickinson
  • Lord Dunmore
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Thomas Paine
  • George Washington

  American Revolution flowcharts

  Origins

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  British & Colonial responses

  ---

  Cycle of Escalation

  ---

  Repeal of Stamp Act to Boston Massacre

  ---

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  Repeal Townsend Acts to Boston Tea Party

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  Intolerable Acts to Colonial Organization

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  Revolutionary War battles

  names are usually preceded with "Battle of..."

  • Bunker Hill
  • Lexington and Concord
  • Long Island
  • Saratoga
  • Valley Forge
  • Yorktown

  
  

  
  

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  Revolutionary War flowchart

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  Creation of the United States: Articles of Confederation & U.S. Constitution

  • "united States" was first used (or prominently used) in the Declaration of Independence
    • but the term "united" was a modifier, not proper noun.
    • The Second Continental Congress officially adopted the name "united Colonies" (lower case "united") on Sept. 9, 1776,
      • as it was also termed in the Declaration of Independence (" The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America").
    • the Articles of Confederation, first drafted in June, 1776, then when adopted in 1781, stated, "The stile of this confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'" (capitalized "United", and so now a proper noun).
  • on March 4, 1789, when the Constitution was formally adopted , the named the country "United States" and called the Constitution, "this Constitution for the United States of America."

  Articles of Confederation Period

  • Articles of Confederation
    • proposed in June, 1776, adopted by the various states starting with Virginia in Dec., 1777, officially adopted with Maryland's ratification on Feb 2, 1781 (Delaware ratified it Feb 1, 1779; all other states ratified it across 1778).
  • 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

  >> this list to be sorted between periods and themes
  • Northwest Territory

  Early Republic people

  • George Washington
  • Alexander Hamilton

  Washington's presidency

  • American System

  • Cabinet

  • Citizen Genet affair

  • Democratic-Republican Party

  • Federalist party

  • French Revolution

  • internal improvements

  • Jacobins

  • Jay's Treaty

  • Jeffersonians/ Jeffersonianism

  • National Bank

  • Pinckney's Treaty

  • political parties

  • Proclamation of Neutrality

  • Report on the Public Credit

  • Report on Manufactures

  • Republican motherhood

  • republicanism

  • Treaty of Greenville

  • Whiskey Rebellion

  • Washington's Farewell Address

  Judiciary/ Judicial terms

  • 11th Amendment

  • 12th Amendment

  • Bill of Rights

  • judicial review

  • Judiciary Act of 1789

  Adams presidency

  • Alien & Sedition Acts

  • British-French conflict & Napoleonic Wars

  • impressment

  • Midnight Appointments

  Early Republic flow charts

  For / Against National Bank

  Economic Interests v. Policy

  • Note:
    • farmers want low interest rates (bank loans) and "soft money" (paper money = inflationary)
    • bankers and manufacturers wand "hard money" (gold/silver & bank instruments based on them = stable and higher return on investment)

  
  

  Jefferson era

  • Louisiana Purchase
  • Marbury v. Madison (1804)
  • John Marshall
  • McColloch v. Maryland (1819)
  • nullification
  • Revolution of 1800:
    • Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
  • War of 1812
  • Whigs

  Madisonian Era

  • Compromise of 1820
  • Era of Good Feelings
  • Missouri Compromise
  • Monroe Doctrine
  • Battle of Tippecanoe
  • Treaty of Ghent
  <il>{{#text-tip:War Hawks|western Jeffersonians (Republicans) who blamed Britain for violating treaties and inciting indian attacks on American settlers and outposts; the British did arm tribes, including the Shawnee under chief Tecumseh}}
  • War of 1812

  
  

  
  

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  Antebellum period

  • cotton gin
  • land speculation

  Jacksonian period

  • John Quincy Adams
  • Bank War
  • Corrupt Bargain
  • Force Bill
  • Henry Clay
  • Jacksonian democracy
  • Indian Removal Act
  • Nat Turner Rebellion (1831)
  • 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

  Social reform

  • American Anti-Slavery Society
  • cult of domesticity
  • Declaration of Sentiments
  • Frederic Douglas
  • emancipation
  • Philadelphia Women's Anti-Slavery Convention

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson
  • Second Great Awakening
  • Seneca Falls Convention
  • Sojouner Truth
  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
  • suffrage
  • Temperance movement
  • Henry David Thoreaux
  • transcendentalism
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin
  • Underground Railroad
  • Walden Pond

  
  

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  Antebellum

  • American Party
  • Bloody Kansas
  • John Calhoun
  • Compromise of 1850
  • Jefferson Davis

  • Dred Scott decision

  • Gadsden Purchase
  • Gold Rush of 1849
  • Henry Clay
  • John Brown
  • Kansas-Nebraska Act
  • Know Nothings
  • Lincoln-Douglas Debates
  • manifest destiny
  • Mexican American War
  • popular sovereignty
  • Republic of Texas
  • sectionalism
  • Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
  • Daniel Webster

  
  

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  Latter 19th Century

  Civil War

  • 1860 Election
  • Anaconda Plan
  • Antietam
  • Appomattox
  • Confederacy
  • Copperheads
  • Emancipation Proclamation
  • Ft. Sumter
  • Gettysburg
  • Gettysburg Address
  • Robert E. Lee
  • Lincoln’s pre-war stance on slavery
  • Sherman’s March
  • Vicksburg
  • U.S. Grant
  • Union

  
  

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  Reconstruction

  • 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
  • black codes

  • "bloody shirt"

  • Compromise of 1877
  • 40 acres and a mule
  • Freedman’s Bureau
  • grandfather clause
  • homestead
  • Jim Crow laws Klu Klux Klan
  • 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

  • Susan B. Anthony
  • Battle of Wounded Knee
  • Chinese Exclusion Act
  • Dawes Act /assimilation
  • Gentlemen’s Agreement
  • Great Migration
  • Homestead Act of 1862
  • melting pot
  • nativism
  • National Suffrage Movement
  • Sand Creek Massacre
  • Women's Christian Temperance Union

  Economic & Political

  • Andrew Carnegie
  • bimetallism
  • economies of scale
  • Coinage Act of 1873
  • "free silver"
  • Grange, the
  • hard money
  • laissez-faire capitalism
  • monopoly
  • Nelson Rockefeller
  • political bosses
  • political machine
  • Populist Party
  • robber barons
  • Sherman Anti-trust Act
  • silver
  • social Darwinism
  • soft money
  • specie
  • Standard Oil
  • transcontinental railroad
  • U.S. Steel

  
  

  ---

  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

  • craft union

  • American Federation of Labor (AFL)

  • Eugene Debs (155-1926)

  • industrial union

  • industrial union

  • Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

  • Samuel Gompers (1850-1924)

  • term

  
  

  
  

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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

  Notes:

  • Bolsheviks

  • Espionage (1917) and Sedition (1918) Acts

  • "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

  • Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 (TWEA)

  • War bonds
  • War Industries Board
  • Zimmerman Note

  
  

  ---

  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

  
  

  ---

  1920s

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

  
  

  ---

  Great Depression & FDR

  Stock Market Crash & Hoover Administration

  Notes:

  • the value of the New York Stock Exchange was measured in value by the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA, also known as "the DOW"; it is still used, but among other measures);
    • the market rose from about 150 in January of 1927 to a peak of 381 in August of 1929.
    • it started dropping through September into October, before its precipitous drop to 237 on Oct 29
    • it stabilizied in early 1930, then in May continued a long drop to its low of 41 on July 8, 1932; the DOW did not reach 381 until 1954

  
  

  ---

  
  

  • Black Thursday

  • Black Monday

  • Black Tuesday

  • "buying on margin"

  • Hawley-Smoot Tariff

  • Hoovervilles

  • margin call

  • • speculative bubble

  FDR Administration & Great Depression

  • 100 Days
  • 20th Amendment
  • 21st Amendment
  • bank run
  • Brain Trust
  • Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO, started 1938)
  • fireside chats
  • Harry Hopkins
  • NRA
  • "New Deal"
  • Francis Perkins
  • Social Security
  • Supreme Court
  • "We have nothing to fear but fear itself"

  New Deal legislation & Federal Agencies

  • Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933

  
  

  ---

  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

  
  

  ---

  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

  
  

  ---

  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

  
  

  ---

  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

  
  

  ---

  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

  
  

  ---

  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

  
  

  ---

  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
  • George Wallace

  Other Civil Rights and Political Movements

  • American Indian Movement (AIM)
  • Cesar Chavez
  • Chicano Movement
  • environmentalism
  • Grapes Boycott
  • Michael Harrington
  • "Incorporation" Cases
  • Roe v. Wade
  • Silent Spring
  • women’s liberation movement (NOW)
  • 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
  • Reykjavík Summit
  • Berlin speech
  • 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
  • "end of history"
  • service sector economy
  • New Immigration
  • Haiti
  • Yugoslavia and Bosnia
  • Rwanda

  
  

  ---

  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

  
  

  Third Party movements

  • notes
    • third parties represent political movements that the major parties do not accommodate
      • or a split within them
    • elections through to the 1830s had multiple candidates from the same party, so were not technically "third parties)
      • or they were divided geographically and/or over a particular issue or political position

  Party	Election	% of Popular Vote	Notes
  Anti-Masonic Party	1832	7.8%	opposed "Freemasonry" (elitist secret society that was opposed by mainstream religous groups); the movement started wit hthe "Morgan affair", when a former Mason show spoke out against the society was murdered Freemasons were accused of secretly controlling the government
  Liberty Party	1844	2.3%	abolitionist, anti-slavery party
  Free Soil	1848	10.1%	opposed expansion of slavery into new territories former president Martin Van Buren was candidate in 1848 formed after the Mexican-American War over concerns about the expansion of slavery the Free Soil party was mostly former Whigs who joined the Republican Party when they merged in 1854
  	1852	4.9%
  Know Nothing (American Party)	1856	21.6%	anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic largely made up of Whigs after the collapse of that party the party also appealed to reformers, standing for rights of women, regulation of industry and labor, prefiguring the progressive movement former president Millard Filmore was candidate
  Four-way split	1860		Republican (Abraham Lincolon): 39.8% Southern Democrat (John Breckinridge): 18.1% Constitutional Union (John Bell): 12.6% Democratic (Stephen Douglas): 29.5%
  Liberal Republican	1872	43.8%	candidate Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune opposed President Grant as corrupt and his Reconstruction policies as too harsh (wanted removal of US Army from the South) opposed the high tariff and promoted civil service reform the Democratic party had no national organization, so Greeley hoped to attrack their vote, but failed
  Greenback Party	1876	0.99%	soft money platform, originally associated with the Grange (agricultural organization, cooperative) anti-monopoly, anti-railroads
  	1880	3.35%
  Prohibition Party	1884	1.5%	single issue: temperance persisted longer than most third-party movements and influenced larger politics, with ultimate victory in the 18th amendment
  	1888	2.2%
  	1896	.094%
  	1900	1.51%
  	1904	1.92%
  	1912	1.38%
  	1916	1.19%
  Populist Party	1892	8.5%	agrarian, anit-business/railroad movement pro-soft money
  Socialist Party	1904	2.98%	Eugene Debs was the candidate in 1904, 1908, 1912 & 1920 elections
  	1908	2.83%
  	1912	6%
  	1916	3.19%
  	1920	3.41%
  	1932	2.23%
  Progressive Party	1912	27%	Teddy Roosevelt's party after split with Republican Party following its convention in 1912 Roosevelt took more votes than the Republican incumbant Taft (23.2%) with the Republican vote split, Wilson won with 41.8% of the popular voate
  Progressive	1924	16.6%	a diferent orgniazaiton form the Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party, which he abandoned after 1912 (he was nominated in 1916 but refused) former Republican Robert La Follette, a progressive how refused to back Roosevelt, reformed the party in 1924
  Dixiecrat Progressive	1948	2.4% 2.4%	independent movements that were splinter factions from FDR's Democratic coalition that fell apart under Truman Dixiecrats were souther segregationists Progressives were FDR Democrats led by his former Vice President Henry Wallace
  American Independent	1968	13.5%	led by southern Democrat George Wallace, populist, segregationist governore of Alabama who opposed Johnson's support of the Civil Rights movement
  John Anderson (Independent candidate)	1980	6.6%	Republican John Anderson split from the Republican Party and ran as a "moderate" alternative to Reagan
  Ross Pero (Independent candidate/ Reform Party)	1992	18.9%	populist businessman Ross Perot opposed Bush and Clinton and gained widespread support in 1996, Perot ran on the Reform Party ticket, which he formed after 1992
  	1996	8.4%
  Green Party	2000	2.74%	Envronmentalist and consumer activist Ralph Nader ran on the Green Party ticket and likely threw the close 2000 election to Bush, as he drew support from the Democratic left
  Libertarian	2016	3.28%	Libertarian party candidate Gary Johnson gained national support for his opposition to Obama's regulatory state and in opposition to Donald Trump's candidacy as a Republican
  Robert F. Kennedy (independent candidate)	2024	?	son of former Senator and assassinated 1968 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy running as a third-party alternative to Biden and Trump critical of the COVID response and medical regime

  Economic crises

  Mississippi Company	1720	French company had Royal grant for trading rights to French colonies in Americas to cover French government debt over Louis XIV's wars, the government allowed the compan to issue paper money backed by national debt speculation in shares of the company led to more paper money issued, which was then put back into company shares, which led to the second largest bubble in economic history ($6.5 trillion peak value in current dollars, behind only the Dutch East India Company bubble)
  Panic of 1792	1792	Short-lived panic caused by sudden credit expansion following the formation of the Bank of the United States, which led to land speculation a group of bankers tried to drive up pricies of securities (stocks, contracts) but failed to meet their loans, causing a bank run Alexander Hamilton stabilized the market with stock purchases by the government
  Land bubble 1796	1996	Land speculation bubble that collapsed following specie payments suspension by the Bank of England, caused by a rush of bank withdrawals in England out of fear of a war with France the imnpact and connection of London banks to the American economy worried
  Panic of 1819	1819-1821	Finanical crisis sparked by land speculation bubble, excess paper money, and issuance of bank notes unbacked by gold by the Second Bank of the United States as Europe recovered from the Napoleonic Wars, its agricultural product increased and led to price drops, which hurt American producers, who, in turn, were unable to pay back loans the Panic came amidst implementation of the "American System" of canal and road building and tariffs, which were blamed for the downturn
  Panic of 1837	1837-1843	Major depression in which prices, profits, wages, and financial activity was severely curtailed led to mass unemployment impacted westward expansion and led t collapse in agricultural prices, especially cotton started with bank runs in New York when investors demanded their deposits from banks who could not back then in gold or silver was the worst financial crisis up until the Great Depression the panic followed a speculative boom that was fueled by land sales, cotton exports, and extensive inflows of silver from the US, Mexico and China President Jackson's dismantling of the Second Bank of the United States led to a disorderly unwinding of its assets and operations; however, the Bank itself contributed to the speculative bubble through issuance of paper money and loose oversight the Jackson administration's "Specie Circular of 1836," which was intended to halt speculation in land sales, dried up credit and helped spark the Panic
  Panic of 1857	1857-1859	National financial crisis sparked by British change in requirements for gold and silver reserves for paper money the influx of gold from the California Gold Rush greatly expanded the money supply but was also inflationary and led to excessive speculation in the US, a finanical panic followed the collapse of a major investment company (Ohio Life Insurance and Trust) speculation in railroads had exploded, and many were fraudulent, and after the Ohio Life company failed, prices collapsed grain prices also experienced a bubble in the mid 1850s, which led to farmland speculation, both of which also collapsed in the Panic
  Crédit Mobilier scandal	1864-1867	A railoard company created by the Union Pacific Railroad to build the eastern portion of the transcontinental railroad inflated its costs by $44 million dollars and paid bribes to politicians for laws and regulatory ruilings in its favor the scandal was broken by a newspaper during the 1874 presidential campaign and led to a political crisis for certain members of Congress and the Republican Party in general which along with other
  Panic of 1873	1873-1877	bank runs in New York financial crisis due to inflation and speculative investments especially in railroads huge discoveries of silver in the west led to decline in the value of silver and the "demonitization of silver" in 1873 (Coinage Act of 1873), which lowered silver prices and thus impacted anyone invested in silver and silver mining it led to a reduction in the money supply and higher interest rates, which hurt debtors, especially farmers impacted Europe started the "Long Depression," 1873-1879
  Panic of 1893	1893-1897	Econoic depression that was sparked by the failure of an Argentine bank, Baring Brothers, which collapsed over crops price collapse, which led to a run on American gold reserves by European investors who were facing losses there and in South Africa and Australia a railroad company collepse just before Grover Cleveland's 2nd inauguration led him to ask Congress to repeal the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which had forced the Government to purchase Silver in order to prop up its value, which was depleting the Government's gold reserves bank and railroad failures followed, with subsequent securities (stocks) and commodities price drops in 1895 the Government issued "Treasury bonds" which were purchased, by arrangement, by banks, especially the Morgan Bank of New York, but which helped stabilize Government gold reserves and general economic confidence

  Resources

  Suffrage, voting, democracy

  • American Democracy | National Museum of American History (si.edu)
  • Winning the Vote: A History of Voting Rights | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

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