AP US History vocabulary list

From A+ Club Lesson Planner & Study Guide

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[edit | edit source]

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


Implications of a Democracy[edit | edit source]

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.


American Slogans or Famous Utterances[edit | edit source]

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



Historical textual analysis: approaches and strategies[edit | edit source]

When reviewing an historical document, consider:[edit | edit source]

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

Review fine print, sources, in cartoons anything written, and apply your PRIOR KNOWLEDGE[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

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

Major Wars[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • Bacon's Rebellion 1676
  • Regulator Insurrection, 1766-1771
  • Whiskey Rebellion, 1791-1794
  • Fries's Rebellion, 1799-1800

US Indian Wars[edit | edit source]

(see above for colonial-era Indian wars)

Slave Revolts[edit | edit source]

  • New York Slave Revolt of 1712
  • Stono Rebellion, 1739
  • Nat Turner's Rebellion, 1826

Minor Wars or US Military actions[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • 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



American Revolution flowcharts[edit | edit source]

Origins[edit | edit source]


British & Colonial responses[edit | edit source]


Cycle of Escalation[edit | edit source]


Repeal of Stamp Act to Boston Massacre[edit | edit source]



Repeal Townsend Acts to Boston Tea Party[edit | edit source]


Intolerable Acts to Colonial Organization[edit | edit source]


War[edit | edit source]


Vocabulary, Terms, and Periods[edit | edit source]

Pre-Columbian[edit | edit source]

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



Colonial periods[edit | edit source]

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)
  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • Beaver War
  • ''couriers de bois''
  • fur trade
  • 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:

  • 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 excercise of direct control of colonial affairs that followed the French-Indian War.

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

Types of Colonies[edit | edit source]

  • Corporate Charter
  • Proprietary Colony
  • Royal Colony

Colony Characteristics[edit | edit source]

  • Maryland
  • Massachussets Bay Colony
  • Pennsylvania
  • Virginia

British colonial period terms & events[edit | edit source]

    Appalachian Mountains
  • Bacon’s Rebellion
  • 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



French Indian War notes[edit | edit source]

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 confluuence 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. Dusquesne 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 Miribalus") 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.




French-Indian War terms[edit | edit source]

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
  • William Pitt



American Revolution[edit | edit source]

  • ABC Boards
  • Admiralty Court/ Vice-Admiralty Court
  • Boston Massacre
  • Boston Tea Party
  • Circulatory Letter
  • committees of correspondence
  • Common Law
  • Common Sense
  • Continental Association
  • Continental Congress
  • Continental Association
  • Declaration of Independence
  • direct representation
  • Enlightenment philosophers
  • First Continental Congress
  • Dunmore's War
  • ''Gaspee'' affair
  • John Locke
  • Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer
  • Lexington/Concord
  • Loyalist
  • Minutemen
  • Montesquieu
  • natural rights
  • Nonimportation movement
  • Patriot
  • Popular Sovereignty
  • Revolutionary flags
  • Battle of Saratoga
  • social contract theory
  • Sons of Liberty
  • Stamp Act Congress
  • Valley Forge
  • virtual representation
  • Vice Admiralty Courts
  • Yorktown
  • Continental Congresses
  • Writs of Assistance


Revoluationary Era people[edit | edit source]

  • John Adams
  • Samuel Adams
  • John Dickinson
  • Lord Dunmore
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • George Grenville
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Lord North
  • Thomas Paine
  • Charles Townshend
  • George Washington

British Laws & Regulations[edit | edit source]

Chronology of Colonial Acts
Year Act
1763 Sugar Act
1764 Quebec Act
1765 Quartering Act
1766 Declaratory Act
1767 Townsend Act
1773 Tea Act
Coervice Acts
  • Coercive Acts
  • Currency Acts
  • Intolerable Acts
  • Navigation Acts
  • Olive Branch Petition
  • Quartering Act
  • Stamp Act
  • Sugar Act
  • Tea Act
  • Townsend Acts



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
  • Alien & Sedition Acts
  • British-French conflict & Napoleonic Wars
  • Cabinet
  • CItizen Genet affair
  • Compromise of 1820
  • Democratic-Republicans
  • Era of Good Feelings
  • Federalists
  • George Washington
  • Alexander Hamilton
  • impressment
  • internal improvements
  • Jay's Treaty
  • Jeffersonians/ Jeffersonianism
  • judicial review
  • Louisiana Purchase
  • Marbury v. Madison (1804)
  • John Marshall
  • McColluch v. Maryland (1819)
  • Monroe Doctrine
  • Mossouri Compromise
  • National Bank
  • Northwest Territory
  • nullification
  • political parties
  • Republican motherhood
  • republicanism

Revolution of 1800:

  • Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions
  • War of 1812
  • Whigs
  • Whiskey Rebellion



Antebellum period[edit | edit source]

  • cotton gin
  • land speculation

Jacksonian period[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

Social reform[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Antebellum[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Latter 19th Century[edit | edit source]

Civil War[edit | edit source]

  • 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



Reconstruction[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[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]

  • 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




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]

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[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]

Stock Market Crash & Hoover Administration[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

    • 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[edit | edit source]

    • Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933



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

End of WWII[edit | edit source]

  • 22nd amendment
  • Nuremburg Trials
  • United Nations



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

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[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
  • Chinese bomb (Taiwan incident)
  • 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]

  • 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[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 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[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]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

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

post-Nixon[edit | edit source]

  • Fall of Saigon
  • Cambodian genocide
  • Pol Pot



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
  • George Wallace

Other Civil Rights and Political Movements[edit | edit source]

  • 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[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
  • Reykjavík Summit
  • Berlin speech
  • 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
  • "end of history"
  • 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


Third Party movements[edit | edit source]

  • 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[edit | edit source]

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[edit | edit source]

Suffrage, voting, democracy[edit | edit source]