AP Terms by Decades
Pre-1610s
Viking landed near L’Anse aux Meadows (c. 1000)
Rule of Henry VII (1485-1509)
Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean islands (1492)
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494)
John Cabot explored northeast coast of North America (1497-8)
Rule of Henry VIII (1509-47)
Juan Ponce de León explored Florida (1513)
Hernan Cortés defeated Aztecs (1521)
Giovanni da Verrazano went along eastern seaboard (1524)
John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)
Hernando de Soto explored Mississippi (1539-42)
Francisco Coronado explored Arizona and New Mexico to Kansas (1540-2)
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed the coast of California (1542)
Rule of Edward VI (1547-53)
Rule of “Bloody” Mary (1553-8)
Rule of Elizabeth I (1558-1603)
Establishment of the Roanoke colony (1585)
Sir Walter Raleigh
Rule of James I (1603-25)
Charter of the Virginia Company in London (1606)
Establishment of Jamestown (1607)
Salutary neglect (1607-1763)
John Smith arrived at Jamestown (1608)
Establishment of Quebec (1608)
Establishment of Santa Fe (1609)
Henry Hudson’s exploration of North America began (1609)
1610s
Henry Hudson discovered bay that bears his name (1610)
Tobacco planted for first time in Virginia (1612)
John Rolfe, introduced tobacco to Virginia
Establishment of New Amsterdam by Dutch settlers (1613)
First Anglo-Powhatan peace treaty with marriage of Pocahontas/Rolfe (1614)
Smallpox breakout among New England natives (1616)
Headright system (1618)
Indentured Servants (1619)
Virginia House of Burgesses is first colonial assembly (1619)
First slaves arrived in North America (1619)
1620s
Puritans signed the Mayflower Compact (1620)
Mayflower landed in Plymouth (1620)
First public library in the colonies – Virginia (1620)
Peace treaty between Massasoit (Wampanoag Tribe) and Puritans (1621)
William Bradford, governor of Plymouth (1621-57)
Establishment of Dutch East Indies Company in New Amsterdam (1623)
Establishment of New Hampshire by John Mason (1623)
Establishment of Maine (part of Mass. Bay Colony) by Frederick Georges (1623)
Rule of Charles I (1625-49)
Peter Minuit’s bought Manhattan (1626)
Establishment of Massachusetts Bay Colony by Puritans (1628)
Charles I dissolved parliament (1620)
John Winthrop elected governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629)
Cambridge Agreement (1629)
1630s
Puritan’s Great Migration (1630s-40s)
Boston established as political center of Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630)
John Winthrop’s Model of Christian Charity (1630)
Massachusetts’ extension of voting rights (1631)
Pequot War (1633-7)
Establishment of Maryland by Lord Baltimore (1634)
Establishment of Connecticut (Hartford) by settlers from Massachusetts (1635)
First public school in colonies – Boston Latin School (1635)
Banishment of Roger Williams (1635)
Establishment of Rhode Island and Providence by Roger Williams (1636)
Founding of Harvard College (1636)
Trial and banishment of Anne Hutchinson (1638)
Establishment of New Haven by settlers from Massachusetts (1638)
Establishment of Delaware by Swedish settlers (1638)
First printing press in colonies – Cambridge, Massachusetts (1638)
Fundamental Orders (1639)
1640s
English Civil War – Roundheads v Cavaliers (1642-51)
New England Confederation (1643)
2nd Anglo-Powhatan War (1644)
Old Deluder Act (1647)
Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Amsterdam (1647-64)
Act of Toleration (1649)
Execution of Charles I (1649)
Oliver Cromwell rule of England (1649)
1650s
Navigation Law (1650)
Rhode Island declared first prohibition against slavery (1652)
First settlers in North Carolina from Virginia (1653)
Dutch takeover of New Sweden (1655)
1660s
Rule of Charles II (1660-85)
Navigation Act (1660)
Barbados slave code (1661)
Halfway Covenant (1662)
Navigation Act (1663)
Establishment of Carolina by nobles loyal to Charles II (1670)
Establishment of New York by Duke of York (1664)
Establishment of New Jersey (1664)
1670s
Navigation Act (1673)
Sir Edmond Andros appointed governor of New Amsterdam (1674)
King Philip’s (Metacom) War (1675-6)
Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
1680s
Pueblo Revolt (1680)
Popé
Establishment of Pennsylvania by William Penn (1681)
Robert de la Salle explored the Mississippi River and Louisiana basin (1682)
Rule of James II (1685-88)
Dominion of New England (1686)
Sir Edmond Andros, governor of Dominion of New England (1686-92)
Glorious Revolution (1688-9)
Rule of William and Mary (1689-1702)
Leisler’s Rebellion (1689)
King Williams’ War (1689-97)
1690s
John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (1690)
Salem Witch Trials (1692)
Founding of William and Mary College (1693)
Board of Trade of the Privy Council (1696)
Navigation Act (1696)
Woolens Act (1699)
1700s
Deism (1700s)
Five Nations (1700s)
Colonial population reaches 275,000 (1700)
Establishment of Detroit by Antoine Cadillac (1701)
Founding of Yale College (1701)
Rule of Queen Anne (1702-14)
Queen Anne’s War (1702-13)
Establishment of the United Kingdom (1707)
1710s
Parliament passed the Post Office Act for the colonies (1710)
Carolina splits into North and South (1712)
Slave uprising in New York City (1712)
Treaty of Utrecht ended Queen Anne’s War (1713)
Introduction of tea into the American colonies (1714)
Rule of George I (1714-27)
Establishment of New Orleans (1718)
1720s
Colonial population reaches 475,000 (1720)
Robert Walpole, prime minister of the United Kingdom (1721-42)
Rule of George II (1727-60)
Establishment of Baltimore (1729)
1730s
Great Awakening (1730s-1740s)
Old and New Lights
George Whitefield, New Light minister
William and Gilbert Tennant, New Light ministers
Hat Act (1732)
Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732)
Establishment of Georgia (Savannah) (1733)
James Oglethorpe, reformer and Georgia founder
Molasses Act (1733)
John Peter Zenger Trial (1734-5)
Stono Rebellion (1739)
War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-43)
1740s
Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741)
Czar Peter the Great sponsored expedition of Alaska’s coast (1741)
King George’s War (1744-8)
Founding of Princeton (College of New Jersey) (1746)
1750s
Iron Act (1750)
Currency Act (1751)
Founding of Pennsylvania College or The Academy (1751)
Albany Plan of Union (1754)
Founding of Columbia (King’s College) (1754)
French and Indian War (1754-63)
British expels French Canadians from Canada (1755)
Cherokee War (1758-61)
1760s
Writs of Assistance (1760s-70s)
Colonial population at 1.5m (1760)
Rule of George III (1760-1820)
Treaty of Paris ends the French and Indian War (1763)
Proclamation of 1763
Paxton Revolt (1763)
Wilkes Affair (1763)
Pontiac’s Rebellion (1763-6)
George Grenville, prime minister of the United Kingdom (1763-5)
Sugar Act (1764)
Currency Act (1764)
Founding of Brown (Rhode Island College) (1764)
Stamp Act (1765)
Virtual representation
Sons and Daughters of Liberty (1765)
Sam Adams, founder of the Sons of Liberty
Quartering Act (1765)
Attack on home of Thomas Hutchinson (1765)
Stamp Act Congress (1765-6)
Edmund Burke, member of Parliament (1765-80)
Founding of Rutgers (Queen’s College) (1766)
Parliament repealed the Stamp Act (1766)
Declaratory Act (1766)
Townsend Act (1767)
Regulator Movement (1767-71)
“Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania” (1767)
John Dickinson, Pennsylvania and Delaware politician
Massachusetts Circular Letter (1768)
Father Junipero Serra set up first mission in San Diego (1769)
Founding of Dartmouth College (1769)
1770s
Colonial population at 2.2m (1770)
Lord North, prime minister of Great Britain (1770-82)
The Shakers (1770-)
Boston Massacre (1770)
Crispus Attucks, first casualty of Boston shooting
Parliament repealed most of Townsend Acts (1770)
Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts (1771-4)
Gaspeé incident (1772)
Tea Act (1773)
Boston Tea Party (1773)
Committees of correspondence (1773)
Coercive Acts /Intolerable Acts (1774)
Quebec Act (1774)
First Continental Congress (1774)
Declaration of Rights and Grievances (1774)
The Association (1774)
Patrick Henry declared “Give me liberty or give me death” (1775)
First anti-slavery society by Philadelphia Quakers (1775)
Battles of Lexington (“Shot heard ‘round the world”) and Concord (1775)
Paul Revere and William Dawes
Second Continental Congress (1775)
Battle of Bunker Hill (Breeds Hill) (1775)
Olive Branch Petition (1775)
Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Arms (1775)
George Washington as Continental Commander (1775)
Lord Dunmore’s emancipation (1775)
Richard Henry Lee’s Resolution (1776)
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776)
Declaration of Independence (1776)
Thomas Jefferson, Virginia representative
Thomas Hobbs, John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu
Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams
Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben
Benedict Arnold and John Paul Jones and the Bonhomme Richard
Battles of Saratoga, Valley Forge and Yorktown
Articles of Confederation (1777)
Franco-American Alliance (1778)
Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom (1779)
1780s
Lord Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown (1781)
Newburgh Conspiracy (1783)
Treaty of Paris ended War for Independence (1783)
Land Ordinance Act (1785)
Shays’ Rebellion (1786)
Annapolis Convention (1786)
Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom (1786)
Constitutional Convention (1787)
Federalists and Anti-Federalists
Virginia and New Jersey Plans (1787)
The Great Compromise (1787)
3/5th Compromise (1787)
Northwest Ordinance (1787)
Federalist Papers (1787-8)
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
Ratification of the U.S. Constitution (1788)
George Washington administration (1789-97)
First cabinet departments (State, Treasury, War, Attorney General) (1789)
Judiciary Act of 1789
Revenue Act (Tariff Act) of 1789
French Revolution (1789)
1790s
Second Great Awakening (1790s)
George Washington administration (1789-97)
Report on Public Credit (1790)
Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)
Toussaint L’Overture
Report on Manufactures (1791)
Bank of the United States (1791)
Elastic or necessary and proper clause
Bill of Rights (1791)
Excise (Whiskey) tax (1791)
Citizen Genêt (1793)
French Revolution’s Reign of Terror (1793)
Neutrality Proclamation (1793)
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin (1794)
Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794)
General “Mad” Anthony Wayne
Whiskey Rebellion (1794)
Jay’s Treaty (1795)
Pinckney Treaty (1795)
Treaty of Greenville (1795)
Washington’s Farewell Address (1796)
General election of 1796 – Adams, Jefferson, Pinckney, Burr
John Adams administration (1797-1801)
XYZ Affair (1797)
Talleyrand, French foreign minister
Eli Whitney’s interchangeable parts (1798)
Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798-9)
nullification
1800s
Impressment
Convention of 1800
Prosser’s (Gabriel’s) Rebellion (1800)
Treaty of Sam Ildefonso (1800)
Washington, D.C. became nation’s capital (1800)
General election of 1800 – Jefferson, Burr, Adams, Pinckney
Thomas Jefferson administration (1801-9)
Albert Gallatin, Treasury Secretary
John Marshall, Chief Justice (1801-1835)
Barbary War (1801-5)
Judiciary Act (1801)
Midnight Judges (1801)
Repeal of excise tax (1802)
Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Louisiana Purchase (1803)
Twelfth Amendment (1803)
General election of 1804 – Jefferson v Pinckney
Impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase (1804-5)
Burr Conspiracy (1804-7)
Lewis and Clark expedition (1804)
Robert Fulton’s steamboat (1807)
Chesapeake Affair (1807)
Embargo Act (1807)
Slave importation ban (1808)
General election of 1808 – Madison v. Pinckney
James Madison administration (1809-17)
Non-Intercourse Act (1809)
1810s
Macon’s Bill No. 2 (1810)
Fletcher v. Peck (1810)
War Hawk Congress (1810-2)
Battle of Tippacanoe (1811)
William Henry Harrison
Tecumseh and the Prophet
War of 1812
General election of 1812 – Madison v. Clinton
Francis Scott Key and the Star-Spangled Banner (1812)
Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland
Essex Junto (1812-4)
Hartford Convention (1814)
Treaty of Ghent ends War of 1812 (1814)
Battle of New Orleans (1815)
Second Bank of the United States (1816)
Tariff of 1816
General election of 1816 – Monroe v. King
Rush-Bagot Treaty (1817)
Andrew Jackson’s invasion of Florida against Seminoles (1817)
James Monroe administration (1817-25)
Era of Good Feelings
Convention of 1818
Emma Willard’s Plan for Improving Female Education (1818)
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819)
Adams-Onís Treaty (1819)
Panic of 1819
1820s
Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book (1820)
Tallmadge and Thomas Amendments (1820)
Missouri Compromise (1820)
36’30”
General election of 1820 – Monroe v. Adams
Cohens v. Virginia (1821)
First American settlement in Texas (1822)
Stephen F. Austin
Monroe Doctrine (1823)
James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales (1823)
American System – Henry Clay (1824)
Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)
General election of 1824 – Adams, Jackson, Clay, Crawford
“corrupt bargain” (1824)
John Quincy Adams administration (1825-9)
Cumberland (National) Road (1825)
Lyceum Movement (1825)
Erie Canal (1825)
James Fennimore Cooper’s The Last of Mohicans (1826)
American Temperance Society (1826)
General election of 1828 – Jackson v. Adams
Anti-Masons Party (1828)
Tariff of 1828 (Tariff of Abominations)
Nullification Crisis (1828-33)
Andrew Jackson administration (1828-37)
Kitchen Cabinet
Spoils System
1830s
Horace Mann’s education reform (1830s-40s)
Grimke Sisters (1830s-50s)
Lowell System (1830s-50s)
Whig Party (1830s-50s)
Nativists (1830s-1900s)
Founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1830)
Joseph Smith
Maysville Road veto (1830)
Webster-Hayne debates (1830)
Indian Removal Act (1830)
Peggy Eaton Affair (1830-1)
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1831)
Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831)
William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator (1831-65)
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831)
Worcester v. Georgia (1832)
Resignation of VP John Calhoun (1832)
Bank War (1832-7)
Nicolas Biddle, Bank of US president
General election of 1832 – Jackson v. Clay
American Anti-Slavery Party (1833)
Founding of Oberlin College (1833)
Compromise Tariff of 1833
Force Act of 1833
Texas war for independence (1835-6)
Sam Houston
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical reaper (1835)
Charles Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835)
Battle at the Alamo (1836)
Battle of San Jacinto (1836)
Texas Republic (1836-45)
Rio Grande or Nueces River
Founding of Mt. Holyoke Seminary (1836)
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature (1836)
Transcendentalism
Gag rule (1836)
Specie circular (1836)
General election of 1836 – Van Buren v. Harrison, Webster, White
Martin Van Buren administration (1837-41)
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837)
Panic of 1837
Trail of Tears (1838-9)
Frederick Douglass’ The North Star (1838-51)
Theodore Weld’s “American slavery as it is” (1839)
Panic of 1839
1840s
Manifest Destiny (1840s-50s)
Hudson River School of Art (1840s)
Dorothea Dix and mental health reform (1840s)
The Dial and Margaret Fuller (1840-2)
General election of 1840 – Harrison v. Van Buren
William Henry Harrison administration (1841)
Death of William Henry Harrison (1841)
John Tyler administration (1841-45)
Brook Farm (1841)
Oregon Trail (1842-1850s)
Oregon Fever
Dorr’s Rebellion (1842)
Webster-Ashburton Treaty (1842)
Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)
Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Hunt (1842)
Elias Howe’s sewing machine (1844)
Samuel Morse’s display of the telegraph machine (1844)
The Millerites (1844)
General election of 1844 – Polk v. Clay
James K. Polk administration (1845-49)
Annexation of Texas (1845)
Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)
Mexican-American War (1846-8)
Spot resolutions
Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott
Wilmot Proviso (1846)
Oregon Treaty (1846)
54’40” or Fight (1846)
Bear Flag Republic (1846)
John Fremont
Free Soil Party (1848-52)
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)
Nicolas Trist
Seneca Falls Declarations of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott
The Oneida Community (1848)
Sutter’s Mill – gold discovery (1848)
General election of 1848 – Taylor v. Cass
The California Gold Rush (1849)
Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience (1849)
Zachary Taylor administration (1849-50)
1850s
“King Cotton” (1850s)
Height of Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad (1850s)
Know Nothing (American) Party (1850s)
Death of Zachary Taylor (1850)
Millard Fillmore administration (1850-3)
Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay, John Calhoun, Daniel Webster (Great Compromisers)
Stricter fugitive slave law
Sen. Stephen Douglas (D-IL) and popular sovereignty
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850)
Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851)
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
General election of 1852 – Pierce v. Scott
Gadsden Purchase (1853)
Franklin Pierce administration (1853-7)
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854)
Treaty of Kanagania (1854)
Commodore Matthew Perry
Amana Colonies (1854)
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)
Steven Douglas
Bleedin’ Kanas (1854-8)
John Brown
Lawrence and Pottawattamie Creek
Republican Party (1854)
Ostend Manifesto (1854)
George Fitzhugh’s Sociology for the South (1854)
Copperheads (late 1850s)
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855)
Summer-Brooks Affair (1856)
General election of 1856 – Buchanan v. Fremont
James Buchanan administration (1857-61)
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
Chief Justice Roger Taney
Panic of 1857
Hinton Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South (1857)
Lecompton Constitution (1857)
Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
Freeport Doctrine (1858)
Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech (1858)
Comstock Lode (1859)
Ableman v. Booth (1859)
Harper’s Ferry assault (1859)
1860s
Crittenden Compromise (1860)
General election of 1860 – Lincoln, Breckenridge, Douglas, Bell
Constitutional Union Party (1860)
Fort Sumter (1860)
Abraham Lincoln administration (1861-5)
American Civil War (1861-5)
George McClellan, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee
Battle of Bull Run (1861)
ironclads (Merrimack and Monitor)
Confederate States of America (1861-5)
Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens
Dorothea Dix as Superintendent of Union Nurses (1861)
Greenbacks (1862-75)
Homestead Act (1862)
Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862
Pacific Railway Act (1862)
Union Pacific Railroad, Central Pacific Railroad
Battle of Antietam (1862)
Molly Maguires (1862-76)
Emancipation Proclamation (1863)
Battle of Gettysburg (1863)
Gettysburg Address (1863)
New York Draft Riots (1863)
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction (1863)
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
General election of 1864 – Lincoln v. McClellan
Surrender at Appomattox Court House (1865)
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1865)
John Wilkes Booth
Radical Republicans
Thaddeus Stevens, U.S. senator
Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
Horace Greeley’s “Go West, young man” (1865)
Andrew Johnson administration (1865-9)
National Labor Union (1866)
Civil Rights Bill of 1866
Alaska purchase (1867)
National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry (1867)
Tenure of Office Act (1867)
Secretary of War William Seward
Military Reconstruction Act (1867)
black codes
Ku Klux Klan
carpetbaggers and scalawags
Freedman’s Bureau (1867-72)
General Oliver Howard, director of Freedmen’s Bureau
Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
Johnson impeachment trial (1868)
General election of 1868 – Grant v. Seymour
“waving the bloody shirt”/”vote as you shot”
Ulysses S. Grant administration (1869-77)
Knights of Labor (1869-1949)
Transcontinental Railroad and Promontory Point (1869)
Jay Gould/Jim Fiske and Black Friday (1869)
1870s
Gilded Age (1870s-90s)
Ghost Dance (1870s-90s)
Gold and Silver Bugs (1870s-90s)
Robber Barons (1870s-1900s)
horizontal and vertical integration
agribusiness
interlocking directorates
Social Darwinism (1870s-1900s)
laissez-faire (1870s-1930s)
End of Tammany Hall (1870s)
Jim Crow laws (1870s)
Hiram Revels, first black senator elected (1870)
Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
Grandfather Clause
Force Acts (1870-1)
Standard Oil Company (1870)
Yellowstone National Park (1872)
U.S. Steel (1872)
Credit Mobilier scandal (1872)
General election of 1872 – Grant v. Greeley
Panic of 1873
Chautauqua Movement (1874)
Resumption Act of 1875
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Mississippi Plan (1875)
Greenback Party (c. 1876-84)
Little Big Horn (1876)
George Custer, Sitting Bull
Farmers’ Alliance (1876)
General election of 1876 – Hayes v. Tilden
Compromise of 1877
Rutherford B. Hayes administration (1877-81)
Capture of Chief Joseph (1877)
Redeemers
Munn v. Illinois (1877)
Great Railroad Strike (1877)
Halfbreeds and Stalwarts (late 1870s)
Roscoe Conklin, U.S. senator and lead Stalwart
Bland-Allison Act (1878)
Exodusters (1878-9)
closed shops and yellow dog contracts
Species Resumption Act (1879)
Christian Scientists (1879)
Mary Baker Eddy
1880s
General election of 1880 – Garfield v. Hancock
James Garfield administration (1881)
Assassination of James Garfield (1881)
Charles Guiteau
Chester Arthur administration (1881-5)
Pendleton Civil Service Act (1881)
Tuskegee Institute (1881)
Booker T. Washington and his “Atlanta Compromise”
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Denis Kearney and Workingmen’s Party
General election of 1884 – Cleveland v. Blaine
Mugwumps (1884)
Grover Cleveland administration (1885-9)
Josiah Strong’s Our Country (1885)
Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois (1886)
Haymarket Square Riot (1886)
American Federation of Labor (1886)
Samuel Gompers
Interstate Commerce Act (1887)
Interstate Commerce Commission
American Protective Association (1887)
Dawes Severalty Act (1887)
General election of 1888 – Harrison v. Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison administration (1889-93)
Jane Addams and the Hull House (1889)
Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth (1889)
Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives (1889)
1890s
Benjamin Harrison administration (1889-93)
Yellow Journalism (1890s)
William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer
Frederick Taylor and scientific management (1890s-1910s)
Social Gospel Movement (1890s-1920s)
Walter Rauschenbusch, Washington Gladden, Dwight L. Moody
United Mine Workers (1890)
Mother Jones
Morrill Land Grant Act (1890)
Battle of Wounded Knee (1890)
Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890)
McKinley Tariff (1890)
Mississippi Plan (1890)
Baltimore Affair (1891)
Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani (1891-3)
Homestead Strike (1892)
General election of 1892 – Cleveland v. Harrison
Populist Party (1892)
Tom Watson, James Weaver, Bill Tillman, Mary Lease, William J. Bryan
Grover Cleveland administration (1893-7)
Frederick Turner’s Frontier Thesis (1893)
Panic of 1893
Pullman Car Company Strike (1894)
American Railway Union
Eugene Debs
In Re Debs (1894)
Wilson-Gorman Tariff (1894)
Coxey’s Army (1894)
United States v. E.C. Knight Company (1895)
Venezuelan border dispute (1895)
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
General election of 1896 – McKinley v. Bryan
William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold Speech” (1896)
William McKinley administration (1897-1901)
Annexation of Hawai’i (1898)
U.S.S. Maine (1898)
de Lome letter (1898)
Spanish-American War (1898)
Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders (1898)
Emilio Aguinaldo
Teller Amendment (1898)
Treaty of Paris (1898)
Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines
American Anti-Imperialist League (1898)
Filipino War (1899-1900)
Open Door Policy (1899)
Secretary of State John Hay
John Dewey’s The School and Society (1899)
Thorstein Velben’s The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
1900s
Muckrakers (1900s-10s)
Jacob Riis, Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Thorstein Velben
Boxer Rebellion (1900)
General election of 1900 – McKinley v. Bryan
Assassination of William McKinley (1901)
Theodore Roosevelt administration (1901-9)
Square Deal
Gifford Pinchot
Progressive Era (1901-20)
recall, referendum, initiative, secret ballot
Robert La Follette, Sr. and the Wisconsin Experiment
The Anti-Saloon League
Women’s Christian Temperance Union
Carrie Nation, Francis Willard
National American Woman Suffrage Association
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt
National Woman’s Party
Alice Paul
Platt Amendment (1901)
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (1901)
insular cases (1901-4)
Newlands Reclamation Act (1902)
Elkins Act (1903)
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903)
Wright Brothers – first flight (1903)
General election of 1904 – Roosevelt v. Parker
Roosevelt Corollary (1904)
Lincoln Steffens’ The Shame of the Cities (1904)
Ida Tarbell’s History of the Standard Oil Company (1904)
Treaty of Portsmouth (1905)
Industrial Workers of the World (1905)
Bill Haywood, Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Daniel De Leon
Niagara Movement (1905)
W.E.B. du Bois
Hepburn Act (1906)
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906)
Meat Inspection Act (1906)
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906)
Ashcan School of Art (1907)
Gentlemen’s Agreement (1907)
Great White Fleet (1907-9)
Root-Takahira Agreement (1908)
Muller v. Oregon (1908)
Henry Ford and the Model T (1908)
assembly line
General election of 1908 – Taft v. Bryan
William Howard Taft administration (1909-13)
Dollar Diplomacy
Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909)
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1909)
1910s
Margaret Sanger and birth control advocacy (1910s)
Harlem Renaissance (1910s-30s)
Mann-Elkins Act (1910)
Mexican Revolution (1910-7)
Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Porfirio Diaz, Francisco Madero, Venustiano
Carranza
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (1911)
US occupation of Nicaragua (1912-33)
General election of 1912 – Wilson, Taft, Roosevelt, Debs
New Freedom (Wilson), New Nationalism (Roosevelt)
Woodrow Wilson administration (1913-21)
Moral Diplomacy
“Triple Wall of Privilege”
Sixteenth Amendment (1913)
Seventeenth Amendment (1913)
Federal Reserve Act and System (1913)
Underwood-Simmons Tariff (1913)
Federal Trade Commission (1914)
Clayton Anti-Trust Act (1914)
United Negro Improvement Association (1914)
Marcus Garvey
Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)
World War I (1914-8)
Sinking of the Lusitania (1915)
Birth of a Nation (1915)
US occupation of Haiti (1915-37)
John Dewey’s Democracy and Education (1916)
Federal Highways Act (1916)
Sussex Pledge (Ultimatum) of 1916
Jones Act of 1916
General election of 1916 – Wilson v. Hughes
Jones (Shafroth) Act of 1917
Lansing-Ishii Agreement (1917)
Zimmerman Note (1917)
Selective Service Act of 1917
Creel Committee on Public Information (1917)
War Industries Board (1917)
Bernard Baruch
Communist Revolution (1917)
Vladimir Lenin
Espionage Act of 1917
Sedition Act of 1918
Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the League of Nations
Eighteenth Amendment (1919)
Treaty of Versailles (1919)
Article X (1919)
Henry Cabot Lodge
Volstead Act (1919)
Schenck v. U.S. (1919)
Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer (1919-21)
Palmer Raids
Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party (1919)
1920s
The Lost Generation (1920s)
The Jazz Age (1920s)
Flappers
Speakeasies (1920s)
Red Scare (1920s)
The Great Migration (1920s-30s)
Nineteenth Amendment (1920)
League of Women Voters (1920)
General election of 1920 – Harding v. Cox
Warren Harding administration (1921-3)
The Ohio Gang (1921-3)
Teapot Dome Scandal (1921-3)
Interior Secretary Albert Fall
Washington Naval Armament Conference (1921)
Sacco and Vanzetti trial (1921)
Nine Power Treaty (1923)
Warren Harding’s death (1923)
Calvin Coolidge administration (1923-9)
Immigration Act of 1924
National Origins Act of 1924
The Dawes Plan (1924)
General election of 1924 – Coolidge v. Davis (La Follette)
The Scopes “Monkey” Trial (1925)
McNary-Haugen Bill (1927)
Kellogg-Briand Act (1928)
General election of 1928 – Hoover v. Smith
Herbert Hoover administration (1929-33)
Black Tuesday/Stock Market crash (1929)
Hoovervilles (1929)
1930s
Dust Bowl (1930s)
Okies (1930s)
Great Depression (1930s)
Hoovervilles (1930s)
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930)
Hoover Dam construction (1930)
Star-Spangled Banner made the national anthem (1931)
Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932)
Hoover-Stimson Doctrine (1932)
Bonus Army (1932)
General election of 1932 – Roosevelt v. Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt administration (1933-45)
fireside chats
The Brain Trust (1933-45)
Black Cabinet
The New Deal (1933)
First hundred days (1933)
The Three R’s (1933)
National Industrial Recovery Administration (NIRA) of 1933
Section 7a (1933)
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1933
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) of 1933
Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933
Glass-Steagall Act/FDIC (1933)
National Recovery Administration (NRA) of 1933
Public Works Administration (PWA) of 1933
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) of 1933
Adolf Hitler as the German chancellor (1933)
Montevideo Conference (1933)
London Economic Conference (1933)
Good Neighbor Policy
Dr. Francis Townsend and the Townsend Plan (1933)
Securities and Exchange Commission (1934)
Indian Reorganization Act (1934)
Tydings-McDuffie Act (1934)
American Liberty League (1934-40)
Sen. Huey Long (D-LA) and Share Our Wealth Program (1934)
Assassination of Huey Long (1935)
National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935
Works Progress Administration (WPA) OF 1935
Social Security Act of 1935
Judicial Reorganization Bill or the Court Packing bill (1935)
United Auto Workers (1935)
Spanish Civil War (1935-8)
Francisco Franco
Neutrality Acts (1935, 36, 37, 39)
Military overthrow of Japanese government (1936)
General election of 1936 – Roosevelt v. Landon
Roosevelt’s Quarantine Speech (1937)
The Second New Deal (1937)
Congress of Industrial Organizations (1938)
Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)
Munich Conference (1938)
Conservative Coalition (1938)
House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC (1938-75)
World War II (1939-45)
Hatch Act (1939)
Neutrality Act of 1939
Cash-and-Carry (1939)
Office of Price Administration (OPA) of 1939
1940s
Bracero program (1940s)
Destroyers for Bases (1940)
Smith Act (1940)
Selective Training and Service Act (1940)
General election of 1940 – Roosevelt v. Wilkie
Lend-Lease Act (1941)
Tojo Hideki as Japan’s prime minister (1941-4)
Fair Employment Practices Committee (1941)
Pearl Harbor (1941)
Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps or WAAC (1941)
Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service or WAVES (1942)
Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron or WAFS (1942)
Voice of America (1942)
Navajo Code Talkers
Office of War Information (OWI) of 1942
Office of War Mobilization (OMW) of 1942
Wannsee Conference (1942)
The Holocaust (1942-5)
Manhattan Project (1942-6)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Executive Order 9066 (1942)
Casablanca Conference (1943)
Zoot Suit Riots (1943)
Cairo Conference (1943)
Tehran Conference (1943)
Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (1943)
G.I. Bill (1944)
Korematsu v. United States (1944)
island hopping campaign (1944-5)
D-Day (1944)
Charles de Gaulle
French Resistance
General election of 1944 – Roosevelt v. Dewey
Battle of the Bulge (1945)
Yalta Conference (1945)
Harry S. Truman administration (1945-53)
kamikazes (1945)
German and Japan’s surrender (1945)
Potsdam Conference (1945)
Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)
United Nations (1945)
International Monetary Fund or IMF (1945)
Nuremberg International Tribunal (1945)
End of Chinese Civil War (1945-7)
Chinese Community Party, Kuomintang
Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-Shek
Tokyo International Tribunal (1946)
Employment Act of 1946
Iran Crisis (1946)
Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech (1946)
satellite countries (1946-91)
Josef “Marshall” Tito
Taft-Hartley Act (1947)
National Security Act (1947)
Department of Defense (1947)
Central Intelligence Agency (1947)
Truman Doctrine (1947)
George Kennan’s containment policy (1947)
UN Partition Plan for Israel and Palestine (1947)
Fall of China (1948)
Marshall Plan (1948)
Organization of American States or OAS (1948)
General election of 1948 – Truman v. Dewey; Thurmond and Wallace
Berlin Airlift (1948-9)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO (1949)
Harry Truman’s Fair Deal (1949)
1950s
Civil Rights Movement (1950s-70s)
Baby boom generation (1950s)
Korean War (1950-3)
38th Parallel
McCarran Internal Security Act (1950)
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1950)
Alger Hiss (1950)
McCarthyism (1950-5)
European Economic Community (1951)
Twenty-second Amendment (1951)
General election of 1952 – Eisenhower v. Stevenson
Dwight D. Eisenhower administration (1953-61)
John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State
Eisenhower Doctrine
domino theory
massive retaliation
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64)
Warren Court (1953-69)
Overthrow of Iran’s Mohammad Mossadegh (1953)
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954)
Battle of Dienbienphu (1954)
Ho Chi Minh
Geneva Conference (1954)
AFL-CIO merger (1955)
Warsaw Pact (1955)
Geneva Summit (1955)
Southeast Asian Treaty Organization or SEATO (1955)
Central Treaty Organization or CENTO (1955)
Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine (1955)
Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-6)
Rosa Parks, Civil Rights activist
Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Rights activist
Aswan Dam (1956)
Gamal Abdul Nasser, president of Egypt
National Highway Act (1956)
Hungarian Uprising (1956)
Suez Canal crisis (1956)
General election of 1956 – Eisenhower v. Stevenson
beatniks (late 1950s-60s)
Sputnik (1957)
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Little Rock’s Central High School and the Little Rock Nine (1957)
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957)
Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa (1957-71)
National Defense Education Act (1958)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1958)
John Birch Society (1958)
St. Lawrence Seaway (1959)
Cuban Revolution (1959)
Fidel Castro, dictator of Cuba (1959-2008)
Alaska and Hawai’i enter the Union (1959)
1960s
Height of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X (1960s)
U-2 Spy Incident (1960)
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee or SNCC (1960)
General election of 1960 – Kennedy v. Nixon
John F. Kennedy administration (1961-3)
New Frontier
Bay of Pigs (1961)
Freedom Summer (1961)
Freedom Riders (1961)
Peace Corps (1961)
Alliance for Progress (1961)
Berlin Wall (1961-89)
Baker v. Carr (1962)
Engel v. Vitale (1962)
Port Huron Statement (1962)
Students for a Democratic Society (1962)
John Glenn orbits the Earth – first American to do so (1962)
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962)
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
Red phone
United Farm Workers of America (1962)
Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
March on Washington (1963)
“I Have a Dream” speech (1963)
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
Assassination of John F. Kennedy (1963)
Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin
Jack Ruby, Oswald’s killer
Lyndon B. Johnson administration (1963-9)
Warren Commission (1963-4)
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963)
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963)
Berkeley Free Speech Movement (1964-5)
Mario Savio
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Twenty-Fourth Amendment (1964)
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)
General election of 1964 – Johnson v. Goldwater
Vietnam War (1964-73)
Vietcong
Ho Chi Minh Trail
Watts (Los Angeles) neighborhood riots (1965)
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Great Society and the war on poverty (1965)
Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps
Immigration Act of 1965
Ralph Nader, safety activist
Assassination of Malcolm X (1965)
Black Panthers (1966-1980s)
black power
Stokely Carmichael, SNCC President
Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
Department of Housing and Urban Development (1966)
Department of Transportation (1966)
Office of Equal Opportunity (1966)
National Organization for Women (1966)
Counter Culture Movement or Hippies (late 1960s-early 1970s)
Kerner Commission (1967)
Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court (1967)
Six Day War (1967)
Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967)
Yasser Arafat, PLO leader
Civil Rights Act of 1968
American Indian Movement (1968-78)
Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr (1968)
Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (1968)
Tet Offensive (1968)
My Lai massacre (1968)
U.S.S. Pueblo incident (1968)
Democratic National Convention in Chicago (1968)
General election of 1968 – Nixon v. Humphrey
American Independent Party (1968)
George Wallace
Richard Nixon administration (1969-74)
Henry Kissinger
Vietnamization (1969)
Stonewall Inn riots (1969)
Woodstock Music Festival (1969)
Neil Armstrong and the landing on the Moon (1969)
1970s
stagflation
Salvador Allende, president of Chile (1970-3)
Kent State/Jackson State shootings (1970)
Clean Air Act (1970)
Environmental Protection Agency (1970)
U.S. completely off gold standard (1971)
Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (1971)
Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971)
wage and price controls (1971)
Committee to Reelect the President or CREEP (1972)
Plumbers
Clean Water Act (1972)
Equal Rights Amendment of 1972
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I (1972)
Nixon visits China (1972)
Watergate scandal (1972-4)
General election of 1972 – Nixon v. McGovern
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) embargo (1973)
Paris Peace Accords (1973)
War Powers Act (1973)
Resignation of VP Spiro Agnew (1973)
Yom Kippur War (1973)
Roe v. Wade (1973)
Resignation of Richard Nixon (1974)
Fall of Saigon (1975)
Alaskan Pipeline (1975)
Gerald Ford administration (1974-7)
Pardon of Richard Nixon
Amnesty for Vietnam draft dodgers
General election of 1976 – Carter v. Ford
Jimmy Carter administration (1977-81)
Panama Canal Treaty (1977)
Drive 55 campaign (1977)
Department of Energy (1977)
Department of Education (1977)
Camp David Accords (1978)
Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat
Three Mile Island (1979)
Iranian Revolution and American hostages (1979)
Shah of Iran Reza Pahlavi
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II (1979)
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979)
1980s
Civil War between the Sandinistas and Contras (1980s)
AIDS emergence and crisis (1980s)
U.S. boycott of Olympic Games in Moscow (1980)
General election of 1980 – Reagan v. Carter
Ronald Reagan administration (1981-9)
Release of American hostages in Iran (1981)
The Reagan Revolution
supply-side economics
Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority
Assassination attempt on Reagan (1981)
John Hinckley
Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court (1981)
Falkland War (1982)
Strategic Defense Initiative (1983)
Suicide bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon (1983)
US invasion of Grenada (1983)
Soviet and Eastern European boycott of Los Angeles Summer Games (1984)
General election of 1984 – Reagan v. Mondale
Geraldine Ferraro
Live Aid and Farm Aid concerts (1985)
Bob Geldof and Willie Nelson
Geneva Conference (1985)
Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet Premier (1985-91)
glasnost and perestroika
Iran-Contra scandal (1985-9)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day established (1986)
Immigration and Control Act of 1986
Explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger (1986)
Failed nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court (1987)
Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (1987)
“Tear Down This Wall” Reagan speech in Berlin (1987)
General election of 1988 – Bush v. Dukakis
George H.W. Bush administration (1989-93)
Exxon Valdez crash in Alaska’s Prince William Sound (1989)
Savings and Loan Bailout (1989)
Colin Powell, first African-American Chief of Staff (1989)
Berlin Wall falls (1989)
1990s
The Soviet Union begins to break apart (1990)
Hubble Space Telescope launched (1990)
Iraq invasion of Kuwait (1990)
Saddam Hussein
Operation Desert Storm (1991)
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty I (1991)
Breakup of the Soviet Union (1991)
Commonwealth of Independent States (1991)
Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992)
Ruby Ridge siege by US marshals (1992)
Rodney King riots in Los Angeles (1992)
General election of 1992 – Clinton, Bush, Perot
Bill Clinton administration (1993-2001)
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (1993)
Oslo Accords (1993)
North American Free Trade Agreement (1993)
World Trade Center bombing (1993)
Branch Davidian cult siege and fall (1993)
Family and Medical Leave Act (1993)
Brady Law (1993)
Motor Voter Registration Act (1993)
U.S. troops in Somalia (1993)
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda
Clinton health care reform proposal (1993-4)
Contract for America (1994)
Dayton Peace Accords (1994)
Whitewater hearings (1994)
Kenneth Starr, independent council
World Trade Organization (1994)
Oklahoma City bombing (1995)
Timothy McVeigh
Government shutdown (1995-6)
California Proposition 209 (1996)
Atlanta Olympics bombing (1996)
Monica Lewinsky scandal (1998)
Terrorist attacks on two U.S. embassies in east Africa (1998)
Bill Clinton impeachment and trial (1999)
Columbine school shootings (1999)
2000s
Elian Gonzalez case (2000)
USS Cole bombing (2000)
General election of 2000 – Bush v. Gore
Gore v. Bush (2000)
George W. Bush administration (2001-9)
U.S. rejection of Kyoto Protocol (2001)
September 11th attacks (2001)
“War on Terror” (2001)
Taliban
Patriot Act (2001)
No Child Left Behind (2002)
“Axis of Evil” speech (2002)
Establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (2002)
Space Shuttle Columbia destruction (2003)
Iraq War (2003-)
Massachusetts first state to recognize gay marriage (2004)
General election of 2004 – Bush v. Kerry
Southeast Asia tsunami (2004)
Failed attempt at Social Security reform (2005)
Hurricane Katrina (2005)
Execution of Saddam Hussein (2006)
Nancy Pelosi, first female Speaker of the House (2007)
Government control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (2008)
Government bailout of failing banks (2008)
General election of 2008 – Obama v. McCain
Government bailout of auto industry (2008)
Barack Obama administration (2009-Present)
Economic Stimulus Law (2009)
2010s
The Affordable Care Act (2010)
BP Oil Rig explosion (2010)
Wall Street Reform (2010)
Death of Osama bin Laden (2011)
End of U.S. military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (2011)
Attacks on U.S. Consulate in Benghazi (2011)
U.S. troops out of Iraq (2011)
General election of 2012 – Obama v. Romney
Boston Marathon bombing (2013)
Russian invasion of Ukraine (2014)
Rise of ISIS (2014)
Normalization of relations with Cuba (2014)