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Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Second Continental Congress, states the reasons the British colonies of North America sought independence. -
Louisiana Purchase
The purchase by the United States from France of the huge Louisiana Territory in 1803. President Thomas Jefferson ordered the purchase negotiations, fearing that the French, then led by Napoleon, wanted to establish an empire in North America. -
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States, the United Kingdom, and their respective allies. -
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Mexican American War
Mexican cavalry attacked a group of U.S. soldiers in the disputed zone under the command of General Zachary Taylor, killing about a dozen. They then laid siege to an American fort along the Rio Grande. -
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Civil War
The Civil War was started when southern states seceded from the Union after the election of Abraham Lincoln. The Confederate President was Jefferson Davis. -
Statue of Liberty
The copper statue, a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States, was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. The statue was dedicated on October 28, 1886. -
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Spanish American War
The Spanish–American War was fought between the United States and Spain. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. -
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Building of the Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a man-made water passage that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The canal is a major passageway for trade and makes trips across the oceans much faster. -
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World War 1
World War One was a global war fought by the Central Powers and the Allies. The Central Powers consisted of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. The Allies were Serbia, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium and the United States. -
Zimmerman Telegram
n the telegram, intercepted and deciphered by British intelligence in January 1917, Zimmermann instructed the ambassador, Count Johann von Bernstorff, to offer significant financial aid to Mexico if it agreed to enter any future U.S-German conflict as a German ally. -
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Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
Kellogg-Brand Pact
The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an agreement to outlaw war. The agreement was signed in Paris, so sometimes it is referred to the Pact of Paris. -
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Great Depression
The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. -
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World War II
The second World War began with Germany's invasion of Poland, which led Britain and France to declare war on Germany. -
Pearl Harbor
n the night of Sunday, October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, leaving 58 people dead and 851 injured. -
D-Day
Also known as Operation Overload, the battle commenced when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France's Normandy region. -
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Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Marine and Army forces against the Imperial Japanese Army. -
United Nations Founded
A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II with the aim of preventing another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. -
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Cold War
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were the world's strongest nations. They were called superpowers. They had different ideas about economics and government. They fought a war of ideas called the Cold War. -
Rio Pact
The Rio Pact was an agreement binding the republics of the Western Hemisphere together in a mutual defense system. -
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was an American initiative to aid Western Europe, in which the United States gave over $13,000,000,000 in economic assistance to help rebuild Western European economies after the end of World War II. -
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Berlin Blockade
The Berlin Blockade was one of the first major international crises of the Cold War. The Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. -
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (North Atlantic Alliance), is a military alliance between many U.S. and European countries. -
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Korean War
The Korean War was fought in the early 1950s between the United Nations, supported by the United States, and the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). The war began when North Korea invaded South Korea. -
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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. -
Bay of Pigs
The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA-financed and trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. The attack was an utter failure. -
Berlin Wall (rise)
During the early years of the Cold War, West Berlin was a geographical loophole through which thousands of East Germans fled to the democratic West. In response, the Communist East German authorities built a wall that totally encircled West Berlin. -
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Cuban Missile Crisis
A confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962 over the presence of missile sites in Cuba; one of the “hottest” periods of the cold war. -
Detente
Detente is the name given to a period of improved relations between the United States and the Soviet Union that began tentatively in 1971 and took decisive form when President Richard M. Nixon visited the secretary-general of the Soviet Communist party, Leonid I. Brezhne. -
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Salt 1 & 2
These agreements were signed by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1972 (Salt 1) and 1979 (Salt 2) and were intended to restrain the arms race in strategic ballistic missiles armed with nuclear weapons. -
Camp David Accords Signed
At the White House in Washington, D.C., Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords, laying the groundwork for a permanent peace agreement between Egypt and Israel after three decades of hostilities. -
US Invades Grenada
President Ronald Reagan, citing the threat posed to American nationals on the Caribbean nation of Grenada by that nation's Marxist regime, orders the Marines to invade and secure their safety. -
Berlin Wall (fall)
As the Cold War began to thaw across Eastern Europe, the spokesman for East Berlin's Communist Party announced a change in his city's relations with the West. Starting at midnight that day, he said, citizens of the GDR were free to cross the country's borders. -
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Persian Gulf War
A war between the forces of the United Nations, led by the United States, and those of Iraq that followed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein 's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. -
NAFTA
NAFTA is an agreement designed for the United States, Mexico, and Canada to remove tariff barriers between the countries. -
War on Terror
The War on Terror is the campaign launched by the United States of America in response to the September 11 attacks against organizations designated with terrorism. The campaign, whose stated objective was eliminating international terrorism, began in 2001. -
9/11
September 11th, 2001 was the day the twin towers fell due to a terroristic attack in New York City. The Islamic Group al-Queda hijacked four planes and flew them into the towers. -
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Iraq War
The American invasion of Iraq in March 2003 toppled the brutal authoritarian government of Saddam Hussein, but unleashed a massive sectarian civil war. -
Death of Osama Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist group Al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan by US Navy Seals. -
DACA
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) In response to the failure of the DREAM Act legislation to pass both houses of Congress, President Obama initiated the immigration policy known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in 2012.
