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1400
Age of Discovery
Period from the early 15th century that continued into the early 17th century, during which European ships traveled around the world to search for new trading routes and partners. -
1491
Christopher Columbus
An Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer. Born in the Republic of Genoa, under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. -
1492
Columbian Exchange
Widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and ideas between the Americas and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries, related to European colonization and trade after Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage. -
1506
Conquistador
Name given to the Fifteenth-to-Seventeenth century Spanish and Portugese soldiers who conquered much of the world, most famously the Central and Southern Americas. -
1512
The Encomienda System
The encomienda system was created by the Spanish to control and regulate American Indian labor and behavior during the colonization of the Americas. -
1520
Smallpox
After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90–95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases. It is suspected that smallpox was the chief culprit and responsible for killing nearly all of the native inhabitants of the Americas. -
1535
Bartolome de Las Casas
Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474-1566) was a Spanish priest, social reformer, and historian. He was the principal organizer and champion of the 16th-century movement in Spain and Spanish America in defense of the Indians. -
James Town
Home to the first permanent English settlement in North America. -
Quaker
Members of a historically Christian group of religious movements formally known as the Religious Society of Friends or Friends Church. -
Mercantilism
Economic policy that focused on building wealth for the mother country. The purpose of the colonies was to get goods out of the New World, send them back home, and get manufactured goods back. -
Pequot War
Armed conflict that took place between 1636 and 1638 in New England between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of the English colonists of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies and their Native American allies. -
Pueblo Revolt
Uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, present day New Mexico. -
Salem Witch Trials
Series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. -
Great Awakening
Protestant religious revival that swept Protestant Europe and British America in the 1730s and 1740s. An evangelical and revitalization movement, it left a permanent impact on American Protestantism. -
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was fought to decide if Britain or France would be the strong power in North America. France and its colonists and Indian allies fought against Britain, its colonists and Indian allies. The war began with conflicts about land. -
Proclamation of 1763
Issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, which forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
Sons of Liberty
Organization that was created in the Thirteen American Colonies. The secret society was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. -
Stamp Act
Passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre, known as the Incident on King Street by the British, was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers shot and killed people while under attack by a mob. -
Articles of Confederation
The original constitution of the US, ratified in 1781, which was replaced by the US Constitution in 1789. -
3/5 Compromise
Determined that each slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning taxes and representation. -
Louisiana Purchase
acquisition of the Louisiana territory by the United States from France in 1803. The U.S. paid fifty million francs and a cancellation of debts worth eighteen million francs for a total of sixty-eight million francs. -
War of 1812
Conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights. It ended with the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent. -
The Second Great Awakening
Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. -
Indian Removal Act
Authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. -
Trail of Tears
Series of forced removals of Native American nations from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to an area west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Led by Nat Turner, rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 people, the largest and deadliest slave uprising in U.S. history. -
Seneca Falls Convention
First women's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". -
Compromise of 1850
The south gained by the strengthening of the fugitive slave law, the north gained a new free state, California. Texas lost territory but was compensated with 10 million dollars to pay for its debt. Slave trade was prohibited in Washington DC, but slavery was not. -
Bleeding Kansas
Series of violent political confrontations in the United States between 1854 and 1861 involving anti-slavery "Free-Staters" and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian", or "southern" elements in Kansas. -
Dred Scott Standford Decision
The Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Standford was issued on March 6, 1857. This opinion declared that slaves were not citizens of the United States and could not sue in Federal courts. -
Anaconda Plan
The Anaconda Plan is the name applied to a U.S. Union Army outline strategy for suppressing the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War. -
Cornerstone Speech
Speech given by Alexander Stephens. Remembered mainly as evidence then and now that the "cornerstone" or true foundation of the Confederacy was slavery. -
Emancipation Proclomation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Second Wave Immigration
After a lull in immigration during the American Revolution and wars in Europe, a second wave of immigrants began arriving around 1820. Most of these newcomers entered the United States through New York City, instead of Philadelphia. -
The Gilded Age
Time between the Civil War and World War I during which the U.S. population and economy grew quickly, there was a lot of political corruption and corporate financial misdealings and many wealthy people lived very fancy lives. -
Battle of Little Bighorn
Sioux of northern plains- Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana territories- powerfully resisted white expansion. Sioux warriors slaughtered more then 80 soldiers under captain W.J. Fetterman. -
National Labor Union
Made up of skilled and unskilled workers, farmers, and reformers, called on Congress to order an eight-hour workday. The National Labor Union was created to pressure Congress to make labor law reforms. -
Reconstruction Act
Laid out the process for readmitting Southern states into the Union. -
Transcontinental Railroad
The first railroad built that crossed the nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific and was finished in 1869 after being built for 6 years. -
Homestead Strike
It was one of the most violent strikes in U.S. history. It was against the Homestead Steel Works, which was part of the Carnegie Steel Company, in Pennsylvania in retaliation against wage cuts. The riot was ultimately put down by Pinkerton Police and the state militia, and the violence further damaged the image of unions. -
The Model T
An automobile produced by the Ford Motor Company considered to be the first motor vehicle successfully mass-produced on an assembly line and the most affordable. -
Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink vessels such as freighters and tankers without warning. -
Zimmerman Telegram
Secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico in the prior event of the United States entering World War I against Germany. -
Palmer Raids
The Palmer Raids were a series of raids conducted by the United States Department of Justice to capture and arrest suspected radical leftists, especially anarchists, and deport them from the United States. -
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 -
Stock Market Crash
The Stock Market crashed after those who bought on margin were forced to either put up more money or sell their stock, choosing to sell. Thousands of people sold their stocks at once, and a financial panic ensued. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory. -
Baby Boom
After the war, families had tons of babies, creating this. Led to a 20% population growth during the 50's and led to increasing consumer demand. -
Begining of The Cold War
The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. -
Sputnik-1
Soviet Union launched the earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik-1. As a result, the launch of Sputnik served to intensify the arms race and raise Cold War tensions. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
13 day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning American ballistic missile deployment in Italy and Turkey with consequent Soviet ballistic missile deployment in Cuba. The confrontation is often considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. -
Tet Offensive
It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. The name of the offensive comes from the Tết holiday, the Vietnamese New Year, when the first major attacks took place. -
Plessy V Ferguson
Landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". -
War Powers Act
Federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. -
Reaganomics
Tax relief for the rich would enable them to spend and invest more. This new spending would stimulate the economy and create new jobs. Failed and caused a thick line between the poor and the wealthy. -
Reagan's Strategic Defense System
Reagan pushed for the funding of the Strategic Defense System (SDI), more popularly known as "Star Wars". Planned to station satellites in orbit that could defend against nuclear attacks with lasers. -
Glasnost & Perestroika
Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev instituted the polices of glasnost and perestroika that led to economic changes in the communist nation. Glasnost- openness; easing Stalinist laws to limit individual freedoms. Perestroika- restructuring; opening up soviet economy to free-market mechanisms. -
Iran- Contra Scandal
Senior administration officials secretly sold weapons to Iran, which was the subject of an arms embargo. They hoped to fund the Contras in Nicaragua while at the same time negotiating the release of several U.S. hostages. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Reagan famously encouraged Soviet leader Gorbachev to end Soviet control of its satellite nations. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" The wall came down and communist East Germany and capitalist West Germany reunified. -
Tiananmen Square
Student uprising in China demanding democratic reforms; Beijing crushed uprising. The protests were forcibly suppressed after the government declared martial law. In what became known in the West as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with assault rifles and tanks killed at least several hundred demonstrators trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square. -
End of the Cold war
Gorbachev resigns as leader of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union dissolves into 15 individual republics include Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The collapse signified the end of the 50 year standoff between the US and the Soviet Union, known as the Cold War.
