Major Periods & Important Dates in American History

• 
  Chesapeake: Jamestown (1^st slaves & House of Burgesses; Bacon’s Rebellion)
  
• 
  New England; Mayflower Compact & Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
  
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  Diversity of the Middle colonies
  
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  Salutary neglect; colonial assemblies
  
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  Navigation Acts, mercantilism
  
• 
  French and Indian war 1754-1763
  

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  War debts; End to salutary neglect after French & Indian War, 1763
  
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  Sugar & Stamp Acts; Townshend Acts
  
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  Sons of Liberty; No taxation without representation; Committees of correspondence
  
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  Lexington and Concord, 1775
  
• 
  Second Continental Congress
  
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  Declaration of Independence, 1776
  
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  Saratoga; Battle of Yorktown
  
• 
  Treaty of Paris, 1783
  

• 
  Articles of Confederation ratified, 1781 &
  the “Critical Period, 1781- 1788”
  
• 
  Land Ordinance; NW Ordinance
  
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  Constitution Ratified, 1789
  
• 
  Washington, Adams, Jefferson presidencies
  
• 
  Proclamation of Neutrality
  
• 
  Marbury v Madison
  
• 
  Louisiana Purchase
  
• 
  War of 1812, 1812-1815
  
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  “Era of Good Feelings,” 1816-1824
  
• 
  Compromise of 1820 (Missouri Comp)
  

• 
  Clay’s American System, 1816
  
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  Tariff of 1816; 2^nd BUS
  
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  Roads, canals (Erie Canal), some railroads
  
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  Growth of cotton in the Deep South; commercial farming in West; textiles in North
  

• 
  Universal white manhood suffrage
  
• 
  “Corrupt Bargain” of 1824
  
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  Andrew Jackson elected, 1828
  
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  Bank War; Specie Circular
  
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  Nullification Crisis
  
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  Indian removal
  
• 
  2^nd Great Awakening & reform movements (temperance, abolition, Seneca Falls, 1848)
  

• 
  Manifest Destiny, 1840s
  
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  Mexican War, 1846-48
  
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  Compromise of 1850
  
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  Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854
  
• 
  Formation of the Republican Party
  
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  Dred Scott case, 1857
  
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  Lincoln Douglas Debates, 1858
  
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  John Brown at Harpers Ferry
  
• 
  Election of Lincoln, 1860
  

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  Confederate States of America, 1861
  
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  Fort Sumter attacked, 1861
  
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  Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Atlanta
  
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  Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
  
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  Confederate Surrender, 1865
  
• 
  Lincoln assassinated, 1865
  

• 
  Reconstruction Amendments
  (13^th-slavery abolished, 14^th-citizenship & rights, 15^th-manhood suffrage)
  
• 
  Weak presidents: A Johnson, Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes (2^nd corrupt bargain)
  
• 
  Nation reunifies
  
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  End of Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws
  

• 
  Settlement of the West, 1877-1900
  
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  Destruction of Native Americans, Farming, Ranching, Mining, Populism
  
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  Industrial Revolution (ROSE)
  
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  New forms of marketing and business organization, holding companies & trusts
  
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  The Jim Crow South, disenfranchisement of blacks, sharecropping & crop lien
  
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  Depression of 1893
  
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  New Immigrants
  

• 
  Spanish-American War, 1898
  
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  Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines
  
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  Philippine War
  
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  Panama Canal
  
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  Big Stick, Dollar, Moral Diplomacies
  
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  Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
  
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  Pancho Villa
  

• 
  Muckrakers (Tarbell, Riis, Steffens, Sinclair)
  
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  Sherman Anti-Trust Act
  
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  Northern Securities Co.
  
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  “Square Deal”
  
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  Clayton Anti-Trust Act
  
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  Federal Reserve
  
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  Underwood-Simmons Tariff
  
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  Initiative, Referendum, Recall
  
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  16^th, 17^th, 18^th, 19^th amendments
  

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  Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
  
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  Zimmerman Note
  
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  WIB & CPI
  
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  Selective Service Act
  
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  Great migration
  
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  14 Points, Treaty of Versailles
  
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  League of Nations
  
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  Irreconcilables, Reservationists
  

• 
  Roaring Twenties, Consumerism
  
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  Women gain right to vote
  
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  Harlem Renaissance
  
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  Urban vs rural conflicts (Prohibition, evolution, immigration, KKK)
  
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  1929 Stock market crash
  
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  Hoover’s “Rugged Individualism”
  
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  1^st New Deal, 2^nd New Deal
  
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  Relief, Recovery, Reform
  
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  Court Packing
  

• 
  Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941
  
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  WPB, OSS, OPA
  
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  Great Migration
  
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  Rosie the Riveter
  
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  D-Day, Island Hopping
  
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  Manhattan Project
  
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  A-bombs dropped; Japan surrenders
  
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  Tehran, Yalta, Potsdam Conferences
  

• 
  Affluent Society, Consumerism
  
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  Suburbs, White Flight
  
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  Baby boom
  
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  Rock n roll, Juvenile delinquency
  
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  Social expectations, conformity
  
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  Jack Kerouac, Beats
  
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  Automania
  

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  Containment: Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, NATO, 1^st peacetime alliance
  
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  Soviets test A-bomb, 1949
  
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  China goes communist, 1949
  
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  Korean War, 1950-53
  
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  HUAC, Loyalty Review Board
  
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  McCarthyism, 1950-54
  
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  Vietnam War, 1965-73 (Gulf of Tonkin)
  
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  Nixon & Détente, 1972-1979
  
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  Fall of Berlin Wall, 1989
  
• 
  Collapse of Soviet Union, 1991
  

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  Brown v. Board of Ed. decision, 1954
  
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  Montgomery Bus Boycott
  
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  Birmingham
  
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  March on Washington
  
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  SCLC, SNCC, CORE, NAACP
  
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  Civil Rights Act, 1964
  
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  Voting Rights Act, 1965
  
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  24th Amendment, 1964
  
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  Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated, 1968
  
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  Stokely Carmichael; Black Power
  
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  Malcolm X
  

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  JFK, New Frontier, assassination 1963
  
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  Berlin Crisis
  
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  Cuban Missile Crisis
  
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  LBJ; “Great Society”
  
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  Hippies, New Left
  
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  Turmoil in 1968 (Tet Offensive in Vietnam, Chicago, assassination of RFK & MLK)
  
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  President Nixon, 1969-1974, Conservativism, Silent Majority, Watergate, Resignation, 1974
  
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  Triangular diplomacy: détente, China, Cease fire in Vietnam
  
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  President Gerald Ford, 1974-76
  
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  President Jimmy Carter, 1977-80
  
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  Oil Embargo, Energy Crisis, Stagflation
  
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  Iran hostage crisis, Camp David, Afghanistan
  

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  President Ronald Reagan, 1981-89
  
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  Supply-side economics
  
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  Iran-Contra Affair
  
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  SDI, nuclear build-up, Cold war ends,
  
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  President George Bush, 1989-92; NAFTA
  
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  The Persian Gulf War, 1991
  
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  President Bill Clinton, 1993-2001, Impeachment, economic growth,
  
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  President George W. Bush, 2000 Election; 9/11, War on Terror, Iraq War.
  
• 
  Election of Barack Obama, 2008
  

16th Century: geography, politics, economics, society (including religion)

17th Century: geography, politics, economics, society (including religion)

“Salutary Neglect”: 1713-1763

“Critical Period” -- Articles of Confed (1783-1789)

Presidents Washington and Adams

Presidents Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe

“Era of Good Feelings”: 1816-1824; Monroe

Presidents Jackson, Van Buren, (Tyler?) & Polk

American Society: 1790-1860

Early Industrial Rev: textiles, railroads, iron, coal (TRIC)

Transportation Revolution: turnpikes, steamboats, canals, railroads

2nd Great Awakening (1820-1860): abolitionism, temperance, women's rights, etc.

Road to Civil War (1848-1860): Wilmot Proviso through election of 1860

Politics: scandal, money issue (1870s & '90s), tariff (1880s), Panics of 1873 & 1893

Second Industrial Revolution: ROSE -- railroads, oil, steel, electricity; Unionization

Urbanization: “New Immigrants” (1880-1924), Social Gospel, political machines, nativists

The Great West: Three frontiers -- 1) farming
2) mining 3) cattle

Populism, election of 1896

Imperialism (1889-1914): Hawaii, Spanish-Am War, Open Door, "Big Stick", "dollar diplomacy,"
"moral diplomacy"

Progressive Era (1901-1920): Presidents T. Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson

World War I: 1914-1918; President Wilson; Treaty of Versailles (1919)

1920s: Presidents Harding, Coolidge & Hoover

Conservative domestic policy; isolationist foreign policy (including 1930s)

“Americanism”

“Roaring 20s” and “Jazz Age” (+ “Lost Generation”)

Truman’s Presidency (1945-1953)

Cold War

domestic policy; “Fair Deal”

“Red Scare” (second one): 1947-1954?

“Affluent Society”: 1950-1970

Foreign and domestic policy; Civil Rights era (1954-1965); consumerism; conformity

Cold War (including Vietnam)

“New Frontier”

“Great Society” (including Civil Rights)

Women's rights

Vietnam War: 1964-1973

1970s: President Nixon (1969-1974), Ford, Carter

Cold War (end of Vietnam) and dètente

Domestic issues (including Watergate); “New Federalism”; oil crisis; “stagflation”

“Imperial Presidency”: WWII-1974

1980s: Reagan and Bush

Conservative revolution: “Reaganomics”

Cold War and other foreign policy issues