Famous last words (quotes)
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
Lincoln
This 1970s hotel break-in eventually forced a president to say "I am not a crook" right before resigning.
Watergate
This progressive civil rights organization was founded in 1909 by a coalition that included W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells, specifically aiming to use the legal system to fight segregation.
NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People)
This 1676 Virginia uprising saw frustrated, land-hungry indentured servants burn Jamestown to the ground, causing the colony to permanently pivot toward enslaved African labor.
Bacon's
This 1620 agreement signed aboard a ship established a "civil body politick" and is famous for being the first framework for self-government in the New World.
Mayflower Compact
"Remember the ladies..." (Written in a letter regarding the framework of the new American government).
Abigail Adams
This Founding Father duel in 1804 ended with the sitting Vice President pulling the trigger against him.
Hamilton
This New Deal program put millions of young men to work planting trees, building state parks, and fighting forest fires.
CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp)
This 1680 uprising saw Indigenous communities successfully drive Spanish colonizers out of modern-day New Mexico for over a decade, largely to protect their religious practices.
Pueblo (Pope's Rebellion)
This 1848 document, written largely by Elizabeth Cady Stanton at Seneca Falls, deliberately mirrored the Declaration of Independence by stating "all men and women are created equal."
Declaration of Sentiments
"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."
GW (farewell address)
In 1856, Representative Preston Brooks walked right onto the Senate floor and brutally beat this abolitionist Senator with a cane over an anti-slavery speech.
Charles Sumner
This 1890s labor group, led by Samuel Gompers, only allowed skilled "bread and butter" workers, unlike the inclusive Knights of Labor who collapsed after the Haymarket Riot
AFL (American Federation of Labor)
This 1786 uprising of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers shut down courts and proved to the Founding Fathers that the Articles of Confederation were far too weak to maintain order.
Shay's
Written by James Madison, this specific entry in the Federalist Papers argued that a large republic was actually the best way to control the dangerous influence of political "factions."
Fed 10
"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
TR
This secret 1980s operation involved senior Reagan administration officials facilitating illegal arms sales to a Middle Eastern nation to fund anti-communist rebels in Central America.
Iran-Contra Affair
Founded by Betty Friedan in 1966, this feminist organization pushed for the Equal Rights Amendment and equal employment opportunities.
This 1892 labor standoff at an Andrew Carnegie-owned steel plant involved a private army of Pinkerton detectives clashing with striking workers, dealing a devastating blow to the power of steel unions for decades.
Homestead
Written in 1963 on scraps of newspaper and toilet paper, this open letter defended the strategy of nonviolent direct action against segregation
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
"The chief business of the American people is business."
Calvin Coolidge
This dramatic 1954 event marked the downfall of a red-baiting Wisconsin Senator, culminating when the Army's lead counsel, Joseph Welch, famously asked him on live television, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
Army-McCarthy Hearings
Ratified in 1993 under President Clinton, this highly debated trade bloc eliminated tariffs and trade barriers between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, drastically reshaping the late 20th-century American economy.
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)
This 1831 Virginia revolt was the bloodiest slave rebellion in US history, resulting in the deaths of over 55 white people and triggering brutally restrictive "black codes" across the South.
Nat Turner's Revolt
This top-secret 1950 National Security Council policy paper argued that the US needed a massive, expensive peacetime military expansion to contain global Soviet communism.
NSC-68