American Foundations
This 1776 document, written mainly by Thomas Jefferson, argued that people have natural rights and can overthrow unjust governments.
→ What is the Declaration of Independence?
This president’s election in 1860 led several Southern states to secede.
→ Who is Abraham Lincoln?
This belief held that Americans had a God-given right to expand west to the Pacific.
→ What is Manifest Destiny?
This period saw a huge growth of factories, inventions, and cities.
→ What is Industrialization (or the Industrial Revolution)?
WWI began in 1914 after the assassination of this man.
→ Who is Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
These were the first shots of the American Revolution, sometimes called “the shot heard ’round the world.”
→ What are the Battles of Lexington and Concord?
This 1863 document declared enslaved people free in areas of rebellion.
→ What is the Emancipation Proclamation?
The 1848 discovery of gold in this state sparked mass migration and population growth.
→ What is California?
Many cities grew rapidly due to this movement of people from rural areas into urban spaces.
→ What is urbanization?
Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare, including sinking this British ship, helped push the U.S. toward war.
→ What is the Lusitania?
This original plan for U.S. government failed because it created a weak central government with no power to tax.
→ What were the Articles of Confederation?
This amendment abolished slavery.
→ What is the 13th Amendment?
This 1830 federal law forced Native Americans off their lands, leading to the Trail of Tears.
→ What is the Indian Removal Act?
This 1848 convention in New York launched the organized movement for women’s rights.
→ What is the Seneca Falls Convention?
This 1917 note from Germany tried to convince Mexico to attack the U.S.
→ What is the Zimmermann Telegram?
This compromise created a two-house Congress, balancing the needs of large and small states.
→ What is the Great (Connecticut) Compromise?
These laws in the post-war South restricted the rights and movement of freed African Americans.
→ What are Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws?
This 1862 law gave settlers 160 acres of free land if they farmed it for 5 years.
→ What is the Homestead Act?
This amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920.
→ What is the 19th Amendment?
This U.S. president created the “Fourteen Points,” including a plan for world peace.
→ Who is Woodrow Wilson?
This group supported the Constitution and wrote 85 essays defending it.
→ Who were the Federalists (or What are the Federalist Papers)?
This deal ended Reconstruction in 1877 and removed federal troops from the South.
→ What is the Compromise of 1877?
These wars resulted from conflicts between Native Americans and U.S. soldiers during westward expansion, including the defeat of Custer in 1876.
→ What are the Plains Indian Wars (or What is the Battle of Little Bighorn)?
These early 1900s reformers used journalism and activism to expose corruption, unsafe working conditions, and social inequality.
→ Who were the Progressives (or Who are muckrakers)?
This global organization, proposed after WWI, aimed to prevent future conflicts—but the U.S. never joined.
→ What is the League of Nations?