Period 6
Standard Oil used this to control nearly 90% of the oil refining business by absorbing rival refineries.
Horizontal integration
This writer wrote a book called The Jungle. It exposed the gross and dangerous conditions in the meatpacking industry. It was so shocking that it led to new laws for food safety.
Upton Sinclair
This was the primary foreign policy of the United States for decades. Its goal was not to destroy communism where it already existed, but to stop it from spreading to any new countries.
Containment
This massive trade agreement, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993, eliminated most tariffs and trade barriers between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Critics argued it would send American factory jobs to Mexico, while supporters argued it would lower prices for consumers
NAFTA (North America Free Trade Movement)
This 1954 Supreme Court decision overturned the "separate but equal" doctrine from Plessy v. Ferguson. It ruled that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal and violated the 14th Amendment.
Brown v. The Board of Education
This notorious 19th-century political organization in New York City, led by Boss Tweed, provided social services to immigrants in exchange for their votes, while simultaneously embezzling millions of dollars from the city treasury.
Tammany Hall
This famous American President was an avid outdoorsman. He used the Antiquities Act to protect millions of acres of land, created the United States Forest Service, and established five new National Parks.
Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt
This Wisconsin Senator became the face of the Second Red Scare. He claimed to have a list of hundreds of communists working inside the U.S. State Department, leading to a period of intense suspicion that lasted for years.
Joseph McCarthy
Passed shortly after the 9/11 attacks, this controversial law significantly expanded the government's ability to monitor phone calls, emails, and financial records to prevent future acts of terrorism. Critics argued it infringed on Fourth Amendment rights regarding privacy and searches.
Patriot Act
This 1832 Supreme Court case involved a missionary who was arrested for living on Cherokee land without a state license. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Cherokee Nation was a "distinct community" in which the laws of Georgia had no force, a decision President Andrew Jackson famously ignored.
Worcester v. Georgia
This 1886 event in Chicago began as a peaceful rally for an 8-hour workday but turned deadly when a bomb was thrown at police. The resulting hysteria led to the trial of eight anarchists and the permanent decline of the Knights of Labor.
This ecological disaster of the 1930s was caused by a mix of severe drought and poor farming practices. It forced thousands of families, often called "Okies," to abandon their farms in the Great Plains and head west to California.
Inspired by his "War on Poverty," President Lyndon B. Johnson created these two landmark healthcare programs in 1965. One provides health insurance for the elderly, while the other provides it for low-income families and individuals.
Medicare and Medicaid
Established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, this executive department was the largest reorganization of the U.S. government since 1947. Its mission was to coordinate domestic security across agencies like the Coast Guard, TSA, and FEMA to prevent future attacks on American soil.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
This 1944 Supreme Court case involved a Japanese-American citizen who refused to leave his home for an internment camp. The Court ruled 6–3 against him, famously stating that the "protection against espionage" outweighed individual rights during a "time of emergency."
Korematsu v. United States
This 1894 labor conflict, which began in a company town, was broken when President Grover Cleveland secured a federal court injunction. He justified the use of federal troops by arguing the strike interfered with the delivery of the U.S. Mail and interstate commerce.
Before joining the war, the U.S. passed this 1941 law to help the Allies. It allowed the President to ship weapons and supplies to any nation whose defense would help the U.S., effectively ending the pretense of American neutrality.
Lend-lease act
This 1962 book by Rachel Carson is often credited with launching the modern environmental movement. It exposed the devastating effects of the pesticide DDT on the food chain and led to a nationwide ban on its agricultural use and the eventual creation of the EPA.
Silent Spring
This term describes the phenomenon where the two major political parties became internally homogenous and externally distant from each other. This led to the disappearance of "moderate" wings in both parties, making bipartisan legislation increasingly rare and increasing the importance of Executive Orders to achieve policy goals.
Political Polarization
This 1925 court case in Tennessee featured a high school teacher who was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution. It became a national sensation, representing the huge battle between traditional religious values and modern scientific ideas.
Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes / Scopes Monkey Trial
This 1892 political manifesto, drafted by Ignatius Donnelly, decried a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin and proposed a radical expansion of federal power.
Omaha Platform
This February 1945 conference between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin determined the post-war division of Germany and established the "Declaration on Liberated Europe," which promised free elections—a promise Stalin would famously break,
Yalta Conference
This economic theory, famously illustrated by the "Laffer Curve," served as the foundation for Reaganomics. It argued that by cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, the government would actually increase total tax revenue by stimulating investment, job creation, and overall economic growth.
Supply Side Economics / Trickle-Down Economics
In response to the Great Recession, this 2010 landmark legislation established the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the Volcker Rule, seeking to curb the systemic risks that critics argued were unleashed by the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.
Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
This 1978 Supreme Court case addressed "affirmative action" for the first time. The Court ruled that while a university could consider race as one of several factors in admissions to achieve diversity, it could not use fixed "racial quotas," like reserving 16 out of 100 seats for minority students.
University of California v. Bakke