Colonial Beginnings
The first permanent English settlement in North America, established in 1607.
What is Jamestown?
This 1765 act taxed various paper goods and documents, sparking widespread colonial protest.
What was the Stamp Act?
The United States' first, weak national government framework, preceding the Constitution.
What were the Articles of Confederation?
Thomas Jefferson made this acquisition of a vast territory from France in 1803, doubling the size of the U.S.
What was the Louisiana Purchase?
This cash crop dominated the Southern economy and was intrinsically linked to the expansion of slavery.
What is Cotton?
Adopted on July 4, 1776, it declared the 13 colonies independent from Great Britain.
What is the Declaration of Independence?
This group sought religious freedom and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Who were the Puritans?
The first military engagements of the Revolutionary War occurred here in April 1775.
What are Lexington and Concord?
In his Farewell Address, Washington warned against the dangers of these two things.
What are political factions (parties) and permanent foreign alliances (entanglements)?
The 19th-century belief that the U.S. was destined to expand across the North American continent.
What is Manifest Destiny?
This agreement heightened sectional tensions in the United States by admitting California as a free state but also implementing a more strict Fugitive Slave Act.
What was the Compromise of 1850?
The first ten amendments to the Constitution, guaranteeing fundamental rights and freedoms.
What is the Bill of Rights?
The economic theory where colonies exist to enrich the mother country, emphasizing exports over imports.
What is Mercantilism?
He wrote the influential pamphlet Common Sense, advocating for independence.
Who was Thomas Paine?
This landmark 1803 Supreme Court case established the principle of judicial review.
Marbury v. Madison?
Thousands of settlers traveled this route in the mid-1800s seeking land in the Pacific Northwest.
What was the Oregon Trail?
Harriet Beecher Stowe's published this powerful anti-slavery novel in 1852.
What is Uncle Tom's Cabin?
Issued by Lincoln in 1863, it declared slaves in Confederate-held territory to be free.
What was the Emancipation Proclamation?
The brutal transatlantic voyage that brought enslaved Africans to the Americas.
What is the Middle Passage?
This American victory in 1777 is considered the turning point of the war, convincing France to ally with the colonists.
What was the Battle of Saratoga?
A series of essays written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay to persuade states to ratify the Constitution.
What are The Federalist Papers?
This 1846-1848 conflict resulted in the U.S. acquiring vast territories from Mexico, including California.
What was the Mexican-American War?
This 1857 Supreme Court decision set the irony gong into a frenzy by declaring African Americans were not citizens and that the Missouri Compromise was invalid.
What is the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision?
Woodrow Wilson's plan outlined after WWI for achieving lasting peace and creating the League of Nations.
What were the Fourteen Points?
This religious revival swept through the colonies in the 1730s and 1740s, emphasizing emotional preaching.
What was the First Great Awakening?
The final major battle of the Revolution, where Cornwallis surrendered to Washington in 1781.
What was the Battle of Yorktown?
This compromise at the Constitutional Convention created a bicameral legislature with proportional and equal representation.
What was the Great Compromise (or Connecticut Compromise)?
A discovery at Sutter's Mill in 1848 triggered massive migration westward the following year in an event called this.
What was the California Gold Rush?
This 1854 act allowed settlers in new territories to decide on slavery by popular vote, leading to bloody violence in the Midwest
What was the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
This 1823 U.S. foreign policy statement warned European powers against further colonization or intervention in the Western Hemisphere.
What was the Monroe Doctrine?