Periods 1-2 (1491-1754)
This crop, also known as maize, allowed societies in the Southwest and Mexico to develop vast irrigation systems and settled populations.
What is corn?
This 1803 land deal doubled the size of the U.S. and gave the nation full control over the Mississippi River.
What is the Louisiana Purchase?
The 19th-century belief that the U.S. was divinely ordained to expand its democratic institutions from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
What is Manifest Destiny?
This 1930s environmental disaster in the Great Plains was caused by a combination of severe drought and poor dry-farming techniques.
What is the Dust Bowl?
The post-WWII migration of Americans to the South and West for warmer climates and defense industry jobs is known as the rise of this region.
What is the Sun Belt?
The transfer of plants, animals, and germs across the Atlantic that decimated Native populations while fueling European population growth.
What is the Columbian Exchange?
Eli Whitney’s invention that made short-staple cotton profitable and led to the rapid expansion of the "Black Belt" in the South.
What is the Cotton Gin?
This 1862 Act encouraged Western settlement by providing 160 acres of public land to any settler who would farm it for five years.
What is the Homestead Act?
This "Rough Rider" President was the first major advocate for the conservation of natural resources and established the U.S. Forest Service.
Who is Theodore Roosevelt?
This holiday began in the 1970 as a protest to push for greater environmental regulations, specifically regarding air & water pollution.
What is Earth Day?
This religious practice by Native Americans emphasizes the presence of spirits & deities that can exist in nature.
What is animism?
This 363-mile man-made waterway connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, turning New York City into a premier commercial hub.
What is the Erie Canal?
Completed in 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah, it linked the California coast to the existing Eastern rail network.
What is the Transcontinental Railroad?
This New Deal agency employed young men to work on environmental projects like reforestation, flood control, and national park maintenance.
What is the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)?
This 1962 book by Rachel Carson exposed the environmental dangers of pesticides like DDT and launched the modern environmental movement.
What is Silent Spring?
This "starving time" colony was nearly abandoned due to its location on a swampy peninsula that bred malaria and lacked fresh water.
What is Jamestown?
In 1820, this line of lattitude marked the official boundary for new slave & free states.
What is 36*-30'?
Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 "Thesis" argued that this geographical feature was essential to the development of American democracy.
What is the Frontier?
This pre-New Deal public works project was built to control the flow of the Colorado River, supply water to Southwestern cities, and generate hydroelectric power.
What is Hoover Dam?
Created under President Richard Nixon in 1970, this federal agency is tasked with protecting human health and the environment.
What is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)?
This farming method allowed for the cultivation of corn, beans, and squash at the same time.
What is the "three sisters" method?
This Supreme Court case (1824) clarified that the federal government, not the states, had the power to regulate interstate commerce on waterways.
What is Gibbons v. Ogden?
This act, passed in 1862, provided states with additional funding to create colleges that promoted agricultural & technical education.
What is the Morrill Land Grant Act?
This preservationist founded the Sierra Club and fought unsuccessfully against the damming of the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite.
Who is John Muir?
This 1970s energy crisis, sparked by an OPEC embargo, led the U.S. to seek alternative energy sources and implement national speed limits.