Untitled Flashcards Set

Manifest Destiny

The belief that Americans had a god-given right to expand the nation from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Texas Revolution

Conflict between Anglo settlers in Texas and the Mexican government that led to Texas's independence.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

A 1854 act that divided the Nebraska Territory into Kansas and Nebraska with the question of slavery decided by popular sovereignty.

Bleeding Kansas

Violence between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in Kansas during the 1850s.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

A Supreme Court case in 1857 that ruled slavery could exist anywhere in the United States.

Emancipation Proclamation

An order issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, freeing slaves in rebel states.

Anaconda Plan

Union strategy during the Civil War to blockade Southern ports and divide the Confederacy.

Reconstruction

The period after the Civil War focused on rebuilding the South and integrating freed slaves into society.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Proclaimed all black persons born in the U.S. as citizens and guaranteed their civil rights.

15th Amendment

Prohibits the denial of voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Sharecropping

An agricultural system where tenants farm land owned by someone else in exchange for a share of the crop.

Jim Crow Laws

State and local laws enacted in the South that enforced racial segregation.

Muckrakers

Journalists in the Progressive Era who exposed corruption and social injustices.

GI Bill

Legislation that provided various benefits to returning World War II veterans, including education assistance.

Lend-Lease Act

A program under which the U.S. supplied Allied nations with vast amounts of war material.

Watergate Scandal

Political scandal involving President Nixon's administration and the subsequent cover-up of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Roe v. Wade

A landmark Supreme Court decision in 1973 that established a woman's legal right to have an abortion.

Cold War

A period of geopolitical tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union after World War II.

Domino Theory

The belief that the spread of communism in one country would lead to the spread of communism in neighboring countries.

Civil Rights Movement

A social movement in the 1950s and 1960s aimed at ending racial discrimination and securing legal recognition of civil rights.

Great Society

A series of domestic programs launched by President Lyndon B. Johnson aimed at eliminating poverty and racial injustice.