APUSH ALL IMPORTANT PEOPLE, EVENTS, PERIODS

Colonial Era

Period when European powers settled North America and developed colonies with different economies, religions, labor systems, and relationships with Native Americans.

Revolutionary Era

Period when British taxation and colonial resistance led to independence and republican government.

Early Republic

Period after independence when the U.S. created its government, expanded west, and debated federal vs. state power.

Jacksonian Era

Period of expanded democracy for white men, strong presidential power, Indian removal, and major party conflict.

Antebellum Reform Era

Early 1800s reform period inspired by the Second Great Awakening, including abolition, temperance, education reform, and women’s rights.

Manifest Destiny

Belief that the U.S. was meant to expand across the continent, increasing conflict with Mexico, Native Americans, and the slavery debate.

Civil War Era

Period of sectional conflict between North and South that resulted in secession, war, emancipation, and preservation of the Union.

Reconstruction Era

Period after the Civil War when the U.S. tried to rebuild the South and define freedom and citizenship for formerly enslaved people.

Gilded Age

Late 1800s period of rapid industrial growth, extreme wealth inequality, political corruption, immigration, urbanization, and labor conflict.

Populist Era

Late 1800s farmer and worker protest movement against railroads, banks, big business, and deflation.

Progressive Era

Early 1900s reform period focused on regulating big business, improving democracy, protecting workers, and addressing urban problems.

Imperialism Era

Late 1800s and early 1900s period when the U.S. expanded overseas for economic, military, and ideological reasons.

Roaring Twenties

1920s period of consumerism, mass culture, economic growth, cultural conflict, Prohibition, nativism, and the Harlem Renaissance.

Great Depression

Severe economic crisis beginning in 1929 that caused unemployment, bank failures, poverty, and expanded calls for federal action.

New Deal Era

1930s period when FDR expanded the federal government through relief, recovery, and reform programs.

World War II Era

Period when U.S. mobilization ended the Depression, expanded federal power, and made the U.S. a global superpower.

Cold War Era

Long conflict between the U.S. and Soviet Union centered on containment, nuclear arms, proxy wars, and ideological rivalry.

Civil Rights Era

Period when activists challenged segregation and discrimination, leading to major laws protecting voting and civil rights.

Vietnam Era

Period of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that caused protest, distrust of government, and limits on presidential war powers.

Great Society Era

1960s period when LBJ expanded federal programs for poverty, health care, education, and civil rights.

Conservative Resurgence

Late 20th-century rise of conservatism focused on lower taxes, deregulation, strong defense, traditional values, and smaller government.

War on Terror Era

Post-9/11 period marked by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, expanded security, and debates over civil liberties.

Columbian Exchange

Exchange of plants, animals, diseases, people, and ideas between the Americas, Europe, and Africa after 1492.

Encomienda System

Spanish labor system that forced Native Americans to work for colonists and showed early exploitation in the Americas.

Jamestown

First permanent English settlement in North America, founded in 1607; became successful through tobacco.

Mayflower Compact

1620 agreement by Plymouth settlers that created an early form of self-government.

Bacon’s Rebellion

1676 Virginia rebellion that showed class tension and helped push elites toward racial slavery instead of indentured servitude.

First Great Awakening

Religious revival in the 1730s–1740s that challenged church authority and helped create shared colonial experiences.

French and Indian War

1754–1763 war between Britain and France that left Britain in debt and led to colonial taxation.

Proclamation of 1763

British law limiting colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, angering colonists.

Stamp Act

1765 tax on printed materials that sparked colonial protest over taxation without representation.

Boston Tea Party

1773 protest against the Tea Act where colonists dumped British tea into Boston Harbor.

Intolerable Acts

Punitive laws passed after the Boston Tea Party that pushed colonies toward unity against Britain.

Common Sense

Thomas Paine pamphlet that persuaded many colonists to support independence.

Declaration of Independence

1776 document declaring independence and arguing that people have natural rights and can overthrow tyrannical government.

Battle of Saratoga

Turning point of the American Revolution because it helped secure French support.

Treaty of Paris 1783

Ended the American Revolution and recognized U.S. independence.

Articles of Confederation

First U.S. government; intentionally weak central government with no power to tax.

Northwest Ordinance

1787 law creating a process for admitting new states and banning slavery in the Northwest Territory.

Shays’ Rebellion

Farmer uprising that exposed weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and encouraged calls for a stronger government.

Constitution

1787 framework for a stronger federal government with separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism.

Great Compromise

Created a bicameral Congress with representation by population in the House and equal representation in the Senate.

Three-Fifths Compromise

Counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation and taxation.

Bill of Rights

First ten amendments protecting individual liberties and limiting federal power.

Hamilton’s Financial Plan

Plan to strengthen the national economy through debt assumption, a national bank, tariffs, and excise taxes.

Whiskey Rebellion

1794 uprising crushed by Washington, showing the new federal government could enforce laws.

Washington’s Farewell Address

Warned against permanent foreign alliances and political parties.

Alien and Sedition Acts

Federalist laws restricting immigrants and criticism of the government, leading to states’ rights arguments.

Election of 1800

Peaceful transfer of power from Federalists to Democratic-Republicans, sometimes called the Revolution of 1800.

Louisiana Purchase

1803 purchase from France that doubled U.S. territory and encouraged westward expansion.

Marbury v. Madison

1803 Supreme Court case that established judicial review.

War of 1812

War against Britain that increased nationalism, weakened the Federalists, and encouraged American manufacturing.

Missouri Compromise

1820 compromise admitting Missouri as slave and Maine as free, while limiting slavery north of 36°30′.

Monroe Doctrine

1823 policy warning European powers not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere.

Market Revolution

Early 1800s economic transformation involving transportation, factories, wage labor, and regional specialization.

Cotton Gin

Eli Whitney invention that made cotton more profitable and expanded slavery in the South.

Second Great Awakening

Religious revival that inspired reform movements such as abolition, temperance, education reform, and women’s rights.

Indian Removal Act

1830 law that forced Native Americans west of the Mississippi River.

Trail of Tears

Forced Cherokee removal that caused thousands of deaths and showed the human cost of Indian removal.

Nullification Crisis

Conflict over whether states could reject federal law, especially tariffs; showed sectional tensions.

Seneca Falls Convention

1848 women’s rights convention that issued the Declaration of Sentiments.

Mexican-American War

1846–1848 war that gave the U.S. the Mexican Cession and intensified the slavery debate.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

1848 treaty ending the Mexican-American War and giving the U.S. California and the Southwest.

Compromise of 1850

Admitted California as free, strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, and attempted to settle slavery disputes.

Fugitive Slave Act

1850 law requiring escaped enslaved people to be returned, angering many Northerners.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1854 law allowing popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska, repealing the Missouri Compromise line.

Bleeding Kansas

Violence between proslavery and antislavery settlers after the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

1857 case ruling Black people were not citizens and Congress could not ban slavery in territories.

Election of 1860

Lincoln’s victory caused Southern states to secede because they feared limits on slavery.

Fort Sumter

First battle of the Civil War in 1861.

Emancipation Proclamation

1863 order freeing enslaved people in Confederate-controlled areas and making abolition a Union war goal.

Gettysburg

1863 Union victory that marked a major turning point in the Civil War.

Appomattox

Place where Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in 1865, ending the Civil War.

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery.

14th Amendment

Granted citizenship and equal protection under the law.

15th Amendment

Protected Black men’s voting rights.

Freedmen’s Bureau

Federal agency that helped formerly enslaved people with food, education, labor contracts, and legal aid.

Jim Crow Laws

Southern laws that restricted the rights and freedom of formerly enslaved people after the Civil War.

Sharecropping

Agricultural system that trapped many freed people and poor whites in debt after the Civil War.

Compromise of 1877

Ended Reconstruction by removing federal troops from the South.

Transcontinental Railroad

Completed in 1869, connected East and West, promoted trade, settlement, and industrial growth.

Andrew Carnegie

Steel industrialist known for vertical integration and the Gospel of Wealth.

John D. Rockefeller

Oil industrialist known for horizontal integration and Standard Oil.

Social Darwinism

Belief that competition and “survival of the fittest” justified inequality and big business power.

Knights of Labor

Early labor union that included skilled and unskilled workers and wanted broad labor reforms.

American Federation of Labor

Labor union led by Samuel Gompers that focused on wages, hours, and working conditions for skilled workers.

Pullman Strike

1894 railroad strike crushed by federal troops, showing government support for business over labor.

Chinese Exclusion Act

1882 law banning Chinese immigration; major example of nativism.

Dawes Act

1887 law dividing Native American tribal lands to promote assimilation.

Wounded Knee

1890 massacre of Lakota people, symbolizing the end of major Native armed resistance.

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 case upholding segregation under “separate but equal.”

Populist Party

Farmer and worker political party that demanded free silver, railroad regulation, income tax, and direct election of senators.

Spanish-American War

1898 war that made the U.S. an overseas imperial power by gaining Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.

Open Door Policy

U.S. policy supporting equal trade access in China.

Roosevelt Corollary

Expanded the Monroe Doctrine by claiming U.S. police power in Latin America.

Panama Canal

Canal built by the U.S. to increase trade and military movement between the Atlantic and Pacific.

Muckrakers

Progressive journalists who exposed corruption, poverty, unsafe food, and abusive business practices.

Theodore Roosevelt

Progressive president known for trust-busting, conservation, consumer protection, and imperialist foreign policy.

Pure Food and Drug Act

1906 Progressive law regulating food and medicine safety.

Federal Reserve Act

1913 law creating the Federal Reserve to regulate banking and currency.