US History Key Points

17th Amendment

Gave Legislative power to choose senators

18th Amendment

Established prohibition of alcohol

19th Amendment

Prohibits the U.S. from denying voting rights based on gender

Ragtime

Leisure music genre popular in the past

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

Allowed separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites

Spoils System

Elected leaders rewarding supporters with jobs and favors

Boxer Rebellion

1900 peasant uprising in China against foreigners

Seward's Icebox

Alaska purchase from Russia by Seward for $7.2 million

Remember the Maine

USS Maine ship explosion leading to war with Spain

Stalemate

Conflict where neither side makes progress

U-Boat

German submarine

Doughboys

Nickname for American soldiers in WWI

Lusitania

British ship sunk by German U-Boat in WWI

Espionage Act

Imposed penalties for spying

Sedition Act

Crime to speak or print against the government

Sabotage Act

Punished destruction of war supplies

Zimmerman Note

German offer to Mexico for alliance against the U.S.

Treaty of Versailles

1919 treaty holding Germany responsible for WWI

Laissez-faire

Belief in minimal government intervention in private life

Flapper

Carefree young women in the 1920s

Installment Buying

Purchasing with small payments over time

William Jennings Bryan

Lawyer in the Scopes trial; anti-evolution

Clarence Darrow

Lawyer who represented Scopes in the trial

Kellogg-Briand Pact

Called for the outlawing of war

Blitzkrieg

Sudden massed forces attacks

Mein Kampf

Book written by Adolf Hitler

Neutrality Acts

Banned selling weapons during war

Axis Alliance

Germany, Italy, and Japan alliance

Internment Camps

Where Japanese Americans were detained during WWII

Code Talkers

Native Americans using code in war communication

D-Day

Normandy invasion during WWII

Island Hopping

Strategy of capturing key islands in war

Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Japanese cities bombed by the U.S. in WWII

Kamikaze

Japanese suicide pilots in WWII

McCarthyism

Reckless use of unproven charges against communism

Containment

Policy to stop the spread of communism

Taft Hartley Act

Limits workers' actions against employers

Demilitarized Zone

Region where military forces are prohibited

38th Parallel

Division line between North and South Korea

Dr. Jonas Salk

Developed the polio vaccine

Bill Haley and the Comets

Rock 'N' Roll band with hit 'Around the Clock'

Isolationism

Policy of avoiding involvement in other countries' affairs

Expansionism

State doctrine of territorial and economic growth

A Day that will Live in Infamy

Roosevelt's call to declare war on Japan after Pearl Harbor