US History Review: Colonial Era to the Global World

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering major eras, laws, and court cases in US History from the colonial period to the present.

Virginia House of Burgesses

An early form of self-government designed by colonists to establish a democracy.

White Lion

The first ever slave ship to land at the US.

Bacon's rebellion

A rebellion that resulted in the separation of races, changing the social structure from class-based to race-based and giving low-class white people more privileges than slaves.

Proclamation line of 1763

A British rule that prohibited colonists from moving into the Ohio River Valley to avoid conflict with Native Americans.

Salutary Neglect

A period where the British ignored the colonists, allowing them to practice self-governance; it ended in $1763$.

Stamp Act

A tax imposed by England on the colonists without representation, intended to repay debt from the French Indian War.

Albany Plan of Union

A proposal for the colonies to join together to fight the British.

Common Sense

A pamphlet written by Thomas Paine arguing that it was common sense that a small island should not rule a giant continent so far away.

Articles of confederation

The first governing document of the US, later deemed too weak because it lacked the power to tax or shut down rebellions.

Shay's rebellion

A conflict that tested the Articles of Confederation and showed they were too weak to maintain order.

Federalist Papers

A series of papers written to promote the Constitution.

Bill of Rights

A compromise added to the Constitution stating that all rights not given to the federal government go to the state government.

Great Compromise

Also known as the Connecticut Compromise, it combined the Virginia and New Jersey Plans to create a Bi-Cameral Legislature consisting of the House of Representatives and Congress.

$\frac{3}{5}$ Compromise

An agreement to count three out of every five enslaved people toward the population for state representation.

Louisiana Purchase

A land deal in which Thomas Jefferson purchased the middle section of the U.S., doubling the size of the country.

Missouri Compromise

An agreement where every state joining above the $36^{\circ} 30'$ parallel was free and every state below it was a slave state, with Maine joining as free and Missouri as slave.

Popular sovereignty

As seen in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolution, the principle that the people of a territory get to vote to decide on the status of slavery.

Kansas Nebraska Act

An act that led to "bleeding Kansas" and violence by John Brown as people flooded the territory to skew the vote on slavery.

Dred Scott Decision

A court ruling declaring that slaves were property, not U.S. citizens, and that slavery could not be banned in any federal territory.

Sherman's march to the seas

A military campaign led by General Sherman involving "scorched earth" tactics, including the burning of Atlanta.

Emancipation Proclamation

An $1863$ document that freed slaves in Southern rebelling states and shifted the cause of the Civil War to a moral one.

10% plan

Lincoln’s reconstruction plan that required $10\%$ of a state’s population to swear allegiance to the Constitution to reintegrate into the US.

13th Amendment

The constitutional amendment that abolished slavery.

14th Amendment

The amendment that gives citizenship to African Americans and defines birthright citizenship.

15th Amendment

The amendment that granted the right to vote to Black men.

Jim Crow

A series of racist laws in the South passed to take away rights from African Americans through segregation and voting restrictions.

Homestead Act

A law that gave land to people to build a house and farm for $5$ years in the new Western territory.

Dawes Act

A law designed to break up tribal land into parcels to disband tribes and prevent communal living among Native Americans.

Plessy vs. Ferguson

A court ruling that established the "separate but equal" doctrine, allowing for racial segregation.

Sherman antitrust act

A law used to break up monopolies to encourage competition.

Vertical monopoly

A business model involving the purchase of every step of making a product.

Horizontal monopoly

A business model involving the purchase of competition for a single step of making a product.

The Jungle

A book by Upton Sinclair that exposed the meatpacking industry and led to the Meat inspection act and the Food and drug act.

18th Amendment

The amendment that started Prohibition by banning the sale of alcohol.

USS Maine

A ship that sank after a boiler explosion, though it was reported by yellow journalism as being sunk by Spain, increasing support for the Spanish American War.

Roosevelt Corollary

Also known as the Big Stick Policy, this was an addition to the Monroe Doctrine stating the U.S. would act as an intermediary between Europe and Latin America.

Wilson's 14 Points

A plan for the end of WWI that included the creation of the League of Nations to avoid future wars.

Great Migration

The movement of African Americans to Northern cities, resulting in the Harlem Renaissance.

19th Amendment

Passed in $1920$, this amendment gave women the right to vote.

Scopes trial

A court case that highlighted conflicts between religion and science regarding the teaching of evolution in schools.

Black Tuesday

The day of the stock market crash in $1929$ that resulted in the Great Depression.

Dust bowl

An environmental disaster caused by overfarming and drought leading to loose soil.

New Deal

FDR’s series of programs and socialist reforms, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, designed to help those struggling during the Great Depression.

Lend Lease

A policy to help the Allies in WWII by giving weapons without the expectation of financial compensation.

Korematsu vs. US

A court case that deemed Japanese internment constitutional during wartime.

Manhattan project

FDR’s secret project to develop the atomic bomb.

Truman Doctrine

A policy involving the contribution of funding toward the containment of communism.

Marshall Plan

A plan to rebuild Europe after WW2 by providing money to European countries to prompt capitalism and oppose communism.

McCarthyism

Named after Senator McCarthy, the practice of making baseless accusations against others, specifically regarding communist sympathies.

Containment

The US foreign policy during the Cold War aimed at stopping the spread of communism, stemming from the domino theory.

Vietnamization

Nixon's plan to withdraw US troops from Vietnam while transferring the fighting to South Vietnam.

Cuban missile crisis

A $13$ day nuclear threat between the US and Cuba, considered the closest the world has been to full-scale nuclear war.

Brown vs Board of Education

A landmark ruling that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and ended school segregation by stopping the "separate but equal" ideology.

LBJ Great society

A set of programs including Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps, representing the biggest welfare contribution since the New Deal.

Reaganomics

Supply-side economics that involves giving money to the wealthy and big businesses to help wealth "trickle down" to the rest of the economy.

Marbury vs. Madison

The court case that established the principle of Judicial Review.

Schenck v. United States

A court case establishing the "clear and present danger" test for restricting free speech.