APUSH Important Events

1763

End of the French & Indian War

Significance: British began to tighten control over the colonies, starting the road to Revolution

a. Proclamation of 1763
b. Sugar Act
c. Quartering of Soldiers

1776

Declaration of Independence

Significance: Statement of purpose, partially designed to appeal to the French and Spanish. A powerful statement of enlightenment ideals of government.

a. Lexington and Concord
b. Battle of Bunker Hill
c. "Common Sense"

1789

Constitution Ratified

Significance: Recognition of the need to have a more powerful federal government

a. Creation of political parties
b. Call for a Bill of Rights
c. George Washington!!

1800

Democratic-Republicans win Presidency and Congress

Significance: Proved the strength of the constitutional system

a. Alien & Sedition Acts
b. "Midnight Judges"
c. Beginning of the end for the Federalist Party

1803

Marbury v. Madison

Significance: Judicial Review established the power of the judicial branch

a. Lousiana Purchase
b. Elastic Clause
c. U.S. control of the Mississippi River

1814

End of War of 1812

Significance: 2nd War of American Independence

a. Battle of New Orleans made Andrew Jackson a hero
b. Boosted northern manufacturing
c. Hartford Convention marked the end of the Federalist Party

1848

End of the Mexican War

Significance: US acquired the Mexican Cession and made slavery a hot issue

a. Compromise of 1850
b. Wilmot Priviso
c. "Popular Sovereignty"

1861

Civil War Begins

Significance: The Nation finally faces the divisions caused by slavery

a. Lincoln's Election
b. Confederate States of America
c. Fort Sumter

1865

End of the Civil War

Significance: End of Slavery

a. Andrew Johnson is president
b. Radical Republicans take over Congress and Reconstruction
c. Freedmen's Bureau
d. 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments

1877

Event: Hayes wins the 1876 presidential election

Significance: End of Reconstruction

a. Removal of Federal troops from the South
b. Poll taxes, literacy tests disenfranchise black voters
c. Plessy v. Ferguson says segregation (Jim Crow) is constitutional

1914

WWI starts in Europe

Significance: U.S. struggles to maintain neutrality then enters the war

a. "Lusitania" and submarine warfare. Freedom of the "open seas"
b. "War to end all Wars"
c. Wartime suppression of civil liberties

1919

Treaty of Versailles

Significance: End of WWI

a. Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points and League of Nations
b. U.S. rejects the treaty and retreats into isolationism
c. Roots of WWII
d. Post-War depression and Red Scare
e. 18th & 19th Amendments

1929

Stock Market Crash

Significance: Started the world-wide Great Depression

a. FDR elected in 1932
b. New Deal increased federal involvement in everyday life
c. Democratic Party gains strength from new coalition

1941

Attack on Pearl Harbor
Significance: U.S. enters WWII

a. Nazi Germany and the Holocaust
b. Japanese-American internment
c. Women and minorities prove their worth in the war effort

1945

End of WWII

Significance: U.S. emerges as a global super power

a. Atomic bomb developed and used
b. United Nations—the U.S. abandons isolationism
c. Yalta Conference—the beginning of the Cold War

1954

Brown v. Board of Education

Significance: The Federal government turns against segregation

a. Montgomery Bus Boycott
b. Lynching of Emmett Till
c. Dien Bien Phu marks the beginning of U.S. involvement in Vietnam

1960

Election of JFK

Significance: Beginning of new era of federal involvement in Civil Rights

a. Sit-ins in Greensboro, NC
b. RFK is appointed Attorney General
c. "New Frontier" optimism marked by Peace Corps formation

1964

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Significance: Outlawed segregation in public facilities and banned discriminatory practices in hiring, voting, and education

a. LBJ uses "JFK legacy" to push civil rights reforms
b. March on Washington
c. Escalation in Vietnam
d. "Great Society"

1968

MLK and RFK assassinated

Significance: Marked the end of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s

a. 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago
b. Height of US troop numbers in Vietnam
c. Tet Offensive
d. Nixon elected president

1973

Paris Peace Agreement

Significance: End of the longest war in American history

a. War-Powers Resolution
b. Détente
c. Watergate

1989

Fall of the Berlin Wall

Significance: Collapse of the Soviet bloc and European communism

a. Solidarity in Poland
b. Gorbachev and Perestroika
c. Iran-Contra Affair