AP U.S. History Flashcards

Period 1: 1491-1607

• Overview:
  • Time period: 1491-1607.
  • Counts for 5% of AP® U.S. History instructional content.
  • Not featured on the DBQ question.
• Key Concept 1.1:
  • Native populations migrated and settled across North America.
  • Developed distinct and complex societies by adapting to diverse environments.
• Key Concept 1.2:
  • Contact among Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans resulted in the Columbian Exchange.
  • Significant social, cultural, and political changes occurred on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
• Timeline:
  • 1491: Christopher Columbus claims Hispaniola and Cuba for Spain.
  • 1512: Spain establishes the encomienda system.
  • 1519: Hernan Cortes invades Mexico.
  • 1525: The first ship of slaves from Africa arrives in the Americas.
• Key Terms:
  • Maize: Main crop cultivated by American Indians, allowed for sedentary lifestyles.
  • Christopher Columbus: Italian explorer who claimed the New World for Spain while seeking a route to India.
  • “God, Gold, Glory”: Motivations for early European explorers to spread Christianity, enrich themselves and their monarch, and gain glory.
  • Encomienda System: A forced labor system used by the Spanish, requiring American Indians to work.
• American Indian Societies:
  • Complex societies with distinctive social structures, political organizations, and religious beliefs existed before European contact.
  • Northwest: Permanent settlements and hunter-gatherer lifestyles.
  • Great Plains: Nomadic lifestyle following buffalo herds.
  • Southwest/Mexico: Maize cultivation leading to sedentary lifestyles.
• European Exploration:
  • Motivated by economic and religious factors (“God, Gold, and Glory”).
  • Sought raw materials (especially gold) to enrich monarchs.
  • Believed in spreading Christianity.
  • Led to enslavement and forced religious conversion of American Indians.
  • American Indian populations decimated by European diseases.
• Columbian Exchange:
  • Trade system moving crops, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the New World.
  • American crops (potatoes, tomatoes, corn) introduced to Europe.
  • European crops (wheat, rice, grapes) introduced to the Americas.
  • Slaves brought to the New World to farm cash crops and mine for precious metals.

Period 2: 1607-1754

• Overview:
  • Time period: 1607-1754.
  • Counts for 10% of AP® U.S. History instructional content.
• Key Concept 2.1:
  • Europeans developed varied colonization and migration patterns due to imperial goals, cultures, and environments.
  • Competition with each other and American Indians for resources.
• Key Concept 2.2:
  • British colonies engaged in political, social, cultural, and economic exchanges with Great Britain.
  • These exchanges encouraged both stronger bonds and resistance to British control.
• Timeline:
  • 1607: Jamestown, the first English colony, was founded.
  • 1620: Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact and settled at Plymouth Colony.
  • 1637: Anne Hutchinson was banished from Massachusetts for religious meetings for women.
  • 1675: King Philip’s War between New England colonists and the Wampanoag.
  • 1692: Salem Witch Trials.
  • 1744: The First Great Awakening began with Jonathan Edward’s sermons.
• Key Terms:
  • Mercantilism: Economic system where countries increase wealth through government control of trade.
  • Encomienda System: Spanish forced labor system requiring American Indians to live on plantations and convert to Christianity.
  • Cash crops: Crops grown in large quantities for profit.
  • First Great Awakening: Religious movement promoting emotional, evangelical Protestantism.
• European Colonization:
  • European countries had different reasons for settling the New World and competed with each other due to mercantilism.
  • Spanish: Controlled the largest territory, sought precious metals, used the encomienda system and slave labor.
  • French and Dutch: Formed alliances with Native Americans to develop trade networks.
  • English: Sent migrants to establish colonies for economic reasons and to escape religious persecution.
• English Colonies:
  • Varied greatly; some were organized around farming communities (New England), while others were based on cash crops and export economies (the South).
• British Control:
  • The British government tried to unite its colonies to boost Great Britain's economy.
• First Great Awakening:
  • Movement united the colonies culturally by sparking evangelical religiosity; sermons threatened disbelievers.
• Economic Regulations:
  • The colonies became increasingly independent because the British government applied its economic regulations inconsistently.

Period 3: 1754-1800

• Overview:
  • Time period: 1754-1800.
  • Counts for 12% of AP® U.S. History instructional content.
• Key Concept 3.1:
  • British attempts to assert tighter control over North American colonies.
  • Colonial resolve to pursue self-government led to independence movement and Revolutionary War.
• Key Concept 3.2:
  • The American Revolution’s democratic and republican ideals inspired new experiments with different forms of government.
• Key Concept 3.3:
  • Migration within North America and competition over resources, boundaries, and trade intensified conflicts among peoples and nations.
• Timeline:
  • 1763: The Proclamation of 1763 ordered colonists to stop migrating west of the Appalachian Mountains.
  • 1768: British troops arrive in Boston.
  • 1775: First battles of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord.
  • 1776: Congress declared independence with the Declaration of Independence.
  • 1780: Articles of Confederation were adopted.
  • 1781: The British surrender at Yorktown.
  • 1788: U.S. Constitution sent to states for ratification.
  • 1791: The Bill of Rights was adopted.
• Key Terms:
  • French and Indian War: Conflict between the French and the English over control of the Ohio River Valley.
  • Articles of Confederation: The first constitution of the United States; established a very weak federal government.
  • U.S. Constitution: The foundation of the U.S. federal government.
  • Federalist Papers: Essays advocating for a strong federal government.
  • Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments guaranteeing civil liberties.
• British Control After the French and Indian War:
  • The British government attempted to gain more control over its colonies and wanted colonists to help repay war costs.
  • Colonists protested the Proclamation of 1763 and new taxes (Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, Tea Acts).
  • Colonists argued for “No Taxation without Representation” because they were not represented in Parliament.
• Articles of Confederation:
  • The first government created for the new states, featuring a very weak federal government and strong states.
  • Little regulation regarding currency, the military, and warfare.
• U.S. Constitution:
  • Developed a government with three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.
  • The Federalist Papers were written to help get it ratified.
  • The Bill of Rights was added to protect the rights of the people.
• Post-Ratification Conflicts:
  • Conflict continued over how to manage the new nation.
  • Americans moved west into French territory, increasing tensions with France and American Indians.

Period 4: 1800-1848

• Overview:
  • Time period: 1800-1848.
  • Counts for 10% of AP® U.S. History instructional content.
• Key Concept 4.1:
  • The United States began to develop a modern democracy and celebrated a new national culture.
  • Americans sought to define the nation’s democratic ideals and change their society and institutions to match them.
• Key Concept 4.2:
  • Innovations in technology, agriculture, and commerce accelerated the American economy.
  • Profound changes to U.S. society and to national and regional identities.
• Key Concept 4.3:
  • U.S. interest in increasing foreign trade and expanding its national borders.
  • Shaped the nation’s foreign policy and spurred government and private initiatives.
• Timeline:
  • 1803: The Louisiana Purchase was finalized.
  • 1807: Congress voted to end the international slave trade.
  • 1812: The U.S. declared war against Britain.
  • 1820: The Missouri Compromise tried to balance slave and free states.
  • 1823: President James Monroe declared the Western Hemisphere closed to European colonization in The Monroe Doctrine.
  • 1830: Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act.
  • 1845: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was published.
  • 1848: The first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York.
• Key Terms:
  • Judicial Review: The ability of the Supreme Court to determine whether a law is constitutional.
  • Second Great Awakening: Religious revivals in the early 1800s focused on personal religious experience.
  • American System: Plan proposed by Henry Clay to strengthen the economy through tariffs, national banks, and infrastructure.
  • Louisiana Territory: Purchased from France in 1803 for 15 million.
• Development of a Modern Democracy:
  • Establishment of judicial review allowed the judicial branch to check the power of the legislative and executive branches.
  • Expanded democratic participation to include all free men.
• National Identity:
  • Americans began to think of themselves as Americans.
  • Artists used American styles to paint landscapes (Hudson River School).
  • A distinctive American religious identity emerged in the Second Great Awakening.
• Economic Changes:
  • Transition from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy.
  • Inventions like the telegraph and textile machinery aided this transition.
  • Henry Clay’s American System allowed goods and services to move quickly.
• Regional Differences:
  • The North became a major industrial center.
  • The South maintained its agricultural character with plantations fueled by slave labor.
  • Economic differences led to distinct cultural identities and worldviews.
• Westward Expansion:
  • Native Americans were displaced and treated unfairly, forcibly relocated to reservation lands.
  • The Louisiana Territory was purchased from France in 1803, doubling the country's size.

Period 5: 1844-1877

• Overview:
  • Time period: 1844-1877
  • Counts for 13% of recommended instructional content
• Key Concept 5.1:
  • Increased connection with the world, expansionist foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.
  • Emergence as a destination for migrants
• Key Concept 5.2:
  • Intensified debates over slavery and economic, cultural, and political issues led to Civil War
• Key Concept 5.3:
  • Union victory settled issues of slavery and secession but left unresolved questions about federal power and citizenship rights.
• Timeline:
  • 1850: Compromise of 1850, California admitted to the Union, Fugitive Slave Law imposed.
  • 1852: Publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
  • 1857: Dred Scott decision (slaves not citizens).
  • 1860: Election of Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina secedes.
  • 1863: Emancipation Proclamation.
  • 1867: Reconstruction Acts.
  • 1877: Compromise of 1877, federal troops withdrawn from the South.
• Key Terms:
  • Nativist: Opposes immigrants.
  • Manifest Destiny: Belief in American expansion from coast to coast.
  • Abraham Lincoln: 16th president, aimed to preserve the Union.
  • Reconstruction: Post-Civil War period, Northern leaders imposed governance on the South.
• Immigration:
  • Wave of immigration from western European countries.
  • Nativist groups opposed immigrant groups.
• Manifest Destiny:
  • Push to expand the country from “sea to sea”.
  • Gold discovery in California led to a rush to the west coast.
• Tension Between Free and Slave States:
  • Expansion into new territories intensified tension.
  • By the 1850s, balance tipping toward free states.
• Election of Abraham Lincoln:
  • Political tensions came to a head.
  • Lincoln came to power without Southern vote, Southern states seceded.
• Economic and Cultural Differences:
  • North and South had different economic landscapes, value systems, and ideas about states’ rights.
• Reconstruction:
  • Goal to “reconstruct” the Union.
  • Initial goal to guarantee rights for African-Americans (13th, 14th, 15th amendments).
  • In 1877, Reconstruction was abandoned, social improvements reversed.

Period 6: 1865-1898

• Overview:
  • Time period extends from 1865 to 1898.
  • Counts for 13% of instructional content.
• Key Concept 6.1:
  • Technological advances, large-scale production methods, and new markets encouraged industrial capitalism.
• Key Concept 6.2:
  • Migrations transformed urban and rural areas, causing social and cultural change.
• Key Concept 6.3:
  • The Gilded Age produced new cultural and intellectual movements and political debates over economic and social policies.
• Timeline:
  • 1867: U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia.
  • 1869: Transcontinental railroad completed.
  • 1872: Yellowstone National Park established.
  • 1876: Battle of Little Bighorn.
  • 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act.
  • 1886: American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed.
  • 1892: Ellis Island opened.
  • 1896: Plessy v. Ferguson implemented segregation (“separate, but equal”).
• Key Terms:
  • Second Industrial Revolution: Shift from agricultural to urban economy through manufacturing.
  • Robber Barons: Corrupt business leaders.
  • Union: Collective bargaining unit for workers.
  • Reservations: Land where Native Americans were required to live.
  • The Gilded Age: Term describing the era's superficial beauty masking underlying flaws.
• Second Industrial Revolution:
  • Economic boom due to technological innovation and cheap labor.
• Wealth Distribution:
  • The rich became richer, while the poor became poorer.
• Labor Organizations:
  • Workers organized into unions to demand better conditions.
• Immigration:
  • New immigrant groups from southern and eastern Europe.
  • Distinct ethnic enclaves developed.
• Westward Expansion:
  • Transcontinental Railroad facilitated travel to the frontier.
  • Increased conflict with American Indians.
  • The federal government relocated Indians onto reservations.
• Gilded Age:
  • Mark Twain's term for the period, highlighting underlying social conflict.
  • Application of “survival of the fittest” to justify wealth disparities.
  • Reformers like Jane Addams advocated for women and immigrants.
  • Andrew Carnegie advocated for the “Gospel of Wealth”.

Period 7: 1890-1945

• Overview:
  • Time period extends from 1890 to 1945.
  • Counts for 17% of instructional content.
• Key Concept 7.1:
  • Growth expanded opportunity, while economic instability led to new efforts to reform U.S. society and its economic system.
• Key Concept 7.2:
  • Innovations in communications and technology contributed to the growth of mass culture, while significant changes occurred in internal and international migration patterns.
• Key Concept 7.3:
  • Participation in global conflicts propelled the United States into a position of international power while renewing domestic debates over the nation’s proper role in the world.
• Timeline:
  • 1898: The United States annexes the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
  • 1917: The United States enters World War I.
  • 1920: The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, extending suffrage to women.
  • 1929: The U.S. stock market crashed dramatically.
  • 1933: The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified, repealing Prohibition.
  • 1935: President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act.
  • 1941: Japanese planes attacked American naval bases at Pearl Harbor.
  • 1942: President Roosevelt signs Executive Order #9066 to remove Japanese Americans to internment camps.
• Key Terms:
  • Second Industrial Revolution: Shift from agricultural to urban economy.
  • Progressive: People who tried to implement social programs and increase government spending to address inequalities.
  • Great Depression: Period of economic decline.
  • New Deal: Government approach that addressed the Great Depression through government-funded projects, social programs, and aid.
  • Harlem Renaissance: African American artistic movement in the 1920s.
• Progressive Era:
  • Urban conditions were overcrowded, dangerous, and politically corrupted.
  • Progressives tried to reform urban conditions through social measures and government action.
  • “Muckraker” journalists publicized difficult conditions.
• Great Depression and the New Deal:
  • President Roosevelt developed the New Deal program to address unemployment and social upheavals.
  • The New Deal used government power to end the depression through aid and infrastructure spending.
• Changes in Technology and Society:
  • Mass entertainment like movies created a sense of shared culture.
  • Harlem Renaissance authors created a new, distinctly African American movement.
  • Sports such as baseball became part of the national identity.
• U.S. Involvement in International Affairs:
  • Imperialists felt that the United States should lead the world.
  • Anti-imperialists felt that countries should have the right of self-determination.
  • The United States entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
  • The United States rose to a position of international dominance after the Allied victory.

Period 8: 1945-1980

• Overview:
  • Time period extends from 1945 to 1980.
  • Counts for 15% of instructional content.
• Key Concept 8.1:
  • The United States responded to an uncertain and unstable postwar world by asserting and working to maintain a position of global leadership.
• Key Concept 8.2:
  • New movements for civil rights and liberal efforts to expand the role of government generated a range of political and cultural responses.
• Key Concept 8.3:
  • Postwar economic and demographic changes had far-reaching consequences for American society, politics, and culture.
• Timeline:
  • 1947: The Truman Doctrine was announced.
  • 1952: The United States conducts its first hydrogen bomb test.
  • 1954: The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education desegregates public schools.
  • 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis.
  • 1964: President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  • 1965: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads a freedom march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama.
  • 1978: The Camp David Accords brokered peace between Egypt, Israel, and the United States.
• Key Terms:
  • Cold War: Diplomatic tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.
  • Marshall Plan: Plan to provide economic aid to Western Europe to prevent communism.
  • Senator Joseph McCarthy: Led the campaign to uncover communists.
  • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Civil rights leader advocated for racial equality.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964: Legislation that ended segregation.
  • Great Society: Expanded federally sponsored social programs.
• Cold War:
  • Conflict between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union.
  • The United States was concerned about the spread of communism.
  • The Marshall Plan funneled money to war-torn nations to prevent communism.
• Domestic Concerns:
  • Senator Joseph McCarthy led an investigation of communists.
  • Americans became concerned about the power of the president to commit the country to foreign military engagements.
• Civil Rights Movement:
  • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged racial discrimination.
  • Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  • Other groups began agitating for more rights.
• Great Society:
  • Lyndon Johnson’s attempt to end discrimination, eliminate poverty, and right injustices.
• Conservatives:
  • Opposed Johnson’s Great Society and Supreme Court decisions.
• Postwar Growth:
  • Mass culture helped to define cultural mores.
  • Evangelical Christian churches began to play an increasingly powerful role in politics.

Period 9: 1980-Present

• Overview:
  • Time period covers from 1980 to the present.
  • Focuses on the rise of the conservative movement, technological and economic changes, and the end of the Cold War.
• Key Concept 9.1:
  • A newly ascendant conservative movement achieved several political and policy goals during the 1980s.
• Key Concept 9.2:
  • Moving into the 21st century, the nation experienced significant technological, economic, and demographic changes.
• Key Concept 9.3:
  • The end of the Cold War and new challenges to U.S. leadership forced the nation to redefine its foreign policy and role in the world.
• Timeline:
  • 1981: IBM released the first personal computer.
  • 1983: President Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative.
  • 1989: The Berlin Wall was torn down.
  • 1991: The world wide web goes public; the Soviet Union Collapses.
  • 1998: President Bill Clinton was impeached.
  • 2001: Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
  • 2002: The United States launches “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan.
  • 2003: The United States invades Iraq.
  • 2011: The last U.S. troops leave Iraq.
• Key Terms:
  • Cold War: Period of diplomatic tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.
  • Ronald Reagan: Reduced government spending, extended tax cuts, and cut welfare and social spending programs.
  • Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: Led to changes in almost all aspects of American life.
• Conservative Movement:
  • Traces origins to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
  • The Reagan administration enacted tax cuts and deregulated many industries.
  • Governments reduced funding for social programs and limited the scope of government authority.
• Interventionist Foreign Policy:
  • U.S. military spending increased in the 1980s and continues to increase today.
  • The United States continues to assert a role in international affairs.
  • Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, most of U.S. foreign policy has focused on fighting terrorism around the world.