APUSH Review Flashcards

Period 1: 1491-1607

• AP US History Period 1 (1491-1607) focuses on pre-European contact in the Americas and the transformative impact of European contact on American Indian societies.

• This period accounts for 5% of the AP class instructional content and is not included in the DBQ question.

Key concepts:

• Native populations migrated and settled across North America, adapting to diverse environments and developing distinct, complex societies.

• Contact among Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans led to the Columbian Exchange and significant transformations on both sides of the Atlantic.

Key terms and events:

• 1491: Prior to European contact, American Indian tribes in North and South America had complex societies with unique social structures, political organizations, and religious beliefs.

  • In the American Northwest, tribes combined permanent settlements with hunter-gatherer lifestyles.

  • In the Southwest and modern-day Mexico, tribes cultivated maize, a staple crop that supported a sedentary lifestyle.

• Christopher Columbus and early European explorers were driven by "God, Gold, and Glory":

  • Economic motivations: Seeking raw materials, especially gold, to enrich their monarchs and gain prestige.

  • Religious motivations: Spreading Christianity.

  • The consequences for native populations were often disastrous because they were subjected to slave labor (e.g., the Spanish encomienda system) and forced to abandon native religious practices.

  • European diseases decimated the American Indian population.

• The Columbian Exchange: A trade system emerged that moved crops, animals, and diseases between the Old World and the New World.

  • American crops like potatoes, tomatoes, and corn were introduced to Europe.

  • European crops like wheat, rice, and grapes were introduced to the Americas.

  • Slaves were brought to the New World to farm cash crops and mine precious metals.

• 1491: Maize cultivation by American Indians

• Christopher Columbus:

  • Claimed Hispaniola and Cuba for Spain.

  • Italian explorer who reached the New World while seeking a sea route to India, with the support of the Spanish monarchs.

• "God, Gold, Glory": The motivations of early European explorers to spread Christianity, enrich themselves and their monarch, and gain glory for discovering new lands.

• Encomienda System:

  • A forced labor system used by the Spanish that required labor and tribute from American Indians.

• 1512: Spain establishes the encomienda system.

• 1519: Hernan Cortes invades Mexico.

Period 2: 1607-1754

• AP US History Period 2 (1607-1754) focuses on the period between the founding of Jamestown and the start of the French and Indian War.

• This period accounts for 10% of the AP class instructional content.

Key concepts:

• Europeans developed diverse colonization and migration patterns, shaped by different economic and imperial goals, cultures, and environments. They competed with each other and American Indians for resources.

• The British colonies engaged in political, social, cultural, and economic exchanges with Great Britain, fostering both stronger bonds and resistance to British control.

Key terms and events:

• 1607: Jamestown founded.

• The Spanish controlled the largest territory, seeking precious metals using the encomienda system.

• The French and Dutch established fewer settlements and created trade alliances with Native Americans.

• The English established various colonies driven by profit and religious freedom.

• New England colonies were centered around farming and export economies.

• 1620: Pilgrims arrive at Plymouth.

• 1637: Anne Hutchinson banished from Massachusetts for holding religious meetings for women.

• 1675: King Philip’s War, a conflict between colonists and American Indians led by Metacom, also known as King Philip.

• 1692: Salem Witch Trials, in which eighteen men and women were found guilty of witchcraft.

• 1744: Start of King George's War, a conflict between British and French colonial forces in North America, which also involved various Native American tribes.

• Mercantilism: An economic system where countries sought to increase their wealth through government control of trade.

• Encomienda system: A labor system used by the Spanish that forced American Indians to live on plantations and convert to Christianity.

• Cash crops: Crops grown for profit, such as tobacco and cotton.

• First Great Awakening: A religious movement promoting emotional, evangelical preaching and camp meetings.

• Jonathan Edwards: "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

• The British sought to create a cohesive empire, leading to resistance, such as the First Great Awakening.

• The French and Dutch gradually lost control of their American colonies, leading to British dominance along the Atlantic coast.

Period 3: 1754-1800

• AP US History Period 3 (1754-1800) focuses on the transition of colonies to the United States of America, from the French and Indian War to the election of 1800.

• This period accounts for 12% of the AP class instructional content.

Key concepts:

• British attempts to assert tighter control over its North American colonies and colonial resolve to pursue self-government led to a colonial independence movement and the Revolutionary War.

• The American Revolution’s democratic and republican ideals inspired new experiments with different forms of government.

• Migration within North America and competition over resources created conflict among peoples and nations.

• Key terms and events:

  • 1763: The Proclamation of 1763 ordered colonists to halt westward migration past the Appalachian Mountains.

  • 1768: British troops arrive in Boston.

  • 1775: First battles of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord.

  • 1776: Congress declared independence from Britain with the Declaration of Independence.

  • 1780: Articles of Confederation adopted.

  • 1781: British surrender at Yorktown.

  • 1788: U.S. Constitution ratified.

  • 1791: Bill of Rights adopted.

  • French and Indian War: A conflict between Great Britain and France over territory in the Ohio River Valley.

  • Articles of Confederation: The first government established by the newly independent colonies; known for its weak federal government.

  • U.S. Constitution: The foundation of the U.S. federal government.

  • Federalist Papers: Essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison to advocate for a strong federal government.

  • Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the Constitution guaranteeing individual rights.

• The British government sought more control over the colonies after the French and Indian War, leading to colonial protests against westward expansion restrictions and new taxes.

• "No Taxation without Representation": The rallying cry of colonists unhappy with British rule.

• The Articles of Confederation:

  • Created a weak federal government with strong states and little regulation of currency, military, and warfare.

• U.S. Constitution:

  • Established a government with three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial.

• Federalist Papers:

  • Addressed concerns about the federal government's power.

• Bill of Rights:

  • Ensured the protection of individual rights.

• Westward expansion continued, increasing tensions with France and American Indians.

Period 4: 1800-1848

• AP US History Period 4 (1800-1848) focuses on the period from the election of 1800 to the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848.

• Key concepts:

  • The United States began to develop a modern democracy and celebrated a new national culture, while Americans sought to define the nation’s democratic ideals and change their society and institutions to match them.

  • Innovations in technology, agriculture, and commerce powerfully accelerated the American economy, precipitating profound changes to U.S. society and to national and regional identities.

  • The U.S. interest in increasing foreign trade and expanding its national borders shaped the nation’s foreign policy and spurred government and private initiatives.

• Key terms and events:

  • 1803: Louisiana Purchase.

  • 1807: Congress votes to end the international slave trade.

  • 1812: The U.S. declares war against Britain.

  • 1820: Missouri Compromise to balance slave and free states.

  • 1823: President James Monroe declared the Western Hemisphere closed to European colonization with the Monroe Doctrine.

  • 1830: Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act to relocate American Indians west of the Mississippi River.

  • 1845: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was published.

  • 1848: First women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York.

  • Judicial Review: The Supreme Court's ability to determine the constitutionality of a law.

  • Second Great Awakening: Religious revivals focused on personal religious experience.

  • American System: A plan proposed by Henry Clay to strengthen the U.S. economy through tariffs, national banks, and infrastructure.

  • Louisiana Territory: Land purchased from France in 1803 for 15 million.

  • Albert Bierstadt, Rocky Mountain Landscape.

• The U.S. worked to shape itself into a modern democracy, including judicial review.

• The American democracy expanded its democratic participation to gradually include all white men.

• Americans began to develop a distinct national culture.

• The Second Great Awakening emerged.

• The U.S. transitioned from an agricultural to a manufacturing economy.

• Inventions such as the telegraph and the cotton gin aided this transition.

• The American System facilitated the rapid movement of goods and services.

• The North became a major industrial center, and the South maintained its agricultural character with slave labor.

• The division between North and South led to distinct cultural identities and worldviews.

• Americans continued to expand westward, displacing Native Americans.

• The federal government purchased the Louisiana Territory from France.

Period 5: 1844-1877

• AP US History Period 5 (1844-1877) focuses on the causes and consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

• This period accounts for 13% of the AP class instructional content.

• Key concepts:

  • The United States became more connected with the world, pursued an expansionist foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere, and emerged as the destination for many migrants from other countries.

  • Intensified by expansion and deepening regional divisions, debates over slavery and other economic, cultural, and political issues led the nation into civil war.

  • The Union victory in the Civil War and the contested reconstruction of the South settled the issues of slavery and secession but left unresolved many questions about the power of the federal government and citizenship rights.

• Key terms and events:

  • 1850: The Compromise of 1850 admitted California to the Union and imposed the Fugitive Slave Law.

  • 1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe published Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

  • 1857: The Dred Scott decision denied citizenship to slaves and their right to sue in federal court.

  • 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected president, leading to South Carolina's secession.

  • 1863: President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in Confederate states.

  • 1867: Congress gained control over the South through the Reconstruction Acts of 1867.

  • 1877: The Compromise of 1877 withdrew federal troops from the South.

  • Nativist: A person or group opposing immigrants.

  • Manifest Destiny: The belief that Americans were destined to expand across the continent.

  • Abraham Lincoln: The 16th president, determined to preserve the Union.

  • Reconstruction: The period after the Civil War focused on rebuilding the Union.

  • John Gast, American Progress.

• The United States experienced a wave of immigration from Western Europe, leading to nativist sentiments.

• Manifest Destiny drove the expansion of the country.

• The discovery of gold in California led to a rush to the West Coast.

• The balance between free and slave states became a major issue, leading to political tensions with the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

• The Southern states seceded from the Union after Lincoln's election.

• The North and South were divided by slavery and economic differences.

• The Union victory in the Civil War ended slavery.

• Reconstruction aimed to rebuild the Union and guarantee rights for African-Americans.

• The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were passed.

• Reconstruction was ultimately abandoned, and Southern politicians reversed federal guidelines.

Period 6: 1865-1898

• AP US History Period 6 (1865-1898) covers the period from the end of the Civil War to the Spanish-American War of 1898.

• This period accounts for 13% of the AP class instructional content.

• Key concepts:

  • Technological advances, large-scale production methods, and the opening of new markets encouraged the rise of industrial capitalism in the United States.

  • The migrations that accompanied industrialization transformed both urban and rural areas of the United States and caused dramatic social and cultural change.

  • The Gilded Age produced new cultural and intellectual responses to industrialism, new social classes, and growing social stratification, and immigrants, women, and others organized to remedy economic and social policies.

• Key terms and events:

  • 1867: Secretary of State William Seward arranges for the United States to purchase Alaska from the Russians.

  • 1869: Transcontinental railroad completed.

  • 1872: Yellowstone National Park established.

  • 1876: The Battle of Little Bighorn.

  • 1882: The federal government enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act.

  • 1886: The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was formed.

  • 1892: Ellis Island opened.

  • 1896: The Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson implemented segregation and "separate, but equal" accommodations.

  • Second Industrial Revolution: The movement toward manufacturing that transformed the U.S. from an agricultural to an urban economy.

  • Robber Barons: Business leaders considered corrupt.

  • Union: A collective bargaining unit to improve working conditions.

  • Reservations: Areas of land where Native Americans were forced to live.

  • The Gilded Age: A period that appeared beautiful on the surface but was less so upon closer examination.

• The United States experienced an economic boom known as the Second Industrial Revolution.

• Technological innovation and cheap labor led to rapid production of consumer goods.

• Railroads, electricity, and skyscrapers emerged.

• The rich became richer, and the poor became poorer.

• Business leaders, or "Robber Barons," concentrated wealth at the expense of workers.

• Workers organized into unions to demand better wages and working conditions.

• New immigrant groups from southern and eastern Europe arrived in large numbers, leading to ethnic enclaves such as Chinatown in San Francisco.

• Americans continued to push westward, using the Transcontinental Railroad, which led to conflicts with American Indians.

• The federal government violated treaties with American Indian populations and forcibly relocated them onto reservations.

• The Gilded Age appeared good but was less beautiful upon closer examination.

• Social Darwinism was used to justify the wealth of the rich and the poverty of the poor.

• Reformers argued for supporting women and immigrants.

• Andrew Carnegie advocated for the "Gospel of Wealth."

Period 7: 1890-1945

• AP U.S. History Period 7 covers a pivotal time period in U.S. history that stretches from the lead up to World War I to the end of World War II.

• This period accounts for 17% of recommended instructional content for an AP class.

• 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 a series of 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.

• Key Terms:

  • 1898: Spanish American War.

  • 1917: US enters World War I.

  • 1920: 19th Amendment ratified, granting women the right to vote.

  • 1929: Stock Market Crash.

  • 1933: Prohibition repealed.

  • 1935: Social Security Act signed into law.

  • 1941: Attack on Pearl Harbor.

  • 1942: Japanese Americans removed to internment camps.

• Second Industrial Revolution causes urbanization and crowded unhealthy cities.

• Progressives try to reform urban conditions through social measures and government action.

• Progressives championed diverse social and political reforms, including expanding democracy.

• The progressive Era spurred by “muckraker” journalists who exposed social ills.

  • The Jungle and Jacob Riis’s How the Other Half Lives are two of the strongest examples of this approach.

• Progressive Era influenced by figures like President Franklin Roosevelt, 1932.

• The Great Depression leads to rising unemployment and social upheavals addressed by President Roosevelt’s New Deal program.

• The New Deal used government power to end the depression through aid, employment, and infrastructure spending.

• New Deal Programs such as Social Security, continue to have had lasting effects.

• During this time, Harlem Renaissance authors created a new, distinctly African identity.

• Americans were becoming increasingly united through entertainment, literature, and media.

• The start of the Spanish-American War to the end of WWII also catapulted the United States on to the global stage and defined international relations.

• The US rise to the top power was largely contested by anti-imperialist as the US began to push their democratic policies on other nations.

• The end of the WWII saw the USA in a position of international dominance.

Period 8: 1945-1980

• AP U.S. History Period 8 covers a period called “post-war America” that spans from the end of World War II until the 1980s.

• This period is overshadowed by the Cold War, between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union.

• 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, with far-reaching domestic and international consequences.

• Key Concept 8.2: Liberal, anti-communist ideology in the U.S. 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.

• Key Terms.

  • 1947: The president announces the Truman Doctrine to help contain the spread of communism.

  • 1952: The U.S. tests the hydrogen bomb.

  • 1954: The Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education desegregates public schools.

  • 1962: The Cold War almost turns “hot” in 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 Vocabulary

  • Cold War: A period of diplomatic tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that pitted capitalism against communism.

  • Marshall Plan: An expansive plan to provide economic and social aid to Western Europe in order to prevent the spread of communism.

  • Senator Joseph McCarthy: A senator from Wisconsin who led the campaign to uncover communists and suspected communists in the United States.

  • Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: An African American civil rights leader who advocated for greater racial equality using nonviolent methods.

  • Civil Rights Act of 1964: A wide-ranging piece of legislation that ended segregation and banned employment discrimination.

  • Great Society: A program developed under President Lyndon Johnson that attempted to end discrimination and eliminate poverty.

• The United States was deeply concerned that communism would spread out of the Soviet Union to other nations, including the United States itself.

• The Marshall Plan was constructed to prevent the spread of communism to Western Europe, the United States funneled money and services to war-torn nations after World War II.

• Senator Joseph McCarthy led a broad investigation of communists and alleged communist sympathizers in the 1950s, which caused a nationwide phenomenon.

• The power of the president became a point of concern during this time of conflict in foreign military engagements, such as the Vietnam War.

• In the postwar period, civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged racial discrimination through a potent combination of legal challenges, non-violent protests, and awareness campaigns which led to the start of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in order to promote greater racial equality.

• Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society attempt to eliminate poverty and end discrimination but experienced opposition from conservatives.

• New technologies like television transformed culture.

• Evangelical Christian churches were on the rise in America.

Period 9: 1980 - Present

• Period 9 covers from 1980 to the present. Focuses on the rise of the conservative movement beginning in 1980s.

• This period accounts for 5% of recommended instructional content for an AP class.

• Key Concept 9.1: A newly assertive conservative movement achieved several political and policy goals in the 1980s, while liberal ideals and movements for rights continued to advocate for a greater social change in the following decades.

• Key Concept 9.2: The end of the Cold War and increased globalization led to new immigration patterns, debates over U.S. role in the world, and domestic economic changes.

• Key Concept 9.3: The new technologies and social media changed the US communication and culture yet created division.

• Key Terms:

  • 1981: AIDS first recognized by scientists.

  • 1983: President Reagan introduces the Strategic Defense Initiative.

  • 1989: Berlin Wall falls.

  • 1991: Persian Gulf War.

  • 1991: Soviet Union dissolves, Gorbachev resigns.

  • 1998: President Clinton impeached.

  • 2001: Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

  • 2002: President Geroge W. Bush speaks of 'Axis of Evil'.

  • 2003: US invades Iraq.

  • 2011: Death of Osama bin Laden.

• Key Vocabulary

  • Cold War: A state of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and their respective allies during the second half of the 20th century.

  • Ronald Reagan: Led an incredibly successful and impactful conservative election.

  • Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001: Had an overwhelming and wide range of changes in almost all aspects of American life.