CSS History of the USA key facts

Colonial America and independence

Colonial America

• Jamestown 1607 (Virginia); Plymouth 1620 (Mayflower, Pilgrims); Massachusetts Bay 1630 (Puritans).
• New England: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire.
• Middle Colonies: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware.
• Southern Colonies: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia (the last, 1732).
• House of Burgesses, Virginia, 1619: the first elected assembly in the English colonies.
• Navigation Acts: colonial trade had to serve England (mercantilism), but they were loosely enforced before 1763.
• French and Indian War 1754 to 1763, begun over the Ohio Valley; Treaty of Paris 1763 gave Britain Canada and the land east of the Mississippi.

Road to independence and the Revolution

• Proclamation of 1763: no settlement west of the Appalachians.
• Stamp Act 1765, repealed 1766; the Declaratory Act (1766) said Parliament could still legislate for the colonies in all cases.
• Boston Massacre 1770; Boston Tea Party December 1773; Intolerable (Coercive) Acts 1774.
• First Continental Congress 1774, Philadelphia; Lexington and Concord, April 1775.
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense, January 1776; Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776.
• Saratoga 1777: turning point, France allied with America in 1778. Yorktown 1781: Cornwallis surrendered.
• Treaty of Paris 1783: independence recognised, western boundary at the Mississippi River.

The Constitution and the early republic

• Great (Connecticut) Compromise: House of Representatives by population, Senate with two members for each state.
• Virginia Plan: representation by population. New Jersey Plan: one house, equal votes for every state.
• Three-Fifths Compromise: three-fifths of enslaved people counted for representation and direct taxes; no ban on the slave trade before 1808.
• Ratification needed 9 of the 13 states. The Federalist Papers were by Hamilton, Madison and Jay.
• Bill of Rights: the first ten amendments, ratified 1791.
• Washington 1789 to 1797 (Farewell Address 1796: avoid permanent alliances and party spirit).
• Adams 1797 to 1801 (Alien and Sedition Acts 1798); Jefferson 1801 to 1809.

Expansion and sectional conflict

Expansion and Manifest Destiny

• Louisiana Purchase 1803: from Napoleon's France for about $15 million, under President Jefferson.
• Lewis and Clark expedition 1804 to 1806: explored the new land and a route to the Pacific.
• Adams-Onís Treaty 1819: Spain gave up Florida.
• Texas: independence from Mexico 1836 (San Jacinto), annexed by the United States 1845.
• Oregon Treaty 1846: boundary with Britain fixed at the 49th parallel.
• Mexican-American War 1846 to 1848 under President Polk; Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 1848 gave the United States California and the Southwest for $15 million.
• Gadsden Purchase 1853: land from Mexico for a southern railway route.

Jacksonian democracy and reform

• Indian Removal Act 1830; Worcester v. Georgia 1832 (Georgia's laws had no force in Cherokee territory); Trail of Tears 1838 to 1839.
• Nullification crisis 1832 to 1833: South Carolina against the tariff, Calhoun's doctrine; ended by the Force Bill and a compromise tariff.
• Bank veto 1832: Jackson refused to recharter the Second Bank of the United States.
• Abolition: William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator (1831); Frederick Douglass's Narrative (1845); Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
• Women's rights: Seneca Falls Convention 1848, Declaration of Sentiments (Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott).
• Education: Horace Mann and common schools. Dorothea Dix: care of the mentally ill.
• Temperance: the campaign to reduce or end the drinking of alcohol.

Slavery and the road to civil war

• Missouri Compromise 1820: Missouri slave, Maine free, no slavery north of 36°30' in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.
• Compromise of 1850: California free; popular sovereignty in Utah and New Mexico; a stricter Fugitive Slave Act; slave trade ended in Washington, DC.
• Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854 (Stephen Douglas): popular sovereignty, leading to 'Bleeding Kansas'.
• Dred Scott v. Sandford 1857 (Chief Justice Taney): Black people were not citizens; the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
• Lincoln-Douglas debates 1858 (Illinois Senate seat); John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry 1859.
• Election of 1860: Lincoln (Republican) beat Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell.
• South Carolina seceded December 1860; Confederacy formed February 1861 under Jefferson Davis; Fort Sumter, April 1861.

The Civil War and Reconstruction

• Fort Sumter April 1861; Antietam September 1862; Gettysburg and Vicksburg July 1863; Appomattox Court House April 1865.
• Vicksburg gave the Union control of the Mississippi and cut the Confederacy in two.
• Emancipation Proclamation: freed enslaved people in areas in rebellion only, not in the loyal border states.
• 13th Amendment (1865): abolished slavery.
• 14th Amendment (1868): citizenship for all born in the United States, equal protection and due process.
• 15th Amendment (1870): the vote may not be denied on grounds of race or colour.
• Reconstruction Acts 1867: five military districts. Andrew Johnson impeached 1868, acquitted by one vote. Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction.

The modern United States

Industrialisation, immigration and Progressivism

• First transcontinental railroad completed 1869 (Union Pacific and Central Pacific).
• Chinese Exclusion Act 1882: the first law to bar immigrants of a named nationality. Ellis Island opened 1892.
• American Federation of Labor, 1886, led by Samuel Gompers: skilled workers, wages and hours.
• Interstate Commerce Act 1887; Sherman Antitrust Act 1890 (against monopolies and trusts).
• Populist Party 1892: free coinage of silver, direct election of senators. Bryan's 'Cross of Gold' speech 1896.
• Upton Sinclair, The Jungle (1906): Meat Inspection Act and Pure Food and Drug Act, both 1906.
• Amendments: 16th income tax (1913), 17th direct election of senators (1913), 18th prohibition (1919), 19th votes for women (1920). Federal Reserve Act 1913.

Imperialism and the First World War

• USS Maine exploded in Havana harbour, February 1898; war with Spain the same year.
• Treaty of Paris 1898: Cuba independent; Puerto Rico and Guam ceded; Philippines sold for $20 million.
• Open Door notes 1899 to 1900, Secretary of State John Hay.
• Platt Amendment 1901: United States could intervene in Cuba and hold a naval base (Guantánamo Bay).
• Roosevelt Corollary 1904: the United States would act as policeman in Latin America. Panama Canal opened 1914.
• Lusitania sunk 1915; unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram, early 1917; war declared April 1917.
• Fourteen Points, January 1918; Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, 1919 to 1920 (Henry Cabot Lodge).

The 1920s, Great Depression and New Deal

• Black Tuesday: 29 October 1929.
• Causes of the Depression: overproduction, unequal incomes, speculation on margin, weak banks, a farm slump and falling world trade.
• Hawley-Smoot Tariff 1930: raised duties, other countries retaliated, trade shrank.
• Prohibition: 18th Amendment (in force 1920), repealed by the 21st Amendment (1933).
• 1933: bank holiday and Emergency Banking Act, Civilian Conservation Corps, Agricultural Adjustment Act, Tennessee Valley Authority, FDIC (insures bank deposits).
• 1934: Securities and Exchange Commission (regulates the stock market).
• 1935: Works Progress Administration (jobs), Wagner Act (right to join unions and bargain collectively), Social Security Act (old-age pensions and unemployment insurance).

The Second World War and the Cold War

• Lend-Lease Act, March 1941; Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941; Midway, June 1942 (turning point in the Pacific).
• D-Day, 6 June 1944 (Eisenhower); Yalta, February 1945; Hiroshima 6 August and Nagasaki 9 August 1945.
• Bretton Woods 1944: IMF and World Bank. United Nations founded 1945.
• Truman Doctrine 1947: aid to Greece and Turkey, support for free peoples resisting communism.
• Marshall Plan 1948: economic aid to rebuild Western Europe. NATO 1949: an attack on one member is an attack on all.
• Korean War 1950 to 1953: ended in an armistice, Korea still divided near the 38th parallel.
• Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962 (Kennedy and Khrushchev); Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 1964; Tet Offensive 1968; United States forces left Vietnam in 1973.

The civil rights movement

• Brown v. Board of Education 1954: segregated public schools are unconstitutional (unanimous, Chief Justice Warren).
• Montgomery bus boycott 1955 to 1956: began with the arrest of Rosa Parks, ended when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional.
• Little Rock 1957: Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce school integration.
• 1963: Birmingham campaign, 'Letter from Birmingham Jail', March on Washington ('I Have a Dream', Lincoln Memorial).
• Civil Rights Act 1964: banned segregation in public accommodations, and discrimination in employment on grounds of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.
• 24th Amendment 1964: no poll tax in federal elections.
• Selma marches 1965, then the Voting Rights Act 1965: banned literacy tests and sent federal officials to register voters.

US government and political system

• Congress: House of Representatives (435 members, two-year terms) and Senate (100 members, six-year terms).
• Veto override: a two-thirds vote in both houses. Treaties: approved by two-thirds of the Senate.
• Impeachment: the House impeaches (charges); the Senate tries, and two-thirds are needed to convict.
• Amendment: proposed by two-thirds of both houses (or a convention called by two-thirds of the states), ratified by three-quarters of the states.
• Supremacy Clause (Article VI): valid federal law overrides conflicting state law.
• Marbury v. Madison 1803: judicial review; part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 struck down.
• McCulloch v. Maryland 1819: Congress has implied powers (a national bank); a state may not tax a federal body.