A symbol of Gilded Age corruption, "Boss" ----and his deputies ran the New York City Democratic party in the 1860s and swindled $200 million from the city through bribery, graft, and vote-buying. Boss -----was eventually jailed for his crimes and died behind bars.

A construction company was formed by owners of the Union Pacific Railroad for the purpose of receiving government contracts to build the railroad at highly inflated prices-and profits. In 1872 a scandal erupted when journalists discovered that the ------ Company had bribed congressmen and even the vice president to allow the ruse to continue.

A term given to the period 1865-1896 by Mark Twain, indicating both the fabulous wealth and the widespread corruption of the era.

A system, prevalent during the Gilded Age, in which political parties granted jobs and favors to party regulars who delivered votes on election day. ----------was both an essential wellspring of support for both parties and a source of conflict within the Republican party.

An agricultural system that emerged after the Civil War in which black and white farmers rented land and residences from a plantation owner in exchange for giving him a certain "----------" of each year's crop. It was the dominant form of southern agriculture after the Civil War, and landowners manipulated this system to keep tenants in perpetual debt and unable to leave their plantations.

System of racial segregation in the American South from the end of Reconstruction until the mid-twentieth century. Based on the concept of "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites, the-------------- system sought to prevent racial mixing in public, including restaurants, movie theaters, and public transporta-tion. An informal system, it was generally perpetuated by custom, violence, and intimidation.

Federal legislation that prohibited most further Chinese immigration to the United States. This was the first major legal restriction on immigration in U.S. history.

A landmark Supreme Court case in which crusading attorney (and future Supreme Court justice) Louis D. Brandeis persuaded the Supreme Court to accept the constitutionality of limiting the hours of women workers. Coming on the heels of Lochner v. New York, it established a different standard for male and female workers.

A Supreme Court decision that upheld the Espionage and Sedition Acts, reasoning that freedom of speech could be curtailed when it posed a "clear and present danger" to the nation.

Landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and abolished racial segregation in public schools. The Court reasoned that “separate” was inherently “unequal,” rejecting the foundation of the Jim Crow system of racial segregation in the South. This decision was the first major step toward the legal end of racial discrimination and a major accomplishment for the civil rights movement.

Landmark Supreme Court decision that forbade states from barring abortion by citing a woman's constitutional right to privacy. Seen as a victory for feminism and civil liberties by some, the decision provoked a strong counterreaction by opponents to abortion, galvanizing the pro-life movement.

A particularly violent example of the warfare between whites and Native Americans in the late nineteenth century, also known as "Custer's Last Stand." In two days, June 25 and 26, 1876, the combined forces of 2,500 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians defeated and killed more than 250 U.S. soldiers, including Colonel George Custer. The battle came as the U.S. government tried to compel Native Americans to remain on the reservations and Native Americans tried to defend territory from white gold-seekers. This Indian advantage did not last long, however, as the union of these Indian fighters proved tenuous and the U.S. Army soon exacted retribution.

A battle between the U.S. Army and the Dakota Sioux, in which two hundred Native Americans and twenty-nine U.S. soldiers died. Tensions erupted violently over two major issues: the Sioux practice of the "Ghost Dance," which the U.S. government had outlawed, and the dispute over whether Sioux reservation land would be broken up because of the Dawes Act.

A pivotal naval battle fought on June 3–6, 1942. The victory halted Japanese advances in the Pacific.

The forty-five-year-long diplomatic tension between the United States and the Soviet Union that divided much of the world into polarized camps, capitalist against communist. Most of the international conflicts during that period, particularly in the developing world, can be traced to the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

It began when the Soviet-backed North ----invaded South ----and U.N. forces, dominated by the United States, launched a counteroffensive. The war ended in stalemate in 1953.

A regulation established in many southern states in the 1890s that exempted from voting requirements (such as literacy tests and poll taxes) anyone who could prove that his ancestors had been able to vote in 1860. Since slaves could not vote before the Civil War, these clauses guaranteed the right to vote to many whites while denying it to blacks.

A law that forbade trusts or combinations in business, this was landmark legislation because it was one of the first congressional attempts to regulate big business for the public good. At first the law was mostly used to restrain trade unions, as the courts tended to side with companies in legal cases. In 1914 the act was revised so it could more effectively be used against monopolistic corporations.

An act that broke up Indian reservations and distributed land to individual households. Leftover land was sold for money to fund U.S. government efforts to "civilize" Native Americans.

An act that guaranteed that paper currency would be redeemed freely in gold, putting an end to the already dying "free-silver" campaign.

Following its military occupation, the United States successfully pressured the Cuban government to write this --------into its constitution. It limited Cuba's treaty-making abilities, controlled its debt, and stipulated that the United States could intervene militarily to restore order when it saw fit.

A set of diplomatic letters in which Secretary of State John Hay urged the great powers to respect Chinese rights and free and open competition within their spheres of influence. The notes established the "-------------," which sought to ensure access to the Chinese market for the United States, despite the fact that it did not have a formal sphere of influence in China.

A brazen policy of "preventive intervention" advocated by ------------------------- in his Annual Message to Congress in 1904. Adding ballast to the Monroe Doctrine, it stipulated that the United States would retain a right to intervene in the domestic affairs of Latin American nations in order to restore military and financial order.

Law passed by Congress to impose penalties on railroads that offered rebates and customers who accepted them. The law strengthened the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The Hepburn Act of 1906 added free passes to the list of railroad no-no's.

A law passed by Congress to subject meat shipped over state lines to federal inspection. The publication of Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle earlier that year so disgusted American consumers with its description of conditions in slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants that it mobilized public support for government action.

A law passed by Congress to inspect and regulate the labeling of all foods and pharmaceuticals intended for human consumption. This legislation, and additional provisions passed in 1911 to strengthen it, aimed particularly at the patent medicine industry.

A law prohibiting interference with the draft and other acts of national "disloyalty." Together with the Sedition Act of 1918, which added penalties for abusing the government in writing, it created a climate that was unfriendly to civil liberties.

This constitutional amendment, finally passed by Congress in 1919 and ratified in 1920, gave women the right to vote over seventy years after the first organized calls for woman's suffrage in Seneca Falls, New York.

A sentimental triumph of the 1920s peace movement, this 1928 --- linked sixty-two nations in the supposed "outlawry of war."

A law creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insured individual bank deposits and ended a century- long tradition of unstable banking that had reached a crisis in the Great Depression.

A flagship accomplishment of the New Deal, this law provided for unemployment and old-age insurance financed by a payroll tax on employers and employees. It has long remained a pillar of the “New Deal Order.”

Also known as the National Labor Relations Act, this law protected the right of labor to organize in unions and bargain collectively with employers and established the National Labor Relations Board to monitor unfair labor practices on the part of employers. Its passage marked the culmination of decades of labor protest.

Based on the motto “Send guns, not sons,” this law abandoned former pretenses of neutrality by allowing Americans to sell unlimited supplies of arms to any nation defending itself against the Axis powers. Patriotically numbered 1776, the bill was praised as a device for keeping the nation out of World War II.

Federal legislation signed by Dwight D. Eisenhower to construct thousands of miles of modern highways in the name of national defense. Officially called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, this bill dramatically increased the move to the suburbs, as white middle-class people could more easily commute to urban jobs.

Federal law that banned racial discrimination in public facilities and strengthened the federal government's power to fight segregation in schools. Title VII of the act prohibited employers from discriminating based on race in their hiring practices, and empowered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to regulate fair employment.

Legislation pushed through Congress by President Johnson that prohibited ballot-denying tactics, such as literacy tests and intimidation. Sought to make racial disenfranchisement explicitly illegal.

Also known as "Obamacare," the --- extended health-care insurance to some 30 million Americans, marking a major step toward achieving the century-old goal of providing universal health-care coverage.

Legislation passed shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that granted broad surveillance and detention authority to the government.

An education ----- created and signed by the George W. Bush administration. Designed to increase accountability standards for primary and secondary schools, the law authorized several federal programs to monitor those standards and increased choices for parents in selecting schools for their children. The program was highly controversial, in large part because it linked results on standardized tests to federal funding for schools and school districts.

John D. Rockefeller's company, formed in 1870, which came to symbolize the trusts and monopolies of the Gilded Age. By 1877 ------ controlled 95 percent of the oil refineries in the United States. It was also one of the first multinational corporations and at times distributed more than half of its kerosene production outside the United States. By the turn of the century it had become a target for trust-busting reformers, and in 1911 the Supreme Court ordered it to break up into several dozen smaller companies.

A national federation of trade unions that included only skilled workers, founded in 1886. Led by Samuel Gompers for nearly four decades, the ------ sought to negotiate with employers for a better kind of capitalism that rewarded workers fairly with better wages, hours, and conditions. Membership was almost entirely white and male until the middle of the twentieth century.

Founded in Ohio in the 1870s to combat the evils of excessive alcohol consumption, the --------- went on to embrace a broad reform agenda, including campaigns to abolish prostitution and gain the right to vote for women.

Officially known as the People's party, they represented Westerners and Southerners who believed that U.S. economic policy inappropriately favored Eastern businessmen instead of the nation's farmers. Their proposals included nationalization of the railroads, a graduated income tax, and, most significantly, the unlimited coinage of silver.

A diverse group formed to protest American colonial oversight in the Philippines. It included university presidents, industrialists, clergymen, and labor leaders. Strongest in the Northeast, the ---------------- was the largest lobbying organization on a U.S. foreign-policy issue until the end of the nineteenth century. It declined in strength after the United States signed the Treaty of Paris (which approved the annexation of the Philippines), and especially after hostilities broke out between Filipino nationalists and American forces.

Organized by Theodore Roosevelt, this was a colorful, motley regiment of Cuban war volunteers consisting of western cowboys, ex-convicts, and effete Ivy Leaguers. Roosevelt emphasized his experience with the regiment in subsequent campaigns for governor of New York and vice president under William McKinley.

Germany and Austria-Hungary, later joined by Turkey and Bulgaria, made up this alliance against the Allies in World War I.

Great Britain, Russia, and France, later joined by Italy, Japan, and the United States, formed this alliance against the Central Powers in World War I.

A world organization of national governments proposed by President Woodrow Wilson and established by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. It worked to facilitate peaceful international cooperation. Despite emotional appeals by Wilson, isolationists' objections to the League created the major obstacle to American signing of the Treaty of Versailles.

The name given to the U.S. Army force deployed to Europe in World War I commanded by General John J. Pershing and composed mostly of conscripts. Because the United States entered the war so late, by the time the AEF was raised, trained, and deployed, the war was in its last year (1918). Units of the ------ fought at Cantigny in May and at Chateau Thierry and Belleau Wood in June; its major engagements were at Saint Mihiel (September 12–15) and the Meuse-Argonne (September 26–November 11.

The ----- branch of the U.S. Army established during World War II to employ ----- in noncombatant jobs. ------ now participated in the armed services in ways that went beyond their traditional roles as nurses.

Nonviolent civil rights organization founded in 1942 and committed to the “Double V”–victory over fascism abroad and racism at home.

International body formed in 1945 to bring nations into dialogue in hopes of preventing further world wars. Much like the former League of Nations in ambition, the ----- was more realistic in recognizing the authority of the Big Five powers in keeping peace in the world. Thus, it guaranteed veto power to all permanent members of its Security Council–Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States.

Military alliance of Western European powers and the United States and Canada established in 1949 to defend against the common threat from the Soviet Union, marking a giant stride forward for European unity and American internationalism.

Free-trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada, and the United States. A symbol of the increased reality of a globalized marketplace, the treaty passed despite opposition from protectionists and labor leaders.

Cartel comprising Middle Eastern states and Venezuela first organized in 1960. OPEC aimed to control access to and prices of oil, wresting power from Western oil companies and investors. In the process, it gradually strengthened the hand of non-Western powers on the world stage.

Nonprofit organization of centrist Democrats founded in the mid-1980s. The group attempted to push the -----party toward pro-growth, strong defense, and anti-crime policies. Among its most influential early members was Bill Clinton, whom it held up as an example of "third way" politics.

An international body to promote and supervise liberal trade among nations. The successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, it marked a key world trade policy achievement of the Clinton administration.

Cabinet-level agency created in 2003 to unify and coordinate public safety and antiterrorism operations within the federal government.

Arabic for "The Base," an international alliance of anti-Western Islamic Fundamentalist terrorist organizations founded in the late 1980s by veterans of the Afghan struggle against the Soviet Union. The group was headed by Osama bin Laden and has taken responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks, especially after the late 1990s. -------- organized the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States from its headquarters in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Since the U.S-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the launch of the "global war on terror," the group has been weakened but still poses significant threats around the world.

(1822-1893) The former Republican governor of Ohio who became president after the contested 1876 election. By 1880 he had lost the support of his party and was not renominated for the office.

(1831-1881) Elected to the presidency in 1880, ----- served as president for only a few months before being assassinated by Charles Guiteau, who claimed to have killed him because he was denied a job through patronage when ------ was elected. The assassination fueled efforts to reform the spoils system.

(1843-1901) A former Republican congressman from Ohio who won the presidency in 1896 and again in 1900. He was probusiness, conservative, and unwilling to trouble the waters by voicing unpopular opinions.

(1857-1930) The corpulent civil governor of the Philippines under William McKinley. ----- went on to become twenty-seventh president of the United States in 1909.

(1837-1913) A banker who became a national symbol of the power of the banks during the Gilded Age, he helped all the big businesses of the era consolidate their holdings and ultimately bought Carnegie's steel empire for more than $400 million in 1900. He also helped to bail the U.S. government out of a currency crunch in 1895 when he organized a loan to the government of $65 million in gold. In 1902 his Northern Securities Company became one of the first targets of Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting crusades, but Roosevelt's 1907 decision to allow a steel merger under -----watch showed the limits of Roosevelt's efforts.

(1794-1877) A railroad magnate who made millions in steamboating before beginning a business consolidating railroads and eliminating competition in the industry.

(1835-1919) A tycoon who came to dominate the burgeoning steel industry. His company, later named United States Steel, was the biggest corporation in U.S. history in 1901. After he retired, he donated most of his fortune to public libraries, universities, arts organizations, and other charitable causes.

(1839-1937) The founder of the Standard Oil Company, he developed the technique of horizontal integration and compelled other oil companies to join the Standard Oil "trust." He became the richest person in the world and the United States' first billionaire. He later became known for his philanthropic support of universities and medical research.

(1847-1922) The inventor of the telephone, patented in 1876.

(1847-1931) The inventor of, among other things, the electric light bulb, the phonograph, the mimeograph, the moving picture, and a machine capable of taking X-rays. Ultimately he held more than one thousand patents for his inventions.

(1809-1882) A British naturalist whose 1859 book On the Origin of Species outlined a theory of evolution based on natural selection, whereby the strongest individuals of a particular species survived and reproduced while weaker individuals died out. This theory had an enormous impact not just on science but on religion and society too, as people wrestled with the challenge evolutionary theory posed to biblical notions of divine creation and applied the ideas of natural selection to human society.

(1879-1955) German-born scientist who immigrated to the United States in 1933 to escape the Nazis. He helped to persuade FDR to push ahead with preparations for developing the atomic bomb, but he later ruefully declared that "annihilation of any life on earth has been brought within the range of technical possibilities."

(1858-1919) Rough Rider ------- was a cowboy-hero of the Cuban campaign who rode his popularity into the governorship of New York State and then into the vice president's office. He became president when McKinley was assassinated in 1901. He won reelection as a Republican in 1904 and then lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912, when he tried for another term as the Progressive party candidate.

(1874-1964) A Quaker-humanitarian tapped to head the Food Administration during World War I. During the 1920s, he became the secretary of commerce, promoting economic modernization and responsible leadership by business to hold off further expansion of government power. Elected to the presidency in 1928 as a Republican, he soon faced the crisis of the Great Depression, which he tried to combat with the same voluntary efforts and restrained government action that had been his hallmark over the previous decade. He lost the election of 1932 to Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, who advocated a more activist role for the federal government.

(1865-1923) Twenty-ninth president of the United States, from 1921 to his death in office in 1923. He began his career as a newspaper publisher before getting elected to the Ohio senate, where he served from 1899 to 1903. He then served as lieutenant governor of Ohio (1903-1905) and as a U.S. senator (1915-1921) before winning the presidency. His time in office was beset with scandals, many of them the result of the disloyalty of scheming friends.

(1872-1933) Vice president ------ became thirtieth president of the United States when Warren G. Harding died in office. A friend of business over labor, he served during the boom years from 1923 to 1929.

(1860-1935) Addams founded Hull House, America's first settlement house, to help immigrants assimilate through education, counseling, and municipal reform efforts. She also advocated pacifism throughout her life, including during World War I, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

(1859-1932) A tireless crusader for women's and labor rights, ------ was Illinois's first chief factory inspector and a leader of the National Consumers League, an organization dedicated to improving working conditions for women and children. She also went on to help found the NAACP.

(1913-2005) NAACP leader in Montgomery, Alabama, who inaugurated that city's famous bus boycott in 1955 by refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger. She remained a living symbol of the spirit of the civil rights movement and the cause of racial equality throughout her long life.

(1930–) The first female justice on the Supreme Court. A graduate of Stanford Law School, she served as an attorney, jurist, and politician in Arizona before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. On the bench, she was known as a moderate, frequently casting crucial swing votes in important cases. She retired in 2005.

(1869-1964) Well-educated Filipino leader who first fought against Spain and later led the Philippine insurgency against U.S. colonial rule.

(1849-1914) Danish-born police reporter and pioneering photographer who exposed the ills of tenement living in his 1890 book illustrated with powerful photographs, How the Other Half Lives. His work led to the establishment of "model tenements" in New York City.

(1838-1914) This noted naturalist split with conservationists like Gifford Pinchot by trying to protect natural "temples" like the Hetch Hetchy Valley from development. In 1892 he founded the Sierra Club, which is now one of the most influential conservation organizations in the United States. His writings and philosophy shaped the formation of the modern environmental movement.

(1877-1923) A combination of bandit and Robin Hood, he emerged as a chief rival to Mexican president Carranza and tried to provoke the United States into war by going on a killing spree north of the border in New Mexico. President Wilson dispatched General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing in an attempt to capture Villa, but the expedition ended in defeat for American forces.

(1882-1945) The thirty-second president of the United States, He was the only American president to be elected to four terms of office. He first won the presidency against Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover in 1932 in the depths of the Great Depression and was credited with having developed a program, called the New Deal, that shepherded the nation out of crisis. When World War II broke out in Europe, he steered the United States into the war, which in the end proved more effective than the New Deal in helping the nation recover from difficult economic times. His gallant struggle against polio and his enormous talents as a politician made him a beloved leader for a dozen difficult years in the nation's history.

(1880-1964) The flamboyant, vain, and brilliant American commander in the Philippines and mastermind of the "leapfrogging" strategy for bypassing strongly defended Japanese islands during World War II. He would go on to command American troops in the Korean War until he was relieved of his duties by President Harry S. Truman for insubordination in 1951.

(1890-1969) Supreme commander of U.S. forces in Europe during World War II, the war hero later became the thirty-fourth president of the United States. During his two terms, from 1952 to 1960, he presided over the economically prosperous 1950s. He was praised for his dignity and decency, though criticized for not being more assertive on civil rights.

(1884-1972) Vice president under Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, he assumed the office of the presidency in April of that year, when Roosevelt died from a brain hemorrhage while vacationing in Warm Springs, Georgia. He won another term in his own right in a historically close election in 1948 against Republican Thomas Dewey. As president, he chose to use nuclear weapons against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

(1883-1945) Fascist leader of Italy from 1922 to 1943. He launched Italy into World War II on the side of the Axis powers and became a close ally of Germany.

(1889-1945) Nazi dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, He was the mastermind behind the Holocaust. His rapacious quest for power provoked World War II.

(1878-1953) Soviet dictator from Lenin's death in 1922 until his own death in 1953. He led the Soviet Union through World War II and shaped Soviet policies in the early years of the Cold War. He secured protective "satellite states" in Eastern Europe at the Yalta Conference and pushed Soviet scientists to develop atomic weapons, escalating an arms race with the United States.

(1926-2016) Cuban revolutionary who overthrew the Batista dictatorship in 1958 and assumed control of the island country. His connections with the Soviet Union led to a cessation of diplomatic relations with the United States and such international affairs as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis. A controversial figure, he oversaw his country through the end of the Cold War, when financial and military support from the Soviet Union dissipated, and through nearly a half-century of a trade embargo with the United States. He remained the head of Cuba's government until his retirement in February 2008.

(1860-1925) A Democratic congressman from Nebraska who was an outspoken "free-silver" advocate. His "Cross of Gold" speech at the Democratic convention in 1896 won him the party's nomination. The Populists also backed him in a "fusion" ticket with the Democrats. His eloquent advocacy for free silver and farmers' interests earned him millions of devoted followers, but never quite enough to win the presidency, for which he ran three times (1896, 1900, 1908). Later in life, as secretary of state he led the resistance to American entry into World War I. An ardent Fundamentalist, in 1925 he gained fame from some quarters—and great disdain from others—for joining the prosecution of high school biology teacher John T. Scopes for teaching evolution.

(1913-1994) Thirty-seventh president of the United States, 1969-1974. He rose to national prominence as a "communist hunter" and member of HUAC in the 1950s. He was vice president under Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961 and defended American capitalism in the 1959 kitchen debate with Khrushchev. He ran unsuccessfully for president against John F. Kennedy in 1960 but was elected to the presidency in 1968 and 1972. He resigned the presidency amid the Watergate scandal in 1974.

(1908-1973) Thirty-sixth president of the United States, 1963-1969. A Texas Democrat who rose to tremendous power in the Senate during the New Deal, he was tapped to be John F. Kennedy's running mate in 1960. Chosen largely to help solidify support for the Democratic ticket in the anti-Catholic South, he assumed the presidency after Kennedy's assassination in 1963. As president, he was responsible for liberal programs such as the Great Society, War on Poverty, and civil rights legislation, as well as the escalation of the Vietnam War. After a series of challenges from within his party, he chose not to run for reelection in 1968.

(1925-1968) He entered public life as U.S. attorney general during the Kennedy administration. Later elected senator from New York, he became an antiwar, pro-civil rights presidential candidate in 1968, launching a popular challenge to incumbent President -----. Amid that campaign, he was assassinated in California on June 6, 1968.

(1838-1917) The last reigning queen of Hawaii, whose defense of native Hawaiian self-rule led to a revolt by white settlers and her dethronement.

(1894-1971) Premier of the Soviet Union from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was a Communist party official who emerged from the power struggle after Stalin's death in 1953 to lead the USSR. As Soviet premier, he notably renounced Stalin's brutality in 1956, the same year that he crushed a pro-Western uprising in Hungary. In 1958, he issued an ultimatum for Western evacuation of Berlin, from which he backed down a year later. He defended Soviet-style economic planning in the kitchen debate with American vice president Richard Nixon in 1959, and he attempted to send missiles to Cuba in 1962 but backed down when confronted by President Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis.

(1890-1969) Vietnamese revolutionary nationalist leader. Beginning in 1941, He organized Vietnamese opposition to foreign occupation, first against the Japanese and then, after World War II, against the French. His Viet Minh forces were victorious against French colonialists in 1954, after which he became the leader of North Vietnam. He led the war to unify the country in the face of increased military opposition from the United States.

(1931-) Last leader of the Soviet Union. He assumed control in 1985 and ushered in a period of reforms known as glasnost and perestroika. On four occasions, he met U.S. president Ronald Reagan to negotiate arms reduction treaties and other measures to thaw the Cold War. In 1991, after surviving a failed military coup against him, he dissolved the Soviet Union and disbanded the Communist party.

(1856-1915) As head of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he advocated for vocational education for African Americans so that they could gain economic security. Believing that southern whites were not yet ready for social equality, he instead concentrated on gaining economic power for blacks without directly challenging the southern racial order.

(1868-1963) A Harvard-educated leader in the fight for racial equality, he believed that liberal arts education would provide the "talented tenth" of African Americans with the ability to lift their race into full participation in society. From New York, where he was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he relentlessly brought attention to racism in America and demanded legal and cultural change. During his long life he published many important books of history, sociology, and poetry and provided intellectual leadership to those advocating civil rights. One of his deepest convictions was that American blacks needed to connect their freedom struggle with African independence, and he died as a resident of the new nation of Ghana.

(1929-1968) Civil rights leader and Baptist preacher who rose to prominence with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 and founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. He was an outspoken advocate for black rights throughout the 1960s, most famously during the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered the "I Have a Dream" speech. He was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 while supporting a sanitation workers' strike.

(1925-1965) Black militant, radical minister, and spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964. Having eschewed his family name "Little," he preached a doctrine of no compromise with white society. He was assassinated in New York City in 1965.

(1924-) Forty-first president of the United States, 1989-1993. A former congressman, diplomat, businessman, Republican party chairman, and director the CIA, he served for eight years as Reagan's vice president before being elected president in 1988. As president, he oversaw the end of the Cold War and the revitalization of the American military in the Persian Gulf War. He faced a severe economic recession late in his term that damaged his popularity, and he lost his bid for reelection in 1992.

(1946-) Forty-second president of the United States, 1993-2001. A former Arkansas governor and founding member of the Democratic Leadership Council, he promoted centrist politics and distanced his policies from traditional Democratic programs. He signed the Welfare Reform Act in 1996 to fulfill a campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it." He was the first Democrat to be reelected since Franklin Roosevelt and the first president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson.

(1946-) Forty-third president of the United States, 2001-2009. The son of a former president and former governor of Texas, he emerged victorious from the contested election of 2000, where he lost the popular vote. As president, he pursued changes in Social Security, immigration, and education laws and appointed two conservative justices to the Supreme Court. Launching and leading the "war on terror" in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, he was the architect of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

(1962-) Forty-fourth president of the United States and first African American elected to that office. A lawyer and community organizer in Chicago, he served in the Illinois state senate before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. As president, he tackled the effects of the financial crisis while pursuing passage of ambitious reforms in health care and financial regulation.

(1908-1957) Senator from Wisconsin who rose to infamy by accusing the State Department of employing communists. he conducted high-profile red-baiting hearings that damaged countless careers before he finally overreached in 1954 when he went after the U.S. Army. Following the Army -----hearings, he was censured by the Senate and died of alcoholism shortly thereafter.

(1913-2006) Thirty-eighth president of the United States, 1974-1977. A long-serving congressman from Michigan, he was appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned in the fall of 1973. He succeeded to the presidency upon Nixon's resignation in August 1974 and focused his brief administration on containing inflation and reviving public faith in the presidency. He was defeated narrowly by --------- in 1976.

(1924-) Thirty-ninth president of the United States, 1977-1981. A peanut farmer and former governor of Georgia, he defeated -------- in 1976. As president, he arranged the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978 but saw his foreign-policy legacy tarnished by the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis in 1979. Domestically, he tried to rally the American spirit in the face of economic decline but was unable to stop the rapid increase in inflation. After leaving the presidency, he achieved widespread respect as an elder statesman and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

(1911-2004) (1930-) (1935-) Fortieth president of the United States, 1981-1989. A former actor and California governor, he was elected in 1980 with a pronounced conservative mandate to fix the American economy by scaling back taxes and the role of government in business. He was a staunch Cold Warrior whose massive defense spending added stress to the Soviet Union's military budget and may ultimately have contributed to the end of the Cold War.

(1835-1910) A satirist and writer, he is best known for his books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). His work critiqued American politics and society, especially the racial and economic injustice that he saw in the South and West. He traveled abroad extensively, and his work was read and loved around the world.

(1855-1926) A tireless socialist leader who organized the American Railway Union in the Pullman Strike in 1894. He was later convicted under the World War I's Espionage Act in 1918 and sentenced to ten years in a federal penitentiary. A frequent presidential candidate on the Socialist party ticket, in 1920 he won more than 900,000 votes campaigning for president from his prison cell.

(1893-1935) Louisiana governor, later U.S. senator, whose anti-New Deal "Share Our Wealth" program promised to make "Every Man a King." He was gunned down in 1935.

(1937-2006) Iraqi dictator who led the Ba'ath party in a coup in 1968 and ruled Iraq until the U.S. invasion. He inaugurated hostilities with neighboring Iran in 1980, leading to the protracted and bloody Iran-Iraq War. He invaded Kuwait in 1990, prompting a broad-based military operation led by the United States to liberate the country. After that war, Hussein retained power under strict sanctions and no-fly demilitarized zones throughout the 1990s, but he stymied international atomic weapons inspectors. After his fall in 2003, he went into hiding but was ultimately captured, tried, and executed by the Iraqi government.

(1948-) The second black American to serve on the Supreme Court, he is a conservative justice who adheres to constitutional interpretation based on the doctrine of originalism. Appointed by George H. W. Bush in 1991 to replace Thurgood Marshall, he was the subject of controversial nomination proceedings when he was accused of sexual harassment by a former colleague.

(1947-) Democratic senator from New York who, in 2008, became the first highly competitive female candidate for president. A lawyer and political activist, she was First Lady from 1993 to 2001 and then became the first former First Lady to serve in elected office when she was elected to the Senate. She tried unsuccessfully to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 and then served as secretary of state in the Barack Obama administration from 2009 to 2013.

American battleship dispatched to keep a "friendly" watch over Cuba in early 1898. It mysteriously blew up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, with a loss of 260 sailors. Later evidence confirmed that the explosion was accidental, resulting from combustion in one of the ship's internal coal bunkers. But many Americans, eager for war, insisted that it was the fault of a Spanish submarine mine.

British passenger liner that sank after it was torpedoed by Germany on May 7, 1915. It ended the lives of 1,198 people, including 128 Americans, and pushed the United States closer to war.

The practice perfected by Andrew Carnegie of controlling every step of the industrial production process in order to increase efficiency and limit competition.

The practice perfected by John D. Rockefeller of dominating a particular phase of the production process in order to monopolize a market, often by forming trusts and alliances with competitors.

A mechanism by which one company grants control over its operations, through ownership of its stock, to another company. The Standard Oil Company became known for this practice in the 1870s as it eliminated its competition by taking control of smaller oil companies.

A union-organizing term that refers to the practice of allowing only unionized employees to work for a particular company. The AFL became known for negotiating closed-shop agreements with employers, in which the employer would agree not to hire nonunion members.

Believers in the idea, popular in the late nineteenth century, that people gained wealth by "survival of the fittest." Therefore, the wealthy had simply won a natural competition and owed nothing to the poor, and indeed service to the poor would interfere with this organic process. Some -------- also applied this theory to whole nations and races, explaining that powerful peoples were naturally endowed with gifts that allowed them to gain superiority over others. This theory provided one of the popular justifications for U.S. imperial ventures like the Spanish-American War.

A reform movement led by Protestant ministers who used religious doctrine to demand better housing and living conditions for the urban poor. Popular at the turn of the twentieth century, it was closely linked to the settlement-house movement, which brought middle-class, Anglo-American service volunteers into contact with immigrants and working people.

Bright young reporters at the turn of the twentieth century who won this unfavorable moniker from Theodore Roosevelt, but boosted the circulations of their magazines by writing exposés of widespread corruption in American society. Their subjects included business manipulation of government, white slavers, child labor, and the illegal deeds of the trusts, and helped spur the passage of reform legislation.

The region of the American South, extending roughly from North Carolina west to Oklahoma and Texas, where Protestant Fundamentalism and belief in literal interpretation of the Bible were traditionally strongest.

A progressive reform measure allowing voters to petition to have a law placed on the general ballot. Like the ----- and ----- , it brought democracy directly "to the people" and helped foster a shift toward interest group politics and away from old political "machines."

A progressive reform procedure allowing voters to place a bill on the ballot for final approval, even after being passed by the legislature.

A progressive ballot procedure allowing voters to remove elected officials from office.

Meeting on a warship off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941, Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill signed this covenant outlining the future path toward disarmament, peace, and a permanent system of general security. Its spirit would animate the founding of the United Nations and raise awareness of the human rights of individuals after World War II.

Name applied by President Taft's critics to the policy of supporting U.S. investments and political interests abroad. First applied to the financing of railways in China after 1909, the policy then spread to Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua. President Woodrow Wilson disavowed the practice, but his administration undertook comparable acts of intervention in support of U.S. business interests, especially in Latin America.

German foreign secretary Arthur ------ had secretly proposed a German-Mexican alliance against the United States. When the note was intercepted and published in March 1917, it caused an uproar that made some Americans more willing to enter the war.

Woodrow Wilson's proposal to ensure peace after World War I, calling for an end to secret treaties, widespread arms reduction, national self-determination, and a new league of nations.

The policy followed by leaders of Britain and France at the 1938 conference in Munich. Their purpose was to avoid war, but they allowed Germany to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

A Protestant Christian movement emphasizing the literal truth of the Bible and opposing religious modernism, which sought to reconcile religion and science. It was especially strong in the Baptist Church and the Church of Christ, first organized in 1906.

A system of industrial management created and promoted in the early twentieth century by Frederick W. Taylor, emphasizing stopwatch efficiency to improve factory performance. The system gained immense popularity across the United States and Europe.

In response to the demanding conditions of modern life, this artistic and cultural movement revolted against comfortable Victorian standards and accepted chance, change, contingency, uncertainty, and fragmentation. Originating among avant-garde artists and intellectuals around the turn of the twentieth century, it blossomed into a full-fledged cultural movement in art, music, literature, and architecture.

The movement of 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the urban North and West in two major waves. The first, from World War I until the onset of the Great Depression, brought more than 1.5 million migrants to northern cities. From 1940 to 1970, another 5 million left the South, pushed off the land by the mechanization of cotton farming and lured north and west by hopes for greater economic opportunity and more equitable political participation. After 1970, increasing numbers of African Americans trekked back to the South in what was called the --------------- , as new jobs became more plentiful in the South than in the older industrial cities of the North and racial relations improved in the South.

A creative circle of expatriate American artists and writers, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein, who found shelter and inspiration in post-World War I Europe.

A creative outpouring among African American writers, jazz musicians, and social thinkers, centered around ----- in the 1920s, that celebrated black culture and advocated for a "New Negro" in American social, political, and intellectual life.

Grim shantytowns where impoverished victims of the Great Depression slept under newspapers and in makeshift tents. Their visibility (and sarcastic name) tarnished the reputation of the ------- administration.

Headed by Bernard Baruch, this federal agency coordinated industrial production during World War I, setting production quotas, allocating raw materials, and pushing companies to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. Under the economic mobilization of the ---------------------- , industrial production in the United States increased 20 percent during the war.

A tawdry affair involving the illegal lease of priceless naval oil reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California. The scandal, which implicated President Harding's secretary of the interior, was one of several that gave his administration a reputation for corruption.

The panicky day of October 29, 1929, when over 16,410,000 shares of stock were sold on Wall Street. It was a trigger that helped bring on the Great Depression.

Officially known as the ------- Expeditionary Force, this rag-tag group of twenty thousand veterans marched on Washington to demand immediate payment of bonuses earned during World War I. General Douglas MacArthur dispersed the veterans with tear gas and bayonets.

Specialists in law, economics, and welfare, many of them young university professors, who advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt and helped develop the policies of the New Deal.

The economic and political policies of Franklin Roosevelt's administration in the 1930s, which aimed to solve the problems of the Great Depression by providing relief for the unemployed and launching efforts to stimulate economic recovery. The ------- built on reforms of the progressive era to expand greatly an American- style welfare state.

An arrangement negotiated in 1924 to reschedule German reparations payments. It stabilized the German currency and opened the way for further American private loans to Germany.

Grim nickname for the Great Plains region devastated by drought and dust storms during the 1930s. The disaster led to the migration into California of thousands of displaced “Okies” and “Arkies.”

A government program created by Congress to hire young unemployed men to improve the rural, out-of-doors environment with such work as planting trees, fighting fires, draining swamps, and maintaining national parks. The -----proved to be an important foundation for the post–World War II environmental movement.

Known by its critics as the “National Run Around,” the ---- was an early New Deal program designed to assist industry, labor, and the unemployed through centralized planning mechanisms that monitored workers' earnings and working hours to distribute work and established codes for “fair competition” to ensure that similar procedures were followed by all firms in any particular industrial sector.

A New Deal program designed to raise agricultural prices by paying farmers not to farm. It was based on the assumption that higher prices would increase farmers' purchasing power and thereby help alleviate the Great Depression.

One of the most revolutionary of the New Deal public works projects, it brought cheap electric power, full employment, low-cost housing, and environmental improvements to Americans in the ------.

A brand of vitriolic, fear-mongering anticommunism associated with the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the early 1950s, Senator McCarthy used his position in Congress to baselessly accuse high-ranking government officials and other Americans of conspiracy with communism. The term named after him refers to the dangerous forces of unfairness and fear wrought by anticommunist paranoia.

International crisis launched when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which had been owned mostly by French and British stockholders. This led to a British and French attack on Egypt, which failed without aid from the United States. It marked an important turning point in the post-colonial Middle East and highlighted the rising importance of oil in world affairs.

Soviet satellite first launched into earth orbit on October 4, 1957. This scientific achievement marked the first time human beings had put a man-made object into orbit and pushed the USSR noticeably ahead of the United States in the space race. A month later, the Soviet Union sent a larger satellite into space, prompting the United States to redouble its space exploration efforts and raising American fears of Soviet superiority.

Program of manned space flights run by America's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The project's highest achievement was the landing of --- 11 on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Fortified and guarded barrier between East and West Berlin erected on orders from Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1961 to stop the flow of people to the West. Until its destruction in 1989, it was a vivid symbol of the divide between the communist and capitalist worlds.

America's strategy against the Soviet Union based on ideas of George Kennan. The doctrine declared that the Soviet Union and communism were inherently expansionist and had to be stopped from spreading through both military and political pressure. Containment guided American foreign policy throughout most of the Cold War.

President Truman's universal pledge of support for any people fighting any communist or communist-inspired threat. He presented the doctrine to Congress in 1947 in support of his request for $400 million to defend Greece and Turkey against Sovietbacked insurgencies.

Massive transfer of aid money to help rebuild postwar Western Europe, intended to bolster capitalist and democratic governments and prevent domestic communist groups from riding poverty and misery to power. The plan was first announced by Secretary of State George ------ at Harvard's commencement in June 1947.

A series of scandals during the Clinton administration that stemmed from a failed real estate investment from which the Clintons were alleged to have illicitly profited. The accusations prompted the appointment of a special federal prosecutor, though no indictments.

Treaty signed on August 23, 1939, in which Germany and the Soviet Union agreed not to fight each other. The fateful agreement paved the way for German aggression against Poland and the Western democracies.

From July 17 to August 2, 1945, President Harry S Truman met with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British leaders Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee (when the Labour party defeated Churchill's Conservative party) near Berlin to deliver an ultimatum to Japan: surrender or be destroyed.

Code name for the American commission established in 1942 to develop the atomic bomb. The first experimental bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the desert of New Mexico.

Meeting of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin in February 1945 at an old tsarist resort on the Black Sea, where the Big Three leaders laid the foundations for the postwar division of power in Europe, including a divided Germany and territorial concessions to the Soviet Union.

Best-selling book by feminist thinker Betty Friedan. This work challenged women to move beyond the drudgery of suburban housewifery and helped launch what would become second-wave feminism.

Protest by black Alabamians against segregated seating on city buses, sparked by Rosa Parks's defiant refusal to move to the back of the bus. It lasted from December 1, 1955, until December 26, 1956, and became one of the foundational moments of the civil rights movement. It led to the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr., and ultimately to a Supreme Court decision opposing segregated busing.

Organized mixed-race groups who rode interstate buses deep into the South to draw attention to and protest racial segregation, beginning in 1961. This effort to challenge racism, which involved the participation of many northern young people as well as southern activists, proved a political and public relations success for the civil rights movement.

Doctrine of militancy and separatism that rose in prominence after 1965. Activists rejected Martin Luther King's pacifism and desire for integration. Rather, they promoted pride in African heritage and an often militant position in defense of their rights.

An American naval base in Hawaii where Japanese warplanes destroyed numerous ships and caused three thousand casualties on December 7, 1941—a day that, in President Roosevelt's words, was to “live in infamy.” The attack brought the United States into World War II.

Native American men who served in the military by transmitting radio messages in their native languages, which were undecipherable by German and Japanese spies.

A massive military operation led by American forces in Normandy beginning on June 6, 1944. The pivotal battle led to the liberation of France and brought on the final phases of World War II in Europe.

The source of frenzied rejoicing, May 8, 1945, marked the official end to the war in Europe, following the unconditional surrender of what remained of the German government.

German for “night of broken glass,” it refers to the murderous pogrom that destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues and sent thousands to concentration camps on the night of November 9, 1938. Thousands more attempted to find refuge in the United States but were ultimately turned away due to restrictive immigration laws.

Highly publicized proceedings against former Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity in postwar Germany. The trials led to several executions and long prison sentences.

CIA plot in 1961 to overthrow Fidel Castro by training Cuban exiles to invade and supporting them with American airpower. The mission failed and became a public relations disaster early in John F. Kennedy's presidency.

Standoff between John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev in October 1962 over Soviet plans to install nuclear weapons in Cuba. Although the crisis was ultimately settled in America's favor and represented a foreign-policy triumph for Kennedy, it brought the world's superpowers perilously close to the brink of nuclear confrontation.

Year-long mission of flying food and supplies to blockaded West Berliners, whom the Soviet Union cut off from access to the West in the first major crisis of the Cold War.

Known officially as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act and more informally as the -----------, this law helped returning World War II soldiers reintegrate into civilian life by securing loans to buy homes and farms and set up small businesses. It also made tuition and stipends available for them to attend college, as well as job training programs. The act was intended to cushion the blow of 15 million returning servicemen on the employment market and to nurture the postwar economy.

Demographic explosion from births to returning soldiers and others who had put off starting families during the war. This large generation of new Americans forced the expansion of many institutions such as schools and universities.

President Lyndon Johnson's term for his domestic policy agenda. Billed as a successor to the New Deal, it aimed to extend the postwar prosperity to all people in American society by promoting civil rights and fighting poverty. Programs included the War on Poverty, which expanded the Social Security system by creating Medicare and Medicaid to provide health care for the aged and the poor. Johnson also signed laws protecting consumers and empowering community organizations to combat poverty at grassroots levels.

Scene of massacre of four college students by National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970, in Ohio. In response to Nixon's announcement that he had expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia, college campuses across the country exploded in violence. On May 14 and 15, students at historically black Jackson State College in Mississippi were protesting the war as well as the------------ shooting when highway patrolmen fired into a student dormitory, killing two students.

Secret U.S. government report detailing early planning and policy decisions regarding the Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Leaked to the New York Times in 1971, it revealed instances of governmental secrecy, lies, and incompetence in the prosecution of the war.

From the French for “reduced tension,” the period of Cold War thawing when the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated reduced armament treaties under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter. As a policy prescription, it marked a departure from the policies of proportional response, mutually assured destruction, and containment that had defined the earlier years of the Cold War.

Series of scandals that resulted in President Richard Nixon's resignation in August 1974 amid calls for his impeachment. The episode sprang from a failed burglary attempt at Democratic party headquarters in Washington's ------ Hotel during the 1972 election.

U.S.-led multicountry military engagement in January and February of 1991 that drove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army out of neighboring Kuwait. In addition to presaging the longer and more protracted Iraq War of the 2000s, the 1991 war helped undo what some called the “Vietnam Syndrome,” a feeling of military uncertainty that plagued many Americans.

Truck-bomb explosion that killed 168 people in a federal office building on April 19, 1995. The attack was perpetrated by right-wing and antigovernment militant Timothy McVeigh, who was later executed by the U.S. government for the crime.

The costliest and one of the deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States, which killed nearly two thousand Americans. The storm ravaged the Gulf Coast, especially the city of New Orleans, in late August 2005. In New Orleans, high winds and rain caused the city's levees to break, leading to catastrophic flooding, particularly in the city's most impoverished wards. A tardy and feeble response by local and federal authorities exacerbated the damage and led to widespread criticism of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Refers to weapons-nuclear, biological, and chemical-that can kill large numbers of people and do great damage to the built and natural environment. The term was used to refer to nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The Bush administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had developed them provided the rationale for the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003. These weapons were never found after the invasion.

The system that allotted land with designated boundaries to Native American tribes in the West, beginning in the 1850s and ending with the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. Within these areas, most land was used communally, rather than owned individually. The U.S. government encouraged and sometimes violently coerced Native Americans to stay on the reservations at all times.

A strike by railroad workers upset by drastic wage cuts. The strike was led by socialist Eugene Debs but not supported by the American Federation of Labor. Eventually President Grover Cleveland intervened, and federal troops forced an end to the strike. The ---- highlighted both divisions within labor and the government's new willingness to use armed force to combat work stoppages.

German submarines, named for the German Unterseeboot, or "undersea boat," proved deadly for Allied ships in the war zone. U-boat attacks played an important role in drawing the United States into the First World War.

Franklin Roosevelt's politically motivated and ill-fated scheme to add a new justice to the Supreme Court for every member over seventy who would not retire. His objective was to overcome the Court's objections to New Deal reforms.

Theory that underlay Ronald Reagan's tax and spending cuts. Contrary to Keynesianism, declared that government policy should aim to increase the supply of goods and services, rather than the demand for them. It held that lower taxes and decreased regulation would increase productivity by providing increased incentives to work, thus increasing productivity and the tax base.

October 19, 1987. Date of the largest single-day decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average until September 2001. The downturn indicated instability in the booming business culture of the 1980s but did not lead to a serious economic recession.

Attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001