Essential Knowledge: Beginning to 1789

COURTS & CIVIL RIGHTS / LAWS / WARS &
BATTLES / TREATIES &
FOREIGN AFFAIRS / LEADERS / EVENTS / KEY TERMS
Virginia Declaration of Rights
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom / Navigation Acts
Sugar Act
Stamp Act
Townshend Acts
Quartering Act
Northwest Ordinance / Opechancan-ough’s War
King Philip’s War
French & Indian War
War for Independence
Lexington and
Concord
Bunker Hill
Trenton
Saratoga
Yorktown / Treaty of Paris, 1763
Treaty of Paris, 1783 / Thomas Paine
Thomas Jefferson
Patrick Henry
Richard Henry Lee
George Washington
Benjamin Franklin
Sam Adams
John Adams
Lafayette
James Madison / Bacon’s Rebellion
Salem Witch Trials
Stamp Act Congress
Boston Massacre
Boston Tea Party
First Continental Congress
Shay’s Rebellion
Constitutional Convention
Ratification / Belief Systems (Native Americans)
Age of Discovery
“Gold, Glory, and God”
Mayflower Compact
Puritan Theocracy
Middle Passage
Virginia Company
House of Burgesses
Great Awakening
Social Contract
Writs of Assistance
Common Sense
Declaration of Independence
Articles of Confederation
Federalism
Separation of Powers
Federalist v. Anti-federalist
Bill of Rights

Essential Knowledge: 1789 - 1850

COURTS & CIVIL RIGHTS / LAWS / WARS &
BATTLES / TREATIES &
FOREIGN AFFAIRS / LEADERS / EVENTS / KEY TERMS
Supreme Court
Marbury
v
Madison
McCulloch
V
Maryland / Judiciary Act
Missouri Compromise / War of 1812
Mexican War
The Alamo / Louisiana Purchase
Acquisition of
Florida / George Washington
John Adams
Alexander Hamilton
Thomas Jefferson
Eli Whitney
John Marshall
Eli Whitney
Henry Clay
Elizabeth Cady Stanton / Formation of Cabinet (State, Treasury, War)
Whiskey Rebellion
Election of 1800
Lewis & Clark Expedition
Invention of Cotton Gin
Panic of 1819
National Road
Erie Canal
“Trail of Tears”
Seneca Falls Convention
Settlement of Texas
California Gold Rush / Federal System
Legislative Branch
Executive Branch
Judicial Branch
Delegated Powers
Reserved Powers
Electoral College
National Bank
Alien/Sedition Acts
Washington’s
Farewell Address
Two-Party System
Judicial Review
“Necessary and Proper Clause”
Federalists
Democratic-Republican
American System
Impressment
War Hawks
Manifest Destiny
Industrial Revolution

Essential Knowledge: 1850 - 1865

COURTS & CIVIL RIGHTS / LAWS / WARS & BATTLES / TREATIES & FOREIGN AFFAIRS / LEADERS / EVENTS / KEY TERMS
Dred Scott Case
Emancipation Proclamation
13th
Amendment
14th
Amendment
15th
Amendment / Compromise of 1850
Kansas-
Nebraska
Act
Homestead Act
Morrill Land Grant Act
Wade-Davis Bill
Compromise of 1877 / Civil War
Fort Sumter
Antietam
Gettysburg / Trent Incident / Frederick Douglass
William Loyd Garrison
Harriet Beecher Stowe
John Brown
Abraham Lincoln
Ulysses Grant
William
Tecumseh
Sherman
Jefferson Davis
Robert E. Lee
Stonewall Jackson
Andrew Johnson / Nat Turner’s Rebellion
Bleeding
Kansas
Birth of
Republican
Party
Lincoln-
Douglass
Debates
Election of 1860
Secession of South Carolina
Gettysburg Address
Appomattox
Assassination of Lincoln
Impeachment of
Johnson
“Solid South” / Slave Codes
Free Soil Movement
Abolitionist
“The Liberator”
Underground
Railroad
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
State’s Rights
Doctrine
King Cotton
Popular sovereignty
Secession
Confederate States of America
Reconstruction
Freedman’s Bureau
Scalawags
Carpetbaggers
Black Codes
Ku Klux Klan

Essential Knowledge: 1865 - 1920

COURTS & CIVIL RIGHTS / LAWS / WARS & BATTLES / TREATIES &
FOREIGN AFFAIRS / LEADERS / EVENTS / KEY TERMS
Plessy v. Ferguson
19th Amendment / Chinese Exclusion Act
Immigration Restriction Act of 1921
Interstate Commerce Act
Federal Trade Commission
Sherman Anti-trust Act
Clayton Anti-trust Act
16th Amendment
Federal Reserve Act
Virginia State Corporation Commission
Meat Inspection Act
Pure Food and Drug Act
Child Labor Laws
National Parks
17th Amendment / Spanish-American War
Battle of San Juan
Philippine Insurrection / Roosevelt Corollary
Open Door Policy
Dollar Diplomacy / Irving Berlin
George Gershwin
Enrico Fermi
Albert Einstein
Thomas Edison
Henry Bessemer
Henry Ford
Cornelius
Vanderbilt
Wright Brothers
Alexander
G. Bell
Andrew
Carnegie
John D.
Rockefeller
J.P. Morgan
Samuel Gompers
Eugene V. Debs
Theodore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
Booker T. Washington
W.E.B. DuBois
Jane Addams
Susan B. Anthony / Light Bulb
Telephone
Typewriter
Radio
Haymarket
Riot
Homestead Strike
Pullman Strike
Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire
Panama Canal
Annexation of Hawaii
Harlem Renaissance (Langston Hughes) / New Immigrants
Ellis Island
Assimilation
Monopolies
Horizontal
Vertical
Monopolies
Child Labor
Company Towns
Knights of Labor
American
Federation
Of Labor
American
Railway
Union
Industrial Ladies Garment Union
Muckrakers

The Jungle

Progressives
Nativism
Settlement Houses
Political machines
“Separate but equal”
Jim Crow Laws

Essential Knowledge: 1914-1945

COURTS & CIVIL RIGHTS / LAWS / WARS & BATTLES / TREATIES & FOREIGN AFFAIRS / LEADERS / EVENTS / KEY TERMS
19th Amendment
Scopes Trial / Hawley-Smoot Tariff
Agricultural Adjustment Act
Tennessee Valley Authority
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
National Recovery Administration
Securities and Exchange Commission
Works Progress Administration
Civilian Conservation Corps
Home-owners Loan Corporation
Social Security Act
National Labor Relations Act
Fair Labor Standards Act / First World War
Second World War
Siege of Leningrad and Stalingrad
Invasion of Poland
Pearl Harbor
Battle of Midway
Invasion of Normandy (D-Day)
Battle of the Bulge
Iwo Jima
Okinawa
Hiroshima
Nagasaki / Treaty of Versailles
Fourteen Points
League of Nations
War guilt clause
Reparations
Non-Aggression Pact
Munich Conference
Neutrality Acts
Lend-Lease Act
Yalta Agreement / John L. Lewis
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Hitler
Mussolini
Tojo
Stalin
Winston Churchill
Harry Truman / Red Scare
Palmer Raids
Sacco and Vanzetti
Steel Strike, 1919-1920
Coal Strike
Stock Market Crash
Bonus Army
Zoot Suit Riots
Race riots, 1940s
Japanese Internment
Nuremberg Trials
Founding of Israel / Roaring Twenties
Harlem Renaissance
Prohibition
Business cycle
Hoovervilles
Hobos
Dust Bowl
New Deal
Welfare State
Nazi Party
Fascism
Anti-Semitism
Appeasement
Mobilization
War Bonds
“Rosie the Riveter”
Blitzkrieg
Island Hopping
Manhattan Project
Holocaust
Auschwitz

Essential Knowledge: 1945-1974

COURTS & CIVIL RIGHTS / LAWS / WARS & BATTLES / TREATIES & FOREIGN AFFAIRS / LEADERS / EVENTS / KEY TERMS
Brown v Board of Education
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Selma to Montgomery March
24th Amendment
Wesberry v Sanders
Roe v Wade
Reed v Reed / Civil Rights Act, 1964
Voting Rights Act, 1965
War Powers Act, 1973 / Korean War
Vietnam War
Tet Offensive / Truman Doctrine
Marshall Plan
Berlin Blockade
Berlin Wall
NATO
Alliance for Progress
Nixon in China
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
SALT / FDR
Churchill
Stalin
Truman
Senator Joseph McCarthy
Fidel Castro
JFK
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Malcolm X
Thurgood Marshall
Lyndon Johnson
Eugene McCarthy
Robert F. Kennedy
Richard Nixon / Defeat of Chiang Kai-shek by Mao Zedong
People’s Republic of China formed
North Korea invades South Korea
Firing of MacArthur
Alger Hiss Case
Rosenberg Trial
School Desegregation
(Little Rock)
Massive Resistance
Montgomery
Bus Boycott
March on Washington
JFK Assassination
Watts Riot
Bay of Pigs
Cuban Missile Crisis
Division of Vietnam
Gulf of Tonkin
Watergate / Cold War
Communism
Iron Curtain
Loyalty Oaths
HUAC
McCarthy-ism
Policy of containment
38th Parallel
Arms race (H-bomb)
Domino Theory
Space Race
“Great Society”
Civil Disobedience
Black Power
Freedom Rides & Sit-ins
“I Have a Dream”
Black Panthers
“long, hot summer”
NAACP
Hawks v. Doves
Vietnamization
Gerrymandering
Affirmative Action

Essential Knowledge: 1974-Present

COURTS & CIVIL RIGHTS / LAWS / WARS & BATTLES / TREATIES &
FOREIGN AFFAIRS / LEADERS / EVENTS / KEY TERMS
University of California v Bakke / Equal Rights Amendment
(proposed) / Persian Gulf War
US troops attacked in Lebanon
Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq
Operation Desert Storm / Camp David Accords / Jimmy Carter
Shah of Iran
Ronald Reagan
Rabin
Arafat
Mikhail Gorbachev / Oil Embargo
Iran Hostage Crisis
Election of Reagan
Iran-Contra Affair
Sandra Day O’Connor appointed to Court
Clarence Thomas Hearings
Solidarity Movement in Poland
Collapse of Soviet Union
Fall of Berlin Wall
Reunification of Germany / OPEC
Reaganomics
Keynesian Economics
Deregulation
Sandinistas
Contras
Apartheid
Strategic Defense Initiative
Nuclear Proliferation
Terrorism
Interest groups
AFL-CIO
National Association of
Manufacturers
Sierra Club
American Association of Retired Persons
American Medical Association

 2001, Ron Maggiano, West Springfield High School, Fairfax County Public Schools.