U.S. History and Geography Quiz Study List

U.S. History and Geography Quiz Study List

BECOMING A WORLD POWER

Video: U.S. History 15 – U.S. and the World

1.  Homestead Act - It was an 1862 law giving 160 acres of land to anyone who would live on it for five years. It encouraged settlement of the Great Plains.

2.  Transcontinental Railroad - It was the dream of a railroad that would run from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. It was first achieved across the central United States in 1869.

3.  The Dawes Act - It is the 1887 law officially abolishing Indian Tribes and allowing Indian heads of families to claim 160 acres of reservation land for farming. This Americanization policy failed as the Indians were not supplied farm equipment or taught how to farm. Indian lands were lost to speculators and the “white” education given Indian children was very inadequate.

4.  Frederick Jackson Turner - He was an American historian, a professor of history at Harvard. He emphasized the importance of the frontier in American national development. When the Census Bureau declared the frontier closed in 1890 the frontier opportunity was lost. He taught that to replace the frontier the U.S. should expand overseas and that would provide new opportunities. He taught, “Colonies are new adventures!”

5.  “Whiteman’s Burden” - It was the attitude of President William McKinley, many Americans and Europeans that it was the duty of the Anglo-Saxon race to educate the little brown natives, to uplift and Christianize them so they could become civilized people.

6.  Spanish American War - It was a conflict sparked by the U.S.S. Maine blowing up in Havana harbor. The U.S. freed Cuba and the Philippines from being colonies of a European nation. It took place in 1898 and made the U.S. an imperialist power in wor1d.

7.  Open Door Policy - It was the policy of the only Western country not to own a “Sphere of Influence” in China. In fact, after the Boxer rebellion was put down, the United States using this policy prevented the further carving up of China by the Great Powers and forced an opening of the China market to equal trade by all. This success showing the increasing influence of the U.S. in global affairs.

8.  Imperialism - It is the domination of one country over another for political and economic gain. The U.S. was practicing this when it decided to keep and rule the Philippines.

9.  Hawaii - It was an island territory in the middle of the Pacific used by U.S. shipping and whaling interests before being settled by American sugar plantation owners. The American’s overthrew the native government and set up their own and this territory in1898 became a U.S. territory.

10.  Monroe Doctrine - It was the policy that started the U.S. down the road of entanglements with foreign countries. It was first put forth in the 1820s by a U.S. President to protect the new world from domination by another European country.

11.  Roosevelt Corollary - It is the 1904 Presidential message to Congress explaining U.S. policy to prevent foreign interference in Latin America. The U.S. would act as a police power in Latin America to insure countries would meet their obligations and keep the peace. This policy was used for a number of years to justify U.S. occupation of countries in Central America and the Caribbean.

“An Emerging World Power”

12.  Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan - He was a naval officer. He advocated U.S. expansion overseas and said there were four things the U.S. needed to become a strong wealthy nation. They were: A modern naval fleet, naval bases in the Caribbean, a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and Hawaii and other islands in the Pacific. He believed the American flag must be present in the world

TR and His Times

13.  Theodore Roosevelt, Rough Rider - Reporters said he led an American attack up San Juan Hill in the 1898 Spanish American War. He actually rode his horse part way up Kettle Hill then dismounted and with the rest of his Rough Riders took the hill in a foot assault.

14.  Theodore Roosevelt, Politician - He was a New York governor whom the Republican Party leaders considered a troublemaker because of his reform ideas. They got rid of him by getting President McKinley to choose him for the Vice-Presidential spot in his re-election bid. This person became president, in 1901, when McKinley was assassinated.

15.  President Theodore Roosevelt - He was an exuberant President of the United States who took some British officers on one of his point-to-point hikes. He and the officers waded through the four to five foot deep oil topped White House duck pond so they could successfully complete their game. This behavior is generally believed to show the attitude of the President to reach his goals despite all obstacles.

16.  “Speak Softly But Carry A Big Stick” - It was attitude and foreign policy of Theodore Roosevelt as demonstrated by the way he freed Panama from Columbia. He first tried to negotiate and then used the U.S. naval gunboat the U.S.S. Nashville to force Columbia to agree to the independence of Panama.

Text pages 680-687

17.  Matthew C. Perry – U.S. Naval commander who opened isolated Japan to trade with the U.S. by sailing into Tokyo Bay with a squadron of heavily armed warships. This also caused Japan to start industrializing their country.

18.  Isolationism - It was/is an attitude American’s have had for centuries. George Washington in his Farewell Address gave the nation the advice to stay out of European wars. American’s for over a hundred years now have had doubts over the wisdom of involvement in other countries’ affairs.

19.  Queen Liliuokalani - She was the last queen of Hawaii. When she came to power she advocated Hawaii for the Hawaiians. As a result U.S. sugar planters in the islands overthrew her.

20.  Spheres of Influence - They are areas of special trading privileges held by other nations in the territory of weaker nations. The areas that France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan and Russia controlled in China are examples.

21.  “Seward’s Folly” - It was what the purchase of Alaska from Russia In 1867 was called.

Text Pages 688-692

22.  Circulation War - It was the newspaper competition between two newspaper publishers, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. It had a large part in causing the Spanish & American War and it made Theodore Roosevelt so famous that he soon ended up President of the United States.

23.  “Remember the Maine” - It was the American rallying battle cry of the Spanish American War. It honored the 260 Americans killed by the mysterious explosion of the first modern U.S. battleship

24.  Commodore George Dewey - He was the commander of a naval flotilla, which slipped into Manila Bay the night of April 30, 1898. After his famous order, “You may fire when you are ready Gridley” the Spanish fleet was destroyed within two hours of battle without a single American ship being lost. His attack ended Spanish power the Far East.

25.  Filipinos - They are the natives of the Philippine Islands. In the Philippines conflict they resisted the Americans replacing the Spanish as rulers.

26.  Philippine Insurrection - It was a war the U.S. successfully fought from 1898 to 1902. It was sparked on a tension filled night by an American soldier shooting a Filipino soldier walking across a bridge. The war was one where the natives used guerrilla tactics to offset the American advantages. The American soldiers eventually resorted to such small unit terror tactics in response. The U.S. won this war by capturing the Filipino leader.

27.  Emilio Aguinaldo – He was the rebel leader against the Spanish who helped the U. S. seize Manila. When the U. S. stayed to control the islands, he led the Filipino rebellion for independence from the United States from 1899 to 1901. The war became a nasty guerrilla conflict after his failure to defeat the U.S. in regular battle. His capture took the heart out of the struggle and the U.S. won.

28.  Rough Riders - They were an unusual mixture of cowboys, Indians, former sheriffs from the West and polo players and gentlemen riders from the elite eastern college clubs. Theodore Roosevelt organized them into a volunteer cavalry-fighting unit and they fought in Cuba during 1898, without their horses.

29.  Protectorate - It is the term for a country that is controlled by another country for political and economic gain. The U.S. was practicing this when it controlled Cuba after the 1898 war. It made Cuba’s affairs partly controlled by the United States. This status lasted until 1934.

30.  Platt Amendment - It was the provision the U.S. inserted into the Cuban Constitution. It did not allow Cuba to make treaties that might limit its independence or territory. It forbid control by foreign powers and gave the U.S. the right to intervene in Cuba’s internal affairs.

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31.  U.S.S. Oregon - It was the U.S. warship that steamed south from San Francisco around the tip of South America and north to Cuba to arrive just in time for the Battle of Santiago. This ship helped the U.S. navy defeat the Spanish fleet off the coast of Cuba during the Spanish American War. It illustrated for the American people the need for a short cut for ships through Central America to cut by two-thirds the voyage length between oceans.

32.  Panama - It was a country in Central America where the French had tried to dig a canal through the isthmus. The U.S. used gunboat diplomacy to win this area its independence from Columbia. The U.S. and this country then signed a treaty for a canal to be dug.

33.  Isthmus – A narrow strip of land joining two larger areas of land.

34.  Gunboat Diplomacy - It is the slang reference to the use of the U.S. military, especially the Navy and Marines, to carry out U.S. policy. The classic case was the use the Nashville to insure the success of the Panama separation from Columbia.

35.  Dr. William Gorgas or Major William Gorgas - He learned from Major Walter Reed in Cuba how the mosquito was the source of Yellow Fever. He cleaned up Cuba with a sanitation program aimed at mosquitoes. Next he cleaned up the Panama Canal Zone doing such things as putting oil on water pools and draining swamps so every mosquito-breeding place was wiped out. By 1906, he was successful in making the Canal Zone a healthy place for the workers.

36.  Corollary – It is a logical extension of a doctrine or proposition.

37.  Dollar Diplomacy - This economic foreign policy method was used to keep Europeans out of the Caribbean area. The U.S. government guaranteed loans by foreign countries to the Caribbean nations. U.S. troops occupied countries and forced the nations to repay their debts, where necessary, such as in 1905 in the Dominican Republic and 1912 in Nicaragua, etc.

38.  Pancho Villa - He was a Mexican Revolutionary who was also an outlaw who killed Americans. In 1916, he had 15 American mining engineers taken off a train in northern Mexico shot. Two months later he raided the U.S. town of Columbus, New Mexico shooting and killing a number of Americans. President Wilson ordered General Pershing to capture him, but he managed to escape in the wilds of Mexico.

39.  Columbus, New Mexico - It is a small town in New Mexico about three miles north of the Mexican border. Pancho Villa and his men in March 1916, killing 8 American soldiers, 10 civilians and wounding 30 more, raided it.

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40.  Militarism – Glorification of the military

41.  Nationalism - It is loyalty and devotion to one’s own country and the placing of it above all others.

42.  Archduke Franz Ferdinand - He and his wife Sophie went on a trip to Bosnia and were riding through the town of Sarajevo, when a fanatic Serbian high school student shot and killed both of them. His murder sparked a chain of events that resulted in World War I.

43.  Allies or Allied Powers - They are one of the sides in World War I. They are Great Britain, France, Russia, Belgium, Serbia, Japan and later the United States.

44.  Central Powers - They are one of the sides In World War I. They are Germany, Austria-Hungry, Turkey, and Bulgaria.

45.  Stalemate - Deadlock

46.  Trench Warfare - It was the style of fighting on the western front in World War I. Each side dug ditches 6 to 8 feet deep and wide enough for two men to pass. Dugouts in the sides of the ditches protected men during enemy fire. There were at least four sets of ditches paralleling each other with communication ditches connecting them. Defense was supreme in this style of fighting because of the machine gun.

47.  Propaganda - It is the planned spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping (or hurting) a cause or government. Before and during World War I nationalism was taken to an extreme level using these advertisements to whip up the effort against the other side. Patriotic and anti-enemy posters, films, rallies, parades, advertising were all used.

48.  Zimmermann Telegram - It was a secret message from, Germany to its Mexico embassy instructing the ambassador to urge Mexico to attack the United States and recover territory it lost in its 1848 war with the U.S. When this became known in the U.S., it was a cause of the U.S. entering World War I.

49.  Wilson’s War Message - It was President Wilson’s address to Congress and the nation on April 2, 1917. Among other things he said “...the world must be made safe for democracy....” He asked Congress to declare war and side with the Allies in the Great War.