United States History
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Historical Thinking & Evaluating Sources
- Primary sources are the original records created by firsthand witnesses of an event. They can include diaries, letters, interviews, newspaper articles, pictures or recordings.
- Secondary sources are about an event created by someone who wasn't there, typically referencing primary sources for their information. They can include textbooks, biographies or documentaries.
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Primary sources are often considered more valuable than secondary sources, but they are not inherently trustworthy. Different people often offer very different accounts of what happened in the past, and it's very important to know when and why a person is telling a story.
Secondary sources are helpful because they often involve a historian's analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of primary sources, but you also need to be conscious of the historian's potential bias as well. |
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The activity on the right will have you look at six historical questions and evaluate which source would be more helpful in answering the question. Consider when, where and by whom each source was created. Which can you trust more? Look at the historical thinking chart below for help in asking critical questions. For more practice, download the pdf below to consider the strengths and weaknesses of more primary and secondary sources. 
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Early Settlers & Conflict with Native Americans
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In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the Spanish were the first Europeans to explore and settle in what is now called the United States, but by the 1600s, Britain began establishing a dominant presence along the Atlantic coast.
The first British colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, and it was established to strengthen the political and economic power of Britain, which you can read more about here. In 1620, the Pilgrims and Puritans (Christian separatists and reformers from the Church of England that you can read more about here) began settling in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These groups intended to found their own religious groups away from the influence of other religions. During this time period, the indigenous populations suffered greatly from European contact. It is estimated that by the 17th century, 55 million people (roughly 90% of the population) died because of disease or violence by Europeans. You can learn more about the complicated relationship between Native Americans and European settlers here, or by watching the videos on the right. By 1770, Britain had 13 colonies in North America with a total population of over 2 million people, including a growing population of enslaved Africans. Learn more about early British settlers and their contact with Native Americans with the attached primary source documents and comprehension questions. |
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The Revolutionary War
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The French and Indian War, or Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), diminished French influence in North America and increased the land and power of Great Britain, but the expensive conflict lead to new and unpopular taxes for American colonists. Attempts by the British government to raise revenue by taxing the colonies (notably the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767 and the Tea Act of 1773) met with heated protest among many colonists, who resented their lack of representation in Parliament and demanded the same rights as other British subjects. |
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The Revolutionary War (1775-1783), also known as the American Revolution, arose from these growing tensions between the American colonies and the British government. Skirmishes between British troops and colonial militiamen in Lexington and Concord in April 1775 kicked off the armed conflict, and by the following summer, the rebels were waging a full-scale war for their independence. France entered the American Revolution on the side of the colonists in 1778, turning what had essentially been a civil war into an international conflict. After French assistance helped the Continental Army force the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781, Americans had effectively won their independence, though fighting would not formally end until 1783. Watch the video to learn more about key events in the American Revolution, or read about them in this timeline here.
For more practice, read the following primary sources and answer the historical questions below:
For more practice, read the following primary sources and answer the historical questions below:
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The US Constitution
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The United States' first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, was ratified in 1781, a time when the nation was a loose confederation of states, each operating like independent countries. The national government was comprised of a single legislature, the Congress of the Confederation; there was no president or judicial branch.
The Articles of Confederation gave Congress the power to govern foreign affairs, conduct war and regulate currency; however, in reality these powers were sharply limited because Congress had no authority to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops. After the the United States won their independence from England, it became increasingly evident that the new nation needed a stronger central government in order to remain stable. In 1786, Alexander Hamilton, a lawyer and politician from New York, called for a constitutional convention to discuss the matter. At the 1787 convention, delegates from 12 states (all except Rhode Island) devised a plan for a stronger federal government with three branches—executive, legislative and judicial—along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power. You can read more about the process of creating and ratifying the constitution here. |
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One of the most controversial issues at the 1787 convention was the issue of slavery. Some northern states had already started to outlaw the practice, and advocated for abolishing slavery in the new constitution, but southern states were insistent that they be allowed to keep the practice of slavery. In the end, the delegates agreed to keep slavery. For the purposes of taxation and determining how many representatives a state could send to Congress, it was decided that enslaved people would be counted as three-fifths of a person. Additionally, it was agreed that Congress wouldn’t be allowed to prohibit the slave trade before 1808, and states were required to return fugitive enslaved people to their owners.
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For more practice, read the following primary sources and answer the historical questions below:
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The Civil War
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The American Civil War (1861 – 1865) was fought between states supporting the federal union ("the Union" or "the North") and southern states that voted to secede and form the Confederate States of America ("the Confederacy" or "the South"). The central cause of the war was the status of slavery, especially the expansion of slavery into newly acquired land after the Mexican–American War. On the eve of the Civil War in 1860, four million of the 32 million Americans (nearly 13%) were enslaved black people, mostly in the South. |
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Conflict around the issue of slavery had been growing since the 13 original colonies had signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. As the economy of Northern states continued to industrialize and diversify, many Northerners had come to support the idea of abolishing slavery (for various political, moral, and economic reasons). By contrast, the economy of the Southern states continued to be based around large farms, or plantations, that relied on the labor of enslaved black people, and this made Southerners fiercely resistant to the idea of abolishing slavery. War finally broke out in April 1861 when the Confederate army attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, just over a month after the first inauguration of Abraham Lincoln.
The war ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Lee surrendered to Union General Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Confederate generals throughout the Southern states followed suit, with the last surrender occurring on June 23. At the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed, especially its railroads. The Confederacy collapsed, and the United States Constitution was updated to abolish slavery, grant citizenship to former enslaved black people, and grant voting rights to black men. Four million enslaved black people were freed at the end of the war, but the fight for equal rights and protections for black people would take another hundred years and continues to this day.
The war ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Lee surrendered to Union General Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Confederate generals throughout the Southern states followed suit, with the last surrender occurring on June 23. At the end of the war, much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed, especially its railroads. The Confederacy collapsed, and the United States Constitution was updated to abolish slavery, grant citizenship to former enslaved black people, and grant voting rights to black men. Four million enslaved black people were freed at the end of the war, but the fight for equal rights and protections for black people would take another hundred years and continues to this day.
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Watch the video or read the document below to learn more about what happened during the American Civil War:
For more practice, read the following primary sources and answer the historical questions below:
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Reconstruction and Post-War Politics
At the conclusion of the American Civil War, many Southern states had been destroyed, an estimated 750,000 Northerners and Southerners had died, and 4 million enslaved black men and women were newly freed. The newly reformed union had many important questions to answer, such as How should the South be rebuilt? What should happen to the states that seceded from the Union? and How should formerly enslaved people be incorporated into the country now that they were free?
The period of time during which these questions were answered is called Reconstruction, and it took place in a relatively short amount of time from 1865 to 1877.
The period of time during which these questions were answered is called Reconstruction, and it took place in a relatively short amount of time from 1865 to 1877.
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Read more about the Reconstruction period here, and download the primary sources below to answer the historical question:
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After John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer, assassinated Abraham Lincoln five days after the surrender of the Confederate forces, Andrew Johnson became the new president. Johnson was a Southern Democrat who opposed the secession of the Southern States, but he didn't oppose slavery and he was very sympathetic to Southern states.
Many people in Congress opposed Johnson. His biggest opponents were called "radical" Republicans because they wanted to see the most extreme changes in society. They thought that Southern states that seceded should be punished and that newly freed black people should have equal rights. They put forward a plan to reshape Southern society, and for a brief period of time, black people in the United States had unprecedented social, political, and economic opportunities. 
Unfortunately, these changes were strongly opposed by President Johnson and other Southerners. This opposition drove many black people into the employment of former slaveowners to work as sharecroppers, and this time period also saw the rise of terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Reconstruction ended in 1877 after a deal that allowed Republican politician Rutherford Hayes to become president in exchange for Republicans agreeing to leave the South to its own control once again. This started a period of strict racial segregation in the United States that lasted for almost 100 years.
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The Spanish-American War
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Read the song lyrics, and download the primary sources below to answer the historical question:
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The Cuban War for Independence from Spain (1894-1898) captured the interest and sympathies of many people in the United States because of their own economic interests in Cuba, and because of the brutal treatment of Cuban revolutionaries by the Spanish. Tensions between the U.S. and Spain were growing for months as many people in the U.S. called for military intervention in Cuba. Still, President William McKinley remained against a war with Spain until the U.S. battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor under mysterious circumstances on February 15, 1898.
On April 20, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution that acknowledged Cuban independence, demanded that the Spanish government give up control of the island, promised that the U.S. would not take power in Cuba, and authorized McKinley to use whatever military measures he deemed necessary to guarantee Cuba’s independence. After less than four months of fighting, Spain surrendered to the U.S. and signed the 1898 Treaty of Paris that ended the war, and ended Spain's colonial empire in the Western hemisphere. This treaty also secured the position of the United States as a world power, as the U.S. betrayed its principles of independence and self-government by taking temporary control over Cuba, and making Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines permanently until U.S. control. The U.S. also annexed the independent state of Hawaii during the conflict, thus, enabling the U.S. to establish its predominance in the Caribbean region and to pursue its strategic and economic interests in Asia. Watch this video to learn more about the history of U.S. imperialism, and read more about the details and consequences of the Spanish-American War here.
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Women's Suffrage
The women’s suffrage movement was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the campaign was not easy: Disagreements over strategy threatened to halt the movement more than once. But on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. In practice, of course, the right to vote was still denied to many women and men of color in the United States because of discriminatory laws and white supremacist terrorist groups, and people are still fighting for voting protections to this day.
Read more about the fight for women's suffrage here, or by downloading the text below. Also download the anti-suffragist primary sources to answer this week's historical question:
Read more about the fight for women's suffrage here, or by downloading the text below. Also download the anti-suffragist primary sources to answer this week's historical question:
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World War One
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Initially, the United States was not interested in joining the war. Allied countries and Central Powers countries both purchased U.S. goods, so the U.S. wanted to remain friendly with both sides. However, tensions between the U.S. and Germany started to arise when American civilians were killed as a result of German attacks on English ships. The U.S. went to war against Germany in April of 1917 after two years of increasing conflict. Read more about the U.S. involvement in WWI from the document below:
The war ended in the fall of 1918, after the Central Powers countries signed armistice agreements, or agreements to stop fighting. Germany was the last to sign its armistice on November 11, 1918. As a result of these agreements, Austria-Hungary was broken up into several smaller countries. Germany, under the Treaty of Versailles, was severely punished with hefty economic reparations, territorial losses, and strict limits on its rights to develop militarily.
Many people now believe that the Allies were excessive in their punishment of Germany after the war, and that the Treaty of Versailles actually planted the seeds of World War II instead of peace. The treaty’s declaration that Germany was entirely to blame for the war was a lie that humiliated the German people. Furthermore, the treaty imposed large war reparations on Germany, meant to force the country to bear the financial burden of the war. Although Germany ended up paying only a small percentage of the reparations it was supposed to make, it was already stretched financially thin by the war, and the additional economic burden caused enormous resentment. Ultimately, extremist groups, such as the Nazi Party, were able to exploit this humiliation and resentment and take political control of the country in the following decades. |
World War I began on July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This seemingly small conflict between two countries quickly spread. Soon, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, and France were all drawn into the war, largely because they were involved in treaties that required them to defend certain other nations. Western and eastern fronts, or battlefields, quickly opened along the borders of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and fighting eventually spread to countries in Africa and the Middle East. By the end of the war in 1918, 32 countries had gotten involved in the fighting, and an estimated 16 million soldiers and civilians were dead.
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Download and read the primary and secondary sources to answer this week's historical question:
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Great Depression & the New Deal
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The Great Depression was a worldwide economic downturn that began when the U.S. stock market crashed in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. In the U.S., unemployment, homelessness, and food insecurity continued to get worse. At its lowest point in 1933, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed.
It was during this time that the 1932 U.S. Election took place, and Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent president Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt took immediate action to combat the Great Depression with policies that he called the New Deal. He helped pass legislation that created new jobs, constructed houses and shelters, and handed out food to the hungry. Roosevelt also helped inflate agricultural commodity prices in order to assist farmers, helped banks return to solid ground, and he greatly improved the national infrastructure through public works programs. Despite these numerous benefits, however, the New Deal ultimately failed to end the Great Depression. More than ten years after the Crash of 1929, millions of Americans were still hungry, homeless, and unemployed. The depression ended only after the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, when the increased demand for wartime commodities such as ships, tanks, and munitions gave the U.S. economy the jump start it needed. Download the reading below to learn about the causes of the Great Depression:
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Download and read the primary sources to answer this week's historical question:
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World War Two & the Atomic Bomb
Rising to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, rearmed the nation and signed strategic treaties with Italy and Japan in an alliance known as the Axis Powers. Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II (1939-1945).
Over the next six years, the Soviet Union and the United States joined what became known as the Allied Powers in the war against the Axis Powers. Almost every country in the world became involved in the war to some extent, but military combat primarily occurred in Europe, East Asia, and islands in the Pacific Ocean. The war in Europe ended with Germany's surrender on May 7, 1945. The war in the Pacific ended when Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. Among the estimated 45-60 million people killed during World War II were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler’s “Final Solution,” now known as the Holocaust. World War II remains the bloodiest and largest war in history.
Over the next six years, the Soviet Union and the United States joined what became known as the Allied Powers in the war against the Axis Powers. Almost every country in the world became involved in the war to some extent, but military combat primarily occurred in Europe, East Asia, and islands in the Pacific Ocean. The war in Europe ended with Germany's surrender on May 7, 1945. The war in the Pacific ended when Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. Among the estimated 45-60 million people killed during World War II were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler’s “Final Solution,” now known as the Holocaust. World War II remains the bloodiest and largest war in history.
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Download the reading below to learn more about how the U.S. came to be involved in World War II:
A common narrative about the end of World War II is that Japan surrendered because the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Download the primary sources below to learn more about the dropping of the two atomic bombs and answer how we should remember this historical event:
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The Cold War
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Read more about the Cold War here. Download the primary sources to learn more about who started the Cold War
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The destruction of World War II reduced many European cities to rubble. It also led world leaders to seek new ways to protect against future attacks. While the United States and the Soviet Union had worked together to defeat the Axis powers, their partnership quickly turned to a 50-year-long confrontation. They disagreed about how to rebuild Europe, and their efforts to increase their own security often conflicted. This fierce conflict is called the "Cold War" since the two superpowers never directly engaged in combat ("hot war"). Instead, they increased their military capabilities, tried to expand their global influence, and undermined the other's way of life in the eyes of the world. While the United States believed in a capitalist system of free markets and multiple political parties, the Soviet Union was founded on a communist system controlled by a centralized state and a single political party.
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The Cold War came down to some basic differences between the world-views of the United States and the Soviet Union. Communist societies believed in redistributing wealth (taking from the rich and giving to the poor) and promoted workers and state-run economies. These resulted in low unemployment rates but sometimes led to the unequal distribution of consumer goods. They also viewed organized religion as dangerous. The US capitalist system let free markets determine the production and distribution of goods, and promoted freedom of religion. This led to more productivity but often created massive economic inequalities. Both sides also used propaganda to paint a negative picture of their enemies. From 1945 until the collapse of the USSR in the 1990s, these two nations competed for global influence in the areas of military, economics, politics, and even culture.
Three key features defined the Cold War: 1) the threat of nuclear war, 2) competition over the allegiance (loyalty) of newly independent nations, and 3) the military and economic support of each other's enemies around the world. The United States showed its global military dominance when it dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end the war. This act prompted the USSR to seek nuclear technology to discourage American aggression. The United States held other advantages as well. Having entered World War II late in the conflict, it lost far fewer soldiers and civilians. The USSR lost 8-10 million soldiers (25 million including civilians) yet the United States lost 300,000 in the war. While the Soviet Union faced a devastating invasion, most of the United States emerged unscathed from the war. Finally, the US economy expanded during the war as it made profits selling weapons and supplies to the Allied forces.
Three key features defined the Cold War: 1) the threat of nuclear war, 2) competition over the allegiance (loyalty) of newly independent nations, and 3) the military and economic support of each other's enemies around the world. The United States showed its global military dominance when it dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end the war. This act prompted the USSR to seek nuclear technology to discourage American aggression. The United States held other advantages as well. Having entered World War II late in the conflict, it lost far fewer soldiers and civilians. The USSR lost 8-10 million soldiers (25 million including civilians) yet the United States lost 300,000 in the war. While the Soviet Union faced a devastating invasion, most of the United States emerged unscathed from the war. Finally, the US economy expanded during the war as it made profits selling weapons and supplies to the Allied forces.
The Vietnam War & the Anti-War Movement
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Some of the most important Cold War conflicts took place in Asia. Communists took power in China in 1949, and the Americans feared other countries would soon follow. In 1953, Korea had been divided into two zones, with a communist government in the North and an American-leaning government in the South. To contain the spread of communism to South Korea, the US sent troops. The Chinese responded by sending their own troops to the border. The war killed nearly 5 million people but ended in a stalemate, leaving a divided Korea that remains today. |
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Perhaps no conflict illustrates the policy of containment better than Vietnam. Like Korea, Vietnam was divided into a communist north and pro-West south. To contain the communist north, the United States invaded in the 1960s. The Soviet Union sent money and weapons to the communist forces. By 1975, with the help of the Soviets and China, a small, poor nation defeated one of the world's strongest military superpowers. Over 58,000 Americans died in the conflict. The war divided Americans who were for or against the war. The US intervention in Vietnam exposed the hypocrisy of US policies that claimed to promote self-determination, and it inspired other small nations to determine their own futures
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Download the secondary and primary sources about the wars in Korea and Vietnam to answer the two historical questions:
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The Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against Black people, who continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, Black Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them, and they mobilized along with people of other races to begin an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, both signed by President Lyndon Johnson, were two of the big results of their efforts.
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Read more about important events in the Civil Rights Movement on this timeline here.
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One important event in the Civil Rights Movement was the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was a protest that took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956. It is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation, and it resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court ordering the Montgomery bus system to integrate. It also marks the emergence of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a prominent leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
Download the primary and secondary sources to read more about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and answer the historical question:
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US History ReviewTest your memory of important dates in US history! You can look at all the resources from previous weeks to help find the answers. For more preparation for the test, download the practice GED questions:
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