American History Outline

Lecture One:

• 1 What Students Find Challenging About History
• 2 The Key to Mastering History
• 3 Periods in American History
• 4 Why America?
• 5 Organizing History
• 6 Pre-Columbian Period
• 7 Exploration (Columbian Period)
• 8 New Spain
• 9 New France
• 10 English Settlements
• 11 The Colonies
• 12 Economic System
• 13 Other immigrants
• 14 A Word About College Board Exams

Lecture Two:

• 1 Test-taking tips
• 2 Colonial History
• 3 The Salem Witch Trials
• 4 Salutary Neglect
• 5 The Zenger Trial
• 6 1730-1740: The Great Awakening
• 7 Migration and Conflict
• 8 George Washington
• 9 French and Indian War
• 10 King George III, and Debts
• 11 Tension Grows
• 12 Conflict Increases
• 13 Violence Begins
• 14 Causes of the Revolutionary War
• 15 The Revolutionary War

Lecture Three:

• 1 Review
• 2 State Constitutions
• 3 The "Founding Fathers"
• 4 The Articles of Confederation
• 5 The Constitutional Convention
• 6 George Washington's Presidency
• 7 The Supreme Court
• 8 The Two-Party System
• 9 The Presidency of John Adams

Lecture Four:

• 1 Tariffs
• 2 District of Columbia
• 3 Revolution of 1800
• 4 Jefferson Administration
• 5 The Marshall Court
• 6 The War of 1812 and Madison's Presidency
• 7 The Conservative President: James Monroe
• 8 The Election of 1814, also the Steamboat
• 9 Jacksonian Democracy
• 10 Whig Party
• 11 Slavery 1800-1840
• 12 Other Developments 1800-1840

Lecture Five:

• 1 The "Accidental Presidency"
• 2 The Alamo
• 3 1840s: Social Movements, Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion
• 4 James K. Polk and War with Mexico
• 5 Taylor, Fillmore and the Compromise of 1850
• 6 President Franklin Pierce and the Kansas-Nebraska Act
• 7 "Bleeding Kansas"
• 8 Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln: Irreconcilably Different
• 9 The Debate over Slavery
• 10 James Buchanan
• 11 The Election of 1860
• 12 The North and South: Strengths and Weaknesses
• 13 Antebellum (pre-Civil War) State Admissions

Lecture Six:

• 1 Secession
• 2 Civil War - 1861-1861
• 3 The Trent Affair
• 4 Civil War - 1863-1865
• 5 Surrender
• 6 President Andrew Johnson
• 7 Reconstruction
• 8 Other Happenings During the Civil War and Reconstruction Periods
• 9 Grant Administration

Lecture Seven:

• 1 Yankee Ingenuity
• 2 The Election of 1880
• 3 The Grange Movement
• 4 Big Business and Big Oil
• 5 The "Gilded Age"
• 6 Bimetallism
• 7 Unions and Immigrant Workers
• 8 Indians and the Frontier
• 9 Tariffs and an Income Tax
• 10 The Conservative Democrat
• 11 Preparing for the "Turn of the Century"

Lecture Eight: Review for the Midterm Exam.

Midterm Exam.

Lecture Nine:

• 1 Election of 1896
• 2 Imperialism
• 3 Spanish-American War
• 4 More Imperialism
• 5 Progressive Movement

Lecture Ten:

• 1 Teddy Roosevelt
• 2 Social trends and Court decisions
• 3 1909 to 1914
• 4 World War I
• 5 Post-World War I
• 6 Social Darwinism
• 7 Scopes Trial

Lecture Eleven:

• 1 The Roaring Twenties
• 2 The Great Depression
• 3 FDR, the New Deal, and Preparing for War
• 4 World War II
• 5 Cold War
• 6 Communist Infiltration
• 7 United Nations
• 8 Immigration

Lecture Twelve:

• 1 The Cold War (continued from last lecture)
• 2 The 80th Congress
• 3 The Korean War
• 4 Post World War II Culture
• 5 The Warren Court
• 6 Civil Rights
• 7 The "Great Society"
• 8 The Vietnam War
• 9 ERA and Abortion

Lecture Thirteen:

• 1 The 1970s
• 2 President Ronald Reagan
• 3 Gulf War
• 4 Clarence Thomas
• 5 Bill Clinton
• 6 21st Century
• 7 The Supreme Court
• 8 A Very Brief History of America
• 9 Review for Final Exam

Final Exam.