Notes, Spring 2001, Dates, March 23, 2001

 

KEY DATES TO MEMORIZE (H)

 

1776 was the year the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson

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1789 was the year that the United States Constitution written by James Madison became effective.  It was

also the year that George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States under the Constitution.  It was the year that James Madison began drafting the Bill of Rights.    

 

1865 was the year that Abraham Lincoln(R) was assassinated. His vice-president, Andrew Johnson became President of the United States.  He was never elected to the office of the Presidency. But he was the first President impeached.  Like President Clinton, Andrew Johnson was tried by the Senate and acquitted of the charges against him.

 

1917 was the year that the United States entered World War I.  President Woodrow Wilson sent American troops to Europe to fight on the side of the Allies.  The main Allied Powers were the United States, England, and France.

 

1929 was the year of the Stock Market Crash on Wall Street. Millions of Americans lost all the money that they invested in the stock market. Many jobs across the country were lost. 1929 was the beginning of a period in history known as the Great Depression. It not only affected the economy of the United States, but affected economies in every country around the world. In 1932, the first presidential election after the 1929 Stock Market crash, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D) was elected President.  President Roosevelt proposed the New Deal, which were programs to try to fix the economic situation of the United States.  After Roosevelt was elected, African-Americans switched their loyalty from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.  No other demographic group is as loyal to a political party among registered voters as are African-Americans to the Democratic Party.

 

1945 was the year that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died.  He died just before the end of World War II.  His vice-president, Harry S Truman became President.  World War II ended in 1945 with the unconditional surrender of all Japanese forces in the Pacific after President Truman authorized the use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.  It was also the year that the Cold War began.  President Truman was instrumental in the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco.  The United Nations Organization is currently located in New York City.

 

1954 was the year of the landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.  A state law in Kansas prohibited the plaintiff, Brown from attending a white school that was much closer to her home.  Her lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, challenged that law and the Supreme Court decided the matter.  It ruled that discrimination on the basis of race was unconstitutional in determining the school one attended and, therefore, separate schools were not equal.

 

1989 was the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  That event signified the end of the Cold War and the fall of Soviet Communism.  Democracy became the form of government in the former communist countries of Europe.