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this talks about what grant did to start this war.

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Kids learn about the Battle of the Little Bighorn (also called Custer's Last Stand) including the leaders, what caused the battle, interesting facts, and the aftermath.

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This article explains what did happen.

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Editor's Note: On January 8, 1918, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson gave an important speech to Congress. At the time, World War I was still raging in Europe. On one side of the war were Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Together these countries were known as the Central Powers. Wilson referred to them as the Central Empires. On the other side were Britain, France, Italy, Russia and the United States. The war had started in 1914. In his speech, the president listed 14 principles or key demands he said the U.S. must ask for during any peace talks. Wilson's speech is below. Roman numerals were used to number the principles.
Gentlemen of the Congress:

The Central Empires have said they are willing to seek an end to the war. Talks were begun, but they have already been broken off.

The Central Empires say they are not willing to give up any of the territory they have seized. We simply cannot accept such a plan.

"Talks Can Begin Again"

However, talks can begin again. The Central Empires have not only told us what they want. They have also challenged our side to say what we want.

I believe the people of the United States would wish me to answer that question.

What we demand is that the world be made safe to live in. In particular, it must be made safe for every peaceful nation that wishes to live its own life freely.

Our program is this:

I. Any and all peace treaties must be arrived at openly. There should be no secret treaties of any kind.

II. There must be complete freedom of the seas, during both peace and in war.

III. As far as possible, all nations should be allowed to trade freely and equally.

IV. Every nation should have no more weapons than it needs to keep itself safe.

V. Control over certain territories outside Europe may need to pass from one European nation to another. It is very important to consider what is best for the people who live in these colonies. The matter must be decided fairly and openly.

VI. All Russian territory seized by enemy troops must be returned to Russian control. Russia must be given complete freedom.

VII. Enemy troops must leave Belgium as well. The country must be restored to full independence.

VIII. All French territory taken during the war should be freed and restored to French control. Alsace-Lorraine should also be returned, as it was wrongly seized from France in 1871.

IX. The borders of Italy should be reset, to make them fairer and clearer.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary should be given complete freedom to develop independently.

XI. Enemy troops should leave Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. The freedom of those nations should be restored and guaranteed.

XII. The Turkish part of the Ottoman Empire should be given independence. However, the other national groups now under Turkish rule should also be given the right to develop independently.

XIII. A new Polish state should be formed, and its independence should be guaranteed.

XIV. A new group must be formed that will allow the world's nations to work together. Its purpose should be to protect the rights of all nations, both great and small.

"Justice For All"

If we are to achieve these goals, the nations that have fought against the Central Empires must work as one. We must stand together until the end. We must be willing to fight for the demands I have laid out, but only because we want a just and lasting peace.

One central principle runs through all 14 demands I have outlined. It is the principle of justice for all peoples and nations. All must have an equal right to liberty and safety, whether they be strong or weak.

There can be no real justice unless this principle is recognized. To support it, the people of the United States are ready to fight and even to die.

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Primary Sources: Woodrow Wilson's 14 Principles to End WWI

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Editor's Note: On January 8, 1918, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson gave an important speech to Congress. At the time, World War I was still raging in Europe. On one side of the war were Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Together these countries were known as the Central Powers.

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This explains what bush did in his presidency and what happened in the 2000.

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Newsela | The New Millennium: The Bush Presidency

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Free leveled news, primary sources, and more, with standards-aligned formative assessments.

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Clinton was the president during this time and this article talks about what things happened and what was hes role during that time.

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In 1941, the man in charge of Time magazine, Henry Luce, predicted the United States would play a major part in world events. He thought that the 20th century would become the "American Century."

Luce was right. During this time, the U.S. influenced the world in many ways, from military power to entertainment. Americans were enjoying peace and wealth. There were also exciting changes in technology.

The country still faced dangers. Terrorism increased and wars broke out between ethnic groups in Europe and Africa. During the 1990s, the U.S. also launched attacks in parts of the Middle East.

But, most Americans paid little attention. These problems were happening in faraway places. Americans were also distracted by other changes happening in the U.S.

Business improves

Bill Clinton was the 42nd president of the United States. He served as president from 1993 to 2001. He took office at a time when businesses in the United States were struggling. Soon, business improved enormously. Paychecks were higher for workers and companies were making more profits. At the same time, more jobs were available and the stock market was going higher.

The cause of the improvement is not certain. It may have been many things finally coming together. Years earlier, the U.S. had let people pay less in taxes. This gave Americans more money to spend. Businesses and countries were trading more. Technology was improving and the costs of energy, like oil and gas, were low. These made life good for many people. However, poor Americans still struggled.

Social, cultural and technological trends

As the year 2000 approached, science was providing important breakthroughs for medical treatments. This helped people live longer.

The U.S. population was increasing significantly during this time. The biggest reason for the U.S. population growth was immigration, or when people move from the country where they were born to another one. Between 1970 and 2000, about 28 million immigrants arrived in the U.S. Most were Latinos and Asians.

By 2001, technology was bigger than ever and the Internet had about 625 million users around the world. This was part of a large shift from Americans doing things together to doing things alone. For example, cable TV was offering families hundreds of channels. Everyone could watch the program of their choice. The Walkman and iPod let people customize their music and listen to it alone. Electronic devices like VCRs and DVRs let people record programs to watch whenever they wanted.

Political developments

The president and his fellow Democrat party members in Congress enjoyed many successes shortly after Clinton took office. They reached a deal to raise taxes and cut spending by the government. They limited gun sales and gave more benefits to working people with families. They also protected wilderness areas and helped more students pay for college.

However, health care was the great failure of Clinton's first term. The president asked First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to come up with a plan for affordable health care for all Americans. Many people thought her plan would lead to higher taxes and fewer choices for patients. Her plan was not approved by Congress.

In 1995, terrorists set off a truck bomb next to a government building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The explosion killed more than 140 people. In a strong speech, Clinton said the bombing was evil.

Clinton's popularity was high, and in 1996, he easily defeated Kansas Senator Bob Dole to win a second term as president.

Two years later, it came out that Clinton had an inappropriate relationship with a young woman named Monica Lewinsky. She was working at the White House. Many members of Congress voted to remove Clinton from office because he was not honest at first about what had happened.

A trial took place, but not enough members of the Senate voted to remove Clinton from office. Clinton remained president, though the situation consumed the last two years of his term.
Michael Flamm is a history professor at Ohio Wesleyan University. His publications include "Law and Order: Street Crime, Civil Unrest, and the Crisis of Liberalism in the 1960s" (2005), "Debating the 1960s: Liberal, Conservative, and Radical Perspectives" (2007), "Debating the Reagan Presidency" (2009) and "The Chicago Handbook for Teachers: A Practical Guide to the College Classroom" (2011). He is currently writing "In the Heat of the Summer: Racial Unrest in New York, 1964."

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In 1941, the man in charge of Time magazine, Henry Luce, predicted the United States would play a major part in world events. He thought that the 20th century would become the "American Century." Luce was right. During this time, the U.S. influenced the world in many ways, from military power to entertainment.

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It taked about what presidents do at the white house.

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This article explained how some wars started, including the Civil War.

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The question "what caused the U.S. Civil War?" has been debated since the horrific conflict ended in 1865. As with most wars, however, there was no single cause.

Pressing Issues That Led to the Civil War

The Civil War erupted from a variety of long-standing tensions and disagreements about American life and politics. For nearly a century, the people and politicians of the Northern and Southern states had been clashing over the issues that finally led to war: economic interests, cultural values, the power of the federal government to control the states, and, most importantly, slavery in American society.

While some of these differences might have been resolved peacefully through diplomacy, the institution of slavery was not among them.

With a way of life steeped in age-old traditions of white supremacy and a mainly agricultural economy that depended on the labor of enslaved people, the Southern states viewed enslavement as essential to their very survival.

Slavery in the Economy and Society

At the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the enslavement of people not only remained legal in all 13 British American colonies, but it also continued to play a significant role in their economies and societies.

Prior to the American Revolution, the institution of slavery in America had become firmly established as being limited to persons of African ancestry. In this atmosphere, the seeds of white supremacy were sown.

Even when the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789, very few Black people and no enslaved people were allowed to vote or own property.

However, a growing movement to abolish slavery had led many Northern states to enact abolitionist laws and abandon enslavement. With an economy based more on industry than agriculture, the North enjoyed a steady flow of European immigrants. As impoverished refugees from the potato famine of the 1840s and 1850s, many of these new immigrants could be hired as factory workers at low wages, thus reducing the need for enslaved people in the North.

In the Southern states, longer growing seasons and fertile soils had established an economy based on agriculture fueled by sprawling plantations owned by White people that depended on enslaved people to perform a wide range of duties.

When Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable. This machine was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton. At the same time, the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton created an even greater need for enslaved people. The Southern economy became a one-crop economy, depending on cotton and, therefore, on enslaved people.

Though it was often supported throughout the social and economic classes, not every White Southerner enslaved people. The population of the pro-slavery states was around 9.6 million in 1850﻿﻿﻿ and only about 350,000 were enslavers.﻿﻿﻿ This included many of the wealthiest families, a number of whom owned large plantations. At the start of the Civil War, at least 4 million enslaved people ﻿﻿﻿ were forced to live and work on the Southern plantations.

In contrast, industry ruled the economy of the North and less emphasis was on agriculture, though even that was more diverse. Many Northern industries were purchasing the South's raw cotton and turning it into finished goods.

This economic disparity also led to irreconcilable differences in societal and political views.

In the North, the influx of immigrants-many from countries that had long since abolished slavery-contributed to a society in which people of different cultures and classes lived and worked together.

The South, however, continued to hold onto a social order based on white supremacy in both private and political life, not unlike that under the rule of racial apartheid that persisted in South Africa for decades.

In both the North and South, these differences influenced views on the powers of the federal government to control the economies and cultures of the states.

States and Federal Rights

Since the time of the American Revolution, two camps emerged when it came to the role of government. Some people argued for greater rights for the states and others argued that the federal government needed to have more control.

The first organized government in the U.S. after the Revolution was under the Articles of Confederation. The 13 states formed a loose Confederation with a very weak federal government. However, when problems arose, the weaknesses of the Articles caused the leaders of the time to come together at the Constitutional Convention and create, in secret, the U.S. Constitution.

Strong proponents of states rights like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were not present at this meeting. Many felt that the new Constitution ignored the rights of states to continue to act independently. They felt that the states should still have the right to decide if they were willing to accept certain federal acts.

This resulted in the idea of nullification, whereby the states would have the right to rule federal acts unconstitutional. The federal government denied states this right. However, proponents such as John C. Calhoun -who resigned as vice president to represent South Carolina in the Senate-fought vehemently for nullification. When nullification would not work and many of the Southern states felt that they were no longer respected, they moved toward thoughts of secession.

Pro-slavery States and Free States

As America began to expand-first with the lands gained from the Louisiana Purchase and later with the Mexican War -the question arose of whether new states would be pro-slavery states or free states. An attempt was made to ensure that equal numbers of free states and pro-slavery states were admitted to the Union, but over time this proved difficult.

The Missouri Compromise passed in 1820. This established a rule that prohibited enslavement in states from the former Louisiana Purchase north of the latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes, with the exception of Missouri.

During the Mexican War, the debate began about what would happen with the new territories the U.S. expected to gain upon victory. David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso in 1846, which would ban enslavement in the new lands. This was shot down amid much debate.

The Compromise of 1850 was created by Henry Clay and others to deal with the balance between pro-slavery states and free states. It was designed to protect both Northern and Southern interests. When California was admitted as a free state, one of the provisions was the Fugitive Slave Act. This held individuals responsible for harboring freedom-seeking enslaved people, even if they were located in free states.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was another issue that further increased tensions. It created two new territories that would allow the states to use popular sovereignty to determine whether they would be free states or pro-slavery states. The real issue occurred in Kansas where pro-slavery Missourians, called "Border Ruffians," began to pour into the state in an attempt to force it toward slavery.

Problems came to a head with a violent clash at Lawrence, Kansas. This caused it to become known as " Bleeding Kansas." The fight even erupted on the floor of the Senate when anti-slavery proponent Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was beaten on the head by South Carolina Sen. Preston Brooks.

The Abolitionist Movement

Increasingly, Northerners became more polarized against enslavement. Sympathies began to grow for abolitionists and against enslavement and enslavers. Many in the North came to view enslavement as not just socially unjust, but morally wrong.

The abolitionists came with a variety of viewpoints. People such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass wanted immediate freedom for all enslaved people. A group that included Theodore Weld and Arthur Tappan advocated for emancipating enslaved people slowly. Still others, including Abraham Lincoln, simply hoped to keep slavery from expanding.

A number of events helped fuel the cause for abolition in the 1850s. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote " Uncle Tom's Cabin," a popular novel that opened many eyes to the reality of enslavement. The Dred Scott Case brought the issues of enslaved peoples' rights, freedom, and citizenship to the Supreme Court.

Additionally, some abolitionists took a less peaceful route to fighting against slavery. John Brown and his family fought on the anti-slavery side of "Bleeding Kansas." They were responsible for the Pottawatomie Massacre, in which they killed five settlers who were pro-slavery. Yet, Brown's best-known fight would be his last when the group attacked Harper's Ferry in 1859, a crime for which he would hang.

The Election of Abraham Lincoln

The politics of the day were as stormy as the anti-slavery campaigns. All of the issues of the young nation were dividing the political parties and reshaping the established two-party system of Whigs and Democrats.

The Democratic party was divided between factions in the North and South. At the same time, the conflicts surrounding Kansas and the Compromise of 1850 transformed the Whig party into the Republican party (established in 1854). In the North, this new party was seen as both anti-slavery and for the advancement of the American economy. This included the support of industry and encouraging homesteading while advancing educational opportunities. In the South, Republicans were seen as little more than divisive.

The presidential election of 1860 would be the deciding point for the Union. Abraham Lincoln represented the new Republican Party and Stephen Douglas, the Northern Democrat, was seen as his biggest rival. The Southern Democrats put John C. Breckenridge on the ballot. John C. Bell represented the Constitutional Union Party, a group of conservative Whigs hoping to avoid secession.

The country's divisions were clear on Election Day. Lincoln won the North, Breckenridge the South, and Bell the border states. Douglas won only Missouri and a portion of New Jersey. It was enough for Lincoln to win the popular vote, as well as 180 electoral votes.

Even though things were already near a boiling point after Lincoln was elected, South Carolina issued its "Declaration of the Causes of Secession" on December 24, 1860. They believed that Lincoln was anti-slavery and in favor of Northern interests.

President James Buchanan's administration did little to quell the tension or stop what would become known as " Secession Winter." Between Election Day and Lincoln's inauguration in March, seven states seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas.

In the process, the South took control of federal installations, including forts in the region, which would give them a foundation for war. One of the most shocking events occurred when one-quarter of the nation's army surrendered in Texas under the command of General David E. Twigg. Not a single shot was fired in that exchange, but the stage was set for the bloodiest war in American history.

Edited by Robert Longley

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What Were the Top 4 Causes of the Civil War?

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The question "what caused the U.S. Civil War?" has been debated since the horrific conflict ended in 1865. As with most wars, however, there was no single cause. The Civil War erupted from a variety of long-standing tensions and disagreements about American life and politics.