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America’s Involvement in WWII (Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Ending the War with Japan

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America’s Involvement in WWII (Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Ending the War with Japan

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https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/glossary/world-war-2.cfm

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The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in the 1930s

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The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in the 1930s

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https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib4/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/10599/Interwar%20Totalitarian%20Rulers.pdf

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https://www.pbs.org/video/dust-bowl-uncovering-dust-bowl/

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President Roosevelt’s New Deal/Plan for Ending the Great Depression

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President Roosevelt’s New Deal/Plan for Ending the Great Depression

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Table of Contents

What was the purpose of the New Deal?

What were the New Deal programs and what did they do?

What were the most important results of the New Deal?

What New Deal programs remain in effect?

New Deal, domestic program of the administration of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) between 1933 and 1939, which took action to bring about immediate economic relief as well as reforms in industry, agriculture, finance, waterpower, labour, and housing, vastly increasing the scope of the federal government's activities. The term was taken from Roosevelt's speech accepting the Democratic nomination for the presidency on July 2, 1932. Reacting to the ineffectiveness of the administration of Pres. Herbert Hoover in meeting the ravages of the Great Depression, American voters the following November overwhelmingly voted in favour of the Democratic promise of a "new deal" for the "forgotten man." Opposed to the traditional American political philosophy of laissez-faire, the New Deal generally embraced the concept of a government-regulated economy aimed at achieving a balance between conflicting economic interests.

The Hundred Days

Much of the New Deal legislation was enacted within the first three months of Roosevelt's presidency (March 9-June 16, 1933), which became known as the Hundred Days. The new administration's first objective was to alleviate the suffering of the nation's huge number of unemployed workers. Such agencies as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were established to dispense emergency and short-term governmental aid and to provide temporary jobs, employment on construction projects, and youth work in the national forests. The WPA gave some 8.5 million people jobs. Its construction projects produced more than 650,000 miles of roads, 125,000 public buildings, 75,000 bridges, and 8,000 parks. Also under its aegis were the Federal Art Project, Federal Writers' Project, and Federal Theatre Project. The CCC provided national conservation work primarily for young unmarried men. Projects included planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting forest fires, and maintaining forest roads and trails.

Before 1935 the New Deal focused on revitalizing the country's stricken business and agricultural communities. To revive industrial activity, the National Recovery Administration (NRA) was granted authority to help shape industrial codes governing trade practices, wages, hours, child labour, and collective bargaining. The New Deal also tried to regulate the nation's financial hierarchy in order to avoid a repetition of the stock market crash of 1929 and the massive bank failures that followed. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) granted government insurance for bank deposits in member banks of the Federal Reserve System, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was established in 1934 to restore investor confidence in the stock market by ending the misleading sales practices and stock manipulations that had led to the stock market crash. The farm program, known as the Agricultural Adjustment Act, was signed in May 1933. It was centred in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which attempted to raise prices by controlling the production of staple crops through cash subsidies to farmers. In addition, the arm of the federal government reached into the area of electric power, establishing in 1933 the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which was to cover a seven-state area and supply cheap electricity, prevent floods, improve navigation, and produce nitrates.

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New Deal | Definition, History, Programs, Summary, & Facts

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New Deal, domestic program of the administration of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) between 1933 and 1939, which took action to bring about immediate economic relief as well as reforms in industry, agriculture, finance, waterpower, labour, and housing, vastly increasing the scope of the federal government's activities.

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President Roosevelt’s New Deal/Plan for Ending the Great Depression

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President Roosevelt’s New Deal/Plan for Ending the Great Depression

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https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Deal

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Business Cycle/Causes of the Great Depression

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Business Cycle/Causes of the Great Depression

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https://slideplayer.com/slide/5385336/

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Black Tuesday/Stock Market Crash of 1929

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Black Tuesday/Stock Market Crash of 1929

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehy2jEeNuWk

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The 18th Amendment (Reasons for it and why it was repealed)

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The 18th Amendment (Reasons for it and why it was repealed)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-xeRS7WaK0

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https://slideplayer.com/slide/8118257/

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How was peace established at the end of World War I?

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How was peace established at the end of World War I?

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https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/post-world-war-i-peace-conference-begins-in-paris

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America’s role in WWI (Entering the war/fighting in France)

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America’s role in WWI (Entering the war/fighting in France)

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https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-world-power/us-in-wwi/a/the-united-states-in-world-war-i

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https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/euro-hist/world-war-i-fighting/v/technology-in-world-war-i

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The Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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The Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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http://www.history.com/news//.amp/news/the-assassination-of-archduke-franz-ferdinand-100-years-ago

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Business Cycle/Causes of the Great Depression

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Business Cycle/Causes of the Great Depression

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World War I shaped our world in many, many, many ways. And it's important to realize it wasn't that long ago. It was not even 100 years ago. But it was really the end of the more traditional empires. It was the end of kingdoms. It really reshaped much of the globe much more around states defined by nations rather than states defined by monarchies or states defined by empires. And it was also the first war where technology, or I would say modern technology-- technology has always played a major role in wars. In fact, wars have been a catalyst for technology often. But it was the first time that much of what we consider to be modern technology played a huge role in the actual carrying out of the war. And to a large degree, this is what made the war so much bloodier, and one could argue, even more protracted. So here I have a bunch of pictures of the various technologies used in World War I. Here in this picture you have a machine gun, which obviously allows you to indiscriminately mow down folks. These guys, it looks like they might be in some type of a trench. And so you could imagine that combination if viewed from above. So let's say that this is a trench. This is a trench right over here. We're looking from above. So there's some people sitting in the trench. A couple of these folks have machine guns. The rest of the guys just have rifles over here. If you wanted to storm this trench, you'd be in a bad situation. The guy with the machine gun essentially could just mow people down. They also tended to use barbed wire. Barbed wire wasn't invented in World War I. It was invented many decades before in the 1800s. But that would make it very hard for someone to cross this period. They would get stuck in it. At which point these guys in the trench could shoot him down. And it would be very hard to shoot the guys in the trench. So it also, other than making it very deadly, it gave all the advantages to the defense. So any time someone wanted to gain ground, especially in one of the fronts where trench warfare was being used, it was a hugely, hugely, hugely bloody affair. The other technology that came into mainstream use in World War I was the use of gas, and in particular poison gas. And as you see these gentleman right over here, they're wearing gas masks because they're afraid that their opponent is going to use poison gas. And the benefit of gas in particular is let's say you have an artillery shell that you throw over and it doesn't hit anybody. But then it starts releasing a canister of-- let me do that in a different color-- it starts releasing a canister of gas. So the gas I've drawn in this purplish color. And so it doesn't have to be a direct hit. It can just linger there and infect that trench. And it'll affect everyone there. And gas warfare was-- actually, the Germans weren't first to use just gas warfare. But they were the first to use very lethal, what we would call poison, gas. And in particular in 1915, they used chlorine gas. So let me write that down. Chlorine gas, which immediately attacks the respiratory system of the person who inhales it. And they essentially choke to death within seconds or minutes. They also used phosgene gas because this did not stimulate that choking. And in some ways it could infiltrate the respiratory system even more. It had a delayed effect. So it would linger around. And you have the use of mustard gas. Mustard gas was very hard to protect against. It wouldn't immediately have you choke to death like chlorine gas. It would be severe blistering. It would essentially take you out of the battle. It was very hard to protect against. And it would also linger around in the trench. So it made the trench a very toxic environment to work in. So these are very, very, very ugly weapons. I mean, war itself is ugly. Weapons themselves are ugly. I mean, the machine gun is not a pleasant weapon. It can mow people down. But even folks who view something like a machine gun as an acceptable thing tend to view these things as particularly ugly things to use. Other weapons that showed up in World War I, we talked about this in other videos, but the tank started to become a factor. This right over here is an American tank. Obviously, with these treads it can go in tough terrain. It's heavily, heavily armored. When you talk about this trench type of thing, well, if you've got a big hulking beast, maybe that could roll through the barbed wire and take some beating and maybe eventually-- so you could imagine a tank over here, it could eventually-- and actually the tanks at this time did not have these big turrets. So they might have looked something more like that. But this might be able to actually be part of an offensive against a trench like this. We've talked extensively about submarine warfare in World War I. The Germans especially used it, essentially to have a chance against the dominant British Navy. Unrestricted U-boat warfare was one of the primary reasons given by the Americans as to why they entered the war on the side of the entente. These are World War I era US submarines, just to give an idea of how they actually looked. And in some ways the best foreshadowing of what would play a major, major, major role in future wars it was the bringing of heavier than air craft into the war. So in particular, we're talking about airplanes. So before this, you had stuff like balloons and zeppelins used for reconnaissance, used to see where we should aim the artillery, things like that. But now you had the Wright brothers only, frankly, several years before inventing the engine powered heavier than air craft. And at first the airplane, in the beginning stages the war, was used for reconnaissance. But as the technology improved, as the engines improved, it started to be used for bombing. It started to actually used for air to air combat. And out of all of the folks involved in air to air combat, this gentleman right over here is probably the most famous. Although you might not recognize his name. He's been turned into a bit of a caricature in the modern world. But this is Manfred von Richthofen. And he was a pilot for the Germans. And he's more famously known as the Red Baron. And he was called the Red Baron because he was actually a Baron. It is a title of nobility in imperial Germany. And he painted his plane red. So this is a picture of his plane right over here. So if I were to color it in-- I guess this isn't quite red. I should actually probably try to get a more reddish color. So maybe this is more of a red. So this is obviously a black and white photograph, but maybe if I color it in for you, you'll get more of the feeling of what his plane might have looked like. And it was a triplane. It had these three wings right over here, or three levels of wings. So whatever, his plane was red. That's why he was called the Red Baron. And he was famous for being the most lethal pilot in all of the war. He has 80 confirmed kills. He was able to down 80 enemy aircraft. So 80 confirmed wins, I guess you can say in combat, which is more than any other folks in World War I. So very, very famous pilot. He himself-- when you're talking about any of the combatants in World War I did not have a long life expectancy. The pilots especially this was a dangerous game. And he also, despite being the top pilot, the top ace, amongst all the pilots in World War I, he also ended up getting shot in the air in 1918. He literally got shot through the lungs and the heart. He somehow managed to land his plane. And when the people ran up to him, the accounts say, that his famous last words as he died, right when they ran up to him, was "kaput". So interesting. And on top of that, he's now been turned into a bit of a caricature. I mean, us in the West, in the US, we recognize the brand Red Baron pizza. It is named for the Red Baron, for Manfred von Richthofen. Kind of a strange name, I think, for a pizza company. I mean, he's not even Italian. But that's, I guess, what we know him for. But you see, this guy right over here looks a lot more like Tom Selleck than look like the real Manfred von Richthofen.

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Technology in World War I (video) | Khan Academy

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World War I shaped our world in many, many, many ways. And it's important to realize it wasn't that long ago. It was not even 100 years ago. But it was really the end of the more traditional empires.

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America’s Involvement in WWII (Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Ending the War with Japan

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America’s Involvement in WWII (Pearl Harbor, D-Day, Ending the War with Japan

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The roots of World War II, which eventually pitted Germany, Japan, and Italy (the Axis) against the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union (the Allies), lay in the militaristic ideologies and expansionist policies of Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan.

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The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in the 1930s

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The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in the 1930s

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The Dust Bowl | Making The Dust Bowl | Uncovering the Dust Bowl | PBS

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Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan discuss making The Dust Bowl

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Black Tuesday/Stock Market Crash of 1929

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Black Tuesday/Stock Market Crash of 1929

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History Brief: Black Tuesday (The Stock Market Crash)

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The 18th Amendment (Reasons for it and why it was repealed)

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The 18th Amendment (Reasons for it and why it was repealed)

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The 18th Amendment Explained: The Constitution for Dummies Series

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How was peace established at the end of World War I?

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How was peace established at the end of World War I?

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On January 18, 1919, in Paris, France, some of the most powerful people in the world meet to begin the long, complicated negotiations that would officially mark the end of the First World War.

Leaders of the victorious Allied powers-France, Great Britain, the United States and Italy-would make most of the crucial decisions in Paris over the next six months. For most of the conference, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson struggled to support his idea of a "peace without victory" and make sure that Germany, the leader of the Central Powers and the major loser of the war, was not treated too harshly. On the other hand, Prime Ministers Georges Clemenceau of France and David Lloyd George of Britain argued that punishing Germany adequately and ensuring its weakness was the only way to justify the immense costs of the war. In the end, Wilson compromised on the treatment of Germany in order to push through the creation of his pet project, an international peacekeeping organization called the League of Nations.
WATCH: Did WWI Lead to WWII?
Representatives from Germany were excluded from the peace conference until May, when they arrived in Paris and were presented with a draft of the Versailles Treaty. Having put great faith in Wilson's promises, the Germans were deeply frustrated and disillusioned by the treaty, which required them to forfeit a great deal of territory and pay reparations. Even worse, the infamous Article 231 forced Germany to accept sole blame for the war. This was a bitter pill many Germans could not swallow.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after a Serbian nationalist's bullet ended the life of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and sparked the beginning of World War I. In the decades to come, anger and resentment of the treaty and its authors festered in Germany. Extremists like Adolf Hitler's National Socialist (Nazi) Party capitalized on these emotions to gain power, a process that led almost directly to the exact thing Wilson and the other negotiators in Paris in 1919 had wanted to prevent-a second, equally devastating global war.
SEE MORE: World War I-in Color

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Post-World War I peace conference begins in Paris

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On January 18, 1919, in Paris, France, some of the most powerful people in the world meet to begin the long, complicated negotiations that would officially mark the end of the First World War. Leaders of the victorious Allied powers-France, Great Britain, the United States and Italy-would make most of the crucial decisions in Paris over the next six months.

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America’s role in WWI (Entering the war/fighting in France)

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America’s role in WWI (Entering the war/fighting in France)

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If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

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The United States in World War I (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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The Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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The Assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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Deeply in love, Ferdinand chose to marry Sophie Chotek in 1900 despite the opposition of his uncle, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef, who refused to attend their wedding. Though not exactly a commoner, Sophie came from a family of obscure Czech nobles and not from a reigning or formerly reigning dynasty of Europe. As a result, her and Ferdinand's children were declared ineligible for the throne. Sophie also became the victim of countless petty slights. At imperial banquets, for example, she entered each room last, without an escort, and was then seated far away from her husband at the dinner table.

His marriage notwithstanding, Ferdinand remained Franz Josef's heir and inspector general of the army. In that capacity, he agreed to attend a series of June 1914 military exercises in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Austria-Hungary had just annexed these provinces a few years earlier against the wishes of neighboring Serbia, which likewise coveted them. Ferdinand believed the Serbs to be "pigs," "thieves," "murderers" and "scoundrels." Yet he had opposed annexation for fear that it would make an already turbulent political situation even worse. Formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire, Bosnia-Herzegovina's population was roughly 40 percent Serb, 30 percent Muslim and 20 percent Croat, with various other ethnicities making up the remainder.

Upon learning of Ferdinand's upcoming visit, the Young Bosnians, a secret revolutionary society of peasant students, began plotting to assassinate him. In May, Gavrilo Princip, Trifko Grabez and Nedeljko Cabrinovic traveled to the Serbian capital of Belgrade, where they received six handheld bombs, four semi-automatic pistols and cyanide suicide capsules from members of the so-called Black Hand, a terrorist group with close ties to the Serbian army. After practicing with their pistols in a Belgrade park, the three men journeyed back to Bosnia-Herzegovina, receiving help from Black Hand associates to smuggle their weapons across the border. To this day, it remains unclear whether the Serbian government participated in the scheme.

Ferdinand and Sophie departed their estate for Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 23. Having received multiple warnings to cancel the trip, the archduke knew that danger potentially awaited them. "Our journey starts with an extremely promising omen," he purportedly said when the axles on his car overheated. "Here our car burns, and down there they will throw bombs at us." After arriving at a spa town a few miles outside of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina's capital, Ferdinand attended two days of military exercises while Sophie visited schools and orphanages. On a whim, the couple drove in one evening to check out Sarajevo's bazaars. While there, they attracted a crowd of onlookers, including Princip, but were apparently treated with warmth and politeness.

Following a banquet with religious and political leaders, only one day of events remained before Ferdinand and Sophie were to return home. That morning, June 28, the archduke sent a telegram to his eldest son congratulating him on his latest exam results. He and Sophie then boarded a train for the short ride into Sarajevo. For once, Sophie was permitted to walk alongside Ferdinand during a brief troop inspection, after which the couple got in an open-topped car for a motorcade ride to city hall. The car in front of them was supposed to carry six specially trained officers but instead had only one, plus three local policemen. In fact, throughout the trip, Austro-Hungarian officials allegedly focused more attention on dinner menus than security details.

Meanwhile, seven Young Bosnians had fanned out along the Appel Quay, a main avenue in Sarajevo running parallel to the Miljacka River. When the motorcade passed by, its route having been published in advance, Cabrinovic asked which car carried the archduke. He then hurled his bomb at the car, only to watch it bounce off the folded-up roof and roll underneath the wrong vehicle. The subsequent explosion wounded two army officers and several bystanders but left Ferdinand and Sophie essentially unharmed. Cabrinovic jumped into the mostly dry riverbed and made a half-hearted attempt to kill himself before being apprehended. "I am a Serbian hero," he purportedly shouted as the police led him away. At least two other Young Bosnians also had good looks at the archduke but apparently lost the nerve to attempt an assassination.

Rather than immediately flee Sarajevo, Ferdinand decided to continue on to the planned event at city hall. Upon finishing that up, he insisted on visiting the wounded officers in the hospital. In order to dissuade any other bomb throwers, the motorcade zipped down the Appel Quay at high speeds. By mistake, however, the first three cars turned onto a side street right where Princip happened to be standing. As the cars attempted to reverse back onto the Appel Quay, Princip whipped out his pistol and fired two shots at the archduke from point-blank range, piercing him in the neck and also striking Sophie's abdomen. "Sophie, Sophie, don't die-stay alive for our children," Ferdinand murmured. Within minutes, though, both had passed away. Princip, a slender, 19-year-old Serbian army reject, later admitted to killing Ferdinand but said he had not meant to hit Sophie. Three weeks too young for the death penalty, Princip was given a 20-year sentence, but contracted tuberculosis and died in jail in April 1918, at the age of just 23.

With tensions already running high among Europe's powers, the assassination precipitated a rapid descent into World War I. First, Austria-Hungary gained German support for punitive action against Serbia. It then sent Serbia an ultimatum, worded in a way that made acceptance unlikely. Serbia proposed arbitration to resolve the dispute, but Austria-Hungary instead declared war on July 28, 1914, exactly a month after Ferdinand's death. By the following week, Germany, Russia, France, Belgium, Montenegro and Great Britain had all been drawn into the conflict, and other countries like the United States would enter later. Overall, more than 9 million soldiers and nearly that many civilians would die in fighting that lasted until 1918.

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The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 100 Years Ago

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Deeply in love, Ferdinand chose to marry Sophie Chotek in 1900 despite the opposition of his uncle, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef, who refused to attend their wedding. Though not exactly a commoner, Sophie came from a family of obscure Czech nobles and not from a reigning or formerly reigning dynasty of Europe.

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http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/progress/suffrage/

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Political Corruption and Progressive Reforms

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Political Corruption and Progressive Reforms

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https://www.thinglink.com/scene/754380499295666177

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRhjqqe750A

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https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-ushistory/chapter/american-imperialism/

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewu-v36szlE

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https://padlet-uploads.storage.googleapis.com/305261923/7be77ff0251c65805ab29af23902e445/GA_001_BossesSenateKeppler.jpg

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https://learning-center.homesciencetools.com/article/modern-inventions-airplane-light-bulb-telephone/

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http://ushistoryscene.com/article/second-industrial-revolution/

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Political Corruption and Progressive Reforms

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Political Corruption and Progressive Reforms

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The Labor Movement in the United States | History

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Women’s Suffrage in the Progressive Era | Progressive Era to New Era, 1900-1929 | U.S. History Primary Source Timeline | Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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During the late 1800s and early 1900s, women and women’s organizations not only worked to gain the right to vote, they also worked for broad-based economic and political equality and for social reforms.

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Growth, Cities, and Immigration: Crash Course US History #25

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Whatever its origins, American imperialism experienced its pinnacle from the late 1800s through the years following World War II. During this "Age of Imperialism," the United States exerted political, social, and economic control over countries such as the Philippines, Cuba, Germany, Austria, Korea, and Japan.

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Inventions - Light Bulb, Telephone, Automobile, Airplane

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Inventions - Light Bulb, Telephone, Automobile, Airplane

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Science Lesson: Learn About Inventions

The Telephone & Alexander Graham Bell

What if the only way you could communicate with someone living in another city was by mailing them a letter, one that might take weeks to get delivered? (Even with our modern technology, it still takes at least two weeks for mail to get to some countries.) The telephone is certainly one of the greatest inventions in the history of communication!

The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, was born in Scotland in 1847, the same year as Thomas Edison. He went to university in Edinburgh and London, then immigrated to Canada in 1870 and to the U.S. a year later. There he used visible speech (a type of phonetic notation that shows the position of the throat, mouth, and tongue to make different sounds) to teach deaf-mute people how speak.

When he was a young man, Bell became interested in transmitting speech, the way a telegraph transmitted messages. In 1874 he developed the idea for the telephone and successfully created and patented one two years later. (Just two hours after he applied for his patent, Elisha Gray filed his intention to apply for a patent for a very similar device.) His first transmitted sentence was to his assistant: 'Watson, come here; I want to see you.' Bell demonstrated his telephone at the Philadelphia Centennial Expo and in 1877 organized the Bell Telephone Company.

So how does this amazing invention work? How can you talk to someone miles away and hear them as though they were in the same room with you? It's actually a fairly simple process. At its most basic, a telephone consists of a switch, a receiver, and a microphone. The switch connects your phone to the telephone network; the receiver changes electrical signals into sound waves so you can hear the other person, and the microphone changes the sound waves you make into electrical impulses to send to the other end of the line.

The microphone contains carbon granules and a thin metal diaphragm. When you speak, the sound waves (vibrations in the air) hit the diaphragm and cause it to move, compressing the carbon granules behind it. A louder sound will compress the granules more than a soft sound. When the carbon is compressed, an electrical current can flow through it more easily. A battery (either in your handset or at the telephone company) sends an electric current through your phone; when you speak, the compression of the carbon varies the intensity of the current.
Experiment with electricity and sound transmission with this kit for kids!
This process is reversed at the other end of the line by the receiver. The electrical current flows through an electromagnet in the receiver, producing a magnetic field. This magnetic field attracts the thin metal diaphragm in the receiver, causing it to move in and out. As it does so, it pushes and pulls the air, creating sound waves. These waves reach your ear with the same intensity as they were spoken, allowing you to hear what the other person said.

The process hinges on the ability to have a variable electrical current. Unlike the telephone, a telegraph operates on a constant electric current - the messages are transmitted not by changing the current, but by repeatedly turning it on and off in a distinct pattern. Because the human voice doesn't start and stop sound waves in the same way as tapping Morse code does, the current must be able to adjust for variation in volume and frequency. The carbon microphone allows for this variation, giving us the ability to transmit speech electrically.

Bell probably couldn't have imagined the kind of communication we have today. Not only do we have long-distance telephone networks all over the world, we also have cellular phones that use radio frequencies to allow us to talk wirelessly wherever we are. Communication was changed forever by the telephone and continues to develop rapidly today.
Return to top
The Light Bulb & Thomas Edison

Perhaps one of the most important inventions of all time is the electric light bulb. We could get by with candles or lanterns in our homes, but imagine trying to shop at the mall, work in a large office complex, or travel at night by car or plane without electric lighting!

Thomas Alva Edison, one of the developers of the modern light bulb, is also one of the most famous as well as prolific inventors in history. He patented over 1000 inventions in his lifetime. Edison was born in Ohio in 1847. As a child, he received less than a year of formal schooling, but was educated at home. His parents allowed him to set up a laboratory in their basement and his mother gave him books about chemistry and electronics. Edison credits his mother as being 'the making' of him.

When he was 12, Edison got a job selling newspapers on a train that made day trips between his hometown of Port Huron, Michigan and Detroit. He took his laboratory along in the baggage car so that he would be able to experiment during layovers. This worked until one day some of his chemicals spilled and started a fire! Also while working on the train, Edison saved the child of one of the station masters, and as a reward was taught how to use a telegraph machine. He became a telegraph operator and began making improvements to the telegraph's functionality. He later invented a way for multiple telegraph messages to be transmitted simultaneously (rather than one at a time).

As a young man, Edison moved to New York City and eventually established a laboratory. In 1877 he invented the phonograph, which used a record made of tinfoil to play back sound. In 1879 he created a successful incandescent light bulb. This was his hardest project - from 1877 to 1880, Edison and his assistants tried around 3000 experiments to perfect their light bulb design. By the end of 1880, Edison had produced a bulb that lasted 1500 hours. (This has a moral: don't worry if some of your own science experiments aren't a success the first time you try them!)
Experiment with electricity with our student-friendly kit!
Edison was not the first person to make a working light bulb: In the 1860s another English scientist, Sir Joseph Wilson Swan, began experimenting. He made a light bulb that used carbonized paper for a filament. But Swan lacked a strong enough vacuum inside the bulb; a design problem that he corrected at almost the same time Edison did. After a legal battle between the two inventors, Edison and Swan teamed up and created the company Ediswan to market their invention.

How exactly do light bulbs work? For being such an important part of our lives, they have a fairly simple design. The base contains two metal contacts, which connect to an electrical circuit. These contacts are attached to two wires, which are in turn attached to the filament in the middle of the bulb (the filament is usually supported by a glass mount). A power supply sends an electric current from one contact to the other, traveling up through the wires and the filament. As the current passes through the filament, it "excites" the atoms that make up the filament material, causing them to give off energy in the form of heat and light. Edison tried thousands of different materials for his filaments, but most of them produced light for only a short time. He finally tried a carbonized cotton thread, which burned for many hours. Eventually, light bulbs were made using the metal tungsten for the filament. Tungsten works well because it has an unusually high melting point. This is important because metal must be heated to extreme temperatures to give off enough light.

The danger of running electrical current through the filament is that the resulting high temperatures may cause the filament to combust, or catch on fire. This will only happen if oxygen is present, so Edison sucked all the air out of his glass bulbs to create a vacuum. This method worked fine to prevent combustion, but it allowed filament atoms to evaporate, shortening the life of the bulb. In modern bulbs, the glass is filled with an inert gas, such as argon. This prevents combustion, and also helps prevent tungsten atoms from evaporating.

For over a century we have read and worked by the light of Edison's incandescent bulb. Other light sources, such as fluorescent bulbs and LED, have gained popularity in recent years because of their efficiency. The incandescent bulb releases most of its energy in the form of heat, not light, thus wasting electricity. Fluorescent and LED, however, are much cooler, and release most of their energy as visible light. These light sources have replaced the incandescent bulb for many functions.

Although almost all of Edison's discoveries were technological rather than strictly scientific, his invention credits include an alkaline storage battery, microphone, mimeograph (a copy machine), and a kinetoscope for viewing moving pictures. He also created the first 'talkie,' a movie that had sound, using his kinetoscope and phonograph. He continued to improve not only the incandescent light bulb, but some of his other inventions like the phonograph as well.
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The Airplane and the Wright Brothers

On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew the first powered, heavier-than-air airplane, propelling himself and his older brother Wilbur into world history. It took the brothers years of preparation to get to that cold and windy day in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Wilbur (born in 1867) and Orville (born in 1871) grew up in Dayton, Ohio, the son of a United Brethren minister. Both of their parents had college educations, and they fostered intellectual curiosity and experimentation in their children. Bishop Wright sparked his young sons' interest in flight early on by bringing them a special toy - a flying top. This toy was essentially a rubber-band powered helicopter. The boys flew it until it fell apart, and then Wilbur built his own. As they grew older, the boys spent much of their time designing, building, and selling kites.

As young adults, Wilbur and Orville capitalized on the booming popularity of bicycles by starting their own bicycle sale and repair shop. Eventually they started building their own bicycles, which was excellent training for their next enterprise: building a flying machine.

Wilbur and Orville read everything about flight that they could get their hands on in Dayton. To get more information, Wilbur wrote the Smithsonian asking for up-to-date materials on the study of flight. With the Smithsonian's help they studied Sir George Cayley's work with the four forces of flight (lift, gravity, thrust, and drag), others' experiments with gliders, and the attempts at flight made by the Smithsonian's secretary, Samuel Langley. All the work these men had done, even when they failed, proved indispensable to the Wrights' efforts. After carefully studying, Wilbur and Orville began their own scientific analysis of what was needed for flight, and began designing their own gliders. They didn't just want to put an airplane in the sky; they wanted controlled flight, and for this they needed to master the three axes of motion: pitch, roll, and yaw.

Pitch is the up and down motion of the airplane's nose (climbing or diving). Roll is the airplane rolling from side to side, causing its wings to tilt up or down. This is especially necessary for turns. When an airplane turns left, it doesn't just remain level; the left wing will dip down and the right wing will be raised up. The last of the three axes is yaw, which is the airplane's right and left movement.

Orville and Wilbur realized that birds control pitch, roll, and yaw by adjusting the shape of their wings. The brothers tried to mimic this by developing what they called 'wing warping,' a system of wires and pulleys that manipulated the glider wings to allow banking turns to the left and right. At first the wing warping was controlled with the pilot's feet, but eventually they designed a hip cradle, which was easier to use. The pilot shifted his hips right, the wires pulled the left wingtips up, and the glider banked to the right. Wing warping took care of roll; their front elevator controlled pitch, and eventually the brothers controlled yaw by connecting wires from a rudder to the hip cradle.

In the autumn of 1900, the Wrights packed up a glider and set up camp at a deserted and windy beach outside of Kitty Hawk, NC. For three weeks they flew their glider as a kite, before trying to pilot it. Though they didn't achieve as much lift as they expected based on the lift tables established by aviation researchers, they were very happy with the results of their first Kitty Hawk visit. Their best flight lasted 15 seconds and covered 300 feet.

1901 saw the brothers back at Kitty Hawk, this time with an upgraded glider. The flight tests did not go as they had hoped. The new glider proved much more difficult to control, and they simply could not get the amount of lift they were trying for. They went home to Dayton discouraged and ready to give up. Men will certainly fly, they thought, but not in our lifetime. In the end, they decided to persevere. The lift tables widely accepted by the other pioneers in flight must be wrong. The Wrights decided to test the tables; they built their own wind tunnel in the back of their bicycle shop, and observed its effects on 200 different types of miniature wings.

With the information they gathered from their wind tunnel experiments, the brothers built yet another glider for testing in 1902. This was the first flying machine that had controls for all three axes of motion. It flew smoothly, was controlled easily, and glided more than 600 feet several times. They had a maneuverable aircraft; now they needed power.

True to form, the Wrights decided to build their own engine for their plane (named 'The Flyer'). The finished product put out 12 horsepower and weighed 180 lb (the entire plane weighed 605 lbs). Then came the real challenge: designing propellers. One of their greatest contributions to aviation turned out to be their pioneer research on propellers. Their final product had 70% efficiency, which is nearly as good as modern propel ers! Back at Kitty Hawk in the fall of 1903, they began assembling The Flyer. Bad weather and damage to the plane delayed flying for several months, but finally in mid-December they were ready. Because wheels would make the plane too heavy, the Wrights constructed a wooden track for the plane to move on when taking off. On December 17th, Orville climbed onto The Flyer and started the engine. It moved down the track and lifted into the air. That first flight last only 12 seconds and covered 120 feet, but it was still the first-ever controlled, heavier-than-air flight. The brothers flew the plane four times that day, and the fourth time Wilbur flew for 59 seconds, covering 852 feet.

After this breakthrough the Wrights continued to improve their plane. Now that they weren't dependent on the winds for power, they left the beaches of Kitty Hawk and moved their work to an Ohio field. By 1905, Wilbur was flying laps around the field: 24.5 miles in 39 minutes. In spite of this success, the brothers couldn't find a buyer for their invention. They decided to stop flying until they could get a sales contract. Three years later, in 1908, they received offers from the French and from the U.S. Army. Wilbur packed up a plane and went to France, where he became something of a celebrity by flying figure eights and taking up passengers (this later model had two seats). Orville demonstrated his plane for the U.S. Government and impressed them with his altitude of 300 feet, hour-long flights and average speed of 42.58 miles. They paid him $30,000 for the plane.

The age of aviation had 'taken off,' so to speak. Just 44 years after that first powered flight, airplanes began flying faster than the speed of sound; in another 14 years men were flying in space; another eight years after that they were walking on the moon. The Wright brothers' passion and perseverance laid the foundation for this astonishing and speedy technological advance.
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Science Projects: Technology Experiments

Make a Light Bulb

Thomas Edison tried thousands of experiments when he was inventing the incandescent light bulb. You can experiment too, and find out how a light bulb really works, by making your own! You will need a glass canning jar with a lid, three feet of insulated copper wire, a 6-volt battery, and thin iron wire (unraveled picture hanging wire works great).

Cut the copper wire into two equal sections. Strip at least one inch of insulation off the ends of each length of wire. Next, punch two holes in the jar lid (you can use a nail for this). Thread a wire through each hole in the lid. Make a hook at the end of each wire (the end that will be inside the jar when you put the lid on). Twist two or three strands of iron wire together, then twist the ends around the hooks in the copper wire. The iron wire will act as your filament.

Place the lid (with the filament) in the jar and carefully connect the free ends of the copper wire to the 6-volt battery. Once both ends are connected, the current should start flowing, causing the filament to heat up and give off a bright orange glow. Your homemade light bulb is working! (Note: once your filament is burned out, don't touch it right away - it will be very hot.)

For full instructions on making and experimenting with propellers, read the rest of this science project!
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Learn about Inventions: Airplane, Light Bulb, Telephone

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What if the only way you could communicate with someone living in another city was by mailing them a letter, one that might take weeks to get delivered? (Even with our modern technology, it still takes at least two weeks for mail to get to some countries.)

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"If a Western Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep in 1869 and awakened in 1896, he would not have recognized the lands that the railroads had touched. Bison had yielded to cattle; mountains had been blasted and bored. Great swaths of land that had once whispered grass now screamed corn and wheat. Nation-states had conquered Indian peoples, slaughtering some of them and confining and controlling most of them. Population had increased across much of this vast region, and there were growing cities along its edges. A land that had once run largely north-south now ran east-west. Each change could have been traced back to the railroads." - Richard White, Railroaded

Unprecedented Urbanization

Between 1820 and 1860, the visual map of the United States was transformed by unprecedented urbanization and rapid territorial expansion. These changes mutually fueled the Second Industrial Revolution which peaked between 1870 and 1914. Between the annexation of Texas (1845), the British retreat from Oregon country, and The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848) which cemented Mexican cession of the Southwest to the United States, territorial expansion exponentially rewrote the competing visions free-soilers, European immigrants, industrial capitalists, and Native Americans held for the future of the American Empire.

Need for Railroads

The need for massive industry was obvious: in order to reach California's burgeoning port cities like San Francisco and to expedite the extraction of gold from the mines, railroad tracks would need to be laid across the plains to reach the Pacific and open up trade networks. Questions abounded about the character this new American territory would take: would it be reliant on slave labor and fulfill Jefferson's original vision of an agrarian republic? Would corporations or the federal government lay down the required infrastructure to 'tame the West'? Still, others wondered if turning over the bison laden Plains to New York based corporations would stifle the American dream for America's second and third sons. Still, others believed the technological innovations of the Second Industrial Revolution was the unstoppable culmination of modern civilization propelling the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny. Questions of this nature were not new in American history. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, Americans were forced to adjust to the implications of the First Industrial Revolution. 1750 to 1850 marked a century of heightened industrial activity centered around textiles. After the invention of steam power and the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793, cotton could be shipped from the American South by New England ships to the vast textile factories of Great Britain, producing a reverse triangle trade around a single global commodity. These developments were hailed by some as "progress," but the pace, scale, and reliance of slave labor on these developments instilled in others a great sense of anxiety and fear.

Although the economic and social problems of the first Industrial Revolution distressed many, these concerns were set aside during the nation's bloody Civil War (1861-1865).

The following maps demonstrate the advancement of the railroad before the Civil War (as always, click to enlarge image):

American Economic Growth

In the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction, the American economy grew considerably as it entered "The Second Industrial Revolution," generally recognized as the period between 1870 and 1914. The U.S. was awash in an abundance of natural resources from its newly acquired territories, a growing supply of labor immigrating from Europe, and the migration of emancipated African Americans North and West, an expanding market for manufactured goods, and the availability of capital for investment.

The Second Industrial Revolution took local communities and their new products out of the shadow of large regional agricultural based economies which was assisted by new labor forces and production techniques. During the Second Industrial Revolution, innovations in transportation, such as roads, steamboats, the Eerie Canal, and most notably railroads, linked distant, previously isolated communities together.

Transporting Products

For the first time, goods from the American interior could be shipped directly to the Atlantic, and vice versa. Being able to ship products great distances transformed the nature of economic activity in the United States. Before the development of this elaborate transportation and communication system, economies were localized and often based on a barter system. The transportation revolution opened up new markets for farmers, industrialists, and bankers who could now bring crops cotton in the Mississippi River Valley, wheat in the Midwest, and manufactured goods in upstate New York into a global market based on credit. Similarly, the expansion of the railroad brought a dramatic reduction in the time and money it took to move heavy goods, creating new opportunities for wealth at a time when two-thirds of all Americans still resided on farms.

Government Involvement

The federal government actively participated in this growth by promoting industrial and agricultural development. High tariffs were enacted to protect American industry from foreign competition, land was granted to railroad companies to encourage construction, and the army was employed to forcibly remove Indians from western land desired by farmers and mining companies. The rapid growth of factory production, mining, and railroad construction all boosted the new industrial economy and stood in stark contrast to the previous small farm and artisan workshop economy of the pre-Civil War era.

By 1913, the United States produced one-third of the world's industrial out put-more than the total of Great Britain, France, and Germany combined. The living standards and the purchasing power of money increased rapidly, as new technologies played an ever-increasing role in the daily lives of working- and middle-class citizens. Between 1870 and 1920, almost 11 million Americans moved from farm to city, and another 25 million immigrants arrived from overseas. By 1920, for the first time in American history, the census revealed more people lived in cities than on farms.

Interconnected Growth

Inventions during the Second Industrial Revolution were interconnected. The railroad spurred the growth of the telegraph machine. Telegraph lines and railroad lines inextricably bound together as telegraph polls dotted the distance of railroad lines. The telegraph, and later the telephone, ushered in the era of instant communication and brought about, in the words of cultural historian Stephen Kern, "the annihilation of distance." This was a profound change for Americans. The "local" shot outward to the "national" and even "international" as a new sense of world unity was established through these new technologies. These technologies also increased the pace of life and the manner in which people worked and lived.

Major Technological Advances of the Second Industrial Revolution:

* 1870s - Automatic signals, air brakes, and knuckle couplers on the railroads; the Bessemer and then the open-hearth process in the steel mills; the telephone, electric light, and typewriter.
* 1880s - The elevator and structural steel for buildings, leading to the first "skyscrapers."
* 1890s - The phonograph and motion pictures; the electric generator, contributing to modern household items such as refrigerators and washing machines and gradually replaced water and steam powered engines; and the internal combustion engine, which made possible the first automobiles and the first airplane flight by the Wright brothers in 1903.

Unstable Growth

The economic growth during this time period was extraordinary but unstable. The world economy experienced harsh depressions in 1873 and again in 1897. Businesses competed intensely with each other and corporations battled to gain control of industries. Countless companies failed and others were bought up by larger corporations which eventually ruled the marketplace.

For those who were able to capitalize on these technological advancements, the Second Industrial Revolution was highly profitable. During the Depression of 1873, the soon-to-be industry giant, Andrew Carnegie established a steel company which controlled every phase of business from raw materials to transportation, manufacturing, and distribution.

Carnegie Fortune

By the 1890s, Carnegie dominated the steel industry and had accumulated a fortune worth millions. His steel factories were the most technologically advanced in the world, although this honor came at a price for his workers. Carnegie ran his companies with a dictatorial hand; his factories operated around the clock and workers were burdened with long hours. Yet, at the same time, Carnegie believed that the rich had a moral obligation to promote the advancement of society and he distributed much of his wealth to various philanthropies, especially towards the creation of public libraries throughout the country.

Like Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller also accumulated enormous amounts of wealth, although his came through domination of the oil industry.

Beating the Competition

Rockefeller annihilated rival oil firms through committed competition, secret deals with railroad companies, and fixed prices and production quotas. He bought out competing oil refineries and managed all aspects of the operation, including drilling, refining, storage, and distribution. Before long, Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company controlled a majority of the nation's oil industry. Like Carnegie, Rockefeller publicly supported a number of philanthropies, yet privately domineered over his workers and bitterly fought their efforts to organize and unionize.

The Second Industrial Revolution fueled the Gilded Age, a period of great extremes: great wealth and widespread poverty, great expansion and deep depression, new opportunities and greater standardization. Economic insecurity became a basic way of life as the depressions of the 1870s and 1890s put millions out of work or reduced pay. Those who remained in the industrial line of work experienced extremely dangerous working conditions, long hours, no compensation for injuries, no pensions, and low wages. But for a limited minority of workers, the industrial system established new forms of freedom. Skilled workers received high wages in industrial work and oversaw a great deal of the production process. Economic independence now required a technical skill rather than ownership of one's own shop and tools. It was labeled "progress" by its proponents, but those who worked the floor at the factory knew it came at a price.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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The Second Industrial Revolution, 1870-1914 - US History Scene

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"If a Western Rip Van Winkle had fallen asleep in 1869 and awakened in 1896, he would not have recognized the lands that the railroads had touched. Bison had yielded to cattle; mountains had been blasted and bored. Great swaths of land that had once whispered grass now screamed corn and wheat.

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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-sioux-view-museum-s-remit-must-be-to-tell-the-story-of-a-slaughter-8598198.html

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http://www.crowcanyon.org/educationproducts/peoples_mesa_verde/historic_long_walk.asp

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https://into-the-westah1.weebly.com/homestead-act-and-morrill-land.html

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iydRkC0gMZI

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https://www.slideshare.net/speharn/17-1-rebuilding-the-south

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Plessy v. Ferguson / End of Reconstruction

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Plessy v. Ferguson / End of Reconstruction

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https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson

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https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/CivilWarAmendments.htm

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https://study.com/academy/lesson/lincolns-ten-percent-plan-summary-lesson-quiz.html

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Appomattox_Court_House

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https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/civil-war-era/slavery-and-the-civil-war/v/gettysburg

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https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation

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https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/fort-sumter

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The California Gold Rush cartoon 1849 (The Wild West)

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Concluding the Civil War

If you recall the Emancipation Proclamation, you might remember that one reason for the issuance of the proclamation was as a war strategy. The same can be said for President Abraham Lincoln's issuance of the Ten Percent Plan or, as it was officially known, the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. With the tide of the Civil War turning in favor of the Union due to the capture of several Confederate states, Lincoln pushed for the beginning of Reconstruction. His goal was to offer a merciful plan to those in rebellion in the hope of turning Confederates into Unionists, which would bring the war to an accelerated conclusion.

The Ten Percent Plan

Lincoln contended that Southern secession was technically illegal and should not be honored. He argued, instead, that rebels had seized Southern state governments and created a facade known as the Confederacy. It was his goal to reestablish control by creating pro-Union governments without dissuading white Southerners to return to the Union. It was a delicate process, and Lincoln knew he had to tread lightly.

Lincoln announced the terms of his Ten Percent Plan on December 8, 1863. The proclamation was threefold. First, Lincoln offered a presidential pardon and amnesty to any rebel who vowed loyalty to the United States and its laws involving slavery. This was not applicable to Confederate government officials or military officers. Second, when any state in rebellion had ten percent of its registered voters as of 1860 swear allegiance to the United States, a new state government could be formed and recognized by the Union. Finally, Lincoln encouraged states that returned to pro-Union rule to create policies in dealing with free blacks so long as they were not returned to bondage.

Ten Percent Plan in Action

For the time being, Lincoln's plan could only work in territories that were under Union control. Amazingly, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee quickly adopted the policies of the plan. By 1864, Arkansas and Louisiana had even abolished slavery without a Constitutional amendment! Both states also created governments that were loyal to the United States and established figureheads that supported a hasty end to the war.

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lincoln's ten percent plan: summary & history - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Lincoln's Ten Percent Plan: Summary & History - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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President Abraham Lincoln offered a lenient and attractive deal to rebelling Southerners in 1863. Learn how his Ten Percent Plan sought to offer...

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- [Voiceover] So we've been talking about the progress of the American Civil War which started in early 1861 after the 11 states of the South, which were slave states, seceded from the Union and tried to establish an independent nation known as the Confederate States of America. And in the first years of the Civil War things went relatively well for the South. They defeated the North at the Battle of Bull Run which was a great surprise to many people because they thought that this was going to be a pretty short war, that the South would be quickly defeated and scared away into returning to the Union. But the South had many advantages including very good leadership in the person of Robert E. Lee and also kind of a home court advantage at large since the vast majority of the war was fought in the South. So in this early stage the Confederacy does quite well until we get to Antietam. And Antietam was this first foray by Robert E. Lee in trying to attack the states of the North in Maryland. And after the Battle of Antietam which was the bloodiest day in U.S. history, more than 4,000 Americans died on that day, the South was defeated. And that was a major turning point in the war as we've talked about in previous videos in that it led to the Emancipation Proclamation and was kind of the moment at which the nations of Europe cease to consider intervening on the side of the South. So in the next few videos I want to talk about the later stages of the Civil War. So we get into 1863 and the South is doing relatively well here in Virginia, wins the Battle of Chancellorsville and now, nearly a year after Antietam in June and July of 1863, Robert E. Lee decides that he is going to try again to invade the North. Now he's several reasons for doing this. One, is that the war has been taking place largely in the South so it's summer, people are trying to harvest their crops and Lee wants to give the South a break so he wants to take the attention away from this area in Virginia where lots of fighting has happened and he wants to take the war up into the North. And if the North is distracted by having to defend its own territory then it can't go on the offensive elsewhere as easily. So Lee's plan is to take the war to the North and Lee has another reason in his sleeve which is that he is really hoping that in the Election of 1864 which is coming up not too long after this period in mid-1863, many people believe that Lincoln is going to be kicked out of office. Now remember, that not a single American President has been elected to a second term or reelected since Andrew Jackson in 1832. So there's been a 30 year drought of two term presidents. So Robert E. Lee has good reason to expect why Lincoln might not be reelected in 1864 and he thinks that maybe one of Lincoln's competitors in the Democratic Party, which will turn out to be one of his own former generals, George B. McClellan will actually want to end the war and make peace with the South. So there's kind of a morale aspect to this. You can see that many of the things done in the Civil War and especially as we get into the later stages are designed at making one side or the other tired of being at war. Now you may wonder why I'm spending so much time talking about battles because most American History courses do not emphasize military history whatsoever. But I think it's important to keep in mind in this war and in some earlier wars like the American Revolution the battles really determine the policy, right, because you can't make a decree like the way that Abraham Lincoln decreed the Emancipation Proclamation if you don't have the force of military power behind you. So winning battles, winning the war, those kind of victories give politicians the popular mandate they need to get things done. So that's why I think that it's important to talk, at least a little bit, about the battles of the Civil War. Now obviously, Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Appomattox were not the only battles of the Civil War, there were hundreds of battles of the Civil War but I've chosen these as particular turning points just to kind of give you a very brief overview of the way that military victories and defeats were trending. Because along with those military victories and defeats went the policy of the United States and the policy of the South. And if you're interested in the Civil War it's one of the most written about topics in American history and there are many wonderful books that will go into great detail about the politics, society, and military history of the Civil War, and lots of great television shows, and miniseries that I definitely suggest that you check out. All right, well, with that said let's talk about Gettysburg. So Lee has brought his forces into the North and, again, he's interested in kind of distracting the North from attacking in the South by bringing the war to them. He's hoping to prolong the war so that perhaps another administration that's more favorable to allowing the South to go peacefully might be in office in the North. And the other thing that he's looking for is supplies so once again the vast majority of the Civil War has been fought in the South and it's been fought here in this sort of Shenandoah Valley, Tidewater region of Virginia which is really the breadbasket of the South. So when men are out fighting battles and when battles are being fought on fields instead of crops being grown on them, there's going to be a serious dearth of food in the South. You know I once heard it said that the most salient political fact of the 20th century was that the Americans speak English which means that the United States repeatedly allied with Britain in 20th century wars. But if I had to choose the most salient fact of the American Civil War it might be that you can't eat cotton. You know the South went to war to protect its system of labor so that it could continue to produce these cash crops like cotton or tobacco. And cash crops they may be which means that you can sell them for money but you can't eat cotton or tobacco. And when it comes down to it being able to feed your troops and feed your populace is something that's going to really help you when it comes to winning a war. So Lee is taking his troops up into the North and he takes them into Southern Pennsylvania which is very lovely farmland. It's a very beautiful place if you've never been there, I absolutely recommend you take a look, go to Gettysburg it's a very well preserved battlefield. And as Lee goes through Southern Pennsylvania his troops are taking horses, and grain supplies, and all sorts of things that the army needs to survive which are in short supply in Virginia. So this is like a run to the store for Lee going through Southern Pennsylvania. On the Northern side, General George Meade has been trying to catch up with Lee and cut him off from his invasion of the North. President Abraham Lincoln asks for many volunteers to try to stave off the invasion of the North by Lee and they end up meeting at Gettysburg. And Gettysburg is just a small farm town in Southern Pennsylvania, it's just where these two troops happen to meet as Lee was on his way to the capital of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg and Lee's forces and Meade's forces meet on July 1st, 1863. Now the Battle of Gettysburg goes on for three days so there's July 1st, July 2nd, and July 3rd. And the first day goes relatively well for the Confederates, they break some of the Union lines around the edges. The second day is kind of a stalemate where Northern forces and Southern forces, they sustain a lot of losses but don't make any real headway toward victory. And then the third day, Lee decides that he is going to try to break the center of the Union forces which means that he is going to try to hit the Union line, and remember this is in the era of military history where people are still kind of fighting in lines, right through the center, and win the day. Unfortunately for him that is not what happens so he tries all day to break the Union lines. There's a very famous sort of last hurrah for the Southern forces in this called Pickett's Charge when General George Pickett's units charge up this hill at Cemetery Ridge trying to break the line and they sustain over 50% casualties so it's kind of a bloodbath for Pickett's unit. And after Pickett's Charge does not succeed the Union forces have officially won the Battle of Gettysburg and Lee realizes that there's no way that he's going to be able to make anything out of his invasion of the North and so he turns around and starts heading back to the South. Now what's important about Gettysburg is that this was what many have called the High Water Mark of the Confederacy. And by that they mean this is as far as the Confederacy ever managed to get into the Northern part of the United States. This is a second attempt at an invasion by Lee and it failed and many people see this as a really important turning point in the Civil War on July 4th. And imagine the good news of receiving word that your troops had triumphed on July 4th, Independence Day. President Lincoln and the United States get another really good piece of news which is that Ulysses S. Grant who will be the future commander of U.S. forces has succeeded in his siege of Vicksburg which is a town on the Mississippi River. And when he takes the town on the Mississippi River Grant has complete control of the Mississippi which is sort of the major highway in the West. So July 3rd and July 4th are really good days for the United States and this is kind of the moment when it becomes clear that victory is going to be outside the reach of the Confederacy. And with an unsuccessful invasion of the North and the loss of the control of the Mississippi, the South's time is kind of coming to an end. The other important thing about the Battle of Gettysburg is that it is a tremendously destructive battle, about 50,000 casualties took place at Gettysburg which makes it the single bloodiest battle in American history which is different from the single bloodiest day which was at Antietam because it took place over three days. And this is not 50,000 people dying, just 50,000 casualties which means either deaths or injuries, those are men who can no longer fight on both sides. So the tremendous loss of life at Gettysburg is going to lead to the foundation of a cemetery at Gettysburg to bury these military dead. And it's going to be in November of 1863, just a couple of months after the Battle of Gettysburg, that Abraham Lincoln will visit the cemetery at Gettysburg and deliver the Gettysburg Address, one of the most famous orations in all of American history and we'll get to that in the next video.

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The battle of Gettysburg (video) | Khan Academy

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Voiceover] So we've been talking about the progress of the American Civil War which started in early 1861 after the 11 states of the South, which were slave states, seceded from the Union and tried to establish an independent nation known as the Confederate States of America.

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The Long Walk of the Navajo | Peoples of Mesa Verde

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The forced removal of more than 8,500 Navajos, which began in January 1864 and lasted two months, came to be known as the ‘Long Walk.’

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The homestead act was passed May 20, 1862. This act allowed for US citizens to get 160 acres of land out in the west for free. They had to be adults of course, and they also had to have been loyal to...

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Plessy v. Ferguson / End of Reconstruction

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Plessy v. Ferguson / End of Reconstruction

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Background and Context

After the Compromise of 1877 led to the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, Democrats consolidated control of state legislatures throughout the region, effectively marking the end of Reconstruction.

Southern Black people saw the promise of equality under the law embodied by the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment to the Constitution receding quickly, and a return to disenfranchisement and other disadvantages as white supremacy reasserted itself across the South.

As historian C. Vann Woodward pointed out in a 1964 article about Plessy v. Ferguson, white and Black Southerners mixed relatively freely until the 1880s, when state legislatures passed the first laws requiring railroads to provide separate cars for "Negro" or "colored" passengers.

Florida became the first state to mandate segregated railroad cars in 1887, followed in quick succession by Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana and other states by the end of the century.

Black Resistance to Segregation

As Southern Black people witnessed with horror the dawn of the Jim Crow era, members of the Black community in New Orleans decided to mount a resistance.

At the heart of the case that became Plessy v. Ferguson was a law passed in Louisiana in 1890 "providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races." It stipulated that all passenger railways had to provide these separate cars, which should be equal in facilities.

Homer Adolph Plessy, who agreed to be the plaintiff in the case aimed at testing the law's constitutionality, was of mixed race; he described himself as "seven-eighths Caucasian and one-eighth African blood."

On June 7, 1892, Plessy bought a ticket on a train from New Orleans bound for Covington, Louisiana, and took a vacant seat in a whites-only car. After refusing to leave the car at the conductor's insistence, he was arrested and jailed.

Convicted by a New Orleans court of violating the 1890 law, Plessy filed a petition against the presiding judge, Hon. John H. Ferguson, claiming that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Supreme Court Ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson

Over the next few years, segregation and Black disenfranchisement picked up pace in the South, and was more than tolerated by the North. Congress defeated a bill that would have given federal protection to elections in 1892, and nullified a number of Reconstruction laws on the books.

Then, on May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Plessy v. Ferguson. In declaring separate-but-equal facilities constitutional on intrastate railroads, the Court ruled that the protections of 14th Amendment applied only to political and civil rights (like voting and jury service), not "social rights" (sitting in the railroad car of your choice).

In its ruling, the Court denied that segregated railroad cars for Black people were necessarily inferior. "We consider the underlying fallacy of [Plessy's] argument," Justice Henry Brown wrote, "to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it."

John Marshall Harlan's Dissent

Alone in the minority was Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former slaveholder from Kentucky. Harlan had opposed emancipation and civil rights for freed slaves during the Reconstruction era-but changed his position due to his outrage over the actions of white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Harlan argued in his dissent that segregation ran counter to the constitutional principle of equality under the law: "The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution," he wrote. "It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds."

Plessy v. Ferguson Significance

The Plessy v. Ferguson verdict enshrined the doctrine of "separate but equal" as a constitutional justification for segregation, ensuring the survival of the Jim Crow South for the next half-century.

Intrastate railroads were among many segregated public facilities the verdict sanctioned; others included buses, hotels, theaters, swimming pools and schools. By the time of the 1899 case Cummings v. Board of Education, even Harlan appeared to agree that segregated public schools did not violate the Constitution.

It would not be until the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, at the dawn of the civil rights movement, that the majority of the Supreme Court would essentially concur with Harlan's opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson..

Writing the majority opinion in that 1954 case, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that "the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place" in public education, calling segregated schools "inherently unequal," and declaring that the plaintiffs in the Brown case were being "deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment."

Sources

C. Vann Woodward, " Plessy v. Ferguson: The Birth of Jim Crow," American Heritage (Volume 15, Issue 3: April 1964).
Landmark Cases: Plessy v. Ferguson, PBS: The Supreme Court - The First Hundred Years.
Louis Menand, "Brown v. Board of Education and the Limits of Law," The New Yorker (February 12, 2001).
Today in History - May 18: Plessy v. Ferguson, Library of Congress.

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Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate But Equal Doctrine | HISTORY

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Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.

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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. With the text covering five pages the document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wafered impression of the seal of the United States. Most of the ribbon remains; parts of the seal are still decipherable, but other parts have worn off.

The document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Select Resources

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Enlarge The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1) Record Group 11 General Records of the United States View in National Archives Catalog Español President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war.

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The attack on Fort Sumter marked the official beginning of the American Civil War-a war that lasted four years, cost the lives of more than 620,000 Americans, and freed 3.9 million enslaved people from bondage.

How it ended

Confederate victory. With supplies nearly exhausted and his troops outnumbered, Union major Robert Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter to Brig. Gen. P.G.T Beauregard's Confederate forces. Major Anderson and his men were allowed to strike their colors, fire a 100-gun salute, and board a ship bound for New York, where they were greeted as heroes. Both the North and South immediately called for volunteers to mobilize for war.

In context

By 1861, the country had already experienced decades of short-lived but ultimately failed compromises concerning the expansion of slavery in the United States and its territories. The election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the United States in 1860-a man who declared "I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free"-threatened the culture and economy of southern slave states and served as a catalyst for secession. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States, and by February 2, 1861, six more states followed suit. Southern delegates met on February 4, 1861, in Montgomery, AL., and established the Confederate States of America, with Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis elected as its provisional president. Confederate militia forces began seizing United States forts and property throughout the south. With a lame-duck president in office, and a controversial president-elect poised to succeed him, the crisis approached a boiling point and exploded at Fort Sumter.

Before the Battle

In Charleston, the birthplace of secession, tempers are on edge. A delegation from the state goes to Washington, D.C., demanding the surrender of the Federal military installations in the new "independent republic of South Carolina." President James Buchanan refuses to comply. Charleston is the Confederacy's most important port on the Southeast coast. The harbor is defended by three federal forts: Sumter; Castle Pinckney, one mile off the city's Battery; and heavily armed Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island. Major Anderson's command is based at Fort Moultrie, but with its guns pointed out to sea, it cannot defend a land attack. On December 26, Charlestonians awake to discover that Anderson and his tiny garrison of 90 men have slipped away from Fort Moultrie to the more defensible Fort Sumter. For secessionists, Anderson's move is, as one Charlestonian wrote to a friend, "like casting a spark into a magazine,"

Adding to the major's concern is his dangerously dwindling store of supplies. On January 5, 1861, the Star of the West departs from New York with some 200 reinforcements and provisions for the Sumter garrison. As the ship approaches Charleston Harbor on January 9, cadets from the Citadel fire, forcing the crew to abandon its mission. On March 1, Jefferson Davis orders Brig. Gen P.G.T. Beauregard to take command of the growing southern forces in Charleston. On April 4, Lincoln informs southern delegates that he intends to attempt to resupply Fort Sumter, as its garrison is now critically in need. To South Carolinians, any attempt to reinforce Sumter means war. "Now the issue of battle is to be forced upon us," declared the Charleston Mercury. "We will meet the invader, and the God of Battles must decide the issue between the hostile hirelings of Abolition hate and Northern tyranny."

On April 9, Davis and the Confederate cabinet decide to "strike a blow!" Davis orders Beauregard to take Fort Sumter. The next day, three of Beauregard's aides sail to the fort and courteously demand the garrison's surrender. Anderson is equally courteous, but refuses: "I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication demanding the evacuation of this fort, and to say, in reply thereto, that it is a demand with which I regret that my sense of honor, and of my obligations to my Government, prevent my compliance." He also informs the delegation that the garrison's supplies will only last until April 15.

During the Battle

April 12. At 4:30 a.m., a flaming mortar shot arcs into the air and explodes over Fort Sumter. On this signal, Confederate guns from fortifications and floating batteries around Charleston Harbor roar to life. Outmanned, outgunned, undersupplied, and nearly surrounded by enemy batteries, Anderson waits until around 7:00 a.m. to respond. Captain Abner Doubleday volunteers to fire the first cannon at the Confederates, a 32-pound shot that bounces off the roof of the Iron Battery on Cummings Point.

For nearly 36 hours the two sides keep up this unequal contest. A shell strikes the flagpole of Fort Sumter, and the American colors fall to the earth, only to be hoisted back up the hastily repaired pole. Confederates fire hotshot from Fort Moultrie into Fort Sumter. Buildings begin to burn within the fort. With no more resources, Anderson surrenders Fort Sumter to Confederate forces.

April 13. At 2:30 p.m., Maj. Anderson and his men strike their colors and prepare to leave the fort. Sadly, the only casualties at Fort Sumter come during the 100-gun salute, when a round explodes prematurely, killing Pvt. Daniel Hough and mortally wounding another soldier. The attack is over, but the war had just begun.

Aftermath

Following the evacuation of Major Robert Anderson and his Federal garrison on the afternoon of April 14, 1861, Fort Sumter is occupied initially by Confederate troops of Company B of the First South Carolina Artillery Battalion and a volunteer company of the Palmetto Guard, a local militia unit. The fort remains in Confederate hands for the next four years until all Confederate forces evacuate Charleston on the evening of February 17, 1865.

Despite having surrendered, Anderson and his men are greeted as heroes when they disembark in New York. Capt. Abner Doubleday notes later that "all the passing steamers saluted us with their steam-whistles and bells, and cheer after cheer went up from the ferry boats and vessels in the harbor." Anderson's valor during the attack and commitment to duty are praised by the Union. Beauregard is also hailed for this first Confederate victory. He is later ordered to direct the troops at Bull Run.

Fort Sumter: Featured Resources

Related Battles

Charleston Harbor, SC | April 12, 1861

Result: Confederate Victory

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Early in the morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate guns around Charleston Harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter. The American Civil War was officially upon both the North and the South. A war that lasted four years and cost the lives of more than 620,000 Americans.