# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The shelling of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 marked the beginning of the American Civil War. With the booming of cannons over the harbor in Charleston, South Carolina, the secession crisis gripping the country escalated into a shooting war.

The attack on the fort was the culmination of a simmering conflict in which a small garrison of Union troops in South Carolina found themselves isolated when the state seceded from the Union.

The action at Fort Sumter lasted less than two days and had no great tactical significance. And casualties were minor. But the symbolism was enormous on both sides.

Once Fort Sumter was fired upon there was no turning back. The North and the South were at war.

Following the election of Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party, in 1860, the state of South Carolina announced its intention to secede from the Union in December 1860. Declaring itself independent of the United States, the state government demanded that federal troops leave.

Anticipating trouble, the administration of the outgoing president, James Buchanan, had ordered a reliable U.S. Army officer, Major Robert Anderson, to Charleston in late November 1860 to command the small outpost of federal troops guarding the harbor.

Major Anderson realized that his small garrison at Fort Moultrie was in danger as it could easily be overrun by infantry. On the night of December 26, 1860, Anderson surprised even members of his own staff by ordering a move to a fort situated on an island in Charleston Harbor, Fort Sumter.

Fort Sumter had been built after the War of 1812 to protect the city of Charleston from foreign invasion, and it was designed to repel a naval attack, not a bombardment from the city itself. But Major Anderson felt it was the safest place in which to place his command, which numbered less than 150 men.

The secessionist government of South Carolina was outraged by Anderson's move to Fort Sumter and demanded that he vacate the fort. Demands that all federal troops leave South Carolina intensified.

It was obvious that Major Anderson and his men couldn't hold out for long at Fort Sumter, so the Buchanan administration sent a merchant ship to Charleston to bring provisions to the fort. The ship, Star of the West, was fired on by secessionist shore batteries on January 9, 1861, and was unable to reach the fort.

While Major Anderson and his men were isolated at Fort Sumter, often cut off from any communication with their own government in Washington, DC, events were escalating elsewhere. Abraham Lincoln traveled from Illinois to Washington for his inauguration. It is believed that a plot to assassinate him on the way was foiled.

Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, and was soon made aware of the seriousness of the crisis at Fort Sumter. Told that the fort would run out of provisions, Lincoln ordered ships of the U.S. Navy to sail to Charleston and supply the fort.

The newly formed Confederate government kept up demands that Major Anderson surrender the fort and leave Charleston with his men. Anderson refused, and at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, Confederate cannon positioned at various points on the mainland began shelling Fort Sumter.

The shelling by Confederates from several positions surrounding Fort Sumter went unanswered until after daylight, when Union gunners began returning fire. Both sides exchanged cannon fire throughout the day of April 12, 1861.

By nightfall, the pace of the cannons had slowed, and a heavy rain pelted the harbor. When morning dawned clear the cannons roared again, and fires began to break out at Fort Sumter. With the fort in ruins, and with supplies running out, Major Anderson was forced to surrender.

Under the surrender terms, the federal troops at Fort Sumter would essentially pack up and sail to a northern port. On the afternoon of April 13, Major Anderson ordered a white flag to be raised over Fort Sumter.

The attack on Fort Sumter had produced no combat casualties, though two federal troops died during a freak accident at a ceremony after the surrender when a cannon misfired.

The federal troops were able to board one of the U.S. Navy ships which had been sent to bring supplies to the fort, and they sailed to New York City. Upon arrival in New York, Major Anderson learned that he was considered a national hero for having defended the fort and the national flag at Fort Sumter.

The citizens of the North were outraged by the attack on Fort Sumter. And Major Anderson, with the flag that had flown over the fort, appeared at a massive rally in New York City's Union Square on April 20, 1861. The New York Times estimated the crowd at more than 100,000 people.

Major Anderson also toured the northern states, recruiting troops.

In the South, feelings also ran high. The men who fired the cannons at Fort Sumter were considered heroes, and the newly formed Confederate government was emboldened to form an army and plan for war.

While the action at Fort Sumter had not amounted to much militarily, the symbolism of it was enormous, and intense feelings over what had happened propelled the nation into a conflict that would not end for four long and bloody years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Shelling of a Fort Which Began the Civil War

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 began the American Civil War. After this, the secession crisis escalated.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Civil War - Battle of Gettysburg Explained | Fast Facts Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Table of Contents

1. Battle of Appomattox Court House

2. Lee Surrenders to Grant

3. The Final Battle of the Civil War?

The Battle of Appomattox Court House was fought on April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, and led to Confederate General Robert E. Lee's surrender of his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and the city of Petersburg; his goal was to rally the remnants of his beleaguered troops, meet Confederate reinforcements in North Carolina and resume fighting. But the resulting Battle of Appomattox Court House, which lasted only a few hours, effectively brought the four-year Civil War to an end.

Battle of Appomattox Court House
WATCH: Appomattox Court House
In retreat from the Union army's Appomattox campaign, which began in March 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia stumbled westward through the Virginia countryside stripped of food and supplies. At one point, Union cavalry forces under General Philip Sheridan had outrun General Lee's troops, blocking their retreat and taking approximately 6,000 prisoners at Sayler's Creek.

Confederate desertions were mounting daily, and by April 8 the Rebels were almost completely surrounded. Nonetheless, early on the morning of April 9, Confederate troops led by Major General John B. Gordon mounted a last-ditch offensive that was initially successful. Soon, however, the Confederates saw that they were hopelessly outnumbered by two corps of Union soldiers who had marched all night to cut off the Confederate advance.

Later that morning, Lee-cut off from all provisions and all support-famously declared that "there is nothing left me to do but to go and see Gen. Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths." But Lee also knew his remaining troops, numbering about 28,000, would quickly turn to pillaging the countryside in order to survive.

With no remaining options, Lee sent a message to General Ulysses Grant announcing his willingness to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia. The two war-weary generals met in the front parlor of the Wilmer McLean home at one o'clock that afternoon.

Lee Surrenders to Grant

Lee and Grant, both of whom held the highest rank in their respective armies, had known each other slightly during the Mexican-American War (1846-48) and began their dialogue by exchanging awkward personal inquiries. Characteristically, Grant had arrived in his mud-splattered field uniform while Lee had turned out in full dress attire, complete with sash and sword.

Did you know? In 1869, the house where Lee surrendered to Grant was sold at public auction after owner Wilmer McLean defaulted on his loan repayments. In the ensuing years, the house had a series of owners before it was reconstructed and opened to the public by the National Park Service in 1949.

Lee asked for the terms of surrender, and Grant hurriedly wrote them out. Generously, all officers and men were to be pardoned, and they would be sent home with their private property-most important to the men were the horses, which could be used for a late spring planting. Officers would keep their side arms, and Lee's starving men would be given Union rations.

Quieting a band that had begun to play in celebration, Grant told his officers, "The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again." Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks-the final skirmish of the Civil War occurred on May 12 and 13 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas-for all practical purposes the Civil War had come to an end.

The Final Battle of the Civil War?

News of the surrender traveled slowly. Although scattered resistance continued for several weeks-there were six battles that took place after Appomattox, with the final skirmish of the Civil War occurring on May 12 and 13 at the Battle of Palmito Ranch near Brownsville, Texas-for all practical purposes, the Civil War had come to an end.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Appomattox Court House - Definition, Date & Location

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Appomattox Court House, located in Virginia, is where Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, bringing an end to the Civil War.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Wade-Davis Bill: Wade-Davis Bill, (1864), unsuccessful attempt by Radical Republicans and others in the U.S. Congress to set Reconstruction policy before the end of the Civil War. The bill, sponsored by senators Benjamin F. Wade and Henry W. Davis, provided for the appointment of provisional military governors in

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that's simple, beautiful and fun.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How did Plessy v. Ferguson affect segregation in the United States?

Plessy v. Ferguson, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial " separate but equal" doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. Plessy v. Ferguson was the first major inquiry into the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment's (1868) equal-protection clause, which prohibits the states from denying "equal protection of the laws" to any person within their jurisdictions. Although the majority opinion did not contain the phrase "separate but equal," it gave constitutional sanction to laws designed to achieve racial segregation by means of separate and supposedly equal public facilities and services for African Americans and whites. It served as a controlling judicial precedent until it was overturned by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).

Background

The case originated in 1892 as a challenge to Louisiana's Separate Car Act (1890). The law required that all railroads operating in the state provide "equal but separate accommodations" for white and African American passengers and prohibited passengers from entering accommodations other than those to which they had been assigned on the basis of their race. In 1891 a group of Creole professionals in New Orleans formed the Citizens' Committee to Test the Constitutionality of the Separate Car Law. They hired Albion Tourgée, a Reconstruction-era judge and social reformer, as their legal counsel. As plaintiff in the test case the committee chose a person of mixed race in order to support its contention that the law could not be consistently applied, because it failed to define the white and "coloured" races. Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white and one-eighth African American, purchased a rail ticket for travel within Louisiana and took a seat in a car reserved for white passengers. (The state Supreme Court had ruled earlier that the law could not be applied to interstate travel.) After refusing to move to a car for African Americans, he was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act. At Plessy's trial in U.S. District Court, Judge John H. Ferguson dismissed his contention that the act was unconstitutional. After the state Supreme Court affirmed the district court's ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, and oral arguments were heard on April 13, 1896. The court rendered its decision one month later, on May 18.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plessy v. Ferguson | Summary, Ruling, Background, & Impact

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Plessy v. Ferguson, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial 'separate but equal' doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
california gold rush map - Google Search | Time Spun | Pinterest | Gold, Gold prospecting and Gold rush

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
california gold rush map - Google Search

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Long Walk of the Navajo | Peoples of Mesa Verde

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.’

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.1890universities.org/history

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sound Smart: The Homestead Act | History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Wounded Knee Massacre: A summary of the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890.

# data[].attributes.headline
Second Industrial Revolution (Bessemer Process

# data[].attributes.subject
Second Industrial Revolution (Bessemer Process

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Bessemer Process | Environment & Society Portal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We use cookies to collect non-personalized browsing data such as location at a regional level, site referral, and site usage to help us analyze site traffic and improve user experience. We collect this data via Google Analytics and our server, Mittwald.

# data[].attributes.headline
Inventions: Lightbulb, Telephone,  Airplane

# data[].attributes.subject
Inventions: Lightbulb, Telephone,  Airplane

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.
Return to top
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.
Return to top
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!
Return to top

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Learn about Inventions: Airplane, Light Bulb, Telephone

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When Were Cars Invented?

The 1901 Mercedes, designed by Wilhelm Maybach for Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, deserves credit for being the first modern motorcar in all essentials.

Its thirty-five-horsepower engine weighed only fourteen pounds per horsepower, and it achieved a top speed of fifty-three miles per hour. By 1909, with the most integrated automobile factory in Europe, Daimler employed some seventeen hundred workers to produce fewer than a thousand cars per year.

Nothing illustrates the superiority of European design better than the sharp contrast between this first Mercedes model and Ransom E. Olds ' 1901-1906 one-cylinder, three-horsepower, tiller-steered, curved-dash Oldsmobile, which was merely a motorized horse buggy. But the Olds sold for only $650, putting it within reach of middle-class Americans, and the 1904 Olds output of 5,508 units surpassed any car production previously accomplished.

The central problem of automotive technology over the first decade of the twentieth century would be reconciling the advanced design of the 1901 Mercedes with the moderate price and low operating expenses of the Olds. This would be overwhelmingly an American achievement.

Henry Ford and William Durant

Bicycle mechanics J. Frank and Charles Duryea of Springfield, Massachusetts, had designed the first successful American gasoline automobile in 1893, then won the first American car race in 1895, and went on to make the first sale of an American-made gasoline car the next year.

Thirty American manufacturers produced 2,500 motor vehicles in 1899, and some 485 companies entered the business in the next decade. In 1908 Henry Ford introduced the Model T and William Durant founded General Motors.

The new firms operated in an unprecedented seller's market for an expensive consumer goods item. With its vast land area and a hinterland of scattered and isolated settlements, the United States had a far greater need for automotive transportation than the nations of Europe. Great demand was ensured, too, by a significantly higher per capita income and more equitable income distribution than European countries.

Model T

Given the American manufacturing tradition, it was also inevitable that cars would be produced in larger volume at lower prices than in Europe. The absence of tariff barriers between the states encouraged sales over a wide geographic area. Cheap raw materials and a chronic shortage of skilled labor early encouraged the mechanization of industrial processes in the United States.

This in turn required the standardization of products and resulted in the volume production of such commodities as firearms, sewing machines, bicycles, and many other items. In 1913, the United States produced some 485,000 of the world total of 606,124 motor vehicles.

The Ford Motor Company greatly outpaced its competitors in reconciling state-of-the-art design with moderate price. Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal called the four-cylinder, fifteen-horsepower, $600 Ford Model N (1906-1907) "the very first instance of a low-cost motorcar driven by a gas engine having cylinders enough to give the shaft a turning impulse in each shaft turn which is well built and offered in large numbers." Deluged with orders, Ford installed improved production equipment and after 1906 was able to make deliveries of a hundred cars a day.

Encouraged by the success of the Model N, Henry Ford was determined to build an even better "car for the great multitude." The four-cylinder, twenty-horsepower Model T, first offered in October 1908, sold for $825. Its two-speed planetary transmission made it easy to drive, and features such as its detachable cylinder head made it easy to repair. Its high chassis was designed to clear the bumps in rural roads. Vanadium steel made the Model T a lighter and tougher car, and new methods of casting parts (especially block casting of the engine) helped keep the price down.

Committed to large-volume production of the Model T, Ford innovated modern mass production techniques at his new Highland Park, Michigan, plant, which opened in 1910 (although he did not introduce the moving assembly line until 1913-1914). The Model T runabout sold for $575 in 1912, less than the average annual wage in the United States.

By the time the Model T was withdrawn from production in 1927, its price had been reduced to $290 for the coupe, 15 million units had been sold, and mass personal "automobility" had become a reality.

Automotive Industry Growing Pains

Ford's mass production techniques were quickly adopted by other American automobile manufacturers. (European automakers did not begin to use them until the 1930s.) The heavier outlays of capital and larger volume of sales that this necessitated ended the era of easy entry and free-wheeling competition among many small producers in the American industry.

The number of active automobile manufacturers dropped from 253 in 1908 to only 44 in 1929, with about 80 percent of the industry's output accounted for by Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, formed from Maxwell in 1925 by Walter P. Chrysler.

Most of the remaining independents were wiped out in the Great Depression, with Nash, Hudson, Studebaker, and Packard hanging on only to collapse in the post- World War II period.

The Model T was intended to be "a farmer's car" that served the transportation needs of a nation of farmers. Its popularity was bound to wane as the country urbanized and as rural regions got out of the mud with passage of the 1916 Federal Aid Road Act and the 1921 Federal Highway Act.

Moreover, the Model T remained basically unchanged long after it was technologically obsolete. Model T owners began to trade up to larger, faster, smoother riding, more stylish cars. The demand for basic transportation the Model T had met tended increasingly in the 1920s to be filled from the backlog of used cars piling up in dealers' lots as the market became saturated.

Car Sales Stall

By 1927 replacement demand for new cars was exceeding demand from first-time owners and multiple-car purchasers combined. Given the incomes of the day, automakers could no longer count on an expanding market. Installment sales had been initiated by the makers of moderately priced cars in 1916 to compete with the Model T, and by 1925 about three-quarters of all new cars were bought "on time" through credit.

Although a few expensive items, such as pianos and sewing machines, had been sold on time before 1920, it was installment sales of automobiles during the twenties that established the purchasing of expensive consumer goods on credit as a middle-class habit and a mainstay of the American economy.

GM Introduces 'Planned Obsolescence'

Market saturation coincided with technological stagnation: In both product and production technology, innovation was becoming incremental rather than dramatic. The basic differences that distinguish post-World War II models from the Model T were in place by the late 1920s-the self-starter, the closed all-steel body, the high-compression engine, hydraulic brakes, syncromesh transmission and low-pressure balloon tires.

The remaining innovations-the automatic transmission and drop-frame construction-came in the 1930s. Moreover, with some exceptions, cars were made much the same way in the early 1950s as they had been in the 1920s.

To meet the challenges of market saturation and technological stagnation, General Motors under the leadership of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., in the 1920s and 1930s innovated planned obsolescence of product and put a new emphasis on styling, exemplified in the largely cosmetic annual model change-a planned triennial major restyling to coincide with the economics of die life and with annual minor face-liftings in between.

The goal was to make consumers dissatisfied enough to trade in and presumably up to a more expensive new model long before the useful life of their present cars had ended. Sloan's philosophy was that "the primary object of the corporation ... was to make money, not just to make motorcars." He believed that it was necessary only that GM's cars be "equal in design to the best of our competitors ... it was not necessary to lead in design or to run the risk of untried experiments."

Thus engineering was subordinated to the dictates of stylists and cost-cutting accountants. General Motors became the archetype of a rational corporation run by a technostructure.

As Sloanism replaced Fordism as the predominant market strategy in the industry, Ford lost the sales lead in the lucrative low-priced field to Chevrolet in 1927 and 1928. By 1936 GM claimed 43 percent of the U.S. market; Ford with 22 percent had fallen to third place behind Chrysler with 25 percent.

Although automobile sales collapsed during the Great Depression, Sloan could boast of GM that "in no year did the corporation fail to earn a profit." (GM retained industry leadership until 1986 when Ford surpassed it in profits.)

World War II and the Auto Industry

The automobile industry had played a critical role in producing military vehicles and war matériel in the First World War. During World War II, in addition to turning out several million military vehicles, American automobile manufacturers made some seventy-five essential military items, most of them unrelated to the motor vehicle. These materials had a total value of $29 billion, one-fifth of the nation's war production.

Because the manufacture of vehicles for the civilian market ceased in 1942 and tires and gasoline were severely rationed, motor vehicle travel fell dramatically during the war years. Cars that had been nursed through the Depression long after they were ready to be junked were patched up further, ensuring great pent-up demand for new cars at the war's end.

Detroit's Big Three carried Sloanism to its illogical conclusion in the postwar period. Models and options proliferated, and every year cars became longer and heavier, more powerful, more gadget-bedecked, more expensive to purchase and to operate, following the truism that large cars are more profitable to sell than small ones.

Rise of Japanese Automakers

Engineering in the postwar era was subordinated to the questionable aesthetics of nonfunctional styling at the expense of economy and safety. And quality deteriorated to the point that by the mid-1960s American-made cars were being delivered to retail buyers with an average of twenty-four defects a unit, many of them safety-related. Moreover, the higher unit profits that Detroit made on gas-guzzling "road cruisers" were made at the social costs of increased air pollution and a drain on dwindling world oil reserves.

The era of the annually restyled road cruiser ended with the imposition of federal standards of automotive safety (1966), emission of pollutants (1965 and 1970), and energy consumption (1975); with escalating gasoline prices following the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979; and especially with the mounting penetration of both the U.S. and world markets first by the German Volkswagen "Bug" (a modern Model T) and then by Japanese fuel-efficient, functionally designed, well-built small cars.

After peaking at a record 12.87 million units in 1978, sales of American-made cars fell to 6.95 million in 1982, as imports increased their share of the U.S. market from 17.7 percent to 27.9 percent. In 1980 Japan became the world's leading auto producer, a position it continues to hold.

U.S. Carmakers Retool

In response, the American automobile industry in the 1980s underwent a massive organizational restructuring and technological renaissance. Managerial revolutions and cutbacks in plant capacity and personnel at GM, Ford and Chrysler resulted in leaner, tougher firms with lower break-even points, enabling them to maintain profits with lower volumes in increasingly saturated, competitive markets.

Manufacturing quality and programs of employee motivation and involvement were given high priority. The industry in 1980 undertook a five-year, $80 billion program of plant modernization and retooling. Functional aerodynamic design replaced styling in Detroit studios, as the annual cosmetic change was abandoned.

Cars became smaller, more fuel-efficient, less polluting and much safer. Product and production were being increasingly rationalized in a process of integrating computer-aided design, engineering and manufacturing.

Legacy of the U.S. Auto Industry

The automobile has been a key force for change in twentieth-century America. During the 1920s the industry became the backbone of a new consumer goods-oriented society. By the mid-1920s it ranked first in value of product, and in 1982 it provided one out of every six jobs in the United States.

In the 1920s the automobile became the lifeblood of the petroleum industry, one of the chief customers of the steel industry, and the biggest consumer of many other industrial products. The technologies of these ancillary industries, particularly steel and petroleum, were revolutionized by its demands.

The automobile stimulated participation in outdoor recreation and spurred the growth of tourism and tourism-related industries, such as service stations, roadside restaurants and motels. The construction of streets and highways, one of the largest items of government expenditure, peaked when the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 inaugurated the largest public works program in history.

The automobile ended rural isolation and brought urban amenities-most important, better medical care and schools-to rural America (while paradoxically the farm tractor made the traditional family farm obsolete). The modern city with its surrounding industrial and residential suburbs is a product of the automobile and trucking.

The automobile changed the architecture of the typical American dwelling, altered the conception and composition of the urban neighborhood, and freed homemakers from the narrow confines of the home. No other historical force has so revolutionized the way Americans work, live, and play.

In 1980, 87.2 percent of American households owned one or more motor vehicles, 51.5 percent owned more than one, and fully 95 percent of domestic car sales were for replacement. Americans have become truly auto-dependent.

But though automobile ownership is virtually universal, the motor vehicle no longer acts as a progressive force for change. New forces-the electronic media, the laser, the computer, and the robot probably foremost among them-are charting the future. A period of American history that can appropriately be called the Automobile Age is melding into a new Age of Electronics.

The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The 1901 Mercedes, designed by Wilhelm Maybach for Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, deserves credit for being the first modern motorcar in all essentials. Its thirty-five-horsepower engine weighed only fourteen pounds per horsepower, and it achieved a top speed of fifty-three miles per hour.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Labor Movement in the United States | History

# data[].attributes.headline
American Imperialsm (The Spanish American War)

# data[].attributes.subject
American Imperialsm (The Spanish American War)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Growth, Cities, and Immigration: Crash Course US History #25

# data[].attributes.headline
Political Corruption and Progressive government Reforms

# data[].attributes.subject
Political Corruption and Progressive government Reforms

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The American voting public of the early 1900s was accustomed to the tenet that the best government was the least government. Progressive era politics changed that belief when government corruption became commonplace. Reformers like Teddy Roosevelt in Washington and Governor Hiram Johnson in California responded to an epidemic of political and civic corruption by expanding the role of government in regulating the economy and in giving citizens, for the first time, direct access to the legislative process.

Between 1910 and 1914, under Governor Hiram Johnson's political leadership the California legislature expanded state government first by breaking the economic and political power of the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP). The reform legislature passed the Stetson-Eshelman Act, which increased the state Railroad Commission's authority and power to fix passenger and freight rates; thus ending Southern Pacific Railroad's (SP) crushing monopolistic practices. With the Public Utilities Act and the creation of the Public Utility Commission (PUC), the agency's commissioners had the authority over the railroads as well as all public utilities.

The legislators also halted the political power of SP with the passage of reform mechanisms giving voters direct access to government and the legislative process. The initiative allowed voters to pass legislation; the referendum allowed the public's veto of existing legislation; and the recall permitted the removal of elected officials. The direct primary, the popular election of U.S. senators, and cross-filing for Republican and Democratic candidates changed the control over who got elected from party bosses to the voters. In passing these measures, Governor Johnson and the legislature had achieved the political goal of engaging ordinary citizens in participatory democracy. The systemic power of SP was over, but the government's role in shaping its citizens' quality of life was still growing.

In order to address workers' fears of losing their livelihood through sickness or job-related accidents, the legislature passed the Workmen's Compensation, Insurance, and Safety Act in 1913, which in turn set up an Industrial Accident Commission and State Compensation Insurance Fund. This was ground-breaking work by government, which had only recently been in the business of protecting only business interests. Setting additional precedents, the legislature curtailed child labor, and also set an 8-hour day and minimum wage for female industrial workers.

In the field of education, Hiram Johnson's reform government called for teacher pensions, free textbooks for public school children, the creation of a comprehensive curriculum, and mandatory kindergartens. The kindergarten movement, begun in Germany in the 1830s, found a ready American enthusiasm by women reformers who believed that kindergarten was as important an educational experience as college. By 1878, the first free public kindergarten was established in San Francisco. Enthusiastic financial support led to still more kindergartens, so that by 1894, 235 more of them were set up nationally and globally, based on the California model. Public university education also received the attention of reform initially through the generosity of Phoebe Apperson Hearst, mother of publisher William Randolph Hearst. In the 1890s her financial support of the University of California, Berkeley made possible the construction of the outdoor Greek Theater, a women's gymnasium, a university museum and the Department of Anthropology. The University of California continued its academic growth through the appointment of Benjamin Ide Wheeler, who, over a 19-year period, established twenty new departments.

Neither progressive politicians nor unions helped minority laborers in the nation and in California. Blacks were excluded from union membership. Chinese were excluded from immigrating to the U. S. In 1907 Japan agreed through a Gentlemen's Agreement reached with President Roosevelt not to issue passports to Japanese workers, thus also eliminating Japanese from the American work force. Japanese in California, through the passage of the Alien Land Law, were prohibited from owning land in the state. Women, however, fared better. In addition to legislation improved their working conditions, they also received the right to vote. While Governor Johnson did not openly endorse the Amendment that would grant suffrage, he did help get it on the ballot. It passed by 3,587 votes.

Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson all promoted political, economic, social, and moral reforms on the national front. Passage of several acts expanded the Interstate Commerce Commission. Taft created the Department of Labor. Two economic regulatory agencies were created: the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Trade Commission. Four constitutional amendments were also ratified: the 16th introduced a federal income tax, the 17th allowed for the direct election of U.S. Senators. The 18th established prohibition, and the 19th allowed women the right to vote. Such economic and political reforms under the aegis of an expanded government were necessary, the progressives argued, to restore the values of the American dream for all Americans.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Progressive Era: 1890-1920s: Progressive Political Reform

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The American voting public of the early 1900s was accustomed to the tenet that the best government was the least government. Progressive era politics changed that belief when government corruption became commonplace.

# data[].attributes.body
The Bessemer Process: http://www.environmentandsociety.org/mml/bessemer-process
Inventions: https://learning-center.homesciencetools.com/article/modern-inventions-airplane-light-bulb-telephone/
Inventions: https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/automobiles
The Rise of Big Buissness: https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/automobiles
The Labor Movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewu-v36szlE

# data[].attributes.body
The spanish american War: https://image.slidesharecdn.com/allspanishamericanwarnotes-
131218140922-phpapp01/95/spanishamerican-war-diplomacy-1-638.jpg?cb=1387375862

Immigration and growth of cities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRhjqqe750A

Women's Rights: http://www.nwhp.org/resources/womens-rights-movement/history-of-the-womens-rights-movement/

Political Corruption and progressive government reforms: http://picturethis.museumca.org/timeline/progressive-era-1890-1920s/progressive-political-reform/info

chapter 23 and 24

the assassination of the arch duke ferdinand: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/archduke-ferdinand-assassinated

Technolodgy of WW1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7v3cq1ZJjM
Americas role in WW1: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/rise-to-world-power/us-in-wwi/a/the-united-states-in-world-war-i
The treaty to end the war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrYhLNQMRro
the rise of the automobile: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1536&bih=705&complete=0&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=8XDRXPG1BO_y5gKLg4mgDA&q=automobile+in+world+war+1&oq=automobile+in+world+war+1&gs_l=img.3...1549.7166..7325...0.0..0.97.1334.15......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......0i67j0j0i8i30j0i30j0i24.hVwq_xBZyVQ&surl=1&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=20aCdKveSOe7CM:
The 18th Amendment: https://kids.laws.com/18th-amendment

chapters 25 and 26:

Black tuesday/stock market crash:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehy2jEeNuWk
business cycle and cause of the great depression: https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/BusinessCycles.html
president roosevelts New Deal: https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/new-deal
Dust bowl: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1536&bih=705&ei=eHXRXMT_MPKhggfuhrm4Aw&q=the+dust+bowl+map&oq=the+dust+bowl+&gs_l=img.1.0.0l10.362.3577..5317...0.0..0.95.1193.14......0....1..gws-wiz-img.....0.agG8lowKh3E&surl=1&complete=0&safe=active&ssui=on#imgrc=F9PpzHeA9Hx84M:
rise of totalitarianism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXtOAohY_4
pearl harbor https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor
D Day: https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/d-day
end of WW1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soFhWkxSZAY

# data[].attributes.headline
The assassination of the arch duke franz Ferdinand

# data[].attributes.subject
The assassination of the arch duke franz Ferdinand

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. On June 28, 1919, five years to the day after Franz Ferdinand's death, Germany and the Allied Powers signed the Treaty of Versailles, officially marking the end of World War I.

The archduke traveled to Sarajevo in June 1914 to inspect the imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, annexed by Austria-Hungary in 1908. The annexation had angered Serbian nationalists, who believed the territories should be part of Serbia. A group of young nationalists hatched a plot to kill the archduke during his visit to Sarajevo, and after some missteps, 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip was able to shoot the royal couple at point-blank range, while they traveled in their official procession, killing both almost instantly.

The assassination set off a rapid chain of events, as Austria-Hungary immediately blamed the Serbian government for the attack. As large and powerful Russia supported Serbia, Austria asked for assurances that Germany would step in on its side against Russia and its allies, including France and possibly Great Britain. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the fragile peace between Europe's great powers collapsed, beginning the devastating conflict now known as the First World War.

After more than four years of bloodshed, the Great War ended on November 11, 1918, after Germany, the last of the Central Powers, surrendered to the Allies. At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, Allied leaders would state their desire to build a post-war world that was safe from future wars of such enormous scale. The Versailles Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, tragically failed to achieve this objective. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's grand dreams of an international peace-keeping organization faltered when put into practice as the League of Nations. Even worse, the harsh terms imposed on Germany, the war's biggest loser, led to widespread resentment of the treaty and its authors in that country-a resentment that would culminate in the outbreak of the Second World War two decades later.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Austria's Archduke Ferdinand assassinated | June 28, 1914 | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tech Developments of World War I | History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The United States in World War I (article) | Khan Academy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Treaty to establish the end of the war

# data[].attributes.subject
The Treaty to establish the end of the war

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Treaty of Versailles, What Did the Big Three Want? 1/2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
automobile in world war 1 - Google Search

# data[].attributes.headline
What was The 18th amendment and why was is repealed

# data[].attributes.subject
What was The 18th amendment and why was is repealed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The 18th amendment is the only amendment to be repealed from the constitution. This unpopular amendment banned the sale and drinking of alcohol in the United States. This amendment took effect in 1919 and was a huge failure. Not only did regular people find other ways to drink alcohol, criminals made a lot of money selling alcohol to those people. The 21st amendment repeals the 18th amendment in 1933, and today we call the period that the 18th Amendment was law Prohibition.

The 18th amendment was not always unpopular. In fact, some states had already banned alcohol before the 18th amendment. Before the 18th amendment became law, religious activists, famously women but also some men, blame alcohol for violence and other problems that were affecting American families. They would take axes and other weapons and attack saloons or other places that stored alcohol, destroying all of it. The motivation for the 18th amendment was inspired by these activists and their desire to make a better society by outlawing alcohol. We now know that the 18th amendment failed and in fact, made things worse.
Let's explain the text of the 18th amendment.
After one year from the ratification of this article...

(the 18th amendment would go into effect one year after the states ok'ed it)

...the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited...

(selling, making, or bring liquor into the country or United States territory, will be made illegal)

The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

(Congress can pass any laws it needs to make sure that this law is enforced and alcohol is not consumed illegally)

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

(this amendment needs to be ratified by ¾ of the states within seven years of it will become invalid)
What were the effects of the 18th amendment?
Mississippi was the first state to accept the amendment, in 1918 and New Jersey was the last, in 1922, at number 46. By then the majority had already been reached. After the 18th amendment, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which set the date for prohibition at January 17, 1920. This act also defined strict limits on beverages containing alcohol, ensuring that the content would be no more than .5%. The Volstead Act contained the provisions to enforce the 18th amendment on Americans. This Act did allow for some alcohol to be kept as "medicine" and for "research," and this was often exploited.

The 18th amendment gave rise to the gangsters of the 1920s that made a huge profit selling illegal alcohol. Such was this disaster that the government would finally agree to get rid of Prohibition and the 18th amendment ten years later.

comments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The 18th amendment is the only amendment to be repealed from the constitution. This unpopular amendment banned the sale and drinking of alcohol in the United States. This amendment took effect in 1919 and was a huge failure. Not only did regular people find other ways to drink alcohol, criminals made a lot of money selling alcohol to those people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
History Brief: Black Tuesday (The Stock Market Crash)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
New Deal - Programs, Social Security & FDR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The New Deal was a series of programs and projects instituted during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that aimed to restore prosperity to Americans. A Second New Deal was put in place shortly thereafter as a way to continue the country’s economic recovery.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in 1930s

# data[].attributes.subject
The Rise of Totalitarianism in Europe in 1930s

# data[].attributes.headline
Americas Involvement in WW1: Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and end the war with Japan

# data[].attributes.subject
Americas Involvement in WW1: Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and end the war with Japan

# data[].attributes.body
Pearl Harbor:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Japan and the Path to War

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, but Japan and the United States had been edging toward war for decades.

The United States was particularly unhappy with Japan's increasingly belligerent attitude toward China. The Japanese government believed that the only way to solve its economic and demographic problems was to expand into its neighbor's territory and take over its import market.

To this end, Japan declared war on China in 1937, resulting in the Nanking Massacre and other atrocities.

American officials responded to this aggression with a battery of economic sanctions and trade embargoes. They reasoned that without access to money and goods, and especially essential supplies like oil, Japan would have to rein in its expansionism.

Instead, the sanctions made the Japanese more determined to stand their ground. During months of negotiations between Tokyo and Washington, D.C., neither side would budge. It seemed that war was all but inevitable.

Where Is Pearl Harbor?

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, is located near the center of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 2,000 miles from the U.S. mainland and about 4,000 miles from Japan. No one believed that the Japanese would start a war with an attack on the distant islands of Hawaii.

Additionally, American intelligence officials were confident that any Japanese attack would take place in one of the (relatively) nearby European colonies in the South Pacific: the Dutch East Indies, Singapore or Indochina.

Because American military leaders were not expecting an attack so close to home, the naval facilities at Pearl Harbor were relatively undefended. Almost the entire Pacific Fleet was moored around Ford Island in the harbor, and hundreds of airplanes were squeezed onto adjacent airfields.

To the Japanese, Pearl Harbor was an irresistibly easy target.

USS Arizona

The Japanese plan was simple: Destroy the Pacific Fleet. That way, the Americans would not be able to fight back as Japan's armed forces spread across the South Pacific. On December 7, after months of planning and practice, the Japanese launched their attack.

At about 8 a.m., Japanese planes filled the sky over Pearl Harbor. Bombs and bullets rained onto the vessels moored below. At 8:10, a 1,800-pound bomb smashed through the deck of the battleship USS Arizona and landed in her forward ammunition magazine. The ship exploded and sank with more than 1,000 men trapped inside.

Next, torpedoes pierced the shell of the battleship USS Oklahoma. With 400 sailors aboard, the Oklahoma lost her balance, rolled onto her side and slipped underwater.

Less than two hours later, the surprise attack was over, and every battleship in Pearl Harbor- USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS California, USS West Virginia, USS Utah, USS Maryland, USS Pennsylvania, USS Tennessee and USS Nevada-had sustained significant damage. (All but USS Arizona and USS Utah were eventually salvaged and repaired.)

Impact of the Pearl Harbor Attack

In all, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor crippled or destroyed nearly 20 American ships and more than 300 airplanes. Dry docks and airfields were likewise destroyed. Most importantly, more than 2,000 people died.

But the Japanese had failed to cripple the Pacific Fleet. By the 1940s, battleships were no longer the most important naval vessel: Aircraft carriers were, and as it happened, all of the Pacific Fleet's carriers were away from the base on December 7. (Some had returned to the mainland and others were delivering planes to troops on Midway and Wake Islands.)

Moreover, the Pearl Harbor assault had left the base's most vital onshore facilities-oil storage depots, repair shops, shipyards and submarine docks-intact. As a result, the U.S. Navy was able to rebound relatively quickly from the attack.

How Many People Died in Pearl Harbor?

The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including sailors, soldiers and civilians. Additionally, 1,178 people were wounded. 129 Japanese soldiers were killed.

Half of the dead at Pearl Harbor were on the USS Arizona. Today the sunken battleship serves as a memorial to all Americans who died in the attack.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress on December 8, the day after the crushing attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941-a date which will live in infamy-the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

He went on to say, "No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again."

America Enters World War II

After the Pearl Harbor attack, and for the first time during years of discussion and debate, the American people were united in their determination to go to war.

The Japanese had wanted to goad the United States into an agreement to lift the economic sanctions against them; instead, they had pushed their adversary into a global conflict that ultimately resulted in Japan's first occupation by a foreign power.

Did you know? The single vote against Congress's declaration of war against Japan came from Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana. Rankin was a pacifist who had also voted against the American entrance into World War I. "As a woman," she said, "I can't go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else."

On December 8, Congress approved Roosevelt's declaration of war on Japan. Three days later, Japan's allies Germany and Italy declared war against the United States.

For the second time, Congress reciprocated, declaring war on the European powers. More than two years after the start of World War II, the United States had entered the conflict.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Pearl Harbor is a U.S. naval base near Honolulu, Hawaii, that was the scene of a devastating surprise attack by Japanese forces on December 7, 1941. The day after the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
D-Day - Normandy Invasion, Facts & Significance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Codenamed Operation Overlord, the invasion began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, when some 156,000 American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region during World War II. The operation was one of the largest amphibious mil…