Remember the Alamo?: American History in Bite-Sized Chunks

By Alison Rattle and Allison Vale

For most people the details of the American Revolution, the history of Thanksgiving and the Battle of the Alamo are sketchy at best. However, help is at hand as Remember the Alamo? contains all the American history you learnt at school and promptly forgot, and perhaps some things that you were never taught in the first place. Broken down into easily digested bite-sized chunks, this book will teach you the basics of over 150 key events from Columbus to Nixon and from cowboys to cosmonauts. Remember the Alamo? assumes no other knowledge of world history and doesn't contain anything but the most salient points so that anyone can become clued up on the history of one of the world's most developed nations. Concise and informative, yet entertaining and engagingly written, Remember the Alamo? contains everything you will ever need to know about the United States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael O'Mara
• Release date: Nov 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781843178606

Book preview

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by

Michael O’Mara Books Limited

9 Lion Yard

Tremadoc Road

London SW4 7NQ

This electronic edition published in 2011

ISBN: 978-1-84317-860-6 in EPub format

ISBN: 978-1-84317-859-0 in Mobipocket format

ISBN: 978-1-84317-381-6 in hardback print format

Copyright © Michael O’Mara Books Limited 2009

Copyright illustrations © Andrew Pinder 2009

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover design by Ana Bjezancevic

Text design and typesetting by Glen Saville

Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

www.mombooks.com

CONTENTS

Timeline

List of Presidents of the United States

COLONIAL AMERICA

Columbus and Other Discoverers of America

The Conquistadors and the Rising Creole Population

The English Quest for Colonies and a Northwest Passage

Jamestown: The First English Settlement in America

Puritans and Pilgrims

The Mayflower and Plymouth Rock

Slavery and the First Plantations

The Rush for Religious Freedom

The Salem Witch Trials

French America

New Netherland: Dutch America

The Indian Wars of the Seventeenth Century

The French and Indian War

REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA

King George’s Proclamation Line

The Tyranny of Taxation

The Sons of Liberty

The Boston Massacre

The Boston Tea Party

The Intolerable Acts

The First Continental Congress

The Battle of Concord

The Battle of Bunker Hill

The Declaration of Independence

Early Successes and Failures

Trenton, Saratoga, and Philadelphia

The Articles of Confederation

Last Years and Victory at Yorktown

THE BIRTH OF THE UNITED STATES

Betsy Ross and the First Stars and Stripes Flag

The United States Constitution

The Bill of Rights

Benjamin Franklin and the Founding Fathers

George Washington

John Adams

Federalists v. Republicans: The Presidential Campaign of 1800

Thomas Jefferson

Marbury v. Madison and the Power of the Supreme Court

AMERICAN EXPANSION AND REFORM

The Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition

The War of 1812

The National Anthem

The Mountain Men

The Missouri Compromise

The Monroe Doctrine

Andrew Jackson

The Nullification Crisis

The Whigs

Remember the Alamo!

At War with Mexico

The Battles of Monterrey and Veracruz

Manifest Destiny

Westward Ho!

Strike It Lucky: The Gold Rush of ’49

The Cotton Gin and Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Abraham Lincoln

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

The Abolitionist Movement

Frederick Douglass

The Underground Railroad

The Dred Scott Decision

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates

The Presidential Election of 1860

THE CIVIL WAR

Confederate States and Southern Secession

General Robert E. Lee

The First Battle of Bull Run

Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Sherman

The Battle of Shiloh

The Battle of Antietam

The Emancipation Proclamation

The Battle of Gettysburg

The Gettysburg Address

Sherman’s March to the Sea

Surrender at Appomattox

The Assassination of Lincoln

RECONSTRUCTION AND INDUSTRIALIZATION

The Homestead Act

Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction

The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

The Gilded Age

The Age of Invention

Industrialization and the Rise of the Industrial Tycoon

Andrew Carnegie and John Pierpoint Morgan, Sr.

Transcontinental Railroads and the Robber Barons

Custer’s Last Stand

Taming the Wild West

Immigration and the Making of Modern America

The Rise of the Unions

The Sherman Antitrust Act

Remember the "Maine!" The Spanish-American War

Black America: Separate But Equal

Susan B. Anthony

The Struggle for Equality

Theodore Roosevelt

The Muckrakers

Woodrow Wilson

The Sixteenth Amendment: Income Tax

The Panama Canal

WORLD WAR ONE AND THE ROARING TWENTIES

America the Peace Broker

The Lusitania and America’s Declaration of War

Making the World Safe

The Impact of War at Home

Wilson’s Fourteen Points

The League of Nations and a Return to Isolationism

The Roaring Twenties: The Age of Wonderful Nonsense

Prohibition and the Rise of the Mob

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR TWO

The Wall Street Crash

The Great Depression

Herbert C. Hoover

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The New Deal

American Isolation and the Threat of War

The Outbreak of World War Two

Pearl Harbor

The Darkest Weeks

Bataan and the Death March

The Battle of Midway

The War at Home

The Allied Invasions of North Africa and Italy

D-Day

The Battle of the Bulge

VE Day

Guadalcanal and South Pacific Island-Hopping

The Battle of Leyte Gulf

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

War Crimes and the Creation of the State of Israel

POST-WAR AMERICA

The United Nations

Harry S. Truman

The Superpowers

The Iron Curtain

The Marshall Plan

The Berlin Airlift

The McCarthy Witch-Hunts

The Korean War: The Seeds are Sown

The Invasion of South Korea

The Korean War: Stalemate

Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Civil Rights Movement: The Origins

The Civil Rights Movement: Brown v. Board of Education

The Civil Rights Movement: Rosa Parks

Martin Luther King

The Election of John F. Kennedy

The Bay of Pigs Invasion

The Cuban Missile Crisis

The Assassination of JFK

Lyndon B. Johnson

The Great Society and the Civil Rights Act

Malcolm X and the Rise of Black Power

THE VIETNAM WAR YEARS

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

The Vietnam War

Counterculture, Controversy, and a Giant Leap for Mankind

Richard Nixon

Cambodia

Watergate and Nixon’s Resignation

Index

TIMELINE

LIST OF PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES