Vibha Academic Bowl Outreach History Subject Outline - Elementary
Overview: American History, focusing equally on pre-Civil War and post-Civil War. Georgia history also is relevant. In the bigger sections (WWI, WWII, Cold War) I hit the highlights, such as major battles and major individuals, as Elementary School students should at most come across the very basic ideas of these conflicts.
1) The American Revolutionary War
a. Fought from 1775-1783 between British colonists (later, United States of America) and Great Britain. Obviously, the Americans won.
b. Technically, the war was fought between the Thirteen Colonies, France, Netherlands, Spain, and Mysore (a kingdom in South India) against Great Britain.
c. Occurred for many different reasons: colonists felt like they were very different from British and desired to be their own people; the Stamp Act of 1765 led to tension between the two; the result of the French and Indian War and the massive debt leveled on the British created a need for more taxation revenue, so the British taxed their colonies; as Benjamin Franklin put it “the Colonies raised, clothed, and paid, during the [French and Indian War], near twenty-five thousand men, and spent many millions”; other taxes included the Tea Tax, which led to the famous Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts that were poised to punish the Massachusetts colonists for the Tea Party.
d. Boston Tea Party – 1773 – the American boycott of taxed British tea led to the Boston Tea Party, when shiploads of tea were destroyed by the Colonists. London responded by ending self-government in Massachusetts and putting it under the control of the British army. General Thomas Gage – the newly appointed governor of Mass. – learned in April 1775 of weapons being gathered in Concord, so he sent troops there to seize and destroy them. The conflict that thus arose marked the beginning of the war with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
e. Any chance for peace between the two powers ended when the colonists issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.
f. France, Spain, and the Dutch all provided help to the colonists, as a loss of the Colonies would weaken Britain, a goal for other countries. These countries secretly provided supplies, ammo, and weapons beginning in 1776, but France entered the war officially in early 1778, following the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga in 1777. Spain and the Netherlands threatened invasion of Britain and tested the Empire’s strength with campaigns in Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean over the next four years.
g. Famous American leaders: George Washington, John Adams, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benedict Arnold, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock
h. Famous British leaders: King George III, Sir Henry Clinton, General Thomas Gage, Charles Cornwallis
i. Valley Forge – winter camp of American army
j. Battle of Yorktown – surrender of British forces under Cornwallis to American forces under Washington
k. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the US over the territory bounded roughly by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west. The peace was not final, as the two nations would come into conflict many times before the War of 1812 over land and rights to the sea.
2) The First Presidents, the Creation of a Nation, and the Rise of Cotton
a. Washington first president – served for two terms – from Virginia
b. Adams second president – from Boston
c. Jefferson third president – from Virginia
d. Madison fourth – from Virginia
e. Cotton was king in this period in the Deep South. Thanks to cotton and other cash crops (indigo, tobacco), slavery was extremely big in the South.
f. Louisiana Purchase – 1803 – U.S. buys the Louisiana Territory from France as France needs help funding the Napoleonic Wars – more than doubles the size of the nation – Jefferson regarded by many as hero for purchase, leads to his reelection – Jefferson sends personal secretary Meriwether Lewis and friend William Clark on a mission to travel to Pacific Ocean across the continent. Along the way, native Shoshone woman Sacagawea assists them.
3) The American Civil War and Reconstruction
a. Fought from 1861-1865 between the Union (United States of America, North) and the Confederate States of America (South)
b. Causes – issues of slavery, states’ rights, sectionalism, protectionism, the expansion of slavery (slave power v. free soil), elections of mid-1800s and the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln
c. Began with the secession of South Carolina from the Union on December 24, 1860. This started the “secession winter,” during which seven states total seceded from the Union before Lincoln took office. These states were: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. They established a Southern government, the Confederate States of America, on Feb 4, 1861. President James Buchanan did little to oppose these actions, as he would leave office on March 4. Jefferson Davis was elected President of the Confederacy, and the government was modeled on the US Constitution. The shelling of Fort Sumter in Charleston’s harbor in 1861 marked the first official act of war during the Civil War, and four additional states would secede and join the Confederacy following it: Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The northwestern portion of Virginia subsequently seceded from Virginia to rejoin the Union (this became West Virginia in 1863).
d. Union leaders: President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S Grant, General William Tecumseh Sherman
e. CSA leaders: President Jefferson Davis, General Robert E Lee, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, General J.E.B. Stewart
f. Major battles: Battle of Gettysburg, Battle of Antietam (deadliest one-day fight), Sherman’s March to the Sea across Georgia, the two Battles of Bull Run (Manassas), Battle of Shiloh
g. Major events: Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation, surrender of CSA at Appomattox Courthouse in VA, assassination of Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater
h. Andrew Johnson becomes president following Lincoln’s assassination and begins Reconstruction – from end of war in 1865 to 1877
i. Reconstruction Amendments – 13th (abolished slavery), 14th (made blacks citizens, prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty, or property without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness), 15th (grants voting rights regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" – did not include women)
j. Included deployment of troops in the South to enforce new laws
4) World War One
a. Fought from July 1914 – November 1918
b. Two sides:
i. Entente (Allied) Powers – Great Britain (GB), France, Russia, U.S., Italy (originally a Central Power but switched to Allied side)
ii. Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire
c. Causes:
i. One major cause for war was the secret network of treaties and alliances that spanned Europe. As the war began, the treaties came to light, pitting the Allies against the Central Powers.
ii. The spark of the war came with assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary by Gavrilo Princip in June 1914.
d. Several fronts – Western Front (France/Germany) and Eastern Front (Russia) were the predominant ones. Germany believed that it could dominate the Eastern Front quickly and then move all forces to Western Front to overload Allies – did not work.
e. Technology during World War I reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general
i. Machines guns become huge during war, along with advances in rifles.
ii. A drastic increase in military technology combined with very few increases in defensive technology made it hard for any troop advances, creating trench warfare that lasted throughout the war.
iii. Cavalry were still used throughout the war, leading to even more deaths. Commanders refused to face the changing face of warfare, a sad truth that led to more deaths.
iv. Poison gas was developed by the Germans and was used by both sides throughout the war, causing horrible and painful deaths.
v. Air combat began in World War One; famous fighter pilot for Germany was the “Red Baron.”
vi. Tanks were first used in World War One
f. Armistice was signed in 1918 (ended fighting) and Treaty of Versailles of 1919 ended the war.
5) The Great Depression and The New Deal
a. The “Great Depression” was a term used to describe the economic collapse of the United States from late 1929 until the beginning of World War Two, but it was in fact a worldwide economic depression.
b. Was preceded by the “Roaring Twenties,” a time of extreme economic growth and prosperity in America. This period set up reckless spending by individuals and banks. The stock market rose and rose, making many believe that it could never stop. The “Great War” was over, and the world had now moved on. But on October 29, 1929 – a date infamously known as Black Tuesday – the stock market crashed.
c. President Hoover – America’s golden boy from World War One – failed to turn things around. As a gesture to his lack of leadership, shantytowns nicknamed “Hoovervilles” sprung up across the nation.
d. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, inaugurated in 1933 – Would eventually hold office of President for most terms (4), but would die midway through his fourth term.
e. First 100 Days – program instituted by FDR in which he used his first 100 days to accomplish as much as he could with Congress – resulted in New Deal
i. Through the use of fireside chats, FDR communicated with the American people
f. New Deal focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": Relief, Recovery, and Reform. That is, Relief for the unemployed and poor; Recovery of the economy to normal levels; and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression
g. Alphabet Soup of Agencies – FDR and Congress created many new federal agencies to try to help the nation:
i. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) – used unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18-28; provided unskilled manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state and local governments; built roads, dams, etc.
ii. Public Works Administration (PWA)
iii. National Recovery Administration (NRA) – ruled unconstitutional
iv. Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) – also unconstitutional
h. It was not until the beginning of WWII that the US and world finally pulled out of the Great Depression thanks to the sharp rise in manufacturing needs to power a vast, worldwide war
6) World War Two
a. Following the collapse of Germany, the Weimar Republic was created to run the country. It was inefficient and would not last. As the Weimar Republic fell, the German Nazi Party took power, led by Adolf Hitler.
b. WWII was truly a “world war.” Fighting occurred in the Pacific, Atlantic; the sides fought in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Oceania.
c. Began on 1 September 1939 with Germany’s invasion of Poland; subsequently Britain and France joined the war. War in Europe ended with the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945. In August 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese as the invasion of the Japanese archipelago became imminent, and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, invading Manchuria. The Empire of Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945.
d. Sides:
i. Allied Powers (and leaders): U.S. (FDR), Soviet Union (Joseph Stalin), Great Britain (PM Winston Churchill and later Clement Attlee), China (Chiang Kai-shek), etc.
ii. Axis Powers: Germany (Adolf Hitler), Japan (Hirohito), Italy (Mussolini)
iii. Other famous Allied Leaders: Dwight D Eisenhower (U.S., supreme leader of Allied forces in European Theater); George C Marshall (US Secretary of State following WWII, General of the Army and Chief of Staff); Douglas MacArthur (U.S., General of the Army was Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South West Pacific Area, 1942-45)
e. The war altered the world forever – it resulted in new states (Israel); the Holocaust; the Cold War between the two superpowers of the US and USSR; and the establishment of the United Nations, an international body that replaced the League of Nations.
f. Battle of Britain – After conquering most of Europe (and steam-rolling every country that stood in their way), the Nazis began an air assault on Great Britain. Through the Luftwaffe (the German air force), they bombed major cities and manufacturing areas. But Britain had developed a special technology called radar, which allowed them to spot planes before they arrived. Germany was not successful.
g. 7 December 1941 – Pearl Harbor – “A day that will forever live in infamy.” – Japanese pilots bomb Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Oahu, Hawaii – The attack was intended as a preventive action in order to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan was planning in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States; ironically, it drew the US into the war. The next day, the US declared war on Japan.
h. 6 June 1944 – D-Day – Invasion of German-occupied France by combined Allied forces.
i. Before Berlin fell, Hitler committed suicide with wife Eva Braun.
j. After Berlin fell, Germany collapsed and surrendered. Allied troops now made their way throughout the countryside; as they did so, they found the worst horror of WWII and one of the worst horrors in all of world history – the concentration camps of the Holocaust. Over 6 million Jews were killed; estimates show that between 11 and 17 million citizens were killed because of Nazi ideological beliefs.
k. The war in the Pacific Theater came to a close as the American forces took the Philippines and moved closer to the Japanese homeland. Instead of invading Japan, as many in the American government believe they would, the US moved to a new option – the atomic bomb. Created by the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, NM, the atomic bomb was the most powerful weapon ever created. Robert J Oppinheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project, would go on to be a major supporter of nuclear disarmament. President Herbert Hoover – who replaced FDR following his death at Hot Springs, GA in April 1945 – decided that two bombs should be dropped. The two bombs – nicknamed “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” – were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, respectively. The Nuclear Age had begun, and Japan surrendered soon.
7) Cold War
a. Lasted roughly from 1945-1991
b. A sustained state of political and military tension between powers in the Western Bloc, dominated by the United States with NATO and other allies; versus powers in the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union with the Warsaw Pact and other allies
c. Two world superpowers following WWII: U.S. and United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR)
d. Themes:
i. Arms race – US and USSR “raced” each other to build the biggest weapons arsenals; the major weapons that this included were aircraft and nuclear weapons
ii. The threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) – MAD is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only effective reciprocal destruction. The idea of MAD stopped the two sides from using weapons of mass destruction against each other.
iii. Cycles of relative calm followed by high tension which could have led to war; examples are the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Suez Crisis (1956), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Yom Kippur War (1973), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989)
iv. Espionage conducted by both sides against each other and, at times, allies. The two intelligence apparatuses were the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States and the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (KGB) of the USSR
e. Russian History Following 1917
i. After the October Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik Party took over Russia and formed the USSR
ii. The Russian Civil War followed, pitting the Red Army against the White Army. The Red Army, later a symbol of Soviet aggression and military might, became the major fighting force of the nation.
iii. Following Lenin’s death, a battle for power ensued between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky; Stalin won, and Trotsky was later assassinated by the KGB, who acted on Stalin’s orders.
f. The creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by the US and other countries was viewed (correctly) by the USSR as a bloc of states (the Western Bloc) against their interests. In response, the USSR and other Eastern European countries formed signed the Warsaw Pact, which created a response to NATO and formed the Eastern Bloc.
g. Creation of East and West Germany – In 1947, the US and Britain combined their two German zones, with France adding its zone in 1949. This effectively created two sides: a West Germany controlled by Western powers and an East Germany controlled by the USSR.
h. The two zones were famously split in Berlin by the Berlin Wall, a literal wall that divided the city into Communist and non-Communist zones. It was here that US President Ronald Reagan famously delivered his speech in 1987 in which he said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” In 1989, a series of radical political changes occurred in the Eastern Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, a euphoric public and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the wall; the governments later used industrial equipment to remove most of the rest. The physical Wall itself was primarily destroyed in 1990. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded on 3 October 1990.
i. In 1949, a joint venture between the BBC and US radio broadcasters created Radio Free Europe in order to bring about a peaceful demise of the Soviet Union.
j. Wars that were part of the Cold War:
i. Korean War (1950-1953)
ii. Vietnam War - occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other anti-communist countries.
iii. Soviet-Afghani War – Invasion of Afghanistan by the USSR fought between 1979-1989. The Afghani forces were supported by the United States and the CIA. Weapons given to the Afghans would later be used against the US.
k. Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis
i. In 1959, the Cuban regime was overthrown in a revolution and Fidel Castro became leader of the country. In 1961, CIA-led Cuban forces launched an attempted invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. It drastically failed, and it became world knowledge that the US was involved.
ii. The Cuban Missile Crisis (October–November 1962) brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before. It further demonstrated the concept of mutually assured destruction, that neither superpower was prepared to use their nuclear weapons, fearing total global destruction via mutual retaliation. The aftermath of the crisis led to the first efforts in the nuclear arms race at nuclear disarmament and improving relations, although the Cold War's first arms control agreement, the Antarctic Treaty, had come into force in 1961.
l. The Space Race
i. The Space Race sparked unprecedented increases in spending on education and pure research, which accelerated scientific advancements and led to beneficial spin-off technologies
ii. Began with the Soviet launch of the first satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. US leaders began to fear that the Soviet Union would gain a distinct advantage over the US by having space capabilities.
iii. First man (and Soviet cosmonaut) in space – Yuri Gagirin.
First US astronaut in space – Alan Shepard
iv. In 1961, President John F Kennedy promised that by the end of the decade, the United States would place a man on the moon.
v. On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from the Apollo 11 spaceflight landed on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the US and becoming the first men to land on the Moon.
m. The Kennedy Assassination – on 22 November 1963, President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was later killed by Jack Ruby before he could stand trial.
n. The Fall of the Soviet Union and the End of the Cold War
i. By 1989, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and, deprived of Soviet military support, the Communist leaders of the Warsaw Pact states were losing power. In the USSR itself, glasnost weakened the bonds that held the Soviet Union together and by February 1990, with the dissolution of the USSR looming, the Communist Party was forced to surrender its 73-year-old monopoly on state power.
ii. The USSR was declared officially dissolved on December 25, 1991.
o. US Presidents During Cold War
i. Harry Truman (1945-1953)
ii. Dwight D Eisenhower (1953-1961)
iii. John F Kennedy (1961-1963)
iv. Lyndon B Johnson (1963-1969)
v. Richard Nixon (1969-1974)
vi. Gerald Ford (1974-1977)
vii. Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
viii. Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
ix. George H W Bush (1989-1993)
p. Soviet Leaders During Cold War
i. No official title of “Leader of the Soviet Union,” but the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party became synonymous with the title
ii. Joseph Stalin (1922-1953)
iii. Georgy Malenkov (1953-1955)
iv. Nikita Khrushchev (1955-1964)
v. Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982)
vi. Yuri Andropov (1982-1984)
vii. Konstantin Chernenko (1984-1985)
viii. Mikhail Gorbachev (1985-1991)
8) 9/11 and Modern American History
a. President Bill Clinton (Democrat from Arkansas) defeats George H W Bush in 1992 election; in 1994, Republicans would gain control of the House (led by Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA)) and the Senate, forcing Clinton to deal with a split government for most of his two terms.
b. The administration had a mixed record on taxes but produced the first federal budget surpluses since 1969, for fiscal years 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001, leading to a decrease in the public debt (though the gross federal debt continued to increase).
c. Bush v Gore 2000 Presidential Election
i. Republican Texas Governor George W Bush (son of G H W Bush) against Democrat Vice President Al Gore
ii. The election was sent to the Supreme Court, where the Court decided that Bush won the election.
d. September 11, 2001
i. A series of four coordinated suicide attacks upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. areas on September 11, 2001. On that Tuesday morning, 19 terrorists from the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger jets. The hijackers intentionally flew two of those planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the North and South towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City; both towers collapsed within two hours. Debris from the collapsing towers fell onto or initiated fires in several surrounding buildings leading to the partial or complete collapse of all the other buildings in the complex. Debris also caused major damage to ten other large structures in the immediate area. The hijackers also intentionally crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and intended to pilot the fourth hijacked jet, United Airlines Flight 93, into the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers and the plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks, including all 227 civilians and 19 hijackers aboard the four planes.
ii. Following the 9/11 Attacks, blame was placed on an Islamic militant group named al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden (OBL). The group had previously carried out attacks on several US targets, including the USS Cole.
iii. In the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history, the United States enacted the Homeland Security Act of 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security. Congress also passed the USA PATRIOT Act, saying it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes. Civil liberties groups have criticized the PATRIOT Act, saying it allows law enforcement to invade the privacy of citizens and that it eliminates judicial oversight of law enforcement and domestic intelligence.
iv. In the following years, the United States would invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.
e. Highlights of Bush Administration:
i. Nearly 8 million immigrants came to the United States from 2000 to 2005 – more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history. Almost half entered illegally.
ii. Running as a self-styled "war president" in the midst of the Iraq War, Bush won re-election in 2004, as his campaign against Senator John Kerry was successful despite controversy over Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War and his handling of the economy.
iii. Upon leaving office the final poll recorded his approval rating as 19%, a record low for any U.S. President.
f. In 2008, Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain in the presidential election.
i. First African-American president
9) Georgia History
a. Founded as a debtors colony by James Oglethorpe in 1732 as a colony under Great Britain, and it was named for King George II. He founded the first major city of Georgia, Savannah.
b. The colony originally prohibited slavery, a prohibition which lasted until 1749. Afterward, slavery grew in the colony, initially as labor for the coastal rice plantations.
c. Post secondary education was formalized, in 1785, with the establishment of The University of Georgia (first named Franklin College, after Benjamin Franklin), the oldest land grant college in the U.S.
d. Archibald Bulloch was elected the first President of the newly independent state. On January 2, 1788, the state ratified the United States Constitution, the fourth state to do so.
e. In 1794, Eli Whitney, a Massachusetts-born artisan residing in Savannah, patented a cotton gin, mechanizing the separation of cotton fibers from their seeds.
f. In 1829, gold was discovered in the north Georgia mountains, resulting in the Georgia Gold Rush, the second gold rush in U.S. history. A federal mint was established in Dahlonega, Georgia, and continued to operate until 1861. During this time, Cherokee Indians owned their ancestral land, operated their own government with a written constitution, and did not recognize the authority of the state of Georgia. An influx of white settlers pressured the U.S. government to expel them. The dispute culminated in the Indian Removal Act of 1830, under which all eastern tribes were sent west to Indian reservations in present-day Oklahoma. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court in 1832 ruled that states were not permitted to redraw the boundaries of Indian lands, but President Andrew Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. In 1838, his successor, Martin van Buren dispatched federal troops to round up the Cherokee and deport them west of the Mississippi. This forced relocation, beginning in White County, became known as the Trail of Tears and led to the death of over 4,000 Cherokees
g. Seventy-three years after ratification of the U.S. Constitution, Georgia seceded from the Union and joined other Southern states to form the Confederate States of America in February 1861. War erupted on April 12, 1861 and Georgia contributed nearly one hundred thousand soldiers to the war effort. The first major battle in Georgia was the Battle of Chickamauga, a Confederate victory, and the last major Confederate victory in the west. In 1864, William T. Sherman's armies invaded Georgia as part of the Atlanta Campaign; Sherman's March to the Sea devastated a wide swath from Atlanta to Savannah in late 1864. The capital of the state during the Civil War was in Milledgeville.
h. During Reconstruction, Atlanta began to grow rapidly, becoming the state’s largest city and one of the leading cities of the South.
i. During the Civil Rights Movement, Georgia was the base for African-American leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
j. Georgia was a Democratic stronghold in presidential elections until 1964. Democratic candidates continued to receive popular support in state and local elections until the 1990s. Since 2000 the white majority has supported the Republican Party, which has majorities in both houses of the legislature, and more recently, control of all statewide elective offices.
10) Miscellaneous History
a. Ways to notate time
i. Traditionally Before Christ (BC) and Anno Domini (In the Year of Our Lord, AD)
ii. Now, Before Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE)
iii. When reading centuries, take number and subtract one – ex. 14th century CE = 1300s CE.
b. US Government Agencies and Acronyms:
i. Department of Defense – DoD
ii. Housing and Urban Development – HUD
iii. Department of Transportation – DOT
iv. Department of Homeland Security – DHS
v. Central Intelligence Agency – CIA
vi. National Security Agency – NSA
vii. Environmental Protection Agency – EPA
viii. Federal Emergency Management Agency – FEMA
ix. National Aeronautics and Space Administration – NASA