People

Samuel de Champlain: A French explorer that established the city of Quebec in New France (French colony in Canada) in 1608

Henry Hudson: An English explorer that discovered the Hudson River and Hudson Bay in 1607 and 1608

John Rolfe: Discovered tobacco farming in 1612 and saved the Jamestown colony from starvation, giving the colony a way to make money

Nathaniel Bacon: A farmer that led Bacon’s rebellion after nothing was being done to stop the natives from attacking them, eventually turned from attacking natives to attacking William Berkeley’s plantations, this rebellion led to plantation owners switching from indentured servitude and farmers as workers to slaves

William Berkeley: A governor of Virginia, Bacon’s rebellion happened after Berkeley refused to do something about the natives attacking the farmers, after a while the rebels began attacking Berkeley’s plantations

Governor Winthrop: Settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 with about 11,000 Puritans, had the goal of building a model religious community based on Puritan beliefs such as predestination, having only males vote, and democratic town meetings

Roger Williams: Settled Rhode Island after being banned from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for his religious views, Rhode Island would become a place that emphasized religious diversity and toleration

Anne Hutchinson: After being banished with her followers for questioning Puritan authorities, she founded the colony of Portsmouth which later would become part of Rhode Island

William Penn: A Quaker and a pacifist, founded Pennsylvania in 1681 in “Penn’s Holy Experiment”

Lord Baltimore: Founded Maryland in 1634 because he wanted to make money and make a peaceful haven for Catholics that were being persecuted in England

James Oglethorpe: A philanthropist that helped those in debt and reformed debtor prisons, tried banning slavery in Georgia but it was legalized in 1750

Metacom: Also known as King Philip by the British, he was the chief of the Wampanoag people and led an attack on the colonies where they burned their fields and killed and captured many British in an event known as Metacom’s War (1675), he was ambushed and killed by the Mohawk people who were allies of the British

Lord De La Warr: The governor of Virginia, torched cornfields and houses to eliminate the Powhatans by 1646

Eli Whitney: Invented the cotton gin in 1793, which made cotton a major crop

John Locke: An Enlightenment thinker who wrote Two Treatises on Government, argued that a legitimate government can only exist by the consent of the governed, meaning that the power to govern is in the hands of the people, not a monarch. Another key point was that human beings, just by existing, have certain natural and unalienable rights that are given to them not by the government or a king, but by the Creator, and since it wasn’t given by the government, governments cannot take these rights away. Additionally, Locke argued that liberty is achieved through self-rule through elected representatives, not with a monarch like in Britain

Voltaire: An Enlightenment thinker who argued for religious freedom

Baron Montesquieu: An Enlightenment thinker who argued that a government should be split into three branches (the executive, the legislative, and the judicial), and that these ranches should be able to check and balance the power of the others

Rousseau: An Enlightenment thinker who wrote about the social contract

Johnathan Edwards: A New England minister from Northampton and a scholar well-studied in philosophy and the natural sciences who was one of the main leaders of the First Great Awakening. His preachings combined Enlightenment ideas with religion, and helped spread the First Great Awakening. One of his most famous sermons became known as “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. He emphasized the enjoyment of religion and of other human beings

George Whitfield: A preacher who traveled to America from England and started spreading God’s message of salvation and grace and Jesus Christ to areas all over the colonies from churches to street corners and fields

King George II: Fought King George’s War, which was part of the War of Austrian Succession in Europe, he ordered a general impressment in the colonies in 1747, which led to riots

King James I: Revoked the Charter of Virginia in 1624 because he saw their House of Burgesses as disloyal because they were having political meetings outside of British influence

King Charles II: Revoked the charter of Massachusetts for being rebellious and replaced the New England Confederation with the Royal Dominion of New England

Sir Edmund Andros: Leader of the Royal Dominion of New England

Benjamin Franklin: Proposed the Albany Plan of Union at the Albany Congress in which the colonies would establish a Grand Council to unite them but this plan was rejected; during the American Revolution, he spent his time in France trying to convince them to ally with the colonies and succeeded in convincing them after the colonies won the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, wrote Poor Richard’s Almanack which became popular and widely read throughout the states (only being outsold by the Bible)

Pontiac: The Ottawa leader, led raids against the colonists in Detroit and other military forts in Virginia and Pennsylvania which led to the British Parliament establishing the Proclamation Line of 1763

George Grenville: British Prime Minister, implemented a three-part plan to end salutary neglect in the colonies: stricter enforcement of current laws, Quartering Act of 1765, a lot more taxes

Thomas Paine: Wrote Common Sense in 1776, a pamphlet in which Paine used common language to argue for independence from Britain and filled it with enlightenment ideas. He argued that it was common sense that such a large piece of land such as America should not be ruled by England, which was so far away. These ideas attracted many colonists and this pamphlet became very popular as a result. And this completely changed the minds of the colonists from loyalty to independence.

Richard Henry Lee: A delegate from Virginia in the Second Continental Congress, made the motion for independence

Toussaint L'Ouverture: Led the Haitian Revolution, in which Haiti won independence from France and became the first black-led independent nation in the Western Hemisphere

Daniel Shays: An angry farmer who gathered a militia of about a thousand people in Massachusetts and started Shays’ Rebellion, which showed the weakness of the Articles of Confederation due to its inability to provide a federal response to stop the rebellion

Alexander Hamilton: One of the three writers of the Federalist Papers, Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury, wrote a Financial Report with three key recommendations to fix America’s economic problems but Congress only accepted the idea of combining state debts into a national debt, caused the Whiskey Rebellion after he convinced Congress to pass a tax on whiskey

John Jay: One of the three writers of the Federalist Papers, 1st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, negotiated Jay’s Treaty with Britain

Thomas Pinckney: The American minister to Spain, negotiated the Pinckney Treaty in 1795

Charles Wilson Peale: Artist, painted a famous portrait of George Washington

Samuel Jennings: Artist, broke artistic norms by including women and black people in his paintings

John Trumbull: Artist, painted historical events but while also romanticizing them, such as with his depiction of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

James Watt: invented the steam engine in 1769, which led to the development of the steamboat and steam locomotive for transportation.

Eli Whitney: invented the cotton gin in 1793, which allowed for the separation of cotton seeds from fiber, creating a large demand for slaves in the South because plantations could now produce much more cotton. Also started the technology of interchangeable parts

Emperor Napoleon: Emperor of France after the French Revolution, sold French Louisiana (828,000 square miles of land) to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase for just fifteen million dollars because France didn’t have easy access to the territory anymore

John Marshall: 4th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, played a very important role in expanding the power of both the court and the federal government, ruled Marbury v. Madison and McCulloch v. Maryland

Henry Clay: Speaker of the House; proposed his American System to fix the problems of America; suggested the Missouri Compromise/Compromise of 1820; when no candidate won a majority in the electoral college in the Election of 1824, Clay convinced his allies in the House to vote for John Quincy Adams and get him elected as president instead of Andrew Jackson, who had won the most popular votes and electoral votes; was JQA’s Secretary of State, proposed the Compromise of 1850

James Tallmadge: New York Congressman, proposed the Tallmadge Amendment

Tecumseh: Leader of the Shawnee people and led them during Tecumseh’s War, a war between them and William Henry Harrison, who was at the time the first governor of Indiana

William Crawford: Participated in the Election of 1824

John C. Calhoun: Jackson’s first vice president, from South Carolina, called the Tariff of 1828 the “Tariff of Abominations” and saw it as too harmful to exist and as an overreach of federal power, wrote the South Carolina Exposition & Protest, supported slavery

Sir Walter Scott: Author

James Fennimore Cooper: Author; his book, Last of the Mohicans, romanticized the western frontier and the dangers hidden

Washington Irving: Author, his stories imagined America as a world of fantasy

Noah Webster: Author, his American Dictionary of the English Language was used to standardize American spelling and pronunciation and became very popular in schools

Ralph Waldo Emerson: A Transcendentalist thinker that wrote about individualism and self-reliance

Henry David Thoreau: Wrote a book called Walden which was a reflection on life after he decided to live in a cabin in the woods on his own with a simple lifestyle for two years

Charles Grandison Finney: A Second Great Awakening preacher that preached using emotional and simple metaphors that anybody could understand. Finney preached that sin was a choice and that people had the power to live perfect lives free of sin.

Joseph Smith: A man from New York who declared that the Church had strayed from the true teachings of Christ and that it was his job to be God’s appointed prophet and bring the Church back to its true form. He wrote down his discoveries in the Book of Mormon, and began preaching to the people of New York. Over time though, he started spreading the message of polygamy, and was subsequently lynched as a result in 1844.

Brigham Young: Joseph Smith’s successor and the Church’s next prophet, led the Mormons to migrate to the Utah territory and established the Mormon Church near the Great Salt Lake in 1847.

Dorothea Dix: Learned that people with mental illnesses were being kept with prisoners due to a lack of resources and space. Horrified at the discovery, she led a movement to lobby state legislatures for mental health facilities, leading to the construction of many mental hospitals throughout the country.

Horace Mann: An education reformer that advocated for compulsory attendance, a longer school year, universal free education (paid for by tax dollars), and teacher training programs

William Lloyd Garrison: Abolitionist who published a newspaper called the Liberator, established the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1883 and while he did argue for standing against slavery through moral persuasion, he also publicly burned a copy of the Constitution, claiming that it was a pro-slavery document

Frederick Douglass: An escaped slave and abolitionist who taught himself to read and write, wrote a book called Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass where he described the dehumanization that the institution of slavery perpetuated. He also went on tours to describe his first-hand experience with slavery to the populace, also an orator who gave many anti-slavery speeches

Grimke Sisters: Supported abolition despite being daughters of a wealthy Southern family.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Leader of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848

Lucretia Mott: Leader of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848

David Walker: An African American abolitionist, wrote Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, a series of essays calling for abolition

Denmark Vesey: A former slave who bought his freedom. In the Vesey Slave Conspiracy of 1822, he planned to kill the governor of Charleston and burn the city. Some slaves revealed the plot to their owners though and as a result, he was hanged

Nat Turner: A Virginian slave, led a group of slaves to kill over 50 white people in 1831 in Nat Turner’s Rebellion before being stopped by the Virginia militia the next day. He and 55 others were hanged and because of this rebellion, planters throughout Virginia went into a panic and started a mass torture of their other slaves.

Matthew Perry: Forced Japan to sign the Treaty of Kanagawa to open up its borders to trade with the U.S. in 1854

Sam Houston: Led the revolt against Mexico in Texas and declared Texas to be an independent republic in 1836

John Slidell: Sent by Polk to Mexico City as a diplomat to try and get Mexico to sell more territory to the United States, which Mexico refused

General Winfield Scott: Occupied Mexico City during the Mexican-American War and led to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848

David Wilmot: A Congressman who proposed the Wilmot Proviso in 1846

Harriet Beecher Stowe: Abolitionist, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a book that depicted the dehumanization and brutality of slavery and allowed northerners to read about what slavery was like in the South. This book became so popular that many in the South even attempted to ban it.

Hinton R. Helper: Wrote a nonfiction book that attacked slavery through statistics, using data to show that slavery was actually weakening the southern economy

John Brown: A violent abolitionist, believed that the only way for slavery to be removed was through a slave uprising against the South and so in 1859, he devised a plan to raid a federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, to give the weapons to slaves and incite them to rebel. But his plan failed and he was subsequently hanged. As a result, this led to the South believing that the goal of the abolitionists was to start a massive rebellion in the South that would destroy their way of life and kill them all, further exacerbating the tension between the two regions.

Stephen Douglas: Senator from Illinois, Proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, nominated for the Election of 1860 against Abraham Lincoln as the leader of the Northern Democrats who wanted territories to decide slavery through popular sovereignty

Charles Summer: An anti-slavery senator from Massachusetts, was beaten with a cane by Preston Brooks on May of 1856 while he was giving a speech against slavery

Preston Brooks: A senator from South Carolina, beat Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in May of 1856 while he was giving a speech against slavery until Sumner bled and was knocked unconscious

Dred Scott: An enslaved man who lived in Missouri who was taken by his master to live in Wisconsin for years, and so as a result, he sued in federal court and claimed that he should be free. But Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that because Dred Scott was a slave, he had no right to sue in federal court and that since slaves were “property”, slave owners could take them anywhere they wanted. The North hated this decision and this was another step towards a civil war.

Roger Taney: 5th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, made the Dred Scott Decision of 1857

John Breckinridge: Ran in the Election of 1860 as the leader of the Southern Democrats who wanted slavery to be protected and guaranteed in new territories by a federal slave code

Alexander Stephens: The first and only Confederate vice president, gave his famous Cornerstone speech in which he defended the fundamental necessity of slavery and the inferiority of the black race

Andrew Carnegie: Baron of industry, got his start by manufacturing goods for the Civil War

John D. Rockefeller: Baron of industry, got his start by manufacturing goods for the Civil War

Robert E. Lee: Confederate general and experienced military leader, won many battles during the Civil War at first but lost a third of his army in the Battle of Gettysburg, ran out of resources in April of 1865 against Ulysses S. Grant’s army and surrendered at the Appomattox Courthouse, ending the Civil War

Stonewall Jackson: Confederate general and experienced military leader

William Tecumseh Sherman: Northern military leader, his March to the Sea was a campaign through the state of Georgia in which he led his troops from Atlanta to the Port of Savannah and enacted a scorched-earth policy, destroying everything in their path, including infrastructure, fields, farms, crops, railroads, and houses

George B. McClellan: General and Democratic candidate for the Election of 1864, his election campaign was based on opposition to the war, the draft, and Lincoln’s aggressive tactics

John Wilkes Booth: Assassinated Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theater

Blanche K. Bruce: One of the first black Senators in Congress

Hiram Revels: One of the first black Senators in Congress

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Women’s rights advocate, created the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) with Susan B. Anthony, and then the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890

Susan B. Anthony: Women’s rights advocated, created the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and then the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890

Lucy Stone: Argued that women should support Reconstruction first and then work on women’s suffrage, created the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) with Henry Blackwell, and then the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890

Henry Blackwell: Argued that women should support Reconstruction first and then work on women’s suffrage, created the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) with Lucy Stone

Jay Gould: Wall Street financier, collaborated with James Fisk and Grant’s brother-in-law to corner the gold market and cause it to crash

James Fisk: Wall Street financier, collaborated with Jay Gould and Grant’s brother-in-law to corner the gold market and cause it to crash

Samuel Tilden: Ran in the Election of 1876 against Rutherford. B Hayes but neither of them won enough electoral votes to claim the election. As a result, a special electoral commission was formed to decide the election. but this commission had a Republican majority and ruled in favor of Hayes. This outraged Democrats and they threatened to block his inauguration, which led to the Compromise of 1877 to calm them down

Joseph McCoy: In the late 1860s, he promoted the cattle trade in Kansas, encouraging farmers to take their cattle from Texas to Abilene, Kansas to bring them to market and put them on trains to ship them to the rest of the eastern United States

Frederick Jackson Turner: A person who wrote The Significant of the Frontier in American History. In this essay, Turner argued that the American people should be very concerned over the closing of the frontier, because for all throughout the nation’s history, people had been able to move out west and explore whenever they wanted. Whenever people didn’t like their way of life or their living situation, they could just choose to move out west. Starting from the first colonization of the continent up until 1890, that had been true. But now, Turner argued that there was no longer a way for Americans to release discontent and that now, there was no stretch of land left that was safe from American society. He argued that without the frontier, society would take its hold and cause America to fall into class conflicts just like Europe, because now they had no “free” land left to escape to.

George Armstrong Custer: Lieutenant Colonel, died fighting against the Lakota Sioux and other groups of natives as part of the northern Sioux Wars, which became popularly known as “Custer’s Last Stand” and led to a desire for vengeance across the U.S.

Wovoka: A spiritual leader that led natives in practicing the Ghost Dance. This dance led to the Wounded Knee Massacre which ended native resistance during this period

Henry Grady: Editor of a newspaper called The Atlanta Constitution, coined the term “New South”, argued that in order for the South to prosper like the North, they needed to encourage industrial growth, economic diversity, and laissez-faire capitalism

Ida B. Wells: The editor of a black newspaper in the South and used it to argue against lynching and Jim Crow Laws

Henry Turner: Founded the International Migration Society in 1894 which helped many black Americans migrate and flee to Africa, especially to Liberia

Booker T. Washington: An African American educator, argued that black people needed to become economically self-sufficient and educated in order to see change happen. To this end, he created many speeches and cultivated the spread of many schools across the South for African Americans.

Henry Bessemer: An English engineer that patented the Bessemer Process in the 1850s, a new way of making higher-quality and stronger steel. The main idea of the Bessemer Process was to blast hot air through molten iron to get rid of impurities, creating stronger steel. This led to more steel being created and lower steel prices, allowing for the construction of more factories, railroads, and infrastructure.

Samuel Morse: Invented the telegraph in 1844, a device that allowed people to communicate across long distances through electric signals.

Cyrus Field: Linked the telegraph networks between America and Europe

Alexander Graham Bell: Invented the telephone in 1876, which allowed people to actually hear the sounds of other people’s voices from far away, and within a year, Bell founded the Bell Telephone Company, facilitating the spread of thousands of telephones across America

Thomas Edison: Patented the lightbulb in 1880, an innovation that was used to light cities all over the country and allowed workers to work well into the night while still being able to see

George Westinghouse: Developed alternating current for light and electricity and formed the Westinghouse Electric Company with Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla: Formed the Westinghouse Electric Company with George Westinghouse

John D. Rockefeller: Owner of Standard Oil, had a monopoly over the oil and petroleum industries, practiced horizontal integration and controlled almost 90% of the oil industry

Andrew Carnegie: Had a monopoly over the steel industry after the Bessemer Process was discovered, practiced vertical integration and bought up all of the companies related to steel production, sold his company to J. P. Morgan for half a billion dollars in 1901 and started devoting his life to philanthropy, believed in the Gospel of Wealth and believed that people should be given the resources needed to be successful and then have to work for it afterwards. He personally invested roughly $350 million to build libraries, concert halls, universities, and many other public institutions.

J. P. Morgan: Carnegie’s competitor, bought Carnegie’s company for half a billion dollars in 1901 and then created the U.S. Steel Corporation

Cornelius Vanderbilt: Had a monopoly over the railroad industry, merged local railroads along the northeast into the New York Central Railroad, connecting New York City to Chicago

George Pullman: Manufactured the Pullman sleeping cars for trains; after he cut wages in order to save money during the Panic of 1893 and fired some of his workers, this led to the Pullman Strike.

George Washington Vanderbilt II: The grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt, had the Biltmore House constructed in 1895, a 175,000 square feet house containing 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 4 floors, and 75 acres of formal gardens.

Henry Clay Frick: The manager of one of Carnegie’s steel mills, reduced workers’ wages and this led to the Homestead Strike of 1892. In response, he locked them out of the mill. After they surrounded it, Frick hired a small private army, the Pinkertons, to drive them off and this led to a gun battle that left roughly a dozen dead. In response, the Pennsylvania governor sent a militia to establish peace.

Eugene V. Debs: A union leader; during the Pullman Strike, he directed his members to not work on any of the trains that had Pullman cars. But because the owners of railroads and train cars worked closely together, they started hooking the Pullman cars to trains carrying federal mail, making it so that if they interfered with the cars, they were also interfering with federal mail. And so Debs and other union leaders were arrested for this, ending the strike. Started the Socialist Party of America in 1901, which died out after Debs ran for president and failed.

Samuel Gompers: Led the American Federation of Labor

Henry Cabot Lodge: Protestant minister, argued that the country was committing “race suicide” by allowing the arrival of so many “inferior races”

Jane Addams: Established settlement houses to take care of immigrants arriving in Chicago, including the famous Hull House in 1889. In these settlement houses, aid was given to immigrants in order to assimilate into American society. They were given education, taught English, healthcare, and employment resources. So while immigrants had a really difficult time during the Gilded Age, there were still some that were willing to provide aid.

H. H. Holmes: Considered America’s first serial killer

Joseph Pulitzer: Newspaper owner, heavily promoted journalism and the publication of papers, competed against William Randolph Hearst and this led to his journalists practicing yellow journalism

William Randolph Hearst: Newspaper owner, heavily promoted journalism and the publication of papers, competed against Joseph Pulitzer and this led to his journalists practicing yellow journalism

Phoebe Hearst: Followed Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth, spent her money establishing schools in order to help educate the poor

Henry George: A politician and economist, thought that it was ridiculous that a nation could have so many wealthy businesses and business owners while the common folk lived in poverty and squalor. He proposed the Single Tax on land

Edward Bellamy: Author. In 1888, he wrote a novel called Looking Backward in which a man goes to sleep in 1887 and wakes up in 2000 and discovers that America had been transformed into a socialist utopia where everybody’s needs were met and capitalism was a thing of the past.

Jacob Riis: Wrote How The Other Half Lives, a book that was a compilation of photographs that exposed the unsanitary living conditions of the poor and working class and all of the diseases they had to suffer with

Lewis Hine: A sociologist and photographer that brought the public’s attention to child labor.

Adam Smith: Enlightenment thinker from the 18th century, wrote The Wealth of Nations. In his publication, Smith argued that economies are best governed by the laws of supply and demand and that meant that people should leave the economy alone and let these two forces just do their thing. This meant that if you just let people make decisions in their own best personal interest, the economy’s “invisible hand” will always flourish, leading to society flourishing as well. And this invisible hand, as Smith said, should thrive under competition.

Queen Liliʻuokalani: Queen of Hawaii, overthrown in 1893 and this led to the U.S. annexation of Hawaii in 1898

William Jennings Bryan: In the Election of 1896, he was chosen as both the Populist and Democratic candidate and so this ended up splitting the votes between the two parties. The Republican candidate, William McKinley, won the Election of 1896, becoming the 23rd President, and this ended the Populist Era

Jacob Coxey: In 1894, he led an “army” of roughly there thousand people from Ohio to Washington D.C., protesting for relief for the unemployed and for Congress to pass a bill to authorize the construction of more roads to put the unemployed to work. This protest became known as Coxey’s Army. It failed and he was arrested. But public discontent continued to remain among the American public.

Boss Tweed: Ran the political machine of Tammany Hall in New York City.

William Seward: Lincoln’s and then Johnson’s secretary of state, bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for 7.2 million dollars. This purchase became known as Seward’s Folly because people believed that the territory was worthless and was just a frozen wasteland. But in 1898 though, gold was discovered in Alaska and many people began traveling to Alaska to mine for the precious metal.

Josiah Strong: Protestant minister, wrote a book titled “Our Country - Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis” in which he argued that the white race was the fittest and the pinnacle of evolution. He also said that because they were Christians, it was their duty to spread their influence overseas and bring the riches of Christianity and western civilization to less fortunate people.

Alfred Thayer Mahan: In 1890, he wrote “The Influence of Sea Power on History”, which argued that any country that got rich and powerful got that way because they had a strong navy. Because of that, he argued that the nation needed to develop a strong navy in order to have access to foreign markets. As a result, Congress approved the construction of a new fleet of ships and this fleet of ships allowed the nation to begin traveling to and taking over many islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean.

Emilio Aguinaldo: Led Filipinos in the Philippine–American War from 1899 to 1902 to try and gain independence from the United States after the Spanish-American War and the United States took over the Philippines. But in the end, the U.S. kept control of the Philippines and this would last for the next few decades until after World War II.

John Hay: President McKinley’s secretary of state, negotiated the Open Door Policy in China so that the United States could have access to free trade and equal privileges in China without European interference

Upton Sinclair: Muckraker who wrote The Jungle, a story about the unsanitary and dangerous conditions of the meat packing industry

Lincoln Steffens: Muckraker who wrote articles about political machines and exposed the practices of Boss Tweed

Ida Tarbell: Muckraker who wrote an expose of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company and the problems with trusts

Margaret Sanger: Muckraker who wrote about the lack of birth control for women

Frederick Taylor: In 1909, he published a book called Scientific Management with the goal of making factory work more efficient. Essentially, in this book, he argued that in order to save time and increase productivity in factories, factories should have a clear separation of tasks, use scientific methods to determine the best way of doing a job, and also have a strict hold over what their employees do and how they spend their time.

W.E.B. DuBois: Led the Niagara Movement, an organization established to plan protests to secure rights for the black population

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary: Assassinated in June of 1914, causing World War I

Mitchell Palmar: Attorney General; during the first Red Scare, he ordered the Palmar Raids, which was the mass arrest of socialists, radicals, union leaders, and more, leading to roughly 6,000 arrests and 500 deportations.

Nicola Sacco: Italian immigrant and anarchist, executed by an electric chair. This was heavily controversial and many saw this as a case of xenophobia and nativism gone too far

Bartolomeo Vanzetti: Italian immigrant and anarchist, executed by an electric chair. This was heavily controversial and many saw this as a case of xenophobia and nativism gone too far

Henry Ford: Opened his manufacturing plant in 1913 and began mass-producing automobiles. Created the assembly line and drove all of his other competitors out of business due to how quickly he was able to produce cars. This led to unskilled assembly line workers replacing skilled workers in the manufacturing industry

Marcus Garvey: Wanted African Americans to leave the United States altogether and return “back to Africa”. Garvey advocated for separatism and orchestrated the moving of many African Americans to Liberia in Africa. But controversially, the KKK also wanted this segregation and so Garvey often worked with them.

Louis Armstrong: Jazz musician during the Harlem Renaissance

Duke Ellington: Jazz musician during the Harlem Renaissance

Langston Hughes: Wrote about the black experience in America during the Harlem Renaissance

Claude McKay: Wrote about the black experience in America during the Harlem Renaissance

Francis Scott Fitzgerald: Wrote “The Great Gatsby” and other books with pessimistic views about American materialism, consumerism, and the waste of life and resources during World War I

Ernest Hemingway: Wrote “The Sun Also Rises” and other books with pessimistic views about American materialism, consumerism, and the waste of life and resources during World War I

Al Capone: Crime boss during the Prohibition era

John Scopes: Teacher in Tennessee that taught Darwin’s Theory of Evolution despite it being illegal there at the time. As a result, he was arrested and this led to the Scopes Monkey Trial in which his conviction was overturned

Huey Long: He and his Share Our Wealth Society said that the New Deal didn’t address wealth inequality enough and wanted a 100% tax rate to all incomes over a million dollars and for that money to be redistributed to poor people

Father Charles Coughlin: In a nationwide radio show, he called the New Deal as the “Pagan Deal” but eventually, his broadcasts stopped when his show started becoming anti-Semitic.

Dr. Francis Townsend: He wanted the Townsend Plan to be passed, which would give everyone over the age of 60 a monthly pension of $200 that they had to spend by the end of the month

Benito Mussolini: The head of the Fascist Party in Italy

Adolf Hitler: The leader of the Nazi Party in Germany, attacked Poland in 1939 which started World War II, caused the Holocaust, committed suicide in 1945 as Germany was losing the war

Joseph Stalin: Leader of the Soviet Union during World War II, met with Churchill and FDR in November of 1943 to plan the opening of a second front in Europe against Germany. Later, in February of 1945, he met them again in the Yalta Conference to plan out what was going to happen after the war ended. He installed communist governments in eastern European countries to act as a buffer zone between Russia and Germany in case Germany ever invaded again for a third time.

Winston Churchill: Prime Minister of Britain during World War II, met with Stalin and FDR in November of 1943 to plan the opening of a second front in Europe against Germany. Later, in February of 1945, he met them again in the Yalta Conference to plan out what was going to happen after the war ended. After the Soviet Union installed communist governments in eastern Europe, Churchill said that it was like an iron curtain had descended across the European continent.

George Marshall: Truman’s Secretary of State, developed the Marshall Plan

Chiang Kai-shek: Leader of the nationalists in China when the country fell into civil war before, during, and after World War II. Chiang had the support of the Americans and was recognized by the USSR but despite this, corruption among nationalist leaders was widespread and inflation took a rapid toll on their economy. By 1949, the nationalists were driven out of China and fled to Taiwan. From there, Chiang continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China

Mao Tse-tung: Leader of the communists in China when the country fell into civil war before, during, and after World War II. He had a tight hold on the peasantry and used patriotism and discipline to extend his influence amongst the population. While Truman tried sending $400 million and many military supplies in aid to Chiang, most of it ended up in communist hands due to corruption. As a result, he drove the nationalists out of China and he became the first Chairman of the People's Republic of China

Kim Il Sung: Communist leader of North Korea during the Korean War, attacked South Korea in 1950

Syngman Rhee: Conservative leader of South Korea during the Korean War

Nikita Khrushchev: Leader of the Soviet Union after Joseph Stalin’s death, denounced the United States after the U-2 Incident. Throughout 1962, the USSR had been doing a massive arms buildup in Cuba and this led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. After the crisis was resolved, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for JFK agreeing to remove the U.S. missiles in Turkey. Additionally, both JFK and Khrushchev agreed to install a hotline between the two superpowers to speed up communication in case of an emergency.

Fulgencio Batista: Cuban dictator, overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959

Fidel Castro: Communist that overthrew Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in 1959 and made Cuba a communist state. JFK attempted to overthrow Castro’s regime with the Bay of Pigs Invasion in April of 1961, which failed terribly

Alger Hiss: An official in the State Department, accused of being communist and sent to prison during the Second Red Scare

Ethel Rosenberg: Julius Rosenberg’s wife, charged with stealing technology and transmitting atomic secrets to the USSR, sentenced to electrocution in 1953

Julius Rosenberg: Ethel Rosenberg’s husband, charged with stealing technology and transmitting atomic secrets to the USSR, sentenced to electrocution in 1953

Joseph McCarthy: Senator. In 1950, McCarthy declared that he had a list of over 200 communists in the government and this led to a period of McCarthyism. Over the course of these four years, he brought in a stream of new accusations whenever officials would accuse his previous accusations of being false. This led to turmoil in the Truman administration and soon after, he began accusing public officials and several wealthy and famous people of being communists as well. But in 1954, his downfall began after he accused the leaders of the army of being communists. This led to the televised Army-McCarthy hearings and his censure in 1954. He fell from popularity and became disgraced before dying of alcoholism in 1957

William J. Levitt: Led the construction of suburban neighborhoods and promoted Levittown, a project of 17,000 low-priced mass-produced homes on Long Island.

Elvis Presley: Became very famous and well-known for his rock-and-roll music, and millions of teenagers and young adults began listening to this kind of music

Billy Graham: Reverend and religious leader; hosted annual “Crusades”, which were evangelistic campaigns, on television.

Dr. Benjamin Spock: Published a best-selling self-help book titled Baby and Child Care

Emmett Till: In the summer of 1955, when Emmett Till was visiting his uncle and cousin in Mississippi from Chicago, he was kidnapped, beaten, shot in the head, and shoved into a river. Three days later, his corpse was pulled out and shipped to Chicago where his mother had a five-day open-casket funeral to show the world what had happened. Thousands came to the Roberts Temple Church of God, as a result, to see what had happened to Emmett Till.

Earl Warren: 14th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, ruled that separate facilities were inherently unconstitutional. Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. This led to the end of school segregation but many schools were very slow in actually implementing the new ruling and took their time in desegregating schools. Also ruled Brown v. Board of Education, Mapp v. Ohio, Gideon v. Wainwright, Miranda v. Arizona, Baker v. Carr, Engel v. Vitale, and Griswold v. Connecticut

Rosa Parks: In 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the colored section for a white passenger. Her resulting arrest led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, lasting over a year.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Reverend and the minister of a Baptist church where the Montgomery Bus Boycott started. He became a leader of the movement to end segregation. Formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Led a massive protest in Birmingham in 1963 and after he was arrested as a result, he wrote the famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which he wrote that people have a moral responsibility to fight against unjust laws and he argued in support of peaceful nonresistance. This led to the Children’s Crusade later in May of that year. In August 4, 1963, more than 200,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington, which culminated in MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech in which he called for civil rights and an end to racism in the country. Later, he organized the Selma to Montgomery marches, a series of marches from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. Alabama state troopers blocked the marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and many marchers were beaten or had tear gas fired at them. In response, the president sent the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers and this led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Assassinated in 1968

Malcolm X: A black Muslim leader and separatist. He heavily criticized MLK for being subservient and Malcolm X was a strong supporter of using violence to fight against discrimination

Betty Friedan: Published a book titled “The Feminine Mystique”, which argued that women were not satisfied with just being housewives and encouraged women to seek fulfillment in professional careers; helped found the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966

Jacobo Arbenz: Overthrown by insurgents trained by the CIA because he was too socialist for the United States’ liking and had nationalized some of the land that the American United Fruit Company grew their bananas on in Guatemala

Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi: After the Iranian Prime Minister wanted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, the United States overthrew him and replaced him with Pahlavi. Pahlavi kept providing the U.S. with oil in exchange for weapons and money.

Ho Chi Minh: The leader of North Vietnam. Established a communist government and this would lead to the Vietnam War

Ngo Dinh Diem: Leader of South Vietnam. Established a democratic government and had the economic and military aid of the United States. In 1962, he lost the support of his own people and was later overthrown by his own generals and killed in 1963.

Thich Quang Duc: Immolated himself in public in protest of Diem in 1963

Lee Harvey Oswald: Assassinated JFK in November of 1963

Bob Dylan: New singer of the Counterculture

The Beatles: New band of the Counterculture

The Rolling Stones: New band of the Counterculture

Janis Joplin: New singer of the Counterculture

Rachel Carson: Wrote Silent Spring, a book about how humans were poisoning the environment, especially with the use of DDT pesticides, and were causing a silent spring (killing the birds around them, causing there to be no spring birdsong)

Barry Goldwater: Ran for president in 1964 with the help of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). Coined the term “The New Right”, which described conservatives who resisted liberalism, were populist, and believed that men and women should have separate roles in society.

William Buckley: Created a conservative magazine called the National Review

Jerry Falwell: A pastor who founded the Moral Majority in 1979. He held “I Love America” rallies and also argued that the separation of the church and state was causing society to be ruined.

James Dobson: Had a radio program named Focus on the Family which argued for the reintroduction of prayer into schools and for the resistance of gay rights.

Phyllis Schlafly: Conservative who argued that women benefited from not having equal rights because they got dependent wife benefits under Social Security, had separate bathrooms, and were protected from being drafted. Her actions prevented equal rights for women from becoming a Constitutional amendment

Sandra Day O’Connor: Nominated to the Supreme Court by Reagan, the first woman in the Supreme Court

Antonin Scalia: Nominated to the Supreme Court by Reagan, the first woman in the Supreme Court

Anthony Kennedy: Nominated to the Supreme Court by Reagan, the first woman in the Supreme Court

William Rehnquist: 16th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court became highly conservative under him. Also, he weakened affirmative action and Roe v. Wade by allowing states to impose regulations on abortion.

Mikhail Gorbachev: Became the Soviet premier (or leader) in 1982 and implemented the policies of glasnost and perestroika to open up Russia, and his actions led to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty in 1987 to reduce tension between the United States and Russia, a failed coup against Gorbachev in 1991 led to the fall of the USSR

Boris Yeltsin: After the USSR was dissolved in 1991, he became the first president of the new Russian Republic

Elon Musk: Billionaire, CEO of Tesla

Mark Zuckerberg: Billionaire, CEO of Facebook

Jeff Bezos: Billionaire, CEO of Amazon

Osama bin Laden: The leader of al Qaeda, used Afghanistan as a base for attacks, killed in 2011

Prince Henry the Navigator: A Portuguese explorer that attempted to find a passage to Asia by sailing around Africa, his actions would lead to Portugal establishing a trading-post empire

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella: The rulers who unified Spain and reconquered the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims, funded exploration in order to spread Christianity, funded Columbus’ voyage west in which he landed in the Americas, issued the Requerimiento,

Christopher Columbus: Came to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella seeking a sponsorship to sail west and find a route to Asia, he ended up landing on the island of San Salvador and called the inhabitants Indians because he thought he was in the East Indies. After he realized that these people had gold jewelry, he claimed the island for Spain and took some of the inhabitants back to Spain to show them off and their jewelry, his actions would lead to more Spaniards coming to the Americas for exploration and lead to the Columbian Exchange, introduced the encomienda system to the Americas before he left the Americas for the last time,

Bartholomeu Dias: From Portugal, first to sail around the southernmost tip of Africa in 1487

John Cabot: From England, sailed to the Chesapeake bay in search of the Northwest Passage and helped lay the groundwork for later British claim to Canada

Amerigo Vespucci: From Spain, explored the coast of South America in 1499, America was named after him

Juan Ponce de Leon: From Spain, discovered Florida in 1513 and died looking for the fountain of youth

Ferdinand Magellan: From Spain, his fleet circumnavigated the world starting in 1519 but he died on the way in the Philippines

Hernan Cortez: Spanish conquistador that invaded Tenochtitlan and conquered the Aztecs in Mexico with just a few thousand men

Francisco Pizarro: Spanish conquistador that conquered the Incas in Peru

Jacques Cartier: A French explorer that looked for a Northwest Passage and explored parts of Canada

Francisco Vázquez de Coronado: A Spanish explorer that led a large expedition from Mexico to present-day Kansas through parts of the Southwestern United States

Popé: A leader of the Pueblo people, he and the Pueblo rose up and killed roughly 400 colonizers and burned all the churches to the ground in the Pueblo Revolt. But then 12 years later, the Spanish returned and reconquered the land.

King Charles I: Grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, convened a group of priests, philosophers, and jurors to discuss the morality and legality of Spanish conquest and many of these men argued that the natives were inferior and backward and that colonization was actually good for them because it gifted them with the riches of western civilization

Bartolomé de las Casas: A priest who had preached among the natives for many years and advocated for better treatment because brutalizing them would make them lost to God. He argued that the natives should be replaced by Africans