What Are the Best Quizlet Decks for AP US History?

🌽Period 1: 1491 - 1607 (4-6% of exam):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• Columbian Exchange🔺: An exchange of goods, ideas, diseases, and skills from the Old World (Europe, Asia, And Africa) to the New World (the Americas) in the early 1500s. The Columbian Exchange linked the continents through trade and promoted cultural interaction.
• Atlantic Slave Trade 🚢: Trade between Africa and the Americas for African American slaves who worked primarily on cotton and sugar plantations to produce profit during the 16th-19th century.
• Protestant Reformation 🙏: 16th-century European movement that aimed to reform the Roman Catholic Church and its practices. Powerful leaders having too much control over the Church.

⛵Period 2: 1607 - 1754 (6-8%):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• Indentured servitude ⛏️: System where people gained passage to the New World in exchange for providing labor for a certain amount of years.
• Jamestown, VA 🏘️: The first English colony in America. Economic success based on the tobacco cash crop. Not a stable economy compared to the northern colonies.
• Salutary Neglect 👩‍⚖️: Initially, the British believed in lax enforcement of their parliamentary laws which gave the American colonies a degree of autonomy.

🔫Period 3: 1754 - 1800 (10-17%):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• Natural Rights ➡️: Philosophy advocated for by John Locke that entailed the American’s rights to life, liberty, and property. The Americans had the right to overthrow the government if they deemed it unjust.
• Stamp Act ✉️: 1765 tax that Britain imposed on the American colonies to pay off the debt from the French and Indian War. It taxed the colonists without representation (🗣"No taxation without representation") and challenged Parliament’s power over the Americans.
• Kentucky & Virginia Resolutions 📜: Thomas Jefferson and James Madison covertly wrote those documents to argue that states had the right to nullify (invalidate) the Federal Government’s legislation if it was unconstitutional.

🐎Period 4: 1800 - 1848 (10-17%):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• The Embargo Act of 1807 🐢: Thomas Jefferson chose to forbid foreign trade with France and Britain during the Napoleonic Wars in efforts to preserve the American economy. The British broke the Neutrality Policy of America by attacking American merchants and cargo ships so this was a diplomatic retaliation.
• American System 🚂: Henry Clay proposed protective tariffs for American industries, a strong federal bank to serve as a national depository, and stood for internal developments.
• Battle of New Orleans ⚔️: General Andrew Jackson became known as a war hero and gained public support because he won the battle, although the War of 1812 had already ended two weeks ago, but he didn't know.

💣Period 5: 1848 - 1877 (10-17%):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• Texas Annexation 🔫: In 1845, the US Gov. annexed (took) Texas with Congress' support and later divided the land into other parts of new states. The US refrained from doing so in 1837 to avoid a war with Mexico when Texas wasn’t a free republic.
• Dred Scott Decision ⚖️: Dred Scott was a black slave who resided in the Louisiana territory for four years and argued that he was a free man based on the Missouri Compromise. The Supreme Court decided that he couldn’t sue the state because he was property.
• Sojourner Truth 👵🏿: An American feminist and abolitionist who believed in women’s and black rights. She was a former slave who was freed in 1827.

🚂Period 6: 1865 - 1898 (10-17%):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• Andrew Carnegie 💰: led the expansion of the American steel industry and become one of the wealthiest Americans. He paved the way for the economic boom by the late 19th century.
• Great Railroad Strike (1877) 🚂: workers' wages were cut by 10% which led to the first nationwide strike within the Union. This was caused because of the large railroad companies that were profiting and the laborers weren’t doing well in terms of job layoffs and lack of pay.
• Great Sioux War 🐴: the US government wanted the Black Hills territory for its gold so they fought and negotiated with the Native Americans (Sioux, Lakota, and Northern Cheyenne) in South Carolina.

🌎Period 7: 1890 - 1945 (10-17%):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• New Deal 📉: series of public improvement and relief plans introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt to fix the economy after the Great Depression after it took away jobs, decreased monetary circulation, and depleted the banks. FDR’s plan highlights the significance of federal spending during an economic crisis such as an economic recession and depression.
• Red Scare 🔴: Hysteria over the communist ideas spreading to America and corrupting the American people. This intensified during the 1950s because of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, where the Soviet Union was a communist nation and the US favored democracy.
• Manhattan Project 💣: Name of the project that oversaw the development of the atomic bomb used by the US on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WW2 on Japan. The atomic bomb’s development foreshadowed nuclear conflict as seen with the Cold War during Period 8.

🥶Period 8: 1945 - 1980 (10-17%):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• Clean Air Act 🌄: Result of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring in the 1970s. It highlights America’s move towards improving the health of people and raising the quality of air by regulating air emissions. The Americans focused on an environmentally safe society.
• OPEC🛢️: Formed in 1960 to represent the major oil-producing nations who had the power to create a monopoly over the oil prices based on supply and demand.
• The Vietnam War 🔫:  This was a war between the North Vietnamese, a Communist nation, and the South Vietnamese. The USA supported the South to prevent the spread of Communism.

🎮Period 9: 1980 - Present (4-6%):

Key Ideas:

Key Terms:

• Mikhail Gorbachev 🇷🇺: Introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic reconstruction) to the Soviet Union in efforts to liberalize the nation and fix damaged relations with the Western nations.
• Department of Homeland Security 🤺: Formed after the 9/11 attacks to gather all intel and resources for national security. The goal was to prevent terrorist attacks and catch perceived threats.
• North American Free Trade Agreement 🤝: 1993 economic agreement between the USA, Canada, and Mexico to protect free trade or trade without tariffs as a domestic policy that would maximize profits.