What are three key events in American history for you? Why?

Question

u can just list them. but i'd preffer some justification. the more convincing the better. do not afraid to write a lot if u have a need.
maybe your answer will be the best.(in my oppinion)

Answer 1

In chronological order:

1) Battle of New Orleans, 1815. As much as I despise Andrew Jackson, I have to list this as a key event as a successful British invasion might have negated the Treaty of Ghent signed two weeks prior and perhaps limited the western expansion of the United States to the west coast. It also allowed the US to mostly withdraw from the affairs of Europe and develop as its own nation for about a century.

2) The Union victory at Antietam, 1862. Lee's first northern drive was the Confederacy's best chance at winning the war as a successful push into Union territory might have convinced the United Kingdom and France to grant diplomatic recognision to the CSA and possible intervention. Instead, it kept Europe out of the conflict and allowed President Lincoln to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, changing the war from a battle to preserve the nation into a moral fight, insuring that the CSA's chances at victory were slim to none.

3) Pearl Harbour, 1941. Except for the brief hiccup of the Great War, the US had been content to let the rest of the world act on its own while the US went about its own business in terms of the Monroe Doctrine and peaceful trade. The Japanese attack shocked the country into realising that the world would not allow the US to evolve on its own terms. Instead, it forced the US to assume the responsibilities of being a world power, which it was beforehand, but the sleeping kind as Yamamoto would have put it. America's role in the world would never allow a return to an isolationist stance.

Honourable mentions:

The invention of the telegraph, 1844. Without Morse's invention, the US might have become too large for its own good as communication with the West Coast would have been painfully slow. A schism of East and West might have occurred if California and Oregon felt that they were part of the United States in name only. The telegraph allowed the country to become one nation in the truest sense.

World Trade Centre, 2001. This one is hard to judge as we are still living in its shadow. What we do know is that the complacency of the American public in regard to foreign policy is now gone. Even if we want to withdraw forces from Iraq, it won't change the mentality that we are subject to attack at any time and cannot be reactive as we had been before.

Answer 2

1) The Signing of the Declaration of Independence. This event, though it may seem a bit symbolic to some, really changed the form of the American Revolution. It changed this from a mere civil war to a clear and open secession from England.

2) The Adoption of the American Constituion with the Bill of Rights. This moment marked the inception of the oldest living republican state which still stands to this day. This event also marked a trademark of American law, where the rights of people are protected from the very beginning.

3) Marbury vs. Madison This case is the case which established judicial review, or the power of courts to declare lawsd null and void if they violate the United States Constitution. In this case, the Justices found that Congress did not have the Constitutional Power to modify Court Jurisdiction. However, this case has led to other more recent cqases, such as Brown v. Board of Education (the Supreme Court found that Segregation Laws violated the Constitution and so declared them null and void) and Roe v. Wade (the court struck down laws prohibiting abortion). This landmark decision has also resulted in what some people call a "legislative" or "activist" judiciary, where it seems the Supremem Court is doing more to change laws than the legislative branch of the governemnt. This point is still up for debate, though.

Answer 3

Washingtons victory at Yorktown, The French finally used their navy effectively cutting Cornwalis off from any chance of vicotry. It was essentially the end of the war and vicotry for what was not even a country yet.

Ratification of Constitution. Flawed though it may be, the US constitution has remained the guide that has kept our nation together through early rebellions, a massive civil war, the depths of the depression, transfers of power, both the usual smooth ones of one president to another, but also covered death of a president (the only real impact of Wm Henry Harrisons presidnecy) and Nixons resignation.

Dropping of the atom bomb, vicotry over Japan in WWII. The birth of a super power. Through these events, the US showed the world that they had the ultimate weapon and were not afraid to use it. I am not sure if this was the moral decision, if it was best for the US in the long run, if we would have lost 1 million soldiers invading Japan, or any of the other questions surrounding this event, but it changed everything. The US was not really a world power, we were vital yes, but more for our production and economic impact, adding the military aspect, creating US colonialism the impact of the cold war, I think without a doubt this is probably the biggest.

Hon mentions:
Declaration of Independence, yeah it was a bunch of rich land owners merchants and the such deciding for a whole bunch of people that we were going to war, but dan was it ballsy.

9/11 - I agree there is no way to see its historical impact yet, but I remember very clearly looking at my soon to be step daughter at 5 years old and feeling very sad for the world that dissapeared when those towers fell.

Answer 4

1st the establishment of the Constitution. Yes, the revolution was important, but the Articles of Confederation were flawed and the US would have collapsed with out the Constitution.

2nd the election of Abe Lincoln. It was this election which sparked the Civil War and ended the nearly 100 year old compromise that allowed Slavery to continue despite the ideals expressed in the Bill of Rights.

3rd the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. US entry into the Second World War moved the nation from Regional Power to Super Power. Prior to WWII world power was centered in Western Europe, after the war Power was centered in The US, the Soviet Union & China.

Any of the other key events in US history can be traced to one of these three events.

Answer 5

It is certainly hard to only have 3:
Signing of the Declaration of Independence. Took some guts, faith, trust and righteousness to do that.
The Battle for Iwo Jima. My dad was there and took a very similar picture to the famous one. It was a bloodbath, and few survivied it, but he did.
Kennedy Asassination: It was the beginning of the end of the US as we've known it. It was covered up, and explained to death. We have never heard the truth, and never will.
Even tho the government has always had corruption before, it was when we as citizens started to figure out that presidents were corrupt, and their lives are a mess. We then had a war no one wanted to win, and millions going to corrupt governments overseas, and it has been a rush downhill ever since.
This government is not what any thinking person would wish on their children. There is huge debt, cheating/bribery/pork barrel, making millions for terrorists, no health insurance, lousy schools, and no one seems to care.
This is a sad, corrupt, morally bankrupt country now, and it is pitiful to see it fall apart right before my eyes.

Answer 6

911 is the first. I was at work and we all prayed together. About 100 people including customers.
Vietnam..my cousin got killed..I wrote a letter to President Johnson and he sent the FBI after me but the didn't do anything.
2000 seeing a new century come in was awesome. Just think living through a whole new century.

Answer 7

choosing one from each century:

Establishment of the Bank of the United States spearheaded by Alexander Hamilton, chartered in 1791, established US Govt on sound economic basis, assumed states debts, confidence of foreign powers, enabling loans from France and Holland, enabled Congress to fund a precursor to the Coast Guard and fund the US Navy.

Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 addressed problems debated in Colonial America, but which proliferated and were passed on to future generations.

Assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963, the first of three that decade, cut short progressive possibilities of that era.

Answer 8

The Louisiana Purchase, more then doubled the size of the United States territory.

WWI which brought us out of the isolationist mode we were in.

Richard Nixon resigning in Aug of 1974. It showed that the constitution works.

Answer 9

1986- I got married to the love of my life, and we are still very much in love.
1992- I had my precious son after waiting for ever.( The month before I lost a best friend, My Mom, due to murder, so God took away a life, but gave me a brand new one. He is the spitting image of her.)
1994- I had my 2nd baby & got my tubes tied. (I was 30 & did not want to be too old to enjoy them. we are truely blessed.

Answer 10

THE BATTLE OF YORKTOWN...WHICH SEALED AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE FROM ENGLAND!!.....THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY" IN THE PACIFIC AGAINST THE JAPANESE NAVY!!!AND THE "BATTLE OF THE BULGE" FOUGHT AGAINST THE GERMAN WEHRMACHT IN THE ARDENNES FOREST AND ACROSS BELGIUM!!....THE AID OF THE FRENCH NAVY UNDER "ADMIRAL DEGASSE" IN BLOCKADING THE ENGLISH AND MERCENARY GERMAN TROOPS OF " LORD CORNWALLIS" BROUGHT THE COLONIES INTO A SITUATION IN WHICH WE WERE PROTECTED FROM ENGLAND BY THE ATLANTIC OCEAN!!!!THE DEFEAT OF THE "EXCELLENT AND WELL ORDERED IMPERIAL JAPANESE BATTLE FLEET" at MIDWAY MADE THE PACIFIC OCEAN SAFE AGAINST ANY AVAILABLE FORCE THAT COULD ATTACK FROM THE EAST BY SEA!!!AND THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE ENDED ANY CHANCE OF CONTINUED SEA OR LAND INCURSIONS BY GERMANY INTO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN AND ALONG THE ATLANTIC COASTS OF AMERICA...WHICH IT HERETOFOR HAD WITH IT'S "SUBMARINE OFFENSIVES" AND POCKET BATTLESHIPS" AND DISGUISED "CRUISER" RAIDERS WHICH SANK MILLIONS OF TONS OF WAR MATERIALE ON IT'S WAY TO AID BOTH EUROPE AND LATER RUSSIA IN DEFEATING GERMANY ON THREE OR FOUR FRONTS!!BECAUSE OF THESE THREE GREAT BATTLES..NO WAY WAS LATER BROUGHT TO AMERICA'S SOIL!!!