The first permanent English settlement in North America was planted at Jamestown in 1607 by a joint-stock company chartered to make a profit for its investors. Which company was it?

In 1619 Virginia's settlers elected representatives who met at Jamestown to make laws for the colony, the first representative assembly in English America. What was that body called?

William Penn received a charter in 1681 and founded a colony offering religious toleration and a refuge for his fellow Quakers. Which colony was it?

In the 1730s and 1740s preachers such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards drew huge outdoor crowds up and down the colonies, splitting congregations as they went. What is this revival called?

Which treaty ended the Revolutionary War, with Britain recognizing American independence and accepting the Mississippi River as the new nation's western boundary?

Parliament's Navigation Acts required colonial goods to travel in English ships and certain products to be sold only to England. Which economic idea did that trade policy serve?

Having defeated France in 1763, Britain forbade colonists to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains. Why did so many colonists resent that order?

The Declaration of Independence says people are 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' What claim about rights is being made?

In October 1777 an entire British army surrendered to American forces at Saratoga in New York. What was the most important result of that victory?

In Virginia after 1676, planters relied less on indentured servants from England and more on enslaved Africans held for life. What best explains that shift?

Under the nation's first plan of government, Congress could not levy taxes or regulate trade, and there was no president and no federal court system. What was that plan called?

Which three men wrote the essays published in 1787 and 1788 urging New York to ratify the proposed Constitution?

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set the rules for governing land north of the Ohio River. What did it provide?

In 1803 the United States bought roughly 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for about $15 million, doubling the size of the country. Which nation sold it?

At Virginia's 1788 ratifying convention, Patrick Henry and George Mason argued that the proposed Constitution handed too much power to a distant government and left personal rights unprotected. What came of such objections?

In 1819 the Supreme Court held that Congress could charter a national bank and that Maryland could not tax it. Which constitutional ideas did that ruling rest on?

Small states at the 1787 convention wanted every state represented equally; large states wanted representation by population. How was the dispute settled?

Leaving office in 1796, George Washington advised that 'it is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.' What course was he urging?

By the 1830s most states had dropped property requirements for voting, and popular votes rather than legislatures chose presidential electors. What changed as a result?

The Supreme Court ruled in 1832 that Georgia's laws had no force inside Cherokee territory, yet the Cherokee were driven west anyway on the march remembered as the Trail of Tears. What does that outcome show?

The war with Mexico ended in 1848 with a treaty transferring California and most of the present-day Southwest to the United States. Which treaty was it?

Which part of the Compromise of 1850 angered Northerners most, because it obliged citizens and local officials to help capture people who had escaped slavery?

Slavery was abolished everywhere in the United States by a constitutional amendment ratified in December 1865. Which amendment was it?

Where did Robert E. Lee surrender the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865?

In 1857 the Supreme Court held that Congress had no power to bar slavery from a federal territory. What did that ruling do to the earlier line drawn across the Louisiana Purchase?

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 let the settlers of each territory vote on whether to permit slavery. What happened in Kansas as partisans of both sides poured in?

The Emancipation Proclamation, effective January 1, 1863, freed enslaved people in the places then 'in rebellion against the United States.' Why did it free no one in Kentucky or Maryland?

In May 1861 the Confederacy moved its capital to Richmond, roughly 100 miles from Washington, D.C. What followed from siting the two capitals so close together?

After the Civil War many freedmen and poor white farmers worked land owned by others, paying rent with a share of the crop and buying seed and tools on credit at high interest. What was the usual result?

The disputed presidential election of 1876 was settled by a bargain that made Rutherford B. Hayes president. What did that bargain mean for the South?

Which 1882 law barred Chinese laborers from entering the country, the first federal statute to exclude immigrants by nationality?

Seventy-two years after the Seneca Falls convention of 1848, women won the vote nationwide. Which amendment made that change?

Which territories did the United States take from Spain under the treaty that ended the war of 1898?

Which 1935 New Deal law created old-age pensions paid for by payroll taxes, together with a federal-state system of unemployment insurance?

On June 6, 1944 Allied forces landed on five beaches in Normandy in the largest seaborne invasion ever attempted. By what name is that landing known?

Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel The Jungle described filth and danger in Chicago's meatpacking plants and horrified its readers. What did Congress do that same year?

Early in 1917 Germany resumed sinking merchant ships without warning, and a German telegram offered Mexico American territory in exchange for an alliance. What did the United States then do?

In 1896 the Supreme Court upheld a Louisiana law requiring separate railway cars for Black and white passengers. What did that decision let states do for the next 58 years?

Between 1916 and 1930 well over a million African Americans left the rural South for cities such as Chicago, Detroit and New York. What best explains that movement?

Thousands of American banks failed between 1930 and 1933, and their depositors lost their savings. Which New Deal measure was aimed squarely at that problem?

Which American program sent billions of dollars of aid to rebuild the shattered economies of Western Europe after World War II?

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that separate public schools for Black and white children are inherently unequal. Which case was that?

In 1949 the United States joined Canada and ten Western European nations in an alliance whose members pledged that an armed attack on one would be treated as an attack on all. What is it?

During the Vietnam War, critics asked how men could be drafted at 18 but denied the ballot. Which amendment, ratified in 1971, lowered the voting age to 18?

In 1947 President Truman asked Congress for aid to Greece and Turkey, saying the United States must support free peoples resisting armed subjugation. Which Cold War policy did that request launch?

In October 1962 American spy planes photographed Soviet missile sites being built in Cuba, and Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine of the island. How did the crisis end?

After the 1954 school desegregation ruling, some Virginia officials cut off funds to schools and closed them rather than admit Black and white students together. What does that response show?

At the March on Washington in August 1963, King said he dreamed his children would 'not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.' What was he calling for?

After reported attacks on US destroyers in 1964, Congress passed a resolution authorizing the president to take all necessary measures in Southeast Asia. What was its effect?

After hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, how did the federal government reorganize itself?