The treaty signed at Paris in December 1898 ended the war between the United States and Spain. Along with Puerto Rico and Guam, which archipelago did Spain hand over for a payment of $20 million?

William McKinley was shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo and died on September 14, 1901. Which sitting vice president was sworn in as president that day?

In March 1947 President Truman asked Congress for $400 million to help two governments at the eastern end of the Mediterranean resist communist pressure. Which two countries got that aid?

Facing near-certain impeachment over the Watergate cover-up, which president announced his resignation and left office on August 9, 1974?

East Germany opened its checkpoints on the night of November 9, and crowds crossed freely and began breaking apart the Berlin Wall. In which year did this happen?

In May 1927 a former airmail pilot flew the Spirit of St. Louis alone and nonstop from New York to Paris in roughly 33 hours. Who was he?

The Montgomery bus boycott began in December 1955 after the arrest of a local NAACP secretary who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. Who was arrested?

Japan attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. What did Congress do the following day?

Militants seized the US embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979 and held 52 Americans. How long was the hostage crisis before the release in January 1981?

The first artificial satellite to orbit Earth was launched by the Soviet Union in October 1957 and alarmed American officials. What was it called?

Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917, and Britain passed Washington a German telegram offering Mexico an alliance. What did these two developments produce in April 1917?

The Senate voted against the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and again in 1920, largely over the collective-security obligation in Article X. What was the direct result?

The Dawes Act of 1887 split reservations into individual allotments. Tribal holdings fell from about 138 million acres to about 48 million by 1934. How did most of that land leave tribal hands?

US reconnaissance found Soviet missile sites in Cuba in October 1962, and Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine of the island. How was the thirteen-day crisis settled?

From 1948 to 1952 the United States sent about $13 billion to rebuild the economies of Western Europe. What was the strategic reasoning behind spending that much?

On June 6, 1944 Allied forces landed on five beaches in Normandy. Strategically, what did the landings accomplish in the war against Germany?

Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8. What followed within weeks?

In his farewell address of January 1961, Eisenhower said the country must guard against 'the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.' What was he warning about?

After reported attacks on US destroyers in August 1964, Congress authorized the president to 'take all necessary measures' in Southeast Asia. What did that resolution make possible?

President Nixon spent a week in China in February 1972, meeting Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. What did the visit accomplish for US Cold War strategy?

In June 1948 the Soviet Union cut road, rail and canal access to the western sectors of Berlin. How did the United States and Britain keep those sectors supplied for nearly a year?

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, US and allied forces began military operations in October 2001 against the government sheltering al-Qaeda. Which country was that?

From 1910 to 1940 the main West Coast immigration station stood on an island in San Francisco Bay, where many Chinese arrivals were detained for weeks or months. What was it called?

Drought and dust storms in the 1930s hit hardest across the southern Great Plains. Which group of states sat at the center of the Dust Bowl?

The canal the United States opened across Central America in 1914 shortened the voyage between the east and west coasts. Which southern cape did ships no longer have to round?

In June 1942 US carriers destroyed four Japanese carriers near a small atoll northwest of Hawaii, turning the war in the Pacific. Which battle was it?

Since 1950 the Sun Belt states of the South and Southwest have grown much faster in population than the Northeast and Midwest. What has that shift done to representation in Congress?

The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 and federally backed mortgages made commuting cheap and new houses affordable outside city limits. What was the main result on the ground in the 1950s and 1960s?

By 1900 Pittsburgh was the country's steelmaking capital. Which combination of locations best explains why the mills concentrated there?

During the 1920s the Harlem neighborhood of New York City became the center of a flowering of Black writing, music and art. Which movement of people had built that concentration?

Between 1942 and 1964 the Bracero Program admitted Mexican workers on temporary contracts. Where did most of them work, and at what?

Before 1913 state legislatures chose United States senators. Which amendment, ratified that year, gave the choice to the voters of each state?

Ratified in 1951 after Franklin Roosevelt had been elected four times, which amendment limits a president to two elected terms?

During the Vietnam War the argument 'old enough to fight, old enough to vote' produced an amendment ratified in 1971. What did it do?

In 1896 the Supreme Court held in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate railroad cars for Black and white passengers were lawful. Which later decision rejected that doctrine in public education?

Executive Order 9066 sent about 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of them US citizens, from the West Coast to relocation camps in 1942. How did the Court rule in Korematsu v. United States?

In 1966 the Supreme Court held that a suspect held in police custody must be told of the right to stay silent and to have a lawyer present. Which protections was the Court enforcing?

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 makes a president report a troop deployment to Congress within 48 hours and pull the force out within 60 days unless Congress authorizes it. What was Congress trying to do?

Which 1890 law declared illegal 'every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States'?

Which 1913 law set up twelve regional banks under a national board to manage the money supply and act as a lender of last resort to member banks?

The Social Security Act of 1935 created old-age insurance. What paid for those benefits?

Before 1883 each town kept its own local noon, so a single rail line could run through dozens of different local times. How did the railroads settle the scheduling problem that November?

Ford's moving assembly line at Highland Park cut the time to build a Model T chassis from over twelve hours to about ninety minutes. What did that do to the car's price and its market?

In the late 1920s many Americans bought stock on margin, borrowing most of the purchase price from their broker. Why did that practice make the October 1929 crash worse?

With roughly one worker in four unemployed in 1933, New Deal agencies such as the CCC and later the WPA hired people directly for public projects. What was the economic reasoning?

The tariff act signed in June 1930 pushed US duties on hundreds of imported goods to record levels. How did other countries respond, and what happened to trade?

The Wagner Act of 1935 protected the right to organize and required employers to bargain with a union chosen by a majority of their workers. What happened to union membership afterward?

The GI Bill of 1944 paid tuition and living costs for returning veterans and backed low-interest home loans. What were its two biggest effects after the war?

The OPEC embargo that followed the October 1973 war cut oil shipments to the United States and gasoline prices jumped. What unusual economic combination marked the rest of the decade?

During the 1990s American businesses and households adopted personal computers and the Internet on a mass scale. Which economic change came out of that adoption?