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SAT Subject Test: U.S. History

Subjects : sat, history
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. During McCarthyism - provided the congressional forum in which many hearings about suspected communists in the government took place.






2. A series of investigations in 1987 exposed evidence that the US had been selling arms to the anti-American government in Iran and using the profits from these sales to secretly and illegally finance the Contras in Nicaragua. (The Contras were a rebel






3. Passed in 1940. This act made it illegal to speak of - or advocate - overthrowing the US government. During the presidential campaign of 1948 - Truman demonstrated his aggressive stance against communism by prosecuting eleven leaders of the Communist






4. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969. His liberal court made a number of important decisions - primarily in the realm of civil rights - including Brown v Board of Education of Topeka in 1954.






5. Andrew Jackon's 1832 veto of the proposed charter renewal for the Second Bank of the United States. The veto marked the beginning of Jackon's five-year battle against the national bank.






6. Democratic candidate for president in 1896. His goal of "free silver" (unlimited coinage of silver) won him the support of the Populist Party. Though a gifted orator - he lost the election to Republican William McKinley. He ran again for president in






7. Political figure throughout the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson. He served as James Monroe's secretary of war - as John Quincy Adam's vice president - and then as Andrew Jackson's vice president for one term. A firm believer in states' ri






8. Passed by Federalists in 1798 in response to the XYZ Affair and growing Democratic-Republican support. On the grounds of "national security -" the acts increased the number of years required to gain citizenship - allowed for the imprisonment and depo






9. The last Soviet political leader. He became general secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 and president of the USSR in 1988. He helped ease tension between the US and the USSR- work that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. He oversaw the fal






10. A prominent transcendentalist writer. Two of his most famous writings are Civil Disobediance (1849) and Walden (1854). He advocatd living life according to one's conscience - removed from materialism and repressive social codes.






11. President Eisenhower's philosophy of government. He called it this to distinguish it from the Republican administrations of the past - which he deemed backword-looking and complacent. He was determined to work with the Democratic Party rather than ag






12. Created by FDR to cope with the added economic difficulties brought on by the cold winter months of 1933. The organization spent approximately $1 billion on short-term projects for the unemployed but was abolished in the spring of that year.






13. Delegates from five states met in Annapolis in September 1786 to discuss interstate commerce. However - discussions of weaknesses in the government led them to suggest to Congress a new convention to amend the Articles of Confederation.






14. The stock market crash of October 24 - 1929. After a decade of great prosperity - on this day the market dropped in value by an astonishing 9 percent - kicking off the Great Depression.






15. Created in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal - this organization pumped money into the economy by employing the destitute in conservation and other projects.






16. Created in 1933 as part of FDR's New Deal. This administration controlled the production and prices of crops by offering subsidies to farmers who stayed under set quotas. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in the Butler v US decision - in






17. Created by JFK in 1961. The organization sends volunteer teachers - health workers - and engineers on two-year aid programs to Third World countries.






18. Conducted during the summer and fall of 1940. In preparation for an amphibious assault - Germans launched airstrikes on London. Hitlers hoped the continuous bombing would destroy British industry and hurt morale - but the British successfully avoided






19. Submitted by Benjamin Franklin to the 1754 gathering of colonial delegates in Albany - New York. The plan called for the colonies to unify in the face of French and Native American threats. Although the delegates in Albany approved the plan - the col






20. America's second president - served from 1797 to 1801. A federalist - he supported a powerful centralized government. His most notable actions in office were the undertakng of the quasi-war with France and the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts.






21. Led by future president William Henry Harrison - US forces defeated Shawnee forces in this battle in 1811. The US victory lessed the Native American threat in Ohio and Indiana.






22. A prominant publisher who bought the New York Journal in the late 1890s. His paper - along with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World - engaged in yellow journalism - printing sensational reports of Spanish activities in Cuba in order to win a circulation






23. Major American author in the 1930s. His novels depict simple - rural lives. His most famous work is The Grapes of Wrath (1939).






24. Although Andrew Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes in the 1824 election - he failed to win the requisite majority and the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Henry Clay backed John Quincy Adams for






25. After World War II - this organization workerd on developing more effective ways of usting nuclear material - such as uranium - in order to mass-produce nuclear weapons.






26. The English government's policy of not enforcing certain trade laws it imposed upon the American colonies throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The purpose of this policy was largely to ensure the loyalty of the colonies in






27. In 1962 - a year after the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion - the US government learned that Soviet missile bases were being constructed in Cuba. President JFK demanded that the USSR stop shipping military equipment to Cuba and remove the bases. US forces






28. President of the Russian Republic in 1991 - when hard-line Communists attempted to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. After helping to repel these hard-liners - he and the leaders of the other Soviet republics declared an end to the USSR - forcing Gorbache






29. Created in 1962. United college students throughout the country in a network committed to achieving racial equality - alleviating poverty - and ending the Vietnam War.






30. A group of zealous Chinese nationalists terrorized foreigners and Chinese Christians - capturing Beijing (Peking) in June 1900 and threatening European and American interests in Chinese markets. The US committed 2 -500 men to an international force t






31. Chartered in 1791 - the bank was a controversial part of Hamilton's Federalist economic program.






32. Adopted in 1777 during the Revolutionary War. They established the first limited central government of the US - reserving most powers for the individual states. However they didn't grant enough federal power to manage the country's budget or maintain






33. Written by Rachel Carson and published in 1962. Exposed the environmental hazards of the pesticide DDT. Carson's book helped spur an increase in environmental awareness and concern among the American people.






34. Written by Kate Chopin in 1899. This novel portrays a married woman who defies social convention first by falling in love with another man - and then by committing suicide when she finds that his views on women are as oppressive as her husband's. It






35. Once a prominent member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - he abandoned his nonviolent leanings and became a leader of the Black Nationalist movement in 1966. He coined the phrase "Black Power."






36. Issued on August 14 - 1941 during a meeting between President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The charter outlined the ideal postwar world - condemned military aggression - asserted the right to national self-determination - a






37. A leader of the Sons of Liberty. He suggested the formation of the Committees of Correspondence and fought for colonial rights throughout New England. He is credited with provoking the Boston Tea Party.






38. Founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent clergymen. Fought against segregation using nonviolent means.






39. A failed attempt by US-backed Cuban exiles to invade Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government in April 1961.






40. The relaxation of tensions between the US and USSR in the 1960s and 1970s. During this period - the two powers signed treaties limiting nuclear arms productions and opened up economic relations. one of the most famous advocates of this policy was Pre






41. An important political figure during the Era of Good Feelings and the Age of Jackson. He engineered and championed the American System - a program aimed at economic self-sufficiency for the nation. As speaker of the house during Monroe's term in offi






42. The popular name for the Kansas Territory in 1856 after abolitionist John Brown led a massacre at a pro-slavery camp - setting off waves of violence. Brown's massacre was in protest to the recent establishment of Kansas as a slave state. Pro-slavery






43. Signed on Christmas Eve in 1815. Ended the War of 1812 and returned relations between the US and Britain to the way things were before the war.






44. A writer and a disciple of transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. His major work - Leaves of Grass (1855) - celebrated America's diversity and democracy.






45. A fiction writer who gained popularity in the 1840s for his horrific tales. He published many famous stories - including "The Raven" (1844) and "The Cask of Amontillado" (1846).






46. Explored the northeast coast of North American in 1497 and 1498 - claiming Nova Scotia - Newfoundland - and the Grand Banks for England.






47. Crafted by Henry Clay and backed by the National Republican Party - this plan proposed a series of tariffs and federally funded transportation imporvements - geared toward acheiving national economic self-sufficiency.






48. In 1676 - Nathaniel Bacon - a Virginia planter - accused the royal governer of failing to provide poorer farmers protection from raiding tribes. In response - Bacon led 300 settlers against local Native Americans - and then burned and looted Jamestow

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49. Writer who satirized political leaders and American society in the 1920s. His magazine American Mercury served as the journalistic counterpart to the postwar disillusionment of the "lost generation."






50. Longtime government employee who - in 1948 - was accused by Time editor Whitaker Chambers of spying for the USSR. After a series of highly publicized hearings and trials - he was convicted of perjury in 1950 and sentenced to five years imprisonment -