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






2. Industrialist Henry Ford installed the first of these while developing his Model T car in 1908 - and perfected its use in the 1920s. This type of manufacturing allowed workers to remain in one place and master one repetitive action - maximizing outpu






3. Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy summed up his aggressive stance toward international affairs with the phrase - "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Under this doctrine - the US declared its domination over Latin American and built the Panama Can






4. Granted freedmen a few basic rights but also enforced heavy civil restrictions based on race. They were enacted in Southern states under Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plan.






5. A report issued in 1957 by Truman's Presidential Committee on Civil Rights. The report called form the elimination of segregation.






6. 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






7. In June 1807 - the British naval frigate HMS Leopard opened fire on the American naval frigate USS Chesapeake - killing three men and wounding twenty. British naval officers then boarded the American ship - seized four men who had deserted the Royal






8. A series of twelve letters published by John Dickinson. The letters denounced the Townsend Duties by demonstrating that many ot the arguments employed against the Stamp Act were valid against the Townsend Duties as well. The letters inspired anti-Bri






9. Also the Compromise of 1820. Resolved the conflict surrounding the admission of Missouri to the Union as either a slave or free state. The compromise made Missouri a slave state - admitted Maine as a free state - and prohibited slavery in the remaind






10. A name for the trade routes that linked England - its colonies in North America - the West Indies - and Africa. At each port - shipes were unloaded of goods from another port along the trade route - and then re-loaded with goods particular to that si






11. 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.






12. Smugglers of alcohol into the US during the Prohibition Era (1920-1933) - often from Canada or the West Indies.






13. 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






14. 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 -






15. A Frenchman who explored the Great Lakes and established the first French colony in North America at Quebec in 1608.






16. 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."






17. Passed in 1883. This act established a civil service exam for many public posts and created hiring systems based on merit rather than on patronage. The act aimed to eliminate corrupt hiring practices.






18. Founded in 1886 - this organization sought to organize craft unions into a federation. The loose structure of the organization differed from its rival - the Knights of Labor - in that it allowed individual unions to remain autonomous. Eventually the






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






20. Coined by Stokely Carmichael - and adopted by Malcolm X - the Black Panthers - and other civil rights groups. The term embodied the fight against oppression and the value of ethnic heritage.






21. Passed in 1918 as an amendment to the Espionage Act. Provided for the punishment of anyone using "disloyal - profane - scurrilous - or abusive language" in regard to the US government - flag - or military.






22. 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.






23. A third-party candidate in the 1992 presidential election who won 19 percent of the popular vote. His strong showing demonstrated voter dissatisfaction with the two major parties.






24. A religious zealot and an extreme abolitionist who believed God had ordained him to end slavery. In 1856 - he led an attack against pro-slavery government officials - killing five and sparking months of violence that earned the territory the name "Bl






25. Passed by Congress in 1882 amid a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment among American workers. The act banned Chinese immigration for ten years.






26. Negotiated by President Carter - these were signed by Israel's leader - Menachem Begin - and Egypt's leader - Anwar el-Sadat - on March 26 - 1979. The treaty - however - fell apart when Sadat was assassinated by Islamic fundamentalists in 1981.






27. The centerpiece of a congressional effort to restrict union activity. The act - passed in 1947 - banned certain union practices and allowed the president to call for an eighty-day cooling off period to delay strikes thought to pose risks to national






28. A moderate Democrat with support from both the North and South who served as president of the US from 1857 to 1861. He could not stem the tide of sectional conflict that eventually erupted into Civil War.






29. 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.






30. Signed by 12 Native American tribes after their defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. The treaty cleared the Ohio territory of tribes and opened it up to US settlement.






31. Leader of a group of senators known as "reservationists" during the 1919 debate over the League of Nations. He and his followers supported US membership in the League only if major revisions were made to the covenant. President Wilson - however - ref






32. The increase of available paper money and bank credit - leading to higher prices and less valuable currency.






33. Trials of Nazi war criminals that began in November 1945. More than 200 defendants were indicted in the thirteen trials. All but thirty-eight of them were convicted of conspiring to wage aggressive war and of mistreating prisoners of war and inhabita






34. Constructed by the USSR and completed in August 1961 to prevent East Berliners from fleeing to West Berlin. The wall cemented the poltical split of Berlin between the communist and authoritarian Eastand the capitalist and democratic West. The wall wa






35. A communist revolutionary. Castro ousted an authoritarian regime in Cuba in 1959 and established the communist regime that remains in power to this day.






36. Passed in 1930. This act limited the right to strike in key industries and authorized the president to intervene in any strike - eroding the generally amiable relationship between the government and organized labor during World War II.






37. 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






38. A conglomerate of businesses that tends to reduce market competition. During the Industrial Age - many entrepreneurs consolidated their businesses into these in order to gain control of the market and amass great profit - often at the expense of poor






39. Theory of trade which stresses that a nation's economic strenght depends on exporting more than it imports. Britain's use of this policy manifested itself in the triangular trade and in a series of laws - such as the Navigation Acts (1651-1673) - aim






40. Written by Helen Hunt Jackson and published in 1881 - this work attempted to raise public awareness of the harsh and dishonorable treatment of Native Americans at the hands of the US.






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






42. A radical Protestant group that sought to "purify" the Church of England from within. Persecuted for their beliefs - many of them fled to the New World in the early 1600s - where they established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in present-day Boston. Th






43. Eisenhower's Cold War strategy - preferring deterrence to ground force involvement - and emphasizing the massive retaliatory potential of a large nuclear stockpile. Eisenhower worked to increase nuclear spending and decrease spending on ground troops






44. 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.






45. 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






46. 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






47. On June 3 and 4 - 1989 - China's communist army brutally crushed a pro-democracy protest here in Beijing. Diplomatic relations between the US and China significantly soured as a result of the attack.






48. Influenced by the spirit of rationalism - these people believed that God - like a celestial clockmaker - had created a perfect universe and then stepped back to let it operate according to natural laws.






49. A protest against the 1773 Tea Act - which allowed Britain to use the profits from selling tea to pay the salaries of royal governers. In December 1773 - Samuel Adams gathered Boston residents and warned them of the consequences of the Tea Act. Follo






50. Advocated isolationism and opposed FDR's reelection in 1940. Committee members urged neutrality - claiming that the US could stand alone regardless of Hitler's advances in Europe.