What do you think were the most major events in American political history?

[Dee Dee Warren]

The Patriot Act.

Yes I think that will go down as one as well. I think this whole decade is going to one of the critically pivotal ones.

[$cirisme]

I am right now listening to a historical work called The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes- and like all history, it is being interpreted in a specific way by the author, I realize that, but in trying to filter out the bias and just listen to the facts, I have come to a dislike of Roosevelt's tactics during the depression era and see a great many of what I see as the unAmerican crap we have today as completely the spawn of that time. The other major event I think obviously was the civil war.

1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Not an American political event? Oh, I disagree quite strongly. This is easily where the Cold War began, and drastically affected US/Russian relations in WWII, the Cold War, and most politics from then until today has been impacted, often strongly, by the rise of communism.

[Dee Dee Warren]

1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Not an American political event? Oh, I disagree quite strongly. This is easily where the Cold War began, and drastically affected US/Russian relations in WWII, the Cold War, and most politics from then until today has been impacted, often strongly, by the rise of communism.

I agree, that is a major theme of the book I am listening to - major political players at that time completely fawned over the system being set up and chose to turn a blind eye as long as they could to Lenin's abuses.

[Hitch]

I am right now listening to a historical work called The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes- and like all history, it is being interpreted in a specific way by the author, I realize that, but in trying to filter out the bias and just listen to the facts, I have come to a dislike of Roosevelt's tactics during the depression era and see a great many of what I see as the unAmerican crap we have today as completely the spawn of that time. The other major event I think obviously was the civil war.

Im surprized it took so much for you to catch on.
And you're right about the Civil War too.

[NeilUnreal]

This is easily where the Cold War began...

To say nothing of the little-known fact the that U.S. landed troops at Archangel in 1918 in support of the russian White Army.

-Neil

[Sheepdog]

oh must resist.... i still have to finish packing tonight.....

there is so much that can be said about Hoover's New Deal (err... FDR's... well, it did start under Hoover), about how government intervention rather than unchecked capitalism caused the Great Depression, about how FDR created a chaotic environment where only those who already had sunk costs or were mad as a hatter would invest in job creation, and about how he is the first President to start a depression within a depression. fewer people would be interventionists and socialists if our text books didn't gloss over the horrific history of such policies.

[Teallaura]

The signing of the Mayflower Compact

The Signing of the Declaration of Independence

The Constitutional Convention

Reconstruction

( I can't think of the name!) The decision that established 'separate but equal' (also a contender for the stupidest thing ever to come out of the SC)

The Civil Rights Act (Johnson deserved way more credit than Kennedy for this)

The Vietnam War

Containment (I know it was a policy but its impact on the FP landscape was gigantic)

[Raptor]

( I can't think of the name!) The decision that established 'separate but equal' (also a contender for the stupidest thing ever to come out of the SC)

Plessy vs Ferguson?

[Teallaura]

Plessy vs Ferguson?

:glomp: That's it!!!! Thanks!!!

[Conductor42]

I disagree... the great depression was created by our monetary policies at the time. They had increased the monetary supply too much, and then overcorrected by cutting the monetary supply to 1/3 of what it had been previous to the great depression. That there is the biggest factor behind our great depression, IMO.

oh must resist.... i still have to finish packing tonight.....

there is so much that can be said about Hoover's New Deal (err... FDR's... well, it did start under Hoover), about how government intervention rather than unchecked capitalism caused the Great Depression, about how FDR created a chaotic environment where only those who already had sunk costs or were mad as a hatter would invest in job creation, and about how he is the first President to start a depression within a depression. fewer people would be interventionists and socialists if our text books didn't gloss over the horrific history of such policies.

[Philosophickle]

Whenever we decided to allow women to talk free-reign. I hear that staple-gun sales plummeted as well, causing 17 people to lose their homes.

[SpinyNorman]

The reconstruction era.

[Thomas More]

I am right now listening to a historical work called The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes- and like all history, it is being interpreted in a specific way by the author, I realize that, but in trying to filter out the bias and just listen to the facts, I have come to a dislike of Roosevelt's tactics during the depression era and see a great many of what I see as the unAmerican crap we have today as completely the spawn of that time. The other major event I think obviously was the civil war.

The closest you will get to calling it as is in modern historians is Robert Leckie who tends to call a spade a spade.

So far as unmentioned events.

The wars with the Barbary Pirates (Set precedent for forien intervention when our interest were threatened)
The drafting of the Monroe Docterine (The single most important event in US political history, it has shaded almost everything to follow)
The Creek War (Sending Mexicans back home)
The Mexican American War ( we still have not learned not to negotiate with dictators, we always get screwed)
The opening of relations with Japan
The Philippines.War (our great experiment with colonialism and imperialism)
The Korean War (the one time the UN worked, sort of)

[Jimmy Higgins]

Mayflower Compact was a small but significant event.

Not yet mentioned, Marbury v Madison setting the court as a big power.

Only one person mentioned it, but as per the OP title, it's perhaps one of the biggest, the Monroe Doctrine as it tried to give the US a global voice.

Lincoln deciding to keep the Union together and fight the Civil War.

The entire Reconstruction period, especially the 14th Amendment, which ended with the bizarre election between Hayes and Tilden.

The New Deal introduced more government intervention. I personally like how people love to second guess those decisions... based on knowledge of economics we've obtained over the 70 years after... that they didn't have!!!

Someone noted the Civil Rights era not being political... well, you'dhave to discount a lot of bills that Johnson sent through Congress at the beginning of his first term. He finished what Kennedy started. Also, the intervention in Little Rock using the military. That was a pretty big statement by the Federal Government saying this is what it is going to be.

Vietnam War started an awful habit of writing off the cost of a war instead of paying it in real time like they did in the good ole days.

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Korean War (the one time the UN worked, sort of)

Lest we forget that Woodrow Wilson's dream of the League of Nations was to prevent wars, not to be able to solve all of the world's problems. And speaking of success... I'd say the UN offered a substantially useful forum for the Cuban Missile Crisis.