The twentieth century

In the 1900s the United States fought in many wars. The test asks you to name one. Five answers are accepted: World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, or the Persian Gulf War. This was the century in which the country grew into a world power.

World War I began in Europe in 1914. The United States stayed out at first. It joined in 1917, after German submarines attacked American ships. Woodrow Wilson was President during World War I. American soldiers fought on the side of the Allied Powers. That side included England, France, Italy and Russia. They fought against the Central Powers, led by Germany and Austria-Hungary. The fighting stopped on November 11, 1918.

Between the two world wars came the worst economic collapse in the country's history. In 1929 the stock market crashed. The stock market is the place where people buy and sell shares in companies. In October 1929 the price of shares fell very fast, and many people lost a great deal of money. People call that crash the Great Crash, and it began the Great Depression. If the test asks what the Great Depression was, the answer is: the longest economic recession in modern history. A recession is a time when business slows down and many people lose their work. Banks closed and businesses failed. Millions of people lost their jobs, their farms and their savings. Franklin Roosevelt was elected President in 1932. His government created new programs and public jobs to help the country recover.

World War II began in Europe in 1939. The United States entered the war after Japan bombed the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The United States fought Japan, Germany and Italy. Those three countries were called the Axis Powers. The United States fought beside allies such as England, France and the Soviet Union. Franklin Roosevelt was President during both the Great Depression and World War II. He died in April 1945, a few months before the war ended.

Dwight Eisenhower was a general in World War II. He commanded the Allied forces in Europe. He led the landings in France in June 1944. Later he became the 34th President. The Korean War ended early in his time in office. In 1956 he signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, the law that built the interstate highway system.

The Persian Gulf War came near the end of the century. In 1990 Iraq invaded its small neighbor Kuwait. The test answer is: to make the Iraqi army leave Kuwait. In early 1991 the United States led an international force that did exactly that. The fighting lasted about six weeks.

After World War II the United States and the Soviet Union became rivals. This long period of tension is called the Cold War. The Soviet Union, also written USSR, was the main rival of the United States. Russia was its largest part, and many people used the two names for the same country. It is called a cold war because the two sides never fought each other directly. There was no open war between them.

The main concern of the United States during the Cold War was communism. Communism is a system in which the government owns and controls the economy. It usually allows only one political party. Americans were also afraid of nuclear war, because both sides built large numbers of nuclear weapons. The policy of the United States was to stop communism from spreading to more countries.

That policy took the country into the Korean War. In 1950 communist North Korea invaded South Korea. The United States sent troops as part of a United Nations force. The United States entered the Korean War to stop the spread of communism. The fighting ended in 1953 with an armistice, an agreement to stop fighting. There was no peace treaty, and Korea stayed divided into two countries.

The United States entered the Vietnam War for the same reason: to stop the spread of communism. American involvement grew through the 1960s. The war became very unpopular at home. American forces left in 1973. The war ended in 1975, when the communist side won.

The Cold War ended without a war between the two rivals. The Berlin Wall had divided the German city of Berlin for almost thirty years. It was opened in 1989. The Soviet Union broke apart at the end of 1991, and the countries inside it became independent.

At home, the biggest change of these years came from the civil rights movement. Its aim was to end racial discrimination. Racial discrimination means treating people worse because of their race or the color of their skin. For many years, laws in many states forced Black Americans into separate schools, separate seats and separate services. This was worst in the South. Other laws made it hard for Black Americans to vote. Some states made them pay a tax or pass a reading test first. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that separate public schools for Black and white children were against the Constitution. Congress then passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law banned discrimination in public places, in schools and at work. Congress also passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That law protected the right to vote.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Baptist minister and the best known leader of that movement. He led marches and boycotts against unfair laws. In a boycott, people refuse to buy from a business or to use a service until it treats them fairly. He fought for civil rights. He wanted equality for all Americans, Black and white alike. He always asked people to protest peacefully. In 1963 he spoke to a huge crowd in Washington. He said he dreamed of a country where his children would be judged by their character, not by the color of their skin. He was killed in 1968. The third Monday in January is now a national holiday in his honor.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the United States. Nineteen attackers took control of four passenger planes soon after take-off. They used the planes as weapons. If you are asked what major event happened on September 11, 2001, the answer is that terrorists attacked the United States.

Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and both towers fell. A third plane was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States military. The fourth plane was heading toward Washington, D.C. The passengers fought back, and it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Almost three thousand people were killed.

The attacks changed the way the government is organized. Congress created the Department of Homeland Security in 2002, and it began work in 2003. The new department brought many agencies together. Those agencies guard the borders, the coasts and the airports. The agency that handles citizenship and immigration applications, USCIS, is part of that department. Airport screening also became a federal job, done by the Transportation Security Administration.

The attacks also led to war. In October 2001 the United States and its allies went to war in Afghanistan. They fought the government there that had protected the group that planned the attacks. A war in Iraq began in 2003. These campaigns together are often called the Global War on Terror. The test asks you to name one United States military conflict after September 11, 2001. You can answer the War in Afghanistan, the War in Iraq, or the War on Terror.

September 11 is now marked each year as Patriot Day. Flags are flown at half-staff, which means halfway down the flagpole to show sadness. There are memorial ceremonies at the three places where the planes came down. Patriot Day is a day of remembrance. It is not one of the national holidays that close government offices and schools.

The United States is also known around the world for its inventions. The test asks you to name an example of an American innovation, and those inventions come from many different years. American inventors produced the first practical electric light bulb in the 1870s. They made the first powered airplane flight in 1903. The moving assembly line was first used to build cars in 1913. It made the automobile cheap enough for ordinary families, and it changed factories all over the world. Steel frames and elevators made the skyscraper possible in American cities.

Invention did not stop after the world wars. In the late 1950s American engineers built the first integrated circuits. An integrated circuit puts many tiny electronic parts on a single chip. It made modern computers and phones possible. In July 1969 American astronauts landed on the moon and walked on its surface. You can answer any of these: the light bulb, the airplane, the automobile, the assembly line, the skyscraper, the integrated circuit, or the moon landing.