• Understand the reasons for the outbreak of World War I, as well as the causes and consequences of U.S. involvement in the war.

• Discuss the United States’ retreat from internationalism in the wake of World War I.

• Characterize and assess the political philosophies and policies of Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.

• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the American economy in the 1920s.

• Describe metropolitan life in America during the Jazz Age, and outline the key cultural divides of the decade.

• Understand the key issues in the election of 1928 and describe the election’s outcome.

1914 Slav nationalist asassinates Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary.

1915 German submarine sinks the Lusitania.

Ku Klux Klan reorganized in Georgia.

1916 General Pershing pursues Pancho Villa into Mexico.

Wilson wins reelection.

1917 Zimmerman telegram.

Congress declares war.

Russian Revolution.

Espionage Act passed.

1918 Daylight saving time introduced.

Wilson advances his "Fourteen Points."

Armistice in Europe.

Spanish influenza kills thousands.

1919 Eighteenth Amendment ratified.

Treaty of Versailles signed, but fails in Senate.

Seattle general strike.

Race riots in Chicago and other cities.

1919–20 Palmer raids.

1920 Congress passes the Volstead Act.

Nineteenth Amendment ratified.

Harding wins presidency.

Nation’s first radio station (KDKA in Pittsburgh) goes on the air.

Sinclair Lewis publishes Main Street.

1921 Margaret Sanger founds the American Birth Control League.

1921–22 Washington Arms Limitation Conference.

1923 Harding dies in office; Coolidge becomes president.

1924 Teapot Dome scandal.

Coolidge wins reelection.

National Origins Act restricts immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe.

1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby.

Alain Locke publishes The New Negro.

Scopes Monkey Trial.

1926 NBC established.

1927 Coolidge dispatches U.S. troops to Nicaragua.

Advent of motion picture "talkies."

Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic.

Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti.

1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlaws war.

Herbert Hoover defeats Al Smith for president.

1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff raises rates to historic highs.