Columbus arrives in the Caribbean, forces the Arawak people into slavery, and launches a brutal colonial system to extract gold.

The colonial slave trade from Africa begins, bringing enslaved people to the eastern seaboard colonies to provide forced labor on plantations.

Boston colonial leaders form the 'Loyal Nine' to protest British taxes, mobilizing poor workers but abandoning them when demonstrations turn violent.

The Revolutionary War begins at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, as colonists take up arms against British military forces.

Shays's Rebellion erupts as former Revolutionary War soldiers rise up against Massachusetts state leaders over economic policies that left them impoverished.

Andrew Jackson leads military campaigns against Native nations in the American South, seizing land across Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.

The US government forces approximately 70,000 Native people off their homelands, relocating them to designated 'Indian Territory' further west.

The US wages war against Mexico and acquires a vast western territory through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, paying $15 million for seized land.

The Civil War erupts after Southern plantation states secede from the Union following Abraham Lincoln's election as president.

Union forces win the Civil War, ending slavery, and new Constitutional Amendments grant Black Americans citizenship and voting rights.

Workers from across trades, races, and genders unite to form the radical Industrial Workers of the World union in Chicago.

The US enters World War I and passes the Espionage Act, arresting Americans who speak or write against the war.

Japan attacks the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, drawing America directly into World War II.

The Voting Rights Act passes into law, outlawing discriminatory election practices after years of sustained civil rights activism and demonstrations.

The US invades Iraq claiming to search for weapons of mass destruction, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians and hundreds of American soldiers.

This pool covers the headline events of American history as told through Zinn's critical lens, from Columbus's brutal arrival in the Caribbean through the US invasion of Iraq. It traces how colonial exploitation gave way to revolution, westward expansion, and civil war, each moment shaped by power struggles between the ruling class and the dispossessed. The Civil War's end brought legal freedom for enslaved people, but systemic inequality persisted as industrialization created new forms of exploitation. The early twentieth century brought world wars that the US entered for economic rather than humanitarian reasons, while domestic movements pushed back against oppression. The book closes with the government's post–September 11 military campaigns, which repeated old patterns of contrived justifications for war and civilian casualties. Together, these events form the spine of American history as Zinn presents it: a story of power, resistance, and the persistent gap between national ideals and national actions.

The major turning points of American history from Columbus to Iraq.

Spanish conquistadors Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro invade Mexico and South America, conquering the Aztec and Inca civilizations with brutal force.

Nathaniel Bacon rallies thousands of armed poor colonists in Virginia to revolt against the wealthy leaders who controlled the colonial social order.

The Cherokee Nation is forced on a westward death march during which approximately 4,000 of the 17,000 people relocated die from harsh conditions.

A women's convention adopts a Declaration of Principles modeled on Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, demanding equal rights and political participation for women.

The US wages a brutal three-year war in the Philippines, motivated by white supremacy and nationalist desires to 'civilize' the Filipino people.

Muckraker journalism exposes corporate and government corruption, while Eugene Debs emerges as the prominent spokesman for the growing American socialist movement.

Women workers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City launch a massive months-long strike against dangerous factory conditions and police violence.

A fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory kills 146 workers, many jumping from high floors because employers had illegally locked the exits.

The US government forces Japanese Americans living on the West Coast into prison-like internment camps during World War II.

The US drops atomic bombs on Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and ending World War II with overwhelming destructive force.

The American Indian Movement organizes large-scale occupations of Alcatraz Island and Wounded Knee to demand treaty rights and sovereignty for Native peoples.

President Nixon resigns the presidency rather than face an impeachment trial for his involvement in the Watergate scandal and related crimes.

President Reagan slashes benefits for poor Americans, including a school lunch program that strips nutrition support from over a million children.

The Soviet Union collapses, ending the Cold War almost overnight, yet the US maintains and increases its military spending without justification.

Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans with flooding, and the federal government's slow, inadequate response leaves mostly Black and impoverished residents without aid.

This pool fills in the narrative with significant events that shaped American history alongside the headline moments in Pool 1. It begins with the conquistadors' conquest of Indigenous civilizations and follows the arc of expansion, exploitation, and resistance through Bacon's Rebellion, the Cherokee removal, and early women's organizing. The Philippine War and the emergence of socialist politics in the Progressive Era show how imperialism and class struggle intensified at the turn of the twentieth century. The Triangle Shirtwaist tragedy illustrated the deadly cost of unchecked capitalism, while World War II's turning points—internment of Japanese Americans and the atomic bombing of Japan—reveal how the government prioritized power over people even in its most celebrated war. The last events cover the cultural upheavals and political failures of the late twentieth century, from Nixon's resignation to Reagan's cuts to the government's disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina.

Key secondary events that shaped the American story.

Desperate Jamestown colonists abandon their settlement to live with Indigenous people after being forced to eat corpses to survive the harsh conditions.

Wealthy colonial leaders strategically grant small privileges to poor white colonists to prevent them from joining forces with enslaved Black people.

The new US government passes the Sedition Act, which restricts free speech and directly contradicts the constitutional freedoms it had just guaranteed.

Harriet Tubman orchestrates the escape of hundreds of enslaved people out of the South through the Underground Railroad's network of secret safe houses.

The Fugitive Slave Act forces all Americans to capture and return people who fled bondage, making Northerners direct participants in the slavery system.

The Supreme Court's Dred Scott Decision formally rules that enslaved people are property rather than persons, in what becomes the court's most condemned ruling.

President Grover Cleveland denies emergency food aid to Texas farmers in crisis while simultaneously giving wealthy bondholders a $45 million government gift.

A Colorado mining strike turns violent when mine owners send armed detectives and National Guardsmen who kill women and children among the strikers.

The US enters World War I primarily to protect Atlantic shipping profits and manufacturing interests rather than from any commitment to democratic values.

Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated, accelerating a shift in civil rights strategy from nonviolent protest toward the more militant Black Power movement.

The FBI is found to have targeted the Black Panthers with illegal burglaries, forged letters, and a likely role in murdering activist Fred Hampton.

Veterans returning from Vietnam join massive anti-war protests after reports emerge of US forces secretly bombing civilians in Laos and Cambodia.

Nearly one million people gather in the largest political demonstration in American history to protest the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.

Protesters in Seattle disrupt World Trade Organization talks, demonstrating that organized citizens can challenge the world's most powerful corporations and governments.

The Patriot Act passes after the September 11 attacks, allowing the government to detain noncitizens without charges or constitutional protections.

This pool focuses on the moments of revelation and decision that exposed the contradictions at the heart of American history, starting with the earliest colonial settlements and running through the War on Terror. It highlights how the ruling class strategically maintained power by granting minimal concessions to prevent larger alliances among the oppressed, and how legal systems like the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott Decision encoded inequality into law. Key episodes of government hypocrisy—from the Sedition Act to Cleveland's gifts to bondholders—reveal a consistent pattern of protecting wealth over people throughout the nineteenth century. The later events trace how civil rights leaders were assassinated, how the government's secret violence in Vietnam was exposed, and how the FBI's illegal targeting of radical organizations became public. The pool closes with the grassroots movements that proved organized people could still challenge the most powerful institutions in the world, even as the post-September 11 Patriot Act threatened to roll back constitutional freedoms.

Turning points, revelations, and decisions that exposed the contradictions of American power.

Howard Zinn

Book

Nonfiction

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