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United States History Standards For Grades 5 -12

• Era 1: Three Worlds Meet (Beginnings to 1620)
• Era 2: Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)
• Era 3: Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s)
• Era 4: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
• Era 5: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850-1877)

• Era 6: The Development of the Industrial United States (1870-1900)
• Era 7: The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)
• Era 8: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
• Era 9: Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)
• Era 10: Contemporary United States (1968 To The Present)

• Understands comparative characteristics of societies in the Americas, Western Europe, and Western Africa that increasingly interacted after 1450
• Understands how early European exploration and colonization resulted in cultural and ecological interactions among previously unconnected peoples

• Understands why the Americas attracted Europeans, why they brought enslaved Africans to their colonies, and how Europeans struggled for control of North America and the Caribbean
• Understands how political, religious, and social institutions emerged in the English colonies
• Understands how the values and institutions of European economic life took root in the colonies, and how slavery reshaped European and African life in the Americas

• Understands the causes of the American Revolution, the ideas and interests involved in forging the revolutionary movement, and the reasons for the American victory
• Understands the impact of the American Revolution on politics, economy, and society
• Understands the institutions and practices of government created during the Revolution and how they were revised between 1787 and 1815 to create the foundation of the American political system based on the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights

• Understands United States territorial expansion between 1801 and 1861, and how it affected relations with external powers and Native Americans
• Understands how the industrial revolution, increasing immigration, the rapid expansion of slavery, and the westward movement changed the lives of Americans and led toward regional tensions
• Understands the extension, restriction, and reorganization of political democracy after 1800
• Understands the sources and character of cultural, religious, and social reform movements in the antebellum period

• Understands the causes of the Civil War
• Understands the course and character of the Civil War and its effects on the American people
• Understands how various reconstruction plans succeeded or failed

• Understands how the rise of corporations, heavy industry, and mechanized farming transformed the American people
• Understands massive immigration after 1870 and how new social patterns, conflicts, and ideas of national unity developed amid growing cultural diversity
• Understands the rise of the American labor movement and how political issues reflected social and economic changes
• Understands Federal Indian policy and United States foreign policy after the Civil War

• Understands how Progressives and others addressed problems of industrial capitalism, urbanization, and political corruption
• Understands the changing role of the United States in world affairs through World War I
• Understands how the United States changed from the end of World War I to the eve of the Great Depression

• Understands the causes of the Great Depression and how it affected American society
• Understands how the New Deal addressed the Great Depression, transformed American federalism, and initiated the welfare state
• Understands the causes and course of World War II, the character of the war at home and abroad, and its reshaping of the U.S. role in world affairs

• Understands the economic boom and social transformation of postwar United States
• Understands how the Cold War and conflicts in Korea and Vietnam influenced domestic and international politics
• Understands domestic policies after World War II
• Understands the struggle for racial and gender equality and the extension of civil liberties

• Understands recent developments in foreign and domestic politics
• Understands economic, social, and cultural developments in contemporary United States