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Section 3: Overview and Exam Framework
TX PACT: History: Grades 7–12 (733)

Exam Overview

Table outlining the test format, number of questions, time, and passing score.
Exam Name TX PACT: History: Grades 7–12 (733)
Exam Code 733
Time 3 hours and 15 minutes total appointment time
  • 15 minutes for CAT tutorial and compliance agreement
  • 3 hours testing time
Number of Questions 125 selected-response questions
Format Computer-administered test (CAT)

The TX PACT: History: Grades 7–12 (733) exam is designed to assess whether a test taker has demonstrated the requisite knowledge and skills for admission to an educator preparation program. The 125 selected-response questions are based on the History: Grades 7–12 exam framework. Questions on this exam range from grades 7–12. Your final scaled score will be based only on scored questions.

Domains and Competencies

Table outlining test content and subject weighting by sub area and objective.
Domain Domain Title Approx. Percentage of Exam
I Historiography 12%
II World History to 1450 18%
III World History 1450 to the Present 23%
IV U.S. History Precontact to 1877 23%
V U.S. History 1877 to the Present 23%
Pie chart of approximate test weighting, detailed in the table above.

The content covered by this exam is organized into broad areas of content called domains. Each domain covers one or more of the standards for this field. Within each domain, the content is further defined by a set of competencies. Each competency is composed of two major parts:

Domain I—Historiography

Competency 001—Understand historical concepts, terms, sources, and perspectives.

For example:

  1. Demonstrate knowledge of basic historical terms and concepts such as nation-state, theocracy, dynastic cycle, collectivization, globalization, modernization, chronology, and periodization.
  2. Apply knowledge of basic reference sources used in historical research, including information technology, bibliographies, periodical guides, encyclopedias, and biographical dictionaries.
  3. Distinguish between primary and secondary sources of historical information.
  4. Evaluate the uses and limitations of various historical source materials, including oral histories, newspapers, diaries, artifacts, probate data, tax lists, personal correspondence, census data, videos, audio recordings, and materials accessed through information technologies.
  5. Analyze important historical interpretations and how historical interpretations change over time.
  6. Analyze the purpose and perspective of diverse sources of historical information, including potential bias and the assumptions on which historical arguments are based.
Competency 002—Understand historical research skills.

For example:

  1. Analyze cause-and-effect relationships between historical events and developments.
  2. Recognize central theses, main ideas, and supporting evidence in various sources of historical information.
  3. Distinguish between fact and opinion in historical narratives and interpretations.
  4. Draw inferences and conclusions from historical texts and interpretations.
  5. Interpret historical issues represented in graphic formats, including charts, diagrams, maps, political cartoons, and graphs.

 

Domain II—World History to 1450

Competency 003—Understand the development of early civilizations to 500 BCE.

For example:

  1. Examine the Neolithic Revolution and the birth of human civilization, including the growth of agriculture, the domestication of animals, social differentiation, economic specialization, political organization, and the emergence of towns.
  2. Analyze major geographic, social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of early civilizations in Mesopotamia and the Near East, including Sumer, Babylonia, the Assyrian Empire, Hittite civilization, the Hebrew kingdoms, and Phoenicia.
  3. Analyze major geographic, social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of early civilizations in North Africa and the Mediterranean, including the Egyptian, Minoan, and Mycenaean civilizations.
  4. Analyze major geographic, social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of early civilizations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, including the Shang and Zhou dynasties of China, the Indus and Aryan cultures of India, the African kingdom of Kush, and the Olmec civilization of Mesoamerica.
  5. Examine major population movements and commercial and cultural interactions within and between Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas from 4000 to 500 BCE.
  6. Demonstrate knowledge of significant developments of the period, including bronze-making and iron-making technology, the invention of plows, the domestication of horses, the construction of ships, the use of written records, and the advent of monotheistic religion.
  7. Recognize chronological relationships between major global events and developments of the period.
Competency 004—Understand the classical Mediterranean world and the development of world civilizations from 500 BCE to 500 CE.

For example:

  1. Examine the evolution, characteristics, and contributions of ancient Greek civilization.
  2. Analyze major events, developments, characteristics, and contributions of ancient Roman society and the formation, expansion, and decline of the Roman Empire.
  3. Examine major geographic, social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of Iranian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations, including the Persian Empire, the Mauryan and Gupta empires, the beliefs and practices of Brahmanism, the Qing unification of China, Han government and expansion, and the influence of Confucianism and Taoism in China.
  4. Examine major geographic, social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of civilizations in Africa and the Americas during the period, including the formation of Sudanic trading kingdoms, the Bantu migrations, and Mayan science, religion, and society.
  5. Demonstrate knowledge of the principal beliefs, sacred texts, and historical development of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
  6. Recognize chronological relationships between global events and developments of the period.
Competency 005— Understand major developments in world history from 500 to 1450.

For example:

  1. Examine major geographic, social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of the Byzantine Empire, including Justinian's conquests and legal reforms; the role of the Orthodox Church in Byzantine society; the work of Byzantine artists, architects, and scholars; and the influence and decline of Byzantine civilization.
  2. Analyze major geographic, social, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of Islamic civilization, including the principal beliefs of Islam, the expansion of Islamic civilization, the growth of Muslim commerce, the work of Islamic scholars, and disunity and division within the Muslim caliphate.
  3. Analyze major social, political, and economic developments in Europe during the period, including the emergence of feudalism, the role of the Catholic Church in medieval civilization, the contributions and experiences of the Jewish people, the creation of the Holy Roman Empire, the rise of Russian civilization, the Crusades, the Black Death, and the Hundred Years' War.
  4. Examine major political, social, economic, and cultural developments in India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, including the Muslim-Hindu encounter in India, Tang government and culture, the Sung commercial revolution, Japanese feudalism and the rise of the samurai, and the Indianization of Southeast Asia.
  5. Demonstrate knowledge of major features of Mongol society and developments related to the Mongol invasions, including Mongol political structure and military tactics; the leadership of Genghis Khan; Mongol rule in China, Russia, Korea, and Southwest Asia; and the effect of the Mongol invasions on relations between Europe and Asia.
  6. Examine the geographic, political, economic, and cultural characteristics of major civilizations in Africa and the Americas during the period, including the spread of Islam south of the Sahara; the rise and decline of the Ghana, Mali, and Songhai empires; the emergence of Swahili culture and commerce; Aztec religion and society; and Incan government and expansion.
  7. Recognize chronological relationships between major global events and developments of the period.

 

Domain III—World History 1450 to the Present

Competency 006—Understand major developments in world history from 1450 to 1750.

For example:

  1. Examine the origins, major developments, significant individuals, and consequences of the European Renaissance.
  2. Analyze the causes and consequences of the Protestant Reformation, including the role of leading reformers, the response of the Catholic Church, and the religious wars of the sixteenth century.
  3. Analyze European expansion between 1450 and 1750, including the factors that encouraged European exploration and conquest and the impact of European colonization on Europeans and the indigenous societies they encountered.
  4. Examine patterns of continuity and change among major civilizations of Asia and Africa between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, including the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires of Southwest Asia; the Ming and Qing dynasties of China; the Warring States and Tokugawa eras in Japan; Portuguese and Dutch penetration of southern Africa; and the growth and consequences of the transatlantic slave trade.
  5. Analyze major political developments in Europe, including the consolidation of nation-states, the growth of absolutism, and the emergence of parliamentary monarchy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
  6. Demonstrate knowledge of major figures of the Scientific Revolution, including Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton, and the impact of their discoveries on the development of the modern world.
  7. Analyze central ideas of major thinkers of the European Enlightenment and their influence on events and developments in Europe and the Americas.
  8. Recognize chronological relationships between major global events and developments of the period.
Competency 007—Understand major developments in world history from 1750 to 1900.

For example:

  1. Analyze the causes, major events, similarities, differences, and consequences of the American and French revolutions, including significant individuals and events in the wars for independence in Latin America.
  2. Evaluate economic, social, and political factors related to the emergence and spread of industrialization in Europe, including the role of Great Britain in the industrializing process; the growth of urban centers; the environmental impact; the transformation of family and social relations; and major technological innovations, economic theories, political responses, and social reforms of the industrial era.
  3. Examine major political developments, reform movements, and military conflicts in Europe during the nineteenth century, including the Napoleonic wars, the Congress of Vienna, the growth of liberalism, the Chartist movement in Great Britain, the revolutions of 1848, the Crimean War, the rise of nationalism, and Italian and German unification.
  4. Analyze major causes, events, developments, and consequences of European imperialism, including motives and justifications for the pursuit of colonial empires; the structure of colonial societies; rivalries and conflicts between colonial powers; and interactions between imperialist powers and the peoples of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
  5. Examine major political developments and military conflicts in East Asia during the period, including the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, the failure of reform in China, the Boxer Rebellion, the Meiji Restoration, and the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 to 1895.
  6. Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, and scientific developments of the period in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
  7. Recognize chronological relationships between major global events and developments of the period.
Competency 008—Understand major developments in world history from 1900 to 1945.

For example:

  1. Analyze the origins, major events, and consequences of World War 1, including the prewar alliance system, nationalist tensions in the Balkans, strategies and tactics of the principal combatants, major battles of the war, the Treaty of Versailles, and the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires.
  2. Analyze major social and economic developments in Europe during the period, including changing patterns of leisure and consumption, the introduction of radio and film, post–World War 1 debt and reparations problems, German inflation, and the Great Depression of the 1930s.
  3. Examine events and developments related to major revolutionary movements of the early twentieth century, including the Mexican Revolution, the Chinese Revolution of 1911, the Russian Revolution, the creation of the Irish Free State, the rise of nationalism in Africa and Southeast Asia, and Indian resistance to British rule.
  4. Assess the causes, major events, and consequences of the rise of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan.
  5. Analyze the origins, major events, and consequences of World War 2, including Nazi and Japanese aggression, the Munich Conference, the Nazi-Soviet pact, major battles of the war, the Holocaust, the use of the atomic bomb, and the formation of the United Nations.
  6. Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, and scientific developments of the period in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
  7. Demonstrate knowledge of major world political figures of the first half of the twentieth century, including David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, V. I. Lenin, Sun Yat-sen, Mohandas Gandhi, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek.
  8. Recognize chronological relationships between major global events and developments of the period.
Competency 009—Understand major developments in the modern world from 1945 to the present.

For example:

  1. Analyze the causes, major events, and consequences of the Cold War, including U.S.-Soviet differences concerning Eastern Europe, ideological confrontation, the Berlin Blockade, the creation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the nuclear arms race, détente, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
  2. Analyze major events, developments, and issues related to the process of decolonization in postwar Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, including the economic and political challenges faced by new nations.
  3. Analyze major political, social, economic, and cultural developments in Europe since World War 2, including postwar reconstruction; the establishment of democratic institutions in former fascist nations; the adoption of welfare-state reform programs; changing patterns of work, leisure, and gender relations; immigration and demographic change; and the creation of the European Union.
  4. Examine major political, social, economic, and cultural developments in East Asia, including the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the reconstruction of postwar Japan, and the economic emergence of South Korea and Taiwan.
  5. Assess patterns of change and stability in Latin America, including revolutions in Cuba, Chile, and Nicaragua; the persistence of traditional elites; the integration of Latin America into the world economy; and relations with the United States.
  6. Examine the causes and consequences of major regional conflicts in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas since World War 2.
  7. Demonstrate knowledge of major world political figures of the post–World War 2 era, such as Mao Zedong, Charles de Gaulle, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ho Chi Minh, Nikita Khruschev, Juan and Eva Perón, Golda Meir, Kwame Nkrumah, Fidel Castro, Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela, and Mikhail Gorbachev.
  8. Analyze major global challenges of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, including environmental degradation, terrorism, human rights abuses, limited natural resource supplies, and economic imbalances and social inequalities among the world's peoples.
  9. Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, and scientific developments of the period in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
  10. Recognize chronological relationships between major global events and developments of the period.

 

Domain IV—U.S. History Precontact to 1877

Competency 010—Understand major developments in early U.S. history from the precontact period to 1763.

For example:

  1. Demonstrate knowledge of important social, economic, political, and cultural features of major Native American peoples of the precontact period.
  2. Examine major events and developments related to the European exploration of North America, including the objectives of various explorers, the consequences of key expeditions and settlements, and competition and conflict between European colonial powers.
  3. Analyze coexistence and conflict between Europeans, African Americans, and Native Americans, including the varied cultural perspectives of each group.
  4. Compare similarities and differences between the New England, mid-Atlantic, and southern colonies, as well as similarities and differences between English, French, and Spanish colonies, including reasons for migration to North America, ethnic diversity, and patterns of social and economic development.
  5. Examine major conflicts of the colonial period, including Bacon's Rebellion, King William's War, King George's War, and the French and Indian War.
  6. Analyze major economic, social, political, and cultural developments in the colonies, including the influence of the triangular trade on colonial economic development, the growth of slavery, the role of colonial assemblies and the emergence of representative government, the Great Awakening and the evolution of religious freedom, and economic and political relations with Great Britain.
  7. Demonstrate knowledge of important individuals who influenced colonial development, such as John Smith, John Winthrop, Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, William Penn, James Oglethorpe, and Chief Pontiac.
  8. Analyze how various groups contributed to the emergence of a distinct American society, such as the Puritans, the Baptists, the Quakers, women, colonial merchants, African Americans, and Native Americans.
  9. Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments of the colonial period.
Competency 011—Understand the origins and events of the American Revolution and major developments of the early national period to 1801.

For example:

  1. Analyze the causes of the American Revolution, including the influence of Enlightenment thought on Americans, changes in British imperial policy following the French and Indian War, arguments over the rights of English people, the Stamp Act crisis and the Townshend Acts, the Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts, and efforts to achieve colonial cooperation.
  2. Examine major events, developments, and consequences of the Revolutionary War, including American and British strategies, the roles and perspectives of various groups during the war, major battles of the conflict, economic issues arising out of the Revolution, and the effects of the Revolution on various social groups.
  3. Demonstrate knowledge of major principles and ideas contained in key political documents of the American Revolution and early national period, including the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, the Federalist Papers, and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
  4. Analyze the evolution of national and state government during and after the Revolution, including arguments over the Articles of Confederation, the creation of state constitutions, differences between Federalists and Anti-Federalists, Shays's Rebellion, major debates and compromises at the Constitutional Convention, and the struggle for ratification of the Constitution.
  5. Demonstrate knowledge of major figures of the Revolutionary era and early national period, such as George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Abigail Adams, Daniel Boone, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson.
  6. Analyze major events and developments during the presidential administrations of George Washington and John Adams, including the emergence of political parties, the Whiskey Rebellion, Hamilton's fiscal program, Washington's Farewell Address, relations with European nations, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the presidential election of 1800.
  7. Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during the period.
Competency 012—Understand major developments in U.S. history from 1801 to 1850.

For example:

  1. Analyze events and developments related to westward expansion, including major territorial acquisitions, government-sponsored exploration of the West, factors encouraging migration, economic motives and ideological and religious justifications, the challenges faced by settlers, and the impact of westward settlement and growth on Native American peoples.
  2. Analyze the causes and consequences of economic growth during the period, including improvements in transportation, technological innovations, the spread of factory production, immigration and urbanization, the panics of 1819 and 1837, and the effect of industrialization on different regions and social groups.
  3. Examine major events and developments in U.S. foreign relations during the period, including the War of 1812, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Mexican War.
  4. Examine major political and constitutional developments of the period, including Jeffersonian Republicanism, John Marshall and the Supreme Court, the decline of the Federalist Party, the emergence of Jacksonian democracy, debates over the tariff and the national bank, the Nullification Crisis, and differences between the Democratic and Whig parties.
  5. Demonstrate knowledge of the removal of Eastern Native Americans to lands west of the Mississippi River and the resistance of Native Americans to forced resettlement.
  6. Analyze events and developments related to the spread of slavery during the period, including the role of slavery in southern society, forces encouraging the expansion of slavery, the emergence of a distinctive African American culture, slave resistance, the development of pro-slavery arguments, and the influence of slavery on national politics.
  7. Examine the origins and objectives of major reform movements of the period and the activities and achievements of key reformers, such as William Lloyd Garrison, the Grimké sisters, Sojourner Truth, Frances Wright, Robert Owen, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Horace Mann, and Dorothea Dix.
  8. Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, and scientific developments of the period and the beginnings of a distinctly American literary and intellectual culture.
  9. Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.
Competency 013—Understand the origins, course, and consequences of the Civil War and Reconstruction from 1850 to 1877.

For example:

  1. Analyze similarities and differences in the economies, cultures, and social structures of the North, South, and West in the period preceding the Civil War.
  2. Examine major political developments of the 1850s that contributed to the sectional polarization leading to the Civil War, including the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the disruption of the second American party system, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, and the presidential election of 1860.
  3. Analyze major events and developments of the Civil War, including the leadership provided by Abraham Lincoln, strategies adopted by Union and Confederate military leaders, major battles and diplomatic initiatives, wartime draft riots, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the election of 1864.
  4. Examine the roles and perspectives of various groups during the war, including immigrants, African Americans, women, Northern businessmen, antiwar Democrats, and Southern planters and farmers.
  5. Assess the costs and consequences of the Civil War, including human casualties and physical destruction, the impact of the war on African Americans and women, the response of former slaves to emancipation, the rise of sharecropping in the South, and the development of a one-party political system in the former Confederacy.
  6. Analyze key events and developments of the Reconstruction period, including alternative programs for Reconstruction; the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; conflict between President Johnson and Congress; the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments; the establishment of the Freedman's Bureau; the programs of radical state governments in the South; Southern White resistance to Reconstruction; the role of the U.S. Supreme Court; and the Compromise of 1877.
  7. Examine major social, economic, and political developments during the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, including homestead and land grant legislation enacted by Congress during the war, the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, postwar conflict between the U.S. Army and Native Americans, and the woman suffrage movement.
  8. Demonstrate knowledge of significant figures of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, such as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Stephen A. Douglas, John Brown, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Clara Barton, Andrew Johnson, Thaddeus Stevens, and Charles Sumner.
  9. Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.

 

Domain V—U.S. History 1877 to the Present

Competency 014—Understand major developments in U.S. history from 1877 to 1914.

For example:

  1. Examine the settlement of the trans-Mississippi West, including the mining, ranching, and farming frontiers; the impact of technological developments (e.g., the telegraph, the railroad, barbed wire); and the effects of expanding settlement on Native American peoples.
  2. Analyze the growth of the industrial economy, including the rise and consolidation of industrial and financial empires, the results of technological and managerial innovations, and the conflict between industrial capitalism and organized labor.
  3. Examine changing patterns of immigration to the United States between 1880 and 1910, and the impact of immigration and urbanization on U.S. society.
  4. Analyze the rise of the New South; the disenfranchisement and segregation of, and violence against, African Americans; and the efforts of African Americans such as Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Ida B. Wells to overcome the social, economic, and political obstacles that confronted them.
  5. Examine the emergence of the United States as a world power, including the Spanish-American War, U.S. intervention in Asia and Latin America, and key issues in the debate over U.S. expansionism.
  6. Compare the origins, goals, strategies, and influence of the Populist and Progressive movements.
  7. Demonstrate knowledge of major political and social developments and influential figures of the period, including Tatanka Iyotake, Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, Madam C. J. Walker, Samuel Gompers, William Jennings Bryan, Jane Addams, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt.
  8. Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, scientific, and technological developments in the United States between 1877 and 1914.
  9. Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.
Competency 015—Understand major developments in U.S. history from 1914 to 1945.

For example:

  1. Analyze the causes and consequences of U.S. participation in World War 1, including reasons for U.S. entry into the conflict, the mobilization of public opinion, the impact of U.S. intervention on the war's outcome, and the effect of the war on U.S. society.
  2. Examine major events and developments of the 1920s, including the growth of a consumer economy, the Red Scare, prohibition, the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, immigration restriction, passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, nonconformity and dissent, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, and the presidential administrations of Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.
  3. Evaluate the causes of the Great Depression, the response of the Hoover administration and Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to economic collapse and social dislocation, the ascendancy of the Democratic Party, critics of the New Deal, and the effects of the Depression on the American people.
  4. Analyze major issues and developments in U.S. foreign policy between 1914 and 1941, including Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, the fight over the League of Nations, relations with Latin America, isolationism and neutrality, and the events leading to World War 2.
  5. Examine major events and developments related to U.S. participation in World War 2, including war mobilization, the internment of Japanese Americans, U.S. military and diplomatic strategy, major battles involving U.S. forces, the impact of the war on the U.S. economy and society, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb.
  6. Demonstrate knowledge of major figures of the period, such as Charles Lindbergh, Marcus Garvey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frances Perkins, Huey Long, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and George C. Marshall.
  7. Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, scientific, and technological developments in the United States between 1914 and 1945.
  8. Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.
Competency 016—Understand major developments in U.S. history from 1945 to 1970.

For example:

  1. Analyze major events and developments of the Cold War, including the Marshall Plan; the Truman Doctrine; McCarthyism; containment policy and the domino theory; the formation of NATO; the Korean and Vietnam wars; U.S. intervention in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East; atomic diplomacy; the Cuban missile crisis; and the effect of the Cold War on the U.S. economy and society.
  2. Analyze major social and economic developments of the period, including postwar reconversion, the postwar economic boom, suburbanization, the baby boom, the expansion of higher education, the construction of the Interstate Highway System, the rise of the Sunbelt, the impact of television, and the emergence of a youth culture.
  3. Examine major political events and developments in the United States between 1945 and 1970, including Harry S. Truman's Fair Deal, Dwight D. Eisenhower's Modern Republicanism, John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren, and important electoral contests and legislative initiatives of the period.
  4. Examine the aims, activities, strategies, and achievements of the struggle for African American civil rights, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Montgomery bus boycott, civil disobedience, the sit-in movement, the Birmingham and Selma campaigns, the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Black Power movement.
  5. Demonstrate knowledge of social and political activism during the period, including the feminist movement, the American Indian Movement, the Hispanic rights movement, the Asian American movement, the New Left, the counterculture, the gay liberation movement, and the environmental movement.
  6. Demonstrate knowledge of major figures of the period, such as Douglas MacArthur, George F. Kennan, Thurgood Marshall, Rachel Carson, Robert Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Betty Friedan, and César Chavez.
  7. Examine major developments in literature, the arts, popular culture, science, and technology in the United States between 1945 and 1970.
  8. Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.
Competency 017—Understand major developments in U.S. history from 1970 to the present.

For example:

  1. Examine major political events and developments in the United States since 1970, including Richard Nixon and the Republican ascendancy in the South, Watergate, the decline of liberalism and rise of the conservative movement, the Iran-Contra scandal, the impeachment of Bill Clinton, significant Supreme Court decisions, and important electoral contests and legislative initiatives of the period.
  2. Analyze major issues and developments in U.S. foreign policy since 1970, including détente with China; the end of the Cold War; the Camp David Accords; the Iran hostage crisis; the Persian Gulf War; the events of September 11, 2001; and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
  3. Assess the impact of major economic developments of the period affecting the United States, including the oil embargoes of the 1970s, stagflation, deindustrialization and the shift toward a service economy, the decline of organized labor, Reaganomics, information technology and the computer revolution, the stock market boom of the 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and economic globalization.
  4. Evaluate major social developments of the period, including demographic change and population shifts, continuing struggles for equal rights, the growth of religious influence in politics, environmental and consumer advocacy, changing patterns of immigration, rising homelessness, and increased disparities in income and wealth.
  5. Demonstrate knowledge of major figures of the period, such as Jimmy Carter, Jesse Jackson, Ronald Reagan, Sandra Day O'Connor, Jerry Falwell, George H. W. Bush, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Alan Greenspan, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.
  6. Demonstrate knowledge of major literary, artistic, intellectual, scientific, and technological developments in the United States from 1970 to the present.
  7. Recognize chronological relationships between major events and developments in U.S. history during this period.
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