AP美国历史必备词汇表：P

　　AP美国历史中有很多人名、组织等的必背专有名词，新东方在线AP频道为大家带来啦AP美国历史必备词汇表，本文是以字母P开头的词汇，大家一定不要错过哦！

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P

　　Thomas Paine

　　Author of influential pamphlet Common Sense, which exhorted Americans to rise up in opposition to the British government and establish a new type of government based on Enlightenment ideals. Historians have cited the publication of this pamphlet as the event that finally sparked the Revolutionary War. Paine also wrote rational criticisms of religion, most famously in The Age of Reason (1794–1807).

　　Palmer Raids

　　A series of raids coordinated by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Throughout 1910, police and federal marshals raided the homes of suspected radicals and the headquarters of radical organizations in thirty-two cities. The Palmer Raids resulted in more than 4,000 arrests, 550 deportations, and uncountable violations of civil rights.

　　Panama Canal

　　An articifial waterway built by the U.S. between 1904 and 1914 as part of Roosevelt’s “big stick” diplomacy. The canal stretches across the isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Panama gained full control of the canal in 1999.

　　Panic of 1819

　　The start of a two-year depression caused by extensive speculation, the loose lending practices of state banks, a decline in European demand for American staple goods, and mismanagement within the Second Bank of the United States. The panic of 1819 exacerbated social divisions within the United States and is often called the beginning of the end of the Era of Good Feelings.

　　Panic of 1837

　　Punctured the economic boom sparked by state banks’ loose lending practices and overspeculation. Contraction of the nation’s credit in 1836 led to widespread debt and unemployment. Martin Van Buren spent most of his time in office attempting to stabilize the economy and ameliorate the depression.

　　Panic of 1873

　　Due to overexpansion and overspeculation, the nation’s largest bank collapsed, followed by the collapse of many smaller banks, business firms, and the stock market. The panic of 1873 precipitated a five-year national depression.

　　Panic of 1893

　　Began when the railroad industry faltered during the early 1890s, sparking the collapse of many related industries. Confidence in the U.S. dollar plunged. The depression lasted roughly four years.

　　Paris Accords

　　Signed on January 27, 1973. The Paris Accords settled the terms of U.S. withdrawal from Indochina, ending the war between the U.S. and North Vietnam but leaving the conflict between North and South Vietnam unresolved.

　　Rosa Parks

　　African American seamstress who sparked the Montgomery bus boycott by refusing to give up her bus seat for a white man in December 1955.

　　Peace Corps

　　Created by JFK in 1961. The Corps sends volunteer teachers, health workers, and engineers on two-year aid programs to Third World countries.

　　Pearl Harbor

　　An American naval base in Hawaii that was bombed by Japan on December 7, 1941. The surprise attack resulted in the loss of more than 2,400 American lives, as well as many aircraft and sea vessels. The following day the U.S. declared war against Japan, officially entering World War II.

　　Pendleton Act

　　Passed in 1883. The Pendleton Act established a civil service exam for many public posts and created hiring systems based on merit rather than on patronage. The act aimed to eliminate corrupt hiring practices.

　　William Penn

　　English Quaker who founded Pennsylvania in 1682 after receiving a charter from King Charles II. Penn launched the colony as a “holy experiment” based on religious tolerance.

　　Ross Perot

　　A third-party candidate in the 1992 presidential election who won 19 percent of the popular vote. Perot’s strong showing demonstrated voter disaffection with the two major parties.

　　Personal liberty laws

　　Passed by nine northern states to counteract the Fugitive Slave Act. These state laws guaranteed all alleged fugitives the right to a lawyer and a trial by jury, and prohibited state jails from holding alleged fugitives.

　　Franklin Pierce

　　Democrat, served as president of the United States from 1853 to 1857. Pierce was the last president until 1932 to win the popular and electoral vote in both the North and South. Pierce was little more than a caretaker of the White House in the years leading up to the Civil War.

　　Pilgrims

　　A group of English Separatists who sought refuge from the Church of England in the Netherlands. In 1620, they sailed to the New World on the Mayflower and established the colony of Plymouth Plantation.

　　Platt Amendment

　　Passed in 1901. The Platt Amendment authorized American withdrawal from Cuba only on the following conditions: Cuba must make no treaty with a foreign power limiting its independence; the U.S. reserved the right to intervene in Cuba when it saw fit; and the U.S. could maintain a naval base at Guantánamo Bay.

　　Plessy v. Ferguson

　　The 1896 Supreme Court decision ruled that segregation was not illegal as long as facilities for each race were equal. This “separate but equal” doctrine served to justify segregation throughout the early and mid-1900s. In 1954, the Supreme Court overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case.

　　Edgar Allan Poe

　　A fiction writer who gained popularity in the 1840s for his horrific tales. He published many famous stories, including “The Raven” (1844) and “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846).

　　James K. Polk

　　President from 1845 to 1849. A firm believer in expansion, Polk led the U.S. into the Mexican War in 1846, after which the U.S. acquired Texas, New Mexico, and California. Many Northerners saw Polk as an agent of Southern will aiming to expand the nation in order to extend slavery into the West.

　　Popular Front

　　A political group active in aiding the leftist forces in the Spanish Civil War. Prominent American intellectuals and writers, including Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, joined the group.

　　Popular sovereignty

　　First espoused by Democratic presidential candidate Lewis Cass in 1848 and eventually championed by Stephen A. Douglas. The principle of popular sovereignty stated that Congress should not interfere with the issue of slavery in new territories. Instead each territory, when seeking admission into the Union, would draw up a constitution declaring slavery legal or illegal as it saw fit. Popular sovereignty became the core of the Democratic position on slavery’s expansion during the 1850s.

　　Populist Party

　　Formed in 1892 through farmers’ alliances in the Midwest and South with poor laborers. The Populist Party agitated for various reforms that supported farmers and the poor, including “free silver” (the unlimited coinage of silver), which would ease debt payments. In 1896, the Democrats appropriated parts of the Populist platform and nominated William Jennings Bryan for president. Bryan lost the election despite the joint backing of the Democrats and Populists.

　　Potsdam Conference

　　Held July 17–August 2, 1945. At the conference Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met to coordinate the division of Germany into occupation zones and plan for the Nuremberg Trials. Potsdam was the final meeting between the Big Three powers under the pretense of a wartime alliance.

　　Elvis Presley

　　Most famous rock star of the 1950s. His sexually charged dance moves and unique sound played a major role in defining the growing genre of rock-and-roll, which became prominent during the 1950s.

　　Proclamation of American Neutrality

　　In the early 1790s, Britain and France went to war with each other. The American public was torn over which nation to support: the South largely backed France, while the North favored the British. Issued in 1793, the Proclamation was George Washington’s response to the public division, and it stated that the U.S. would maintain neutral during the war.

　　Public Works Administration (PWA)

　　Created by the National Industrial Recovery Act as part of the New Deal. The PWA spent over $4 million on projects designed to employ the jobless and reinvigorate the economy.

　　Joseph Pulitzer

　　Owner of the New York World, the main competitor of William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. Though the World was the (slightly) more reputable of the two papers, both engaged in yellow journalism, exaggerating facts and sensationalizing stories about the Spanish-American War.

　　Pullman strike

　　1894 strike against the Chicago-based Pullman Palace Car Company after wages were slashed and union representatives were fired. Led by Eugene Debs, the boycott completely crippled railroad traffic in Chicago. The courts ruled that the strikers had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and issued an injunction against them. When the strikers refused to obey the injunction, Debs was arrested and federal troops marched in to crush the strike. In the ensuing frenzy, thirteen died and fifty-three were injured.

　　Puppet governments

　　Governments set up and supported by outside powers. Puppet governments were established by both the U.S. and the USSR. during the Cold War. The two superpowers hand-picked the leaders of developing nations in order to maintain influence over those countries.

　　Pure Food and Drug Act

　　Passed in 1906 in response to questionable packaging and labeling practices of food and drug industries. The act prohibited the sale of adulterated or inaccurately labeled foods and medicines.

　　Puritans

　　A radical Protestant group that sought to “purify” the Church of England from within. Persecuted for their beliefs, many Puritans fled to the New World in the early 1600s, where they established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in present-day Boston. The Puritans placed heavy emphasis on family values and strict morality.