Nonviolent protests over high taxes to repay Revolutionary War debts turned violent in what is known as Shays’ Rebellion. In 1787, a planned attack on the federal arsenal was thwarted and the rebellion squashed but not without legislative repercussions.

With fears of European powers trying to colonize the western hemisphere yet again, The Monroe Doctrine declared the west off-limits to European interference, although US military enforcement would not be possible for years to come.

In 1846, the Donner Party was the last westbound wagon train of the season and the first with wagons to attempt a new route, which forced them to endure a deadly Sierra Nevada winter at Truckee Lake.

Ronald Reagan’s supply-side, trickle-down economic policies were popular in the 1980s after a period of rising inflation, high government spending and crime rates.

Adding weight behind the First Reconstruction Act to give post-Civil War African Americans their rights, the 15th Amendment supported U.S. voting rights, indiscriminate of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

John Brown’s radical plans for the abolition of slavery culminated in the Harpers Ferry raid, where 22 recruited men helped Brown overtake an armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, leading to a fatal and treasonous standoff.

In the Mississippi summer of 1964, known as Freedom Summer, civil rights activists intended to register black voters where taxes and tests stymied their rights. After the bodies of student activists were found murdered by the KKK, public outcry eventually led to the passage of civil and voting rights acts.