Colonization

Otherwise known as being the worst neighbor ever.

The idea of colonization is pretty straightforward: one country takes over another country and makes it part of the first country. Repeat as desired. This was a fairly common practice by European countries starting in the 16th century.

By the 19th century, the British Empire was huge, the Spanish Empire was crumbling, and Africa would soon get carved up among European nations sitting around a table (literally). Colonies in the Americas were becoming independent, and the threat of further colonization was one of the main inspirations of the Monroe Doctrine.

Felicity

Felicity is an old-fashioned term for happiness or bliss. You'll see it a lot in Jane Austen novels…and in a certain 90s TV show about a young woman attending the University of New York.

Comport

This is another word for "to agree with" or "to conform with." It's not to be confused with "compost," which is something very different and much smellier.

Interposition

An interposition is essentially a barrier or interference. For instance, the fridge being all the way in the other room would be an interposition to your snacking needs.

Impressment

Impressing someone with your mad accordion-playing skillz is a good thing. Impressing someone into your navy…not so much.

In this context, impressment refers to the practice of capturing foreign sailors or deserters and forcing them into the military. It was one of the things that led to the War of 1812…because this is exactly the kind of thing that starts wars. Impressment was mostly done by the British navy, although it was surprisingly common all around. Nothing gets you some loyal soldiers like a little bit of kidnapping.

Era of Good Feelings

This sounds like something your grandparents would say when describing their carefree lives in the hippie-dippie 1970s. But it's actually way older.

Starting around 1815, after the War of 1812 was over, American political parties dissolved into one and everyone in the U.S. got along for a couple of years. We're not saying they were sitting around a campfire singing "Kumbaya," but we're not saying they weren't either. (We don't know, we weren't there.)

Missouri Compromise

All good things must come to an end, and here's where the Era of Good Feelings started to crumble.

When Missouri was about to become an official state, some political leaders tried to get it declared a free state with no slavery allowed. That didn't go well in the South, where leaders were worried about an imbalance between slave states and free states. Finally they worked out a compromise where Missouri became a slave state, but Maine was admitted as a free state.

Hooray for compromise? Not so much: this bad boy is seen as being one of the major things that a) kept the practice of slavery around for a few more decades and b) led to the Civil War.

War of 1812

America declared war on Britain and France after the European countries kept mistreating the U.S. on the high seas. (We know: this sounds Jack Sparrow-esque and cool, but it wasn't.)

Anti-British fervor inspired Congress to push for the war, which barely accomplished anything. Well, Washington and the White House burned down, so that's an accomplishment (?).

War Hawks

A group of Congressmen, including such famous figures as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, was super pro-war-with-Britain leading up to the War of 1812. They got a nickname for being so pushy about it. These guys were the main force behind the U.S. declaration of war in 1812.

Spanish Civil War of 1820

King Ferdinand VII of Spain had a lot of problems in the early 1800s—his colonies kept rebelling and people kept taking him off the throne. Don't you just hate it when that happens?

When rebels tried to get some liberal reforms in Spain in the early 1820s, other European countries eventually met and decided that France should just go in and fix it. They invaded, put Ferdinand back in power, and kept absolute monarchy alive and well in the Iberian Peninsula. Monroe brings it up a couple of times in his speech.

Manifest Destiny

Manifest Destiny was one of the main themes of the 19th century…along with "insanely wide skirts" and "being scandalized about the newfangled fad of waltzing."

This one is the idea that Americans were supposed to expand west and spread across the continent. Their noble and superior method of being a nation gave them a sort of divine right to go forth and rescue the land from those who didn't know how fantastic republican democracy could be. Or, in other words, steal land from Native Americans.

Manifest Destiny inspired people to settle the western regions of the country. If you ever played Oregon Trail and died of dysentery, you were probably following the call.

Convention of 1824

In 1821, Czar Alexander I of Russia declared that Russian territory included the entire western coast of the Americas north of Oregon, and said no non-Russians could sail within a hundred miles of that land.

Well, the U.S. was not on board with that (pun intended). After a few years of negotiating, Russia moved the southern border of their territory up so they basically just had Alaska.

Adams-Onís Treaty

This treaty, written in 1819 and ratified in 1821, ended the conflict in Spanish Florida by giving the land to the U.S., in exchange for debt forgiveness and a promise to leave Texas alone. After the First Seminole War, John Quincy Adams negotiated the treaty with Louis de Onís of Spain.

Without this treaty, who knows where Disney World would be?

Rush-Bagot Treaty

The Rush-Bagot Treat of 1818 de-militarized the Great Lakes, which before this had hosted a surprising number of British and American warships. After the War of 1812, treaties like this one were signs of a steadily improving relationship between Britain and the U.S., who each recognized a good trade partner in the other.

And they say money can't buy love…