There's no perfect answer to this question (even the question acknowledges this problem). In my opinion, the U.S. was put on a path to Civil War the very moment the U.S. Constitution was signed. The Constitution brought a bunch of colonies into a union together, even though some of those colonies relied heavily on slavery and believed that slavery was morally defensible, while others did not rely on slavery and believed that slavery was a terrible thing. It was only a matter of time before the debate over slavery turned into a violent clash over slavery.
Bartolome De Las Casas expected the Spaniards to convert the native population to Christianity through civil means. Instead, they forced conversion on these people and used violence if individuals resisted this change in religion. De Las Casas was appauled by the efforts of the Spanish and described the brutal treatment that Spanish conquerors used against Native American populations. He recorded his observations in his book <em>The Destruction of the Indies. </em>This would become one of the most famous books about Spanish colonization during the 16th century.
The big stick is the correct answer.
The answer to the question above is 1943.
1943 is the year that General Montgomery lead the allies to a victory over the Axis troops in North Africa. The North African Campaign started from June 10, 1940, and ended in May 13, 1943. The British Commonwealth force was led by Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery.
In this quote, Thurgood Marshall is talking about the time between the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation (which was supposed to free slaves in the Confederacy) to the Brown vs. Board case which ruled that "separate but equal" is unconstitutional.
The reason he brings up these two events is because it shows how little progress American society has changed in these 90 years. Even though African-Americans were supposed to be free citizens after the Emancipation Proclamation, they were still treated as second class citizens in the US. They were constantly targets of voter discrimination, violence, and prejudice.
