History of the United States

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This article is part of the U.S. History series.

Pre-Colonial America

Colonial America

1776–1789

1789–1849

1849–1865

1865–1918

1918–1945

1945–1964

1964–1980

1980–1987

1988–present

Timeline · Topics

The United States is a country occupying part of the North American continent ranging from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean and including outlying areas as well. The first inhabitants of the area now claimed by the United States arrived at least 12,000 years ago, probably by crossing the Bering land bridge into Alaska. Relatively little is known of these early settlers compared to the Europeans who colonized the area after the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Columbus' men were also the first Old Worlders to land in the territory of the United States when they arrived in Puerto Rico the next year on their second voyage; the first to set foot in the continental U.S. was Juan Ponce de León, who arrived in Florida in 1513, though he may have been preceded by John Cabot in 1497.

Pre-Colonial America

The land of what is now the United States is thought to have been populated by people migrating from Asia via the Bering land bridge some time between 50,000 and 11,000 years ago.["Paleoamerican Origins"]. 1999. Smithsonian Institution. Accessed 2 May 2006. These people became the indigenous people who inhabited the Americas prior to the arrival of European explorers in the 1400s and who are now called Native Americans.

Many cultures thrived in the Americas before Europeans came, including the Puebloans (Anasazi) in the Southwest and the Adena Culture in the East. Several such societies and communities, over time, intensified this practice of established settlements, and grew to support sizeable and concentrated populations. Agriculture was independently developed in what is now the eastern United States by 2500 BC, based on the domestication of indigenous sunflower, squash and goosefoot. Eventually, in the last eleven hundred years, the Mexican crops of corn and beans were adapted to the shorter summers of eastern North America and replaced the indigenous crops.

Early European settlements

One recorded European exploration of the Americas was by Christopher Columbus in 1492, sailing on behalf of the King and Queen of Spain. He didn't reach mainland America until his fourth voyage, almost 20 years later. He first landed on Haiti, where the Arawaks, whom he mistook for people of the Indies (thus, "Indians") greeted him and his fleet by swimming out to their ships with gifts and food. Columbus, after island-hopping for several months, heard nothing of gold, his main drive for the voyage. However, he realized that a great market of slavery could be made with these populations. By 1550 there were only 500 Arawaks left, about 250,000 indians on Haiti had died from murder or suicide.

After a period of exploration by various European countries, Dutch, Spanish, English, French, Swedish, and Portuguese settlements were established. Columbus was the first European to set foot in U.S. territory when he came to Puerto Rico in 1493; the oldest remaining European settlements in the U.S. are San Juan, Puerto Rico, founded 1521, and on the mainland, St. Augustine in what is now the state of Florida, founded in 1565.

In the 15th century, Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. The introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America. The horse offered revolutionary speed and efficiency, both while hunting and in battle. The horse also became a sort of currency for native tribes and nations. Horses became a pivotal part in solidifying social hierarchy, expanding trade areas with neighboring tribes, and creating a stereotype both to their advantage and against it, as well.

Colonial America (1493-1776)

Colonial America was defined by ongoing battles between mainly English-speaking colonists and Native Americans, by a severe labor shortage that gave birth to forms of unfree labor such as slavery and indentured servitude, and by a British policy of benign neglect (salutary neglect) that permitted the development of an American spirit distinct from that of its European founders.

The first truly successful English colony was established in 1607, on the James River near the Chesapeake Bay. The Virginia Company of London financed the purchase of three ships to transport settlers to the Virginia colony. The names of the three ships were The Susan Constant, Godspeed and the Discovery. The leader of the group was Captain Christopher Newport. Also on board was John Smith, an explorer, soldier, and writer. King James decided to give the Virginia Company a charter for the Jamestown settlement. When the settlers landed in Jamestown, they chose a place they thought had fresh water, deep water to dock their ships, and was easy to defend. The settlement was named Jamestown after the king. England also wanted to find gold, silver and other riches in North America.

As increasing numbers of settlers arrived in Virginia, many conflicts arose between the Native Americans and the colonists. The colonists increasingly appropriated land to farm and grow tobacco. This was the beginning of a general trend towards displacing Native Americans westward to make room for settlers. [link]

One example of conflict between Native Americans and English settlers was the 1622 Powhatan uprising in Virginia, in which Indians had killed hundreds of English settlers. The largest conflict between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century was King Philip's War in New England. [link]

Differences of language, religion and culture also contributed to the friction between the two groups. At the base of the friction was an assumption by the English colonists of racial, cultural and moral superiority. [link]

[Subject Matter: Technology, the Body, and Science on the Anglo-American Frontier, 1500-1676. By Joyce E. Chaplin . (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001] [John Wood Sweet. Bodies Politic - Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730-1830. Johns Hopkins University Press]

New England was founded by two separate groups of religious dissenters. A second group of colonists called the Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were characterized by a large degree of diversity. The first attempted English settlement south of Virginia was the Province of Carolina, with Georgia Colony the last of the 13 colonies established in 1733.

Spain claimed or controlled a large part of the central and western United States as part of New Spain which included Spanish Florida, California and Texas. In 1682, French explorer Sieur de La Salle explored the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and claimed the entire territory as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, which became New France. The Louisiana Territory, under Spanish control since the end of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), remained off-limits to settlement from the 13 American colonies.

These are historic regions of the United States, meaning regions that were legal entities in the past, or which the average modern American would no longer immediately recognize as a regional description.

Formation of the United States (1776-1789)

During this period the United States won its independence from Great Britain by winning the American Revolutionary War, and the thirteen former colonies established themselves as the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation.

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia declared the independence of the United States in a remarkable document, the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson. Morocco was the first country in the World to recognize the newly sovereign United States in 1777. The Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship stands as the U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendship treaty. Signed by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, it has been in continuous effect since 1783.

The United States celebrates its founding date as July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence that rejected British authority in favor of self-determination. The structure of the government was profoundly changed on March 4, 1789, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The new government reflected a radical break from the normative governmental structures of the time, favoring representative, elective government with a weak executive, rather than the existing monarchial structures common within the western traditions of the time. The system borrowed heavily from enlightenment age ideas and classical western philosophy, in that a primacy was placed upon individual liberty and upon constraining the power of government through division of powers and a system of checks and balances.

The colonists' victory at Saratoga led the French into an open alliance with the United States. In 1781, a combined American and French Army, acting with the support of a French fleet, captured a large British army, led by General Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia (see Siege of Yorktown). The surrender of General Cornwallis ended serious British efforts to find a military solution to their American problem.

A series of attempts to organize a movement to outline and press reforms culminated in the Congress calling the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Westward Expansion (1789–1849)

During this period, the United States government was established by its first president, George Washington, and the Louisiana Purchase, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and various Indian Wars expanded and consolidated the land expanse of the United States--while largely displacing the indigenous population.

George Washington, a renowned hero of the American Revolutionary War, commander and chief of the Continental Army, and president of the Constitutional Convention, became the first President of the United States under the new U.S. Constitution. The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, when settlers in the Monongahela Valley of western Pennsylvania protested against a federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks, was the first serious test of the federal government.

The Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, gave Western farmers use of the important Mississippi River waterway, removed the French presence from the western border of the United States, and provided U.S. settlers with vast potential for expansion. In response to continued British impressment of American sailors into the British Navy Madison had the Twelfth United States Congress—led by Southern and Western Jeffersonians—declared war on Britain in 1812. The United States and Britain came to a draw in the War of 1812, after bitter fighting that lasted until January 8, 1815. The Treaty of Ghent, officially ending the war, essentially resulted in the maintenance of the 'status quo ante bellum'; but, crucially for the U.S., saw the end of the British alliance with the Native Americans.

The Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed the United States' opinion that European powers should no longer colonize or interfere in the Americas; this was a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States.

In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Indian tribal lands in the eastern states for lands west of the Mississippi River. This established Andrew Jackson, a military hero and president, as a cunning tyrant in regards to native populations. This Act resulted in the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes to peacefully go and die en route to the West, the Creeks to put up violent opposition and eventual defeat, and the Cherokee Nation to peacefully take up farming and "civilized behavior." The Cherokees, under Jackson's presidency, were eventually pushed from their land, even after successful agriculture, trade, and the first North American Indian written language was established. The Indian Removal Act also directly caused the ceding of Spanish Florida and subsequently to the many Seminole Wars.

Mexico refused to accept the annexation of Texas in 1845, and war broke out in 1846. The U.S., using regulars and large numbers of volunteers, defeated Mexico, which was badly led, short on resources, and was plagued by a divided command. Public sentiment in the States was also divided, as Whigs and anti-slavery forces opposed the war. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, California, New Mexico and adjacent areas to the United States. In 1850, the issue of slavery in the new territories was settled by the Compromise of 1850 brokered by Whig Henry Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas.

Civil War Era (1849–1865)

This period of United States history saw the breakdown of the ability of white Americans of the North and South to reconcile fundamental differences in their approach to government, economics, society and African American slavery. Abraham Lincoln was elected president, the South seceded to form the Confederate States of America, the Civil War followed, with the ultimate defeat of the South.

In 1854, the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act abrogated the Missouri Compromise by providing that each new state of the Union would decide its stance on slavery. After the election of Abraham Lincoln, eleven Southern states seceded from the union between late 1860 and 1861, establishing a rebel government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861.

The Civil War began when Confederate General Pierre Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter. They fired because Fort Sumter was in a confederate state. Along with the northwestern portion of Virginia, four of the five northernmost "slave states" did not secede, and became known as the Border States. Emboldened by Second Bull Run, the Confederacy made its first invasion of the North when General Robert E. Lee led 55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River into Maryland. The Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17 1862, was the bloodiest single day in American history. At the beginning of 1864, Lincoln made General Ulysses S. Grant commander of all Union armies. Sherman marched from Chattanooga to Atlanta, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John B. Hood. Sherman's army laid waste to about 20% of the farms in Georgia in his celebrated "March to the Sea", and reaching the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah in December 1864. Lee finally surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.

Reconstruction and the Rise of Industrialization (1865–1918)

After its civil war, America experienced an accelerated rate of industrialization, mainly in the northern states. However, Reconstruction and its failure left the Southern whites in a position of firm control over its black population, denying them their Civil Rights and keeping them in a state of economic, social and political servitude. Since the late 1800s, the United States has been formally grouped amongst the Great Powers, and has also become a dominant economic force.

U.S. Federal government policy, since the James Monroe administration, had been to move the indigenous population beyond the reach of the white frontier into a series of Indian Reservations. In 1876, the last serious Sioux war erupted, when the Dakota gold rush penetrated the Black Hills.

An unprecedented wave of immigration to the United States served both to provide the labor for American industry and to create diverse communities in previously undeveloped areas. Native American tribes were generally forced onto small reservations as white farmers and ranchers took over their lands. Abusive industrial practices led to the often violent rise of the labor movement in the United States.

The United States began its rise to international power in this period with substantial population and industrial growth domestically, and a number of military ventures abroad, including the Spanish-American War, which began when the United States blamed the sinking of the USS Maine (ACR-1) on Spain without any real evidence.

This period was capped by the 1917 entry of the United States into World War I.

Post World War I and the Great Depression (1918–1940)

Following World War I, the U.S. grew steadily in stature as an economic and military world power. The after-shock of Russia's October Revolution resulted in real fears of communism in the United States, leading to a three year Red Scare.

The United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles imposed by its Allies on the defeated Central Powers; instead, the United States chose to pursue unilateralism, if not isolationism.

In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Prohibition ended in 1933, a failure.

During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity: farm prices and wages fell, while industrial profits grew. The boom was fueled by a rise in debt and an inflated Stock Market. The Stock Market crash in 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression led to government efforts to re-start the economy and help its victims, with Roosevelt's New Deal. The recovery was rapid in all areas except unemployment, which remained fairly high until 1940.

Homefront: World War II (1940-1945)

See main article Homefront-United States-World War II

The United States threw its diplomatic and economic power into the war beginning in May 1940, when it became the "Arsenal of Democracy." Militarily it entered after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. The U.S. joined Britain, Nationalist China, and the Soviet Union to defeat Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany.

Cold War Beginnings and the Civil Rights Movement (1945–1964)

Following World War II, the United States emerged as one of the two dominant superpowers. The U.S. Senate, on December 4, 1945, approved U.S. participation in the United Nations (UN), which marked a turn away from the traditional isolationism of the U.S. and toward more international involvement. The post-war era in the United States was defined internationally by the beginning of the Cold War, in which the United States and the Soviet Union attempted to expand their influence at the expense of the other, checked by each side's massive nuclear arsenal and the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. The result was a series of conflicts during this period including the Korean War and the tense nuclear showdown of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Within the United States, the Cold War prompted concerns about Communist influence, and also resulted in government efforts to encourage math and science toward efforts like the space race.

In the decades after the Second World War, the United States became a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, cultural and technological affairs. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it stands today as the sole superpower. The power of the United States is nonetheless limited by international agreements and the realities of political, military and economic constraints. At the center of middle-class culture since the 1950s has been a growing obsession with consumer goods.

John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960, known for his charisma, he was the only Catholic to ever be President. The Kennedys brought a new life and vigor to the atmosphere of the White House. During his time in office, the Cold War reached its height with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

Meanwhile, the American people completed their great migration from the farms into the cities, and experienced a period of sustained economic expansion. At the same time, institutionalized racism across the United States, but especially in the American South, was increasingly challenged by the growing Civil Rights movement and African American leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. During the 1960s, the Jim Crow laws that legalized racial segregation between Whites and Blacks came to an end.

Cold War (1964–1980)

The Cold War continued through the 1960s and 1970s, and the United States entered the Vietnam War, whose growing unpopularity fed already existing social movements, including those among women, minorities and young people. President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society social programs and the judicial activism of the Warren Court added to the wide range of social reform during the 1960s and 70s. The period saw the birth of feminism and the environmental movement as political forces, and continued progress toward Civil Rights.

In the early 1970s, Johnson's successor, President Richard Nixon brought the Vietnam War to a close, and the American-backed South Vietnamese government collapsed. The war cost the lives of 58,000 American troops and millions of Vietnamese. Nixon's own administration was brought to an ignominious close with the political scandal of Watergate. The OPEC oil embargo and slowing economic growth led to a period of stagflation under President Jimmy Carter as the 1970s drew to a close. Space Stations were launched as early as 1971. Huge space advancements became known to man.

End of the Cold War (1980–1988)

Ronald Reagan produced a major realignment with his 1980 and 1984 landslides. In 1980 the Reagan coalition was possible because of Democratic losses in most social-economic groups.

"Reagan Democrats" were conservative ethnics who usually voted Democratic but were attracted by Reagan's policies, personality and leadership, notably his social conservatism and hawkish foreign policy.

In foreign affairs bipartisanship was not in evidence. The Democrats doggedly opposed the president's efforts to support the Contras of Nicaragua. He took a hard line against the Soviet Union, alarming Democrats who wanted a nuclear freeze, but he succeeded in growing the military budget and launching a very high tech "Star Wars" missile defense system that the Soviets could not match. When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in Moscow many conservative Republicans were dubious of the friendship between him and Reagan. Gorbachev tried to save Communism in Russia first by ending the expensive arms race with America, then (1989) by shedding the East European empire. Communism finally collapsed in Russia in 1991.

Modern Era (1988–present)

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States still involved itself in military action overseas, including the 1991 Gulf War. Following his election in 1992, President Bill Clinton oversaw the longest economic expansion in American history, a side effect of the digital revolution and new business opportunities created by the Internet (see Internet bubble).

At the beginning of the new millennium, the United States found itself attacked by Islamist terrorism, with the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon orchestrated by Osama bin Laden. Another flight, Flight 93, crashed in Pennsylvania near a forest. It is believed this was intended to hit the White House. In response, under the administration of President George W. Bush, the United States (with the military support of NATO and the political support of most of the international community) invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban regime, which had supported and harbored bin Laden. More controversially, President Bush continued what he dubbed the War on Terrorism with the invasion of Iraq by overthrowing and capturing Saddam Hussein in 2003. This second invasion proved to be unpopular in many parts of the world, even amongst long-time American allies such as France, and helped fuel a global wave of anti-American sentiment.

The presidential election in 2000 was one of the closest in American history, and helped lay the seeds for political polarization to come. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina flooded parts of the city of New Orleans and heavily damaged other areas of the gulf coast, including major damage to the Mississippi coast. The preparation and the response of the government were criticized as ineffective and slow, respectively. As of 2006, the political climate remains polarized as debates continue over partial birth abortion, federal funding of stem cell research, separation of church and state, same-sex marriage, immigration reform and the ongoing war in Iraq. According to many recent opinion polls, a great majority of the American people are losing faith in both parties of the federal government and are dissatisfied about the present state of the nation.

See also

• American studies
• Pre-Columbian era
• Colonial Era
• Articles of Confederation
• Jacksonian democracy
• Industrial Revolution
• Antebellum
• American Civil War
• Reconstruction
• Gilded Age
• Progressive Era
• Roaring Twenties
• Great Depression
• Atomic Age
• Space Age
• Cold War
• Information Age
• Dot-com era
• History of the Southern United States
• American Old West
• Constitution
• Anasazi

Literature

• The State of U.S. history, ed. by Melvyn Stokes, Berg Publishers 2002
• The American Pageant: A History of the Republic (12th Ed.), Bailey, Thomas A., Cohen, Lizabeth, and David M. Kennedy. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001. ISBN 061810349X
• Johnson, Paul M. A History of the American People, Perennial, 1999. ISBN 0060930349
• Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States, Perennial, 2003. ISBN 0060528370

External links

• Civil War Research & Discussion Group - [Fields Of Conflict] - Containing 1000+ Links And 350+ Articles.
• [U.S. Chronology World History Database]
• [Houghton Mifflin Company: U.S. History Resource Center]
• [United States History article] from Encarta Encyclopedia. Extensive information plus over 200 multimedia files.
• [Library of Congress American History Guide]
• [American Historical Association]
• [The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History]
• [WWW-VL: History: United States]
• [American History Forums]
• [History of the United States] by Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, 1921, from Project Gutenberg
• [U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs]

History of the United States
Timeline:	Pre-colonial · Colonial · 1776–1789 · 1789–1849 · 1849–1865 · 1865–1918 · 1918–1945 · 1945–1964 · 1964–1980 · 1980–1988 · 1988–present
Topics:	African American · Diplomatic · Economic · Expansion (continental) · Expansion (overseas) · Female · Immigratory · Industrial · Jewish · Military · Musical · Postal · Religious · Southern

 

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