1. INTRODUCTION
The United States of America is located in the middle of the North American continent, between the Commonwealth of Canada to the north and the United States of Mexico to the south. The United States ranges from the Atlantic Ocean on the nations east coast to the Pacific Ocean bordering the west, and also includes the state of Hawaii, a series of Islands located in the Pacific Ocean, the state of Alaska located in the northwestern part of the continent above the Yukon and numerous other holdings and territories.
The first known inhabitants of the area now possessed by the United States are believed to have arrived over a period of several thousand years beginning approximately 20,000 years ago by crossing the Bering land bridge into Alaska. The first solid evidence of these cultures settling in what would become the US begins as early as 15,000 years ago with the Sandia and Clovis tribes.
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 known Old Worlders to land in the territory of the United States when they arrived in Puerto Rico during their second voyage. The first European known to set foot in the continental U.S. was Juan Ponce de León, who arrived in Florida in 1513, though there is some evidence suggesting that he may have been preceded by John Cabot in 1497.
2. PRE-COLONIAL AMERICA
Monk's Mound in Cahokia, Illinois, at 100 feet high is the largest man-made earthen mound in North America, was part of a city which had thousands of people around 1050 AD
Archaeological as well as Geological evidence suggests that the present-day United States was originally populated by people migrating from Asia via the Bering land bridge starting some 20,000 years ago. 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 as early as 2500 BC, based on the domestication of indigenous sunflower, squash and goosefoot. Eventually, Mexican maize and legumes were adapted to the shorter summers of eastern North America and replaced the indigenous crops.
The first European contact with the Americas was with the Vikings in the year 1000. Leif Erikson established a short-lived settlement called Vinland in present day Newfoundland. It would be another 500 years before European contact would be made again.
3. EARLY EUROPEAN EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENTS
One recorded the European exploration of the Americas was by Christopher Columbus in 1492, sailing on behalf of the King and Queen of Spain. He did not reach mainland America until his fourth voyage, almost 20 years after his first voyage. 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.
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 on what would one day become U.S. territory when he came to Puerto Rico in 1493; the oldest continuously occupied 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.
4. ENGLISH COLONIAL AMERICA (1493-1776)
In 1607, the Virginia Company of London established the Jamestown Settlement on the James River, both named after King James I
The strip of land along the seacoast was settled primarily by English colonists in the 17th century, along with much smaller numbers of Dutch and Swedes. Colonial America was defined 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 successful English colony was established in 1607, on the James River at Jamestown. It languished for decades until a new wave of settlers arrived in the late 17th century and set up commercial agriculture based on tobacco. 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.
New England was founded primarily by Puritans who 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 Thirteen Colonies established in 1733. Several colonies were used as penal settlements from the 1620s until the US Revolution.
5. FORMATION OF THE UNITES STATES OF AMERICA (1776-1789)
The United States declared its independence in 1776 and defeated Great Britain with help from France in the American Revolutionary War. As Seymour Martin Lipset points out, "The United States was the first major colony successfully to revolt against colonial rule. In this sense, it was the first 'new nation.'" (Lipset, The First New Nation (1979) p. 2)
On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, declared the independence of a nation called "the United States of America" in the Declaration of Independence, primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson. July 4 is celebrated as the nation's birthday. The new nation was dedicated to principles of republicanism, which emphasized civic duty and a fear of corruption and hereditary aristocracy.
The structure of the national government was profoundly changed on March 4, 1789, when the people 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 of republicanism 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 Charles Cornwallis, at Yorktown, Virginia. 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.
6. WESTWARD EXPANSION (1789–1849)
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 River 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 — declare 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'; crucially for the U.S., the British ended their 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. The act resulted most notably in the forced migration of several native tribes to the West, with several thousand Indians dying en route, and the Creeks' violent opposition and eventual defeat. The Indian Removal Act also directly caused the ceding of Spanish Florida and subsequently led 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 plagued by a divided command. Public sentiment in the U.S. was divided as Whigs and anti-slavery forces opposed the war. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded 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.
7. CIVIL WAR ERA (1849–1865)
In the middle of the 19th century, white Americans of the North and South were unable 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, and the Civil War followed, with the ultimate defeat of the South.
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. General William Tecumseh Sherman marched from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Atlanta, Georgia, defeating Confederate Generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood. Sherman's army laid waste to about 20% of the farms in Georgia in his "March to the Sea", and reached the Atlantic Ocean at Savannah in December 1864. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.
8. RECONSTRUCTION AND THE RISE OF INDUSTRALIZATION (1865–1918)
After the 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.
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. Tribes were generally forced onto small reservations as white farmers and ranchers took over their lands. In 1876, the last major Sioux war erupted when the Black Hills Gold Rush penetrated their territory.
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. 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 numerous 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.
9. 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 1929 Stock Market crash, Dust Bowl, and the ensuing Great Depression led to government efforts to re-start the economy and help its victims, with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The recovery was rapid in all areas except unemployment, which remained fairly high until 1940.
10. WORLD WAR II (1940-1945)
After the outbreak of World War II, as was the case with World War I, the United States was the last of the active Allied countries to declare war when it was forced to become the 17th country to declare war following the attack on Pearl Harbour. Until now Isolationalism policy had bound the country by law to neutrality until a hostile attack was made on American soil. Any potential active contributions that the United States could have made upon the outbreak of war on the 3rd of September 1939 were limited by the general unpreparedness of the country for a conflict of such a magnitude. The American armed forces were significantly smaller than the equivalent forces of France, Germany, Britain, The Soviet Union and Japan, allowing president Franklin Roosevelt to justify this neutrality to allow the country time to rearm.
The United States first contribution to the war was to cut off oil and raw material supplies desperately needed by Japan for it to maintain its offensive in Manchuria, while at the same time increasing military and financial aid to China. The first contribution to the allied powers came approximately 1 year after the outbreak of war in September 1940 when the United States gave England 50 old destroyers in exchange for military bases in the Caribbean. This was followed in December 1940 when the United States began a "Lend Lease" program with England, supplying much needed Military equipment.
On 31 October 1941, more than two months before the attack on Pearl Harbour, an American destroyer which was escorting cargo ships in the Atlantic was sunk by a German U-Boat. War however was not declared on Germany. Finally on 7 December 1941 Japan attacked the American naval base in Pearl Harbour, citing Americas trade embargo with them as justification for the attack. Franklin D Roosevelt saw it as "A date which will live in Infamy", the rest of the world saw it as the waking of a sleeping giant. The now well prepared armed forces of the United States entered the fold immediately.
11. COLD WAR BEGINNINGS AND THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 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.
12. 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 1970s. Feminism and the environmental movement became political forces, and progress continued toward civil rights for all Americans. The Counterculture Revolution swept through the nation and much of the western world in the late sixties, dividing the already hostile environment but also bringing forth more liberated social views.
In the early 1970s, Johnson's successor, President Richard Nixon was forced by Congress to bring the Vietnam War to a close, and the American-backed South Vietnamese government subsequently collapsed. The war had cost the lives of 58,000 American troops and millions of Vietnamese. The OPEC oil embargo and slowing economic growth led to a period of stagflation. Nixon's own administration was brought to an ignominious close with the political scandal of Watergate.
13. END OF THE COLD WAR (1980–1991)
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 those 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 costly and complicated missile defense system (dubbed "Star Wars") hoping to intimidate the Soviets. Though it was never fully developed or deployed, the research and technologies of SDI paved the way for some anti-ballistic missile systems of today. 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 in 1989 by shedding the East European empire. Communism finally collapsed in Russia in 1991, ending the US-Soviet Cold War.
14. 1991–PRESENT
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower and continued to involve 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).
In 1993, Islamic terrorist, Ramzi Yousef, planted explosives in the underground garage of One World Trade Center and detonated them killing six people and injuring thousands, in what would become the beginning of an age of terrorism. Two years later in 1995, Timothy McVeigh spearheaded a terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The bombing killed 168 people and injured over 800.
The presidential election in 2000 between George W. Bush (R) and Al Gore (D) was one of the closest in the U.S. history, and helped lay the seeds for political polarization to come.
At the beginning of the new millennium, the United States found itself attacked by Islamic terrorism, with the September 11, 2001 attacks in which Islamic extremists hijacked four transcontinental airliners and intentionally crashed two of them into the twin towers at the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. The passengers on the fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, revolted causing the plane to crash into a field in Somerset County, PA. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, that plane was intended to hit the US Capitol Building in Washington. As a result of the attacks, the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, destroying the entire complex. The United States soon found large amounts of evidence that suggested that a terrorist group, al-Qaeda, spearheaded by Osama bin Laden, was responsible for the attacks. The attacks of that day sparked patriotism throughout the country, the largest clean up effort in the nation's history, and a global battle against terrorism.
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. As of 2006, the political climate remains polarized as debates continue over partial birth abortion, federal funding of stem cell research, same-sex marriage, immigration reform and the ongoing war in Iraq.
By 2006, rising prices saw Americans become increasingly conscious of the nation's extreme dependence on steady supplies of inexpensive petroleum for energy, with President Bush admitting a U.S. "addiction to oil." The possibility of serious economic disruption, should conflict overseas or declining production interrupt the flow, could not be ignored, given the instability in the Middle East and other oil-producing regions of the world. Many proposals and pilot projects for replacement energy sources, from ethanol to wind power and solar power, received more capital funding and were pursued more seriously in the 2000s than in previous decades.
In the presidential election of 2008, Senator Barack Obama ran on a platform of "Change". This, coupled with the September 2008 economic crisis, helped aid his victory against Senator John McCain. On November 4, Obama became the first African American to be elected President of the United States; he was sworn into office as the 44th President on January 20, 2009.
SOURCE: Wikipedia
