US HISTORY

History of the United States

US HISTORY

The history of the United States is what happened in the past in the United States, a country in North America. Native Americans have lived there for thousands of years, long before Europeans went there. In 1492, Christopher Columbus went to America. In 1607, English people went to Jamestown, Virginia. This was the first successful town in the United States. The American colonies were settled mostly by England, who had thirteen colonies in what would become the United States. People from France, Spain, and the Netherlands also lived in America. While the English colonies were growing, many Native Americans died of disease or lost their land.

By 1733, there were 13 colonies. They were the first states. In 1775, at Lexington and Concord, a war between the colonies and England called the Revolutionary War started. This war started because the American colonists believed that they were not being treated equally to the Englishmen living in England. On July 4, 1776, people from 13 colonies created the United States Declaration of Independence. This said that they were free from England. George Washington helped lead the Americans during the Revolutionary War, which the Americans won.

After the Revolution, the United States set about becoming a new nation. The leaders of the states created a constitution in 1787 and a Bill of Rights in 1791. These were based on the idea of "social contracts" by John Locke and others. In the early 1800s, the new nation faced many controversial issues, such as slavery. During the 1800s, the United States gained much more land the West and began to become industrialized. In 1861, several states in the South left the United States to start a new country called the Confederate States of America. From 1861 to 1865, the North and South fought a war called the American Civil War over states' rights, slavery and the type of country the United States would become.

After the North won the war, all of the states that had left joined the United States again. The country went through reconstruction, which meant putting the country back together. In the late 1800s, many people came to the United States from Europe and worked in large factories. This period also led to the rise of rich businessmen, which is why it is called the Gilded Age. In the early 20th century, the United States became a world power. It was also one of the largest economies in the world. The United States fought in World War I and World War II. Between the wars, there was a period of "boom and bust", or a period of good times followed by a period of bad times. The boom period was known as the Roaring Twenties. The bust period was known as the Great Depression. The Great Depression ended with World War II.
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union entered a time known as the Cold War. During the Cold War, the United States government spent a lot of money on defense. It fought in Korea and Vietnam. It also put Neil Armstrong and other Americans in space. During this time, African-Americans, Chicanos, and women fought for more rights. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States started to make fewer things in factories than they used to. The Cold War ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart. The Middle East became important in American foreign policy, especially after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Pre-Columbian America:(US HISTORY)

The Pre-Columbian Era is the time before Christopher Columbus went to America in 1492. At that time, Native Americans lived on the land that is now the United States. They had different cultures: Native Americans in the Eastern United States hunted game and deer; Native Americans in the Northwest fished; Native Americans in the Southwest grew corn and built houses called pueblos; and Native Americans in the Great Plains hunted buffalo. Around the year 1000, many people think that the Vikings visited Newfoundland. However, they did not settle there.

Colonial America:(US HISTORY)

The English tried to settle the Americas at Roanoke Island in 1585. The settlement at Roanoke Island did not last, and no one knows what happened to the people there. In 1607, the first lasting English settlement was made at Jamestown, Virginia, by John Smith, John Rolfe and other Englishmen interested in money and adventure. In its early years, many people in Virginia died of disease and starvation. The colony lasted because it made money by planting tobacco.

In 1621, a group of Englishmen called the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts. A bigger colony was built at Massachusetts Bay by the Puritans in 1630. The Pilgrims and the Puritans were interested in making a better society, not looking for gold. They called this ideal society a "city on a hill". A man named Roger Williams left Massachusetts after disagreeing with the Puritans, and started the colony of Rhode Island in 1636.

England was not the only country to settle what would become the United States. In the 1500s, Spain built a fort at Saint Augustine, Florida. France settled Louisiana, and the area around the Great Lakes. The Dutch settled New York, which they called New Netherland. Other areas were settled by Scotch-Irish, Germans, and Swedes. However, in time England controlled all of the colonies, and most American colonists adopted the English way of life. The growth of the colonies was not good for Native Americans. Many of them died of smallpox, a disease brought to America by the Europeans. The ones who lived lost their lands to the colonists.
In the early 1700s, there was a religious movement in the United States called the Great Awakening. During the Great Awakening, preachers such as Jonathan Edwards preached sermons.[15] One of them was called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". The Great Awakening was one of the first events in American History that was a "mass movement", or something that many Americans were involved in. The Great Awakening, along with the Salem Witch Trials, was a reaction to what America was like around 1700 and may have led to the thinking used in the American Revolution.
By 1733, there were thirteen colonies. The colonies are often divided into three groups.

The northern group was called New England and included New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. There were four Middle Colonies: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The South had five colonies: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. New England had small farms and focused on fishing, forestry (trees and lumber), shipping, and small industry to make money. The South had large plantation farms that grew tobacco and later cotton. Plantations were farmed first by indentured servants (people who would work for a period of years in return for passage to America and land), and later by slaves. The Middle Colonies had medium-sized farms. These colonies also had people from many different cultures with many different beliefs. All three regions were tied to the "Atlantic economy". Atlantic merchants used ships to trade slaves, tobacco, rum, sugar, gold, spices, fish, lumber, and manufactured goods between America, the West Indies, Europe and Africa.  New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston were the largest cities and main ports at that time.

Civil War:(US HISTORY)

In the election of 1860, the Democratic Party split and the Republican candidate for President, Abraham Lincoln, was elected. After this, many Southern states quit the Union. Eventually, eleven states quit. They started a new country called the Confederate States of America, or the "Confederacy". A war broke out between the Union (North) and the Confederacy (South). The South had better generals than the North, but it had fewer railroads and almost no weapons factories. Not having factories made it harder for Southern soldiers to get guns or uniforms. The South could not get supplies because Northern ships blockaded the Southern coast.

Early in the war, Confederate generals such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson won battles over Union generals such as George B. McClellan and Ambrose Burnside who were not as good. In 1862 and 1863, the Union Army tried to take the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia several times, but failed each time. Lee's army invaded the North twice, but was turned back at Antietam and Gettysburg. In the middle of war, Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation, which supposedly freed all slaves in the Confederacy, and started letting black men fight in the Union Army. The war started going the Union’s way after the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863. Gettysburg stopped Lee from invading the North, and Vicksburg gave the Union control over the Mississippi River. In 1864, a Union Army under William T. Sherman marched through Georgia and destroyed much of it. By 1865, Union General Ulysses S. Grant had taken Richmond and forced Lee to give up the fight at Appomattox.

World War I:(US HISTORY)

 The United States did not want to enter World War I. It eventually entered the war in 1917 for two reasons. One was that a ship carrying Americans called the Lusitania was blown up by the Germans. The other was the Zimmerman Telegram, a message Germany sent to Mexico about invading the U.S. The United States fought on the side of Britain and France, and the war ended a year later. Wilson worked to create an international organization called the League of Nations.  The main goal of the League was preventing war. However, the United States did not join because isolationists rejected the peace treaty. At the end of World War I, a flu pandemic killed millions of people in the U.S. and Europe. After the war, the United States was one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world.

World War II:(US HISTORY)

As World War II was beginning, the United States said they would not get involved in it. Most Americans thought the United States should remain neutral, and some people thought the United States should enter the war on the side of the Germans. Eventually, the U.S. did try to help the Allied Powers (Soviet Union, Britain, and France) with the Lend Lease Act. It gave the Allies a lot of money and guns in trade for use of air bases throughout the world.

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S. base in Hawaii. The U.S. was no longer neutral, and it declared war on the Axis Powers (Germany, Japan, and Italy). The U.S. entering World War II ended the Great Depression because the war created many jobs. While some of the battles the U.S. fought in were air and naval battles with Japan, the U.S. mainly fought in Europe and Africa. The U.S. opened up several fronts, including in North Africa and Italy. The U.S. also bombed Germany from airplanes, blowing up German cities and factories. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), American and British forces invaded Normandy. A year later, the Allies had freed France and taken Berlin. In 1945, Roosevelt died, and Harry Truman became president. The U.S. decided to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. Japan gave up soon afterwards, and the war ended. However, the atomic bombs killed many ordinary people in the cities, not only soldiers. At least 250,000 Japanese people died in four days.
The war meant different things for women and minorities. During the war, many women worked in weapons factories. They were symbolized by a character called "Rosie the Riveter". Many African-Americans served in the army, but often in segregated units with white officers. Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were forced to live in internment camps, though a few also served in the Army.

Postwar era (1945–1991):(US HISTORY)

Cold War:(US HISTORY)

After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were the two most powerful countries left in the world. The Cold War was a period of tension between the two countries over ways of life. The two countries tried to get other countries on their side. The Soviet Union tried to get countries to become Communist and the United States tried to stop them from being Communist. American and Soviet soldiers never fought in battles, but they fought indirectly in the Korean War (1950s) and the Vietnam War (1950s–1970s).

The Korean War lasted only a few years, but led to American soldiers being in Korea since then. The Vietnam War lasted much longer. It started with a few American troops in Vietnam, but by the 1960s thousands of Americans were being sent to Vietnam. Both wars were between a Northern Communist government helped by the Soviet Union and Communist China and a Southern government helped by the U.S. The Korean War resulted in a split Korea, but the Vietnam War resulted in a Communist Vietnam after the United States left due to American people wanting to end the war. Over a quarter million Americans died or were wounded in Vietnam, which was very much a military failure. The U.S. and Soviet Union argued about where they could place nuclear weapons. One of these arguments was the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. and Soviet Union came very close to attacking each other with nuclear weapons.

During the Cold War, the United States had a "Red Scare" where the government tried to find people it thought were Communist. The House of Representatives had a group called the House Un-American Activities Committee to deal with this, and Joseph McCarthy led hearings in the Senate. The Red Scare led to people losing their jobs, going to jail, and even being executed. Many actors and authors were put on blacklists, which meant they could not get jobs in movies or get credit for their writings.
The Cold War began with an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union to see who could have more and better weapons. This started after the Soviets were the second country to develop an atomic bomb. In the United States, this started something called the "Military Industrial Complex", which meant business and government working together to spend a lot of money on large-scale weapons projects. Business and government helped each other to get more money and more power. Part of the Complex was something called the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe while making them buy American goods. The Complex allowed for a growing middle class, but also kept the Cold War going.
Besides the arms race, another part of the Cold War was the "Space Race". This started when the Soviets launched a satellite into space called Sputnik in 1957. Americans became worried that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union, and made their schools focus more on mathematics and science. Within a few years, both the United States and the Soviet Union had sent satellites, animals and people into orbit. In 1969 the Apollo 11mission put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.

United States foreign policy changed in the 1970s when the United States left Vietnam and Richard Nixon left office due to Watergate. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States had a policy of "detente" with the Soviet Union. This meant that the two countries signed treaties to stop use of weapons. Under Nixon and Ronald Reagan, the United States sent troops and money to many Latin American governments to stop them from being Communist. This led to violence in Latin America. Around this time, the economy suffered because the United States was not making as many things as it used to, and because some countries in the Middle East were not giving the U.S. as much oil as it wanted (this was called an "oil embargo").The Middle East became very important in American foreign policy after several Americans were kidnapped in Iran in 1979. In the 1980s, people in the U.S. government sold weapons to people in Iran and gave the money to "contra" soldiers in Nicaragua. This was called "Iran-Contra". In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. normalized relations with China. The Cold War came to an end as Communist governments in the Soviet Union and other countries fell apart.

Post-Cold War and beyond (1991–present)(US HISTORY)

21st century:

(US HISTORY)

In 2000, George W. Bush was elected President, even though Al Gore got more votes. Soon into Bush's term, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. They took control of four airplanes and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. Thousands of people died when the buildings burned and fell down. Bush became much more popular with the American people after the attacks. Soon after the attacks, the government passed a new law called the USA PATRIOT Act. The PATRIOT Act allowed government agencies to collect information about Americans who were thought to be terrorists. Many people thought this law was bad for Americans' rights. Soon after the attacks, the U.S. and NATO went to Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden and others who they believed planned the September 11 attacks. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq because some people thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Millions of people from around the world did not like the War in Iraq. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan lasted many years and have been called a "Long War" or a new American Empire. By 2011, most American soldiers had left Iraq, and combat there was over.
In 2005, the southern United States was hit by a huge hurricane called Hurricane Katrina. Much of the city of New Orleans was destroyed. In 2006, the Democrats won back Congress because Americans did not like the way Bush dealt with War in Iraq or Katrina. At the end of Bush's term, the United States entered the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. He became the first African-American President of the United States. During his first years in office, Obama and Congress passed reforms on health care and banking. They also passed a large stimulus bill to help the economy during the recession. During the recession, the government used large amounts of money to keep the banking and auto industries from falling apart. Obama not only had to deal with the recession, but also a large oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and later a large hurricane that hit New York City. A movement called the "Tea Party" started during Obama's presidency. This group opposes Obama's health care plan and other policies they see as "big government." Due to the recession, the Tea Party and a dislike of what Obama did, Republicans won a large number of House and Senate seats in the 2010 election. In 2011, Tea Party members of Congress almost shut down the government and sent the U.S. into default (not being able to pay people the government owes money). A few months later, many young people protested against big business. They thought big business made too much money. Eventually, Republicans in Congress forced large spending cuts to numerous government programs, called the "Sequester". During Obama's term, he ended the War in Iraq. He also ordered Navy SEALs to capture and kill bin Laden, and started to get American soldiers out of Afghanistan. Even though the economy had not fully recovered by 2012, Obama was reelected in 2012.

Great Recession and recent events:(US HISTORY)

In December 2007, the United States, and most of Europe, entered the longest post–World War II recession, often called the "Great Recession." Multiple overlapping crises were involved, especially the housing market crisis, a subprime mortgage crisis, soaring oil prices, an automotive industry crisis, rising unemployment, and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The financial crisis threatened the stability of the entire economy in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers failed and other giant banks were in grave danger. Starting in October the federal government lent $245 billion to financial institutions through the Troubled Asset Relief Program which was passed by bipartisan majorities and signed by Bush.

As the recession worsened, Barack Obama - who had run on a platform of change and opposition to the policies of the unpopular incumbent President Bush - was elected president with the help of a coalition of voters that included high percentages of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, women and younger voters, as well as traditional Democratic voters. He was reelected president in 2012 with the help of a similar voter coalition, as demographics also showed that the Republican base was aging and shrinking in size, and the numbers of Hispanic and Asian voters were growing rapidly and moving more and more into the Democratic coalition.
Shortly after taking office in January 2009, he signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which was a $787 billion economic stimulus aimed at helping the economy recover from the deepening recession. Obama, like Bush, took steps to rescue the auto industry and prevent future economic meltdowns. These included a bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, putting ownership temporarily in the hands of the government, and the "cash for clunkers" program which temporarily boosted new car sales. The recession officially ended in June 2009, and the economy slowly began to expand once again since then.

In addition to responding to the economic crisis, the 111th Congress passed major legislation such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act, which were signed into law by President Obama. Following the 2010 midterm elections, which resulted in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a Democratic-controlled Senate, Congress presided over a period of elevated gridlock and heated debates over whether or not raise the debt ceiling, extend tax cuts for citizens making over $250,000 annually, and many other key issues. These ongoing debates led to President Obama signing the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 - which resulted in budget sequestration cuts going into effect in March 2013 - as well as an increase in taxes primarily for the wealthy. As a result of growing public frustration with both parties in Congress during this time period, their approval rating fell to an all time low of 6%.

Other major events that have occurred during the 2010s include the rise of new political movements across the world, such as the conservative Tea Party movement in the US and the international populist Occupy movement. There was also unusually severe weather over the summer of 2012, and over half the country experienced record drought. Hurricane Sandy caused massive damage to coastal areas of New York and New Jersey in late October. The ongoing debate over the issue of rights for the LGBT community, most notably that of same-sex marriage, began to shift in favor of same-sex couples, and has been reflected in dozens of polls released in the early part of the decade, President Obama becoming the first president to openly support same-sex marriage, and the 2013 Supreme Court decisions in the cases of United States v. Windsor and Perry v. Hollingsworth. As of June 2013, debates continue over the ongoing sequestration, as well as tax reform, same-sex marriage, immigration reform, gun control, and US foreign policy in the Middle East.