HISTORY
INTRODUCTION
The first known inhabitants of modern-day United States territory
are believed to have arrived over a period of several thousand
years beginning sometime prior to 15,000 - 50,000 years ago by
crossing Beringia into Alaska. Solid evidence of these cultures
settling in what would become the US is dated to around 14,000
years ago.
Research has revealed much about the early Native American
settlers of North America. Columbus' men were the first
documented Old Worlders to land in the territory of what is now
the United States when they arrived in Puerto Rico during their
second voyage in 1493. Juan Ponce de Leon, who arrived in Florida
in 1513, is credited as being the first European to land in what
is now the continental United States, although some evidence
suggests that John Cabot might have reached what is presently New
England in 1498.
In its beginnings, the United States of America consisted only of
the Thirteen Colonies, which consisted of states occupying the
same lands as when they were British colonies. American colonists
fought off the British army in the American Revolutionary War of
the 1770s and issued a Declaration of Independence in 1776. Seven
years later, the signing of the Treaty of Paris officially
recognized independence from Britain. In the nineteenth century,
westward expansion of United States territory began, upon the
belief of Manifest Destiny, in which the United States would
occupy all the North American land east to west, from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. By 1912, with the admission of
Arizona to the Union, the U.S. reached that goal. The outlying
states of Alaska and Hawaii were both admitted in 1959.
Ratified in 1788, the Constitution serves as the supreme American
law in organizing the government; the Supreme Court is
responsible for upholding Constitutional law. Many forms of
social progress started in the nineteenth century; those
advancements have been widely reflected in the Constitution.
Slavery was abolished in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment to the
United States Constitution; the following Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments respectively guaranteed citizenship for all
persons naturalized within U.S. territory and voting for people
of all races. In later years, civil rights were extended to women
and black Americans, following effective lobbying from social
activists. The Nineteenth Amendment prohibited gender
discrimination in voting rights; later, the Civil Rights Act of
1964 outlawed racial segregation in public places.
The Progressive Era marked a time of economic growth for the
United States, advancing to the Roaring Twenties. However, the
Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression, a time of
economic downturn and mass unemployment. Consequently, the U.S.
government established the New Deal, a series of reform programs
that intended to assist those affected by the Depression. The New
Deal had varied success. However, once the U.S. entered World War
II in December 1941, the economy quickly recovered, so much that
the U.S. became a world superpower by the dawn of the Cold War.
During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the
world's two superpowers, but with the end of the Cold War and the
collapse of the Soviet Union, United States became the world's
only superpower.
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. 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, the
Mexican crops of maize and legumes 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 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. 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 in 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.
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.
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.
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.
New England was founded by two separate groups of religious
dissenters, the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Both demanded greater
church reform and elimination of Catholic elements remaining in
the Church of England. But whereas the Pilgrims sought to leave
the Church of England, the Puritans wanted to reform it by
setting an example of a holy community through the society they
were to build in the New World.
The first and smaller of these two groups, called the Pilgrims,
originated from a small Protestant congregation in Scrooby Manor,
England, whose members sailed in 1605 for the Netherlands. At
this time, the Netherlands were gaining a reputation as a safe
haven for those facing persecution. The emigrants grew
dissatisfied with the heavy Dutch influence on their children and
with poor economic conditions. They also experienced some
persecution, motivated by the Dutch government's alliance with
James I of England. As a result, some of them joined a larger
group of Separatists who had remained in England, and sailed for
the New World, taking the name Pilgrims.
Finally, these men and women sailed to America on the Mayflower,
intending to arrive in the northern parts of what was known as
Virginia - somewhere in the area of today's New York. Blown off
course, they came instead to what is now Massachusetts, and
landed on the west side of Lower Cape Cod. Before disembarking,
they drew up the Mayflower Compact, by which they gave themselves
broad powers of self-governance. They later relocated to Plymouth
Colony on the mainland, establishing that settlement on December
21, 1620. (The first settlement there is the site of present-day
Plymouth, Massachusetts).
Like the settlers at Jamestown, the Pilgrims had a difficult
first winter, having had no time to plant crops. Most of the
settlers died of starvation, including the leader, John Carver.
William Bradford was chosen to replace him in the spring of 1621.
Later that year, the colonists enlisted the aid of Squanto and
Samoset, two Native Americans who had learned to speak some
English. That autumn brought a bountiful harvest, and the first
Thanksgiving was held.
A second group of colonists established the Massachusetts Bay
Colony in 1629. This group was the Puritans, who sought to reform
the Church of England by creating a new, pure church in the New
World. This expedition consisted of 400 Puritans organized by the
Massachusetts Bay Company. Within two years, an additional 2,000
had arrived in America in waves of emigration known as the "Great
Migration." In the New World, the Puritans created a deeply
religious, socially tight-knit and politically innovative culture
that still lingers on in the modern United States.
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 French and Indian War fought in North America between 1754
and 1763 formed part of a larger conflict known as Seven Years'
War that was occurring in Europe. The name French and Indian War
refers to the two main enemies of the British: the royal French
forces and the various American Indian forces allied with them.
The conflict, the fourth such colonial war between the nations of
France and Great Britain, resulted in the British conquest of
Canada. The outcome was one of the most significant developments
in a century of Anglo-French conflict. New France east of the
Mississippi River and Spanish Florida were ceded to Great
Britain. The Louisiana Territory, under Spanish control since the
end of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), remained off-limits
to settlement from the 13 American colonies.
The French and Indian War was a watershed event in the political
development of the colonies. The influence of the main rivals of
the British Crown in the colonies and Canada, the French and
North American Indians, was significantly reduced. Moreover, the
war effort resulted in greater political integration of the
colonies, as symbolized by Benjamin Franklin's call for the
colonies to "Join or Die". Following Britain's acquisition of
French territory in North America, King George III issued the
Royal Proclamation of 1763 with the goal of organizing the new
North American empire and stabilizing relations with the native
Indians. In ensuing years, strains developed in the relations
between the colonists and the Crown. The British Parliament
passed the Stamp Act of 1765, imposing a tax on the colonies to
help pay for troops stationed in North America following the
British victory in the Seven Years' War. The British government
felt that the colonies were the primary beneficiaries of this
military presence, and should pay at least a portion of the
expense. The colonists did not share this view.
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action protest by colonists in
Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against
the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in
Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain,
a group of 30 to 130 colonists, some of them thinly disguised as
Mohawk Indians, boarded the three vessels and, over the course of
three hours, dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water. The
Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American
Revolution. The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary
War began near Boston in 1775.
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. 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.
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 on April 12, 1861, when Confederate General
Pierre Beauregard opened fire upon Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
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 on September 5, 1862. The Battle of
Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on September 17 1862, was the
bloodiest single day in American history. Antietam is considered
a Union victory because it halted Lee's invasion of the North and
provided an opportunity for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation
Proclamation.
Union General Meade defeated Confederate General Lee at the
Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 to July 3, 1863), the bloodiest
battle of the war, which is sometimes considered the war's
turning point. 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.
The American Civil War was the deadliest war in American history,
causing 620,000 soldier deaths and an undetermined number of
civilian casualties. Its legacy includes ending slavery in the
United States, restoring the Union, and strengthening the role of
the federal government. The social, political, economic and
racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era
that lasted to 1877, and brought changes that helped make the
country a united superpower.
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.
WORLD WAR II (1941-1945)
As with World War I, the United States did not enter World War II
until after the rest of the active Allied countries had done so.
The United States's first contribution to the war was
simultaneously to cut off the oil and raw material supplies
needed by Japan to maintain its offensive in China, and to
increase military and financial aid to China. Its first
contribution to the Allies came in September 1940 in the form of
the Lend-Lease program with Britain.
On December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack on the
American naval base in Pearl Harbor, citing America's recent
trade embargo as justification. The following day, Franklin D.
Roosevelt successfully urged a joint session of Congress to
declare war on Japan, calling December 7, 1941 "a date which will
live in infamy". Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on
December 11, Nazi Germany declared war on the United States,
drawing the country into a two-theater war.
Upon entering the war, the United States and its allies decided
to concentrate the bulk of their efforts on fighting Hitler in
Europe, while maintaining a defensive position in the Pacific
until Hitler was defeated. The United States's first step was to
set up a large airforce in Britain to concentrate on bombing
raids into Germany itself. The American army's first ground
action was fighting alongside the British, Australian and New
Zealand armies in North Africa. The American navy also played an
active role in the Atlantic protecting the convoys bringing vital
American war material to Britain.
By early 1944, a planned invasion of Western Europe was underway.
What followed on June 6, 1944, was Operation Overlord, or D-Day.
The largest war armada ever assembled landed on the beaches of
Normandy and began the penetration of Western Europe that
eventually overthrew Hitler and Nazi Germany. Following the
landing at Normandy, the Americans contributed greatly to the
outcome of the war, with dogged fighting in the Battle of the
Ardennes and the Battle of the Bulge resulting in Allied
victories against the Germans. The battles took a heavy toll on
the Americans, who lost 19,000 men during the Battle of the Bulge
alone. The allied bombing raids on Germany increased to
unprecedented levels after the D-Day invasion, with over 70% of
all bombs dropped on Germany occurring after this date. On April
30, 1945, with Berlin completely overrun with Russian forces and
his country in tatters, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. On May 8,
1945, the war with Germany was over, following its unconditional
surrender to the Allied forces.
Due to the United States commitment to defeating Hitler in
Europe, the first years of the war against Japan was largely a
defensive battle with the United States Navy attempting to
prevent the Japanese Navy from asserting dominance of the Pacific
region. Initially, Japan won the majority of its battles in a
short period of time. Japan quickly defeated and created military
bases in Guam, Thailand, Malaya, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea,
Indonesia and Burma. This was done virtually unopposed and with
quicker speed than that of the German Blitzkrieg during the early
stages of the war. This was important for Japan, as it had only
10% of the homeland industrial production capacity of the United
States. The turning point of the war was the Battle of Midway in
June 1942. Following this, the Americans began fighting towards
China where they could build an airbase suitable to commence
bombing of mainland Japan. The Pacific war became the largest
naval conflict in history. The American Navy emerged victorious
after at one point being stretched to almost breaking point with
almost complete destruction of the Japanese Navy. The American
forces were then poised for an invasion of the Japanese mainland,
to force the Japanese into unconditional surrender.
On April 12, 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died and
Vice President Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the 33rd President
of the United States. The decision to use nuclear weapons to end
the conflict has been one of the most controversial decisions of
the war. Supporters of the use of the bombs argue that an
invasion would have cost enormous numbers of lives, while
opponents argue that the large number of civilian casualties
resulting from the bombings were still unjustified. The first
bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the second
bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9. On August 15, 1945, the
Japanese surrendered unconditionally ending World War 2. This day
became known in the English-speaking countries as "V-J Day"
(Victory in Japan). The formal Instrument of Surrender was signed
aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.
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.
The "second-wave" of the Feminist Movement, or the Women's
Liberation Movement in the United States refers to a period of
feminist activity which began during the early 1960s and lasted
throughout the late 1970s. Whereas first-wave feminism focused
mainly on overturning legal (de jure) obstacles to equality (i.e.
voting rights, property rights), second-wave feminism addressed a
wide range of issues, including unofficial (de facto)
inequalities, official legal inequalities, sexuality, family, the
workplace, and, perhaps most controversially, reproductive
rights. In 1966, Betty Friedan and others established the
National Organization for Women, or NOW. Protests began, and the
new Women's Liberation Movement became the U.S.'s main social
revolution. Marches, parades, rallies, boycotts, and pickets
brought out thousands, sometimes millions.
As a result, many federal laws (i.e. those equalizing pay,
employment, education, employment opportunites, credit, ending
pregnancy discrimination, and requiring NASA, the Military
Academies, and other organizations to admit women), state laws
(i.e. those ending spousal abuse and marital rape), Supreme Court
rulings (i.e. ruling the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment applied to women), and state ERAs
established women's equal status under the law, and social custom
and consciousness began to change, accepting women's equality.
The controversial issue of abortion, legalized in 1973 is still a
point of feminist debate today.
The Space Race, which effectively began after the Soviet Launch
of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, became an important part of the
cultural, technological, and ideological rivalry between the
United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Four
months after the launch of Sputnik 1, on February 1, 1958, the
United States successfully launched its first satellite, Explorer
1, with an alternate program on an accelerated schedule, becoming
the second "space power". On July 29, 1958, the United States
Congress passed the legislation creating NASA (National
Aeronautics and Space Administration), as well as the National
Defense Education Act, the most far-reaching federally-sponsored
education initiative in the nation's history. NASA's Mercury
manned space program was initiated by 1959.
The Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space
when he entered orbit in the Soviet Union's Vostok on April 12,
1961. Twenty-three days later, on May 5, 1961, on sub-orbital
mission Freedom 7, Alan Shepard entered space for the United
States. On 20 February 1962, John Glenn became the first American
to successfully orbit Earth, completing three orbits in
Friendship 7. After the Soviet successes, especially Gagarin's
flight, United States President John F. Kennedy and Vice
President Lyndon B. Johnson looked for an American project that
would capture the public's imagination. The Apollo Program met
many of their objectives. After Johnson became President in 1963,
his continuing support allowed the program to succeed. In
December 1968, the United States became the front runner in the
Space Race when James Lovell, Frank Borman, and Bill Anders
orbited the moon.
While unmanned Soviet probes had reached the Moon before any U.S.
craft, American Neil Armstrong became the first person to set
foot on the lunar surface on 21 July 1969, after landing the
previous day. Commander of the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong
received backup from command-module pilot Michael Collins and
lunar-module pilot Buzz Aldrin in an event watched by over 500
million people around the world. Social commentators widely
recognize the lunar landing as one of the defining moments of the
20th century, and Armstrong's words on his first touching the
Moon's surface became similarly memorable: "That's one small step
for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."
Johnson was succeeded by President Richard Nixon in 1969, who
intitially escalated the Vietnam War but soon was able to
negotiate a peace treaty in 1973, effectively ending American
involvement in the war. The war had cost the lives of 58,000
American troops and millions of Vietnamese. Nixon used a conflict
in the Eastern Bloc between the Soviet Union and China to the
advantage of the United States, bolstering relations with the
People's Republic of China. A new era of Cold War relations known
as détente (cooperation) was begun. The OPEC oil embargo
led to a period of slow economic growth in 1973. Nixon's
administration was brought to an ignominious close with the
political scandal of Watergate in August 1974.
The Watergate scandal began with the arrest of five men for
breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee
headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington, D.C.
on June 17, 1972. Investigations conducted by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) and later by the Senate Watergate
Committee, House Judiciary Committee and the press revealed that
this burglary was one of many illegal activities authorized and
carried out by Nixon's staff. They also revealed the immense
scope of crimes and abuses, which included campaign fraud,
political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins, improper tax
audits, illegal wiretapping on a massive scale, and a secret
slush fund laundered in Mexico to pay those who conducted these
operations. Facing certain impeachment in the House of
Representatives and the strong possibility of a conviction in the
Senate, Nixon resigned ten days later, on August 9, 1974,
becoming the only U.S. president to have resigned from office.
His successor, Gerald Ford, would issue a controversial pardon
for any federal crimes Nixon may have committed while in
office.
As the first person appointed to the vice-presidency under the
terms of the 25th Amendment, when Gerald Ford became President
upon Richard Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974, he also
became the only President of the United States that was not
elected for either President or Vice-President. As President,
Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, marking a move toward
détente in the Cold War. Compared with his predecessors,
Ford's policies were less directed towards intervention in
Vietnamese affairs. During his term of office, the fall of Saigon
and the collapse of the American-backed South Vietnamese
government, ended the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975.
Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy since the
Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession during
his tenure.
Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976 on the notion that he was not a
part of the Washington political establishment. The U.S. was
afflicted with a recession, an energy crisis caused by the OPEC
oil embargo, slow economic growth, high unemployment, and high
inflation coupled with high interest rates (the term stagflation
was coined). On the world stage, Carter brokered the Camp David
Accords between Israel and Egypt. In 1979, Iranian students
stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage.
Carter lost the 1980 election to Republican Ronald Reagan, whose
campaign message advertised that his presidency would bring
"Morning in America."
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.
Widely regarded as a hard-line conservative, Reagan's economic
policies (dubbed "Reaganomics") and the implementation of the
Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 lowered income taxes from 70%
to 28% over the course of seven years. Reagan continued to
downsize government taxation and regulation. The U.S. experienced
a recession in 1982; unemployment and business failures soon
entered rates close to Depression-era levels. These negative
trends reversed the following year, when the inflation rate
decreased from 11% to 2%, the unemployment rate decreased to
7.5%, and the economic growth rate increased from 4.5 to
7.2%.
Reagan took a hard line against the Soviet Union, proclaiming it
to be the Evil Empire. Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the
U.S. military, incurring a costly budget deficit. Reagan
introduced a complicated missile defense system known as the
Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed "Star Wars" by opponents) in
which the U.S. could, in theory, shoot down missiles by means of
laser systems in space. Though it was never fully developed or
deployed, the Soviets were genuinely concerned about the possible
effects of the program and the research and technologies of SDI
paved the way for the anti-ballistic missile systems of today.
The Reagan administration also provided covert funding and
assistance to anti-Communist resistance movements worldwide.
Reagan's interventions against Grenada and Libya were popular in
the U.S., though his backing of the Contra rebels of Nicaragua
was mired in controversy. The arms-for-hostages scandal led to
the convictions of such figures as Oliver North and John
Poindexter. He shared many common views and goals with friend and
ally Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Reagan met with Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who ascended to
power in 1985, four times, and their summit conferences led to
the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF
Treaty) in the East Room at the White House on December 8,
1987.
In 1988, Ronald Reagan's vice-president George H. W. Bush
launched a successful campaign to succeed Reagan as president,
defeating Democratic Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis.
Foreign policy drove the Bush presidency. Military operations
were conducted in Panama and the Persian Gulf at a time of world
change. Gorbachev tried to save Communism in the Soviet Union
first by ending the expensive arms race with America, then by
shedding the East European empire in 1989. Starting in the late
1980s, the regimes of the Eastern European Warsaw Pact began to
collapse in rapid succession. The "fall of the Berlin Wall" in
November 1989 was seen as a symbol of the fall of the Eastern
European Communist governments. The Soviet Union collapsed in
December 1991, ending the US-Soviet Cold War. Domestically, Bush
reneged on a 1988 campaign promise and after a struggle with
Congress, signed an increase in taxes that Congress had passed.
Economic recession and breaking his "no new taxes" pledge caused
a sharp decline in his approval rating. Bush would later say that
he wished he had never signed the bill.
MODERN ERA (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
unprecedented gains in securities values, a side effect of the
digital revolution and new business opportunities created by the
Internet. The 1990s saw one of the longest periods of economic
expansion.
During the 1990s, the United States and allied nations found
themselves under attack from Islamist terrorist groups, chiefly
al-Qaeda. In 1993, Ramzi Yousef, a Kuwaiti national, 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. Yousef
would be subsequently captured. The 1993 World Trade Center
bombing by al-Qaeda was the first of many terrorist attacks upon
Americans during the period.
In 1998, Clinton was impeached for charges of perjury and
obstruction of justice that arose from an inappropriate sexual
relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and a sexual
harassment lawsuit from Paula Jones. He was the second president
to have been impeached. The House of Representatives voted 228 to
206 on December 19 to impeach Clinton, but on February 12, 1999,
the Senate voted 55 to 45 to acquit Clinton of the charges.
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. Although
Bush won the majority of electoral votes, Gore won the majority
of the popular vote. In the days following Election Day, the
state of Florida entered dispute over the counting of votes due
to technical issues over certain Democratic votes in some
counties. The Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore was decided on
December 12, 2000, ending the recount with a 5-4 vote and
certifying Bush as president.
At the beginning of the new millennium, the United States again
found itself attacked by Islamic terrorism, with the September
11, 2001 attacks in which 19 extremists hijacked four
transcontinental airliners and intentionally crashed two of them
into the twin towers of 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, Pennsylvania. According to the 9/11 Commission
Report, that plane was intended to hit the US Capitol Building in
Washington. 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.
In response to the attacks, under the administration of President
George W. Bush, the United States (with the military support of
NATO and the political support of some of the international
community) launched Operation Enduring Freedom which overthrew
the Taliban regime which had protected and harbored bin Laden and
al-Qaeda. With the support of large bipartisan majorities, the US
Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force
Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. With a coalition of other
countries including Britain, Spain, Australia, Japan and Poland,
in March 2003 President Bush ordered an invasion of Iraq dubbed
Operation Iraqi Freedom which led to the overthrow and capture of
Saddam Hussein. Using the language of 1998 Iraq Liberation Act
and the Clinton Administration, the reasons cited by the Bush
administration for the invasion included the spreading of
democracy, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction (a key
demand of the UN as well, though later investigations found parts
of the intelligence reports to be inaccurate) and the liberation
of the Iraqi people. This second invasion proved to be unpopular
in many parts of the world, even amongst long-time American
allies such as Canada and France, and helped fuel a global wave
of anti-American sentiment.
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was the
costliest hurricane, as well as one of the five deadliest, in the
history of the United States. It formed over the Bahamas on
August 23, stroke Florida on August 25 and Louisiana and
Mississippi on August 29, 2005. Katrina's storm surge caused 53
different levee breaches in greater New Orleans submerging eighty
percent of the city. The preparation and the response of the
federal, state and local governments were criticized as
ineffective and slow. Conversely, the United States Coast Guard,
the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service were
widely commended for their actions, accurate forecasts and
abundant lead time. At least 1,836 people, mainly from Louisiana
(1,577) and Mississippi (238), lost their lives in the actual
hurricane and in the subsequent floods, making it the deadliest
U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane. Thousands of
displaced residents in Mississippi and Louisiana are still living
in trailers.
In December 2007, the United States entered the longest
post-World War II recession, which included a housing market
correction, a subprime mortgage crisis, soaring oil prices, and a
declining dollar value. In September 2008, the crisis became much
worse beginning with the government takeover of Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. This
economic crisis was considered the worst financial crisis
since the Great Depression by leading economists, with its global
effects characterized by the failure of key businesses, declines
in consumer wealth estimated in the trillions of U.S. dollars,
substantial financial commitments incurred by governments, and a
significant decline in economic activity.
In the presidential election of 2008, Senator Barack Obama,
having narrowly defeated Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for the
Democratic nomination, ran on a platform of "Hope and Change".
This, coupled with the economic crisis, helped aid his and
running-mate Joe Biden's victory against the Republican ticket of
Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin. 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.
During his first 100 days in office, Obama signed into law the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion economic stimulus package aimed at helping
the economy recover from the deepening worldwide recession. The act included increased
federal spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives,
and direct assistance to individuals, which is being distributed over the course of several
years, with about 25% due by the end of 2009. The Obama administration also enacted additional
economic programs designed to stimulate the economy, such as the Car Allowance Rebate System,
the Public-Private Investment Program, and the Automobile Industry Bailout. In the third
quarter of 2009, the U.S. economy expanded at a 2.2% annual pace, after contracting for four
consecutive quarters. However, the unemployment rate continued to rise to 10.2%, the
highest level since 1983, and the underemployment rate continued to rise to 17.5%, the highest
since records began being kept in 1994.
Early in his presidency, Obama also moved to change the U.S. war strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In February 2009, Obama announced his plan to decrease troop levels in Iraq, stating that all
combat troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by August 31, 2010, and that as many as 50,000 would
remain in Iraq to train, equip and advise Iraqi forces, help protect withdrawing forces and work on
counterterrorism until December 31, 2011. He also announced that same month that the amount
of troops in Afghanistan would be boosted by 17,000. In December 2009, Obama announced that an
additional 30,000 troops would be deployed to Afghanistan over a period of six months,
and also proposed to begin troop withdrawals 18 months from that date.
As of 2010, debates continue over abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage,
immigration reform, climate change, health care reform, and the ongoing wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the new Democratic Congressional majority
promised to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, Congress continues to fund efforts in
both Iraq and Afghanistan (however a withdrawal agreement has been agreed upon between
the US and Iraqi governments). In the area of foreign policy, the U.S. maintains ongoing
talks, led by United States Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, with North Korea
over its nuclear weapons program, as well as with Israel and the Palestinian Authority
over a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the Palestinian-Israeli
talks began in 2007, an effort spearheaded by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice. China, holding an estimated $1.6 trillion of U.S. securities, is the largest
foreign financier of the record U.S. public debt.