Paleo-indians
migrated from Asia to what is now the U.S. mainland around 15,000 years
ago, with European colonization beginning in the 16th century. The
United States emerged from 13 British colonies located along the
Atlantic seaboard. Disputes between Great Britain and these colonies led
to the American Revolution. On July 4, 1776, delegates from the 13
colonies unanimously issued the Declaration of Independence. The ensuing
war ended in 1783 with the recognition of independence of the United
States from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and was the first successful
war of independence against a European colonial empire. The current
Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. The first 10 amendments,
collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and
guarantee many fundamental civil rights and freedoms.
Driven by the
doctrine of manifest destiny, the United States embarked on a vigorous
expansion across North America throughout the 19th century. This
involved displacing native tribes, acquiring new territories, and
gradually admitting new states. The American Civil War ended legal
slavery in the country. By the end of the 19th century, the United
States extended into the Pacific Ocean, and its economy was the world's
largest. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the
country's status as a global military power. The United States emerged
from World War II as a global superpower, the first country with nuclear
weapons, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left
the United States as the sole superpower.
The
United States is a developed country and has the world's largest
national economy, with an estimated GDP in 2013 of $16.7 trillion – 23%
of global nominal GDP and 19% at purchasing-power parity.
The economy is
fueled by an abundance of natural resources and the world's highest
worker productivity, with per capita GDP being the world's sixth-highest
in 2010. While the U.S. economy is considered post-industrial, it
continues to be one of the world's largest manufacturers. The U.S. has
the highest mean and second-highest median household income in the OECD
as well as the highest average wage, though it has the fourth most
unequal income distribution among OECD nations with roughly 16% of the
population living in poverty. The country accounts for 39% of global
military spending, being the world's foremost economic and military
power, a prominent political and cultural force, and a leader in
scientific research and technological innovation.
In
1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map
on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere "America" after
the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci (Latin: Americus
Vespucius). The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States
of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen
Moylan, Esq., George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General
of the Continental Army. Addressed to Lt. Col. Joseph Reed, Moylan
expressed his wish to carry the "full and ample powers of the United
States of America" to Spain to assist in the revolutionary war effort.
The first publicly
published evidence of the phrase "United States of America" was in an
anonymously written essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in
Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson
included the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized
letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the
Declaration of Independence. In the final Fourth of July version of the
Declaration, the pertinent section of the title was changed to read,
"The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America". In
1777 the Articles of Confederation announced, "The Stile of this
Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'".
The
short form "United States" is also standard. Other common forms include
the "U.S.", the "USA", and "America". Colloquial names include the
"U.S. of A." and, internationally, the "States". "Columbia", a name
popular in poetry and songs of the late 1700s, derives its origin from
Christopher Columbus; it appears in the name "District of Columbia". In
non-English languages, the name is frequently translated as the
translation of either the "United States" or "United States of America",
and colloquially as "America". In addition, an acronym is sometimes
used.
The phrase "United
States" was originally treated as plural, a description of a collection
of independent states—e.g., "the United States are"—including in the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in
1865. It became common to treat it as singular, a single unit—e.g., "the
United States is"—after the end of the Civil War.
The
singular form is now standard; the plural form is retained in the idiom
"these United States". The difference has been described as more
significant than one of usage, but reflecting the difference between a
collection of states and a unit.
The
standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an
"American". "United States", "American" and "U.S." are used to refer to
the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces").
"American" is rarely used in English to refer to subjects not connected with the United States.
The
history of the United States as covered in American schools and
universities typically begins with either Christopher Columbus's 1492
voyage to the Americas or with the prehistory of the Native peoples; the
latter approach has become increasingly common in recent decades.
Indigenous
peoples lived in what is now the United States for thousands of years
and developed complex cultures before European colonists began to
arrive, mostly from England, after 1600.
The
Spanish had early settlements in Florida and the Southwest, and the
French along the Mississippi River and Gulf Coast. By the 1770s,
thirteen British colonies contained two and a half million people along
the Atlantic coast, east of the Appalachian Mountains.
After driving the
French out of North America in 1763, the British imposed a series of new
taxes while rejecting the American argument that taxes required
representation in Parliament. Tax resistance, especially the Boston Tea
Party of 1774, led to punishment by Parliament designed to end
self-government in Massachusetts. All 13 colonies united in a Congress
that led to armed conflict in April 1775. On July 4, 1776, the Congress
adopted the Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson,
proclaimed that all men are created equal, and founded a new nation, the
United States of America.
With
large-scale military and financial support from France and military
leadership by General George Washington, the American Patriots won the
Revolutionary War. The peace treaty of 1783 gave the new nation most of
the land east of the Mississippi River (except Florida).
The national
government established by the Articles of Confederation proved
ineffectual at providing stability to the new nation, as it had no
authority to collect taxes and had no executive. A convention called in
Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation instead
resulted in the writing of a new Constitution, which was adopted in
1789. In 1791 a Bill of Rights was added to guarantee rights that
justified the Revolution. With George Washington as the nation's first
president and Alexander Hamilton his chief political and financial
adviser, a strong national government was created. When Thomas Jefferson
became president he purchased the Louisiana Territory from France,
doubling the size of American territorial holdings. A second and last
war with Britain was fought in 1812.
Driven
by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, the nation expanded beyond the
Louisiana purchase, all the way to California and Oregon. The expansion
was driven by a quest for inexpensive land for yeoman farmers and slave
owners. This expansion came at the cost of violence against indigenous
native peoples and fueled the unresolved differences between the North
and South over the institution of slavery.
Slavery was
abolished in all states north of the Mason–Dixon line by 1804, but the
South continued to profit off the institution, producing cotton exports
to feed high demand in Europe. The 1860 presidential election of
anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln triggered the secession of seven
(later eleven) slave states to found the Confederacy in 1861. The
American Civil War (1861-1865) ensued, with the victory of the Union and
the abolition of slavery. In the Reconstruction era (1863–77) legal and
voting rights were extended to the Freedmen. The national government
emerged much stronger, and because of the Fourteenth Amendment, it had
the explicit duty to protect individual rights. However, legal racial
discrimination in the form of Jim Crow laws continued in the South until
the mid-20th century.
The
United States became the world's leading industrial power at the turn
of the 20th century due to an outburst of entrepreneurship in the North
And Midwest, and the arrival of millions of immigrant workers and
farmers from Europe.
The national
railroad network was completed with the work of Chinese immigrants, and
large-scale mining and factories industrialized the Northeast and
Midwest. Mass dissatisfaction with corruption, inefficiency and
traditional politics stimulated the Progressive movement, from the 1890s
to 1920s, which led to many social and political reforms. In 1920 the
19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed women's suffrage (right to
vote). This followed the 16th and 17th amendments in 1909 and 1912,
which established the first national income tax and direct election of
U.S. senators to Congress.
Initially
neutral in World War I, the U.S. declared war on Germany in 1917, and
funded the Allied victory the following year. After a prosperous decade
in the 1920s, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the onset of the
decade-long world-wide Great Depression.
Democrat Franklin
D. Roosevelt ended the Republican dominance of the White House and
implemented his New Deal programs for relief, recovery, and reform. They
defined modern American liberalism. These included relief for the
unemployed, support for farmers, Social Security and a minimum wage.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the
United States entered World War II alongside the Allies especially
Britain and the Soviet Union. It financed the Allied war effort and
helped defeat Nazi Germany in Europe and, with the detonation of newly
invented atomic bombs, Japan in the Far East.
The
United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers after
World War II. Around 1947 they began the Cold War, confronting one
another indirectly in the arms race and Space Race. U.S. foreign policy
during the Cold War was built around the support of Western Europe and
Japan, and the policy of "containment" or stopping the spread of
Communism.
The U.S. became
involved in wars in Korea and Vietnam to stop the spread. In the 1960s,
especially due to the strength of the civil rights movement, another
wave of social reforms were enacted during the administrations of
Kennedy and Johnson, enforcing the constitutional rights of voting and
freedom of movement to African Americans and other minorities. Native
American activism also rose. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union
dissolved in 1991, leaving the United States the world's only
superpower. As the 21st century began, international conflict centered
around the Middle East and spread to Asia and Africa following the
September 11 attacks by Al-Qaeda on the United States. In 2008 the
United States had its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,
which has been followed by slower than usual rates of economic growth
during the 2010s.
 |
| people migrated from Siberia to Alaska across Beringia |
Prehistory
Pre-Columbian Era
It
is not definitively known how or when the Native Americans first
settled the Americas and the present-day United States. The prevailing
theory proposes that people migrated from Eurasia across Beringia, a
land bridge that connected Siberia to present-day Alaska during the Ice
Age, and then spread southward throughout the Americas and possibly
going as far south as the Antarctic peninsula. This migration may have
begun as early as 30,000 years ago and continued through to about
10,000+ years ago, when the land bridge became submerged by the rising
sea level caused by the ending of the last glacial period. These early
inhabitants, called Paleoamericans, soon diversified into many hundreds
of culturally distinct nations and tribes.
 |
| Indigenous People of the Americas |
The pre-Columbian
era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory
of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences
on the American continents, spanning the time of the original
settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization
during the Early Modern period. While technically referring to the era
before Christopher Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the
term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until
they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if
this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus' initial
landing.
Colonial Period
After
a period of exploration sponsored by major European nations, the first
successful English settlement was established in 1607. Europeans brought
horses, cattle, and hogs to the Americas and, in turn, took back to
Europe maize, turkeys, potatoes, tobacco, beans, and squash.
 |
| Francisco Vasquez de Coronado |
Many explorers and
early settlers died after being exposed to new diseases in the Americas.
The effects of new Eurasian diseases carried by the colonists,
especially smallpox and measles, was much worse for the Native
Americans, as they had no immunity to them. They suffered epidemics and
died in very large numbers, usually before large-scale European
settlement began. Their societies were disrupted and hollowed out by the
scale of deaths.
Spanish, Dutch, and French Colonization
Spanish
explorers were the first Europeans with Christopher Columbus' second
expedition, which reached Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493; others
reached Florida in 1513. Quickly Spanish expeditions reached the
Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi River, the Grand Canyon and the
Great Plains. In 1540, Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive
exploration of Southeast. Also in 1540 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado
explored from Arizona to central Kansas.
 |
| San Antonio Skyline |
The Spanish sent
some settlers, creating the first permanent European settlement in the
continental United States at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565, but it
attracted few permanent settlers. Small Spanish settlements that after
American annexation grew to become important cities include Santa Fe,
Albuquerque, San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara
and San Francisco.
New
Netherland was the 17th-century Dutch colony centered on present-day
New York City and the Hudson River Valley, where they traded furs with
the Native Americans to the north and were a barrier to Yankee expansion
from New England. The Dutch were Calvinists who built the Reformed
Church in America, but they were tolerant of other religions and
cultures. The colony was taken over by Britain in 1664. It left an
enduring legacy on American cultural and political life, including a
secular broadmindedness and mercantile pragmatism in the city, and a
rural traditionalism in the countryside typified by the story of Rip Van
Winkle. Notable Americans of Dutch descent include Martin Van Buren,
Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt and the
Frelinghuysens.
 |
| New France was colonized by France from 1534-1763 |
New France was the
area colonized by France from 1534 to 1763. There were few permanent
settlers outside Quebec and Acadia, but the French had far-reaching
trading relationships with Native Americans throughout the Great Lakes
and Midwest. French villages along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers
were based in farming communities that served as a granary for Gulf
Coast settlements. The French settled New Orleans, Mobile and Biloxi,
and established plantations in Louisiana.
The
Wabanaki Confederacy became military allies of New France through the
four French and Indian Wars, while the British colonies were allied with
the Iroquois Confederacy. During the French and Indian War, the North
American front of the Seven Years War, New England fought successfully
against French Acadia. The British removed Acadians from Acadia (Nova
Scotia) and replaced them with New England Planters. Eventually, some
Acadians resettled in Louisiana, where they developed a distinctive
rural Cajun culture that still exists. They became American citizens in
1803 with the Louisiana Purchase.
 |
| New Orleans was notable for its free people of color |
Other French
villages along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers were absorbed when
the Americans started arriving after 1770, or settlers moved west to
escape them. French influence and language in New Orleans, Louisiana and
the Gulf Coast was more enduring; New Orleans was notable for its large
population of free people of color before the Civil War.
British Colonization
The
strip of land along the eastern 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 employed 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. Over half of all European
immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants.
 |
| The 1st successful English colony was at Jamestown |
The first
successful English colony was established in 1607, on the James River at
Jamestown which began the American Frontier. It languished for decades
until a new wave of settlers arrived in the late 17th century and
established commercial agriculture based on tobacco. Between the late
1610s and the Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000
convicts to their American colonies. A severe instance of conflict was
the 1622 Powhatan uprising in Virginia, in which Native Americans 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; The Yamasee War in South Carolina was as bloody.
New
England was initially settled primarily by Puritans who established the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, although there was a small earlier
settlement in 1620 by a similar group, the Pilgrims, at Plymouth Colony.
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.
 |
| Jonathan Edwards is American Religious revivalist |
The colonies were
characterized by religious diversity, with many Congregationalists in
New England, German and Dutch Reformed in the Middle Colonies, Catholics
in Maryland, and Scots-Irish Presbyterians on the frontier. Sephardic
Jews were among early settlers in cities of New England and the South.
Many immigrants arrived as religious refugees: French Huguenots settled
in New York, Virginia and the Carolinas. Many royal officials and
merchants were Anglicans.
Religiosity
expanded greatly after the First Great Awakening, a religious revival
in the 1740s led by preachers such as Jonathan Edwards. American
Evangelicals affected by the Awakening added a new emphasis on divine
outpourings of the Holy Spirit and conversions that implanted within new
believers an intense love for God. Revivals encapsulated those
hallmarks and carried the newly created evangelicalism into the early
republic, setting the stage for the Second Great Awakening beginning in
the late 1790s. In the early stages, evangelicals in the South such as
Methodists and Baptists preached for religious freedom and abolition of
slavery; they converted many slaves and recognized some as preachers.
 |
| Slaves were the 5th of American Population in 1770s |
Each of the 13
American colonies had a slightly different governmental structure.
Typically a colony was ruled by a governor appointed from London who
controlled the executive administration and relied upon a locally
elected legislature to vote taxes and make laws. By the 18th century,
the American colonies were growing very rapidly because of ample
supplies of land and food, and low death rates. They were richer than
most parts of Britain, and attracted a steady flow of immigrants,
especially teenagers who came as indentured servants. The tobacco and
rice plantations imported African slaves for labor from the British
colonies in the West Indies, and by the 1770s they comprised a fifth of
the American population. The question of independence from Britain did
not arise as long as the colonies needed British military support
against the French and Spanish powers; those threats were gone by 1765.
London regarded the American colonies as existing for the benefit of the
mother country, a policy known as mercantilism.
+originally+appeared+during+the+French+and+Indian+War,+but+was+recycled+to+encourage+the+American+colonies+to+unite+against+British+rule..jpg) |
| Join of Die by Benjamin Franklin |
18th Century
Political Integration and Autonomy
The
French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a watershed event in the
political development of the colonies. It was also part of the larger
Seven Years' War. The influence of the main rivals of the British Crown
in the colonies and Canada, the French and North American Indians, was
significantly reduced which U.S territory expanded into New France that
was between the Thirteen Colonies and Louisiana. Moreover, the war
effort resulted in greater political integration of the colonies, as
reflected in the Albany Congress and symbolized by Benjamin Franklin's
call for the colonies to "Join or Die". Franklin was a man of many
inventions-one of which was the concept of a United States of America,
which emerged after 1765 and was realized in July 1776.
 |
| Boston Tea Party is a turning point of American history |
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 protecting the native Indians from
colonial expansion into western lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains.
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 without going through the colonial
legislatures. The issue was drawn: did Parliament have this right to tax
Americans who were not represented in it? Crying "No taxation without
representation", the colonists refused to pay the taxes as tensions
escalated in the late 1760s and early 1770s.
The
Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a direct action by activists in the town
of Boston to protest against the new tax on tea. Parliament quickly
responded the next year with the Coercive Acts, stripping Massachusetts
of its historic right of self-government and putting it under army rule,
which sparked outrage and resistance in all thirteen colonies.
 |
| First Continental Congress was held in 1774 |
Patriot leaders
from all 13 colonies convened the First Continental Congress to
coordinate their resistance to the Coercive Acts. The Congress called
for a boycott of British trade, published a list of rights and
grievances, and petitioned the king for redress of those grievances. The
appeal to the Crown had no effect, and so the Second Continental
Congress was convened in 1775 to organize the defense of the colonies
against the British Army.
Ordinary
folk became insurgents against the British even though they were
unfamiliar with the ideological rationales being offered. They held very
strongly a sense of ”rights” that they felt the British were
deliberately violating – rights that stressed local autonomy, fair
dealing, and government by consent. They were highly sensitive to the
issue of tyranny, which they saw manifested in the arrival in Boston of
the British Army to punish the Bostonians. This heightened their sense
of violated rights, leading to rage and demands for revenge. They had
faith that God was on their side.
 |
| American Revolutionary War |
The American
Revolutionary War began at Concord and Lexington in April 1775 when the
British tried to seize ammunition supplies and arrest the Patriot
leaders.
American Revolution
The
Thirteen Colonies began a rebellion against British rule in 1775 and
proclaimed their independence in 1776 as the United States of America.
In the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) the American capture of
the British invasion army at Saratoga in 1777 secured the Northeast and
encouraged the French to make a military alliance with the United
States. France brought in Spain and the Netherlands, thus balancing the
military and naval forces on each side as Britain had no allies.
 |
| Surrender of British General J. Burgoyne at Saratoga |
General George
Washington (1732–1799) proved an excellent organizer and administrator,
who worked successfully with Congress and the state governors, selecting
and mentoring his senior officers, supporting and training his troops,
and maintaining an idealistic Republican Army. His biggest challenge was
logistics, since neither Congress nor the states had the funding to
provide adequately for the equipment, munitions, clothing, paychecks, or
even the food supply of the soldiers.
As
a battlefield tactician Washington was often outmaneuvered by his
British counterparts. As a strategist, however, he had a better idea of
how to win the war than they did. The British sent four invasion armies.
Washington's strategy forced the first army out of Boston in 1776, and
was responsible for the surrender of the second and third armies at
Saratoga (1777) and Yorktown (1781). He limited the British control to
New York City and a few places while keeping Patriot control of the
great majority of the population.
 |
| US Declaration of Independence was signed in 2nd Continental Congress in 1776 |
The Loyalists, whom
the British counted upon too heavily, comprised about 20% of the
population but never were well organized. As the war ended, Washington
watched proudly as the final British army quietly sailed out of New York
City in November 1783, taking the Loyalist leadership with them.
Washington astonished the world when, instead of seizing power for
himself, he retired quietly to his farm in Virginia. Political scientist
Seymour Martin Lipset observes, "The United States was the first major
colony successfully to revolt against colonial rule. In this sense, it
was the first 'new nation'."
On
July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia,
declared the independence of "the United States of America" in the
Declaration of Independence. July 4 is celebrated as the nation's
birthday. The new nation was founded on Enlightenment ideals of
liberalism in what Thomas Jefferson called the unalienable rights to
"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", and dedicated strongly to
republican principles. Republicanism emphasized the people are sovereign
(not hereditary kings), demanded civic duty, feared corruption, and
rejected any aristocracy.
 |
| US Constitution was signed in Philadelphia Convention in 1987 |
Early Years of the Republic
Confederation and Constitution
In
the 1780s the national government was able to settle the issue of the
western territories, which were ceded by the states to Congress and
became territories; with the migration of settlers to the Northwest,
soon they became states. Nationalists worried that the new nation was
too fragile to withstand an international war, or even internal revolts
such as the Shays' Rebellion of 1786 in Massachusetts. Nationalists—most
of them war veterans—organized in every state and convinced Congress to
call the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. The delegates from every
state wrote a new Constitution that created a much more powerful and
efficient central government, one with a strong president, and powers of
taxation. The new government reflected the prevailing republican ideals
of guarantees of individual liberty and of constraining the power of
government through a system of separation of powers.
 |
| James Madison was the 1st author of Bill of Rights |
The Congress was
given authority to ban the international slave trade after 20 years
(which it did in 1807). A compromise gave the South Congressional
apportionment out of proportion to its free population by allowing it to
include three-fifths of the number of slaves in each state's total
population. This provision increased the political power of southern
representatives in Congress, especially as slavery was extended into the
Deep South through removal of Native Americans and transportation of
slaves by an extensive domestic trade.
To assuage the
Anti-Federalists who feared a too-powerful national government, the
nation adopted the United States Bill of Rights in 1791. Comprising the
first ten amendments of the Constitution, it guaranteed individual
liberties such as freedom of speech and religious practice, jury trials,
and stated that citizens and states had reserved rights (which were not
specified).
).jpg) |
| George Washington, the 1st US President |
The New Chief Executive
George
Washington — a renowned hero of the American Revolutionary War,
commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and president of the
Constitutional Convention—became the first President of the United
States under the new Constitution in 1789. The national capital moved
from New York to Philadelphia and finally settled in Washington DC in
1800.
The major accomplishments of the Washington
Administration were creating a strong national government that was
recognized without question by all Americans. His government, following
the vigorous leadership of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton,
assumed the debts of the states (the debt holders received federal
bonds), created the Bank of the United States to stabilize the financial
system, and set up a uniform system of tariffs (taxes on imports) and
other taxes to pay off the debt and provide a financial infrastructure.
To support his programs Hamilton created a new political party—the first
in the world based on voters—the Federalist Party.
 |
| The Whiskey Rebellion was 1st serious test of Federal Govt |
Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison formed an opposition Republican Party (usually called
the Democratic-Republican Party by political scientists). Hamilton and
Washington presented the country in 1794 with the Jay Treaty that
reestablished good relations with Britain. The Jeffersonians vehemently
protested, and the voters aligned behind one party or the other, thus
setting up the First Party System. Federalists promoted business,
financial and commercial interests and wanted more trade with Britain.
Republicans accused the Federalists of plans to establish a monarchy,
turn the rich into a ruling class, and making the United States a pawn
of the British. The treaty passed, but politics became intensely heated.
The
Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, when western settlers protested against a
federal tax on liquor, was the first serious test of the federal
government. Washington called out the state militia and personally led
an army, as the insurgents melted away and the power of the national
government was firmly established.
+was+the+second+president+of+the+United+States+(1797%E2%80%931801),%5B2%5D+having+earlier+served+as+the+first+vice+president+of+the+United+States..jpg) |
| John Adams became 2nd President of America |
Washington refused
to serve more than two terms—setting a precedent that is followed till
date, that no president of America, who serves the office for two terms,
competes for third term and this principle is followed in many other
countries including Iran—and in his famous farewell address, he extolled
the benefits of federal government and importance of ethics and
morality while warning against foreign alliances and the formation of
political parties.
John Adams, a Federalist, defeated
Jefferson in the 1796 election. War loomed with France and the
Federalists used the opportunity to try to silence the Republicans with
the Alien and Sedition Acts, build up a large army with Hamilton at the
head, and prepare for a French invasion.
However, the Federalists became divided after Adams sent a successful peace mission to France that ended the Quasi-War of 1798.
 |
| Slavery was very common in Americas |
Slavery
During
the first two decades after the Revolutionary War, there were dramatic
changes in the status of slavery among the states and an increase in the
number of freed blacks. Inspired by revolutionary ideals of the
equality of men and their lesser economic reliance on it, northern
states abolished slavery, although some had gradual emancipation
schemes. States of the Upper South made manumission easier, resulting in
an increase in the proportion of free blacks in the Upper South from
less than one percent in 1792 to more than 10 percent by 1810. By that
date, a total of 13.5 percent of all blacks in the United States were
free. After that date, with the demand for slaves on the rise with the
development of the Deep South for cotton cultivation, the rate of
manumissions declined sharply, and an internal slave trade became an
important source of wealth for many planters and traders.
 |
| Marbury v. Madison, a leading case on US constitutional history |
19th Century
Jeffersonian Republican Era
Thomas
Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency in the 1800 election.
Jefferson's major achievement as president was the Louisiana Purchase in
1803, which provided U.S. settlers with vast potential for expansion
west of the Mississippi River.
Jefferson, a scientist himself, supported expeditions to explore and map
the new domain, most notably the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Jefferson
believed deeply in republicanism and argued it should be based on the
independent yeoman farmer and planter; he distrusted cities, factories
and banks. He also distrusted the federal government and judges, and
tried to weaken the judiciary. However he met his match in John
Marshall, a Federalist from Virginia. Although the Constitution
specified a Supreme Court, its functions were vague until Marshall, the
Chief Justice (1801–35), defined them, especially the power to overturn
acts of Congress or states that violated the Constitution, first
enunciated in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison.
 |
| American Infantry attacks the Lundry's Lane- War of 1912 |
War of 1812
Americans
were increasingly angry at the British violation of American ships'
neutral rights in order to hurt France, the impressment (seizure) of
10,000 American sailors needed by the Royal Navy to fight Napoleon, and
British support for hostile Indians attacking American settlers in the
Midwest. They may also have desired to annex all or part of British
North America. Despite strong opposition from the Northeast, especially
from Federalists who did not want to disrupt trade with Britain,
Congress declared war in June 18, 1812.
The war was frustrating for both sides. Both sides tried to invade the
other and were repulsed. The American high command remained incompetent
until the last year. The American militia proved ineffective because the
soldiers were reluctant to leave home and efforts to invade Canada
repeatedly failed.
 |
| The Battle of New Orleans- War of 1912 |
The British
blockade ruined American commerce, bankrupted the Treasury, and further
angered New Englanders, who smuggled supplies to Britain. The Americans
under General William Henry Harrison finally gained naval control of
Lake Erie and defeated the Indians under Tecumseh in Canada, while
Andrew Jackson ended the Indian threat in the Southeast. The Indian
threat to expansion into the Midwest was permanently ended. The British
invaded and occupied much of Maine.
The British raided and burned Washington, but were repelled at Baltimore
in 1814—where the "Star Spangled Banner" was written to celebrate the
American success. In upstate New York a major British invasion of New
York State was turned back.
Finally in early 1815
Andrew Jackson decisively defeated a major British invasion at the
Battle of New Orleans, making him the most famous war hero.
 |
| The signing of peace treaty between US and UK |
With Napoleon
(apparently) gone, the causes of the war had evaporated and both sides
agreed to a peace that left the prewar boundaries intact. Americans
claimed victory in February 18, 1815 as news came almost simultaneously
of Jackson's victory of New Orleans and the peace treaty that left the
prewar boundaries in place. Americans swelled with pride at success in
the "second war of independence"; the naysayers of the antiwar
Federalist Party were put to shame and it never recovered. The Indians
were the big losers; they never gained the independent nationhood
Britain had promised and no longer posed a serious threat as settlers
poured into the Midwest.
Era of Good Feelings
As
strong opponents of the war, the Federalists held the Hartford
Convention in 1814 that hinted at disunion. National euphoria after the
victory at New Orleans ruined the prestige of the Federalists and they
no longer played a significant role. President Madison and most
Republicans realized they were foolish to let the Bank of the United
States close down, for its absence greatly hindered the financing of the
war. So they chartered the Second Bank of the United States in 1816.
+was+the+fifth+President+of+the+United+States+(1817%E2%80%931825).+Monroe+was+the+last+president+who+was+a+Founding+Father+of+the+United+States..gif) |
| James Monroe, the last president from founding fathers of America |
The Republicans
also imposed tariffs designed to protect the infant industries that had
been created when Britain was blockading the U.S. With the collapse of
the Federalists as a party, the adoption of many Federalist principles
by the Republicans, and the systematic policy of President James Monroe
in his two terms (1817–25) to downplay partisanship, the nation entered
an Era of Good Feelings, with far less partisanship than before (or
after), and closed out the First Party System.
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.
The Monroe Doctrine was adopted in
response to American and British fears over Russian and French expansion
into the Western Hemisphere.
 |
| Settlers crossing the Plains of Nebraska |
Indian removal
In
1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the
president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Native American tribal
lands in the eastern states for lands west of the Mississippi River. Its
goal was primarily to remove Native Americans, including the Five
Civilized Tribes, from the American Southeast; they occupied land that
settlers wanted. Jacksonian Democrats demanded the forcible removal of
native populations who refused to acknowledge state laws to reservations
in the West; Whigs and religious leaders opposed the move as inhumane.
Thousands of deaths resulted from the relocations, as seen in the
Cherokee Trail of Tears. Many of the Seminole Indians in Florida refused
to move west; they fought the Army for years in the Seminole Wars.
 |
| Methodist revival in USA 1839, watercolor second great awakening |
Second Great Awakening
The
Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival movement that affected
the entire nation during the early 19th century and led to rapid church
growth. The movement began around 1790, gained momentum by 1800, and,
after 1820 membership rose rapidly among Baptist and Methodist
congregations, whose preachers led the movement. It was past its peak by
the 1840s.
It enrolled millions of new members in
existing evangelical denominations and led to the formation of new
denominations. Many converts believed that the Awakening heralded a new
millennial age. The Second Great Awakening stimulated the establishment
of many reform movements—including abolitionism and temperance designed
to remove the evils of society before the anticipated Second Coming of
Jesus Christ.
 |
| William Lloyd Garrison |
Abolitionism
After
1840 the growing abolitionist movement redefined itself as a crusade
against the sin of slave ownership. It mobilized support (especially
among religious women in the Northeast affected by the Second Great
Awakening). William Lloyd Garrison published the most influential of the
many anti-slavery newspapers, The Liberator, while Frederick Douglass,
an ex-slave, began writing for that newspaper around 1840 and started
his own abolitionist newspaper North Star in 1847. The great majority of
anti-slavery activists, such as Abraham Lincoln, rejected Garrison's
theology and held that slavery was an unfortunate social evil, not a
sin.
Westward Expansion and Manifest Destiny
The American colonies and the new nation grew very rapidly in population
and area, as pioneers pushed the frontier of settlement west. The
process finally ended around 1890-1910 as the last major farmlands and
ranch lands were settled.
 |
| Frederick Jakson Turner's ideas formed the frontier thesis |
Native American
tribes in some places resisted militarily, but they were overwhelmed by
settlers and the army and after 1830 were relocated to reservations in
the west. The highly influential "Frontier Thesis" argues that the
frontier shaped the national character, with its boldness, violence,
innovation, individualism, and democracy.
Recent
historians have emphasized the multicultural nature of the frontier.
Enormous popular attention in the media focuses on the "Wild West" of
the second half of the 19th century.
As defined by Hine
and Faragher, "frontier history tells the story of the creation and
defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets,
and the formation of states".
They explain, "It is a
tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging
of peoples and cultures that gave birth and continuing life to
America."
 |
| The Oregon Trail |
Through wars and
treaties, establishment of law and order, building farms, ranches, and
towns, marking trails and digging mines, and pulling in great migrations
of foreigners, the United States expanded from coast to coast
fulfilling the dreams of Manifest Destiny. As the American frontier
passed into history, the myths of the west in fiction and film took firm
hold in the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike. America is
exceptional in choosing its iconic self-image. "No other nation," says
David Murdoch, "has taken a time and place from its past and produced a
construct of the imagination equal to America’s creation of the West."
From
the early 1830s to 1869, the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were
used by over 300,000 settlers. '49ers (in the California Gold Rush),
ranchers, farmers, and entrepreneurs and their families headed to
California, Oregon, and other points in the far west. Wagon-trains took
five or six months on foot; after 1869, the trip took 6 days by rail.
 |
| American occupation of Mexico city during Mexican-American War |
Manifest Destiny
was the belief that American settlers were destined to expand across the
continent. This concept was born out of "A sense of mission to redeem
the Old World by high example... generated by the potentialities of a
new earth for building a new heaven." Manifest Destiny was rejected by
modernizers, especially the Whigs like Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln
who wanted to build cities and factories—not more farms. However
Democrats strongly favored expansion, and they won the key election of
1844. After a bitter debate in Congress the Republic of Texas was
annexed in 1845, which Mexico had warned meant war. War broke out in
1846, with the homefront polarized as Whigs opposed and Democrats
supported the war. The U.S. army, using regulars and large numbers of
volunteers, easily won the Mexican-American War (1846–48). The 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made peace; Mexico recognized the annexation
of Texas and ceded its claims in the Southwest (especially California
and New Mexico). The Hispanic residents were given full citizenship and
the Mexican Indians became American Indians. Simultaneously gold was
discovered, pulling over 100,000 men to northern California in a matter
of months in the California Gold Rush. Not only did the then president
James K. Polk expand America's boarder to a fraction of Mexico but he
also annexed the north western frontier known as the Oregon Territory.
 |
| Division between North and South regarding slavery |
Divisions between North and South
The
central issue after 1848 was the expansion of slavery, pitting the
anti-slavery elements that were a majority in the North, against the
pro-slavery elements that overwhelmingly dominated the white South. A
small number of very active Northerners were abolitionists who declared
that ownership of slaves was a sin (in terms of Protestant theology) and
demanded its immediate abolition. Much larger numbers were against the
expansion of slavery, seeking to put it on the path to extinction so
that America would be committed to free land (as in low-cost farms owned
and cultivated by a family), free labor (no slaves), and free speech
(as opposed to censorship rampant in the South). Southern whites
insisted that slavery was of economic social and cultural benefit to all
whites (and even to the slaves themselves), and denounced all
antislavery spokesmen as "abolitionists."
 |
| Stephaen A. Douglas was the broker of compromise of 1850 |
Religious activists
split on slavery, with the Methodists and Baptists dividing into
northern and southern denominations. In the North, the Methodists,
Congregationalists and Quakers included many abolitionists, especially
among women activists. The Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran
denominations largely ignored the slavery issue.
The
issue of slavery in the new territories was seemingly settled by the
Compromise of 1850 brokered by Whig Henry Clay and Democrat Stephen
Douglas; the Compromise included admission of California as a free
state.
The sore point was the Fugitive Slave Act, which
increased federal enforcement and required even free states to
cooperate in turning over fugitive slaves to masters. Abolitionists
fastened on the Act to attack slavery, as in the best-selling
anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
,+free+states+(pink),+U.S.+territories+(green),+and+Kansas+in+center+(white)..jpg) |
| Kansas Nebraska Act created territories of America |
The Compromise of
1820 was repealed in 1854 with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, promoted by
Senator Douglas in the name of "popular sovereignty" and democracy. It
permitted settlers to decide on slavery in each territory, and allowed
Douglas to say he was neutral on the slavery issue. Antislavery forces
rose in anger and alarm, forming the new Republican Party. Pro and
anti-forces rushed to Kansas to vote slavery up or down, resulting in a
mini civil war called Bleeding Kansas. By the late 1850s the young
Republican Party dominated nearly all northern states and thus the
electoral college, and insisted that slavery would never be allowed to
expand (and thus would slowly die out).
The southern
slave societies had become wealthy based on their cotton and other
commodity production, and some particularly profited from the internal
slave trade. Northern cities such as Boston and New York, and regional
industries, were tied economically to slavery by banking, shipping, and
manufacturing, including textile mills.
 |
| John Brown |
By 1860, there were four million slaves in the South,
nearly eight times as many as the total slaves nationwide in 1790. The
plantations were highly profitable because of the heavy European demand
for raw cotton; most of the profits were invested in new lands and new
slaves drawn from the declining tobacco regions. For 50 of the nation's
first 72 years a slaveholder served as president of the United States
and, during that period, only slaveholding presidents were re-elected to
second terms. In addition, southern states benefited by their increased
apportionment in Congress due to the partial counting of slaves in
their populations.
Slave rebellions were planned or
actually took place —including by Gabriel Prosser (1800), Denmark Vesey
(1822), Nat Turner (1831), and John Brown (1859) —but they only involved
dozens of people and all failed. They caused fear in the white South,
which imposed tighter slave oversight and reduced the rights of free
blacks. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required the states to cooperate
with slave owners when attempting to recover escaped slaves, which
outraged northerners. Formerly, an escaped slave, having reached a
non-slave state, was presumed to have attained sanctuary and freedom.
The Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford ruled that
the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional; angry Republicans said it
threatened to make slavery national.
 |
| Abraham Lincoln, the 16 US President |
After Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election, seven
Southern states seceded from the union and set up a new nation, the
Confederate States of America, on February 8, 1861. It attacked Fort
Sumter, a U.S. Army fort in South Carolina, thus igniting the war. When
Lincoln called for troops to suppress the Confederacy in April 1861,
four more states seceded and joined the Confederacy. Four of the five
northernmost "slave states" did not secede and became known as the
Border States. During the war the northwestern portion of Virginia
seceded and became the loyal Union state of West Virginia.
Civil War
The
Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a
U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. In response
to the attack, on April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send
detachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the
capital, and "preserve the Union", which in his view still existed
intact despite the actions of the seceding states.
 |
| First Battle of Bull Run |
The two armies had their first major clash at the
First Battle of Bull Run, ending in a Union defeat, but, more
importantly, proved to both the Union and Confederacy that the war would
be much longer and bloodier than originally anticipated. The war soon
divided into two theaters: Eastern and Western. In the western theater,
the Union was quite successful, with major battles, such as Perryville
and Shiloh, producing strategic Union victories and destroying major
Confederate operations.
Warfare in the Eastern theater
started poorly for the Union as the Confederates won at Manassas
Junction (Bull Run), just outside Washington. Major General George B.
McClellan was put in charge of the Union armies. After reorganizing the
new Army of the Potomac, McClellan failed to capture the Confederate
capital of Richmond, Virginia in his Peninsula Campaign and retreated
after attacks from newly appointed Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
 |
| 22717 were killed, wounded and missed in battle of Atietam |
Feeling confident in his army after defeating the
Union at Second Bull Run, Lee embarked on an invasion of the north that
was stopped by McClellan at the bloody Battle of Antietam. Despite this,
McClellan was relieved from command for refusing to pursue Lee's
crippled army. The next commander, General Ambrose Burnside, suffered a
humiliating defeat by Lee's smaller army at the Battle of Fredericksburg
late in 1862, causing yet another change in commanders. Lee won again
at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, while losing his top
aide, Stonewall Jackson. But Lee pushed too hard and ignored the Union
threat in the west. Lee invaded Pennsylvania in search of supplies and
to cause war weariness in the North. In perhaps the turning point of the
war, Lee's army was badly beaten at the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3,
1863, and barely made it back to Virginia.
 |
| Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee |
Simultaneously on July 4, 1863, Union forces under
the command of General Ulysses S. Grant gained control of the
Mississippi River at the Battle of Vicksburg, thereby splitting the
Confederacy. Lincoln made General Grant commander of all Union armies.
The
last two years of the war were bloody for both sides, with Grant
launching a war of attrition against General Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia. This war of attrition was divided into three main campaigns.
The first of these, the Overland Campaign forced Lee to retreat into the
city of Petersburg where Grant launched his second major offensive, the
Richmond-Petersburg Campaign in which he besieged Petersburg. After a
near ten-month siege, Petersburg surrendered. However, the defense of
Fort Gregg allowed Lee to move his army out of Petersburg. Grant pursued
and launched the final, Appomattox Campaign which resulted in Lee
surrendering his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at
Appomattox Court House. Other Confederate armies followed suit and the
war ended with no postwar insurgency.
 |
| 8% white males aged 13-43 died in American Civil War |
Based on 1860 census figures, about 8% of all white
males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% from the North and 18%
from the South, establishing the American Civil War as the deadliest
war in American history. Its legacy includes ending slavery in the
United States, restoring the Union, and strengthening the role of the
federal government.
Reconstruction and the Gilded Age
Reconstruction
lasted from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 to
the Compromise of 1877.
The major issues faced by Lincoln were the status of the ex-slaves
(called "Freedmen"), the loyalty and civil rights of ex-rebels, the
status of the 11 ex-Confederate states, the powers of the federal
government needed to prevent a future civil war, and the question of
whether Congress or the President would make the major decisions.
 |
| Freedmen voting in New Orleans, 1867 |
The severe threats of starvation and displacement of
the unemployed Freedmen were met by the first major federal relief
agency, the Freedmen's Bureau, operated by the Army.
Three
"Reconstruction Amendments" were passed to expand civil rights for
black Americans: the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery; the
Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed equal rights for all and citizenship for
blacks; the Fifteenth Amendment prevented race from being used to
disfranchise men.
Ex-Confederates remained in control
of most Southern states for over two years, but that changed when the
Radical Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1866 elections.
President Andrew Johnson, who sought easy terms for reunions with
ex-rebels, was virtually powerless; he escaped by one vote removal
through impeachment. Congress enfranchised black men and stripped many
ex-Confederate leaders of the right to hold office. New Republican
governments came to power based on a coalition of Freedmen made up of
Carpetbaggers (new arrivals from the North), and Scalawags (native white
Southerners).
 |
| Ku Klux Klan (KKK)-the Logo |
They were backed by the US Army. Opponents said they
were corrupt and violated the rights of whites. State by state they lost
power to a conservative-Democratic coalition, which gained control of
the entire South by 1877. In response to Radical Reconstruction, the Ku
Klux Klan (KKK) emerged in 1867 as a white-supremacist organization
opposed to black civil rights and Republican rule. President Ulysses
Grant's vigorous enforcement of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1870 shut down
the Klan, and it disbanded. However, there were other paramilitary
groups, such as the White League and Red Shirts that worked to regain
white political power in states across the South during the 1870s.
Reconstruction
ended after the disputed 1876 election between Republican candidate
Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden. With a
compromise Hayes won the election, the federal government withdrew its
troops from the South, and Southern Democrats re-entered the national
political scene. After 1890 southern states effectively disfranchised
black voters. Blacks were segregated in public places and remained
second class citizens in a system known as Jim Crow until the successes
of the Civil Rights movement in 1964-65.
+was+the+19th+President+of+the+United+States+(1877%E2%80%931881)..jpg) |
| Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th US president |
The latter half of the nineteenth century was marked
by the United States' development and settlement of the West, first by
wagon trains and then aided by the completion of the transcontinental
railroad and frequent wars with Native Americans as settlers encroached
on their traditional lands.
Gradually the US purchased their lands and extinguished their claims, forcing most tribes onto restricted reservations.
According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894):
The
Indian wars under the government of the United States have been more
than 40 in number. They have cost the lives of about 19,000 white men,
women and children, including those killed in individual combats, and
the lives of about 30,000 Indians.
 |
| Mark Twain used the term Gilded Age |
The Gilded Age
The
"Gilded Age" was a term that Mark Twain used to describe the period of
the late 19th century when there had been a dramatic expansion of
American wealth and prosperity.
Reform of the Age included the Civil Service Act, which mandated a competitive examination for applicants for government jobs.
Other
important legislation included the Interstate Commerce Act, which ended
railroads' discrimination against small shippers, and the Sherman
Antitrust Act, which outlawed monopolies in business.
Twain
believed that this age was corrupted by such elements as land
speculators, scandalous politics, and unethical business practices.
+was+an+American+business+magnate+and+philanthropist..jpg) |
| John Davision Rockefeller, Sr |
By 1890 American industrial production and per capita
income exceeded those of all other world nations. In response to heavy
debts and decreasing farm prices, wheat and cotton farmers joined the
Populist Party.
An unprecedented wave of immigration
from Europe served to both provide the labor for American industry and
create diverse communities in previously undeveloped areas. From 1880 to
1914, peak years of immigration, more than 22 million people migrated
to the United States.
The workers' demand for control
of their workplace led to the often-violent rise of the labor movement
in the cities and mining camps.
Industrial leaders
included John D. Rockefeller in oil and Andrew Carnegie in steel; both
became leaders of philanthropy, giving away their fortunes to create the
modern system of hospitals, universities, libraries, and foundations.
 |
| Panic of 1893 caused depression in US |
A severe nationwide depression broke out in 1893; it
was called the Panic of 1893 and impacted farmers, workers, and
businessmen who saw prices, wages, and profits fall. Many railroads went
bankrupt.
The resultant political reaction fell on the
Democratic Party, whose leader President Grover Cleveland shouldered
much of the blame.
Labor unrest involved numerous
strikes, most notably the violent Pullman Strike of 1894, which was shut
down by federal troops under Cleveland's orders.
The
Populist Party gained strength among cotton and wheat farmers, as well
as coal miners, but was overtaken by the even more popular Free Silver
movement. This Free Silver movement demanded using silver to enlarge the
money supply, leading to inflation that the silverites promised would
end the depression.
+was+the+25th+President+of+the+United+States,+serving+from+March+4,+1897,+until+his+assassination+in+September+1901.jpg) |
| William Mckinley, the 25th US president |
The financial, railroad, and business communities fought back hard, arguing that only the gold standard would save the economy.
In
the most intense election in the nation's history, conservative
Republican William McKinley defeated silverite William Jennings Bryan,
who ran on the Democratic, Populist, and Silver Republican tickets.
Bryan
swept the South and West, but McKinley ran up landslides among the
middle class, industrial workers, cities, and among upscale farmers in
the Midwest.
Prosperity returned under McKinley, the
gold standard was enacted, and the tariff was raised. By 1900 the US had
the strongest economy on the globe.
Apart from two
short recessions (in 1907 and 1920) the overall economy remained
prosperous and growing until 1929. Republicans, citing McKinley's
policies, took the credit.
 |
| Charles Evans Hughes, 11th CJ of US SC |
20th Century
Progressive Era
Dissatisfaction on the part of the growing middle class with the corruption and inefficiency of politics as usual, and the failure to deal with increasingly important urban and industrial problems, led to the dynamic Progressive Movement starting in the 1890s. In every major city and state, and at the national level as well, and in education, medicine, and industry, the progressives called for the modernization and reform of decrepit institutions, the elimination of corruption in politics, and the introduction of efficiency as a criterion for change. Leading politicians from both parties, most notably Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Evans Hughes, and Robert LaFollette on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson on the Democratic side, took up the cause of progressive reform.
 |
| Jane Addams, American Social Reformer |
Women became especially involved in demands for woman suffrage, prohibition, and better schools; their most prominent leader was Jane Addams of Chicago. Progressives implemented anti-trust laws and regulated such industries of meat-packing, drugs, and railroads. Four new constitutional amendments—the Sixteenth through Nineteenth—resulted from progressive activism, bringing the federal income tax, direct election of Senators, prohibition, and woman suffrage. The Progressive Movement lasted through the 1920s; the most active period was 1900–1918.
Imperialism
The United States emerged as a world economic and military power after 1890. The main episode was the Spanish–American War, which began when Spain refused American demands to reform its oppressive policies in Cuba. The "splendid little war", as one official called it, involved a series of quick American victories on land and at sea. At the Treaty of Paris peace conference the United States acquired the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
 |
| USS Missouri passes through Panama Canal |
Cuba became an independent country, under close American tutelage. Although the war itself was widely popular, the peace terms proved controversial. William Jennings Bryan led his Democratic Party in opposition to control of the Philippines, which he denounced as imperialism unbecoming to American democracy. President William McKinley defended the acquisition and was riding high as the nation had returned to prosperity and felt triumphant in the war. McKinley easily defeated Bryan in a rematch in the 1900 presidential election.
After defeating an insurrection by Filipino nationalists, the United States engaged in a large-scale program to modernize the economy of the Philippines and dramatically upgrade the public health facilities. By 1908, however, Americans lost interest in an empire and turned their international attention to the Caribbean, especially the building of the Panama Canal. In 1912 when Arizona became the final mainland state, the American Frontier came to an end. The canal opened in 1914 and increased trade with Japan and the rest of the Far East. A key innovation was the Open Door Policy, whereby the imperial powers were given equal access to Chinese business, with not one of them allowed to take control of China.
,+in+France..JPG) |
| WWI Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France |
World War I
As World War I raged in Europe from 1914, President Woodrow Wilson took full control of foreign policy, declaring neutrality but warning Germany that resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against American ships supplying goods to Allied nations would mean war. Germany decided to take the risk and try to win by cutting off supplies to Britain; the U.S. declared war in April 1917. American money, food, and munitions arrived quickly, but troops had to be drafted and trained; by summer 1918 American soldiers under General John J. Pershing arrived at the rate of 10,000 a day, while Germany was unable to replace its losses.
The result was Allied victory in November 1918. President Wilson demanded Germany depose the Kaiser and accept his terms, the Fourteen Points. Wilson dominated the 1919 Paris Peace Conference but Germany was treated harshly by the Allies in the Treaty of Versailles (1919) as Wilson put all his hopes in the new League of Nations. Wilson refused to compromise with Senate Republicans over the issue of Congressional power to declare war, and the Senate rejected the Treaty and the League.
 |
| Elizabeth Cady Stanton with 2 of her 3 sons |
Women's Suffrage
The women's suffrage movement began with the June 1848 National Convention of the Liberty Party. Presidential candidate Gerrit Smith argued for and established women's suffrage as a party plank. One month later, his cousin Elizabeth Cady Stanton joined with Lucretia Mott and other women to organize the Seneca Falls Convention, featuring the Declaration of Sentiments demanding equal rights for women, and the right to vote. Many of these activists became politically aware during the abolitionist movement. The women's rights campaign during "first-wave feminism" was led by Stanton, Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony, among many others. Stone and Paulina Wright Davis organized the prominent and influential National Women's Rights Convention in 1850. The movement reorganized after the Civil War, gaining experienced campaigners, many of whom had worked for prohibition in the Women's Christian Temperance Union. By the end of the 19th century a few western states had granted women full voting rights, though women had made significant legal victories, gaining rights in areas such as property and child custody.
 |
| Cover to a program of the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 |
Around 1912 the feminist movement, which had grown sluggish, began to reawaken, putting an emphasis on its demands for equality and arguing that the corruption of American politics demanded purification by women because men could not do that job. Protests became increasingly common as suffragette Alice Paul led parades through the capital and major cities. Paul split from the large National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which favored a more moderate approach and supported the Democratic Party and Woodrow Wilson, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, and formed the more militant National Woman's Party. Suffragists were arrested during their "Silent Sentinels" pickets at the White House, the first time such a tactic was used, and were taken as political prisoners.
The old anti-suffragist argument that only men could fight a war, and therefore only men deserve the right to vote, was refuted by the enthusiastic participation of tens of thousands of American women on the home front in World War I. Across the world, grateful nations gave women the right to vote. Furthermore, most of the Western states had already given the women the right to vote in state and national elections, and the representatives from those states, including the first woman Jeannette Rankin of Montana, demonstrated that woman suffrage was a success. The main resistance came from the south, where white leaders were worried about the threat of black women voting. Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, and women could vote in 1920.
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| League of Women Voters members in front of White House |
NAWSA became the League of Women Voters, and the National Woman's Party began lobbying for full equality and the Equal Rights Amendment, which would pass Congress during the second wave of the women's movement in 1972. Politicians responded to the new electorate by emphasizing issues of special interest to women, especially prohibition, child health, and world peace. The main surge of women voting came in 1928, when the big-city machines realized they needed the support of women to elect Al Smith, a Catholic from New York City. Meanwhile Protestants mobilized women to support Prohibition and vote for Republican Herbert Hoover.
Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression
In the 1920s the U.S. grew steadily in stature as an economic and military world power. 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. The aftershock of Russia's October Revolution resulted in real fears of Communism in the United States, leading to a Red Scare and the deportation of aliens considered subversive.
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| 1918 Spanish influenza ward at Camp Funston Kansas |
While public health facilities grew rapidly in the Progressive Era, and hospitals and medical schools were modernized, the nation in 1918 lost 675,000 lives to the Spanish flu pandemic.
In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol were prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition. The result was that in cities illegal alcohol became a big business, largely controlled by racketeers. The second Ku Klux Klan grew rapidly in 1922-25, then collapsed. Immigration laws were passed to strictly limit the number of new entries. The 1920s were called the Roaring Twenties due to the great economic prosperity during this period. Jazz became popular among the younger generation, and thus the decade was also called the Jazz Age.
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| Crash of 1929 resulted in Great Depression |
The Great depression (1929–39) and the New Deal (1933–36) were decisive moments in American political, economic, and social history that reshaped the nation.
During the 1920s, the nation enjoyed widespread prosperity, albeit with a weakness in agriculture. A financial bubble was fueled by an inflated stock market, which later led to the Stock Market Crash on October 29, 1929. This, along with many other economic factors, triggered a worldwide depression known as the Great Depression. During this time, the United States experienced deflation as prices fell, unemployment soared from 3% in 1929 to 25% in 1933, farm prices fell by half, and manufacturing output plunged by one-third.
In 1932, Democratic presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt promised
"a New Deal for the American people", coining the enduring label for his
domestic policies. The desperate economic situation, along with the
substantial Democratic victories in the 1932 elections, gave Roosevelt
unusual influence over Congress in the "First Hundred Days" of his
administration. He used his leverage to win rapid passage of a series of
measures to create welfare programs and regulate the banking system,
stock market, industry, and agriculture, along with many other
government efforts to end the Great Depression and reform the American
economy.
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| Franklin Roosevelt built the New Deal Coalition |
The New Deal regulated much of the economy, especially the financial sector. It provided relief to the unemployed through numerous programs, such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and (for young men) the Civilian Conservation Corps. Large scale spending projects designed to provide high paying jobs and rebuild the infrastructure were under the purview of the Public Works Administration. Roosevelt turned left in 1935–36, building up labor unions through the Wagner Act. Unions became a powerful element of the merging New Deal Coalition, which won reelection for Roosevelt in 1936, 1940, and 1944 by mobilizing union members, blue collar workers, relief recipients, big city machines, ethnic, and religious groups (especially Catholics and Jews) and the white South, along with blacks in the North (where they could vote). Some of the programs were dropped in the 1940s when the conservatives regained power in Congress through the Conservative Coalition. Of special importance is the Social Security program, begun in 1935.
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| Pearl Harbor Attacks led US to decisively enter in WWII |
World War II
In the Depression years, the United States remained focused on domestic concerns while democracy declined across the world and many countries fell under the control of dictators. Imperial Japan asserted dominance in East Asia and in the Pacific. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy militarized to and threatened conquests, while Britain and France attempted appeasement to avert another war in Europe. US legislation in the Neutrality Acts sought to avoid foreign conflicts; however, policy clashed with increasing anti-Nazi feelings following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 that started World War II. Roosevelt positioned the US as the "Arsenal of Democracy", pledging full-scale financial and munitions support for the Allies—but no soldiers. Japan tried to neutralize America's power in the Pacific by attacking Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which catalyzed American support to enter the war and seek revenge.
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| Sprawled American bodies on beach of Tarawa |
The main contributions of the US to the Allied war effort comprised money, industrial output, food, petroleum, technological innovation, and (especially 1944–45), soldiers. Much of the focus in Washington was maximizing the economic output of the nation. The overall result was a dramatic increase in GDP, the export of vast quantities of supplies to the Allies and to American forces overseas, the end of unemployment, and a rise in civilian consumption even as 40% of the GDP went to the war effort. This was achieved by tens of millions of workers moving from low-productivity occupations to high efficiency jobs, improvements in productivity through better technology and management, and the move into the active labor force of students, retired people, housewives, and the unemployed, and an increase in hours worked.
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| Battle of the Coral Sea- May 1942 |
It was exhausting; leisure activities declined sharply. People tolerated the extra work because of patriotism, the pay, and the confidence that it was only "for the duration", and life would return to normal as soon as the war was won. Most durable goods became unavailable, and meat, clothing, and gasoline were tightly rationed. In industrial areas housing was in short supply as people doubled up and lived in cramped quarters. Prices and wages were controlled, and Americans saved a high portion of their incomes, which led to renewed growth after the war instead of a return to depression.
The Allies—the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union, as well as China, Canada and other countries—fought the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The Allies saw Germany as the main threat and gave highest priority to Europe. The US dominated the war against Japan and stopped Japanese expansion in the Pacific in 1942. After losing Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines to the Japanese, and drawing the Battle of the Coral Sea (May 1942), the American Navy inflicted a decisive blow at Midway (June 1942). American ground forces assisted in the North African Campaign that eventually concluded with the collapse of Mussolini's fascist government in 1943, as Italy switched to the Allied side.
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| The Manhattan Project created the 1st nuclear bombs |
A more significant European front was opened on D-Day, June 6, 1944, in which American and Allied forces invaded Nazi-occupied France from Britain.
On the home front, mobilization of the US economy was managed by Roosevelt's War Production Board. The wartime production boom led to full employment, wiping out this vestige of the Great Depression. Indeed, labor shortages encouraged industry to look for new sources of workers, finding new roles for women and blacks.
However, the fervor also inspired anti-Japanese sentiment, which was handled by removing everyone of Japanese descent from the West Coast war zone. Research and development took flight as well, best seen in the Manhattan Project, a secret effort to harness nuclear fission to produce highly destructive atomic bombs.
+and+Nagasaki+(right).jpg) |
| Hiroshima became the 1st target of Atomic Bomb |
The Allied pushed the Germans out of France but faced an unexpected counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge in December. The final German effort failed, and, as Allied armies in East and West were converging on Berlin, the Nazis hurriedly tried to kill the last remaining Jews. The western front stopped short, leaving Berlin to the Soviets as the Nazi regime formally capitulated in May 1945, ending the war in Europe. Over in the Pacific, the US implemented an island hopping strategy toward Tokyo, establishing airfields for bombing runs against mainland Japan from the Mariana Islands and achieving hard-fought victories at Iwo Jima and Okinawa in 1945. Bloodied at Okinawa, the U.S. prepared to invade Japan's home islands when B-29s dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing the empire's surrender in a matter of days and thus ending World War II.
+was+the+33rd+President+of+the+United+States+of+America+(1945%E2%80%931953)..jpg) |
| Harry S. Truman introduced Truman Doctrine |
The US occupied Japan (and part of Germany), sending Douglas MacArthur
to restructure the Japanese economy and political system along American
lines.
Though the nation lost more than 400,000 soldiers, the mainland prospered untouched by the devastation of war that inflicted a heavy toll on Europe and Asia.
Participation in postwar foreign affairs marked the end of predominant American isolationism.
The awesome threat of nuclear weapons inspired both optimism and fear. Nuclear weapons were never used after 1945, as both sides drew back from the brink and a "long peace" characterized the Cold War years, starting with the Truman Doctrine in May 22, 1947.
There were, however, regional wars in Korea and Vietnam.
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| Marshall Plan Aid- the Logo |
The Cold War, Counterculture, and Civil Rights
Following World War II, the United States emerged as one of the two dominant superpowers, the USSR being the other. The U.S. Senate on a bipartisan vote approved U.S. participation in the United Nations (UN), which marked a turn away from the traditional isolationism of the U.S. and toward increased international involvement.
The primary American goal of 1945–48 was to rescue Europe from the devastation of World War II and to contain the expansion of Communism, represented by the Soviet Union. The Truman Doctrine of 1947 provided military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey to counteract the threat of Communist expansion in the Balkans. In 1948, the United States replaced piecemeal financial aid programs with a comprehensive Marshall Plan, which pumped money into the economy of Western Europe, and removed trade barriers, while modernizing the managerial practices of businesses and governments.
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| Map of Warsaw Pact Countries |
The Plan's $13 billion budget was in the context of a US GDP of $258 billion in 1948 and was in addition to the $12 billion in American aid given to Europe between the end of the war and the start of the Marshall Plan. Soviet head of state Joseph Stalin prevented his satellite states from participating, and from that point on, Eastern Europe, with inefficient centralized economies, fell further and further behind Western Europe in terms of economic development and prosperity. In 1949, the United States, rejecting the long-standing policy of no military alliances in peacetime, formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which continues into the 21st century. In response the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact of communist states.
In August 1949 the Soviets tested their first nuclear weapon, thereby escalating the risk of warfare. Indeed, the threat of mutually assured destruction prevented both powers from going too far, and resulted in proxy wars, especially in Korea and Vietnam, in which the two sides did not directly confront each other. Within the United States, the Cold War prompted concerns about Communist influence. The unexpected leapfrogging of American technology by the Soviets in 1957 with Sputnik, the first Earth satellite, began the Space Race, won by the Americans as Apollo 11 landed astronauts on the moon in 1969. The angst about the weaknesses of American education led to large-scale federal support for science education and research.
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| John F. Kennedy before his assassination |
In the decades after World War II, the United States became a global influence in economic, political, military, cultural, and technological affairs. Beginning in the 1950s, middle-class culture became obsessed with consumer goods. White Americans made up nearly 90% of the population in 1950.
In 1960, the charismatic politician John F. Kennedy was elected as the first and—thus far—only Roman Catholic President of the United States. The Kennedy family brought a new life and vigor to the atmosphere of the White House. His time in office was marked by such notable events as the acceleration of the United States' role in the Space Race, escalation of the American role in the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the jailing of Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Birmingham campaign, and the appointment of his brother Robert F. Kennedy to his Cabinet as Attorney General. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, leaving the nation in profound shock.
,+often+referred+to+as+LBJ,+was+the+36th+President+of+the+United+States+(1963%E2%80%931969).jpg) |
| Lyndon Baines Johnson |
Climax of Liberalism
The climax of liberalism came in the mid-1960s with the success of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–69) in securing congressional passage of his Great Society programs. They included civil rights, the end of segregation, Medicare, extension of welfare, federal aid to education at all levels, subsidies for the arts and humanities, environmental activism, and a series of programs designed to wipe out poverty. As recent historians have explained:
Gradually, liberal intellectuals crafted a new vision for achieving economic and social justice. The liberalism of the early 1960s contained no hint of radicalism, little disposition to revive new deal era crusades against concentrated economic power, and no intention to fast and class passions or redistribute wealth or restructure existing institutions. Internationally it was strongly anti-Communist. It aimed to defend the free world, to encourage economic growth at home, and to ensure that the resulting plenty was fairly distributed. Their agenda-much influenced by Keynesian economic theory-envisioned massive public expenditure that would speed economic growth, thus providing the public resources to fund larger welfare, housing, health, and educational programs.
+was+the+37th+President+of+the+United+States,+serving+from+1969+to+1974,+when+he+became+the+only+president+to+resign+the+office.jpg) |
| Richard Nixon, the only president to resign |
Johnson was rewarded with an electoral landslide in 1964 against conservative Barry Goldwater, which broke the decades-long control of Congress by the Conservative coalition.
However, the Republicans bounced back in 1966 and elected Richard Nixon in 1968. Richard Nixon, later, has resigned from his office and has become the only president of America to do so.
Nixon largely continued the New Deal and Great Society programs he inherited; conservative reaction would come with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Meanwhile, the American people completed a great migration from farms into the cities and experienced a period of sustained economic expansion.
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| Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr |
Civil Rights Movement
Starting in the late 1950s, institutionalized racism across the United States, but especially in the South, was increasingly challenged by the growing Civil Rights movement. The activism of African-American leaders Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which launched the movement. For years African Americans would struggle with violence against them but would achieve great steps toward equality with Supreme Court decisions, including Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which ended the Jim Crow laws that legalized racial segregation between whites and blacks.
+was+an+American+author,+activist,+and+civil+rights+leader.+The+widow+of+Martin+Luther+King,+Jr.jpg) |
| Correta Scott King poses with portrait of her husband |
Martin Luther King, Jr., who had won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to achieve equality of the races, was assassinated in 1968. Following his death others led the movement, most notably King's widow, Coretta Scott King, who was also active, like her husband, in the Opposition to the Vietnam War, and in the Women's Liberation Movement. Over the first nine months of 1967, 128 American cities suffered 164 riots. Black Power emerged during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The decade would ultimately bring about positive strides toward integration, especially in government service, sports, and entertainment. Native Americans turned to the courts to fight for their land rights. They held protests highlighting the federal government's failure to honor treaties.
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| The Feminine Mystique- Front Cover |
One of the most outspoken Native American groups was the American Indian
Movement (AIM). In the 1960s, Cesar Chavez began organizing poorly paid
Mexican-American farm workers in California. He led a five-year-long
strike by grape pickers. Then Chávez formed the nation's first
successful union of farm workers. It later became the United Farm
Workers of America (UFW).
The Women's Movement
A new consciousness of the inequality of American women began sweeping the nation, starting with the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan's best-seller, The Feminine Mystique, which explained how many housewives felt trapped and unfulfilled, assaulted American culture for its creation of the notion that women could only find fulfillment through their roles as wives, mothers, and keepers of the home, and argued that women were just as able as men to do every type of job. In 1966 Friedan and others established the National Organization for Women, or NOW, to act for women as the NAACP did for African Americans.
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| Phyllis Schlafly is known for her opposition to modern feminism |
Protests began, and the new Women's Liberation Movement grew in size and power, gained much media attention, and, by 1968, had replaced the Civil Rights Movement as the US's main social revolution. Marches, parades, rallies, boycotts, and pickets brought out thousands, sometimes millions. There were striking gains for women in medicine, law, and business, while only a few were elected to office. The Movement was split into factions by political ideology early on, however (with NOW on the left, the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL) on the right, the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) in the center, and more radical groups formed by younger women on the far left). The proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, passed by Congress in 1972 was defeated by a conservative coalition mobilized by Phyllis Schlafly. They argued that it degraded the position of the housewife and made young women susceptible to the military draft.
,+is+still+a+point+of+debate+today.jpg) |
| Abortion of point of debate even after Roe v. Wade |
However, many federal laws (i.e., those equalizing pay, employment, education, employment opportunities, and 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 that 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, deemed by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right in Roe v. Wade (1973), is still a point of debate today.
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| Vietnam War was a nightmare for USA |
The Counterculture Revolution & Cold War Détente
Amid the Cold War, 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 B. Johnson's Great Society social programs and numerous rulings by 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 and early seventies, further dividing Americans in a "culture war" but also bringing forth more liberated social views.
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| The Watergate was a major political scandal of 1970s |
Johnson was succeeded in 1969 by Republican Richard Nixon, who attempted to gradually turn the war over to the South Vietnamese forces.; He negotiated the peace treaty in 1973 which secured the release of POWs and lead to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The war had cost the lives of 58,000 American troops. Nixon manipulated the fierce distrust between the Soviet Union and China to the advantage of the United States, achieving détente (relaxation; ease of tension) with both parties.
The Watergate scandal, involving Nixon's cover-up of his operatives' break-in into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex destroyed his political base, sent many aides to prison, and forced Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. He was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford. The Fall of Saigon ended the VIetnam War and resulted in North and South Vietnam being reunited. Communist victories in neighboring Cambodia and Laos occurred in the same year.
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| Begin, Carter and Anwar Sadat at Camp David |
The OPEC oil embargo marked a long-term economic transition since, for the first time, energy prices skyrocketed, and American factories faced serious competition from foreign automobiles, clothing, electronics, and consumer goods. By the late 1970s the economy suffered an energy crisis, slow economic growth, high unemployment, and very high inflation coupled with high interest rates (the term stagflation was coined). Since economists agreed on the wisdom of deregulation, many of the New Deal era regulations were ended, such as in transportation, banking, and telecommunications.
Jimmy Carter, running as someone who was not a part of the Washington political establishment, was elected president in 1976. On the world stage, Carter brokered the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. In 1979, Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage, resulting in the Iran hostage crisis. With the hostage crisis and continuing stagflation, Carter lost the 1980 election to the Republican Ronald Reagan. On January 20, 1981, minutes after Carter's term in office ended, the remaining U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Iran were released, ending the 444-day hostage crisis.
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| Reagan gives a televised address about tax reductions |
Close of the 20th Century
Ronald Reagan produced a major realignment with his 1980 and 1984 landslide elections. 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 US experienced a recession in 1982, but the negative indicators reversed, with the inflation rate decreasing from 11% to 2%, the unemployment rate decreasing from 10.8% in December 1982 to 7.5% in November 1984, and the economic growth rate increasing from 4.5% to 7.2%.
Reagan ordered a buildup of the US military, incurring additional budget deficits. Reagan introduced a complicated missile defense system known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) (dubbed "Star Wars" by opponents) in which, theoretically, the U.S. could shoot down missiles with laser systems in space.
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| Reagan speaking in front of Brandenburg Gate and Barlin Wall |
The Soviets reacted harshly because they thought it violated the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and would upset the balance of power by giving the U.S. a major military advantage. For years Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev argued vehemently against SDI. However, by the late 1980s he decided the system would never work and should not be used to block disarmament deals with the U.S. Historians argue how great an impact the SDI threat had on the Soviets--whether it was enough to force Gorbachev to initiate radical reforms, or whether the deterioration of the Soviet economy alone forced the reforms. There is agreement that the Soviets realized they were well behind the Americans in military technology, that to try to catch up would be very expensive, and that the military expenses were already a very heavy burden slowing down their economy.
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| Reagan's Invasion of Grenada was popular in US |
Reagan's Invasion of Grenada and bombing of Libya were popular in the US, though his backing of the Contras rebels was mired in the controversy over the Iran–Contra affair that revealed Reagan's poor management style.
Reagan met four times with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who ascended to power in 1985, and their summit conferences led to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. 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. The Soviet Union collapsed on Christmas Day 1991, ending the US–Soviet Cold War.
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| Monica Clinton Scandal resulted in impeachment of Clinton |
The United States emerged as the world's sole remaining superpower and continued to intervene in international affairs during the 1990s, including the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. Following his election in 1992, President Bill Clinton oversaw one of the longest periods of economic expansion and unprecedented gains in securities values, a side effect of the digital revolution and new business opportunities created by the Internet. He also worked with the Republican Congress to pass the first balanced federal budget in 30 years.
In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors" for lying about a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky but was later acquitted by the Senate. The failure of impeachment and the Democratic gains in the 1998 election forced House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, to resign from Congress.
+after+being+struck+by+plane+in+the+south+face.jpg) |
| 9/11 Attacks led America to the War on Terror |
The presidential
election in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore was one of the
closest in US history and helped lay the seeds for political
polarization to come. The vote in the decisive state of Florida was
extremely close and produced a dramatic dispute over the counting of
votes. The US Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore ended the recount with a 5–4
vote. That meant Bush, then in the lead, carried Florida and the
election.
21st Century
9/11 and the War on Terror
On
September 11, 2001 ("9/11"), the United States was struck by a
terrorist attack when 19 al-Qaeda hijackers commandeered four airliners
and intentionally crashed into both twin towers of the World Trade
Center and into the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people, mostly
civilians. In response on September 20, President George W. Bush
announced a "War on Terror". On October 7, 2001, the United States and
NATO then invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime, which had
provided safe haven to al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.
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| Osama b. Laden was the most wanted person |
The federal
government established new domestic efforts to prevent future attacks.
The controversial USA PATRIOT Act increased the government's power to
monitor communications and removed legal restrictions on information
sharing between federal law enforcement and intelligence services. A
cabinet-level agency called the Department of Homeland Security was
created to lead and coordinate federal counter-terrorism activities.
Some of these anti-terrorism efforts, particularly the US government's
handling of detainees at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, led to
allegations against the US government of human rights violations.
In
2003, from March 19 to May 1, the United States launched an invasion of
Iraq, which led to the collapse of the Iraq government and the eventual
capture of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, with whom the US had
long-standing tense relations. The reasons for the invasion cited by the
Bush administration 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.
Despite some initial successes early in the invasion, the continued Iraq
War fueled international protests and gradually saw domestic support
decline as many people began to question whether or not the invasion was
worth the cost. In 2007, after years of violence by the Iraqi
insurgency, President Bush deployed more troops in a strategy dubbed
"the surge". While the death toll decreased, the political stability of
Iraq remained in doubt.
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| Obama, the 1st African-American US president |
In 2008, the
unpopularity of President Bush and the Iraq war, along with the 2008
financial crisis, led to the election of Barack Obama, the first
African-American President of the United States. Obama's victory was due
in part to his opposition to Bush's unpopular foreign policies,
specifically with regards to his handling of the Iraq war, and is often
credited by pundits and journalists for helping him narrowly win the
Democratic Party's presidential nomination over Hillary Rodham Clinton,
who initially supported the war during the early stages.
After his election, Obama reluctantly continued the surge by sending
20,000 additional troops until Iraq was stabilized. Then he officially
ended combat operations in Iraq on August 31, 2010, but kept 50,000 in
Iraq to assist Iraqi forces, help protect withdrawing forces, and work
on counter-terrorism. In December 15, 2011, the war was declared
formally over and the last troops left the country.
At
the same time, Obama increased American involvement in Afghanistan,
starting a surge strategy using an additional 30,000 troops, while
proposing to begin withdrawing troops sometime in December 2014. With
regards to Guantanamo Bay, President Obama forbade torture but in
general retained Bush's policy regarding the Guantanamo detainees, while
also proposing that the prison eventually be closed.
+filed+for+bankruptcy+in+September+2008+at+the+height+of+the+U.S.+financial+crisis..jpg) |
| Lehman Brother filed for bankruptcy in 2008 |
In May 2011, after
nearly a decade in hiding, the founder and leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin
Laden, was killed in Pakistan in a raid conducted by US naval special
forces acting under President Obama's direct orders. While Al Qaeda was
near collapse in Afghanistan, affiliated organizations continued to
operate in Yemen and other remote areas as the CIA used drones to hunt
down and remove its leadership.
The Great Recession
In
September 2008, 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.
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| Obama signs the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act 2009 |
Following his
election victory by a wide electoral margin in November 2008, Bush's
successor - Barack Obama - 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. The unemployment rate peaked at 10.1% in October
2009 after surging from 4.7% in November 2007, and gradually fell to
7.3% as of August 2013.
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| A Govt Shut Down notice posted, statue of liberty in far back |
Recent Events
From
2009 to 2010, 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. Congressional gridlock
continued as Congressional Republicans' call for the repeal of the
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - popularly known as
"Obamacare" - along with other various demands, resulted in the first
government shutdown since the Clinton administration and almost led to
the first default on U.S. debt since the 19th century. As a result of
growing public frustration with both parties in Congress since the
beginning of the decade, Congressional approval ratings fell to record
lows, with only 11% of Americans approving as of October 2013.
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| Damage from Hurricane Sandy in NY |
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 liberal 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.
 |
| A composite satellite image of the contiguous United States |
Geography, Climate, and Environment:
The
land area of the contiguous United States is 2,959,064 square miles
(7,663,941 km2). Alaska, separated from the contiguous United States by
Canada, is the largest state at 663,268 square miles (1,717,856 km2).
Hawaii, occupying an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of
North America, is 10,931 square miles (28,311 km2) in area.
The
United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total
area (land and water), ranking behind Russia and Canada and just above
or below China. The ranking varies depending on how two territories
disputed by China and India are counted and how the total size of the
United States is measured: calculations range from 3,676,486 square
miles (9,522,055 km2) to 3,717,813 square miles (9,629,091 km2) to
3,794,101 square miles (9,826,676 km2). Measured by only land area, the
United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of
Canada.
 |
| Mississippi River near Harper's Ferry, Iowa |
The coastal plain
of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests
and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide
the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the
Midwest. The Mississippi–Missouri River, the world's fourth longest
river system, runs mainly north–south through the heart of the country.
The flat, fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west,
interrupted by a highland region in the southeast.
The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend
north to south across the country, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000
feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and
deserts such as the Chihuahua and Mojave.
The
Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges run close to the Pacific
coast, both ranges reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m).
The lowest and highest points in the continental United States are in
the state of California, and only about 80 miles (130 km) apart. At
20,320 feet (6,194 m), Alaska's Mount McKinley is the tallest peak in
the country and in North America. Active volcanoes are common throughout
Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands, and Hawaii consists of
volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park
in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.
 |
| Wide natural beach near Sabine Pass- Gulf of Mexico |
The United States,
with its large size and geographic variety, includes most climate types.
To the east of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid
continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The southern
tip of Florida is tropical, as is Hawaii. The Great Plains west of the
100th meridian are semi-arid. Much of the Western mountains are alpine.
The climate is arid in the Great Basin, desert in the Southwest,
Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon and
Washington and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar.
Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico
are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within
the country, mainly in the Midwest's Tornado Alley.
The
U.S. ecology is considered "mega diverse": about 17,000 species of
vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and
over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which
occur on the mainland. The United States is home to more than 400
mammal, 750 bird, and 500 reptile and amphibian species. About 91,000
insect species have been described.
 |
| Great Smoky Mountains National Park |
There are 58
national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests,
and wilderness areas. Altogether, the government owns 28.8% of the
country's land area. Most of this is protected, though some is leased
for oil and gas drilling, mining, logging, or cattle ranching; 2.4% is
used for military purposes.
Environmental Issues
Environmental
issues have been on the national agenda since 1970. Environmental
controversies include debates on oil and nuclear energy, dealing with
air and water pollution, the economic costs of protecting wildlife,
logging and deforestation, and international responses to global
warming. Many federal and state agencies are involved. The most
prominent is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), created by
presidential order in 1970. The idea of wilderness has shaped the
management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act. The
Endangered Species Act of 1973 is intended to protect threatened and
endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the United
States Fish and Wildlife Service.
 |
| American Census headquarters in Suitland, Maryland |
Demographics:
Population
The
U.S. Census Bureau estimates the country's population now to be
317,518,000, including an approximate 11.2 million illegal immigrants.
The U.S. population almost quadrupled during the 20th century, from
about 76 million in 1900. The third most populous nation in the world,
after China and India, the United States is the only major
industrialized nation in which large population increases are
projected.
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| A chart of the top reported ancestries in the USA |
With a birth rate
of 13 per 1,000, 35% below the world average, its population growth rate
is positive at 0.9%, significantly higher than those of many developed
nations. In fiscal year 2012, over one million immigrants (most of whom
entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence.
Mexico has been the leading source of new residents since the 1965
Immigration Act. China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top
four sending countries every year. Nine million Americans identify as
homosexual, bisexual or transgender, making up less than four percent of
the population. A 2010 survey found that seven percent of men and eight
percent of women identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual.
The
United States has a very diverse population—31 ancestry groups have
more than one million members. White Americans are the largest racial
group; German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans
constitute three of the country's four largest ancestry groups. Black
Americans are the nation's largest racial minority and third largest
ancestry group. Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial
minority; the three largest Asian American ethnic groups are Chinese
Americans, Filipino Americans, and Indian Americans.
 |
| Inupiaq man of Alaska Native |
In 2010, the U.S.
population included an estimated 5.2 million people with some American
Indian or Alaska Native ancestry (2.9 million exclusively of such
ancestry) and 1.2 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island
ancestry (0.5 million exclusively). The census counted more than 19
million people of "Some Other Race" who were "unable to identify with
any" of its five official race categories in 2010.
The population growth of Hispanic and Latino Americans (the terms are officially interchangeable) is a major demographic trend.
The
50.5 million Americans of Hispanic descent are identified as sharing a
distinct "ethnicity" by the Census Bureau; 64% of Hispanic Americans are
of Mexican descent. Between 2000 and 2010, the country's Hispanic
population increased 43% while the non-Hispanic population rose just
4.9%. Much of this growth is from immigration; in 2007, 12.6% of the
U.S. population was foreign-born, with 54% of that figure born in Latin
America.
 |
| Montage of Los Angeles |
Fertility is also a
factor; in 2010 the average Hispanic (of any race) woman gave birth to
2.35 children in her lifetime, compared to 1.97 for non-Hispanic black
women and 1.79 for non-Hispanic white women (both below the replacement
rate of 2.1). Minorities (as defined by the Census Bureau as all those
beside non-Hispanic, non-multiracial whites) constituted 36.3% of the
population in 2010, and over 50% of children under age one, and are
projected to constitute the majority by 2042. This contradicts the
report by the National Vital Statistics Reports, based on the U.S.
census data, which concludes that, 54% (2,162,406 out of 3,999,386 in
2010) of births were non-Hispanic white.
About
82% of Americans live in urban areas (including suburbs); about half of
those reside in cities with populations over 50,000. In 2008, 273
incorporated places had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more
than one million residents, and four global cities had over two million
(New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston).
 |
| Dallas City- the Montage |
There are 52
metropolitan areas with populations greater than one million. Of the 50
fastest-growing metro areas, 47 are in the West or South. The metro
areas of Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Phoenix all grew by more than a
million people between 2000 and 2008.
Language
English
(American English) is the de facto national language. Although there is
no official language at the federal level, some laws—such as U.S.
naturalization requirements—standardize English. In 2010, about 230
million, or 80% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only
English at home.
Spanish,
spoken by 12% of the population at home, is the second most common
language and the most widely taught second language. Some Americans
advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at
least 28 states.
 |
| Languages Spoken by more than million in the US |
Both Hawaiian and
English are official languages in Hawaii, by state law. While neither
has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of
both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.
Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish
versions of certain government documents including court forms. Many
jurisdictions with large numbers of non-English speakers produce
government materials, especially voting information, in the most
commonly spoken languages in those jurisdictions.
Several
insular territories grant official recognition to their native
languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by
American Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are
recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official
language of Puerto Rico and is more widely spoken than English there.
 |
| Religious Affiliation in the United States of America |
Religion
The
First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise
of religion and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its
establishment. Christianity is by far the most common religion practiced
in the U.S., but other religions are followed, too. In a 2013 survey,
56% of Americans said that religion played a "very important role in
their lives", a far higher figure than that of any other wealthy nation.
In a 2009 Gallup poll 42% of Americans said that they attended church
weekly or almost weekly; the figures ranged from a low of 23% in Vermont
to a high of 63% in Mississippi.
 |
| Islam is 3rd largest religion in US |
According to a 2012
survey, 73% of adults identified themselves as Christian, down from
86.4% in 1990. Protestant denominations accounted for 48%, while Roman
Catholicism, at 22%, was the largest individual denomination. The total
reporting non-Christian religions in 2012 was 6%, up from 4% in 2007.
Other religions include Judaism (1.7%), Buddhism (0.7%), Islam (0.6%),
Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%). The survey also
reported that 19.6% of Americans described themselves as agnostic,
atheist, or simply having no religion, up from 8.2% in 1990. There are
also Baha'i, Sikh, Jain, Shinto, Confucian, Taoist, Druid, Native
American, Wiccan, humanist and deist communities.
Protestantism
is the largest group of religions in the United States, with Baptists
being the largest Protestant sect, and the Southern Baptist Convention
being the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. Roman Catholicism
in the U.S. has its origin in the Spanish and French colonization of the
Americas, and later grew due to Irish, Italian, Polish, German and
Hispanic immigration. Rhode Island is the only state where the majority
of the population is Catholic. Lutheranism in the U.S. has its origin in
immigration from Northern Europe. North and South Dakota are the only
states in which a plurality of the population is Lutheran. Utah is the
only state where Mormonism is the religion of the majority of the
population. Mormonism is also relatively common in parts of Idaho,
Nevada and Wyoming.
 |
| Religion plays least important role in New England |
The Bible Belt is
an informal term for a region in the Southern United States in which
socially conservative evangelical Protestantism is a significant part of
the culture and Christian church attendance across the denominations is
generally higher than the nation's average. By contrast, religion plays
the least important role in New England and in the Western United
States.
As
with other Western countries, the U.S. is becoming less religious.
Irreligion is growing rapidly among Americans under 30. Polls show that
overall American confidence in organized religion is declining and that
younger Americans in particular are becoming increasingly irreligious.
.+United+States+and+United+Kingdom+have+some+of+the+highest+teenage+pregnancy+rates+in+the+developed+world..png) |
| US is the highest in teenage pregnancy among OECD nations |
Family Structure
In
2007, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed,
10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married. Women now work mostly
outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees.
The
U.S. teenage pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is the highest among
OECD nations. Between 2007 and 2010, the highest teenage birth rate was
in Mississippi, and the lowest in New Hampshire. Abortion is legal
throughout the U.S., owing to Roe v. Wade, a 1973 landmark decision by
the United States Supreme Court. While the abortion rate is falling, the
abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per
1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western
nations. In 2011, the average age at first birth was 25.6 and 40.7% of
births were to unmarried women. The total fertility rate (TFR) was
estimated for 2013 at 2.06 births per woman.
 |
| Same-sex marriage ceremony in San Francisco |
Adoption in the
United States is common and relatively easy from a legal point of view
(compared to other Western countries). In 2001, with over 127,000
adoptions, the U.S. accounted for nearly half of the total number of
adoptions worldwide.
Same-sex
marriage is legally performed in 16 U.S. states, 8 tribal
jurisdictions, and the District of Columbia. Same-sex marriages were
performed in Utah but the United States Supreme Court issued a stay and
same-sex marriages are not currently performed in the state while the
10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver considers the case. Oregon
recognizes same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Ohio
recognizes out-of-state marriages for death certificate purposes only.
Illinois has legalized same-sex marriage but it has not yet gone into
effect. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in Illinois but only for
same-sex couples in which at least one of them is terminally ill.
Polygamy is illegal in all 50 states.
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