History of the United States
The history of the United States is what happened in the past in the United States, a country in North America.
Native Americans lived in the Americas for thousands of years. English people in 1607 went to the place now called Jamestown, Virginia. Other European settlers went to the colonies, mostly from England and later Great Britain. France, Spain, and the Netherlands also colonized North America. In 1775, a war between the thirteen colonies and Britain began when the colonists were upset over paying taxation to their government in the UK, but were not being given any chance to vote in the UK/British elections, to contribute to how that money was spent.
Just after dawn on April 19, 1775, the British attempted to disarm the Massachusetts militia at Concord, Massachusetts, this beginning the war with the "Shot Heard Round the World." On July 4, 1776, Founding Fathers wrote the United States Declaration of Independence. They won the Revolutionary War and started a new country. They signed the constitution in 1787 and the Bill of Rights in 1791. General George Washington, who had led the war, became its first president. During the 19th century, the United States gained much more land in the West and began to become industrialized. In 1861, several states in the South attempted to leave the United States to start a new country called the Confederate States of America. This caused the American Civil War. After the war, Immigration resumed. Some Americans became very rich in this Gilded Age, and the country developed one of the largest economies in the world.
In the early 20th century, the United States became a world power, fighting in World War I and World War II. Between the wars, there was an economic boom called the Roaring Twenties, when many people became richer, and a bust, called the Great Depression, when most were poorer. The Great Depression ended with World War II.
The United States and the Soviet Union entered the Cold War. This included wars in Korea and Vietnam. During this time, African-Americans, Chicanos, and women sought more rights. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States started to make fewer things in factories. The country then went through the worst recession it had since the Great Depression. In the late 1980s, the Cold War ended, helping the United States out of recession. The Middle East became more important in American foreign policy, especially after the September 11 attacks in 2001. In the 2010s, Barack Obama's presidency helped many domestic problems in the country such as the auto business and healthcare coverage. After Obama, the country saw a rise in populist politics with the presidency of Donald Trump. In 2020, the country oversaw the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest over racial justice and disputes over the 2020 election results which led to violent reactions.
Pre-Columbian America
- See also: History of North America
The Pre-Columbian Era is the time before Christopher Columbus went to the Americas in 1492. At that time, Native Americans lived on the land that is now controlled by the United States. They had various cultures: Native Americans in the Eastern Woodlands hunted game and deer; Native Americans in the Northwest fished; Native Americans in the Southwest grew corn and built houses called pueblos; and Native Americans in the Great Plains hunted Bison. Around the year 1000, the Vikings visited Newfoundland. However, they did not settle there.
Colonial America
The English tried to settle at Roanoke Island in 1585. The settlement did not last, and no one knows what happened to the people. In 1607, the first lasting English settlement was made at Jamestown, Virginia, by John Smith, John Rolfe and other Englishmen interested in gold and adventure. In its early years, many people in Virginia died of disease and starvation. The colony in Virginia lasted because it made money by planting tobacco.
In 1621, a group of Englishmen called the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts. A bigger colony was built at Massachusetts Bay by the Puritans in 1630. The Pilgrims and the Puritans were interested in making a better society, not looking for gold. They called this ideal society a "city on a hill". A man named Roger Williams left Massachusetts after disagreeing with the Puritans, and started the colony of Rhode Island in 1636.
Great Britain was not the only country to settle what would become the United States. In the 1500s, Spain built a fort at Saint Augustine, Florida. France settled Louisiana, and the area around the Great Lakes. The Dutch settled New York, which they called New Netherland. Other areas were settled by Scotch-Irish, Germans, and Swedes. However, in time Britain controlled all of the colonies, and most American colonists adopted the British way of life. The growth of the colonies was not good for Native Americans. Many of them died of smallpox, a disease brought to America by the Europeans. The ones who lived lost their lands to the colonists.
In the early 1700s, there was a religious movement in the colonies called the Great Awakening. Preachers such as Jonathan Edwards preached sermons. One of them was called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". The Great Awakening may have led to the thinking used in the American Revolution.
By 1733, there were thirteen colonies. New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and Charleston were the largest cities and main ports at that time.
From 1756 to 1763, England and France fought a war over their land in America called the Seven Years' War or the French and Indian War, which the British won. After the war, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 said that the colonists could not live west of the Appalachian Mountains. Many colonists who wanted to move to the frontier did not like the Proclamation.
American Revolution
After the French and Indian War, the colonists began to think that they were not getting their "rights as freeborn Englishman". This meant they wanted to be treated fairly by the English government. This was mainly caused by new taxes the British made the colonies pay to pay for the war. Americans called this "No taxation without representation", meaning that the colonists should not have to pay taxes unless they had votes in the British Parliament. Each tax was disliked, and replaced by another which led to more unity between the colonies. In 1770, colonists in Boston known as the Sons of Liberty got in a fight with British soldiers. This became known as the Boston Massacre. After the Tea Act, the Sons of Liberty dumped hundreds of boxes of tea in the sea. This was known as the Boston Tea Party (1773). This led to the British Army taking over Boston. After that, leaders of the 13 colonies formed a group called the Continental Congress. Many people were members of the Continental Congress, but some of the more important ones were Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Roger Sherman and John Jay.
In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called Common Sense. It argued that the colonies should be free of English rule. This was based on the English ideas of natural rights and social contract put forth by John Locke and others. On July 4, 1776, people from the 13 colonies agreed to the United States Declaration of Independence. This said that they were free and independent states, and were not part of England any more. The colonists were already fighting Britain in the Revolutionary War at this time. The Revolutionary War started in 1775 at Lexington and Concord. Though American soldiers under George Washington lost many battles to the British, they won a major victory at Saratoga in 1777. This led to France and Spain joining the war on the side of the Americans. In 1781, an American victory at Yorktown helped by the French led Britain to decide to stop fighting and give up the colonies. America had won the war and its independence.
The Federal Period (1781–1815)
- See also: United States Constitution and War of 1812
In 1781, the colonies formed a confederation of states under the Articles of Confederation, but it lasted only six years. It gave almost all the power to the states and very little to the central government. The confederation had no president. It could not remove Native Americans or the British from the frontier, nor could it stop mob uprisings such as Shays' Rebellion. After Shays' Rebellion, many people thought the Articles of Confederation were not working.
In 1787, a constitution was written. Many of the people who helped write the Constitution, such as Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris, were among the major thinkers in America at the time. Some of these men would later hold important offices in the new government. The constitution created a stronger national government that had three branches: executive (the President and his staff), legislative (the House of Representatives and the Senate), and judicial (the federal courts).
Some states agreed to the Constitution very quickly. In other states, many people did not like the Constitution because it gave more power to the central government and had no bill of rights. To try and get the Constitution passed, Madison, Hamilton and Jay wrote a series of newspaper articles called the Federalist Papers. Very soon after, the Bill of Rights was added. This was a set of 10 amendments (changes), that limited the government's power and guaranteed rights to the citizens. Like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution is a social contract between the people and the government. The main idea of the Constitution is that the government is a republic (a representative democracy) elected by the people, who all have the same rights. However, this was not true at first, when only white males who owned property could vote. Because of state laws as well as the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendments, almost all American citizens who are at least 18 years old can vote today.
In 1789, Washington was elected the first President. He defined how a person should act as President and retired after two terms. During Washington's term, there was a Whiskey Rebellion, where country farmers tried to stop the government from collecting taxes on whiskey. In 1795, Congress passed the Jay Treaty, which allowed for increased trade with Britain in exchange for the British giving up their forts on the Great Lakes. However, Great Britain was still doing things that hurt the U.S., such as impressment (making American sailors join the British Royal Navy).
John Adams defeated Thomas Jefferson in the election of 1796 to become the second President of the United States. This was the first American election that was between two political parties. As president, Adams made the army and navy larger. He also got the Alien and Sedition Acts passed, which were much disliked.
In the election of 1800, Jefferson defeated Adams. One of the most important things he did as President was to make the Louisiana Purchase from France, which made the United States twice as big. Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to map the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson also tried to stop trade with England and France so that the United States would not become involved in a war the two countries were fighting. Fighting broke out between the United States and England in 1812 when James Madison was President. This was called the War of 1812.
Expansion Industrialization And Slavery (1815–1861)
One of the problems of this period was slavery. By 1861, over three million African-Americans were enslaved in the South. This means that they worked for other people, but had no freedom and received no money for their work. Most worked picking cotton on large plantations. Cotton became the main crop in the South after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793. There were a few slave rebellions against slavery, including one led by Nat Turner. All of these rebellions failed. The South wanted to keep slavery, but by the time of the Civil War, many people in the North wanted to end it. Another argument between the North and South was about the role of government. The South wanted stronger state governments, but the North wanted a stronger central government.
After the War of 1812 the Federalist Party faded away, leaving an "Era of Good Feelings" in which only one party was important, under Presidents James Madison and James Monroe. Under Monroe, the United States' policy in North America was the Monroe Doctrine, which suggested that Europe should stop trying to control the United States and other independent countries in the Americas. Around this time, Congress called for something called the "American System". The American System meant spending money on banking, transportation and communication. Due to the American System, bigger cities and more factories were built. One of the big transportation projects of this time was the Erie Canal, a canal in the state of New York. By the 1840s, railroads were built as well as canals. By 1860, thousands of miles of railroads and telegraph lines had been built in the United States, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.
In the early 19th century, the industrial revolution came to America. Many factories were built in Northern cities such as Lowell, Massachusetts. Most of them made clothes. Many factory workers were women, and some were children or people from Ireland or Germany. Despite this industrialization, America was still a nation of farmers.
In the early and mid-1800s, there was a religious movement called the Second Great Awakening. Thousands of people gathered at large religious meetings called revivals. They thought they could bring about a Golden Age in America through religion. New religious movements such as the Holiness Movement and the Mormons started, and groups like the Methodist Church grew. The Second Great Awakening led to two movements in reform, that is, changing laws and behaviors to make society better. One of these was the Temperance Movement, which believed that drinking alcohol was evil. The other was abolitionism, which tried to end slavery. People such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison wrote books and newspapers saying that slavery should stop. They also formed political movements, which included the Liberty Party, the Free Soil Party and the Republican Party. Some abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, were former slaves. By 1820, slavery was very rare in the North, but continued in the South.
In the 19th century, there was something called the “cult of domesticity” for many American women. This meant that most married women were expected to stay in the home and raise children. As in other countries, American wives were very much under the control of their husband, and had almost no rights. Women who were not married had only a few jobs open to them, such as working in clothing factories and serving as maids. By the 19th century, women such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton thought that women should have more rights. In 1848, many of these women met and agreed to fight for more rights for women, including voting. Many of the women involved in the movement for women’s rights were also involved in the movement to end slavery.
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected President. He was the first president elected from the Democratic Party. He changed the government in many ways. Since many of his supporters were poor people who had not voted before, he rewarded them with government jobs, which is called "spoils" or "patronage". Because of Jackson, a new party was formed to run against him called the Whigs. This was called the "Second Party System". Jackson was very much against the National Bank. He saw it as a symbol of Whigs and of powerful American businessmen. Jackson also called for a high import tax that the South did not like. They called it the "Tariff of Abominations". Jackson’s Vice-President, John C. Calhoun, was from the South. He wrote that the South should stop the tariff and perhaps leave the Union (secession). These words would be used again during the Civil War.
People started to move west of the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains at this time. The first people who moved west were people who caught and sold animal skins such as John Colter and Jim Bridger. By the 1840s, many people were moving to Oregon by wagon, and even more people went west after the California Gold Rush of 1849. Many new states were added to the first thirteen, mostly in the Midwest and South before the Civil War and in the West after the Civil War. During this period, Native Americans lost much of their land. They had lost military battles to the Americans at Tippecanoe and in the Seminole War. In the 1830s, Indians were being pushed out of the Midwest and South by events such as the Trail of Tears and the Black Hawk War. By the 1840s, most Native Americans had been moved west of the Mississippi River.
The Mexican–American War
In 1845, Texas, which was a nation after it left Mexico, joined the United States. Mexico did not like this, and the Americans wanted the land Mexico had on the West Coast (“Manifest Destiny”). This led to the U.S. and Mexico fighting a war called the Mexican-American War. During the war, the U.S captured the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Monterrey, Veracruz and Mexico City. As a result of the war, the U.S. gained land in California and much of the American Southwest. Many people in the North did not like this war, because they thought it was just good for Southern slave states.
Civil War
In the 1840s and 1850s, people in the Northern states and people in the Southern states did not agree whether slavery was right or wrong in the territories—parts of the United States that were not yet states. People in the government tried to make deals to stop a war. Some deals were the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but they did not really work to keep the Union together. People in the South were angry at books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin that said that slavery was wrong. People in the North did not like a Supreme Court decision called Dred Scott that kept Scott a slave. People from the South and people from the North started killing each other in Kansas over slavery. This was called "Bleeding Kansas". One of the people from Bleeding Kansas, John Brown, took over a town in Virginia in 1859 to make a point about slavery being wrong and to try to get slaves to fight their owners.
In the election of 1860, the Democratic Party split and the Republican candidate for President, Abraham Lincoln, was elected. After this, many Southern states left the Union. Eventually, eleven states left. They tried to start a new country called the Confederate States of America, or the "Confederacy". A war started between the Union (North) and the Confederacy (South). Not having factories made it harder for Southern soldiers to get guns or uniforms. The South could not get supplies because Northern ships blockaded the Southern coast.
Early in the war, Confederate generals such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson won battles over Union generals such as George B. McClellan and Ambrose Burnside. In 1862 and 1863, the Union Army tried to take the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia several times, but failed each time. Lee's army invaded the North twice, but was turned back at Antietam and Gettysburg. In the middle of war, Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves in the Confederacy, and started letting black men fight in the Union Army. The war started going the Union’s way after the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863. Gettysburg stopped Lee from invading the North, and Vicksburg gave the Union control over the Mississippi River. In 1864, a Union Army under William T. Sherman marched through Georgia and destroyed much of it. By 1865, Union General Ulysses S. Grant had taken Richmond and forced Lee to give up the fight at Appomattox.
Reconstruction and the Gilded Age
- See also: Reconstruction of the United States
In April 1865, Lincoln was shot and killed while watching a play. The new president, Andrew Johnson, had to go through the process of reconstruction, which was putting the United States back together after the Civil War. During this time, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution were passed, freeing slaves, making them citizens and allowing them to vote. Congress was run by "Radical Republicans", who wanted to punish the South after the Civil War. They did not like Johnson, and almost removed him from office. They also sent many soldiers to the South, installed unpopular "scalawag" governments, and made the South pass the 14th and 15th Amendments. The South did not like this, so they made "Jim Crow" laws that placed blacks in lower roles. White Southerners started a group called the Ku Klux Klan that attacked blacks and stopped them from voting.
During this time, many people moved to the United States from other countries, such as Ireland, Italy, Germany, Eastern Europe, and China. Many of them worked in large factories and lived in big cities, such as New York City, Chicago, and Boston, often in small, poor, close-together apartments called "tenements" or "slums". They often were used by "political machines", who gave them jobs and money in exchange for votes.
Major politicians were chosen by political machines and were corrupt. The government could do little and leaders of big businesses often had more power than the government. At this time, there were several very big businesses called trusts. People who ran trusts made millions of dollars while paying their workers low wages. Some of these people were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan.
After the Civil War, people continued to move west where new states were formed. People now could get free land in the West due to an 1862 law called the Homestead Act. Most of the land in the West was owned by the government, railroads, or large farmers. The Transcontinental Railroad, finished in 1869, helped get people and goods from the west to the rest of the country. Chicago became the center of trade between West and East because many rail lines met there. There were problems between the white settlers and the native Indians as more people began to move west. Because of this, many more Indians were killed at battles such as Wounded Knee. Almost all the Indians' land was taken away by laws like the Dawes Act.
Many Americans thought the railroads charged farmers so much money that it made them poor. Workers led several strikes against the railroad that were put down by the army. Also, farmers started groups to fight the railroad, such as the Grange. These groups became the Populist Movement, which almost won the presidency under William Jennings Bryan. The Populists wanted reforms such as an income tax and direct election of Senators. The Populist Party died out after 1896. Many of the things the Populists wanted would happen during the Progressive Era.
Progressive era and imperialism
In the United States, progressivism is the belief that the government should have a larger role in the economy to provide good living standards for people, especially workers. Imperialism was the belief that the U.S. should build a stronger navy and conquer land.
In the late nineteenth and early 20th centuries, the U.S. started being more active in foreign affairs. In 1898, the United States fought a war with Spain called the Spanish–American War. The United States won, and gained Puerto Rico, Guam, Guantanamo and the Philippines. Combined with the purchase of Alaska and the taking-over of Hawaii, the United States had gained all the territory it has today, plus some it would later lose after World War II. Around this time, the U.S. and European nations opened up trade with China. This was because they had beaten China in the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion. The U.S. and Europe were able to trade with China through the Open Door Policy.
In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became President. He had been a soldier in the Spanish–American War. He called for a foreign policy known as the "Big Stick". This meant having a large navy and exercising control over Latin America. Between 1901 and 1930, the United States sent soldiers into Latin America several times. When Roosevelt was president, work was begun on the Panama Canal, a link between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans that made travel around the world much faster.
During this time, people started to notice the poor condition of American cities. A group of people called the “muckrakers” wrote books and newspaper articles about subjects like the power of big business, unclean practices in factories, and the condition of poor people. Roosevelt and Congress answered their concerns with laws such as the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Act controlled the way food was made to make sure it was safe. Another response to the muckrakers was something called "trust-busting", where big businesses were broken up into smaller ones. The biggest business broken up this way was the Standard Oil Company in 1911.
In 1912, Woodrow Wilson became President. He was a Progressive, but not quite the same as Roosevelt. He fought the "triple wall of privilege", which was big business, taxes, and fees on goods coming into the United States. During this time, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were passed. They allowed for a federal income tax and direct election of U.S. Senators.
World War I
The United States did not want to enter World War I but wanted to sell weapons to both sides. In 1915 a German submarine sank a ship carrying Americans called the Lusitania. This angered Americans, and Germany stopped attacking passenger ships. In January 1917 Germany started attacking them again, and sent the Zimmerman Telegram to Mexico about invading the U.S. The United States joined the war against Germany, and it ended a year later. Wilson worked to create an international organization called the League of Nations. The main goal of the League was preventing war. However, the United States did not join because isolationists rejected the peace treaty. At the end of World War I, a flu pandemic killed millions of people in the U.S. and Europe. After the war, the United States was one of the richest and most powerful nations in the world.
Boom and bust (1919–1939)
The "Roaring Twenties"
The 1920s were an era of growth and increased wealth for the United States. Many Americans began buying consumer products, such as Model T Fords and appliances. Advertising became very important to American life. During this time, many black people moved out of the South and into large cities such as New York City, Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles. They brought with them jazz music, which is why the 1920s are called the "Jazz Age". The 1920s were also the Prohibition Era after the Eighteenth Amendment passed. During the 1920s, drinking alcohol was illegal, but many Americans drank it anyway. This led to much rum-running and violent crime.
Racism was strong in the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan was powerful once again, and attacked black people, Catholics, Jews and immigrants. People blamed the war and problems in business on immigrants and labor leaders, whom they said were Bolsheviks (Russian communists). Many people also thought that the United States had lost touch with religion. They handled that by changing religion, and some of them by attacking science.
After World War I, the United States had an isolationist foreign policy. That meant it did not want to enter into another global war. It passed laws and treaties that supposedly would end war forever, and refused to sell weapons to its former allies.
In 1921, Warren G. Harding became President. He believed that the best way to make the economy good was for the government to be friendly to big business by cutting taxes and regulating less. While the economy was doing very well under these policies, America had the largest difference between how much money the rich had and how much money the poor had. Harding's presidency had several problems. The biggest one was Teapot Dome over oil drilling in the Navy Oil Reserve. Harding died in 1923, and Calvin Coolidge became President. Coolidge believed that the government should keep out of business, just like Harding, and continued many of Harding's policies. Coolidge chose not to seek the presidency in 1928 and Herbert Hoover became president.
The Great Depression
- See also: Great Depression and New Deal
In 1929, a Great Depression hit the United States. The stock market crashed (lost much of its value). Many banks ran out of money and closed. By 1932, over a quarter of the nation had no jobs, and much of the nation was poor or unemployed. Many people were driven off farms, not only because of the Depression, but also because of a storm known as the "Dust Bowl" and because farmers had not been doing well during the 1920s.
President Hoover tried to do something about the Depression, but it did not work. In 1932, he was defeated and Franklin D. Roosevelt became President. He created the New Deal. It was a series of government programs which would give relief (to the people who were hurt by the bad economy), recovery (to make the economy better), and reform (to make sure a depression never happens again).
The New Deal had many programs such as Social Security, the National Recovery Administration (regulated wages), Works Progress Administration (built thousands of roads, schools, government buildings and works of art), the Civilian Conservation Corps (gave young people jobs to help the environment), and Tennessee Valley Authority (built dams and electric lines in the South). These programs put millions of Americans to work, though often at low pay. Many of these programs were started early in Roosevelt's term in a time called the "Hundred Days" or in 1935 in a time called the "Second New Deal". Programs like Social Security grew out of populist movements by people such as Huey Long that were called "Share Our Wealth" and "Ham and Eggs". The New Deal also led to the rise of worker's unions such as the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The New Deal is often called the period that "saved capitalism", and stopped America from becoming a Communist or Fascist state. Although the New Deal improved the economy, it did not end the Great Depression. The Great Depression was ended by World War II.
World War II
As World War II was beginning, the United States said they would not get involved in it. Most Americans thought the United States should remain neutral, and some people thought the United States should enter the war on the side of the Germans. Eventually, the U.S. did try to help the Allied Powers (Soviet Union, Britain, and France) with the Lend Lease Act. It gave the Allies a lot of money and guns in trade for use of air bases throughout the world.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, a U.S.Naval base in Hawaii. The U.S. was no longer neutral, and it declared war on the Axis Powers (Germany, Japan, Italy). The U.S. entering World War II ended the Great Depression because the war created many jobs. While some of the battles the U.S. fought in were air and naval battles with Japan, the U.S. mainly fought in Europe and Africa. The U.S. opened up several fronts, including in North Africa and Italy. The U.S. also bombed Germany from airplanes, blowing up German cities and factories. On June 6, 1944 (D-Day), American and British forces invaded Normandy. A year later, the Allies had freed France and taken Berlin. In 1945, Roosevelt died, and Harry Truman became president. The U.S. decided to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. Japan gave up soon afterwards, and the war ended.
The war meant different things for women and minorities. During the war, many women worked in weapons factories. They were symbolized by a character called "Rosie the Riveter". Many African-Americans served in the army, but often in segregated units with white officers. Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were forced to live in internment camps, though a few also served in the Army.
Postwar era (1945–1991)
Cold War
- See also: Korean War, Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Space Race, and Reagan Era
After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were the two most powerful countries left in the world. The Cold War was a period of tension between the two countries over ways of life. The two countries tried to get other countries on their side. The Soviet Union tried to get countries to become Communist and the United States tried to stop them from being Communist. American and Soviet soldiers never fought in battles, but they fought indirectly in the Korean War (1950s) and the Vietnam War (1950s–1970s).
The Korean War lasted only a few years, but led to American soldiers being in Korea since then. The Vietnam War lasted much longer. It started with a few American troops in Vietnam, but by the 1960s thousands of Americans were being sent to Vietnam. Both wars were between a Northern Communist government helped by the Soviet Union and Communist China and a Southern government helped by the U.S. The Korean War resulted in a split Korea, but the Vietnam War resulted in a Communist Vietnam after the United States left due to American people wanting to end the war. Over a quarter million Americans died or were wounded in Vietnam, which was very much a military failure. The U.S. and Soviet Union argued about where they could place nuclear weapons. One of these arguments was the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. and Soviet Union came very close to attacking each other with nuclear weapons.
During the Cold War, the United States had a "Red Scare" where the government tried to find people it thought were Communist. The House of Representatives had a group called the House Un-American Activities Committee to deal with this, and Joseph McCarthy led hearings in the Senate. The Red Scare led to people losing their jobs, going to jail, and even being executed. Many actors and authors were put on blacklists, which meant they could not get jobs in movies or get credit for their writings.
The Cold War began with an arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union to see who could have more and better weapons. This started after the Soviets were the second country to develop an atomic bomb. In the United States, this started something called the "Military Industrial Complex", which meant business and government working together to spend a lot of money on large-scale weapons projects. Business and government helped each other to get more money and more power. Part of the Complex was something called the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Europe while making them buy American goods. The Complex allowed for a growing middle class, but also kept the Cold War going.
Besides the arms race, another part of the Cold War was the "Space Race". This started when the Soviets launched a satellite into space called Sputnik in 1957. Americans became worried that the United States was falling behind the Soviet Union, and made their schools focus more on mathematics and science. Within a few years, both the United States and the Soviet Union had sent satellites, animals and people into orbit. In 1969 the Apollo 11 mission put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon.
United States foreign policy changed in the 1970s when the United States left Vietnam and Richard Nixon left office due to a political scandal called Watergate. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States had a policy of "detente" with the Soviet Union. This meant that the two countries signed treaties to stop use of weapons. Under Nixon and Reagan, the United States sent troops and money to many Latin American governments to stop them from being Communist. This led to violence in Latin America. Around this time, the economy suffered because the United States was not making as many things as it used to, and because some countries in the Middle East were not giving the U.S. as much oil as it wanted (this was called an "oil embargo"). The Middle East became very important in American foreign policy after several Americans were kidnapped in Iran in 1979. In the 1980s, people in the U.S. government sold weapons to people in Iran and gave the money to "contra" soldiers in Nicaragua. This was called the "Iran-Contra affair". In the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. normalized relations with China. The Cold War came to an end as Communist governments in the Soviet Union and other countries fell apart.
Domestic and social issues
The United States once again had prosperity. Millions of white people moved out of the cities and into suburbs, and into Southern and Western states known as the "Sunbelt". They bought new cars and television sets. The birth rate in the 1940s and 1950s rose, in what was called the "Baby Boom" The "Space Age" inspired "Googie" style art and architecture. Many more people became part of the middle class, but there were still many people who were poor.
Poverty was most common among African-Americans. Most lived in poor neighborhoods in Northern cities, or in the South where they faced racism and "Jim Crow" segregation. These conditions led to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s, led by Martin Luther King Jr. and others. In 1954, the Supreme Court found school segregation illegal in Brown v. Board of Education, though it would be several years before school segregation was ended. In 1955, King led a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. In the late 1950s and 1960s, King got help from Presidents John F. Kennedy, who was shot, and Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1963, he led a march on Washington calling for civil rights. Soon after, Congress passed laws that made most segregation illegal. Johnson also passed a program called the Great Society that helped poor people and minorities.
Gays and lesbians, who had often been persecuted, also started to ask for rights, beginning with the Stonewall riots in 1969. Chicanos, Native Americans, old people, consumers, and people with disabilities also fought for rights, as did women. Though women had had jobs during World War II, most of them went back to the home after the war. Women did not like that they often held jobs that paid less than men or that fewer opportunities were open to them. People like Betty Freidan and Gloria Steinem founded groups such as the National Organization for Women to try and solve these problems. NOW and other groups wanted an Equal Rights Amendment that would guarantee them equality in all areas. In the 1970s and 1980s, many more jobs and opportunities were opened to women. There were some women like Phyllis Schlafly who opposed Freidan and Steinem and were known as "anti-feminists". It was partly because of the anti-feminists that the Equal Rights Amendment was defeated, but also because women had already gained equality in many areas and they did not want to be drafted into the army.
In the 1960s, the counterculture was created. Some of the followers of the counterculture were called hippies. They had long hair, and lived communally, smoking marijuana and practicing free love. The counterculture, along with college students, were the groups most against the Vietnam War. They also were the groups that listened to new music known as rock and roll.
In 1973, the Supreme Court issued a decision called Roe v. Wade, which made many abortions legal. The many changes led to a reaction by Jerry Falwell and other conservatives who called themselves the "Religious Right" and the "Moral Majority".
Reagan Era
Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980. He defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter by winning 44 out of the 50 American states. During the Reagan Era, the country was facing through inflation, a bad economy, and the American foreign policy were not as good. When Ronald Reagan became president, he signed the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 which lowered taxes for corporations, supposedly so they could reinvest the surplus profits back into business. During Reagan's presidency, he expanded the American military creating more jobs, but also raising the deficit due to overspending. During his first term, the economy went from a 4.5% to 7.2%.
In 1984, Reagan won in a major landslide by winning 49 out of the 50 American states. During his second term, Reagan focused on ending the Cold War. He held many meetings between Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. They first met at the Geneva Summit in 1985. Later they both discovered their passion of ending the war. 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.
Also during his second term, 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.
Since leaving office in 1989, Reagan became one of the most popular Presidents of the United States.
Post-Cold War and beyond (1991–present)
Post-Cold War era
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Cold War came to an end. This was due to the Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev starting a policy called perestroika, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Soviet Union breaking into different countries. Around this time, the United States cut down on its production of cheap goods, and had many people working in service jobs. Part of these service jobs were in computers and the internet, which came into wide use in the 1990s. By this time, the United States had a very large trade deficit, meaning it received more goods from other countries, such as China, than it sent to other countries.
The Middle East became the main focus of U.S. foreign policy. In 1991, the United States fought a war with Iraq called the First Gulf War or Operation Desert Storm. This was to stop Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from occupying Kuwait, a small oil-producing country.
In 1992, Bill Clinton became President. Under Clinton, the United States sent soldiers into Bosnia as part of a United Nations mission. The United States also agreed to a trade pact called the North American Free Trade Agreement (and repealed Glass–Steagall Legislation). Clinton was impeached for lying in court about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, but the Senate voted against removing him as President.
21st century
Bush presidency
In 2000, George W. Bush was elected President. Terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Thousands of people died. Soon after the attacks, the U.S. and NATO went to Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden and others who they believed planned the September 11 attacks. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have lasted many years. By 2011, most American soldiers had left Iraq, and combat there was over.
In 2005, the southern United States was hit by Hurricane Katrina. Much of the city of New Orleans was destroyed. In 2006, the Democrats won back Congress because Americans did not like the way Bush dealt with War in Iraq or Katrina. At the end of Bush's term, the United States entered the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Obama presidency
Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. He became the first African-American President of the United States. During his first years in office, Obama and Congress passed reforms on health care and banking. They also passed a large stimulus bill to help the economy during the recession. During the recession, the government used large amounts of money to keep the banking and auto industries from falling apart. There was also a large oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2010, Congress passed the Patient Protecton and Affordable Care Act, a sweeping overhaul of the health care system. Dubbed "Obamacare", it was faced with fierce criticism from conservative media.
A "Tea Party movement" started during Obama's presidency. This group opposes Obama's health care plan and other policies they see as "big government." Due to the recession, the Tea Party and a dislike of what Obama did, Republicans won a large number of House and Senate seats in the 2010 election. In 2011, Tea Party members of Congress almost shut down the government and sent the U.S. into default (not being able to pay people the government owes money). A few months later, many young people protested against organized and concentrated wealth during the Occupy movement. In 2012, Obama was reelected to a second term. Following reelection, Obama faced major obstruction from Congressional Republicans. This polarization in the political atmosphere and the media, lead to events such as the 2013 Federal Government Shutdown and the stalling of Obama's Supreme Court pick, Judge Merrick Garland to replace Justice Antonio Scalia. In 2014, Republicans took control of both houses of Congress, further adding to the gridlock. In foreign policy, President Obama helped crafted the Paris Climate Agreement, a major global commitment to fighting climate change. He also forged the Iran Nuclear Agreement and opened relations with Cuba for the first time in fifty years.
Trump presidency
The United States presidential election, 2016 attracted much attention. Main popular candidates of the election were Republicans Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders. Trump and Clinton won their respective primaries. On November 9, 2016, Trump defeated Clinton. Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. Afterwards, there were many protests against Trump across the country.
On January 27, President Trump signed an executive order that stopped refugees from entering the country for 120 days and denied entry to citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days, citing security concerns about terrorism. The next day, thousands of protesters gathered at airports and other locations throughout the United States to protest the signing of the order and detainment of the foreign nationals. Later, the administration seemed to reverse a portion of part of the order, effectively exempting visitors with a green card.
On May 3, 2017, Puerto Rico filed for bankruptcy after a massive debt and weak economy. It is the largest bankruptcy case in American history.
On September 24, 2019, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would begin an impeachment inquiry into Trump. On October 31, 2019, the House voted 232–196 to created procedures for public hearings. On December 16, the House Judiciary Committee released a report specifying criminal bribery and wire fraud charges as part of the abuse of power charge. The house voted to impeach Trump on December 18, 2019, making him the third president in American history to be impeached.
During most of 2020, the United States was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that has impacted the world. The country became the highest infected and the most people dead from the infection. The Trump administration received negative responses for their handling of the virus. Some people refuse to wear surgical masks to help stop the transmission of the virus. In some states, governors locked-down their states in an attempt to stop the spreading of the virus.
Starting in May 2020, racial tensions in the country began to intensify through the police murder of George Floyd causing massive protests and rioting across the country. The Black Lives Matter movement began in grow popularity through mixed reception.
On November 7, 2020 former Vice President Joe Biden defeated President Trump in the country's highest voter turnout presidential election. Biden became the oldest person elected to the office and the first to be from the state of Delaware. Biden's running mate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris was the first woman, African-American and Asian-American to be elected Vice President or any high-ranking elected office in the country.
On January 6, 2021 while members of the United States Congress met to certify Biden's electoral victory, supporters of President Trump stormed into the United States Capitol attempting to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Five people died. This led to the United States House of Representatives to impeach Trump for a second time, making him the only U.S. President to be impeached twice.
A changing country
The United States faces many political issues. One of these is what kind of government the United States should become. Liberals want a large government, while the Tea Party and other groups want a smaller government. One of these debates is over health care. Health care costs have risen. Conservatives and liberals also disagree on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Many more people have come to accept gays and gay marriage as an acceptable part of American society. There are also many trends and developments that the U.S. must deal with. One of these is immigration. Many people are coming to the U.S. from Latin America and Asia, especially Mexico. This is called the "browning of America". Baby Boomer Americans are getting older and a larger fraction of the people are retired. Other issues facing the United States are a growing concern about the environment. This has led to the creation of many "green jobs," or jobs that create clean or renewable energy.
Related pages
Selected readings
- Kennedy, David M.; Cohen, Lizabeth; Bailey, Thomas Andrew (2006). The American Pageant: A History of the Republic (13th ed.). Houghton Mifflin College Division. ISBN 978-0-618-47940-5.
- Bennett, William (2007). America: The Last Best Hope. ISBN 978-1-59555-055-2.
- Blum, John M. (1993). The National Experience: A History of the United States. William S. McFeely, Edmund S. Morgan, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Kenneth M. Stampp, and C. Vann Woodward (8th ed.).
- Foner, Eric (2006). Give Me Liberty!: An American history. 1 (1st ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-92782-5.
- Gillon, Steven M.; Cathy D. Matson (2006). The American Experiment: A History of the United States (2nd ed.). ISBN 978-0-618-59583-9.
- Johnson, Paul (1999). A History of the American People. Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-093034-9.
- Johnston, Robert D. (2002). The Making of America: The History of the United States from 1492 to the Present. National Geographic. ISBN 978-0-7922-6944-1.
- King, David C. (2003). Children's Encyclopedia of American History.
- Schweikart, Larry; Allen, Michael (2007). A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror. Penguin. ISBN 978-1-59523-032-4.
- Tindall, George Brown; Shi, David E. (2006). America: A Narrative History (7th ed.). W W Norton & Company Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-393-92820-4.
- Wiegand, Steve (2001). U.S. History for Dummies.
- Zinn, Howard (2003). A People's History of the United States. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. ISBN 978-0-06-052837-9.
Other websites
Book-length histories of the United States
- Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard (1921). "History of the United States". Project Gutenberg.
- U. S. Department of State. "Outline of U.S. History". Archived from the original on July 8, 2008.
General sites
U. S. National Archives
Other
- "The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History".
- "U.S. Chronology World History Database". Archived from the original on April 6, 2007. Retrieved April 3, 2008.
- "American Heritage".
- "The History Place".
- "Thayer's Gazetteer".
- "Political institutions History". Archived from the original on August 13, 2007. Retrieved April 3, 2008.
Specialized topics
- "Haldimand Collection".
- "A New Nation Votes". Archived from the original on July 25, 2008. Retrieved April 3, 2008.