Outline of U. S. History
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OUTLINE OF U.S. History Early Settlement Colonial Period Road to Independence Forming a Government Westward Expansion Sectional Conflict Civil War Economic Growth Discontent and Reform War, Prosperity, and Depression The New Deal and World War II Postwar Prosperity Civil Rights and Social Change A New World Order Bridge to the 21st Century 2008 Presidential Election OUTLINEOUTLINE OFOF UU..SS.. HISTORYHISTORY Bureau of International Information Programs U.S. Department of State 2011 OUTLINEOUTLINE OFOF UU..SS.. HISTORYHISTORY CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 Early America . 4 CHAPTER 2 The Colonial Period . 22 CHAPTER 3 The Road to Independence . 50. CHAPTER 4 The Formation of a National Government . 66 CHAPTER 5 Westward Expansion and Regional Differences . .110 CHAPTER 6 Sectional Conflict . .128 CHAPTER 7 The Civil War and Reconstruction . .140 CHAPTER 8 Growth and Transformation . .154 CHAPTER 9 Discontent and Reform . .188 CHAPTER 10 War, Prosperity, and Depression . .202 CHAPTER 11 The New Deal and World War II . .212 CHAPTER 12 Postwar America . 256. CHAPTER 13 Decades of Change: 1960-1980 . .274 CHAPTER 14 The New Conservatism and a New World Order . .304 CHAPTER 15 Bridge to the 21st Century . .320 CHAPTER 16 Politics of Hope . .340 PICTURE PROFILES Becoming a Nation . 38 Transforming a Nation . 89 Monuments and Memorials . .161 Turmoil and Change . .229 21st Century Nation . 293. Bibliography . .346 Index . 349. 4 CHAPTER 1 EARLY AMERICA Mesa Verde settlement in Colorado, 13th century. CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA “Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation.” Jamestown founder John Smith, 1607 THE FIRST AMERICANS ancestors had for thousands of years, along the Siberian coast and then At the height of the Ice Age, be- across the land bridge . tween 34,000 and 30,000 B C. ,. much Once in Alaska, it would take of the world’s water was locked up these first North Americans thou- in vast continental ice sheets . As a sands of years more to work their result, the Bering Sea was hundreds way through the openings in great of meters below its current level, and glaciers south to what is now the a land bridge, known as Beringia, United States . Evidence of early life emerged between Asia and North in North America continues to be America . At its peak, Beringia is found . Little of it, however, can be thought to have been some 1,500 ki- reliably dated before 12,000 B C. ;. a lometers wide . A moist and treeless recent discovery of a hunting look- tundra, it was covered with grasses out in northern Alaska, for exam- and plant life, attracting the large ple, may date from almost that time . animals that early humans hunted So too may the finely crafted spear for their survival . points and items found near Clovis, The first people to reach North New Mexico . America almost certainly did so Similar artifacts have been found without knowing they had crossed at sites throughout North and South into a new continent . They would America, indicating that life was have been following game, as their probably already well established in 6 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY much of the Western Hemisphere by ing earthen burial sites and forti- some time prior to 10,000 B C. fications around 600 B C. Some Around that time the mammoth mounds from that era are in the began to die out and the bison took shape of birds or serpents; they its place as a principal source of probably served religious purposes food and hides for these early North not yet fully understood . Americans . Over time, as more and The Adenans appear to have more species of large game van- been absorbed or displaced by vari- ished — whether from overhunting ous groups collectively known as or natural causes — plants, berries, Hopewellians . One of the most im- and seeds became an increasingly portant centers of their culture was important part of the early Ameri- found in southern Ohio, where the can diet . Gradually, foraging and remains of several thousand of these the first attempts at primitive agri- mounds still can be seen . Believed culture appeared . Native Americans to be great traders, the Hopewel- in what is now central Mexico led lians used and exchanged tools and the way, cultivating corn, squash, materials across a wide region of and beans, perhaps as early as 8,000 hundreds of kilometers . B C. Slowly, this knowledge spread By around 500 A D ., . the northward . Hopewellians disappeared, too, By 3,000 B C. ,. a primitive type of gradually giving way to a broad corn was being grown in the river group of tribes generally known valleys of New Mexico and Arizo- as the Mississippians or Temple na . Then the first signs of irrigation Mound culture . One city, Ca- began to appear, and, by 300 B C. ,. hokia, near Collinsville, Illinois, is signs of early village life . thought to have had a population of By the first centuries A D. , . the about 20,000 at its peak in the early Hohokam were living in settlements 12th century . At the center of the near what is now Phoenix, Arizo- city stood a huge earthen mound, na, where they built ball courts and flattened at the top, that was 30 pyramid-like mounds reminiscent meters high and 37 hectares at the of those found in Mexico, as well as base . Eighty other mounds have a canal and irrigation system . been found nearby . Cities such as Cahokia depend- MOUND BUILDERS AND ed on a combination of hunting, PUEBLOS foraging, trading, and agriculture for their food and supplies . Influ- The first Native-American group enced by the thriving societies to the to build mounds in what is now the south, they evolved into complex hi- United States often are called the erarchical societies that took slaves Adenans . They began construct- and practiced human sacrifice . 7 CHAPTER 1: EARLY AMERICA In what is now the southwest the indigenous population practi- United States, the Anasazi, ancestors cally from the time of initial con- of the modern Hopi Indians, began tact . Smallpox, in particular, ravaged building stone and adobe pueblos whole communities and is thought around the year 900 . These unique to have been a much more direct and amazing apartment-like struc- cause of the precipitous decline in tures were often built along cliff the Indian population in the 1600s faces; the most famous, the “cliff than the numerous wars and skir- palace” of Mesa Verde, Colorado, mishes with European settlers . had more than 200 rooms . Another Indian customs and culture at the site, the Pueblo Bonito ruins along time were extraordinarily diverse, New Mexico’s Chaco River, once as could be expected, given the ex- contained more than 800 rooms . panse of the land and the many dif- Perhaps the most affluent of the ferent environments to which they pre-Columbian Native Americans had adapted . Some generalizations, lived in the Pacific Northwest, where however, are possible . Most tribes, the natural abundance of fish and particularly in the wooded eastern raw materials made food supplies region and the Midwest, combined plentiful and permanent villages pos- aspects of hunting, gathering, and sible as early as 1,000 B C. The opu- the cultivation of maize and other lence of their “potlatch” gatherings products for their food supplies . remains a standard for extravagance In many cases, the women were and festivity probably unmatched in responsible for farming and the early American history . distribution of food, while the men hunted and participated in war . NATIVE-AMERICAN By all accounts, Native-American CULTURES society in North America was closely tied to the land . Identification with The America that greeted the first nature and the elements was integral Europeans was, thus, far from an to religious beliefs . Their life was empty wilderness . It is now thought essentially clan-oriented and com- that as many people lived in the munal, with children allowed more Western Hemisphere as in West- freedom and tolerance than was the ern Europe at that time — about 40 European custom of the day . million . Estimates of the number of Although some North Ameri- Native Americans living in what is can tribes developed a type of hi- now the United States at the onset of eroglyphics to preserve certain European colonization range from texts, Native-American culture was two to 18 million, with most histori- primarily oral, with a high value ans tending toward the lower figure . placed on the recounting of tales What is certain is the devastating ef- and dreams . Clearly, there was a fect that European disease had on good deal of trade among various 8 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY groups and strong evidence exists Columbus never saw the main- that neighboring tribes maintained land of the future United States, extensive and formal relations — but the first explorations of it were both friendly and hostile . launched from the Spanish posses- sions that he helped establish . The THE FIRST EUROPEANS first of these took place in 1513 when a group of men under Juan The first Europeans to arrive in Ponce de León landed on the Florida North America — at least the first coast near the present city of St . for whom there is solid evidence Augustine . — were Norse, traveling west from With the conquest of Mexico in Greenland, where Erik the Red 1522, the Spanish further solidi- had founded a settlement around fied their position in the Western the year 985 . In 1001 his son Leif is Hemisphere . The ensuing discov- thought to have explored the north- eries added to Europe’s knowledge east coast of what is now Canada and of what was now named America spent at least one winter there .