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Most Spaniards treated the Native Americans as little
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Although exact numbers are unknown, historians estimate that diseases brought by Europeans killed more than 20 million Native Americans in Mexico in the first century after conquest.
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Europeans and American Indians maneuvered and fought for dominance, control, and security in North America, and distinctive colonial and native societies emerged.
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In what is present-day New Mexico, the Pueblo peoples, led by Popé, coordinated an uprising against the Spanish at dozens of settlements scattered across hundreds of miles.
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British imperial attempts to reassert control over its colonies and the colonial reaction to these attempts produced a new American republic, along with struggles over the new nation’s social, political, and economic identity.
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Half a century of conflict between Britain and France over North America culminated in the French and Indian War—the Seven Years’ War in Europe.
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British Parliament enacted the Port Act in reprisal for the Boston Tea Party in March 1774.
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On July 2, 1776, Congress declared independence from Great Britain and two days later adopted the Declaration of Independence.
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The Treaty of Paris was signed by representatives of Great Britain and the United States.
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In 1800, Spain secretly ceded the Louisiana Territory—the area stretching from Canada to the Gulf Coast and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains—to France, which then closed the port of New Orleans to American farmers.
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In an attempt to avert war, the United States imposed an embargo on foreign trade. The embargo was an unpopular and costly failure. It hurt the American economy far more than the British or French and resulted in widespread smuggling and unemployment.
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The United States declared war against Britain in 1812 over interference with American shipping and impressment of American seamen.
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In 1846 President Polk sent a US representative to the Mexican government to make an offer to buy California and parts of New Mexico as well as to settle disputed territory claims in Texas.
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A week after gold was discovered in California, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War. The US acquired California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Wyoming.
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Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for the United States in 1867. For $7.2 million the deal added 586,412 square miles to the United States—one-fifth of the present United States.
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More than 2,812,191 immigrants arrived in the United States, primarily from Europe, between 1871 and 1880. These immigrants were primarily of Western European background (German, Irish, British and Scandinavian). After 1891, the number of Italians and Central and Eastern Europeans increased.
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In Hawaii, foreign entrepreneurs, fearing Queen Lili’uokalani’s plan to restore the kingdom to indigenous Hawaiians, staged a revolt by declaring Hawaii a republic and seeking annexation by the US. American Marines invaded, Lili’uokalani surrendered, and the US minister to Hawaii declared it a protectorate of the United States.
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In the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States. The conflict precipitated in the Philippines was officially ended in 1902, but fighting continued for several more years.
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Nicaragua became a protectorate of the United States when, to protect American interests in the country, President Taft approved sending a contingent of American marines to the country to deter revolution.
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The Great War began when Austria, assured of Germany’s support, declared war against Serbia, and Russia mobilized on Serbia’s side. President Woodrow Wilson issued a declaration of American neutrality in the European war.
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The United States officially declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. On October 3, 1917, American troops experienced their first combat of World War I in the trenches of France.
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Thirty minutes after Japan declared war against the United States, Japanese planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Naval forces were severely diminished by the unexpected attack and more than 2,300 Americans were killed.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill met at the Black Sea resort city of Yalta to discuss plans for defeating Germany and the postwar occupation.
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After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan agreed to unconditional surrender.
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In February 1946, George Kennan, a US diplomat serving in Moscow, sent his “Long Telegram” to Washington. In it, Kennan proposed a policy of containment for handling diplomatic matters with the Soviet Union, a policy that shaped US foreign policy throughout the Cold War.
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In 1972 President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement, a treaty limiting nuclear weapons and antiballistic missile systems.
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The “Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam” was signed in Paris. The agreement did not, however, actually restore peace; it only ended US military involvement in Vietnam and temporarily stopped the fighting between the North and the South. Though the agreement allowed the United States to withdraw, fighting between the Vietnamese continued until North Vietnam captured Saigon in 1975.
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President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, which would have limited the number of strategic nuclear missiles in each country. Congress never approved the treaty.
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After a military coup and the deposition of the Grenadian prime minister by Communist hard-liners, US Marines invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada in order to rescue 800 American students enrolled at St. George’s School of Medicine.Nineteen Americans died and 119 were injured in the conflict. After the successful invasion, an elected government was installed in Grenada, ending the threat of a Communist takeover.
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President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the United States with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA eliminated most trade barriers among the three countries to create the largest free trade zone in the world.
