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Oct 12, 1492
Christopher Columbus discovers the New World
Between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, all of them under the sponsorship of the Crown of Castile. These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of enormous significance in Western history.
But who really got to the shores first? -
John Smith founded the Jamestown settlement
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the second permanent English settlement in the Americas after Bermuda. William Kelso writes that Jamestown "is where the British Empire began ... this was the first colony in the British Empire", and many more came after. The colonization -
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Slavery in the United States
Slavery in the United States was the legal institution of human chattel slavery that existed in the United States of America in the 18th and 19th centuries after it gained independence and before the end of the American Civil War. Slavery had been practiced in British North America from early colonial days, and was recognized in all the Thirteen Colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Slavery -
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston. The demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773 destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company. The British government responded harshly and the episode escalated into the American Revolution.
Prelude to Revolution -
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The American Revolutionary War
The Revolutionary War was the armed conflict between Great Britain and thirteen of its North American colonies, which had declared themselves the independent United States of America. Early fighting took place primarily on the North American continent. France, eager for revenge after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, signed an alliance with the new nation in 1778 that proved decisive in the ultimate victory. Who Won the American Revolution? -
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America.
History of the 4th of July -
The United States Constitution
The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government. Its first three articles entrench the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government is divided into three branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial.
The Constitution, the Articles, and Federalism -
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The American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought to determine the survival of the Union or independence for the Confederacy. Among the 34 states, seven Southern slave states individually declared their secession from the United States of America and formed the Confederate States of America. After four years of combat the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished.
The Civil War, Part I
The Civil War Part 2 -
The U.S. enters World War I.
The American entry into World War I came after two and a half years of efforts by President Woodrow Wilson to keep the United States neutral during World War I.The citizenry came to see the German Empire as the villain after news of atrocities in Belgium in 1914, and the sinking of the passenger liner RMS Lusitania in May 1915.Wilson asked Congress for "a war to end all wars" that would "make the world safe for democracy".
America in World War I -
Attack on Pearl Harbor, The U.S. enters World War II.
The attack on Pearl Harborwas a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor. The attack led to the United States' entry into World War II.
World War II Part 1 -
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The Cold War
The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact). The term "cold" is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides.
The Cold War -
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda on the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks consisted of suicide attacks used to target symbolic U.S. landmarks.
Terrorism, War, and Bush
