Course: American Culture and Civilization 2023-2024

Level: 2nd Year L.M.D

-A Potted Version of American History-

4000B.C- 1787

Events Time or Period

Before 4000 B.C
Ancestors of modern Native Americans
(American Indians and Eskimos) arrived in
North America, probably by crossing the
Bearing Strait from Siberia.
From about 2 million to 10,000 years ago, the
earth was in the grip of the Ice Age. The
northern half of the world was covered with
glaciers. In some places, the glaciers were 1 to
2 miles thick.
The 56-mile (90-km) strip of water that now
separates Alaska from northeastern Asia was
the site of a land bridge called Beringia.
Because so much of the earth’s water froze
into ice, the ocean level dropped. This exposed -The BearingStrait-
the strip of land between the two continents.
Today that land is covered by the waters of the
Bering Strait.

1492 A.D

Christopher Columbus reached the Bahamas.

This led to European exploration and
colonization of North and South America.

“Tierra! Tierra!”—Land! Land! On October

12, 1492, after 70 days and 2,400 miles3,862
km) of sailing, Columbus had found land.
At dawn, the three ships neared an island with
a beautiful, white coral beach. Columbus
named the island San Salvador which meant
“Holy Savior.” Today, this island is part of the
Bahamas, located about 50 miles (80 km) off -Christopher Columbus landing in the New World-
the coast of southeastern Florida.

1607
The first permanent English colony in North
America was established at Jamestown,
Virginia.
JAMESTOWN is justifiably called "the first
permanent English settlement" in the New
World—a hard-won designation. As historian
Alan Taylor recounts, of the first 104 colonists
who landed in April 1607, only thirty-eight
survived the winter. Of the 10,000 who left
England for Jamestown in its first fifteen years, Jamestown, Virginia by the River James

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only twenty percent were still alive, and still in
Jamestown, in 1622.

1619
The first African slaves brought to North
America landed at Jamestown.
not aboard a Dutch ship as reported by John
Rolfe, but an English warship, White Lion,
sailing with a letter of marque issued to the
English Captain Jope by the Protestant Dutch
Prince Maurice, son of William of Orange.
Rolfe's reporting of the White Lion as a Dutch
warship was a clever ruse to transfer blame
away from the English for the piracy of the
slave ship to the Dutch.

African Slave Ship Landed at Jamestown

1620
The Pilgrims arrived from England on the
Mayflower in Massachusetts.
The Mayflower was hired in London and sailed
from London to Southampton in July 1620 to
begin loading food and supplies for the
voyage--much of which was purchased at
Southampton. The Pilgrims were mostly still
living in the city of Leiden, in the
Netherlands. They hired a ship called
the Speedwell to take them from Delfshaven,
the Netherlands, to Southampton, England, to General Anniversaries 1s6d Stamp (1970) Pilgrims and
meet up with the Mayflower. Mayflower

1664
The Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was
taken by the British and renamed New York.
In 1664, New Amsterdam passed to English
control, and English and Dutch settlers lived
together peacefully. In 1673, there was a short
interruption of English rule when the
Netherlands temporarily regained the
settlement. In 1674, New York was returned to
the English, and in 1686 it became the first city
in the colonies to receive a royal charter. After
the American Revolution, it became the first
The British Control over New Amesterdam
capital of the United States.

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1754-1763

The French and Indian War gained new land

for the American colonists.
The French and Indian War, a colonial
extension of the Seven Years War that ravaged
Europe from 1756 to 1763, was the bloodiest
American war in the 18th century. It took
more lives than the American Revolution,
involved people on three continents, including
the Caribbean. The war was the product of an
imperial struggle, a clash between the French
and English over colonial territory and wealth.
Within these global forces, the war can also be
seen as a product of the localized rivalry French Indian War Map
between British and French colonists.

1775-1783 The American Revolution led to

independence from Britain. The Declaration of
Independence was signed in 1776.
The revolution was an insurrection by which
13 of Great Britain’s North American colonies
won political independence and went on to
form the United States of America. The war
followed more than a decade of growing
estrangement between the British crown and a
large and influential segment of its North
American colonies that was caused by British
attempts to assert greater control over
colonial affairs after having long adhered to a
policy of salutary neglect. Until early in 1778
the conflict was a civil war within the British
The Five Members chosen to write the Declaration of
Empire, but afterward it became an
international war as France (in 1778), Spain (in Independence presenting the document to Congress.
1779), and the Netherlands (in 1780) joined
the colonies against Britain.

Congress created a committee on June 11, 1776, to write an official declaration of independence. On the
committee were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The
committee asked Jefferson to write the Declaration and he worked on it to create a rough draft between June 12
and June 27. This document was read to Congress on June 28, and debates and revisions ensued over the next
several days. Congress adopted the declaration on July 4, 1776. Printed versions were sent out to the colonies on
July 5. A newspaper version was printed for the first time in a Pennsylvania newspaper on July 6. It was read to the
members of George Washington's Army on July 8. And so on.
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 It was an amazing time, and an amazing document, that gave birth to the United States of America.
-Check the U.S study guides for more details on the Declaration of Independence-
1787-1791 The U.S Constitution
In 1783, at the end of the American
Revolution, the United States was a group of
13 independent states with a weak central
government. The government’s powers,
agreed in 1781 in the Articles of
Confederation, did not include powers to
collect taxes or enforce laws. The central
government was unable to settle disputes
between states or develop the economy.
The Constitutional Convention
In May 1787, representatives from the 13
states were called to a constitutional
convention in Philadelphia to decide on a new,
more effective constitution. They include some
of most important figures in American history:
George Washington, Alexander Hamilton,
Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison. After
much discussion and Compromise, the
convention approved a new constitution on 17
September 1787 and by June 1788, the
Constitution had been ratified (accepted) by 9
states and was official
U.S Constitution 1787
Check the U.S study guides for more details on
the Constitution-

Useful websites: (Revised Feb. 2024)

http://www.history.com/topics/thirteen-colonies

https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/african-americans-at-jamestown.htm

http://mayflowerhistory.com/voyage/

http://www.crystalinks.com/july4th.html