American History

Prehistory
● The first people ● Bering Strait
probably got to
America from
Eurasia across
Beringia, a land
bridge that
connected Siberia
and Alaska.
● It probably started
30,000 years ago.
● Soon, many tribes
and nations evolved.
 Colonial Period
● Christopher Columbus
discovered America in 1492.
● The first settlements in
today's USA were
established around 1600.
● Settlers often died of new
diseases, but Native
Americans also died of
smallpox and other European
diseases in great numbers.
 British Colonization
● The first successful ● Captain
English colony was John Smith
Jamestown, Virginia,
established in 1607.
● In 1620, a group of
Puritans, called ● Mayflower
Pilgrim Fathers,
arrived on a ship
called Mayflower and
founded Plymouth
Colony in
Massachusetts.
 The Revolution
● The Thirteen Colonies
proclaimed their
independence in 1776
as the United States of
America.
● In the Revolutionary
War Americans
defeated the British
army at Saratoga in
1777.
● The US was lead by
General George
Washington.
 The Constitution
● The Congress called
the Philadelphia
Convention in 1787.
● The delegates from
every state wrote a
new Constitution.
● In 1791, the US Bill
of Rights was
adopted.
● It guaranteed
individual liberties.
 Western Frontier
● Pioneers pushed the ● A map from 1805
American frontier showing the frontier
westwards. near the Great Lakes
● This process ended
around 1890-1910.
● Native Americans
resisted and fought
against the settlers in
some places, but
were defeated.
 Slavery
● Northern states ● Discovery of Nat
abolished slavery, Turner, a leader of a
inspired by slave rebelion.
revolutionary ideals.
● However, only 13.5
per cent of all blacks
were free in 1810.
● Abolitionism was a
movement against
slavery.
 The American Civil War
● The South was ● Confederate States
economically of America were
dependent on established in 1861
slavery, while the (brown and yellow on
northern states the map).
wanted to abolish it
nationwide.
● After Abraham
Lincoln won the 1860
election, seven
Southern states left
the union.
 The American Civil War
● The Civil War began ● In 1865, Lincoln
was assassinated
in 1861 and ended in while visiting a
1865 by the victory of theatre
performance.
the North (Union).
● It was the deadliest
war in the American
history.
● The slavery was
finally abolished by
Emancipation
Proclamation in 1863.
 Reconstruction
● It lasted from ● Ku-Klux-Klan
Lincoln's opposed the black
Emancipation civil rights and the
Proclamation in 1863 Republican rule.
to 1877.
● The ex-slaves were
called Freedmen.
● They often suffered
from unemployment.
● The Ku-Klux-Klan
emerged in 1877.
 Western Expansion
● The transcontimental ● More than 40 Indian
railroad was wars cost the lives of
completed. 19,000 whites and
● There were frequent 30,000 Indians.
Indian wars.
● The US purchased
Native American
lands and forced
most tribes onto
reservations.
 Gilded Age and Imperialism
● Mark Twain used the
term Gilded Age to
describe the
expansion of wealth
and prosperity.
● The Panama Canal
opened in 1914 and
increased trade with
Japan and the Far
East.
 World War I
● First, Woodrow ● The war ended in the
Wilson declared Allied victory in
neutrality. November 1918.
● The US declared war ● In the 1920s, the US
in April 1917, after became a world
Germans had power.
torpedoed the British
cruise liner Lusitania
with some US
citizens on board.
 Great Depression
● After the Stock Market
Crash in 1929 a
worldwide depression
started.
● Unemployment soared
from 3% in 1929 to
25% in 1933.
● In 1932, F.D.
Roosewelt promised a
New Deal, that
regulated the economy
and provided relief.
 World War II
● The US entered the ● The US lost more than
war after the Japanese 400,000 soldiers.
attack on Pearl Harbor
in 1941.
● The Normandy
landings started on
D-Day, June 6, 1944.
● In August 1944,
Americans dropped two
atomic bombs on
Japanese cities and
forced Japan to
surrender.
 The Cold War
● After WWII, two ● The Cuban Missile
dominant superpowers Crisis
emerged: the USA and
the USSR.
● The Cuban Missile Crisis
in 1962 was one of the
major confrontations of
the Cold War.
● The world came closest
to a nuclear war.
 Civil Rights Movement
● It started with the
Montgomery Bus
Boycott.
● Martin Luther King,
the leader of the
movement, was
assassinated in
1968.
● The Fair Housing Act
of 1968 ended the
racial segregation.
 The End of the Cold War
● In the 1980S,
President Reagan
met four times with
Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev and
signed the
Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces
Treaty.
● The Soviet Union
collapsed in 1991,
ending the Cold War.
 9/11 and the War on Terror
● On 9/11 2001,
al-Quaeda hijackers
crashed into the
World Trade Center
in NY and into the
Pentagon, killing
nearly 3000 people.
● President George W.
Bush announced a
War on Terror.
● In 2003, the US
invaded Iraq.
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