An Overview of American History
Major Explorations:
There are many speculations about early visits: the only documented evidence exists in
Newfoundland and Nova Scotia where there were Norse villages (Scandinavian sailors);
none survived for long.
Lief Erikson - may have visited Northern Canada (referred to as “Vinland”) in 1000 AD
-
-
Columbus (October 12,1492; Spain) landed in the Dominican Republic seeking a
shortcut to Asia;
John Cabot (1497, England) - explored Nova Scotia and Newfoundland
Amerigo Vespucci (1507, Spain )
Giovanni da Verrazano (1524, France) and Jacques Cartier (1531-34, France)
Henry Hudson (1609, Holland
Ponce De Leon (1513 -1520, Spain), etc.
English Colonization:
Roanoke Island (1587) [present-day] North Carolina, established by Sir Walter Raleigh, 107
men, women, and children settled here;
Jamestown, Virginia (1607), hardship for the first 12 years; 104 people (unprepared for the
tasks of establishing a colony, led by Captain John Smith
Plymouth Colony in Cape Cod (1620) , Mayflower (ship), 102 settlers (only 50 were
Pilgrims; who were considered religious extremists in their day, or a cult)
Massachusetts Bay (1629) - Puritans and John Winthrop, came to Massachusetts for
religious freedom;
Rhode Island (1644) -Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson - individuals banned from
Massachusetts as exiles and religious heretics for their actions and belief in religious tolerance
1696 - Salem Witch trials - panic involving the infiltration of “the devil” into the chosen
communities in the New World
the Great Awakening, an increase in religious fanaticism in response to the softening of
religious practices in the colonies in the wake of earthly pursuits of such profit motives as real
estate, the slave trade, and the rum business;
Events leading to the War for Independence
Seven Years War (1754-1761) - French and Indian War, Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the
war
Revenue (Sugar) Act (1764) - raise customs revenue
Stamp Act (1765) “
“
“
Currency Act (1764) - colonial money useless/ tightened England’s monetary grip
Quartering Act (1765) - colonists pay for housing British troops
Townshend Acts: Customs on tea, paper, paint, glass, and lead;
Tea Act (1772): another tea tax
Key figures at this time in the social dissent:
John Hancock - richest man in New England, would later help to finance the American
Revolution,
Thomas Jefferson - would write the Declaration of Independence (a respected rhetorician),
would later become the third president of the United States
John Adams - a voice of caution and advice during the emotional political crisis of the preRevolution years
Thomas Paine - Outspoken advocate for individual rights
George Washington - a wealthy landowner and slave owner, would lead the colonial army
during the American Revolution
Benjamin Franklin – inventor, politician, businessman, ambassador to France, inspired the
American Dream
Boston Massacre: 1770 -9 British soldiers fire on snow-ball throwing mob (a hard-drinking
group of dock workers); 5 citizens killed; the colonial media exploited this using term
“Massacre”
Boston Tea Party - 150 colonists (from all social classes) dressed up as Mohawk Indians,
threw a shipload of tea in the harbor to protest the tea tax
Intolerable Acts (1774) - British Response to these actions
The War for Independence:
- April 18, 1775 - Concord; Minutemen and British Militia;
-Declaration of Independence: July 4, 1776 - Thomas Jefferson and committee wrote it
- Saratoga: a decisive victory which brought the French into the conflict; it proved the
Colonies could win; France officially recognizes the United States of America)
- Yorktown - Cornwallis surrendered (last major clash of war 1781)
- Treaty of Paris (1783) ended war and gave colonies their independence
The New Republic
The Articles of Confederation politically united the colonies temporarily until another
solution could be drafted
Constitutional Convention: May - September 1787 - Created US Constitution
- created a central authority in the US government
George Washington became the first president (1789-1797)
-set many precedents for this office (it was created with him in mind)
Louisiana Purchase - 1803, bought from Napoleon for 15 Million, who needed cash
- it had been seized by France from Spain, which had become a weak international
entity in 1800
- it doubled the size of the US.
- 13 states were eventually created from it (in whole or part)
- Lewis and Clark were sent to explore it over 3 years (1803-1806)
James Madison - fourth president 1809-1817
- first to live in the White House (his wife, Dolly, set a precedent for future first ladies
in her etiquette and social graces)
Declared war on England - The War of 1812:
Battle of Baltimore - Francis Scott Key writes national anthem
James Monroe (fifth President, 1817-1825)
- 1823 - The Monroe Doctrine - America was no longer a field for colonialism, and
that European intervention in New World affairs would be considered unfriendly
Events leading up to the Civil War:
First sectional conflict - new territories and slaves - 1820’s
The Missouri Compromise - one free state for one slave state entered into the union everything above 36.30 latitude must be free (Southern boundary of Missouri); 1821
Dispute over Import Duties
Bleeding Kansas -1850s
Underground Railroad formed - escape route for runaway slaves running from many points
in the South
Dred Scott Decision - Supreme Court case; slave goes to free state and returns to slave state
John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry - tried to start slave uprising by seizing an arsenal in
Virginia
election of Lincoln made the South uneasy
February 1861 - Confederate States of America form; Jefferson Davis becomes President
- began seizing military supplies and installations; Fort Sumter was last straw and first battle
of the Civil War - April 12, 1861.
North had many advantages:
- population (whites), industrial development, transportation, communications, financial
resources, naval power
Northern disadvantages - cautious generals, less-trained army, overconfident
Southern advantages - pride, independence, individualistic, chivalrous, loyalty, better
familiarity with military matters, knew the terrain of battle, excited for war
Southern disadvantages
- agricultural, lacking technology, geographically invited invasion, African defection
hurt their production and their troop ratio with the North, Could not get assistance
from Britain and France; they saw struggle as Freedom vs. Slavery
Civil War:
-Antietam - a costly draw (Bloodiest day in American History; over 20,000 dead)
- Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation (Lincoln resisted making the war a war to free
the slaves; he thought the states could be brought back into the Union without making such
concessions, though he abhorred slavery himself; this proclamation only served to justify the
southern fears that Lincoln was out to destroy their way of life)
- Gettysburg -turning point of the war - July 1-4 1863, Lincoln composes Gettysburg
Address (Nov. 1863) - 51,000 men died in three-day battle
- Sherman’s March to the Sea; pillage and destruction throughout the south
-The Civil War ended when Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on April 9,1965
- Lincoln had a plan for Reconstructing the nation but he was assassinated at Ford’s Theater
five days after the war ended by John Wilkes Booth, a southern sympathizer
- a period of Reconstruction followed
- “Separate but Equal” decision - blacks and whites should have different social spheres
Alaska purchased for 7.2 million dollars by Congressman Seward from Russia; Americans
laughed at the purchase of “Seward’s Icebox” or “Seward’s folly”
1870 - 1890 -- This time is considered to be the period of the “Wild West” or of the
“Frontier”
Battles with Native Americans:
- Little Big Horn (25.6.76) - Custer (and 250+ men) were defeated by 2,000+ warriors under
the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
- Wounded Knee (28.12.90) - slaughter of 150+ Indians who were surrendering, including
many women and children
-First Women’s rights convention - Seneca Falls, NY -1848; Elizabeth Cady Stanton;
nothing was really accomplished other than to acknowledge that the need for a feminist
movement to establish the rights and equality of women in political and economic matters
was necessary
1849 - California Gold Rush - 200 million dollars eventually mined
The Gilded Age (1890 - 1910) - Coined by Mark Twain and Charles D. Warner in their book
of the same name; it was a time when things looked great in American society, but
underneath, their was corruption, greed, and self-interest, which was creating a rift between
the entrepreneurs and their workers
Robber Barons- geniuses at accumulating and holding private wealth; became politically
influential through their economic power: corruption, trusts (keep prices high, prevents
competition, and sets low wages) and monopolies (abuses of the system) were exploited by
these men as well
The Spanish- American War – 1898, - America took control of the Philippines, Guam,
Wake Island, and Puerto Rico, and Cuba became a protectorate; in all, it was a 3-month war
The Roaring 1920s and the Depression years
- U.S. very rich – other countries owed it a lot of money after the WWI
- enough raw materials, factories
- 1919- alcohol prohibited by the 18th Amendment
- buying shares (= playing the market) had become a national hobby
- shares could be bought on credit  large sums of money borrowed from banks (=
“buying on the margin”)
- shares on demand  prices rising
- by 1929 the profit of many firms had been decreasing
- many people began to sell their shares
- Thursday, Oct 24, 1929 = Black Thursday – 13 million shares sold
- Tuesday, Oct 29, 1929 = Terrifying Tuesday – 15 million shares sold
- collapse of the U.S. share prices = Wall Street Crash
- FDR proposed his set of measures called “New Deal” to fight the Depression
1950s in America
Civil Rights
In 1954, the Supreme Court overturned the existing ‘separate but equal’ policy as a result of
the trial between Brown and the Topeka Board of Education
The process of desegregation of schools even occasionally led to violence, like in Little
Rock, Arkansas, in 1957.
Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955) initiated by the actions of a black female worker named
Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white male - Martin Luther King,
Jr. became famous
The Cold War and Communism
-
-
diplomatic tension between the United States of America on one side and the Soviet
Union on the other
Senator Joseph McCarthy – Red Scare – witch hunts for communists in the society
The Conflict in Korea
After WWII, Korea, which had been previously ruled by Japan, was divided into two parts
using the 38th parallel of latitude as a boundary. While the north was communist, the south
was supported by the U.S.A. The conflict arose when the North Koreans wanted to unite the
country through the use of military power.
- Gen. Douglas Mac
- 1950-53
The American Society
-
movie stars
revolt against conformism
suburban lifestyle and consumer society
space race
1960s in the USA
The Civil Rights Movement
- sit-ins - a new form of racial protests
- March on Washington - over 200,000 people singing “We Shall Overcome” gathered at
the Lincoln Memorial to protest for equality, MLK’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech
- militant black groups such as the Black Panthers or Black Muslims.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Kennedy’s Domestic Policy
NASA (as the institution responsible for the further exploration of space)
Peace Corps (which brought together volunteers to assist developing countries) fervent
support of minority and women’s rights.
- assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas in 1963
Kennedy’s Foreign Policy - Cuba
- When Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959, he was supported by the U.S.
government
- Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 – a group of Cuban refugees sent to assassinate Castro,
a total failure,the operation was defeated and 1,200 men were captured within 3 days
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) – Soviet missiles located in Cuba
Lyndon B Johnson
The Great Society - a number of bills which dealt with fighting poverty, improving
the educational system, protecting the rights of the elderly, bringing culture to the people, and
protecting the environment
The War in Vietnam
- the north was communist, the south non-communist, Ho Chi Minh wanted to unite Vietnam
through war and the U.S. government decided to help the French in line with the US policy to
contain communism. Money and weapons were sent to South Vietnam and later, soldiers and
military advisers.
- the North Vietnamese guerilla army - the Vietcong
- 1964, Johnson announced that North Vietnamese ships had attacked the USS Maddox
in the Gulf of Tonkin = Gulf of Tonkin Resolution followed by operation
Thunderstorm
- the Tet Offensive - the North Vietnamese violated the existing armistice and
unexpectedly attacked South Vietnam
- 1969- the newly-elected president Richard Nixon came up with a concept
referred
to as the ‘Vietnamization’ of the war
- anti-war protests in America
1970s in the USA
-
the War in Vietnam comes to its end
-
Nixon visits China and the Soviet Union in 1972 – improvement of relationships –
SALT treaty limiting the use of nuclear weapons
Social Issues In America
Equality of Sexes – feminism, abortion made legal
Minorities -Latinos and Native Americans
Homosexuals – homosexuality no longer considered to be a mental deviation
The Watergate Scandal
- associated with President Richard Nixon
1972 - five burglars were arrested in the Democratic Party’s national headquarters in the
Watergate Building in Washington, D.C. , a political scandal
Try to estimate the main reasons leading to the overall dissatisfaction of U.S. citizens with the
political situation in the country.
The Iranian Hostage Crisis
-
-
a mob of fundamentalists gathered and occupied the American embassy in Tehran
taking about 60 employees hostage,the siege of the embassy lasted for 444 days and
all diplomatic negotiations through the UN failed
the official end of the Hostage Crisis came on January 20, 1981, the last day of
Carter’s presidency and the day of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration