The USA
Everybody knows about the United States of America. You can watch its films, hear its music, and eat its food just everywhere in the world. Cowboys, jazz, hamburgers, the Starts and the Stripes-that´s the United States.
But it's a country with many stories to tell. Stories of busy cities, and quiet, beautiful forests and parks. Stories of a country that fought against Britain, and then against itself, to make the United States of today. Stories of rich and poor, black and white, Native American and immigrant. And story of what it is really like to be an American today...
In the beginning
400,000 years ago, the fisrt humans arrived in America via a land brigde from Asia during the last Ice Age.
These PaleoAmerican hunters and gatherers hunted mammoths and other large herbivores to extinction.
800-1500 AD, the Mississippian culture developed advanced agriculture and built huge easthen mounds.
1492, Christopher Columbus reached the continent of America. 20 years later, Ponce de León arrived in what would later became the USA.
Spanish settlements were established in Florida an Mexico. French traders setted up outposts around the Great Lakes region.
1607, the fisrt English colony was founded at Jamestown on the Atlantic coast. The Pilgrims, a religious group escaping persecution in England, setted up the Plymouth colony.
13 British colonies were established with more migrations from Europe and the arrival of slaves from Africa.
Although subject to British taxes, the American colonist had no representation in the Britich parliament.
July 4th, 1776. Delegates from 13 colonies came together to sign the Declaration of Independence.
The American Revolution. The American forces defeated the British in the American War of Independence and the United States of America was born.
The United States Constitution came into force. The Bill of Rights guaranteeing rights of Liberty and Property was aproved.
The US pursued a policy of Westward Expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.
Native Americans were removed from their lands as the United States expands westward.
The anti-slavery Lincoln government came to power. Southern States, whose economy was dependent on the slave labor, separated to form the Confederate States of America. Civil War between the Union (North) and the Confederate (South) began.
The Civil War ended in a Union victory. Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation wich declarated the slaves to be free.
Alaska was purchased from Russia and Hawaii was annexed completing the 50 states of the Union. Victory in the Spanish-American war saw the rise of America as a major world power.
Urbanization and Influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe led to Industrialization. The US became the world's largest economy.
World War 1. American Expenditionary Forces helped the Allies (England and France) defeated Germany and the Central Powers.
The Roaring Twenties, a period of prosperity followed WWI. The women's rights movement results in women getting the right to vote in elections.
The economy was hit by the Great Depression. Unempleoyment, Poverty and Deflation reached record levels.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the New Deal, a set of policies to boost the economy. The Social Security system was establish.
World War 2 began. Japan launced a surprise attack on the naval base of Pearl Habor. This prompts the US to enter the war.
The US joined the Allies (UK France and Russia) against the Axis powers (Germany, Japan and Italy). American troops participated in the invasion of Germany occupied France.
After the surrender of Germany, the US dropped two nuclear bombs over Japan, resulting in Japanese surrender. World War 2 ended.
The United Nations was created to maintain World Peace. The US became a permanent member of the UN security council.
Cold War. The US and he Soviet Union fought to supremacy by engaging in proxy wars around the world. Both nations developed large nuclear arsenals.
The Soviets built nuclear bases, capable of striking the US, in Cuba. The US, under John F. Kennedy used diplomacy to avoid the nuclear showdown.
African-American led by Martin Luther King Jr. began a non-violent Civil Rights Movement against Discrimation. They won the right to vote in 1965.
