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Indigenous peoples

The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge at least 12,000 years ago; ^{[2] [3]} the Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. ^{[4] [5]} Over time, indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. ^[6] Indigenous peoples and cultures such as the Algonquian peoples, ^[7] Ancestral Puebloans, ^[8] and the Iroquois developed across the present-day United States. ^[9] Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 ^{[10] [11]} to nearly 10 million. ^{[11] [12]}

European colonization

Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean in 1492, leading to Spanish settlements in present-day Puerto Rico, Florida, and New Mexico. ^{[13] [14] [15]} France established its own settlements along the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. ^[16] British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). ^{[17] [18]} The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. ^{[19] [20]} While European settlers in what is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. ^{[21] [a]} Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. ^{[25] [26]} Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked African slaves through the Atlantic slave trade. ^[27]

The original Thirteen Colonies ^[b] that would later found the United States were administered by Great Britain, ^[28] and had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners. ^{[29] [30]} The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; ^[31] by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. ^[32] The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for the development of self-governance, ^[33] and the First Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals, fueled colonial interest in religious liberty. ^[34]

American Revolution and Revolutionary War

After winning the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, creating colonial political resistance; one of the primary colonial grievances was a denial of their rights as Englishmen, particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them. In 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and passed a colonial boycott of British goods that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. At the Second Continental Congress, the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and created a committee led by Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776. ^[35] The political values of the American Revolution included liberty, inalienable individual rights; and the sovereignty of the people; ^[36] supporting republicanism and rejecting monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary political power; virtue and faithfulness in the performance of civic duties; and vilification of corruption. ^[37] The Founding Fathers of the United States, which included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and John Adams, were inspired by Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and Age of Enlightenment philosophies and ideas. ^{[38] [39]}

After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781, American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida. ^[40] Ratified in 1781, the Articles of Confederation established a decentralized government that operated until 1789. ^[35] The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which the country's territory would expand with the admission of new states, rather than the expansion of existing states. ^[41] The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles; it went into effect in 1789, creating a federation administered by three branches on the principle of checks and balances. ^[42] Washington was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay concerns by skeptics of the more centralized government; ^{[43] [44]} his resignations first as commander-in-chief after the Revolution and later as president set a precedent followed by John Adams, establishing the peaceful transfer of power between rival parties. ^{[45] [46]}

Westward expansion

In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward, some with a sense of manifest destiny. ^[47] The Louisiana Purchase (1803) from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. ^[48] Lingering issues with Britain remained, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw. ^[49] Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. ^[50] The Missouri Compromise attempted to balance desires of northern states to prevent expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state and declared a policy of prohibiting slavery in the remaining Louisiana Purchase lands north of the 36°30′ parallel. ^[51] As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans, the federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation. ^{[52] [53]} The infamous Trail of Tears (1830–1850) was a U.S. government policy that forcibly removed and displaced most Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to lands far to the west. These and earlier organized displacements prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. ^{[54] [55]} The Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845, ^[56] and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. ^[57] Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. ^{[47] [58]} The California Gold Rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of the most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the early 1870s, ^{[59] [60]} just as additional western territories and states were created. ^[61]

Civil War

During the colonial period, slavery was legal in the American colonies, though the practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution. ^[62] States in The North enacted abolition laws, ^[63] though support for slavery strengthened in Southern states, as inventions such as the cotton gin made the institution increasingly profitable for Southern elites. ^{[64] [65] [66]} This sectional conflict regarding slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861–1865). ^{[67] [68]}

Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, while the other states remained in the Union. ^[69] War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter. ^[70] After the January 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, many freed slaves joined the Union Army. ^[71] The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House. ^[72]

The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect the rights of African Americans. National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads, spurred growth in the American frontier. ^[73]

Post-Civil War era

From 1865 through 1917 an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. ^[76] Most came through the port of New York City, and New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to the Midwest. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England. ^[77] During the Great Migration, millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. ^[78] Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. ^[79]

The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics. ^{[80] [81]} African Americans endured a period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations. ^{[82] [83]} A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson, emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in cities across the country, which would be reinforced by the policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation. ^[84]

An explosion of technological advancement accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor ^[85] led to rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, allowing the United States to outpace England, France, and Germany combined. ^{[86] [87]} This fostered the amassing of power by a few prominent industrialists, largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. ^[88] Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry. ^[89] These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality, slum conditions, and social unrest, creating the environment for labor unions to begin to flourish. ^{[90] [91] [92]} This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which was characterized by significant reforms. ^{[93] [94]}

Rise as a superpower

Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy; the islands were annexed in 1898. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain following the Spanish–American War. ^[95] American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War. ^[96] The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. ^[97] The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies of World War I, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. ^[98] In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage. ^[99] During the 1920s and 30s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. ^[100] The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with New Deal social and economic policies. ^{[101] [102]}

At first neutral during World War II, the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. ^{[103] [104]} The U.S. developed the first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. ^{[105] [106]} The United States was one of the " Four Policemen" who met to plan the postwar world, alongside the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China. ^{[107] [108]} The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic and international political influence. ^[109]

Cold War

After World War II, the United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs. ^[110] The U.S. engaged in regime change against governments perceived to be aligned with the Soviet Union, and competed in the Space Race, culminating in the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. ^{[111] [112] [113] [114]}

Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth, urbanization, and population growth following World War II. ^[115] The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader in the early 1960s. ^[116] The Great Society plan of President Lyndon Johnson's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism. ^[117] The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality. It also encouraged open defiance of the military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam (with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975). ^{[118] [119] [120]} The societal shift in the roles of women partly resulted in large increases in female labor participation in the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of women aged 16 and older were employed. ^[121] The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which marked the end of the Cold War and solidified the U.S. as the world's sole superpower. ^{[122] [123] [124] [125]}

Contemporary

The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history, a dramatic decline in crime, and advances in technology, with the World Wide Web, the evolution of the Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, the first gene therapy trial, and cloning all emerging and being improved upon throughout the decade. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998. ^[126] In 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force from Kuwait in the Gulf War. ^[127]

The September 11, 2001 attacks by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. ^{[128] [129]} The cultural impact of the attacks was profound and long-lasting.

The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession, the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. ^[130] Coming to a head in the 2010s, political polarization increased as sociopolitical debates on cultural issues dominated politics. ^[131] This polarization was capitalized upon in the January 2021 Capitol attack, ^[132] when a mob of protesters entered the U.S. Capitol and attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. ^[133]

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