What is now the United States was initially populated by indigenous peoples who migrated from northeast Asia.
Today, their descendants are known as Native Americans, or American Indians. Although Native Americans are often portrayed as having lived a singular, usually primitive lifestyle, the truth is, that prior to European contact, the continent was densely populated by many sophisticated societies.
The Cherokee, for example, are descended from the overarching Mississippian culture which built huge mounds and large towns that covered the landscape, while the Anasazi built elaborate cliff-side towns in the Southwest.
As was the case in other nations in the Americas, the primitive existence attributed to Native Americans was generally the result of mass die-offs triggered by Old World diseases such as smallpox which spread like wildfire ahead of the early European explorers. That is, by the time most Native American tribes directly encountered Europeans, they were a post-apocalyptic people!
During the 16th and 17th centuries, multiple European nations began colonizing the North American continent. Spain, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Russia established colonies in various parts of what would become the USA.
Of those early settlements, it was the original British colonies in Virginia and Massachusetts that formed the cultural, political, legal and economic core of what is now known as the United States of America. However while traveling the United states, you will realize different ancestral cultures often attribute depending on the state in which you visit. Sometimes cultural differences, although usually minuscule, vary even from town to town within a state!
Massachusetts was first settled by religious immigrants—Puritans—who later spread and founded most of the other New England colonies, creating a highly religious and idealistic region. Its neighbor to the southwest, Rhode Island, was founded by refugees from the religious fanatics of Massachusetts. Other religious groups also founded colonies, including the Quakers in Pennsylvania and Roman Catholics in Maryland.
Today however, you can find all religions in most every state. Pennsylvania is known today for it's vast majority of Amish and Mennonites. These groups flow into Indiana, and Ohio as well as a few other states too. While in Michigan, it's town of Dearborn is known for being the Muslim capital of the USA.
If you'd like more information on which religions or a religion in particular are found in the state/states you'll be visiting, just ask! As I've said there is a religious sanctuary ie churches, etc in almost every state!
Virginia, on the other hand, became the most dominant of the southern colonies. Because of a longer growing season, these colonies had richer agricultural prospects, especially for cotton and tobacco.
As in Central and South America, African slaves were imported and forced to cultivate large plantations. Slavery became an important part of the economy in the South, a fact that would cause tremendous upheaval in the years to come.
There are also certain towns/states where many certain nationalities migrated. Such as the Polish, Italian, Hungarian, and German. We know these from the Census' collected as it listed place of origin/birth for each person in a household.
By the early 18th century, the United Kingdom had established a number of colonies along the Atlantic coast from Georgia and on north into what is now Canada.
On 4 July 1776, (Or July 4th as the date is read in the United States) colonists from the Thirteen Original Colonies, frustrated with excessive taxation and micromanagement by London and encouraged by the ideals of Enlightenment philosophy, declared independence from the U.K. and established a new sovereign nation, the United States of America. Today this is a national holiday, often called the 4th of July or Independence Day, but more on The United States' own holidays later!
Be sure to read that because many places in The United States WILL be closed for national holidays that you probably have never heard of.
The resulting American Revolutionary War culminated in the surrender of 7,000 British troops at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.
This forced the British government to initiate peace negotiations that led to the Treaty of Paris of 1783, by which the victorious Americans assumed control of all British land south of the Great Lakes between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River.
British loyalists, known as Tories, fled north of the Great Lakes into Canada, which remained [stubbornly] loyal to the British crown and would not become fully independent, as Canada, it's own country, until 1982.
Although the Thirteen Colonies had united during the war in support of the common objective of getting rid of British tyranny, most colonists' loyalties at the end of the war lay with their respective colonial governments.
In turn, the young country's first attempt at establishing a national government under the Articles of Confederation was a disastrous failure.
The Articles tried too hard to protect the colonies from each other by making the national government so weak it could not do anything to intervene.
In 1787, a convention of major political leaders (the Founding Fathers of the United States) drafted a new national Constitution in Philadelphia.
After ratification by a supermajority of the states, the new Constitution went into effect in 1791 and enabled the establishment of the strong federal government that has governed the United States ever since.
George Washington, the commanding general of American forces during the Revolutionary War, was elected as the first President of the United States under the new Constitution. Although he is not the first technical president, education in the USA deems him as the first since the constitution kind of marks the birth of the nation as it is today.
By the turn of the 19th century, a national capital had been established in Washington, D.C. not to be confused with the state of Washington which is clear across the country on the far north west side.
As American and European settlers pushed farther west, past the Appalachians, the federal government began organizing new territories and then admitting them as new states.
This was enabled by the displacement and decimation of the Native American populations through warfare and disease. In what became known as the Trail of Tears, many Native American tribes in what is now the southeastern United States were forcibly relocated to lands in present-day Oklahoma, which was known as "Indian Territory" until the early 20th century.
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 brought French-owned territory extending from the Mississippi River to parts of the present-day American West under American control, effectively doubling the country's land area.
The United States fought the War of 1812 with Britain in an attempt to reassert its authority and to capture Canada.
Though dramatic battles were fought, including one that ended with the British Army burning the White House, which is the "home of the current president" Capitol, and other public buildings in Washington, D.C., the war ended in a virtual stalemate.
Territorial boundaries between the two nations remained nearly the same.
Nevertheless, the war had disastrous consequences for the western Native American tribes that had allied with the British, ending in the United States acquiring more and more of their territory for white settlers.
Actually the Native Americans were treated terribly. Most
Educational agendas in America (each state has a slightly different curriculum) on the extent of "the Indians" obviously varies depending on state.
States with a rich Native American background or with Native American "Reservations" go into the extent much more as school's students can travel or have "a field trip" to museums or other institutions ran by the current day Native Americans.
Each state was established as a state in different years.
Each state has it's own "governor" along with it's own capital, state flower, bird, flag, etc. Whatever is indigenous to the state. More information is available a pon request!
Florida was purchased in 1813 from Spain after the American military had effectively subjugated the region.
The next major territorial acquisition came after American settlers in Texas rebelled against the Mexican government, setting up a short-lived independent republic that was absorbed into the union.
The Mexican-American War of 1848 resulted in acquisition of the northern territories of Mexico, including the future states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.
After 1850, the borders of the continental United States reached the rough outlines it still has today. Many Native Americans were relegated to reservations by treaty, military force, and by the inadvertent spread of European diseases transmitted by large numbers of settlers moving west along the Oregon Trail and other routes.
The Oregon trail is the most famous. Explorers Lewis and Clark were led by the Native American named Sacagawea who was only 16 years old. To learn more, just ask!
Tensions between the US and the British government administering Canada continued to persist because the border west of the Great Lakes was ill-defined because The Oregon Treaty of 1846 failed to adequately address the complex geography of the region; the boundary dispute remained unsettled until 1871.
Meanwhile, by the late 1850s, many Americans were calling for the abolition of slavery.
The rapidly industrializing North, where slavery had been outlawed several decades before, favored national abolition.
Southern states, on the other hand, believed that individual states had the right to decide whether or not slavery should be legal.
In 1861, the Southern states, fearing domination by the North and the avowedly anti-slavery President Abraham Lincoln, seceded from the Union and formed the breakaway Confederate States of America.
These events sparked the American Civil War. To date, it is the bloodiest conflict on American soil, with over 200,000 killed in combat and a overall death toll exceeding 600,000.
The bloodiest of all battles is said to have been the battle at Gettysburg where president Lincoln would later give the infamous "Gettysburg Address" speech, as you may have heard the introduction "four score and seven years ago..."
In 1865, Union forces prevailed, thereby cementing the federal government's authority over the states. The federal government then launched a complex process of rehabilitation and reassimilation of the Confederacy, a period known as Reconstruction.
Slavery was abolished by constitutional amendment, (which as of today has many different amendments, numbered in accordance to the order they were implemented) but the former slaves and their descendants were to remain an economic and social underclass, particularly in the Southern states.
The United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, and the previously independent Hawaii was annexed in 1898 after a brief revolution fomented by American settlers.
After decisively defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War, the United States gained its first "colonial" territories:
-Cuba (granted independence a few years later)
-the Philippines (granted independence shortly after World War II)
-Puerto Rico and Guam (which remain American dependencies today)
During this "imperialist" phase of US history, the US also assisted Panama in obtaining independence from Colombia, as the need for a Panama Canal had become palpably clear to the US during the Spanish-American War.
In 1903, the new country of Panama promptly granted the United States control over a swath of territory known as the Canal Zone.
The US constructed the Panama Canal in 1914 and retained control over the Canal Zone until 1979.
In the eastern cities of the United States, Southern and Eastern Europeans, and Russian Jews joined Irish refugees to become a cheap labor force for the country's growing industrialization.
Many African-Americans fled rural poverty in the South for industrial jobs in the North, in what is now known as the Great Migration.
Other immigrants, including many Scandinavians and Germans, moved to the newly-opened territories in the West and Midwest, where land was available for free to anyone who would develop it.
A network of railroads was laid across the country, accelerating development.
With its entrance into World War I in 1917, the United States established itself as a world power by helping to defeat Germany and the Central Powers.
However after the war, despite strong support from President Woodrow Wilson, the United States refused to join the newly-formed League of Nations, which substantially hindered that body's effectiveness in preventing future conflicts.
Real wealth grew rapidly in the postwar period. During the "Roaring Twenties," stock speculation created an immense "bubble" which, when it burst in October 1929, known as the stock market crash, contributed to a period of economic havoc.
The 1930s were terrible times for citizens, life savings, everything, gone. This was known as The Great Depression. The Depression was brutal and devastating, with unemployment rising to 25%. Everyone was poor or had absolutely nothing. No food nothing and suicide rates were crazy.
On the other hand, it helped forge a culture of sacrifice and hard work that would serve the country well in its next conflict.
President Herbert Hoover lost his re-election bid in 1932 as a result of his ineffective response to the Depression. People blamed him, with the classic "Hard times are Hoovering over us."
The victor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ("FDR") pledged himself to a "New Deal" for the American people, which came in the form of a variety of aggressive economic recovery programs.
While historians still debate the effectiveness of the various New Deal programs in terms of whether they fulfilled their stated objectives, it is generally undisputed that the New Deal greatly expanded the size and role of the US federal government.
In December 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, an American military base in Hawaii, thus plunging the United States into World War II, which had already been raging in Europe for two years and in Asia since 1937.
In alliance with the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, the United States helped to defeat the Axis powers of Italy, Germany, and Japan.
By the end of World War II, with much of Europe and Asia in ruins, the United States had firmly established itself as the dominant economic power in the world; it was then responsible for nearly half of the world's industrial production.
The newly developed atomic bomb, whose power was demonstrated in two bombings of Japan in 1945, made the United States the only force capable of challenging the Communist Soviet Union, giving rise to what is now known as The Cold War.
After World War II, America experienced an economic resurgence and growing affluence on a scale not seen since the 1920s. Meanwhile, the racism traditionally espoused in various explicit and implicit forms by the European-American majority against the country's African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic-American, Native American and other minority populations had become impossible to ignore. While the US was attempting to spread democracy and the rule of law abroad to counter the Soviet Union's support of authoritarian Communist governments, it found itself having to confront its own abysmal failure to provide the benefits of democracy and the rule of law to all its citizens.
Thus, in the 1960s a civil rights movement emerged which ultimately eliminated most of the institutional discrimination against African-Americans and other ethnic minorities, particularly in the Southern states.
A revived women's movement in the 1970s also led to wide-ranging changes in gender roles and perceptions in US society, including to a limited extent views on homosexuality and bisexuality.
The more organized present-era US 'Gay rights' movement first emerged in the late 1960s and early 70s.
During the same period, in the final quarter of the 20th century, the United States underwent a slow but inexorable transition from an economy based on a mixture of heavy industry and labor-intensive agriculture, to an economy primarily based on advanced technology (the "high-tech" industry) retail, professional services, and other service industries, as well as a highly mechanized, automated agricultural industry.
In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, millions of US manufacturing jobs fell victim to outsourcing, In a phenomenon since labeled "global labor arbitrage" revolutionary improvements in transportation, communications, and logistics technologies made it possible to move manufacturing of most goods to Asian factories which did not have to pay US minimum wages, observe US occupational safety standards, or allow the formation of unions.
Prior to 1960, it was necessary for US executives to take months off work to tour overseas operations by steamship or propeller aircraft, they had only minimal visibility into such operations through expensive international long-distance telephone calls, telegraphs, or telex transmissions, and goods were shipped in "break bulk" form on individual pallets or in crates.
By the 1980s, US executives could race overseas and back in a handful of days via jetliners, closely monitor overseas factories via fax, cheap long-distance calls, and early online services, and ship goods in bulk on huge container ships.
The outsourcing revolution was devastating to many cities, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast, whose economies were overly dependent upon manufacturing, and resulted in a group of hollowed-out, depressed cities now known as The Rust Belt. One city in particular is that of Detroit, Michigan. Where the automotive industry once made the city flourish and rich is now filing Bankruptcy.
During this time, the United States also assumed and continues to maintain a position of global leadership in military and aerospace technology through the development of a powerful "defense-industrial complex" although as of the turn of the 21st century, its leadership is increasingly being challenged by the European Union and China.
US federal investments in military technology also paid off handsomely in the form of the most advanced information technology sector in the world, which is primarily centered on the area of Northern California known as Silicon Valley.
US energy firms, especially those based in petroleum and natural gas, have also become global giants, as they expanded worldwide to feed the country's thirst for cheap energy.
The 1950s saw the beginnings of a major shift of population from rural towns and urban cores to the suburbs.
The postwar rise of a prosperous middle class able to afford cheap automobiles and cheap gasoline in turn led to the rise of the American car culture and the convenience of fast food restaurants.
The Interstate Highway System, constructed primarily from the 1960s to the 1980s, became the most comprehensive freeway system in the world, at over 47,000 mi in length. It was surpassed by China only in 2011, although the US is believed to still have a larger freeway system when non-federal-aid highways are also included.
In the late 20th century, the US was also a leader in the development and deployment of jetliners. Cheap air transportation together with cheap cars in turn wrecked US passenger rail, although freight rail remained financially viable.
In 1970, Congress authorized the formation of Amtrak to enable the railroads to shed themselves of their remaining passenger routes (which would now be operated by Amtrak over the railroads' tracks).
During the 20th century, the US Retail Sector became the strongest in the world. US retailers pioneered many innovative concepts that later spread around the world, including:
-inventory bar codes to ease the tedium of accurately tallying purchases,
-"big box" chain stores
-factory outlet stores
-warehouse club stores
-modern shopping centers.
American consumer culture, as well as Hollywood movies and many forms of popular music, books, and art, all established the United States as the cultural center of the world. Which is actually disputed by some, that The United States has no REAL culture, that our culture is mostly a collection of various immigrants.
With the aid of generous federal funding as part of the defense-industrial complex and later, under the Higher Education Act, American universities established themselves as the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Among those are Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Which are called "Ivy League."
Today, they are rivaled only by a handful of universities in the UK, mainland Europe, and Asia.
SO there you have it...a brief yet extensive history of The United States of America! I'm sure most tourists, including those who avidly visit The USA, will not care all too much about it's history.
However if you're planning to become a citizen much of The USA's history must be learned as you will be tested!
This is only part 1 of USA tourist/Immigration information.
No comments:
Post a Comment