Historical+Images



The first known inhabitants of modern-day [|United States territory] are believed to have arrived over a period of several thousand years beginning sometime prior to 15,000 - 50,000 years ago by crossing [|Beringia] into Alaska.[|[][|1][|]][|[][|2][|]] Solid evidence of these cultures settling in what would become the US is dated to around 14,000 years ago.[|[][|3][|]] Research has revealed much about the early [|Native American] settlers of [|North America] as indicated by [|Cyrus Thomas].[|[][|4][|]] Columbus' men were the first documented [|Old Worlders] to land in the territory of what is now the United States when they arrived in [|Puerto Rico] during their second voyage in 1493.[|[][|5][|]] [|Juan Ponce de León], who arrived in [|Florida] in 1513,[|[][|6][|]] is credited as being the first European to land in what is now the [|continental United States], although some evidence suggests that [|John Cabot] might have reached what is presently [|New England] in 1498.[|[][|7][|]][|[][|8][|]] In its beginnings, the United States of America consisted only of the [|Thirteen Colonies], which consisted of states occupying the same lands as when they were British colonies. American colonists fought off the British army in the [|American Revolutionary War] of the 1770s and issued a [|Declaration of Independence] in 1776. Seven years later, the signing of the [|Treaty of Paris] officially recognized independence from Britain.[|[][|9][|]] In the nineteenth century, westward expansion of United States territory began, upon the belief of [|Manifest Destiny], in which the United States would occupy all the North American land east to west, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. By 1912, with the admission of[|Arizona] to the Union, the U.S. reached that goal. The outlying states of Alaska and Hawaii were both admitted in 1959. Ratified in 1788, the [|Constitution] serves as the supreme American law in organizing the [|government]; the [|Supreme Court] is responsible for upholding Constitutional law. Many social progresses came up starting in the nineteenth century; those advancements have been widely reflected in the Constitution. [|Slavery] was [|abolished] in 1865 by the[|Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution]; the following [|Fourteenth] and [|Fifteenth] Amendments respectively guaranteed citizenship for all persons naturalized within U.S. territory and voting for people of all races. In later years, civil rights were extended to women and black Americans, following effective lobbying from social activists. The [|Nineteenth Amendment] prohibited gender discrimination in [|voting rights]; later, the [|Civil Rights Act of 1964] outlawed [|racial segregation] in public places. The [|Progressive Era] marked a time of economic growth for the United States, advancing to the [|Roaring Twenties]. However, the [|Wall Street Crash of 1929] led to the [|Great Depression], a time of economic downturn and mass unemployment. Consequently, the U.S. government established the [|New Deal], a series of reform programs that intended to assist those affected by the Depression. The New Deal has varied success. However, once the U.S. entered [|World War II] in December 1941, the economy quickly recovered, so much that the U.S. became a world [|superpower] by the dawn of the [|Cold War]. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the [|Soviet Union] were the world's two superpowers, but with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, United States became the world's only superpower.

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