native Americans (30-40000 years ago)

- from Asia crossed the frozen sea

= Indians
- agriculture, hunting, gathering, fishing
Vikings (1000 AD)
- first Europeans, no permanent settlements
- Leif Ericsson
Christopher Columbus (12th October 1492)
- Bahama Islands in the Caribbean (instead of India)
- tobacco, potatoes, spice to Europe
- Columbus Day
Amerigo Vespucci
- the continent named after him
- described the new lands, said that Columbus had been the discoverer
French, Spanish, Dutch or English explorers established new settlements, e.g.
- the Spanish – Florida – St Augustine (the oldest settlement by Europeans)
- the French – Louisiana territory
- the Dutch – New Amsterdam
first English colony – in Virginia, unsuccessful attempt (sir Walter Raleigh, 1584)
Jamestown Colony – first successful permanent settlement (Captain John Smith, 1607)
Plymouth Colony – second successful permanent settlement
- Pilgrim Fathers = Puritans persecuted in Britain
- from Plymouth in 1620, Mayflower, 102 people, 1621 the first Thanksgiving
late 17th century – 13 colonies
the Dutch bought Manhattan Island - New Amsterdam, seized by the British, renamed New York (1626)
Harvard College (John Harvard, sponsor; 1636)
New England concentrated on trade x Virginia grew tobacco
slavery was introduced
triangular trade: Europe – manufactured goods / American – fish, fur, wood, tobacco / Africa – slaves
acts introduced by the British Parliament, high taxes on goods
colonists were not represented in British parliament; their motto – no taxation without representation
resulted in The Boston Tea Party (tea thrown into the sea, 1773)
The War of Independence (1775 – 1783, The Revolutionary War)
- the British against the patriots
- George Washington
- British defeated at Yorktown (1781)
- the Treaty of Paris (1783) = end of the War of Independence; a free, sovereign, independent state
The Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776)
- signed by the Continental Congress (began to work as a national government)
- in Philadelphia
- the chief author: Thomas Jefferson
Constitutional Convention (1787)
- Founding Fathers (Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, …)
- in Philadelphia
- Constitution adopted (officially 1790); Bill of Rights added (1791, the first 10 amendments)
George Washington (1st president – Washington, D.C.)
Thomas Jefferson (3rd president – Louisiana purchased from France)
19th century:
- pioneers – frontier moved to the west (new land, hard life)
- new parts colonised
- transcontinental railroad
- Indian wars
- gold rush in California, Klondike
- population growth (immigrants)
slavery became a question
southern and northern states differed much in economy
- industrial north (factories, manufactured goods, growing cities) = the North
republicans, later Union; against slavery
 - agricultural south (farms, plantations, dependant on labour of slaves) = the South
democrats, later Confederation; defended slavery
Abraham Lincoln president (republican, against slavery, 1860)
11 states left the Union = created a new government, called themselves Confederation
Civil War (1861 – 1865)
- the main reason = abolition of slavery
- the war between the South and the North
- General Lee (Confed.) surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant (Union) – 1865
- shortly after that Lincoln assassinated (Ford´s Theatre) – John Wilkes Booth
Emancipation Proclamation issued by Lincoln (1862, slavery abolished, segregation continued)
Ku-Klux-Klan founded (a secret organisation against the rights for African Americans)
the following years
- US becoming a world power
- Alaska bought from Russia
- urbanization
- immigrants from Europe
World War I
- Woodrow Wilson – president
- profited from selling goods to fighting countries
- 1917: sinking several American ships – Congress declared war on the Central Powers
- attempt to create a League of nations
1920´s
- time of prosperity, economic growth
- Henry Ford, time of building (skyscrapers), jazz, Charleston, silent movie – Charlie Chaplin,
prohibition
Black Thursday (24 October, 1929)
- stock market crash in NY (world crisis started)
- result: unemployment, poverty all around the world
- New Deal – big reformation, anti-crisis measures
World War II
- Roosevelt – president, the USA were neutral
- Pearl Harbour (Hawaiian Islands, attack by Japanese, war declared in 1941)
- invasion in Normandy (6th June, 1944 – Overlord)
Manhattan Project
- development of an atomic bomb
- Hiroshima, Nagasaki – August 1945
founding of NATO (a military alliance, 1949)
Cold War after the WWII
- tension between the USA and the Soviet Union (Western and Eastern Bloc)
Marshall plan
Korean War (1950 – 1953)
- UN forces incl. American soldiers – South Korea vs. China – North Korea
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
- threat of nuclear war, President Kennedy
- installation of Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba – Kennedy responded with a naval quarantine
president J. F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas 1963 (his brother Robert assassinated in 1968)
Martin Luther King - civil rights movement to end racial discrimination, Nobel Peace Prize (assassinated 1968)
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin – the first men on the Moon (1969)
Vietnam War (1955 – 1973)
- against communist forces
- regarded as an unsuccessful military effort, opposed in the US
Watergate Affair (1974)
- president Richard Nixon resigned, involved in bribing
terrorist attacks – WTC (2001) – New York City, Pentagon, Pennsylvania
Barack Obama (2009)