History of the United States

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History of the
United States

This article is part of a
series

Timeline

Pre-Colonial
period

Colonial
period

1776–1789

1789–1849

1849–1865

1865–1918

1918–1945

1945–1964

1964–1980

1980–1991

1991–present

Topic

Westward
expansion

Overseas
expansion

Diplomatic
history

Military
history

Technological
and industrial history

Economic
history

Cultural
history

Civil War

History
of the South

Civil
Rights (1896–1954)

Civil
Rights (1955–1968)

Women's
history

United States
Portal

v • d • e

The history of the United States traditionally starts with the Declaration
of Independence in 1776, yet its territory was occupied first by the Native
Americans since prehistoric times and then also by European
colonists following the discovery of the New World by Christopher
Columbus in 1492. The Thirteen Colonies won
independence from the British Empire in the American Revolution
and as states ratified the Articles of
Confederation and then the Constitution
in 1789 as the basis for the United
States federal government. The young nation continued to struggle with the
scope of central government and with European influence, spurring the first political
parties, the War of 1812, and the Monroe Doctrine.

U.S. territory grew westward across North America but was opposed on the
frontier by Native Americans, Mexico, and others, and domestically by those
fearing the expansion would shift the balance of power from one region to
another. Slavery of
Africans in the Southern states
became the divisive issue between North and
South, requiring compromises for further expansion. The election of Abraham Lincoln sparked
a crisis as eleven slave states
seceded to found the Confederate
States of America in 1861, and led to the catastrophic, four-year American Civil War.
The South was defeated and, in the Reconstruction
era, the U.S. ended slavery, began extending rights to African Americans, and
readmitted secessionist states with loyal governments. The present 48 contiguous
states were admitted by early 1912.

The U.S. rose as an industrialized power
by the early 20th century. Changes in lifestyle led to the Progressive movement,
which pushed for reform in industry and politics and is associated with women's
suffrage and Prohibition
(the latter failed by 1933). Initially committed to neutrality, the U.S.
eventually entered World War I in 1917, and
despite U.S. attempts to foster the League of Nations,
popular support remained isolationist. The Wall Street Crash
of 1929 punctuated the onset of the Great Depression, to
which the federal government responded with New Deal recovery programs. The
Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor in 1941 pulled the nation into World War II alongside the
Allies, and
helped defeat Nazi Germany in Europe and,
with the detonation of newly-invented atomic bombs, Japan in Asia and the
Pacific.

The Soviet Union and the U.S.
emerged as opposing superpowers after the war,
and with mutually
assured destruction of the Atomic Age discouraging
direct conflict, they began the Cold War confronting on other
fronts including an arms race, the Space
Race, and intervention in Europe and eastern Asia. Liberalism
reflected in the civil rights
movement and opposition
to the Vietnam War peaked in the 1960s–70s before giving way to conservatism
in the early 1980s. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union
dissolved in 1991, leaving the U.S. to prosper in the booming Information Age economy
that was boosted, at least in part, by information
technology. International conflict and economic uncertainty heightened by
2001 with the September 11
attacks and subsequent War on Terror and the late-2000s
recession.

Contents

1 Pre-Columbian
era

2 Colonial period

2.1 Spanish exploration and
colonization

2.2 Dutch
colonization

2.3 French
colonization

2.4 British
colonization

2.5 Political integration
and autonomy

3 Formation of the United
States of America (1776–1789)

4 Early national era
(1789–1849)

5 Civil War era
(1849–1865)

5.1 Civil
War

6 Reconstruction and a rise
in power (1865–1918)

6.1 Reconstruction

6.2 Gilded Age and
Progressivism

6.3 Imperialism and World
War I

6.4 Women's
suffrage

7 Roaring Twenties, the Great
Depression, and World War II (1918–1945)

7.1 Great
Depression

7.2 World War II

7.2.1 Battle against
Germany

7.2.2 Battle against
Japan

8 The Cold War begins
(1945–1964)

9 Climax of
liberalism

9.1 The Civil Rights
Movement

9.2 The Women's
Movement

10 The Counterculture
Revolution and Cold War Détente (1964–1980)

11 The end of the Cold War
(1980–1991)

12 The World Superpower
(1991–present)

12.1 9/11 and the War on
Terror

12.2 Worldwide
recession

12.3 Recent
events

13 See also

14 Notes

15 References

16 Further
reading

17 External
links

[edit]
Pre-Columbian era

Main article: Pre-Columbian
era

See also: Native
Americans in the United States

The first residents of what is now the United States emigrated from Asia over 30,000[1]
years ago by crossing Beringia into what is now
present-day Alaska then headed south. Archaeological
evidence of these people, the ancestors of the Native
Americans, dates back to 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago.[2][3][4]

The pre-Columbian era
incorporates all period
subdivisions in the history and
prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences
on the American continents,
spanning the time of the original
settlement in the Upper Paleolithic
period to European
colonization during the Early Modern period.
While technically referring to the era before Christopher
Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the
history of American
indigenous cultures until they were conquered or significantly influenced by
Europeans, even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus'
initial landing.

[edit]
Colonial period

Main article: Colonial
history of the United States

The Mayflower, which transported
Pilgrims to the New World.
During the first winter at Plymouth, about half of the Pilgrims died.[5]

After a period of exploration by people from various European countries, Spanish, Dutch, English, French, Swedish, and Portuguese
settlements were established. Although Leif Ericson was the first
European to arrive in North America, Christopher
Columbus was the first European to set foot on what would one day become US
territory when he came to Puerto Rico on November 19,
1493, during his second voyage.

In the 16th century, Europeans brought horses, cattle, and hogs to the
Americas and, in turn, took back to Europe maize, potatoes, tobacco, beans, and squash. The disease
environment was very unhealthy for explorers and early settlers. The Indians
became exposed to new diseases such as smallpox and measles and died
in very large numbers, usually before large-scale European settlement
began.

[edit]
Spanish
exploration and colonization

See also: New Spain

Coronado Sets Out to the North (1540) by Frederic Remington,
oil on canvas, 1905.

Spanish explorers came to what is now the United States beginning with Christopher
Columbus' second
expedition, which reached Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493; others reached
Florida in 1513.[6]

Quickly Spanish expeditions reached the Appalachian
Mountains, the Mississippi River, the
Grand
Canyon[7]
and the Great Plains. In 1540, Hernando de Soto
undertook an extensive exploration of the present US and, in the same year, Francisco
Vázquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Native Mexican Americans across
the modern Arizona–Mexico border and
traveled as far as central Kansas.[8]
Other Spanish explorers include Lucas
Vásquez de Ayllón, Pánfilo de
Narváez, Sebastián
Vizcaíno, Juan Rodríguez
Cabrillo, Gaspar de
Portolà, Pedro
Menéndez de Avilés, Álvar
Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Tristán de
Luna y Arellano and Juan de Oñate. The
Spanish sent some settlers, creating the first permanent European settlement in
the continental United States at St. Augustine,
Florida in 1565, but it was in such a harsh political environment that it
attracted few settlers and never expanded. Much larger and more important
Spanish settlements included Santa Fe, Albuquerque, San
Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los
Angeles and San Francisco. Most
Spanish settlements were along the California coast or
the Santa Fe
River in New Mexico.[9]

[edit]
Dutch colonization

Further information: New Netherland

New Netherland and New Sweden

Nieuw-Nederland, or New Netherland, was the 17th century Dutch
colonial province on the eastern
coast of North America. The Dutch claimed territory from the Delmarva Peninsula to
Buzzards Bay, while their
settlements concentrated on the Hudson River Valley, where they traded furs with
the Indians to the north and were a barrier to Yankee expansion from New
England. Their capital, New Amsterdam, was located
at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was renamed New
York when the English seized the colony in 1664. The Dutch were Calvinists
who built the Reformed Church
in America, but they were tolerant of other religions and cultures. The
colony left an enduring legacy on American cultural and political life,
including a secular broadmindedness and mercantile pragmatism in the city, a
rural traditionalism in the countryside typified by the story of Rip
Van Winkle, and politicians such as Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt,
Franklin D.
Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.[10]

[edit]
French colonization

The 22 parishes of Acadiana; the Cajun heartland
of Louisiana is highlighted in darker red.

New
France was the area colonized
by France in North America during a period extending 1534 to 1763, when
Britain and Spain took control. There were few permanent settlers outside Quebec, but fur
traders ranged working with numerous Indian tribes who often became military
allies in France's wars with Britain. The territory was divided into five
colonies: Canada, Acadia, Hudson
Bay, Newfoundland and
Louisiana. After
1750 the Acadians—French settlers who
had been expelled by the British from Acadia (Nova Scotia)—resettled in
Louisiana, where they developed a distinctive rural Cajun culture that still exists.
They became American citizens in 1803 with the Louisiana
Purchase.[11]
Other French villages along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers were
absorbed when the Americans started arriving after 1770.

[edit]
British colonization

Further information: British
colonization of the Americas

In 1607, the Virginia Company of
London established the Jamestown
Settlement on the James River, both
named after King James
I

The strip of land along the eastern seacoast was settled primarily by English
colonists in the 17th century, along with much smaller numbers of Dutch
and Swedes. Colonial
America was defined by a severe labor shortage that employed forms of unfree
labor such as slavery and indentured
servitude,[12]
and by a British policy of benign neglect (salutary neglect) that
permitted the development of an American spirit distinct from that of its
European founders.[13]
Over half of all European migrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured
servants.[14]

The first successful English colony was established in 1607, on the James River at Jamestown. It
languished for decades until a new wave of settlers arrived in the late 17th
century and established commercial agriculture based on tobacco. Between the
late 1610s and the Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 convicts
to their American colonies.[15]
During the Georgian era English
officials exiled 1,000 prisoners across the Atlantic every year.[16]
One example of conflict between Native Americans and English settlers was the
1622 Powhatan
uprising in Virginia, in which Native Americans had killed hundreds of English
settlers. The largest conflict between Native Americans and English settlers in
the 17th century was King Philip's War in
New
England,[17]
although the Yamasee War may have been
bloodier.[18]

The Plymouth Colony was
established in 1620. New England was initially
settled primarily by Puritans who established the Massachusetts Bay
Colony in 1630.[19]
The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were
characterized by a large degree of diversity. The first attempted English
settlement south of Virginia was the Province of
Carolina, with Georgia Colony the last
of the Thirteen Colonies
established in 1733.[20]
Several colonies were used as penal settlements from
the 1620s until the American Revolution.[21]
Methodism
became the prevalent religion among colonial citizens after the First Great
Awakening, a religious revival led by preacher Jonathan
Edwards in 1734.[19]

[edit]
Political
integration and autonomy

Join, or Die: This 1756
political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin urged the colonies to join together
during the French and Indian War.

The French and Indian
War (1754–1763) was a watershed event in the political development of the
colonies. The influence of the main rivals of the British Crown in the colonies
and Canada, the French and North American Indians, was significantly reduced.
Moreover, the war effort resulted in greater political integration of the
colonies, as symbolized by Benjamin Franklin's call for the colonies to "Join or
Die".

Following Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America, King George III issued
the Royal
Proclamation of 1763 with the goal of organizing the new North American
empire and stabilizing relations with the native Indians. In ensuing years,
strains developed in the relations between the colonists and the Crown. The British Parliament
passed the Stamp Act of 1765,
imposing a tax on the colonies to help pay for troops stationed in North America
following the British
victory in the Seven Years' War.

The British government felt that the colonies were the primary beneficiaries
of this military presence, and should pay at least a portion of the expense. The
colonists did not share this view. Rather, with the French and Indian threat
diminished, the primary outside influence remained that of Britain. A conflict
of economic interests increased with the right of the British Parliament to
govern the colonies without representation being called into question.

Nathaniel Currier's
1846 depiction of the Boston Tea Party.[22]

The Boston Tea Party in
1773 was a direct action by colonists in the town of Boston to protest against the
taxes levied by the British government. Parliament responded the next year with
the Coercive Acts, which
sparked outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies.
Colonists convened the First Continental
Congress to coordinate their resistance to the Coercive Acts. The Congress
called for a boycott of British
trade, published a list of rights and
grievances, and petitioned the
king for redress of those grievances.

The Congress also called for another meeting if their petition did not halt
enforcement of the Coercive Acts. Their appeal to the Crown had no effect, and
so the Second
Continental Congress was convened in 1775 to organize the defense of the
colonies at the onset of the American
Revolutionary War.

[edit]
Formation of the United States of America
(1776–1789)

Main article: History
of the United States (1776–1789)

Washington's
crossing of the Delaware River, one of the rebels' first successes in the
Revolutionary War

The Thirteen Colonies
began a rebellion against British rule in 1775 and proclaimed their independence
in 1776 as the United States of America. The United States defeated Britain with
help from France especially, and also the United Provinces and
indirectly from Spain in the American
Revolutionary War. The colonists' 1777 capture of the British invasion army
at Saratoga secured the
Northeast and led the French into an open alliance with the United States.[23]

In 1781, Washington led a combined American and French army, acting with the
support of a French fleet, and captured a large British
army led by General Cornwallis
at Yorktown, Virginia,
thus virtually ending the land war. Political scientist Seymour Martin
Lipset observes, "The United States was the first major colony successfully
to revolt against colonial rule. In this sense, it was the first 'new
nation'."[24]

Trumbull's
Declaration of Independence

On July 4, 1776, the Second
Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, declared the
independence of "the United States of America" in the Declaration
of Independence. July 4 is celebrated as the nation's birthday. The new
nation was founded on Enlightenment
ideals of liberalism in what Thomas Jefferson called
the inalienable rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and
dedicated to republican
principles. Republicanism emphasized the people are sovereign (not hereditary
kings), demanded civic duty, feared corruption, and opposed aristocracy.[25]
The new nation was governed by Congress, and until 1789 followed the Articles of
Confederation of 1777.

After the war finally ended in 1783, there was a period of prosperity, with
the entire world at peace.[citation
needed] The national government was able to settle the issue of
the western territories, which were ceded by the states to Congress and became
territories (and after 1791 started to become states). Nationalists worried that
the new nation was too fragile to withstand an international war, or even
internal revolts such as the Shays' Rebellion of
1786 in Massachusetts. Nationalists—most of them war veterans—organized in every
state and convinced Congress to call the Philadelphia
Convention in 1787. The delegates from every state wrote a new Constitution
that created a much more powerful and efficient central government, one with a
strong president, and powers of taxation. The new government reflected the
prevailing republican ideals of guarantees of individual liberty and
upon constraining the power of government through a system of separation of
powers.[26]

To assuage the Anti-Federalists who feared a too-powerful national
government, the nation adopted the United States
Bill of Rights in 1791. Comprising the first ten amendments of the
Constitution, it guaranteed individual liberties such as freedom of speech and
religious practice, jury trials, and stated that citizens and states had
reserved rights (which were not specified).[27]

[edit]
Early
national era (1789–1849)

Main article: History
of the United States (1789–1849)

See also: First Party
System and Second Party
System

Economic growth in America per capita
income

George Washington—a
renowned hero of the American
Revolutionary War, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and
president of the Constitutional
Convention—became the first President of
the United States under the new Constitution
in 1789.

The major accomplishments of the Washington
Administration were creating a strong national government that was
recognized without question by all Americans, and, following the plans of
Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton,
assuming the debts of the states (the debt holders received federal bonds),
creating the Bank of the
United States to stabilize the financial system, setting up a uniform system
of tariffs (taxes on imports) and other taxes to pay off the debt and provide a
financial infrastructure. To support his programs Hamilton created a new
political party—the first in the world based on voters—the Federalist
Party. Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison led the opposition, forming an opposition Republican Party (usually
called the Democratic-Republican
Party by historians). Hamilton and Washington presented the country in 1794
with the Jay Treaty that reestablished
good relations with Britain. The Jeffersonians vehemently protested, and the
voters aligned behind one party or the other, thus setting up the First Party System.
The treaty passed, but politics became very heated.[28]

The Whiskey Rebellion in
1794, when settlers in the Pennsylvania counties west
of the Allegheny Mountains
protested against a federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks, was the first
serious test of the federal government.[29]

At the end of his second presidential term, George Washington made his
farewell address, which was published in the newspaper Independent
Chronicle on September 26, 1796. In his address, Washington triumphed the
benefits of federal government and importance of ethics and morality while
warning against foreign alliances and formation of political parties.[30]

Vice President John Adams, a Federalist,
defeated Jefferson in the 1796 election. War loomed with France and the
Federalists used the opportunity to try to silence the Republicans with the Alien and Sedition
Acts, build up a large army with Hamilton at the head, and prepare for a
French invasion. However, the Federalists became divided after Adams sent a
successful peace mission to France that ended the Quasi-War of 1798. In 1800
Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency in the 1800
election.[31]

Territorial expansion of the United States,
omitting Oregon and other claims.

Although the Constitution included a Supreme
Court, its functions were vague until John Marshall, the Chief
Justice (1801–35), defined them, especially the power to overturn acts of
Congress that violated the Constitution, first enunciated in 1803 in Marbury v.
Madison.[32]
The Louisiana Purchase,
in 1803, removed the French presence from the western border of the United
States and provided US settlers with vast potential for expansion west of the Mississippi River.[33]

In response to multiple grievances, the Congress declared
war on Britain
in 1812. The grievances included humiliating the Americans in the Chesapeake
incident of 1807, continued British impressment of American
sailors into the Royal Navy, restrictions on
trade with France, and arming hostile Indians in Ohio and the western
territories.[34]
The War
of 1812 ended in a draw after bitter fighting that lasted until January 8,
1815, during the Battle of New
Orleans. The Americans gained no territory but were cheered by a sense of
victory in what they called a "second war of independence". The war was a major
loss for Native
American tribes in the Northwest and Southeast who had allied themselves
with Britain and were defeated on the battlefield.

As strong opponents of the war, the Federalists held the Hartford Convention
in 1814 that hinted at disunion. National euphoria after the victory at New
Orleans ruined the prestige of the Federalists and they no longer played a
significant role.[35]
President Madison and most Republicans realized it had been a mistake to let the
Bank of the United States close down, for its absence greatly hindered the
financing of the war. So they chartered the Second Bank
of the United States in 1816. The Republicans also imposed tariffs designed
to protect the infant industries that had been created when Britain was
blockading the U.S. With the collapse of the Federalists as a party, the
adoption of many Federalist principles by the Republicans, and the systematic
policy of President James Monroe in his two
terms (1817–25) to downplay partisanship, the nation entered an Era of Good
Feelings, with far less partisanship than before (or after), and closed out
the First Party
System.[36][37]

The Monroe Doctrine,
expressed in 1823, proclaimed the United States' opinion that European powers
should no longer colonize or interfere in the Americas. This was a defining
moment in the foreign
policy of the United States. The Monroe Doctrine was adopted in response to
American and British fears over Russian and French expansion into the Western
Hemisphere.[38]

Settlers crossing the Plains of
Nebraska

In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act,
which authorized the president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Native
American tribal lands in the eastern states for lands west of the Mississippi
River. This established Andrew Jackson, a
military hero and President, as a cunning tyrant in regards to native
populations.[clarification
needed] The act resulted most notably in the Trail
of Tears, a forced migration of several native tribes to the West, with
several thousand people dying en route, and the Creeks' violent
opposition and eventual defeat. The Indian Removal Act also directly caused the
ceding of Spanish Florida and led
to the many Seminole Wars.[39]

After 1840 the abolitionist movement
redefined itself, mobilized its supporters (especially among religious people in
the Northeast affected by the Second Great
Awakening), escalated its attacks, and proclaimed slave ownership a sin, not
just an unfortunate social evil. It gained tens of thousands of followers. William Lloyd
Garrison published the most influential of the many anti-slavery newspapers,
The
Liberator, while Frederick Douglass,
an ex-slave, began writing for that newspaper around 1840 and started his own
abolitionist newspaper North Star in
1847.[40]

The Republic of Texas was
annexed in 1845.[41]
The US army, using regulars and
large numbers of volunteers, defeated Mexico in 1848 during the Mexican-American
War. Public sentiment in the US was divided as Whigs[42]
and anti-slavery forces[43]
opposed the war. The 1848 Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded California, New
Mexico, and adjacent areas to the United States, about thirty percent of
Mexico. Westward expansion was enhanced further by the California Gold
Rush, the discovery of gold in that state in 1848.
Numerous "forty-niners"
trekked to California in pursuit of gold; land-hungry European immigrants also
contributed to the rising white population in the west.[19]
In 1849 cholera
spread along the California and Oregon
Trails. An estimated 150,000 Americans died during the two cholera pandemics
between 1832 and 1849.[44]

[edit]
Civil War era
(1849–1865)

Main article: History
of the United States (1849–1865)

The Union: blue
(free), yellow (slave);
The Confederacy:
brown
*territories in light shades

In the middle of the 19th century, white Americans of the North and South were to
reconcile fundamental differences in their approach to government, economics,
society and African American
slavery. The issue of slavery in the new territories was settled by the Compromise of 1850
brokered by Whig Henry Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas; the
Compromise included admission of California as a free state
and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act to
make it easier for masters to reclaim runaway slaves.[41]
In 1854, the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act
abrogated the Missouri Compromise
by providing that each new state of the Union would decide its stance on
slavery.[45]

By 1860, there were nearly four million slaves residing in the United States,
nearly eight times as many from 1790; within the same time period, cotton production in
the U.S. boomed from less than a thousand tons to nearly one million tons per
year. There were some slave rebellions—including by Gabriel Prosser (1800),
Denmark Vesey (1822), and
Nat
Turner (1831)—but they all failed and led to tighter slave oversight in the
south.[46]

Abraham Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton and
Major General John Alexander
McClernand at the Battle of
Antietam.

After Abraham Lincoln won the
1860
election, eleven Southern states seceded from the union between late 1860
and 1861, establishing a new government, the Confederate
States of America, on February 8, 1861.[47]
Along with the northwestern portion of Virginia, four of the five northernmost
"slave states" did
not secede and became known as the Border
States.[47]

[edit]
Civil War

Further information: American Civil
War

The Civil War began
on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces
attacked a US military installation at Fort Sumter in South
Carolina.[48]
In response to the attack, on April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send
detachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the capital, and
"preserve the Union", which in his view still existed intact despite the actions
of the seceding states. The two armies had their first major clash at the First Battle of
Bull Run, which ended in a surprising Union defeat, but, more importantly,
proved to both the Union and Confederacy that the war was going be much longer
and bloodier than they had originally anticipated.

The war soon divided into two theaters: Eastern
and Western.
In the western theater, the Union was quite successful, with major battles, such
as Perryville,
producing strategic Union victories and destroying major confederate
operations.

Anger at military conscription during the American
Civil War led to the New York Draft
Riots of 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American
history. The city's Irish and Excelsior brigades
were among the five Union brigades with the most combat dead.

In the Eastern theater, things did not start well for the Union. In the
summer of 1861, General Irvin McDowell was given
the task of destroying the Confederacy in one quick battle with the newly
created Army of
Northeastern Virginia. Union and Confederate forces engaged in combat at
Manassas Junction (Bull Run), which resulted in a surprising Union defeat due in
part to steadfast Confederate defense. Following McDowell's failure, Major
General George B. McClellan
was put in charge of the Union armies. After reorganizing the new Army of the Potomac,
McClellan too failed to do so in his Peninsula Campaign
and retreated after
attacks from newly appointed Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Feeling confident in his army after the Union defeat at the Second Bull Run, Lee
decided to embark on an invasion of the north.
However, his entire battle plan (Special Order 191) was
discovered by two Union soldiers, and thus, McClellan could intercept and
strategically stop Lee at the bloody Battle of Antietam.
Despite this, McClellan was relieved from command for refusing to pursue Lee's
crippled army. The next commander General Ambrose Burnside
suffered a humiliating defeat by Lee's smaller army at the Battle of
Fredericksburg late in 1862, resulted in the Union retreat, more
recriminations and yet another change in commanders. Lee won again at the Battle of
Chancellorsville in May 1863, while losing his top aide, Stonewall Jackson. But
Lee pushed too hard and ignored the Union threat in the west.[citation
needed] Lee invaded Pennsylvania in search of supplies and to
cause war weariness in the North. In perhaps the turning
point of the war, Lee's army was badly beaten at the Battle of
Gettysburg, July 1–3, 1863, and barely made it back to Virginia.

Simultaneously on July 4, 1863, Union forces under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant gained
control of the Mississippi River at the Battle of Vicksburg,
thereby splitting the Confederacy. Lincoln made General Grant commander of all
Union armies.

The last two years of the war was bloody for both sides, with Grant launching
a war of attrition
against General Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia. This war of attrition was divided into three main campaigns. The
first of these, the Overland Campaign
forced Lee to retreat into the city of Petersburg where Grant launched his
second major offensive, the Richmond-Petersburg
Campaign in which he sieged Petersburg.
After a near ten-month siege, Petersburg surrendered. However, the defense of Fort
Gregg allowed Lee to move his army out of Petersburg. Grant pursued and
launched the final, Appomattox Campaign
which resulted in Lee surrendering his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9,
1865, at Appomattox Court
House.[47]
When word of Lee's surrender spread across the country, many Confederate armies
also surrendered, with Stand Watie being the last
of the generals.

Based on 1860 census
figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in
the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South,[49]
establishing the American Civil War as the deadliest war in American history.
Its legacy includes ending slavery in the United States, restoring the Union,
and strengthening the role of the federal government. The social, political,
economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the Reconstruction
era, which lasted through 1877, and brought about changes that would
eventually help make the country a united superpower.

[edit]
Reconstruction and a rise in power (1865–1918)

Main article: History
of the United States (1865–1918)

[edit]
Reconstruction

Further information: Reconstruction
era of the United States

Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad (1869)
at First
Transcontinental Railroad, by Andrew J. Russell

Reconstruction
took place for most of the decade following the Civil War. During this era, the
"Reconstruction
Amendments" were passed to expand civil rights for black Americans. Those
amendments included the Thirteenth
Amendment, which outlawed slavery, the Fourteenth
Amendment that guaranteed citizenship for all people born or naturalized
within U.S. territory, and the Fifteenth
Amendment that granted the vote for all men regardless of race. While the Civil Rights Act of
1875 forbade discrimination in the service of public facilities, the Black Codes
denied blacks privileges readily available to whites.[50]

In response to Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) emerged
around the late 1860s as a white-supremacist organization opposed to black civil
rights. Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of
1870 and vigorous enforcement closed down the Klan and classified the KKK as a
terrorist group. However, an 1883 Supreme
Court decision nullified the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and ended federal
efforts to stop private acts of violence designed to suppress legal rights.[51]

During the era, many regions of the southern U.S. were military-governed and often
corrupt; Reconstruction ended after the disputed 1876
election between Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes
and Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden. Hayes
won the election, and the South soon re-entered the national political
scene.[52]

[edit]
Gilded Age and
Progressivism

Further information: Gilded Age and Progressive Era

The "Gilded Age" was a term that
Mark
Twain used to describe the period of the late 19th century when there had
been a dramatic expansion of American wealth and prosperity. Reform of the Age
included the Civil
Service Act, which mandated a competitive examination for applicants for
government jobs. Other important legislation included the Interstate Commerce
Act, which ended railroads' discrimination against small shippers, and the
Sherman Antitrust
Act, which outlawed monopolies in business. Twain believed that this age was
corrupted by such elements as land speculators, scandalous politics, and
unethical business practices.[53]

By century's end, American industrial production and per capita income
exceeded those of all other world nations and ranked only behind Great Britain.
In response to heavy debts and decreasing farm prices, wheat and cotton farmers
joined the Populist
Party.[54]
Later, an unprecedented wave of immigration
served both to provide the labor for American industry and create diverse
communities in previously undeveloped areas. From 1880 to 1914, peak years of
immigration, more than 22 million people migrated to the United States.[55]
Abusive industrial practices led to the often violent rise of the labor movement in the
United States.[56]
Influential figures of the period included John D. Rockefeller
and Andrew Carnegie.

Mulberry Street, along which Manhattan's Little Italy is
centered. Lower East
Side, circa 1900. Almost 97% of residents of the 10 largest American cities
of 1900 were non-Hispanic whites.[57]

Dissatisfaction on the part of the growing middle class with politics as
usual, and the failure to deal with increasingly important urban and industrial
problems, led to the emergence of the Progressive
Movement in the 1890s. In every major city and state, and at the national
level as well, and in education, medicine, and industry, the progressives called
for the modernization and reform of decrepit institutions, the elimination of
corruption in politics, and the introduction of efficiency as a criteria for
change. Leading politicians from both parties, most notably Theodore Roosevelt,
Charles Evans
Hughes, and Robert
LaFollette on the Republican side, and William Jennings
Bryan on the Democratic side, took up the cause of progressive reform. Women
became especially involved in demands for woman suffrage, prohibition, and
better schools; their most prominent leader was Jane Addams of Chicago.
Progressives implemented anti-trust laws and regulated such industries of
meat-packing, drugs, and railroads. Four new constitutional amendments—the Sixteenth
through Nineteenth—resulted
from progressive activism, bringing the federal income tax, direct election of
Senators, prohibition, and woman suffrage.[58]
The Progressive
Movement began in the 1890s and lasted through the 1920s; the most active
period was 1900-1918[59]

[edit]
Imperialism and World War
I

Further information: American
imperialism and World War I

The United States emerged as a world economic and military power after 1890.
The main episode was the Spanish–American
War, which began when Spain refused American demands to reform its
oppressive policies in Cuba. The "splendid little war", as
one official called it, involved a series of quick American victories on land
and at sea. At the Treaty of Paris
peace conference the United States acquired the Philippines, Puerto
Rico, and Guam.
Cuba became an independent country, under close American tutelage. Although the
war itself was widely popular, the peace terms proved controversial. William
Jennings Bryan led his Democratic Party in opposition to control of the
Philippines, which he denounced as imperialism
unbecoming to American democracy. President William McKinley
defended the acquisition, and was riding high as the nation had returned to
prosperity and felt triumphant in the war. McKinley easily defeated Bryan in a
rematch in the 1900
presidential election. After defeating an insurrection
by Filipino nationalists, the United States engaged in a large scale program
to modernize the economy of the Philippines, and dramatically upgrade the public
health facilities.[60]
By 1908, however, Americans lost interest in an empire, and turned their
international attention to the Caribbean, and especially the building of the Panama
Canal. The canal opened in 1914, and increased trade with Japan and the rest
of the Far East. A key policy innovation was the Open Door Policy,
whereby the imperial powers were given equal access to Chinese business, with no
one of them allowed to take control of China.[61]

President Woodrow Wilson declared
U.S. entry into World War I in April 1917
following a yearlong neutrality policy; the U.S. had previously shown interest
in world peace by participating in the Hague Conferences.
American participation in the war proved essential to the Allied victory.
Wilson also implemented a set of propositions titled the Fourteen Points to
ensure peace, but they were denied at the 1919 Paris
Peace Conference. Isolationist sentiment following the war also blocked the
U.S. from participating in the League of Nations, an
important part of the Treaty of
Versailles.[19]

[edit]
Women's suffrage

Further information: Women's
suffrage in the United States

This section does not cite any
references or
sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable
sources. Unsourced material may be challenged
and removed.
(November 2010)

Alice Paul stands before the Woman Suffrage
Amendment's ratification banner. She immediately went on to write the Equal
Right Amendment, whose passage would become an important goal of the Women's
Liberation Movement half a century later.

These years of the early 20th century also saw the strengthening of the women's
suffrage movement. The movement had begun with the 1848 Seneca Falls
Convention, organized by Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and the Declaration of
Sentiments demanding equal rights for women. The women's rights campaign
during "first-wave feminism"
was led by Mott, Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy
Stone, and Julia Ward Howe, among
others. By the end of the 19th century only several states had granted women
full voting rights, though women had made significant legal victories, gaining
rights in areas such as property and child custody. In 1875 the Supreme Court
ruled women, too, were American citizens (but this did not give them the right
to vote).

Around 1912 the feminist movement,
which had grown sluggish, began to reawaken. Protests became increasingly common
as suffragette Alice Paul
led parades through the capital and major cities. Paul split from the large National
American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which favored a more moderate
approach and supported the Democratic Party and Woodrow Wilson, led by Carrie Chapman Catt,
and formed the more militant National Woman's
Party. Suffragists were arrested
during their "Silent Sentinels"
pickets at the White House, the first time such a tactic was used, and were
taken as political prisoners.
In prison they were tortured and force-fed while on hunger strikes led by Alice
Paul.

Finally, the suffragettes were ordered released from prison, and Wilson
addressed the Congress on women's suffrage, urging them to pass a Constitutional
amendment enfranchising women, which they did with the Nineteenth
Amendment in 1919. It became constitutional law on August 26, 1920, after
ratification by the 36th required state. NAWSA became the League of Women
Voters and the National Woman's Party began lobbying for full equality and
the Equal Rights
Amendment which would pass Congress during the second wave of the women's
movement in 1972. Following ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, a U.S.
Court ruled the arrests of the over two hundred suffragists as unconstitutional,
and the amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court after a legal challenge.

[edit]
Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and World War II
(1918–1945)

Main article: History
of the United States (1918–1945)

Following World War I, the U.S. grew steadily in stature as an economic and
military world power. The United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of
Versailles imposed by its Allies on the
defeated Central Powers; instead,
the United States chose to pursue unilateralism, if not isolationism.[62]
The aftershock of Russia's October Revolution
resulted in real fears of communism in the United
States, leading to a three-year Red Scare. In 1918 the
U.S. lost 675,000 people to the Spanish flu pandemic.[63]

Prohibition
agents destroying barrels of alcohol in Chicago, 1921

In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited
by the Eighteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution. Prohibition
encouraged illegal breweries and dealers to make substantial amounts of money
selling alcohol illegally. The Prohibition ended in 1933, a failure.
Additionally, the KKK re-formed during that decade and
gathered nearly 4.5 million members by 1924, and the U.S. government passed the
Immigration Act of
1924 restricting foreign immigration.[64]
The 1920s were also known as the Roaring Twenties, due
to the great economic prosperity during this period.[citation
needed] Jazz became popular among the
younger generation, and thus was also called the Jazz Age.

[edit]
Great Depression

Further information: Great Depression

Dorothea Lange's
Migrant Mother, depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on
a mother of seven children, age thirty-two, in Nipomo, California,
March 1936.

During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced
prosperity: farm prices and wages fell, while new industries and industrial
profits grew. The boom was fueled by an inflated stock market, which later
led to the Stock Market
Crash on October 29, 1929.[65]
This, along with many other
economic factors, triggered a worldwide depression known as
the Great Depression.
During this time, the United States experienced deflation,
unemployment soared from 3% in 1929 to 25% in 1933, and manufacturing output
collapsed by one-third.

In 1932, Democratic
presidential nominee Franklin D.
Roosevelt promised "a new deal for the American
people",[66]
a phrase that has endured as a label for his administration and its many
domestic achievements. The desperate economic situation, along with the
substantial Democratic victories in the 1932 elections, gave Roosevelt unusual
influence over Congress in the "First Hundred Days" of his administration. He
used his leverage to win rapid passage of a series of measures to create welfare
programs and regulate the banking system, stock market, industry and
agriculture, along with many other government efforts to end the Great
Depression and reform the American economy. Some programs that were a part of
Roosevelt's New
Deal include the Works Progress
Administration (WPA) relief program, the Social
Security Act, the Emergency Banking
Act, and the Economy Act. The recovery
was rapid in all areas except unemployment,[citation
needed] which decreased yet remained fairly high until 1940.[67]

[edit]
World War II

Further information: World War
II and United
States home front during World War II

This section needs additional citations
for verification.
Please
help improve this article by adding reliable
references. Unsourced material may be challenged
and removed.
(November 2010)

As with World War I, the United States did not enter World War II until after
the rest of the active Allied countries
had done so. The United States first contribution to the war was simultaneously
to cut off the oil and raw material supplies needed by the Empire of Japan to
maintain its offensive in
China, and to increase military and financial aid to China. Contribution
came to the Allies in September 1940 in the form of the Lend-Lease program with
Britain.

On December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor, an American naval base in Hawaii, citing America's recent
trade embargo as justification. The following day, Franklin D.
Roosevelt successfully urged a joint session of Congress to
declare war on Japan, calling December 7, 1941 "a date which will live in
infamy". Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 11, Nazi
Germany declared war on the United States, drawing the country into a
two-theater war.

[edit]
Battle against
Germany

Further information: Europe first

Upon entering the war, the United States and the Allies decided to
concentrate the bulk of their efforts on fighting Hitler in Europe,
while maintaining a defensive position in the Pacific until Hitler was defeated.
The United States's first step was to set up a large air force in Britain to
concentrate on bombing raids into Germany. Britain had ceased its daylight
bombing raids, due to heavy casualties inflicted by the Luftwaffe. The U.S. Army Air
Force suffered similar high losses until the introduction of the P-51 Mustang as a long
range escort fighter for the bombers.

Landing at Normandy at Battle of Normandy, by
Robert F. Sargent, United States Army.
Total U. S. military deaths in battle
and from other causes were 416,837.

The American army's first ground action was fighting alongside the British,
Australian and New Zealand armies in North Africa. By
May 1943, the British 8th Army had
expelled the Germans from North Africa and the Allies controlled this vital link
until the end of the war. The American navy also played an active role in the
Atlantic protecting the convoys bringing vital American war materiel to Britain.
By mid-1943, the Allies were fighting the war from Britain with unbroken supply
lines, while at the same time Hitler's armies were very much on the back foot,
with heavy bombing taking its toll on production.

By early 1944, a planned invasion of Western Europe was
underway. What followed on June 6, 1944, was Operation Overlord, or D-Day. The largest war
armada ever assembled landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the
penetration of Western Europe that eventually overthrew Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Following the landing, the Americans contributed greatly to the outcome of the
war, with dogged fighting in the Battle of the Bulge
resulting in Allied victories against the Germans.

The battles took a heavy toll on the Americans, who lost 19,000 men during
the Battle of the Bulge alone. The Allied bombing raids on Germany increased to
unprecedented levels after the D-Day invasion, with over 70% of all bombs
dropped on Germany occurring after this date. On April 30, 1945, with Berlin
completely overrun with Russian forces and his country in tatters, Adolf Hitler committed
suicide. On May 8, 1945, the war with Germany was
over, following its unconditional
surrender to the Allied forces.

[edit]
Battle against Japan

Further information: Pacific War

Due to the United States commitment to defeating Hitler in Europe, the first
years of the war against Japan was largely a defensive battle with the United States Navy
attempting to prevent the Japanese Navy
from asserting dominance of the Pacific region. Initially, Japan won most of its
battles in a short time. Japan quickly defeated and created military bases in Guam, Thailand, Malaya, Hong Kong,
Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and
Burma. This was
done virtually unopposed and with quicker speed than that of the German Blitzkrieg
during the early stages of the war. This was important for Japan, as it had only
10% of the homeland industrial production capacity of the United States.

Douglas MacArthur
lands at the Battle of Leyte, by U.S.
Army Signal Corps

The turning point of the war was the Battle of Midway in
June 1942. Following this, the Americans began fighting towards China where they
could build an airbase suitable to commence bombing of mainland Japan with its
B-29 Superfortress
fleet. The Americans began by selecting smaller, lesser defended islands as
targets as opposed to attacking the major Japanese strongholds. During this
period, they inadvertently triggered what would become their most comprehensive
victory in the entire war.

The Pacific war became the largest naval conflict in history. The American
Navy emerged victorious, after at one point being stretched near to the breaking
point, with almost complete destruction of the Japanese Navy. The American
forces were then poised for an invasion of the Japanese mainland, to force the
Japanese into unconditional
surrender. On April 12, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died and Vice
President Harry S. Truman was
sworn in as the 33rd President of the United States. The use of atomic weapons
against Japan was subsequently authorized.

The decision to use nuclear weapons to end
the conflict has been one of the most controversial decisions of the war.
Supporters of the use of the bombs argue that an invasion would have cost an
enormous numbers of lives, while opponents argue that the large number of
civilian casualties resulting from the bombings was unjustified. The first bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945,
and the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. On
August 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered
unconditionally, ending World War II. The Pacific war claimed the lives of
more than 100,000 US soldiers.[68]

[edit]
The Cold
War begins (1945–1964)

Main article: History
of the United States (1945–1964)

President Kennedy's Civil Rights
Address, June 11, 1963.

Following World War II, the United States emerged as one of the two dominant
superpowers. The U.S. Senate on a bipartisan
vote approved U.S. participation in the United Nations (UN),
which marked a turn away from the traditional isolationism of the U.S.
and toward more international involvement.

The primary American goal of 1945–48 was to rescue Europe from the
devastation of World War II and to contain the expansion of Communism, represented by the
Soviet
Union. The Truman Doctrine of 1947
provided military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey to counteract the threat
of Communist expansion in the Balkans. In 1948, the United States replaced
piecemeal financial aid programs with a comprehensive Marshall Plan, which
pumped money into the economy of Western Europe, and removed trade barriers,
while modernizing the managerial practices businesses and governments. The
Plan's $13 billion budget was in the context of a U.S. GDP of $258 billion in
1948, and was on top of $12 billion in American aid to Europe between the end of
the war and the start of the Marshall Plan. Soviet head of state Joseph
Stalin prevented his satellites from participating, and from that point on
Eastern Europe fell further and further behind Western Europe in terms of
economic development and prosperity. In 1949, the United States, rejecting the
long-standing policy of no military alliances in peacetime, formed the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which continues into the 21st
century. In response the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact of communist
states.[69]

In 1950 the Soviets tested their first nuclear weapon, thereby escalating the
risk of warfare. Indeed, the threat of mutually
assured destruction prevented both powers from going too far, and resulted
in proxy wars, especially in Korea and Vietnam,
in which the two sides did not directly confront each other.[70]
Within the United States, the Cold War prompted concerns about Communist influence.
The unexpected leapfrogging of American technology by the Soviets in 1957 with
Sputnik, the first Earth
satellite, began the Space Race, won by the
Americans as Apollo 11 landed astronauts on
the moon in 1969. The angst about the weaknesses of American education led to
large-scale federal support for science education and research.[71]

In the decades after World War II, the United States became a global
influence in economic, political, military, cultural, and technological affairs.
Beginning in the 1950s, middle-class culture had a growing obsession with
consumer goods. White Americans made up
nearly 90% of the population in 1950.[72][clarification
needed]

In 1960,
the charismatic politician John F. Kennedy was
elected as the first and—thus far—only Roman
Catholic President of the United States. The Kennedy family brought a new
life and vigor to the atmosphere of the White House. His time in
office was marked by such notable events as the acceleration of the United
States' role in the Space Race; escalation of the
American role in the Vietnam War; the Cuban missile
crisis; the Bay of Pigs
Invasion; the jailing of Martin Luther King,
Jr. during the Birmingham campaign;
and the appointment of his brother Robert F. Kennedy to
his Cabinet as Attorney
General. Kennedy was
assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November
22, 1963, leaving the nation in profound shock.[73]

[edit]
Climax of liberalism

The climax of liberalism came in the mid-1960s with the success of President
Lyndon B. Johnson
(1963–69) in securing congressional passage of his Great Society programs,
including civil rights, the end of segregation,
Medicare,
extension of welfare, federal aid to
education at all levels, subsidies for the arts and humanities, environmental
activism, and a series of programs designed to wipe out poverty.[74][75]
As recent historians have explained:

"Gradually, liberal intellectuals crafted a new vision for achieving
economic and social justice. The liberalism of the early 1960s contained no
hint of radicalism, little disposition to revive new deal era crusades against
concentrated economic power, and no intention to fast and class passions or
redistribute wealth or restructure existing institutions. Internationally it
was strongly anti-Communist. It aimed to defend the free world, to encourage
economic growth at home, and to ensure that the resulting plenty was fairly
distributed. Their agenda-much influenced by Keynesian economic
theory-envisioned massive public expenditure that would speed economic growth,
thus providing the public resources to fund larger welfare, housing, health,
and educational programs."[76]

Johnson was rewarded with an electoral
landslide in 1964 against conservative Barry Goldwater, which
broke the decades-long control of Congress by the Conservative
coalition. But the Republicans bounced back in 1966, and is the debit credit
party[clarification
needed] splintered five ways, Republicans elected Richard
Nixon in 1968. Nixon largely continued the New Deal and Great Society
programs he inherited; conservative reaction would come with the election of Ronald
Reagan in 1980.

[edit]
The Civil Rights
Movement

Further information: African-American
Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)

Martin Luther King
gives his I Have a Dream speech at
the 1963 March
on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Meanwhile, the American people completed a great migration from farms into
the cities and experienced a period of sustained economic expansion. At the same
time, institutionalized racism across
the United States, but especially in the South, was
increasingly challenged by the growing Civil
Rights movement. The activism of African American
leaders Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King,
Jr. led to the Montgomery Bus
Boycott, which launched the movement. For years African Americans would
struggle with violence against them, but would achieve great steps towards
equality with Supreme Court decisions, including Brown v. Board
of Education and Loving v.
Virginia, the Civil Rights Act of
1964, the Voting Rights Act
of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of
1968, which ended the Jim Crow laws that
legalized racial segregation
between Whites and Blacks.

Martin Luther King, Jr., who had won the Nobel Peace Prize for
his efforts to achieve equality of the races, was assassinated
in 1968. Following his death other leaders led the movement, most notably
King's widow, Coretta Scott King,
who was also active, like her husband, in the Opposition to
the Vietnam War, and in the Women's
Liberation Movement. Over the first nine months of 1967, 128 American cities
suffered 164 riots.[77]
The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the strengthening of Black Power, however the
decade would ultimately bring about positive strides toward integration.

[edit]
The Women's
Movement

Further information: Second-wave
feminism

Gloria Steinem at a
meeting of the Women's Action
Alliance, 1972.

A new consciousness of the inequality of American women began sweeping the
nation, starting with the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan's
best-seller, The Feminine
Mystique, which explained how many housewives felt trapped and
unfulfilled, assaulted American culture for its creation of the notion that
women could only find fulfillment through their roles as wives, mothers, and
keepers of the home, and argued that women were just as able as men to do every
type of job. In 1966 Friedan and others established the National
Organization for Women, or NOW, to act as an NAACP for women.[78][79]

Protests began, and the new Women's Liberation Movement grew in size and
power, gained much media attention, and, by 1968, had replaced the Civil Rights
Movement as the U.S.'s main social revolution. Marches, parades, rallies,
boycotts, and pickets brought out thousands, sometimes millions; Friedan's Women's Strike
for Equality (1970) was a nation-wide success. The Movement was split into
factions by political ideology early on, however (NOW on the left, the Women's
Equity Action League (WEAL) on the right, the National
Women's Political Caucus (NWPC) in the center, and more radical groups
formed by younger women on the far left).

Along with Friedan, Gloria Steinem was an
important feminist leader, co-founding the NWPC, the Women's Action
Alliance, and editing the Movement's magazine, Ms. The proposed Equal Rights
Amendment to the Constitution, passed by Congress in 1972 and favored by
about seventy percent of the American public, failed to be ratified in 1982,
with only three more states needed to make it law. The nation's conservative
women, led by activist Phyllis Schlafly,
defeated the ERA by arguing that it degraded the position of the housewife, and
made young women susceptible to the military
draft.[80][81]

However, many federal laws (i.e. those equalizing pay,
employment, education, employment
opportunites, credit, ending
pregnancy discrimination, and requiring NASA, the Military Academies,
and other organizations to admit women), state laws (i.e. those ending spousal abuse and marital
rape), Supreme Court rulings (i.e. ruling the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth
Amendment applied to women), and state ERAs established women's equal status
under the law, and social custom and consciousness began to change, accepting
women's equality. The controversial issue of abortion, deemed by the Supreme
Court as a fundamental right in
Roe v.
Wade (1973), is still a point of debate
today.[82]

[edit]
The Counterculture Revolution and Cold War Détente
(1964–1980)

Main article: History
of the United States (1964–1980)

Amid the Cold War, the United States entered the Vietnam War, whose growing
unpopularity fed already existing social movements, including those among women,
minorities and young people. President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great
Society social programs and the judicial activism[citation
needed] of the Warren Court added to the
wide range of social reform during the 1960s and 1970s. Feminism and the environmental
movement became political forces, and progress continued toward civil rights for all
Americans. The Counterculture
Revolution swept through the nation and much of the western world in the
late sixties and early seventies, dividing the already hostile environment but
also bringing forth more liberated social views.

United States Navy F-4
Phantom II shadows a Soviet Tu-95 Bear D aircraft in the
early 1970s

Johnson was succeeded by Republican Richard Nixon in 1969, who
turned the war over to the South Vietnamese forces and ended American combat
roles; he negotiated a peace treaty in
1973, secured the release of POWs and ended the draft. The war had cost the
lives of 58,000 American troops. Nixon manipulated the fierce distrust between
the Soviet Union and China to the advantage of the United States, achieving
détente (cooperation)
with both parties.[83]
The Watergate scandal,
involving Nixon's coverup of his operatives break-in into the Democratic
National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office
complex destroyed his political base, sent many aides to prison, and forced
Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. Vice President Gerald Ford, and was
helpless to prevent the conquest of South Vietnam when North Vietnam invaded in
1975.[84]

The OPEC oil embargo marked
a long-term economic transition, as for the first time energy prices skyrocketed
and American factories faced serious competition from foreign automobiles,
clothing, electronics and consumer goods. By the late 1970s the economy suffered
an energy crisis, slow
economic growth, high unemployment, and very high inflation coupled with high
interest rates (the term stagflation was coined).
While economists agreed on the wisdom of deregulation, many of the
New Deal era regulations were ended, as in transportation, banking and
telecommunications.[85]

Jimmy Carter, running as
someone who was not a part of the Washington political establishment, was
elected president in 1976.[86]
On the world stage, Carter brokered the Camp David Accords
between Israel and Egypt. In 1979, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in
Tehran and took
52 Americans hostage, resulting in the Iran hostage crisis.
With the hostage crisis and continuing stagflation, Carter lost the 1980
election to Republican Ronald Reagan, whose
campaign message advertised that his presidency would bring "Morning in
America".[87]
On January 20, 1981, minutes after Carter's term in office ended, the 52 U.S.
captives held at the U.S. embassy in Iran were released, ending the 444-day Iran
hostage crisis.[88]

[edit]
The
end of the Cold War (1980–1991)

Main article: History
of the United States (1980–1991)

Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate
challenges Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin
Wall in 1987, shortly before the end of the Cold War

Ronald Reagan produced a
major realignment with his
1980
and 1984
landslide elections. Reagan's economic policies (dubbed "Reaganomics") and the
implementation of the Economic
Recovery Tax Act of 1981 lowered income taxes from 70% to 28% over the
course of seven years.[citation
needed] Reagan continued to downsize government taxation and
regulation.[89]
The U.S. experienced a recession in 1982; unemployment and business failures
soon entered rates close to Depression-era
levels. These negative trends reversed the following year, when the inflation
rate decreased from 11% to 2%, the unemployment rate decreased from 10.8% in
December 1982 to 7.5% in November 1984,[90]
and the economic growth rate increased from 4.5 to 7.2%.[91]

Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the U.S. military, incurring a costly
budget deficit. Reagan introduced a complicated missile defense system known as
the Strategic
Defense Initiative (dubbed "Star Wars" by opponents) in which the U.S.
could, in theory, shoot down missiles with laser systems in space. Though it was
never fully developed or deployed,[92]
the Soviets were genuinely concerned about the possible effects of the
program[93]
and the research and technologies of SDI paved the way for the anti-ballistic
missile systems of today.[94]

The Reagan administration also provided covert funding and assistance to anti-Communist resistance
movements worldwide. Reagan's interventions against Grenada and Libya were
popular in the U.S., though his backing of the Contra rebels was mired in
controversy.[95]
The arms-for-hostages scandal led to the convictions of such figures as Oliver
North and John Poindexter.[96]

Reagan met four times with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who
ascended to power in 1985, and their summit conferences led to the signing of
the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty. Gorbachev tried to save Communism in the Soviet Union
first by ending the expensive arms race with America,[97]
then by shedding the East European empire in 1989. The Soviet Union
collapsed in 1991, ending the US–Soviet Cold War.

[edit]
The
World Superpower (1991–present)

Main article: History
of the United States (1991–present)

This section may be too long to
read and navigate comfortably. Please consider moving more of the
content into sub-articles and using this article for a summary of
the key points of the subject. (October
2010)

USAF aircraft fly over Kuwaiti oil fires
during the Gulf War

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the world's
sole remaining superpower and continued to
involve itself in military action overseas, including the 1991 Gulf War.
During the 1990s, following his election
in 1992, President Bill Clinton oversaw one of
the longest periods of economic expansion and unprecedented gains in securities
values, a side effect of the digital revolution
and new business opportunities created by the Internet. Under Clinton an attempt to
universalize health care, led by First
Lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton failed after almost two years of work on the controversial plan.[98]
In 1998, the House
of Representatives voted 228 to 206 to impeach
Clinton for charges of perjury and obstruction of
justice that arose from lying about a sexual relationship with White House
intern Monica Lewinsky.[99]
However, on February 12, 1999, the Senate voted 55 to
45 to acquit Clinton of the charges.[100]

The regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq proved a continuing problem for the UN
and Iraq's neighbors in its refusal to account for previously known stockpiles
of chemical and biological weapons, its violations of UN resolutions, and its
support for terrorism against Israel and other countries. After the 1991 Gulf
War, the US, French, and British militaries began patrolling the Iraqi no-fly zones to
protect Iraq's Kurdish minority and Shi’ite Arab population—both of which
suffered attacks from the Hussein regime before and after the 1991 Gulf War—in
Iraq's northern and southern regions, respectively.[101]
In the aftermath of Operation Desert
Fox during December 1998, Iraq announced that it would no longer respect the
no-fly zones and resumed its efforts in shooting down Allied aircraft.[102]
The Iraq Liberation Act
signed by President Clinton in the same year called for regime change in
Iraq.[103]

During the 1990s al-Qaeda and other Islamic
fundamentalist groups attempted terrorist attacks against the United States and
other nations. In 1993, Ramzi Yousef, a Kuwaiti national,
and suspected al-Qaeda operative, detonated explosives in the underground garage
of One World Trade
Center, killing six people and injuring thousands. Later that year in the Battle of
Mogadishu, US Army Rangers engaged
Somali militias supported by al-Qaeda in an extended firefight that killed 19
American soldiers. President Clinton subsequently withdrew US combat forces from
Somalia (there originally to support UN relief efforts).[104]
Terrorist attacks occurred in the 1996 Khobar Towers
bombing in Saudi Arabia, and the 1998
United States embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. US responses to these
attacks included cruise
missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan (August 1998), which failed to stop
al-Qaeda and their Taliban supporters. Al-Qaeda bombed the USS
Cole in Yemen in 2000.[105]
Foreign groups were not the only ones responsible for terrorism during this
time. Timothy McVeigh, an
anti-government extremist, bombed a federal
building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people in what was considered
the biggest terrorist attack on U.S. soil at the time.

The presidential
election in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore was one
of the closest in the U.S. history, and helped lay the seeds for political
polarization to come. Following Election Day, Florida entered dispute over the
counting of votes due to technical issues over certain Democratic votes in
some counties,[106]
which the Supreme Court resolved in Bush v. Gore by ending
the recount with a 5–4 vote and certifying Bush as president.[107]

[edit]
9/11 and the War on
Terror

The September 11
attacks led to the War on
Terror.

Once again the United States was attacked by terrorism with the September 11,
2001 attacks in which 19 hijackers took four transcontinental airliners and
intentionally crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center
and one into the Pentagon. The
passengers on the fourth plane
revolted causing it to crash into a field in
Pennsylvania. 2,976 people and the 19 hijackers perished in the attacks. The
United States soon found evidence suggesting that the terrorist group al-Qaeda, headed
by Osama bin Laden, was
responsible for the attacks, and launched the War on Terror in
response.[108]
Under the administration of President George W. Bush, the
United States—with the military support of NATO and the political support of
some of the international community—launched an invasion
of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime that had harbored
bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

In addition to military efforts abroad, the Bush administration increased
domestic efforts to prevent future attacks. A new cabinet-level agency called
the Department
of Homeland Security was created to lead and coordinate federal counter-terrorism
activities. The USA PATRIOT Act removed
legal restrictions on information sharing between federal law enforcement and
intelligence services and allowed for the investigation of suspected terrorists
using means similar to those in place for other types of criminals.

A U.S.-led invasion deposed Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein in the Iraq War.

In his first State of the
Union address following 9/11, President Bush labeled Iran, Iraq, and North Korea the "axis of
evil", accusing their governments of aiding terrorism and seeking weapons of mass
destruction.[109]
Long-standing tension with the Iraqi government led by Saddam Hussein came to a
head as the U.S. led a multinational
force, including Britain, Spain, Australia, Japan and Poland, in the 2003 invasion of
Iraq, which overthrew and captured Hussein. Using the language of 1998 Iraq Liberation Act
and the Clinton administration, the reasons cited by the Bush administration for
the invasion included the spreading of democracy, the elimination of weapons of
mass destruction[110]
(a key demand of the UN as well, though later investigations found parts of the
intelligence reports to be inaccurate)[111]
and the liberation of the Iraqi people.[112]

The invasion and continued Iraq War fueled international
protests and gradually saw domestic
support waver.[113]
After he was re-elected
in 2004 on a narrow margin, Bush saw his approval ratings decline
significantly, mostly due to his handling of the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina.[114]
In response the Democrats gained control of Congress in the 2006 mid-term
elections, appointing Nancy Pelosi as the first
female Speaker
of the House of Representatives.[115]
After years of violence by the Iraqi insurgency,
including al-Qaeda in Iraq, in
January 2007 President Bush introduced "the surge"
as part of a "new way forward in Iraq".[116]

[edit]
Worldwide recession

The economy peaked in December 2007, as the nation, and most of Europe,
entered the longest post-World War II recession,[117]
which included a housing
market crisis, a subprime mortgage
crisis, soaring oil prices,
a banking crisis that led to near-collapse of the financial system, the
bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler, and
rising unemployment.[118]
In February 2008, 63,000 jobs were lost, a 5-year record for a single month.[119][120]
In September 2008, the
crisis became much worse beginning with the federal
takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The financial crisis was the worst since the Great Depression.[121][122]
In November 2008, over 500,000 jobs were lost, which marked the largest loss of
jobs in the United States in 34 years.[123]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the last four months of 2008,
1.9 million jobs were lost.[124]
By the end of 2008, the U.S. had lost a total of 2.6 million jobs,[125]
and the unemployment rate rose to 7.2%.[126]

Obama sworn in as the 44th President of the United
States

Barack Obama, elected
in 2008 as the first African American
President of the United States, signed into law the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion economic stimulus
package aimed at helping the economy recover from the deepening worldwide
recession. The act included increased federal spending for health care,
infrastructure, public schools and universities, and a large tax cut for
families. Since the third quarter of 2009, the U.S. economy has been expanding
steadily after contracting for four consecutive quarters.[127];
the recession officially ended in June 2009.[128]
However, the unemployment rate has continued to hover around 9.5%, with weak
economic growth.[129]

In addition to the stimulus package, the government enacted additional
measures aimed at rescuing the auto industry and preventing a future economic
meltdown. These included a bailout of General Motors and Chrysler,
putting ownership temporarily in the hands of the government, and the "cash for
clunkers" program which temporarily boosted new car sales.[130]
Congress enacted the Dodd–Frank
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, making the most sweeping
changes to financial regulation in the United States since the Great Depression.[131]

[edit]
Recent events

In foreign policy, Obama initially proposed closing the Guantanamo Bay
detention camp but later postponed these plans,[132]
and slightly changed the strategy in Iraq. In February 2009, he started to
decrease troop levels in Iraq and by August 31, 2010, all combat troops were
withdrawn from Iraq. However, he continued Bush's plan to withdraw all troops by
December 31, 2011 by retaining 50,000 troops in Iraq to train, equip and advise
Iraqi forces, help protect withdrawing forces and work on counter-terrorism.[133][134]
He increased American involvement in Afghanistan, announcing a surge strategy
using an additional increase of 30,000 troops in December 2009. He also proposed
to begin troop withdrawals in summer 2011.[135]

Percent of self-identified conservatives in the
United States, broken down by state, according to Gallup, August 2010. Redder
colors mean more conservatives per state, green mean fewer per state (click
image for details).

In 2009–10 the GOP in Congress was unified in almost total opposition to the
programs of the Congressional Democrats. They failed to stop the economic
stimulus package, new regulations on the financial system, a
large-scale change in the national health care system, but they did stop Obama's
policies on climate change[citation
needed] and immigration reform. Over first two years of his
presidency, he steadily lost support due to continuing levels of high
unemployment, low investment levels, and the housing crisis continuing.[136]

In the 2010 midterm
elections, the Republicans regained control of the House of
Representatives and cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate. One of the
factors in these results was the Tea Party movement of
2009–10, a populist
conservative movement angry at what they described as "the elites
controlling Washington and both parties." The Tea Party promoted activism and protests[137]
with the goal to reduce federal spending, bailouts, taxes, and financial
regulation. The Tea Party movement has also helped boost former Vice
Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's visibility.
The public opinion polling company Rasmussen Reports has
argued, "She is the symbolic leader of the movement, and more than anyone else
has helped to shape it."[138]

As of 2010, with high levels of voter anger, debates continue over distrust
of politicians, the sluggish economy with unemployment at 9.5%, the bailout of
banks and auto companies, the stimulus spending, health
care reform, the financial crisis in state government, and the role of
corporate spending in election campaigns.[139]

[edit]
See also

Cultural
history of the United States

Economic
history of the United States

History
of agriculture in the United States

History
of education in the United States

History
of religion in the United States

Military
history of the United States

Outline
of United States history

Technological
and industrial history of the United States

Territorial
evolution of the United States

Lists:

List
of conflicts in the United States

List
of Presidents of the United States

List of
United States treaties

List
of wars involving the United States

Timelines:

Timeline
of United States history

Timeline
of United States military operations

[edit]
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^
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^
Aversa, Jeannine, Employers Slash
63,000 Jobs in February, Most in 5 Years, Feeding Recession Fears",
Associated Press, March 7, 2008. Retrieved July 11, 2008.

^
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^
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Financial Crisis Since '30s". Fox News. 2008-09-18. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,424361,00.html.

^
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^
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^
Steven Rattner, Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama
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^
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Bailouts". FOX News. July 21, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/21/obama-poised-sign-sweeping-financial-overhaul/. Retrieved July 22, 2010.

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^
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^
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^
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^
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[edit]
References

Dallek, Robert (2007),
Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, New York, New York,
U.S.: HarperCollins

Irons, Peter (2006), A
People's History of the Supreme Court, New York, New York, U.S.: Penguin
Books, ISBN 0143037382

Shlaes, Amity (2008), The
Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, New York, New York,
U.S.: HarperPerennial, ISBN 0060936426

Wilentz, Sean (2008), The
Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008, New York, New York,
U.S.: Harper, ISBN 0060744809

Young, Alfred Fabian (2000), The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American
Revolution, Beacon Press, ISBN 9780807054055, http://books.google.com/books?id=wqHkAYjlz5kC

Zinn, Howard (2003), A People's History of the United States, New York, New York,
U.S.: HarperPerennial Modern Classics, ISBN 0060838655, http://books.google.com/books?id=9-FtlblxbLgC&printsec=frontcover

[edit]
Further reading

Agnew, Jean-Christophe, and Roy Rosenzweig, eds. A Companion to
Post-1945 America (2006)

Anderson, Fred, ed. The Oxford Companion to American Military
History (2000)

Barney, William. A Companion to 19th-Century America (2006)

Bender, Thomas. A Nation Among Nations : America’s place in world
history, New York : Hill and Wang, 2006. ISBN
978-0-8090-9527-8

Carnes, Mark C., and John A. Garraty, The American Nation: A History of
the United States: AP Edition (2008); university textbook

Diner, Hasia, ed. Encyclopedia of American Women's History
(2010)

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! An American History (2nd ed. 2008),
university textbook

Gilbert, Martin. The Routledge Atlas of American History
(2010)

Hornsby Jr., Alton. A Companion to African American History (2008)
excerpt and text search

Kennedy, David M., Lizabeth Cohen, and Thomas Bailey. The American
Pageant (2 vol 2008), university textbook study guide

Lancaster, Bruce, Bruce Catton, and Thomas Fleming. The American
Heritage History of the American Revolution (2004)

Milner, Clyde A., Carol A. O'Connor, and Martha A. Sandweiss, eds. The
Oxford History of the American West (1996) excerpt and text search

Perry, Elisabeth Israels, and Karen Manners Smith, eds. The Gilded Age
& Progressive Era: A Student Companion (2006)

Pole, Jack P. and J.R. Pole. A Companion to the American Revolution
(2003) excerpt and text search

Resch, John, ed. Americans at War: Society, Culture, and the
Homefront (4 vol 2004)

Schweikart, Larry, and Michael Allen. A Patriot's History of the United
States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror (2007), view
from the right excerpt and text search

Tindall, George Brown, and David E. Shi. America: A Narrative
History (8th ed. 2009), university textbook

Vickers, Daniel, ed. A Companion to Colonial America (2006)

Zophy, Angela Howard, ed. Handbook of American Women's History.
(2nd ed. 2000). 763 pp. articles by experts

[edit]
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