In the year 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas. Millions died in pursuit of conquering this unknown land. The European powers of the time took part in colonization and the centuries after witnessed remarkable wars and a new age of influence. These events led to the birth of a new nation on July 4th, 1776. The United States of America. Since the USA has conquered the world in every aspect possible, from developing the most powerful military in modern history to countless astonishing human accomplishments, the country has earned the name the modern Roman Empire. But can this giant continue its dominance? To understand the story of this fascinating land, we must start from the very beginning. [Music] Long before European colonization, the native peoples of North America had developed complex and sophisticated systems of society and government. Hundreds of thousands wared, made peace, and governed over specific regions and had done so for thousands of years. By the time the first European explorers began to arrive on the North American continent in the 15th century, the Native Americans had already established themselves and their communities for thousands of years. The North American continent, vast and rich with natural resources, would beckon all who came to know of its shores. And so when a Norse navigator named Leaf Ericson learned that there was a land west of Greenland from fellow explorer Bji Harielson, he made preparations to set sail. Harielson, who had been blown off course while sailing, had accidentally discovered what would one day be called Newf Finland. And although he did not land, his story gave Ericson the information he needed to successfully sail across the Labrador Sea and make landfall in North America. Ericson and the Norsemen would establish a small settlement in Labrador called Lonso Meadows or Meadows Cove. This settlement and numerous small outposts built nearby it would be abandoned over the course of about 20 years. Afterward, it would be nearly another 500 years before Europeans set foot on the shores of North America. [Music] Searching for a more direct and faster route to India, the great European powers of the age sent dozens of expeditions around the globe. In October 1492, the Genoies explorer Christopher Columbus, employed by the king and queen of Spain, discovered the West Indies and inadvertently opened a new frontier of exploration. Popularized as the new world by Florentine explorer Amarigo Vaspuchcci. It was open season for European explorers, traders, and businessmen alike. European powers began claiming sections of this new world as their own. With every major exploratory mission, Vaspuchcci, who created and sold maps of his own discoveries in the new world, gain the notable distinction of having the entire hemisphere named for him, America. While much of the early exploration of the new world focused on what would become known as the Caribbean and South America, it did not take long before explorers turned their attention north to the enormous land mass above Columbus's Hispanola. At the dawn of the 16th century, the Spanish, English, Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch, and French all entered a race to explore and map the entire east coast of North America. In 1497, Italian explorer Giovani Kabato, known as John Kat by his English employers, discovered the same region of New Finland that leaf Ericson and the Vikings had settled nearly 500 years earlier. Kat's discoveries credited him as the discoverer of the North American continent, as no record of Ericson's expedition or settlement had yet been discovered. To the south, expeditions by Juan Pon DeLeon, Alvar Nunes Cabza Devaka, and Hernando Dodto would map Florida and the American Southeast as Spain prepared to establish permanent colonies in the new world. Likewise, to the north, Jacqu Cardier explored the St. Lawrence River, while Giovani de Verzano mapped much of the east coast for France. All along the coast, the Europeans encountered the numerous tribes of Native Americans. Early interactions ranged from welcoming to violent as cultures from separate hemispheres met for the first time as it had in the Caribbean and South America. First contact introduced these cultures to each other with the sharing of gifts and trading of information. Naturally, these meetings exposed Native Americans to European diseases and caused widespread illness and death. The first attempts to make permanent settlements in the new world began in the mid6th century with varying degrees of success. Surviving in the new world was not an easy task and establishing a permanent settlement proved to be exceptionally challenging. In 1585, the English attempted to establish a permanent colony on Rowanoke Island off the coast of what is today North Carolina. The journey across the Atlantic was brutal and left the colonist with few supplies when they arrived. Making contact with the local Aqua Skogo, Pamela, and Cotan tribes, the colonists, many of whom were military personnel, became embroiled in an argument with the Aquacog and burned their village to the ground. Meetings with the Cotin went considerably better, outfitting the colonists with enough food to survive a miserable winter. Smallpox and influenza epidemics ran through every native village who encountered the colonists. Communication broke down and violence finally convinced the colonists to move on, abandoning the colony. Arriving in 1587, a year after the first attempt to settle Rowan Oak failed, colonists, largely made up of middleclass Londoners with no military experience, landed on Croatan Island and began to establish a settlement some 40 mi south of the first failed settlement. The colony suffered great difficulty surviving. In 1588, a relief mission to the colony was looted by Spanish naval vessels operating off the coast, leaving its new location unknown to English authorities. That same year, Spanish vessels sailed near Croatan Island and found that it appeared abandoned. The next relief mission to the colony finally arrived in 1590 and found smoke rising from both Croatan Island and Rowanoke Island. A landing party discovered both settlements abandoned and sacked. The only clues were the letters CR O carved into a tree and the word Croitoan carved into one of the posts of a palisade allegedly built by the settlers of the colony known as the lost colony. The settlers of Rowanoke were never discovered. The colony deemed lost by the English government. In 1564, a group of French Hugeno settlers attempted to start a colony in what would become St. Augustine, Florida, only to have the colony sacked and all of its male citizens killed by rival Spanish forces. The settlement established by the Spanish colonists at St. Augustine is considered the first permanent European settlement in North America. In6007 the English attempted again to establish a permanent colony in the new world led by the London company. The settlement aimed to establish a colony in Virginia and selected a marshy region on the James River which they christened Jamestown. The colony did well initially quickly constructing living and meeting space as well as a palisade fort. Relations with the local Powatan tribes began with hostilities, but gradually cooled over time as the settlers and native peoples of the region learned to cohabitate. The Powatan offered food and friendship to the colonists who took the opportunity to search the surrounding region for gold and other precious metals. Instead, they found that the swampy region that they had inhabited held no riches but disease. The people of Jamestown suffered from lack of coordination, disease, and the harshness of the environment around them despite the aid of the Powatan people. It was only when Captain John Smith took command of the colony and in near dictatorial fashion reorganized their efforts to establish trade with the natives and plant crops of their own in and around the colony. Smith returned home to England not long after his term as leader of the colony, but he had established a path for the colonists to follow that allowed Jamestown to endure difficult years of famine and struggle. Jamestown survived and by the mid7th century was thriving as more settlements began to grow around her. Jamestown has the distinction of being the first English settlement to survive in the New World. In 1619, 12 years after the colony's founding, Jamestown became the site of yet another first. When the first African slaves arrived in Virginia, 20 to 30 enslaved Africans who had been captured by English privateeers from a Spanish slave ship were brought to Point Comfort, Virginia. From there, a number were sold or traded to the settlement at Jamestown. Slavery had existed in the new world since the mid6th century, but this moment marked the beginning of two and a half centuries of slavery in what would become the United States. The English continued their colonial settlement in 1620 with the establishing of the Puritan colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts. Unlike the financially motivated London company at Jamestown, the Puritan colonists at Plymouth, known as Pilgrims, had come to America in search of religious freedom. They voyaged across the Atlantic in the Mayflower, suffering months of terrible weather at sea. When they arrived in the New World, they first landed near what would become known as Province Town. There, the colonists, concerned over their rights to the land and their legal right to establish a colony, drafted and signed the Mayflower Compact, establishing their right to self-govern while still holding allegiance to the English crown. However, without finding a reasonable place to begin building their settlement, and after a brief but violent encounter with a local tribe, the Puritans found Province Town unfit and sailed up the coast for better ground. At last, they decided on Plymouth Harbor, building upon an abandoned Puxid settlement as a base for their new home. Settled between two hills on which the colonists built two forts, the colony at Plymouth initially struggled through a difficult winter, living aboard the Mayflower and building their settlement by day. In March 1621, they made first contact with the Wampa Noag. The Wampa Noag chief, Masasoid, was hesitant to trust the pilgrims. Also uncertain of the Puritans was Squanto, a Ptoxic native who had been taken in by the Wampaoag. Squanto or Tisquantum spoke English and had spent time in Europe after he'd been kidnapped by an English explorer in 1614. He had returned to America with another explorer whose party was ambushed and massacred by Masasoit and his tribe. Working as an interpreter, Squanto helped the Puritans and the Wampa Noag reach an agreement of non-aggression. In the fall of 1621, the pilgrims celebrated what has become known as the first Thanksgiving along with Chief Masoit and several of his men. The celebration lasted for 3 days, and both parties procured and presented various dishes of local game. Like Jamestown, Plymouth was well-run and its early success was built upon by enterprising companies and individuals in England. More and more companies began crossing the Atlantic and established new settlements. Throughout the 17th century, the English began spreading as more colonies were formed and amalgamated with their fellow English neighbors. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, for example, would absorb the Plymouth colony and others as it grew in size. As these settlements became more established, trade opened with Europe and goods, money, and more colonists poured into the new world. Not to be outdone, other European powers attempted to create their own permanent settlements as they grabbed more and more of the coastal region for themselves. What started as small settlements along coastal waters soon became large swaths of territory claimed in the name of kings and queens from far off European nations. In 1614, the Dutch West India Company began to establish permanent settlements in the Northeast around what would one day become New York and New Jersey. Small settlements and fur trading outposts on Governor's Island and along the Hudson and East Rivers marked what was called New Netherlands. In 1624, fearing military incursions from other European powers, they purchased the island of Manhattan from the Muny Lenipe tribe for $24 and constructed Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of the island. The settlement, which grew within and alongside the fort, was called New Amsterdam. The settlement utilized its unique environment to expand trade and use hydro power to enhance its growth. New Amsterdam was a city of trade and commerce in its earliest form and always would be. It was a tempting target for the English who wanted control of the Hudson for themselves. In 1664, four English frigots sailed into the harbor of New Amsterdam and ordered the Dutch to surrender the city. They did so bloodlessly, although the event did spark the second Anglo Dutch War. In June 1665, New Amsterdam was reinccorporated under English law and renamed New York City. Spain, whose early discovery of the new world gave them an advantage in colonizing South America and the Caribbean, began settling in what would become the American Southeast. From their earliest settlement in St. Augustine. The Spanish traveled inward toward their territorial conquests in Mexico and upward toward Canada, carving a path through the center of the North American continent. By the end of the 17th century, Spain's North American empire would cover much of the deep south, Midwest, and Western portions of the continent. France, England's longtime rival and chief competitor in North America, set their sights for permanent settlement along the St. Lawrence River. Still hoping for an easy path to the Pacific, the settlements, Dusk, Quebec, Tu Rivier, and Montreal followed the winding St. Lawrence further and further inland. France established firm control of the fur trade in the region, then began to extend its influence further down the Mississippi River. In the Gulf, the French established a settlement along the bank of the Mississippi called Newvel Orleans or New Orleans. New Orleans was established in 1718 and was the gateway to the Mississippi, a crown jewel in France's North American Empire. As the 18th century began, the numerous settlements continued to grow as Europe carved up great swaths of North America for their own. These colonial territories were defined by various treaties and agreements between the colonizing nations, often ignoring the already existing native population and the complex relationships which already existed in North America. Many Native Americans fought back. Acting as opportunists, tribes worked with and against European settlers, often sparking conflict. Raids on settlements were not uncommon, and the colonists could not always rely on their far-flung colonial protectors if these actions required a serious defense. One of the largest and most violent of these was King Phillips War. In 1675 in the colony of New England, war broke out after a significant failure of diplomacy between the colonists and the Wampa Noag tribe and their allies. Metac Comet, son of Masasoit, who had aided the pilgrims at Plymouth Colony, had become the grand satum of the Wampaoag Confederacy and did not have the same tolerance for the settlers as his father had. Disagreements over livestock intrusion on Wampa Noag land and the presence of colonial missionaries attempting to convert natives to Christianity was the last straw for Metacomt who unlike his father saw only danger in the existence of these settlers on their land. An alliance of Algonquin tribes led by Metaccomt struck at not only New England's far-flung countryside settlements, but the larger, more established towns as well. With no English soldiers stationed in the colonies, the New England militia mobilized to defend their homes. The militia targeted native villages, knowing that it would enrage and damage the Indians ability to wage war. Metacomt was killed in 1676, just a year into the war. His death spelled doom for the Wampa Noag and their narroagansided allies. With no one guiding the conflict, things quickly turned in the favor of the New England militia, who all but destroyed the Wampaoag people and forced their allies out of the New England territory. It was the bloodiest conflict in North America to date. In the wake of King Phillip's war, tension between the English colonists and their French and Dutch neighbors grew high. In the northeast, five native tribes located north of the New England colony formed the Wabanaki Confederation after witnessing the demise of their southern Wampaoag neighbors in King Phillip's War. Increasing tensions with the English colonists in 1689, just 2 years after King Phillip's war had ended, the colonists were at war again, this time at the behest of their mother countries. Fighting broke out as the Englishbacked Irakqua tribes attacked French settlements and the Frenchbacked Wabanaki attacked English ones. As French and English soldiers made their way to the New World, the colonists of New England and New France prepared to fight each other. Known as King Williams War, the conflict dragged on for nearly a decade and saw French successes in the colony of New York and English successes in Acadia, later known as Nova Scotia and along the St. Lawrence River. Neither side was able to take their main goal. For the French, Boston, for the English, Quebec, and the war concluded in 1697, but King Williams war was only the beginning. It was the first of four major conflicts between France and England which pitted their various native allies against one another and peace was not kept for long. In 1701, King Charles II, the last Habsburg King of Spain, died with no direct heir and a confusing web of potential replacements bound by secret treaties and backroom agreements. English, Austrian, Prussian, and Dutch powers scrambled to stop the French from taking control of the Spanish throne. Known as the War of Spanish Succession or Queen Anne's War in North America, the conflict originated in Europe and did not take long for the fighting to come to the shores of North America. In the South, Spanish Florida and French colonists in Louisiana were engaged by English colonists from the province of Carolina. The fighting decimated the native populations of the region and helped secure English control of Georgia. In New England, the Wabanaki again sided with the French and continuous raids on New English settlements plagued the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Concerted efforts made by the English military once again failed to capture Quebec City, but made considerable gains in Acadia. The fighting in North America had little effect on the war's ultimate outcome in Europe. But more than 13 years of continuous fighting wre havoc throughout North America, permanently damaging native and colonial communities alike. In the end, the French would give away vital territory to the English, including the Hudson River Valley, Acadia, and Newfoundland. These concessions did not include the various native tribes engaged on either side of the war, and set the stage for future conflicts. For nearly three decades, there was relative peace between the major European powers in North America. In this time, the colonies grew larger and more complex, forming their own colonial governments, and expanding a new and thriving North American economy of agriculture, textile production, and maritime trade. As the value of the North American colonies grew, it did alongside her South American and Caribbean neighbors. Valuable gold and silver had been found in South America and the Caribbean produced commodities which were by now a necessity in Europe and North America, namely molasses and other sugar products. The production of these commodities of course was powered by the sweat of slave labor. By now the American colonies were all engaged in what was known as the triangle trade. Slaves from Africa were brought to the Americas, where these slave ships would deposit African slaves for sale and take on cargo of sugar bound for New England. These ships would then sell the sugar and slaves and take on rum, tobacco, cotton, and other goods and return to Africa to trade them for slaves. On and on it went, an ever more valuable and grotesque sale of human lives. Slavery was rampant in the Caribbean and South America. and grew rapidly in North American colonies as well. From the first years of North American colonization in the early 1600s to the mid8th century, the number of slaves imported to the Americas had increased from roughly 300,000 from 1600 to 1625 to more than 2 million from 1751 to 1775. The increased value of the Americas led directly to the third of the Indian wars. Like Queen Anne's war before it, the conflict began well outside of North America. Distrustful of the Spanish control of the South American market, the British were displeased by the merkantile stringlehold Spain had over trade to South America and the Caribbean. Likewise, the Spanish were displeased with British encroachment in North America on what they believed was their territory north of Florida. After the 1721 founding of the colony of Georgia following Queen Anne's war, the Spanish were convinced that the British had designs on removing them from Florida. Spanish vessels began boarding British trading ships searching for contraband. While this action was legal due to past treaties, the boardings resulted in increased tensions between the two powers. In 1731, the British Brig Rebecca was stopped off the coast of Cuba and boarded for inspection of contraband cargo. On board, the Spanish officials found an illegal cargo of sugar. Rebecca's captain, a man named Robert Jenkins, alleged that during the search, he had been tortured by the Spanish officials and had had his ear partially cut off. While the Royal Navy would admit that Jenkins was at fault for carrying illegal cargo, his story told before the Houses of Parliament in England struck a nerve. In 1739, the British found that among other reasons, the Spanish were guilty of depradations upon British subjects and commenced war against the Spanish in the Americas, known as the War of Jenkins ear. The conflict saw little action on North American shores with the bulk of the fighting occurring in South America and the Caribbean as the British Navy attempted to capture and claim multiple Spanish forts and port towns. Fighting between the British colonists in the Carolas and Georgia and the Spanish colonists in Florida came to little fruit for either side and again only appeared to do the worst harm to the local Indian tribes who fought on either side. In 1742, another war broke out in Europe. This time between Prussia and Austria over control of Celicia. Once again, a question of the right of succession brought all of Europe's great powers into war. The death of Emperor Charles V 6th of Austria had left a power vacuum in central Europe with Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Hanover and Russia supporting Charles V 6th daughter Maria Teresa as his heir and France, Spain, Prussia and Sweden supporting Charles Albert of Bavaria who believed he had the right of inheritance. This war known as King George's War in North America and the War of Austrian succession in Europe swallowed everything in its wake, including the War of Jenkins Ear. As war raged in Europe, France and England once again turned their attention toward their North American territories. As before, the Wabanaki Confederacy and the Irakqua Confederacy allied themselves with the French and British, hoping to affect some great change for their rapidly shrinking continent. Fighting focused once again over control of Acadia and the St. Lawrence River. In 1745, the British colonists achieved the first substantial gain in the last 50 years of colonial warfare with the capture of Fortress Lewisburg at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. Fighting stretched down into the colony of New York as well as New England. The war took an awful toll on the British colonists, particularly in the final years of fighting. When the war at last came to an end in 1748, the British colonists were forced to return Lewisburg to the French, infuriating the colonists who had won it at an excessive cost of life. Once again, after years of violence, the borders were returned to their pre-war status with nothing having been gained. Territorial disputes went unsettled. Grudges continued, and the situation in the North American back country was still violent as English colonists, French colonists, and Native American tribes all vied for control of the wilderness. The undefined borders between British and French colonies had long been an issue between the two nations. Yet, despite multiple conflicts, no formal agreement had been reached as far as definitively laying out who owned what. It was only a matter of time before war broke out again. [Music] In late 1753, the Lieutenant Governor of the Virginia colony, Robert Denwitty, ordered a young Virginia major named George Washington to remove French colonial troops from forts in the Ohio River Valley. The colony of Virginia claimed this territory as its own and felt that it was within their right to vacate the French from the forts, which still dotted the region from the last century of fighting. The expedition resulted in a French rejection of Virginia's demands, and Washington, who was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel upon his return, was once again sent into the Ohio River Valley to remove the French from their forts by force if necessary. In April 1754, French troops learned from their native allies, the Mingos, that a small British fort had been built by colonial militia at the forks of the Ohio River. French troops marched to the fort and captured it. They built in its place a much later fortification which they named Fort Dukane. Meanwhile, further south in the valley, Colonel Washington and his small force of colonial militia and natives allied to the English came upon and engaged an encampment of unsuspecting French troops. The French were quickly overwhelmed and later explained that they had been sent to intercept Washington peacefully and to warn him of his apparent incursion in what they believed was French territory. To Washington's surprise, the leader of the native forces accompanying him, Tarrison, attacked and killed the wounded French commander, likely due to a long-standing hatred of the French. Washington feared the French would attack and constructed a small fort, which he named Fort Necessity. Necessity was, as Washington predicted, quickly surrounded by French troops from Dukane and forced to surrender. This small skirmish set the world on fire. Lieutenant Governor Denwitty called for aid from his fellow colonies and from the British government back in England. Fearing that the incursion would strengthen French claims to the region, the British government immediately sent troops to strike at the various French forts still in and around the St. Lawrence River and the Ohio River Valley. The French sent additional forces to North America to hold off the inevitable British invasion. Quite suddenly, France and England were once again at war. Multiple early British foray into the Ohio River Valley and Canada failed spectacularly. Early into the war, it seemed as though the French would be able to secure their holdings in North America and even found success in capturing a number of critical British forts in the colony of New York, including Fort Ticonderoga and Fort William Henry. In 1758, fortunes changed for the English as the complicated system of entangled alliances produced by the past century of war finally ignited the 7 Years War. The fighting in the Ohio River Valley, known as the French and Indian War in America, had launched the largest European land war to date. With every major European power of the era engaged, millions of soldiers and thousands of naval vessels were activated for duty. Fighting stretched not only across North American, but to Europe, the Caribbean, India, and Asia. As the French were forced to direct their attention to Europe and to other more valuable parts of their empire, the British were able to take advantage on the North American front. With the British Navy actively keeping the French from not being able to resupply along the St. Lawrence River, British and American colonial forces successfully captured Fort Niagara, Fortress Lewisburg, and the city of Quebec. As the French lost more and more ground, it became clear that the fight for North America was over. In 1760, British General Jeffrey Amhurst managed to secure a formal surrender from the governor of New France, Pierre Francois Durago, Marque Devodroy Kavagnol, and largely ended the hostilities in North America. Meanwhile, the Seven Years War continued abroad and continued to carve pieces from the Kingdom of France and her allies. In 1763, the Seven Years War officially came to an end and the French and Indian War with it. Casualties were astronomical for the period with some estimates reaching as high as 1.4 million. Of that number, the French and Indian War accounted for roughly 23,000 killed, wounded, or captured. just under 2% of the total casualties of the global conflict. For nearly a century, England had beaten back the French, Dutch, and Spanish empires, gradually cementing its claim to the new world. Over the course of the 18th century, the successes of the British Empire during these conflicts had created the ideal conditions for their colonies in North America to experience an incredible population boom. From roughly 250,000 in 1700 to more than 1.25 25 million in 1750. The raw materials produced by the American colonies, including hemp, copper, and tar, were necessary for the British army and navy to wage war and protect the vastly growing empire. While it was in the interest of the British Empire to defeat the French and secure their North American holdings, it had also been in the colonists interests. The English colonists had no great love for the French and anti-atholic sentiment was a regular part of colonial life, especially in places like New England, which had been staunchly Protestant for the first two centuries of its settlement. That the American colonies were made up chiefly of individuals of the Protestant faith was naturally no coincidence. Many Protestant organizations had funded the various colonization efforts through the 17th century and had maintained a lasting impact and presence into the 1700s. However, the strongest impact of Protestantism in the American colonies came during the colonial wars which dominated the early and mid 18th century. A global religious phenomenon occurred known as the Great Awakening gripped both Europe and North America and brought the Protestant faith to new heights. The Great Awakening was a major evangelical revival which expanded the Protestant faith throughout Europe and colonial North America. The revival brought about new religious theories and dogma as concepts such as the nature of salvation and the idea of rebirth were spread by itinerant preachers who traveled the countryside giving sermons and lectures as they saw fit. These preachers were tremendous oratoraiders and captured captive audiences wherever they went. George Whitfield, a major player in this evangelical movement, traveled across the colonies and preached in major cities and small towns wherever he could gather a crowd. And gather them he did. In October 1740, while preaching in Boston, Massachusetts, Woodfield allegedly drew a crowd of more than 30,000 people from around New England. To put that in perspective, Boston was the highest populated city in colonial North America in 1740, coming in at roughly 17,000 people living in and around the city. Nearly double the city's population was present to hear Whitfield speak. The movement revived the religious spirit of Christian peoples and reaffirmed their faith through periods of intense conflict and uncertain survival. While the revival did not change governments or raise great armies as religious revivals had done in the past in Europe, the Great Awakening was formative for many individuals in colonial North America, many of whom would go on to be the founding fathers and mothers of the nation. The 1763 Treaty of Paris saw enormous territorial gains for Great Britain. Vast swaths of formerly French occupied land were now British colonies, including Canada. All of the Louisiana territory east of the Mississippi and many Caribbean islands. The British colonists in North America were ecstatic as the land to the west would soon be open for settlement and development. The land, however, was already occupied, namely by the many Irakqua and other native tribes who had fought alongside the British during the war. To avoid any incidents, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade any settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, known as the Proclamation Line. Effectively, the British had created an Indian reserve to the west of the Appalachian and east of the Mississippi. This did not sit well with American colonists who felt that they had fought the French and Indian War to gain access to this land. Naturally, many ignored the proclamation and settled west, increasing tension between themselves and the natives, much to the dismay of British colonial authorities. Relations between the British government and the American colonists became increasingly strained through the 1760s as Great Britain attempted to regain control of their economy. The 7 Years War had grown from a territorial dispute into a full-fledged global conflict with a cost to go with it. To pay off the war debt, the British Parliament levied a series of acts and taxes against the colonies in order to try and regain their lost financial footing. The colonists who viewed themselves as loyal subjects to the British crown became increasingly agitated. It was not that the taxes were exorbitantly high. In fact, they were quite low and often the measures taken by the British government were taken to lower the cost of British goods and raise the costs of those being sold by their French or Dutch competitors. For the colonists, the heart of the issue was not the cost, but rather the lack of consultation before levying the acts and taxes. As British subjects, the colonists believed they had all of the rights and liberties of any British citizen, which included representation. The British government argued that the colonists were represented virtually and that the Parliament acted in their best interests. Many Americans did not agree and resentment began to grow. The rallying cry became no taxation without representation. As more and more colonists began to view King George III as a tyrant and the British Parliament as an aggressor toward them, Great Britain had always regulated the economies of its respective colonies through acts and laws passed by Parliament. Through the last century, these laws had only been loosely enforced as the economic gains of the American colonies also benefit Great Britain. As the 1760s began, however, Britain needed to regain control of the financial situation, sparking animosity from the colonists, who had long appreciated their free economic relationship and raising questions on the constitutional rights of the American colonists. In 1764, the Sugar Act was imposed to regulate the amount of French and Dutch sugar and molasses being imported to the colonies in favor of sugar and molasses being sold by the British East India Company. While it lowered the cost of sugar from the East India Company, colonists saw the act as a violation of their rights to trade and conduct business. Colonists protested the Sugar Act by boycotting British goods affected by the act. While this form of protest was not widely successful from an economic standpoint, the East India Company had one of its best years in 1774. The protest was noted by British Parliament and many wigs within the British government warned that relations could worsen if some sort of agreement could not be met. The following year in 1765, the Parliament passed the Stamp Act. It was the first act of Parliament ever directed specifically at the colonies as opposed to across the empire. The Stamp Act would require any form of official paper to need an official stamp. The act affected newspapers, almanacs, and official documents such as licenses, deeds, and wills. It even meant that playing cards required the official stamp. Such a direct tax had never been levied against the colonists, and many saw it as an attack by the Parliament in response to the boycott the year before. Secret organizations known as the Sons of Liberty began to appear throughout the colonies and threatened violence on anyone who sold the stamps. Indeed, violence began to break out across the region as the Sons of Liberty targeted British officials who enforced the act. In one such case, the home of Lieutenant Governor of the province of Massachusetts Bay and Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson was ransacked by an angry mob led by the Sons of Liberty. While Hutchinson and his family escaped the violence, their home was destroyed. Some colonists, however, did not act out in violence, but relied instead on a united political action. Nine colonies sent representatives to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City and compiled a declaration of rights and grievances for the British Parliament. The declaration stated the position of many of the American colonists, stating that the British taxes levied without representation violated their rights as not only British subjects, but as men. Again, the Americans engaged in protest by boycott. This time with significant results. The income from imports to the American colonies fell from 2,250,000 in 1764 to 1,944,000 in 1765. In England, American statesman Benjamin Franklin argued the case of the American colonies to Parliament and warned that continued abuse of the colonists could and would result in rebellion. Fortunately for the colonies, the Parliament experienced a shift in government which had sympathy for wig politics which resulted in the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Parliament passed the Declaratory Act in 1766, reversing the Stamp Act, but at the same time insisting that the Parliament as a legislative body had the right and power to make laws for the colonies in all cases whatsoever. Both sides viewed the result as a political victory, believing that their interpretation of the rights of the colonists had been heard and secured. The Parliament believed it had exerted its will as the governing body of the colonies and once and for all had established their right to levy laws on them. And the Americans believed that the British Parliament would not ever directly tax them again without some form of representation. A door had been left open. And if the British government was not careful, it might be able to close again. In 1767, things were still not going well economically for the British. The Rockingham government, which had helped repeal the Stamp Act, was suffering at the hands of their Tory opponents, who criticized them harshly and felt that they had been played by the American colonists. Charles Townsen, who served as the chancellor of the ex-checker to the ministry of William Pit the Elder, found himself in control of the administration when Pit suddenly passed away in 1766. Townsen himself died a year later. But before he did, urged by the financial crisis and the insistence of the Tory factions within Parliament, passed a series of five acts which would collectively bear his name, the Townsen Acts. The first act known as the revenue act imposed direct taxation on lead, glass, paper, paint, and notably tea. The second created a new customs board for the North American colonies in Boston and allowed customs officials unprecedented control over vessels coming in and out of colonial ports. The third suspended the New York assembly from conducting business until it had complied with the requirements of the Quartering Act passed in 1765 alongside the Stamp Act. The fourth act known as the Indemnity Act, colloquially known as the Tea Act, lowered the commercial duties on tea imported by the East India Company, hoping to combat the smuggling of Dutch East India tea into English ports. The final act, known as the Colonial Trade Act, passed after Townsen's death in 1767, also aimed to target smuggling and granted Admiral T courts jurisdiction over all matters concerning customs violations, taking away the authority of local colonial courts. Before his death, Townsen feared that it would provoke a rebellious response from the American colonists. Townsen could not have been more correct. A flurry of activity gripped the American colonies. Pamphlets and letters flew from the pens of lawyers and farmers alike as they published their grievances and papers and broadsides across the colonies. Committees of correspondence were formed and shared ideas and debated the political and economic situation in the colonies. Once again, the Sons of Liberty were active, implementing the boycott of British goods and inciting riots where the opportunity was ripe, particularly in Boston. Unrest began to forement in such a way that the customs officials were obliged to leave town. This prompted British authorities to send for British troops to occupy Boston to quell the mob. On March 5th, 1770, the consequences became quite clear when a young British century guarding the Boston Customs House was set upon by an angry mob of colonists. Accounts of the event state that the incident began as an argument between the private and a young wig makaker's apprentice, who upon insulting the private and his officer, was warned away from the post. Refusing to go and further insulting the officer, he was struck in the head by the private's musket. A crowd began to gather as the altercation grew louder and bells rang out indicating a fire, drawing yet more Bostononians toward the lone sentry. The sentry sent a runner to get help as the crowd became more violent, throwing ice and oyster shells at the century and calling for him to fire his weapon. Captain Thomas Preston and a handful of men from the Grenadier Company of the 29th Regiment of Foot arrived at the scene and deployed around the sentry with bayonets fixed. The crowd, now grown to 300 or 400 by some estimates, pressed in around the British troops, still throwing objects and shouting for them to fire. Preston shouted for the crowd to disperse and ordered his men to load their musketss. As the crowd pressed in on Preston and his men, they shouted, "Fire! Damn you! Fire!" A young private was struck in the head by a flying object, causing him to drop his musket. He bent to retrieve it and stood up and unintentionally fired into the crowd without orders. In a panic, the rest of the soldiers fired into the crowd in a ragged volley. As the crowd broke in horror and the smoke cleared, it revealed three dead colonists. Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, and Christmas addicts. A mixed race former slave Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were wounded and would die shortly after. Five colonists had been killed in what would be known as the Boston Massacre. The city was put on high alert and British troops mustered in full force, preparing to defend against further riots. The trial which followed was a media circus as the Sons of Liberty latched on to those who had died as patriots and martyrs. Attorney John Adams defended the British soldiers despite his own personal feelings toward the British abuse of the American colonies and his relationship to his cousin Samuel Adams who was one of the founding members of the Sons of Liberty. Adams, whose devout loyalty to the law led him to believe that all men were entitled to a trial, no matter who they were or what they had done, successfully argued the men were not guilty of murder, and had six of these soldiers acquitted, and two others found guilty only of manslaughter. Adam's experience in the aftermath of the trial did little to move him closer to his cousin's patriot leanings, but did affirm his belief in the legitimacy of a government of laws. Tensions remained high in Boston but gradually began to recede elsewhere. In 1773, amidst one of the worst banking crisises of the 18th century, the British Parliament again made an attempt to ensure the survival of the British East India Company by undercutting the illegal importation of Dutch tea to the American colonies while lowering the cost of EIC to the lowest possible amount. Known as the T Act of 1773, the act allowed the EIC to unload its cargo in the American colonies without paying any duties on it while charging an exorbitant amount on Dutch tea. The act prompted the Sons of Liberty to organize a raid on three merchant ships docked in Boston Harbor carrying loads of East India Company tea, which had yet to be offloaded. known as the Boston Tea Party. The Sons of Liberty boarded the ships and dumped 342 crates of tea into the harbor. The loss of tea amounted to approximately 9,659 in 1773. The equivalent of $1.7 million US today. Parliament was outraged and responded by passing a series of acts known as the Intolerable Acts in 1774. The first three acts, the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the Administration of Justice Act, all targeted Massachusetts alone and punished the city of Boston and the Massachusetts Bay Colony for its role in the Tea Party. The Boston Port Act closed the port of Boston until the colonists paid for the destroyed tea. The act angered citizens in Boston who had not even participated in the Tea Party and they felt they were being punished unjustly without being able to testify in their own defense. The Massachusetts Government Act revoked Massachusetts charter and brought the colony under direct British control. Town meetings were limited and all appointments had to be appointed by the royal governor. The Administration of Justice Act allowed the royal governor of Massachusetts to order the trial or retrial of any royal official to take place in Great Britain if the accused could not get a fair trial in Massachusetts. The final act which affected all of the colonies was the Quartering Act of 1774 which allowed royal governors to house soldiers in buildings if suitable quarters were not provided by the colonies. These acts were the last straw for many colonists. The perceived violation of what they viewed as their natural and constitutional rights as British subjects threatened to turn resentment of their British mother country to hatred and send the colonists into rebellion. Parliament hoped that the intolerable acts would isolate the problem, which seemed to be the strongest in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, the colonists began taking steps beyond simple committees of correspondence. The formation of the first Continental Congress in the fall of 1774 worked to redress the Intolerable Acts and petitioned the British government for a repeal as they had in 1765 with the Stamp Act. The petition to the king never received a formal reply. With no reply from the British government in May 1775, the colonies convened again. The second Continental Congress found itself again attempting to organize a general boycott of British goods and achieve some kind of formal response from the Parliament when the tension which had gripped the American colonies since the end of the French and Indian War finally reached a breaking point in a small village outside of Boston on a mild midappril morning in 1775. On the evening of April 18th, 1775, with tensions running high between the people of Boston and the British troops garrisoned in and around the city, the Sons of Liberty discovered that General Thomas Gage planned to march British troops to a cache of weapons and powder hidden in Concord, just a few miles from Boston, and destroy the supply. Patriots Paul Rivere and William Daws rode through the Boston countryside and warned the population that the regulars are turning out, or as it's more popularly remembered, the British are coming. Colonial militia men rose from their slumber, gathered their musketss, and rushed to stop the British troops from making it to Concord. On the morning of April 19th, 1775, Massachusetts militia men faced off against British regulars on the Lexington Town Green. When ordered to lay down their arms and return to their homes, the militia refused and stood their ground. Captain John Parker, commanding the group of 70 or so Massachusetts militia, ordered them not to fire unless fired upon first. British officers ordered their men to level their musketss, but cautioned them not to fire. Suddenly, a shot rang out. No one knows where the shot came from. Neither side laid claim, both blaming the other. With this moment, known as the shot heard around the world, the resentment and anger boiled over at last, and the war began. When the American Revolution began, it did not start as a revolution. While certainly the ideas it generated were revolutionary, the actions of the first Continental Congress were those of a legislative body, hoping to attain a form of reconciliation with the mother country. Better characterized as a rebellion, the earliest stages of the war were fought by the colonists to reclaim what they saw as their naturalb born rights as British subjects and citizens. On the home front, early victories for the militias kept the spark of rebellion lit. However, it was not long before the British put a concerted effort into putting down the uprising. At the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775, British troops stormed earthworks held by the colonial militia near Boston in a costly victory. It was becoming clear to many that if the colonies did not unify, they would be crushed one by one. While some representatives in the Continental Congress, now in its second session, still aired on the side of caution, believing that a reconciliation could still be made, the Congress made the decision to form a single unified army to prevent their forces from being wiped out peacemeal. At the head of this new Continental Army would be a colonel from the colony of Virginia named George Washington. Washington, born from one of the most prominent families in colonial Virginia, had had aspirations to be a naval officer in the English Navy when he was a young man. His mother, Mary Ball Washington, was wary. She knew that a life at sea was a difficult one and could lead to an early death or maming. She implored her son not to enlist in the Navy and to pursue a career in the army instead. Washington obeyed and would spend much of his young adult life attempting to gain a commission in the British Army. He worked as a surveyor and endeared himself to the Royal Governor of Virginia, hoping to obtain that commission. It never came. Instead, Washington served as a colonel in the Virginia militia and implemented his own particular style of leadership modeled after the British. Serving in this capacity, a young George Washington found himself at the center of some of the most important moments of the French and Indian War. At Fort Necessity and the Battle of Manonga, Washington served alongside British soldiers as a colonial officer. And despite surviving numerous close calls with death and leading his troops valiantly, he was never made an official offer for a commission in the British Army. More than a decade after the end of the French and Indian War, Washington was serving as a representative of Virginia at the Second Continental Congress, when it came time for the Congress to decide who would lead this new United Army, Washington was a natural choice. While his track record on the battlefield was less than stellar, his experience was unquestioned, and the fact that he was a Virginia pleased many of the southern delegates of the Congress, as the war thus far had been fought by and almost entirely took place in the northern colonies. In June 1775, after receiving a unanimous vote of approval from the Congress, Washington rode north for Boston and began to construct the necessary administration for the new Continental Army. The Continental Army struggled with many issues. Supply was always a chief concern. Lack of food and a reliable supply chain meant that the army needed to constantly forage for sustenance. This meant a tense and sometimes violent relationship with the civilian populations near where the armies had camped. Command differences plagued the army as well. Beyond disgruntled and entitled officers, this army consisted of troops from nearly every once colony on the east coast. These soldiers were as different from each other as if they had come from another country. In one early instance, General Washington literally had to pull soldiers off of each other during a snowball fight outside of Boston, which had turned into an outright brawl between soldiers from Massachusetts and Virginia. Uniting these men into a fighting force, was a war unto itself. Through the winter of 1775 to76, the Continental Army diverted its efforts in two directions. To the north, the Congress ordered an invasion of Quebec under the command of Generals Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery, hoping to rally the Canadians to form a 14th colony and rise against the British as well. It did not go as planned. And while successes were made in upstate New York, the invasion ultimately ended in a dismal failure. Montgomery was killed and the majority of Continental force was either captured or succumbed to smallpox. Meanwhile, Washington stayed with the army around Boston and managed the siege. With 11,000 British troops trapped in the city, Washington hoped the winter would force them to surrender, but he lacked the artillery to mount a fullscale siege. He sent the young Colonel Henry Knox to acquire artillery from the recently captured Fort Ticonderoga. And in March 1776, Knox returned to Boston. Having successfully gotten the guns over the Birkshshire Mountains through the winter. With Knox's guns looking down from Dorchester Heights, the British decided to evacuate the city. On March 17th, 1776, the Continental Army reoccupied Boston, much to the joy of the civilian population. In the spring of 1776, the war was beginning to spread to other parts of the 13 colonies. Fighting had broken out in the Carolinas, and a British siege of Charleston was thwarted by a daring defense of Sullivan's Island. In upstate New York, the survivors of the Canada expedition fought to hold on to the gains they had made at Fort Ticeroga and other key locations on Lake Champlain. Washington's forces in Boston moved south to occupy New York City. The Continental Congress ordered Washington to defend the island city, despite the lack of a meaningful navy. Washington was uncertain his army, many of whom were untrained and undisiplined militia, was going to be capable of standing up to a British assault on the city. In Philadelphia, now the American capital, the Second Continental Congress had shifted from a government body imploring the British government for a redress of grievances to a government body responsible for the management of a war. The olive branch petition sent to England in July 1775 had been the last attempt of the Congress to make peace with the mother country. It had been met with the naming of the Congress as traitors and the revolution as illegal. After the action in Boston, it had become clear to a faction of the Congress led by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others that a return to the pre-war status the American colonies in Great Britain had shared was no longer a possibility. The necessity for self-ruule had surpassed any possible reconciliation with England. Many of the representatives also realized that victory in this conflict could only be achieved with the assistance of a foreign power, namely France. They knew France would not intervene on behalf of rebel colonists, but they might for a sovereign nation. Consequently, by early summer 1776, the majority of the provincial congresses were prepared for a complete separation. On June 11th, the Congress formed a committee to draft a document stating the justification on their separation from Britain. The Declaration of Independence was written largely by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. It laid out in plain words the reason for the former colonies, now states, desire for separation and affirmed the assertion that they had every right as men to make the separation. After considerable revisions to the original drafts, including the removal of a section condemning the British slave trade, the declaration was adopted by Congress on July 2nd, 1776. And its final wording formally ratified on July 4th, 1776. Its most prolific line read, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The declaration changed the shape of the war from a rebellion to a full-fledged revolution. The new colonies began operating as separate and autonomous states bound loosely by their unified Congress. Washington had the declaration read to his soldiers in New York City. Spirits soared. At last, the soldiers of the Continental Army felt they had something to band together for independence. The British struck back in August 1776, launching a series of devastating attacks in and around New York City. As Washington had feared, his army was not prepared for the professional and welldisiplined British troops. And without a navy, he had no hope of defending the island of Manhattan. After five consecutive defeats, Washington was forced to abandon New York City to the British and began a prolonged and bloody retreat into New Jersey and across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. In late November 1776, Lord William How, the commander of the British troops in North America, pursued Washington into New Jersey and established a series of garrisons which stretched from New York as far south as Mount Holly. Washington knew that if he did not act quickly, the war would be over. He devised a plan to cross the Delaware on December 25th, 1776, and attack an exposed garrison in Trenton, New Jersey, occupied by a brigade of German troops hired by the British known as Hessins. Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas night through a blinding noraster and marched his tired and belleaguered army south to Trenton. The Hessins were surprised by the arrival of the Continental Army, as fighting and maneuvering troops through the winter was generally viewed as difficult and dangerous for 18th century armies. He achieved a swift victory fighting through the streets of Trenton and won his first battle as commander of the Continental Army. 9 days later, after a tactically brilliant running engagement on January 2nd, the Continental Army again achieved victory on the morning of January 3rd in Princeton, New Jersey. The three battles fought kept the revolution alive in its darkest hour. In 1777, the British were desperate to regain control of the situation and launched two separate offensives. The British led by Sir William How captured the American capital of Philadelphia after defeating Washington at Brandy Wine and German Town in the fall of 1777. While the loss of the capital was a blow to the morale of the Continental Army, the army had not fallen apart as how had expected and Washington took his forces to winter at Valley Forge just a few miles west of Philadelphia. In upstate New York, British General John Burggoyne pushed his army south from Canada, capturing Fort Ticonderoga and hoping to sever New England from the rest of the United States in order to bring about a swift end to the war. Instead, Burggoyne faced off against Continental Generals Benedict Arnold and Horatio Gates. Fighting a series of battles near Saratoga, New York. Thanks to impressive leadership by Arnold and sound strategy by Gates, Burggoyne's army was defeated and ultimately forced to surrender in October 1777. It was the largest British army to ever surrender to an enemy force to date, nearly 7,000 men. The British surrender at Saratoga paired with the twin victories of Trenton and Princeton from the previous winter campaign convinced the French that this new country, these United States, did indeed have a chance of winning the war. Eager to get revenge after a century of losing to the British, the French declared a formal military alliance with the United States, declaring war on Great Britain and legitimizing the Declaration of Independence in one fell swoop. Great Britain was about to become embroiled in a global conflict again. Meanwhile, Washington spent the winter of 1777 to78 training the Continental Army to fight the way European armies did. He was aided by the help from foreign officers like the Marque de Lafayette of France and the Baron von Stuben from Prussia. Stuben in particular instilled a sense of pride in the soldiers and trained them well. In 1778, when word came of the formal alliance with France, the British abandoned Philadelphia and rushed back toward New York. Their new commander, Sir Henry Clinton, did not have a high opinion of the Continental Army, but did have a healthy respect for the French and feared their presence would trap the English in Philadelphia. Washington pounced as the British withdrew through New Jersey. His newly trained fighting force struck Clinton at Monmouth, New Jersey on June 28th, 1778 and fought the British to a standstill. While the Battle of Monmouth was a stalemate, Washington's forces had fought well and withtood the British in an open field engagement. The British withdrew back to New York and would not venture into New Jersey in a meaningful way again. In 1779, the British began to feel the pressure of a global conflict. Realizing that the war could not be won in the north, the British turned their attention to the south, hoping to find more loyalist support. British forces captured Savannah and Charleston in the fall of 1779 and soundly defeated General Horatio Gates at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina. Gates was removed from command and one of Washington's trusted lieutenants, General Nathaniel Green, was placed in command of the Southern Department. Green knew that the local population was not nearly as loyalist as the British expected and relied on the local militias and partisans to harass and harry the British supply lines. In 1780 and 1781, Green and his other field officers lured the British away from the coast and into the Carolina back country where they were soundly defeated at the Battle of Kings Mountain and Cowpens. As the British were lured further away from the Carolas and into Virginia, the Carolinas exploded into a civil war as patriots fought loyalists for control of the states. Green moved back into the Carolinas to recapture the states, fighting the British in a series of engagements and forcing them back to the coastal cities where they started. In the summer of 1781, Green's army was exhausted from the near constant fighting, as was the British army under the command of Charles Cornwallis. Cornwallis knew he could not stay in the south any longer and marched his army north toward Yorktown, Virginia. In the north, the combined American and French forces marched south to intercept Cornwallis at Yorktown. Cornwallis found himself surrounded with his back to the sea and no hope for rescue. After a month-long siege, he was forced to surrender. The surrender at Yorktown was the last major military action of the American Revolution. Peace talks opened after the surrender and took nearly two full years to finalize. In the end, the Treaty of Paris officially recognized the United States as a sovereign nation and was made independent and free from Great Britain. As the American Revolution raged on, the Continental Congress, having declared independence, found themselves not only with the necessity to conduct a war as a sovereign body, but to unite the now independent states in a loose confederation government. On November 15th, 1777, the Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, creating a weak central government, which bound the states together only in times of great conflict, such as the ongoing revolution. The Articles worked through the war as they granted the Congress the power to conduct the war as a united body and deal with foreign nations as such. After the war, however, it became apparent that the loose system of central government was not going to work. Under the articles, the state governments had direct control over their own commerce, economy, and laws. And while many of these overlapped, not all did, creating chaos and confusion. The central government could not mediate the issues between states and disputes over state boundaries, taxation, and international trade began to push the government to its limit. The United States was less than a decade old and was already facing an economic and political disaster. One of the major indicators that change needed to be made occurred in fall 1786 when the economic situation began leading to mass foreclosures and bankruptcies. In Massachusetts, Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shea led a rebellion of some 1,200 other veterans who had not been paid for their service nor had received a pension and occupied the Massachusetts Supreme Court in Springfield, thereby denying the Massachusetts government the ability to foreclose on any property. They attacked the new federal arsenal at Springfield, but were unsuccessful in taking possession of the grounds. Fighting began to occur all over the state as the rebellion spread. Fortunately, the Massachusetts militia defeated the rebels, scattering them and putting an end to the fighting. It was clear the Articles of Confederation limited the federal government's ability to handle domestic issues as well as foreign policy issues. The Treaty of Paris, which had ended the Revolution, made stipulations that debts owed by Americans to British subjects would still need to be honored and that loyalists would still be able to bring suits to United States courts for the return of their confiscated property. As each state was liable for ensuring these terms were met, there were discrepancies across the country, as some enforced these terms better than others. The result was British troops still occupying forts and territory which now technically belonged to the United States as the terms of the treaty had not been met. With no authority to mediate or command the states to adhere to the treaty, the federal government could do nothing. With few options, a convention was called by several states in order to make amendments to the articles. In May 1787, the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia and began debating the Articles of Confederation and what would be required to alter them. It was immediately clear that the Articles did not work, but what form of government would. A fundamentally new design was proposed and hotly debated. As would become the hallmark of American politics, several compromises were met to achieve the balance the states required to ratify this new form of government. This new constitution would form a government of checks and balances with three distinct branches dividing the federal authority between them. The legislative branch or the congress would be divided into two houses. The House of Representatives composed of state representatives comparable to the population of each state and the Senate composed of two representatives from each state. This branch has the power to create and vote on laws, enact taxes, declare war, override presidential vetos, create federal courts, except for the Supreme Court, and sets the number of justices on the Supreme Court. Independently, the Senate has the power to confirm presidential appointments to the judiciary, heads of departments, and other federal offices, ratify treaties with foreign powers, remove impeached officials from office. The House of Representatives has the power to impeach federal officials, including the president. The executive branch would be led by a president elected by an electoral college who would be vested with the power to execute, enforce or veto federal laws, appoint federal officers, grant pardons, and act as the primary role in all matters relating to foreign policy. As the commander-in-chief, it was also the role of the president to lead the military forces of the United States at the direction of Congress. The third branch, the judicial branch, would consist of a supreme court appointed by the president and approved by the Congress. The Supreme Court is responsible for the interpretation of the laws passed by Congress and acts as the final ruling on matters of legality. In a later Supreme Court case, Marberry v. Madison 1803, the Supreme Court added the determination of which laws of Congress are unconstitutional. While this check was not in the original constitution, it is an essential part of the function of the court. A government by the people for the people. It was the first time any nation's constitution had included the people as instrumental in the establishment and validity of the government. The constitution was drafted in September 1787 and distributed to the Congress of the Confederation. Instead of the amendments to the articles they had expected, the Constitution offered an entirely new form of government. Immediate debate began as the Constitution needed to be ratified not unanimously by each state as under the Articles of Confederation, but rather by a 2/3 majority. In October 1787, the first of 85 pamphlets championing the Constitution were published and widely distributed. Known as the Federalist Papers, they were published anonymously at the time, although we know now that its authors were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John J. Quickly, two factions began to form. On one side were the Federalists, who supported the Constitution and a powerful central government. On the other were the anti-federalists who saw the constitution as too powerful and detracted from the power of state governments. One by one, however, the states ratified the constitution. The need for a change in government had become too dire and most states realized that this constitution would be the best way forward. The constitution was officially ratified by the states over the course of 1787 to88. And on June 21st, 1788, the 9th state, New Hampshire, voted in favor, making the Constitution the new law of the land. George Washington, hero of the American Revolution, was elected in early 1789 to be the first president of the United States. John Adams, having received the second most votes, was elected his vice president. While Washington did not ally himself with either the federalist or anti-federalist factions which had taken root, he did favor federalist policies in order to strengthen the fledgling government. He wisely filled his cabinet with the brightest political minds of the age from both federalist and anti-federalist factions including Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph. During his presidency, Washington attempted to focus on the myriad domestic issues facing the country. He pushed the Congress to pass tariffs on imported goods in an effort to raise revenue for the federal government and worked closely with his secretary of treasury, Alexander Hamilton, to pass a series of economic programs and laws which would create a national bank and establish a national debt for the government. He selected the permanent location for the future capital of the United States. and would bear the name Washington, District of Columbia, in honor of the first president. In times of crisis, Washington took his role as commanderin-chief literally. In 1790, in response to the Distilled Spirits Duties Act, or Whiskey Act, which taxed domestically distilled spirits, farmers in western Pennsylvania began an armed insurrection. They attacked tax collectors and clashed with federal forces, prompting Washington to summon the Pennsylvania and Virginia militias to active duty. He personally led the troops into western Pennsylvania, and with little show of force, his commissioners were able to broker the end of what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion. In foreign affairs, Washington suffered from attacks on all sides. In France, their one-time ally, King Louis V 16th, had lost control of his government and his people, resulting in an increasingly violent revolution. Trouble with barbar pirates in the Mediterranean threatened to disrupt a fragile American maritime trade. England had begun the practice of impressment or the stealing of sailors and ships from other nations, forcing Washington to demand satisfaction, sending his friend and political confidant John J, to England. Washington hoped to achieve an amicable trade agreement and sessation of American impressment. Jay returned with a treaty in hand and represented the American government well in Washington's eyes, bringing Great Britain and the United States closer together. Conversely, the J treaty angered pro- French factions in his administration and around the country. Washington was elected for a second term in 1792. Again, with Adams as his vice president, he continued to struggle with the new French Republic. As in 1793, they executed King Louis V 16th and were engulfed in a series of revolutionary wars. Washington leaned hard into his desire for American isolation from Europe, much to the frustration of the pro- French members of his cabinet like Thomas Jefferson. In 1793, during his second term, Washington was forced to remove himself and the government from their temporary capital in Philadelphia due to an outbreak of yellow fever. The government moved to Trenton, New Jersey, where the Continental Congress had once briefly met in 1784. Washington struggled with the growing rift within his administration. The anti-federalists, now the Democratic Republicans, had grown further and further apart ideologically from the Federalists. Washington feared the creation of two political parties and warned repeatedly that their existence could lead to a serious fracture within the government. The Washington administration set many precedents for the United States government and the office of the president. From pushing domestic policies to foreign intervention or lack thereof, Washington set the tone for his successors. His final act as president was to step down. While Congress had not yet placed any term restrictions on the office of the president, it was widely expected that Washington might just remain president or establish a kind of dynasty, not unlike a king. Instead, after two terms served, Washington stepped down and did not run for office for a third term. His successor, elected by a narrow margin in 1797, was John Adams, whose foreign affairs struggles were equal or worse to Washington's. The situation in France devolved further into a period known as the reign of terror. Adams continued Washington's policy of isolation and further pushed the United States away from France. In response, the new revolutionary government of France began an unofficial war against the United States or quasi war. The fighting was kept primarily at sea and involved a number of naval battles with America's fledgling navy. At home, Adams became increasingly unpopular with the Democratic Republicans as he passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, allowing the government to arrest or silence any critics of the Adams administration's actions in regards to France. Bedeled by members of his own party and members of the opposition, Adams took it upon himself to broker an agreement with France and end his administration in peace. In his final year in office, Adams and his wife Abigail were the first presidential family to move into the White House in the new capital in Washington, D.C. They lived and worked out of the building as it was put together around them. Adams ran again, hoping that his peace with France would regain favor, but lost out to Thomas Jefferson early in the electoral process. The presidency of Thomas Jefferson ushered in 25 years of Democratic Republican control of the executive branch. Jefferson's administration rapidly worked to undo the damage they felt Washington and Adams administrations had done. Jefferson worked to reduce the accumulated debt, cutting the budget as low as he possibly could. He reduced the army and navy and removed the whiskey tax which had plagued Washington's presidency. Like Washington and Adams, Jefferson had to contend with piracy in the Mediterranean. He employed an American naval squadron to soundly defeat the Barbarie pirates and force them to capitulate. Unlike his predecessors, Jefferson actively worked with the new French government. now under the control of Napoleon Bonapart. Bonapart, looking to make quick cash and to offload some old colonial holdings, sold the Louisiana territory to Jefferson's administration in 1803, opening an entirely new frontier for Americans. The following year, Jefferson employed the core of discovery, led by Captain Merryweather Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark, to mount an expedition up the Missouri River and over the Continental Divide. Their goals were to map the new territory to find a practical route across the western half of the continent and to establish an American presence in the west before Europeans got the chance to claim territory. Aided by a Shosonyi woman named Sakajouia who served as an interpreter, the party made contact with over 70 Indian tribes, produced 140 maps, and documented more than 200 new plant and animal species. Jefferson's second term was marred by the Napoleonic Wars raging in Europe. Both British and French navies now actively attacked American ships and sailors, resulting in violations of America's neutral shipping rights. In response, Jefferson employed an embargo on American shipping. It was wildly unpopular and even more wildly unsuccessful, damaging Jefferson's attempts to balance the budget before his second term was [Music] up. Despite the unpopularity the Democratic Republicans faced at the end of Jefferson's administration, his proteéé James Madison was elected as the fourth president of the United States. Madison, who had been instrumental during the constitutional convention, inherited a complicated and messy relationship with England and France and mounting tension within the United States. Madison continued Jefferson's embargo for the first two years of his presidency. Realizing that trade was necessary for the betterment of the United States and at the behest of Congress, Madison reopened American shipping to France and England, asking them once again to honor America's neutrality. Naturally, the capturing of ships and impressment of sailors began again. Almost immediately, a group of young congressmen, namely two gentlemen named Henry Clay and John C. Calhouned the president for a stronger show of force known as Warhawks. Clay Calhoun and their faction demanded Madison to take a more militant stance toward Britain and France. Increased tension on the American interior added to the fire. British agents had been suspected of arming and supplying a native uprising on the frontier, and British troops still held forts which belonged to the United States. After British ships blatantly attacked American sailors immediately off of the American coast, Madison gave in to the Warhawks and asked the Congress to declare war on June 1st, 1812. The American people may have been ready for war with Britain, but its army and navy were not. In three separate invasions of Canada, the United States was defeated and beaten back with two out of three armies forced to surrender, although not without some success. One of the invasions had resulted in the burning of the city of York, the provincial capital in Canada. Naval battles fared much better. In one instance, the USS Constitution and the HMS Goreier faced off in a swift naval engagement lasting less than an hour. The British were horrified to find that their cannonballs bounced harmlessly off of the Constitution's 22in hole. The USS Constitution would go on to wreak havoc among the British Navy throughout the war. Many native tribes had banded together under the leadership of the Shauny Chief Tecumpsa and his brother Tensqatawa or Laawaikica known as the prophet. Tecumsa's Confederacy of tribes sided with the British in the last desperate gamble to establish control over the continued American expansion west. The British and Tecumsa's Confederacy kept the American military at bay in Canada, where Tecumsa was ultimately killed at the Battle of the Tempames in 1813. Tecumsa's death fractured the Confederacy of Tribes and ultimately drew them out of the war. The British, on the other hand, turned on the offensive and attacked American positions along the Chesapeake, aiming to capture the United States capital, Washington, D.C. In August 1814, the British successfully sailed up the Ptoxent River south of Washington and landed troops who marched toward the US capital city. A disastrous defense of the city at Blensburg left Washington DC open to attack and occupation. In the White House, Madison was forced to evacuate and watch the disaster from afar. His wife, Dolly Madison, realized that if the British captured the city, they would wreak havoc and likely set fire to the various government buildings. Mrs. Madison had her enslaved servant, Paul Jennings, take down and secure the famous copy of the landsdown portrait of George Washington, which hung prominently in the White House. Dolly's precaution proved prophetic as when the British troops occupied Washington, they did indeed set numerous government buildings ablaze, including the still under construction US capital, the Treasury, the Department of War and White House. As the city burned, a well-timed hurricane rushed up the coast, putting out the fires and in one recorded case, picked up two cannons and threw them several yards away, killing both British soldiers and American civilians. While the British had successfully taken and burned the US capital, they were forced to abandon the city, as controlling it would not be possible without additional reinforcement and the hurricane had severely damaged their fleet on the Puxent River. Madison returned to the ruined capital and continued to prosecute the war. The following month, British naval efforts to capture the city of Baltimore were thwarted at the siege of Fort Mckenry, where British vessels bombarded the fort through a vicious battle which lasted into the night. In the morning at Rey, Fort Mckenry ran up its oversized star spangled banner flag as it prepared for another day of fighting. Instead, the British fleet sailed back out to sea, unwilling to engage more American positions and began diverting their resources for an attack on New Orleans in Louisiana. The siege of Fort Mckenry and the sight of the oversized American flag on the morning of September 14th, 1814 inspired American lawyer Francis Scott Keyi to pen a poem titled The Defense of Fort Mckenry. The words of the poem set to the tune of an old British drinking song would go on to become the national anthem of the United States. The Star Spangled Banner. The British made one last attempt to make an offensive effort into the American mainland near the city of New Orleans in Louisiana. Hoping to get control of the Mississippi River, British forces landed several miles south of New Orleans and attempted to march on the city. The defense of the city was organized by a fiery commander named Andrew Jackson, whose hodgepodge assembly of defenders included pirates, militia, free blacks, and regulars. In January 1815, unaware that the United States and England had concluded negotiations for a peace treaty in December 1814, British forces marched on New Orleans and engaged in one last battle. Jackson's ragtag defenders held off several waves of British troops and won an incredible, if somewhat belated, victory for the United States. Although the War of 1812 is little known today, it had many lasting impacts across for the United States and the people of North America. Without question, the greatest effect on the war was not any territory gained, but rather the definitive end of any hope for the Native Americans to establish any kind of sovereignty over their land. As part of the treaty, the British had pushed for the establishment of an Indian state in the Great Lakes region. But the United States had outright rejected the plan. The dam was about to burst for western expansion, and there was nothing and no one left to stop the tide from sweeping away the native tribes still standing. On a global scale, most of the European powers had assumed the United States would not be able to last. The Great Experiment would have run its course, and these backwards farmers and high-headed intellectuals would have torn the country apart. Instead, on a very public world stage, the United States had again declared war on the most powerful empire in the world and fought them to a standstill. While there was very little territory gained by the Treaty of Gent, the statement was clear. The United States was here and they were here to stay, at least as long as it could stay together. [Music] As the 19th century progressed, many Americans became enamored with the concept of continentalism, a belief that the United States would one day stretch from sea to shining sea and cover the North American continent. The Treaty of Gent did very little to enhance the territory owned by the United States in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Although Jefferson's Louisiana purchase had increased the territory owned by the United States all the way to the Rocky Mountains, political treaties with Spain and Great Britain helped to expand and clarify these borders through the 1820s, and Americans became increasingly ravenous to fulfill this continental dream. At the same time, President James Monroe's 1823 warned European powers that the Western Hemisphere was no longer theirs to play with and that the United States would exert its influence as the major power in the region if they attempted to colonize here again. The message was clear and an idea began to take shape in the minds of the American people. This land is not for the Europeans and it never was. It is destined for the people of the United States. The term manifest destiny first appeared during the 1840s during growing conflict over control of the Oregon territory, but has come to encompass the entire era of westward expansion for the United States. believing that they were unquestionably destined to inhabit the entire continent and looking for a chance to redeem what some believed was ungodly and sinful west. Americans looked to spread their values and their economy beyond the Mississippi River and reform the West into an evangelical version of the agrarian East. In their way stood the proud remnants of Native American tribes of the East. and the tribes of the west now unwilling to give any more ground without a fight. Additionally, the few European colonies still standing in North America, namely Great Britain and Spain, as well as by 1824, a newly independent Mexico, would not simply roll over and allow the United States to expand unchecked. When he purchased the Louisiana territory, President Jefferson wanted to establish lasting diplomatic relationships with the myriad of tribes in the West and as became the custom through the 19th century hoped to civilize and assimilate the tribes into American society. It did not take long, however, for plans to assimilate the Native Americans becoming plans to remove and relocate them, especially in the aftermath of the War of 1812. As early as 1824, under the presidency of James Monroe, plans were drafted for the creation of Indian territories, which would force the Cherokee Indians to abandon their ancestral land east of the Mississippi River and move west. In 1829, President Andrew Jackson, the hero of the War of 1812, made those plans a reality, convincing the Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act in 1830. The act forced the five civilized tribes, the Chasaw, Chalkdaw, Creek, Seol, and Cherokee, to abandon their lands and move west. It was an act of forced displacement with more than 60,000 people removed from their homes and relocated beyond the Mississippi River. The removal saw a few minor conflicts, but ultimately the tribes were coerced into leaving. Known as the Trail of Tears, the routes taken by these tribes were difficult and resulted in the deaths of around 15,000 natives. Pioneers made the journey westward to farm, mine, and ranch, often finding the land inhospitable and dangerous. During their journeys, they faced skirmishes with Native Americans, diseases such as chalera and typhoid fever, punishing winters without food, and other hardships. About 70,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints immigrated to the Salt Lake Valley from their homes in Illinois beginning in 1847. Known as the Mormon Exodus, hundreds of thousands of immigrators used the Oregon Trail, a 2,000mi route from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. Land speculators would sell cheap plots with promises of unbounded opportunity, inspiring thousands to make the journey. In the winter of 1846 to47, members of the infamous Donner party were traveling by wagon train west on the Oregon Trail, but became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The party members were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive. The overland journey was so risky and difficult that some westward immigrants opted for the six-month route by sea around Cape Horn at the tip of South America instead. In 1848, gold was discovered in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, which had the same year become part of the US as a consequence of the Mexicanamean War. Once word got out about the gold, men from near and far sought their fortunes in the Sierra Nevada foothills in what became known as the gold rush. In 1849, San Francisco's population skyrocketed from 812 to 20,000 people. With those prospectors arriving that year, becoming known collectively as the 49ers, the prices for land, goods, and services skyrocketed. People stood to make more money selling those goods and services to prospectors than from actually mining for gold. Because men outnumbered women in these towns greatly, traditional women's work like washing clothes and cooking became highly in demand and therefore highly profitable. Nevertheless, actual gold was certainly found. The rush produced on average 76 tons of gold per year. And by the end of the 1850s, it was estimated that $550 million worth of gold had been mined, worth about $187 billion in today's dollars. The thousands who had moved west needed fast mail service for letters and news from the east. While several mail carriers over the Rocky Mountains existed, the most famous was the Pony Express. Founded in 1860, the service used relays of horse-mounted riders riding at breakneck speed day and night to carry mail between Missouri and California, which it could do in about 10 days. It only operated for 18 months before the first transcontinental telegraph was established in 1861, but it was vital for connecting the new state of California with the rest of the US. As Americans began to settle west, more conflicts with the existing Native American tribes led to further violence, and the United States military became nearly permanently quartered in various forts across the Midwest and along the West Coast. The Texas territory in the American Southwest had been seated to Spain in the 1810s. But following the Mexican War of Independence in 1821 and the official formation of the Mexican Republic just 3 years later, the territory became part of Mexico. Texas was far away from the center of the Mexican government in Saltio and had fewer than 4,000 people living across the vast territory. Looking to increase immigration to the state and hoping the subsequent rise in population would deter Indian raids, the Mexican government offered cheap land and considerable financial benefits for those who would take residence in the state. Many of those who immigrated came from the American South and brought with them the culture and mentality of the region, including slavery. In 1829, Mexico abolished slavery and after the Anglo citizens nearly revolted, the Mexican president also banned any further immigration to Texas by citizens of the United States. In Texas, the Anglo citizens ignored the laws and rapidly began to outnumber the Mexican-born population in the state. When in 1834, Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana led a successful coup of the Mexican government, the Texans were initially pleased as Santa Ana quickly undid many of the acts and laws of his predecessors. However, Santa Anna went much further and disbanded the political bodies of each of the Mexican states, imposing a dictatorship over the country. In 1835, with support from both the Anglos and Tanos populations, the Texans rebelled, looking to secure independence from Mexico. In late February 1836, the most famous battle of the Texas Revolution began with the siege of the Alamo Mission, defended by fewer than 300 Texans. The walls of the mission had been turned into a makeshift fort. Its defenders included Colonel William Travis, James Bowie, and former US Congressman and folk legend Davy Crockett. The Texans were surrounded on all sides and besieged for 13 days by Santa Anna's army before the final night attack on March 6th, 1836. The battle was brutal, and Santa Anna ordered for there to be no prisoners taken. The handful of prisoners who managed to survive the massacre were executed as well. The Battle of the Alamo became a rallying cry for the Texans still fighting and fueled the Texas army in the weeks which followed. A little more than a month later, the Texas Revolution ended in victory for the people of Texas after the Battle of Sanjasinto in April 1836. The Texas Revolution lasted less than a year and saw the creation of the Republic of Texas. Naturally, the predominantly American population immediately began petitioning the government of the United States to annex the New Republic and add it to the growing union. Despite fierce arguments over the admittance of what would undeniably be another slave state into the Union, it took less than a decade before Texas was annexed by the United States. The annexation of Texas sparked yet another conflict with Mexico in 1846. Because the borders of the Republic of Texas were undefined and disputed by Mexico when the United States annexed Texas, Mexico claimed that the United States was taking Mexican land. President James K. Pulk attempted to negotiate with the Mexican government, offering to pay for the disputed territory in addition to the California, New Mexico, and Arizona territories. However, the Mexican government refused. In response, Pulk sent troops to occupy the disputed territory, causing Mexican forces to attack the small American force. Pulk used the affair to convince Congress to declare war on Mexico. Mexico's army was equipped with surplus flint lock firearms from the Napoleonic era. While the United States was armed with far more modern weaponry, disorganized, under supplied, and facing internal political strife at every level of management, the Mexican forces were little to no match for the American army and navy, who made quick work conquering vast sections of Mexico and its territories. When the Mexican government finally collapsed, they were forced to surrender large swaths of territory to the United States, including California and New Mexico, in addition to suffering the indignity of having to recognize the sovereignty of the Republic of Texas and its subsequent annexation in 1845. Lasting from April 1846 to February 1848, the Mexican-American War proved to be a one-sided one and clearly displayed America's ambitions to secure control of the North American continent. There were many dissident to the concept of manifest destiny, especially within the Wig Party, the successors of the Federalists, including by the mid-9th century a young Illinois politician named Abraham Lincoln. In 1844, manifest destiny took center stage as territorial disputes with Great Britain over Oregon and the ongoing tensions with Mexico over the Texas territory split political parties further. As western territories grew in population and were being considered for admission to the Union, whether these areas would allow or ban slavery became a crucial question. The fragile balance of power in Congress between slave states and free states was at risk. Since the first African slaves arrived in Virginia in 1619, the institution of slavery had grown more and more ingrained in the culture and economy of the United States, particularly in the South. While the United States government had abolished the slave trade in 1808, it had introduced a form of cattle slavery within its borders, ensuring generations of African-Ameans remained working. While there had been a few slave rebellions across the United States in the early 19th century, including Nat Turner's 1831 rebellion, none had succeeded. Through the early 19th century, some slaves attempted to escape and fled north, hoping to find sanctuary in the pro-abolition states of the Northeast, or in Canada. They traveled north on a series of secret routes to known abolitionist locations and safe houses. Known as the Underground Railroad, the pathway north was dangerous, and those brave enough to flee bondage were aided by fellow escaped slaves, freedommen, and women, and anti-slavery sympathizers. One such individual was Harriet Tubman. Tubman had escaped slavery herself in 1849 and spent many years after aiding more than 70 slaves escaping slavery in the South. As the issue of slavery pressed closer and closer to a breaking point, so too did the tension within the federal government. In 1854, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks caned Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate. Pro-slavery sympathizers from around the country sent Brooks new canes congratulating him. Abolitionists saw the public attack as the embodiment of the control the South seemed to have over the country. Could they simply do whatever they wanted and expect nothing but compromise in return? The polarization of the country was made perfectly clear as a result of the incident. It had taken years of agreements and compromises to come to this stalemate. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise declared that Missouri would be a new slave state and Maine is a new free state and that slavery would be prohibited north of the southern boundary of Missouri in the rest of the Louisiana purchase. The fragile balance was preserved. Texas joined in 1844 as a slave state and Oregon was admitted in 1846 as a free state. When the US won more than 1 million square miles of territory from Mexico as a result of the MexicanAmerican War in 1848, volatile debate occurred over whether the new territories would allow slavery. The US gained all of present-day California, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah as a result of that fight. The resulting agreement said that California would be a free state, and the slave trade, but not slavery, would be abolished in Washington, D, but a new fugitive slave act would enable southerners to reclaim runaway slaves who had escaped across borders to free states. The agreement allowed the rest of the areas to determine for themselves whether to allow slavery. In 1854, two new states, Kansas and Nebraska, were set to be established in the Louisiana Purchase Area. But southern legislators objected because, according to the terms of the Missouri Compromise, both states would be free. A new compromise called for popular sovereignty or once again allowing the settlers of the territories to determine the question for themselves. The battle for Kansas and Nebraska came to embody the soul of the nation. People flooded to the territories and tried to influence the vote, many of them voting illegally. Soon, Kansas spiraled into civil war, a conflict that killed hundreds and which became known as bleeding Kansas. Among those who had joined in the violence was one of the most notorious freedom fighters in American history, John Brown. Brown was a radical preacher and a staunch abolitionist. He had on multiple occasions attempted to incite an armed slave rebellion and in Kansas ramped up the violence to such an extent that he and his followers hacked five Kansas slave owners to death with broadswords. Brown then began planning a raid on Harper's Ferry in Virginia, hoping to once again inspire the enslaved peoples of the South to rise up against their oppressors. He planned on capturing the armory in Arsenal in Harper's Ferry in addition to the rifle factory in order to arm his rebellion. Brown's raid commenced in October 1859 and was swiftly put down by the United States Army. The US forces led by a young colonel named Robert E. Lee quickly surrounded the engine house Brown's men had occupied and after Brown refused to surrender took the building by force. Brown was tried and executed for treason by the state of Virginia and in so doing became a martyr for anti-slave forces around the country. Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was a defining moment for the country. It seemed now inevitable that there would be some great conflict to decide the fate of the nation. The election of 1860 was the final straw for the South. Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln ran on a platform of liberal policies which included raising tariffs, infrastructure improvements, and expanding the railroads. While Lincoln was an abolitionist and vehemently opposed slavery, he understood that the issue would inevitably tear the country apart and had initially promised to do everything in his power to keep the South from breaking away from the Union. Lincoln's election to the presidency, however, was enough for some southern states to make the break. In December 1860, South Carolina led the charge and seceded from the United States. Other southern states quickly followed and sitting President James Buchanan faced a growing disaster. As southern states seceded, they began to confiscate federal forts and arsenals which belong to the United States military. One such location was Fort Sumpter in South Carolina. President Buchanan had been unwilling to resupply the garrison. And when Lincoln took office, he faced a near impossible decision. Lincoln, unwilling to surrender an American fort to the rebels or recognized their authority, sent a letter to the governor of South Carolina informing him that a ship carrying food but no ammunition, would attempt to resupply the fort. This allowed Lincoln the satisfaction of knowing that if the South fired on the fort, they would be the aggressor in any conflict. And if they did not, he would have made strides in negotiating with the rebels, as well as holding the fort. It was not to be. On the 9th of April, Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered General PTG Borugard to take the fort before the supplies would arrive. [Music] On April 12th, 1861, the standoff finally erupted when Baragard at last opened fire on Fort Sumpter. The bombardment lasted 34 hours with more than 4,000 shells fired. Despite the ferocity of the bombardment, not a single Union soldier was killed during the action. At 2:30 p.m. on April 13th, 1861, they surrendered the fort under agreeable terms and marched from the fort carrying the flag which had endured the battle. For Lincoln, the loss of Fort Sumpter was a kind of symbolic victory. While losing the fort was not ideal, the public in the north rallied behind him and the Union. States like New Jersey and Delaware, which had been for a time on the fence regarding secession, threw their support wholeheartedly toward the Union. Lincoln used the momentum carried by the battle to call for 75,000 volunteers willing to help restore order in the South and return the secessionist states to the Union. The North answered the call and in days the ranks were beginning to fill. In Ohio, so many men volunteered that they could have met the full 75,000 volunteers on their own. In the South, the victory at Fort Sumpter did less to inspire a call to arms than did Lincoln's call for volunteers. The call for 75,000 volunteers triggered the secession of four additional states: Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina. To the South, it was clear that Lincoln planned to use the federal government to coers them back into the Union by blood. In the north, it was clear that the south had violated the constitution by seceding and it was within the power of the federal government to take back the states. Again, the question of the power of the government created great consternation and powerful opinions from both sides. Amidst it all remained the question at the heart of the war, slavery. It was clear now to the leaders of the rebellion that if Lincoln had the power to raise an army of volunteers to return the states to the Union, he could use that power to end slavery in the United States for good. If the Confederacy did not achieve victory early on, there was no chance of success for them in the long run. A protracted and costly war may wear down the North eventually, but the South did not have the means to conduct such a conflict, nor would they survive if they did. General Winfield Scott, the veteran of the War of 1812 and the MexicanAmerican War, was given command of Union forces at the onset of the war. Scott was an excellent tactician. Although his experience on the battlefield was outdated, he implemented a full-scale naval blockade of the South known as the Anaconda Plan, which he hoped would help hasten the end of the war by choking the South of the many resources it would need to run the war. However, goods were still making their way into the south through Texas. The Union had a clear view of their strategic goals from this point forward. In the east, defeat the Confederate army in the field, capture major coastal cities along the East Coast, and capture the new Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia. In the West, capture major cities and forts along the Mississippi River and cut off Texas from the rest of the South. For the South, the path to success was on the battlefield. There was no way in which the South could match the North in terms of industry, manpower, or naval power. Aid could come in the form of help from Europe. But France and England had abolished slavery decades prior and would never meaningfully commit to the South during the conflict. This meant that the Confederates needed swift and decisive victories against the Union, possibly on northern soil. If the cost of war was too high, the peace Democrats and more moderate Republicans in Congress might pull the Union out of the war. In the eastern theater of the war, early Confederate successes kept the rebellion alive as a revolving door of Union High commanders continued to plague the federal forces. Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who had declined command of Union forces at the war's outbreak in favor of supporting his home state of Virginia, emerged as the tactical and logistical genius behind the survival of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Lee kept the cause of the Confederacy alive as long as his army was in the field and responded effectively and swiftly to the often cumbersome and uncertain Union forces he opposed. In the West, Union General Ulissiz Srant emerged as the best chance for the North's success. Grant waged a series of incredible campaigns against his opponents in the West and managed to take control of the Mississippi River, putting a wedge between Texas and the other southern states. Grant's greatest victory in the West came with the siege of Vixsburg ending in July 1863. At the same time, General Lee had invaded Pennsylvania in the east with the intention of breaking the spirit of the North and forcing Lincoln to surrender. Instead, he was soundly defeated at the Battle of Gettysburg by Union General George me. Between Lee's defeat at Gettysburg and Grant's victory at Vixsburg, the high tide of the Confederacy was over. In 1862, after the battle of Antitum, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, claiming that slavery was abolished within those parts of the country which had rebelled against the Union and allowed the Union Army to take on any slaves found in the South and bring them north. Lincoln and the War Department authorized the raising of black troops, known as colored troops, during the Civil War. While the war had begun for Lincoln as a means to reunite the country, as it progressed, he struck at the heart of the conflict and shifted the war goals beyond simply a return to the status quo. Lincoln believed slavery could not and would no longer exist within the borders of the United States and organized his party to begin working on amendments to the Constitution to make it so. Grant was given command of the entire Union Army and was moved to command the eastern theater of the war. He left General William Tecumpsa Sherman in command of the western theater and the two began to prosecute total war against the south. Grant threw his army repeatedly at Lee, forcing engagement after engagement. While Lee did win several battles, they were battles he could not afford to fight. And even when Grant lost, he moved swiftly unlike his predecessors and immediately got back into the fray. In the west, Sherman moved south, cutting through the south toward Atlanta, Georgia, leaving a path of devastation in his wake. Atlanta was burned as Confederate forces fled before Sherman's army. Unable to stop the Union juggernaut, Sherman marched his armies to Savannah by Christmas of 1864 and presented the captured city to President Lincoln as a gift. In spring 1865, Lee was finally defeated for the last time at Appamatics Courthouse and surrendered to Grant on April 9th, 1865. Sherman continued to chase the Confederate forces in the Carolina's north until they too surrendered shortly thereafter. After 4 years and 600,000 lives lost, the Civil War was at last over. Before it had ended, Lincoln had successfully managed to convince Congress to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in January 1865, officially abolishing slavery in the United States. Lincoln advocated for peace and hoped that the reconstruction period that would inevitably follow would be guided not by malice, but by a sense of unity. The country was optimistic that Lincoln would be the one to lead them. It was not to be. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by John Wils Booth, a radical southern supporter and died on the morning of April 15th, 1865. Booth was hunted down and killed during the manhunt. While his co-conspirators were rounded up and executed for treason, the country mourned the loss of their leader, and the fate of reconstruction was left in the hands of Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson. Reconstruction began immediately after the end of the Civil War, and the South was separated into five military districts. These districts were occupied by US troops in order to help reestablish law and order in the region as well as enforce the new laws of reconstruction. Over the course of 5 years, the Congress successfully passed an additional two constitutional amendments to secure the rights of the now free black citizens of the United States. The first, the 14th amendment, granted the right of citizenship to all those born within the United States and granted those citizens the right of equal protection under the law. The second, the 15th amendment, guaranteed citizens the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The resentment of many individuals in both North and South grew as the US government expanded the rights and liberties of black Americans to match those of white Americans. Especially in regions deeply affected by the Civil War in the South, groups of white supremacists rose up and formed several hate organizations such as the Ku Klux Clan or the KKK, which targeted black Americans and other individuals who favored reconstruction. In 1868, Ulissiz Srant, hero of the Civil War, was elected the 18th president of the United States and took office in March 1869. Grant committed much of his early years as president to Lincoln's original goals of reconstruction, signing numerous acts ensuring naturalization and equal rights of black citizens. To enforce these acts and the new constitutional amendments, he created the Justice Department and wielded the US military to stamp out the KKK and other white supremacist organizations. Sadly, Grant's presidency was rot with political turmoil from both within his own party and without. The newly reformed governments of the southern states lashed out at the reconstruction laws and continuously caused issues during elections. Grant found his hands tied as his second term came to an end and the country began its return to stalemate and compromise as the economic and business interests of both parties began to usurp the social crises of reconstruction. With the end of the American Civil War and the question of slavery at last resolved, many people within the United States continued the exodus out west in the footsteps of the early 19th century pioneers. With the territories along the West Coast fairly wellestablished and a growing number of cities dotting the Midwest, moving away from the chaos of the East Coast and the memory of the war was appealing. Access to the west had only grown over the course of the mid9th century with the introduction of the transcontinental railroad. From 1863 to 1869, a transcontinental railroad was built to connect the eastern and western coasts of the US. The very first steam train had debuted in 1830, and by 1850, more than 9,000 mi of track had been laid. In 1860, it was decided that the mountain pass, where the Donner Party had been trapped, was an ideal place for a railroad to cut through the Sierra Nevada mountains. When President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law in 1862, construction commenced, though railroad workers suffered attacks from members of the Sue, Arapjo, and Cheyenne tribes as they progressed across the land. Wherever the railroad went, ramshackle settlements of the sort immortalized in wild west culture were soon to follow. These places were hot beds for drinking, gambling, prostitution, and violence. When construction of the transcontinental railroad finished at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, a final spike made of 17.6 6 karat gold was ceremoniously driven into the ground before a crowd of workers and dignitaries. With the railroad's completion, the travel time for making the 3,000mi journey across the United States was cut from months to under a week. This made the economic export of western resources to eastern markets easier and increased the speed of westward expansion. As settlers entered newly accessible territories, conflicts with Native Americans increased. During this time, the exploits, both real and exaggerated, of notorious outlaws gain the perpetrators infamy at the time and an enduring legacy today. Wyatt Herp, former marshall of Dodge City, Kansas, moved to Tombstone, Arizona territory in 1879 with several of his brothers in search of riches from the silver boom. While there, the Herps ran into a gang of outlaws called the Cowboys, led by Ike Clinton. The Herps all had law enforcement backgrounds with Virgil Herp acting as both town marshal for Tombstone and as a deputy US marshal. They teamed up with the temporary policeman Doc Holiday. The lawman had a long-standing feud with the Clanton gang. But things came to a head when Virgil made the decision to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in town, which meant disarming the gun toing cowboys. This intervention led to the shootout at the OK Corral, a 30-second gunfight that nevertheless became symbolic of the Old West, a time when the frontier was virtually lawless as a consequence of lawmen being spread incredibly thin over vast territories. [Music] The beginning of the guilded age, a period characterized as much by wealth and abundance as by poverty and corruption, was in fact a notable ending. The year 1877 marked the end of reconstruction, and therefore an end to one of the greatest periods of civil rights reform in the country's history. Efforts by the federal government to help protect the rights given to African-Americans after the end of the Civil War were abandoned as a result of a compromise struck to settle the contested 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. Hayes, a North Republican, was granted the presidency and reconstruction was ended. Federal troops were withdrawn from the South, no longer interfering to protect African-Amean civil and political rights. The systemic violence, disenfranchisement, and oppression that followed would persist for more than a century and come to be called Jim Crow as the federal government gave up on its promise to give free black men the rights of citizens in the South. Sharecropping and low-wage work such as domestic servitude were some of the only options available to freed people in the South. But depending on who you were, what you looked like, and where in the country you were, economic opportunity could abound in Gilded Age America. Cheap land and relatively high wages compared to other parts of the world drew in immigrants by the millions. Between 1877 and 1900, approximately 7.3 million people immigrated into the United States. Prior to 1880, most came from Western Europe and China. But closer to the turn of the century, more immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe. They settled in every area of the country in large numbers except for the economically devastated South. But their appearance triggered political and social backlash from Americans who felt their white Protestant country was being threatened. Movements to resist certain types of immigrants, including Catholics, Jews, and Chinese, gained momentum. In the west, sentiments against Chinese workers were particularly hostile, and mobs were known to gather and attack Chinese people living in areas of Wyoming and Washington, driving them out. Congress restricted Chinese immigration to the US beginning in 1892, continuing to uphold the policy until a permanent exclusion policy was enacted in 1902. Fear of minority groups festered among white Americans after the reconstruction period and was only further fueled by the influx of immigration, leading to anti-democratic efforts to restrict certain groups from voting. As immigrants flooded into the country, many of them went west. As a result of the Homestead and Railroad Acts of 1862, the federal government had handed most of the lands owned by the Native Americans over to railroad corporations and white farmers, including immigrants. The Homestead Act did not require American citizenship, and the railroad sold land grants at low prices, even going so far as to advertise in Europe. Advances in technology, such as improved plow designs, meant just one family could officially farm a large area of land without need for intensive effort or hired labor. But not all farmers were happy. Increasingly, political movements like populism were drawing in hard-pressed wheat farmers of the Midwest and resentful white cotton farmers in the South who were fed up with wealthy elites, monopolistic corporate interests, and gold. Nevertheless, farming became so efficient that the country was producing more food than it could consume. So the excess was exported. This was all made possible by the expansion of railroads that had occurred in the 1850s and60s. For they made previously inaccessible land much more feasible and profitable to work. Between 1865 and 1898, America's output of wheat increased by 256%. corn by 222%, coal by 800%, and the miles of railway track by 567%. The nation's economy revolved around the railroads, which trucked commodities like wheat, cattle, silver, and timber from place to place. The first transcontinental railroad opened in 1869, and railroads were a rapidly expanding area of the new economy. By 1890, nearly 800,000 people worked for a railroad. However, railway work was poorly paid and often dangerous. Even as wages were rising and quality of living for skilled workers in America was outpacing that for those in England, mechanization was steadily replacing those skilled workers with unskilled ones who could be paid less. The distribution of wealth in the guilded age America was highly unequal with the top 10% owning more than 3/4 of the nation's wealth. This disparity along with the poor working conditions that affected the everyday lives of wage workers inspired a number of vicious worker strikes. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 lasted 52 days before it had to be put down by federal troops and the National Guard, but only after the fighting had resulted in over 100 deaths and workers having burned several railroad cars and engines. Another big railroad strike occurred in 1886, involving more than 200,000 labor union workers. On May 4th, 1886, a gathering at Hay Market Square in Chicago to protest police brutality against striking workers turned into a riot when someone threw a bomb at police officers trying to disperse the crowd. In the ensuing chaos, seven police officers and one protester died. Searching for those responsible, police in Chicago and elsewhere rounded up radicals, labor organizers, and anti- capitalists, selecting eight men who were tried and convicted for the events at Hey Market Square. Though some found the trial's evidence to be weak and saw the convicted men, most of whom who were given the death sentence as martyrs, for many others, the takeaway from this event was heightened anti- labor sentiment. Nevertheless, efforts to improve labor rights continued. In the Pullman strike of 1894, widespread striking and boycotting severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest. The strike occurred in response to pay cuts that the Pullman Palace Railroad Car Company made to its workers already low wages. The company did not however correspondingly reduce rents and other costs in its company's town of Pullman, Illinois near Chicago, where the majority of its workers lived in company housing. Workers and their families were starving, but the company's president refused to make any changes and ordered those that complained to be fired. The workers decided to strike. Some of the workers belonged to the American Railway Union and union delegates found a way to support the strike. ARU members across the country would boycott the Pullman company, refusing to hitch Pullman-made cars to trains and unhitching any Pullman cars already attached. The strategy, masterminded by ARU president and future US presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, soon had 125,000 workers on 29 railroads, quitting work rather than handle Pullman cars. Some estimates say the number was closer to 250,000 workers across 27 states. Though the strike was successfully holding up trains, workers were still angry and in addition, they set fire to engines and engaged in various riots. President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago to quell the violence and obtained the court injunction, which said the ARU could no longer communicate with any of its members, nor do anything to stop its members from working. Violence erupted between the striking workers and the federal troops, culminating July 6th, 1874, when more than 6,000 rioters destroyed hundreds of rail cars in the South Chicago panhandle yards. The strike only finally came to an end when the railroad started hiring non-UN workers to replace those lost. The train started moving again. The ordeal had cost the railroads millions of dollars in lost revenue and destroyed property. and the strikers had lost more than $1 million in wages. The Pullman company was forced to divest its company town, which became part of Chicago, after the federal government conducted an inquiry and called the company's actions in the town unamerican. In the aftermath of the strike, in an effort to plate still angry workers, the Cleveland administration designated the first Monday in September as Labor Day. But public sentiment had been stirred against the strikers who were largely immigrant workers. The influx of immigrant workers took advantage of the growing number of industrial jobs available in cities. But these jobs tended to be exploitative and lowpaying as well. Even as the country's GDP became the greatest in the world, wealthy guilded age moguls such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and JP Morgan were known for their philanthropy, but their critics also labeled them robber barons for building their empires on the backs of an exploited working class, using tactics like intimidation, union busting, fraud, and monopolies to gain an edge on their competition. Muck rakers, or journalists who exposed corruption among the elite, helped draw public attention to these issues. In 1906, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, his famous account of the grizzly, dangerous, and unsanitary conditions in the meatacking industry, which resulted in public outcry and legislation. Ida Tarbell wrote a 19-part series for McClure magazine in 1902 about Rockefeller, resulting in his standard oil company being broken up for being a monopoly. Meanwhile, as the rich got richer, the cities were filling with tenementss and slums as their populations grew. Another muck raker, the photographer Jacob Reese, became famous in 1890 when he published a book called How the Other Half Lives, depicting his photographs of New York City slums, which prompted city officials to try to improve the conditions there. When the Great Blizzard of 1888 dropped between 40 to 50 inches of snow on the New York area, more than 200 people died in New York City alone, most found buried in snow drifts along city sidewalks. But in contrast to the extreme poverty, technological marvels like new bridges, trolley lines, subways, elevators, and skyscrapers were bringing the cities into the industrial age. Thomas Edison invented a long lasting light bulb in 1879 and the Pearl Street power station was bringing electric light to a small number of customers in New York City. By the light of the electric light bulb, people read newspaper accounts of the Kentucky meat shower, a mysterious event that occurred March 6th, 1876. Residents of Olympia Springs, Kentucky, were shocked to find large chunks of meat falling from the sky, which was never fully explained despite attempts to investigate it. Though the favored local explanation was that it was vulture vomit. Construction on the Brooklyn Bridge, which connects the city's burrows of Manhattan and Brooklyn over the East River, began in 1869. When it opened in 1883, it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. It was an architectural and engineering accomplishment masterminded by John Augustus Robling who had developed his own method for weaving wire cables. After an on-site accident killed him at the beginning of the project, his son Washington Robing took over management of the project. At least 20 workers were killed during construction and many more were used to construct the foundations of the bridge towers. Workers toiled inside the casins underwater at nearly double the normal atmospheric pressure and when they returned to the surface had symptoms of what was then called quasein disease but today would be known as the bends. When decompression occurs too quickly bubbles of nitrogen form in the bloodstream and can result in sharp pains, slurred speech, muscular paralysis, vomiting and cramps. Washington Robing too suffered from the case and sickness and became bedridden. Though his wife Emily Warren Robing stepped in to serve as a liaison between her husband and the construction team. When the bridge was finished, she was the first person to cross it by carriage, carrying a rooster as a symbol of victory. The Gilded Age was a time of enormous economic swings with the United States experiencing unprecedented economic growth, but also marred by economic downturns that sent prices crashing in what became known as the panic of 1893, problems with international investments, including failed land speculation in South Africa and Australia, and a railroad bubble caused by the railroads overbuilding and vastly outpacing demand led people to make a run on banks, withdrawing their money. A series of banks failed and many companies went bankrupt, including the Northern Pacific and Union Pacific Railways. This led to a huge spike in unemployment. Many people also lost their life savings in the bank collapses. Numerous farms had to cease operations and stock prices declined. People faced starvation, turning to any work they could find to help feed their families. President Grover Cleveland was blamed for the crisis and his administration had taken heat for the way it put down the Pullman strikes. So his Democratic party suffered big losses during the elections of 1894. In the next presidential election in 1896, the Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan was backed by the Populist People's Party, but he failed to beat the Republican candidate William McKinley. By the end of the guilded age, many people had become fed up with extreme wealth inequality, abusive tycoons, and widespread poverty, and were ready to usher in a new era of reform. When after McKinley was assassinated, President Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901. By the end of the 19th century, the United States seemed to have achieved its manifest destiny. The country now stretched from one ocean to the other. It had survived a horrific and bloody civil war and stood on the precipice of a new century. Now looking to expand its political, social, and economic resources outside of the North American continent, the United States began to extend its influence on neighboring islands and territories. The first was the Hawaiian Kingdom. Located 2,400 m or roughly 3,900 km from the US mainland, the Hawaiian Islands had been ruled by the Kamehameha dynasty since the late 1700s. In 1846, under the presidency of John Tyler, the United States had recognized the independence of the Hawaiian Kingdom and opened trade with the island nation. Enterprising Americans also secured vast sugar plantations on the island, and American-born immigrants began to flood to Hawaii. The United States and the Kingdom of Hawaii had frequent disagreements over the sugar trade. And while the Hawaiians appealed for relief from the US government, it was frequently ignored. As the presence of US natives began to overtake the island, so too did the presence of the US military. On January 1887, the US began leasing Pearl Harbor from the Kingdom of Hawaii, giving US-born Hawaiians the confidence to begin plotting against the Hawaiian natives in the government. In July 1887, they launched a rebellion and forced the king to agree to what has become known as the Bayonet Constitution, which stripped the king of many of his powers and gave more power to the foreign white plantation owners. In 1891, the Hawaiian King Kalakawa passed away, leaving the throne, an unsteady government, and an economically crippled Hawaii to his sister, Lily Ua Kalani. Queen Lily Ua Kalani immediately began work trying to undo the damage done by the bayonet constitution and by 1893 was preparing to organize a rewriting of the Hawaiian government. In direct contrast, the Committee of Safety, a political council of white US and European-born landowners, began raising forces to once again overthrow the government. Both sides quickly mobilized troops, and the Committee of Safety declared the Queen deposed and established a provincial Republic of Hawaii led by Sanford B. Dole. The US Navy responded to a request for aid from the new provincial republic and arrived to keep the peace. naturally in favor of the American-born rebels. The queen was placed under house arrest and never attempted to fight back, hoping to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed. In Washington, President Grover Cleveland reacted with shock and horror and condemned the provincial republic as an illegal coup, which did not have the support of the US government. Despite this and several inquiries into the events which had caused the coup, the Republic of Hawaii was officially declared legitimate in 1894. Queen Lily Ua Kalani made clear her opposition to the unlawful coup for the rest of her life, but maintained that her decision not to fight the USbacked rebels would save lives. [Music] In February 1895, on the island of Cuba, rebels were fighting for independence from Spain's colonial rule. Graphic portrayals of Spain's efforts to quell the rebellion were shared by several US newspapers, and among the American public, support for the rebels grew. The fighting also created economic and political instability in an area very close to the US, which concerned some Americans. In April 1895, Spain announced an armistice and instituted a program to give Cubans limited powers of self-government. However, the US had long been interested in ridding the Western Hemisphere of European colonial powers. The US saw its opportunity when an American battleship, the USS Maine, mysteriously sank while stationed in the Havana Harbor on February 15th, 1891, killing 268 members of the crew. Using remember the main as a call to action, pro-war propagandists drumed up public support for the conflict, blaming Spain for the sinking of the main, the US quickly issued resolutions that declared Cuba's right to independence and demanded the withdrawal of Spain's armed forces and authorized President William McKinley to use force to ensure the withdrawal occurred. The US also stated it had no intention to annex Cuba itself. The Spanish government rejected the Americans ultimatum and immediately severed diplomatic relations with the US. McKinley responded with a naval blockade of Cuba on April 22nd, 1898 and issued a call for 125,000 military volunteers. First, US forces attacked the Spanish Naval Squadron anchored in Manila Bay in the Spanish colony of the Philippines. The fleet was destroyed in just 2 hours and Commodore George Dwey even paused the Battle of Manila Bay to order his crew a second breakfast. Fewer than 10 Americans were lost in this battle while the Spanish lost almost 400. Next, American forces zeroed in on the Spanish Caribbean fleet under General William Shater. An army which included future President Theodore Roosevelt and his first volunteer cavalry, the Ruff Riders, advanced on land toward the city of Santiago. The Ruff Riders were instrumental in the Battle of San Juan Hill, in which they captured the hill and used it as a strategic place from which to attack the Spanish military stronghold in Santiago. The US Army drove the Spanish Navy out of Santiago's port by approaching the city from multiple points. Then the US Navy proceeded to destroy Spain's ships on July 3rd, allowing for a relatively safe siege on the city. AC's fire was signed August 12th. The US military's force had so dwarfed Spain's power that future Secretary of State John Haye described the conflict as a splendid little war. The Treaty of Paris, officially ending the war, was signed December 10th, 1898. In it, Spain renounced its claims to Cuba, seeded Guam and Puerto Rico to the United States, and transferred the Philippines to the United States for $20 million. However, Filipinos were not happier under American control. And the PhilippineAmerican War began in February of 1899 and lasted until 1902. 10 times more US troops died suppressing revolts in the Philippines than in defeating Spain. The McKinley administration also used the SpanishAmerican War as a pretext to annex the independent state of Hawaii. The US emerged from the war a world power with a new stake in international politics. This would soon lead the US to play a determining role in the affairs of Europe and the rest of the globe. [Music] Spurred to action by the suffering caused by recessions in the late 1890s, the turn of the 20th century was characterized by a desire for change. Many people were tired of the tight alliances between powerful guilded age politicians and businessmen, as well as the problems caused by rapid industrialization and urbanization like the growth of slums, widespread pollution, and increased exploitation of labor. With former Vice President Theodore Roosevelt newly established in the head office after President William McKinley was assassinated, the progressives were set to transform the American landscape into something far more modern. Roosevelt, who at 43 was the youngest president in the nation's history, came into office in 1901 with enthusiasm for the public good. Unlike presidents before him, he wielded the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up monopolies, including the Railroad owned by JP Morgan. The company, Northern Securities, controlled almost all railroad shipping across the northern US. And in 1902, Roosevelt went on the offense and took the matter to the Supreme Court, which sided with Roosevelt. And whereas the former President Grover Cleveland had sent federal troops to quell a railroad strike in the 1880s, when Roosevelt was faced with a large-scale coal miner strike in 1902, he sent representatives to serve as neutral mediator. Roosevelt easily won re-election in 1904, campaigning on his square deal platform of trustbusting, conserving natural resources, and protecting the consumer. Like in the guilded age, immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were continuing to arrive in the US in large numbers during the progressive age. Between 1900 and the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, more than 13 million immigrants arrived. This meant the issues of slums and tenementss that were so prevalent during the guilded age were only growing. The progressives, who were mostly middle class, white social reformers, saw the urban poor as a social concern. As early as 1889, reformers Jane Adams and Helen Gates Star opened whole house in Chicago, one of the first social settlements in North America. It provided social services, including early child education and adult education, to poor immigrants. Progressive activists each had certain issues they felt were more important to address. So, reform movements were a patchwork of efforts that covered a wide swath of social ills. Some progressive reformers sought to expand the powers of government to reign in the negative aspects of capitalism. Companies could no longer simply operate unregulated with the advent of state factory inspectors and public health bureaus, which were tasked with minimizing unsafe working conditions, stopping poisoned food from being sold, and tamping down on contagious diseases. One event that prompted greater corporate regulation was the great molasses flood of 1919, which occurred in Boston when a tank containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses exploded and sent a wave of the sticky molasses through the streets of the city. The wave was said to move at up to 35 mph and be up to 25 ft tall. 21 people died and more than 150 were injured and an area of several blocks was flooded up to two to three feet. The tank was used by the Purity Distilling Company to store molasses before it was taken by pipeline to be fermented to produce ethanol. An ingredient in alcoholic beverages and a key component in munitions. Though the company claimed the tank was blown up by anarchists, a class action lawsuit was brought on behalf of the victims and a court-appointed auditor found the company was responsible. It was one of the first class action lawsuits in Massachusetts and provided cash payments to the families of victims. Progressive reformers sought to clean up big business and the government in a variety of ways, including through the adoption of more amendments to the Constitution. The 16th amendment, which made it legal to graduate the income tax based on a person's income, was added in 1909. And the 17th amendment attempted to make elections more fair by instituting the direct election of senators rather than by state legislatures, which could be controlled by political bosses. In 1913, other political reforms sought to give citizens more direct control over their governments by instituting the initiative and the referendum, which let citizens put proposed laws on a ballot without needing support from their legislators. Reformers also sought to streamline government via the short ballot, which was intended to increase government accountability and clarity, and public utility commissions sought to stabilize the pricing of city gas and water supplies. street car fairs and railroad shipping, while zoning boards and city planning commissions sought to clean up slums, improve polluted water supplies, and bring order to chaotic land markets. Other reformers focused on preventing the spread of veneerial diseases, stopping prostitution, and taking other measures for public health and morality. Among these, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Salloon League, and the Young Men's Christian Association, YMCA, led efforts to promote temperance, or abstaining from alcohol and discouraging premarital sex. Temperance and prohibition were causes taken up by a great number of progressive reformers who saw alcohol as an evil that spawned a variety of other issues like domestic violence and poverty. These activists known as the dries helped set the stage for various states to pass legislation banning the sale, possession, or transport of alcohol. In 1907, Georgia and Alabama were the first states to go dry, followed by Oklahoma, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee. By 1917, 2th3s of the states had some form of prohibition laws, and roughly 3/4 of the population lived in dry areas. With the passage of the 18th amendment to the constitution in 1919, which kicked off the era of alcohol prohibition in the US, this patchwork was given federal support. Not all reform projects were undertaken by middleclass white people. The progressive era also saw black communities in the segregated south take up reform projects like improving schools, seeking out larger shares of state budgets, engaging in legal action to secure equal rights and environmental efforts. At the same time, however, the country was deep in a period known as the native era of race relations, which brought some of the worst racial violence and racist policies into being. During this time, African-Americans lost access to many of the rights improvements they had gained during the reconstruction period. Violence, lynchings, segregation, and legalized racial discrimination all proliferated. In reaction, African-Ameans began increasingly to move north in a period known as the Great Migration. Many of those who migrated moved to northern cities such as New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelphia. They still faced serious hostility as well as segregation and widespread racism. In the Midwest and West, many places were known as sundown towns, which promised African-Ameans that they would face violence if they remained there overnight. When President Woodro Wilson was voted into office in 1912, he made new efforts to segregate the federal government's facilities. The 1915 film Birth of a Nation celebrated the original Ku Klux Clan and is credited with bringing the clan back into power in the 1920s. More power, in fact, than it had ever had before. By 1924, the clan had 4 million members, and significant influence over the governments of several southern and western states. Mob violence against African-Ameans was widespread. Three dozen cities across the US saw white supremacist violence in the summer of 1919, which became known as the Red Summer. White mobs murdered at least 43 black men that year, but a report delivered to President Wilson indicated that the states were unwilling to take any action to prosecute the murders. Many former black soldiers who had returned from deployment in World War I were angered and frustrated by these conditions after having fought for their country. From a progressive reform perspective, many people felt that race relation problems actually stemmed from a society that was being integrated. And reformers fought for increased segregation. Between 1895 and 1910, progressives in southern states helped deny black people the right to vote by popularizing the grandfather clause, which restricted voting rights to men who were allowed to vote or whose male ancestors were allowed to vote before 1867. This disenfranchised black voters because the 15th amendment, which provided them the right to vote, was not passed until 1870. The Supreme Court declared the grandfather clause unconstitutional in 1915, but its use persisted. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the 15th Amendment was enforcable. As the Black Vote was being forced out, voting power for white women was on its way in. Organizations like the Women's Christian Temperance Union advocated for women's suffrage while they worked on other issues like prohibition. In addition to sexist attitudes of the time, some opposed female suffrage because they feared the women's vote would tip the scales on issues they were against, such as eliminating child labor and prohibiting alcohol and increase the share of socialists in the voting pool. In 1916, Alice Paul formed the National Women's Party, which was focused on getting women the right to vote nationally. When the US entered World War I in 1917 to replace the men who left to fight, women moved into workplaces that traditionally were closed to them. The 19th Amendment, which prohibited discrimination in voting on the basis of sex, was adopted on August 18th, 1920. The US sought to be a world leader in other areas. The quest for an explorer to reach the North Pole. Considered the last unexplored area of the Northern Hemisphere inspired competition between British, Norwegian, and American teams. Numerous journeys were attempted. In 1909, the New York Times announced that explorer and former US Navy commander Robert Perry had successfully reached the North Pole. But his victory was marred by another American explorer, Frederick Cook, who claimed he had visited the poll a year earlier. The competing claims drew significant controversy with people unsure of who to credit with the victory. Newspapers pulled their readers on which explorer they thought had been victorious. In January 1911, Perry appeared before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives to defend his claim, which narrowly voted for Perry to receive recognition for the feat. The bill of recognition that was signed into law by President William Howard Taft, however, did not credit Perry with the North Pole's discovery, but rather more generally lauded him for his Arctic exploration. The question remains today whether Cook or Perry ever made it to the pole. In 1904, the US took over efforts from the French to build a canal that connected the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through a 50-mi stretch of Panama. The idea of a Panama Canal dated back to the earliest explorers of the Americans who realized it would be a useful shortcut between Europe and Eastern Asia. Under direction from President Roosevelt, the US fought back mosquito-born illnesses, stubbornly excavated through the local mountain range, and devised a system of locks and dams that would move boats across uneven water levels. The canal officially opened on August 15th, 1914. and at the time was the most expensive project in US history, costing the US government around $375 million at the time. Added to its cost is the human toll. Thousands of workers died during its construction, but good records were not kept. At least 5,600 workers were listed as having been killed between 1904 and 1913, but this is thought to be a significant undercount. The construction of the Panama Canal proved to be a critical boost to global trade routes for the 20th century. It would later be recognized as one of the marvels of the modern world. It was one of the progressive era's most notable technological [Music] achievements. As European countries took sides in the conflict between Austria, Hungary, and Serbia in 1914, President Woodro Wilson declared the United States was going to remain neutral in what was then being called the Great War. However, after a German submarine sank the British ocean liner Lucatania in 1915, killing over 1,000 people, including 128 Americans, public opinion on US involvement began to change. In 1917, the British intercepted a coded message from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to the German minister in Mexico proposing an alliance between the countries to take back Mexican territory if the US were to enter the war on the side of the Allies. Public outcry against this plan as well as against the ongoing German submarine attacks on non-military vessels led Wilson to ask Congress to declare war on Germany. Congress agreed on April 6th, 1917 and soon passed the Selective Service Act, instituting the first draft since the Civil War, leading about 2.8 million men to be drafted alongside another 2 million who joined the military voluntarily. German Americans were required to register themselves with the government and thousands were arrested and interrogated. Some were interned for the duration of the war in two prisoners of war camps located in Georgia and Utah. At first, the homeront was relatively unprepared to support the war effort. The entire economy and US population needed to help keep the money, soldiers, food, supplies, and munitions flowing. The federal government created many new agencies to help the economy pivot to support the war effort and to produce propaganda. A week after declaring war on Germany, Wilson established the Committee on Public Information, a bureau dedicated to creating pro-war propaganda. Using photographs, movies, rallies, scripted speeches, press reports, and public meetings, the CPI fostered American patriotism and stoked anti-German sentiment. With the passage of the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, criticism of the government or the war effort was essentially outlawed. A particular focus was put on children and youth organizations who were expected to teach patriotism and to help encourage support for the war. The US Food Administration instructed the American public to economize their food budgets and grow what were known as victory gardens in their backyards. to feed their families. A constitutional amendment applied an income tax to high earners and businesses faced other new taxes on their excess profits, which all helped fund the war. Most new funding, however, came from the sale of war bonds. Many women began working in traditionally male professions to assist the war effort, such as on assembly lines making munitions. Others worked for the military as support personnel or nurses stateside and overseas. The Army Signal Corps employed female switchboard operators to help with communication along the Western Front. These women were highly trained and bilingual in English and French. But because the War Department forbade women except as nurses in hospitals, they were hired only reluctantly. Ultimately, women were accepted in order to free up more men for the front. American men who went to fight in France were enthusiastically greeted by the worn down Allied troops. The first elements of the American Expeditionary Forces under the command of General John J. Persing arrived in France in June 1917. By early 1918, US forces were arriving at a rate of 10,000 a day, which had a significant impact on the Allies ability to push back the Germans powerful spring offensive. While American commanders initially were using flawed tactics that others had already abandoned, resulting in attacks with high casualty rates, the infusion of US troops contributed to the allies strategic position and improved morale. During the 100 days offensive by the Allies in 1918, American forces launched the Muse Argon offensive. Over 47 days, 1.2 million American troops drove the Germans back 40 m. More than 26,000 American soldiers died. The 100 days offensive helped the Allies win the war, which was officially declared one on November 11th, 1918. Overall, in less than 6 months of fighting, the US suffered 53,42 battle deaths, and another 63,114 people died from accidents and disease. The US promptly ended wartime contracts and brought troops home, but the US at the time lacked programs to help veterans readjust to civilian life. In January 1919, the US joined the other allies in Paris to negotiate peace. President Wilson brought a list of 14 points, some of which ended up in the final agreement, including the creation of a League of Nations, the first worldwide intergovernmental organization dedicated to maintaining world peace. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28th, 1919, but the US never ratified the treaty and instead made a separate peace treaty with Germany. Wilson, a Democrat, had refused to bring any leading Republicans to the peace talks as he sought peace without victory. Republicans controlled the Senate after the election of 1918 and were outraged that Wilson refused to discuss the war as they wanted Germany's unconditional surrender. Because the senators were divided, Democrats supporting Wilson against the irreconcilables or the Republicans and some Democrats who were against the treaty, it proved impossible to obtain the twothirds majority needed to pass. The Democrats who opposed the treaty represented those among the American public, mostly Irish Catholics and German Americans who were intensely opposed to the treaty because they thought it favored the British. On November 19th, 1919, for the first time in its history, the Senate rejected a peace treaty. Under Wilson's successor, Warren G. Harding, the US German peace treaty was signed August 25th, 1921. The treaty allowed for American German cooperation not under the purview of the League of Nations. After the First World War, the US entered a time of postwar recovery. The economy boomed, construction took off, and consumer goods like automobiles and electricity became far more accessible. The decade was a time of bold innovation and experimentation as well as significant backlash to these things from people who didn't like the direction the country's culture seemed to be taking. This tumultuous time became known as the roaring 20s. For the first time ever in the 1920s, more Americans, 51% lived in cities than in villages or on farms. New norms, which were the product of trends that had been building for decades, transformed city life, particularly for women. At the start of the decade, between one quarter and 1/3 of unmarried urban women workers lived alone in private apartments or boarding houses rather than at home with their parents. According to old Victorian culture, these new women visited public amusements like dance halls, amusement parks, and movie theaters, which drew in young people going on dates, a structure that was replacing the old courting culture. People now had time for such things. As factories and shops mechanized, the urban bluecollar worker was spending less time working. The average work week fell from 55.9 hours in 1900 to 44.2 2 in 1929. While blueco collar wages rose by 25%. Many Americans had extra money to spend in the 1920s due to rising incomes and easily available credit. And it was becoming increasingly socially acceptable to spend money on consumer goods and accumulate debt on those goods, even if they were not absolute necessities. The nation's total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929. People bought tickets to the movies to see stars like Charlie Chaplan and Rudolph Valentino. By the mid 1920s, movie theaters were selling 50 million tickets each week. A sum equal to roughly half the US population. They bought ready toear fashion which was being mass- prodduced and therefore becoming more affordable. They bought radios. In the first ever live radio transmission to the public, radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania broadcast the presidential election results on November 2nd, 1920. By the end of the 1920s, there were radios in more than 12 million households. In 1912, an estimated 16% of American households had electricity. By the mid 1920s, more than 60% did. Appliances that required electricity, like the washing machine, the freezer, and the vacuum cleaner, were popular purchases, and people bought automobiles, which were an affordable luxury. The Ford Model T cost $260 in 1924, which translates to just about $4,000 today. But even as some people were experiencing wealth and prosperity, others were struggling to get by. Extreme wealth inequality which had troubled the progressives and defined the guilded age persisted. The income of the top.1% of families equaled the income of the bottom 42% during the 20s and over 40% of Americans got by on less than $1,500 each year or the poverty line at the time. Most people living outside of cities did not experience the prosperity of the roaring 20s. Farm prices hit rock bottom in the aftermath of World War I. The proliferation of cars meant people were more able to travel wherever they wanted, and many of the young people of the day wanted to go out and dance at jazz clubs. Jazz music was brought north by black artists who had come from New Orleans, where the form originated. Chicago became the art form's new center, with the city boasting more than 100 jazz clubs. Whites and blacks began mixing socially for the first time in the black and tan clubs of Chicago. Poet Langston Hughes wrote that midnight was like day, referring to the city's music-filled nightife. Musicians such as Louisie Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Ethal Waters drew crowds to dance halls, and people danced in new African-American inspired styles. The Charleston, the Cakewalk, the Turkey Trot, and the Flea Hop were all popular dances of the time. Some major dance clubs of the time were the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York, where Duke Ellington's band played, and the Grand Terrace Cafe in Chicago, where Earl Hines Band played. Later, the center of jazz music moved to New York City, where the Harlem Renaissance was in full swing. But because jazz music was pioneered by African-Americans and represented a departure from traditionally white forms of music, significant backlash built in response to jazz's rising popularity. People decreed it for the supposed moral disasters it created, its roots in black culture, and some termed it the devil's music. By the end of the 1920s, at least 60 communities across the nation had banned jazz from being played in public dance halls. Radio stations carried jazz tunes to listeners across the nation, and 100 million jazz phon records were sold in 1927 alone. But because of discrimination and racism, these were mainly recordings of white bands that sounded similar to the black musicians who pioneered the genre. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the phongraph, ridiculed jazz music, saying it sounded better played backwards. and Shaw Falner, president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, a powerful alliance of women's social and reform groups that launched a crusade against jazz in 1921, once said that jazz was originally the accompaniment of the voodoo dance, stimulating half-crazed barbarians to the vilest of deeds. The increasing visibility of black culture in jazz and blues music, as well as the appearance of millions of African-Americans who moved north during the great migration, inspired significant racist backlash. Millions of people joined the Ku Klux Clan in the 1920s, raising its membership to 5 million by 1925. By mid decade, the group was in control of the governments of Indiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado, and was enormously powerful in several other states, including California, and Georgia. The fundamentalist conservative paramilitary group initiated white supremacist violence, and also targeted Jews, Catholics, Asians, and the so-called new women. One of the worst instances of violence was the Tulsa race massacre in 1921 when a mob burned the black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma to the ground, killing dozens. The KKK only grew in power in Oklahoma after the incident. In general, the 20s were a time characterized by nivism and anti-immigrant feelings. A red scare in which people attempted to hunt, expose, and prosecute communists occurred from 1919 to 1920. And the clanbacked National Origins Act of 1924 severely restricted immigration from Eastern Europe and Asia while favoring immigrants from Northern Europe and Great Britain. The federal prohibition of alcohol in 1920, which banned the production and sale of alcoholic beverages nationwide, was as much inspired by reformers wishing to cure the country's ills of poverty and violence as by those who were against the growing population of urban dwelling immigrants in the US. Anti-German sentiment after World War I inspired the nickname Kaiser Brew for the beer made in German breweries. Beer as well as wine, whiskey, and gin were all banned under the statute, but enforcement proved nearly impossible for the federal government. Smuggling and bootlegging were widespread, and speak easys, or secret clubs that served illegal alcohol, popped up in cities. In 1927, there were an estimated 30,000 illegal speak easys. Twice the number of legal bars before prohibition. Federal agents conducted raids on these establishments looking for lawb breakakers, but prosecuting the cases proved tricky. In New York, 7,000 arrests for liquor law violations resulted in 17 convictions. Organized crimes such as mafia groups and gangs worked a profitable and violent black market for alcohol, which flourished as consumer demand went unmet via legitimate means. These organizations operated in part by bribing police officers and federal investigators. Al Capone's Chicago organization reportedly took in $60 million in 1927 and had half the city's police on its payroll. John D. Rockefeller, who did not drink, observed in 1932 that because of prohibition, drinking has generally increased. The speak easy has replaced the saloon and a vast army of lawb breakakers has been recruited and financed on a colossal scale. While that may have been true anecdotally, other reports suggest that nationwide drinking actually decreased during prohibition. According to statistics, drinking related deaths from cerosis of the liver in men fell between 1911 and 1929. Further, it has been found that alcohol consumption levels did not rebound to their pre-rohibition levels until the 1960s. All good times must come to an end. Decreased consumer demand, you can only buy so many cars and radios, and mounting consumer debt coupled with overconfidence in buying stocks men stock was highly overvalued. On what would become known as Black Thursday, October 24th, 1929, the stock market crashed, triggering the worst economic downturn in American history. The Great Depression, which marked the end of the overconumptive, freewheeling, roaring 20s. Millions of stock shares ended up being worthless, and consumer confidence vanished. The resulting decrease in consumer spending caused factories to slow production, laying off workers. By 1930, 4 million Americans looking for work could not find it. And by 1931, that number was 6 million. Many Americans with debt were unable to pay it off and had their homes foreclosed upon. Homelessness became more common. The construction of the Empire State Building, which would be the first building in the world to have more than 100 floors, had broken ground only a few weeks before the stock market crash. Many tall buildings were being planned and constructed during the late 1920s. A facet of the optimism inherent to the period. This race into the sky included five other proposed buildings, but only the Empire State Building would make it due to the crash of 1929. The project was completed in just 1 year and 45 days, a record setting speed. But because of the Great Depression, there was virtually no demand for office space, and the building sat mostly empty until the 1940s. In addition to the economic woes, in 1930, severe drought swept from Texas to Nebraska, bringing with it high winds and dust that killed people, livestock, and crops. This became known as the dust bowl and it inspired many more people to migrate from the plains to the cities in search of work. From 1930 to 1933, the economic crisis only continued to get worse as thousands of banks were forced to close. President Herbert Hoover tried supporting the failing banks, but Hoover was a Republican who believed the government should not directly intervene in the economy or provide economic relief. In 1932, with close to 15 million people unemployed nationwide, voters overwhelmingly elected Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took immediate action. During his first 100 days in office, the Roosevelt administration passed legislation to reform and reopen banks, stabilize industrial and agricultural production, and create jobs. The unemployment rate in 1935 was at a staggering 20%. So via executive order, Roosevelt created a permanent jobs program called the Works Progress Administration. From 1935 to 1943, the WPA employed 8.5 million people building schools, hospitals, roads, and other public works, as well as an arts projects, employing tens of thousands of actors, musicians, writers, and other artists. At its height, in late 1938, more than 3.3 million Americans worked for the WPA. They built more than 4,000 new school buildings, erected 130 new hospitals, laid roughly 9,000 m of storm drains and sewer lines, built 29,000 new bridges, constructed 150 new air fields, paved or repaired 280,000 m of road, and planted 24 million trees to alleviate loss of top soil during the Dust Bowl. Among the most famous projects built by the WPA are the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, New York City's Lincoln Tunnel, the LaGuardia Airport in Queens, and the iconic red San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. New Deal funds were also used for the construction of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. US presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln into the side of the mountain were carved by a total of about 400 artists. Tools were forged by blacksmiths, and tramway operators shuttled people and equipment to and from the base of the remote mountain. The project cost nearly $1 million, about 85% of which was from federal funds. The WPA was criticized for the project's slowness and inefficiencies, but it was celebrated for the employment it offered millions of people suffering during the depression. Other notable New Deal programs included the creation of the Social Security Administration to protect older Americans financially, the Agricultural Adjustment Act to help farmers get out of debt, and the US Housing Authority was created to address homelessness. The National Labor Relations Act was passed to protect labor organizing in 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 said maximum hours and minimum wages for most workers. But not everyone was a fan of Roosevelt's reforms with conservative opponents calling them government overreach. After the elections of 1938, New Deal policies became more difficult to enact because the new Congress was less liberal and less supportive of spending. The election of these new conservative members of the Congress was largely due to a dip in public opinion towards the Roosevelt administration during the economic recession of 1937 to 1938. With Roosevelt claiming responsibility for the previous economic improvements, people blamed him for the backslide. Nevertheless, the New Deal's popularity helped the Democratic Party remain the majority party in national politics into the 1960s. When the Second World War kicked off in Europe in fall 1939, the vast majority of Americans were still in favor of isolation. President Roosevelt, however, realized the importance of ensuring that Britain and France had every chance of success in the conflict. When France fell completely in June 1940, Roosevelt began implementing a lend lease program with the British, sending war material and humanitarian supplies on American ships. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese fleet at last appeared and struck at the American Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack did serious damage to the fleet, destroying three battleships and damaging several other vessels. However, the Japanese were unsuccessful in destroying the American aircraft carriers. The attack shocked and appalled Americans. Japan had hoped the attack would the American Pacific fleet and allow them to swiftly take control of the Pacific theater. Instead, the Americans recovered with nearly inhuman speed and in less than six months struck a devastating blow against the Japanese Navy at the Battle of Midway. The American victory at Midway opened the Pacific to the US fleet and allowed for US ground troops to be safely shuttled to Japanese-held islands. In Europe, following the general declaration of war on Japan after Pearl Harbor, Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany, declared war on the United States. Joining his axis ally, the United States, now a part of the Allied powers, was eager to help Britain regain control of the European theater. The War Department began planning a series of military operations to retake North Africa and Europe from fascist control, whilst simultaneously planned for a prolonged invasion of the dozens of islands in the Pacific to aid Australia and the Philippines from Japan. The United States was again at war and this time facing enemies on two separate fronts on a global scale. The entire country mobilized with millions of men enlisting to serve and the millions left on the home front adapting to produce war material and other goods to support the war effort. Sadly, the fear and xenophobia towards Asian-Americans caused by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor led Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 9066, ordering the internment of any and all citizens who posed a national security threat to the country. With much of the west coast of the United States divided into military districts for the prosecution of an overseas war, over 120,000 Japanese Americans, more than 2/3 of them born in the United States were removed from their homes and settled into camps further inland and away from US military operations along the West Coast. Roosevelt's administration as well as the Army High Command immediately realized the importance of liberating Europe as soon as possible. The early victory against the Japanese Navy at Midway gave the US armed forces a chance to reassess their strategy in the Pacific while planning for operations in Europe. After some debate, North Africa was chosen as the first landing site for US troops to begin the liberation of the Allies in Europe. In fall 1942, the Allies launched Operation Torch to strike a quick and decisive blow against the Axis controlled North African coast. The assault was a massive multinational operation involving the United States, the United Kingdom, India, Canada, the Netherlands, Free France, and Australian forces. Over the course of a week, the Allied powers fought for control of major ports along the African coast and were successful in occupying much of Morocco and Alers. Operation Torch was the first step in an Allied advance, which would gradually take control over all of North Africa and move on to Italy by the fall of 1943. In the Pacific, US forces embarked on what was known as an island hopping or leapfrogging campaign. Utilizing the strength and speed of the US Navy, the Americans were able to quickly deploy US Marines and Army forces on the hundreds of islands under Japanese control across the South Pacific. The strategy worked well, keeping the Japanese forces under constant threat of attack and slowly choking their ability to reinforce and supply important islands. The Japanese were often forced to take shelter and fight for every square inch of ground without hope of reprieve or escape. Over the course of 2 years, beginning in the fall of 1942, the US armed forces fought brutal campaigns at Guadal Canal, Saipan, Pelu, Ewima, and Okinawa, and many others. In Europe, with the fall of Italy, the US and the Allies turned their attention to liberating France from Nazi control. On the other side of the European continent, the Soviet Union had at long last repulsed the German invasion of their homeland and were steadily pushing the Nazis back toward Germany. Seizing on the opportunity, American and British strategists planned for an audacious amphibious assault on the Normandy beaches in the north of France. Under the direction of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Allied forces launched Operation Neptune, more popularly known as D-Day on June 6th, 1944. Like Operation Torch in North Africa, D-Day was a multinational assault and included most of the Allied powers with significant contributions from American, British, Canadian, Australian, and French forces. Undoubtedly one of the most well-known moments of the Second World War, D-Day represented the pinnacle of Allied cooperation and marked the beginning of the end for Hitler's Germany and the Axis powers. It did not take long for the German occupation of France to collapse under the weight of the Allied liberation following D-Day. By the winter of 1944, Allied forces had pushed the Nazi troops to the border of France and Germany and prepared for winter engagements through the Arden's forest. As the Soviets continued their relentless assault in the east, Hitler diverted critical military assets west, hoping to take the Allies by surprise. In December 1944, German forces launched what would be their final offensive of the war through the Ardens. The assault was initially successful, pushing Allied forces back. Fortunately, Allied air superiority slowed the Nazi advance and ground it to a halt. When the offensive finally ended, the Germans had successfully nearly encircled a large pocket of US troops and dug in for the winter. In what would become known as the Battle of the Bulge, American forces endured relentless artillery bombardments, surprise attacks, and unforgiving weather conditions, but never gave up. When German forces demanded the American troops to surrender, their commanding officer allegedly replied with a single phrase, "Nuts." When spring came, so too did the Allied air support, and Germans were quickly pushed away, and the pocket was relieved. With their resources exhausted, their troops surrendering in droves, and Allied forces pushing in from both east and west, Germany was at last close to surrender. It would take a few more months of fierce fighting until the Soviet troops reached Berlin. Hitler committed suicide and the pre-Nazi German government was restored as the war in Europe at last came to an end. In the Pacific, island after island fell to the US advance. By the spring of 1945, the US was preparing for an invasion of the Japanese home islands, a prospect that was not relished by the military or government alike. In April 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died suddenly, leaving the office to his vice president, Harry Truman. Truman was immediately informed of a top secret program which had been experimenting with the creation of an atomic weapon called the Manhattan Project, led by physicist Robert Oppenheimer. The project had brought together leading scientific minds from across the United States and beyond to develop an atomic weapon capable of ending the war. When Truman inherited the presidency, he inherited the decision to use the bomb. Faced with a Japanese government, unwilling to surrender and what would likely be an incredibly costly series of ground invasions, Truman green lit the use of the bombs as a way to avoid massive casualties. At 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped Little Boy, an enriched uranium bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It exploded roughly a mile above the city with the force of 15 kilotons of TNT. The initial blast destroyed everything within a mile of the bomb's detonation, with the exception of a few earthquake resistant concrete structures. The 1200 ft or 370 meter fireball produced by the explosion gave off a blinding flash of light and reached temperatures of 6,000 Celsius or 10,830° F, the same as the surface of the sun. Individuals near the center of the blast were instantly vaporized, leaving behind only their shadows on the bleached white stone. The fireball reached roughly 2 mi or 3.2 2 km in diameter, consuming everything in its path. The devastation caused by the bombing caused roughly 60% of the casualties with the remaining losses attributed to injuries sustained and to the radiation which spread from the explosion site. Roughly 80,000 to 140,000 civilians and military personnel were killed as a result of the bombing. As word of the full extent of the damage began to spread, the US government again entreated the Japanese to surrender, threatening to drop yet another atomic weapon if they did not. Again, the Japanese government refused, and a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki on August 9th. Fat Man, a plutonium bomb, was dropped at 11:01 a.m. over Nagasaki's industrial valley and detonated 47 seconds later at 11:02. Fat Man exploded with a force of 21 kilotons of TNT, 40% more than Little Boy had. However, due to weather conditions, the bombarders had dropped the bomb further away from their intended target, causing much of the explosion to be contained by the mountains surrounding the industrial district. Like the bombing of Hiroshima, the blast and subsequent fireball consumed everything within the blast zone and caused the majority of casualties. Between 60,000 and 80,000 people were killed as a result of the bombing, with hundreds of thousands wounded. In total, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took the lives of an estimated 129,000 to 226,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom were civilians. On August 10th, the Japanese government signaled their willingness to surrender if their government could remain intact. The United States answered that the terms would be discussed after the Japanese formally surrendered. A brief military coup was attempted on the evening of August 14th by factions within the government who wished to fight to the bitter end. However, it was quickly put down by the Japanese government. The following morning, the emperor of Japan issued a formal statement of surrender. The Second World War had finally come to an end. More than 16 million men and women served in the US armed forces over the course of the war, and some 420,000 Americans had given their lives to help liberate the free world. In doing so, the United States had left its position on isolation behind and entered a new age of globalism. The United States was now a world power and held much of the responsibility of what would come next in its hands. While their alliance with the Soviet Union during the war had been one of necessity, relations had deteriorated even before the war had come to an end. Worse, with the unleashing of atomic weaponry, the United States had unwittingly brought on a new age of warfare and technology, one that would define the decades to follow. [Music] Despite fighting together against Nazi Germany in World War II, the US and the Soviet Union were never truly friendly. The US was wary of the Soviet's communist system of government and the atrocities committed by leader Joseph Stalin. While the Soviets were angry that the US wanted to keep them from being a leader in the international community. While these grievances were fiercely held, the conflict that became the Cold War never developed into violence because of the threat of atomic weapons, the US adopted a policy known as containment, which referred to stopping Russia's attempts to expand their reach and influence throughout the world. This strategy provided the rationale for never-beforeseen arms buildup in the US. The end of World War II had been hastened by atomic bombs dropped on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, demonstrating the US's power with a new class of weapons. By 1949, the Soviet Union had tested its first nuclear weapon, heating up the rivalry. They were racing to develop even more powerful weapons, the hydrogen bomb. In late 1952, the US detonated a hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands as a test, resulting in an explosion hundreds of times more powerful than the bombs dropped in Japan. The Soviet Union followed suit with its own test in Kazakhstan in 1955. These tests resulted in devastating health effects for nearby residents in both locations. Nevertheless, testing only ramped up in 1958, during which the US, the Soviets, and the United Kingdom detonated more than 100 bombs worldwide. Following this, the three countries voluntarily paused testing. The Cold War affected American life in a variety of ways. Fears of nuclear warfare inspired drills and schools and people to build bomb shelters in their backyards. Perhaps most destructively, fears of communist sympathy within the US inspired the government to form the House Unamerican Activities Committee in 1947, which was tasked with carrying out investigations of suspected communists. Thousands of federal employees were investigated. Many were fired and some were even prosecuted. Liberal college professors lost their jobs, were forced to testify against colleagues, and others forced to take loyalty oaths. In Hollywood, hundreds of people were investigated, and more than 500 movie industry professionals lost their jobs for having liberal beliefs. Many of these blacklisted writers, directors, actors, and others were unable to work again for more than a decade. This period became known as the red scare and is also referred to as McCarthyism after Senator Joseph McCarthy, a vehemently anti-communist politician who led the efforts. Another key symbol of the Cold War was the Berlin Wall built in 1961 between the communist East German and capitalist West German parts of the city. Though the communist government claimed its purpose was to keep these so-called western fascists out of East Germany, the wall really functioned to stop mass defections from east to west. It was also a solution to the Berlin crisis of 1958 when Kruev demanded the Allies give up West Berlin, which they had taken after World War II ended in 1945. Tensions were high between the Westerners and Sovietbacked easterners. Even after the wall was constructed, West Berlin grew prosperous in great contrast to the poverty of the surrounding East German territory. The wall between them soon became an iconic image of the Cold War in Europe. The impact of the Cold War on daily life was particularly felt during the nearly two-week conflict that came to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. When many Americans thought the world was on the brink of an allout nuclear war, the country's standoff nearly tipped into conflict in October 1962 when US spy planes discovered secret Soviet missile bases being constructed in Cuba, just 90 m from US shores. Just a year earlier in 1961, the US had mounted the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion to try to depose Cuba's Soviet sympathetic leader Fidel Castro. During the 13-day standoff, US President John F. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba and publicly announced the US was ready to use military force to neutralize the threat. But the crisis was resolved when Soviet leader Nikita Kruev offered to remove the missiles in exchange for the US vowing not to invade Cuba and removing missiles it had secretly placed in Turkey to target Russia. The event sobered both the USSR and the US and the following year a direct hotline was installed between Washington and Moscow to help diffuse similar situations. The two countries along with the United Kingdom signed a treaty in 1963 agreeing to ban several types of nuclear testing. The Cold War's anti-communist agenda led the US to various other conflicts abroad in its attempts to support democratic governments and oppose communist ones. In June 1950, the Sovietbacked North Korean People's Army invaded pro-western South Korea. Many American officials feared that this was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world and that intervening was their duty in a fight of good versus evil. US President Harry Truman sent troops to Korea, but fighting stalled and casualties mounted in a stalemate of skirmishes across the border. Nearly 5 million people died, more than half of them civilians, which is a civilian casualty rate worse than those of World War II or the later Vietnam War. About 40,000 Americans died in action and 100,000 were wounded. After more than 2 years of negotiations, the adversary signed an armistice on July 27th, 1953. Then when the French colonial regime in Vietnam fell to communists in 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower called for American intervention under the domino theory, which held that allowing a communist government to keep power in one nation would lead to communist takeovers in neighboring nations, with each falling to communism like a row of dominoes. However, what was intended as a brief military venture spiraled into a bloody, unpopular, and unsuccessful 10-year conflict in Vietnam. While remaining staunchly anti-communist, upon taking office in 1969, US President Richard Nixon immediately tried to soften US relations with the Soviets and dial back the Cold War via diplomacy. In 1972, the US and the Soviet Union agreed to limit the number of nuclear missiles in their arsenals. But the conflict revved up again under President Ronald Reagan, who wanted to provide financial and military aid to those fighting communism around the world, particularly in Central America. The Cold War only came to an end with the Soviet Union's unraveling under the leadership of Male Gorbachov, whose government reforms caused power to shift in the communist block. Communist regimes began to collapse in Eastern Europe under the waning Soviet influence and democratic governments rose in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Then, West and East Germany were reunified in 1989. The Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991, bringing the Cold War to a close. [Music] While the Declaration of Independence may have declared that all men are created equal, the Institution of Slavery and persistence of bigotry throughout American history meant Africanameans faced an uphill battle to make that declaration of equality feel true. Despite slavery being abolished in 1865 and the addition of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution in 1868 and 1870, which strengthened the legal rights of freed slaves, the fact that slavery had been the law of the land for nearly 100 years, cast a long shadow. Legalized segregation policies as well as everyday racism and bigotry meant that in many places black people and white people were not allowed to occupy the same public spaces such as buses, restrooms, hospitals, prisons, and schools. At the turn of the century, conservative Democrats in the South passed policies that disenfranchised African-Americans further through various social, economic, and political means, such as being prevented from voting, sometimes through violent means. These practices were further entrenched in 1896 by the Supreme Court in the case of Py versus Ferguson, in which the court ruled against a black man, Homer Pie, who was protesting his arrest for refusing to give up his seat to a white man on a train in New Orleans, which was required by Louisiana state law. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane, the court wrote in its decision. The court continued to apply this logic to its decisions on matters of segregation in the years that followed, upholding laws that established different rules for blacks and whites. Laws which were known as Jim Crow, a derisive term for a black man. Not all of segregation was attributable to laws, however. Discriminatory customs such as barring black people from certain jobs, housing developments, or stores were also common place. Throughout these years, groups fought to desegregate the South and end disenfranchising practices. In 1950, fed up with overcrowded, poorly funded, inferior schools, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which had put in decades of work fighting racial segregation in education, put together its most compelling legal case against racial segregation in public schools. Brown versus Board of Education. Brown v. board was actually a grouping of five cases that all challenged the claim that it was constitutional for public schools to be racially segregated by law. The effort was led by lawyer Thood Marshall who argued that separate educational facilities were inherently unequal. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in agreement with Marshall, legally ending racial segregation in schools and overruuling the doctrine established by Pie. While this was a big victory for civil rights advocates, in reality, it did little to end school segregation right away due to resistance from racist whites who didn't want their children to go to school with black children. Meanwhile, resistance was also mounting against segregated seating on public transportation, a fight brought to prominence by the actions of Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress and civil rights activist in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat in the colored section of a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white man. Parks was arrested and fined, but her actions inspired local black leaders to organize the Montgomery bus boycott led by a young Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. During the boycott, 40,000 African-Ameans who made up the majority of the city bus's riders refused to ride the buses in protest of how they were treated. Initially, their demands were simply for courtesy, the hiring of black drivers, and a first come, first seated policy with whites entering from the bus's front doors and blacks from the rear doors as was custom. However, over the course of the protest, which lasted over a year, the goals changed to having the segregated seating policy totally abolished. On June 5th, 1956, a Montgomery federal court ruled that any law requiring racially segregated seating on buses violated the Constitution's 14th Amendment, and the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision after the city appealed. The city's buses were integrated December 21st, 1956, and the boycott ended. It had lasted more than a year and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against racial segregation in the US. Civil rights advocates were obtaining victories, but the road towards equality was a difficult one. The buses may have been integrated, but the bus stops remain segregated and the new laws were met with significant resistance and violence. In one instance, snipers shot into a bus and shattered both legs of a pregnant African-American writer. In January 1957, four black churches as well as the homes of several prominent black leaders in the Montgomery area were bombed. In 1956, a group of southern senators and congressmen signed the Southern Manifesto, which declared they would resist racial integration by all lawful means. After the decision in Brown v. Board, state and local officials in a number of southern states resisted school integration and members of the public fought back as well. When nine African-American students attempted to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in September 1957, Arkansas Governor Orville Fobis ordered the state's National Guard to block their path on the first day of school, September 2nd. 2 days later, a belligerent mob appeared in addition to the National Guard, again, preventing the nine students from attending class. By the end of the month, September 23rd, the nine were being escorted by Little Rock police and attempting to enter the school through a side door when another angry mob appeared and tried to rush into the school after them. Fearing for the students lives, officials sent them home. In response, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and sent US Army troops to the scene to personally guard the students who were finally able to start attending regular classes. though they still had to endure threats and harassment. Non-violent protests against segregation such as sit-ins at whiteson onlyly lunch counters and the 1961 freedom rides were signature methods used by civil rights activists protesting segregation in public spaces throughout the south. These demonstrations only increased during the presidency of John F. Kennedy when hundreds of demonstrations erupted across the nation drawing national and international news coverage as well as backlash and violence. The Freedom Writers who were interracial members of the student activist group Congress for Racial Equality Core met significant opposition when they challenged segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals by writing from Washington DC to Jackson, Mississippi. Though a federal ruling in 1946 had already declared that segregation in interstate transport was illegal, they faced resistance and arrests in Virginia and violent beatings in South Carolina and were met by a violent mob of over 100 people, including hostile members of the local police and members of the Ku Klux Clan. when they reached Aniston, Alabama. The violence that occurred there prompted organizers to end the ride, though efforts continued on a smaller scale. The media attention garnered by these efforts, as well as Dr. King serving as spokesman for the rides as they rose to national prominence, prompted the Kennedy administration to take action, directing the Interstate Commerce Commission to ban segregation in all buses and facilities it oversaw. The ruling took effect November 1st, 1961. Though King did not take part in the rides himself, the rides are credited with showing him and others involved in the campaign that nonviolent peaceful protest against the violence of white southerners could garner significant national media attention, attract sympathy for the cause, and force federal action. In the spring of 1963, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led by Dr. King launched a large-scale campaign of sitins, meetings, boycots of segregated stores and marches in Birmingham, Alabama to protest segregation there in partnership with the local activist group, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, ACHR. Activists registered people to vote, listened to speeches by King about the philosophy of nonviolence, and staged sitins. The boycotts of local businesses were particularly effective as they were taking place right before Easter, the second busiest shopping time of the year. Hundreds were arrested, filling the local jails. After about a week, the city government obtained a state court order that said the protests must stop, but the activists decided to defy it. The efforts continued on May 2nd when more than 1,000 African-American students marched in downtown Birmingham in what became known as the children's crusade. Hundreds more were arrested, overcrowding the jails. The city's commissioner of public safety, Eugene Bolconer, authorized the use of high pressure hoses against children protesters. And when adults watching reacted by throwing rocks and bottles at those wielding the hoses, Connor ordered the use of police dogs against them. Images of the violence triggered outrage nationally and internationally. Under pressure, the White House sent a facilitator to help speed negotiations between protest leaders and members of Birmingham's business community who were weakening under the sustained boycott. On May 8th, the group struck a compromise. Street protests would end immediately and signs proclaiming whites only and blacks only on restrooms and drinking fountains would be removed. The Birmingham truce also called for the release of jailed protesters on bond, a plan to desegregate lunch counters, and the hiring of more African-Ameans for jobs around the city. It was not everything the protesters had hoped to achieve, but rather a partial success that proved divisive among activists who thought the protesters should have held out until all their goals were met. The city was slowly desegregated in the months that followed the truce, but the campaign was not a huge local success. Rather, its significance was in the amount of national and international attention it drew to the civil rights cause. It also led King's reputation as a leader to grow exponentially. On August 28th, King delivered his I have a dream speech at the March on Washington for jobs and freedom, which was organized in the nation's capital to advocate for African-American civil and economic rights. It is estimated that 250,000 people attended, making the assembly, which was planned in cooperation with DC police, a logistical feat. The march sought to address the fact that many jobs were entirely closed to black applicants and those that were open to them often paid poorly or offered little upward mobility. The year 1963 was the centennial anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The declaration of the end of slavery and organizers of the march wished to emphasize that change was long overdue. The march brought together many different activists and organizers, but it was King's speech at the Lincoln Memorial that was memorialized as a masterpiece of rhetoric as it called for an end to racism. The march and the speech are credited with inspiring the federal government to act on civil rights through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in public accommodations, public education, and employment, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited racial discrimination in voting. These were the two most important pieces of civil rights legislation to be passed since the reconstruction period and brought many of the Jim Crow policies to an end. No conflict was more representative of the US's cold war commitment to getting involved in elective fights with communist governments, even under unfavorable circumstances than the Vietnam War. Led by the strongly anti-communist politician Go Dendium, who was nevertheless a repressive dictator who called for the arrest and torture of suspected communist sympathizers. The South Vietnamese fought the communist North Vietnamese for control of the country. In 1964, under President Lyndon Johnson, the US began regular air raids of North Vietnamese targets, dropping bombs in a program known as Operation Rolling Thunder. Between 1964 to 1973, the US also secretly dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on North Vietnamese supply lines in neighboring Laos. Despite the country being neutral in the conflict in 1965, Johnson called for a significant increase in American troops deployed to Vietnam. By June 1965, 82,000 combat troops were stationed in Vietnam. At the end of July, 100,000 troops were sent and another 100,000 were sent. In 1966, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand also sent troops, but in much smaller numbers. North Vietnam was aided by China and the Soviet Union. By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000. But support for the unsuccessful war was waning. A strong anti-war movement in the US spawned protests against the draft. The large number of civilian casualties the war was generating and against the US's support for the corrupt southern Vietnamese dictatorship. Many troops stationed in Vietnam were also low on morale, with many turning to drugs, initiating mutinies, and developing post-traumatic stress disorder. Between 1966 and 1973, more than 53,000 US military personnel deserted and another 500,000 dodged the draft. Nevertheless, when President Nixon took office, he announced that he believed a silent majority of Americans supported the war. Over the next few years, the death toll grew, including the more than 400 unarmed civilian US troops killed in the village of Myai in 1968. Peace talks were unsuccessful. Anti-war sentiment in the US only increased. Over 250,000 people gathered to demonstrate against the war in Washington DC on November 15th, 1969. Nixon ended the draft in 1972, moving to an all volunteer army. But in 1971, the leaked Pentagon papers had revealed results of a secret DoD study that showed Nixon's administration had escalated conflict in Vietnam, further eroding public support for the war. In January 1973, the United States and North Vietnam ended open hostilities. Though conflict between North and South Vietnam continued until 1975, when the North took over the southern city of Saigon, the US's effort had failed, and the 20-year war took an enormous toll. An estimated 2 million Vietnamese were killed, while 3 million were wounded, and another 12 million became refugees. About 58,000 Americans were killed. Many anti-war Americans lost trust in their government, while others who may have been pro-war no longer felt invincible. The conflict bitterly divided the US and its impact would be felt for many years. Following the end of World War II in 1946, tensions rose between the capitalistic United States and the communist Soviet Union, each country wished to prove its economic system to be better than the other and to show the world they had the key to political superiority. Both countries sought to demonstrate their technological superiority by being the first nation to put a human being into space, which at the time was an as yet undone feat that each knew was only a few years away. Both countries had developed intercontinental missiles, which provided critical electronic technology and rocketry that could boost small payloads into orbit. The competition began on August 2nd, 1955 when first the US, then the USSR announced they intended to launch artificial satellites. 2 years later, on October 4th, 1957, the USSR was the first to launch its satellite, the Sputnik 1, which was the first Earth orbiting satellite in history. They followed up with the Sputnik 2 the next month and this time the satellite carried a dog named Leica who became the first living organism to enter orbit. It was not until the following January 31st, 1958 that the US entered the race by launching and reaching orbit with the satellite Explorer 1. Later that year, the US created NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, an independent agency within the federal government that is responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics programs, and space research. On December 18th, 1958, the US launched the world's first communication satellite known as SCORE. It earned international attention when it broadcasted a pre-recorded Christmas message from US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was the first instance of a human voice being broadcast from space. In August 1959, the US launched Explorer 6, the world's first weather satellite. It took the first picture of the Earth from space. In September, the USSR launched Luna 2, which became the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the moon. But these unmanned missions were just the beginning. In August 1960, the USSR Sputnik 5 was the first spacecraft to return its contents. Two dogs, Belela and Stroka, and some plants alive after being in space. The US matches this achievement the following year, returning Ham, a chimpanzee alive from space. While the first 5 years of the space race demonstrated mostly matched capability, the USSR took a marked lead on April 12th, 1961 when cosminaut Yuri Gagarin traveling aboard the Vosto 1 became the first human being to reach space. Gagarin made a single orbit around the Earth, which took just under 2 hours to complete. This milestone sent the competition into a new decade with increased vigor. In September 1962, US President John F. Kennedy announced that the US would land people on the moon and return them safely to Earth before the end of the decade. This speech is largely remembered for his declaration, "We choose to go to the moon." More and more people, both members of the government and members of private industry, became involved in the US space race, reflecting the intensity of the competition, with numbers growing from 36,000 people involved in 1960 to 377,000 by 1965. In May 1961, the US launched Alan Shepard aboard the Mercury Redstone 3. And while Shepard became the first American to visit space, he was not able to enter orbit. The flight lasted only about 15 minutes. In the following years, the Soviet Union replicated its victories, sending the first woman to space in 1963. Valentina Terishova orbited the Earth for 3 days aboard Vosto 6 and pioneering the first spacew walk when cosminaut Alexi Leonov left his spacecraft for 12 minutes in 1965. While the USSR took a clear lead in manned missions, the US secured another achievement with its satellite program. On July 14th, 1965, the American satellite Mariner 4 was the first to voyage to Mars and take close-up images of the planet surface. The US did not give up on manned missions despite tragedy. In January 1967, three American astronauts died when a fire broke out inside their capsule while it was still on the launchpad. At the end of the following year, however, the US spacecraft Apollo 8 became the first man craft to reach the moon, orbit it, and then return to the Earth. This victory showed the US it was time to move full speed ahead on missions to the moon. The next year in July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. The televised landing by Apollo 11 was broadcast around the world, securing for the US what people saw as victory in the space race. The Soviet Union transferred its focus to building a space station, which it completed in 1971. In 1972, the US and the Soviet Union negotiated a warming of relations which paved the way for cooperation in the realm of space travel. In 1975, the first joint space mission between the two countries occurred. Separately, the Apollo and Soyu spacecrafts traveled into orbit and docked in space where their two commanders shook hands. This was a symbolic end to the space race. After it occurred, the two countries engaged in future missions together like the shuttle mirror program in 1993. The space race had broader implications for the world beyond just the development of spaceflight technology. The race to send humans to space resulted in the development of other widely used technology including communication and weather satellites which are used today for things like broadband and GPS. The imaging technology used in CAT scans was initially developed during the space race for deep space photography. NASA also made innovations in shock absorbent material which became useful for developing better artificial limbs and wireless headsets were first developed for astronauts to use in [Music] space. In response to the catastrophes brought on by totalitarian ideologies in the 20th century. A new school of thought began in the 1970s known as postmodernism. Postmodernism was deeply skeptical of the claim that there was any kind of universal truth, instead focusing on relative truths and morals. The post-modernist period coincided with a cultural shift that occurred as the baby boomers came of age. During the 1970s, these young people continued movements that had begun in the 1960s, demonstrating against the policies and schools of thought of the previous age. Thousands of students marched against the Vietnam War and the draft as well as against the manufacturer of Napal Dao Chemical. Not all campus anti-war protests were peaceful. Some turned violent, including the May 1970 incident at Kent State University in Ohio in which 13 students were shot by members of the National Guard. During this time, people also protested against discrimination against women, racial segregation, and other issues. The very first Earth Day was observed on April 22nd, 1970. Television and radio were ubiquitous with such shows as All in the Family, Saturday Night Live, and Wheel of Fortune premiering. This decade also saw the launch of the first successful home video game system, the Atari 2600, and the founding of tech companies Apple and Microsoft. At the same time, the US was in a recession and gas prices were skyrocketing due to the Arab oil embargo, which was inflicted on the countries who had supported Israel in the 1973 ArabIsraeli war. The US also faced political turmoil as illegal activities committed in the name of reelecting President Richard Nixon came to light in the Watergate scandal and caused the downfall of Nixon's presidency. The legacy of Watergate deeply damaged the Republican party's reputation. So, Democrat Jimmy Carter was able to win the presidency in 1976. Carter prioritized calming conflicts around the world, signing a nuclear arms reduction treaty with the Soviet Union and giving ownership of the Panama Canal back to Panama. Most notably, he helped broker peace in the Middle East, where conflict had been ongoing since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. But Carter's support for the Shaw of Iran, who wanted to modernize and westernize Iran, soon became a point of contention. By 1979, the Shaw had lost popularity and was overthrown, at which time anti-American sentiment increased in the country. A group overthrew the US embassy in Tran, and 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for the next 444 days. In the aftermath of this Iran hostage crisis, a second energy crisis developed, sending gasoline prices soaring again. In the presidential election of 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in a landslide. In the 1980s, social issues took a backseat and personal financial success became many people's primary goal. The populist conservative movement known as the new right had begun growing in the late 70s into the early 80s. Reagan advocated for deregulating business, reducing government spending, and giving tax cuts to both individuals and corporations. The tax cut plan was part of a system known as supply side economics, or the belief that the resulting gains for businesses would eventually trickle down to everyone. Altogether, these economic policies were known as regonomics. In 1982, the United States experienced its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. 9 million people were unemployed in November of that year. Nevertheless, regonomics remained popular as it made the rich richer. Over the 1980s, the average income of families in the wealthiest 1% increased significantly and at a much greater rate than the income of middle class families, which edged up mildly. While income for the bottom 40% of families declined, television had entered nearly every household and was becoming more varied with shows like Cheers, The Simpsons, and The Cosby Show premiering. Also popular was TV news, which brought new levels of attention to crimes like child abduction via shows like 60 Minutes. People also learned about tragedies around the world, such as the famine in Ethiopia. The Live Aid Benefit concert on July 13th, 1985 was watched by about 1.5 billion people and raised millions of dollars for famine relief. In 1986, viewers could watch the local Cleveland, Ohio chapter of the United Way attempt to break the world record for most balloons released at one time. But the event, intended as a harmless publicity stunt, quickly went off the rails. A colorful cloud of 1.5 million helium filled balloons was released, but blown by wind and pushed down by rain, they caused an airport to shut down and impeded the Coast Guard's efforts to find two fishermen who needed help nearby. The balloons clogged waterways and caused traffic accidents and came to be seen as a major environmental disaster. The US returned to space in 1981 with the space shuttle Colombia, the very first reusable space exploration vehicle. The US flew numerous shuttle missions in the 80s, though one was marked by tragedy. Millions watched live in 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger exploded seconds after takeoff, killing all seven aboard. This grounded the space program for 2 and 1/2 years until the discovery was launched in 1988. Reagan's foreign policy was hawkish and that he was eager to get the US involved in situations abroad where communism threatened to take over. Under this Reagan doctrine, the US provided financial and military assistance to the governments of Granada, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. However, in 1986, it was revealed that the US had sold weapons to Iran despite the country being under an arms embargo, which was a sanction imposed in retribution for the storming of the US embassy. In 1979, members of the Reagan administration sold Iran the arms in a bid to illegally divert money from the sales to a rebel group known as the Contras, who were fighting the socialist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. It was a scandal for the administration and investigations into the issue were impeded because of the large number of documents that were shredded or withheld. Several administration officials were convicted of crimes related to the Iran Contra scandal, but all were vacated or pardoned. Another Reagan administration scandal emerged later after review of its response to the 1980s AIDS crisis. Though health officials in the US had become aware of the AIDS virus in 1981, US leaders remained silent over the early days of the epidemic. Not until 1985 when AIDS had already affected more than 7,700 people and killed 3,500 did the government allocate funding for AIDS research. And it was not until 1987 that the federal government began raising AIDS awareness. But by then about 47,000 Americans already were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The issue had largely been dismissed because it was believed to only be affecting sexually active gay men. But during the 1980s, AIDS emerged as a leading cause of death among all young adults. By 1990, more than 100,000 people in the US had died from AIDS. Getting much more federal attention was an epidemic of a different kind. Drugs. Smokable solid chunks of crack cocaine were cheap and highly available in major US cities in 1985. Crack particularly affected lowincome communities living in cities which included large numbers of African-Americans. Drug dealers contributed to a significant increase in violence in these communities. Between 1984 and 1989, the homicide rate for young black men more than doubled, and black communities also saw increases in fetal death rates, low birthweight babies, weapons arrests, and the number of children in foster care. In 1986, the US Congress passed laws that made penalties for the possession or trafficking of crack cocaine 100 times more severe than for powdered cocaine, which was widely believed to be targeting lowincome African-Ameans who were more likely to be using cheap crack rather than the more expensive powder or other drugs like crystalmethamphetamine. This resulted in harsh social consequences, including increased police brutality against African-Americans and large numbers of young black men imprisoned on drug convictions for long sentences, which then caused them to lose access to voting, housing, and employment opportunities, which in turn led to increased violent crime in poor black communities. Though President Nixon began the so-called war on drugs in the 1970s, the federal effort to stop drug use and to prosecute users was widely expanded under President Reagan. Whereas Nixon's programs had repealed minimum sentences for marijuana possession and set up federal drug treatment programs, Reagan's approach was to increase criminalization. In 1984, Reagan signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act, which expanded the federal penalties for possession, cultivation, or transfer of marijuana, established minimum sentences, and abolished parole for federal prisoners. From 1980 to 1984, the federal annual budget of the FBI's drug enforcement units went from $8 million to $95 million. When George HW Bush took over the presidency in 1989, he continued Reagan's efforts. In his very first televised address as president, Bush held up a plastic baggie filled with white chalky chunks, identifying it as crack cocaine. It's as innocent looking as candy, but it's turning our cities into battle zones. He said drug use was actually in decline by 1989, but Bush went on to spend $45 billion, mostly on drugrelated law enforcement, which was more than the previous four administrations combined. Later, it was revealed that the baggie from Bush's speech, supposedly confiscated from a drug bus just days prior, just steps from the White House in Lafayette Park, had been a setup. An undercover federal agent had lured a teenager drug dealer to the park before busting him to make it seem like the drug trade was on the president's doorstep. Another major event of Bush's presidency was the Gulf War. Under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Iraq wanted to nationalize Kuwait and take control of its oil fields, thereby controlling a significant amount of the world's oil supply. Because the US and other countries wanted to maintain access to these fields, they formed a coalition to stop the invasion. Starting January 16th, 1991, an air and ground war was fought with soldiers from the US, the UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Kuwait. The Iraqi army was defeated handily, retreating from Kuwait just a month later on February 28th. The conflict's impacts were felt into the 21st century. [Applause] Between 1990 and 1997, the percentage of households in the United States owning computers increased from 15% to 35%. This widespread adoption of personal computers and the worldwide web catapulted the information technology industry into the stratosphere and investors and entrepreneurs everywhere were looking for ways to get a piece of the pie. By 1998, lured by the potential profitability of online businesses, low interest rates, and the availability of venture capital, investors were eager to back nearly any company with a.com in its name. while ignoring traditional predictors of success. That is the ability to turn a profit or even a business plan of any kind. At the height of the boom, even companies that had never made any revenue were able to go public by issuing an initial public offering or IPO and raise money. On paper, some people became millionaires practically overnight. The NASDAQ Composite Index, one of the most watched stock market metrics, rose by 582% from January 1995 to March 2000. The situation was risky, however, because these companies were highly overvalued due to their lack of a plan to turn a profit. Analysts were instead focused on their ability to attract internet traffic. speculation or the purchase of risky stocks at a low price with the expectation that the price will rise enough to make a later profit. The dotcom speculation bubble was just a house of cards. When investment capital began to dry up, many of the companies that had caused so much excitement went bankrupt and the bubble burst. Market panic resulted in massive sell-offs, and by 2002, investor losses from the dotcom boom were estimated at around $5 trillion. The dot bubble's bursting is credited with helping to trigger an 8-month economic recession starting in March 2001. However, the recession is considered one of the milder ones in the country's history, and not all of the companies of the dot era succumb to bankruptcy. Some of those that survived became the juggernauts we're familiar with today, such as Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, Qualcomm, and Cisco. [Music] After a record-breaking turnout, Barack Obama was the first ever African-American to be voted to the office of US president, winning the popular vote by more than 10 million votes and securing a vast majority of electoral votes. Obama's message was hope, and it resonated with the American people. As the war of terror raged on, economic difficulties on the home front compounded the feelings of insecurity. In 2008, losses on a rapidly declining housing market within the US caused a chain reaction of losses across the global financial market, causing a massive and sustained economic contraction known as the Great Recession. The recession marked the most significant economic downturn in the US since the Great Depression of 1929. Thousands of Americans could not make their loan payments and lost their homes. businesses went bankrupt and the US government scrambled to help alleviate the damage. In 2009, under the direction of newly elected President Barack Obama, the Congress passed a series of acts to alleviate the issues caused by the recession and to install reforms to ensure it could never happen again. In 2013, the Afghan military officially took over control of operations in their country and the US announced a timetable for a complete US withdrawal by 2016. During the election of 2016, Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton faced off in one of the ugliest elections the country had ever experienced. While Clinton ran on her vast experience within the federal government, Trump's campaign was unlike any that had been run before. Trump appealed to a group of Americans who had never felt they'd been marginalized in recent years, and to people who had distrust in the government. Clinton was defeated by Trump, who secured the majority of electoral votes. Almost immediately, suspicion of Russian and Chinese involvement in tampering with the election arised. In 2017, President Donald Trump took office and reversed the planned withdrawal as an emerging terrorist organization known as the Islamic State began operating within Afghanistan. Trump authorized the use of the US's largest non-nuclear bomb in an act which coincided with his decision to continue the US's military presence on the ground. After another 2 years of conflict, the US and Taliban once again opened peace negotiations. And after a series of back and forth cancellations, an agreement was at last reached in 2020. In early 2020, a new type of virus emerged from Wuhan, China. By mid-March 2020, all 50 US states had reported at least one positive case of COVID 19, and nearly all of the new infections were caused by community spread. and not by contracting the disease abroad. The CO 19 pandemic took a heavy toll on Americans economically, politically, and psychologically and revealed deep divisions between Americans views of the role of government in a crisis, particularly with regard to vaccine mandates. In 2020, the nation again faced a challenging and incendiary election. Incumbent Donald Trump running for reelection faced off against former Vice President Joe Biden at the height of the pandemic. Again, domestic issues of racial injustice, gun control, and appointments to the Supreme Court were the chief concerns of the race. As the ongoing health crisis further divided the parties, the psychological and physical toll of the pandemic became a centerpiece for both candidates. After a contentious election during which the counting lasted longer than normal due to early election and mail-in ballots prompted by the CO 19 pandemic, Biden won the presidency, winning the majority of electoral votes as well as the popular vote. The outcome of the election was immediately contested by Trump and the Republicans who made claims of fraud. Trump would claim repeatedly that the election was stolen and increased distrust in the American electoral process. On January 6th, 2021, as the US Congress met to certify the election, large crowds of Trump supporters led by the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers, both far-right anti-government extremist organizations with ties to white supremacist organizations. The groups conspired to take the US capital building and force the Congress to certify the election as fraudulent and instate Trump as the rightful president. On January 6th, the mob outside of the capital building breached through security and enter the capital, forcing the Congress to flee and capital police to engage with force in some cases. When the police had at last cleared the building, counting of the electoral votes resumed and Vice President Pence proclaimed Biden the winner. In 2021, Joe Biden assumed the office of the presidency alongside Vice President Kala Harris, the first African-American and first woman to hold the office. Under President Joe Biden, the US military at last began its final withdrawal from Afghanistan. As it did, the Taliban quickly rushed to fill the gap and toppled the fragile Afghan government, undoing the work that was done for the last 20 years. The following year, 2022, the Russian Federation invaded the Republic of Ukraine, and the United States began funneling aid to the country to combat Russia's expansion into the region. Today, Biden's administration continues to push for progressive policies both at home and abroad and still combats the intense political division within the country. As the 2024 election looms, the future of the United States seems to hang in the balance. Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the nation has endured substantial and often violent changes politically, socially, and economically. But this is in and of itself the defining attribute of the United States that despite the trials and tribulations, she always emerges intact and stronger than before. The beauty of the United States and its people is their resilience and its ability to adapt and change. Today, the United States remains a world leader to be respected and admired. Its population of more than 334 million people is one of the most diverse countries in the world. Its landscape is painted with some of the most magnificent natural features on the planet with hundreds of recognized national and historical parks, preserves, monuments, and sites preserved by the federal government. From the humblest beginnings, the people of the United States of America have fought for what they believed was right and continue to do so to this day. The indomitable American spirit which characterizes the best of Americans has helped bring the country to new heights in the realm of politics, science, business, and culture. And while they're far from perfect, the American people continue to strive for greatness, never ceasing to prove themselves worthy of the great experiment started by their revolution nearly 250 years ago.