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The first European settlement in North America, Jamestown, was established in 1607. Over the next 150 years, the British government strengthened its position in North America, seizing territory from first the Dutch and then the French, and gaining control of the entire north Atlantic seaboard.
On July 4, 1776 representatives from thirteen British colonies signed the Declaration of Independence, declaring their independence from Britain and sparking the American Revolution. Five years of war followed, ending when General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington in 1781. The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781 providing for a loose confederation of states. Great Britain formally acknowledged American independence two years later in 1783. The American Constitution was drafted and ratified in 1787 creating a stronger central government, and one of the first modern Representative democracies. The first elected President, George Washington, took office in 1789.
The United States nearly doubled in size in 1803 when it purchased roughly 830,000 square miles of territory from France in the Louisiana purchase. Over the following forty-five years America acquired the territory now comprising the continental United States from Spain and Mexico by a combination of negotiated cession, annexation and force.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln, an anti-slavery abolitionist, was elected President and South Carolina seceded from the Union. Many other Southern states followed, forming the Confederacy. A bloody civil war ensued ending in a Union victory in 1865 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant. President Lincoln was assassinated shortly thereafter.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States became a world power. Domestically, social issues such as farm alliances, women’s suffrage, civil rights, civic reform, temperance and conservation dominated the political landscape. Internationally, the US engaged in a war with Spain over Cuba and territory in East Asia. In 1917, the United States entered Word War I joining France and Britain in fighting the Axis powers. America’s late entry into the war tipped the balance of power. German representatives signed the treaty of Versailles in 1919, ending the Word War I.
In 1928, a crash in the stock market precipitated the great depression. Franklin Roosevelt was elected promising Americans a “New Deal” and immediately begins implementing a program of pubic works and financial reform. America was drawn into World War II following the attack on Pearl Harbor, a naval base in the Hawaiian Islands, by Japan, December 7th 1941.
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