United States is an independent nation in North America. With the capital city of Washington, D. C., United States 2020 population is estimated at 331,002,662 according to countryaah. The indigenous peoples of North America were gradually ousted by Europeans from the 16th century. The United States was proclaimed in 1776 and the new nation was definitely liberated from Britain a few years later under the leadership of George Washington. He was one of the founders of the constitution and became the country’s first president. The bloody civil war of the 1860s ended in a defeat for the southern states. The importance of the United States as an emerging superpower was illustrated by the intervention in World War I, which contributed to the victory of the Allies.
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The people of the American continents are believed to have immigrated from Asia via the Bering Strait. There is solid evidence that man has been in America for over 15,000 years, but the date of the first immigration may be far earlier. Around 3,000 years before our era, squash was grown in the southwestern parts of today’s United States. When European colonization began in the 16th century, there was probably a population of several million people scattered across the North American continent, where different cultures were established in different places. For United States political system, please check diseaseslearning.
The first Europeans to come to America were Vikings who landed in various places along the Atlantic coast in the 1000’s where short-lived settlements were established. The colonization did not begin until after Christopher Columbus arrived in the “New World” in 1492. Columbus, who was in search of a new sea route to India, believed that he had reached his goal. Thus, the indigenous people in the places he landed called Native Americans.
Columbus, however, never came to what is today the United States, but sailed around the Caribbean island world as well as did beach carving on the Central American coast. His successful crossing, however, inspired others. Above all, Englishmen and Dutch established colonies and French and Spaniards came to the southern parts of today’s United States. There was also a short-lived Swedish colony, New Sweden, adjacent to the Delaware River in 1638–1655.
British colonies
The first attempt to found a British colony was made in 1585 when the nobleman Walter Raleigh came to Roanoke Island off North Carolina. When it was abandoned, it was delayed until 1607 before the first permanent colony was established, in Jamestown, Virginia. The so-called pilgrims were behind the next British colony in Plymouth in 1620. It was followed by the strictly religious Puritans’ settlement in Massachusetts Bay, a larger colony that later incorporated Plymouth. In 1624 Dutch colonialists arrived in the area around the mouth of the Hudson River. Two years later, a successful colony was started on the island of Manhattan. It was renamed New Amsterdam, a name that was changed to New York when it was taken over by the British 40 years later.
In 1630, in addition to the indigenous population, it is estimated that there were 4,600 residents in the colonies of the time. When independence was proclaimed in 1776, the United States consisted of 13 colonies that together had about 2.5 million residents.
The demands for independence from Britain began to rise after France lost the seven-year war in Europe in 1763. France then gave up Canada and other colonies, and also the dream of building a French empire in North America. Thus, the English colonies were no longer as dependent on military protection from the motherland. At the same time, severe tensions arose between the colonies and London. The United Kingdom sought to solve economic problems by increasing the burden on the residents of the colonies who objected to being taxed without having any political representation in their home country.
The American Revolution
The freedom struggle took off seriously in 1773 after the ” Boston Tea Party ” (Boston Tea Party) when some rebellious colonists, disguised as Native Americans, threw the teleost on three English ships overboard in Boston’s port. When the London government responded with reprisals, the colonies formed a joint army led by plantation owner George Washington of Virginia. At the same time, they reorganized their management systems and appointed their own governments.
On July 4, 1776, a joint Declaration of Independence was established in Philadelphia and the United States of America (United States of America, USA) was proclaimed. After the war of liberation that followed, the English were forced to recognize the independence of the United States. A peace agreement was signed in Paris in 1783.
Six years later, George Washington was elected US President. By then, the states had approved the constitution drafted by a group of “wise men” commonly called the fathers of the Union or founding fathers, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Benjamin Franklin. The Constitution came into force in 1789 and still applies, even though it has a number of additions (see Political system).
The western United States is colonized
Even before the Declaration of Independence, colonization had begun west of the Appalachians and new states such as Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee were rapidly taking up the Union. In 1803, an extensive land purchase from France led to the incorporation of large lands in the south and west with the United States.
At the urging of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States (1801-1809), explorers set out west toward new territories. It contributed to the land border being eventually moved all the way to the Pacific and to a large part of the indigenous population being eradicated in the wars that followed when the land was taken over by white settlers.
The new nation’s foreign policy weight was first manifested in 1823 when President James Monroe stated in a message to Congress that the United States did not intend to tolerate European countries attacking the Western hemisphere or establishing new colonies there. The so-called Monroe doctrine came to have great foreign policy significance and not least motivate the US influence in Latin America.
After independence, the United States was otherwise characterized by contradictions between federalists (supporters of a strong central power) and advocates of far-reaching self-determination for the states. The struggle between federalists and anti-federalists formed the basis for the emergence of political parties during the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. By the middle of the 19th century, the two parties that still dominate American politics had taken shape: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
The American civil war
The contradictions were reinforced by the fact that the states of the north underwent industrialization and grew increasingly stronger economically, while the states of the south were still dominated by cotton cultivation and other agricultural industries. In the north, business demanded protection tariffs to protect the home industry from competition from foreign goods. The southern states, on the other hand, wanted free trade in order to be able to sell their raw materials and buy finished industrial goods as cheaply as possible.
The wear and tear between north and south also applied to the slave issue. Slaves were forcibly brought from Africa from the beginning of the 17th century, mainly to work on the large plantations. The importation of slaves had been banned in 1807, and slavery had already been abolished in all the northern states. The southern states opposed the demand that slavery should be banned throughout the federation. In the southern states, by the mid-19th century, there were four million black slaves who made up a third of the population.
When Republican and slave opponent Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the confrontation became total. Eleven southern states broke away and in 1861 formed their own confederation. It became the start of a devastating civil war. When it came to an end after four years, at least 620,000 lives had been claimed – significantly more than any other war the US has been involved in since then (according to new estimates, it may have been even more).
In the middle of the war, Lincoln announced that slavery had been abolished, which was written into the constitution after the capitulation of the southern states in 1865. Lincoln was assassinated shortly afterwards by a Southern state supporter. The following year they got black voting rights.
Segregation and immigration
Over the next few decades after the war, the states fell into economic stagnation and racism continued with the help of legislation that maintained racial segregation (so-called Jim Crow laws). S white was also persecuted by the white racist organization Ku Klux Klan. In the northern states, on the other hand, the economic upturn was strengthened, not least because of the expansion of the railway network and communications generally improved.
During the second half of the 19th century, the United States experienced a major wave of immigration. From 1850 to 1920 more than quadrupled the population from 25 million to 106 million residents. Then the immigration slowed down.
After a rebellion in Cuba, which then belonged to the Spanish Empire, the United States declared war on Spain in 1898. After a brief struggle, Spain recognized Cuba’s independence.
When World War I broke out in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the United States would remain neutral. However, domestic opinion swung during the war and in 1917 the United States declared Germany war. It helped the Allies gain control of the Western Front, which was crucial to their victory. To secure a continued peace, President Wilson took the initiative of the League of Nations (NF), a precursor to the United Nations (UN). However, the organization never got the meaning intended, as isolationist sentiments in the United States got Congress to oppose American membership.
Depression Gives “New Deal”
At the end of the 1920s, the United States entered a period of severe economic decline, the “Great Depression”. Panic erupted on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929 when stock prices plummeted. Many companies collapsed and unemployment skyrocketed.
In the 1932 presidential election, the incumbent president, Republican Herbert Hoover, was knocked out by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who with his economic stimulus program New Deal (the new given) laid the foundation for the modern welfare state. Roosevelt’s program resulted in an economic upswing that was reinforced by the military upgrades that were triggered in connection with the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.
At the beginning of the war, the United States remained neutral, but after a Japanese bomb attack on the US naval base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in December 1941, the country entered the war on the Allies’ side. The United States contributed large quantities of equipment and troops, both to Japan in the Pacific and to Germany / Italy in Europe and North Africa. The efforts of the Americans were also crucial this time for the end of the war. The United States, which escaped material destruction, was the world’s strongest economy at the end of the war in 1945. At the same time, more than 400,000 Americans had been killed during the war.
2009
December
Troop reinforcement to Afghanistan
Obama announces that another 30,000 soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan.
Terrorist acts are averted
December 25
A Nigerian man is trying to fire a bomb in an airplane on his way from Amsterdam to Detroit in the US. However, he is stopped by fellow passengers. It later turns out that the man has links to the al-Qaeda terrorist movement on the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap). The planned attack will lead to stricter checks on air passengers.
October
Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize
October 9
Although Obama has barely achieved anything concrete for world peace after nearly nine months as president, his thoughts on better cooperation climate and nuclear weapons lead to his surprisingly awarded Nobel Peace Prize. Many analysts believe that the price should also be seen as a push for Obama to meet the expectations that are on him. Obama receives the prize in Oslo on Nobel Day, December 10.
April
Nuclear weapons negotiations begin
The US and Russia will agree on a new Start Agreement that will limit Russia’s and US strategic nuclear weapons arenas.
February
Obama signs stimulus plan
February 17th
President Obama writes on the economic stimulus plan that has been swept through and approved by both chambers of Congress, with the aim of boosting the severely crisis-hit economy. The measures include $ 787 billion to save existing jobs and create 2.5 million new jobs, as well as boost the hard-hit economy. The package contains a mix of tax cuts, social contributions and investments in infrastructure.
January
Obama is taking office
January 20th
When Barack Obama swears presidential oath, he becomes the 44th president of the United States, and the first with African American outrage. Around 1.8 million people are expected to reside in the area where the ceremony is held in Washington DC.
Tea Party demonstrations
The conservative populist Tea Party movement (see Political system) is holding its first major demonstrations. They are being held in protest against Obama’s plans to partly rescue banks through state measures, and to introduce a health insurance reform.
