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Showcase :
The United States Historic Collections Exhibition.
| History of the United States | |
|---|---|
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| Timeline | |
| Pre-Colonial period | |
| Colonial period | |
| 1776–1789 | |
| 1789–1849 | |
1849–1865 |
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1865–1918 |
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| 1918–1945 | |
| 1945–1964 | |
| 1964–1980 | |
| 1980–1991 | |
| 1991–present | |
| Topic | |
| Westward expansion | |
| Overseas expansion | |
| Diplomatic history | |
Military history |
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Technological and industrial history |
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| Economic history | |
| Cultural history | |
| Civil War | |
 History of the South |
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| Civil Rights (1896–1954) | |
| Civil Rights (1955–1968) | |
| Women’s history | |
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The history of the United States traditionally starts with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, yet its territory was occupied first by the Native Americans since prehistoric times and then also by European colonists following the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492. The Thirteen Colonies won independence from the British Empire in the American Revolution and as states ratified the Articles of Confederation and then the Constitution in 1789 as the basis for the United States federal government. The young nation continued to struggle with the scope of central government and with European influence, spurring the first political parties, the War of 1812, and the Monroe Doctrine.
U.S. territory grew westward across North America but was opposed on the frontier by Native Americans, Mexico, and others, and domestically by those fearing the expansion would shift the balance of power from one region to another. Slavery of Africans in the Southern states became the divisive issue between North and South, requiring compromises for further expansion. The election of Abraham Lincoln sparked a crisis as eleven slave states seceded to found the Confederate States of America in 1861, and led to the catastrophic, four-year American Civil War.
The South was defeated and, in the Reconstruction era, the U.S. ended slavery, began extending rights to African Americans, and readmitted secessionist states with loyal governments. The present 48 contiguous states were admitted by early 1912.
The U.S. rose as an industrialized power by the early 20th century. Changes in lifestyle led to the Progressive movement, which pushed for reform in industry and politics and is associated with women’s suffrage and Prohibition (the latter failed by 1933). Initially committed to neutrality, the U.S. eventually entered World War I in 1917, and despite U.S. attempts to foster the League of Nations, popular support remained isolationist. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 punctuated the onset of the Great Depression, to which the federal government responded with New Deal recovery programs. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 pulled the nation into World War II alongside the Allies, and helped defeat Nazi Germany in Europe and, with the detonation of newly-invented atomic bombs, Japan in Asia and the Pacific.
The Soviet Union and the U.S. emerged as opposing superpowers after the war, and with mutually assured destruction of the Atomic Age discouraging direct conflict, they began the Cold War confronting on other fronts including an arms race, the Space Race, and intervention in Europe and eastern Asia. Liberalism reflected in the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War peaked in the 1960s–70s before giving way to conservatism in the early 1980s. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, leaving the U.S. to prosper in the booming Information Age economy that was boosted, at least in part, by information technology. International conflict and economic uncertainty heightened by 2001 with the September 11 attacks and subsequent War on Terror and the late-2000s recession.
Pre-Columbian era
The first residents of what is now the United States emigrated from Asia over 30,000[1] years ago by crossing Beringia into what is now present-day Alaska then headed south. Archaeological evidence of these people, the ancestors of the Native Americans, dates back to 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago.[2][3][4]
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during the Early Modern period. While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus‘ voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus’ initial landing.
Colonial period
After a period of exploration by people from various European countries, Spanish, Dutch, English, French, Swedish, and Portuguese settlements were established. Although Leif Ericson was the first European to arrive in North America, Christopher Columbus was the first European to set foot on what would one day become US territory when he came to Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493, during his second voyage.
In the 16th century, Europeans brought horses, cattle, and hogs to the Americas and, in turn, took back to Europe maize, potatoes, tobacco, beans, and squash. The disease environment was very unhealthy for explorers and early settlers. The Indians became exposed to new diseases such as smallpox and measles and died in very large numbers, usually before large-scale European settlement began.
Spanish exploration and colonization
Coronado Sets Out to the North (1540) by Frederic Remington, oil on canvas, 1905.
Spanish explorers came to what is now the United States beginning with Christopher Columbus‘ second expedition, which reached Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493; others reached Florida in 1513.[6]
Quickly Spanish expeditions reached the Appalachian Mountains, the Mississippi River, the Grand Canyon[7] and the Great Plains. In 1540, Hernando de Soto undertook an extensive exploration of the present US and, in the same year, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Native Mexican Americans across the modern Arizona–Mexico border and traveled as far as central Kansas.[8] Other Spanish explorers include Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, Pánfilo de Narváez, Sebastián Vizcaíno, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Gaspar de Portolà, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Tristán de Luna y Arellano and Juan de Oñate. The Spanish sent some settlers, creating the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States at St. Augustine, Florida in 1565, but it was in such a harsh political environment that it attracted few settlers and never expanded. Much larger and more important Spanish settlements included Santa Fe, Albuquerque, San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Most Spanish settlements were along the California coast or the Santa Fe River in New Mexico.[9]
Dutch colonization
New Netherland and New Sweden
Nieuw-Nederland, or New Netherland, was the 17th century Dutch colonial province on the eastern coast of North America. The Dutch claimed territory from the Delmarva Peninsula to Buzzards Bay, while their settlements concentrated on the Hudson River Valley, where they traded furs with the Indians to the north and were a barrier to Yankee expansion from New England. Their capital, New Amsterdam, was located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was renamed New York when the English seized the colony in 1664. The Dutch were Calvinists who built the Reformed Church in America, but they were tolerant of other religions and cultures. The colony left an enduring legacy on American cultural and political life, including a secular broadmindedness and mercantile pragmatism in the city, a rural traditionalism in the countryside typified by the story of Rip Van Winkle, and politicians such as Martin Van Buren, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt.[10]
French colonization
The 22 parishes of Acadiana; the Cajun heartland of Louisiana is highlighted in darker red.
New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period extending 1534 to 1763, when Britain and Spain took control. There were few permanent settlers outside Quebec, but fur traders ranged working with numerous Indian tribes who often became military allies in France’s wars with Britain. The territory was divided into five colonies: Canada, Acadia, Hudson Bay, Newfoundland and Louisiana. After 1750 the Acadians—French settlers who had been expelled by the British from Acadia (Nova Scotia)—resettled in Louisiana, where they developed a distinctive rural Cajun culture that still exists. They became American citizens in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase.[11] Other French villages along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers were absorbed when the Americans started arriving after 1770.
British colonization
In 1607, the Virginia Company of London established the Jamestown Settlement on the James River, both named after King James I
The strip of land along the eastern seacoast was settled primarily by English colonists in the 17th century, along with much smaller numbers of Dutch and Swedes. Colonial America was defined by a severe labor shortage that employed forms of unfree labor such as slavery and indentured servitude,[12] and by a British policy of benign neglect (salutary neglect) that permitted the development of an American spirit distinct from that of its European founders.[13] Over half of all European migrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants.[14]
The first successful English colony was established in 1607, on the James River at Jamestown. It languished for decades until a new wave of settlers arrived in the late 17th century and established commercial agriculture based on tobacco. Between the late 1610s and the Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 convicts to their American colonies.[15] During the Georgian era English officials exiled 1,000 prisoners across the Atlantic every year.[16] One example of conflict between Native Americans and English settlers was the 1622 Powhatan uprising in Virginia, in which Native Americans had killed hundreds of English settlers. The largest conflict between Native Americans and English settlers in the 17th century was King Philip’s War in New England,[17] although the Yamasee War may have been bloodier.[18]
The Plymouth Colony was established in 1620. New England was initially settled primarily by Puritans who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.[19] The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were characterized by a large degree of diversity. The first attempted English settlement south of Virginia was the Province of Carolina, with Georgia Colony the last of the Thirteen Colonies established in 1733.[20] Several colonies were used as penal settlements from the 1620s until the American Revolution.[21] Methodism became the prevalent religion among colonial citizens after the First Great Awakening, a religious revival led by preacher Jonathan Edwards in 1734.
Political integration and autonomy
Join, or Die: This 1756 political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin urged the colonies to join together during the French and Indian War.
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a watershed event in the political development of the colonies. The influence of the main rivals of the British Crown in the colonies and Canada, the French and North American Indians, was significantly reduced. Moreover, the war effort resulted in greater political integration of the colonies, as symbolized by Benjamin Franklin’s call for the colonies to “Join or Die”
.
Following Britain’s acquisition of French territory in North America, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 with the goal of organizing the new North American empire and stabilizing relations with the native Indians. In ensuing years, strains developed in the relations between the colonists and the Crown. The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act of 1765, imposing a tax on the colonies to help pay for troops stationed in North America following the British victory in the Seven Years’ War.
The British government felt that the colonies were the primary beneficiaries of this military presence, and should pay at least a portion of the expense. The colonists did not share this view. Rather, with the French and Indian threat diminished, the primary outside influence remained that of Britain. A conflict of economic interests increased with the right of the British Parliament to govern the colonies without representation being called into question.
Nathaniel Currier‘s 1846 depiction of the Boston Tea Party.[22]
The Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a direct action by colonists in the town of Boston to protest against the taxes levied by the British government. Parliament responded the next year with the Coercive Acts, which sparked outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies. Colonists convened the First Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance to the Coercive Acts. The Congress called for a boycott of British trade, published a list of rights and grievances, and petitioned the king for redress of those grievances.
The Congress also called for another meeting if their petition did not halt enforcement of the Coercive Acts. Their appeal to the Crown had no effect, and so the Second Continental Congress was convened in 1775 to organize the defense of the colonies at the onset of the American Revolutionary War.
Formation of the United States of America (1776–1789)
Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River, one of the rebels’ first successes in the Revolutionary War
The Thirteen Colonies began a rebellion against British rule in 1775 and proclaimed their independence in 1776 as the United States of America. The United States defeated Britain with help from France especially, and also the United Provinces and indirectly from Spain in the American Revolutionary War. The colonists’ 1777 capture of the British invasion army at Saratoga secured the Northeast and led the French into an open alliance with the United States.[23]
In 1781, Washington led a combined American and French army, acting with the support of a French fleet, and captured a large British army led by General Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, thus virtually ending the land war. Political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset observes, “The United States was the first major colony successfully to revolt against colonial rule. In this sense, it was the first ‘new nation’
“[24]
On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, declared the independence of “the United States of America” in the Declaration of Independence. July 4 is celebrated as the nation’s birthday. The new nation was founded on Enlightenment ideals of liberalism in what Thomas Jefferson called the inalienable rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and dedicated to republican principles. Republicanism emphasized the people are sovereign (not hereditary kings), demanded civic duty, feared corruption, and opposed aristocracy.[25] The new nation was governed by Congress, and until 1789 followed the Articles of Confederation of 1777.
After the war finally ended in 1783, there was a period of prosperity, with the entire world at peace.[citation needed] The national government was able to settle the issue of the western territories, which were ceded by the states to Congress and became territories (and after 1791 started to become states). Nationalists worried that the new nation was too fragile to withstand an international war, or even internal revolts such as the Shays’ Rebellion of 1786 in Massachusetts. Nationalists—most of them war veterans—organized in every state and convinced Congress to call the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. The delegates from every state wrote a new Constitution that created a much more powerful and efficient central government, one with a strong president, and powers of taxation. The new government reflected the prevailing republican ideals of guarantees of individual liberty and upon constraining the power of government through a system of separation of powers.[26]
To assuage the Anti-Federalists who feared a too-powerful national government, the nation adopted the United States Bill of Rights in 1791. Comprising the first ten amendments of the Constitution, it guaranteed individual liberties such as freedom of speech and religious practice, jury trials, and stated that citizens and states had reserved rights (which were not specified).[27]
Early national era (1789–1849)
Economic growth in America per capita income
George Washington—a renowned hero of the American Revolutionary War, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and president of the Constitutional Convention—became the first President of the United States under the new Constitution in 1789.
The major accomplishments of the Washington Administration were creating a strong national government that was recognized without question by all Americans, and, following the plans of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, assuming the debts of the states (the debt holders received federal bonds), creating the Bank of the United States to stabilize the financial system, setting up a uniform system of tariffs (taxes on imports) and other taxes to pay off the debt and provide a financial infrastructure. To support his programs Hamilton created a new political party—the first in the world based on voters—the Federalist Party. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison led the opposition, forming an opposition Republican Party (usually called the Democratic-Republican Party by historians). Hamilton and Washington presented the country in 1794 with the Jay Treaty that reestablished good relations with Britain. The Jeffersonians vehemently protested, and the voters aligned behind one party or the other, thus setting up the First Party System. The treaty passed, but politics became very heated.[28]
The Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, when settlers in the Pennsylvania counties west of the Allegheny Mountains protested against a federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks, was the first serious test of the federal government.[29]
At the end of his second presidential term, George Washington made his farewell address, which was published in the newspaper Independent Chronicle on September 26, 1796. In his address, Washington triumphed the benefits of federal government and importance of ethics and morality while warning against foreign alliances and formation of political parties.[30]
Vice President John Adams, a Federalist, defeated Jefferson in the 1796 election. War loomed with France and the Federalists used the opportunity to try to silence the Republicans with the Alien and Sedition Acts, build up a large army with Hamilton at the head, and prepare for a French invasion. However, the Federalists became divided after Adams sent a successful peace mission to France that ended the Quasi-War of 1798. In 1800 Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency in the 1800 election.
Territorial expansion of the United States, omitting Oregon and other claims.
Although the Constitution included a Supreme Court, its functions were vague until John Marshall, the Chief Justice (1801–35), defined them, especially the power to overturn acts of Congress that violated the Constitution, first enunciated in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison.[32] The Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, removed the French presence from the western border of the United States and provided US settlers with vast potential for expansion west of the Mississippi River
.[33]
In response to multiple grievances, the Congress declared war on Britain in 1812. The grievances included humiliating the Americans in the Chesapeake incident of 1807, continued British impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy, restrictions on trade with France, and arming hostile Indians in Ohio and the western territories.[34] The War of 1812 ended in a draw after bitter fighting that lasted until January 8, 1815, during the Battle of New Orleans. The Americans gained no territory but were cheered by a sense of victory in what they called a “second war of independence”. The war was a major loss for Native American tribes in the Northwest and Southeast who had allied themselves with Britain and were defeated on the battlefield.
As strong opponents of the war, the Federalists held the Hartford Convention in 1814 that hinted at disunion. National euphoria after the victory at New Orleans ruined the prestige of the Federalists and they no longer played a significant role.[35] President Madison and most Republicans realized it had been a mistake to let the Bank of the United States close down, for its absence greatly hindered the financing of the war. So they chartered the Second Bank of the United States in 1816. The Republicans also imposed tariffs designed to protect the infant industries that had been created when Britain was blockading the U.S. With the collapse of the Federalists as a party, the adoption of many Federalist principles by the Republicans, and the systematic policy of President James Monroe in his two terms (1817–25) to downplay partisanship, the nation entered an Era of Good Feelings, with far less partisanship than before (or after), and closed out the First Party System.[36][37]
The Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed the United States’ opinion that European powers should no longer colonize or interfere in the Americas. This was a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States. The Monroe Doctrine was adopted in response to American and British fears over Russian and French expansion into the Western Hemisphere.[38]
Settlers crossing the Plains of Nebraska
In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the president to negotiate treaties that exchanged Native American tribal lands in the eastern states for lands west of the Mississippi River. This established Andrew Jackson, a military hero and President, as a cunning tyrant in regards to native populations.[clarification needed] The act resulted most notably in the Trail of Tears, a forced migration of several native tribes to the West, with several thousand people dying en route, and the Creeks‘ violent opposition and eventual defeat. The Indian Removal Act also directly caused the ceding of Spanish Florida and led to the many Seminole Wars.[39]
After 1840 the abolitionist movement redefined itself, mobilized its supporters (especially among religious people in the Northeast affected by the Second Great Awakening), escalated its attacks, and proclaimed slave ownership a sin, not just an unfortunate social evil. It gained tens of thousands of followers. William Lloyd Garrison published the most influential of the many anti-slavery newspapers, The Liberator, while Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave, began writing for that newspaper around 1840 and started his own abolitionist newspaper North Star in 1847.[40]
The Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845.[41] The US army, using regulars and large numbers of volunteers, defeated Mexico in 1848 during the Mexican-American War. Public sentiment in the US was divided as Whigs[42] and anti-slavery forces[43] opposed the war. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded California, New Mexico, and adjacent areas to the United States, about thirty percent of Mexico. Westward expansion was enhanced further by the California Gold Rush, the discovery of gold in that state in 1848. Numerous “forty-niners” trekked to California in pursuit of gold; land-hungry European immigrants also contributed to the rising white population in the west.[19] In 1849 cholera spread along the California and Oregon Trails. An estimated 150,000 Americans died during the two cholera pandemics between 1832 and 1849.[44]
Civil War era (1849–1865)
.PNG){kind=spacer}
The Union: blue (free), yellow (slave);
The Confederacy: brown
*territories in light shades
In the middle of the 19th century, white Americans of the North and South were to reconcile fundamental differences in their approach to government, economics, society and African American slavery. The issue of slavery in the new territories was settled by the Compromise of 1850 brokered by Whig Henry Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas; the Compromise included admission of California as a free state and the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act to make it easier for masters to reclaim runaway slaves.[41] In 1854, the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act abrogated the Missouri Compromise by providing that each new state of the Union would decide its stance on slavery
.[45]
By 1860, there were nearly four million slaves residing in the United States, nearly eight times as many from 1790; within the same time period, cotton production in the U.S. boomed from less than a thousand tons to nearly one million tons per year. There were some slave rebellions—including by Gabriel Prosser (1800), Denmark Vesey (1822), and Nat Turner (1831)—but they all failed and led to tighter slave oversight in the south.[46]
Abraham Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton and Major General John Alexander McClernand at the Battle of Antietam.
After Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election, eleven Southern states seceded from the union between late 1860 and 1861, establishing a new government, the Confederate States of America, on February 8, 1861.[47] Along with the northwestern portion of Virginia, which became West Virginia, four of the five northernmost “slave states” did not secede and became known as the Border States.[47]
Civil War
The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a US military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.[48] In response to the attack, on April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send detachments totaling 75,000 troops to recapture forts, protect the capital, and “preserve the Union”, which in his view still existed intact despite the actions of the seceding states. The two armies had their first major clash at the First Battle of Bull Run, which ended in a surprising Union defeat, but, more importantly, proved to both the Union and Confederacy that the war was going be much longer and bloodier than they had originally anticipated.
The war soon divided into two theaters: Eastern and Western. In the western theater, the Union was quite successful, with major battles, such as Perryville, producing strategic Union victories and destroying major confederate operations.
Anger at military conscription during the American Civil War led to the New York Draft Riots of 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history. The city’s Irish and Excelsior brigades were among the five Union brigades with the most combat dead.
In the Eastern theater, things did not start well for the Union. In the summer of 1861, General Irvin McDowell was given the task of destroying the Confederacy in one quick battle with the newly created Army of Northeastern Virginia. Union and Confederate forces engaged in combat at Manassas Junction (Bull Run), which resulted in a surprising Union defeat due in part to steadfast Confederate defense. Following McDowell’s failure, Major General George B. McClellan was put in charge of the Union armies. After reorganizing the new Army of the Potomac, McClellan too failed to do so in his Peninsula Campaign and retreated after attacks from newly appointed Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Feeling confident in his army after the Union defeat at the Second Bull Run, Lee decided to embark on an invasion of the north. However, his entire battle plan (Special Order 191) was discovered by two Union soldiers, and thus, McClellan could intercept and strategically stop Lee at the bloody Battle of Antietam. Despite this, McClellan was relieved from command for refusing to pursue Lee’s crippled army. The next commander General Ambrose Burnside suffered a humiliating defeat by Lee’s smaller army at the Battle of Fredericksburg late in 1862, resulted in the Union retreat, more recriminations and yet another change in commanders. Lee won again at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, while losing his top aide, Stonewall Jackson. But Lee pushed too hard and ignored the Union threat in the west.[citation needed] Lee invaded Pennsylvania in search of supplies and to cause war weariness in the North. In perhaps the turning point of the war, Lee’s army was badly beaten at the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3, 1863, and barely made it back to Virginia.
Simultaneously on July 4, 1863, Union forces under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant gained control of the Mississippi River at the Battle of Vicksburg, thereby splitting the Confederacy. Lincoln made General Grant commander of all Union armies.
The last two years of the war was bloody for both sides, with Grant launching a war of attrition against General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. This war of attrition was divided into three main campaigns. The first of these, the Overland Campaign forced Lee to retreat into the city of Petersburg where Grant launched his second major offensive, the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign in which he sieged Petersburg. After a near ten-month siege, Petersburg surrendered. However, the defense of Fort Gregg allowed Lee to move his army out of Petersburg. Grant pursued and launched the final, Appomattox Campaign which resulted in Lee surrendering his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House.[47] When word of Lee’s surrender spread across the country, many Confederate armies also surrendered, with Stand Watie being the last of the generals.
Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South,[49] establishing the American Civil War as the deadliest war in American history. Its legacy includes ending slavery in the United States, restoring the Union, and strengthening the role of the federal government. The social, political, economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the Reconstruction era, which lasted through 1877, and brought about changes that would eventually help make the country a united superpower.
Reconstruction and a rise in power (1865–1918)
Reconstruction
Completion of the Transcontinental Railroad (1869) at First Transcontinental Railroad, by Andrew J. Russell
Reconstruction took place for most of the decade following the Civil War. During this era, the “Reconstruction Amendments” were passed to expand civil rights for black Americans. Those amendments included the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment that guaranteed citizenship for all people born or naturalized within U.S. territory, and the Fifteenth Amendment that granted the vote for all men regardless of race. While the Civil Rights Act of 1875 forbade discrimination in the service of public facilities, the Black Codes denied blacks privileges readily available to whites.[50]
In response to Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) emerged around the late 1860s as a white-supremacist organization opposed to black civil rights. Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1870 and vigorous enforcement closed down the Klan and classified the KKK as a terrorist group. However, an 1883 Supreme Court decision nullified the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and ended federal efforts to stop private acts of violence designed to suppress legal rights.[51]
During the era, many regions of the southern U.S. were military-governed and often corrupt; Reconstruction ended after the disputed 1876 election between Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden. Hayes won the election, and the South soon re-entered the national political scene.[52]
Gilded Age and Progressivism
The “Gilded Age” was a term that Mark Twain used to describe the period of the late 19th century when there had been a dramatic expansion of American wealth and prosperity. Reform of the Age included the Civil Service Act, which mandated a competitive examination for applicants for government jobs. Other important legislation included the Interstate Commerce Act, which ended railroads’ discrimination against small shippers, and the Sherman Antitrust Act, which outlawed monopolies in business. Twain believed that this age was corrupted by such elements as land speculators, scandalous politics, and unethical business practices.[53]
By century’s end, American industrial production and per capita income exceeded those of all other world nations and ranked only behind Great Britain. In response to heavy debts and decreasing farm prices, wheat and cotton farmers joined the Populist Party.[54] Later, an unprecedented wave of immigration served both to provide the labor for American industry and create diverse communities in previously undeveloped areas. From 1880 to 1914, peak years of immigration, more than 22 million people migrated to the United States.[55] Abusive industrial practices led to the often violent rise of the labor movement in the United States.[56] Influential figures of the period included John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.
Mulberry Street, along which Manhattan’s Little Italy is centered. Lower East Side, circa 1900. Almost 97% of residents of the 10 largest American cities of 1900 were non-Hispanic whites.[57]
Dissatisfaction on the part of the growing middle class with politics as usual, and the failure to deal with increasingly important urban and industrial problems, led to the emergence of the Progressive Movement in the 1890s. In every major city and state, and at the national level as well, and in education, medicine, and industry, the progressives called for the modernization and reform of decrepit institutions, the elimination of corruption in politics, and the introduction of efficiency as a criteria for change. Leading politicians from both parties, most notably Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Evans Hughes, and Robert LaFollette on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan on the Democratic side, took up the cause of progressive reform. Women became especially involved in demands for woman suffrage, prohibition, and better schools; their most prominent leader was Jane Addams of Chicago. Progressives implemented anti-trust laws and regulated such industries of meat-packing, drugs, and railroads. Four new constitutional amendments—the Sixteenth through Nineteenth—resulted from progressive activism, bringing the federal income tax, direct election of Senators, prohibition, and woman suffrage.[58] The Progressive Movement began in the 1890s and lasted through the 1920s; the most active period was 1900-1918[59]
Imperialism and World War I
The United States emerged as a world economic and military power after 1890. The main episode was the Spanish–American War, which began when Spain refused American demands to reform its oppressive policies in Cuba. The “splendid little war”, as one official called it, involved a series of quick American victories on land and at sea. At the Treaty of Paris peace conference the United States acquired the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Cuba became an independent country, under close American tutelage. Although the war itself was widely popular, the peace terms proved controversial. William Jennings Bryan led his Democratic Party in opposition to control of the Philippines, which he denounced as imperialism unbecoming to American democracy. President William McKinley defended the acquisition, and was riding high as the nation had returned to prosperity and felt triumphant in the war. McKinley easily defeated Bryan in a rematch in the 1900 presidential election. After defeating an insurrection by Filipino nationalists, the United States engaged in a large scale program to modernize the economy of the Philippines, and dramatically upgrade the public health facilities.[60] By 1908, however, Americans lost interest in an empire, and turned their international attention to the Caribbean, and especially the building of the Panama Canal. The canal opened in 1914, and increased trade with Japan and the rest of the Far East. A key policy innovation was the Open Door Policy, whereby the imperial powers were given equal access to Chinese business, with no one of them allowed to take control of China.[61]
President Woodrow Wilson declared U.S. entry into World War I in April 1917 following a yearlong neutrality policy; the U.S. had previously shown interest in world peace by participating in the Hague Conferences. American participation in the war proved essential to the Allied victory. Wilson also implemented a set of propositions titled the Fourteen Points to ensure peace, but they were denied at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Isolationist sentiment following the war also blocked the U.S. from participating in the League of Nations, an important part of the Treaty of Versailles.[19]
Rare Historical Banknote from The Dillinger Days in Montpelier
| In addition to its extreme rarity, this banknote from The First National Bank of Montpelier Indiana is from one of the banks that John Dillinger and his gang robbed on August 4, 1933. |
Very Rare Banknote from 1900
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Women’s suffrage
Alice Paul stands before the Woman Suffrage Amendment’s ratification banner. She immediately went on to write the Equal Right Amendment, whose passage would become an important goal of the Women’s Liberation Movement half a century later.
These years of the early 20th century also saw the strengthening of the women’s suffrage movement. The movement had begun with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and the Declaration of Sentiments demanding equal rights for women. The women’s rights campaign during “first-wave feminism” was led by Mott, Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, and Julia Ward Howe, among others. By the end of the 19th century only several states had granted women full voting rights, though women had made significant legal victories, gaining rights in areas such as property and child custody. In 1875 the Supreme Court ruled women, too, were American citizens (but this did not give them the right to vote).
Around 1912 the feminist movement, which had grown sluggish, began to reawaken. Protests became increasingly common as suffragette Alice Paul led parades through the capital and major cities. Paul split from the large National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which favored a more moderate approach and supported the Democratic Party and Woodrow Wilson, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, and formed the more militant National Woman’s Party. Suffragists were arrested during their “Silent Sentinels” pickets at the White House, the first time such a tactic was used, and were taken as political prisoners. In prison they were tortured and force-fed while on hunger strikes led by Alice Paul.
Finally, the suffragettes were ordered released from prison, and Wilson addressed the Congress on women’s suffrage, urging them to pass a Constitutional amendment enfranchising women, which they did with the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919. It became constitutional law on August 26, 1920, after ratification by the 36th required state. NAWSA became the League of Women Voters and the National Woman’s Party began lobbying for full equality and the Equal Rights Amendment which would pass Congress during the second wave of the women’s movement in 1972. Following ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, a U.S. Court ruled the arrests of the over two hundred suffragists as unconstitutional, and the amendment was upheld by the Supreme Court after a legal challenge.
Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and World War II (1918–1945)
Following World War I, the U.S. grew steadily in stature as an economic and military world power. The United States Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles imposed by its Allies on the defeated Central Powers; instead, the United States chose to pursue unilateralism, if not isolationism.[62] The aftershock of Russia’s October Revolution resulted in real fears of communism in the United States, leading to a three-year Red Scare. In 1918 the U.S. lost 675,000 people to the Spanish flu pandemic.[63]
Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in Chicago, 1921
In 1920, the manufacture, sale, import and export of alcohol was prohibited by the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Prohibition encouraged illegal breweries and dealers to make substantial amounts of money selling alcohol illegally. The Prohibition ended in 1933, a failure. Additionally, the KKK re-formed during that decade and gathered nearly 4.5 million members by 1924, and the U.S. government passed the Immigration Act of 1924 restricting foreign immigration.[64] The 1920s were also known as the Roaring Twenties, due to the great economic prosperity during this period.[citation needed] Jazz became popular among the younger generation, and thus was also called the Jazz Age.
Great Depression
Dorothea Lange‘s Migrant Mother, depicts destitute pea pickers in California, centering on a mother of seven children, age thirty-two, in Nipomo, California, March 1936.
During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity: farm prices and wages fell, while new industries and industrial profits grew. The boom was fueled by an inflated stock market, which later led to the Stock Market Crash on October 29, 1929.[65] This, along with many other economic factors, triggered a worldwide depression known as the Great Depression. During this time, the United States experienced deflation, unemployment soared from 3% in 1929 to 25% in 1933, and manufacturing output collapsed by one-third.
In 1932, Democratic presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt promised “a new deal for the American people”,[66] a phrase that has endured as a label for his administration and its many domestic achievements. The desperate economic situation, along with the substantial Democratic victories in the 1932 elections, gave Roosevelt unusual influence over Congress in the “First Hundred Days” of his administration. He used his leverage to win rapid passage of a series of measures to create welfare programs and regulate the banking system, stock market, industry and agriculture, along with many other government efforts to end the Great Depression and reform the American economy. Some programs that were a part of Roosevelt’s New Deal include the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief program, the Social Security Act, the Emergency Banking Act, and the Economy Act. The recovery was rapid in all areas except unemployment,[citation needed] which decreased yet remained fairly high until 1940.[67]
World War II
As with World War I, the United States did not enter World War II until after the rest of the active Allied countries had done so. The United States first contribution to the war was simultaneously to cut off the oil and raw material supplies needed by the Empire of Japan to maintain its offensive in China, and to increase military and financial aid to China. Contribution came to the Allies in September 1940 in the form of the Lend-Lease program with Britain.
On December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, an American naval base in Hawaii, citing America’s recent trade embargo as justification. The following day, Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully urged a joint session of Congress to declare war on Japan, calling December 7, 1941 “a date which will live in infamy“. Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 11, Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, drawing the country into a two-theater war.
[edit] Battle against Germany
Upon entering the war, the United States and the Allies decided to concentrate the bulk of their efforts on fighting Hitler in Europe, while maintaining a defensive position in the Pacific until Hitler was defeated. The United States’s first step was to set up a large air force in Britain to concentrate on bombing raids into Germany. Britain had ceased its daylight bombing raids, due to heavy casualties inflicted by the Luftwaffe. The U.S. Army Air Force suffered similar high losses until the introduction of the P-51 Mustang as a long range escort fighter for the bombers.
Landing at Normandy at Battle of Normandy, by Robert F. Sargent, United States Army. Total U. S. military deaths in battle and from other causes were 416,837.
The American army’s first ground action was fighting alongside the British, Australian and New Zealand armies in North Africa. By May 1943, the British 8th Army had expelled the Germans from North Africa and the Allies controlled this vital link until the end of the war. The American navy also played an active role in the Atlantic protecting the convoys bringing vital American war materiel to Britain. By mid-1943, the Allies were fighting the war from Britain with unbroken supply lines, while at the same time Hitler’s armies were very much on the back foot, with heavy bombing taking its toll on production.
By early 1944, a planned invasion of Western Europe was underway. What followed on June 6, 1944, was Operation Overlord, or D-Day. The largest war armada ever assembled landed on the beaches of Normandy and began the penetration of Western Europe that eventually overthrew Hitler and Nazi Germany. Following the landing, the Americans contributed greatly to the outcome of the war, with dogged fighting in the Battle of the Bulge resulting in Allied victories against the Germans.
The battles took a heavy toll on the Americans, who lost 19,000 men during the Battle of the Bulge alone. The Allied bombing raids on Germany increased to unprecedented levels after the D-Day invasion, with over 70% of all bombs dropped on Germany occurring after this date. On April 30, 1945, with Berlin completely overrun with Russian forces and his country in tatters, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. On May 8, 1945, the war with Germany was over, following its unconditional surrender to the Allied forces.
[edit] Battle against Japan
Due to the United States commitment to defeating Hitler in Europe, the first years of the war against Japan was largely a defensive battle with the United States Navy attempting to prevent the Japanese Navy from asserting dominance of the Pacific region. Initially, Japan won most of its battles in a short time. Japan quickly defeated and created military bases in Guam, Thailand, Malaya, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Burma. This was done virtually unopposed and with quicker speed than that of the German Blitzkrieg during the early stages of the war. This was important for Japan, as it had only 10% of the homeland industrial production capacity of the United States.
Douglas MacArthur lands at the Battle of Leyte, by U.S. Army Signal Corps
The turning point of the war was the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Following this, the Americans began fighting towards China where they could build an airbase suitable to commence bombing of mainland Japan with its B-29 Superfortress fleet. The Americans began by selecting smaller, lesser defended islands as targets as opposed to attacking the major Japanese strongholds. During this period, they inadvertently triggered what would become their most comprehensive victory in the entire war.
The Pacific war became the largest naval conflict in history. The American Navy emerged victorious, after at one point being stretched near to the breaking point, with almost complete destruction of the Japanese Navy. The American forces were then poised for an invasion of the Japanese mainland, to force the Japanese into unconditional surrender. On April 12, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died and Vice President Harry S. Truman was sworn in as the 33rd President of the United States. The use of atomic weapons against Japan was subsequently authorized.
The decision to use nuclear weapons to end the conflict has been one of the most controversial decisions of the war. Supporters of the use of the bombs argue that an invasion would have cost an enormous numbers of lives, while opponents argue that the large number of civilian casualties resulting from the bombings was unjustified. The first bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. On August 15, 1945, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally, ending World War II. The Pacific war claimed the lives of more than 100,000 US soldiers.[68]
[edit] The Cold War begins (1945–1964)
President Kennedy‘s Civil Rights Address, June 11, 1963.
Following World War II, the United States emerged as one of the two dominant superpowers. The U.S. Senate on a bipartisan vote approved U.S. participation in the United Nations (UN), which marked a turn away from the traditional isolationism of the U.S. and toward more international involvement.
The primary American goal of 1945–48 was to rescue Europe from the devastation of World War II and to contain the expansion of Communism, represented by the Soviet Union. The Truman Doctrine of 1947 provided military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey to counteract the threat of Communist expansion in the Balkans. In 1948, the United States replaced piecemeal financial aid programs with a comprehensive Marshall Plan, which pumped money into the economy of Western Europe, and removed trade barriers, while modernizing the managerial practices businesses and governments. The Plan’s $13 billion budget was in the context of a U.S. GDP of $258 billion in 1948, and was on top of $12 billion in American aid to Europe between the end of the war and the start of the Marshall Plan. Soviet head of state Joseph Stalin prevented his satellites from participating, and from that point on Eastern Europe fell further and further behind Western Europe in terms of economic development and prosperity. In 1949, the United States, rejecting the long-standing policy of no military alliances in peacetime, formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, which continues into the 21st century. In response the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact of communist states.[69]
In 1950 the Soviets tested their first nuclear weapon, thereby escalating the risk of warfare. Indeed, the threat of mutually assured destruction prevented both powers from going too far, and resulted in proxy wars, especially in Korea and Vietnam, in which the two sides did not directly confront each other.[70] Within the United States, the Cold War prompted concerns about Communist influence. The unexpected leapfrogging of American technology by the Soviets in 1957 with Sputnik, the first Earth satellite, began the Space Race, won by the Americans as Apollo 11 landed astronauts on the moon in 1969. The angst about the weaknesses of American education led to large-scale federal support for science education and research.[71]
In the decades after World War II, the United States became a global influence in economic, political, military, cultural, and technological affairs. Beginning in the 1950s, middle-class culture had a growing obsession with consumer goods. White Americans made up nearly 90% of the population in 1950.[72][clarification needed]
In 1960, the charismatic politician John F. Kennedy was elected as the first and—thus far—only Roman Catholic President of the United States. The Kennedy family brought a new life and vigor to the atmosphere of the White House. His time in office was marked by such notable events as the acceleration of the United States’ role in the Space Race; escalation of the American role in the Vietnam War; the Cuban missile crisis; the Bay of Pigs Invasion; the jailing of Martin Luther King, Jr. during the Birmingham campaign; and the appointment of his brother Robert F. Kennedy to his Cabinet as Attorney General. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, leaving the nation in profound shock.[73]
[edit] Climax of liberalism
The climax of liberalism came in the mid-1960s with the success of President Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–69) in securing congressional passage of his Great Society programs, including civil rights, the end of segregation, Medicare, extension of welfare, federal aid to education at all levels, subsidies for the arts and humanities, environmental activism, and a series of programs designed to wipe out poverty.[74][75] As recent historians have explained:
- “Gradually, liberal intellectuals crafted a new vision for achieving economic and social justice. The liberalism of the early 1960s contained no hint of radicalism, little disposition to revive new deal era crusades against concentrated economic power, and no intention to fast and class passions or redistribute wealth or restructure existing institutions. Internationally it was strongly anti-Communist. It aimed to defend the free world, to encourage economic growth at home, and to ensure that the resulting plenty was fairly distributed. Their agenda-much influenced by Keynesian economic theory-envisioned massive public expenditure that would speed economic growth, thus providing the public resources to fund larger welfare, housing, health, and educational programs.”[76]
Johnson was rewarded with an electoral landslide in 1964 against conservative Barry Goldwater, which broke the decades-long control of Congress by the Conservative coalition. But the Republicans bounced back in 1966, and is the debit credit party[clarification needed] splintered five ways, Republicans elected Richard Nixon in 1968. Nixon largely continued the New Deal and Great Society programs he inherited; conservative reaction would come with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
[edit] The Civil Rights Movement
Martin Luther King gives his I Have a Dream speech at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Meanwhile, the American people completed a great migration from farms into the cities and experienced a period of sustained economic expansion. At the same time, institutionalized racism across the United States, but especially in the South, was increasingly challenged by the growing Civil Rights movement. The activism of African American leaders Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which launched the movement. For years African Americans would struggle with violence against them, but would achieve great steps towards equality with Supreme Court decisions, including Brown v. Board of Education and Loving v. Virginia, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which ended the Jim Crow laws that legalized racial segregation between Whites and Blacks.
Martin Luther King, Jr., who had won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to achieve equality of the races, was assassinated in 1968. Following his death other leaders led the movement, most notably King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, who was also active, like her husband, in the Opposition to the Vietnam War, and in the Women’s Liberation Movement. Over the first nine months of 1967, 128 American cities suffered 164 riots.[77] The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the strengthening of Black Power, however the decade would ultimately bring about positive strides toward integration.
[edit] The Women’s Movement
Gloria Steinem at a meeting of the Women’s Action Alliance, 1972.
A new consciousness of the inequality of American women began sweeping the nation, starting with the 1963 publication of Betty Friedan‘s best-seller, The Feminine Mystique, which explained how many housewives felt trapped and unfulfilled, assaulted American culture for its creation of the notion that women could only find fulfillment through their roles as wives, mothers, and keepers of the home, and argued that women were just as able as men to do every type of job. In 1966 Friedan and others established the National Organization for Women, or NOW, to act as an NAACP for women.[78][79]
Protests began, and the new Women’s Liberation Movement grew in size and power, gained much media attention, and, by 1968, had replaced the Civil Rights Movement as the U.S.’s main social revolution. Marches, parades, rallies, boycotts, and pickets brought out thousands, sometimes millions; Friedan’s Women’s Strike for Equality (1970) was a nation-wide success. The Movement was split into factions by political ideology early on, however (NOW on the left, the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL) on the right, the National Women’s Political Caucus (NWPC) in the center, and more radical groups formed by younger women on the far left).
Along with Friedan, Gloria Steinem was an important feminist leader, co-founding the NWPC, the Women’s Action Alliance, and editing the Movement’s magazine, Ms. The proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, passed by Congress in 1972 and favored by about seventy percent of the American public, failed to be ratified in 1982, with only three more states needed to make it law. The nation’s conservative women, led by activist Phyllis Schlafly, defeated the ERA by arguing that it degraded the position of the housewife, and made young women susceptible to the military draft.[80][81]
However, many federal laws (i.e. those equalizing pay, employment, education, employment opportunites, credit, ending pregnancy discrimination, and requiring NASA, the Military Academies, and other organizations to admit women), state laws (i.e. those ending spousal abuse and marital rape), Supreme Court rulings (i.e. ruling the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied to women), and state ERAs established women’s equal status under the law, and social custom and consciousness began to change, accepting women’s equality. The controversial issue of abortion, deemed by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right in Roe v. Wade (1973), is still a point of debate today.[82]
[edit] The Counterculture Revolution and Cold War Détente (1964–1980)
Amid the Cold War, the United States entered the Vietnam War, whose growing unpopularity fed already existing social movements, including those among women, minorities and young people. President Lyndon B. Johnson‘s Great Society social programs and the judicial activism[citation needed] of the Warren Court added to the wide range of social reform during the 1960s and 1970s. Feminism and the environmental movement became political forces, and progress continued toward civil rights for all Americans. The Counterculture Revolution swept through the nation and much of the western world in the late sixties and early seventies, dividing the already hostile environment but also bringing forth more liberated social views.
United States Navy F-4 Phantom II shadows a Soviet Tu-95 Bear D aircraft in the early 1970s
Johnson was succeeded by Republican Richard Nixon in 1969, who turned the war over to the South Vietnamese forces and ended American combat roles; he negotiated a peace treaty in 1973, secured the release of POWs and ended the draft. The war had cost the lives of 58,000 American troops. Nixon manipulated the fierce distrust between the Soviet Union and China to the advantage of the United States, achieving détente (cooperation) with both parties.[83] The Watergate scandal, involving Nixon’s coverup of his operatives break-in into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex destroyed his political base, sent many aides to prison, and forced Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974. Vice President Gerald Ford, and was helpless to prevent the conquest of South Vietnam when North Vietnam invaded in 1975.[84]
The OPEC oil embargo marked a long-term economic transition, as for the first time energy prices skyrocketed and American factories faced serious competition from foreign automobiles, clothing, electronics and consumer goods. By the late 1970s the economy suffered an energy crisis, slow economic growth, high unemployment, and very high inflation coupled with high interest rates (the term stagflation was coined). While economists agreed on the wisdom of deregulation, many of the New Deal era regulations were ended, as in transportation, banking and telecommunications.[85]
Jimmy Carter, running as someone who was not a part of the Washington political establishment, was elected president in 1976.[86] On the world stage, Carter brokered the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. In 1979, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage, resulting in the Iran hostage crisis. With the hostage crisis and continuing stagflation, Carter lost the 1980 election to Republican Ronald Reagan, whose campaign message advertised that his presidency would bring “Morning in America“.[87] On January 20, 1981, minutes after Carter’s term in office ended, the 52 U.S. captives held at the U.S. embassy in Iran were released, ending the 444-day Iran hostage crisis.[88]
[edit] The end of the Cold War (1980–1991)
Ronald Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate challenges Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall in 1987, shortly before the end of the Cold War
Ronald Reagan produced a major realignment with his 1980 and 1984 landslide elections. Reagan’s economic policies (dubbed “Reaganomics“) and the implementation of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 lowered income taxes from 70% to 28% over the course of seven years.[citation needed] Reagan continued to downsize government taxation and regulation.[89] The U.S. experienced a recession in 1982; unemployment and business failures soon entered rates close to Depression-era levels. These negative trends reversed the following year, when the inflation rate decreased from 11% to 2%, the unemployment rate decreased from 10.8% in December 1982 to 7.5% in November 1984,[90] and the economic growth rate increased from 4.5 to 7.2%.[91]
Reagan ordered a massive buildup of the U.S. military, incurring a costly budget deficit. Reagan introduced a complicated missile defense system known as the Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed “Star Wars” by opponents) in which the U.S. could, in theory, shoot down missiles with laser systems in space. Though it was never fully developed or deployed,[92] the Soviets were genuinely concerned about the possible effects of the program[93] and the research and technologies of SDI paved the way for the anti-ballistic missile systems of today.[94]
The Reagan administration also provided covert funding and assistance to anti-Communist resistance movements worldwide. Reagan’s interventions against Grenada and Libya were popular in the U.S., though his backing of the Contra rebels was mired in controversy.[95] The arms-for-hostages scandal led to the convictions of such figures as Oliver North and John Poindexter.[96]
Reagan met four times with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who ascended to power in 1985, and their summit conferences led to the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Gorbachev tried to save Communism in the Soviet Union first by ending the expensive arms race with America,[97] then by shedding the East European empire in 1989. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ending the US–Soviet Cold War.
[edit] The World Superpower (1991–present)
USAF aircraft fly over Kuwaiti oil fires during the Gulf War
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the world’s sole remaining superpower and continued to involve itself in military action overseas, including the 1991 Gulf War. During the 1990s, following his election in 1992, President Bill Clinton oversaw one of the longest periods of economic expansion and unprecedented gains in securities values, a side effect of the digital revolution and new business opportunities created by the Internet. Under Clinton an attempt to universalize health care, led by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton failed after almost two years of work on the controversial plan.[98] In 1998, the House of Representatives voted 228 to 206 to impeach Clinton for charges of perjury and obstruction of justice that arose from lying about a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.[99] However, on February 12, 1999, the Senate voted 55 to 45 to acquit Clinton of the charges.[100]
The regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq proved a continuing problem for the UN and Iraq’s neighbors in its refusal to account for previously known stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, its violations of UN resolutions, and its support for terrorism against Israel and other countries. After the 1991 Gulf War, the US, French, and British militaries began patrolling the Iraqi no-fly zones to protect Iraq’s Kurdish minority and Shi’ite Arab population—both of which suffered attacks from the Hussein regime before and after the 1991 Gulf War—in Iraq’s northern and southern regions, respectively.[101] In the aftermath of Operation Desert Fox during December 1998, Iraq announced that it would no longer respect the no-fly zones and resumed its efforts in shooting down Allied aircraft.[102] The Iraq Liberation Act signed by President Clinton in the same year called for regime change in Iraq.[103]
During the 1990s al-Qaeda and other Islamic fundamentalist groups attempted terrorist attacks against the United States and other nations. In 1993, Ramzi Yousef, a Kuwaiti national, and suspected al-Qaeda operative, detonated explosives in the underground garage of One World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring thousands. Later that year in the Battle of Mogadishu, US Army Rangers engaged Somali militias supported by al-Qaeda in an extended firefight that killed 19 American soldiers. President Clinton subsequently withdrew US combat forces from Somalia (there originally to support UN relief efforts).[104] Terrorist attacks occurred in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, and the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. US responses to these attacks included cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan (August 1998), which failed to stop al-Qaeda and their Taliban supporters. Al-Qaeda bombed the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.[105] Foreign groups were not the only ones responsible for terrorism during this time. Timothy McVeigh, an anti-government extremist, bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people in what was considered the biggest terrorist attack on U.S. soil at the time.
The presidential election in 2000 between George W. Bush and Al Gore was one of the closest in the U.S. history, and helped lay the seeds for political polarization to come. Following Election Day, Florida entered dispute over the counting of votes due to technical issues over certain Democratic votes in some counties,[106] which the Supreme Court resolved in Bush v. Gore by ending the recount with a 5–4 vote and certifying Bush as president.[107]
[edit] 9/11 and the War on Terror
The September 11 attacks led to the War on Terror.
Once again the United States was attacked by terrorism with the September 11, 2001 attacks in which al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four transcontinental airliners and intentionally crashed two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. Nearly 3,000 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks.[108] Nine days later, President George W. Bush announced a “War on Terror” in response.[109] The United States—with the military support of NATO and the political support of some of the international community—launched an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime that had harbored al-Qaeda and its founder, Osama bin Laden.
In addition to military efforts abroad, the Bush administration increased domestic efforts to prevent future attacks. A new cabinet-level agency called the Department of Homeland Security was created to lead and coordinate federal counter-terrorism activities. The USA PATRIOT Act removed legal restrictions on information sharing between federal law enforcement and intelligence services and allowed for the investigation of suspected terrorists using means similar to those in place for other types of criminals.
A U.S.-led invasion deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in the Iraq War.
In his first State of the Union address following 9/11, President Bush labeled Iran, Iraq, and North Korea the “axis of evil“, accusing their governments of aiding terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction.[110] Long-standing tension with the Iraqi government led by Saddam Hussein came to a head as the U.S. led a multinational force, including Britain, Spain, Australia, Japan and Poland, in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which overthrew and captured Hussein. Using the language of 1998 Iraq Liberation Act and the Clinton administration, the reasons cited by the Bush administration for the invasion included the spreading of democracy, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction[111] (a key demand of the UN as well, though later investigations found parts of the intelligence reports to be inaccurate)[112] and the liberation of the Iraqi people.[113]
The invasion and continued Iraq War fueled international protests and gradually saw domestic support waver.[114] After he was re-elected in 2004 on a narrow margin, Bush saw his approval ratings decline significantly, mostly due to his handling of the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina.[115] In response the Democrats gained control of Congress in the 2006 mid-term elections, appointing Nancy Pelosi as the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives.[116] After years of violence by the Iraqi insurgency, including al-Qaeda in Iraq, in January 2007 President Bush introduced “the surge” as part of a “new way forward in Iraq”.[117]
[edit] Worldwide recession
The economy peaked in December 2007, as the nation, and most of Europe, entered the longest post-World War II recession,[118] which included a housing market crisis, a subprime mortgage crisis, soaring oil prices, a banking crisis that led to near-collapse of the financial system, the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler, and rising unemployment.[119] In February 2008, 63,000 jobs were lost, a 5-year record for a single month.[120][121] In September 2008, the crisis became much worse beginning with the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The financial crisis was the worst since the Great Depression.[122][123] In November 2008, over 500,000 jobs were lost, which marked the largest loss of jobs in the United States in 34 years.[124] The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the last four months of 2008, 1.9 million jobs were lost.[125] By the end of 2008, the U.S. had lost a total of 2.6 million jobs,[126] and the unemployment rate rose to 7.2%.[127]
Obama sworn in as the 44th President of the United States
Barack Obama, elected in 2008 as the first African American President of the United States, signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion economic stimulus package aimed at helping the economy recover from the deepening worldwide recession. The act included increased federal spending for health care, infrastructure, public schools and universities, and a large tax cut for families. Since the third quarter of 2009, the U.S. economy has been expanding steadily after contracting for four consecutive quarters.;[128] the recession officially ended in June 2009.[129] However, the unemployment rate has continued to hover around 9.5%, with weak economic growth.[130]
In addition to the stimulus package, the government enacted additional measures aimed at rescuing the auto industry and preventing a future economic meltdown. These included a bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, putting ownership temporarily in the hands of the government, and the “cash for clunkers” program which temporarily boosted new car sales.[131] Congress enacted the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, making the most sweeping changes to financial regulation in the United States since the Great Depression.[132]
[edit] Recent events
In foreign policy, Obama initially proposed closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp but later postponed these plans,[133] and slightly changed the strategy in Iraq. In February 2009, he started to decrease troop levels in Iraq and by August 31, 2010, all combat troops were withdrawn from Iraq. However, he continued Bush’s plan to withdraw all troops by December 31, 2011 by retaining 50,000 troops in Iraq to train, equip and advise Iraqi forces, help protect withdrawing forces and work on counter-terrorism.[134][135] He increased American involvement in Afghanistan, announcing a surge strategy using an additional increase of 30,000 troops in December 2009. He also proposed to begin troop withdrawals in summer 2011.[136]
Percent of self-identified conservatives in the United States, broken down by state, according to Gallup, August 2010. Redder colors mean more conservatives per state, green mean fewer per state (click image for details).
In 2009–10 the GOP in Congress was unified in almost total opposition to the programs of the Congressional Democrats. They failed to stop the economic stimulus package, new regulations on the financial system, a large-scale change in the national health care system, but they did stop Obama’s policies on climate change[citation needed] and immigration reform. Over first two years of his presidency, he steadily lost support due to continuing levels of high unemployment, low investment levels, and the housing crisis continuing.[137]
In the 2010 midterm elections, the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives and cut into the Democratic majority in the Senate. One of the factors in these results was the Tea Party movement of 2009–10, a populist conservative movement angry at what they described as “the elites controlling Washington and both parties.” The Tea Party promoted activism and protests[138] with the goal to reduce federal spending, bailouts, taxes, and financial regulation. The Tea Party movement has also helped boost former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin‘s visibility. The public opinion polling company Rasmussen Reports has argued, “She is the symbolic leader of the movement, and more than anyone else has helped to shape it.”[139]
As of 2010, with high levels of voter anger, debates continue over distrust of politicians, the sluggish economy with unemployment at 9.5%, the bailout of banks and auto companies, the stimulus spending, health care reform, the financial crisis in state government, and the role of corporate spending in election campaigns
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