...ded by James Oglethorpe in 1732 as a refuge for debtors and convicts.hen the British successfully evicted the French from North America in 1763, they embarked on a number of policies that the colonials found increasingly onerous. Settlement as prohibited est of the Appalachians and measures ere passed to raise revenue in the colonies. These revenue-raising measures and Britains generally exploitive mercantilist economic policy irked the colonials, ho began to band together to oppose and subvert the measures. Britain increased its military presenceto enforce compliance a presence part of hose cost as exacted from the colonials, and fighting broke out in 1775. The Second Continental Congress, acting for the 13 colonies, declared independence on July 4, 1776, and created. Articles of Confederation to govern the ne nation. Victory over the British came in 1783, and the resulting Treaty of Paris established U.S. boundaries, except for Spanish Florida, est to the Mississippi River.The Articles of Confederation provided a eak central government and proved inadequate to govern the groing nation. A ne constitution as created in 1787, ratified in 1788, and took effect in 1789. George ashington as the first president, and his sober and reasoned judgments ere instrumental in establishing both the tenor of the country and the precedents of the executive office. Under the ne Constitution, the country began to gro almost immediately. By the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the United States acquired from France the entire estern half of the Mississippi River basin, thereby nearly doubling the size of the national territory. The movement into the lands est of the Appalachians thenceforth became a flood. The United States victory in the Mexican ar 1846-48 brought all or part of the future territory of seven more states including California and Texas into American hands.As the United States moved est, the issue of slavery as intensifying strains beteen the rapidly industrializing North and the slave-based agricultural South. The South as determined to maintain the institution of black slavery against the federal governments efforts to curtail the latters spread. Several compromises over the slavery issue held the Union together for more than a half-century, but the election as president in 1860 of Abraham Lincoln, hose Republican Party clearly advocated the prohibition of slavery in the estern territories, led South Carolina to secede, joined by 10 other Southern states by the next year.Lincoln denied the Southern states right to secede. The Norths defeat of the South in the ensuing Civil ar 1861-65 resulted in the preservation of the Union, the abolition of slavery, the establishment of citizenship for former slaves, and the institution of universal adult male suffrage. Lincolns plans for magnanimity to the defeated South ere cut short by his assassination, and Congress, completely dominated by northern Radical Republicans, embarked on its on, more punitive scheme of reconstruction. This system, hich protected black civil rights in the South, came to an end ith the ithdraal of federal Northern troops by 1877. Thereafter, Southern blacks ere gradually disenfranchised and forcibly segregated ithin the larger society.The post-Civil ar United States as characterized by rapid industrialization, a continuing estard movement across the Great Plains, a massive influx of foreign immigrants, and the slo emergence of the United States into a position of orld poer. The estard movement fueled by the desire for land, led to a long series of evictions of Plains Indians from their lands onto less desirable reservations. Immigration from Europe exceeded 13,000,000 beteen 1900 and 1914 alone and provided labour for the Norths burgeoning factories. hen Cuba revolted against Spain in 1895, American sympathies and interests ultimately led to ar ith Spain 1898. Victory brought the United States its first overseas territories the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and marked it as an emergent international poer. The United States rise to great-poer status had its price. Though President oodro ilson pledged neutrality in orld ar I, the United States as unable to remain outside the struggle. Its entry into the ar in 1917 as decisive in bringing about an Allied victory and commenced American involvement in the European balance of poer.The prosperity of the decade that folloed orld ar I came to a sudden end in 1929 hen the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. It ushered in an era of increased federal involvement in economic and social policy under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His Ne Deal legislation revolutionized the country, but full economic recovery as still not achieved until ar production became massive on the eve of orld ar II. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into orld ar II on the side of Britain and the Soviet Union against the fascist nations of Germany, Japan, and Italy. The ar effort galvanized the American economys productive capacity, and after victory as achieved in 1945 the United States experienced three decades of unprecedented economic groth and prosperity.The Allied victory in 1945 left the United States the leader of the estern orld, deeply involved in the reconstruction of Europe and Japan, but embroiled in 40-year-long rivalry ith the Soviet Union that became knon as the Cold ar. In 1949 the United States formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in an effort to counter the Soviet military presence in eastern Europe, and a Soviet-inspired attack on South Korea involved the United States in the Korean ar 1950-53, hich ended in stalemate. The United States subsequently became involved in the Vietnam ar 1955-75 in an effort to prevent communist North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam. The prolonged and unsuccessful American ar effort ended in a ithdraal of the United States from the conflict in 1973 and the fall of South Vietnam to the communists to years later.At home the 1960s itnessed a successful protest movement by American blacks to outla racial segregation and discrimination and to obtain full voting rights in the South and other parts of the country. The expense of the Vietnam ar drained resources aay from liberal programs of social reform in the 1960s and early 70s, hoever, and the end of American involvement in the Vietnam ar as accompanied by the atergate scandal, hich forced the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974.The Cold ar ended ith the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, leaving the United States the undisputed superpoer in the orld. The most serious challenges late in the 20th century ere economic ones, hoever. Beginning in the 1970s, rates of economic groth sloed and living standards stagnated or even fell as the American economy as forced to cope ith increased foreign competition, its on steadily declining vigour, and the effects of massive budget deficits and a huge national debt.àauacaaaI6...
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