US History

[Pages:158]US History

Edition 1.0 1st March 2006

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US HISTORY..............................................................................................................................................................1 PREFACE ....................................................................................................................................................................6 INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................................................6

Content and Contributions ...................................................................................................................................6 PRE-COLUMBIAN AMERICA (BEFORE 1492) ..............................................................................................................7

The First Americans.............................................................................................................................................7 EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD.......................................................................................................................................11

The Arrival of Columbus ...................................................................................................................................11 The Protestant Reformation ...............................................................................................................................11 Henry VIII and the Church of England ..............................................................................................................11 Elizabethan England...........................................................................................................................................12 Defeat of the Spanish Armada ...........................................................................................................................13 Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony .................................................................................................................13 THE ENGLISH COLONIES (1607 - 1754) ...................................................................................................................15 Types of Colonies ..............................................................................................................................................15 Virginia and Jamestown.....................................................................................................................................15 Massachusetts Bay Colony.................................................................................................................................15 Revolution in England........................................................................................................................................15 Mercantilism ......................................................................................................................................................16 The Remaining Colonies....................................................................................................................................17 The Lords of Trade ............................................................................................................................................17 The Economy and Slavery .................................................................................................................................17 British Interference.............................................................................................................................................18 ROAD TO REVOLUTION (1754 - 1776) .....................................................................................................................19 The French and Indian War................................................................................................................................19 Proclamation of 1763 .........................................................................................................................................19 The Stamp Act and other Laws ..........................................................................................................................19 First Continental Congress.................................................................................................................................21 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1775 - 1783)...........................................................................................................22 Lexington and Concord, the beginning of the war .............................................................................................22 The Battle of Bunker Hill...................................................................................................................................22 The Declaration of Independence ......................................................................................................................23 Saratoga..............................................................................................................................................................23 Yorktown ...........................................................................................................................................................24 Treaty of Paris....................................................................................................................................................24 A NEW NATION IS FORMED (1783 - 1787) ..............................................................................................................25 The Articles of Confederation............................................................................................................................25 The Northwest Ordinance ..................................................................................................................................25 Problems with the Confederation.......................................................................................................................25 Shays' Rebellion.................................................................................................................................................25 US Presidents before George Washington .........................................................................................................25 EARLY YEARS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC (1787 - 1800) .........................................................................34 The Constitutional Convention ..........................................................................................................................34 Federalist & Anti-Federalist Parties...................................................................................................................34 The Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans ..............................................................................................35 Election of 1796 .................................................................................................................................................37 The XYZ Affair .................................................................................................................................................37 Alien and Sedition Acts .....................................................................................................................................38 JEFFERSONIAN REPUBLICANISM (1800-1824)..........................................................................................................39 The Election of 1800..........................................................................................................................................39 Louisiana Purchase.............................................................................................................................................39

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Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts ...................................................................................................................40 War of 1812 .......................................................................................................................................................41 Treaty of Ghent and the Battle of New Orleans .................................................................................................41 WESTWARD EXPANSION AND MANIFEST DESTINY (1824 - 1849) ...........................................................................42 Jacksonian Democracy.......................................................................................................................................42 John Tyler Presidency ........................................................................................................................................45 Manifest Destiny ................................................................................................................................................46 FRICTION BETWEEN THE STATES (1849 - 1860) ......................................................................................................49 Ideas and Questions of the Time ........................................................................................................................49 Compromise of 1850..........................................................................................................................................49 Uncle Tom?tm)s Cabin ......................................................................................................................................50 Election of 1852 .................................................................................................................................................50 The Kansas-Nebraska Act and its Effects ..........................................................................................................50 "Bleeding Kansas" .............................................................................................................................................51 Dred Scott ..........................................................................................................................................................51 John Brown's Raid .............................................................................................................................................52 Lincoln ...............................................................................................................................................................53 THE CIVIL WAR (1860 - 1865) ................................................................................................................................54 Secession and the Southern Confederacy...........................................................................................................54 Fort Sumter and the Beginning of the War ........................................................................................................55 First Battle of Bull Run and the Early Stages of the War ..................................................................................55 Technology and the Civil War ...........................................................................................................................56 Shiloh and Ulysses Grant ...................................................................................................................................59 Peninsular Campaign .........................................................................................................................................60 Total War ...........................................................................................................................................................60 Second Bull Run and Antietam..........................................................................................................................61 The Emancipation Proclamation ........................................................................................................................61 Fredricksburg and Chancellorsville ...................................................................................................................62 Vicksburg ...........................................................................................................................................................62 Gettysburg ..........................................................................................................................................................64 Black Americans and the Civil War...................................................................................................................65 Chickamauga and Chattanooga..........................................................................................................................66 Ulysses Grant As General-in-Chief....................................................................................................................67 Appomattox........................................................................................................................................................68 Besides the Fighting...........................................................................................................................................68 RECONSTRUCTION (1865 - 1877) ............................................................................................................................70 The Problem of Reconstruction..........................................................................................................................70 Lincoln and Reconstruction ...............................................................................................................................70 Republicans fall from power ..............................................................................................................................72 THE AGE OF INVENTION AND THE GILDED AGE (1877 - 1900) ................................................................................74 Politics of the Gilded Age ..................................................................................................................................74 Industrialization .................................................................................................................................................74 Agriculture .........................................................................................................................................................75 Imperialism ........................................................................................................................................................75 THE PROGRESSIVE ERA (1900 - 1914).....................................................................................................................78 Progressivism .....................................................................................................................................................78 Local Reform .....................................................................................................................................................78 President Theodore Roosevelt............................................................................................................................79 President William Howard Taft .........................................................................................................................80 President Woodrow Wilson ...............................................................................................................................80 First Flight: Wright Brothers..............................................................................................................................81 The Supreme Court and Labor ...........................................................................................................................81 WORLD WAR I AND THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES (1914 - 1920) ............................................................................83 Europe ................................................................................................................................................................83

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War Breaks Out..................................................................................................................................................83 The Early Stages ................................................................................................................................................84 The Middle Stages .............................................................................................................................................85 The United States Declares War ........................................................................................................................85 Revolution in Russia ..........................................................................................................................................86 The End of the War ............................................................................................................................................86 Treaty of Versailles ............................................................................................................................................87 THE ROARING TWENTIES AND PROHIBITION (1920 - 1929) .....................................................................................88 Automobiles .......................................................................................................................................................88 Radio ..................................................................................................................................................................88 Movies................................................................................................................................................................88 Prohibition..........................................................................................................................................................88 Women and Equal Rights...................................................................................................................................89 African-Americans and the Ku Klux Klan.........................................................................................................90 THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL (1929 - 1939) .................................................................................91 The Stock Market Crash.....................................................................................................................................91 Depression..........................................................................................................................................................92 The New Deal ....................................................................................................................................................92 Roosevelt's Reelection .......................................................................................................................................94 WORLD WAR II AND THE RISE OF THE ATOMIC AGE (1939 - 1945) ........................................................................95 German Aggression............................................................................................................................................95 The Beginning of the War..................................................................................................................................95 America Declares War .......................................................................................................................................96 Operation Overlord ............................................................................................................................................97 Yalta and German Surrender..............................................................................................................................98 The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II...............................................................................................98 TRUMAN AND THE COLD WAR (1945 - 1952)..........................................................................................................99 Truman Doctrine ................................................................................................................................................99 The Marshall Plan and the Berlin Crisis ............................................................................................................99 NATO ................................................................................................................................................................99 Reconstruction of Japan ...................................................................................................................................100 The Rise of Communism in China...................................................................................................................100 The Red Scare and McCarthyism.....................................................................................................................101 The Korean War...............................................................................................................................................101 EISENHOWER, CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE FIFTIES (1953-1961) ...................................................................................103 Civil Rights Movement under Eisenhower and Desegregation........................................................................103 Vietnam............................................................................................................................................................105 The Warsaw Pact and NATO...........................................................................................................................105 Suez Canal........................................................................................................................................................106 Space Race .......................................................................................................................................................106 Cuban Revolution ............................................................................................................................................107 KENNEDY AND JOHNSON (1961 - 1969) ................................................................................................................108 The Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis ..................................................................................108 NASA...............................................................................................................................................................109 American Tragedy............................................................................................................................................109 Americans in Vietnam......................................................................................................................................109 The "Great Society" and Civil Rights Under Lyndon B. Johnson ...................................................................111 NIXON PRESIDENCY AND INDOCHINA (1969 - 1974)..............................................................................................113 Violence and the Election of 1968 ...................................................................................................................113 Foreign Policy ..................................................................................................................................................114 Roe v. Wade.....................................................................................................................................................116 Watergate and the Election of 1972 .................................................................................................................117 FORD, CARTER AND REAGAN PRESIDENCIES (1974 - 1989)...................................................................................120 The "New Right" and the rise of Conservatives...............................................................................................120

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Ford and Rockefeller........................................................................................................................................120 Carter................................................................................................................................................................121 Reagan and "Reaganomics" .............................................................................................................................123 Changing Modern Society................................................................................................................................124 BUSH AND CLINTON PRESIDENCIES, 1ST GULF WAR (1989 - 2001) .....................................................................126 1988 Election ...................................................................................................................................................126 Social Changes of the 1990s ............................................................................................................................126 The World Changes..........................................................................................................................................127 The Election of 1992........................................................................................................................................129 William Jefferson Clinton ................................................................................................................................130 The Monica Lewinsky Scandal ........................................................................................................................132 GEORGE W. BUSH, SEPTEMBER 11, 2ND GULF WAR, AND TERRORISM (2001-2006)............................................134 2000 Election ...................................................................................................................................................134 George Walker Bush ........................................................................................................................................135 2004 Election ...................................................................................................................................................138 2005 and Beyond .............................................................................................................................................139 APPENDIX ALPHA ..................................................................................................................................................146 Presidents of the United States.........................................................................................................................146 Vice Presidents of the United States ................................................................................................................149 Notes ................................................................................................................................................................152 CHIEF JUSTICES .....................................................................................................................................................153 AUTHORS...............................................................................................................................................................154 LICENSE.................................................................................................................................................................155 GNU Free Documentation License ..................................................................................................................155 0. PREAMBLE ................................................................................................................................................155 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS.....................................................................................................155 2. VERBATIM COPYING ..............................................................................................................................156 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY .........................................................................................................................156 4. MODIFICATIONS ......................................................................................................................................156 5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS.....................................................................................................................157 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS...........................................................................................................157 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS .................................................................................158 8. TRANSLATION..........................................................................................................................................158 9. TERMINATION..........................................................................................................................................158 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE .............................................................................................158 External links ...................................................................................................................................................158

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Preface

This textbook is based initially on the College Entrance Examination Board test in Advanced Placement United States History. This seems to be the best reference on which to build a textbook, since it is a standard on the subject and covers what most U.S. history students study in high school and college. Overall, however, the content and structure may in time vary from all other books. Besides the regular wikibook rules governing unbiased writing, the only other guideline should be that everything should be kept more or less in chronological order and divided into logical chapters. Everything else is left pretty much to the individual authors that elect to join the project. Enjoy! AP Course Description

Introduction

Content and Contributions

This is, to the best of our knowledge, the world's first open content US History Textbook. The users are invited to tweak and refine this book until there is nothing better available. The authors are confident that this will happen because of the success of the Wikipedia site. Although some disapprove, the stylistic convention for mention of years in this manual should be "BCE" and "CE," rather than "BC" and "AD."

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Pre-Columbian America (before 1492)

The First Americans

It is believed that the first inhabitants of the Americas were people from Asia, who crossed the Bering Strait (at that time spanned by a thin isthmus of land) into Alaska. The exact time of this migration is unknown, though one may speculate, based on scientific evidence, that it was later than fourteen thousand years ago. These migrants then traveled southward through America, either along the Pacific coast or along the Rocky Mountains.

Originally, theories suggested that the first Americans lived on the continent no earlier than 11,500 years ago. However, recent discoveries have revealed signs of settlement in the Americas at least 1000 years prior to that period. Archaeological finds near the present town of Clovis, New Mexico, reveal that 12,000 years ago a culture existed with the ability to shape flint into arrowheads and spear tips. Some evidence points to the theory that people inhabited the continent even earlier than 13,000 years ago, but this evidence is ambiguous at best.

Such evidence is made even more ambiguous by the traces of DNA that span the Pacific Ocean from Australia to Papua New Guinea, across Micronesia to east Asia. This opens the possibility of sea travel hugging the coast; unfortunately evidence of such a theory that would be left on the shores would be eliminated over time due to sustained coastal erosions and sea level changes. The DNA facts significantly negate, and arguably eliminate, the Bering Strait theory, which is not supported by any conflicting physical evidence. The flint points are used on a flatboard (like bristles on a toothbrush) on the Asian mainland, rather than mounted on spears like the Clovis points, thereby calling into question the idea of tool migration, a major source of this post-Ice-Age migration theory.

Regardless of how they arrived on the continent, or what route they took as they traveled towards Mexico and South America, it is clear that by the time Christopher Columbus "discovered" the New World in the fifteenth century, several civilizations existed across the Americas.

The Mayans

In about 2000 BCE, Native Americans were settled in the Yucat?n Peninsula of present-day Mexico. The agricultural Maya society began to develop a complex culture. Tribal chiefs and elders instituted a system of government. Several other political and religious institutions also developed.

300 CE, the date of the so-called Classic Period, is often considered a turning point in the Mayan civilization. Government and society became more complex, with each city having its own king and nobility. A polytheistic (many-god) religion also developed, as did the custom of human sacrifices. These sacrifices were conducted by decapitation, by shooting with arrows, or by the cutting open of the body and the removal of the heart.

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In addition to politics and religion, science also developed. For example, a 365-day calendar was created. Furthermore, Mayans developed a system of writing known as hieroglyphics (distinct from Egyptian writing of the same name). The Maya civilization remained prosperous until the ninth century CE. The civilization slowly began to disintegrate and finally collapsed in about 900 CE. The exact cause is still unknown, but internal strife, rebellion, foreign warfare, and natural disasters could have all aided the downfall. After the Classic Period, which is considered to have ended in 900 CE, Mayans continued to live in some parts of the Yucat?n Peninsula. However, the civilization was never again to be as dominant in Mexico as it once was.

The Aztecs

The Aztecs had a highly developed calendar system based on the sun and represented in these circular tablets The Mexica, the citizens of the Aztec Empire, are the people after whom Mexico is named. In 1325, the Mexica created a city called Tenochtitl?n near Lake Texcoco, in the Valley of Mexico (the site of present-day Mexico City). Tenochtitl?n grew in influence over the next century; in 1428, Tenochtitl?n led an alliance that conquered much of Mexico. Just as with the Maya, religion was extremely important in the Aztec Empire. A polytheistic religion was important in several aspects of life, and human sacrifices were very common. It is reputed that in 1487, over 80,000 imprisoned enemy warriors were sacrificed. To express their religion, Aztec artists created idols and temples, which often included large amounts of gold and silver. The Aztec Empire was destroyed by the Spanish invaders. However, thousands of descendants of the Mexica live in present-day Mexico, carrying on some of the traditions of the Aztec culture.

The Incas

While the Aztec Empire dominated Central America, the Inca Empire dominated South America. Originally, during the thirteenth century CE, the Inca inhabited land near Lake Titicaca in present-day Peru. At its peak, situated along the Andes Mountains and the Pacific

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