With the support of the Library of Congress, educators can learn how to use Library of Congress digital resources in their classroom instruction to teach US history and timelines.
Students can better understand these primary sources if you provide them with a graphic organizer and step-by-step instructions.
Profile of the United States of America
A timeline of significant happenings has been published.
The first permanent European settlement in North America was built in St. Augustine, Florida, by Spanish immigrants in the 16th century. There are no indigenous peoples left in North America after Europeans arrive.
An English colony is founded in 1607, the year tobacco is first cultivated at Jamestown, Virginia.
Other Puritans in New England soon follow suit, establishing Plymouth Colony at Cape Cod in 1620. Hundreds of thousands of Africans were imported to the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries to work on cotton and tobacco plantations.
In the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Britain conquers France and takes control of the territory up to the Mississippi.
Civil War in the United States
During the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in 1774, Britain fortifies Massachusetts and closes Boston Harbor, leading the colonists to meet in Philadelphia.
George Washington is the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution in 1775.
On July 4, 1776, Congress ratifies the Declaration of Independence, and the thirteen colonies declare their independence.
Following their triumph at Yorktown in 1781, the rebel states form a loose union.
The loss of British lands was the outcome of the Treaty of Paris, which was signed in 1783.
A new constitution was written by the founding fathers of the United States in 1787. In 1788, the Constitution was ratified.
President George Washington was elected in 1789, making him the nation’s first head of state.
The American Civil War
The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by abolitionists, or people opposed to slavery. In 1860, Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected president.
As part of the American Civil War, eleven southern states broke away from the Union and created the Confederate States of America. This declaration, which was made in 1863, stated that slaves held by Confederate states would be freed.
After the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment is ratified, putting an end to slavery. We’re dealing with a murder here. Following the Spanish-American War, the United States took control of Cuba and Puerto Rico in 1898. The United States of America has annexed Hawaii.
A lot of hardship occurred between the Great Depression and WWI.
The United States does not join the League of Nations after the end of World War I. Women have the ability to vote in their own countries since 1920. Alcoholic beverages were outlawed in the United States in 1920. During the years of Prohibition, the presence of organized crime and illicit drinking establishments increased.
In 1924, Congress conferred citizenship to native people. As a result of the Great Depression, which began in 1929 and lasted until 1933, more than 13 million individuals were laid off. Herbert Hoover opposes the idea of the federal government immediately disbursing funds.
In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the “New Deal” recovery program, which featured a large number of public construction projects. The liquor store has reopened for business again.
Cold War and World War II occurred within this time period. On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, resulting in the United States’ entry into World War II.
The United States dropped two atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. In the end, Japan’s game is over the Truman Doctrine was introduced by the United States in 1947 as a plan to aid countries it considered were at peril from communism.
We are now officially engaged in a Cold War with the USSR. After World War II, the United States launched the Marshall Plan to assist Europe’s sputtering economy. The plan has been pronounced a success after a four-year investment of $13 billion.
It became known as McCarthyism because of the techniques adopted by Senator Joseph McCarthy during his anti-communist crusade from 1950 to 1954. McCarthy was officially censured by the Senate in 1954, when a resolution was passed by the body.
Between 1950 and 1953, the United States fought with Chinese and North Korean soldiers in the Korean War.
The Vietnam War and Racial Equality in World War II
In 1954, after racial segregation in schools was declared illegal, a civil disobedience campaign to protect the civil rights of African-Americans began. Democrats nominated John F. Kennedy in 1960, defeating Richard Nixon in a close race for the White House that year.
In 1961, the failed Bay of Pigs assault, which comprised Cuban exiles and was planned and financed by Washington, occurred. Because of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the United States compelled the Soviet Union to remove its nuclear weapons from the island of Cuba.
President Lyndon B. Johnson took office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963.
In 1964, the United States greatly increases its military involvement in Vietnam. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted to combat discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin, among other factors.
The Ku Klux Klan assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.
Self-confidence in American History
Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 1980, won the election. Anti-communist measures are implemented after a few years of anti-communist campaigning at home and abroad.
Immediately after liftoff from Cape Canaveral in January 1986, the Challenger exploded. All seven crew members were killed in the incident. No human spaceflights are scheduled until September 1988.
As recently as 1986, the United States carried conducting airstrikes against Libyan cities. “Irangate” affair, which exposed the payment of Contra insurgents in Nicaragua with profits from secret US military sales to Iran.
After Ronald Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, was elected president in 1988.
After being detained in Panama in 1989 on charges of cocaine trafficking, former CIA informant General Manuel Noriega served time in prison. America seized command of the conflict and compelled Iraqi forces to leave Kuwait after its 1991 invasion.
Presidency of Bill Clinton
President Bill Clinton was elected as a Democrat in 1992. When Congress approved the Nafta free-trade agreement into law in 1992, it included the United States, Canada, and Mexico as members.
Far-right radicals blew up an explosive in Oklahoma, which was at that time, the worst incident of its kind in the US. In the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which has dominated domestic politics since 1998, Congress has begun impeachment proceedings.
Serb atrocities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo prompt the United States to take the lead in Nato’s assault on Yugoslavia in March–June 1999. George W. Bush, a Republican, is elected president of the United States in the midterm elections of 2000.