"If there is anyone out there
who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible;
who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time;
who still questions the power of our democracy,
tonight is your answer."
Barack Obama
November 2008

"The social condition of the Americans is eminently democratic.
This was its character at the foundation of the Colonies."
Alexis de Tocqueville
January 1835

History:
Until the middle of the 18th century the history of the USA is common to all the area in North America. Then it differs from that of Canada at the time of the taxes imposed by the colonial power. Bostonian's free Speech was at the origin of the independence of the USA, but why here and not there. A brief reply is given by Alexis de Tocqueville:

“The entire man is, so to speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child.…
… The growth of nations presents something analogous to this: they all bear some marks of their origin; and the circumstances which accompanied their birth and contributed to their rise affect the whole term of their being.“

---- 20,000 Before the arrival of Europeans approximately from two to 18 million Indians occupied the territory of the USA speaking 300 languages. The theory of the settlement commonly allowed of the area considers that Asians arrived by the terrestrial bridge between Siberia and Alaska.
---- 10,000/ 8,000 first Paleo-Indian were Clovis and Folsom.
---- 3,000 BC/1300 AD the Mound builders were the most significant cultures in Ohio and the Mississippi River.
---- 100AD/1300 In south-west Puebloans occupied the Colorado plateau (Mesa Verde) and are the most former occupants without interruption.

Indians, First Nations, were the last to become citizens in 1924 after long litanies of treaties, wars, extermination volunteers or not. They acquired the voting rights in 1948.
---- 1492 Christopher Columbus, elected by Spain to open the road to the Indies approached in the Bahamas. He was followed by the large Spanish explorers, Hermann the Cortes in Mexico, Francisco Pizarro in Peru. They left in their wake diseases for which Indians did not have any immunity while killing more than wars, slavery or famine.
---- May 14, 1607 the first settlement was established in Jamestown. The three quarters of the newcomers died of disease and famine.
---- The 1619 first African slaves were brought to compensate the lack of labor.
---- November 11 the 1620 Pilgrims, Puritan, unloaded at Plymouth (MA) fleeing persecutions of the Anglican church. They signed Mayflower Compact, the first text of the American democracy to govern themselves by consensus.
---- The 1675 Indians and the pilgrims lived in harmony to the war by King Philip who killed more than 5,000 people as a majority of Indians, the others were off-set in slavery in the Caribbean. Thus starts the paradox of the American democracy, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP). It should be noted that the Catholic Irish were excluded of whom President J. F. Kennedy.

During the two following centuries the European powers entered in competition to conquer the New World, England, Spain, France and Portugal. After the end of the Seven Year War in 1763 England dominates North America. Royal Navy controls the North Atlantic in the quadrilateral – Gibraltar, the Bahamas, Halifax, England In 17th and the 18th centuries slavery was legalized, for this period a person among five was a slave.

The increase of taxes to finance the Crown and the wars against France was the departure of the awakening of American. From 1763 to 1776 political discussions committed themselves protesting and to boycott the English policies, the place of meeting was The Old South Meeting House in Boston.
---- March 5, 1770 the English army killed Bostonian, Boston Massacre.
---- December 16, 1773, 5,000 Bostonian threw bundles of tea in the port.
---- The 1774 first congress of the 13 colonies meets in Philadelphia.
---- the 1775 second congress in Philadelphia chooses George Washington to manage the American army stripped of means as a man and material.
---- July 4, 1776 Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence of the colonies:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: That men are created equal; that there are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights;
that among these are Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. That to ensure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.“

---- Winter 1777 to 1778 the American army was cut off in Valley Forge close to Philadelphia.
---- 1778 Benjamin Franklin persuaded France to be combined to the revolutionists providing material and maritime power.
---- 1781 the British surrendered at Yorktown (VA).
---- September 3, 1784 the Treaty of Paris recognized the USA.
---- September 17, 1787 a third conference was taken place in Philadelphia to write a new constitution. It ratified the American paradox, exclusion of Indians, slaves and women…

---- 1793 Various inventions allowed the mechanization of agriculture.
---- 1803 Purchase of Louisiana in France doubling the surface of the USA.
---- 1812 The USA declared the war to England, without overcome nor winner.
---- 1823 Monroe Doctrines: America is closed to European colonists.
---- 1836 Texans fomented a revolution against Mexico.
---- 1846 Annexation of Texas by the USA.
---- 1848 Transfer of California to the USA and discovered gold involving Gold Rush.

The constitution of the USA did not abolish slavery but it gave the capacity to the Congress to approve it or not in the new states.
---- 1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected President, it is favorable to the limitation of slavery.
---- The 1861 Confederation attacked Fort Sumter (SC).
---- The 1865 second message of A. Lincoln to the Union:

“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive;
the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.“

---- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation by A. Lincoln gave freedom to slaves.
---- 1865 13th amendment of the constitution.
---- April 1865 rendering of the Lee General to the Grant General put an end to the civil war.
---- 1870 The voting rights were granted to African American. The voting rights were given to women by the 19th amendments on August 26, 1920.
During the 19th century the USA paid attention westwards, construction of the telegraph and the railroad. Immigration reaches 25 million people coming from Europe. It was the time of the emergence of the called captains of American capitalism: Robber Barons. Mechanization and work in crumbs were a godsend for the development of farming, textile and car. The end of 19th lived the beginnings of the social dispute near to the IWW (Wobbies) but the development of the socialist parties in the world was rejected by the American citizens.

---- 1898 The war between Spain and the USA in the Pacific in the Philippines found its origin in regional safety to preserve the open market new forms imperialism.

---- 1917 President Wilson exceeded the Monroe doctrines to enter the conflict of the World War I. In spite of the bankruptcy of the League of Nations, the concept of concert of nations will be taken again after the  World War II by the creation of UN.
---- 1920 were marked by the Prohibition of alcohol and granting of the vote to women.
---- 1929 Crash landing of Wall Street and beginning of the Great Depression which put 50% of the workers on pavement.
---- 1932 New Deal, Roosevelt launched great public work campaign to reabsorb unemployment by applying the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes.
---- 1939 new boot noises in Europe by the release of the World War II. Roosevelt in spite of the recrudescence of isolationism understood that there could not remain not impassive.
---- 07/12/1941 the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor gave him the argument to enter war.
---- May 1945 the turning of war in Europe occurred after D-Day on June 6, 1944. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
---- August 1945 the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki involved the death of +200,000 people and the surrender of Japan a few days afterwards.

The years after-war were an economic booming for the rebuilding of Europe and Japan, rampart against Communism. The USA and the Soviet Union entered the cold war and proxy war, Korea and Vietnam.

The end of the 20th century was marked by the assassinations of President J. F. Kennedy, of his brother Senator Robert Kennedy and Pasteur Martin Luther King. The beginning of the 21st century saw the explosion of international terrorism with the murderous terrorist attack of the Twin Towers.

I Team:

Under construction