World War I, Great Depression, and World War II

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. American sympathies were with the British and French, although many citizens, mostly Irish and German, were opposed to intervention. In 1917, however, they joined the Allies, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. Reluctant to be involved in European affairs, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. Instead, the country continued to pursue a policy of unilateralism, verging at times on isolationism. After seven decades, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment in 1920 granting women's suffrage. In part due to the service of many in the war, Native Americans won U.S. citizenship in the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity as farm profits fell while industrial profits grew. A rise in debt and an inflated stock market culminated in the 1929 crash that, combined with the Dust Bowl, triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy. The nation would not fully recover from the economic depression until the industrial mobilization spurred by its entrance into World War II.

On December 7, 1941, the United States was driven to join the Allies against the Axis Powers after a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan. World War II had a greater economic cost than any in American history, but it helped to pull the economy out of depression by providing much-needed jobs and bringing many women into the labor market. Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of intergovernmental organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As victory was achieved in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active shortly after the war's end. The United States, having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.

Postwar superpower

The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during a new Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact. The United States promoted liberal democracy and capitalism, while the Soviet Union promoted communism and a centrally planned economy, but both sides supported dictatorships when politically convenient and engaged in proxy wars, including the Greek Civil War and the Korean War. As the Communist Party in the Eastern Bloc suppressed dissent, American anti-communists like Joseph McCarthy attempted and failed to suppress their opposition at home.

Meanwhile, America experienced a period of sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement headed by prominent African Americans such as Martin Luther King Jr. fought racism, leading to the abolition of the Jim Crow laws in the South and passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, his successors expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War. As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, rather than be impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 marked a significant rightward shift in American politics. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the Soviet Union's power diminished, leading to its collapse. The leadership role taken by the United States and its allies in the United Nations–sanctioned Gulf War and the Yugoslav wars helped to preserve its position as the world's last remaining superpower and to expand NATO.

The highlights (important dates) of American history

1607 Colonizers establish America's first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia.

1620 The Mayflower Compact establishes government by majority will in the settlement of Plymouth in Massachusetts.

1636 America's first college, Harvard, is founded at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1754 The Seven Years' War (also known as the French and Indian War) begins between France and Britain. At the war's end, France cedes Canada, the Great Lakes, and the upper Mississippi Valley to the British.

1775 APRIL 19, the first shots of America's war for independence from Britain are fired at Lexington, Massachusetts.

1776 JULY 4, America's 13 colonies sign the Declaration of Independence.

1783 SEPTEMBER 3, Britain and the United States sign the Treaty of Paris,

recognizing American independence.

1789 APRIL 30, George Washington is inaugurated as the first president of the

United States.

1791 Ten amendments-the Bill of Rights-are added to the U.S. Constitution to

protect the rights of individuals.

1800 The federal capital moves from temporary quarters in Philadelphia to

Washington, D.C.

1803 Purchase of Louisiana Territory from France doubles U.S. land area.

1812-14 The United States and Britain fight the War of 1812. British burn the

Capitol and the White House in August 1814.

1844 Samuel F.B. Morse sends the first telegraph message from Washington,

D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland.

1846 The Mexican War between the United States and Mexico begins. The treaty

that ends the war in 1848 gives the United States a vast stretch of land from Texas

west to the Pacific Ocean and north to Oregon.

1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected the United States' 16th president.

1861 APRIL 12, the first shots are fired in the U.S. Civil War.

1863 JANUARY 1, President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, granting freedom to slaves in Confederate-held territory.

1865 APRIL 9, the Civil War ends with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant, commander of Union forces.

**APRIL 14, President Lincoln is shot while attending the theater in Washington, D.C.; Lincoln dies the next morning.

1867 The territory of Alaska is purchased from Russia.

1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.

1879 Thomas A. Edison invents the incandescent lamp.

1898 The Spanish-American War is declared in April and ends in August. The

peace treaty signed with Spain in December guarantees Cuban independence and

cedes the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States.

1908 Henry Ford introduces an efficient, low-cost car, begins the era of mass

production, and "puts America on wheels."

1914 The Panama Canal, built by the United States across Central America,

opens, permitting ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans without

rounding the tip of South America.

1917 APRIL 6, the United States enters World War I, declaring war after German violations of American neutrality.

1927 The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) makes the first coast-to-coast

network radio broadcast.

1929 OCTOBER 29, the stock market crash in the United States begins the Great

Depression, a worldwide business slump that ranks as the worst and longest

period of high unemployment and low business activity in modern times.

1941 DECEMBER 7, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, brings the United States into World War II.

1945 JUNE 26, the United States and 49 other nations sign the United Nations Charter in San Francisco, California.

**AUGUST 6, the United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and, three days later, on Nagasaki, Japan.

1949 APRIL 4, the United States, Canada, and 10 Western European nations form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to provide mutual military aid if any member is attacked.

1958 The United States sends its first satellite, Explorer I, into orbit.

1961 The Peace Corps is established.

1969 JULY 20, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin land on the moon, an event televised 400,000 kilometers to Earth.