(Sorry about the first two chapters being so lengthy but it’s stuff I recently learned and has special interest to me due to the fact that I grew up in Marshfield, MA. However that history belongs to all citizens of the USA and we should all know it. Nothing taught like that in public schools anymore. Only in higher education. (I’ll send you the bill later)I think I vaguely remember mention of the Mayflower Compact but it might have been due to it being local history.)

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The Plymouth Colony was established in 1620. The Middle Colonies, consisting of the present-day states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, were characterized by a large degree of diversity. The first attempted English settlement south of Virginia was the Province of Carolina, with Georgia Colony the last of the Thirteen Colonies established in 1733. Several colonies were used as penal settlements from the 1620s until the American Revolution. Methodism became the prevalent religion among colonial citizens after the First Great Awakening, a religious revival led by preacher Jonathan Edwards in 1734.

In its beginnings, the United States of America consisted only of the Thirteen Colonies, which consisted of states occupying the same lands as when they were British colonies. American colonists fought off the British army in the American Revolutionary War of the 1770s.

The Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a direct action by colonists in the town of Boston to protest against the taxes levied by the British government. In the following two years, the relations came to a boiling point with the Intolerable Acts being passed by the British Parliament in 1774. The acts sparked outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies, which formed the Continental Association passing on October 20, 1774 the Articles of Association with the aim to boycott trade with Great Britain. The First Continental Congress hoped that by imposing economic sanctions, Great Britain would be pressured to redress the grievances of the colonies, and in particular repeal the Intolerable Acts. The Congress aimed to alter Britain’s policies towards the colonies without severing allegiance. Personal gain was also a notable motivation of members of the Continental Association, made up mostly of those who had economic interests that would be served by forbidding imports from Britain. In response, the British government took punitive measures aimed at making an example of Massachusetts, in order to reverse the trend of colonial resistance to parliamentary authority that had begun with the 1765 Stamp Act. Rather than give in, the Colonists boycott became operative on December 1, 1774 resulting in a sharp fall in trade with Great Britain. The British responded with the New England Restraining Act of 1775. The outbreak of the American Revolutionary War effectively superseded the American attempt to boycott British goods.

The Thirteen Colonies began a rebellion against British rule in 1775 and proclaimed their independence in 1776. They subsequently constituted the first thirteen states of the United States of America, which became a nation state in 1781 with the ratification of the Confederation and Perpetual Union. The 1783 Treaty of Paris represented Great Britain’s formal acknowledgement of the United States as an independent nation.

The United States defeated the Kingdom of Great Britain with help from France and Spain in the American Revolutionary War. The colonists’ victory at Saratoga in 1777 led the French into an open alliance with the United States. In 1781, a combined American and French Army, acting with the support of a French fleet, captured a large British army led by General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. The surrender of General Cornwallis ended serious British efforts to find a military solution to their American problem. Seymour Martin Lipset points out that The United States was the first major colony successfully to revolt against colonial rule. In this sense, it was the first new nation

Side by side with the states efforts to gain independence through armed resistance, a political union was being developed and agreed upon by them. The first step was to formally declare independence from Great Britain. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, still meeting in Philadelphia, declared the independence of the United States of America in the Declaration of Independence. Although the states were still independent entities and not yet formally bound in a legal union, July 4 is celebrated as the nation’s birthday. The new nation was dedicated to principles of republicanism, which emphasized civic duty and a fear of corruption and hereditary aristocracy.

The United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional ConventionRatified in 1788, the Constitution serves as the supreme American law in organizing the government; the Supreme Court is responsible for upholding Constitutional law. The Progressive Era marked a time of economic growth for the United States, advancing to the Roaring Twenties. However, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression, a time of economic downturn and mass unemployment. Consequently, the U.S. government established the New Deal, a series of reform programs that intended to assist those affected by the Depression. The New Deal had varied success. However, once the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941, the economy quickly recovered, so much that the U.S. became a world superpower by the dawn of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the world’s two superpowers, but with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, United States became the world’s only superpower.

Chapter 4>>>