An Outline of the U.S. History

October 1492 – Columbus discovers America

Jamestown, Virginia – the first English settlement

1620 – Pilgrim Fathers establish Plymouth Pennsylvania settled by W. Penn (Quakers) Britain at war with France. Treaty of Paris

(1763) – Britain is a supreme power in America

Discovery, colonization

1773 – the Boston Tea Party. The first conflict with Britain. Motto: „No taxation without representation!“

Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson) 4 July 1776

US Constitution 1787 drafted, 1788 accepted, 1789 put into effect

George Washington elected US President (1789)

Bill of Rights ratified in 1791

Fighting for Independence

1800 – Washington DC becomes the capital 1849 – Gold Rush (J.London writes books

about it) 1861-1865 – Civil War resulting in

abolishment of slavery (1863 Emancipation Proclamation)

Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant 1865 President A. Lincoln assassinated by J.W.

Booth in the Ford Theatre

USA – the 19th century

G. Bell – telephone (1876) T.A. Edison – electric light (1879) H. Ford – car mass production (1896) Wright brothers – first flight (1905)

The Era of Great Inventions

USA enters the war in 1917 after the Zimmermann Telegramme captured by British Intelligence

W. Wilson, US President, helps TGM to form Czechoslovakia in 1918

USA is one of the winners and gets a war reparations

World War I (1914-1918)

1929 – the stock market collaps, world economy ruined

1932 – the New Deal : a political and social programme by Franklin D. Roosevelt

National parks founded, highways constructed

Between the wars…

Dec 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor attacked Dec 8, 1941 – USA declares war at Japan D-Day = invasion in Normandy VE-Day = victory in Europe (8 May 1945) Atomic bomb thrown at Hiroshima (6 Aug),

Nagasaki (9 Aug) VJ-Day = victory in Japan (2 Sept 1945)

World War II (1939-1945)

1950s – 1980s political conflict of Soviet Union and Western Allies

1963 – JFK assassinated in Dallas, TX 1960s – Civil Rights Movement (anti-

segregation) Vietnam War (1973 US troops withdrawn) Watergate Affair – a political scandal, R.

Nixon resigns

Cold War

September 11, 2001 – World Trade Centre destroyed by terrorists

2003 – USA declares war at Iraq. Dictator Saddam Hussein captured and executed.

Controversial policy of G. W. Bush

USA fights Terrorism

Few more pictures…

Kennedy Assassination in Dallas

Photographs of the My Lai Massacre provoked world outrage and made it an international scandal.

September 11, 2001

Washington D.C.

New York City