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This is basically just a rough overview of the history of the US to get an idea how the US got so powerful!


1620: The sailing ship "Mayflower" with its European pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Washington. It was an English colony. The main reason for the settlers to sail over the ocean was to escape from repression of the king of Great Britain and the church.

1755: New York is getting bigger and bigger. Many more immigrants arrived from Europe and the conflict with Great Britain escalated. As matter of fact the "War of Independence" started and the Georg Washington became the first president of the US. Many of those things can be seen in the movie of "The Patriot"!

July 4th, 1776: The "declaration of independence" has been announced! From now the settlers were moving more and more to the west coast. Their slogan was "GO WEST!".

1803: For around 15 Mio US $ the US brought a huge piece of the country from France and another piece (nowadays called "Florida") from Spain for 5 Mio US $.

January 24th, 1848: Sutter's undoing began 50 miles northeast of his fort on the American River. In late 1847, James Marshall and about 20 men were sent to the river by Sutter to build a sawmill -- to provide lumber for Sutter's growing ranch. The sawmill was nearly complete when a glint of something caught Marshall's eye. The "Gold Rush" was born!!

1850: California joins the US as the 31st state!

1861: The railroad becomes the most important transport vehicle in the US in order to settle the "new" land! They built up a railroad connection from San Francisco up to the East coast!

Mid 19th century: The conflict of the slavery divided the nation into the "north states" (contra slavery) and "south states" (pro slavery).

1861 - 1865: The civil war between the "north" and "south" states. The big final battle found place at Gettysburg . The "North" states won and Abraham Lincoln became the next president. For more information see the web page CIVIL WAR.

19th century: New York is the role model for the new life. With its skyscrapers, bridges, ... the slogan "from rags to riches" became true! However, due to the fact that still more immigrants from all over Europe came to New York, the city got its nick name "melting bolt".

1914: The very first traffic light was a revolving gas lantern with red and green lights installed in a London intersection in 1868, before the advent of automobiles. In the US the first traffic light has been built in Cleveland. It had just two colors - green and red!

October 25, 1929: The "black Friday" shocked the Wall Street. In the years before, a lot of people invested their entire money in the Wall Street. From of the other day they lost so much money that the US stuck into deep trouble.

December 7th, 1941: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii: The Japanese air force attacked the harbor and 2400 people were killed. This was a deep shock for the US and the starting point for being involved in the Second World War!

June 6th, 1944: "D-Day": The invasion of the Normandy started.

August 9th, 1945: The atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan killed more than 30.000 people directly. Many more are followed over the years by sickness...

June 26th, 1963: J.-F. Kennedy visits Berlin, Germany, and said "... Ich bin ein Berliner..."

1954 - 1975: "Vietnam War" - The Second Indochina War grew out of the long conflict between France and Vietnam. For more information about this war I refer to Vietnam War.

   © 2004 by Markus Richter •  richter.werth@web.de