So the decision was made democratically with a 1-0 only voted on by me. Sounds fair?--Good! So the decision was made to do a little piece on history about the USA, what I have learned on Swedish history, and what I have read, and will learn about Polish history. As I go through each one, I welcome you to join in the comments to fix any mistakes I may have made [I always have mistakes, there's too much in my head] and I will try to edit them to be correct. I will probably be using the power of the internet for this project and my fellow students from these countries [so be warned, questions will soon be coming]. I'll try to condense history to fit in a blog, but that is difficult, so they may be long, sorry! I hope you will find this interesting and will learn something also!
Since I know the most about the United States of America, and call it home, I should probably start there.
**note--I don't think I'm going to write this in essay form, I think everyone has to learn a little history on everyone else. Also I'm going to steal pictures from everywhere on the internet without citing, that takes to long :P--- so we'll see where this goes, first try---go!**
When you first think about the United States, it is probably the thought that Christopher Columbus is when our history starts.
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| A little closer than Columbus? |
Skipping a bit, to show how old some of these places are, there was a tribe near where I live that we called the mound builders. There are groups all along the middle United States that did this (Mississippi river valley, Ohio river valley, and Great Lakes region).
*The area near me they were built like this*
These mounds were often built on bluffs over the water, but the dirt that made them was from the water. They had to carry all the mud for these up the bluffs to pile it and make the mounds
~back to general overview~
The mounds are in the shape of animals and were used for various things, from religious, burial, and some homes. These things were discovered by the items buried within the mounds along with the shape, and also in some remains. This were a very old custom of GRT with some being built 1000 years before the pyramids! Skipping ahead again we heard about Leif Ericsson, Columbus thought he founded the East Indies (and died thinking he had) in 1492 and the Spanish, after Columbus ran into the Americans [almost literally....well, with one ship he did], continued exploring this new world. Juan Ponce de León found the coast of Florida [and tried to find the fountain of youth] which eventually lead the the first european settlement in the future USA in 1565 (St. Augustine).
In the very early 1600's there were various efforts to create another settlement by other Europeans were made, 1607 English settlement Jamestown finally worked (I believe this was the third try).
*In this area is the Plymouth Colony ~1620, this is where our Thanksgiving comes from.
Netherlands came (1625, New Amsterdam) and the British took it over (1664). The French were around already in 1524. And even the Swedes were in on it too from 1638-1655 [Dutch took it, then British].
Soon it looked more like this and Russia had parts [and soon all] of Alaska. Scotland also joined in the fun, but became unioned with Briton in 1707.
*Very short version
Over the years, the American colonies [of England] received more self-power, due largely to the fact the fastest post would take larger than 3 weeks. Think about running a business with a delay of 3 weeks! So the colonies become more autonomous and the British began to need money for their empire and begin to tax the colonies for the armies that protected them. The American colonies had gotten pretty used to doing their own thing, so were not happy about being taxed, [there was more than just taxes]. Through a number of encounters with the British in words over such things as representation in their own governing, these grievances built up to the Declaration of Independence (written by own very own Thomas Jefferson)!
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| July 4th, 1776, but was actually done on the 2nd, just wasn't signed by everyone until the 4th |
This lead to the American Revolution for Independence. While it may seem in history book everyone was for this, not everyone was totally game for throwing off the Crown. In fact, ~ 1/5 were still loyal and some were neutral. The greatest 'cause builders' were the efforts of such men as George Washington, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Patrick Henry, to name a few. The colonists won due to troops in Briton were being used in many places, colonists knew a gun and the land better, and we had some pretty fantastic leaders, and some even from elsewhere like Marquis de Lafayette, [and others, I just can't remember names right now, I remember a German came and trained the colonists how to be an army, and other French and Spanish people helped, mostly in money/items]. The GRT in this case mostly sided with the British.
The early government was built on something very much like that of the Iroquois Confederation, but soon changed to something more like we have now {but it has changed quite a bit, and they have taken liberties with the constitution, this is way there are parties like the Tea Party who want to go back to the way the constitution is written, which is amazing in that they thought of the future and considered them when writing it, even though they didn't think about using an engine to move themselves}.
There was expansion and the idea of 'Manifest Destiny' in which the USA would range "sea to shining sea". It helped that the British gave us lands in the 1783 Treaty of Paris that weren't even theirs. Through wars and shrewd buys [Louisiana Purchase 1803 {doubled the land of the USA}, Alaska] and for some things like a transcontinental rail line.
They wanted GRT to just come into the USA as citizens, but sometimes that didn't work, and some wanted to live their own cultures, some things happened that aren't very nice. We continued the British custom of slavery for a while [yeah, I was talking to a British guy and he said it was totally their fault, but they like to skip that part and say it was all America that did it]. Had a conflict between the North and South, that wasn't about slavery really until the middle of the Civil war, in which the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the rebelling states.
*Side fact: there while Black regiments in the Union's Army (North's)
North won, still had segregation issues, 13,14,15 amendments were added.
Reconstruction, some famous writers [e.i. Mark Twain], and Imperialism.
This is the time when the USA went and found more territories like the Philippines and the making of the Panama Canal.
*some info on our states
| Description |
1776-1790
1791-1799
1800-1819
1820-1839
1840-1859
1860-1879
1880-1899
1900-1950
1950-
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Iowa is the best, just so you know
and we were a state before Wisconsin
December 28, 1846 (29th)
December 28, 1846 (29th)
At this point I'm going to assume that WWI and on is known, if not, I can add it another night. Tonight I'm done, that was a lot of history and writing for one night ;P. Please tell me if I missing something you would like to know, or if I made a mistake somewhere [I think I got it all right, just left out larger areas of history because...well, they are large and would take a long time to write on].
Depending on your counting, the United States of America can be old, or new. In terms of european settlement and civilization, it is young. If we measure it in the number of years it has been under a single government/ state, it is one of the largest due to European countries just getting into this democracy thing. I was reading about Poland before, and it just was out of Communism in 1989, or Sweden in 1975. We will get to that later though! I hope you enjoyed this! (It was very quick and not quite good history, but a very fast overview}.
Blog you later!
PS---if you haven't yet, check out my friends' blogs, they write more normal things and stuff......yep, I'm to the using of the word "stuff"
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