USA ajalugu (1)

HISTORY

 PRE-COLONIAL AMERICA
Before the first Europen settlers came , various groups of interrelated cultures lived there . Such as the Tingits, the Nootka, the Yurok and many more. Indigenous people mostly fished, because there vas a vast stock of fish . But they also relied upon agriculture , hunting and trapping. They built stable villages, and lived either in birch-covered wigwams or in rectangular longhouses. Later the indigenous people were called indians, by Christopher Columbus who thought that he had reached to India.
 COLONIAL AMERICA
As far as people know were the Vikings first European settlers to visit America. but in 1492, an Italian sailor called Christopher Columbus reached southern America when he was looking for a sea route from Europe to India. He is called to be the man who discovered America.
In 1607 two very different groups of English people came to America. a group of farmers began a colony in Jamestown, Virginia . They had to fought with indians and most of them died because there were many diseases and the didn’t have enough to eat. But the daughter of an Indian chief , Pocahontas, helped them.
The farmers discovered that it was easy to grow tobacco in Virginia, so they bought black people as slaves to work on the fields. They found a big market for their tobacco in Europe.
In 1620 another group of English people landed in America. They called tehir landing place Plymouth, similary with the place they started their journey in Britain . These people are known as Pilgrim Fathers . The didn’t want to live in England because they didn’t agree with the church .
The pilgrims had rough times also, but friendly Indians helped them. In 1621 the Pilgrims had a huge dinner to give thanks for the first food that they had grown themselves. That day became known as the Thanksgiving, and is celebrated every year in America.
 INDEPENDENCE WAR
By the end of the 18th century , the whole of the Eastern coast of North America had been colonized, largely by the British , but also French and Spanish . There were very high taxes and people in Boston refused to pay them. So when the first cargoes of tea reached to Boston harbour, in 1773, all the tea was thrown into the water. It is known as Boston Tea Party . The British government was very angry and they began the war with the colonies . A farmer from Virginia, George Washington, became the leader of the American army. And later he became the first president of USA.
The colonies got their independence in 1776, when Thomas Jefferson wrote the famous “Declaration of Independence”. The day it was written is celebrated annualy on July 4. the americans finally won the war in 1781 and two years after they were free to govern themselves.
By 1848, after buying Florida from Spanish and winning Texas and the west from Mexico , America reached all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific , over 5000 kilometers.
 THE CIVIL WAR
Expansion brought many problems, the most important was the problem of slavery. The Republican Party was made to gain support against slavery. After Abraham Lincoln, the republican candidate , was elected for President in 1860 the northern part of america was slave free and it south there was still slavery. In 1861 the war broke out between south and west, and in the question of slavery. In 1865 south had to surrender and the north had won. Then slavery was abolished all over America.
 INDUSTRIALIZATION AND IMMIGRATION
In less than fifty years the United States was transformed from a rural republic into an urban state. The nation ’s economic progress, based on iron , steam and electrical power was speeded up by thousands of inventions like telephone and typewriter.
20 million immigrants poured into the country between 1870 and 1910 . they agreed to work at almost any wages and under almost any conditions . The better-educated blacks, who had left to the South searching for work became the object of viloent racial discriminationand were forced into ghettoes.
 THE FIRST WORLD WAR
In April 1917 Congress declared war on Germany , because of attacks on American passanger ships by German submarines and the discovery of a German plot to encourage Mexico in war with USA.
 THE ROARING TWENTIES
In the 1920s tariffs were brought to their highest level ever and taxes were drastically reduce. The Roaring Twenties suddenly ended in 1929 with the Wall Street crash. This crash marked the beginning of the worst depression in America, called as the Great Depression.
The period was full of contrasts. In 1925 Klu Klux Klan, who had killed mostly blacks, but also Catholics, Jews an everybody not born in America, had over 4 million members .
The Twnties were also a period of sexual reolution, when the existence of an instinctive “sex drive ” in young people, mostly women gained social acceptance. Radio and magazines began to present standardized behaviour models. That was the beginning of porn (don’t read it teacher!).
 WORLD WAR TWO
Relations with Japan worsed and while negotiations were underway between the two countries the Japanese attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbour in 1941. congress responded by immediately declaring war on Japan. The Germans surrended in 1945. But the Japanese refused to surrender, although their position was hopeless, and Americans drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki . That leaded emperor HiroHito to a formal surrender in September 1945