History of the USA

1. Early America

1.1 The first Americans
Round 34-35000 BC, at the height of Stone Age, much of the water was frozen, the Barents strait 1500 km wide was like a road from Siberia to Alaska, what enabled the first people to come to America. They were hunting for food – they followed the game to Alaska in order to survive, once in Alaska it would take thousands of years to get through the North America

Later on, round 12000 BC – life was probably established on the western hemisphere at the time, the mammoth was dying out, the bison took their place as a principle source of food, overtime they started to eat plants – they enriched their nutrition.
By 3000 BC a primitive corn was being grown in New Mexico and Arizona – a strange culture, they buried their dead people in pyramids of earth.
By that time in Mexico, irrigation and canal system had already existed.

1.2 The Mound builders and Pueblos
The first Indian group to build mounds were the Adenans. They started to construct earthen burial sights and fortifications 600 BC, but they disappeared. It is said, that they were replaced by group of other Indians – Hopewillians. This group of Indians died round 500 AD out, they gave way to other group of Indians – Mississipians, who used the plenty of place round Mississipi. This culture had also build mounds (30 m high, at the base of 37 hectares) and left some kind of hieroglyphs, but what is the most important to be said, they were mostly a SPEAKING CULTURE (high value of recounting tales).

1.3 The first Europeans
The fist Europeans to arrive in North America were Norse from Greenland - Eric the Red, he founded a settlement in North Canada 985 AD. In the year 1001 his son Leif explored the NE coast of Canada and spent one winter there (New Foundland).
But North America was consciously discovered by Christopher Columbus on October12, 1492. Colombus, who was an Italian sailor in the service of the Spanish Kingdom, arrived at the Bahamas (San Salvador). Originally, he was looking for a western passage to India. That is why he called the original inhabitants Indians

He died happily, because he thought that he fulfilled his mission. 1497 Another Itallian John Cabbot, a Venetian navigator –arrived at the New Foundland on a mission under the British crown. The springing point is that Columbus had never seen earth, but John Cabbots trip later provided the bases for British clans to North America
After the first Columbian landings the Spanish explorations in America could start.
The first of them was in the year 1513, when a group of men guided by Juan Ponce de Leon went from Bahamas and landed later in the Florida bay – the exploration of the continent started.
With the conquest of Mexico in the year 1522, the Spanish solidified their position in the Western Hemisphere, the following discoveries added the knowledge.
And what is the origin of the name America? America was named after Amerigo Vespucci , who wrote a popular book of his voyages into the New World (1499-1502). Vespucci had explored the coast of South America – and deduced that the New World must be a continent which is not a part of Asia, but in that times nobody believed him.

Another funny story is concerned with the name Francisco Coronado, he set from Mexico (1540) went on up to the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately their horses escaped . That is how the Indians learned to know horses. The mustangs descended from small horses from Africa, an untainted mustang is called a bronco.
While the Spanish were pushing from the South Europe, they wanted to conquere America. In the year 1578 – Humprey Gilbert the author of the study called New World, had waited for 5 years to sail, but he was so anxious to sail, after waiting so long he died.
Ironically, his half-brother Walter Raleigh sailed (1585) and established the 1st British colony in NA (N Carolina) on the Roanoke Island, but it disappeared (1607). Only Jamestown survived – NA entered a new era.

There was a great stream of immigration , first English settled the North America, afterwards the Spaniards conquered the territory of Mexico, and the area of Caribic up to South America.

Europeans escaped because of political suppressions, to seek for freedom, to practice their religion, economic opportunities denied in their countries – ACTIVE OPPORTUNITY.

During the years 1620-1635 economic problems swept England and contributed to immigration. The settlers wouldn’t survive without Indian help (pumpkin, squash, been, corn). Although the New Continent was in doubt, because they couldn’t produce timber, and other strategic products , however, the New England had prospering harbors for transport.

The early settlements were mostly near the rivers, providing transport for goods – Hudson East (New York), Delaware, Potomac River (Virginia, Washington D. C.).
Another point for immigration were the political considerations, English Subjects went to America round the year 1630 , when the reign of Charles I. stimulated the protestants immigrate to America.
In 1640 cavaliers leave England for Virginia, as well as German speaking protestants left. Besides the English it were also, Irish, Scots, German, Dutch, Swedes, Poles, French, who left their mother countries.
Companies such as Virginia Company helped to explore immigration to America.

2. Colonial Period

2.1 New England
Most settlers who came to America in the 17th century, also stayed in the New England. It had nearly the same weather as in Europe, it was quite civilized. Although it did not provide a soil for farming, the harbors were a great opportunity how to make a living. New England shippers soon discovered, too, that rum and slaves were profitable commodities. Merchants and shippers would purchase slaves off the coast of Africa for New England rum, then sell the slaves in the West Indies.
The New England was for that times in America the most comfortable place to live. The first immigrants in New England brought their own little libraries and continued to import books from London. In 1639 the first printing press in the English colonies and the second in North America was installed at Harvard College.

2.2 The Middle Colonies
Society in the middle colonies was far more varied, cosmopolitan and tolerant than in New England. In many ways, Pennsylvania and Delaware owed their initial success to William Penn. Under his guidance, Pennsylvania functioned smoothly and grew rapidly. The heart of the colony was Philadelphia. The talent of the people living there for successful business enterprise made the city one of the thriving centers of colonial America. The Pennsylvania became a home of Quakers, Germans, Irish, Scots.

As well as Pennsylvania, New York was also a multicultural colony. By 1646 the population along the Hudson river, included Dutch, French, English, Irish, Scots, Germans, Poles, Bohemians, Portuguese and Italians.
2.3 The Southern Colonies
In contrast to New England and Middle Colonies were the predominantly rural southern settlements – Virginia, Maryland, N and S Carolina and of course Georgia.
By he late 17th century, Virginia´s and Maryland´s economic and social structure rested on the great planters and yeoman farmers. The planters lived on a slave’s labor, held most of the political power and the best land. They lived like the European aristocracy, the only thing which made them different was the place they had lived.

Charleston, S Carolina, became the leading port and trading center of the South. There the settlers quickly learned to combine agriculture and commerce. The forests of the South provided the best shipbuilding materials in the world.
German immigrants and Scots- Irish, unwilling to live in the original tidewater settlements where English influence was strong, were moving inland, in the 1730s they were pouring into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Soon many farms were here.
Living in the neighborhood with Indians, some of the settlers built cabins and decided to move in the wilderness and cultivate maize and wheat. They had their own amusements – great barbecues, dance, housewarmings for newly married couples, shooting matches and contests for making quilted blankets. Quilt remain an American tradition.
3. The Road to Independence

3.1 Taxation without Representation
The British Colonies were unsatisfied with the fact that they are British subjects, but are not represented in the Parliament. This was just unfair to the colonies – if they were English or Irish they wouldn’t have to pay an extra tax for a bread because they are Irish. The nonsense of many taxes like stamp act, townshends acts leaded to a unisono voice of a future new nation.

Most British officials held that Parliament was an imperial body representing and exercising the power over the colonies. Te colonies agreed that, it was the king who had agreed to establish the colonies and provided them with governments, but insisted that the English Parliament had no more right to pass laws for the colonies than any colonial legislature had the right to pass laws for England.
British Parliament was unwilling to hear any unsatisfactory voice from over the sea.

3.2 Boston Tea Party
In 1773, the powerful East India Company, trading with tea, finding itself in a critical financial straits, appealed to British government, who gave them a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies.
After 1770, the most of the tea in the colonies was illegally transported, cheap and duty-free. By selling its tea through the colonies, the East India Company made smuggling less profitable. The British government permitted them to sell tea in the colonies. Aroused by the monopolistic practice involved, colonial traders joined the radicals agitating for independence.

In ports up and down the Atlantic coast, agents of the EIC were forced to resign. In Boston, however, the agents defeated the colonists. On the night of December 16, 1773, a band of men disguised as Mohawk Indians, led by Sam Adams, dumped a cargo of 3 ships into the Boston harbor. They took this step, because they feared of more new taxes on tea, this rebel act was an symbol of will of independence, and it is very important in the history of USA.

3.3 Common Sense and Independence
In January 1776, Thomas Paine, an Englishman who came to America, published a 50 page pamphlet, called Common Sense. Within three months, 100 000 copies of the pamphlet were sold. Paine attacked the idea of hereditary monarchy, declaring that the king is not interested in the colonies, he doesn’t have a common sense, and whoever has a common sense must see it! He presented the alternatives, designing a bicameral system of government, designing the basic human rights. Common sense definitely helped to open up the eyes of the people living in the colonies, and to crystallize the desire for separation. It was very courageous, and rebellious for an Englishmen to attack so directly and in front of the eyes of the whole society the British Crown as a whole.

On May 10, 1776, one year to the day since the Second Continental Congress had first met, a resolution was adopted calling for a separation. Now only a formal declaration was needed. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution declaring “ That these Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states...” immediately a committee, headed by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, was appointed to prepare a formal declaration.
The Declaration, itself, was largely out of Jefferson´s pen. The Declaration of independence was adopted July 7, 1776, not only announced a birth of a new nation, but also set forth a philosophy of human freedom that would become a dynamic force throughout the entire world.

In the Declaration, Jefferson linked Locke´s principles directly to the situation in the colonies. To fight for American independence was to fight for a government based on democracy. Only a government based on democracy is able to secure natural rights for life, freedom and the pursuit of happiness. To fight for American independence was to fight on behalf of one’s natural rights.
4. The Formation of National Government

4.1 State Constitutions
The success of the Revolution gave Americans the opportunity to give legal form to their ideals as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. As early as May 10, 1776, Congress had passed a resolution advising the colonies to form new governments. Some of them had already done so, and within a year after the Declaration of Independence, all but three had drawn up constitutions.
The state constitutions had some glaring limitations, particularly by more recent standards. Constitutions established to guarantee people their natural rights did not secure the equality. The colonies south of Pennsylvania excluded their slaves populations from their rights as human beings. Women had no political rights.

4.2 Articles of Confederation
In the course of Revolution, mutual aid had proved effective, and the fear of relinquishing individual authority had lessened to a large degree. That is the reason, why the Articles of Confederation had been adopted in November 1777. the national government lacked the authority and met only when it was necessary. It accede sole control of international relations.
Economic difficulties after the war prompted calls for change. Farmers probably suffered most from the difficulties following the Revolution. A lot of them were in red numbers, they had lost their property, they were imprisoned because of nonfunctioning government. Something must had to be done!

4.3 Ratification of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights
In February 1787 the continental Congress, the legislative body of the republic send delegates to Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. Nobody had expected that the 55 delegates would draft a completely new document – nearly perfect in fact perfect in fact. They were only authorized to amend the Articles and to construct a new charter for a more centralized government. The 55 delegates are called the Founding Fathers, included most of the leading characters of the new nation. They were from all kinds of social sciences such as politics, social studies and other backgrounds of social life. However, once allowed to do one thing, they did a big deal not only in US but also in world’s history.

On September 17, 1787, after 16 weeks of deliberation, the finished Constitution was signed by 39 of the 42 delegates present. The Convention had decided that the Constitution would take effect uppon ratification by conventions in nine of the 13 states. By June 1788 the required nine states ratified the Constitution, but the large states of Virginia and New York had not.

Then a collection of 85 short essays changed the whole situation – it was „ the most instructive treatise we possess on federal government“.
Contemporary historians, jurist, and political scientists have generally agreed that The Federalist is the most important work of political philosophy and pragmatic government ever written in the US. It has been compared to many well-known philosophical works in the world, and it has also inspired other constitutions in the world.

The Federalist Papers were in fact a work of two American scholars Alexander Hamilton, aged 32, and James Madison, aged 36, and what is very interesting is the fact that this young men were from the states New York and Virginia, isn’t it ironic? And of course John jay had contributed with 5 essays too.
The Federalist Papers were written between October 1787 and May 1788, and they had an great influence on the ratification of the Constitution in the State New York.
5. Westward Expansion and Regional Differences

5.1 Extension of Slavery
Slavery, which had up to now received little public attention, began to assume much greater importance as an national issue. In the early years of the republic, when the Northern states were providing emancipation of slaves, it was thought that the slavery will sometime die out. But the expectations proved false, for during the next generation, the south became united behind the institution of slavery as new economic factors made slavery far more profitable than it had been before 1790.
Chief among these was the rise of a great cotton-growing industry, stimulated by the introduction of new types of cotton and by the invention of the cotton gin, which separated the seeds from cotton. And also the opening of the new states in 1812 greatly extended the area available for cotton cultivation.

Another labor-intensive crop, the sugarcane, also contributed to slavery’s extension in the South. The hot, rich Louisiana soil proved to be ideal for planting sugarcane, by 1830 this state supplied the nation with about half of this sugar supply. Finally, tobacco growers moved westwards, taking slavery with them.
The society was divided into the free North and the South with the slavery. In 1818, 10 states permitted slavery and 11 states prohibited it.
And the following years were like a battle in the Congress according to who is a slave-state and who is not, a lot of nonsense compromises were adopted, leading to many misunderstandments.

5.2 Women´s Rights
Diverse social reforms brought many women to a realization of their own unequal position in the society. From colonial times, unmarried women had enjoyed the same legal rights as men, although custom require that they marry early. With marriage, they lost they identities in the eyes of law. They were not allowed to vote, and their education was limited to reading, writing, music and needlework.
But after a visit of Scottish journalist and lecturer, Frances Wright in America, the awakening started in the 1820s. At the time, women were not welcome to speak in public places, not even shocking the audience as Wright did with her speech on women rights. She was speaking on such burning issues such as birth control and divorce. The society was disgusted.

By 1840s the first American group of women fighting for women rights was born, leade with Elisabeth Cady Stanton. She together with Lucretia Mott organized a first Women´s Convention in the history. It took place in seneca Falls, NY, and the delegates drew up a delegation demanding equality with men before the law, the right to vote, equal opportunities concerned to education and employment.

But the most important deal for women’s right was definitely the Constitutional amendment for women’s right to vote.

5.3 The Seneca Falls
Elisabeth Stanton and Luctetia mott first met in 1840 in London at an anti-slavery conference. These two early feminist were not welcome at this conference. As a protest Stanton took all the women delegates out of the conference hall.
At the 1848 first women convention in the world, Stanton presented Declaration of Sentiments, based on Declaration of Independence, and listing 18 grievances against man’s suppression of a woman. Among them: right to see their children for divorced women, the right to testify against her husband in a court, the right to keep their earnings, etc.

By awakening women to the injustices under which they labored, Seneca Falls became the catalyst for future change. Soon other women’s rights conventions were held, and other women would come to the forefront of the movement for political and social equality.
6. Sectional Conflict

6.1 Slavery and Selectionalism
By the mid- 19th century, one issue exacerbated the regional and economic differences between North and South – slavery. Northerners supplied with southern cotton declared, that slavery is wholly responsible for South´s backwardness.By 1850, slavery was 200 years old and an integral part of the basic economy of the region. Southern publicists insisted, that the relationship between capital and labor was more humane and the slavery system than under the wage system of the North.

Slavery was inherently a system of brutality and coercion in which beatings and the breakup of families through the sale of individuals were commonplace. In the end, however, the most trenchant criticism of slavery was not the behavior of individual masters and oversees toward the slaves, but slavery’s fundamental violation of every human being’s inalienable right to be free.

6.2 The Compromise of 1850
Until 1845, it has seemed likely that slavery would be confined to the areas where it already existed.
The hopes of the nation were rested with Senator Henry Clay, whose compromise contained a number of key provisions - California = slavery prohibited, New Mexico + Utah = without slavery, more effective would be to catch the runaway slaves and returning them to their masters, than buying and selling new slaves. District of Colombia = selling of slaves is prohibited.

6.3 Lincoln, Douglas and Brown
Abraham Lincoln had long regrded slavery as an evil. Lincoln and Douglas, known as “little Giant”, debated for 7 times in 1858.

7.Growth and Transformation

7.1Itroduction
Between two great wars -- the Civil War and the First World War -- the United States of America came of age. In a period of less than 50 years it was transformed from a rural republic to an urban state. The frontier vanished. Great factories and steel mills, transcontinental railroad lines, flourishing cities and vast agricultural holdings marked the land. With this economic growth and affluence came corresponding problems. Nationwide, businesses came to dominate whole industries, either independently or in combination with others. Working conditions were often poor. Cities grew so quickly they could not properly house or govern their growing populations.

The United States Steel Corporation, which resulted from this merger in 1901, illustrated a process under way for 30 years: the combination of independent industrial enterprises into federated or centralized companies. Begun during the Civil War, the trend gathered momentum after the 1870s, as businessmen began to fear that overproduction would lead to declining prices and falling profits. They realized that if they could control both production and markets, they could bring competing firms into a single organization. The "corporation" and the "trust" were developed to achieve these ends.
7.2Corporations and Cities
The Standard Oil Company, founded by John D. Rockefeller, was one of the earliest and strongest corporations, and was followed rapidly by other combinations -- in cottonseed oil, lead, sugar, tobacco and rubber.

The trend toward amalgamation was manifest in other fields, particularly in transportation and communications. Western Union, earliest of the large communications combinations, was followed by the Bell Telephone System and eventually by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. In the 1860s, Cornelius Vanderbilt consolidated some 13 separate railroads into a single line connecting New York City and Buffalo, about 800 kilometers away. During the next decade he acquired lines to Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan -- and the New York Central Railroad System came into being. Other consolidations were already under way, and soon the major railroads of the nation were organized into trunk lines and systems directed by a handful of men.

In this new industrial order, the city was the nerve center, bringing to a focus all the nation's dynamic economic forces: vast accumulations of capital, business and financial institutions, spreading railroad yards, smoky factories, and armies of manual and clerical workers. Villages, attracting people from the countryside and from lands across the sea, grew into towns and towns into cities almost overnight.

7.3Revolution in Agriculture
Despite the great gains in industry, agriculture remained the nation's basic occupation. The revolution in agriculture -- paralleling that in manufacturing after the Civil War -- involved a shift from hand labor to machine farming, and from subsistence to commercial agriculture. Between 1860 and 1910, the number of farms in the United States tripled, increasing from 2 million to 6 million, while the area farmed more than doubled from 160 million to 352 million hectares.
Between 1860 and 1890, the production of such basic commodities as wheat, corn and cotton outstripped all previous figures in the United States. In the same period, the nation's population more than doubled, with largest growth in the cities. But the American farmer grew enough grain and cotton, raised enough beef and pork, and clipped enough wool not only to supply American workers and their families but also to create ever-increasing surpluses.

8. Discontent and Reform

8.1 Roosevelt´s Reforms
By the early 20th century, most of the larger cities and more than half the states had established an eight-hour day on public works. Equally important were the workmen's compensation laws, which made employers legally responsible for injuries sustained by employees at work. New revenue laws were also enacted, which, by taxing inheritances, incomes and the property or earnings of corporations, sought to place the burden of government on those best able to pay.

8.2 Taft and Wilson
Roosevelt's popularity was at its peak as the campaign of 1908 neared, but he was unwilling to break the tradition by which no president had held office for more than two terms. Instead, he supported William Howard Taft, who won the election and sought to continue his predecessor's programs of reform. Taft, a former judge, governor of the Philippines and administrator of the Panama Canal, made some progress. He continued the prosecution of trusts, further strengthened the Interstate Commerce Commission, established a postal savings bank and a parcel post system, expanded the civil service and sponsored the enactment of two amendments to the Constitution.

The 16th Amendment authorized a federal income tax; the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, mandated the direct election of senators by the people, replacing the system whereby they were selected by state legislatures.
Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic, progressive governor of the state of New Jersey, campaigned against Taft, the Republican candidate, and against Roosevelt who, rejected as a candidate by the Republican convention, had organized a third party, the Progressives.
Wilson, in a spirited campaign, defeated both rivals. Under his leadership, the new Congress enacted one of the most notable legislative programs in American history. Its first task was tariff revision. "The tariff duties must be altered," Wilson said. "We must abolish everything that bears any semblance of privilege." The Underwood Tariff, signed on October 3, 1913, provided substantial rate reductions on imported raw materials and foodstuffs, cotton and woolen goods, iron and steel, and removed the duties from more than a hundred other items. Although the act retained many protective features, it was a genuine attempt to lower the cost of living.
The second item on the Democratic program was a long overdue, thorough reorganization of the inflexible banking and currency system. "Control," said Wilson, "must be public, not private, must be vested in the government itself, so that the banks may be the instruments, not the masters, of business and of individual enterprise and initiative."

8.3 The Bank Reform
The Federal Reserve Act of December 23, 1913, was one of Wilson's most enduring legislative accomplishments. It imposed upon the existing banking system a new organization that divided the country into 12 districts, with a Federal Reserve Bank in each, all supervised by a Federal Reserve Board. These banks were to serve as depositories for the cash reserves of those banks that joined the system. Until the Federal Reserve Act, the U.S. government had left control of its money supply largely to unregulated private banks. While the official medium of exchange was gold coins, most loans and payments were carried out with bank notes, backed by the promise of redemption in gold. The trouble with this system was that the banks were tempted to reach beyond their cash reserves, prompting periodic panics during which fearful depositors raced to turn their bank paper into coin. With the passage of the act, greater flexibility in the money supply was assured, and provision was made for issuing federal reserve notes to meet business demands.

The next important task was trust regulation and investigation of corporate abuses. Congress authorized a Federal Trade Commission to issue orders prohibiting "unfair methods of competition" by business concerns in interstate trade.

9. War,Prosperity and Depression

9.1 War and Neutral Rights
To the American public of 1914, the outbreak of war in Europe came as a shock. At first the encounter seemed remote, but its economic and political effects were swift and deep. By 1915 U.S. industry, which had been mildly depressed, was prospering again with munitions orders from the Western Allies. Both sides used propaganda to arouse the public passions of Americans -- a third of whom were foreign-born or had one or two foreign-born parents. Moreover, Britain and Germany both acted against U.S. shipping on the high seas, bringing sharp protests from President Woodrow Wilson. But the disputes between the United States and Germany grew increasingly ominous.

9.2 United States Enters World War I.
On January 22, 1917, the German government gave notice that unrestricted submarine warfare would be resumed. When five U.S. vessels had been sunk by April, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war. By October 1918, on the eve of Allied victory, a U.S. army of over 1,750,000 soldiers had been deployed in France. The U.S. Navy was crucial in helping the British break the submarine blockade, and in the summer of 1918, during a long-awaited German offensive, fresh American troops, under the command of General John J. Pershing, played a decisive role on land.

President Wilson contributed greatly to an early end to the war by defining the war aims of the Allies, and by insisting that the struggle was being waged not against the German people but against their autocratic government. His famous Fourteen Points, submitted to the Senate in January 1918 as the basis for a just peace, called for abandonment of secret international agreements, a guarantee of freedom of the seas, the removal of tariff barriers between nations, reductions in national armaments, and an adjustment of colonial claims with due regard to the interests of the inhabitants affected. Other points sought to ensure self-rule and unhampered economic development for European nationalities. The Fourteenth Point constituted the keystone of Wilson's arch of peace -- the formation of an association of nations to afford "mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike." By the summer of 1918, when Germany's armies were being beaten back, the German government appealed to Wilson to negotiate on the basis of the Fourteen Points. The president conferred with the Allies, who acceded to the German proposal. An armistice was concluded on November 11.

9.3 The League of Nations
It was Wilson's hope that the final treaty would have the character of a negotiated peace, but he feared that the passions aroused by the war would cause the Allies to make severe demands. In this he was right. The concept of self-determination proved impossible to implement. Persuaded that his greatest hope for peace, the League of Nations, would never be realized unless he made concessions to the Allies, Wilson compromised on the issues of self-determination, open diplomacy and other specific points during the peace negotiations in Paris. However, he resisted the demands of the French premier, Georges Clemenceau, to detach the entire Rhineland from Germany, prevented France from annexing the Saar Basin, and frustrated a proposal to charge Germany with the whole cost of the war -- although the Versailles Peace Treaty did levy a heavy burden of reparations upon Germany.
In the end, there was little left of Wilson's proposals for a generous and lasting peace but the League itself -- and the president had to endure the final irony of seeing his own country spurn League membership.

In October 1929 the stock market crashed, wiping out 40 percent of the paper values of common stock. Even after the stock market collapse, however, politicians and industry leaders continued to issue optimistic predictions for the nation's economy. But the Depression deepened, confidence evaporated and many lost their life savings. By 1933 the value of stock on the New York Stock Exchange was less than a fifth of what it had been at its peak in 1929. Business houses closed their doors, factories shut down and banks failed. Farm income fell some 50 percent. By 1932 approximately one out of every four Americans was unemployed.

10.The New Deal and World War

10.1 Roosevelt and the New Deal
In 1933 the new president, Franklin Roosevelt, brought an air of confidence and optimism that quickly rallied the people to the banner of his program, known as the New Deal. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," the president declared in his inaugural address to the nation.
In a certain sense, it is fair to say that the New Deal merely introduced types of social and economic reform familiar to many Europeans for more than a generation. Moreover, the New Deal represented the culmination of a long-range trend toward abandonment of "laissez-faire" capitalism, going back to the regulation of the railroads in the 1880s, and the flood of state and national reform legislation introduced in the Progressive era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
The New Deal brought to the individual citizen a sharp revival of interest in government.
When Roosevelt took the presidential oath, the banking and credit system of the nation was in a state of paralysis. With astonishing rapidity the nation's banks were first closed -- and then reopened only if they were solvent. The administration adopted a policy of moderate currency inflation to start an upward movement in commodity prices and to afford some relief to debtors. New governmental agencies brought generous credit facilities to industry and agriculture. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured savings-bank deposits up to $5,000, and severe regulations were imposed upon the sale of securities on the stock exchange.

10.2 The Second New Deal
In its early years, the New Deal sponsored a remarkable series of legislative initiatives and achieved significant increases in production and prices -- but it did not bring an end to the Depression. And as the sense of immediate crisis eased, new demands emerged. Businessmen mourned the end of "laissez-faire" and chafed under the regulations of the NIRA. Vocal attacks also mounted from the political left and right as dreamers, schemers and politicians alike emerged with economic panaceas that drew wide audiences of those dissatisfied with the pace of recovery.
In the face of these pressures from left and right, President Roosevelt backed a new set of economic and social measures. Prominent among these were measures to fight poverty, to counter unemployment with work and to provide a social safety net.

10.3 Japan, Pearl Harbor and War
While most Americans anxiously watched the course of the European war, tension mounted in Asia. Taking advantage of an opportunity to improve its strategic position, Japan boldly announced a "new order" in which it would exercise hegemony over all of the Pacific.
Among other things, Japan demanded that the U.S. release Japanese assets and stop U.S. naval expansion in the Pacific. Hull countered with a proposal for Japanese withdrawal from China and Indochina in exchange for the freeing of the frozen assets. The Japanese asked for two weeks to study the proposal, but on December 1 rejected it. On December 6, Franklin Roosevelt appealed directly to the Japanese emperor, Hirohito. On the morning of December 7, however, Japanese carrier-based planes attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a devastating, surprise attack. Nineteen ships, including five battleships, and about 150 U.S. planes were destroyed; more than 2,300 soldiers, sailors and civilians were killed. Only one fact favored the Americans that day: the U.S. aircraft carriers that would play such a critical role in the ensuing naval war in the Pacific were at sea and not anchored at Pearl Harbor.
On December 8, Congress declared a state of war with Japan; three days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The nation rapidly geared itself for mobilization of its people and its entire industrial capacity.
Soon after the United States entered the war, the western Allies decided that their essential military effort was to be concentrated in Europe, where the core of enemy power lay, while the Pacific theater was to be secondary.
On November 7, 1942, an American army landed in French North Africa, and after hard-fought battles, inflicted severe defeats on Italian and German armies. The year 1942 was also the turning point on the Eastern Front, where the Soviet Union, suffering immense losses, stopped the Nazi invasion at the gates of Leningrad and Moscow, and defeated the German forces at Stalingrad.

In July 1943 British and American forces invaded Sicily, and by late summer the southern shore of the Mediterranean was cleared of Fascist forces. Allied forces landed on the Italian mainland, and although the Italian government accepted unconditional surrender, fighting against Nazi forces in Italy was bitter and protracted. Rome was not liberated until June 4, 1944. While battles were still raging in Italy, Allied forces made devastating air raids on German railroads, factories and weapon emplacements, including German oil supplies at Ploesti in Romania.

Late in 1943 the Allies, after much debate over strategy, decided to open a Western front to force the Germans to divert far larger forces from the Russian front. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe. After immense preparations, on June 6, 1944, the first contingents of a U.S., British and Canadian invasion army, protected by a greatly superior air force, landed on the beaches of Normandy in northern France.
The Allied armies began to move across France toward Germany. On August 25 Paris was liberated. At the borders of Germany, the Allies were delayed by stubborn counteraction, but by February and March 1945, troops advanced into Germany from the west, and German armies fell before the Russians in the east. On May 8 all that remained of the Third Reich surrendered its land, sea and air forces.

The war in the Pacific continued after Germany's surrender, and the final battles there were among the hardest fought.
The heads of the U.S., British and Soviet governments met at Potsdam, a suburb outside Berlin, from July 17, to August 2, 1945, to discuss operations against Japan, the peace settlement in Europe, and a policy for the future of Germany.

The day before the Potsdam Conference began, an atomic bomb was exploded at Alamogordo, New Mexico, the culmination of three years of intensive research in laboratories across the United States in what was known as the Manhattan Project. President Truman, calculating that an atomic bomb might be used to gain Japan's surrender more quickly and with fewer casualties than an invasion of the mainland, ordered the bomb be used if the Japanese did not surrender by August 3. The Allies issued the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, promising that Japan would neither be destroyed nor enslaved if it surrendered; if Japan did not, however, it would meet "utter destruction."

On August 6, a U.S. plane, the Enola Gay, dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. On August 8, a second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki. Americans were relieved that the bomb hastened the end of the war; the realization of its awesome destructiveness would come later. On August 14, Japan agreed to the terms set at Potsdam. On September 2, 1945, Japan formally surrendered.
11. Postwar America

11.1 Cold War Aims
The Cold war was the most important political issue of the early postwar period, it grew out of long standing disagreements between the Soviet Union and the US.
In 1918 American troops participated in the Allied intervention in Russia on behalf of anti-Bolshevik forces. American diplomatic recognition of the Bolshevik regime did not come until 1933 and at the war´s end, antagonisms surfaced again.
The United States hoped to share with other countries its conception of liberty, equality and democracy. The Cold War developed as differences about the shape of the postwar world created suspicion and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union.

11.2 The Postwar economy 1945 - 1960
As the Cold War unfolded in the decade and a half after World War II, the United States experienced phenomenal economic growth, the war brought the return of prosperity. The growth had different sources
- the automobile industry was partially responsible, as the number of automobiles produced annually quadrupled between 1946 and 1955
- after 1945 the major corporations in America grew even larger
- there had been earlier waves of mergers in the 1890s and in the 1920s; in the 1950s another wave occurred.

New conglomerates - firms with holdings in a variety of industries -led the way such as International Telephone and Telegraph, Continental Baking, etc, and smaller franchise operations like McDonald´s fast - food restaurants provided still another pattern. Workers found their own lives changing as industrial America changed, farmers, on the other hand, faced tough times - farming became a big business, that is why more and more farmers left the land. As suburbs grew, businesses moved into the new areas, large shopping centers containing a great variety of stores changed consumer patterns, and also television, developed in the 1930s, had a powerful impact on social and economic patterns. In 1946 the country had fewer than 17.000 television sets.

11.3 The Fair Deal:
The Fair Deal was the name given to Harry Truman´s domestic program
- building on Roosvelt´s New Deal, Truman believed that the federal government should guarantee economic opportunity and social stability.
Truman´s first priority in the immediate postwar period was to make the transition to a peacetime economy. The G.I.Bill, passed before the end of the war, helped ease servicemen back into civilian life by providing such benefits as guaranteed loans for home - buying and financial aid for industrial training and university education. Truman also provided a broader agenda for action, he fought with the Congress as it cut spending and reduced taxes. After a vigorous campaign, Truman scored one of the great upsets in American politics, defeating the Republican nominee, Thomas Dewey, governor of New York. When Truman finally left office in 1953, his Fair Deal was a great, but a mixed success.
12. Decades of change

12.1 Kennedy and the New Frontier
John F. Kennedy, Democratic victor in the election of 1960, was at 43 the youngest man ever to win the presidency. In contrast to his “enemy” Richard Nixon, he appeared much better in TV, various debates and so on. J. F. Kennedy became famous for various statements, but these two of them are the most famous ones : “The new frontier is here whether we seek it or not. “ and “ Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what can you do for your country.”
He wanted to exert strong leadership to extend economic benefits to all citizens, but a razor thin margin of victory limited his mandate. Despite his rhetoric, Kennedy´s policies were often limited and restrained.

The overall legislation record of the Kennedy administration was meager. The president made some gestures toward civil rights leaders, but did not embrace the goals of the civil rights movement until nearly the end of his presidency. He failed in his effort to aid public education and to provide medical care for the elderly. Kennedy had planned an ambitious legislative program for the last year of his term. But on November 22, 1663, he was assassinated while riding in an open car during a visit in Dallas, Texas. It was a traumatic and defining moment for a generation, just as death of Franklin Roosevelt had been for an earlier one.

12.2 Confrontation over Cuba

In the 1960s and 70s, the US remained locked in bitter conflict with communist countries. Cuba became a battleground in the Kennedy years. Ever since Castro ´s revolutionary army seized power in 1959 and gained the support of the Soviet Union, relations with Cuba had been strained. CIA began training Cuban exiles to invade their homeland and spark an uprising. The attack of the Bay of Pigs in the Spring of 1961 failed miserably, Kennedy assumed the responsibility on the Eisenhower´s administration.
One year later, Kennedy demanded publicly that the Soviet Union remove the weapons from Cuba. After several days of tension, when the world was afraid of a nuclear war, the Soviets backed down. Supporters applauded Kennedy, but critics charged that he risked nuclear disaster.

12.3 The Space Program

Space became another arena for competition after the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik in 1957. The US only managed to launch its first satellite in 1958. The public mood worsened when the Soviet placed the first man in orbit in 1961. The USA responded by landing a man on the Moon and bringing him back.
13. Toward the 21st Century

13.1 Foreign Affairs
In foreign policy, president Reagan sought a more assertive role for the nation, and Central America provided an early test. The US provided El Salvador with a program of economic and military training, when a guerilla threatened its government. US support helped to stabilize the conditions, but the level of violence remained undiminished and actually increased in 1989. a peace agreement was reached in 1992.

13.2 US – Soviet Relations

In relations with the Soviet Union, declared so-called peace through strength policy, rooted in the cold war tradition.

13.3 Space Shuttle

In the year 1981, the US launched the space shuttle Colombia – the first reusable manned spacecraft.

14. Creating a new Civilization

14.1 American modern civilization
American modernism, as a principle of getting over the frontier in America, is a permanent mechanism of switching on her ideas and acts. The basis for the frame of American civilization is the idea of getting over individual and group frontier of human abilities. In the beginning of American society there was a seeking for personal, political, and religious freedom, with the possibility to get a economic opportunity. America formed as a status of human mind.

The basic civilization bases of America are the equality of opportunities, law’s government, American Constitution, citizen’s and personal freedoms, weight of an individual, etc. Another border of getting over the frontier are also this expressions – American dream, American character, the way of life, language, The Frontier. A value chart was build emphasizing pragmatism, living out one’s dreams, belief in God and one’s abilities. This expressions in action helped to form America to its todays face.

14.2 Euroatlantic metropolitan Civilization
The springing point in forming the USA was the concentration into metropolitan areas. The city seemed to be a symbol of reached dreams, plans and seekings. In the USA, by 1930 more than a half of people lived in metropolitan cities, in the area of 30 – 70 km round the city, whose population was larger than 100 000. The building of cities and their never-ending rise of population made the original balance between the urbanized and rural population. Free undertaking enabled the rise of individual personality, but also the establishment of natural monopolies and competitive surrounding with monopolistic contents.
An individual felt very lonely in this world, anonymous in an anonymous city.
The cities had also enabled the establishment of a new social group – bureaucracy and a new word – bureaucratic. This social class helped to feel a person more unimportant and unuseful.

14.3 Introduction into postmodernism
Transatlantic civilisation had used all ways of development, known to that times. It was an end for teaching of human acting in economic interpretation of social relations as a reaction to dynamic free capitalism, dominating of thinking the era of past 200 years.
Postmodernism can be interpreted in 2 ways – either as a continuity of modernism or something completely new, influenced by horrors of 2. World War or September 11, 2001.