United States – from colonies to a federal republic and world power
For thousands of years before Europeans arrived, North America was home to many Native American nations with diverse cultures. From the 16th century onward, Spanish, French, Dutch and English colonists arrived. The English colonies on the Atlantic coast, beginning with Jamestown in 1607, grew rapidly, while Native peoples were displaced and decimated by war and disease, and enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to work above all on Southern plantations.
Conflict over taxation and self-government led the thirteen colonies to declare independence on 4 July 1776. After the Revolutionary War, the Constitution of 1787 created a federal republic, and George Washington became the first president. During the 19th century the country expanded westward to the Pacific, at the expense of Native nations and Mexico. The dispute over slavery culminated in the Civil War of 1861–1865, which preserved the Union and ended slavery, though racial segregation and discrimination persisted for a century.
Industrialisation and mass immigration made the United States a leading economic power. After the Great Depression and the Second World War, it emerged as a superpower and rival of the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, led by figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., brought landmark legal equality. The 1969 Moon landing and the end of the Cold War are further milestones.
Today the United States is shaped by its diversity, its federal system and its enormous cultural and economic influence.
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