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*Amcricans have always been proud o f their ability to find practical solutions to practical problems. Dunng the nineteenth century they developed hOUS:U Il,h. of produets to make life easier. safer or more enjoyable for people.

*Many turn developments, however. called for all

*understanding of basic scientific principles example. Electricity magentism and chemistry .

*One man above all o the is showed ability to use

*such knowledge to solve everyday problems. His name was Thomas Alva Edison.

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By the year 1733 the English owned thirteen separate colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America. The colonies stretched from New Hampshire in the north to Georgia in the south.

Philadelphia was the capital of Pennsylvania. In 1770 it was the largest city in America with 28.000 inhabitants.

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-In the spring of 1513 de Leon set off in search of the magic fountain, Ponce de Leon never fou nd the Fountain of Youth. But he did claim Florida for Spain -It was a lust for gold that led Hernan Cortes to conquer the Aztecs in the I520s - In the 1530s the same lust of gold caused Francisco Pizarro to attack the equally wealthy empire of the lncas in Peru.

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1971- As China and the United States became friendlier, tension grew between Russians and Americans. Russians feared that the United States wanted to wipe out communism. President Nixon flew to Moscow to sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) with the Russians, The idea of SALT was to slow down the, arms race. It was intended to save both countries money as well as to make war between them less likely.

1979- Americans still feared that the Soviet Union wanted to conquer the world. American fears grew stronger when Russian soldiers marched into the Soviet Union's neighbor. Afghanistan, in December 1979.

1980. - 1985 President Reagan had increased American military strength so much that he was ready to start talking seriously about slowing down the arms rare.

1985 Mikhail Gorbachev (new leader) had come to power there, he believed that the huge cost of the arms ran ' was crippling the Soviet Union's economy and he was eager to reduce it. In December Mikhail Gorbachev traveled to the United States and there in Washington he and President Reagan signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Force (lNF) treaty. In the INF treaty both countries agreed that within three years they would destroy all their land-based medium and shorter range nuclear missiles. President Reagan gave Gorbachev a pair of cufflinks to celebrate the signing of the treaty.

1990- The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had said after a visit to Washington in 1988. “We are not in a cold war now”. In 1990 most people believed that she was right.  6

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1963- United States and the Soviet Union signed a treaty agreeing to stop testing new nuclear weapons in the atmosphere or under water. They also set up a special telephone link between Washington and Moscow. The hotline proved its value in 1967.

1967- The Chinese communist leader, Mao Zedong, attacked détente He accused Soviet leaders of "revisionism". The enmity between China and the Soviet Union had important effects on both countries relations with the United States in the early 1970s.

1970-  Zhou Eulai, China's Prime Minister, believed that China needed friends on till ' international scene, especially while the Soviet Union was so unfriendly. Eulie persuaded Mao Zedong to try to end the twenty year-old feud with the United States.

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¡November 1952.  American scientists testing a new weapon had blasted a whole uninhabited island on of the Pacific Ocean. They had exploded the first Hydrogen, or H- bomb. By 1953 the Russians, too , had made an H-bomb. by 1957 so had the British.

¡President Kennedy's proposal in May 1961 that the United States should send a man to the moon was eagerly welcomed by politicians and the American people.

¡The Apollo 11 spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral on the coast of Florida. It carried three men as its crew ~ Neil Armstrong, Edward "Buzz“ Aldrin and Michael Collins .

¡August 13, 1961 trucks rolled through the silent streets of East Berlin , At the border with West Berlin soldiers jumped out and blocked the streets with coils of barbed wire. For almost thirty years Berlin became two separate cities. It was not until 1989 that its people tore down the Wall as a first step towards re-uniting their city.

¡

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In 1950 the population of the: United States included fewer than four million resident " Hispanics" - that is. people originating from Spanish speaking countries.

About 60 percent of the United States resident Hispanics came originally from Mexico. The remainder came fro m other Latin American countries, such as Cuba and Colombia.

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The Sandinistas were supported by peasants, workers, priests and many business people. In 1979 they drove Sornoza from the country and set up a new government.

At first the United States government welcomed the Sandinistas.

In February 1990 an election was held in Nicaragua.

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As soon as the war ended fresh calls of " Yankee, go home" were heard.

But hardship and hunger continued to be wide spread in Latin America.

Reformers accused the United States of helping to keep these groups of wealthy tyrants in power. There was some truth in this.

In one way or another, both simple 'powers seemed determined to protect their own interests by controlling their smaller neighbors.

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A barricade blocked the road. The car rocked wildly as the chanting mob tried to overturn it.

In the past this has often meant that the rulers of these Latin American countries have been little more than American puppets.

The Second World war brought better times for Latin America.

All the raw materials that it could produce- copper, tin , oil and countless others-. we re used by the war time factories of the United States.

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Nixon worked out a plan to achieve this. He called it the "Vietnamization" of the war.

By March 1973. the last American soldiers had left Vietnam.

Bur the real end ofthe Vietnam War came in May 1975.

In Korea. twenty years earlier, the Americans had claimed that they had made containment work

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Songs of protest have played a part in American life for many years. These have been songs about the concerns of farmers, miners, cowboys, union members.

In the 1960s a young writer and singer named Bob Dylan used protest songs to support the anti-war movement of the time.

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Kent Stare University is in Ohio. In 1970, after riots there 1Il protest against the- war 1Il Vietnam, any further demonstrations were banned.

The Kent State tragedy showed how deeply the Vietnam War was dividing the American people.

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Vietnam is in Southeast Asia.

Once: it was ruled by Prance. But in 95 the French were driven out by the soldiers of a communist leader named Ho Chi Minh.

Like Korea, Vietnam was then divided in two. Communists ruled the North J.IlJ non-communists the South

By now the United States had a new leader, President Lyndon B.Johnson. Johnson faced a difficult choice

A guerilla war like this meant that the Americans often had no enemy to strike back at.

They sprayed vast areas of countryside with deadly chemicals to destroy the Vietcong's supply trails.  ^

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1960- A filmed television programs had become an important American export. Other countries found it cheaper to buy American programs than to make their own. Soon such exported programs were being watched by viewers all over the world. One of the most popular was "I Love Lucy".

1980- Such buildings were dominating city centers all over the world. To many people they were images of late-twentieth-century modernity, yet their origins can be (faced back more than a hundred years to the American Midwest. During the 80s a number of high, narrow buildings began to rise in the center of Chicago. Similar buildings - so tall that people called them "skyscrapers"- were soon rising over ether American cities.  Architects working in the United States began to design skyscrapers whose steel skeletons were covered by outer walls - or "curtains' – of glass and metal. One of the earliest examples was Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson's Seagram Building in New York.

The American Century- The skyscrapers were gleaming symbols of a name that some historians were giving to the century even before it reached its end. The name was " The American Century."

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1947- After the Second World War the spreading of American influence was continued by a powerful new force: television. Around 170,000 American families had television sets flickering in their living rooms.

1950- Rock began as "rock-and-roll", a music that was first played. It came from the American South. And combined black blues with the country music of working class whites to produce a heavily rhythmic- "rocking"- sound that appealed especially to young people. Many of rock and roll's first stars were black performers such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

The Americanization of popular taste and habits was not restricted to entertaiment. The growing popularity of hamburgers, fried chicken and other easily prepared "fast food" spread American eating habits all over the world. Blue jeans and T-shirts Americanized the dress 01people on every continent. And supermarkets Americanized the everyday experience of shopping for millions.}

In the 1956- The unchallenged "King" of rock-and-roll was a young southern white named Elvis Presley, his recordings were at the top of the American popularity list- the "hit parade"- every week from August to December. By the end of the decade he had become an international superstar. To rock-and-roll enthusiasts, Presley came to symbolize a new culture of youth. Among other things, this culture developed its own vocabulary, Ways of dressing, even hair styles and significantly behavior.

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¡The United States and the Soviet Union became deeply suspicious of one another. People began to speak of a "Cold War“ between them. Although the two countries were not actually fighting, they were always quarreling.

¡By then containment was being tested in Asia also. The test was taking place in Korea. Before the Second World War, Korea had been ruled by japan. When Japan surrendered in 1945. the north of Korea was occupied by Soviet forces and the south by Americans.

¡In 1948 the occupation of Korea ended. The Soviet army left behind a communist government in the north and the Americans set up a government friendly to themselves in the south.

¡The Korean War dragged on for another two and a half years. It ended at last in July 1953. One reason it ended was the death of Stalin. Who had been encouraging the Chinese to fight on.

¡The birth of NATO. In 1949 Truman invited most of its nation s to join the United States in setting up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This was an alliance of nations who agreed to support one another against threats from the Russians and set up combined armed forces to do this. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington in April 1949.

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¡The United Stares was the strongest country on earth in 1945 . Its factories produced half the world 's manufactured goods. h had the world's biggest air force and navy. Ami it was the only nation armed with atomic bombs.

¡The Americans and the Russians had fought Hitler's Germany together as allies. Hut friendship between them barely lasted the war out.  The Russian dictator, Stalin. knew that many Americans bared the Soviet Union 's communist way o f life.

¡The division of Germany. When the fighting III Europe ended in the spring of 1945, soldiers from the main Allied powers- United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France - each occupied one of four zones into which Germany was divided.

¡The new American President , Truman , was just as suspicious of the Soviet Union. lie suspected that Stalin's actions in eastern Europe were the first steps in a plan to convert the world to communism.

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1940- Ten million of the country's total black population of thirteen million still lived III the southern United States. Most of them in great poverty. (1970) the country's total black population was now about twenty-four million and twelve million lived outside the South. Many whites, including Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the President. The system was changed. On December I, 1941, the American .army and air force opened all types of positions to qualified blacks. Six months later the navy and the Marine Corps did the same.

1941- The Civil Rights Act became the law of the land. Many Americans hoped that its passing would mark the beginning of a new age of racial harmony and friendship in the United States. They were disappointed. The racial difficulties of the United States were too deep-rooted to be solved by simple alterations in the law, or by demonstration sand marches.

1965- The streets of Watts, a black ghetto in Los Angeles, became a battlefield, for six days police and rioters fought among burning cars and buildings. A large area was burned out .Thirty-four people were killed and over a thousand were injured the

I970s 1980s - Most blacks decided that voting was a more effective way to Improve their position. Their idea was to elect blacks to positions of power- as city councilors, as mayors of cities, as members of Congress. Jesse Jackson, a former assistant of Martin Luther King’s, became the chief spokesman for this idea.

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1973- Arab- Israeli war international oil prices rose steeply. These oil-price increases caused general

Inflation.

1974- Nixon was accused of being involved in an illegal plan to discredit his political opponents; called the "Watergate Affair”. Congress threatened to put him on “trial-impeach" him – for misusing his powers. To avoid this. Nixon resigned as President. Nixon was followed as President first by General Ford.

1977- Jimmy Carter (1977-81) Ford not Carter won much success or popularity as President. One reason for this was that both found it difficult to control inflation. The United States now imported lots of oil.

1980- Americans elected a President they hoped would make a better job of running the country. He was a former film actor named Ronald Reagan (Republican). Reagan was determined to make the United States stronger than its old rival, the Soviet Union. He spent many millions of dollars on developing powerful new missiles and on research into weapons to knock out enemy missiles from space, helped more Americans to find jobs. Businessmen made bigger profits Most Americans.

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1964- Civil Rights Act.

1968- American people were bitterly divided, any blamed Johnson for the country's problems. He became so unpopular that he decided not even to try to get re-elected. In 1969 he gave up the Presidency and retired.

1969- Richard Nixon (1969-74) Republican president was elected to take Johnson's place as President he was much less interested than Kennedy and Johnson in helping the poor. The government was paying out more than enough money on welfare schemes already, he said. He believed that people should overcome hardship by their own efforts.

1972- American people re-elected Nixon, the main reason for this was that by then he was close to getting the United States out of the hated war in Vietnam. A cease-fi re was finally signed in January 1973. Arrangements were made for all American fighting men to come home. 1972, police in Washington arrested five burglars. They caught the burglars inside the Democratic Party's national head quarter in the Watergate office building, Journalists on the Washington post newspaper started to look into the burglary, they discovered that the burglars had been paid to steal information to discredit President Nixon’s Democratic opponents.

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1940 (1940s – 50s) - Anxious year for Americans, Despite their prosperity, they were worried by fears of war. The nation they feared was the Soviet Union (President Truman and President Eisenhower believed that the Soviet Union's communist way of running a country was cruel and wrong.

1945- End of Second World War: Americans were the only people in the world that the Second World War had made better off.

* President Truman (1945- 53) leads.

1947- The value of Americans wages in buying power- their “real incomes” as this is called-more than doubled. Americans bought more houses, cars, television sets and consumer goods of every kind.

* President Eisenhower (1953 -61) leads.

1949- People received two unpleasant surprises: Communist rulers won control of China and the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb.

1950- North Korea invaded South Korea and the Americans fears were stronger. Joseph McCarthy (politician) used their fears to win fame and power for himself. He starred what came to be called a "witch hum" - a search for people he could blame for the supposed threats to the United States, accused all kinds of people government officials. Scientists famous entertainers - of secretly working for the Soviet Union

1960- The 55 percent of all families owned washing machines. 75 percent owned cars, 90 percent had television sets and nearly all had refrigerators.

1961- John F. Kennedy (1961- 3) was elected. Kennedy told the American people that they were facing a “new frontier;" with both opportunities and problems. One big problem in their own country was poverty, although most Americans were well-off millions of others were too poor to lead decent lives.

1963- John F. Kennedy dies and is replaced by Lyndon B. Johnson (1963 - 9) He had spent years as a member of Congress, making political friends and winning influence there, one of his first action was to persuade Congress to pass Kennedy's plan to Improve the position of American blacks.

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On a cold, Saturday in Much 1933. Franklin D. Roosevelt roo k the oarh as President of the United States. For J hundred days. from March 8 to June 16 he scm Congress a flood ofproposals for new laws. The Amcrrcan people had asked for action. In the "Hundred Days" Roosevelt g;tvc it [0 them.
Roosevelt helped industrial workers in orhcr ways. In 1935 he persuaded Congress to pass a law to proteJ:t their right tojoin labor unions. He hoped this would give workers J bcrrer chance to bargain with employers.
Hy 1939, despite the New Deal. ten million American workers again had nojobs. Then. in September 1939. Hitler's armies marched into Poland. The Second World War began. The United States quickly became the main supplier of \·veapons to the countries fighting Hitler- what Roosevelt described as "the arsenal ofdemocracy." American factories began working all day and all night.

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Most Americans wanted to keep out ofthe war. T he)' saw it as J purdy Eu ropean affair that was not the-ir concern. When President Wilson said that they should be "impartial in thought as well as in action." most people were ready to aguilt with him.
In the autumn of1916 American voters re-elected Wilson 3S President. mainly because he had kept them our of rhc wa r. lnjanuarv 1917. Wilson made a speech to Congress. In it he appealed to the warring narious ofEurope to settle their differences and make "a peace without victory.'·111is. he said, was the only kind ofpeact'" that could last.
In August )<J18, the Allied armies coumer-anacked. The German armies were driven back towards their own frontiers.
ll yJanuary 1919, President Wilson was in Europe. He was there ro help to work out a lX'acetreaty. He was greeted by cheering crowds in the Allied capitals and spoken ofas " Wilson theJust."

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*In 1967 Presiden Ulysses S. Grant travel to Philadelphia to open ,1 special exhibition. The

*Exhibition was called the Centellnial Exposition.

*The main attraction of till' Centennial Exposition was till' Machinery Hall. This was a big wooden building that covered more than twelve acres.

*At the lillll' o f the Ce ntennial Exposition. rhc United

*Stutes was still mainly a fanning country. But in the

*years that followed, American industries grew quickly .The production of coal and iron grew especially fast.

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From 1895 onwards feelings of this kind were focused mo re and more upon Cuba, which lay only ninety miles from the American coast. By 1898 many Americans felr that the United Stares should do something to help the Cubans.
The Philippines became an independent coum ry in 1946. ln 1l,l53 Puerto Rico became self-governing. but continued to be closely tied to the U nited Stares. In 1959 I Iawaii was admincd as the fiftieth state ofthe Union.
It did so many times. In 19()(j, for exam ple. President Theodore Roosevelt set up ;m American miliearv government in Cuba (Q Stop a revolution. This ran the counrrv's affairs unrill909. In 1912, 1917and 1921American marines were again sent to stop revolutions in Cuba.

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Oojanuary 25, 1898, one ofthe most modern ships ill the United States' navy steamed into the harbor ofl Iavana, Cuba. To this day. the cause ofthe explosion that destroyed the Maineremains a mystery
The man who made this claim most loudly was a newspaper owncr named William Randolph Hearst. "TIIE WARSHIP.\lA.IS EWAS SPLIT IN TWO HY AN ENEMY'S INFERNAL [hellishl MA C HINE,

In the tl:WOs, however, a new spirit started to enter American foreign policy. These were years when Britain. Prance and Germany were busy claiming colonies, foreign lands which (hey could rule and exploit. Some Americans believed that the United States should do (he same. Colonies overseas meant trade. wealth, power and prestige

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1900 the United States was the richest and most prod uctive Industrial co unrry III the world. It prod uced 31.9 percent ofthe world's coal. 34.1 percent ofirs iron and 36.7 percent of its steel.
In 1900 the average industrial worker was paid nine dollars for working fifty-nine ho urs a. week. This happened w-hcn workers at Andrew Carnegie's Homestead Steel Millm Pennsylvania went on strike in 1892. The mill's m.allagcr hired 300 "detectives" to stop the strik

In 1906 he snacked the meat-packing ind ustry in his novel TheJlIlIglt·. This gan' a horrifying description oflife among immigrant workers in the slaughter houses ofChicago. 'The JIIII,~lc revealed to many middle-class Americans a side of their nation's life that they hardly knew existed.

Th e Progressive movement found a leader in the Repu blican T heodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt became President in 1901.
A good example ofthe "square deal" in action came in 1902.

In March 1913, Wilson stood before the Capitol building in Washmgton, ehc homeof'rhc United States Congress

Wilson called his policies "The New Freedom." T hey we're put lIlto cffccr by a series of laws passed between 1913and 191 7.

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Between 1840 and 1&.l(J more immigrants than ever before arrived. Most came from Europe.
During the Civil War In the 1&lOs the federa l government encouraged more emigration from Europe. It did [his by offering land to imnugrnnts who would serve as soldiers in the Union arm ies. 13y lR65 about one in five ofthe soldiers in the armies of the North was a wartime immigrant.

Germany is ill the north . Umil about 1880 most im migrants to the United States came from these regions.

Between H:l&Jand 1925 about two million jews entered the United States. Today there arc about 3.7 millionJewish Amcricans and ehcv make up about 2.2 percent ofthe total population ofthe United States. III certain stares along the Arlannc coast the percentag(' ofJews is higher. In the state ofNew York. for example. one persoll in ten isj ewish.
In the IH(KJs, Chinese worke rs had been brought to California to build the railroads. TIlt' fact that C hinese laborers wen- willing to work for It'ss pay caused American workers to dislike rhcm.

The 1'114 system was designed mainly to reduce immig ration from southern and easte rn Europe. O IK t' it began. H7pl.'rct'rn of the immigration permits wen t to im migrants from Britain

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Nothing like Carnegie's wealth and industrial p owt'r had ever before been seen in America. By !l)l MI, as owner of halfrhc shares in the giant Carnegie Steel Corporation, his annual incom e was estimated to be over rwcnrv-rh-cc million dollar ... - this was about twenty thousand rimes mort' than the income ofrhc average American of the day.

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The main att raction oftill' Centennial Exposition was till' Machinery Hall. This was a big wooden building that covered more than twel ve acres. Inside· it visitors could St"\.' such recent American inventions as rhc typewriter and the telephone as wel l as machines for rounrlcsvother uses-for sewing grilling. screwing, pr-inting. drilli ng. pumping,

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In 1890 a religious prophet told the Sioux to dance a special dancecalled the Ghost Dance. l ie rold rhem  that it"rhey did so J great miracle would take place. Their dead warriors would conic bark to life, the buffalo would reru m and ,III rhc wh ite men would be swept awa y by a great Hood.

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The Amerindians fought back. One of their best known leaders was Sitting Bullof the Sioux. "We lived in om country in the way our fathers and our fathers' fathers lived before us and we sought trouble with no men," he said later. " But the soldiers carne in to our country and fired upon us and we fought back. Is it so bad to fight in defense of one's country and loved OIlCS ?"

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When the cowboys and homesteaders arrived on the GTe ,at Plains, Amerindian peoples like the Sioux had been roaming across them for hundreds of YCoUS . The Sioux lived by hunting the buffalo. In the early part of the nineteenth century.an estimated twelve million of these gentle, hCJ \'Y anima ls wa ndered the Great PLUllS. They moved about in herds. Sometimes these herds were so big that they stretched as far as the eye could see. The buffalo provided the Sioux with everything that they nccdcd-.food. clothing, tools, homes.

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East ofthe Mississippi, small family farms we re the usual way of cultivating the land. From the lH70s onwards farms of this sort began to spread over the Great Plains. As a boy, Hamlin Garland was taken to live on the Plains by his parents. Years later he remembered the first sight of the land that was to be Ius new home

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In 1862 Union and Confederate arrrucs were fighting some ofthe bloodiest battles ofthe Civil War. Hut that me year Congress found me to pass a law that had nothing to do with the war. T he law was called the Homestead Act.

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Very soon meat from theGrear Plains wasfeeding people III Europeas wellas theeastern United States. By 1881more than 110million poundsofAmerican beef was being shipped across the AtlanticOcean every year. Thegrass ofehcGreat Plains was earning the United States as much moneyas thegold mines ofits western mountains.

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In the I840s and 1850s thousands of white people crossed the Great Plains to reach the farms of Oregon and the gold fields of California. To them the region was not somewhere [ 0 settle an d make new homes but a place to pass through as quickly as possible. They saw it as unwelcoming and dangerous. And were happy to leave it to the Amerindians. They agreed with the mapmakers of the time, who wrote the name "Great American Desert " across the whole

area.

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In March 1848, a group of workmen was building a

sawmill beside a stream in California for a landowner

named John Sutter. O ne day the foreman ill charge of

the workers saw golden specks glittering in the

water. Picking up a handful of black gravel from the

bed of the stream, he looked more closely, It was

gold!

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The Civil War gave final answers to two questions that had divided the United States ever since it became an independent nation. It pm an end to slavery. In lR65 this was abolished everywhere ill the United States by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. And it decided finally th at the United States was one nation. whose parts co uld not be separated.

Bur the war left bitter memories. T he United States fought other wars later. but all were outside its own boundaries. The Civil War caused terrible destruction at home. All over the South cities and farms lay in ruins. And more Americans died in this war than III any other, before or since. By the time Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. the dead on both Sides totaled 630000

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On March 4, 1~61. Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office as President of the United States. Less than a mom h had passed since the formation of the Confederacy. In his inaugural address as President. Lincoln appealed to the southern states to stay in the Union. He promised that he would not interfere with slavery in any of them. UU! he warned that he would not allow them to break up the United States by seceding. Quoting from his oath of office, he hold them: " You have no oath registered in Heaven (Q destroy the government, while I have a most solemn one ( 0 'preserve. protect and defend' it."

The southern stares took no notice of Lincoln’s appeal. On April 12 Confederate guns opened fire Oil Port Sumter. a fortress in the harbor Charleston, South Carolina, that was occupied by United Slates troops. T these shots marked the beginning of the American Civil War.

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By the 1820s southern and northern politicians were arguing fiercely about whether slavery should be permitted in the new territories that were then being settled III the West.

a Republican named Abraham Lincoln. [n a series of public debates with Douglas, Lincoln said that the spread of slavery must be stopped. l Ic was willing to accept slavery III the states where it existed already. but that was all. Looking to the future of the United States he gave his listeners a warning "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe that this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

In February 1861, these eleven states announced that they were now an independent nation, the Confederate States of America, often known as the Confederacy.

The nineteenth century's bloodiest war, the American Civil War, was about to begin.