History: American History Websites

America’s first permanent colonists have been considered incompetent. But new evidence suggests that it was a drought—not indolence—that almost did them in.

In truth, massacres, disease and American Indian tribal politics are what shaped the Pilgrim-Indian alliance at the root of the holiday.

The French and Indian War was a conflict that shaped the political geography of North America.

The French and Indian War (1754-1763) is the name given to the North American theatre of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), a global conflict involving the major powers of Europe. Though war was not formally declared until 1756, armed conflict began in 1754 as disputes over land claims in the Ohio Valley lead to a series of frontier battles between the French and British.

Also known as the French and Indian War

Learn about the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, a native tribe from New England who was present at the time of the Pilgrims' arrival to the New World.

When Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory from France, he altered the shape of a nation and the course of history.

This is how the voyage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, along with a small group of volunteers also known as “The Corps of Discovery” began.

The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material associated with the War of 1812, including manuscripts, broadsides, pictures, and government documents. This guide compiles links to digital materials related to the War of 1812 that are available throughout the Library of Congress Web site.

This guide contains digital materials at the Library of Congress related to the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and its after-effects, as well as links to external websites and a selected print bibliography.

The Louisiana Purchase: Jefferson’s constitutional gamble.

Take a chronological journey through Texas history, explored through the eyes of the Alamo.

The Texas Revolution, also called War of Texas Independence, was fought from October 2, 1835, through April 21, 1836.

The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail commemorates the removal of the Cherokee and the paths that 17 Cherokee detachments followed westward. It also promotes a greater awareness of the Trail's legacy and the effects of the United States' policy of American Indian removal not only on the Cherokee, but also on other tribes, primarily the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole.

The Oregon Trail was a roughly 2,000-mile route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, which was used by hundreds of thousands of American pioneers in the mid-1800s to emigrate west. The trail was arduous and snaked through Missouri and present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and finally into Oregon.

Explore 10 key facts about one of the most gruesome episodes from the era of westward expansion.

On May 4th, 1886, a rally of anarchists and labor activists in Chicago's Haymarket Square turned deadly. An unknown assailant tossed a bomb into a throng of riot police, killing one instantly. In the chaos that erupted, seven policemen were killed, sixty injured, and civilian casualties were likely as high.

This site will deepen your understanding of late nineteenth century immigration to the United States, focusing on what it meant for the nation and what it meant for the immigrants themselves.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was approved on May 6, 1882. It was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States.

During the final years of the 1800s, industrial cities, with all the problems brought on by rapid population growth and lack of infrastructure to support the growth, occupied a special place in U.S. history. For all the problems, and there were many, the cities promoted a special bond between people and laid the foundation for the multiethnic, multicultural society that we cherish today.

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, sometimes referred to as the Great Upheaval, began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut wages for the third time in a year.

The Haymarket affair was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day, the day after police killed one and injured several workers.

The rapid advancement of mass production and transportation made life a lot faster.

In the late nineteenth century, the US Army clashed with Native Americans, and General Custer took his last stand.

After the Civil War ended in 1865, reuniting the North and South, Americans were determined to unify the United States from East to West by rail. With government investment, two corporations, the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific, engaged in a race to build the most track the fastest, one going East and one going West,and join the two lines together.

The late 19th-century United States is probably best known for the vast expansion of its industrial plant and output. At the heart of these huge increases was the mass production of goods by machines.

In the darkest days of the Great Depression, the U.S. government stepped in to assist the needy and get the economy started again. Perhaps the widest-ranging and most productive New Deal measure was the Works Progress Administration. This group provided more than $10 billion in federal funds from 1935 through the early 1940s, employing millions of people in hundreds of thousands of jobs. Here are some of the most notable projects.

"Leave me alone," seemed to be America's attitude toward the rest of the world in the 1930s.

During World War II, African American and white soldiers who were bonded on the battlefield were divided at home. The US 12th Armored Division was one of only ten US divisions during World War II that had integrated combat companies.

During the 1930s, the combination of the Great Depression and the memory of tragic losses in World War I contributed to pushing American public opinion and policy toward isolationism. Isolationists advocated non-involvement in European and Asian conflicts and non-entanglement in international politics.

Of all the droughts that have occurred in the United States, the drought events of the 1930s are widely considered to be the “drought of record” for the nation. The 1930s drought is often referred to as if it were one episode, but it was actually several distinct events occurring in such rapid succession that affected regions were not able to recover adequately before another drought began.

From March 1933 to June 1944, Roosevelt addressed the American people in some 30 speeches broadcast via radio, speaking on a variety of topics from banking to unemployment to fighting fascism in Europe. Millions of people found comfort and renewed confidence in these speeches, which became known as the “fireside chats.”

Before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, however, Americans were seriously divided over what the role of the United States in the war should be, or if it should even have a role at all. Even as the war consumed large portions of Europe and Asia in the late 1930s and early 1940s, there was no clear consensus on how the United States should respond.

The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in US history. It began in 1929 and did not abate until the end of the 1930s.

The Holocaust (1933–1945) was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators.

The New Deal is an economic policy launched by Franklin D. Roosevelt to end the Great Depression. Americans were battered by 25% unemployment, Dust Bowl droughts, and four waves of bank failures. They welcomed the government's rescue. FDR proposed the New Deal to reverse the downward economic spiral. The goals were relief, recovery, and reform for those who were hardest hit.

In late October 1929 the stock market crashed, wiping out 40 percent of the paper values of common stock. When the stock market crashed in 1929, it didn’t happen on a single day. Instead, the stock market continued to plummet over the course of a few days setting in motion one of the most devastating periods in the history of the United States.

That year, the United States' War Department published Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain to help soldiers, sailors and airmen – many of whom had never travelled abroad before – adjust to life in a new country.
The following are some of the tips offered in Instructions for American Servicemen to help the troops become more 'acquainted with the British, their country, and their ways'.

The United States remained neutral during the first two years of World War II, from September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, to December 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. As the Axis forces expanded their territorial holdings in Europe and Asia, Americans debated whether to aid the Allied powers economically or militarily.

An epic film documents the experiences of the citizen soldier and his community.

Through stone architecture and bronze sculptures, the World War II Memorial recognizes the ways Americans served, honors those who fell, and recognizes the victory they achieved to restore freedom and end tyranny around the globe.

The National WWII Museum tells the story of the American experience in the war that changed the world—why it was fought, how it was won, and what it means today—so that all generations will understand the price of freedom and be inspired by what they learn.

Information and further reading about Charters of Freedom documents - the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School presents a compilation of primary source documents from 1764 to 1783 associated with the American Revolution.

"This is the story of the American Revolution and the loss of Britain's North American colonies during the eighteenth century." This site contains American Revolution articles, essays and images from the British Library collection.

Biographical profiles of key figures in the American Revolution.

A summary of the War of Independence as seen from a British perspecfive.

The Massachusetts Historical Society's online exhibit on the Battle of Bunker Hill. The exhibit presents personal accounts and eyewitness descriptions of the battle, along with contemporary maps, drawings, engravings, broadsides, and artifacts, either preserved by the participants or found on the battlefield.

Valley Forge is the location of the 1777-1778 winter encampment of the Continental Army under General George Washington. Here the Continental Army, a collection of disparate colonial militias supported by hundreds of camp followers and allies, emerged under Washington’s leadership as a cohesive and disciplined fighting force.

Located in the heart of Historic Philadelphia, the Museum explores the dramatic, surprising story of the American Revolution and its enduring legacy.

Test your knowledge about the American Revolution, and see if you can navigate your way to independence. Every correct answer gets you closer to liberty!

This online exhibit from the Sir Henry Clinton Collection at the Clements Library, University of Michigan, examines the everyday intelligence operations of both the British and American armies. Many of the letters highlighted in this digital exhibit were pivotal to the successes and failures of sieges, battles, and surprise attacks. The exhibit includes a gallery of letters, a timeline, biographical information, stories, and a variety of educational resources.

The future American president represented Redcoats accused of murdering American patriots in an incident that helped spark the Revolution.

The site was created by the Northern Illinois University and presents materials from Lincoln’s life 1830-1861. You can read the Lincoln-Douglas debates and search Lincoln’s writings. You can also listen to songs from this period.

The issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined from the onset of the Civil War. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Nearly 40,000 black soldiers died over the course of the war—30,000 of infection or disease.

The sociology of the American Civil War can be viewed through a medium that was coming of age in the middle of the 19th century: photography. The National Archives and Records Administration makes available on-line over 6,000 digitized images from the Civil War.

A collection of portraits, photographs, newspaper illustrations and paintings of different aspects of the Civil War.

Developed by Duke University. On-line archival collections featuring scanned pages and texts of the writings of women during the American Civil War.

Lyrics and sound files of songs of the Confederacy and Union, as well as popular music of the 1860s.

This site engages students with activities related to archival images and footage, and a thorough overview of the war, including maps, historical documents and biographies. Also includes classroom activities and lessons for teachers.

Dr. Anne Sarah Rubin designed this digital project around her work on Sherman’s 1864 March to the Sea. Digital maps and videos highlight the civilian, military, tourism, and fictional accounts of the March.

A concise time line, with photographs from the Library of Congress’s American Memory Web site.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history.

The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US.

The United States entered the twentieth century during a period of sweeping change. In fact, change and transformation were the norm in the first decade of what has since become known as the "American Century." The United States came to be the leading economic and military power in the world. American democracy became the model for political reform in countries around the world.

In the early 20th century, America was flexing its economic and political muscle on the international stage. The era was defined by the temperance movement, Progressive-era activism, the sinking of the Titanic and World War I.

San Francisco earthquake of 1906, major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 that occurred on April 18, 1906, at 5:12 AM off the northern California coast.

A German U-boat torpedoed the British-owned steamship Lusitania, killing 1,195 people including 128 Americans, on May 7, 1915. The disaster set off a chain of events that led to the U.S. entering World War I.

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, located at 97 and 103 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, is a National Historic Site. The Museum's two historical tenement buildings were home to an estimated 15,000 people, from over 20 nations, between 1863 and 2011.

Prohibition was intended to improve, even to ennoble, the lives of all Americans, to protect individuals, families, and society at large from the devastating effects of alcohol abuse. But the enshrining of a faith-driven moral code in the Constitution paradoxically caused millions of Americans to rethink their definition of morality. Follow this timeline to discover the key events leading up to, and during, this unique period in American history.

Prohibition was a nationwide ban on the sale and import of alcoholic beverages that lasted from 1920 to 1933.

It's one of the most infamous ships of all time, but what do we actually know about the RMS Titanic?

On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917.

The Korean War provided the first confrontation between two nuclear powers. And as the war progressed the conflict demonstrated how difficult it would be for either side to use atomic bombs decisively in battle.

The Korean War (1950-1953) was a military conflict between the South Korean government supported by the United Nations (with the US in the lead), and the communist government in the North supported by China and the Soviet Union. It is often described as an important episode in the early Cold War, and as the first proxy war between the “Free World” and the Eastern bloc.

The post-World War II United States went through a period of unprecedented economic prosperity for many white Americans that coincided with black Americans’ intensifying the struggle for civil rights and economic justice.

Explore this time period in American history through art.

At the end of the Second World War, Korea – which had formerly been occupied by the Japanese – was divided along the 38th Parallel. This was an internal border between North and South Korea based on a circle of latitude.

On 26 June 1948, Western allies started a massive airlift to counter the Berlin blockade imposed by the Soviet regime.