Milestones in American History

The beginnings

1492	'The Conquest of Paradise' - Christopher Columbus landed on the West Indies
1620	the Pilgrim Fathers - 102 persons - (Mayflower Compound) landed in present-day Massachusetts ('Plimoth Plantation')
1692	The Salem (Mass.) 'witch-hunt' (=> Arthur Miller The Crucible)
Dec. 1773	Boston Tea Party: angry crowds throw tea from a British ship into the sea
1775	Paul Revere's Midnight Ride - goldsmith and spy for the colonial army, he was the one to warn the colonists of the approaching British troups, led to the first major battle between the colonists and the British in Lexington (Mass.)
1775-82	American War of Independence (or Revolution)
1776 July 4th	Declaration of Independence (mainly written by Thomas Jefferson)
1787	The American Constitution
1789-97	George Washington, first President of the USA, military leader of the War of Independence (or Revolution)
1801-09	Thomas Jefferson, third President and author of the 'Declaration of Independence'
1861-1865	Abraham Lincoln (Rep.) President

• main article: Road to Independence

The Civil War

• main article: Civil Rights Movement/Slavery and Civil War

Native Americans

THE FATE OF THE NATIVE AMERICANS

1830	President Jackson's 'Indian Removal Act': the US government buys land from the Indians (3 cents per acre) and gives them reservations: Gold has been found on Indian ground
1838	The Cherokees, who resist the Act, are rounded up by 7000 soldiers and driven westward to Oklahoma: 'Trail of tears' (4000 Indians died).
1851	Chief Little Crow sells Dakota to the white man. He was drunken. Forts are built along the Bozeman Trail, which crosses the land of the Sioux. After victorious battles of the Sioux tribes (chief Red Cloud)
1868	Treaty of Fort Laramie: No white man allowed to settle in the Sioux and Cheyenne reservations (Dakota=Indian word for friend). But
1870s	Gold found in the Black Hills, the holy mountains of the Indians: more and more people come to dig for gold - a railway is built through Sioux land - buffalo are killed in large numbers (Buffalo Bill!)
1876 (June, 26)	Battle at Little Big Horn River: Indians beat General Custer's Seventh Cavalry, their greatest victory ever. But during the following years many Sioux and Cheyenne give up and flee to Canada.
1890	Sioux chief Sitting Bull arrested and murdered, many of his people flee to Wounded Knee Creek, where their camp is surrounded by troups. The Indians are disarmed, their tepees searched for knives and axes, then suddenly, some say accidentally, the sound of a gunshot is heard, which causes the soldiers to shoot and about 350 Indians get killed.
	By this time only 200 000 Indians were left (from more than a million in the 17th century) and no more buffalo (75 millions in 1830); between 1790 and 1891 2283 US soldiers were killed and 400 000 Indians. More than 370 treaties between the US government and the Indian tribes were broken.

• The Trail of Broken Treaties Caravan - an American Indian Movement (AIM) protest in 1972

20th century

1901-1909	Theodore Roosevelt (Rep.)
1913-1921	Wodrow Wilson (Dem.)
1917	The USA join World War I
1933-45	F.D.Roosevelt (Dem.) - from the 'New Deal' (1933) to the 'Invasion' (1944)
1929 (Oct 29th)	Black Friday: Breakdown of stock market
1945-53	H.S.Truman (Dem.), Hiroshima
1953-1961	D.D.('I like Ike') Eisenhower (Rep.), General of World War II 1954 The Supreme Court orders every state to desegregate its schools 1956 The Supreme Court declares segregation on public buses unconstitutional
1961-1963	(assassinated) John F.Kennedy (Dem.)
1963-1969	Lyndon B. Johnson, former Vice-President
1960s	Civil Rights Movement: 1963 Washington: largest protest march in US history so far - 250 000 protesters - M.L.King: I have a dream 1964 Congress passes a Civil Rights Law which ends discrimination in hotels, restaurants and important fields of employment 1968 M.L.King assassinated - riots all over the States
1969 (July 20th)	First man on the moon (Neill Armstrong)
1969-1974	Richard ('Tricky Dick') Nixon (Rep.) forced to resign to avoid impeachment because of 'Watergate' (1972), ended the Vietnam War in 1974
1974	Gerald Ford (Rep.) - Vice-President
1977-81	Jimmy Carter (Dem.) Peanuts farmer from the South
1981-1989	Ronald Reagan (Rep.) former actor - mostly westerners
1989 - 1993	George Bush (Rep.) - former Vice-President 1990 First Gulf War
1993 - 2001	Bill Clinton (Dem.) - former Governor of Arkansas
2001 - 2009	George W. Bush (Rep.)
2009 - 2017	Barack Obama (Dem.)
2007 - ...	Donald Trump (Rep.)
	... to be continued ...

See also

• Amerikanische Revolution
• Indianer
• USA