USA - Natural History

Many years before Christopher Columbus made his trip to the mainland America in 1492, indigenous peoples, including Alaska Natives, had migrated from Asia. Some of these developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture and state-level societies. After Europeans began settling the Americas, several millions of indigenous Americans died from epidemics of imported diseases such as smallpox.

In 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon landed in Florida. Spanish settlements were followed by ones in the present-day southwestern US that drew thousands through Mexico. French fur traders established outposts around the Great Lakes. The first successful English settlements were from 1607 to 1628 in Virginia and Massachusetts, respectively. By 1634 New England had been settled by some 10,000 puritans and some 50,000 convicts were shipped to Britain’s American colonies. Inhabitants were scarce.

In 1674, the Dutch ceded their American territory to England; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York. Many new immigrants, especially to the South, were indentured servants. By the turn of the century, African slaves were becoming the primary source of bonded labor. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the 13 British colonies that would become the United States of America were established. All legalized African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonial population grew rapidly. By 1770, the 13 colonies had a population of 2.6 million.

On July 4, 1776, they issued the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their right to self-determination and their establishment of a cooperative union. The current United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. The Bill of Rights, comprising 10 constitutional amendments guaranteeing fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratified in 1791.

Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over states’ rights and the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North’s victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of legal slavery in the United States. By the 1870s, the national economy was the world’s largest.

The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the country’s status as a military power. It emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union left the United States of America as the sole superpower. The 2010 population estimate is in excess of 310 million.