This is just a brief survey of the peopling and political development of the disparate regions that now form the USA
First peoples
The true pioneers of America, the first settlers to enter the pristine continent, are thought to have been nomadic
mammoth-hunters
from Siberia. Around 14,000 years ago, they gradually worked their way into Alaska, along the "
...
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European contacts
The greatest seafarers of early medieval Europe, the
Vikings
, are known to have established a colony in Greenland around 982 AD. Under the energetic leadership of Erik the Red, this became a base for voyages of exploration and even...
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The growth of the colonies
The great rivalry between the English and the Spanish in the late sixteenth century extended right around the world. Freebooting English adventurers-cum-pirates contested Spanish hegemony along both coasts of North America. Sir Francis Drake staked a...
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The American Revolution
The American colonies prospered during the
eighteenth century
, with the cities of Boston, New York and
Philadelphia
in particular becoming home to a wealthy, highly educated and highly articulate middle class. Frustration began to...
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The nineteenth century
In its first century, the territories and population of the new
United States of America
expanded at a phenomenal rate. The white population of North America in 1800 stood at around five million, and there were another one million African...
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The twentieth century
It may not have been apparent to everyone at the time, but the first few years of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence of many of the features that came to characterize modern America. In 1903 alone, Wilbur and Orville Wright achieved the first...
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