Print the Legend

The 1620s were a time of political and religious turmoil in England. The protracted struggle for supremacy between monarch and Parliament reached new heights in 1629, when King Charles I disbanded the rival body and ruled alone for 11 years. Official pressure was also applied on religious dissenters, notably the the Pilgrims and the Puritans. Some were imprisoned for their nonconformist views and others lost lucrative official positions. Time to find a New World in which to build a "City Upon a Hill."

The New World wasn't exactly new. Native Americans, for thousands of years, prospered before European contact. Spain possessed much of South America, while France acquired the central portions of North America. On May 14, 1607, a group of roughly 100 British members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River. Famine, disease and conflict with local Native American tribes in the first two years brought this Atlantic coastal colony to the brink of failure before the arrival of a new group of settlers and supplies in 1610.

Something was terribly wrong in America in the 1970s. The United States was supposed to be a superpower, yet American forces proved powerless to stop a tiny guerrilla force in Vietnam. Support for Israel in the Middle East led to a rash of terrorism against American citizens traveling abroad, as well a punitive oil embargo that stifled the economy and forced American motorists to wait hours for their next tank of gasoline. At home, the news was no better. The worst political scandal in United States history forced a president to resign before facing certain impeachment. But all was saved - not by President Jimmy Carter, but by disco music, mood rings, and pet rocks.

By November 1967, the number of American troops in Vietnam was approaching 500,000, and U.S. casualties had reached 15,058 killed and 109,527 wounded. As the war stretched on, some soldiers came to mistrust the government’s reasons for keeping them there, as well as Washington’s repeated claims that the war was being won. Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home front turned against the war as well. In October 1967, some 35,000 demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protests outside the Pentagon. Opponents of the war argued that civilians, not enemy combatants, were the primary victims and that the United States was supporting a corrupt dictatorship in Saigon. Amid this turbulent time, a counterculture of flower power was also emerging, giving way to sex, drugs, and scores of unforgettable music.

The Vietnam War was a long, costly and divisive conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The conflict was intensified by the ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (including over 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War, and more than half of the dead were Vietnamese civilians. Opposition to the war in the United States bitterly divided Americans, even after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. Communist forces ended the war by seizing control of South Vietnam in 1975, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year.

At the beginning of the 1960s, many Americans believed they were standing at the dawn of a golden age - Camelot if you will. On January 20, 1961, the handsome and charismatic John F. Kennedy became president of the United States. His New Frontier confidence would place a man on the moon, while pushing back Communism in Cuba. By 1968, one of the most turbulent years in American history, it seemed that the nation was falling apart under President Lyndon Johnson. From JFK's Cuban Missile Crisis to that fateful day in Dallas, LBJ's Great Society to landing on the moon by decade's end - community and consensus lay in tatters.

Despite making some gains, blacks still experienced blatant prejudice in their daily lives. On February 1, 1960, four college students took a stand against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina when they refused to leave a Woolworth’s lunch counter without being served. Over the next several days, hundreds of people joined their cause. After some were arrested and charged with trespassing, protestors launched a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the owners caved and the original four students were finally served at the Woolworth’s lunch counter where they’d first stood their ground. From there, the 1960s saw the integration of the University of Mississippi, the March on Washington and Selma, Freedom Riders, and growth of two ideologies: Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

The American civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against blacks—they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, African Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them. They, along with many whites, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades. Using a bus boycott and integration of public schools by armed guard, the 1950s set the stage for the following decade of monumental change.

In the prosperous years after World War II, American society endured an era of unprecedented consumerism, conformity and artistic expression. The 1950s, an era of diners, television, and the inception of rock 'n' roll, also witnessed the beginnings of the civil rights movement. In addition, paranoia about the communist threat at home and abroad characterized the decade far beyond what was depicted in episodes of Happy Days or the musical Grease.

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought together as allies against the Axis powers. However, the relationship between the two nations was a tense one. Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and concerned about Russian leader Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical, blood-thirsty rule of his own country. For their part, the Soviets resented the Americans’ decades-long refusal to treat the USSR as a legitimate part of the international community as well as their delayed entry into World War II, which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Russians. After the war ended, these grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of mutual distrust and enmity. Postwar Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe fueled many Americans’ fears of a Russian plan to control the world. Meanwhile, the USSR came to resent what they perceived as American officials’ bellicose rhetoric, arms buildup and interventionist approach to international relations. In such a hostile atmosphere, no single party was entirely to blame for the Cold War; in fact, some historians believe it was inevitable.

On June 6, 1944 – observed as “D-Day” - the Allied began a massive invasion of Europe, landing 156,000 British, Canadian and American soldiers on the beaches of Normandy, France. In response, Hitler poured all the remaining strength of his army into the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive of the war. Meanwhile in the Pacific, heavy casualties sustained in the campaigns at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and fears of the even costlier land invasion of Japan led Truman to authorize the use of a new and devastating weapon – the atomic bomb – on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Second World War was over, but at a tremendous cost to not only "The Greatest Generation," but the entire world.

With Britain facing Germany in Europe, the United States was the only nation capable of combating Japanese aggression, which by late 1941 included an expansion of its ongoing war with China and the seizure of European colonial holdings in the Far East. On December 7, 1941, 360 Japanese aircraft attacked the major U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii taking the Americans completely by surprise and claiming the lives of more than 2,300 troops. The attack on Pearl Harbor served to unify American public opinion in favor of entering World War II, and on December 8 Congress declared war on Japan. Germany and the other Axis Powers promptly declared war on the United States. At home, the United States rallied in support of the war through production, war bonds, and rationing - while scores of troops landed in North Africa en route to Italy.

The instability created in Europe by the First World War (1914-18) set the stage for another international conflict - World War II, which broke out two decades later and would prove even more devastating. Rising to power in an economically and politically unstable Germany, Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi Party) rearmed the nation and signed strategic treaties with Italy and Japan to further his ambitions of world domination. Hitler’s invasion of Poland in September 1939 drove Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany, and World War II had begun. But the United States was yet again, put into a difficult position - should they join the war? Echoing Woodrow Wilson, President Franklin D. Roosevelt does all he can to "keep us out of war."

The New Deal was a series of programs and projects instituted during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that aimed to restore prosperity to Americans. When Roosevelt took office in 1933, he acted swiftly to stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering. Over the next eight years, the government instituted a series of experimental New Deal projects and programs, such as the CCC, the WPA, the TVA, the SEC and others, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity and prosperity to many Americans. Roosevelt’s New Deal fundamentally and permanently changed the federal government’s relationship to U.S. citizens.

The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed.

The Roaring 20s conjures up images of happy people dancing the Charleston, listening to jazz in Harlem nightclubs, and drinking bathtub gin. In many ways this was a decade dominated by optimism, as people enjoyed the conveniences that technology brought into their lives. Yet the 1920s were also marked by some troubling trends and events, and not everybody enjoyed the "Coolidge Prosperity." There was a resurgence of racism in the Jim Crow South, the trend of nativism flourished, and the country was divided over the role of the Bible in public schools. It's no wonder that writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis were part of a Lost Generation, looking for some meaning in 20th century modernity.

The war was over and many Americans spent the 1920s in a great mood. Investors flocked to a rising stock market. Companies launched brand-new, cutting-edge products, like radios and washing machines. Exuberant Americans kicked up their heels to jazz music, tried crazy stunts, and supported a black market in liquor after Prohibition. A popular expression of the time asked, “What will they think of next?” Bootleggers, flappers, bathtub gin - life is roaring and the music is hot, and the whole country is dancing to the beat of the Charleston. Well, maybe not the whole country.

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded. In Paris the following year, a treaty would be signed, but not all in Europe - or the United States for that matter approved. Selling his own plan would be President Wilson's demise, as America turned its eyes from international affairs back to the homefront.

On June 26, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. But not everyone wanted to join. It took a large propaganda effort and a draft to fill the ranks. It worked. The entrance of America’s well-supplied forces into the conflict marked a major turning point in the war and helped the Allies to victory. When the war finally ended, on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50,000 of them had lost their lives.

During the summer of 1914, the tensions in Europe that had been growing for many years culminated with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian terrorist organization. Within less than a month, two coalitions emerged—the Central Powers and the Allied Powers. As war raged in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson argued that the United States should remain neutral in this conflict. But that neutrality was short-lived, after a series of events tested the President and a nation. How far can the United States be pushed, before it pushes back?

The Age of American isolationism was quickly replaced with the Age of American imperialism, which saw the expansion of the United States’ economic, political, and cultural influence beyond its borders during the final decades of the 19th century through the beginning of World War I. The annexation of Hawaii and the Spanish-American War occurred during this time, as did the building of the Panama Canal and exertion of U.S. control over places such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, and the Philippines. Manifest Destiny was no longer a mantra that ended in California. Westward expansion meant the islands of the Pacific to Asia, the Caribbean to Central America.

When President McKinley was assassinated and Theodore Roosevelt took office in 1901, progressivism became a powerful national movement. During his tenure as president, Roosevelt was a loud and effective advocate for “trust-busting,” the breaking up of enormous monopolies that had controlled prices and prevented competition. He also advocated for fair trade and pro-labor laws, including a decreased workweek, child labor restrictions, and workplace safety rules. Roosevelt, returning power to the White House not seen since Abraham Lincoln, set the stage for William H. Taft and Woodrow Wilson to continue the legacy of progressivism - that is, until World War I broke out.

Progressivism responded to the economic and social problems of a rapidly industrializing America at the turn of the 20th century. What began as a social movement, later grew into a political movement, largely out of its predecessor, the Populist movement. Progressives lived mainly in the cities, were college educated, and believed that government could be a tool for change. They concentrated on exposing the evils of corporate greed, combating fear of immigrants, and urging Americans to think hard about what democracy meant. It also gave a voice to an emerging African American civil rights movement.

Inspired by the ideology of Manifest Destiny, which held that European Americans were divinely ordained to settle the whole of the North American continent, white settlers pushed ever further westward towards the Pacific. As they did so, they increasingly came into violent conflict with Native American Indians over land and natural resources, especially after the discovery of gold in western territories sparked the Gold Rush. Prospective gold-diggers flooded into the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest, clashing—sometimes violently—with the Native Americans they encountered there. By 1890, the U.S. Census officially declared the frontier "closed."

Throughout the 1880s, local political action groups known as Farmers' Alliances grew rapidly among Middle Westerners and Southerners, who were discontented because of crop failures, falling prices, and poor marketing and debt. Although it won some significant regional victories, the alliances generally proved politically ineffective on a national scale - until the Populist Party of 1892. While trying to broaden their base to include labor and other groups, the Populists remained almost entirely agrarian-oriented. They demanded the unlimited coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, government ownership of the railroads, a tariff for revenue only, and the direct election of U.S. Senators. And while their efforts did not win the White House, their legacy lasted into the 20th Century - through Progressives.

The Wild West, the American frontier, holds a special place in American history. Western films depict it as a place where the rules didn't apply, and where scores were settled with gun-slinging and shootouts. Early 20th Century Historian Frederick Jackson Turner argued that the frontier was not just a place, but a “process” that transformed people into the quintessential American. If settlers weren’t chasing gold, they were rounding-up cattle, or tilling open farmlands. Under the facade that Hollywood created, a life that was harsh and unforgiving.

Innovations of the Gilded Age helped usher in modern America. Urbanization and technological creativity led to many engineering advances such as bridges and canals, elevators and skyscrapers, trolley lines and subways. But while the middle and upper classes enjoyed the allure of city life, little changed for the poor - particularly immigrants from Europe. Horrific living conditions, high crime rates and a pitiable existence lay below the gilded surface that was the American city. This, amid rampant corruption in city politics and an era of forgotten U.S. Presidents.

In the mid-19th century, the vast majority of American work was still done on the farm. By the turn of the 20th century, the United States economy revolved around the factory. The labor movement in the United States grew out of the need to protect the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired.

The late 19th Century was met with unprecedented levels of wealth. Railroads and soon, telephone lines, stretched across the country, creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs and cheaper goods for consumers. But a nation that had long viewed itself in idyllic terms, as a nation of small farmers and craftsmen, confronted the emergence of a society increasingly divided between the haves and the have-nots. Some Americans celebrated the new wealth, and others lamented it. All could agree that profound changes were taking place in the country.

Beginning in the early 1870s, railroad construction in the United States increased dramatically. Prior to 1871, approximately 45,000 miles of track had been laid. Between 1871 and 1900, another 170,000 miles were added to the nation's growing railroad system. Much of the growth can be attributed to the building of the transcontinental railroads.