Anglo-Saxon/Scottish History
English and Scots-Irish settlers formed the backbone of the early United States. They were largely responsible for winning the nation's independence and for drafting the Constitution. For centuries they were dominant in American society, both in relation to American Indians, blacks, and compared to other whites.
Recommended Reading
- Joyce Lee Malcolm - To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right
- Theodore W. Allen - The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1: Racial Oppression and Social Control
- James Horn - A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America
- James Webb - Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America
- David S. Reynolds - Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson (American History)
- Dorothy Brown - Setting a Course: American Women in the 1920s (American Women in the Twentieth Century)
- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. - The Age of Jackson (Back Bay Books (Series))
Why Was the Jamestown Colony Such a Mess?
While it lives on in American history and folklore, the actual operation of the colony was a fiasco. Were the colonists merely incompetent, or is there more to the story?
Timeline
- 1607 - Jamestown is founded by the Virginia Company of London as a profit-making venture.
- 1620 - Plymouth Colony founded by the Mayflower pilgrims, who missed their target of Virginia by a wide margin.
- 1773 - The Boston Tea Party occurs, and the British place Massachusetts under military rule.
- 1775 - First shots of the Revolutionary War are fired at Lexington and Concord, forcing a British withdrawal.
- 1776 - The Declaration of Independence is signed on July 4th and sent to King George.
- 1786 - Shays' Rebellion breaks out in Massachusetts.
- 1787 - The Constitutional Convention is held in Philadelphia, resulting in the current United States Constitution.
- 1812-1815 - The War of 1812 is fought, ending with the United States intact. The Star Spangled Banner is written by Francis Scott Key.
- 1849 - A gold rush begins in California, resulting in the first large-scale settlement of the west coast by Americans.
- 1865 - General Robert E. Lee surrenders his army on April 9th at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the Civil War.
- 1866 - The Ku Klux Klan and other paramilitary groups are formed to resist Reconstruction.
- 1903 - The Wright Brothers successfully fly their first airplane in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
- 1935-1938 - Over 250,000 migrants flee the South (and Oklahoma in particular) for California, and soon pick up the derisive nickname of "Okies".
- 1956 - Elvis Presley cements his rising musical fame with a controversial appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
- 2000 - The disputed Presidential Election comes down to Florida, is eventually decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
ERAS:
Pre-Contact - Colonial - Revolutionary - Antebellum - Civil War - Gilded Age - Depression/World War II - Modern
PEOPLE:
American Indian - Anglo/Scottish - Black - Hispanic - Women - Asian - LGBT - Irish - Jewish - Children
