The Periods

Fourteen chapters of American history. The boundaries are guides, not walls — many entries belong to more than one.

1. 
   1. Before 1492Before European ColonizationFor more than twenty thousand years before Columbus, the land that became the United States was home to Native peoples who built farming villages, trading networks, ceremonial centers, and cities. Their histories are the first and longest chapter of American history.5 entries
2. 
   2. 1492–1607European Exploration and Early ColonizationColumbus’s voyages began sustained contact between Europe and the Americas. Over the next century, Spain built an empire to the south, founded St. Augustine in Florida, and pushed into the Southwest, while France and England made their first, often failed, attempts at settlement — and epidemic disease devastated Native peoples.5 entries
3. 
   3. 1607–1763Colonial AmericaFrom Jamestown in 1607 to the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, English colonies spread along the Atlantic coast alongside Spanish, French, and Dutch settlements and the Native nations whose land they took. It was an era of self-government for some, slavery for many, and constant conflict and exchange.15 entries
4. 
   4. 1763–1789Revolution and IndependenceIn a single generation, Britain’s North American colonists went from celebrating victory in the Seven Years’ War to waging war against their king. Protests over taxation and self-government became a revolution, the Revolution produced a new nation, and the new nation, after a shaky start under the Articles of Confederation, wrote the Constitution that still governs it.25 entries
5. 
   5. 1789–1828The Early RepublicThe first decades under the Constitution tested whether a large republic could survive. Americans built new institutions, divided into the first political parties, peacefully transferred power between rivals, doubled the nation’s territory, and fought a second war with Britain — while slavery spread west and Native nations faced mounting pressure on their lands.33 entries
6. 
   6. 1828–1860Expansion and Sectional ConflictBetween Andrew Jackson’s election and Abraham Lincoln’s, the United States expanded to the Pacific, democratized politics for white men, and expelled Native nations from the East. Reform movements flourished — above all abolitionism and women’s rights — while every new territory reopened the fight over slavery, until compromise failed.28 entries
7. 
   7. 1861–1877Civil War and ReconstructionIn four years of war the Union was preserved and slavery destroyed, at the cost of some 620,000 soldiers’ lives. In the dozen years after, Americans fought over what freedom and citizenship would mean — rewriting the Constitution, and then abandoning its promises to Black Southerners.33 entries
8. 
   8. 1877–1900Industrialization and the Gilded AgeBetween the end of Reconstruction and 1900, the United States became an industrial giant. Railroads, steel, and oil created vast fortunes; millions of immigrants filled growing cities; workers and farmers organized against corporate power; Native nations lost most of their remaining land; and Jim Crow took hold in the South.31 entries
9. 
   9. 1900–1920The Progressive Era and World War IIn the first two decades of the twentieth century, reformers set out to tame industrial capitalism, clean up politics, protect workers, and expand democracy. Women won the vote, Black Americans organized against Jim Crow and began moving north, and the United States entered World War I as a rising world power.26 entries
10. 
    10. 1920–1939The Twenties and the Great DepressionThe 1920s brought cars, radio, movies, jazz, and easy credit — and also Prohibition, immigration restriction, a revived Ku Klux Klan, and racial violence. The boom ended in the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, the worst economic collapse in American history. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal answered with an unprecedented expansion of federal power.31 entries
11. 
    11. 1939–1960World War II and the Early Cold WarThe United States entered World War II after Pearl Harbor and emerged from it as the world’s strongest nation. Victory gave way almost immediately to the Cold War with the Soviet Union: containment, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Korean War, the nuclear arms race, and a Red Scare at home. The war and its aftermath also transformed the economy, sent veterans to college, and planted the seeds of the civil rights movement.33 entries
12. 
    12. 1954–1980Civil Rights and Social TransformationFrom the Brown decision in 1954 through the 1970s, the civil rights movement overturned legal segregation, and Black Americans’ example inspired movements by women, Chicanos, Native Americans, gay Americans, and environmentalists. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society expanded the federal government’s reach, while the Vietnam War and Watergate shattered public trust.49 entries
13. 
    13. 1980–2001Conservative Realignment and the End of the Cold WarRonald Reagan’s election in 1980 marked a conservative turn in American politics: tax cuts, deregulation, a military buildup, and the rise of the religious right. Abroad, the Cold War ended with the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and of the Soviet Union itself. In the 1990s the United States stood as the sole superpower, won a swift victory in the Gulf War, and rode an economic boom driven by computers and the internet.10 entries
14. 
    14. 2001–presentThe United States in the Twenty-First CenturyThe twenty-first century began with the September 11 attacks and two long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Great Recession of 2007–2009 shook the economy, and Barack Obama became the first African American president. Same-sex marriage became law nationwide, smartphones and social media transformed daily life, and the COVID-19 pandemic killed more than a million Americans amid deepening political polarization.15 entries