Talk:History of the United States (1776–1789)

Older discussions
I notcied that there was nothing about the Treaty of Paris

I've found that the first country to recognize the United States is sometimes reported as Statia, Dubrovnik, or Morocco depending on semantics. No matter which is correct, this seems to be such a minor detail in US history that I don't think it belongs in a summary of the entire period Flying Jazz 23:48, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

re: "The war was not a wonderful success" -- for the U.S. ? for the British ? for both ? Kyk 11:51, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I saw a mention of trading with Indians, but I missed anything else; had the U.S. started the banishment operations against the Indians yet in this early time period? Kyk 11:53, 3 Jan 2004 (UTC)

No. But the British were arming the Indians and encouraged them to kill American women and children.

Article Clean up / Rewrite
Hello, I noticed this article listed under Vital_articles/Level/5/History and graded as "Start-Class". I think it can be greatly improved and expanded beyond political/military history.

I worked on the article introduction and have started on the background section. Here is the incomplete draft I am working on for the background section: User:TimothyBlue/sandbox/Revision: History of the United States (1776–1789) - Background

I'm reasonably new to this, so any kind/polite help, collaboration, suggestions or guidance on proceeding is welcome. If I make a mistake it's not intentional. I try to get the right tone into my written words so they sound polite and kind but sometimes I fail. I have a phobia about my writing sounding harsh (I'm sure others can sympathize with sending an email and having the tone misunderstood by those reading it) and I'm hoping to improve on that and my writing skills in general by working on this. Timothy (talk) 11:13, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * the notion that London's highest priority was "in order to pay down some of the enormous debt that had been incurred during the war and cover the costs of maintaining an army in North America to secure' both the newly acquired and existing colonial possessions" is in my opinion not true. The issue was owning the 13 colonies for the benefit of the rulers of GB and not for the good of the Brits who lives in the 13 colonies. They went further and rejected the constitutional rights of Englishmen living in the 13. London retreated on the money issue--it wound up with a low stamp tax that did not raise revenue to pay enormous war debts--- or soldiers. London did NOT retreat on the issue of total control. secure is a key word--against whom? why did London have an army in North America--Patriots said it was to control the colonists and cited the Boston Massacre/Lexington/Bunker Hill as indicators of what London was planning.  Rjensen (talk) 11:27, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Is this loaded language?
In the The First States to Abolish Slavery section, the phrase "to tear down one of Britain's cruelest wars against human nature" is used. This seems like overly emotive loaded language to me, and the itallics in particular seem unnecessary. Although slavery is very bad, I would say more concise, emotionless language should be used here. The section is also uncitated; if it were citated I would rephrased the sentence myself using the source. I'm not very experienced with editing wiki articles though, so perhaps someone more experienced could help here. AlisterSinclair (talk) 22:14, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Coding error in #"Bank_holiday"_and_Emergency_Banking_Act section
First time posting in 'talk' so hoping this is the right page to do so. There appears to be a coding error in the "Bank Holiday" and Emergency Banking Act section and I'm not smart enough to fix it. The "play audio" section in the table is overlapping the text in the article itself. EthanEverhart (talk) 21:05, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 16 June 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. – robertsky (talk) 08:03, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

– These date ranges are an integral part of the identification of the subject matter. They look like disambiguation terms, but that's not what they are. No one would refer to any of these subjects as the "History of the United States". Each of these articles covers only a small part of the history of the United States. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 01:16, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * History of the United States (1776–1789) → History of the United States from 1776 to 1789
 * History of the United States (1789–1815) → History of the United States from 1789 to 1815
 * History of the United States (1815–1849) → History of the United States from 1815 to 1849
 * History of the United States (1849–1865) → History of the United States from 1849 to 1865
 * History of the United States (1865–1917) → History of the United States from 1865 to 1917
 * History of the United States (1917–1945) → History of the United States from 1917 to 1945
 * History of the United States (1945–1964) → History of the United States from 1945 to 1964
 * History of the United States (1964–1980) → History of the United States from 1964 to 1980
 * History of the United States (1980–1991) → History of the United States from 1980 to 1991
 * History of the United States (1991–2008) → History of the United States from 1991 to 2008
 * History of the United States (2008–present) → History of the United States from 2008 to present
 * Oppose for now per MOS:STYLEVAR and the like guidelines. Unless there is an actual naming guideline that prohibits this  format for history articles/lists that are split by date ranges, I see this as an acceptable convention. WP:FA alone currently lists several of them, including History of the British penny (1714–1901), History of Lithuania (1219–1295), Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1565–1760), and History of Arsenal F.C. (1886–1966), to name a few. Zzyzx11 (talk) 01:41, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose for now per Zzyzx11, these articles are a small set of a much broader convention where years are used absent a better identifier, should be subject to a wider discussion. CMD (talk) 04:16, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose No idea what problem will be solved with a change to more difficult titles. The Banner  talk 12:56, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Suggest alternative move to History of the United States, 1776–1789 etc. I agree with BarrelProof that these year ranges are not really disambiguation and should just be part of the title.  That said, writing it out is way too clunky and the existing setup is better.  Re Zzyzx11, to be clear, a comma disambiguation style also shows up in FA, e.g. Hundred Years' War, 1345–1347, so I'd propose my suggestion is also consistent with Wikipedia practice.  (I agree with you that the parenthetical style isn't forbidden, though, just think in this case switching to commas is clearly simpler and more clear.)  SnowFire (talk) 16:52, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Omitting the parentheses without adding a comma also seems possible: . My point is that the current use of parentheses doesn't seem to make sense. The date ranges are not some sort of side remark or clarifier; they are a fundamental part of the identification of the topic that is discussed in the article. I chose the United States deliberately as the place to open a discussion of this format, as these are visible titles. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:40, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I personally still prefer including the comma, but I suppose we'll see what people say. (It's maybe more obvious why if you think about it with textual subtitles rather than year ranges: Something like "History of XYZ in the Edwardian era" reads okay, "History of XYZ, Edwardian era" is okay as an abbreviated form, "History of XYZ Edwardian era" reads like a run-on.) SnowFire (talk) 18:16, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Support, I get it. These are not a set of different subjects coincidentally called "History of the United States". BD2412  T 03:16, 17 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Relisting comment: Relist, to allow additional discussion both of this proposal and SnowFire's alterntive. It would help the closer if editors who support one clarify if they only support that one or if they support both. BilledMammal (talk) 01:16, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Notified Wikiprojects CMD (talk) 01:51, 23 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose per Zzyzx11 above. 01:56, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per brevity. The present titles are clear and understandable, they present their topics succinctly and I doubt if many, if any, are confused by them. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:32, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose. the current system is highly stable, and is a result of community edits over a longer period of time, and seems much easier and more useful. --Sm8900 (talk) 13:30, 26 June 2024 (UTC)