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Indigenous peoples and European colonization
The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia across the Bering land bridge at least 12,000 years ago; the Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, indigenous North American culutures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. Indigenous peoples and cultures such as the Algonquian peoples, Ancestral Puebloans, and the Iroquois developed across the present-day United States. Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European immigrants range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million.

Christopher Columbus began exlporing the Caribbean in 1492, leading to Spanish settlements in Florida and New Mexico. France established their own settlements along the Missisippi River and Gulf of Mexico. British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and Plymouth Colony (1620). The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts. The native population of America declined after European arrival,  primarily as a result of infectious diseases brought from Europe such as smallpox and measles,  and native peoples were displaced by European expansion. Colonial authories pursued policies to force Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, and European settlers trafficked African slaves into the colonial United States through the Atlantic slave trade. The original Thirteen Colonies were administered by Great Britain, all of which had local governments with elections open to most white male property owners. The colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain allowed for the development of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening&#x2014;a series of Christian revivals&#x2014;fueled colonial interest in religious liberty.

Revolution and expansion
After winning the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local colonial affairs, creating colonial political resistance; one of the primary colonial grievances was that Britain taxed the colonies without giving them representation in government. In 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and passed a colonial boycott of British goods. The British attempt to disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. At the Second Continental Congress, the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and created a committee led by Thomas Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776.

After British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781, Britain signed a peace treaty. American sovereignty became internationally recognized, and the U.S. gained territory east of the Mississippi River from present-day Canada in the north to Florida in the south. Ratified in 1781, the Articles of Confederation established a decentralized government that operated until 1789. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which the national government would be sovereign and expand with the admission of new states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention; it went into effect in 1789, creating a federation administered by three branches on the principle of checks and balances. Washington was elected the nation's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay concerns by sceptics of the more centralized government. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward, with a sense of manifest destiny. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and their Gulf Coast territory in 1819. As Americans expanded further into land inhabited by Native Americans, the federal government often applied policies of Indian removal or assimilation. The displacement prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi River. The Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest, resulting in the U.S. stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy; the islands were annexed in 1898. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain following the Spanish–American War. American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War. The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917.

During the colonial period, slavery was legal in the American colonies, though the practice began to be questioned during the American Revolution. Slavery was abolished in northern states, though support for slavery remained in the South. The sectional conflict regarding slavery culminated in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Eleven slave states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, while the remaining states formed the Union. War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter; the war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House. The Reconstruction era followed the war. After the assasination of President Abraham Lincoln, Reconstruction Amendments were passed to protect the rights of African Americans. National infastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads, spurred growth in the American frontier.

Contemporary United States
From 1865 through 1918 an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the port of New York City, and New York and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to the Midwest. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England. During the Great Migration, millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. The Compromise of 1877 effectively ended Reconstruction and white supremacists took local control of Southern politics. African Americans endured a period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often called the nadir of American race relations. From 1890 to 1910, southern states established Jim Crow laws, disenfranchising African Americans. Racial segregation was prevalent nationwide and discrimination was codified, especially in the South. Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of many prominent industrialists, largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. Banking became a major part of the economy, and the United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry. These changes were accompanied by significant increases in economic inequality, slum conditions, and social unrest. This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which was characterized by significant reforms. The early 20th century was a time of industrial expansion and social change in the United States. The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies of World War I, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage. During the 1920s and 1930s, radio for mass communication and the invention of early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to with New Deal social and economic policies. At first neutral during World War II, the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. developed the first nuclear weapons and used them again the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the "Four Policemen" who met to plan the postwar world, alongside the United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China. The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic and military influence.

After World War II, the United States entered the Cold War, where geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union led the two countries to dominate world affairs. The U.S. engaged in regime change against governments perceived to be aligned with the Soviet Union, and competed in the Space Race, culminating in the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth, urbanization, and population growth following World War II. The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader in the early 1960s. The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes towards recreational drug use and sexuality as well as open defiance of the military draft and opposition to intervention in Vietnam. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which marked the end of the Cold War and solidified the U.S. as the world's sole superpower. In the early 21st century, the September 11 attacks in 2001 led to the war on terror and military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. housing bubble in 2006 culminated in the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. Amid the financial crisis, Barack Obama, the first multiracial president, was elected in 2008. Starting in the 2010s, political polarization increased as sociopolitical debates on cultural issues dominated political discussion.