🇺🇸 United States

The first inhabitants of North America crossed either the Bering land bridge or the now-submerged Ice Age coastline approximately 15,000 years ago. Their descendants formed the varied Indigenous cultures of the continent, with pre-contact population estimates for the present-day United States ranging from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million.

The Clovis culture emerged in North America around 11,000 BCE and is believed to be the first widespread culture of the Americas. Over subsequent millennia Indigenous cultures such as the Mississippian developed agriculture, architecture and complex societies.

Columbus's voyages opened the Americas to Spanish settlement, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California. Amerigo Vespucci subsequently proposed the lands were a previously unknown landmass rather than part of Asia.

The name derived from Americus Vesputius, the Latinised name of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. It became the enduring designation for the continents and ultimately for the United States.

Spanish Florida was chartered in 1513 as the first European colony within what is now the continental United States. Early settlements failed through starvation and disease before a permanent foothold was achieved.

France planted colonies in French Florida in 1562, though Charlesfort was abandoned by 1578 and Fort Caroline destroyed by Spanish raids in 1565. Permanent French settlement came much later at Fort Detroit (1701), New Orleans (1718) and St Louis (1764).

After repeated settlement failures, Spain established Saint Augustine in 1565 as its first permanent town in present-day US territory. Spanish forces also destroyed the rival French settlement at Fort Caroline in the same year.

The 1607 settlement of Virginia marked the start of sustained British colonisation, followed by Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1620. These colonies formed the nucleus of the Thirteen Colonies that would found the United States.

The Mayflower Compact in Massachusetts, alongside the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, established precedents for local representative self-governance and constitutionalism. These practices developed throughout the American colonies and underpinned later republican institutions.

The thriving Dutch colony of New Nederland was settled in 1626 in what is now New York. A small Swedish colony, New Sweden, followed in 1638 in what became Delaware.

Convened in response to Britain's assertion of greater control after the French and Indian War, the Congress adopted a colonial boycott of British goods enforced by local committees of safety. The boycott proved effective and demonstrated coordinated intercolonial political capacity.

A British attempt to disarm the colonists triggered armed clashes at Lexington and Concord in 1775, igniting the American Revolutionary War. The Second Continental Congress then appointed George Washington Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.

Two days after passing the Lee Resolution of 2 July 1776 declaring an independent sovereign nation, the Second Continental Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776, formally announcing the 13 colonies' separation from Britain. It founded a governing system based on liberty, natural rights, equality under law, popular sovereignty and republicanism; the ensuing Revolutionary War concluded in 1783 with British recognition of American independence.

Drafted in 1777 and in practical effect from then, the Articles were formally ratified in 1781, establishing a decentralised government that operated until 1789. Their limitations later prompted the drafting of the Constitution.

The siege of Yorktown in 1781 ended major fighting in the Revolutionary War. It set the stage for negotiations that recognised American independence.

The Treaty of Paris, signed on 3 September 1783, ended the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War and brought international recognition of the new nation of the United States of America. The US also gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi, north to present-day Canada and south to Spanish Florida.

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787 to overcome the limitations of the Articles of Confederation, drafting the United States Constitution, which the states ratified the following year. Taking effect in 1789, it created a federal republic of three separate branches with checks and balances and was widely emulated, especially in the postcolonial Americas; George Washington was inaugurated as the first president on 30 April 1789.

The ordinance established the precedent that national territory would expand through the admission of new states rather than the enlargement of existing ones. This framework governed continental expansion for the following century.

Washington took office as the Constitution came into effect in 1789. His resignation as Commander-in-Chief and refusal of a third presidential term established precedents for civilian supremacy and the peaceful transfer of power.

Ten amendments to the Constitution were adopted in 1791 to allay sceptics' concerns about the power of the new centralised government. They entrenched individual rights as a foundation of the American constitutional order.

The cotton gin of 1793 made cotton cultivation immensely profitable for Southern elites. It strengthened support for slavery in the South just as Northern states moved to prohibit it, deepening sectional division.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, 37 new states were added to the original 13 as the nation spread westward and acquired a number of overseas territories.

Nearly 10 per cent of the total land area of the United States was distributed free to some 1.6 million homesteaders. Together with the transcontinental telegraph and railroads, this accelerated settlement and growth on the American frontier.

A series of decisions emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force. This allowed Jim Crow laws in the South, sundown towns in the Midwest and segregation nationwide, later reinforced by federal redlining policy.

The 1803 purchase nearly doubled the territory of the United States. It opened the trans-Mississippi west to settlement and later framed the sectional dispute over slavery in the new lands.

Lingering disputes with Britain led to renewed war, which ended inconclusively. The conflict nonetheless consolidated American independence in practice.

Spain transferred Florida and adjoining Gulf Coast lands to the United States in 1819. The cession removed a rival European power from the southeastern seaboard.

The compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and prohibited slavery in Louisiana Purchase lands north of the 36°30′ parallel. It temporarily balanced northern and southern demands over the expansion of slavery.

The 1830 Act was the most significant legislation in the federal policy of Indian removal and assimilation. It produced the Trail of Tears (1830–1850), in which some 60,000 Native Americans east of the Mississippi were forcibly displaced westward with 13,200 to 16,700 deaths.

Texas was annexed in 1845, precipitating a dispute with Mexico. The following year the Oregon Treaty gave the US control of the present-day American Northwest.

War with Mexico over Texas ended with Mexican recognition of US sovereignty over Texas, New Mexico and California in the 1848 Mexican Cession. The ceded lands also included the future states of Nevada, Colorado and Utah, completing continental expansion to the Pacific.

The Restorationist movement was founded in the US in 1847. It became the predominant religion in Utah and a major religion in Idaho.

The gold rush spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast. It intensified confrontations with Native populations, including the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants that lasted into the mid-1870s.

The 1850 Act mandated the forcible return of escaped enslaved people from non-slave states to their enslavers in the South. It sharply inflamed sectional conflict during the 1850s.

The Act effectively gutted the anti-slavery requirements of the Missouri Compromise. It further destabilised the sectional settlement over slavery in the territories.

The Court ruled against an enslaved person brought into non-slave territory and declared the entire Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. The decision removed the legal basis for limiting slavery's expansion and hastened the drift to civil war.

War broke out between the Union and 11 seceding Southern states in April 1861 over slavery and states' rights. The war turned in the Union's favour after the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederates surrendered at Appomattox in 1865; Union victory preserved the federation, and the Thirteenth Amendment, ratified that December, abolished slavery throughout the United States.

Beginning with South Carolina, eleven slave-state governments voted to leave the Union in 1861 while all others remained loyal. War broke out in April after the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter.

The proclamation of 1 January 1863 recast the war aims of the Union. Many freed slaves subsequently joined the Union army, adding manpower to the northern war effort.

Following Lincoln's assassination, three constitutional amendments abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as criminal punishment, promised equal protection under the law, and prohibited racial discrimination in voting. African Americans took an active political role in ex-Confederate states in the decade after the war.

From 1865 through 1917 some 24.4 million immigrants arrived from Europe, most through the Port of New York. East Coast cities gained large Jewish, Irish and Italian populations while Northern and Central Europeans settled the Midwest, and about a million French Canadians moved to New England.

Readmission began with Tennessee in 1866 and ended with Georgia in 1870. It restored formal political unity while leaving contested questions of racial equality unresolved.

Alaska was bought from Russia in 1867, adding a vast northern territory. It later became the site of the country's highest peak, Denali, and substantial resource wealth.

The compromise resolved the electoral crisis following the 1876 presidential election and led President Hayes to reduce federal troops in the South. Redeemers rapidly regained control of Southern politics in the name of white supremacy, ushering in the nadir of American race relations.

The US economy has been the world's largest nominally since about 1890, outpacing Britain, France and Germany combined by the early 20th century. Tycoons led expansion in railroads, petroleum and steel while the country pioneered the automotive industry.

Pro-American elements overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and the islands were annexed in 1898. In the same year Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam after defeat in the Spanish–American War, marking American emergence as an overseas power.

American Samoa was acquired in 1900 following the Second Samoan Civil War. It extended American presence in the Pacific.

Interchangeable parts and a machine tool industry enabled large-scale manufacturing of consumer products in the late 19th century. By the early 20th century, factory electrification and the assembly line created the system of mass production that underpinned American industrial dominance.

The 1904 Summer Olympics were the first of eight Games held in the United States. The country is scheduled to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

The New York exhibition of European modernist art shocked the public and reoriented American visual culture. It marked the arrival of modernism in the United States.

American entry into the First World War in 1917 and victory in the Second World War in 1945 confirmed the country's rise as a global power.

The islands were bought in 1917 after Danish voters approved the sale in a 1916 referendum. The acquisition strengthened American strategic position in the Caribbean.

A constitutional amendment in 1920 extended the franchise to women across the country. It roughly doubled the eligible electorate and transformed American democratic participation.

Share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed over several days from 24 October 1929, wiping out billions of dollars in value. The crash was followed by the Great Depression, a decade-long period of high unemployment and reduced economic output.

The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche, President Trump's former personal lawyer, as attorney general by 50 votes to 49, with only two Republicans opposed, capping a contested confirmation process.

The United States co-hosted the FIFA World Cup with Canada and Mexico from 11 June to 19 July 2026, the first edition to feature 48 teams. The United States staged 78 of the 104 matches, including every game from the quarter-finals onwards.

President Trump invoked Section 338 of the Trade Act on 20 July 2026 to impose an additional 50 per cent tariff on a wide range of Canadian goods, due to take effect on 19 August 2026, deepening trade tensions between the two countries.

The Supreme Court ruled six to three that the president may remove heads of independent federal agencies without cause, part of a series of major rulings in June 2026 that also addressed voting rights and mail-ballot deadlines.

The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve chairman by 54 votes to 45, the closest vote for the role in modern history. He was sworn in on 22 May 2026, succeeding Jerome Powell after two terms.

An estimated eight million people joined No Kings protests across the United States on 28 March 2026, demonstrating against the Iran war, the cost of living and immigration enforcement. Organisers described it as the second-largest protest in the country's history.

The United States and Israel launched joint air strikes on Iranian nuclear and military sites on 28 February 2026, opening a regional war that also targeted senior Iranian officials. The conflict disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea for weeks.

United States special forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas on 3 January 2026, transporting them to New York to face narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges. Venezuela's vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, was sworn in as interim president.

The Commerce Department codified a rule on 13 January 2026 permitting licensed exports of Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips to China under conditions intended to balance national security with commercial interests. The chips had briefly been banned from export weeks earlier.

Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expired on 31 December 2025, reverting eligibility and benefit levels to pre-2021 rules. Analysts projected average marketplace premiums to rise sharply in 2026, with up to four million people expected to lose coverage.

In the November 2024 election Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris, winning 312 electoral votes, and was sworn in on 20 January 2025 alongside Vice President JD Vance.

English, long the de facto official language, was formally declared official by executive order in 2025. Some 245.4 million people aged five and over spoke only English at home according to the 2020 American Community Survey.

Scholars have broadly classified the country as moving from a liberal democratic polity to a hybrid regime combining autocratic and democratic features since 2025. Gerrymandering driven by 2010s and 2020s Supreme Court rulings and rising censorship accompanied the shift.

Average US life expectancy at birth reached its highest recorded level in 2024, up 0.6 years on 2023, attributed to a significant fall in fatal drug overdoses. This partly reversed a health disadvantage that has widened relative to other wealthy countries since 1998.

Insurrectionists entered the US Capitol seeking to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup. It was the first presidential refusal of the peaceful transfer of power and reflected accelerating political polarisation and democratic backsliding.

Joseph Biden held the presidency from 2021 to 2025, succeeding Donald Trump during a period of deepening political polarisation in American public life.

The 2020 census counted 331,449,281 residents, making the US the third-most-populous country after India and China. The official 2025 estimate rose to 341,784,857, a 3.1% increase.

The pandemic that began in 2020 caused mass illness, economic disruption and over a million American deaths, and stands among the defining events of the early 21st century for the country.

Donald Trump's first presidency, from 2017 to 2021, unfolded amid the deepening political polarisation that has shaped early 21st-century American politics.

Beginning in 2014, the US developed a close alliance with Ukraine. The relationship became a central element of American engagement in European security.

The 2010 legislation was the most significant reform of American health coverage in decades. It expanded access to insurance across the population.

The investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, triggering a global financial crisis. Congress approved a bank bailout of about US$700 billion, and the recession that followed led to widespread job losses across the United States.

The collapse of the housing bubble in 2007 produced the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. It reshaped financial regulation and household wealth for a generation.

Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four passenger aircraft on 11 September 2001, destroying the World Trade Center in New York and damaging the Pentagon; a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed, and the United States subsequently launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The TSA has provided security at most major US airports since 2001. Its creation reflected the reorganisation of domestic security after the September 11 attacks.

Reported heat waves in the 21st century have run at three times the number recorded in the 1960s. Droughts in the American Southwest have become more persistent and severe since the 1990s.

The US assembled and led an international coalition that drove out the Iraqi invasion force occupying Kuwait. The campaign demonstrated post-Cold War American military primacy.

Buoyed by victories in the two world wars, the US saw the Cold War end in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, leaving it the world's foremost military, economic and cultural power.

The 1990s brought the longest recorded American economic expansion, alongside a dramatic decline in crime rates and rapid technological advance. The decade consolidated US economic dominance after the Cold War.

The World Wide Web, the Pentium microprocessor, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, the first gene therapy trial and cloning either emerged in the US or were improved there. The Human Genome Project was launched and Nasdaq became the first US stock market to trade online.

Wide domestic opposition to intervention in Vietnam accompanied a total US withdrawal in 1975. The episode marked a significant check on American military reach and public confidence.

Following the reversal of Roe v. Wade (1973), abortion in the United States is no longer federally protected. It is instead subject to the laws of each state or territory.

The 1973 Act created a mechanism to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. It remains a cornerstone of American environmental law.

Open defiance of the draft encouraged by the counterculture movement contributed to the end of conscription in 1973. The armed forces shifted to an all-volunteer basis.

NPR was incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. It became the principal supplier of public radio broadcasting in the United States.

A societal shift in the roles of women drove a large increase in female paid labour participation from the 1970s. By 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed.

NASA's Apollo 11 mission landed astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon on 20 July 1969, the first crewed Moon landing, with Armstrong becoming the first person to walk on the lunar surface, watched by a global television audience. The culmination of the Apollo programme (1961–1972), it gave the US victory in the Space Race and remains a marker of American technological pre-eminence.

The federal agency was created in 1965 to develop and promote a national policy of support for the humanities and the arts. It also supports institutions preserving American cultural heritage.

The 1964 Act embedded the idea of wilderness in the management of American public lands. It established a durable framework for federal conservation.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on 2 July 1964, outlawing discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin. The law ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination.

The Great Society produced broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment aimed at countering the worst effects of institutional racism. It coincided with the civil rights movement led in the early 1960s by figures such as Martin Luther King Jr.

The contiguous 48 states were joined by Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, completing the union of 50 states.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded in 1958, beginning a continuous national space programme. In 1961 the US became the second country after the Soviet Union to launch a human into space.

The Philippines received full independence from the US on 4 July 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam remained US territories.

The US developed the first nuclear weapons and used them against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which historians consider central to ending the war in Asia. Nuclear capability underpinned American strategic primacy thereafter.

Geopolitical tensions with the Soviet Union led the US to pursue containment of Soviet influence and to engage in regime change against governments perceived as Soviet-aligned. The rivalry shaped American military, economic and diplomatic posture for four decades.

As one of the "Four Policemen" alongside Britain, the Soviet Union and China, the US shaped the post-war order. It emerged relatively unscathed from the war with greater economic power and international political influence.

Since the end of the Second World War the economy has achieved relatively steady growth, generally low unemployment and inflation, and rapid advances in technology. The US today has the world's largest economy by nominal GDP.

Representatives of 50 countries, including the United States as a founding member, signed the United Nations Charter in San Francisco on 26 June 1945. The organisation formally came into existence on 24 October 1945, with its headquarters later established in New York.

Initially neutral, the US began supplying war materiel to the Allies in March 1941. Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, killing more than 2,400 people, and the United States declared war the following day, entering the Second World War. Adopting a "Europe first" policy, it concentrated on Italy and Germany until their defeat in May 1945.

The 1933 legislation created the National Guard and provided for integration of Army and Air National Guard units into the regular forces. It allows the president to federalise state and territorial Guard personnel.

Roosevelt responded to the Depression with a programme of "reform, recovery and relief", combining sweeping recovery programmes and employment relief projects with financial reforms and regulations. It permanently expanded the federal government's economic role.

The economic downturn of the 1930s was one of the two most traumatic experiences in the nation's history, throwing roughly a quarter of the workforce out of employment.