United States History Overview
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US History Overview 1: Jamestown to the Civil War
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US History Overview 2: Reconstruction to the Great Depression
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US History Overview 3: WWII to Vietnam
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Appomattox Court House and Lincoln's Assassination
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When Capitalism is Great and Not-so-great
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20th Century Capitalism and Regulation in the United States
US History Overview 1: Jamestown to the Civil War Jamestown to the Civil War
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- What I thought I would attempt to do in this and the next few
- videos is just to give a scaffold of American history, I'm clearly
- going to glaze over a lot of the details, but hopefully it will
- give you a sense of how at least everything fits in together
- and at least the major events in American history,
- now when I talk about American history I mean United States
- history, and so the first real successful settlement in what's
- now the United States was at Jamestown, and that's Jamestown
- Virginia, right over here in 1607, and it was set up as a kind of
- a commercial settlement, and then shortly after that, and we always
- learn this in school with you know the pilgrims on the Mayflower
- sailing the oceans blue and all the rest, they were kinda the next
- major settlement in the new world, I guess we should say the
- next major English settlement, there were obviously the Spanish
- and the Portuguese were already settling the New World with
- a good bit of success at this point, but we're talking about the
- English settlements, and so the pilgrims settled Plymouth in what's
- now Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 and at, obviously from 1620 until the mid 1700s
- you just had a huge influx of people, migrating and cities
- developing, but I'm going to fast forward all the way to the mid -
- 1700's, so this is actually a huge amount of time that I'm
- just not providing any details over because I'm just going
- focus on the major events in American history, so this is 130
- year period where things were just getting built out more, they were getting more developed
- and I'm going to fast forward to 1754 because at this period,
- you had essentially the entire east coast of what's now the US
- these were the thirteen colonies of the United States, well they're not the United States, yet.
- They are the 13 British colonies, but these are English settlements
- and then if you go a little bit to the
- north-west, from there you have all the French settlements
- and obviously still in these parts, you know, in Quebec and Canada people speak French
- but you had the french settlements up in this area, up in this area
- over here, I'm not going to go into the details, each of these can
- be a whole series of videos, and hopefully in the future I will make
- them a whole series of videos, but you fast forward to 1754
- and you start having the French and the British start getting into
- squabbles over territory where Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is right now.
- In 1754, and that starts the French and Indian war,
- and I want to be very clear here, because this is one of the biggest
- points of confusion when people learn American history,
- Since it's called the French and Indian war they think its between the French
- and the Indians, but its not its. It was the French and the Indians against, against
- the British and the colonists so in this war the British and the
- colonists were on the same side against the French and the Indians, and then obviously
- there were some Indians who were also on the side of the British,
- but its called the French and Indian war because these were the people
- that the British were fighting against, now if anyone outside of the
- United States talks about the French and Indian war they'll not call it the French and Indian war, they'll really just call that
- the American theater of the Seven Years War, because it eventually evolves
- into a much bigger conflict, between Great Britain and France
- that is going on in Europe, and the French and Indian war was really
- just the American theater of it. So between, between 7 -- the French and Indian war starts in
- 1754 based on these disputes over Pittsburgh, but that wasn't the only
- thing there were all of these other things, and other tensions
- that were developing and the thing that starts the war is never the only
- factor it is always just the tipping point, but that leads to a
- bigger war in Europe, and that's the Seven Years War, that starts in 1756 and ends
- they both end because they are really the same war
- in 1763 with the Treaty of Paris, Treaty of Paris in 1763 and the big take-away of that
- is that really most of what France had in the new world now becomes
- essentially a part of the British Empire now becomes British colonies
- or British territories, and even Louisiana goes over to Spain, at this point
- and you'll see it goes back to France for a little bit in 1800
- and then it goes back to the United States, in 1803 but we'll see
- that in a second, so 1763 the British with this huge costly war
- that they were able to win, and at least from the point of view of the
- British they felt that the main beneficiaries of this war were the Americans
- because they were able to get all this new territory all of this new area
- that they can now trade with, so that they can now potentially settle,
- and so the British decide to start taxing the Americans for at least some portion
- to recoup some portion of the cost of the war so they pass in 1765 they
- pass the Stamp Act and this wasn't a tax on stamps what this was is
- that they essentially declared that a whole set of paper that had to be
- used in the new world so the stuff for legal documents, stuff that maybe even
- newspaper that that paper had to be produced in Great Britian and it had
- to have a special stamp on it in order for the contracts or whatever was on top it
- in order to be legitimate, so essentially it was a huge tax on paper,
- and on documents and essentially this is what societies ran on so it was
- just a way to extract money from the colonists in order to I guess help pay back
- some of the cost that the empire felt that they had incurred on behalf of
- of the colonists you can debate whether who was the main beneficiary
- but regardless you can imagine that this this whole period
- over here the colonists weren't happy, especially because they didn't have representation
- in Parliament, this was done without anybody from the colonies saying
- "Hey wait, I don't think that's fair or this is fair" or whatever so you fast forward, 1773
- you have the Boston Tea party where, you have a bunch of people who
- for what ever reason and there's multiple interests here, but there was three ships
- in Boston harbour full of tea, and the tea was owned by the East India Tea
- Company, and they decide in protest, and there was a whole series of
- acts and other taxes that went back and forth but once again we're not
- going to go into the details here, but in revolt they dumped the tea
- and they dressed up as Indians, American Indians, and they dumped the tea
- into Boston Harbor, and you can imagine that that was a very exciting
- act for the colonists, but it didn't make the British very happy, and then after that they passed the
- Coercive Act, they essentially did a blockade of Boston, so things started
- to get really really really tense in the early 1770s,
- than if you fast forward to 1775 you have essentially the first
- conflicts of the American Revolutionary War and we're going to do
- a whole series of videos on really the whole Revolutionary War,
- 1776 you have the Declaration of Independence, this is them right
- here drafting the Declaration of Independence and thats really just saying
- "Hey you know we've had enough of you Great Britain. We are now
- declaring ourselves as an independent country. No more of this colonies
- business", and so all the way untill 1783 you have the American
- Revolutionary War, and once again you can do a lot of videos on this but I'm
- just going to go over just so that you have a sense of when everything
- happened and when everything ended, and we can later dig deeper
- into the scaffold and it ends with the Treaty of Paris, and the US
- becomes a free, independant state and then you fast forward --
- until this point the US is being governed by Congress and the Articles
- of Confederation, but the constitution that we have now, it was drafted
- in 1787, it was ratified it had to get at least 9 of the states to ratify
- it that happend in 1788 and then it went into effect in 1789.
- so it depends on what you consider the birth of the country well it would
- definitely the Declaration of Independence, but the country in its
- current form with its current institutions, with its current constitution started in 1789 and that
- was also the beginning of Washington's first of two terms as President
- and those ended in 1797. And then John Addams comes into the picture
- and the reason why I put this is that it was actually, this is the only president that I show, very important that
- he decided to step down after two terms, he was hugely popular and if he
- wanted to he probably could have become one of these characters that
- stick around maybe a little bit longer than some people would want
- so it was really good that he set this example of stepping down after
- two terms and that he wasn't this kinda power hungry dude.
- You fast forward a little bit more, 1803, and I mentioned after the
- French and Indian war what's Louisiana, and I want to be clear
- Louisiana isn't just what's the current state of Louisiana it's this whole
- region that includes the state of Louisiana, but all the way up to roughly
- what the United States's current border with Canada
- And after the French and Indian war all of this business over here went to Spain.
- Then in 1800 it went back to France.
- But then in 1803 Napoleon had a bunch of stuff that he had to worry about; his naval fleet was destroyed,
- he had suffered some defeats in the West Indies, I guess we could call it.
- In particular, in Haiti, and he said "I probably won't be able to control this territory anyways."
- So he sold it to the United States for what turned out to be a very, very, very cheap price.
- But it's kind of like, you know, It's not like he could of protected it anyways.
- The United States might have been able to take it from him, without him being able to do anything.
- So he might as well get some money for it so he can fund his battles in Europe.
- So in 1803, the United States almost doubled in size.
- It went from these territories that had after the American Revolution for independance
- Now it got all this region over here in 1803.
- Then you fast forward a bit, you fast forward a bit. The war of 1812 it was an interesting one
- because there weren't any really serious outcomes from it.
- What was interesting about this whole time period even after independance,
- the British continued to harass America,
- they continued to arm Native Americans who would maybe revolt, or cause trouble for settlers
- They would impress American seamen, when I say impress, I don't mean they were doing something special.
- It meant that they were impressment of seamen meant they were
- kind of taking over these boats, taking the sailors and forcing them to become part of the British military.
- So they are doing a whole series of things that was really kind of antagonizing the United States.
- In 1812, the United States declares war on Great Britain.
- You have the war of 1812. It ends in 1815 with the battle of New Orleans.
- But there wasn't any real transfer of territory or anything like that over here.
- What was good, some people call it the second war for American independence.
- It really asserted America's, that America was here to stay, I should say,
- that the United States was here to stay.
- That the revolution wasn't just some fluke, that it isn't just some just flybynight country.
- It was able to defeat one of the greatest empires in the world again.
- So it was kinda here to stay.
- Now, you fast forward a little bit more,
- this part of what we call Texas, this area right over here.
- It was before 1836, it was part of Mexico,
- but the Mexicans actually encouraged, actually encouraged English speaking settlers.
- These would be the American English speaking settlers into the area just because it was sparsely settled.
- But these English speaking settlers a lot of them were slave owners
- And then as we kinda go up to 1836 the state of Mexico,
- that all this was kind of governed by - they were thinking about abolishing slavery.
- So you can imagine that the settlers there didn't like this idea.
- So in 1836, you have the war for Texas independence.
- And that's where you "Remember the Alamo" and all of that.
- The first President of Texas is Sam Houston, that is why Houston is named Houston.
- Then you fast forward all the way to 1845;
- In this time period you have this whole talk in the United States
- of manifest destiny, that, you know, it is a part of our God given destiny as Americans
- to one day extend our territory all the way to the Pacific ocean.
- So people were already eyeing a lot of the territory,
- remember all this territory, this was Texas
- and Mexico still viewed it as their territory, even though,
- it was being governed independently by the people that called themselves Republic of Texas.
- And all this territory, that was Mexican territory,
- so that people were trying to eye and saying wouldn't it be nice to get a little bit of that.
- So in 1845, and this was in agreement with the settlers in Texas, with the Republic of Texas, the United States annexed Texas.
- So the settlers there wanted this to happen. So this wasn't a forced annexation of Texas.
- But Mexico was not so happy about this, because Mexico still viewed, still viewed Texas as a part of their territory.
- And America, to some degree depends on how you view it, seams like they kind of wanted to goad Mexico into war.
- So they sent military really close to the border of Mexico,
- even into some territory where that Mexico had better claims to it, but I'm not going to take sides on this.
- But it seemed like there was some instigation going on,
- some debate on the actually course of events.
- In 1846, you have war actually breaking out between Mexico and the United States.
- And by 1848, the United States essentially trounces Mexico.
- Most of the war actually does go on on Mexican land.
- Because of that, because of that, Mexico cedes over all this area,
- so California, and all of the rest of, you know, Nevada, Arizona,
- and with the part of New Mexico that didn't come along with the United States, didn't already have.
- Along the same amount of time you both have the British and the Americans that were eyeing this territory,
- Oregon terriory, the territory up here. It even included part of Canada.
- Eventually, they were able to resolve it relatively peacefully.
- And what they agreed is, is that the Americans would get all of this territory.
- And the British would get everything north of this line, right over here.
- That's why Vancouver and British Columbia and all of that is, is Canada now.
- It stayed part of the British empire a little bit longer.
- So by 1848 the manifest destiny essentially had happened.
- We, the United States had gotten everything from
- California all the way from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast.
- And then, you know, and clearly, I'm really just covering the high levels
- just 30,000 level, of foot view of American history here.
- This whole time you have this tension developing,
- from the birth of the country through, through the election of Abraham Lincoln.
- You have this tension over slavery.
- A lot of people in the North didn't like it on moral grounds.
- A lot of people in the South didn't like it, well they wanted slavery regardless of their,
- of their, of what they thought of it morally.
- The South's economy to a large degree was based on slavery
- and so all of this, you know, the tipping point kind of happened in 1860.
- where Abraham Lincoln who was pretty vocal about his, about the fact that he did not like slavery.
- He wanted to curb the spread of slave states.
- You know, up to this point you had all these compromises,
- every time a state came into the Union, the slave states wanted it to be another slave state,
- the free states wanted it to be another free state.
- So you always had this, people kinda jockeying for whoever could have the most states on their side of the camp.
- But all this kind of, pro slavery and anti slavery, hit a tipping point in 1860,
- when Abraham Lincoln, who was fairly vocal about not extending slavery, he was elected.
- Then, a bunch of what are now,what we consider southern states seceded from the Union.
- And then 1861, in South Carolina, South Carolina said, "Hey, we are not part of the United States anymore."
- but there was still a United States military garrison there, so they attacked it, that started the Civil War.
- So during the Civil War, it lasted until 1865.
- Abraham Lincoln makes the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863,
- which essentially proclaims, all the slaves should be free.
- This lays the groundwork for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constituition.
- And then unfortunately, he dies, two months before the end of the Civil War.
- But in 1865, the South surrenders, so they are not able to secede.
- Essentially, we no longer have slavery in the United States.
- So I'm going to leave, and it's fascinating. Just to give you a sense of things, here's the map.
- The navy blue are the Union states, the Northern States,
- the light blue are the territory controlled by the Northern States.
- This orange color are the states that seceded from the Union, the Confederacy.
- This light orange, these are kinda territories that they controlled, but they were disputed.
- And these yellow states, right here were members of the Union,
- they did not secede from the Union, they didn't join the Confederacy, but they were slave states.
- Probably the most fascinating thing about the American war, the Civil War,
- other then the fact that it ended slavery in the United States, that was probably the biggest thing,
- It was also the bloodiest war that ever happened in the United States history.
- During the Civil War, during the Civil War, and these are unbelievable numbers.
- 18% of white males in the South, white males in the South, in South died.
- 18%, almost one out of five white males in the South died during the Civil War.
- And for the North, it was slightly better. It was 6%.
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At 5:31, how is the moon large enough to block the sun? Isn't the sun way larger?
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