Notable dates and events in the history of the USA

1000 A.D. North America may have been discovered by Vikings under Leif Erickson

1492 October 12 Christopher Columbus had accidentally discovered the " New World". The vast lands that Columbus found were not unsettled. People whom Europeans called Indians had lived there

1513 Juan Ponce de Leon discovered Florida

1585 British settlers were sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina

1607 It was founded the first permanent British settlement in North America. (Jamestown)

1620 The second English colony was set up in Virginia by the Pilgrim Fathers who sailed the Atlan­tic in the " Mayflower" in 1620; the settlement was called New Plymouth (Massachusetts)

1621 The Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgi­ving with the Indians

1775–1783 The 13 colonies rebelled against the British government and began and won their war

1776 July 4 The " Declaration of Independence" was adopted. (It was drafted by Thomas Jefferson who became the President of the USA in 1800)

1777 June 14 The flag was officially adopted. It was made by Betsy Ross

1787 A Constitution was drawn up at Philadelphia Convention, the USA was formed and G. Wa­shington was elected its first President in 1789

1791 Ten Amendments were added to the Constitution. These are called the Bill of Rights and proclaim individual liberties. Monroe Doctrine proclaims the American continents are no longer open to new Euro­pean colonizing

1861–1865 The Civil War between the Northern and Southern States. Abraham Lincoln was the leader of the North States

1862 It was issued the Emancipation Proclamation by A. Lincoln The blacks in the South were released from slavery

1867 Alaska was purchased from the Russians for $ US -7, 200, 000

1876 Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone 1878 Thomas A. Edison invented the electric lamp and the phonograph

1892 Durya Brothers produced their first automobile

1897 Gold rush in the Klondike

1903 The first successful heavier-than-air flight by the Wright Brothers

1917 The USA entered World War I

1929–1933 Great Depression, the greatest economic crisis in the history of the USA

1941–1945 The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor andthe USA entered World War II

1945 US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered. The United Nations was established

1945–1992 The Cold war

1950–1053 The USA fought in the Korean Conflict

1959 Alaska and Hawaii become states

1962 Cuban crisis

1963 USA, Russia and Britain signed nuclear test ban treaty. President Kennedy was assassi­nated 22.11.63

1965–1973 The USA fought in the Vietnam War

1968 April 4 Martin Luther King (who was a famous black civil rights leader) was assassinated

1969 Astronaut N. Armstrong walked on the moon

1972 US withdraws from Vietnam

1975 Joint " Soyuz-Apollo" ' flight

1991 The USA fought in the Gulf War

1992 The Columbus Quincentenary

1992 Bill Clinton won presidential elections for the Democrats

1993 (Jan.) he inaugurated

1993 Air Strike on Baghdad, Iraq

1997 Bill Clinton re-elected. Democrats gained Senate majority

2001 September 11 al-Qaeda terrorists attacked and struck the World Trade Center in New-York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing 3, 025 people

2003 Coalition forces invaded Iraq

2008 Economic crisis

2009 The first African American senator Barack Obama of Illinois became president