Contemporary United States (1968-present)
The country faces new wars abroad and at home, new challenges. As the great Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”
Ken Burns Classroom
Ken Burns Classroom
The country faces new wars abroad and at home, new challenges. As the great Mark Twain said, “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes.”
The end of World War II in 1945 would usher a period of economic growth and stability in the United States that led to the establishment of a vibrant middle class.
Nothing could have prepared the country for the hardship it would face during the stock market crash of 1929, the man-made agricultural catastrophe of the Dust Bowl, and the economic collapse that shaped the 1930s.
Perhaps no better figure is more suited to represent the emergence of modern America than President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt.
The American Civil War tore apart and tested a young nation not yet 100 years old.
As the ambitions of the United States expanded westward, the concept of Manifest Destiny took hold in the 1840s. American settlers were fueled by the belief that they carried a divine destiny to take control of land occupied by Native Americans.
The United States of America grew out of a loose confederation of colonies under British colonial rule into a fledgling nation of 13 states.