One of the first things we talked about was the American Revolution. After disputes revolving around taxation without representation, the American colonies split from Britain. It started with the battles of Lexington and Concord. The Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence to announce to the world that they were splitting from Britain. After suffering numerous defeats early on, the Americans were able to surround the British at Yorktown. The British commander surrendered and 2 years later America had it's independence. This led to the first country based on the rule of law, run by the people.

The Constitution was written in 1787 after the failure of the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles, the states were literally at war with each other and the federal government was powerless to do anything about it. They had a convention to try and amend the Articles so that they would work. Five days into the convention, they scrapped the Articles and started writing the Constitution. After months of arguing and debating, they sent the Constitution to the states for ratification. The states would eventually ratify the Constitution as long as Congress promised to add a Bill of Rights. Two years later, the Bill of Rights was completed and the Constitution was the supreme law of the land.

In 1619 the first slave arrived in the Americas. For the next 250 years, slavery caused problems all over the country. Southern states were dependent on slave labor and brought in slaves by the millions. The northern states worked at limiting slavery in new states and abolishing slavery in the country. The more states that were added, the bigger the problem became. In 1861, after the election of Abraham Lincoln, nine states seceded from the union and the civil war began. Four years and over 600,000 casualties later, the war was over and slavery was abolished in the United States. After the war, Americans started considering themselves Americans instead of people from certain states. In some ways we are still recovering from the Civil War.

The industrial revolution changed how Americans worked. Moving from farms to factories, more Americans started working and cities grew. Railroads, steamboats, and factories changed the way that Americans lived and changed the landscape of America.

In the early 1900s there was a movement to do away with alcohol. It started as a small movement but eventually grew loud enough that politicians took notice. The 18th Amendment was passed forbidding the sale, distribution, and making of alcohol. People reacted by running alcohol from Canada, drinking in illegal bars, making their own alcohol, and generally breaking the law to get a drink. Al Capone was a member of the mafia who rose in power in Chicago and went on to become one of the worst crime bosses in American history. With all the crime, repealing prohibition soon became a popular item. Eventually the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment and crime dropped almost immediately.

World War I started due to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. However, the build up to it was caused by alliances, imperialism, nationalism, and countries building up their militaries. Countries were expanding and taking over smaller countries to gain access to their resources. Larger armies were needed to protect those colonies and alliances were needed to protect the larger countries. It was only a matter of time before something happened.
The war lasted four years and claimed millions of lives. It was the first war for planes, tanks, and machine guns. The end of the war led to the punishment of Germany and can be directly connected to the beginning of World War II.

October 29, 1929 the stock market dropped setting off what is known as the Great Depression. Over the next decade and a half, millions of people who be out of work, hungry, homeless, and suffering. Banks closed down. People lived cardboard houses and families split. Franklin Roosevelt tried policies to get people back to work but even after World War II people were still trying to rebuild their lives.

World War II was a direct result of WWI. The penalties placed on Germany allowed Adolf Hitler to come to power and start rebuilding Germany's military. He then started conquering Europe and drew the rest of the world into war. The attack of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese drew the United States into war. Four years of war led to a victory by the Allied forces, the death of Hitler, and the beginning of the Cold War.