HISTORY OF THE USA
 

THE AGE OF DISCOVERIES

     The history of the United States of America is referred to as the period of more than 500 years that have passed since Christopher Columbus reached the coast of the Bahama Islands. But before him, other people had come to the American continent. The Native Americans, whom Columbus named Indians, crossed a now-submerged stretch of land that joined Asia and North America at the site of the Bering Strait about 35 000 years ago. They spread through the continent and settled also on the territory of today's United States. Native Americans were living mostly from agriculture, hunting and gathering, and fishing.

THE COLONIAL PERIOD

    From October 12, 1492, to July 4, 1776, North America served exclusively as a colonial land to many Western European countries. The ships that first sailed to the New World were looking for the natural wealth of the region. Although they did not find gold as they had expected, they profited from the fur trade and also brought home new plants such as corn, beans, potatoes, and tobacco. Soon the explorers decided to establish settlements right on the continent. Among the first were the Spanish (Florida 1565, later Texas, Mexico, California etc.), French (the Louisiana territory in the middle of the land), but also the Dutch (New Amsterdam),and Swedish (Fort Christina). The most important among these nations were the English. After one attempt that failed they founded Jamestown in the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia (1607). The stream of colonists was encouraged by the results of Henry VIII's reformation of the Church in 1534. Many members of the Church of England, known as Puritans because they wanted to purify the Church from the remains of Catholicism, decided to move to America as they were persecuted at home. A typical Puritan colony emerged in 1620 and was named Massachusetts Bay colony. Its center, Boston, soon became the largest town in the North-Eastern British territory, called New England. While Virginia settlers grew tobacco, New Englanders concentrated on trade. As more and more colonies were being established in the 1st half of the 17th century, southern plantations could no longer obtain an adequate supply of English workers and so they decided to introduce slavery to America. Because the slave trade provided plenty of workers, after 1700 most Southern plantations relied on the slave labor. In the 2nd half of the 17th century, a new system known as triangular trade ensured the exchange of goods between England and Spain, the American colonies, and the West African coast. While Europe supplied manufactured products, American merchants provided fish, furs, rum (as the product of sugar cane), lumber, grain, and tobacco, and Africa ensured a stable flow of slaves. But soon England began to encroach on the trading liberty of the colonies. In the Navigation Acts (1651, 1660, 1663, and 1673), it required certain products (enumerated goods) to be sold only in the mother country, and only English or colonial merchants and ships could engage in trade in the colonies. In 1675 the Stamp Act required the payment of tax for any printed matter, and finally the Townshend Acts put a tax on many goods imported to the colonies from Britain (later restricted only to tea). All these acts were passed by the British Parliament where the colonies had no actual representation. Those facts put colonists at a disadvantage and led to their hatred for the British. The trend of disobedience reached its peak on December 16, 1773, when 10,000 pounds worth of tea was dumped into the sea at the Boston port.

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE PERIOD

    The Boston Tea Party started the struggle for independence of the thirteen American colonies (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire). The first battle of the War for Independence, however, wasn't fought until April of 1775. The redcoats (the British) were greater in number but weak in tactics. The patriots (American militiamen), led from July 1775 by George Washington, wore the British down with their persistent fighting and deep commitment. Finally, after the battles of New York and Saratoga, and with the help of allied France, the patriots forced their enemy to surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed which officially denied colonial obligations to England. Written by Thomas Jefferson, it declared all men created equal, an ideal principle on which the American society was supposed to be based. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, granted the Americans unconditional independence and in addition included concession of all British land east of the Mississippi. From May to September 1787 the Constitutional Convention was held under the leadership of Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and other delegates. During 1788, the needed majority of states ratified the new Constitution, although many opposed it because of the absence of the bill of rights (that was ratified much later, in 1791 ).

EXPANDING OF THE COUNTRY

    George Washington was the first president in office (1789-1797). His first task was to pay off war debts owed to France but this became more and more difficult on the background of the Napoleonic wars. It resulted in the Quasi War with France which meant the seizing of the American ships by the French. The war ended in 1800 by signing the Convention which along with the negotiations with the British in 1796 asserted a new diplomatic course of the United States, striving to avoid dependence on the European powers. The principle was outlined by George Washington in his Farewell Address: the United States should maintain commercial but no political ties with other nations and enter no permanent alliances. During the presidency of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), the country would be characterized by a decentralized economy, minimal government (especially at the national level) and maximum freedom of action and enterprise for everybody. On April 30, 1803, the vast territory of Louisiana was purchased from the French for only 15 million dollars. The Louisiana Purchase presented a major step in the westward expansion across the continent and doubled the size of the nation.
    Because of the naval blockade that both Britain and France were imposing in 1806, the United States lost all its commercial connections. Mainly British ships were controlling most of the Atlantic ocean and basically disabled American ports from exporting and importing goods. That is why the United States felt harmed and in 1812 empowered Congress to declare war on Britain. At first, the only battle front of the War of 1812 on which it was possible to fight was Canada. Although begun with high hopes, the invasion of Canada ended as a disaster mostly because of the fact that soldiers were untrained and the moves of the army uncoordinated. Sometimes it happened that militiamen of some states (e.g. New York) refused to fight outside the borders of their own territory and so the battle was lost. In addition, the British naval blockade along the East Coast hit even more effectively American trade (between 1811 and 1814 it declined by nearly 90 percent). On the other hand, the battles of Baltimore and New Orleans, where American troops were led by Andrew Jackson, the future president, were won. The Treaty of Ghent, signed in 1814, re-established the pre-war status quo. The War of 1812 also reaffirmed the independence of the young American republic.
    In 1819, by a treaty with Spain, Florida was gained and so the United States became larger once again. Politically, an important event occurred that formed the foremost rule in the future development of the USA. In 1823, President James Monroe announced the Monroe Doctrine which called for non-colonization of the Western Hemisphere by European nations, non-intervention by Europe in the affairs of independent New World nations and also non-interference by the United States in European affairs.
    The existence of slavery, which was tolerated by the Constitution, became questionable when new territories were to be admitted as states to the Union. Because in 1820 the slave and non-slave states were equal in number, a potential admission of a state of one kind or the other would destroy the balance. Therefore a new law, the Missouri Compromise, was designed in which a line was drawn along the 36°30' parallel, north of which all states had to be free; whereas in the South slavery wasn't prohibited. In the period of the 1st half of the 19th century, Southern and Northern states differed much in economy. The North was becoming an industrial area with factories, growing cities and railroads. Even the farmers in the West could rely on the North's supplies of manufactured products. On the other hand, in the South, farms and plantations spread across the landscape as the prevailing slave labour brought money to the wealthy slave owners. The new product which stimulated expansion was cotton. The English textile needed more and more cotton and so gave birth to the Cotton Boom, large-scale production with territorial expansion and huge profit.
    In the political sphere, two major parties emerged which varied in regard to the federal government. While the Whigs, a new party, claimed that a strong government could give a better chance to everyone by building central institutions, the Democrats (represented by Andrew Jackson) called for a looser bond of the individual states.
    The western frontier continued to recede throughout the 19th century. Texas, originally a part of Mexico, was gradually being settled by American slaveholders. They helped Texas win independence in 1836 and gain admittance to the Union as the 28th state in 1845. Furthermore, the Oregon territory (including all of present-day Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and parts of Wyoming and Montana), until this time jointly occupied by the British and Americans, became by the Oregon Treaty (1846) a part of the United States. In the same year, a war with Mexico broke out, the main issue still being Texas. It didn't last long and turned out to be more successful than the Americans had expected. In the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848), the United States gained California and New Mexico (including present-day Nevada, Utah and Arizona) and recognition of the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas.

THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD

    The American nation grew not only in size but also in population. More than any other source, immigrants influenced this growth, counting for over 5 million in the years 1820-1860. Seeking cheap land and a chance to make money, the Irish and German people were the most numerous. With increasing area of the land which was under control of the slaveowners, the Northerners were afraid that slave power could become dominant in the whole nation. Therefore they formed a new Republican party concentrating the abolitionists, i.e. those who asked for the abolition of slavery. Soon the United States split into two large parts, one of them being the North represented by Republicans, and the other the South with the slave-oligarchy-supported Democrats. They became hostile to each other because of the fear of each other's power. The winner of the 1860 election, Republican Abraham Lincoln, took a strong anti-slavery stand. This caused South Carolina on December 20, 1860, and in the spring 1861 another 10 states to secede from the Union. Those states were: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee. They formed a new government in Montgomery, Alabama, and called themselves the Confederate States of America. They chose Jefferson Davis as their president and acted independently from the Union.  
    The armed conflict with which the Civil War began was the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina (the fort was still under the control of the Union). Despite the initial victories of the South, federal troops managed to succeed in two major battles in 1863 (Vicksburg and Gettysburg) and defeat became inevitable for the Confederacy. On April 9, 1865, Southern General Lee surrendered his forces to the Union General and future President Ulysses S. Grant. In the middle of the war, at the end of 1862, President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation in which he announced that by January 1st, 1863, he would emancipate the slaves in states whose "people shall then be in rebellion against the United States". Although the blacks were declared free by the 13-15th amendments to the Constitution and were given the right to vote, they continued to be completely segregated (restricted in public facilities such as hotels, parks, theaters etc.).

THE PERIOD OF RECONSTRUCTION

    In the period 1865-1877 the reconstruction of the South was carried out. It included industrialization and improvements in the transportation system. In the following era, the flourishing industrial corporations, pools and trusts, generally known as big businesses, helped the United States gain economic power. The problems of most presidents consisted of regulating these monopolies (the most famous of them are Henry Ford's car factories, J. P. Morgan's U.S. Steel Corporation and J. D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company) which were trying to control politics too.
    The first strong president after many years was Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909). He strove to achieve cooperation between big businesses and government and emphasized principles of the preservation of the environment. After him, Woodrow Wilson increased regulation of finances.

THE PERIOD OF EXPANSIONISM

    Internationally, the United States were becoming a world power. It set out for expansion which meant the outward movement of goods, dollars, ships, people, and ideas. This went hand in hand with annexation, colonialism, military occupation, economic domination, and political manipulation.
    To name just a few areas that were goals of American expansionism: 1867 Alaska was purchased from Russia, 1893 annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, US troops in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, purchase of the land for the Panama Canal (completed 1914) and financial control in Mexico and Guatemala. Mostly Americans were referring to the Monroe Doctrine according to which they had a free hand over Latin America. Finally the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War in 1898 was fought because the American government wanted Cuba to be independent from Spain and the local revolution against the Spanish reign could not succeed for a long time. The most remarkable victory for the United States was the destruction of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in the Philippines. Spanish resistance both in Cuba and the Philippines collapsed and the same year in the Treaty of Paris Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States and granted Cuba independence. Furthermore, in China, the United States asked all the countries with spheres there to respect the Open Door policy, that is equal trade opportunity for everybody.

THE WORLD WAR I PERIOD

    In the times of World War I, Woodrow Wilson sought to protect American interests as a neutral trader and tried to make the fighting countries respect international law. For almost 3 years, he kept the United States out of the war. But after Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare and sank several American ships, it was no longer possible just to profit from selling goods to the fighting countries. On April 2, 1917, Congress declared war on the Central Powers. American soldiers in France helped the Allies win the war and so America took part as a victorious country in the negotiations in Versailles. President Wilson was the one to design the Fourteen Points which guided the conference in Paris. They included principles of public-checked diplomacy, freedom of the seas, reductions in armaments and decolonization of empires. Other points concern self determination of the European nations, and also a suggestion to found a League of Nations. In Paris all of the points were accepted, however in the United States, the Senate rejected the treaty (mainly due to the aversion to membership in the League of Nations) on the grounds of traditional American unilateralism, which already started with George Washington.

THE 1930s - ECONOMIC CRISIS PERIOD

    In the 20's, the American economy was prospering more than at any previous time. The gross national product rose by 40 percent between 1919 and 1929 and for example a car was easily affordable for an ordinary factory worker. The flow of immigrants had to be halted by issuing the Immigration Quotas (1921 and 1924). In 1919, the 18th Amendment prohibited the production, sale and transport of alcoholic beverages and so the whole period became known as Prohibition. However, on Black Thursday (October 24, 1929), the stock market crash in New York destroyed the dreams of a rich society. 
    Overproduction and underconsumption caused widespread unemployment. As many as one quarter of all workers (about 13 million) were without jobs. When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved into the White House in 1933, he began to issue a radical reform legislation. During the period of the First Hundred Days (or the First New Deal) from March 9 to June 16, 1933, several acts were passed that helped banks and farmers and ensured social support for citizens. Perhaps the most important of the laws was the National Industrial Recovery Act that provided money to hire the unemployed to build government-owned roads, sewage and water systems, public buildings, and dams (e.g. Tennessee Valley project). The Second Hundred Days (or the Second New Deal) in the summer of 1935 included laws allowing workers to unionize, the Social Security Act (insurance for illness, old age and unemployment) and many other measures.

THE WORLD WAR II PERIOD

    The role of the United States in the world now became the one of the biggest exporter and it functioned as the world's financial capital. In the Dawes Plan of 1924, it provided loans for Germany to be able to pay off its war reparations. At the dawn of the Second World War, President Roosevelt wanted once again to remain loyal to the isolationist theory which Americans had invented for themselves, believing that it was unwise to enter any political alliances. Despite the Neutrality Acts (1935 and 1936), the United States could not prevent its involvement in the war. After the United States had cut off trade with Japan in 1940 and the Lend-Lease Act (1941 ) which enabled the British to borrow arms from USA, the Japanese launched an air raid on December 7, 1941, which targeted the naval base of Pearl Harbor and the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies. American troops contributed significantly to the invasion of France (operation OVERLORD - General Dwight D. Eisenhower) but were also engaged in the Pacific. There the US Navy employed the strategy of "island hopping" towards Japan. When it was on the verge of entering Japan, the Manhattan Project was completed. It led to the successful development of an atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Japanese city Hiroshima was bombed and three days later another atomic attack flattened Nagasaki. Throughout the war, Roosevelt and later Truman were negotiating with the Soviets (led by Stalin) and the British about how the war should be fought (Teheran), about founding the United Nations Organization (Dunbarton Oaks) and about structuring the post-war world (Yalta and Potsdam).

THE COLD WAR PERIOD

    After World War Il, the Cold War against the Soviet Union began because it was believed that this power posed a threat to the United States by its possession of the atomic bomb and by dominating Eastern Europe. The Marshall Plan which provided loans to European countries to help them recover their economies and the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to protect the plan were initiated by American activity as well. United States soldiers represented a major portion of the UN forces that fought in the Korean War (1950-1953) on the side of South Korea against the North Korean and Chinese troops. The chief commander of assistant corps was General McArthur.
     While Eisenhower's policy (1953-1961) concentrated predominantly on the Middle East, John Fitzgerald Kennedy had to confront the Soviet Union in Berlin where he was asked to end the Western occupation but refused to withdraw and thus forced the Soviets to build the Berlin Wall (August 1961). The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 was a reaction to the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons on the island. Kennedy thought this too dangerous and responded with a naval quarantine. The threat of a nuclear holocaust was averted when Khrushchev agreed to ship the missiles back to the Soviet Union in exchange for an American promise never to attack Cuba and respect the revolutionary government led by Castro. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas. During his administration, the civil rights movement headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., achieved many improvements for the African Americans.

THE VIETNAM WAR PERIOD

    The American involvement in the Vietnam War (1961-1973) was later regarded as an unsuccessful military effort to resist the South-Vietnamese Vietcong troops (who received help from the Northern Ho Chi Minh's regime). They failed to prevent them from taking all of the South. Both Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson (president 1963-1969) hoped for victory and escalated the war but all these attempts proved to be in vain. On January 27, 1973, the cease-fire agreement was signed and on April 29, 1975, Vietnam was united. The war was massively opposed at home and seen as purposeless.

FROM THE WATERGATE SCANDAL TO PRESENT DAYS

    In 1974, the investigation of the break-in into the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building, proved that President Richard Nixon was involved in bribing witnesses and was withholding evidence regarding the break-in. On these grounds, he had to resign from office as the first president to do so. After the Watergate scandal, Gerald R. Ford replaced his predecessor and had to deal with serious economic recession. He was succeeded by Jimmy Carter, who having learned a lesson from Vietnam and Watergate, promised the people never to lie again. His first steps were rather convincing, as he managed to conclude treaties that provided for the gradual return of the Canal Zone to Panama, supervised the meeting of the Egyptian and Israeli leaders that resulted in ending the warfare between these two countries, and slowed down the arms race by the SALT-II treaty. But in November 1979, having overthrown the pro-American regime, revolutionaries in Iran stormed into the American embassy in Teheran and took the personnel as hostages. While the 444 days long Iranian hostage crisis troubled Carter, Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan. The cracked international reputation of the United States was the legacy that fell into the hands of Ronald Reagan. In his two-term presidency he cut down taxes (Tax Reform Act - 1986), lowered inflation but also worked out the Strategic Defense Initiative (known as "Star Wars") in 1983 and experienced the crisis in Lebanon where 240 American marine servicemen were killed during their peacekeeping mission. The break of the Iran-contra scandal (1980) revealed secret aid from the American government to the counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua. Although explicitly prohibited by Congress, the money which was obtained from selling arms to Iran was still being sent to the Nicaraguan contras. The hearings proved that Reagan's government had been withholding information from the public. Throughout this time, many meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev (Reykjavik 1986, Washington 1987 and Moscow 1988) set the course of reducing strategic weapons. Moreover, in 1988 Gorbachev began to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Reagan's successor, George Bush, had to handle the crisis in the Persian Gulf in the Gulf War (operation Desert Storm - January 15 to February 28, 1991), UNO troops, which were comprised mostly of US soldiers, defeated the Iraqi army led by Saddam Hussain (who had invaded Kuwait), with the casualties being 137 Americans and an estimated 100 000 Iraqi. In the elections of 1992 Democrat Bill Clinton, the youngest president in office since John F. Kennedy, received the most votes.

THE ANASAZI CIVILIZATION

    If you travel to the southwestern United States to an area known as the Four Corners, where the states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet, you will be able to see the archeological remains of a prehistoric native American people called the Anasazi.
    Thousands of years ago, the Anasazi were nomads, wandering in search of food, which they got by hunting and gathering. Then around 100 B.C., they began to settle and farm in the Four Corners region. The Anasazi lived there in many communities until about 1300 A.D., when their civilization seemed to disappear from the area. In the final years of this civilization, from 1000 to 1300, Anasazi culture was at its high point. During this period, the Anasazi built large, complex villages called pueblos. We can still see evidence of their way of life in the villages they left behind in the desert landscape.
    The Anasazi pueblos were made of stones, logs, and mud. Some were buildings with many stories, hundreds of rooms, courtyards, and balconies, much like our apartment buildings (or blocks of flats). The pueblos at Mesa Verde in Colorado were "cliff dwellings" (obydlí v útesech), that is, villages built high on the sides of steep, flat-topped mountains. Archeologists now believe that the Anasazi built the Mesa Verde pueblos into the cliff as protection from attacks by their enemies. In order to reach their cliff dwellings, the residents had a dangerous climb, first up the steep stone mountainside and then up ladders to the higher rooms. They must have been very strong, agile, and unafraid of heights!
    What was like for the Anasazi? In the southwestern desert, the summers are short, hot, and dry, and the winters are long, cold, and also dry, so growing, finding, and storing enough food took a great deal of their time and energy. They grew corn, squash (tykev), and beans. The corn was dried and then ground by being rubbed between pieces of stone. The men hunted deer, mountain sheep, rabbits, birds, and smaller animals for meat. The women gathered wild seeds, berries, and roots.
    The Anasazi made beautiful baskets for carrying and storing corn, beans, and seeds. They made decorated pottery for carrying and storing water and for cooking beans. They also made their clothing. In summer, they wore sandals and little else. In cooler weather, they wore animal skins or fur robes. The Anasazi also kept warm with blankets woven from turkey feathers or animal fur. (They kept turkeys for their feathers and dogs as one source of fur.) They all liked to wear jewelry made of shells, which they got from traders who came from far away, and ornaments made of feathers.
    In each pueblo there were kivas, circular underground ceremonial rooms, which were used as the centers of Anasazi spiritual life. Religious ceremonies in the kivas probably involved dances or rituals to bring rain, good harvest, or good luck on hunting expeditions. In addition, healing rites (léčebné rituály) for ill people might have taken place there.
    Despite their religious ceremonies, it seems that life became very hard for the Anasazi. By the year 1300, all of them had abandoned their pueblos in the Four Corners region. Probably a long drought - a period with little or no rain - had made it very difficult for them to grow or find enough food. It is also possible that they were driven away by raiding enemies. Did they disappear completely? No, not really. They just gradually moved away and resettled with related Pueblo Indian tribes to the southeast and southwest.
    Much later, an unrelated tribe, the Navajo Indians, moved into the Four Corners area and found the many abandoned pueblos. The Navajos were the ones who named the people who had lived there long before. They called them the Anasazi, "the Ancient Ones".
    The cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde were first reported in December, 1888, when two cowboys were riding across the mesa top looking for cattle. Through the blowing snow they could distinguish something in the cliffs which looked like a magnificent city. These two ranchers were the first white men to see and admire what they called Cliff Palace. 

AMERICAN SLAVERY

    European rulers established colonies in the New World to make a profit. In many of their colonies, slaves produced valuable exports like gold, silver, leather, etc. Spanish and Portuguese landlords were the first to import Africans as slaves, but English landlords in North America at first attempted to cultivate tobacco with "indentured servants". Most indentured servants came from the British Isles and received free passage to America in return for seven years of labor. After seven years, these workers gained their freedom. By 1619, however, English landlords in Virginia still complained of a labor shortage when Dutch ships brought the first of many Africans.
    At first, the Africans were treated as indentured servants. By 1690, however, Virginia's government had transformed all African workers into hereditary slaves with no hope for freedom. The black skins of African slaves made it easy to identify and control them - unlike the white indentured servants, who often ran away. African slavery soon dominated plantation economics in other southern colonies of British North America, producing not only tobacco, but also rice and indigo.
    By 1810, American landlords had imported about 400,000 African slaves into what became the United States of America. Most slaves originated among the Bantu people of western Africa and had been skilled craftsmen or farmers in their native lands. Already quite "civilized" many were of the Muslim faith, but nearly all were required to convert to the Protestant version of Christianity as slaves.
Despite their inferior social position, African slaves made important contribution to American culture. African foods, music and words are all today important elements of the common American heritage. Unlike slaves in the Spanish colonies, American slaves tended to survive the harsh conditions of plantation labor. By 1820, about twenty per cent of the USA population consisted of negro slaves. Today, after several waves of further European immigration, only twelve per cent of all Americans claim African descent.
    Until the American Civil War, the southern states built their society on the foundation of slavery. White masters feared slave uprisings and obtained laws known as "slave codes" to govern the African minority. "Slave patrols" policed rural and urban districts alike. In most southern states it was illegal to teach a slave to read. Sometimes a master would free his slaves, but "free negroes" could not legally reside in many southern states and were forced to move north. Not all masters were cruel, but few masters gave more than the bare necessities to their human property.
    Remarkably, American slaves preserved much family life within their "slave society", beyond the sight of their masters. But every slave lived in fear of being sold away from his of her family, and slave parents endure many daily humiliations concerning their children. The worst fate for any slave was to be "sold down the river" to the sugar plantations of Louisiana, where life expectancy was quite short. Many slaves attempted to escape to the "free states" in the north or even Canada, but most escapees were recaptured.
    The desire for freedom among slaves was perhaps most eloquently expressed in their religious music. In the fields and in their churches the slaves often sang of the escape by Hebrew slaves under Moses from ancient Egypt. Churches were the only formal organizations permitted to slaves under southern law, and religion therefore became a central feature of the struggle for freedom.
Many white Americans opposes slavery. Even slave-owners like Thomas Jefferson came to the conclusion that slavery did moral harm to both the slave and the master. Only the invention of the "cotton gin" made it possible for slave owners to find a new source of profit that sustained slavery. The cotton gin was a simple machine that removed seeds from cotton and increased the value of cotton exports to the new textile industries in Europe. As slavery again produced profits, abolitionists in the southern states lost support.
   On the other hand, many northerners persisted in their demands for abolition of slavery, including prominent former slaves like Frederick Douglas. White and black activists organized an "underground railroad" to smuggle hundreds of slaves to freedom outside the south. Such abolitionists were often motivated by religious and moral principles, but others came from the new class of industrialists who simply opposed the political power of the southern slave owners.
    By 1850, the issue of slavery was a symbol of a power struggle between two very separate civilizations within the United States. The rising power of northern industrialism confronted the plantation-style agrarianism of the "old south". Economic and political differences could not be separated from the debate over slavery. The Civil War of 1861-65 would finally resolve these matters by force of arms, leading to the emancipation of the slaves and an industrial future for the United States.

THE BOSTON TEA PARTY

    One of the more famous episode of the American Revolutionary War period was the Boston Tea Party which occurred on 16 December 1773. The "tea-party" involved a group of American patriots who disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians. They dumped tea belonging to the British East India Company in the Boston Harbor in protest of unfair taxes levied against the colonists by the British Parliament.
    In 1767 the British Parliament passed the Townshend Acts which placed taxes on a variety of goods imported to the colonies. The taxed goods included glass, paper, and tea. In 1770 Parliament voted to repeal all of the taxes under the Townshend Acts except the tax on tea. The tax on tea remained as a way of letting the colonists know that they were still under the rule of England.
    Everything remained quiet for three years. Most of the tea which was purchased by the colonists during these years had been smuggled into the country from Holland. The East India Company was losing money on their tea, so they persuaded Parliament to permit them to sell their tea at a lower price than the smuggled tea. The American colonists felt that this would result in a monopoly on tea, and thus many of them demanaged that tea from the East India Company be sent back to the company. In Boston the situation was a little complicated because the sons of the governor were the leading tea agents in that colony. To send back the tea would result in financial losses for the sons of the governor, so he tried to protect his sons' interests by letting the tea remain in Boston.
    Late in the afternoon of 16 December 1773, sixty men disguised as Indians dumped over 300 chests of tea into the harbor. The result of the Boston Tea Party was that Parliament passed a series of laws to punish the people of Boston. One of the laws closed down the Boston Harbor until the destroyed tea was paid for by the colonists.
The incident known as the Boston Tea Party was seen also one of the significant acts of defiance leading up to the American Revolutionary War. It showed the colonists' desire to be treated fairly under British law. The dumping of the tea in the harbor brought the colonies one step closer to war with England.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

    With the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the French and Indian War which was fought between France and England came to an end. The American colonies were allied with England during the war. As the threat to colonial security from France declined, the colonists could return to the task of creating a stable society in the New World. But England was not willing to let the colonies go their own way. The colonists were rapidly becoming wealthy and politically powerful. So the British Parliament passed a series of acts which were aimed at keeping the colonists under England's authority. The Revenue Act of 1764 placed taxes on imported goods; the Currency Act of 1764 prohibited the use of colonial paper money; the Stamp Act of 1765 taxed mainly printed matter such as newspapers and legal documents; and the Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonists to pay for the housing of British troops.
    As expected, the colonists were angry with these acts. They claimed that they were being taxed unjustly and without representation. One of their slogans was "No taxation without representation!". The result of these acts was to increase unrest among the colonies and to spread talk of revolution against the England of George III. The colonists no longer felt threatened by France. With this enemy gone, the colonists could now concentrate on their treatment by England. The more that George III and the British Parliament tried to bring the colonies under control, the more the colonists revolted.
The Revolutionary War began on 18 April 1775 when British soldiers fired upon Massachusetts' "minutemen". This conflict was the result of England's response to the decision of the First Continental Congress (1774) to ignore all parliamentary decisions since 1763 and to boycott all British goods.
    At the Second Continental Congress (1776), colonial representatives officially declared independence from the King of England. The document, written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, was called The Declaration of Independence. This document contains the famous sentence which declares the truths which are self-evident: "That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". This document, which was signed by the representatives from the thirteen colonies, announced to the world the existence of the United States of America which was free and independent from England.
    The Continental army was joined in their fight against England by thousands of troops from France. It is no small wonder that France supported the colonies in their struggle against England. The most famous American general in the Revolutionary War was George Washington, a Virginia landowner and military genius. He later became the first president of the United States. The war ended in October of 1781 when the British general Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Virginia. This ended the fighting in America. It was not until the Treaty of Paris in 1783 that England officially recognized the independence of the United States of America.

BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL

    This battle was the first major battle of the Revolutionary War. Colonial militia men fortified the hill. The militia men are also called the "Minute Men" as they were turned into the soldiers very quickly. In 1774 there existed no established military forces to protect the rights of the American Colonies. So every man of good health and strength, possibly, entered the newly formed army. Most of the Minute Men were farmers. When there was a battle to fight, they were called to come and help. Minute Men therefore often fought the Redcoats (přezdívka britských vojáků) with their tools for farming.
    A regiment of 1,500 patriots under Colonel Prescott and General Putnam received orders to proceed and fortify Bunker Hill on the Charleston Peninsula. They went under the cover of night. When they arrived, the leaders deliberated for a time to decide whether they should actually fortify Bunker Hill, or fortify Breed's Hill nearby. They finally decided that Breed's Hill would be the most effective point for a fortification. The name Bunker Hill has always clung to this battle though fought on Breed's Hill.
    The officers of the British warship nearby were astonished to see a six-foot high earthwork fortification when daybreak came. The British force attacking Bunker Hill numbered over 3,000 men, besides the support from the battleship nearby.
    The American force was ordered not to fire until they could see the whites of the eyes of the foe, and ordered to fire low: aim at the handsome coats and at the waistbands.
    The silence of the American guns was a riddle to the English. The British soldiers moved up the incline. At the proper distance, 1,500 men rose up. The British soldiers were cut down by the accuracy of the marksmen and had to retreat. General Howe, the British leader soon rallied his men to assault the Americans the second time, and he met with the same result again. However, on the third assault the ammunition of the Americans was almost exhausted, and they were finally driven out after two hours of conflict.
    This battle was a moral victory and it gave great courage to the patriots to fight so well against much larger numbers of British soldiers.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

    "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed (obdarovaní) by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit (snaha) of Happiness. Those to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving (čerpající) their just powers from consent of the governed. That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
    These are the ringing words of a document that was adopted by Thirteen American Colonies in 1776. The document was written almost entirely by Thomas Jefferson and named the Declaration of Independence. The document provided a theory which justified political revolution. It listed the reasons why the Colonists were driven to revolution and justified the Americans in breaking away from British rule.
    The Declaration of Independence was actually signed by assembled delegates of the Continental Congress on August 2, 1776, but Americans celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence that occurred on July 4, 1776 when a draft version (návrh) of the document was signed only by Congress secretary, Charles Johnson and Congress president, John Hancock.
    Americans do not talk much about the historical events that led to creating such a document. They rather celebrate the principles upon which the philosophy of their lives is based:

- All men are created equal.
- They are endowed by God with certain inalienable rights, among which

  are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
- To secure these rights governments are established deriving their powers

   from people.
- When a government departs from this purpose, it is the right of people

   to rebel.

    Americans love their "independence" that became a necessary component of the American life-style.

THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

    While the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781 signaled the end of the Revolutionary War, it was only the beginning of the long process of shaping the new nation. Although each state had its own constitution, it was agreed that a unifying document was needed.
    The colonists' first effort was the Articles of Confederation, a formal agreement loosely unifying the colonies, that went into effect in 1781. It addressed only some of the problems facing the young nation, namely how to organize the Northwest Territory. As a result, there was quarrelling over boundary lines and tariff laws in some states that hurt the economy of others. Nine states had armies, while several even had their own navies.
    The problems of the ununified union came to a head with Shay's Rebellion. Economic difficulties were hitting farmers hard and many were losing their farms as a result. In the autumn of 1786, mobs of farmers in Massachusetts under the leadership of former army captain Daniel Shay began to forcibly disrupt and prevent state courts from holding trials against farmers in debt.
    The rebellion was squashed with little violence but it caused the Massachusetts legislature and other states to begin considering the problems that led to the uprising.
    Things in the 13 colonies had fallen to their lowest point. Representative Alexander Hamilton of New York called for an assembly to resolve the dilemma facing the nation. In May 1787 representatives from all states gathered for the Federal Convention in the Philadelphia State House. Although the convention had been authorized only to draft amendments to the Articles of Confederation, they bravely decided to throw away the Articles and set out to build a new form of government.
    One of their first and most important decisions was to establish three separate but equal branches of government. Legislative (Congress), executive (the Presidency) and judicial bodies (The Supreme Court) were set up to maintain a balance of power.
    During deliberations the delegates decided that the federal government would have, among other things, the power to levy taxes, borrow money, set up post offices, raise and maintain an army and declare war.
    Finally after 16 weeks of deliberation the Constitution was signed by unanimous consent of all the representatives present. However, it was not so simple when it came to the ratification of the document by all the states. To many people the Constitution seemed full of dangers, they worried that a strong central government might tyrannize them, oppress them with heavy taxes and drag them into wars.
    Heated debates over the Constitution in the State Houses resulted in the Bill of Rights that was added to the Constitution in the form of 10 amendments incorporated in the supreme law of the land. Among other rights, these amendments guaranteed US citizens freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly, a state militia instead of an army and the right to a trial by jury.
    Adoption of the Bill of Rights soon brought the undecided states to the support of the Constitution which was finally approved on June 25, 1788.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

    Benjamin Franklin was a man of many identities: printer, writer, statesman, inventor, thinker, and revolutionary. He was the only American to have signed the four major documents which shaped the American republic: the Declaration of Independence (1776); the Treaty of Alliance with France which joined America and France together in the war against England (1778); the Treaty of Paris signed by England and America which ended the Revolutionary War (1783); and the Constitution of the United States (1788).
    Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1706, as the fifteenth child of a poor maker of candles and soap. His parents had emigrated from England in 1683. After attempting to work for his brother's Boston newspaper, young Franklin moved to Philadelphia where he became one of the leading printers of pamphlets and money in colonial America.
    When he wasn't busy at his business, he spent his free time trying to improve the quality of life in America. He is credited with having conducted important experiments on the nature of electricity. He designed a more efficient stove for heating houses (later called the Franklin stove). He co-founded the first lending library in the United States. He invented bifocal glasses and the lightning rods, a device which lessens the impact of a building being hit by lightning.
    One of Franklin's most famous publications was Poor Richard's Almanac - a calendar filled with useful information as well as catchy proverbs which have become a part of the American identity. "A penny saved is a penny earned." "The sleeping fox catches no poultry." "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." "There are no gains without pains." "Lost time is never found again." These sayings have been passed down from generation to generation by Americans.
During the Revolutionary War, Franklin played an important role as statesman to France. When he was not active in colonial politics, Franklin was in Paris making sure that France sided with America in its war for independence. He represented America's interests to the French, and as a result, the Treaty of Alliance was signed in 1778.
    Americans best remember Benjamin Franklin as the foremost example of the self-made man. Born in poverty, Franklin became one of the most significant colonial Americans. He helped to shape the direction of American democracy and gave his energy and time to a young nation. Franklin best symbolizes for Americans what a person can be if he or she works hard and is determined and dedicated. Benjamin Franklin is America's first and most famous "rags to riches story!"

THE GOLD RUSH

    The discovery of gold in 1848 brought fortune hunters from all over the world to California. But the California gold rushers were just the beginning of California's popularity. People have continued to travel to California seeking a place or fortune in the sunny Western state.
    In 1848, gold was discovered in the Sacramento River Valley, California. Some mill workers were digging a ditch for the owner of the mill, Johann Sutter, when one of them found a small shiny rock in the bottom of the ditch. When he realized it was gold, he began yelling with excitement "I have found gold!". Soon, everyone was talking about the discovery of gold in California. The news traveled fast. People came from as far away as China and South America for the chance "to strike it rich" and find gold. The news of gold in California caused great excitement in the Eastern part of the country as well. Thousands of people left their jobs and families and rushed to California to look for gold. That is why it is called "The Gold Rush".
    Most of these miners came in the year 1849 and so they were often referred to as forty-niners. Three-quarters of the men in San Francisco left their homes to try their luck in Sacramento. As San Francisco became empty, Sacramento grew from a population of 800 to nearly 10,000. Active mining towns sprang up out of nowhere as gold fever spread to Nevada and Oregon.
    In 1849, the price of gold was $16 an ounce but getting even an ounce of gold was extremely difficult.
    In the beginning, gold was taken out using 2 simple methods: panning and crevicing. Panning was done by putting dirt in a shallow pan, adding water, and then swishing it around, so that the heavier rock containing gold would stay on the bottom. This process would take a long time so a man could only do 40 pans in a day. Crevicing was done by picking out gold from rocks with a pick axe which was also very hard, time consuming work.
    The California Gold Rush did not make a lot of people rich, but it did speed up the settlement of the West and helped California become a state in 1849.
    In 1897 Jack London left for Alaska to find gold. He was inspired by his experiences and wrote two books: "The Son of Wolf" and "Tales of the Far North".

    In the second half of the 19^th century, the USA endured a terrible war that took more American lives than all the future wars put together. This was the American Civil War or the War Between the States. The causes of this war were complicated but the main issue that divided the northern portion of the country from the southern was slavery.
    In the United States during the 1800's the northern half of the country was developing factories, heavy industries and textile mills. The southern half of the country was mainly an agricultural region dependent on the labor of black slaves from Africa. Land owners in the south owned slaves who were bought and sold at auctions just like farm animals. The slaves lived in poor huts on their masters' land and were often cruelly beaten if they did not work hard enough.
    People from the north didn't approve of slavery. They thought it was wrong to own people and make them work for nothing. The southern landowners got rich on their free labor but the factories from the north paid wages to their workers. In the north, politicians began talking out against slavery in the congress. They put pressure on the south to give up the practice of slavery. The south furiously defended their right to keep slaves even threatening to leave the Union and start a separate republic.
    However, what pushed tensions to the breaking point was what to do about new states that were forming as settlers moved into Western territories. Up until the 1860's the Congress had been balanced with Senators who represented free states and those that represented slave states. As new states joined the Union, the balance tipped in favor of the North. When Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860, seven states in the "deep south" announced they would break or secede from the Union.
    The American Civil War broke out soon after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. The southern half of the country was dependent on slaves to work the land. The industrialized north couldn't tolerate slavery in a country where "all men were created equal". After Lincoln's election, seven states announced their secession from the Union. They formed a new republic called the Confederate States of America and elected Jefferson Davis as their president.
    Civil War was a terrible prospect for a new country but President Lincoln didn't see any other choice. He couldn't accept the idea that southern states could try to leave the union. It was illegal and undemocratic. If the United States of America were to split over the issue of slavery, European powers would step in and dominate the country. Civil War was the only way to preserve the country.
Both sides thought the war would be easily won. The North felt they had the advantage of shipyard factories and machines capable of producing rifles, canons and ammunition. Because most of the conflict was taking place in the South, the confederate soldiers thought they had the advantage because they were defending their own territory and they were familiar with the landscape.
    The southern confederate troops won the first battles of the war. This was partly due to the superior quality of officers like Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson. However, Union leaders were able to make a complete naval blockade of all Southern ports, preventing the export of cotton or the import of European goods to the South. This substantially weakened the Confederate's ability to fight but it did not dampen their spirit. However, on the two occasions when Robert E. Lee attempted to march north, he was defeated in the Battles of Antietam (1862) and Gettysburg (1863). The south could not match the Union's industry or manpower, which were contributed factors to the final defeat.
    Gradually, Union officers who showed talent got President Lincoln's attention and took command. Ulysses Grant received control of all Union forces and by 1864 had Lincoln's approval for a campaign of fierce destructive warfare that would permanently defeat the other side.
    European powers did not miss the cotton that was unavailable from the South, they bought cotton instead from Egypt and India. Besides, Europe needed the grain produced by the north and therefore sided with the Union Lincoln's decision in 1863 to issue the "Emancipation Proclamation" that freed all slaves in rebel-held territories also generated popular support for the Union cause. In the south, it led to massive labor shortages as slaves ran away to join the advancing union forces.
    By the spring of 1865, after Grant captured the confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, General Lee saw that it was useless to continue. His surrender to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia finally ended America's bloodiest conflict.

    In the year 1831 a baby boy was born in a teepee village on the Dakota grasslands. His parents were Sioux and they named him Sitting Bull.
    Sitting Bull grew up to be a respected leader of his people. He did not take part in the fighting at the 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn. But after the battle he defended the actions of his people:
    "We were camped there awaiting the will of the Great Spirit, praying to the Great Spirit to save us from the hands of our enemies, now near and coming to complete our extermination. My men destroyed them in a very short time. Now they accuse me of slaying them. Yet what did do? Nothing. They came to kill us and got killed themselves. The Great Spirit so ordered it."
    After their victory at the Little Big Horn the Amerindians were pursued by the army. In 1877 Sitting Bull led some of his followers to safety across the border in Canada, but in 1881 he returned to the United States.
    His clothes were in rags and he looked old and defeated. But as he handed over his rifle to the American soldiers he told them proudly, "I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle."
    Sitting Bull continued to fight for the rights of his people in other ways. He criticized the American government for neglecting and cheating the Amerindians on the reservations. "It is your doing that we are here," he told a group of visiting Congressmen. "You sent us here and told us to live as you do." He told them that if the government wanted the Amerindians to become like white men then it must supply them with tools, animals and wagons "because that is the way white people make a living."
    In 1885 the famous showman Buffalo Bill Cody offered Sitting Bull a job. He wanted the old leader to become one of the attractions of his traveling Wild West Show. The reservation authorities were glad to be rid of Sitting Bull and quickly gave him permission to go. The following year Cody again asked Sitting Bull to join him, this time on a tour of Europe. Sitting Bull refused. "I am needed here", to hold Cody. "There is more talk of taking our lands."
    When the Ghost Dance movement began the government accused Sitting Bull of being its leader. In December 1890, it sent armed policemen to arrest him. As Sitting Bull stepped out of the door of his cabin on the reservation one of the policemen shot him dead. The killer was a Sioux, one of Sitting Bull's own people.

    "Perhaps the handsomest American of all times and a symbol of adventure, he was envied by men, beloved and spoiled by women, and emulated by boys". Gene Fowler, 1933
    The name of Buffalo Bill would be recognized by almost everyone. He personifies many aspects of the west romantic appeal. Editorial writers use his name to invoke the entire period of westward expansion. Academic historians shy from mentioning him, and for good reason. It is almost impossible to say a couple of sentences about Buffalo Bill without risking a collision between facts and fiction.
    Buffalo Bill was a hero of some 1,700 issues of dime novels between 1869 and 1931.
    William Frederick Cody was born in a log cabin in the Iowa Territory. His father, Isaac, worked as a trader and a surveyor. Isaac, a man of principle, was stabbed while making a speech against slavery. This attack led to his death. Bill supported and cared for the younger children and his mother.
    He took a job as a herder and mounted messenger. A year later, he accompanied a wagon train to distant and exotic Fort Laramie. At the age of fourteen or fifteen Bill rode for the Pony Express.
In 1866 he got married but he seldom stayed long at home. His talents and physical gifts, combined with an apparent fearlessness, made him successful at contract jobs for the army and the railroads. Supplying 4,280 buffaloes to feed railway construction workers during eight months earned him his nickname, Buffalo Bill. His style was to ride to the head of the herd to shoot the leader with "Lucretia Borgia" - his 50 caliber single shot rifle. He would turn the herd in a circle and kill them one by one.
Bill's scouting career was marked by numerous long rides through the hostile Indian country where others refused to go. He was commended for unusual ability as a trailer. No other scout was employed continuously over such a long period. General Sheridan, impressed by Buffalo Bill's skill, named him a chief of scouts when he was 22 years old.
    Guiding wealthy European and American sportsmen on western hunts made him famous. Two years later, he guided the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia. Alexis's trip was so closely followed by the press, and the hunt was so colorfully reported, that Buffalo Bill became a celebrity almost overnight.
The next fall, Cody and his friend, Texas Jack, were persuaded to portray themselves on stage. They performed as real plainsmen for half a year in Chicago in "Scouts in the Cheyennes". He killed the Indian leader and took his first scalp. The effect was electric. Cody, the warrior, validated Cody, the actor. The real drama on the plains made believable the melodrama on the stage. The legend was elevated to a myth. He founded his own "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show". He presented his stories in a clear narration to millions of people in the United States and abroad.
    In 1887 Buffalo Bill was a feature attraction at Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. By the turn of the century, Buffalo Bill was probably the most famous and recognizable man in the world. By 1900, more than a billion words had been printed about him.
Cody invested his earnings in the modern West - mining in Arizona, ranching in Nebraska, town building in Wyoming, film making and tourism. Most of his ventures did not return profit in his lifetime. He died almost broke. His death in Denver on January 10, 1917, made the press lament over the death of the Great West. He had a state funeral, maybe the greatest in Colorado history.

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

    Although many people tried to destroy him, and governments passed laws against him, he was never accused of cheating his partners and stockholders. His customers received the best, cheapest kerosene ever produced and he also paid the highest wages in his time.
    John Davison Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1839 and already at the age of 20, this hard-working man had won the respect of Cleveland's business community. When oil was discovered at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859, Rockefeller decided a fortune could be made by refining and selling oil for kerosene lamps. In 1865, he was able to purchase part ownership in one of the many small refineries in Cleveland, and within five years he was running the largest refinery in the world.
    However, the oil business was soon in chaos as there were too many competitors fighting against one another. Rockefeller, who believed that the industry would collapse unless he could control production and regulate prices, then proceeded to buy the 29 competing refineries in Cleveland.
    Gradually, Rockefeller took over all of the refineries, drilling companies and pipelines, until he controlled every phase of the oil industry. Rockefeller became the richest man in America. In 1896 he developed severe stomach trouble and retired.
    During the next 41 years he distributed over $ 500 million of his personal fortune to schools, hospitals, medical researches and countless philanthropic ventures.
    He died of a heart condition in Florida in 1937, at the age of 97. His name has become a synonym of a rich man and his son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. entered American history as the man who built the famous Rockefeller Center.

HENRY FORD

    Henry Ford is a man who literally transformed the world. The car he built and the changes he made on the techniques of industrial production revolutionized the lives of people everywhere. In the 1920s "Fordismus" entered the European vocabulary as a word for mass production and Ford was regarded as a symbol of industrial technology.
    Henry Ford came from a humble farming background. Born on July 30, 1863, in Dearborn, Michigan, near Detroit, young Henry hated almost everything about farming except the machinery. When he was 16, he went to Detroit to serve as an apprentice (učeň) in a machine shop. He held a series of jobs and learnt how machines are operated.
    He began to experiment in his home workshop in 1891. He was one of many would-be-inventors working on plans for the automobile. In the year 1896 he succeeded in building an automobile powered by a gasoline engine which he had built in his kitchen. Running on four horsepower, the car could reach a speed of 25 miles per hour.
    Henry Ford organized the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899 and produced a small number of cars before the company collapsed two years later. He designed and manufactured racing cars, and in 1900, raced one model at 70 miles per hour.
    In 1903, at the age of 40, and with an investment of $ 28,000, Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company. The automobile was still considered a toy of the rich, and Ford wanted to change this situation.
    The Model T Ford was introduced in the year 1908. It was boxy and tinny-looking (vypadal jako konzerva), as its nickname, the "Tin Lizzie", implied; but it was within the purchasing power of people who were not rich. It fulfilled the goal which Henry Ford has set for himself:
    "I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials by the best men, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one - and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."
    Ford was able to lower the prices of the Model T from the $ 850, which it cost when it first appeared to $ 360 in 1916. He did this by introducing mass production assembly line techniques.
    During the 1920s, however, the Ford Motor Company lost much of its popularity with the American public. When other manufacturers introduced more stylish, relatively inexpensive cars, Ford automobile sales began to drop.
    Nevertheless, as owner of the Ford Motor Company Henry Ford accumulated more than $ 1 billion. Between the years 1908 and 1947, when he died, he contributed more than $ 40 million to charitable causes, such as public hospitals, and research institutions. He established the Ford Foundation (nadace) which continues to support various programs in education, media and culture. And he constructed Greenfield Village, near his birthplace, as a living museum representing the industrialization of America.
    Although he was criticized in his lifetime, without a doubt, he was a technological genius. Not a great inventor, he was able to borrow ideas and apply them to new uses. In bringing the automobile to the average worker, he altered the structure of society, its cities, and the nations of the world.

THE KOREAN WAR

    Japan ruled Korea from the year 1895 to the end of World War II. At that time, Soviet troops took over Korea north of the 38^th parallel of latitude. Americans took over south of there.
    The Soviet Union helped set up a communist government in North Korea. It sent arms to that government. The United States supported a South Korean government made up of a parliament and other elected leaders. Americans also helped organize a South Korean army. Soviet and American troops finally left Korea.
    There was agreement that Korea should become one nation once again. However, the two governments there could not agree on which should rule. The North Korean government finally decided to make Korea one nation by force. In June, 1950, without warning, North Korea attacked South Korea.
    News of the North Korean attack quickly reached President Harry S. Truman. He believed that the Soviet Union was behind it, that is was another case of that country's plan to spread communism.
    Truman ordered American soldiers to Korea. American representatives asked the UN for help. Sixteen nations sent troops and forty-one sent supplies. North Korea won all the battles at first. Its armies pushed South Korean and UN forces far to the south.
    By March 1951 UN troops were pushing the Communists back into North Korea. MacArthur, the leader of the US army, continued to drive north. MacArthur wanted to carry the war into China. President Truman refused. He feared that this might bring the Soviet Union into the war and start World War III. Because MacArthur continued to disagree publicly with the President, Truman removed him from command.
    In July 1951 representatives of the UN and the Communists began negotiations for a cease-fire. Suspicion being on both sides, the talks dragged on and on. In November 1952 Americans went to the polls to elect a new president. Truman had decided not to run. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican candidate and popular hero of World War II, promised to go to Korea and to end the war. The voters elected Eisenhower into the presidency.
    Eisenhower kept his promise and visited the battle front. However, he admitted, he found no quick solutions. Only after seven more months of talks the negotiations signed an armistice, on July 27, 1953.
    Under the terms of the armistice, Korea was divided along the battle line, which roughly followed the 38^th parallel. This boundary was to be a demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea.
    However, United States costs in the war were high. More that 54,000 soldiers were killed, about 10,000 were wounded, and about $ 18 billion was spent.
    Still, the USA had managed to contain communism in Korea and the UN forces had turned back an armed invasion without setting off another world war.

WAR IN VIETNAM

    The former French colony, Vietnam, a country in southeast Asia, was invaded by Japan in World War II. After Japan's defeat, France sent soldiers to get back its old colony. Ho Chi Minh, a nationalist and a communist, led a fight against them. Fearing the spread of communism in this region the United States decided to help France. After some years of fighting, France lost the war and the Geneva agreement divided Vietnam in half until a free election could be held in 1956.
    The United States, however, did not liked the idea of a national election, as Ho Chi Minh, the president of North Vietnam, was likely to win which would mean another victory for communism.
    Thus the U.S. supported the regime in South Vietnam led by Ngo Dinh Diem, who was not a democrat and ran a corrupt police state. Rebellions broke out. The most powerful rebel group was the communist-led National Liberation Front, called the Viet Cong. They fought a guerilla war. They hid in the jungles and they hit their enemies then moving back into the jungles and villages.
    In fact, the Viet Cong were often farmers and children and the South Vietnamese soldiers and Americans always had a hard time telling peaceful farmers from guerillas.
    One thing was clear: the South Vietnamese government was not popular with the people of the south and the Americans were seen as enemies.
    Gradually the war was widening as presidents Kennedy and Johnson sent more and more soldiers there. The war quickly grew into a major conflict not only in Asia but in the U.S. as well. Many young Americans were drafted (povolaní do války) and violently deported to Vietnam. By 1969, there were 542,000 American soldiers there. Special bombs with napalm - a kind of jelly that burned human flesh - killed also many civilians. Vietnam became a horrible "no win" war. All America was divided into "hawks" - those who thought the U.S. should fight to win and "doves" - who wanted peace.
    What really brought the war home was television. The Americans could see young soldiers suffering and dying. Many soldiers were lost in the jungle and those who did return were suffering for a long time after this horrible experience.
    When Richard Nixon became the 37^th President of the U.S., he faced the chief problem - how to end the war.
    While bringing Americans home, Nixon also ordered heavy bombing raids on North Vietnam and in 1970 they also invaded neighboring Cambodia. They did it in search for Viet Cong and North Vietnamese hiding out there. Cambodia was suffering from heavy bombing by the American soldiers. When the American public learnt it, many were shocked. Antiwar marches took place in many parts of the country.
    All the while, American planes bombed all over North and South Vietnam, more and more American soldiers were killed, crippled or simply lost in the country so far from their homeland.
    The war in Vietnam has become a nightmare of many Americans. Many families lost their fathers, husbands and sons. The horrible fighting and suffering was going on till the year 1973. In this year a peace treaty was signed.
    In the year 1975, the Viet Cong pushed into Saigon. The capture of Saigon ended the takeover of the south. Vietnam was finally united under one government - a communist one.
    The war was costly in men and money. More than 56,000 Americans died in the fighting or from other causes. About 1.5 million Vietnamese died and another 3.5 million were wounded. Total costs of the war to the U.S. were about $ 150 billion, plus another $ 200 billion in benefits to veterans. Recent studies show that 60 percent of Vietnam veterans still suffer from the war. Their problems range from nightmares to serious mental disorders.

CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

    In 1952, a book called "The Invisible Man" was written by Ralph Ellison. Its title told a powerful truth. The black American was invisible to many white Americans.
    The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (born in 1929) emerged as an important black leader in 1955. King followed the ideas of the great Indian leader, Mahatma Gandhi, especially that of nonviolence and civil disobedience to free his country from British rule.
    King felt that the tactics of nonviolence were well suited to southern blacks. They already knew about Jesus Christ's message of nonviolence through the Bible. King saw that whites outnumbered and outgunned (převyšovali v počtu a zbraních) blacks.
    Whites often answered blacks with violence, especially in the South where whites and blacks had been segregated, or separated, for years in schools, restaurants, and waiting rooms. In 1960, four black college students sat in at a whites-only lunch counter in North California. This action began a series of what came to be called sit-ins to integrate restaurants and other public places in the South.
    Black and white people all over America, especially students, formed new groups to fight for equal rights for all. Throughout 1962 and 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers carried on nonviolent marches in places like Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. In Birmingham, police chief and policemen armed with dogs and cattle prods met the marchers. They attacked them in full view of millions of television viewers. The nation was shocked. More pressure was put on Congress to pass civil rights laws.
    In August 1963, black leaders organized a huge march on Washington. The march attracted 250,000 Americans of all colors. They heard the famous speech of Dr. Martin Luther King "I have a dream". He said, "that one day … the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood…. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not change the lives of men and women overnight. White violence still went on. In 1964, 24 black churches in Mississippi were bombed. Riots broke out (vzpoury vypukly) in the black sections of several cities. New leaders called for "black power". To some, this meant violence. If white people would not give black people their rights, said some black leaders, then blacks would have to take them - by force if needed.
    Other black leaders interpreted "black power" to mean economic power. The Black Muslim religious movement, for example argued that blacks should be economically self-sufficient. They should also take pride in black achievements. They should be pride of themselves as individuals.
    In April 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leader of the nonviolence for racial equality, was shot by a white racist. (In 1964 M. L. King, Jr. became the youngest man to receive the Nobel peace prize, awarded for his moral courage in the leadership of the civil rights movement).
    The death of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. disillusioned and shocked many people in America.
    Riots of blacks occurred in 168 cities, along with looting (rabování) of stores, and the deaths of at least 39 people.
    By the early 1970s, one thing was sure. Black America was no longer invisible. The victories of the black civil rights movement cannot be measured in marches or riots. They must be measured by the progress of black people in education, income, family life, jobs, and voting rights.
    However, the co-existence of the white and black people in the U.S.A. has not been solved properly and from time to time the problems of this kind occur in the American society.

Martin Luther King Junior's
"I Have a Dream" speech (edited)

    "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: that all the men are created equal.
    I have a dream that one day the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
    I have a dream that a state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
    I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
    I have a dream that one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
    I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."