简明美国史Outline of US History.docVIP

Outline of U.S. History Chapters Chapter 1 Early America Chapter 2 The Colonial Period Chapter 3 The Road to Independence Chapter 4 The Formation of a National Government Chapter 5 Westward Expansion and Regional Differences Chapter 6 Sectional Conflict Chapter 7 The Civil War and Reconstruction Chapter 8 Growth and Transformation Chapter 9 Discontent and Reform Chapter 10 War, Prosperity, and Depression Chapter 11 The New Deal and World War II Chapter 12 Postwar America Chapter 13 Decades of Change - 1960-1980 Chapter 14 The New Conservatism and a New World Order Chapter 15 Bridge to the 21st Century Editions: Espa?ol Fran?ais Русский ????? 中文 ???? Early America Arrival of Native Americans and Europeans ? Mesa Verde settlement in Colorado, 13th century. (? Russ Finley/Finley-Holiday Films) Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for mans habitation.????? ?– Jamestown founder John Smith, 1607 THE FIRST AMERICANS At the height of the Ice Age, between 34,000 and 30,000 B.C., much of the worlds water was locked up in vast continental ice sheets. As a result, the Bering Sea was hundreds of meters below its current level, and a land bridge, known as Beringia, emerged between Asia and North America. At its peak, Beringia is thought to have been some 1,500 kilometers wide. A moist and treeless tundra, it was covered with grasses and plant life, attracting the large animals that early humans hunted for their survival. The first people to reach North America almost certainly did so without knowing they had crossed into a new continent. They would have been following game, as their ancestors had for thousands of years, along the Siberian coast and then across the land bridge. Once in Alaska, it would take these first North Americans thousands of years more to work their way through the openings in great glaciers south to what is now the United States. Evidence of early life in North America continues to be found. Little of it, however, ca