Celebrating 250 Years: A Quick Glance at American History
- Jul 16
- 4 min read
This July 4th was the 250th American Independence Day. Seriously, let that sink in. We are part of a country that has been around for centuries, witnessed wars, given birth to innumerable talents, survived both prosperity and depression, and a lot in between. So, let’s take a quick look back at those 250 years, at the good and the bad, and see how far the U.S. has come since then.
1. Birth of the U.S.
This is a story many of you already know. The Founding Fathers gathered in Independence Hall in Pennsylvania to put on parchment the document that would be the beacon of America’s independence from Britain: the Declaration of Independence. That fateful day on July 4th, 1776, gave rise to the United States of America, a country that was brave enough to fight Britain to gain its freedom.
But the U.S. did a lot more than that. Many other colonized people saw the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence as an inspiration. It was a living example that the Enlightenment principles of natural rights and the social contract could be realized. So other countries started revolting too.
The French Revolution began in 1789 and drew heavily on the U.S. for its Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the American Revolution fueled the Haitian Revolution in 1791, which became the most successful enslaved peoples' uprising.
The creation of the U.S. had effects far beyond its borders.
2. The Civil War
After the success of the American Revolution, the U.S. focused on westward expansion. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the U.S. greatly increased in size. It was now a nation that spanned from coast to coast…so it was time to expand. Thus came the idea of Manifest Destiny: the belief that Americans have the divine right to expand westward. But that only applied to white, free Americans. Slavery was an extremely contentious topic during that expansion. Situations such as the Missouri Compromise—a compromise that divided slave and free states along the 36°30’ latitude— created a divide in the country. The slave states existed in the South, and the free states in the North. With clear divides and rising tensions, war was inevitable. And so began a dark, contentious chapter in American history.
The Civil War started in 1861 and ended in 1865, and over 600,000 people died in those 4 years. But after those years of fighting, the Union forces of the North achieved victory and abolished slavery through the 13th Amendment in 1865. But the war left the country damaged. Infrastructure needed to be rebuilt, the economy reinstated, and 4 million newly freed slaves accommodated into society.
And so began the time of Reconstruction, when the U.S. rebuilt the country.
3. The Depression & WWII
After the time of Reconstruction, America was back on its feet, and it was ready to industrialize. The Transcontinental Railroads were completed, industrial facilities boomed in WWI, and the U.S. became a global superpower.
Advancing technology and rising consumerism led to the rise of the modern lifestyle in the early 1920s. Everything was going great…until 1929. Due to the quick expansion, reckless banking systems, and high investment in stocks, the economy crumbled, and the Great Depression started. It lasted for 10 years and was only resolved due to the New Deal. This was a series of economic reforms conducted by Franklin Delano Roosevelt that created jobs and brand new infrastructure for the U.S. and some of the most famous parts of our government, like Social Security or FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.), which passed the Banking Act in 1933 to restore public trust in banking. But a huge factor that ended the Great Depression was the U.S. involvement in WWII.
By the late 1930s, WWII was spreading across Europe as Nazi forces invaded Poland and were campaigning across Europe. To combat this threat, countries like Britain paid the U.S. for the use of their industrial resources and facilities, which created new jobs for Americans and also brought the U.S. out of the Depression.
The U.S. officially joined the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. The U.S. was involved in the war for another 4 grueling years and lost close to 420,000 Americans. But the U.S. endured.
4. September 11, 2001
The conclusion of WWII also gave rise to weaponry that would change warfare forever: nuclear weapons. Through the principles of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), the mass usage of nukes in warfare was unlikely, but still possible. So, this led to an eternal stalemate between the U.S. and the Soviet Union—two major countries with access to nuclear weapons—called the Cold War. This meant that if either country wished for more control, it would have to rely on proxy wars, which are wars fought by others while being sponsored by a country. Through such proxy wars, the U.S. fought to contain the communist ideas of the Soviet Union, and this culminated in the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
However, one of those proxy wars was fought in Afghanistan, where the U.S. armed and aided local forces to repel the Soviet Union. After successfully repelling the Soviet Union in 1989, the local forces radicalized and formed into an organization known as Al-Qaeda. Despite receiving U.S. aid, Al-Qaeda saw the U.S. presence in the Middle East as a threat and committed the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Close to 3000 Americans citizens died that day, and it galvanized the U.S. to start a “war on terrorism” and invade Afghanistan and Iraq to eliminate terrorist groups. However, the main perpetrator of the 9/11 attack, Osama Bin Laden, was not killed until 2011.
5. Today
Since that time, a lot has happened to the U.S., but one way or another, we got here. And that’s exactly the spirit that’s propelled the country for the last 250 years. Challenge after challenge, whether internal or external, the U.S. has pushed through.
I won’t say that the U.S. is perfect, because it’s not. There have been many dark chapters in the past, and there are sure to be more in the future, but the important part is that we always endure.
So, keep fighting and remember all 250 years that lead up to this past Independence Day.
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