Random Maps That Tell Entire History Of United States (25 items)

• 

  (#12) The Trail Of Tears

  An increasing population, the acquisition of new land, the fear of conflict, and a sense of superiority prompted the United States government to remove indigenous groups from their territory in the east, shifting them west of the Mississippi River. Members of the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole nations, among others, were forcibly and systematically driven or removed from their lands throughout the early 19th century. This was exacerbated by President Andrew Jackson signing the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

  By the late 1830s, the last groups of defiant Native Americans were collected by federal troops. Out of the 15,000 members of the Creek Nation who were forced to travel the so-called Trail of Tears in 1836, only 3,500 survived the journey to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

  In 1838, President Martin Van Buren sent 7,000 troops to march members of the Cherokee nation 1,200 miles. Plagued by disease, starvation, and abhorrent conditions, over 5,000 individuals perished en route. Collectively, tens of thousands of Native Americans were removed from their lands. 
• 

  (#18) Sherman’s March To The Sea

  In late 1864, as Union forces led by Major General William T. Sherman made their way through Georgia, they brought on total devastation. Intending to terrify, destroy, and completely undo the Confederacy, the 62-day military campaign began when Sherman and his Union forces drove the Confederacy out of Atlanta in September. They then pushed to Savannah with as many as 62,000 men, burning homes and fields, freeing slaves, slaughtering livestock and other animals, and pillaging the countryside. They destroyed communication lines, storage facilities, and factories, all under Sherman's order to "make Georgia howl."

  After arriving in Savannah on December 21, 1964, Sherman and his men went north, destroying everything in their wake through South Carolina and into North Carolina.

  Sherman's efforts proved effective. To Sherman, war was meant to be total:

  To sustain it, we must war upon and destroy the organized rebel forces, must cut off their supplies, destroy their communications... and produce among the people of Georgia a thorough conviction of the personal misery which attends war, and the utter helplessness and inability of their "rulers" to protect them... If that terror and grief and even want shall help to paralyze their husbands and fathers who are fighting us... it is mercy in the end.

  By waging battle against civilians and combatants alike, he facilitated the breakdown of the Confederate spirit. 
• 

  (#8) The American Revolution

  A conflict long in the making - brought on by what colonists saw as oppressive taxation, unfair trade regulations, and repressive legal oversight - the American Revolution officially began in 1775.

  While a series of rebellious acts, namely the Boston Tea Party, preceded formal denunciations of "taxation without representation" by the First Continental Congress in 1774, the colonies weren't ready to push for formal independence. It wasn't until June 1776 that the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, officially expressing their end goal. 

  The American Revolution spanned the 13 colonies, culminating with the surrender of the British at Yorktown in October 1781. Two years later, both sides signed the Treaty of Paris, bringing the conflict to an end.  
• 

  (#21) Cold War Alliances 1959

  WWII had made for strange bedfellows, uniting the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, among others, against Germany and the Axis Powers. With the end of WWII, those alliances broke down, essentially dividing the world into two camps. Best represented by the newly divided Germany, lines between an expanding Soviet empire and the Western world took clear ideological and physical form. 

  In 1949, former WWII allies Great Britain, France, and the United States were the driving forces behind the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Tasked with preventing Soviet expansion and promoting political cooperation among members, NATO was defensive in nature, as well. "By this treaty, we are not only seeking to establish freedom from aggression and from the use of force in the North Atlantic community, but we are also actively striving to promote and preserve peace throughout the world," claimed President Harry S. Truman.

  The initial 12 members of NATO (Great Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Iceland, Canada, and the United States) were joined by Greece, Turkey, West Germany by the mid-1950s.

  In 1955, the Soviet Union formed its own military cooperative, the Warsaw Pact, also called the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance. A comparable mutual defense agreement to NATO, the Warsaw Pact included Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria.

  Colonial territories and countries dependent upon foreign aid aligned with one side or the other, although parts of the world, namely India, did their best to maintain what has come to be known as nonalignment.
• 

  (#15) Results Of The 1860 Election

  Slavery, states' rights, economics, and a host of related issues were at the core of the 1860 election. When the Democratic Party gathered to select a nominee in April of that year, the meeting quickly descended into chaos. When Southern delegates were told the group wouldn't support an effort to guarantee slaveholding in US territories, they split off into a separate faction. Northern delegates met later, nominating Stephen Douglas as their candidate, while Southern Democrats selected John C. Breckinridge.

  The Republican Party had a difficult time choosing their nominee, only choosing candidate Abraham Lincoln the third time around. Another contender, John Bell, ran as a member of the Constitutional Union Party.

  In the Northern states, Lincoln and Douglas faced off, while Bell and Breckinridge competed in the South. Ten states in the South didn't even put Lincoln, who openly wanted to prevent the spread of slavery to the territories, on the ballot. 

  Abraham Lincoln won the election, but with less than half of the popular vote. He did secure 180 electoral college votes, exceeding the 152 needed for the win. 
• 

  (#20) 1941 Alliances

  By the end of 1941, WWII alliances were formally realized. As early as 1936, Germany, Italy, and Japan had entered into agreements with one another, ultimately leading to the establishment of the so-called Axis alliance with the Tripartite Pact of 1940. Adolf Hitler and the Germans systematically invaded countries like Poland and France, extending their dominance through Europe during the late 1930s and early 1940s.

  In contrast to the Axis Powers, the Allies, headed by Great Britain, leaned heavily on imperial possessions and help from the United States. Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States was technically neutral, lending money and leasing military bases to the Allies. The US officially entered the conflict before the close of 1941, joining Great Britain and the Soviet Union in their efforts against Axis entities.

  The Soviet Union, however, presented a unique diplomatic challenge. While the Soviet Union remained insular, standoffish, and resistant to entering the conflict, leader Joseph Stalin had no choice but to enter into the Anglo-Soviet Alliance in June 1941 after Germany invaded the Soviet Union's borders. 

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking