Meet the USA

History

The Benjamin Franklin National Memorial statue, located in the rotunda of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pa., is shown on May 19, 1938. The 20-foot-high marble statue, sculpted by James Earle Fraser, weighs 30 tons and sits on a 92-ton pedestal of white Seravezza marble. The statue was dedicated by Congress in 1976. (© AP Photo)

History does not exist for us until and unless we dig it up, interpret it, and put it together. Then the past comes alive, or, more accurately, it is revealed for what it has always been - a part of the present. - Frederick W. Turner III, 1971

History is the study of the human past. Historians study records of conditions or events of a particular time and place. The United States of America is at once a very new nation and a very old nation. The first settlers - Asian hunters and nomads - reached North America about 30,000 years ago. However, the United States of America did not come into being until 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. The history of the United States is the story of many different peoples who together compose the United States of America. Since the first Europeans arrived in 1492, millions of people from many different countries have entered the United States and made the country their new home.

An Outline of American History
Publication by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs

American Memory
Historical Collections for the National Digital Library (Library of Congress)

American Treasures of the Library of Congress
Online presentation of the exhibition.

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