Word Spam (dont pay attention will delete when i get the 15k words)

The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands,[g] and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area.[b] It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations.[h] With a population of over 333 million,[i] it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

Paleo-Americans migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago, and are the ancestors of modern Native Americans. Great Britain's Thirteen Colonies quarreled with the British Crown over taxation and political representation, leading to the American Revolution (1765–1791). After the Revolution, the United States gained independence, the first nation-state founded on Enlightenment principles of liberal democracy.

In the late 18th century, the U.S. began expanding across North America, gradually obtaining new territories, sometimes through war, frequently displacing Native Americans, and admitting new states. By 1848, the United States spanned the continent from east to west. The controversy surrounding the practice of slavery culminated in the secession of the Confederate States of America, which fought the remaining states of the Union during the American Civil War (1861–1865). With the Union's victory and preservation, slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment.

By 1890, the United States had grown to become the world's largest economy, and the Spanish–American War and World War I established the country as a world power. After Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II on the Allied side. The aftermath of the war left the United States and the Soviet Union as the world's two superpowers and led to the Cold War, which commenced in 1945 and ended in 1991 with the Soviet Union's dissolution. During the Cold War, both countries engaged in a struggle for ideological dominance but avoided direct military conflict. They also competed in the Space Race, which culminated in the 1969 American spaceflight in which the U.S. was the first nation to land humans on the Moon. Simultaneously, the civil rights movement (1954–1968) led to legislation abolishing state and local Jim Crow laws and other codified racial discrimination against African Americans. With the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world's sole superpower. In 2001, following the September 11 attacks, the United States became a lead member of the Global War on Terrorism, which included the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) and the Iraq War (2003–2011).

The United States is a federal republic with three separate branches of government, including a bicameral legislature. It is a liberal democracy and has a market economy. It ranks very high in international measures of quality of life, income and wealth, economic competitiveness, human rights, innovation, and education; it has low levels of perceived corruption. The United States has the highest median income per person of any polity in the world, although it has high levels of incarceration and inequality and lacks universal health care. As a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities, the U.S. has been shaped by centuries of immigration.

The United States is a highly developed country, and its economy accounts for approximately a quarter of global GDP and is the world's largest by GDP at market exchange rates. By value, the United States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter. Although it accounts for just over 4.2% of the world's total population, the U.S. holds over 30% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share held by any country. The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, and NATO, and is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The country is responsible for more than a third of global military spending and is the foremost military power in the world and a leading political, cultural, and scientific force.

Etymology

Further information: Names of the United States, Names for United States citizens, Naming of the Americas, Americas § Terminology, and American (word)

The first known use of the name "America" dates to 1507, when it appeared on a world map produced by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in Saint Dié, Lorraine (now northeastern France). On his map, the name is shown in large letters on what would now be considered South America, honoring Amerigo Vespucci. The Italian explorer was the first to postulate that the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern limit but were part of a previously unknown landmass.[25][26] In 1538, the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator used the name "America" to refer to the entire Western Hemisphere.[27]

The first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" dates back to a letter from January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan to Joseph Reed, George Washington's aide-de-camp. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort.[28][29][30] The first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, on April 6, 1776.[31]

The second draft of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, prepared by John Dickinson and completed no later than June 17, 1776, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the 'United States of America'."[32] The final version of the Articles, sent to the states for ratification in late 1777, stated that "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'."[33] In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence.[32] This draft of the document did not surface until June 21, 1776, and it is unclear whether it was written before or after Dickinson used the term in his June 17 draft of the Articles of Confederation.[32]

The phrase "United States" was originally plural in American usage. It described a collection of states—e.g., "the United States are..." The singular form became popular after the end of the Civil War and is now standard usage. A citizen of the United States is called an "American". "United States", "American", and "U.S." refer to the country adjectivally ("American values", "U.S. forces"). In English, the word "American" rarely refers to topics or subjects not directly connected with the United States.[34]

History

Main article: History of the United States

For a topical guide, see Outline of United States history.

Early history

Further information: Native Americans in the United States, Prehistory of the United States, and Pre-Columbian era

Cliff Palace, located in present-day Colorado, was built by the Ancestral Puebloans between AD 1190 and 1260.

It is generally accepted that the first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 12,000 years ago; however, some evidence suggests an even earlier date of arrival.[35][36][37] The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BC, is believed to represent the first wave of human settlement of the Americas.[38][39] This was likely the first of three major waves of migration into North America; later waves brought the ancestors of present-day Athabaskans, Aleuts, and Eskimos.[40]

Over time, indigenous cultures in North America grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the pre-Columbian Mississippian culture in the southeast, developed advanced agriculture, architecture, and complex societies.[41] The city-state of Cahokia is the largest, most complex pre-Columbian archaeological site in the modern-day United States.[42] In the Four Corners region, Ancestral Puebloan culture developed from centuries of agricultural experimentation.[43] The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups. This grouping consists of the peoples who speak Algonquian languages.[44] Historically, these peoples were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the Saint Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes. Before Europeans came into contact, most Algonquian settlements lived by hunting and fishing, although many supplemented their diet by cultivating corn, beans and squash (the "Three Sisters"). The Ojibwe cultivated wild rice.[45] The Haudenosaunee confederation of the Iroquois, located in the southern Great Lakes region, was established at some point between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.[46]

Estimating the native population of North America during European contact is difficult.[47][48] Douglas H. Ubelaker of the Smithsonian Institution estimated a population of 93,000 in the South Atlantic states and a population of 473,000 in the Gulf states,[49] but most academics regard this figure as too low.[47] Anthropologist Henry F. Dobyns believed the populations were much higher, suggesting around 1.1 million along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 2.2 million people living between Florida and Massachusetts, 5.2 million in the Mississippi Valley and tributaries, and around 700,000 people in the Florida peninsula.[47][48]

Colonial America

Further information: Colonial history of the United States, European colonization of the Americas, and Slavery in the United States

The Mayflower Compact signed on the Mayflower in 1620 set an early precedent for self-government and constitutionalism.

Claims of very early colonization of coastal New England by the Norse are disputed and controversial.[50][51] Christopher Columbus had landed in Puerto Rico on his 1493 voyage, and San Juan was settled by the Spanish a decade later.[52] The first documented arrival of Europeans in the continental United States is that of Spanish conquistadors such as Juan Ponce de León, who made his first expedition to Florida in 1513.[53] The Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, sent by France to the New World in 1525, encountered native inhabitants of what is now New York Bay.[54] The Spanish set up the first settlements in Florida and New Mexico, such as Saint Augustine, often considered the nation's oldest city,[55] and Santa Fe. The French established their own settlements along the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico, notably New Orleans and Mobile.[56]

Successful English settlement of the eastern coast of North America began with the Virginia Colony in 1607 at Jamestown and with the Pilgrims' colony at Plymouth in 1620.[57][58] The continent's first elected legislative assembly, Virginia's House of Burgesses, was founded in 1619. Harvard College was established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 as the first institution of higher education. The Mayflower Compact and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for representative self-government and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies.[59][60] Many English settlers were dissenting Christians who came seeking religious freedom. The native population of America declined after European arrival for various reasons,[61][62][63] primarily from diseases such as smallpox and measles.[64][65]

The original Thirteen Colonies (shown in red) in 1775

In the early days of colonization, many European settlers experienced food shortages, disease, and conflicts with Native Americans, such as in King Philip's War. Native Americans were also often fighting neighboring tribes and European settlers. In many cases, however, the natives and settlers came to depend on each other. Settlers traded for food and animal pelts; natives for guns, tools and other European goods.[66] Natives taught many settlers to cultivate corn, beans, and other foodstuffs. European missionaries and others felt it was important to "civilize" the Native Americans and urged them to adopt European agricultural practices and lifestyles.[67][68] However, with the increased European colonization of North America, Native Americans were displaced and often killed during conflicts.[69]

European settlers also began trafficking African slaves into Colonial America via the transatlantic slave trade.[70] By the turn of the 18th century, slavery had supplanted indentured servitude as the main source of agricultural labor for the cash crops in the American South.[71] Colonial society was divided over the religious and moral implications of slavery, and several colonies passed acts for or against the practice.[72][73]

The Thirteen Colonies[j] that would become the United States of America were administered by the British as overseas dependencies.[74] All nonetheless had local governments with elections open to most free men.[75] With very high birth rates, low death rates, and steady settlement, the colonial population grew rapidly, eclipsing Native American populations.[76] The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest both in religion and in religious liberty.[77]

During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), known in the U.S. as the French and Indian War, British forces captured Canada from the French. With the creation of the Province of Quebec, Canada's francophone population would remain isolated from the English-speaking colonial dependencies of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the Thirteen Colonies. Excluding the Native Americans who lived there, the Thirteen Colonies had a population of over 2.1 million in 1770, about a third that of Britain. Despite continuing new arrivals, the rate of natural increase was such that by the 1770s only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas.[78] The colonies' distance from Britain had allowed the development of self-government, but their unprecedented success motivated British monarchs to periodically seek to reassert royal authority.[79]

American Revolution and the early federal republic

Main articles: History of the United States (1776–1789) and 1789–1849

Further information: American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, Territorial evolution of the United States, and Slave states and free states

Declaration of Independence, a painting by John Trumbull, depicts the Committee of Five[k] presenting the draft of the Declaration to the Continental Congress, June 28, 1776, in Philadelphia.

The American Revolution separated the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire, and was the first successful war of independence by a non-European entity against a European power in modern history. By the 18th century the American Enlightenment and the political philosophies of liberalism were pervasive among leaders. Americans began to develop an ideology of "republicanism", asserting that government rested on the consent of the governed. They demanded their "rights as Englishmen" and "no taxation without representation".[80][81] The British insisted on administering the colonies through a Parliament that did not have a single representative responsible for any American constituency, and the conflict escalated into war.[82]

In 1774, the First Continental Congress passed the Continental Association, which mandated a colonies-wide boycott of British goods. The American Revolutionary War began the following year, catalyzed by events like the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party that were rooted in colonial disagreement with British governance.[83][84] The Second Continental Congress, an assembly representing the United Colonies, unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 (annually celebrated as Independence Day).[85] In 1781, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union established a decentralized government that operated until 1789.[85] A celebrated early turn in the war for the Americans was George Washington leading the Americans to cross the frozen Delaware River in a surprise attack the night of December 25–26, 1776. Another victory, in 1777, at the Battle of Saratoga resulted in the capture of a British army, and led to France and Spain joining in the war against them. After the surrender of a second British army at the siege of Yorktown in 1781, Britain signed a peace treaty. American sovereignty became internationally recognized, and the new nation took possession of substantial territory east of the Mississippi River, from what is today Canada in the north and Florida in the south.[86]

As it became increasingly apparent that the Confederation was insufficient to govern the new country, nationalists advocated for and led the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in writing the United States Constitution to replace it, ratified in state conventions in 1788. Going into force in 1789, this constitution reorganized the government into a federation administered by three equal branches (executive, judicial and legislative), on the principle of creating salutary checks and balances. George Washington, who had led the Continental Army to victory and then willingly relinquished power, was the first president elected under the new constitution. The Bill of Rights, forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections, was adopted in 1791.[87] Tensions with Britain remained, however, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw.[88]

Although the federal government outlawed American participation in the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, after 1820, cultivation of the highly profitable cotton crop exploded in the Deep South, and along with it, the use of slave labor.[89][90][91] The Second Great Awakening, especially in the period 1800–1840, converted millions to evangelical Protestantism. In the North, it energized multiple social reform movements, including abolitionism;[92] in the South, Methodists and Baptists proselytized among slave populations.[93]

Territorial acquisitions of the United States between 1783 and 1917

In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand further westward, some of them with a sense of manifest destiny.[94][95] The 1803 Louisiana Purchase almost doubled the nation's area,[96] Spain ceded Florida and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819,[97] the Republic of Texas was annexed in 1845 during a period of expansionism,[95] and the 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest.[98] Additionally, the Trail of Tears in the 1830s exemplified the Indian removal policy that forcibly resettled Indians. This further expanded acreage under mechanical cultivation, increasing surpluses for international markets. This prompted a long series of American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi River from 1810 to at least 1890.[99] and eventually, conflict with Mexico.[100] Most of these conflicts ended with the cession of Native American territory and their confinement to Indian reservations. Victory in the Mexican–American War resulted in the 1848 Mexican Cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest, and the U.S. spanned the continent.[94][101] The California Gold Rush of 1848–1849 spurred migration to the Pacific coast, which led to the California Genocide[102] and the creation of additional western states.[103] Economic development was spurred by giving vast quantities of land, nearly 10% of the total area of the United States, to white European settlers as part of the Homestead Acts, as well as making land grants to private railroad companies and colleges.[104] Prior to the Civil War, the prohibition or expansion of slavery into these territories exacerbated tensions over the debate around abolitionism.

The Civil War and Reconstruction

Main article: History of the United States (1849–1865)

Further information: American Civil War and Reconstruction era

See also: Lost Cause of the Confederacy

Status of the states, 1861

Slave states that seceded before April 15, 1861

Slave states that seceded after April 15, 1861

Union states that permitted slavery (border states)

Union states that banned slavery

Territories

Irreconcilable sectional conflict regarding the enslavement of Africans and African Americans ultimately led to the American Civil War.[105] With the 1860 election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, conventions in eleven slave states declared secession and formed the Confederate States of America, while the federal government (the "Union") maintained that secession was unconstitutional and illegitimate.[106] On April 12, 1861, the Confederacy initiated military conflict by bombarding Fort Sumter, a federal garrison in Charleston harbor, South Carolina. This would be the spark of the Civil War, which lasted for four years (1861–1865) and became the deadliest military conflict in American history. The war would result in the deaths of approximately 620,000 soldiers from both sides and upwards of 50,000 civilians, almost all of them in the South.[107]

Reconstruction began in earnest following the war. While President Lincoln attempted to foster friendship and forgiveness between the Union and the former Confederacy, his assassination on April 14, 1865 drove a wedge between North and South again. Republicans in the federal government made it their goal to oversee the rebuilding of the South and to ensure the rights of African Americans. They persisted until the Compromise of 1877, when the Republicans agreed to cease protecting the rights of African Americans in the South in order for Democrats to concede the presidential election of 1876. Influential Southern whites, calling themselves "Redeemers", took control of the South after the end of Reconstruction, beginning the nadir of American race relations. From 1890 to 1910, the Redeemers established so-called Jim Crow laws, disenfranchising almost all blacks and some impoverished whites throughout the region. Blacks would face racial segregation nationwide, especially in the South.[108] They also lived under constant threat of vigilante violence, including lynching.[109]

Industrial Age and the Progressive Era

Main article: History of the United States (1865–1918)

Further information: Economic history of the United States, Immigration to the United States, and Technological and industrial history of the United States

2:43

Film by Edison Studios showing immigrants at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, that was a major entry point for European immigration into the U.S.[110]

In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe supplied a surplus of labor for the country's industrialization and transformed its culture.[111]

National infrastructure, including telegraph and transcontinental railroads, spurred economic growth and greater settlement and development of the American Old West. After the American Civil War, new transcontinental railways made relocation easier for settlers, expanded internal trade, and increased conflicts with Native Americans.[112] The later inventions of electric light and the telephone would also affect communication and urban life.[113]

Mainland expansion also included the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867.[114] In 1893, pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy and formed the Republic of Hawaii, which the U.S. annexed in 1898. Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines were ceded by Spain in the same year, following the Spanish–American War.[115] American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the end of the Second Samoan Civil War.[116] The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917.[117]

Rapid economic development during the late 19th and early 20th centuries fostered the rise of many prominent industrialists. Tycoons like Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie led the nation's progress in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. Banking became a major part of the economy, with J. P. Morgan playing a notable role. The American economy boomed, becoming the world's largest.[118]

These dramatic changes were accompanied by huge increases in immigration, growing inequality and social unrest, which prompted the rise of organized labor along with populist, socialist, and anarchist movements.[119] This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which saw significant reforms including health and safety regulation of consumer goods, the rise of labor unions, and greater antitrust measures to ensure competition among businesses and attention to worker conditions.

The rise to world power, the New Deal, and World War II

Main article: History of the United States (1918–1945)

Further information: United States in World War I, Great Depression in the United States, and Military history of the United States during World War II

Worker during construction of the Empire State Building in New York City in 1930

Mushroom cloud formed by the Trinity Experiment in New Mexico, part of the Manhattan Project, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in history, July 1945

The United States remained neutral from the outbreak of World War I in 1914 until 1917 when it joined the war as an "associated power" alongside the Allies of World War I, helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson took a leading diplomatic role at the Paris Peace Conference and advocated strongly for the U.S. to join the League of Nations. However, the Senate refused to approve this and did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles that established the League of Nations.[120]

Around this time, millions of rural African Americans began a mass migration from the South to northern urban centers; it would continue until about 1970.[121] The last vestiges of the Progressive Era resulted in women's suffrage and alcohol prohibition.[122][123][124] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage.[125] The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of radio for mass communication and the invention of early television.[126] The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal.[127] The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration.[128]

At first neutral during World War II, the United States in March 1941 began supplying materiel to the Allies. On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the United States to join the Allies against the Axis powers, and in the following year, to intern about 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans.[129][130] The U.S. pursued a "Europe first" defense policy,[131] leaving the Philippines, an American colony, isolated and alone to fight Japan's invasion and occupation until the U.S.-led Philippines campaign (1944–1945). During the war, the United States was one of the "Four Powers"[132] who met to plan the postwar world, along with Britain, the Soviet Union, and China.[133][134] The United States emerged relatively unscathed from the war, and with even greater economic and military influence.[135]

The United States played a leading role in the Bretton Woods and Yalta conferences, which signed agreements on new international financial institutions and Europe's postwar reorganization. As an Allied victory was won in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[136] The United States developed the first nuclear weapons and used them on Japan in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945; the Japanese surrendered on September 2, ending World War II.[137][138]

Cold War and late 20th century

Main articles: History of the United States (1945–1964), 1964–1980, 1980–1991, and 1991–2008

Post–World War II economic expansion in the U.S. led to suburban development and urban sprawl, as shown in this aerial photograph of Levittown, Pennsylvania, circa 1959.

After World War II, the United States financed and implemented the Marshall Plan to help rebuild western Europe; disbursements paid between 1948 and 1952 would total $13 billion ($115 billion in 2021).[139] Also at this time, geopolitical tensions between the United States and Russia led to the Cold War, driven by an ideological divide between capitalism and communism.[140] They dominated the military affairs of Europe, with the U.S. and its NATO allies on one side and the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies on the other.[141] The U.S. often opposed Third World movements that it viewed as Soviet-sponsored, sometimes pursuing direct action for regime change against left-wing governments.[142] American troops fought the communist forces in the Korean War of 1950–1953,[143] and the U.S. became increasingly involved in the Vietnam War (1955–1975), introducing combat forces in 1965.[144] Their competition to achieve superior spaceflight capability led to the Space Race, which culminated in the U.S. becoming the first nation to land people on the Moon in 1969.[143] While both countries engaged in proxy wars and developed powerful nuclear weapons, they avoided direct military conflict.[141]

At home, the United States experienced sustained economic expansion, urbanization, and a rapid growth of its population and middle class following World War II. Construction of an Interstate Highway System transformed the nation's transportation infrastructure in decades to come.[145][146] In 1959, the United States admitted Alaska and Hawaii to become the 49th and 50th states, formally expanding beyond the contiguous United States.[147]

Martin Luther King Jr. gives his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, 1963.

The growing civil rights movement used nonviolence to confront racism, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader and figurehead.[148] President Lyndon B. Johnson initiated legislation that led to a series of policies addressing poverty and racial inequalities, in what he termed the "Great Society". The launch of a "War on Poverty" expanded entitlements and welfare spending, leading to the creation of the Food Stamp Program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, along with national health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid.[149] A combination of court decisions and legislation, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, made significant improvements.[150][151][152] Meanwhile, a counterculture movement grew, which was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam War, the Black Power movement, and the sexual revolution.[153] The women's movement in the U.S. broadened the debate on women's rights and made gender equality a major social goal. The 1960s Sexual Revolution liberalized American attitudes to sexuality;[154] the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City marked the beginning of the fledgling gay rights movement.[155][156]

The United States supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War; in response, the country faced an oil embargo from OPEC nations, sparking the 1973 oil crisis. After a surge in female labor participation around the 1970s, by 1985, the majority of women aged 16 and over were employed.[157] The 1970s and early 1980s also saw the onset of stagflation. The presidency of Richard Nixon saw the American withdrawal from Vietnam but also the Watergate scandal, which led to his resignation in disgrace and a decline in public trust of government that expanded for decades.[158]

U.S. president Ronald Reagan (left) and Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva Summit in 1985

After his election in 1980 President Ronald Reagan responded to economic stagnation with neoliberal reforms and initiated the more aggressive rollback strategy towards the Soviet Union.[159][160][161] During Reagan's presidency, the federal debt held by the public nearly tripled in nominal terms, from $738 billion to $2.1 trillion.[162] This led to the United States moving from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation.[163] The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended the Cold War,[164][165][166] ensuring a global unipolarity[167] in which the U.S. was unchallenged as the world's dominant superpower.[168]

Fearing the spread of regional international instability from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, in August 1991, President George H. W. Bush launched and led the Gulf War against Iraq, expelling Iraqi forces and restoring the Kuwaiti monarchy.[169] During the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1994, the U.S. signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), causing trade among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to soar.[170] Due to the dot-com boom, stable monetary policy, and reduced social welfare spending, the 1990s saw the longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history.[171]