Crossing the land bridge -- Leif Ericson and Vinland -- Columbus's voyages -- Native Americans -- Jamestown -- The Mayflower Compact -- The Salem witch trials -- French wars in the new world -- Tobacco and cotton -- Taxation and representation -- Lexington and Concord -- The Declaration of Independence -- Thomas Jefferson -- George Washington -- Bunker Hill to Yorktown -- The Constitutional convention -- Federalists and anti-Federalists -- The Louisiana Purchase -- The War of 1812 -- Jacksonian democracy -- Slavery -- Railroads and telegraphs -- Manifest Destiny -- The gold rush -- Lincoln's election -- Fort Sumter -- Gettysburg -- Grant and Lee -- Reconstruction and reaction -- Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Mellon -- Busting the trusts -- Organized labor -- The automobile -- World War I -- The roaring twenties -- Crash! -- Votes for women -- The New Deal -- Franklin D. Roosevelt -- World War II -- Life on the home front -- McCarthyism -- The Korean War -- Martin Luther King Jr and civil rights -- Black power -- John F. Kennedy -- The missiles of October -- Vietnam -- The space race -- The counterculture -- Women's liberation -- Environmentalism -- Watergate -- Ronald Reagan -- Iran-Contra -- The collapse of communism -- The first Gulf War -- 9/11 -- The Afghan and Iraq wars -- The occupation of Iraq -- The great recession -- Barack H. Obama.