America: Did you mean...?

Slavery was practiced by the Native Americans before any Europeans arrived in the region. People of one tribe could be taken by another for a variety of reasons but, whatever the reason, it was understood that the enslaved had done something...

Where did paper money come from? Despite it seeming like a modern invention, its origins go back to Ancient China. And, despite it now being hard to think of a world without paper money, in 1968, Americans could still redeem their U.S. bills...

A gouache on paper painting titled America Before Independence by Nicha Sursock. This is part of a series of 43 works representing the history of the USA. Peter Stuyvesant and Richard Nicholls (1664) in New Amsterdam, Sachem Sassacus and...

This is the darkest chapter in Minnesota History. In Mankato, 38 Dakota were hanged in the largest mass execution in United States History. Just under Fort Snelling, over a thousand Dakota were held in a concentration camp where hundreds...

Hear about what American was like before Whitey showed up in all of its diverse complexity. But I'll also talk about the Age of Exploration, Whitey's arrival in America, and the great Columbian Exchange.

Before the Mayflower arrived in 1620, thousands of indigenous nations lived on the northeast coast of North America. The pilgrims aboard the Mayflower arrived in the territory of the Wampanoag Nation. Learn more about Wampanoag history and...

The systematic European colonization of North America unfolded between the first voyages of the 1490s and the outbreak of the French and Indian War in the 1750s. Spanish, French, English, and Dutch ambitions carved up the continent, with...

Spain’s rapid expansion into South America followed the consolidation of its Caribbean footholds by 1512, marking a decisive shift from exploration to imperial conquest. Under the reign of Ferdinand II of Aragon (reign1479–1516) and later...

A map of modern Central America.

A drawing of a couple in traditional Colonial American formal attire. The woman wears a richly decorated brocade dress with floral designs, while the man is dressed in a suit of uncut velvet and holds a tricorne hat. From Historic Dress in...