AMERICAN HISTORY

This is for the parents forced into home-schooling their children.  The trick to American History is knowing all the benchmark dates.  If you get everything in the right order, you get a sense of our country and what is important to it.  For this exercise, I'll begin with European exploration.  Here goes - copy and save.

1,000 AD  Leif Erickson and his band of Norsemen visited the northernmost reaches of future USA
1,492 AD  Columbus sailed the blue (he never really landed in future USA but came close)
1,620 AD  The Mayflower brought the Pilgrims to future USA and established the Plymouth Colony
1,754 - 1,763 AD  The French and Indian War (Americans & Indians vs French & Indians)
1,775 - 1,783 AD  The Revolutionary War (US war for independence)
1,776 AD  Declaration of Independence
1,789 AD  George Washington became first POTUS (U S Constitution in force)
1,812 - 1,815 AD  War of 1812 (the date is easy to remember)
1,846 - 1,848 AD  Mexican-American War (that's how we got Texas)
1,861 - 1,865 AD  Civil War (there we were killing each other to abolish slavery)
1,898 - 1,898 AD  Spanish-American War (immediately followed by the Philippine War)
1,914 - 1,918 AD  World War I  (the War to end all Wars)
1,918 - 1,920 AD  Spanish Flu Pandemic (It really started during WWI)
1,929 - 1,939 AD  The Great Depression (we're talking money)
1,941 - 1,945 AD  World War II (the really big one)
1,950 - 1,953 AD  Korean War (this conflict is really not over yet)
1,962 AD  Cuban missile crisis (Cold War with Soviet Union heats up)
1,963 AD  President John F Kennedy assassinated
1,965 - 1,975 AD  Vietnam War (we had people there before '65 but that's when it started for me)
1,969 AD  Man first visited our Moon (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin)
1,990 - 1,991 AD  Gulf War (Protecting Kuwait)
2,001 AD  World Trade Center bombing
2,001 - ?,??? AD War in Afghanistan
2,003 - 2,011 AD  Iraq War
2,020 - ?,??? AD  Corona Virus Pandemic

Okay, that should keep the kids busy for a few days.  These are the things that strike me.  Mostly wars it seems and I left out a dozen or more wars with American Indians in the 18th and 19th centuries (the last of which was actually in 1923).  I also left out small wars we participated in around the world.  I was going to include the date Elvis died, but we're not sure he's dead.