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The Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock, December 1620
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| European nations came to the Americas to increase their wealth and broaden their influence over world affairs. The Spanish were among the first Europeans to explore the New World and the first to settle in what is now the United States. By 1650, however, England had established a dominant presence on the Atlantic coast. The first colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Many of the people who settled in the New World came to escape
religious persecution. The Pilgrims, founders of Plymouth, Massachusetts, arrived in 1620. In both Virginia and Massachusetts, the colonists flourished with some assistance from Native Americans. New World grains such as corn kept the colonists from starving while, in Virginia, tobacco provided a valuable cash crop. By the early 1700s enslaved Africans made up a growing percentage of the colonial population. By 1770, more than 2 million people lived and worked in Great Britain's 13 North
American colonies.
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| Choose Another Time Period  |
| "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!"
"Patrick Henry Was Born"
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| A Mover and a Quaker
"William Penn Was Born"
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| A River from Canada to Asia?
"Jacques Cartier Sailed Up the St. Lawrence River"
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| A Settlement with Unsettling Challenges
"Jamestown Was Established"
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| Bubble Bubble, Toil, and Trouble
"Salem Witch Trials"
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| Can I Get Your Autograph, Mr. Hancock?
"John Hancock Was Born"
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| Deerfield Invasion
"Raid of Deerfield, Massachusetts in Queen Anne's War"
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| Do You Know This Founding Father?
"John Jay, One of the Nation's Founding Fathers, Was Born"
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| Fighting For Freedom
"Stono's Rebellion"
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| Freedom in Rhode Island
"Roger Williams, Founder of Rhode Island, Arrived in Boston"
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| How Harvard University Got Its Name
"Clergyman John Harvard Died"
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| Land Ho!
"Christopher Columbus Saw Land!"
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| Livingston, I Presume
"Statesman Robert R. Livingston Was Born"
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| Reading the Stars
"Mathematician and Astronomer Benjamin Banneker Was Born"
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| Sailing to Albany!
"Henry Hudson and His Crew Sailed into the River that Would Bear His Name"
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| Saved by Pocahontas
"John Smith Became a Leader of Jamestown"
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| The Clever General
"Nathanael Greene Was Born"
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| The Clue In The Letter
"George Washington Was Born"
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| The First Synagogue in the British Colonies
"First Jewish Synagogue Was Dedicated in the United States"
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| The Multitalented Mr. Jefferson
"Thomas Jefferson Was Born"
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| The Oldest City in the U.S.
"A Spanish Expedition Established St. Augustine in Florida"
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| The Tale and Music of Old Maryland
"Maryland Day"
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Who lived in America before colonists arrived?
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Native Americans lived as autonomous nations (also known as tribes) across the continent from present-day Alaska, across Canada, and throughout the lower 48 United States.
Who were the first people to come to the continent of the Americas?
The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to Siberian populations by linguistic factors, the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, such as DNA.
How many Native American tribes were there before colonization?
The People. In 1492 the native population of North America north of the Rio Grande was seven million to ten million. These people grouped themselves into approximately six hundred tribes and spoke diverse dialects.
Who were probably the first people to arrive on the North American continent?
Ice age. During the second half of the 20th Century, a consensus emerged among North American archaeologists that the Clovis people had been the first to reach the Americas, about 11,500 years ago. The ancestors of the Clovis were thought to have crossed a land bridge linking Siberia to Alaska during the last ice age.
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