Starting in 1927 and finishing in 1941, Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers sculpted the colossal 60 foot (18 m) high carvings of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln to represent the first 130 years of American history.
Starting in 1927 and finishing in 1941, Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers sculpted the colossal 60 foot (18 m) high carvings of U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln to represent the first 130 years of American history.
The first Europeans to reach North America were Icelandic Vikings, led by Leif Ericson, about the year 1000. Traces of their visit have been found in the Canadian province of Newfoundland, but the Vikings failed to establish a permanent settlement and soon lost contact with the new continent.
Five centuries later, the demand for Asian spices, textiles, and dyes spurred European navigators to dream of shorter routes between East and West. Acting on behalf of the Spanish crown, in 1492 the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus sailed west from Europe and landed on one of the Bahama Islands in the Caribbean Sea. Within 40 years, Spanish adventurers had carved out a huge empire in Central and South America. In the 16th and 17th Century, Northern Europeans settled in what is now the North East Coast of the United States, which soon fell under the British Crown and stayed an English Colony till the Revolutionary Wars in the late 18th Century. Please see links below for an outline of the history of the United States, with a few selected focus areas.
Additional Resources：
- A Chronology of US Historical Documents — by the University of Oklahoma College of Law
- Library of Congress
Online Reading
Historians on America (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State) (PDF 3.56 MB)
Outline of U.S. History (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State) (PDF 4.38 MB)
Portrait of the USA: Toward the City on a Hill (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State) (PDF 48 KB)
USA History in Brief (published by Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State) (PDF 1.64 MB)
Please call: 010-8531 4000
Outside of Office Hours, contact: 010-8531-3000
Outside of China: (+86) 10-8531 4000
Emergency Contact – All Locations Enroll in STEP International Parental Child Abduction Arrest of a U.S. Citizen Death of a U.S. Citizen Victims of Crime Emergency Financial Assistance