The first true pioneers of America, the first to settle in the pristine continent are thought to have been nomadic Mammoth hunters from Siberia. Around 14,000 years ago the walked across from Asia on the land bridge where the Bering Straight now lies. The entire region was was not too different from how it is today but there were sufficient amounts off mammoths to make hunting worthwhile. It is thought that there could've been as few as fifty individuals that completed the journey. That could've been enough to populate the entire continent.

The descendants advanced so quickly that they reached the southern tip of South America within a couple of thousand years. Distinct groups settled in specific areas and adopted to the changes in their environment. The first definite signs of human presence in the United States was uncovered at Meadowcroft in southwest Pennsylvania and dates back around 12,000 years. While estimates of the total indigenous population before the arrival of the Europeans vary, the figure is thought to be around 12 million.

The first European to reach North America was a Norwegian explorer named Leif Eriksson, almost 500 years before Columbus stumbled upon the continent in 1492. By the mid-1550s, much of the Americas had been visited by an array of explorers from Spain, Portugal, England and France. The first colonies were attracting immigrants wanting to get rich quick then return home. They were soon followed by immigrants looking to colonise.

It was the Spanish who found the first permanent European settlement in St. Augustine in 1565; shortly after the French moved in on Maine in 1602, and the first British settlement was Jamestown, Virginia in 1607. The pilgrims founded a colony at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, and later in 1620 signed the Mayflower Compact which would later form the basis of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. British attempts to assert authority in it's 13 North American colonies led to the French and Indian War from 1757-63. The British were victorious but left with a sizeable war debt, which they tried to recoup by imposing new taxes.

In the 19th century America's mantra became 'Manifest Destiny', which was a belief the United States was destined to expand across the continent, by force if necessary. It was used by those wishing to secure Oregon, California and Mexican land in the Southwest, and, in the 1850's, Cuba. Following the Battle of the Alamo during the 1835 Texan Revolution, in which Texas won independence from Mexico, and the war with Mexico from 1846 to 1848 where California was won, the US was given roughly it's present shape.

Nineteenth century immigration saw the cultural landscape change significantly as the predominately British settlers were joined by Central Europeans and Chinese, many attracted by the gold rush in California in 1849. In 1860 when abolitionist Abraham Lincoln was elected president the South, which remained heavily reliant on African-American slave labour, seceded from the Union and the Civil War followed. After five years of the bloodiest war in America's history, the North prevailed and the slaves were freed and male suffrage was introduced. However Lincoln was later assassinated.

The US joined WWI in 1917 to help defeat the Germans but celebrations were cut short when prohibition was introduced in 1920, banning alcohol throughout the country. The Great Depression came in 1929 following the stock-market crash which brought about Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal which was hoped to bring the country back to prosperity.

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour in 1941, the US joined WWII helping to defeat Hitler's Germany. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki not only brought about the end of the war with Japan but also brought about the nuclear age, in which the USSR and USA stockpiled nuclear weapons and fought wars by proxy in Korea, Africa and Southeast Asia. Tensions reached their peak during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

The sixties brought about a social change, thanks largely in part to the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War protests and the discovery of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Martin Luther King Jr's 'I have a dream' speech was followed by the introduction of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. In 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon with NASA and the USA winning the space race.

After a few presidential scandals through the 70's and 90's; Richard Nixon and the Watergate burglaries and Bill Clinton's 'Fornigate' affair with Monica Lewinsky, George W. Bush's disputed 2000 election divided the country and it took the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to reunite the country. Even that didn't last too long however, as the US went to war with Iraq in March 2003 the country was yet again divided between supporters and protestors of the war.