The history of the United States begins with the arrival of human beings thousands of years ago. The first known inhabitants of what is now the United States are believed to have arrived over a period of several thousand years beginning sometime prior to 15,000–50,000 years ago by crossing Beringia into Alaska. Solid evidence of these cultures settling in what would become United States territory is dated to around 14,000 years ago.
Research has revealed much about the early Native American in North America. Christopher Columbus' men were the first documented Old Worlders to land in the territory of what is now the United States when they arrived in Puerto Rico during their second voyage in the year 1493. Juan Ponce de León, who arrived in Florida in 1513, is credited as being the first European to land in what is now the continental United States, although some evidence suggests that John Cabot might have reached what is presently New England in 1498.
The coming of Europeans began the colonial history of the United States. The Thirteen Colonies, British colonies that would become the original US states, were founded along what is now the country's east coast beginning in 1607, but various other European powers also founded settlements in what would become US territory, both before and later. Due to growing dissatisfaction with British rule, the thirteen British colonies fought the British army in the American Revolutionary War of the 1770s and issued a Declaration of Independence in 1776. In early 1781, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union of the States were established, six months before the end of hostilities in the Revolutionary War. Two years later, Britain officially recognized the sovereignty and independence of the United States in the Treaty of Paris.[8] In the nineteenth century, westward expansion of United States territory began, encouraged by the belief in Manifest Destiny, in which the United States would occupy all of North...