Four Significant Events to the Foundation and Evolution of the United States Today

The four major events significant to the foundation and evolution of the United States today that I have chosen are: the Positive and Negative Impacts of European Contact, the American Military Victory in the Revolutionary War, Slavery and States Rights, and Reconstruction and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. All four of these events from the first half of the history of the United States played integral roles into making the United States into what it is today.
The first major event in the foundation and evolution of the United States is of course the discovery of the America continents and the European contact that followed. Without this discovery, the seeds for American expansion as a country and a power on the world stage never would have happened. Another positive of European contact include the introduction of corn, pumpkins, potatoes, papayas, pineapples, tomatoes, avocados, guavas, peanuts, chili peppers, many different types of squashed and beans, and cacao to the world diet. European contact with the New World and the Native Americans also resulted in the discovery, and addition to the world markets, of cotton, rubber trees, and tobacco; all of which would go on to play hugely important roles in American history. European contact has also had a negative impact. Immediately following contact with the Europeans, the population numbers of the Native Americans declined roughly by half. This population drop was caused mostly by deadly epidemics because the Native American lacked natural immunities to diseases carried by the Europeans such as cholera, typhus, measles, diphtheria, and smallpox. While European contact with the New World had a disastrous effect on the indigenous Native Americans, the contact had m...

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... Over the course of the next century, the 14th Amendment would be used by the Federal government, particularly the Supreme Court, to integrate African Americans and other cultures into the society. This was and is a major step in the evolution of the United States into the melting pot of freedom that it has become known to be.
All four of these events were each a major step in the evolution of the United States from barely surviving settlements of a few dozen people into the vast economic, social, and military global powerhouse that it is today. If any of these events were to have had a different outcome, the United States very well would not exist, or would still be a group of European colonies, or would be two separate countries split between North and South or between black and white. None of these alternatives are the United States as we know and love it today.