Historical Events: APUSH Notes
1.The Shaping of North America 1.Recorded history began 6,000 years ago. It was 500 years ago that Europeans set foot on the Americas to begin the era of accurately recorded history on the continent.
2.The theory of “Pangaea” exists suggesting that the continents were once nestled together into one mega-continent. The continents then spread out as drifting islands.
3.Geologic forces of continental plates created the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.
4.The Great Ice Age thrust down over North America and scoured the present day American Midwest.
2.Peopling the Americas 1.The “Land Bridge” theory… 1.As the Great Ice Age diminished, so did the glaciers over North America.
2.The theory holds that a “Land Bridge” emerged linking Asia & North America across what’s today the Bering Sea. People were said to have walked across the “bridge” before the sea level rose and sealed it off and thus populated the Americas.
2.The Land Bridge is suggested as occurring an estimated 35,000 years ago.
3.Many peoples emerged… 1.Those groups that traversed the land bridge spread across North, Central, and South America.
2.Countless tribes emerged with an estimated 2,000 languages. Notably… 1.Incas – Peru, with elaborate network of roads and bridges linking their empire.
2.Mayas – Yucatan Peninsula, with their step pyramids.
3.Aztecs – Mexico, with step pyramids and huge sacrifices of conquered peoples.
3.The Earliest Americans 1.Development of corn or “maize” around 5,000 B.C. in Mexico was revolutionary in that… 1.Then, people didn’t have to be hunter-gatherers, they could settle down and be farmers.
2.This fact gave rise to towns and then cities.
3.Corn arrived in the present day U.S. around 1,200 B.C.
2.Pueblo Indians 1.The Pueblos were the 1st American corn growers.
2.They lived in adobe houses (dried mud) and pueblos (“villages” in Spanish). Pueblos are villages of cubicle shaped adobe houses, stacked one on top the other and often beneath cliffs.
3.They
2.The theory of “Pangaea” exists suggesting that the continents were once nestled together into one mega-continent. The continents then spread out as drifting islands.
3.Geologic forces of continental plates created the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.
4.The Great Ice Age thrust down over North America and scoured the present day American Midwest.
2.Peopling the Americas 1.The “Land Bridge” theory… 1.As the Great Ice Age diminished, so did the glaciers over North America.
2.The theory holds that a “Land Bridge” emerged linking Asia & North America across what’s today the Bering Sea. People were said to have walked across the “bridge” before the sea level rose and sealed it off and thus populated the Americas.
2.The Land Bridge is suggested as occurring an estimated 35,000 years ago.
3.Many peoples emerged… 1.Those groups that traversed the land bridge spread across North, Central, and South America.
2.Countless tribes emerged with an estimated 2,000 languages. Notably… 1.Incas – Peru, with elaborate network of roads and bridges linking their empire.
2.Mayas – Yucatan Peninsula, with their step pyramids.
3.Aztecs – Mexico, with step pyramids and huge sacrifices of conquered peoples.
3.The Earliest Americans 1.Development of corn or “maize” around 5,000 B.C. in Mexico was revolutionary in that… 1.Then, people didn’t have to be hunter-gatherers, they could settle down and be farmers.
2.This fact gave rise to towns and then cities.
3.Corn arrived in the present day U.S. around 1,200 B.C.
2.Pueblo Indians 1.The Pueblos were the 1st American corn growers.
2.They lived in adobe houses (dried mud) and pueblos (“villages” in Spanish). Pueblos are villages of cubicle shaped adobe houses, stacked one on top the other and often beneath cliffs.
3.They