North America

War between the Union and the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865, rooted in disputes over slavery, secession and the future of the United States.

Changing zones of settlement, migration and conflict on the expanding United States frontier, rather than a single uniform geographic or temporal boundary.

War for independence of the thirteen British North American colonies, fought across North America and beyond.

Competition and cooperation in space technology and human spaceflight, particularly between the United States and Soviet Union.

Period of rapid economic growth and major inequality in the United States during its late nineteenth-century industrialization.

Global economic downturn following financial instability and credit crises, with major consequences for banking, employment and public policy.

United States before the Civil War, shaped by territorial growth, competing labor systems and mounting sectional tensions.

Global geopolitical rivalry and ideological competition centered on the United States and Soviet Union from the postwar era to the breakup of the USSR.

Long-running public health crisis driven by waves of prescription and illicit opioid misuse and overdose deaths in the United States.

Major Pacific and Asian theater of World War II, conventionally dated here from Japan’s December 1941 attacks through its surrender in 1945; the wider Sino-Japanese conflict began earlier.

Prolonged war in Vietnam and the wider Indochina region involving North Vietnam and allied communist forces against South Vietnam and its allies, especially the United States, ending in 1975.

National prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States, with extensive political, commercial and organized-crime consequences.

The acute phase of the global financial crisis in 2008, marked by the failure or rescue of major financial institutions and the freezing of credit markets.

The first crewed lunar landing on 20 July 1969, when NASA Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reached the Moon while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit.

The Japanese aerial attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, prompting the United States to enter World War II.

Two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring many others.

Enslaved Africans seized control of the Spanish ship La Amistad in 1839, provoking legal conflict in the United States.

An oxygen tank exploded aboard Apollo 13, forcing cancellation of the landing and a difficult crew rescue.

A three-day American Civil War battle in Pennsylvania, 1–3 July 1863, ending in a Union victory and halting Robert E. Lee’s invasion of the North.

Mexican forces under Santa Anna besieged the Alamo during the Texas Revolution.

U.S. and Soviet leaders confronted nuclear escalation after discovery of Soviet missile sites in Cuba.

David Frost's televised interviews with former President Richard Nixon became a major public examination of Watergate.

The publication of classified Vietnam War history exposed government decision-making and sparked a major press-freedom dispute.

Civil-rights activists marched in Alabama to advance voting rights, culminating in a march to Montgomery.

The national setting for Rogers’s television career, public-education work, and cultural influence.

The metropolitan setting surrounding LaGuardia Airport, the flight path, rescue response, and media attention.

A significant early-career location in Charles’s emergence as a professional recording and touring musician.

The Tidewater Virginia region was the setting for Jamestown and early English-Powhatan encounters.

The U.S. state forming the broader regional setting of the film.

Capital of Massachusetts and principal setting of Black Mass.

Island country in the Caribbean.