Podcast om USA

In this podcast, the main historical events in the United States' history are discussed. Topics include Christopher Columbus discovering America, the conflicts between indigenous people and white settlers, the Declaration of Independence, the American Civil War, and America's involvement in World War I. The podcast also touches on the current political situation in the U.S.A. and the discrimination faced by Black people. Hey, and welcome to this podcast. In this podcast today, we're going to talk about the main historical events in the United States' history. And with me, I have Elias Solle and Elias Soff. Do you guys want to introduce yourself and your themes? Hello, my name is Elias, and I'm going to talk about the Declaration of Independence and the Civil War. Hello, my name is Elias, too, and I'm going to talk about Christopher Columbus and the Indians, or the natives, as we call them. And I, Simon Fjeldahl, I'm going to talk about America and World War I, as well as the time between the two world wars. And at the end, we're going to discuss how English became a world-known language and the political situation in the U.S.A. today. So, now we will start with the earliest historical events in the United States' timeline, and we will start with you, Elias Soff. Yes, thank you, Simon. So, Christopher Columbus, he was the first person to discover America in 1492. He was an Italian trader and explorer, but he's most known for discovering America. He was born in Italy, in a town called Genova, in 1451. His father was a weaver. He was also a bruiser and was politically engaged. His mother came from a family with a lot of money, so growing up, he and his family had a lot of money. So, his goal was to find the shortest seaway from Europe to India. And why was that so important for Christopher Columbus? For Christopher Columbus, it was important because he had received financial gains. And for the world, for the traders and the sea people, it was important because when they did trades, they have to go around Africa with boats, and if he found another shorter way, that would have a lot to say in the trader marks. Yeah, the cost of going and shipping and stuff like that. So, Elias, why didn't Columbus arrive in India? He didn't arrive in India because he arrived in America, a new continent and a very important discovery. So, when Christopher Columbus arrived, he arrived at the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas in 1492. When he arrived, did he encounter any kind of people, like indigenous people? Yes. So, when he first arrived, he was met with Indians, today called as the natives. And they were very nice to Columbus and his people, but Columbus was not nice to the Indians because it was a lot of slavery on that time. So, he enslaved the indigenous people? Yes. So, when Christopher Columbus and his men enslaved all of these indigenous people, did there occur any kind of conflict between the two? Yes, it was a lot of conflicts between the white people and the natives. So, between 1775 and 1890, it was more than 40 different wars between the natives and the whites. So, in this period of time, it was a lot of wars and death and suffering. Even women and children died in these wars too. And it was around 50,000 natives that died and almost 20,000 people that died. And this is because the Indians, they were very great hunters and they had a lot of experience hunting in the woods, so they were used to tracking down animals and killing them. That's great. So, with this experience, they were very good warriors, but they didn't stand a chance against the white people because they had the guns and the Indians just had the spears and bows. So, yeah, that's why it was so much death from the Indians and not the white people. Yeah. And in America, it was Indian tribes. A lot of different Indian tribes and not all Indian tribes were friends. They had... So, some Indian tribes was even on the white side because... They had internal conflict. Yes. And that... So, it was like traders. Nice. Traders. Yeah. They were fighting for the white people. Yeah, but something I forgot to say. In America, when Columbus arrived, it was between 7 and 10 million natives. Yeah. So, the situation today in America, it is almost 5 million natives in America and the all these lives like a normal person in this modern society. They have adapted to modern day technology and stuff like that. Yes, but it is a lot of poverty. So, when they lived in this modern society, they had to give up on the old Indian heritage. Yes. But Elias, do you know why there is today a lot of poverty among modern day Indians? Yes. So, we have to go a little back in time and that was when the Indians were forced to move to certain reservists because they lost the wars. And because of that reason, there was a very closed group of people and this did like... Yeah, that's why they are poor. Pav, didn't many Indians get an alphabet and start to drink because of the situation they are in now? Yes, it was a lot of like... they were sad and... Depressed. Yeah, depressed because... They didn't get the same opportunities and were maybe exploited by the US government. Yeah, it is like... they were like... Oppressed. Oppressed. So, yeah, this was Columbus. He was the first person to discover America and in America he... Encountered. Yes, the natives. And I think we are going to the next theme. So, Elias, you have something to say? Yeah. So, Great Britain started it all. They made 13 colonies in the East America from the South to the North. However, after a time, the colonists wanted independence. After the Seven Wars against Francia, as one of the enemies, they had lost much money. The state debt was for double. Then the British king decided to give taxes to the Americans, such as the Sugar Act in 1764 and the Stamp Act in 1765. The colonists reacted strongly to this because they didn't want to pay tax if they don't have no representation in the Congress. They had a strong no-tation without representation. But I have heard that there was the start of the war between the colonies and the United Kingdom. That was because of a Tea Party. Yeah. So, after a time, it also came a tax on the tea. Every time tea came into the land of Russia, they needed to pay for it. The colonists were mad. So, when Britain sent tea for £10,000 to America to help the East India Company, the colonists dressed it up. So, then the colonists dressed it up as Indians and threw all the tea away on the sea. How did the British king react to this? The British king and the Parliament were very mad and they closed the bay in Boston. After the Boston Tea Party, the war started and it ended in Paris in 1783. So, when did the Declaration of Independence sign and was it both parts who signed? The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 in Paris. In the start, many people were not sure if it would be better without Britain. However, when Tom Paine published Common Sense, that was about the British king being the most important threat to the freedom of the colonists. Then the people realised and made the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was only USA that signed this contract. Not England. Why did England not sign it? Because England wanted to be a part of the United States. Britain wanted to own the 13 colonies. But the 13 colonies wanted to get away from Britain. Be their own country with their own laws. As the colonies became more and more independent and didn't rely on each other as much, did there ever become a conflict of interest between the states? Yes. The American Civil War was a war between the northern states and the 11 southern states that secluded from the Union. The northern states wanted to abolish slavery but the southern states wanted to keep it. This was because the southern states were much more dependent on slavery and needed them more. The northern states had more wealth and were not as dependent on slavery as the southern states. Britain wasn't a democrat party in the southern states and they wanted to keep slavery. But today they have gone completely upside down and are very pro-Black Lives Matter and other movements like that. That was a really great question. I just need to talk a bit more about the Civil War before I can talk about what happened after. The war started mainly when Edward Lincoln, who was a northern politician, was elected in 1816. Then the seven of the southern states secluded from the Union. However, also after the outbreak of war, four more of the southern states secluded. When these states formed a weaker Union called the Confederated States of America, Lincoln denied that any of the states should seclude from the Union. Following this, the Union authorities declared war on the Confederation and attacked a Union fort in South Carolina. So in Paris, 1783, the war ended with those from the southern parts of America surrendering and the North America win. Slavery was abandoned, but to this day it's still discrimination against Black people. So, as you asked before Simon, Black people are still discriminated against to this day. But luckily it has become more focused on it today. After George Floyd died in 2020 from a policeman, then the Black Lives Matter topic tag has gone viral. And it has been used millions of times. It seems that the discrimination is going away because it's so much focused on it now. But Simon, after the Civil War, wasn't there any significant other wars later on? Yes, the two main significant ones was World War II and World War I. I will start to talk about World War I. In World War I, America remained at peace up until 1917. This was because they did not like German submarine activity that was destroying the marine life and the fisher life. And America arrived to aid Britain and France to lead the Allied victory over Germany and Austria in November 1918. President Woodrow Wilson wanted to keep America out of the horrifying bloodbath in Europe. This was even allowed when Germany's campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic Ocean went on. But how great was the casualties? In a short period of time, America was able to lose 4 million soldiers by Germany. And out of those, only 100,000 of 16,708 lost their lives. The remaining went home or became injured. As I have not previously stated, and I forgot, Woodrow Wilson, the president, accepted the war when the Zimmermann letters, which exposed Germany's plan to become allied with Mexico, if USA did not remain neutral. This led to the agreement in the Congress that the US should get involved in order to not be pushed around by Germany. Which countries were on the same team in World War I? There were Germany and Austria, which were the main ones. And there were the United States, England and France. And at the end of the war, it all ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in Paris, where all of the main powers agreed that Germany were the one and only responsible for the war and that they should pay for the damages done to the victorious countries, as well as other 14 points. I will talk about some of them. That is not being able to have a big military. And you said that Germany was the only country that was responsible for the war and they had to pay a debt. What was this debt? This debt was to the victorious countries, the United States, France and England. This debt and taxes were so that the victorious countries could get back on its feet, since they had lost a lot of money and expenses on trying to defend their country from Germany. So they had to pay a lot of money? Yes, but this led to Germany taking a loan from the United States, because they were extremely poor after the war. And the German economy got very inflated because Germany printed a lot of money. They printed even 1 million dollar bills in Germany, which led to bread costing over 10,000 German value. Did you have a question for me, Elias? Yes, but when all this happened, what were the consequences for Germany besides anomic? Because the people of Germany shamed themselves because of World War I. After World War I, the German people became very angry, because they did not feel like these agreements in the treaty were fair to them. So there became a lot of hatred in the country towards the Western culture, which would fuel the rise of the Nazi party, who then started World War II. Between World War I and World War II, it was things that happened. What were these things? We recall that time between World War I and World War II, the Great Depression. It was a time of despair, because jobs were hard to come by, stocks went down, and the US economy was in shambles. It was not only the United States of America who experienced this, but it was especially prevalent in the United States and Europe. The reason all of this went down was because the stock market went down, which led to many jobs being terminated, and the people were struggling to find jobs and a stable income and supporting the family. But was this only in the USA, or in the whole world? As I previously stated, this was around the world, because of World War I. But again, it was most prevalent in the United States and Europe, especially in Germany and the United States. So after the Great Depression, it was World War II. And when did this war start? It started in 1939, when Germany attacked Poland. So Simon, what happened next? The US got involved in 1941, when the bombing of Pearl Harbor happened. What is Pearl Harbor? Pearl Harbor was a harbor on the west coast, close to Japan, and Japan decided to bomb this harbor, which led to the United States declaring war on Japan. But who was Germany? Who was the leader who was attacking the world? The leader of the Nazi party, Adolf Hitler, was the leader of the Nazi party and the leader of Germany. But Germany and Italy declared war on... Germany, Italy and Russia declared war on the United States. No, not Russia, but Germany and Italy. They declared war on the United States just following days later, because they felt threatened by the United States going to war against Japan. Now we have finished with World War II. After World War II, it was a cold war, but we are not going to talk about that. We are going to talk about how English got such a wide-spoken language it is today. So Simon, what do you think? The reason English became such a wide-spoken language is mainly because of the United Kingdom and their colonization around the world. They colonized many countries. Which countries? India. And parts of Africa. Yes, USA. But today we will find the most translated things in India, because India still speaks English as a second language. And I think also so many countries speak it because it is such an easy language to learn. From a region, it is much easier to learn the communication of words. But now everything is in English. English is the global language. Everything on the cell phone, on the PC, on the gaming computer, all is in English. So, everywhere you go, you need to know English. And you encounter English as well. Yes. So, yes, this is why we think English is a worldwide language. And now we are going to talk a little bit about the situation that USA is in today. So, yes, the situation today is very uneasy. And, yes, Simon, do you have something to say about this? Yes, the political situation in the United States today is the people are very divided and split because they believe very strongly with the Republican Party and the Democrat Party. So, if you and your friend both decide to do the opposite thing and vote on the opposite team, you will most likely not be friends with that person. But I feel that Donald Trump makes this situation much worse. Yes, he makes it even more uneasy for the people because of his statements and how... He talks about other countries. He talks about other countries and how he did not want to step off power when he was not elected. Yes. Yes, so this was our news. And, yes, thank you for us. Thanks for us. And I hope you come to the next episode of us. We will now list our sources. I will start. The sources I used was Britannica, SNL and ushistory.org. The sources I used was SNL. The sources I used was SNL and Wikipedia. Bye-bye.