History

The history of North America spans centuries, extending back far before settlers from Europe arrived. Much of the earliest history of what became the United States is shrouded in colonialism, lost forever due to <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-important-missing-historical-documents/melissa-sartore" target="_blank">missing documents</a>, or linked to <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/modern-archaeological-facts/zach-seemayer" target="_blank">archaeological discoveries</a> that continue to be made.&nbsp;

A lot of what most of us know about American history comes from the textbooks we had in school, documentaries and television shows, and books or other materials we encounter throughout our lives. It&#39;s impossible to learn everything about history, of course, which makes it all the more exciting to find out new facts and details over time.

In 2021, we uncovered a lot of American history that often left us asking, &quot;How are we just now hearing about this?&quot; Vote up the facts that leave you asking&nbsp;the same question.&nbsp;

15 Facts About American History We Learned In 2021 We Wish We'd Known Earlier

General

Facts About American History We Learned In 2021

Melissa Sartore

Royalty

In th 1870s, rich Americans came up with a new scheme: they sold their daughters abroad, marrying them off to British aristocrats in exchange for a title. In a country without an aristocracy, suddenly every rich American wanted a duchess in the family. The young women, who often didn&#39;t have a choice, became known as the Dollar Princesses.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/what-counts-as-nobility-in-europe/ella-talkin" target="_blank">Buying noble titles</a> was an old practice, of course, but Americans took it to a new level with Gilded-Age marriages.&nbsp;American brides carried huge fortunes across the sea, including some of the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-lavish-dowries-in-history/carly-silver" target="_blank">most lavish dowries in history</a>. In a matter of decades, the Dollar Princesses sent $25 billion to the United Kingdom, propping up aristocratic families and infusing the European economy with new money.

Many Dollar Princesses, like Consuelo Vanderbilt, weren&#39;t happy at all about being sold overseas. Railroad heiress Alice Thaw&nbsp;had to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-american-rich-kids-bought-their-way-into-the-british-elite-4252/" target="_blank">wait in the church</a> while her intended, the Earl of Yarmouth, renegotiated her dowry with her father. On the positive side, these cold-hearted transactions did lead to several notable Brits, including Winston Churchill and Princess Diana.&nbsp;

The Dollar Princesses: How American Social Climbers Sold Their Daughters To British Nobles For Rank

The Dollar Princesses: How Americans Social Climbers Sold Their Daughters To British Nobles For Rank

Genevieve Carlton

Awkward & Cringey

Every United States citizen is required to study United States history at some point during their education, but it&#39;s clear from these dumb history statements that not everyone passed History 101.

People who don&#39;t know history are bound to make the same mistakes, while people who don&#39;t know they don&#39;t know history are bound to post something embarrassingly stupid on the internet.

Embarrassing Face Palms From People Who Don’t Know Anything About US History

Embarrassing Face Palms About US History

Brenden Donnelly

US History

A fair bit of American history is wholly inaccurate, yet <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/biggest-us-historical-events-not-taught-in-school/alby-thompson" target="_blank">these myths persist</a>&nbsp;in&nbsp;US&nbsp;history classes, popular anecdotes, and even textbooks. This is how several American history lies have become&nbsp;facts to many people.

Many popular American misconceptions are easy to disprove, but difficult to accept. What follows is the factually correct American history all Americans deserve to know. Vote up the truths&nbsp;that genuinely surprise you.

12 Lies About American History Even History Buffs Are Guilty Of Believing

Lies About American History Even History Buffs Believe

Jason F. Collins

Are you already an expert in everything America? Great! No need to read about these fascinating facts and important events that have shaped the U.S. as we know it today.

US History You Should Know

Trending on Ranker

For such a relatively new country, the United States of America has managed to rack up its fair share of weird moments in history. A lot of&nbsp;weird US <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/facts-about-benjamin-franklin/nicky-benson" target="_blank">history facts</a> even make it into our textbooks, like disappearing colonies,&nbsp;a bunch of drunk guys throwing tea into a harbor to help kickstart a revolution, and presidents fighting off assassins with canes. But there&#39;s an awful lot of bizarre historical tidbits out there that most people never hear about.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Out of all the weirdness that&#39;s come from this country since the start, we&#39;ve compiled some of the very&nbsp;weird (but&nbsp;true!) US&nbsp;history facts that helped shape the US of A into the country it is today. Some of them give an extra bit of depth to the history surrounding their time periods, and others are just plain fun.

American Historical Events That Sound Made Up But Aren't

Melissa Higgins

When the important tales of US history are doled out in American schools, there&rsquo;s little room left in the curriculum for the Bonus Army March - but maybe there should be. Bonus Army facts and knowledge are sparse throughout the general American population, but the group deserves more historical credit than it&#39;s been granted. The actions of the Bonus Army remain one of the most successful protests in national history, serving as the foundation for modern veterans&rsquo; rights.

The story of what happened when the Bonus Army marched on Washington in 1932 is one that needs plenty of context to be understood, and yet it remains the sort of event that seems like it could have happened in any era of American history. With protests over the treatment of veterans, insinuations of communist conspiracies, and tanks rolling into Washington, the Bonus Army incident may have taken place during the Great Depression, but it wouldn&rsquo;t seem too out of place in 2019.

The Bonus Army: When American Veterans Took On The US Government And Won

The Bonus Army March: When WWI Vets Took On The US Government & Won

Stephan Roget

Look: Some people have so much money that they just can't possibly live normal lives or even behave like regular human people. These are their stories.

Lifestyles of the Very Wealthy

Rich families of the Gilded Age lived lives nearly unimaginable today. How so? One need only look around one&#39;s hometown and see where the enormous, glorious mansions of the late&nbsp;19th century have either been turned into private or public museums &ndash;&nbsp;or are peeling and rotting away &ndash; to get a glimpse. In most cases, it&nbsp;is simply too costly to maintain them as private residences&nbsp;anymore. So, imagine just how incredibly rich the handful of mid- to late 19th-century families had to be to keep up such lavish appearances. The Gilded Age wealth disparity was so extreme that people today often compare them to what modern society&nbsp;terms the &quot;one-percent&quot; class.&nbsp;

Excess touched every&nbsp;single aspect of daily life in the Gilded Age, from the responsibility&nbsp;of servants to change bed linen multiple times per day,&nbsp;to designer clothing and jewels, to the horrendously elaborate gastronomical events that were conducted everyday in the dining rooms of the super rich, to the over-the-top <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/biggest-feuds-in-science/rylee_en" target="_blank">feuds between scientists</a>. If you were among the elite of the Gilded Age, you didn&#39;t do anything half way.

The Most Unbelievable Excesses By Rich People During The Gilded Age

The Opulence And Excesses Of The Gilded Age

Cheryl Adams Richkoff

People have inhabited the Americas for thousands of years. Native American history&nbsp;is just as complex, fascinating, and surprising as any other story about the past, even if it isn&#39;t as widely known.

Indigenous folks across North and South America have made their mark on the world in a variety of ways, ranging from <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/how-why-did-the-mayans-build-pyramids/bailey-benningfield" target="_blank">Mayan pyramids</a> to advanced surgical techniques and popular sports that have stood the test of time. Indeed, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/early-1900s-native-american-photos/chwang?ref=collections_page" target="_blank">Native American communities</a> stretch over two continents, and no two are the same. They all have their own culture, traditions, and accomplishments that are worth remembering.

Though Native American tribes and communities are unique in their own way, they also have one important thing in common: Their histories have been shaped by colonialism, as European empires, the <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-women-soccer-players-from-usa/patrick-alexander?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">United States of America</a>, and other new nation-states violently encroached on their land and disrupted their communities. Indigenous communities haven&#39;t only been targeted by colonialism; they&#39;ve also shaped the histories of empires.

Native American history is more than a story of tragedy, however - it&#39;s also a story of ingenuity, innovation, and compassion. So read on and vote up the facts about Native American history that are new to you.

15 Facts We Just Learned About Native American History

15 Facts About Native American History We Just Learned

Setareh Janda

By Place

Housing, clothing, transportation, and food are all basic living expenses, though&nbsp;rent lays claim to the majority of what a person spends each month. The US Census Bureau&nbsp;has been tracking median monthly&nbsp;<a href="https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/tables/time-series/census-housing-tables/grossrents.pdf" target="_blank">gross rent</a>&nbsp;- a figure that combines rent, fuels used in the home,&nbsp;and utilities - since the mid-20th century. Median monthly gross rents are determined by looking at the middle of a data set. With the highest and lowest rents equally distributed around that figure, outliers and groupings in the set (known for skewing averages), have less&nbsp;impact on median figures themselves.

Data from 1940 reflects median monthly gross rents as&nbsp;the US began to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/culture-magazines/1940s-business-and-economy-overview" target="_blank">emerge&nbsp;from</a> the Great Depression and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=r2yn7k0kRUkC&amp;newbks=1&amp;newbks_redir=0&amp;lpg=PP1&amp;dq=post%20ww2%20economy%20us%201940s&amp;pg=PA50#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" target="_blank">ready itself for</a>&nbsp;the Second World War.&nbsp;Looking at the numbers, the cost of living in the 1940s was an absolute dream.&nbsp;In 1940, nearly two decades before both Hawaii and Alaska received statehood in 1959, the median monthly gross rent across the United States was $27. <a href="https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=284&amp;year1=200001&amp;year2=202001" target="_blank">Adjusted for inflation</a>, that&#39;s $501.09 today. For comparison, the median monthly gross rent in 2000 was $602, equivalent to $920.02 now.

Below you&#39;ll find the unadjusted and adjusted figures for median monthly gross rent in each state in 1940. Take a look at just how much those numbers have changed in 80 years&nbsp;and you may find yourself looking for a time machine.

What Your Rent Cost In 1940 By State

If you&#39;ve seen&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/alexander-hamilton-facts-not-in-hamilton-musical/stephanroget" target="_blank">Hamilton</a>, you might be familiar with the song &quot;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WySzEXKUSZw" target="_blank">The Room Where It Happens</a>.&quot; That tune gives a comprehensive summary of how America&#39;s national capital found its home along the Potomac River. Informative as the song is, there&#39;s so much more to the story.&nbsp;

Exactly how Washington, DC, became the capital of the United States is a tale that spans decades. It&#39;s a bit of a roller coaster really, full of ups, downs, and even a few loop-the-loops. The history of Washington, DC, is necessarily tied up in politics, but there are a lot of considerations that went into the &quot;whys&quot; and &quot;whats&quot; of the city and the district that came to be.

From how it got its name through&nbsp;the building (and rebuilding) of its <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/top-must-see-attractions-in-washington-dc/ranker-travel" target="_blank">familiar landmarks</a> and deep into questions about statehood, here&#39;s a breakdown of how Washington, DC, came to be the US&#39;s national capital.&nbsp;&nbsp;

How Washington, DC, Actually Became The Capital Of The United States

Whoa Facts

Through years of fighting,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/258.html" target="_blank">King Kamehameha I </a>(d. 1819) brought the Kingdom of Hawaii <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Transforming_Hawai_i/gr9iDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=unification+of+hawaii&amp;printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">to fruition</a>&nbsp;in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Kamehameha the Great ushered in a line of leaders from his family, including Liholho and Kauikeaouli, two of his sons who took the regnal names Kahehameha II (r. 1819-1824) and Kamehameha III (r. 1825-1854), respectively.&nbsp;

The Kingdom of Hawaii was ruled by members of the Kamehameha house until 1872. After the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kamehameha-V" target="_blank">death of Kamehameha V</a>, the throne of Hawaii went to his grandnephew, <a href="https://www.lunalilo.org/king-lunalilo/life-of-lunalilo" target="_blank">Lunalilo (r. 1874)</a>, the first king chosen by <a href="https://www.khon2.com/local-news/aloha-authentic-king-lunalilo-was-the-first-elected-king-in-hawai%ca%bbi/" target="_blank">legislative election</a>.&nbsp;Lunalilo was followed&nbsp;by <a href="https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2018/08/10/david-kalakaua" target="_blank">King (David) Kalakaua</a> (elected in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kalakaua" target="_blank">1874</a>-d. 1891), who was then followed by the only female ruler - and the last of the Hawaiian royals - <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/19th-century/liliuokalani" target="_blank">Queen&nbsp;Liliʻuokalani (r. 1891-1893)</a>.

Within its relatively short existence, the Kingdom of Hawaii stood alone on the world stage. Acknowledged as a sovereign entity by countries around the world, Hawaii was ruled by individuals heavily influenced by Western traditions, yet dedicated to maintaining their indigenous heritage and political autonomy. Through the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Hawaii increasingly fell under the control foreign interests, especially the United States. After a brief republic and territorial possession, Hawaii&nbsp;received&nbsp;<a href="https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/hawaii" target="_blank">statehood in 1959.</a>

The complicated history of Hawaii is fascinating. Relatively unknown to many, the history of the Kingdom of Hawaii has been a hotbed of conversation for inquisitive Redditors. They shared what they&#39;ve learned about Hawaii and its royals, giving us a lot of new information. We&#39;ve gathered it here - take a look and vote up the surprising and insightful facts that you just learned, too.&nbsp;

10 Things We Just Learned About Hawaiian Royals That Made Us Say 'Whoa'

Lists about the brilliant and fascinating men who led the American Revolution and created the documents that established these United States of America.

Our Founding Fathers

The musical phenomenon Hamilton follows the life of one ambitious immigrant who helps win a revolution and shape early American politics, all while earnestly sticking to noble ideals. 

History Has Its Eyes on You

The&nbsp;<a href="/list/hamilton-cast-vs-real-people/klindell" target="_blank">Hamilton musical</a>&nbsp;may have set the&nbsp;theater&nbsp;world alight and reignited modern interest in the life stories of the Founding Fathers, but questions about Hamilton&rsquo;s historical accuracy have lingered since it first hit the stage. In short, it&rsquo;s as historically accurate as any other musical ever produced, and pays a lot more attention to detail than most - but that doesn&rsquo;t mean Lin-Manuel Miranda didn&rsquo;t leave a boatload of pertinent <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/badass-alexander-hamilton-facts/setareh-janda?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">Alexander Hamilton facts</a> on the cutting room floor and out of the script.

Some critics claim that Hamilton whitewashes history and simplifies what should be a complicated and controversial legacy, and those arguments are not without merit. It&rsquo;s also true, however, that Miranda left out some of the most interesting events and occurrences from Alexander Hamilton&rsquo;s life, and that&rsquo;s a little more inexplicable.&nbsp;

14 Facts About Alexander Hamilton Left Out Of The Musical

Person

Historical Figures

Wars are often fought by massive groups of people, but even in the largest conflicts, unique&nbsp;individuals like Joe Medicine Crow stand out. <a href="https://www.military.com/army-birthday/badass-of-the-week-joe-medicine-crow.html" target="_blank">Joe Medicine Crow</a> was born in <a href="https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-war/joseph-medicine-crow/" target="_blank">1913</a> near Lodge Grass, MT. Despite his family&#39;s long tradition of military service, he originally planned to enter academia. But when America joined&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/world-war-2-heroes/mike-rothschild" target="_blank">WWII</a> in 1941, Medicine Crow enlisted&nbsp;in the infantry as a scout, following in the footsteps of his step-grandfather.

After WWII&nbsp;ended in 1945, he went on to become the Crow tribal historian and spent the rest of his life chronicling and retelling the history of the Crow people before&nbsp;he passed&nbsp;in 2016.&nbsp;His exploits throughout WWII&nbsp;would be&nbsp;enough to fill several films, but here are some&nbsp;facts about decorated WWII hero and last Crow War Chief <a href="https://www.military.com/army-birthday/badass-of-the-week-joe-medicine-crow.html" target="_blank">Joe Medicine Crow</a>.&nbsp;

10 Facts About Dr. Joe Medicine Crow, Who Became The Last Crow War Chief By Battling The Third Reich

Facts About Dr. Joe Medicine Crow, Who Became The Last Crow War Chief By Battling The Third Reich

Jim Rowley

Lists of fascinating facts and lesser-known details about the lives of people whose names you learned in History class (or should have).

Down in History

Many of the stories about Davy Crockett (1786-1836) are wrapped up in myth and masculinity, much of which was propagated by Crockett&#39;s own hand. He wrote an autobiography, aptly titled&nbsp;A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee, which detailed - and perhaps&nbsp;embellished -&nbsp;life on the American frontier.

Davy Crockett&#39;s stories became wrapped up in the&nbsp;frontier, manliness, and American strength, promoting a sense of machismo that contrasts heavily with its modern conception. As a frontiersman, soldier, and politician, Davy Crockett achieved folk hero status soon after his passing in 1836,&nbsp;and his reputation continued to grow throughout the 20th&nbsp;century.

The best Davy Crockett stories demonstrate the many lives he led and the challenges he faced - with some questionable details and antiquated mores mixed in.

Unbelievably Macho Tales Of Davy Crockett From His Heyday

Unbelievably Macho Davy Crockett Stories From His Heyday

Lists about American living and culture before the modern era.

Early Days in the USA

What It's Like

Personal hygiene in the 1700s was heavily maintained through a complicated balance of practicality, religious belief,&nbsp;and social position. Men and women living in colonial America washed their bodies and clothes with varying degrees of regularity, often falling victim to disease and disorder as a result.&nbsp;

Despite the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/original-us-colonies-zodiac/jessica-bedewi" target="_blank">differing attributes of the original colonies</a>, colonial hygiene in the earliest cities and rural settlements in America always left a lot to be desired, with odors, dirt, and waste being inescapable parts of daily life. Middle- and upper-class people tried to avoid or mask common nuisances like insects, usually to no avail, while lower classes simply struggled to survive. A lack of hygiene didn&#39;t go unnoticed, however, with dirt and grime thought to be indicative of bad manners and sloth. With so many factors to consider, here&#39;s a look at what hygiene was like in early colonial times.

What Was Hygiene Like In Colonial America?

What Was Hygiene Like In Early Colonial America?

The Constitution of the United States remains one of the most influential documents ever written, crafted over four torturous&nbsp;months in the midst of summer by <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/alexander-hamilton-facts-not-in-hamilton-musical/stephanroget" target="_blank">men with greatly divergent priorities</a>. It was not an&nbsp;easy or smooth process -&nbsp;controversial bargains had to be struck, uneasy compromises made. Some of those deals would be rued in the future,&nbsp;and some mistakes weren&#39;t revealed until much later. While the framers are held in high regard today, it&rsquo;s easy to forget they were human beings acting in what they thought was their own best interest.&nbsp;

This explainer takes a peek behind the curtains of the Pennsylvania&nbsp;State House, and the men known to history as the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/founding-fathers-horrifying-facts/isadora-teich" target="_blank">Founding Fathers</a>, to look at how it all came together.

12 Key Details About How The Constitution Was Really Written

M. Muir

US History lists at Ranker - The ultimate source for hundreds of US History lists and rankings