The United States started with only 900,000 square kilometers, and in just a hundred years it expanded dozens of times.
When the United States was founded in 1776, it was less than 900,000 square kilometers. However, after more than a hundred years, the area has expanded tenfold, from 13 states in the early days of independence to 50 states, and has become the fourth largest country in the world, occupying almost half of the North American continent. What's even more amazing is that the U.S. got it all for just $870 million.
The industrial revolution that began in the United States at the end of the 18th century made the United States the number one power in North America. By 1840, the GDP of the United States, which was based on agriculture, had reached about $1.6 billion, which began to exceed half of the GDP of its big brother, Britain. Against this background, the Americans began to stop being satisfied with their small territory and began to expand their territory with great fanfare.
In 1803, the United States purchased about 2.15 million square kilometers of Louisiana from France for $15 million. This land is basically the size of the United States at that time, accounting for 22.3% of the current United States.
In 1819, the Americans captured Florida from the Spaniards, and the area was about 150,000 square kilometers. After these two expansions, the United States has more than doubled its size. It stretched west to central North America, south to the Caribbean Sea, and itself to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, making it a country with a very advantageous geographical location. But this situation is not yet satisfactory to the United States, because their western face is not connected to the Pacific Ocean. Come to think of it, the eyes of the Americans fell on Mexico, the second oldest in North America at that time.
In fact, whether in terms of historical accumulation or territorial area, Mexico has been the leader in North America for a long time. However, due to the long-term political turmoil after Mexico's independence, there have been 50 governments in just 29 years, resulting in Mexico's economy never getting on the right track.
The Americans first started through Texas, when Texas was sparsely populated, so the Mexican government welcomed a large number of immigrants, coinciding with the rise of the westward expansion of the United States, and more and more Americans began to have in Texas. By 1830, the Mexican government itself recognized the crisis and banned American immigrants from re-entering Texas.
By 1835, the number of American immigrants settling in Texas had reached 350,000, nine times the number of Native Americans. The contradiction between immigrants and the Mexican government began to become more and more acute. Finally, in 1835, the Americans in Texas declared independence and staged an uprising under the impetus of various forces. At the beginning of the war, the weak Texas army was not an opponent, and it was precisely because of this feel-good that the then Mexican president Santa Anna decided to drive the army, but because of his underestimation of the enemy and paralysis, he was captured by the Texans in the famous Battle of San Jacinto, and the captured Mexican president could only be forced to recognize Texas independence.
Texas then declared its independence in 1836 and the country was named the Republic of Texas. In the following years, the Republic of Texas, which was between Mexico and the United States, was squeezed and constantly flattered the United States in the hope of joining the Union, but due to the disagreement between the north and south of the United States at that time, it refused the request of the Republic of Texas several times. When the time came in 1845, the national strength was greatly strengthened and the time was ripe, and the opinions of the north and south of the United States on the need to get Texas also tended to unify, so the United States finally publicly announced: if the Republic of Texas is willing to join the United States, then the United States will recognize the Rio Grande as its border, solemnly embrace the Republic of Texas, and then announce its accession to the United States of America, becoming the 28th state of the United States.
This really annoyed Mexico, which did not get the face and money of Mexico, and immediately declared war on the United States, but because its own strength was too poor, the Mexican army collapsed and was almost beaten by the US army to the capital Mexico City, and as a result, it could only be forced to sign an armistice, and the armistice signed by Mexico also attached a huge price. Mexico lost not only Texas, but also part of New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, etc., a total of about 2 million square kilometers of land, but the Americans were not satisfied.
The most coveted by Americans was California, which belonged to Mexico at that time, and according to the original idea of the Americans, they wanted to use money to buy it to achieve their goals. As early as 1835, Jackson, then the president of the United States, offered to buy the port of San Francisco and its north area from Mexico for $550,000, but the Mexican government flatly refused.
In November 1845, Bourke, then President of the United States, offered to buy all of California and New Mexico for $15 million to $40 million, a proposal that was again rejected by the Mexican government, and after both marriages were rejected, the Americans realized that they could not get anything at the negotiating table without force, so they began to look for new reasons. And this reason is actually not new, the United States was invaded by Mexico.
On May 13, 1899, the United States officially declared war on Mexico. Although this is a war between the eldest and second of a continent, it is almost one-sided. The political situation in Mexico has been turbulent for years, corruption in the army is very serious, the command level of officers is poor, the soldiers are not trained, and the combat effectiveness is very low. On the other hand, the US military has more advanced guns and artillery, as well as a navy that Mexico does not have, so it is far superior to its opponents in terms of equipment and training quality.
So the war became the United States hanging Mexico. As soon as the war began, the United States invaded Mexico in three ways, and within three months, all important cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego in California were occupied by US troops. In August 1847, the U.S. Army finally surrounded Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, and in fact, even though the U.S. Army captured Mexico City, many Mexican civilians were still resisting the U.S. army.
