Lately I've been taking an interest in American westward expansion and trying to get a better understanding of how the lines were drawn on maps in the past. Can anyone recommend a good video or...
Lately I've been taking an interest in American westward expansion and trying to get a better understanding of how the lines were drawn on maps in the past. Can anyone recommend a good video or interactive visualization that I can scroll back and forward through time to see the changes in detail?
Things I'm particularly interested in tracking:
- Indigenous lands (specifically how the boundaries of traditional/ancestral lands evolved into modern-day reservations)
- European claims like those of Britain, France, and Spain
- What was considered US/Canada/Mexico territory vs. no man's land or frontier at different points in time, from the governance standpoint of each of those nations
- Large and rapid settling movements like the Mormons into Utah, Oklahoma land rush, California gold rush, etc.
- Other factors like homesteading programs (I don't know much about this) and the transcontinental railroad, confederacy borders, trail of tears, etc.
- Notable battles/massacres marking bloody land disputes
I mean I guess that's a lot, this is basically "tell me about all of American history." 😂
I feel like I have a pretty decent grasp of the general political timeline and important events, I'm just realizing lately that I don't have a cohesive mental model of how it all fits on a map and changed over the years. I did find the Wikipedia page on Territorial Evolution of the United States to be interesting but it's a bit overwhelming and not very digestible. It contains this animated gif, which is awesome but I can't scroll through it at my own pace, and it's USA only.
