The Louisiana Purchase changed the trajectory of U.S. expansion in the beginning of the 19th century, allowing the size of the country to grow by 530,000,000 acres. And at only a cost to the U.S. of ...

This page from an elementary school history book is a map of the Western US, showing the area covered by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Text deals with the area of land and its significance in our ...

PARIS (WHTM) — Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had a bit of a problem. Once upon a time, specifically in the mid 1700s, France was the biggest European presence in what would eventually become the United ...

This media is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian's ...

Louisiana was accepted by Congress as a state on April 30, 1812, however, the territory had been occupied more than 100 years before its statehood. Spain is attributed as the first European nation to ...