typeracer

With "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" now guaranteed for its citizens, the new nation set about its own happiness - rapid expansion. In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, no longer interested in some barbaric outpost on a distant continent, sold the French territory of Louisiana and beyond to the United States in the greatest property transfer in history. Having little knowledge of what he had paid the exorbitant sum of $11.25 million for, President Jefferson dispatched a couple of military officers to explore and report back on the new territory. As it turned out, the upstart country had nearly doubled in size. But it was by no means the end of American land grabs, and only by the end of 1853 had the United States assumed its current continental expanse.