The Mexican-American War

Maybe I was asleep during the time they gave this history lesson at school but I didn't know how much of the U.S. used to be owned by Mexico.

They used to own California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas, until the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).

Just a map I found showing how much they owned:

Boy, that's quite a chunk of territory. Between Mexico and France, they owned about 3/4ths of the country.

Well, if you were in school nowadays, you probably wouldn't learn about it at all. I heard in some states they are trying to take American history out as a graduation requirement. But I think in Philadelphia, Black History is a requirement. Nothing against that, but American history in some form should be taught every year.

bethandmanly wrote:

Well, if you were in school nowadays, you probably wouldn't learn about it at all. I heard in some states they are trying to take American history out as a graduation requirement. But I think in Philadelphia, Black History is a requirement. Nothing against that, but American history in some form should be taught every year.

Just as long as the teacher is EQUIPPED to teach History and not make it boring! lol
I did not like my history teacher in High School. He made the teacher from Farris Bueller look exciting!

never knew that..I didn't like my canadian history teacher.she was mean.

bethandmanly wrote:

I heard in some states they are trying to take American history out as a graduation requirement. But I think in Philadelphia, Black History is a requirement. Nothing against that, but American history in some form should be taught every year.

Under the name of Political Correctness. Yeah right.

Yes. The map was right. I've studied it when I was making my History master and the map of Mexico before the start of the war was like the one you posted, Carol.

Vanesa.

It's no wonder why a lot of the names of places in those are are Spanish names.

So it looks like this is what happened:

Mexico only owned the Southwestern states for 25 years. The US has owned those lands for over 160 years. Both California and Texas rebelled from Mexico and became independant nations then joined the U.S. The rest of them were won in a war against Mexico in which the US forgave all Mexican debt and paid $15 million for them.

Actually the land belonged to Native Americans but they had no chance at all with their bows and arrows against the gun powder from the other side.