Civil rights, moon landings and war wins: What Americans see as the country’s greatest achievements

The abolition of slavery. The expansion of civil rights and voting rights. Victory in World War II. Landing people on the moon.

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As America nears its 250th anniversary, those are among the events its people call the greatest accomplishments in their country’s history, according to the latest NBC News poll , which was sponsored by More Perfect, a nonpartisan nonprofit group dedicated to advancing democracy.

Unlike other poll questions with multiple-choice answers, this one was completely open-ended. Still, people’s answers generally fell into three broad buckets: Close to two-thirds of respondents chose events related to the expansion of rights, while about one-sixth each chose military or diplomatic-related events and events related to science or economic achievement.

Top of mind for many was the end of slavery following the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th Amendment. The 1865 amendment formally ended slavery in the U.S., liberating more than 4 million enslaved people.

“The abolition of slavery was a magnificent achievement for us. I think one of our strengths was we used to make laws to help people,” a Texas man in his 30s told the pollsters.

Others said the 13th Amendment laid a foundation for equal opportunity to succeed in American society.

“It was a great thing because it gave freedom for everyone. Everybody has equal rights,” said a woman in her 50s. “Everybody [has] the same chance to achieve and think and speak your opinion. You have a right to speak, to work. You have a right to education, everything.”

Some respondents pointed to subsequent developments that expanded rights further for Black Americans, as well as the national expansion of voting rights to women with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 — a historic marker for the women’s suffrage movement after decades of activism.

“When the women got the right to vote,” an older California woman said when she was asked to name America’s top achievement. She went on to lay out the progress she has seen over her lifetime: “There’s more opportunity to further people’s education than there used to be. I am an educator. I can see the difference from when I started in the ’70s. There’s more money for scholarships, more opportunity to get a good education.”

Title IX in 1972 prohibited gender-based discrimination in any institutions that receive federal funding.

Others pointed to American successes on the world stage, through either military or diplomatic means. They include a chunk of respondents who chose the U.S. victory in World War II alongside the Allies.

A Washington state man in his mid-60s who identifies as a Republican said the war “preserved our values — it changed the direction of the world, and it helped preserve our Western values.”

“If we had lost, freedom would have been lost. You look at what was being offered by Hitler and Mussolini and all of them — it’s the opposite of that. It’s being dictated to by a dictator,” he said. “It’s the essence of freedom that was won. You kind of just go back to democracy won over fascism.”

To another respondent, victory in World War II hit differently now given frustration with the current direction of the country. A Virginia man in his 40s, a Democrat, said the end of World War II was “when the nation was unified and most together” and when “patriotism meant something.”

“The United States is a joke in the eyes of the world right now because of our current leader,” he said, going on to criticize President Donald Trump as “narcissistic” and calling him an “utter disgrace.”

To some, like a Tennessee man in his early 30s, winning World War II was a declaration of America’s place on the world stage and its military might.

“Back-to-back being World War champs. We set the standing that the U.S. is the big daddy of the world and you shouldn’t mess with us,” he said, before he quoted former Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia, a Medal of Honor recipient, during a speech he gave in 2019 .

“So help me God, somebody else will raise your sons and your daughters,” the poll respondent said, paraphrasing Bellavia’s warning to anyone who chose war against the U.S.

Others were more swayed by technological advancements like the space program or the Industrial Revolution.

As NASA moves forward with its plans to return to the moon with the Artemis program, a number of respondents chose either the moon landing or space exploration more generally as the top achievement of America’s 250 years.

For some, the weight of the scientific accomplishment made the space program rise above the rest.

“Probably putting a man on the moon. The Apollo missions. I mean, technology at the time wasn’t exactly very good. I don’t know how they did it, but they put somebody up there. It’s really kind of amazing they were able to do that with 1960s technology,” a mid-20s man from Idaho said.

And to others, the moon landing is a reminder of what American ingenuity can achieve across many different fields.

“The U.S. is a country of remarkable technological and democratic achievement,” a Massachusetts man in his 40s said. “I think that we marked both our status as one of the world’s greatest and most stable democracies and the fruits of technological advancement that it has wrought.”