In the last decade of the twentieth century nearly 40 million people enrolled in the programs of the U.S. Adult Education and Literacy System (AELS). This chapter provides a broad-brush history of the emergence of the present-day AELS in the United States over the last four hundred years. Exhibit 2.1 provides some historical signposts for keeping track of the four-century span of the chapter. The first column presents important dates associated with the historical events listed in the second column, which are those events traditionally given as critical in general, popularized histories of the United States (such as Davis, 1995). Finally, the third column presents some-but far from all-of the significant events, institutions, and people in the history of the rise of the AELS. (Contains 3 notes.) [Chapter 2 in: Annual Review of Adult Learning and Literacy. Volume 3; copublished with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; see ED478329.]