Riots are an aspect of American history that do not show up much in history textbooks, except for famous disturbances like the Boston Tea Party or the infamous New York City draft riots of 1863. The reality is that the country has experienced thousands of riots, from early colonial times through to the present, and the issues leading up to some of the riots may seem quite peculiar to modern Americans. Americans have rioted over who was the best actor, and to free pirates from jail. Americans have rioted against bad working conditions, for the 8-hour day, against immigrants, for and against civil rights. Americans have had riots over eggnog, which Bible to use in schools, and when their favorite sports teams have won or lost.

For example, in 1788, the deadly Doctors' Riot occurred in New York City over the robbing of graves to provide medical students with bodies to dissect. An even stranger riot was the Eggnog Riot of 1826, when cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point rioted over Christmas eggnog.

In 1844, a debate in Philadelphia over whether to allow Catholic students in public schools to read the Catholic Douay Bible rather than the King James Version sparked two savage riots, known as the Bible Riots. In the City of Brotherly Love, the Bible Riots caused a number of casualties, and two churches and a seminary were burned to the ground.

The 1857 Dead Rabbits Riot featured gang violence in New York City, but it could only be understood by knowing about a previous police riot, and that for a time there were two separate police forces in New York City. The police were as apt to club each other as they were to club rioting gang members.The 1870 and 1871 Orange Riots were over the July 12 Orange parades that memorialized the 1690 Battle of the Boyne. Despite the battle being almost 200 years earlier, Protestants and Irish Catholics were still fighting over it in New York City in an extremely bloody way.