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First Navigation Laws to control colonial commerce
English laws that required the use of English or colonial ships to carry English trade. The laws were designed to encourage English shipbuilding and restrict trade competition from England's commercial rivals, especially the Dutch. The acts of the 18th century gradually restricted trade by the American colonies and contributed to growing colonial resentment with the imposition of additional duties on sugar, tobacco, and molasses.
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Board of Trade Assumes Governance of Colonies
The Board of Trade is a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, originating as a committee of inquiry in the 17th century and evolving gradually into a government department with a diverse range of functions. This department was merged with the Ministry of Technology in 1970 to form the Department of Trade and Industry (since 2009, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills), headed by a Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Trade -
Seven Years' War (French and Indian War) Dnds
The Seven Years' War was a major military conflict that lasted from 1756 until the conclusion of the treaties of Paris (signed on 10 February 1763) and Hubertusburg (signed on 15 February 1763). It involved all of the major European powers of the period. Because of its global nature, it has been described as the "first World War".[1] It resulted in some 900,000 to 1,400,000 deaths and significant changes in the balance of power and territories of several of the participants. http://en.wikipedia -
Sugar Act
The Sugar Act (4 Geo. III c. 15), also known as the American Revenue Act or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on April 5, 1764. These incidents increased the colonists' concerns about the intent of the British Parliament and helped the growing movement that became the American Revolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Act -
Quartering Act, Stamp Act, Stamp Act Congress
Parliament passed the Stamp Act 1765 to raise money from the colonies. New York had previously passed its own stamp act from 1756 to 1760 to raise money for the French and Indian war. The enabling legislation took the form of the Quartering Act which required colonial legislatures to provide quarters and supplies for the troops. Acted upon the Stamp Act recently passed by the governing Parliament of Great Britain overseas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_New_York#Stamp_Act -
Declaratory Act
The Declaratory Act was a declaration by the British Parliament in 1766 which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authority to make laws binding on the American colonies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_Act -
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of laws passed beginning in 1767 by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. Historians vary slightly in which acts they include under the heading "Townshend Acts", but five laws are frequently mentioned: the Revenue Act of 1767, the Indemnity Act, the Commissioners of Customs Acts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townshend_Acts -
British Troops Occupy Boston
On September 30, 1768, a British fleet anchored in Boston Harbor "as for a regular siege," the purpose of which was to protect Royal officials in the execution of their duties. The next day, October 1st, soldiers drawn chiefly from the 14th and 29th Infantry Regiments, and numbering about 700 men, landed at Boston without opposition. Six weeks later the 64th and 65th Regiments, of about 500 men each, began to arrive from Irleand & debarked. http://americanrevwar.homestead.com/files/boston2.htm -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770. A squad of British soldiers, come to support a sentry who was being pressed by a heckling, snowballing crowd, let loose a volley of shots. Three persons were killed immediately and two died later of their wounds; among the victims was Crispus Attucks, a man of black or Indian parentage http://www.history.com/topics/boston-massacre -
All Townshend Acts Except Tea Tax Repealed
On this fateful day in 1770, the British government moves to mollify outraged colonists by repealing most of the clauses of the hated Townshend Act. Initially passed on June 29, 1767, the Townshend Act constituted an attempt by the British government to consolidate fiscal and political power over the American colonies. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/british-repeal-hated-townshend-act -
Committees of Correspondence Formed
he Committees of Correspondence were shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of American Revolution. They coordinated responses to Britain and shared their plans; by 1774-75 they had emerged as shadow governments, superseding the colonial legislature and royal officials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_correspondence -
British East India Company Granted Tea Monopoly
After the Treaty of Union, the British East India Company)[2] was an early English joint-stock company[3] that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company -
Governor Hutchinson's Actions Provoke BostonTea Party
Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused to allow the tea to be returned to Britain. He apparently did not expect that the protestors would choose to destroy the tea rather than concede the authority of a legislature in which they were not directly represented. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party -
First Continental Congress calls for abolition of slave trade
In September 1774, an assembly or Congress of the "ablest and wealthiest men in America" met in Philadelphia. It voted that the British Parliament had no right to raise taxes in the colonies and that the colonies should neither pay taxes, nor trade with Britain, until the British government had given in. This was the First Continental Congress formed in opposition to the Intolerable Acts.
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"Intolerable Acts"
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of five laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts -
Quebec Act
Quebec Act of 1774 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 14 Geo. III c. 83) setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. The principal components of the act were:
The province's territory was expanded to take over part of the Indian Reserve.
The oath of allegiance was replaced with one that no longer made reference to the Protestant faith. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Act -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. Called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Continental_Congress -
The Association Boycotts British Goods
The Continental Association, often known simply as the "Association", was a system created by the First Continental Congress in 1774 for implementing a trade boycott with Great Britain. Congress hoped that by imposing economic sanctions, Great Britain would be pressured to redress the grievances of the colonies, and in particular repeal the Intolerable Acts passed by the British Parliament. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Association -
Philadelphia Quakers found world's first anti-slavery society
The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first American society dedicated to the cause of abolition, is founded in Philadelphia on this day in 1775. The society changes its name to the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage in 1784 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-american-abolition-society -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[9][10] They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Concord -
New Jersey Constitution Temporarily Gives Women the Vote
The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 allowed "all inhabitants of this Colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds proclamation money" to vote. This included blacks, spinsters, and widows; married women could not own property under the common law. The Constitution declared itself temporary, and it was to be void if there was reconciliation with Great Britain.
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Articles of Confederation adopted by Second Continental Congress
Agreed to by the Continental Congress November 15, 1777 and in effect after ratification by Maryland, March 1,1781, the Articles of Confederation served as a bridge between the initial government by the Continental Congress of the Revolutionary period and the federal government provided under the Constitution for the United States in effect March 4, 1789.
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Massachusetts adopts first constitution drafted in convention and ratified by popular vote
The first state to ratify the Constitution was Delaware; the last of the original thirteen to ratify was Rhode Island; since only nine were required, this was two years after it went into operations. When the U.S. Constitution was presented to the states, many people chose to be either Federalists or Anti-Federalists. Virginia and many other states were against the Constitution because there was no bill of rights included in it.
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Articles of Confederation put into effect
In practice, the Articles were in use beginning in 1777. The ratification process was completed in March 1781. Under the Articles, the states retained sovereignty over all governmental functions not specifically relinquished to the national government.
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Military officers form Society of the Cincinnati
In 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War and before the Continental army disbanded, Gen. Henry Knox and other officers founded the Society of the Cincinnati at Newburgh, New York, to continue the ties of comradeship among the officer corps in peacetime and to press their pension claims before the national government.
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Land Ordinance of 1785
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress on May 20, 1785. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation of the inhabitants of the United States.
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Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia. In 1786, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The Statute for Religious Freedom is one of only three accomplishments Jefferson instructed be put in his epitaph.
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Shays's Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary war, who led the rebels.
Seeking debt relief through the issuance of paper currency and lower taxes, they attempted to prevent the courts from seizing property from indebted farmers by forcing the closure of courts in western Massachusetts.
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Meeting of five states to discuss revision of the Articles of Confederation
One recommendation from that meeting was to convene a group of delegates from the states to discuss alterations of the Articles. Only five states sent representatives to Annapolis in the fall of 1786, but Alexander Hamilton’s recommendation to convene another reform meeting in Philadelphia in the spring of 1787, was forwarded to the Continental Congress.
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Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia
The United States Constitutional Convention[1] (also known as the Philadelphia Convention,[1] the Federal Convention,[1] or the Grand Convention at Philadelphia) took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain.
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Northwest Ordinance
The Northwest Ordinance was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River.
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Ratification by nine states guarantees a new government under the Constitution
The oldest federal constitution in existence was framed by a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen original states in Philadelphia in May 1787, Rhode Island failing to send a delegate. George Washington presided over the session, which lasted until September 17, 1787.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0101025.html
