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Zenger Trial
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/zenger/zengeraccount.html
The Zenger trial is a remarkable story of a divided Colony, the beginnings of a free press, and the stubborn independence of American jurors. -
Albany Congress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany_Congress
Representatives met daily at Albany, New York from June 19 to July 11 to discuss better relations with the Indian tribes and common defensive measures against the French. -
Period: to
Seven Years War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years'_War#1763
The Seven Years' War was a global military war between 1756 and 1763, involving most of the great powers of the time and affecting Europe, North America, Central America, the West African coast, India, and the Philippines. -
Fort Ticonderoga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ticonderoga
It was of strategic importance during the 18th-century colonial conflicts between Great Britain and France, and again played a role during the American Revolutionary War. -
Treaty of Paris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1763)
The Treaty of Paris, was signed by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the Seven Years' War, known as the French and Indian War in the North American theatre. -
Pontiac’s Rebellion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac's_War
Pontiac's Rebellion was a war that was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes primarily from the Great Lakes region, the Illinois Country, and Ohio Country who were dissatisfied with British postwar policies in the Great Lakes region after the British victory in the French and Indian War. -
Sugar Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Act
The Sugar Act was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on April 5, 1764. The preamble to the act stated: "it is expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this Kingdom ... and ... it is just and necessary that a revenue should be raised ... for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the same. -
Stamp Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_1765
The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. -
Declaratory Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratory_Act
Parliament repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal and save face. -
Repeal of Stamp Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_1765
The Act was repealed on March 18, 1766 as a matter of expedience, but Parliament affirmed its power to legislate for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever” by also passing the Declaratory Act. There followed a series of new taxes and regulations, likewise opposed by the colonists. -
Boston Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre
The Boston Massacre was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others. -
Tea Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Act
Its principal overt objective was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. -
Boston Tea Party
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. -
Intolerable Acts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts
A series of 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.
Boston Port Act
Massachusetts Government Act
Administration of Justice Act
Quartering Act
Quebec Act -
First Continental Congress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Continental_Congress
The Congress was attended by 56 members appointed by the legislatures of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies, the exception being the Province of Georgia, which was hoping for British assistance with Indian problems on its frontier. The Congress met briefly to consider options, including an economic boycott of British trade; rights and grievances; and petitioning King George III for redress of those grievances. -
Lexington and Concord
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexington_and_Concord
The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British North America. -
Second Continental Congress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Continental_Congress
The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bunker_Hill
he Battle of Bunker Hill took place during the Siege of Boston early in the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after the adjacent Bunker Hill, which was peripherally involved in the battle and was the original objective of both colonial and British troops, and is occasionally referred to as the "Battle of Breed's Hill." -
Olive Branch Petition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Branch_Petition
The petition affirmed American loyalty to Great Britain and entreated the king to prevent further conflict. In August 1775 the colonies were formally declared in rebellion by the Proclamation of Rebellion, and the petition was rejected de facto, although not having been received by the king before declaring the colonists traitors. -
Common Sense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense_(pamphlet) Common Sense, was signed, "Written by an Englishman", and it became an immediate success. In relative proportion to the population of the colonies at that time, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of seeking independence was still undecided. -
Virginia Declaration of Rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Declaration_of_Rights
The Virginia Declaration of Rights is a document drafted in 1776 to proclaim the inherent rights of men, including the right to rebel against "inadequate" government. -
Declaration of Independence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
A statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
Battle of Long Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Long_Island
The Battle of Long Island was the first major battle in the American Revolutionary War following the United States Declaration of Independence, the largest battle of the entire conflict, and the first battle in which an army of the United States engaged, having declared itself a nation only the month before. -
Valley Forge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Forge
Valley Forge in Pennsylvania was the site of the military camp of the American Continental Army over the winter of 1777–1778 during the American Revolutionary War. -
Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom
http://www.religioustolerance.org/virg_bil.htm
It promoted religious freedom for the state of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison promoted the bill for years before it was finally passed by the Virginia legislature. At the time, the Anglican Church was officially recognized as the state religion. The law disestablished that denomination. -
Battle of Saratoga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga conclusively decided the fate of British General John Burgoyne's army in the American War of Independence and are generally regarded as a turning point in the war. -
Ratification of Articles of Confederation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation#Ratification
(Date was when Maryland finally ratified)
This process dragged on for several years, stalled by the refusal of some states to rescind their claims to land in the West. Maryland was the last holdout; it refused to go along until Virginia and New York agreed to cede their claims in the Ohio River Valley. -
Battle of Yorktown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Yorktown
The Battle of Yorktown was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis. -
Treaty of Paris
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1783)
This Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on one side and the United States of America and its allies on the other. -
Land Ordinance of 1785
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Ordinance_of_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. Therefore, the immediate goal of the ordinance was to raise money through the sale of land in the largely unmapped territory west of the original states acquired at the end of the Revolutionary War. -
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance
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. -
George Washington Inauguration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_inauguration_of_George_Washington
The inauguration marked the commencement of the first four-year term of George Washington as President.
