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50 Important Dates in US History

  • The United States Army is Established

    The United States Army is Established
    The Continental Army was created on 14 June 1775 by the Second Continental Congress as a unified army for the colonies to fight Great Britain, with George Washington appointed as its commander.
  • The United States Marine Corps is Established

    The United States Marine Corps is Established
    The United States Marine Corps, also referred to as the United States Marines, is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations with the United States Navy as well as the Army and Air Force. This was founded on November 10, 1775.
  • Declaration of Independence

    Declaration of Independence
    The pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776.
  • The Continental Congress Approves the Articles of Confederation

    The Continental Congress Approves the Articles of Confederation
    The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States, on November 15, 1777, but the states did not ratify them until March 1, 1781.
  • French Join War Against British

    French Join War Against British
    In 1778, France became an official ally of the United States through the Treaty of Alliance. At this point the French became directly involved in the war. The French navy entered the war fighting off the British along the American coast.
  • Treaty of Paris

    Treaty of Paris
    The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War.
  • The Delegates at the Philadelphia Convention Approve the Constitution

    The Delegates at the Philadelphia Convention Approve the Constitution
    The day the Constitution was ratified. On June 21, 1788, the Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify it.
  • George Washington Inaugurated as President of the United States

    George Washington Inaugurated as President of the United States
    The presidency of George Washington began on April 30, 1789, when Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1797. Washington took office after the 1788–89 presidential election, the nation's first quadrennial presidential election, in which he was elected unanimously.
  • The Bill of Rights is Ratified by 75% of the States

    The Bill of Rights is Ratified by 75% of the States
    Vermont ratified on November 3, 1791 and Virginia was the final state to ratify on December 15, 1791. Massachusetts, Georgia, and Connecticut ratified in 1939 on the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Bill of Rights by the First Congress.
  • Louisiana Purchase

    Louisiana Purchase
    The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from France in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi.
  • Slave Trade Ended

    Slave Trade Ended
    On March 25 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act entered the statute books. Nevertheless, although the Act made it illegal to engage in the slave trade throughout the British colonies, trafficking between the Caribbean islands continued, regardless, until 1811.
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    War of 1812

    The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States and the United Kingdom, with their respective allies, from June 1812 to February 1815. Historians in Britain often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars; historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right.
  • Trail of Tears

    Trail of Tears
    The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of approximately 60,000 Native Americans in the United States from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States, to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory.
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    Texas Revolution

    The Texas Revolution was a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos in putting up armed resistance to the centralist government of Mexico.
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    Battle of the Alamo

    The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar, killing the Texian and immigrant occupiers.
  • Telegraph Invented

    Telegraph Invented
    Invention of the Telegraph. Long before Samuel F. B. Morse electrically transmitted his famous message 'What hath God wrought?' from Washington to Baltimore on May 24, 1844, there were signaling systems that enabled people to communicate over distances.
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    Gold Rush

    The California Gold Rush was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.
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    Civil War

    The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865, fought between the northern United States and the southern United States. The civil war began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people.
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    Emancipation Proclamation
    The Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln effective January 1, 1863.
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    Reconstruction

    The Reconstruction era was the period in American history which lasted from 1863 to 1877. It was a significant chapter in the history of American civil rights.
  • Assassination of President Lincoln

    Assassination of President Lincoln
    Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1875

    Civil Rights Act of 1875
    The U.S. Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases (1883). Enacted on March 1, 1875, the Civil Rights Act affirmed the “equality of all men before the law” and prohibited racial discrimination in public places and facilities such as restaurants and public transportation.
  • The United States annexes Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico.(1866-1898)

    The United States annexes Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico.(1866-1898)
    American imperialism describes policies aimed at extending the political, economic, and cultural control of the United States over areas beyond its boundaries.
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    Spanish American War

    The Spanish–American War was an armed conflict between Spain and the United States in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence.
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    Charles Lindbergh

    Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. At age 25 in 1927, he went from obscurity as a U.S. Air Mail pilot to instantaneous world fame by winning the Orteig Prize for making a nonstop flight from New York to Paris.
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    World War I

    World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918.
  • The Panama Canal Opens for Business.

    The Panama Canal Opens for Business.
    On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal opened for business, with the passage through of the Ancon, an American cargo-passenger ship. The Canal was built primarily to make a faster way to the West Coast for American settlers in the 19th Century.
  • The Treaty of Versailles is Signed, Ending World War I.

    The Treaty of Versailles is Signed, Ending World War I.
    The Treaty of Versailles (French: Traité de Versailles) was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. ... The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919.
  • Nineteenth Amendment

    Nineteenth Amendment
    -The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. -Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
  • First radio broadcast in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

    First radio broadcast in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
    First commercial radio station was KDKA in Pittsburgh, which went on the air in the evening of Nov. 2, 1920, with a broadcast of the returns of the Harding-Cox presidential election.
  • Black Tuesday

    Black Tuesday
    The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major stock market crash that occurred in 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed.
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    World War II

    World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis
  • Pearl Harbor

    Pearl Harbor
    The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, preemptive military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, just before 08:00, on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941.
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    D-Day

    The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history.
  • 1st Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

    1st Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
    The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively, with the consent of the United Kingdom, as required by the Quebec Agreement
  • The Cold War began between the United States and the Soviet Union

    The Cold War began between the United States and the Soviet Union
    The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union with its satellite states and the United States with its allies after World War II. The history of the conflict began between 1946 and 1947. The Cold War began to de-escalate after the Revolutions of 1989.
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    Baby Boom

    A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase of birth rate. This demographic phenomenon is usually ascribed within certain geographical bounds.
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    Korean War

    The Korean War was a war between North Korea and South Korea. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea. At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States liberated Korea from imperial Japanese colonial control on 15 August 1945.
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    Brown v. Board of Education

    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality.1
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    Vietnam War

    The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America or simply the American War, was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975.1
  • Sputnik Satellite

    Sputnik Satellite
    Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on 4 October 1957, orbiting for three weeks before its batteries died, then silently for two more months before falling back into the atmosphere.
  • NASA Formed

    NASA Formed
    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1960

    Civil Rights Act of 1960
    The Civil Rights Act of 1960 (Pub. L. 86–449, 74 Stat. 89, enacted May 6, 1960) is a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote.
  • Assassination of JFK

    Assassination of JFK
    John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy, often referred to by the initials JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963.
  • Apollo 11

    Apollo 11
    Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin formed the American crew that landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC.
  • Watergate Scandal

    Watergate Scandal
    The Watergate scandal was a major federal political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that resulted in the end of Nixon's presidency
  • Human Rights

    Human Rights
    Human rights are moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human behavior and are regularly protected as natural and legal rights in municipal and international law.
  • Fall of the Berlin Wall

    Fall of the Berlin Wall
    The fall of the Berlin Wall (German: Mauerfall), on 9 November 1989, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the falling of the Iron Curtain and the start of the fall of communism in Eastern and Central Europe. The fall of the inner German border took place shortly afterwards.
  • Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm)

    Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm)
    The Gulf War, codenamed Operation Desert Shield for operations leading to the buildup of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Storm in its combat phase, was a war waged by coalition
  • September 11th

    September 11th
    The September 11 attacks were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.