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Aug 29, 1492
Columbus Discovered America
1492-Christopher Columbus (c. 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy.[2][3][4][5] Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements in the island of Hispaniola, initiated the Spanish colony. -
Jamestown
After unsuccessful attempts to establish settlements in Newfoundland and at Roanoke, the famous "Lost Colony," off the coast of present-day North Carolina, England established its first permanent North American settlement, Jamestown, in 1607. Located in a swampy marshlands along Virginia's James River, Jamestown's residents suffered horrendous mortality rates during its first years. This isimportant bcause it's the first colony found. -
1620- Pilgrims arrive
The pilgrims arrive in Plymouth
Plymouth Colony (sometimes New Plymouth, or Plymouth Bay Colony) was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith.
Aided by Squanto, a Native American of the Patuxet people, the colony was able to establish a treaty with Chief Massasoit which helped to ensure the colony's success. -
1691-Salem Witch Trials
In 1691, a group of girls in Salem, Massachusetts, accused an Indian slave named Tituba of witchcraft. Tituba's confession ignited a witchcraft scare which left 19 men and women hanged, one man pressed to death, and over 150 more people in prison awaiting trial. For two decades, New England had been in the grip of severe social stresses. A 1675 conflict with the Indians known as King Philip's War had resulted in more deaths relative to the size of the population than any other war in America. -
1754-7 Years' War
The Seven Years' War was a global military conflict 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. In the historiography of some countries, the war is alternatively named after combats in the respective theaters: the French and Indian War (North America, 1754–63) The war was characterized by sieges and arson of towns as well as open battles involving extreme losses. -
1767-Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (November 2, 1734 [O.S. October 22] – September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the settled part of the Thirteen Colonies. This region legally belonged to both the Commonwealth of Virginia and to the
American Indian Tribes. -
1773-Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea coming into the colonies. 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. The incident remains an iconic event of American history. -
1781-13 Colonies
The 13 original states ratified the first United States Constitution, the Articles of Confederation. The Articles served as the new nation's plan of government until the Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1789. In this letter, Edmund Pendleton (1721-1803) urges establishment of a formal compact among the states, and stresses the need for compromise as the only way to obtain union.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the national government was composed of a Congress. -
1789-George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732 [O.S. February 11, 1731] – December 14, 1799) was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in 1775–1783, and presided over the writing of the Constitution in 1787. The unanimous choice to serve as the first President of the United States (1789–1797). -
1797-John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States (1797–1801). Hailing from New England, Adams, a prominent lawyer and public figure in Boston, was highly educated and represented Enlightenment values promoting republicanism. A Federalist, he was highly influential and one of the key Founding Fathers. -
1804-Lewis & Clark
Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806) was the first United States expedition to the Pacific Coast. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the expedition had several goals. Their objects were both scientific and commercial – to study the area's plants, animal life, and geography, and to discover how the region could be exploited economically. -
1860-The Pony Express
The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861. It became the west's most direct means of east-west communication before the telegraph and was vital for tying California closely with the Union just before the American Civil War. This original fast mail 'Pony Express' service had messages carried by horseback riders. -
1860-Election of 1860
The Election of 1860 The United States presidential election of 1860 was the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. In 1860, these issues finally came to a head. As a result of conflicting regional interests, the Democratic Party broke into Northern and Southern factions, and a new Constitutional Union Party appeared. -
1862-Emancipation Proclaimation
The Emancipation Proclamation is an executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War under his war powers. It proclaimed the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them, with the rest freed as Union armies advanced.[1]
On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced that he would issue a formal emancipation of all slaves in any state of America. -
1912-Titanic
RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, and sank on 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.
The largest passenger steamship in the world, the Olympic-class RMS Titanic was owned by the White Star Line and constructed at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland. -
1932- Amelia Earhart
Amelia Mary Earhart (/ˈɛərhɑrt/ air-hart; 1897–disappeared 1937) was a noted American aviation pioneer and author.[1] [N 1] Earhart was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross,[3] awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.[4] She set many other records,[2] wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. -
1939-World War II
World War II, or the Second World War[1] (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers: eventually forming two opposing military alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised. -
1964-Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.[1] He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.[2] King is often presented as a heroic leader in the history of modern American liberalism. -
1972-Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (January 31, – October 24, 1972) was the first black Major League Baseball (MLB) player of the modern era.[1] Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. As the first black man to play in the major leagues since the 1880s, he was instrumental in bringing an end to racial segregation in professional baseball, which had relegated black players to the Negro leagues for six decades.[2] The example of his character. -
9-11 Attack
September 11, September 11th or 9/11,[nb 1] in combination with the attacks' side effects on that day) were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.[2][3] The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board.
