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1492
The Discovery of America by Columbus
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Settlement of Jamestown
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The French and Indian War
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The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of British tea into the harbor. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists. -
The Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord signaled the start of the American Revolutionary war on April 19, 1775. The British Army set out from Boston to capture rebel leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington as well as to destroy the Americans store of weapons and ammunition in Concord. -
The Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776. The Declaration announced that the Thirteen Colonies then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain would regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step toward forming the United States of America. -
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The Battle of Yorktown
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The Constitutional Convention
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Invention of the Cotton Gin
American inventor Eli Whitney. A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The fibers are then processed into various cotton goods such as linens, while any undamaged cotton is used largely for textiles like clothing. The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil. -
The Alien and Sedition Acts
Four bills passed by the Federalist-dominated 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. They made it harder for an immigrant to become a citizen (Naturalization Act), allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous (Alien Friends Act of 1798) or who were from a hostile nation (Alien Enemy Act of 1798), and criminalized making false statements that were critical of the federal government (Sedition Act of 1798). -
The Invention of the Electric Light, The Telephone, and The Airplane
In 1802, Humphry Davy invented the first electric light. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. His invention was known as the Electric Arc lamp. Electric Light - 1802
Telephone - 1876
Airplane - 1903 -
The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the Louisiana territory by the United States from France in 1803. The U.S. paid fifty million francs and a cancellation of debts worth eighteen million francs for a total of sixty-eight million francs. The Louisiana territory included land from fifteen present U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. -
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The War of 1812
A conflict fought between the United States, the United Kingdom, and their respective allies from June 1812 to February 1815. Historians in Britain often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars; in the United States and Canada, it is seen as a war in its own right. It was a military conflict between the United States and Great Britain. As a colony of Great Britain, Canada was swept up in the War of 1812 and was invaded a number of times by the Americans. -
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was the legislation that provided for the admission to the United States of Maine as a free state along with Missouri as a slave state, thus maintaining the balance of power between North and South in the United States Senate. As part of the compromise, slavery was prohibited north of the 36°30′ parallel, excluding Missouri. The 16th United States Congress passed the legislation on March 9, 1820, and President James Monroe signed it on May 6, 1820. -
Andrew Jackson's Election
The Missouri Compromise was the legislation that provided for the admission to the United States of Maine as a free state along with Missouri as a slave state, thus maintaining the balance of power between North and South in the United States Senate. As part of the compromise, slavery was prohibited north of the 36°30′ parallel, excluding Missouri. The 16th United States Congress passed the legislation on March 9, 1820, and President James Monroe signed it on May 6, 1820. -
The Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of Native American nations in the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The removal included members of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations, from their ancestral homelands in the southeastern U.S. to an area west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory. -
The Invention of the Telegraph
The practical electric telegraph system was invented by Samuel Morse in 1837. After Joseph Henry discovered electric induction in 1831, enabling further development in electrical telegraphy, the first practical telegraph was invented by Dr. David Alter of Elderton, Pennsylvania, in 1836. -
The Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was one such incident involving an unstable currency and financial system resulting in a lack of confidence in both government and the banks. An independent treasury system emerged when President Andrew Jackson transferred in 1833 government funds from the Bank of the United States to state banks. -
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The Mexican-American War
The Panic of 1837 was one such incident involving an unstable currency and financial system resulting in a lack of confidence in both government and the banks. An independent treasury system emerged when President Andrew Jackson transferred in 1833 government funds from the Bank of the United States to state banks. -
The Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). -
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The Firing on Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
The Emancipation proclamation
On September 22; 1862, soon after the Union victory at Antietam, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” While the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. -
Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. It was the final engagement of Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. -
Abraham Lincoln's Assassination
John Wilkes Booth shot him in the back of the head with a .44 caliber Derringer on April 14 1865 at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. -
The 13th 14th and 15th Amendments
The purpose of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the United States Constitution was to establish political equality for all Americans. These amendments are collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments. 13th - December 6, 1865
14th - July 9, 1868
15th - February 3, 1870 -
Andrew Johnson's Impeachment
Congress overruled Stanton's suspension and Grant resigned his position. Ignoring Congress, Johnson formally dismissed Stanton on February 21, 1868.
Angered by Johnson's open defiance, the House of Representatives formally impeached him on February 24 by a vote of 126 to 47. They charged him with violation of the Tenure of Office Act and bringing into "disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt, and reproach the Congress of the United States." -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust
John D. Rockefeller organized Standard Oil in Cleveland in 1870. Through ruthless competition and superb organization, the Standard Oil Trust controlled 90 percent of oil refining in the United States by 1879. -
The Pullman and Homestead Strikes
The Homestead and Pullman Strikes. Labor strike is a work stoppage caused by employees who refuse to work. Labor strikes happened a lot during industrialization when mass labor became important in factories. -
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The Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was fought between the United States and Spain in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to US intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions led to its involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately in the Philippine–American War. -
Theodore Roosevelt Becomes President
Theodore Roosevelt became nationally prominent for his exploits in the Spanish American War and was elected Vice President in the 1900 election. When William McKinley was shot and later died in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as President.