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Colonists form First Continental Congress as Britain closes down Boston harbor and deploys troops in Massachusetts.
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George Washington leads the Continental Army to fight against British rule.
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Declaration of Independence endorsed by Congress; colonies declare independence.
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Rebel states form loose confederation after defeating the British at the Battle of Yorktown.
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Britain accepts loss of colonies by virtue of Treaty of Paris.
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Founding Fathers draw up a new constitution for the United States of America. Constitution comes into effect in 1788.
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George Washington elected the first president of the USA.
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Bill of Rights guarantees individual freedom.
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Residual resistance by indigenous people crushed as immigration from Europe assumes mass proportions, with settlers moving westwards and claiming "manifest destiny" to control North America; the number of states in the union rises from 17 to 45.
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Washington D.C becomes the nation's official capital.
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France sells Louisiana territories to the USA.
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Atlantic slave trade abolished.
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War of 1812 between the US and Britain, partly over the effects of British restrictions on US trade during the Napoleonic Wars.
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Nat Turner was a slave who became a preacher and made history as the leader of one of the bloodiest slave revolts in America on August 21, 1831. Following the insurrection, Turner hid for six weeks, but he was eventually caught and later hanged
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The US acquires vast tracts of Mexican territory in the wake of the Mexican War including California and New Mexico.
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In 1848, gold is discovered in California causing a surge of people to rush to California for a chance to hit it rich.
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Opponents of slavery, or abolitionists, set up Republican Party
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Eleven pro-slavery southern states secede from Union and form the Confederate States of America, triggering civil war with abolitionist northern states.
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Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln elected president.
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Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, declaring slaves in Confederate states to be free.
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- Confederates defeated; slavery abolished under the Thirteenth Amendment. Lincoln is assassinated.
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The Reconstruction era was the period in American history which lasted from 1863 to 1877. In this period, things that were destroyed were rebuilt. Also, it was a social reconstruction
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The First Transcontinental Railroad was a 1,912-mile continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa with the Pacific coast at the Oakland Long Wharf on San Francisco Bay.
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Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born scientist and inventor best known for inventing the first working telephone in 1876 and founding the Bell Telephone Company in 1877
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The US gains Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Cuba following the Spanish-American war. The US annexes Hawaii.