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Gabriel's Rebellion.
Beginning in Virginia in late August of 1800, a slave, Gabriel, led a group of close to one-thousand enslaved men that planned to end slavery. They caused chaos in Virginia, attacked residents, stole weapons and even captured Virginia governor James Monroe. On August 30, two enslaved men revealed the plan of attack to their masters, who then notified authorities. Gabriel and his men tried to escape but were soon captured and sentenced to death. -
The Cane Ridge Revival.
One of the earliest and largest revivals of the Second Great Awakening occurred in Cane Ridge, Kentucky, over a one week period in August 1801. Thousands of people gathered and received sermons from Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian preachers. -
The Louisiana Purchase.
In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from the French. The new territory doubled the size of the United States, but also put slavery on the list of top questions that should answered. -
Andrew Jackson came within inches of death.
Andrew Jackson, a thirty-nine-year-old Tennessee lawyer came within inches of death when a duelist's bullet struck him in the chest. -
Embargo Act of 1807.
The Embargo Act of 1807 was part of Thomas Jefferson's foreign policy. Under the Embargo Act, American ports were closed to all foreign trade in hopes of avoiding war. -
Robert Fulton established the first commercial steamboat up and down the Hudson River in New York.
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The United States ended its legal participation in the global slave trade.
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The United States launched their first offensive attack against Canada.
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The War of 1812.
The War of 1812 stemmed from the American entanglement in two distinct sets of international issues. The first being that the nation had a desire to maintain its position as a neutral trading nation, and the second being that the nation had older roots in the colonial and Revolutionary eras. -
James Madison drafted a statement of the nation's disputes with the British and asked Congress for a war declaration.
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James Madison signed the declaration of war, initiating the beginning of The War or 1812.
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Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star Spangled Banner."
Americans gained naval victories on Lake Champlain near Plattsburgh, preventing a British land invasion and on the Chesapeake Bay at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Watching the battle from aboard a British ship, American poet Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star Spangled Banner." -
Napoleon's defeat in early 1814 allowed the British to focus on North America and blockade American ports.
Thanks to the blockades, the British were able to burn Washington, D.C., on August 24, 1814. -
The Treaty of Ghent.
The American victory came after the United States and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814. -
Missouri Crisis.
When white settlers in Missouri, a new territory carved out of the Louisiana Purchase, applied for statehood, the balance of political power between northern and southern states to then become the focus of public debate. -
Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819.
John Quincy Adams used Andrew Jackson's military successes in this First Seminole War to persuade Spain to accept the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, which gave Florida to the United States. -
The Missouri Compromise of 1820.
The Missouri Compromise contained three parts. First, the Congress would admit Missouri as a free state. Second, Congress would admit Maine as a free state, which would help maintain the balance between the number of free states and slave states. Third, the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory would be divided along the 36°30' line of latitude. -
New York State completed the Erie Canal.
The Erie Canal linked the Great Lakes with the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean. -
The United States' first long-distance rail line launched from Maryland.
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Andrew Jackson won the presidency.
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The Indian Removal Act of 1830.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was where the removal of Native Americans from the land east of the Mississippi River were affected. This act allowed the federal government to survey, divide and auction off millions of land for however much bidders were willing to pay. -
Massachusetts became the final state to stop supporting an official religious denomination.
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Second Seminole War.
The influx of settlers into the Florida territory was temporarily halted by the outbreak of the Second Seminole War. Free black men and women, and escaped slaves, also occupied the Seminole district, a situation that deeply troubled slave owners causing the outbreak of war. -
Texas Independence.
Anglo settlers in Mexican Texas, or Texians as they called themselves, opposed Santa Anna's centralizing politics and met in November. They issued a statement of purpose that emphasized their commitment to the Constitution of 1824 and declared Texas to be a separate state within Mexico. Texian leaders abandoned their fight for the Constitution and declared independence. After the battle of San Jacinto, Santa Anna was forced to sign the Treaty of Velasco, which made him agree to independence. -
Panic of 1837.
The Panic of 1837 made governments wary of investments that could cause economic collapses. -
Manifest Destiny.
Manifest destiny was, as many Americans believed, the strength of American values and institutions justified moral claims to hemispheric leadership. The lands on the North American continent west of the Mississippi River (and later into the Caribbean) were destined for American-led political and agricultural improvement. And finally, God and the Constitution ordained an irrepressible destiny to accomplish redemption and democratization throughout the world. -
The Dred Scott decision ruled that black Americans could not be citizens of the United States.
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South Carolina voted to secede.
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Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861.
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The Assault on Fort Sumter.
Fort Sumter was in need of supplies and Lincoln intended to supply it. South Carolina called for U.S. soldiers to evacuate the fort. Commanding officer Major Robert Anderson refused. On April 12, 1861, Confederate Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard fired on the fort. Anderson surrendered on April 13 and the Union troops evacuated. This attack was the beginning of the American Civil War. -
Abraham Lincoln first floated the idea of an Emancipation Proclamation.
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The fall of Vicksburg.
Grant launched his campaign against Vicksburg, Mississippi, in the winter of 1862. Known as the "Gibraltar of the West," Vicksburg was the last holdout in the West, and it's seizure would have enabled uninhibited travel for the Union forces along the Mississippi River. Grant's Vicksburg campaign ended with the city's surrender. The fall of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two. -
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Battle of Shiloh.
The Battle of Shiloh lasted only two days. The Union victory shocked both the Union and the Confederacy with approximately twenty-three thousand casualties. The subsequent capture of New Orleans by Union forces proved a heavy blow to the Confederacy and capped an 1862 spring of success in the Western Theater. -
Battle of Antietam.
General Lee and Confederate president Jefferson Davis planned to win a decisive victory in Union territory and end the war. On September 17, 1862, McClellan's and Lee's forces collided at the Battle of Antietam near the town of Sharpsburg. This battle was the first major battle of the Civil War to occur on Union soil. It remains the bloodiest single day in American history. -
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The Battle of Gettysburg.
Lee invaded Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863. During the three day battle at Gettysburg, heavy casualties affected both sides. The devastating July 3 infantry assault on the Union center, also known as Pickett's Charge, caused Lee to retreat from Pennsylvania. The Gettysburg Campaign was Lee's final northern incursion and the Battle of Gettysburg remains the bloodiest battle of the war, and in American history, with fifty-one thousand casualties. -
Lincoln promoted Grant to general-in-chief of the Union army in early 1864.
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The Thirteenth Amendment.
To cement the abolition of slavery, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment on January 31, 1865. The amendment legally abolished slavery "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted," and Section Two of the amendment granted Congress the "power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." -
Lincoln was reelected to the presidency.
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The end of the Civil War.
With Grant's dogged pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, thus ending the Civil War. -
Lincoln's assassination.
Reconstruction from the Civil War was changed when John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln on April 14, 1865, during a performance at Ford's Theater. -
Republicans in Congress responded to the codes with the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first federal attempt to constitutionally define all American-born residents (except Native peoples) as citizens.
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The Fourteenth Amendment.
The House of Representatives approved the Fourteenth Amendment on June 13, 1866. Section One granted citizenship and repealed the Taney Court's infamous Dred Scott decision. This act ensured that state laws could not deny due process of discriminate against particular groups of people. The Fourteenth Amendment signaled the federal government's willingness to enforce the Bill of Rights over the authority of the states.