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Jan 1, 1215
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English legal charter, originally issued in the year 1215, after which the U.S. Constitution is based. -
Jamestown
The Jamestown Settlement was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America; settled in 1607. -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists who came to the new land on the Mayflower. -
Petition of Right
The Petition of Right is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. -
English Bill of Rights
During the English revolution in 1688, King James II abdicated and fled from England. He was succeeded by his daughter, Mary, and her husband, William. Parliament proposed a Declaration of Rights and presented it to William and Mary on February 13, 1689. Only after they accepted the declaration did Parliament proclaim them king and queen of England. Parliament then added several clauses to the declaration and forma -
Albany Plan of Union
In June 1754 delegates from most of the northern colonies and representatives from the Six Iroquois Nations met in Albany, New York. There they adopted a "plan of union" drafted by Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania. Under this plan each colonial legislature would elect delegates to an American continental assembly presided over by a royal governor. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. It was the culmination of tensions in the American colonies that had been growing since Royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768 to enforce the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts. -
Boston Tea Party
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. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from nine of the North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are a series of five laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met beginning on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. -
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an uprising in which the thirteen American colonies rebelled against Great Britain, gained independence, and formed the United States of America. -
Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which stated that the thirteen American were now independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. This document served as the United States' first constitution, and was in force from March 1, 1781, until 1789 when the present day Constitution went into effect. -
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolution who led the rebels. -
Philadelphia Convention
The United States Constitutional Convention, also known as the Philadelphia Convention, took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain. -
Connecticut Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise was an agreement between large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It proposed a bicameral legislature, resulting in the current United States Senate and House of Representatives.
