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First Navigational Laws
The First Navigation Laws to control colonial commerce -
Board of Trade
Board of Trade assumes governance of colonies -
End of Seven Years' War
A major military conflict that lasted from 1756 until the conclusion of the treaties of Paris (signed on 10 February 1763) and Hubertusburg (signed on 15 February 1763) -
Sugar Act
A revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on April 5, 1764. -
Quartering Act, Stamp Act, Stamp Act Congress
The name of at least two 18th-century acts of the Parliament of Great Britain. -
Declaratory Act
A declaration by the British Parliament in 1766 which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. -
Townshend Acts, New York legislature suspended by Parliament
A series of laws passed beginning in 1767 by the Parliament of Great Britain relating to the British colonies in North America. -
British troops occupy Boston
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Boston Massacre All Townshend Acts except tea tax repealed
An incident that led to the deaths of five civilians at the hands of British troops on March 5, 1770, the legal aftermath of which helped spark the rebellion in some of the British American colonies, which culminated in the American Revolutionary War. -
Committees of correspondence formed
Shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of American Revolution. -
British East India Company granted tea monopoly Governor Hutchinson's actions provoke BostonTea Party
A direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. 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. -
"Intolerable Acts"QuebecAct First Continental Congress The Association boycotts British goods
A series of five laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. -
First Continental Congress calls for abolition of slave trade
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Battles of Lexington and Concord
The first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. -
Philadelphia Quakers found world's first antislavery society
Founding of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), the world's first antislavery society and the first Quaker anti-slavery society. Benjamin Franklin becomes Honorary President of the Society in 1787. -
New Jersey constitution temporarily gives women the vote
The Constitution of the State of New Jersey is the basic governing document of the State of New Jersey. In addition to three British Royal Charters issued for East Jersey, West Jersey and united New Jersey while they were still colonies, the state has been governed by three constitutions. The first was issued on July 2, 1776, shortly before New Jersey ratified the United States Declaration of Independence. The state constitution reinforces the basic rights found in the United States Constitution -
Articles of Confederation adopted by Second Continental Congress
Agreed to by the Continental Congress November 15, 1777 and in effect after ratification by Maryland, March 1,1781, the Articles of Confederation served as a bridge between the initial government by the Continental Congress of the Revolutionary period and the federal government provided under the Constitution for the United States in effect March 4, 1789 -
Massachusetts adopts first constitution drafted in convention and ratified by popular vote
the fundamental governing document of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, one of the 50 individual state governments that make up the United States of America. It was drafted by John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin during the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention between September 1 and October 30, 1779. Following approval by town meetings, the Constitution was ratified on June 15, 1780, became effective on October 25, 1780, and remains the oldest functioning written constitution. -
Articles of Confederation put into effect
he first constitution of the United States and specified how the Federal government was to operate, including adoption of an official name for the new nation, United States of America. The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft the Articles in June 1776 and sent the draft to the states for ratification in November 1777.[1] In practice, the Articles were in use beginning in 1777. The ratification process was completed in March 1781. -
Military officers form Society of the Cincinnati
a historical organization with branches in the United States and France founded in 1783 to preserve the ideals and fellowship of the Revolutionary War officers and to pressure the government to honor pledges it had made to officers who fought for American independence. -
Land Ordinance of 1785
adopted by the United States Congress on May 20, 1785. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation of the inhabitants of the United States. -
The first session of the U.S. Congress is held in New York City as the U.S. Constitution takes effect. However, of the 22 senators and 59 representatives called to represent the 11 states who had ratified the document, only nine senators and 13 representa
The rebellion started on August 29, 1786, and by January 1787, over one thousand Shaysites had been arrested. A militia that had been raised as a private army defeated an attack on the federal Springfield Armory by the main Shaysite force on February 3, 1787, and four rebels were killed in the action. There was a lack of an institutional response to the uprising, which energized calls to reevaluate the Articles of Confederation and gave strong impetus to the Philadelphia Convention which began i -
Northwest Ordinance Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia
an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River. -
Ratification by nine states guarantees a new government under the Constitution
The first session of the U.S. Congress is held in New York City as the U.S. Constitution takes effect. However, of the 22 senators and 59 representatives called to represent the 11 states who had ratified the document, only nine senators and 13 representatives showed up to begin negotiations for its amendment.
