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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
The Magna Carta was written in June of 1215 and it established for the first time a very significant constitutional principle: that the power of the king could be limited by a written grant.The Magna Carta can be thought of as the corner-stone of liberty and the chief defence against unjust rule in England. -
Jamestown Settled
The three ships: Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery brought the initial colonists to Jamestown on May 13, 1607 from England. It was the first permanent colony in North America. -
Mayflower Compact signed
The pilgrims aboard the Mayflower landed in the Plymouth Colony of Massachusetts . Almost half of the colonists were part of a separatist group seeking the freedom to practice Christianity according to their own determination and not the will of the English Church. The Mayflower Compact was their first wrtitten document of government. -
Petition of Right
Passed on June 7, 1628, the Petition contains restrictions on non-Parliamentary taxation, forced billeting of soldiers, imprisonment without cause, and restricts the use of martial law. It is one of England's most famous constitutional documents. -
English Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It lays down limits on the powers of sovereign and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament, the requirement to regular elections to Parliament and the right to petition the monarch without fear of retribution. -
Albany Plan Of Union
It was drafted by Benjamin Franklin in 1754 in Albany, New York. It was the first attempt to form a union of the colonies during the French and Indian War. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London and carrying an embossed revenue stamp.These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. -
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
The Tea Party was a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. A group of colonists boarded the British ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 towards the British Colonies. These acts were a direct result of the Boston Tea Party, and the acts were a way for Britain to gain back Royal control over the rebelious British Colonies. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. The Intolerable Acts had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party. -
American Revolution Begins
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America. They first rejected the authority of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them from overseas without representation, and then expelled all royal officials. -
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. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met briefly during 1774, also in Philadelphia. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 -
Declaration of Independence
The original Thirteen Colonies declared themselves Independent from British rule on July 4, 1776. They were to be the United States of America and this is considered the birthday of our great nation :) -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was the 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. In practice, the Articles were in use beginning in 1777. -
Shay's Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion, a farmers' uprising named for its leader Daniel Shays, reached its climax when Shays led 1100 men in an attempt to seize the arsenal in Springfield Massachusetts. The uprising had been caused by the harsh economic conditions faced by Massachusetts farmers, who sought reforms and the issuance of paper money. -
Constitution Convention
To create a new government rather than fix the existing one, the delegates elected George Washington to preside over the convention. The result of the Convention was the United States Constitution, placing the Convention among the most significant events in the history of the United States. -
Connecticut Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman's Compromise) was an agreement between large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. It proposed a bicameral legislature, resulting in the current United States Senate and House of Representatives. -
Philadelphia Convention
Although the Convention was purportedly intended only to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the convention. The result of the Convention was the United States Constitution, placing the Convention among the most significant events in the history of the United State
