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Aug 3, 1492
Columbus lands in Americas
Christopher Columbus and Spain worked together to search for new land and a route to India, but instead stumbled upon the Americas out West. Without him, America doesn't get discovered for he is the reason for many events that build the nation from the ground up. -
Sep 3, 1492
Columbian Exchange
After Columbus set sail and then landed in the New World, this exchange began between the nations. Crops, domesticated animals, new inventions and disease were dispersed throughout the participating worlds. -
Nov 4, 1502
Ponce de Leon Massacre
Massive massacre of natives for their land and changed the Natives relationship with Europeans, as well as stated the encomienda system. -
Apr 24, 1512
Encomienda system established
Under the encomienda system, conquistadors and other leaders (encomenderos) received grants of a number of Indians, from whom they could exact “tribute” in the form of gold or labor. The encomenderos were supposed to protect and Christianize the Indians granted to them, but they most often used the system to effectively enslave the Indians and take their lands. -
Apr 25, 1555
Tobacco arrives in Europe
Tobacco became a new luxury for the Europeans. -
Jamestown
Jamestown was the first permanent British colony in America and though started out rough with many deaths, did become quite successful. Their discovery of using the tobacco crop and keeping a somewhat fir and healthy relationship with England kept them intact for many years and helped spark English colonization for years and years to come. -
Pilgrims land
The Pilgrims were Puritists. They wanted to escape the control of the Church of England and have their own religious freedom, so they set sail for the New World to be able to practice what they want withut fear of the government. -
Anne Hutchinson Banished
Was ironically banished by Mass. for not wanting to participate in their religion and held her own meetings and such in her home, and they didn't take too kindly to that. -
Pueblo Revolt
The Pueblo Revolt effectively ended Spanish rule in New Mexico for the next 12 years. This was the first successful Native American revolt effort against the Europeans and though it was only temporary it was a big win fr Natives and gave them hope. -
First Great Awakening
This was the time when politics actually took a step back, and religion came more into pay because reigious leaders thought people were too focused on politics and money and not enough on Calvin's work, and this basically split America. -
Sugar Act
Passed by Parliament following the French and Indian War. The Act set a tax on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies and upset the Colonists just like the other acts would do. -
Proclamation of 1763
This was a proclamation made after the British won the French and Indian war and gained all that French land. The British said the colonists could not settle west past the Appalachian mountains, which did not sit well with settlers -
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. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. This money was used to pay off war expenses and protect the frontier in front of the Appalachian Mountains. -
Townshend Acts
A series of measures introduced into the English Parliament by Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in 1767, the Townshend Acts imposed duties on glass, lead, paints, paper and tea imported into the colonies, and the colonists saw it as an abuse of power. -
Declaration of Independence
This was the Colonists way of saying they were tired of being ruled by the British and paying for their debts and this was the first time a nation actually declared and would fight for its indeooendence from their mother nation. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (1803) was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million and this greatly expanded the nation. -
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was an armed conflict between the United States and the British Empire. The British restricted the American trade since they feared it was harmful for their war with France and they also wanted to set up an Indian state in the Midwest in order to maintain their influence in the region. That’s why 10,000 Native Americans fought on the side of the British in this war. -
Hartford Convention
Meeting of Federalists near the end of the War of 1812 in which the party listed it's complaints against the ruling Republican Party. These actions were largley viewed as traitorous to the country and lost the Federalist much influence -
Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine was a U.S. foreign policy regarding domination of the Americas in 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. -
Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. In the end Mexico lost and the US gained nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. -
California gold rush
A carpenter found gold flakes in a lake, and when word spread people came from all over to California searching for the same good fortune, and what resulted was a series of boom towns throughout the area. -
Compromise of 1850
California was admitted to the Union as the 16th free state. In exchange, the south was guaranteed that no federal restrictions on slavery would be placed on Utah or New Mexico. Texas lost its boundary claims in New Mexico, but the Congress compensated Texas with $10 million. Slavery was maintained in the nation's capital, but the slave trade was prohibited. Finally, and most controversially, a Fugitive Slave Law was passed, requiring northerners to return runaway slaves to their owners under pe -
Fugitive Slave Law
Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act as part of the Compromise of 1850. The law forced northerners to cooperate in returning runaway slaves to the South. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. -
Purchase of Alaska
On March 30, 1867, the United States reached an agreement to purchase Alaska from Russia for a price of $7.2 million. The Treaty with Russia was negotiated and signed by Secretary of State William Seward and Russian Minister to the United States Edouard de Stoeckl.The purchase was originally known as “Seward’s Follly” but the land proved to contain natural resources in vast amounts. -
Women in Wyoming vote
The first American women to gain the vote were residents of Wyoming Territory. Elizabeth Cady Stanton visited “the land of freedom” in 1871. When Wyoming was granted statehood in 1890, the women’s suffrage clause remained state law. -
Indian Appropriation Act
In the late nineteenth century, Indian policy began to place a growing emphasis on erasing a distinctive American Indian identity. To weaken the authority of tribal leaders, Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act, which ended the practice of treating tribes as independent, sovereign nations. The Carlisle Indian School, founded in 1879, was designed to replace American Indian culture with white American. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
In the spring of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur. This act provided an absolute 10-year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic working group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act allowed Indian reservation land to be broken up into small allotments for sale to individuals -
Plessy v. Ferguson
The US Supreme Court ruled that, as long as the accommodations were equal, states could legally enforce segregation. This decision stood until a unanimous Supreme Court verdict overturned it in 1954 in the Brown v. Board ruling. -
Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War (1898) was a conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America. -
Annexation of Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam
In the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States. The conflict precipitated in the Philippines was officially ended in 1902, but fighting continued for several more years. -
Open Door Policy
Fearful of a weakened China being divided among European economic interests, Secretary of State Hay sent a note to each of the powers that had acquired spheres of influence. In the note Hay asked that they not discriminate against the trade of other countries. -
Woodrow Wilson elected president
Democratic Party nominee Woodrow Wilson won the presidential election, beating out three other candidates. William Howard Taft,Theodore Roosevelt, and Eugene V. Debs -
The Truman Doctrine
On March 12, 1947, the President announced the Truman Doctrine, a policy plan to keep Communism from spreading to politically unstable countries. -
Korean War
The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea in an effort to unify the two countries. After securing the 38th parallel border, the US aimed to “liberate” North Korea from Communism rather than just allowing the countries to return to pre-war terms. -
Dwight D. Eisenhower elected
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower was easily elected president of the United States in 1952 with 442 electoral votes and 55.2 percent of the popular vote. In 1957 Congress approved the Eisenhower Doctrine, which extended the Truman Doctrine and provided military and economic support in the Middle East to Arab countries attempting to suppress Communist-nationalistic rebellions. -
Brown v. Board of Education
In the case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court struck down the Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” decision when it ruled that segregation of public school children based on race was unconstitutional. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 created the US Commission on Civil Rights to investigate voter restrictions. It also established the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department -
Ronald Reagan elected president
Republican Ronald Reagan defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter for the presidency. Reagan’s campaign was aided by the poor economy and Carter’s failure to put a successful end to the Iranian hostage crisis. -
George H.W. Bush elected president
Promising “no new taxes,” George H.W. Bush was elected president over Democratic Party nominee Michael Dukakis. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Built as a divider between East and West Berlin by the Communist East German government in 1961, the Berlin Wall was torn down to widespread celebration on November 9, 1989. The destruction of the wall signified the fall of the “Iron Curtain” and symbolized the end of the Cold War. -
Bill Clinton elected president
Democratic nominee and Arkansas governor Bill Clinton won the presidential election over incumbent Republican George H. W. Bush and Independent candidate Ross Perot. Though Bush had used the success of the Persian Gulf War as a campaign point, Clinton’s focus on the economy propelled him to the win. -
Great Recession
The “Great Recession” in the United States lasted and the global recession that resulted from it lasted from December 2007 to June 2009. Among the contributing factors were, an "over-heated" housing market and huge losses on mortgage-backed securities.
