AMERICAN GOVERNMENT

By sergiomira
  • Jun 15, 1215

    Magna Carta

    The Magna Carta (“Great Charter”) is a document guaranteeing English political liberties that was drafted at Runnymede, a meadow by the River Thames, and signed by King John on June 15, 1215, under pressure from his rebellious barons.

  • Declaration of Independence

    The Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the United States, was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776

  • Articles of Confederation

    Articles of Confederation, first U.S. constitution (1781–89), which served as a bridge between the initial government by the Continental Congress of the Revolutionary period and the federal government provided under the U.S. Constitution of 1787. The Articles were written in 1776–77 and adopted by the Congress on November 15, 1777. However, the document was not fully ratified by the states until March 1, 1781.

  • Constitutional Convention

    Constitutional Convention, (1787), in U.S. history, convention that drew up the Constitution of the United States. Stimulated by severe economic troubles, which produced radical political movements such as Shays’s Rebellion, and urged on by a demand for a stronger central government, the convention met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia (May 25–September 17, 1787), ostensibly to amend the Articles of Confederation.

  • Unites States Constitution

    Constitution of the United States of America, the fundamental law of the U.S. federal system of government and a landmark document of the Western world. The oldest written national constitution in use, the Constitution defines the principal organs of government and their jurisdictions and the basic rights of citizens. Constitution was signed by 39 delegates on September 17, 1787, and it was submitted for ratification to the 13 states on September 28.

  • Judiciary Act of 1789

    The Judiciary Act of 1789, officially titled "An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States," was signed into law by President George Washington on September 24, 1789. Article III of the Constitution established a Supreme Court, but left to Congress the authority to create lower federal courts as needed.

  • Plessy v. Ferguson

    Plessy v. Ferguson, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial “separate but equal” doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. [1892 - incident w. Homer Plessy]

  • Gregory v. City of Chicago

    In Gregory v. City of Chicago, 394 U.S. 111 (1969), the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the First Amendment rights of peaceful civil rights protestors over the overzealous actions of police attempting to quell anticipated civil disorder.

  • Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

    Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. February 24, 1969, U.S. Supreme Court established (7–2) the free speech and political rights of students in school settings. On the basis of the majority decision in Tinker v. Des Moines, school officials who wish to regulate student expression must be able to demonstrate that student expressive activities would result in material and substantial interference with the operations of the school or invade the rights of others.