American History By divaeeva 12,000 BCE by 12,000 B.C. Humans have migrated to the Americas, most of them from Siberia 1492 Columbus, sailing for Spain, makes first voyage of discovery 1497 John Cabot explores Newfoundland 1503 First Africans are brought to the Americas 1513 Juan Ponce de León explores Florida Period: 1517 to 1648 Protestant Reformation spurs religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants 1519 Hernán Cortés begins the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire 1531 Francisco Pizarro subdues the Incas of Peru 1541 Jacques Cartier, sailing for France, explores the St. Lawrence River 1607 Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English colony, is established 1608 Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec 1616 Pocahontas marries John Rolfe 1619 First Africans arrive in English America 1619 First Africans arrive at Jamestown 1620 Plymouth colony is founded; Pilgrims agree to the Mayflower Compact 1622 Indian uprising in Virginia 1630 Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded 1634 Settlement of Maryland begins 1636 Harvard College is established 1637 Pequot War Period: 1642 to 1651 English Civil War 1660 Restoration of the Stuart monarchy—King Charles II 1660 Restoration of the English monarchy 1662 Puritans initiate the “Half-Way Covenant” 1662 Virginia enacts law declaring that children of slave women are slaves 1673 The French explore the Mississippi River valley from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico Period: 1675 to 1676 King Philip’s War 1676 Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia 1681 Pennsylvania is established 1684 Dominion of New England is established 1688 Glorious Revolution 1691 Royal charter for Massachusetts is established 1692 Salem witchcraft trials Period: 1730 to 1740 Great Awakening 1733 Georgia is founded 1735 John Peter Zenger is tried for seditious libel 1739 Stono Uprising 1739 George Whitefield preaches his first sermon in America, in Philadelphia 1741 Jonathan Edward preaches “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” 1754 Albany Congress adopts Plan of Union Period: 1754 to 1763 French and Indian War 1763 Pontiac’s Rebellion 1764 Parliament passes the Revenue (Sugar) Act 1766 Parliament repeals the Stamp Act and passes the Declaratory Act 1767 Parliament levies the Townshend duties 1770 Boston Massacre 1773 Colonists stage the Boston Tea Party 1774 Parliament passes the Coercive Acts; colonists hold First Continental Congress 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord 1775 Colonists hold Second Continental Congress 1776 Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is published; Declaration of Independence is signed 1776 General Washington’s troops cross the Delaware River; Battle of Trenton Period: 1776 to 1777 Washington’s troops winter at Morristown, New Jersey 1777 Battle of Saratoga; General Burgoyne surrenders Period: 1777 to 1778 Washington’s troops winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania 1778 Americans and French form an alliance 1781 Battles of Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse 1781 General Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, Virginia 1781 Articles of Confederation are ratified 1781 Articles of Confederation take effect 1783 Treaty of Paris is signed 1783 General Washington puts an end to the Newburgh Conspiracy 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix forces the Iroquois to give up land in New York and Pennsylvania 1785 Land Ordinance outlines a plan for surveying and selling government lands 1786 Virginia adopts the Statute of Religious Freedom 1786 Delegates decide to call for a constitutional convention Period: 1786 to 1787 Shays’s Rebellion 1787 Northwest Ordinance outlines a detailed plan for organizing western territories 1787 The Constitutional Convention is held in Philadelphia Period: 1787 to 1788 The Federalist Papers are published 1788 Confederation government is phased out 1789 President George Washington is inaugurated 1789 French Revolution begins 1790 Rhode Island becomes the last state to ratify the Constitution 1791 Bill of Rights is ratified 1791 1791 Bank of the United States is created 1792 Slave revolt in Santo Domingo (Haiti) 1793 Washington issues a proclamation of neutrality 1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin 1794 Jay’s Treaty is negotiated with England 1794 1794 Whiskey Rebellion 1794 Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike is completed 1795 Pinckney’s Treaty is negotiated with Spain 1795 Wilderness Road opens 1795 By the Treaty of Greenville, the United States purchases western lands from Native Americans 1796 President Washington delivers his farewell address 1797 XYZ affair 1798 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts are passed 1800 Gabriel conspiracy in Richmond, VA 1800 Thomas Jefferson is elected president 1803 Marbury v. Madison 1803 1803 Louisiana Purchase Period: 1804 to 1806 Lewis and Clark expedition 1807 1807 Chesapeake affair 1807 Embargo Act is passed 1807 Clermont, the first successful steamboat, sails to Albany 1808 1808 International slave trade is outlawed 1808 Participation in the international slave trade is outlawed 1810 Supreme Court issues Fletcher v. Peck decision 1811 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe 1811 Charles Deslondes Revolt in Louisiana 1814 1814 Battle of Horseshoe Bend 1814 1814 Treaty of Ghent 1814 Hartford Convention 1815 Battle of New Orleans 1815 Construction of the National Road begins 1816 Second Bank of the United States is established 1816 First protective tariff goes into effect 1816 American Colonization Society is founded 1819 Supreme Court issues McCulloch v. Maryland decision 1819 United States and Spain agree to the Transcontinental (AdamsOnís) Treaty 1819 Tallmadge Amendment 1821 Florida becomes a territory 1821 Missouri becomes a state 1821 Mexico gains independence from Spain 1822 Denmark Vesey conspiracy is discovered in Charleston, South Carolina 1823 President Monroe enunciates the principles of the Monroe Doctrine 1824 Supreme Court issues Gibbons v. Ogden decision 1824 John Quincy Adams wins the presidential election by what some critics claim is a “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay 1825 Erie Canal opens 1826 Ministers organize the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance 1828 John C. Calhoun publishes the South Carolina Exposition and Protest 1828 Andrew Jackson wins presidential election 1828 “Tariff of Abominations” goes into effect 1830 Congress passes the Indian Removal Act 1830 Andrew Jackson vetoes the Maysville Road Bill 1830 Joseph Smith reveals the Book of Mormon Period: 1830 to 1831 Charles G. Finney begins preaching in upstate New York 1831 Cyrus McCormick invents a mechanical reaper 1831 Supreme Court issues Cherokee Nation v. Georgia decision 1831 1831 Nat Turner leads slave insurrection in Virginia 1831 William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of The Liberator 1832 Supreme Court issues Worcester v. Georgia decision 1832 Andrew Jackson vetoes the Bank Recharter Bill 1832 South Carolina issues ordinance of nullification 1833 Congress passes Henry Clay’s compromise tariff 1833 American Anti-Slavery Society is founded 1834 National Trades’ Union is organized 1836 Martin Van Buren is elected president 1836 Transcendental Club holds its first meeting 1836 Americans are defeated at the Alamo 1837 Financial panic follows a drop in the price of cotton 1837 John Deere invents the steel plow Period: 1837 to 1838 Eastern Indians are forced west on the Trail of Tears 1840 William Henry Harrison, a Whig, is elected president 1840 Abolitionists form the Liberty party 1841 John Tyler becomes president 1842 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issues Commonwealth v. Hunt decision 1842 Americans and British agree to the Webster-Ashburton Treaty 1845 Rainbow, the first clipper ship, is launched 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is published 1845 United States annexes Texas 1845 Mexican War begins 1846 Elias Howe invents the sewing machine 1846 Mormons, led by Brigham Young, undertake trek to Utah 1846 Most members of the Donner party die en route to California 1848 California gold rush begins 1848 At the Seneca Falls Convention, women issue the Declaration of Sentiments 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican War 1848 Free-Soil party is organized 1848 California gold rush begins 1849 California gold rush begins 1851 Sojourner Truth delivers her famous speech Ain’t I a Woman? 1851 Plains Indians agree to the Fort Laramie Treaty 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published 1853 With the Gadsden Purchase, the United States acquires thirty thousand square miles from Mexico 1854 Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, or Life in the Woods is published 1854 Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act 1854 The Republican party is founded 1855 Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is published 1855 Bessemer converter process allows steel to be made quickly and inexpensively 1856 A pro-slavery mob sacks Lawrence, Kansas; John Brown stages the Pottawatomie Massacre in retaliation 1856 Charles Sumner of Massachusetts is caned and seriously injured by a pro-slavery congressman in the U.S. Senate 1857 U.S. Supreme Court issues the Dred Scott decision 1857 Lecompton Constitution declares that slavery will be allowed in Kansas 1858 Abraham Lincoln debates Stephen A. Douglas during the 1858 Illinois Senate race 1858 Construction of New York’s Central Park begins 1859 John Brown and his followers stage raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite a massive slave insurrection 1859 First oil well is struck in Titusville, Pennsylvania 1859 Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is published 1859 Comstock Lode is discovered 1860 South Carolina secedes from the Union 1860 Crittenden Compromise is proposed 1861 Fort Sumter falls to Confederate forces; Lincoln issues call to arms 1861 First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) 1861 The Trent affair commences when a Union warship stops a British ship on the high seas and takes two Confederate agents into custody Mar 4, 1861 Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated president 1862 Congress guarantees the construction of a transcontinental railroad 1862 Congress passes the Morrill Land Grant Act 1862 Congress passes the Homestead Act 1862 Congress passes the Homestead Act Period: 1862 to 1862 Peninsular campaign Period: 1862 to 1862 Battles of Shiloh, Second Bull Run, and Antietam Jan 1, 1863 Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation Period: 1863 to 1863 Siege of Vicksburg, Battles of Gettysburg and Chattanooga 1864 Lincoln refuses to sign the Wade-Davis Bill 1864 Sand Creek Massacre 1865 Thirteenth Amendment is ratified 1865 Congress sets up the Freedmen’s Bureau May 9, 1865 Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox Court House May 14, 1865 Lincoln is assassinated 1866 Congress passes the Civil Rights Act 1866 Ku Klux Klan is organized 1867 Congress passes the Military Reconstruction Act 1867 Congress passes the Tenure of Office Act 1868 Fourteenth Amendment is ratified 1868 Congress impeaches President Andrew Johnson; the Senate fails to convict him 1869 First transcontinental railroad is completed at Promontory, Utah 1873 Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire 1876 Thomas A. Edison makes the first successful incandescent lightbulb 1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents his telephone 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn 1877 Compromise of 1877 ends Reconstruction 1877 Great Railroad Strike 1877 Rutherford B. Hayes is inaugurated president 1877 Supreme Court issues Munn v. Illinois decision 1881 James A. Garfield is assassinated 1882 John D. Rockefeller organizes the Standard Oil Trust 1882 Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act 1883 Congress passes the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act 1886 Surrender of Geronimo marks the end of the Indian wars 1886 American Federation of Labor is organized 1886 Supreme Court issues Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois decision 1886 In the Haymarket incident, a bomb set off at a Chicago labor rally kills and wounds police officers 1887 Congress passes the Severalty Act 1887 Interstate Commerce Commission is created 1889 Otis Elevator Company installs the first electric elevator 1889 Hull-House, a settlement house, opens in Chicago 1890 Mississippi Plan resegregates public facilities by race 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee 1891 Basketball is invented 1892 Ellis Island, a federal center for processing immigrants, opens 1892 People’s party drafts its Omaha platform 1892 Homestead Strike 1893 Frederick J. Turner’s “frontier thesis” 1893 Economic depression affects a substantial proportion of the population 1894 Pullman Strike 1894 Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed 1895 Cuban insurrection breaks out against Spanish rule 1895 Booker T. Washington delivers his Atlanta Compromise speech 1896 Supreme Court issues Plessy v. Ferguson decision 1898 U.S. battleship Maine explodes in Havana Harbor 1898 War of 1898 1898 United States annexes Hawaii 1899 U.S. Senate ratifies the Treaty of Paris, ending the War of 1898 Period: 1899 to 1902 Filipino insurgents resist U.S. domination 1900 International alliance quells the Boxer Rebellion 1900 Baseball’s National League is formed 1900 Army Yellow Fever Commission confirms the cause of yellow fever 1901 J. Pierpont Morgan creates the U.S. Steel Corporation 1902 Theodore Roosevelt attempts to arbitrate the coal strike 1902 Justice Department breaks up Northern Securities Company 1903 Panamanians revolt against Colombia 1903 Congress passes the Elkins Act 1903 Wright Brothers fly the first airplane 1903 Ford Motor Company is founded 1905 Russo-Japanese War 1905 First movie house opens 1906 Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is published 1906 Congress passes the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act 1907 Great White Fleet circumnavigates the globe in a demonstration of America’s rise to world-power status 1907 Great White Fleet circumnavigates the globe in a demonstration of America’s rise to world-power status 1908 Supreme Court issues Muller v. Oregon decision 1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is created 1909 William Taft is inaugurated president 1910 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded 1910 Congress passes the Mann-Elkins Act 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire 1913 Congress passes the Federal Reserve Act 1914 Panama Canal opens 1914 Congress passes the Clayton Anti-Trust Act 1914 United States intervenes in Mexico 1914 World War I begins in Europe 1915 British liner Lusitania, with Americans aboard, is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine 1916 Congress passes the National Defense Act 1916 Marcus Garvey brings to New York the Universal Negro Improvement Association 1916 Louis Brandeis is nominated to fill a seat on the Supreme Court 1917 United States enters the Great War 1917 Zimmermann telegram reveals that Germany is attempting to incite Mexico to enter the war against the United States 1918 Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech Nov 11, 1918 Representatives of warring nations sign armistice 1919 Race riots break out in Chicago 1919 U.S. attorney general launches Red Scare 1919 Treaty of Versailles is presented to the Germans 1919 Supreme Court issues Schenck v. United States decision 1920 Prohibition begins 1920 F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise is published 1920 Nineteenth Amendment, guaranteeing women’s suffrage, is ratified 1921 Joint resolution of Congress officially ends the war among the United States, Germany, and Austria-Hungary 1921 Representatives of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan attend the Washington Naval Conference 1921 Albert Einstein receives the Nobel Prize in physics 1921 Congress passes the Emergency Immigration Act 1922 First radio commercial is aired 1922 United States begins sending observers to the League of Nations 1922 Benito Mussolini comes to power in Italy 1922 T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is published 1923 President Warren G. Harding dies in office 1925 Scopes “monkey trial” tests the teaching of evolution in Tennessee public schools 1927 Charles Lindbergh Jr. makes first solo transatlantic flight 1928 Herbert Hoover is elected president 1928 More than sixty nations sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact pledging not to go to war with one another, except in matters of self-defense Oct 29, 1929 Stock market crashes 1930 Congress passes the Hawley-Smoot Tariff 1932 Congress sets up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation 1932 Congress passes the Glass-Steagall Act 1933 Bonus Expeditionary Force converges on Washington to demand payment of bonuses promised to war veterans 1933 Congress passes the Emergency Banking Relief Act 1933 Congress passes the Beer-Wine Revenue Act 1933 Congress creates the Tennessee Valley Authority 1933 Congress establishes the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 1933 Congress creates the Civil Works Administration 1933 Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany 1933 Congress establishes the Civilian Conservation Corps 1935 President Roosevelt creates the Works Progress Administration 1935 Congress passes the Wagner Act 1937 Social Security goes into effect 1937 Panay incident 1938 Hitler forces the Anschluss (union) of Austria and Germany 1939 John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is published 1939 Soviet Union agrees to a nonaggression pact with Germany 1939 German troops invade Poland 1940 Germany, Italy, and Japan sign the Tripartite Pact 1940 Richard Wright’s Native Son is published 1940 Battle of Britain Dec 7, 1941 Japanese launch surprise attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii 1942 Battle of Midway 1943 Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Combined Chiefs of Staff meet at Casablanca 1943 Allied forces land on Sicily 1943 Roosevelt and Churchill meet Stalin, in Tehran 1944 Congress passes the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill of Rights) 1944 Congress passes the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill of Rights) Jun 6, 1944 D-day 1945 Yalta Conference 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt dies; Hitler commits suicide 1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 1945 Fifty nations at war with the Axis Powers sign the United Nations Charter May 8, 1945 V-E day Sep 2, 1945 Japanese surrender 1947 National Security Council (NSC) is established 1947 Congress passes the Taft-Hartley Labor Act 1948 Israel is proclaimed an independent nation 1948 Allied forces begin airlifting supplies to West Berlin 1948 Truman defeats Dewey in the presidential election 1948 Truman issues an executive order ending segregation in the U.S. armed forces October 1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is created 1949 China “falls” to communism 1950 United States and other UN members go to war in Korea 1952 Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is published 1953 Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are executed 1953 Armistice is reached in Korea 1954 Supreme Court issues ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 1954 Geneva Accords adopted Period: 1954 to 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings are televised 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott begins 1956 In Suez War, Israel, Britain, and France attack Egypt 1956 Hungarian revolt against the Warsaw Pact is quickly suppressed 1957 Federal troops ordered to protect students attempting to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas 1957 Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1 1957 Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is published 1957 Baby boom peaks 1960 U-2 incident reveals that the United States is flying spy planes over the Soviet Union