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Columbus and his ships landed on an island that the native Lucayan people called Guanahani -
Cortés's victory destroyed the Aztec empire, and the Spanish began to consolidate control over what became the colony of New Spain -
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas -
20-30 enslaved Africans landed at Point Comfort, today's Fort Monroe in Hampton, Va., aboard the English privateer ship White Lion. In Virginia, these Africans were traded in exchange for supplies -
In 1629 King Charles I of England granted the Massachusetts Bay Company a charter to trade in and colonize the part of New England that lay approximately between the Charles and Merrimack Rivers, and settlement began in 1630 -
The British Parliament, in the first of what became known as the Navigation Acts, declared that only English ships would be allowed to bring goods into England, and that the North American colonies could only export its commodities, such as tobacco and sugar, to England -
Persecuted in England for his Quaker faith, Penn came to America in 1682 and established Pennsylvania as a place where people could enjoy the freedom of religion. Penn obtained the land from King Charles II as payment for a debt owed to his deceased father. -
The jury acquitted publisher John Peter Zenger of libel charges against New York’s colonial governor, in an early landmark moment for the free press and the American legal system. -
The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. British colonial forces, led by Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, attempted to expel the French in 1754, but were outnumbered and defeated by the French. -
After Britain won the Seven Years' War and gained land in North America, it issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which stopped American colonists from settling west of Appalachia. -
The act lowered the tax on molasses imported by the colonists. The act also let officers seize goods from smugglers without going to court. The Sugar Act and the new laws to control smuggling angered the colonists. They believed their rights as Englishmen were being violated. -
The Stamp Act Congress passed a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances," which claimed that American colonists were equal to all other British citizens, protested taxation without representation, and stated that, without colonial representation in Parliament, Parliament could not tax colonists. -
The first major action of the Sons of Liberty was to protest the Stamp Act. They took direct action by harassing the stamp tax distributors who worked for the British government. They also gathered in large groups and protested in the streets. -
The Stamp Act Congress passed a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances," which claimed that American colonists were equal to all other British citizens, protested taxation without representation, and stated that, without colonial representation in Parliament, Parliament could not tax colonists. -
To help pay the expenses involved in governing the American colonies, Parliament passed the Townshend Acts, which initiated taxes on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea. Nonimportation. In response to new taxes, the colonies again decided to discourage the purchase of British imports. -
The Townshend Acts take effect in America. Colonists must now pay duties on glass, paper, lead, paint, and tea imported from Britain. The existing non-consumption movement soon takes on a political hue as boycotts are encouraged both to save money and to force Britain to repeal the duties. -
The Townshend Acts were repealed in 1770 because of the reaction the colonists had. Both boycotted British goods and rioted. The British government sent in troops, leading to the Boston Massacre in 1770, where five colonists were killed by British soldiers as the soldiers tried to quell a riot. -
a crowd confronted eight British soldiers in the streets of the city. As the mob insulted and threatened them, the soldiers fired their muskets, killing five colonists. -
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. -
The Coercive Acts were meant to break Massachusetts Bay and to warn the other colonies of the consequences of rebellious behavior. Each act was specifically designed to cause severe damage to a particular aspect of colonial life. -
The Battles of Lexington and Concord fought on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress commissioned George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army on June 19, 1775. Washington was selected over other candidates such as John Hancock based on his previous military experience and the hope that a leader from Virginia could help unite the colonies. -
The first shots were fired just after dawn in Lexington, Massachusetts the morning of the 19th, the "Shot Heard Round the World." The colonial militia, a band of 500 men, were outnumbered and initially forced to retreat. -
Congress members signed the declaration. Not every man who had been present on July 4 signed the declaration on August 2. Two important officials passed up the chance to sign and others were added later. The first and largest signature was that of the president of Congress, John Hancock. -
On January 9, 1776, writer Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet “Common Sense,” setting forth his arguments in favor of American independence. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the 16th through 19th centuries. -
Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown, making the end of the Revolutionary War -
May 5, 1779 - Delaware delegates signed the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. March 1, 1781 - Maryland delegates signed the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The Articles were finally ratified by all thirteen states. -
The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S. and British Representatives on September 3, 1783, which ended the War of the American Revolution. Based on the 1782 preliminary treaty, the agreement recognized U.S. independence and granted the U.S. significant western territory. -
The Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the United States. It also recognized American independence and established borders for the new nation. The American negotiators were joined by Henry Laurens two days before the preliminary articles of peace were signed on November 30, 1782. -
The trade took a horrible turn in the early 1800s. British merchants began to carry opium to China, and many Americans followed suit. Opium, a drug, created its own demand by making addicts of its users. -
In the August of 1786, farmers in western Massachusetts began to take direct action against debtors' courts. Committees of town leaders drafted a document of grievances and proposed reforms, some considered radical, for the legislature in Boston to enact. But other actions began to take place. -
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The point of the event was to decide how America was going to be governed. Even though the Convention had been officially called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, many delegates had much bigger plans. -
Congress directed the state legislatures to call ratification conventions in each state. Article VII stipulated that nine states had to ratify the Constitution for it to go into effect. -
George Washington (1732-99) was commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) and served two terms as the first U.S. president, from 1789 to 1797. In 1787, he was elected president of the convention that wrote the U.S. Constitution.