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Colonists boarded the Gaspee which was a British vessel off the coast of Rhode Island and set it on fire. John Brown was a merchant that was angered by the high British taxes on his goods hence seizing control of the ship and setting it ablaze with the help of other colonists -
A group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Indians boarded three British tea ships and threw 342 crates of tea into their Boston harbor. The “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. -
The British imposed direct military control of normal functions of the government in case of a disaster. The British Parliament passed the Boston Port Act that closed the port of Boston and demanded that the residents pay for the tea that was dumped during the Boston Tea Party. -
The Second Continental Congress unanimously voted for Washington to lead the revolutionary army. Earlier, he had stood out before his contemporaries as a commander for the British Army in the 1745 French and Indian War -
The pronouncement was adopted by the Second Continental Congress which combined the 13 independent states into the United States of America freeing themselves from Britain. The declaration was signed by representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. -
The British army under General John Burgoyne was met with the Northern Department of the Continental Army in Saratoga that was commanded by General Horatio Gates. The Americans were forced to pull back but the British had suffered twice the number of casualties of Americans -
Washington created the “Badge for Military Merit” that was presented to soldiers for any of their singularly meritorious actions. The names of the honored soldiers were inscribed in the “Book of Merit” -
Congress unanimously resolved one dollar as the money unit of the US on July 6, 1785. The Board of Treasury reported to Congress on this establishment on April 8, 1786. On August 8, 1787, Congress adopted the standard as the “Money Unit of the US” -
The Federalist Papers were a series of 85 essays written anonymously by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. The federalist papers are used today to help interpret the intentions of those drafting the constitution -
New Hampshire became the ninth and last state necessary to ratify the US constitution making it a law of the land -
John Adams was inaugurated as the first US Vice President. However, he did not become Vice President as the Congress couldn’t convene and achieve a quorum -
George Washington is sworn in as the first American president at Federal Hall in New York and he delivers his first inaugural speech -
After a series of requests from President George Washington, Congress created the US Army. Congress had the power to raise and support armies as per the constitution -
Samuel Slater flees Britain to seek fortune in America where he built the first textile industry. He helped established Slatersville town in Rhode Island. Before the civil war, textile manufacture was the most important industry in America -
On December 15, 1791, Virginia became the 10th of 14 states to approve 10 of the 12 amendments, thus giving the Bill of Rights the majority of state ratification necessary to make it legal. Of the two amendments not ratified, the first concerned the population system of representation, while the second prohibited laws varying the payment of congressional members from taking effect until an election intervened. -
The Naval Act of 1794 was an Act to provide a Naval Armament and was passed by the United States Congress on March 1794 to establish the first naval force. -
President James Madison signed a declaration of war against Britain after 79 to 49 votes for war in the House of Representatives and 19 to 13 votes for war in the Senate. -
During the War of 1812, British troops accessed Washington D.C. and burned down the White House in response to the American attack in June 1813 on the city of York in Ontario, Canada -
The treaty was signed to end the Mexican-American war in favor of the US. This event contributed to the addition of the US territory by 525,000 square miles to include Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, California, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming -
Abraham Lincoln becomes inaugurated and made a speech where he promised to enforce federal laws in the states that seceded from the union. This marked the beginning of Lincoln’s leadership of the United States through the American Civil War as the greatest cultural, moral, political, and constitutional crisis.
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