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Jamestown
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. -
Virginia House of Burgesses
A council chosen by the Virginia Company as advisers to the governor, the Virginia Governor's Council, met as a sort of "upper house," while 22 elected representatives met as the House of Burgesses. Together, the House of Burgesses and the Council would be the Virginia General Assembly -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. -
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of them women. -
John Peter Zinger
John Peter Zenger was a German American printer, publisher, editor, and journalist in New York City. Zenger printed The New York Weekly Journal. He was a defendant in a landmark legal case in American jurisprudence, known as the Zenger Trial. -
French and Indian War
A series of military engagements between Britain and France in North America between 1754 and 1763. The French and Indian War was the American phase of the Seven Years' War, which was then underway in Europe. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation was initially issued by King George III in 1763 to officially claim British territory in North America after Britain won the Seven Years War. In the Royal Proclamation, ownership over North America is issued to King George. -
Stamp Act
Act of the British Parliament in 1756 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the British Crown. -
Quartering Act
Quartering Act is a name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the 18th century. Parliament enacted them to order local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations or housing. -
Declaratory Act
Declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that the British Parliament's taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. -
Boston Massacre
street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
Tea Act
Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Its principal overt objective was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. -
Boston Tea Party
An act of defiance toward the British government by American colonists; it took place in 1773, before the Revolutionary War. The government in London had given a British company the right to sell tea directly to the colonies, thereby undercutting American merchants. -
1st Constientutional Congress
Meeting of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies that met on September 5 to October 26, 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. -
2nd Constitutional Congress
Convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. -
The Declaration of Independence
The fundamental document establishing the United States as a nation, adopted on July 4, 1776. The declaration was ordered and approved by the Continental Congress and written largely by Thomas Jefferson.
