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2017 BCE
Roots of politics (Plato)
Plato started writing about the ideas of the government. He criticizes the direct and unchecked democracy of his time precisely because of its leading features. -
300 BCE
Democracy and Republic (Greece/Rome)
Ancient Greece birthplace of direct democracy. Ancient Rome birthplace of the Senate, Representative givernment -
Enlightenment Philosophers/Ideas
Jean Jacques Rousseau believed in social contract theory he believed people give up rights, government provide for the people & people can break away from the government if they are not providing. -
Enlightenment Philosophers/Ideas
Baron de Montesquieu believed in the separation of powers he believed the idea that government should divide it's power into multiple branches to avoid tyranny "checks in to balances". -
Enlightenment Philosophers/Ideas
John Locke believed in natural rights he believed all men have life, liberty, property AKA inalienable rights, he used Rousseau ideas of social contract to prove his points. -
Enlightenment Philosophers/Ideas
Thomas Hobbes believed the government existed to keep order -
The Proclamation Line of 1763
The Proclamation Line of 1763 was one of many attempts to define a boundary that would separate colonists from Native Americans. The intent of a separation boundary was to reduce conflict and the cost to maintain peace in the border zone between two cultures. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was a law passed by the British Parliament during the ministry of George Grenville. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. -
Quartering Act
The Parliament orders colonists to house British troops, even in colonists home. -
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. Parliament had directly taxed the colonies for revenue in the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act (1765). -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770 when British soldiers in Boston opened fire on a group of American colonists killing five men. Prior to the Boston Massacre the British had instituted a number of new taxes on the American colonies including taxes on tea, glass, paper, paint, and lead. -
Tea Act
Passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies & the tax on tea had existed since the passing of the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act. -
Boston Tea Party
Protested against the tea act & the collonist saw it as an unfair tax . They also dumped thousand tea barriers in the ocean. -
Coercive Acts/Intolerable Acts
The British called their responsive measures to the Boston Tea Party the Coercive Acts . Boston Harbor was closed to trade until the owners of the tea were compensated.Democracy took another blow with the establishment of direct rule in Quebec. Although the British made no connection between the Coercive Acts and the Quebec Act, they were seen on the American mainland as malicious deed and collectively called the Intolerable Acts. -
1st Continental Congress
Meeting in Philadelphia with every colony, except Georgia, sending delegates. The wanted the king to impose taxes but the King refused -
Battle of Lexington & Concord "shot heard'round the world"
The significance of these battles is that they were the first battles of the Revolutionary War. These battles happened in April of 1775. They happened because the British commander in Boston had heard of supplies of powder and weapons being kept by Patriots in the towns of Lexington and Concord & were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. -
Thomas Paine's, Common Sense
Persuades colonists to break away claiming that it was common sense to break from the royal brute -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson and adopted by the Second Continental Congress, states the reasons the British colonies of North America sought independence.
