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This was the first colony of the Americas. 104 English men arrived in North America to start an English colony. This settlement became the first American colony in America. The name of the colony was named after the current king which was King James I. -
On August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia and are then bought by English colonists. The arrival of enslaved Africans in the New World marks the beginning of two and a half centuries of slavery in North America. -
The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. ... The result was a renewed dedication toward religion. -
The French and Indian War was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. -
The Stamp Act of 1765 was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp.
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Tensions began to grow, and in Boston in February 1770 a patriot mob attacked a British loyalist, who fired a gun at them, killing a boy. The ensuing day's brawls between colonists and British soldiers eventually culminated in the Boston Massacre. -
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. -
The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge. -
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on Saturday, June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in the battle. -
This document written by Thomas Jefferson was written to declare independence from Britain. The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation's people asserting their right to choose their own government.
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The 1777 Siege of Fort Ticonderoga occurred between the 2nd and 6 July 1777 at Fort Ticonderoga, near the southern end of Lake Champlain in the state of New York. Lieutenant General John Burgoyne's 8,000-man army occupied high ground above the fort, and nearly surrounded the defenses.
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The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved after much debate by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification.
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The British Surrender at Yorktown. America declared its independence in 1776, but it took another five years to win freedom from the British. That day came on October 19, 1781, when British General Charles Cornwallis surrendered his troops in Yorktown, Virginia.
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Shays's Rebellion, (August 1786–February 1787), uprising in western Massachusetts in opposition to high taxes and stringent economic conditions. ... In September 1786 Daniel Shays and other local leaders led several hundred men in forcing the Supreme Court in Springfield to adjourn.
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Three-fifths compromise, compromise agreement between delegates from the Northern and the Southern states at the United States Constitutional Convention (1787) that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted for determining direct taxation and representation in the House of Representatives.
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The presidency of George Washington began on April 30, 1789, when Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States and ended on March 4, 1797. Washington took office after the 1788–89 presidential election, the nation's first quadrennial presidential election, in which he was elected unanimously. -
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. -
The Compromise of 1790 was a compromise between Alexander Hamilton with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, where Hamilton won the decision for the national government to take over and pay the state debts, and Jefferson and Madison obtained the national capital for the South. -
These were the first 10 amendments in the US constitution that were added to the constitution in 1791. These were added to gain support from the anti-federalist party who did not want a government. -
The Whiskey Rebellion was a violent tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington, ultimately under the command of American Revolutionary War veteran Major James McFarlane.
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The First Bank of the United States was the first central bank to serve as the American government's fiscal agent. It was also a stable national bank open to public and commercial transactions, at a time when the nation only had local banks with limited scope.
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The temperance movement took place in the United States from about 1800 to 1933. In the early 1800s, many Americans believed that drinking was immoral and that alcohol was a threat to the nation's success. These beliefs led to widespread support for temperance, which means not drinking alcohol.
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The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from Napoleonic France in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 square miles. -
On the first day of January 1808, a new Federal law made it illegal to import captive people from Africa into the United States. This date marks the end—the permanent, legal closure—of the trans-Atlantic slave trade into our country. -
In 1823 U.S. President James Monroe proclaimed the United States as protector of the Western Hemisphere. The doctrine became a mainstay of U.S. foreign policy, laying the groundwork for U.S. expansionist and interventionist practices in the decades to come.
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William Magear Tweed, often erroneously referred to as "William Marcy Tweed", and widely known as "Boss" Tweed, was an American politician most notable for being the "boss" of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th-century New York City and State.
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Jackson laid the blame on Clay, telling anyone who would listen that the Speaker had approached him with the offer of a deal: Clay would support Jackson in return for Jackson's appointment of Clay as secretary of state. When Jackson refused, Clay purportedly made the deal with Adams instead. -
Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States in 1828. Known as the "people's president," Jackson destroyed the Second Bank of the United States, founded the Democratic Party, supported individual liberty and instituted policies that resulted in the forced migration of Native Americans.
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The Trail of Tears was part of the Indian removal, a series of forced displacements and ethnic cleansing of approximately 60,000 Native Americans of the Five Civilized Tribes between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. -
The Texas Revolution was a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos in putting up armed resistance to the centralist government of Mexico. -
The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar, killing most of the Texians and Tejanos inside. -
The California Gold Rush was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. -
This treaty, signed on February 2, 1848, ended the war between the United States and Mexico. By its terms, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including parts of present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah, to the United States. -
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. ... Calhoun, and congressional debate over the territories continued. -
The Bessemer Process was the first inexpensive industrial process that allowed for the mass production of steel. Before the development of an open-mouth furnace, the process used a molten pig iron to melt iron. The real difference with this process was that air was forced through the molten iron to remove impurities.
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Bleeding Kansas describes the period of repeated outbreaks of violent guerrilla warfare between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces following the creation of the new territory of Kansas in 1854. In all, some 55 people were killed between 1855 and 1859. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in which the Court held that the United States Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for people of African descent, regardless of whether they were enslaved or free. -
The Battle of New Orleans was fought on January 8, 1815, between the British Army under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and the United States Army under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson, roughly 5 miles southeast of the French Quarter of New Orleans, in the current suburb of Chalmette, Louisiana. -
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It has been called the dress rehearsal for, or Tragic Prelude to, the Civil War. -
Abraham Lincoln's career as America's 16th president spanned about four years, from March 4, 1861 to his murder on April 15, 1865, by a Confederate sympathizer. Long before entering Washington, Lincoln's life was in danger; his entire presidency was marked by civil war and contentious conditions. -
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the Battle of Manassas, marked the first major land battle of the American Civil War. ... The Confederate victory gave the South a surge of confidence and shocked many in the North, who realized the war would not be won as easily as they had hoped. -
This battle took place from April 6 to April 7, 1862, and was one of the major early engagements of the American Civil War (1861-65). The battle began when the Confederate Army launched a surprise attack on Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant in southwestern Tennessee. After initial successes, resulting in a Union victory. Both sides suffered heavy losses, with more than 23,000 total casualties, and the level of violence shocked North and South alike. -
Antietam, the deadliest one-day battle in American military history, showed that the Union could stand against the Confederate army in the Eastern theater. It also gave President Abraham Lincoln the confidence to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at a moment of strength rather than desperation. -
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free.
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The Battle of Chancellorsville was a major battle of the American Civil War, and the principal engagement of the Chancellorsville campaign. It was fought from April 30 to May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near the village of Chancellorsville.
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A victory at the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863 gave the Union control of the Mississippi River in the American Civil War. By having control of the river, Union forces would split the Confederacy in two and control an important route to move men and supplies. -
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War.
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The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime. The amendment was passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified by the required 27 of the then 36 states on December 6, 1865, and proclaimed on December 18.
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the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, murderous attack on Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on the evening of April 14, 1865. Shot in the head by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln died the next morning. -
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. -
Standard Oil Co. was an American oil-producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world at its height. -
The Gilded Age, the term for the period of economic boom which began after the American Civil War and ended.
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On June 25, 1876, Native American forces led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn near southern Montana's Little Bighorn River. A force of 1,200 Native Americans turned back the first column on June 17.
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Knights of Labor, officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also in Great Britain and Australia. Its most important leader was Terence V. Powderly.
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In the 19th century, tenement housing was single-family buildings divided into multiple living spaces. Often narrow, low-rise apartments, the rooms were built "railroad style" which meant rooms without windows and poor ventilation. -
The Haymarket affair was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day, the day after police killed one and injured several workers. -
Plessy v. Ferguson, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". -
The Spanish–American War was an armed conflict between Spain and the United States. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. -
The Coal strike of 1902 was a strike by the United Mine Workers of America in the anthracite coalfields of eastern Pennsylvania. Miners striked for higher wages, shorter workdays, and the recognition of their union. The strike threatened to shut down the winter fuel supply to major American cities. -
Roosevelt Corollary, foreign policy declaration by U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in 1904–05 stating that, in cases of flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American country, the United States could intervene in that country's internal affairs.
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The Treaty of Portsmouth is a treaty that formally ended the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War. It was signed on September 5, 1905, after negotiations from August 6 to August 30, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in what is now Kittery, Maine, United States. -
The Meat Inspection Act of 1906 was a piece of U.S. legislation, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 30, 1906, that prohibited the sale of adulterated or misbranded livestock and derived products as food and ensured sanitary slaughtering and processing of livestock.
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The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was the first of a series of significant consumer protection laws which was enacted by Congress in the 20th century and led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. -
The Model T is Ford's universal car that put the world on wheels. The Model T was introduced to the world in 1908. Henry Ford wanted the Model T to be affordable, simple to operate, and durable. -
The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population. It was passed by Congress in 1909 in response to the 1895 Supreme Court case of Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
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The 1913 Federal Reserve Act created the Federal Reserve System, known simply as "The Fed." It was implemented to establish economic stability in the U.S. by introducing a central bank to oversee monetary policy. 1 The Federal Reserve Act is one of the most influential laws shaping the U.S. financial system.
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In 1914, Henry Ford did a surprising thing by increasing the wages of his employees. He gave $10,000,000 in profits to his employees. He raised the wage of his factory workers from $2.34 a day to $5.00 a day.
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Aside from banning the practices of price discrimination and anti-competitive mergers, the new law also declared strikes, boycotts, and labor unions legal under federal law. The bill passed the House with an overwhelming majority on June 5, 1914. President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law on October 15, 1914. -
The Great Migration was the movement of some six million African Americans from rural areas of the Southern states of the United States to urban areas in the Northern states between 1916 and 1970. It occurred in two waves, basically before and after the Great Depression. -
The Houston Riot of 1917 was a mutiny and riot by 156 soldiers from the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment of the United States Army, taking place on August 23, 1917, in Houston, Texas. -
The Treaty of Versailles, signed in June 1919 at the Palace of Versailles in Paris at the end of World War I, codified peace terms between the victorious Allies and Germany. The Treaty of Versailles held Germany responsible for starting the war and imposed harsh penalties in terms of loss of territory, massive reparations payments and demilitarization. The Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany while failing to resolve the underlying issues that had led to war in the first place. -
The Palmer Raids were a series of raids conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 by the United States Department of Justice under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson to capture and arrest suspected socialists, especially anarchists and communists, and deport them from the United States. -
The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s and 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles rapidly gained nationwide popularity in the United States. The Jazz Age's cultural repercussions were primarily felt in the United States, the birthplace of jazz.
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The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s.
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Flappers were a subculture of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior.
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A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. It is often characterized as political propaganda. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which are referred to by this name.
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Big stick ideology, big stick diplomacy, or big stick policy refers to President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: "speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far. Roosevelt described his style of foreign policy as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis.
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The Platt Amendment outlined the role of the United States in Cuba and the Caribbean, limiting Cuba's right to make treaties with other nations and restricting Cuba in the conduct of foreign policy and commercial relations.
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The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to a vote. -
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an illicit establishment that sells alcoholic beverages, or a retro style bar that replicates aspects of historical speakeasies. Speakeasy bars came into prominence in the United States during the Prohibition era.
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Convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies, Fall became the first presidential cabinet member to go to prison; no one was convicted of paying the bribes. Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the "greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics".
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The Dawes Plan was a plan in 1924 that successfully resolved the issue of World War I reparations that Germany had to pay. It ended a crisis in European diplomacy following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles.
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The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. -
The concept of “buying on margin” allowed ordinary people with little financial acumen to borrow money from their stockbroker and put down as little as 10 percent of the share value.
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The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed.
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The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied around the world; in most countries, it started in 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s. -
The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken Southern Plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a dry period in the 1930s. As high winds and choking dust swept the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region.
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The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. Robert Fechner was the first director of this agency, succeeded by James McEntee following Fechner's death. -
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a federal law passed in 1933 as part of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The law offered farmers subsidies in exchange for limiting their production of certain crops. The subsidies were meant to limit overproduction so that crop prices could increase.
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The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 was a US labor law and consumer law passed by the 73rd US Congress to authorize the President to regulate industry for fair wages and prices that would stimulate economic recovery. It also established a national public works program known as the Public Works Administration.
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The Emergency Banking Act was a federal law passed in 1933. Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) on March 9, 1933, the act granted the president, the comptroller of the currency, and the secretary of the treasury broader regulatory authority over the nation's banking system.
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Public Works Administration, part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression. -
This section of the constitutional amendment permits states to prohibit the transportation, importation, sale, or possession of alcoholic beverages.
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The FHA's primary function was to insure home mortgage loans made by banks and other private lenders, thereby encouraging them to make more loans to prospective home buyers.
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An act to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment
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The Works Progress Administration was an American New Deal agency, that employed millions of jobseekers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal. -
The bill came to be known as Roosevelt's "court-packing plan," a phrase coined by Edward Rumley. In November 1936, Roosevelt won a sweeping re-election victory. In the months following, he proposed to reorganize the federal judiciary by adding a new justice each time a justice reached age 70 and failed to retire.
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The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 prohibits certain union practices and requires that they disclose their financial and political activities. This act is also known as the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) and is an amendment to the 1935 Wagner Act.
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The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, which began following World War II.
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The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
