-
Eli Whitney Patented the Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney invented a simple machine that influenced the history of the United States. The South's failing cotton industry skyrocketed due to the ability to effectively clean the cotton and sell it to the North. Eli invented this machine in 1793 and patented in 1794 but not validated until 1807. -
Gabriel Prosser Slave Revolt
A slave revolt led by Gabriel Prosser which was figured out before it could be executed. Prosser and 25 of his followers were hung for planning it. -
Thomas Jefferson was elected president
In what is sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800", Vice President Thomas Jefferson defeated President John Adams. The election was a realigning election that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican Party rule and the eventual demise of the Federalist Party in the First Party System. -
Louisiana Purchase
The treaty describes the United States acquisition of more than 529,911,680 acres of territory from France in 1803. This greatly increased the size, power, and wealth of the U.S. -
Marbury Vs. Madison
Marbury v. Madison, argued the principle of "judicial review" -- the power of federal courts to void acts of Congress in conflict with the Constitution. -
Beginning of Lewis and Clark Expedition
Having started upstream on the Missouri River from their St. Louis-area camp—where they had been preparing for the expedition since fall 1803—on May 14, William Clark and nearly four dozen other men met up with Meriwether Lewis on May 20 -
Chesaoeake-Leopard Affair
The Chesapeake–Leopard affair was a naval engagement that occurred off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, on 22 June 1807, between the British warship HMS Leopard and the American frigate USS Chesapeake. -
Embargo act
The Embargo Act of 1807 was a law passed by the United State Congress and signed by President Thomas Jefferson on December 22, 1807. It prohibited American ships from trading in all foreign ports. -
James Madison Elected President
James Madison, the Democratic-Republican candidate, defeated Federalist candidate Charles Cotesworth Pinckney decisively and became the fourth president of the U.S. -
Non-Intercourse Act
The Non-Intercourse Act lifted all embargoes on American shipping except for those bound for British or French ports. This was a substitute for the Embargo Act of 1807, which had prohibited any export of goods from the US. Like the Embargo Act, this act was pretty much unenforceable and did not work. -
Francis Cabot Lowell Smuggled Memorized Textile Mill Plans From Manchester, England
Francis Cabot Lowell said to be the principal founder of what is said to have been the world's first textile mill in which were performed all operations converting raw cotton into finished cloth. He got all his ideas for his factory while on a trip to the British Isles where he closely studied textile mills of Lancashire and Scotland. -
Beginning of Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny is the territorial expansion of the United States from 1812 to 1860. This era, from the end of the War of 1812 to the beginning of the American Civil War, has been called the "age of manifest destiny". -
Death of Tecumseh
Tecumseh led a remnant of the confederation into an alliance with Britain during the War of 1812. At the Battle of the Thames in 1813, the British and Native Americans were defeated by an American force, Tecumseh was killed, and the surviving Native Americans withdrew from the alliance. -
The British Burn Washington DC
During the War of 1812 between the United States and England, British troops enter Washington, D.C. and burn the White House in retaliation for the American attack on the city of York in Ontario, Canada, in June 1812. -
Hartford Convention
The Hartford Convention was held by Federalists in protest of the War of 1812. They even discussed the idea of secession. Because of this when the war ended in something of a victory for the US, the Federalists appeared to be unpatriotic and defeatist, which killed the federralist party. -
Era of Good Feeling Began
The Era of Good Feelings marked a period in the political history of the United States that reflected a sense of national purpose and a desire for unity among Americans in the aftermath of the War of 1812. -
End of the War of 1812
On December 24, 1814, The Treaty of Ghent was signed by British and American representatives at Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812. By terms of the treaty, all conquered territory was to be returned, and commissions were planned to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada. -
Battle of New Orleans
The Battle of New Orleans was a series of engagements fought between December 14, 1814 and January 18, 1815, constituting the last major battle of the War of 1812. American combatants, commanded by Major General Andrew Jackson, prevented a much larger British force, commanded by Admiral Alexander Cochrane and General Edward Pakenham, from seizing New Orleans and the vast territory the United States had acquired with the Louisiana Purchase. -
Treaty of Ghent Ratified
The Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. Peace negotiations began in Ghent, Belgium, starting in August of 1814. After four months of talks, the treaty was signed on December 24, 1814. The Senate unanimously ratified the Treaty of Ghent on February 16, 1815. -
James Monroe Elected President
James Monroe a Democratic-Republican running against Rufus King was Elected in 1817. He was the fifth U.S. president, oversaw major westward expansion of the U.S. and strengthened American foreign policy in 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine, a warning to European countries against further colonization and intervention in the Western Hemisphere. -
Rush-Bagot Treaty
The Treaty demilitarized the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, where many British naval armaments and forts still remained, and laid the basis for a demilitarized boundary between the US and British North America. -
Anglo-American Convention
The Anglo-American Convention held in 1818 set the boundary between the Missouri Territory in the United States and British North America at the forty-ninth parallel. -
Adams-Onis Treaty
The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819 or the Transcontinental Treaty, was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. -
McCulloch vs. Maryland
In McCulloch v. Maryland the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had implied powers under the Necessary and Proper Clause of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution to create the Second Bank of the United States and that the state of Maryland lacked the power to tax the Bank. -
Panic of 1819
The Panic of 1819 was the first major peacetime financial crisis in the United States followed by a general collapse of the American economy persisting through 1821. -
Dartmouth College vs. Woodward
Dartmouth College vs. Woodward case occurred because of the attempt made by New Hampshire to turn Dartmouth into a public school. U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court held that the charter of Dartmouth College granted in 1769 by King George III of England was a contract and, as such, could not be impaired by the New Hampshire legislature. -
Missouri Compromise
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. -
Second Great Awakening Began
The Second Great Awakening was extremely important as it led to the establishment of reform movements to address injustices and alleviate suffering such as the Temperance Movement, the Women's suffrage Movement and the Abolitionist Movement in which people advocated for emancipation on religious grounds. -
Denmark Vesey Slave Revolt
In 1822 Vesey was alleged to be the ringleader of a planned slave revolt. Vesey and his followers were said to be planning to kill slaveholders in Charleston, liberate the slaves, and sail to the black republic of Haiti for refuge. -
Monroe Doctirne
A statement of foreign policy which proclaimed that Europe should not interfere in affairs within the United States or in the development of other countries in the Western Hemisphere. -
John Quincy Adams Elected President (Corrupt Bargain)
This was the first election decided by the House of Representatives after the passage of the Twelfth Amendment, which had been ratified in the wake of the election of 1800. This was a "Corrupt Bargain" because Andrew Jackson the other candidate should have clearly won. Adams only won because the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, Hated Jackson and convinced the House of Adams. -
Gibbons vs. Ogden
The Supreme Court in the Gibbons v. Ogden case decided that the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce, granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, encompassed the power to regulate navigation. This decision served to vastly expand the power of Congress and the federal government. -
Erie Canal Completed
the original Erie Canal traversed 363 miles from Albany to Buffalo. It was the longest artificial waterway and the greatest public works project in North America. The canal put New York on the map as the Empire State. New York being the leader in population, industry, and economic strength. -
Charles B. Finney Lead Religious Revivals in Western New York
Charles Grandison Finney was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called The Father of Modern Revivalism. Finney was best known as an innovative revivalist during the period in upstate New York and Manhattan, an opponent of Old School Presbyterian theology, an advocate of Christian perfectionism, and a religious writer. -
Robert Own Founded the New Harmony Community
The Harmonists built a new town in the wilderness, but in 1824 they decided to sell their property and return to Pennsylvania. Robert Owen, a Welsh industrialist and social reformer, purchased the town in 1825 with the intention of creating a new utopian community and renamed it New Harmony. -
Horace Mann Elected Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
The Father of the Common School Movement” was the foremost proponent of education reform in antebellum America. He helped to get all children in America access to education. -
Lyman Beecher Delivered His “Six Sermons on Intemperance”
A temperance leader Lyman Beecher delivered his "Six Sermons on Intemperance" where Beecher insists on total abstinence from all forms of alcohol for everyone. -
Tariff of Abominations
The controversial 1828 Tariff of Abominations was designed to protect American industry from cheaper British commodities. Opposition to the rise of taxes on raw materials, like cotton and tobacco, in the South, led to the Nullification Crisis, which later led to the Civil war. -
Andrew Jackson Elected President
It featured a re-match between incumbent President John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson, who won a plurality of the electoral college vote in the 1824 election. This time Jackson won because Henry Clay wasn't there to cheat hiom out again. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed by President Andrew Jackson. The law authorized the president to negotiate with southern Indian tribes for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their lands. -
Joeseph Smith Founded the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints
Initial converts were drawn to the church in part because of the newly published Book of Mormon, a self-described chronicle of indigenous American prophets that Smith said he had translated from golden plates. -
Creation of the Whig Party in the U.S.
It originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of the US Congress over the Presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking, and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing. -
Worcester vs. Georgia
In the Worcester vs. Georgia case, The Cherokee Indians constituted a nation holding distinct sovereign powers. Although the decision became the foundation of the principle of tribal sovereignty in the twentieth century, it did not protect the Cherokees from being removed from their ancestral homeland in the Southeast. -
Andrew Jackson Vetoed the Re-Charter of the Second Bank of the United States
Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill re-chartering the Second Bank in July 1832 by arguing that in the form presented to him it was incompatible with “justice,” “sound policy” and the Constitution. -
Nullification Crisis Began
This was the scene in 1832 when South Carolina adopted the ordinance to nullify the tariff acts and label them unconstitutional. Despite sympathetic voices from other Southern states, South Carolina found itself standing alone. -
Black Hawk War
The Black Hawk War was a brief conflict between the United States and Native Americans led by Black Hawk, a Sauk leader. -
Treaty of New Echota
Treaty of New Echota. It cost three men their lives and provided the legal basis for the Trail of Tears, the forcible removal of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia. The Treaty of New Echota was signed in 1835, ceding Cherokee land to the U.S. in exchange for compensation. -
First McGuffey Reader Published
The book that nearly every schoolchild read from. It contained both English lessons as well as patriotic and moral lessons -
Texas Declared Independence from Mexico
The Texas Declaration of Independence was the formal declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. It was adopted at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2, 1836, and formally signed the next day after mistakes were noted in the text. -
Andrew Jackson Issued Specie Circular
The Specie Circular is a United States presidential executive order issued by President Andrew Jackson in 1836 pursuant to the Coinage Act and carried out by his successor, President Martin Van Buren. It required payment for government land to be in gold and silver. -
Transcendental Club's First Meeting
Frederic Henry Hedge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Ripley, and George Putnam met in Cambridge, Massachusetts on September 8, 1836, to discuss the formation of a new club; their first official meeting was held eleven days later at Ripley's house in Boston. -
Battle of the Alamo
Fortress in Texas where four hundred American volunteers were slain by Santa Anna in 1836. "Remember the Alamo" became a battle cry in support of Texan independence. -
Catherine Beecher Published Essays on the Education of Female Teachers
She was a teacher, a writer, and an advocate of domestic reform and education for women. She published essays on education of female teachers and trying to educate women more in general. -
Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down while unemployment went up. -
Martin Van Buren Elected President
Martin Van Buren won the election of 1837 and became the 8th president of America. He became known as a shrewd politician for his cunning politics. He was unable to get elected to a second term as president, however, when a financial panic hit the country and the stock market crashed. -
Ralph Waldo Emerson gave the "Divinity School Address"
In Emerson's Divinity School Address warned listeners at Harvard Divinity School that true church seemed to totter its fall, believed many congregations had lifeless preaching; while nature was alive/vibrant outside church. This shocked his listeners because he was speaking out against the chuch saying that they were not true teachers. -
Trail of Tears Began
Part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects on the tribe. -
Webster-Ashburton Treaty
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was a treaty resolving several border issues between the United States and the British North American colonies. -
Treaty of Wanghia with China
The Treaty of Wangxia was the first formal treaty signed between the United States and China in 1844. It served as an American counterpart to the Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Nanjing that ended the First Opium War in 1842. -
James Polk Elected President
James Polk won the election of 1844 and became the 11th president and youngest president of the time. He led the nation to war with Mexico and acquired large amounts of territory during his term in office. -
U.S. Annexation of Texas
n 1844, Congress finally agreed to annex the territory of Texas. On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the United States as a slave state, broadening the irrepressible differences in the United States over the issue of slavery and setting off the Mexican-American War. -
Start of the Mexican War
The Annexation of Texas by the U.S. angered the Mexican Government. Mexico never acknowledged Texas as independent and felt the U.S. had no right to take its territory. Mexico also did not acknowledge the Treaty of Velasco which set the southern border of Texas as the Rio Grande. -
Bear Flag Revolt
The California Republic was an unrecognized breakaway state that, for twenty-five days in 1846, militarily controlled an area north of San Francisco, in and around what is now Sonoma County State of California. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the MExican war in 1848. The treaty added an additional 525,000 square miles to United States territory, including the land that makes up all or parts of present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. -
Gold Rush Began in California
After James W. Marshall first discovered gold in 1848 the Gold rush of California began. This had big impacts on California and Native Americans as the west population increased and Native Americans were omnce again forced of their land. -
John Humphrey Noyes Founded the Oneida Community
The Oneida Community was a Perfectionist religious communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. -
Henry David Thoreau Published Civil Disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws of the state, and/or demands, orders, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. -
Commodore Matthew Perry Entered Tokyo Harbor Opening Japan to the U.S.
The United States and the Opening to Japan, 1853. On July 8, 1853, American Commodore Matthew Perry led his four ships into the harbor at Tokyo Bay, seeking to re-establish for the first time in over 200 years regular trade and discourse between Japan and the western world. -
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase is a 29,670-square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States purchased via a treaty signed on December 30, 1853, by James Gadsden, U.S. ambassador to Mexico at that time. -
Kanagawa Treaty
On March 31, 1854, the Convention of Kanagawa or Kanagawa Treaty was the first treaty between the United States of America and the Tokugawa Shogunate.
