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1492
Columbus discovers the New World
Christopher Columbus discovers new land and helps open up the flood gates for new explorer to try their hand in gaining wealth and fame. -
Jamestown
Jamestown is the first settlement that is successful in trying to survive the harsh land. The death tolls are very high for the first couple of years and the promise of land and wealth keeps the settlers going. They get some help from the natives, who save the settlement from total extinction. -
Toleration Act
The Toleration Act of 1689 made by the Parliament of England gave all non-conformists, except Roman Catholics, freedom of worship, thus rewarding Protestant dissenters for their refusal to side with James II. They had to promise to be loyal to the British ruler and their heirs -
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called “The Revolution of 1688” and “The Bloodless Revolution,” took place from 1688 to 1689 in England. It involved the overthrow of the Catholic king James II, who was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange -
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. More than two hundred people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. -
7 Years war
The Seven Years War was a global conflict which ran from 1756 until 1763 and pitted a coalition of Great Britain and its allies against a coalition of France and its allies. The war escalated from a regional conflict between Great Britain and France in North America, known today as the French and Indian War. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation Line of 1763 was a British-produced boundary marked in the Appalachian Mountains at the Eastern Continental Divide. The Proclamation Line prohibited Anglo-American colonists from settling on lands acquired from the French following the French and Indian War -
Stamp Act
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. This tax angered the Colonist greatly and deepened their hatred for Great Britain. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston happened in Boston and British soldiers shot and killed several people whom they perceived to be a mob. The event was heavily publicized by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. This caused a uproar in the Colonies and more people wanted freedom from Britain. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts. Patriots dressed as Indians went on to British ships in the Boston harbor and threw tons of tea into the sea, this caused the British to close the Boston harbor. -
Lexington and Concord
The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, they were key because the Militia men fought hard and showed they weren't afraid of the much bigger army. -
Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. -
Winter at Valley Forge
Valley Forge was the winter encampments for the Continental Army's main body, commanded by General George Washington, during the American Revolutionary War. In September 1777, Congress fled Philadelphia to escape the British capture of the city. The army took heavy losses because of the horrible conditions. -
French send support to the colonist
The French with the encouragement of Ben Franklin sent supplies and their fleet to the aid of the colonist and helped defeat the British. The French hated the British which helped encourage them to help the colonist. -
Battle of Yorktown
The last battle of the Revolutionary War, fought in 1781 near the seacoast of Virginia. There the British general Lord Cornwallis surrendered his army to General George Washington. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ended the American Revolutionary War. -
Constitutional Convention
The point of the Constitutional Convention was to decide how America was going to be governed. Although the Convention had been officially called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, many delegates had much bigger plans. -
Washington's Election
Washington was elected with 69 of the 69 first-round votes cast in the United States Electoral College. With this election, he became the only U.S. president to be unanimously chosen. -
XYZ affair
The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident between French and United States diplomats that resulted in a limited, undeclared war known as the Quasi-War. U.S. and French negotiators restored peace with the Convention of 1800, also known as the Treaty of Mortefontaine. -
Alien and Sedition Act
A series of laws known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by the Federalist Congress in 1798 and signed into law by President Adams. These laws included new powers to deport foreigners as well as making it harder for new immigrants to vote. -
Jefferson's Election
In what is sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800", Vice President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party defeated incumbent President John Adams of the Federalist Party. The election was a political realignment that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican leadership. -
Louisiana Purchase
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 sq mi. -
Battle of Tippecanoe
The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on November 7, 1811, in Battle Ground, Indiana between American forces led by then Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and Native American forces. -
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States and its indigenous allies on one side, and the United Kingdom, its dependent colonies in North America, indigenous allies, and Spain on the other. -
Battle of New Orleans
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. Jackson outwitted the British and catapulted himself into fame. -
Era of Good Feeling
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, it lasted from 1816 to 1824. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was a United States federal legislation that stopped northern attempts to forever prohibit slavery's expansion by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. -
Sectionalism
Restriction of interest to a narrow sphere; undue concern with local interests or petty distinctions at the expense of general well-being. -
Monroe Doctrine
A principle of US policy, originated by President James Monroe in 1823, that any intervention by external powers in the politics of the Americas is a potentially hostile act against the US. -
Jackson's Election
Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams in the presidential race of 1828. This race was very heated and both sides threw lots of insults at each other. Jackson was the people's president and that's why he got elected. -
Indiana Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. -
Manifest Destiny
Manifest destiny was a widely held cultural belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand across North America. It happened from 1830 to roughly around 1850, many people wanted land and traveled West to find it. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner's Rebellion, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner. The rebels killed between 55 and 65 people, at least 51 of whom were White. -
The Alamo
a Franciscan mission in San Antonio, Texas, besieged by Mexicans on February 23, 1836, during the Texan war for independence and taken on March 6, 1836, with its entire garrison killed. -
Annexation of Texas
The Texas annexation was the 1845 annexation of the Republic of Texas into the United States of America. Texas was admitted to the Union as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. The Republic of Texas declared independence from the Republic of Mexico on March 2, 1836. -
Mexican- American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the Intervención estadounidense en México, was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1845 to 1848. -
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman". Held in the Wesleyan Chapel of the town of Seneca Falls, New York. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soldiers. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and was published right before the Civil War. It depicted the life of a slave and how brutal it was, it also showed slaves as humans and not property. This book was one of the causes of the Civil War. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. -
Dred Scott Case
Dred Scott v. John F.A. Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled (7–2) that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory (where slavery was prohibited) was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States. -
Lincoln's Election
Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the American Civil War. This election resulted in the first Republican president being elected. The United States had become increasingly sectionally divided during the 1850s, primarily over extending slavery into the Western territories. -
Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States fought between the Union and the Confederacy. The central cause of the war was the status of slavery, especially the expansion of slavery into territories acquired as a result of the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican–American War. -
Battle of Bull Run
The first battle of the American Civil War, fought in Virginia near Washington, D.C. The surprising victory of the Confederate army humiliated the North and forced it to prepare for a long war. A year later the Confederacy won another victory near the same place. This battle is called the Second Battle of Bull Run. The South referred to these two encounters as the First and Second Battles of Manassas. -
Homestead Act
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862. On January 1, 1863, Daniel Freeman made the first claim under the Act, which gave citizens or future citizens up to 160 acres of public land provided they live on it, improve it, and pay a small registration fee. -
Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg was the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought in North America. During the first three days of July 1863, the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia turned a small town in Southern Pennsylvania into the site of a struggle for the future of the United States. -
Reconstruction Acts
The Reconstruction Act of 1867 outlined the terms for readmission to representation of rebel states. The bill divided the former Confederate states, except for Tennessee, into five military districts. The act became law on March 2, 1867, after Congress overrode a presidential veto. -
Purchase of Alaska
he Alaska Purchase was the United States' acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire. Alaska was formally transferred to the United States on October 18, 1867, through a treaty ratified by the United States Senate. -
Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also called Custer's Last Stand, marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The demise of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty. Custer's ill planned attack cost him his life and all of his men. -
Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was an unwritten deal, informally arranged among United States Congressmen, that settled the intensely disputed 1876 presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and ending the Reconstruction Era. -
Haymarket Square Riot
The Haymarket Square Riot (sometimes called the Haymarket Massacre) started as a demonstration for an 8-hour workday. The protest went on for several days. On the last day, an unknown person threw a bomb into the crowd of police officers and the police opened fire. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland in 1887. The law divided communal tribal land into lots to be owned by individual Native Americans. Once an individual owned land, he became an American citizen subject to state law and taxation. -
Interstate Commerce
On February 4, 1887, both the Senate and House passed the Interstate Commerce Act, which applied the Constitution's “Commerce Clause”—granting Congress the power “to Regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States”—to regulating railroad rates. -
Wounded Knee
Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota, was the site of two conflicts between North American Indians and representatives of the U.S. government. An 1890 massacre left some 150 Native Americans dead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act was a law passed by Congress in 1890 that was designed to combat the monopolies that were running rampant in American business. Big business had so far gone mostly unchecked. Industrial giants were free to form monopolies that drove out competition. -
Pull man strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railway strike that occurred from May through July, 1894, causing to the disruption of rail traffic throughout the nation, riots and property damage in and around the city of Chicago, the arrest of strike leaders, and there were 30 deaths. -
Cross of Gold Speech
Cross of Gold Speech. A speech delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that occurred in 1896. Bryan supported bimetallism, or free silver, which he believed would bring the nation prosperity. He was completely wrong and if people did these the economy would be in ruin. -
Plessy V. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson. U.S. Supreme Court decision supporting the legality of Jim Crow laws that permitted or required separate but equal facilities for blacks and whites. "Separate but equal". This was very untrue because the facilities weren't close to be equal at all in anything, bathrooms, schools and etc. -
Annexation of Hawaii
In 1890, the McKinley Tariff raised the prices of sugar. Americans believed that the best way to offset this tariff was to annex Hawaii; however, this was opposed by Queen Liliuokalani. She was then overthrow and the new ruler agreed to it. -
The Spanish surrender at Santiago
The United States was destroying Spain and the war was very short. This showed how the U.S. was a super power and how Spain, who was earlier in history was very weak now. The Spanish after losing battle after battle surrendered after being sieged at Santiago. -
U.S. declares war on Spain
The reasons for war were many, but there were two immediate ones: America's support the ongoing struggle by Cubans and Filipinos against Spanish rule, and the mysterious explosion of the battleship U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor. This angered the U.S. and prompted them to go to war. -
Wright Brothers
In 1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright tested a gas-powered airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. ON the first flight, the plane flew 120 feet in twelve seconds. They made four flights that day, the longest lasting 59 seconds. No one was particularly interested in these flights for no one could find any uses for it. Finally, by 1920s the airplane effectively made travel and trade easier and was widely recognized. -
Archduke Francis Ferdinand is assassinated
This man was assassinated on June 28, 1914 while paying a state visit to Sarajevo. This man was heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and he was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. His assassination is what began the war. -
Lusitania is suck by German U- Boats
LUSITANIA. The Lusitania was a British passenger ship that was sunk by a German U-Boat on May 7, 1915. 128 Americans died. The unrestricted submarine warfare caused the U.S. to enter World War I against the Germans. -
U.S. declares war on Germany
The United States declared war on Germany because they violated their pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as there attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States. These where the main reasons for the U.S. entering the war -
Treaty of Versailles
On June 28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, France. The treaty was one of several that officially ended five years of conflict known as the Great War—World War I. The treaty was very unfair to Germany and ruined them as a country, this untimely lead to WW2. -
Red Scare
A period in the United States history when everyone was so caught up in containment of communism, and investigated people within their community for communism. Even people in the government were suspected of being communist spies. This was the first red scare right after World War 1 -
Prohibition
The prevention by law of the manufacture and sale of alcohol between 1920 and 1933; wanted to eliminate drunkenness. Women pushed for alcohol to be made illegal because they felt like it was the root of all evil, and it would solve a lot of problems. -
Women's Suffrage
In the 1920's the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle—victory took decades of agitation and protest. -
Stock Market Crash
The stock market crash of 1929 was a collapse of stock prices that began on October 24, 1929. By October 29, 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had dropped by 30.57%, marking one of the worst declines in U.S. history. 1 It destroyed confidence in Wall Street markets and led to the Great Depression. -
Bonus Army
The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – made up of 17,000 veterans of the United States in World War I, together with their families and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C. in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. -
Social Security Act
The Social Security Act offered what is called a safety net; it ensured that once an individual reached the age of retirement, they would receive some sort of compensation. The model works so that younger workers pay into the system while older retirees receive the benefits. -
Hitler Invades Poland
Germany invaded, breaking their agreement, so Britain and France declared war, starting World War II, invaded Poland Sept. 1,1939. After signing the non-aggression pact HItler had a surprise attack, German tanks and troops rumbled across the Polish border. -
Miracle of Dunkirk
Operation Dynamo, the evacuation from Dunkirk, involved the rescue of more than 338,000 British and French soldiers from the French port of Dunkirk between 26 May and 4 June 1940. The evacuation, sometimes referred to as the Miracle of Dunkirk, was a big boost for British morale. -
Pearl Harbor
On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The surprise attack by some 350 Japanese aircraft sunk or badly damaged eighteen US naval vessels, including eight battleships, destroyed or damaged 300 US aircraft, and killed 2,403 men. This awakened the sleeping giant and the U.S. entered world war 2 on the side of the Allies -
Battle of Midway
The U.S. Navy's decisive victory in the air-sea battle (June 3-6, 1942) and its successful defense of the major base located at Midway Island dashed Japan's hopes of neutralizing the United States as a naval power and effectively turned the tide of World War II in the Pacific. -
D-Day
Allied forces launched the largest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare. Codenamed Operation 'Overlord', the Allied landings on the beaches of Normandy marked the start of a long and costly campaign to liberate north-west Europe from Nazi occupation. This put Germany on the defensive the rest of the war till their surrender -
Germany surrenders
With the Soviets closing in and Adolf Hitler committing suicided, Berlin fell in days and the Germans surrendered. The country was in ruins and the Russians were brutal when capturing Berlin and did some horrible actions. This brought the Europe theater to a end. -
Atomic bomb is dropped
Two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) which forced Japan to surrender and ended WWII. These bombs were the greatest weapon know to mankind up to this point in history. It created a new era of weapons and the race for nuclear weapons was on. -
Cold War begins
With the defeat of the Axis powers the United States and the USSR became the 2 major world powers. Competition and tension between the two increased as new borders were drawn and Stalin's aggressive behavior. The two countries developed an ideological and political rivalry between them that gave way to the start of the Cold War. -
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was intended to prevent the spread of Communism in the aftermath of World War II by providing U.S. support to countries thought to be targets of influence by the Soviet Union. The U.S. wanted to contain the spread and this helped them do it, and not get into a full out war with Russia. -
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
The city of Berlin was divided between the USSR and the U.S., and it was surrounded by communists on all sides. Stalin was trying to starve out this little sector of socialist by blocking all the roads and canals so the United States couldn't send them food. So president Truman decided to air drop food and supplies to the U.S. side of Berlin. This was a huge undertaking and lasted for a year till Stalin give in and dispersed his blockade. The U.S. held it's promise and outwitted Stalin. -
McCarthyism
A brand of vitriolic, fear-mongering anti-communism associated with the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In the early 1950s, Senator McCarthy used his position in Congress to baselessly accuse high-ranking government officials and other Americans of conspiracy with communism. -
Start of the Korean War
North Korean communist army invaded non communist South Korean, North was backed by Russia while the South was backed by the U.S. The USSR was trying to spread communism through all of Korean, and just like they did in Europe the United States was trying to stop and contain them. Korean became a battleground of Communism vs. Socialism. -
Korean War Armistice
The signed Armistice established a "complete cessation of all hostilities in Korea by all armed forces" that was to be enforced by the commanders of both sides. The armistice is however only a cease-fire between military forces, rather than an agreement between governments to normalize relations. -
Brown v. Board of Education
the 1954 supreme court decision holding that school segregation in Topeka, Kansas, was inherently unconstitutional because it violated the 14th amendment's guarantee of equal protection. this case marked the end of legal segregation in the U.S. This was a huge win for the Civil Rights movement and was a big stepping stone to getting equal rights. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
In 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus. Following, MLK jr led a boycott of city buses. After 11 months the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public transportation was illegal thanks to Parks and King. -
Space Race
The “space race” was a Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to develop aerospace capabilities, including artificial satellites, unmanned space probes, and human spaceflight. This caused lots of tension between the two nations and pressure for who ever could get into space first. -
Sputnik
This was the name of the Satellite the Russians launched into space to begin the space race. The U.S. was shocked that the Russians had sent the first thing into space, and it put pressure on the scientist to send their own satellite into space. -
Start of the Vietnam war
There were several different causes of the Vietnam War, including: the spread of communism during the Cold War, American containment, and European imperialism in Vietnam. The American people were mostly against the war and it was very unpopular -
Berlin Wall is build
The Berlin Wall was a fortified wall made up of concrete and barbed wire made to prevent East Germans escaping to West Berlin. It was one of the most visible signs of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. The USSR was trying to spread communism and they wouldn't let their people leave, because they were worried they wouldn't come back because communism didn't work. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban missile crisis was a major confrontation in 1962 that brought the United States and the Soviet Union close to war over the presence of Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba. This was one of the most heated points in the cold war and almost resulted in a nuclear war. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington was to advocate for Jobs and Freedom, political demonstration held in Washington, D.C., in 1963 by civil rights leaders to protest racial discrimination and to show support for major civil rights legislation that was pending in Congress. It was lead by Martin Luther and he gave his "I Have A Dream" speech. -
JFK Assassinated
JFK was riding in a open top car in Dallas with his wife, and the streets were lined with people cheering for the president. He was then shot through the head and killed, this was a huge blow to the nation and everyone was in shock. -
Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 sought to undo the damage of Jim Crow policies, outlawing segregation in public spaces and employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin – commonly referred to as “protected classes” in legal debates. -
MLF Killed
Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. News of King’s assassination prompted major outbreaks of racial violence, resulting in more than 40 deaths nationwide and extensive property damage in over 100 American cities. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. -
Moon Landing
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin (1930-) became the first humans ever to land on the moon. About six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon. -
Water Gate Scandal
A break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate complex in Washington was carried out under the direction of White House employees. Disclosure of the White House involvement in the break-in and subsequent cover-up forced President Nixon to resign in 1974 to avoid impeachment. -
End of the Vietnam War
In January 1973, the United States and North Vietnam concluded a final peace agreement, ending open hostilities between the two nations. War between North and South Vietnam continued, however, until April 30, 1975, when DRV forces captured Saigon, renaming it Ho Chi Minh City. So in the end the U.S. won the war then lost it.
