-
Sep 17, 1215
Magna Carta
is an Angevin charter, originally issued in Latin in the year 1215, translated into vernacular-French as early as 1219, and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions.
The later versions excluded the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority that had been present in the 1215 charter. -
Petition of Right
This was a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing.
The Petition contains restrictions on non-Parliamentary taxation, forced billeting of soldiers, imprisonment without cause, and restricts the use of martial law. -
English Bill of Rights
is an Act of the Parliament of England passed on 16 December 1689.
It was a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 (or 1688 by Old Style dating), inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England. -
Albany Plan of Union
was proposed by Benjamin Franklin at the Albany Congress in 1754 in Albany, New York.
Franklin's plan of union was one of several put forth by various delegates of the Albany Congress. -
Boston Massacre
Incident in which British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others.
British troops had been stationed in Boston, capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, since 1768 in order to protect and support crown-appointed colonial officials attempting to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. -
Boston Tea Party
was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, a city in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the tax policy of the British government and the East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies.
On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. -
First Continental Congress
was a convention of delegates from twelve British North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution.
It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts (also known as Intolerable Acts by the Colonial Americans) by the British Parliament. -
Second Continental Congress
was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun.
It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met between September 5, 1774 and October 26, 1774, also in Philadelphia. -
Declaration of Independence
was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire.
John Adams had put forth a resolution earlier in the year, making a subsequent formal declaration inevitable. -
Articles Of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation was an agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution.
The formal ratification by all 13 states was completed in early 1781. -
Shay's Rebellion
was an armed uprising that took place in central and western Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787.
The rebellion was named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and one of the rebel leaders. -
Philadelphia Convention
to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain.
Although the Convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. -
New Jersey Plan
This was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention.
The plan was created in response to the Virginia Plan, which called for two houses of Congress, both elected with apportionment according to population. -
Virgina Plan
This was a proposal by Virginia delegates for a bicameral legislative branch.
The plan was drafted by James Madison while he waited for a quorum to assemble at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
