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Jan 1, 1215
(1215) *Magna Carta
This document, Signed by King John, is the cornerstone of English justice and law. It declared that the king and government were bound by the same laws as other citizens of England. It contained the antecedents of the ideas of due process and the right to a fair and speedy trial that are included in the protection offered by the U.S. Bill of Rights -
Jan 1, 1501
(1501ish)*Triangular Trade
A series of triangular trade routes that carried British manufactured goods to Africa and the Colonies, Colonial products (like tobacco, indigo, sugar, and rice) to Europe, and Slaves from Africa to the New World. Northern Colonies participated in this trade too by shipping slaves south. -
(1620)*The Mayflower Compact
Declared that the 41 males who signed it agreed to accept majority rule and participate in a government in the best interest of all members of the colony. This agreement set the precedent for later documents outlining commonwealth rule. -
(1620)*Pilgrims
The pilgrims were a form of Puritan (separatists) who wanted to completely break away from the church of England. They emigrated to the Americas on the Mayflower to find safe haven, after negotiating for rights with the virgina company. -
(1630ish)*Puritans
A member of a group of English Protestants of the late 16th and 17th centuries who regarded the Reformation of the Church of England under Elizabeth as incomplete and sought to simplify and regulate forms of worship. -
(1639)*Fundamental Orders `of Connecticut:
In 1639 the Connecticut River colony settlers had an open meeting and they established a constitution called the Fundamental Orders. It made a Democratic government. It was the firdst constitution in the colonies and was a beginning for the other states' charters and constitutions. -
(1650-1800)*Enlightenment
A European intellectual movement of the late 17th and 18th centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by 17th-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent exponents include Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith. -
(1680)*Indentured Servants
Colonists who received free passage to North America in exchange for working without pay for a certain number of years. -
(1730)*The Great Awakening
Puritanism had declined by the 1730s, and people were upset about the decline in religious piety. The Great Awakening was a sudden outbreak of religious fervor that swept through the colonies. One of the first events to unify the colonies. -
(1765)*Stamp Act
An act passed by the British Parliment in 1756 that raised revenue from the American colonies by a duty in the form of a stamp required on all newspapers and legal or commercial documents, infuriated the colonies -
(1765)*No Taxation Without Representation
Cry used by the colonists to protest the Stamp Act of 1765. The colonists declared they had no one representing them in Parliament, so Parliament had no right to tax them. -
(1773)*Tea Act
Law passed by parliament allowing the British East India Company to sell its low-cost tea directly to the colonies - undermining colonial tea merchants; led to the Boston Tea Party -
(1773)*Tea Party
In protest of the Tea Act, a band of colonists, led by Sam Adams, disguised as Indians, rowed out to the boat and dumped the tea chests into the harbor. Generally approved by colonists -
(1774)*Coercive Act
Also known as the Intolerable Acts. A series of British measures passed in 1774 and designed to punish the Massachusetts colonists for the Boston Tea Party. -
(1774)*The First Continental Congress
September 1774, delegates from twelve colonies (not Georgia) sent representatives to Philadelphia to discuss a response to the Intolerable Acts. Sent a petition to King George III and urged a boycott of British imports -
(1775)*The Second Continental Congress
(May 1775) Delegates organized the Continental Army, called on the colonies to send troops, selected George Washington to lead the army, and appointed the comittee to draft the Declaration of Independence -
(1775)*The Revolutionary War
The war for American independence from Britain. The fighting began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775, and lasted through the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. -
(1776)*Declaration of Independence
The document approved by representatives of the American colonies in 1776 that stated their grievances against the British monarch and declared their independence. Link to: Locke's natural rights.
