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Jan 30, 1215
The Magna Carta
Also called Magna Carta Libertatum or The Great Charter of the Liberties of England, is an Angevin charter originally issued in Latin in the year 1215. -
Petition of Right
Is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. Passed on 7 June 1628, 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. -
Albany Plan of Union
Was a proposal to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader of 48 and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress in July 1754 in Albany, New York. More than twenty representatives of several northern and mid-Atlantic colonies had gathered to plan their defense related to the French and Indian War, the front in North America of the Seven Years War between Great Britain and France. -
Boston Massacre
Called the Incident on King Street by the British, was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others. -
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. -
First Continental Congress
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Second Continental Congress
Was a convention of delegates from the twelve 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. Instead they now formed a new nation--the United States of America. -
Articles of Confederation
Formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, 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. Its drafting by the Continental Congress began in mid-1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. -
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. -
Phliadelphia Convention
Was a meeting held in 1787 by delegates from the 13 states that then comprised the United States. At first, the purpose of the convention was to address the problems the federal government was having ruling the states and staying fiscally sound under the provisions of the Articles of Confederation, which had been the prevailing code for the government since 1777. -
Virginia Plan
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. -
New Jersey Plan
Was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787.
