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King John is forced by English nobles to sign the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta was a "great charter" that limited the right of the monarchy to levy taxes, protected the right to own property, and guaranteed trial by jury. The Magna Carta placed restrictions on English ruler's power.
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Columbus sailed to the West Indies, then he had three other voyages afterwards. He died thinking where he landed had been Asia.
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John Cabot left England and explores the New foundland. He wanted to find the northwest passsage, a sea route from the Atlantic to Pacific that passed through or around North America.
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Spanish explorers reach Florida,
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Vasco Nunez de Balboa was the first to set eyes on the Pacific Ocean.
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Ferdinand Magellan set out to find Atlantic-Pacific passage.He circumnavigated the world, except for Europe. He had also found a strait that today is known as the Strait of Magellan.
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Juan Ponce de Leon was the first Spaniard to set foot in the U.S. He sailed from Puerto Rico to investigate reports and lands in Florida.
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Hernando Cortes sails from Cuba to Mexico and then conquers the Aztecs.
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Giovanni da Verrazano explored the Atlantic coast from North Carolina to the Newfoudland. He also discovered the mouth over the Hudson River, and New York Bay.
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Jacques Ccartier made three trips to North America to find the northwest passgae. He then discovers the St.lawrence River and as far as present day Montreal.
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Franciso Pizarro lands in Peru searching for the Incas who had much gold, or so was said.
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De Soto traveled as far north as the Carolinas, and as far west as Oklahoma. Dieing in Louisiana in 1542, he had found the Mississippi River.
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Franciso Coronado wanted to find the "golden city", but then explores New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Kansas.
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Spanish build the fort St. Augustine. This occured because the Spanish feared France might take over the area. The fort was in northern Florida. Later on the Spanish borderlands were made, meaning lands along the frontier. The borderlands main function was to protect Mexico from other European powers.
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Roanoke Island is the first colony established by the English in North America on the coast of North Carolina. It was abandoned one year later.
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The second English colony established is a mystery.
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Juan de Onate led an expedition to Mexico. He wanted to find gold, convert Native Americans in to Christianity, and establish a permanent colony. He established Santa Fe in 1598, which became the first permanent settlement in Spain.
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The Enlightenment thinkers were people who believed that all problems could be solved by human reason. In 1690, John Locke argued that people have natural rights, or rights that every human has at birth. He also believed in a divine right. A divine right is the belief that monarchs get their authority to rule directly from God. A French, the Baron de Montesquieu, helped form U.S goverement by the thought of separation of powers. It was the division of powers into separate branches.
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Samuel de Champlain makes the first eleven voyage to explore the map lands along the St.Lawerence River.
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Champlain establishes the settlement Noa Scotia.
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The Virginia Company of London got a charter, a document issued by the goverment granting specific rights, from King James the I. It gave the Virginia Company authority over the North America coastline. One hundred men came to Virginia in Chesapeake Bay and built the first permanent settlement by England in North America called Jamestown.
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Several groups of Separatists settle in Holland, separating from the Church of England.
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Samuel de Champlain establishes the settlement Quebec along the St.Lawrence River.
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John Smith becomes the leader of Virginia with a hard working policy and leads Virginia well.
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Champlain explores a lake on the border of present day Vermont, and New York. The Lake is now Champlain Lake.
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Henry Hudson reaches New York and explores up what is now the Hudson River.
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Henry Hhudson sails the Artic and finds what is now the Hudson Bay.
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The Dutch trade with the Native Americans in Hudson River Valley. The trade became so profitable that the Dutch India Company established New Netherlands.
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Virginias House of Burgesses, represenative goverment, meets for the first time.
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The Separatists leave Holland, then settling in Virginia. These people are known as the piligrims, people who take a religious journey. One hundred piligrim men leave Virginia boarding the Mayflower, then the Mayflower is blown off course. These men land in Massachusetts calling their home Plymouth after a port city in England. Fourty-one men sign the Mayflower Compact of "just and equal laws."
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The first Thanksgiving is held to set aside a day for the Piligrims to give thanks, especially to Cheif Squanto, who showed them skills to survive, and gave and planted them seeds.
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Many settlers arrive in New Netherlands.Fort Orange then becomes Albany.
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Settlers arrive in the Hudson River Valley. Colonists then name it New Amsterdam. Later on, New Amsterdam became New York City.
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The Puratins leave England and form the Massachusetts Bay colony. Then, the Puratins recieve a charter, making settlements in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Tthe Puratins are led by John Winthrop who established Boston, Massachusetts.
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King Charles I granted a charter for a new colony to George Calvert, a Catholic, who then founded the colony Maryland, which lay across from Chesapeake Bay. In his colony Catholics could live safely. When he died, his son, Lord Baltimore, made the Act of Toleration in 1649. It welcomed all Christians and gave male Christians the right to vote and hold in office.
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Roger Williams is forced to leave Massachusetts Bay colony and then founded Providence, Rhode Island.
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Thomas Hooker settles in Connecticut and founded Hartford, Connecticut.
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Anne Hutchinson is expelled from Massachusetts because she questioned some Puratin teachings and then established a settlement on an island that is now part of Rhode Island.
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John Wheelright moved to New Hampshire and founded the town Exeter.
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Harvard was the first college in the English colonies. In 1639, colonists in Virginia founded the College of William and Mary, the first college in the south.
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Maryland passed a law that Baptism did not lead to liberty. It meant that people could be enslaved for life.
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The Navigation Acts were made by the English Parliament to support mercantilism. By these laws shipments from Europe to English colonies had to go through England first, any imports to England had to come on ships built and owned by British subjects, and colonies could sell key products such as tobacco and sugar, only to England. This helped create jobs for English workers.
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King Charles II granted a charter to establish a colony south of Virgina. The area was called Carolina. There were also two parts; the southern and the north.
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The Virginia Court held that any child born to a slave was a slave too.
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The first serious slave revolt took place in Gloucester, Virginia. The uprising had failed, but other revolts took place in Connecticut and Virginia. Slave codes were made to restrict the rights and activities of slaves.
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King Charles the II granted all the rights to Dutch lands in North America to his brother James. James had to conquer the territory. The Dutch surrendered, and New Netherlands was renamed after James, the Duke of York, to New York. New Amsterdam became its capital, New York City.
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New Jersey was established. It was first a proprietary colony, which was ruled by an indvidual or family. Then, it became a royal colony, which was ruled by an English King.
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Jacques Mmarquette founded two missions along the Great Lakes and Michigan.
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Father Marquette and Louis Joliet canoe along the shores of Lake Michigan, and Green Bay Wisconsin. They reach the Mississippi River and in the Mississippi junction, the Arkansas River.
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Nathaniel Bacon, the leader of the frontier settlers, organized a force of one thousand westerners. They began killing and attacking the Native Americans and burned Jamestown to the ground. It forced the govenor to run away. This is known as Bacon's Rebelion.
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After fighting with Massachusetts, New Hampshire becomes a separate colony from a charter.
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William Penn, a Quaker, recieved a land almsot as large as England which is now mainly Pennsylvania.
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La Salle reached the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. He founded Louisiana after King Louis XIV.
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William Penn arrives in his colony, wrote a Frame of Goverement for Pennsylvania, and had a "holy expierment." The "holy expierment" was that people from different religious backrounds could live peacefully together in his colony.
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King William and Queen Mary sign the English Bill of Rights. It is a written list of freedoms that a goverment promises to protect.
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Spanish missionairies were made, such as San Francisco, San Diego, and San Antonio. A mission is a religious settlement. A number of other U.S. missions were made as well.
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In the Tidewater Region, there were many platations, or large farms. The plantations led to economy domination. Crops were planted such as sugar, rice, and cotton. The Tidewater Region was mostly a white community and was full of the wealthy.
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Slave traders had developed a regular routine, and it was known as the triangular trade. It was a three-way trade between colonies, the islands of the Caribbean, and Africa.
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Immigrants were settling in the Backcountry, a frontier region extending from Pennsylvania to Georgia. The people were not usually English, but German, Scotch-Irish, and Pennsylvania Dutch. In the backcountry were mostly poor and unwealthy people. Few families had a servant or enslaved person. Everyone basically worked in the plantaions. Most people lived in one-room shacks.
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Penn is forced to agree that only the General Assembly could make laws. The king could overturn laws,
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Delaware becomes a separate colony.
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An emotion-packed movement went through the colonies. It was the time of religious revival none as the Great Awakening. Christians saw it as a decline in religion.
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Geogia was founded because the English feared that Spain would expand its colony northward to Florida, and a colony south of the Carolina's would keep the Spanish bottled up in Florida. James Oglethrope wanted a colony to protect English debtors, or people who owed money.
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Benjamin Franklin publishes his most popular work "Poor Richard's Almanack." He becomes a loved writer from the age of 17. He started the newspaper "Pennsylvania Gazette." He discovered things about electricity, founded a library, fire department, and invented the bifocal eyeglasses and a stove.
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A notable court case, the Zenger trial, helped establish an important right. This right was freedom of the press, the right of journalists to publish the truth without restriction or penalty.
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Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were hired to settle boundaries between Maryland and Pennsylvania. The boundary is called the Mason Dixon Line.
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Junipero Serra establishes mission becoming San Diego. Serra then later on establishes other missions in California which are now San Francisco and Los Angeles.
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Slavery ends after much chaos of trade, revolts, etc.
