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On April 19, 1775, British and American soldiers exchanged fire in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. On the night of April 18, the royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, commanded by King George III to suppress the rebellious Americans, had ordered 700 British soldiers, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and Marine Major John Pitcairn, to seize the colonists' military stores in Concord, some 20 miles west of Boston.
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declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, political speeches and ceremonies, in addition to various other public and private events celebrating the history, government, and traditions of the United States. Independence Day is the national day of the United States.[1][2][3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_%28United_States%2 -
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ratified by the Congress of the Confederation on January 14, 1784,[1] and by the King of Great Britain on April 9, 1784 (the ratification documents were exchanged in Paris), formally ended the American Revolutionary War between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United States of America, which had rebelled against British rule.
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The Constitution of the United States of America is signed by 38 of 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Supporters of the document waged a hard-won battle to win ratification by the necessary nine out of 13 U.S. states.
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The United States Constitution was written in 1787, but it did not take effect until after it was ratified in 1789,when it replaced the Articles of Confederation. It remains the basic law of the United States.The United States Constitution also remains the oldest in existence.
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he Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, which limit the power of the U.S. federal government. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property including freedoms of religion, speech, a free press, free assembly, and free association, as well as the right to keep and bear arms.
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Abraham Lincoln is widely regarded to be one of the greatest American presidents ever to serve in the office, and is often considered the greatest president of all time. He was the immediate cause and final solution of the American Civil War, his honesty, intelligence and humbleness are legendary and he simply embodied American principles and virtues.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2998434 -
The Battle of Fort Sumte was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War.
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On this day in 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, officially ending the institution of slavery, is ratified. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." With these words, the single greatest change wrought by the Civil War was officially noted in the Constitution.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/13th-amen -
o former abolitionists and to the Radical Republicans in Congress who fashioned Reconstruction after the Civil War, the 15th amendment, enacted in 1870, appeared to signify the fulfillment of all promises to African Americans.
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Year 1900 (MCM) was an exceptional common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. As a result, the Julian calendar was 12 days behind the Gregorian until Wednesday, February 28 (O.S. February 16) and has been 13 days behind since Thursday, March 1 (O.S. February 17).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900 -
The largest passenger steamship in the world at the time, the Olympic-class RMS Titanic was owned by the White Star Line and constructed at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, UK. After setting sail for New York City on 10 April 1912 with 2,223 people on board, she hit the iceberg four days into the crossing, at 11:40 pm on 14 April 1912, and sank at 2:20 am the following morning.
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The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, was the proximate trigger of the war. Long-term causes, such as imperialistic foreign policies of the great powers of Europe, including the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, France, and Italy, played a major role.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I -
By the war's end, four major imperial powers—the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires—had been militarily and politically defeated and ceased to exist. The successor states of the former two lost a great amount of territory, while the latter two were dismantled entirely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I -
Ragtime which had been popular during and after the war was suited to the new music tempos and so it flourished. Old favorites like the Waltz and Foxtrot remained popular due to people like Arthur Murray who ran dance schools and published "How to" books on all the popular dances.
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The 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote, 90 years on.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/aug/18/19th-amendment-women-right-to-vote-90-years -
1st woman to fly solo from Engl to Australia takes-off (Amy Johnson)
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World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II -
Walt Disney's animated movie "Pinocchio," released
http://www.historyorb.com/events/date/1940 -
The war in Europe ended with the capture of Berlin by Soviet and Polish troops and the subsequent German unconditional surrender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II -
he 1950s or The Fifties was the decade that began on January 1, 1950 and ended on December 31, 1959. The decade was the sixth decade of the 20th century. By its end, the world had largely recovered from World War II and the Cold War developed from its modest beginning in the late 1940s to a hot competition between the United States and the Soviet Union by the beginning of the 1960s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950s -
In the United States, "the Sixties", as they are known in popular culture, is a term used by historians, journalists, and other objective academics; in some cases nostalgically to describe the counterculture and social revolution near the end of the decade; and pejoratively to describe the era as one of irresponsible excess and flamboyance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960s -
I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream -
The hippie culture, which started in the latter half of the 1960s, waned by the early 1970s and faded towards the middle part of the decade, which involved opposition to the Vietnam War, opposition to nuclear weapons, the advocacy of world peace, and hostility to the authority of government and big business. The environmentalist movement began to increase dramatically in this period.
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The 1980s, spoken as "the Nineteen Eighties" or abbreviated as "the Eighties" or "the 80s", was the decade that began on January 1, 1980, and ended on December 31, 1989, and was the ninth decade of the 20th century.
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The '90s is often considered the true dawn of the Information Age. Though info-age technologies pre-date the '80s, it was not until the late 1980s and the 1990s that they became widely used by the general public. A combination of factors including the mass mobilization of capital markets through neoliberalism, the beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet,
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Constitution Day (or Citizenship Day) is an American federal observance that recognizes the adoption of the United States Constitution and those who have become U.S. citizens. It is observed on September 17, the day the U.S. Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in 1787
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Day_%28United_States%29