constitution timeline

  • boston te party

    boston te party
    The British East India Company had controlled all tea trading between India and the British colonies. As a result of the tea tax, the colonies refused to buy the British tea. Instead, they smuggled tea in from Holland. This left the British East India Company with warehouses full of unsold tea, and the company was in danger of going out of business
  • declaration of rights and grievances is passed

    declaration of rights and grievances is passed
    In March, 1774, the British Parliament passed a series of laws they referred to as the Coercive Acts. The Americans called them the Intolerable Acts. The Acts were primarily designed to punish the colony of Massachusetts for defying British policies; specifically, for the Boston Tea Party. Outrage in the Americas over the Intolerable Acts led to the calling of the First Continental Congress in September, 1774. During the First Congress, which included representatives from all of the colonies.
  • first continental cpngress meets

    first continental cpngress meets
    The 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.
  • revolutionary revolution begins

    revolutionary revolution begins
    By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents.
  • 2nd continental congress meets

    2nd continental congress meets
    The Congress met on May 10, 1776, in the State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is now called Indepence Hall.
    This second Congress had a few delegates that hadn't been at The First Continental Congress. Some of those new and returning delegates included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and the new president of the Continental Congress, John Hancock. The Congress included sixty-five delegates. Thomas Jefferson was a plantation owner and a lawyer who was well-known as a good writer.
  • declaration of independence is signed

    declaration of independence is signed
    The 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 put forth a resolution earlier in the year which made a formal declaration inevitable. A committee was assembled to draft the formal declaration, to be ready when congress voted on independence. Adams persuaded the c
  • articles of confederation is signed

    articles of confederation is signed
    Articles were written during the early part of the American Revolution by a committee of the Second Continental Congress of the now independent thirteen sovereign states. The head of the committee, John Dickinson, who had refused to sign the Declaration of Independence, nevertheless adhering to the will of the majority of the members of the Continental Congress, presented a report on the proposed articles to the Congress on July 12, 1776, eight days after the signing the independence,
  • revolutionary war ends

    revolutionary war ends
    The American Revolution (1775-83) is also known as the American Revolutionary War and the U.S. War of Independence. The conflict arose from growing tensions between residents of Great Britain's 13 North American colonies and the colonial government, which represented the British crown. Skirmishes between British troops and colonial militiamen in Lexington and Concord in April 1775 kicked off the armed conflict, and by the following summer, the rebels were waging a full-scale war for theirindepen
  • final draft of the constitution is signed

    final draft of the constitution is signed
    The members of the Constitutional Convention signed the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Constitutional Convention convened in response to dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation and the need for a strong centralized government. After four months of secret debate and many compromises, the proposed Constitution was submitted to the states for approval. Although the vote was close in some states,