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Final conflict in the ongoing struggle between the British and French for control of eastern North America. The British win a decisive victory over the French on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec.
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War of independence fought between Great Britain and the 13 British colonies on the eastern seaboard of North America. Battles of Lexington and Concord, Mass., between the British Army and colonial minutemen, mark the beginning of the war.
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Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.
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Great Britain formally acknowledges American independence in the Treaty of Paris, which officially brings the war to a close.
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George Washington is unanimously elected president of the United States in a vote by state electors.
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First ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, are ratified.
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Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated as the third president in Washington, DC.
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Spain agrees to cede Florida to the United States
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Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation, the first U.S. constitution.
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U.S. annexes Texas by joint resolution of Congress
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Women's rights convention is held at Seneca Falls, N.Y.
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Abraham Lincoln is elected president.
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Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana secede.
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Conflict between the North (the Union) and the South (the Confederacy) over the expansion of slavery into western states.
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Confederate States of America is established.
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Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in Washington, DC, and is succeeded by his vice president, Andrew Johnson.
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U.S. acquires Alaska from Russia for the sum of $7.2 million.
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Theodor Roosevelt is President.
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Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor. It is later repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933.
Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, granting women the right to vote. -
Japan attacks Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines. U.S. Declares war on Japan.
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U.S. drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
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John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the 35th president.
A mixed-race group of volunteers sponsored by the Committee on Racial Equality—the so-called Freedom Riders—travel on buses through the South in order to protest racially segregated interstate bus facilities. -
President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Tex. He is succeeded in office by his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson.
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Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.
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Richard Nixon is inaugurated as the 37th president.
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Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as the 40th president.
Sandra Day O'Connor is sworn in as the first woman Supreme Court justice. -
George H. W. Bush is inaugurated as the 41st president.
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Bill Clinton is inaugurated as the 42nd president.
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War waged by the U.S. and Britain against Iraq begins.
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Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th president.