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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
The Magna Carta is widely viewed as one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy. Magna Carta was written by a group of 13th-century barons to protect their rights and property against the king. It failed to resolve the issues between the king, but was reissued several times after his death. -
Jamestown Settled
The Virginia Company of London sent an expedition to establish a settlement in the Virginia Colony in December 1606, consisting of three ships with with 105 men and boys and 39 crew-members.
The expedition reached the southern edge of the mouth of what is now known as the Chesapeake Bay. After the journey of more than four months they arrived at their chosen settlement spot in Virginia. -
Mayflower Compact Written
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. . It was written by the Separatists, or the "Saints", who were fleeing from religious persecution by King James of Great Britain. They traveled aboard the Mayflower with adventurers, tradesmen, and servants. -
Petition of Right
The Petition of Right is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. 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
It was a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right. It lays down limits on the powers of the crown and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament, the requirement for regular elections to Parliament and the right to petition the monarch without fear of retribution. -
Albany Plan of Union
The Albany Plan of Union was a proposal to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies. The Plan represented an early attempt to form a union of the colonies under one government that may be necessary for defense and other general important purposes. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act imposed a direct tax by the British Parliament on items such as legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. The stamp tax had to be paid in valid British currency, not in colonial paper money. -
Boston Massacre
British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others. They fired into the crowd, without orders, instantly killing three people and wounding others. Two more people died later of wounds sustained in the incident. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party took place when a group of Massachusetts Patriots seized 342 chests of tea in a midnight raid on three tea ships and threw them into the harbor. They were protesting the monopoly on American tea importation recently granted by Parliament to the East India Company. -
Intolerable Acts
It was a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament, relating to Massachusetts after the Boston Tea party. The acts stripped Massachusetts of self-government and historic rights, causing outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies. They were key developments in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies . It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts, which had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party.The Congress met briefly to consider options, including an economic boycott of British trade, rights and grievances. -
American Revolution Begins
700 British troops march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town's common green. The "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the Battle of Lexington ended, 8 Americans lay dead and 10 wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun. -
Second Continental Congress
The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence. By raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties, the Congress acted as the national government of what became the United States. -
Articles of Confederation
It 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. The Articles provided domestic and international legitimacy for the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War. -
Declaration of Independence
It declared the United States as it's own independent nation and seperated from British rule. Thomas Jefferson wrote the orginal copy of the document. -
Shay's Rebellion
It was an armed uprising that took place in central and western Massachusetts and was named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and one of the rebel leaders. Financial difficulties brought about by a post-war economic depression, a credit squeeze caused by a lack of hard currency, and fiscally harsh government policies instituted in 1785 to solve the state's debt problems were all factors in the rebellion. -
Philedelphia Convention
Also known as the Constitution Convention. The convention was to address problems in governing the United States of America. The Convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation. The result of the convention was the creation of the United States Constitutuion. -
Connecticut Compromise
It was an agreement large and small states came to that defined the legislative structure and representation under the Constitution. Each state would have two representatives in the upper house. It was argued that small states had equal legal staus.
