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The First permanent English settlement is founded in Jamestown, Virginia
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Inquisition condemns Italian scientist Galileo for supporting Copernicus's theory.
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The first enslaved Africans arrive in North America at Jamestown.
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The Mayflower pilgrims establish the MAssachusetts Bay Colony at Plymouth.
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John Smith publishes The General History of Virginia
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William Bradford describes his journey across the Atlantic and pilgrims' settlement in Of Plymouth Plantation.
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North America's First public school is founded in Boston.
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Bay Psalm Book is the first book to be printed in America.
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Anne Bradstreet's poems, collected as The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, are published in London
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Dutch found Cape Town on the southern tip of South Africa.
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The Puritans' victory in King Philip's War ends Native American resistance in New England colonies
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Mary Rowlandson publishes The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, an account of her captivity at the hands of Algonquain Indians
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William Penn founds the colony of Pennsylvania.
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Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, considered to be the most important work of the Scientific Revolution.
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Quakers voice opposition to slavery.
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Salem witch trials show atmosphere of mass hysteria.
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Cotton Mather publishes The Wonders of the Invisible World in defense of the Salem witch trials.
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The Japanese poet, known for revitalizing the haiku form, dies.
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The Boston Newsletter, the first American newspaper, is established.
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Benjamin Franklin uses humore to crticize the Puritan establsihment in his first published work
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Jonathan Edwards delivers a sermon called, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." The sermon typifies the religious movement known as the great awakening
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The six nations of the Iroquois Confederation cede Ohio Valley territory north of the Ohio River to Britain.
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Calcutta's population reaches 120,000
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Catherine the Great, an "enlightened despot," becomes empress of Russia.
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The Boston Tea Party marks a violent rejection of Britain's taxation policies. The Revolutionary War begins two years later.
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Abigail Adams writes her first entry in what is published as Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife, Abigail
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Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.
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British defeat at Yorktown ends the American Revolution
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The Indian sacred text the Bhagavad-Gita is trranslated into English for the first time.
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Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of... Olaudah Equiano details harsh treatment of captive Africans.
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