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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
The later versions excluded the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority that had been present in the 1215 charter. The 1215 charter required King John of England to proclaim and certain liberties and accept that his will was not arbitrary -
Peetition of Right
Is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. Passed on 7 June 1628, 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
By assuming and exercising a power of dispensing with and suspending of laws, and the execution of laws, without consent of parliament. Committing and prosecuting divers worthy prelates, for humbly petitioning to be excused from concurring to the said assumed power. -
Albany Plan of Union
In the early 1750s, rivalry between England and France over who would control the North American continent led inexorably to what is known as the French and Indian Wars.It lasted 1756 to 1763, left England. -
Boston Massacre
There a street fight between a patriot mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. The riot began when about 50 citizens attacked a British sentinel. -
Boston Tea Party
Is a handbill was posted all over Boston. That worst of plagues, the detested tea, shipped for this port by the East India Company, is now arrived in the harbor. -
First Continental Congress
Was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution. It met from 1774 to 1789 in three incarnations. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress meeting started with the battle of Lexington and Concord fresh in their memories. The New England militia were still encamped outside of Boston trying to drive the British out of Boston. -
Declaration of Independence
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. -
Shay's Rebellion
The rebellion started on August 29, 1786. It was precipitated by several factors: 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. -
Philadelphia Convention
The Convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. -
Virginia Plan
Was a proposal by Virginia delegates for a bicameral legislative branch. The plan was drafted by James Madison while he waited for a quorum to assemble at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. -
New Jersey Plan
Is a proposal for the structure of the United States Government presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention. Created in response to the Virginia Plan, which called for two houses of Congress, both elected with apportionment according to population. -
Articles of Confederation
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.
