Government Timeline

  • Magna Carta
    Jan 1, 1215

    Magna Carta

    It was the first document forced upon the King of England in hopes to limit his powers. It wsa also a try to protect the peoples' powers.
  • Jamestown Settlement

    Jamestown Settlement

    On May 14, 1607, the Virginia Company explorers landed on Jamestown Island to establish the Virginia English colony on the banks of the James River
  • Mayflower Compact written

    Mayflower Compact written

    The Mayflower Compact, signed by 41 English colonists on the ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620, was the first written framework of government established in what is now the United States.
  • Petition of Right

    Petition of Right

    This is a statement of the objectives of the 1628 English legal reform movement that led to the Civil War and deposing of Charles I in 1649. It expresses many of the ideals that later led to the American Revolution.
  • English Bill of Rights

    English Bill of Rights

    The English Bill of Rights, is an act of Parliament passed in 1689, which declared the rights and liberties given to the citizens of England.
  • Albany Plan of Union

    Albany Plan of Union

    It was a proposal to create a unified government for the 13 colonies. It represents an early attemp for unity for the colonies under one government.
  • Stamp Act

    Stamp Act

    The purpose of the tax was to help pay for troops stationed in North America after the British victory in the Seven Years' War. The Stamp Act met great resistance in the colonies.
  • Boston Massacre

    Boston Massacre

    The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. This event may have set off the Revolutionary War.
  • Boston Tea Party

    Boston Tea Party

    Took place when a group of Massachusetts Patriots, protesting the monopoly on American tea importation recently granted by Parliament to the East India Company, seized 342 chests of tea in a midnight raid on three tea ships and threw them into the harbor.
  • Intolerable Acts

    Intolerable Acts

    The Intolerable Acts, or the Coercive Acts, are names used to describe a series of five laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. This caused the people to revolt.
  • First Continental Congress

    First Continental Congress

    Repersentitives from each of the first 13 colonies, except Georgia, met in Philadelphia in reaction to the Coercide Acts.
  • American Revolution Begins

    American Revolution Begins

    The Revolutionary War began because the Americans wanted their freedom from Great Britain so they began war on April 19, 1775.
  • Secong Continental Congress

    Secong Continental Congress

    The Second Continental Congress was a meeting between the 13 colonies and they decided to establish a militia as a continental army to represent the 13 colonies.
  • Declaration of Independence

    Declaration of Independence

    The Declaration of Independence is 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
  • Articles of Conferderation

    Articles of Conferderation

    It established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. It established a weak central government that mostly prevented the individual states from conducting their own foreign diplomacy.
  • Shay's Rebellion

    Shay's Rebellion

    an armed uprising that took place in central and western Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787. The rebellion was named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and one of the rebel leaders.
  • Connecticut Compromise

    Connecticut Compromise

    The Connecticut Compromise was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution.
  • Philadelphia Convention

    Philadelphia Convention

    It was a meeting to discuss the government problems the United States of America had after having independence from Great Britain.
  • Constitutional Convention

    Constitutional Convention

    The Constitutional Convention was a meeting to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain.