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With the help of Catholic Monarchs in Spain, Columbus was able to go in his journey. Because of Columbus's voyage to the Americas, he opened up new trade routes and many European colonies. He soon died at the age of 54 on May 20, 1506.
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Once Jamestown was founded, there had been attacks from the native Indian tribe, the Powhatans. As well as the starving time from 1609 to 1611. Later, another fire in 1698 led the colony to relocate the capital to present-day Williamsburg on May 1, 1699.
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The French and Indian War was fought by the French and the British with the help of some native Americans. At the end of the war, they signed the Treaty of Paris which gave France present-day Canada, and Britian, territories east of the Mississippi river. Because of the cost of the war, they raised taxes which led to the Revolutionary War.
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American colonists frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. The event was the first major act of defiance to British rule over the colonists. It showed Great Britain that Americans would not tolerate taxation and tyranny sitting down and rallied American patriots across the 13 colonies to fight for independence.
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The first battle was at Lexington where only 77 colonial men arrived facing 700 British troops. The battle of Concord, there were many more colonial men and soon beat the British, marking the start of the Revolutionary War.
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The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. It was engrossed on parchment and on August 2, 1776, delegates began signing it.
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The Battle of Yorktown was important because it was the decisive victory for the American and French forces, leading to the surrender of British General Charles Cornwallis's army and the end of major fighting in the American Revolution.
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The Constitutional Convention is when the government produced the United States Constitution, establishing a stronger central federal government to replace the weak Articles of Confederation.
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The cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1794, revolutionized cotton processing by rapidly separating seeds from fibers, which made cotton a highly profitable cash crop and led to a boom in its cultivation across the American South.
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The Alien and Sedition Acts was meant to increase the requirements for citizenship in the United States. It also allowed for deportation of foreigners and made it illegal to make fake American documents.
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The Louisiana Purchase, completed in 1803, was a landmark event in U.S. history where the United States acquired approximately 828,000 square miles of territory from France for about $15 million. Although the treaty was signed on April 30, 1803, it took several months for the transfer of power to occur.
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The war of 1812 boosted America's reputation by successfully defending against the British navy. It tested the U.S. Constitution and the new government. Despite being divided and unprepared, the nation emerged intact, establishing borders with Canada, opening the Oregon Territory, and improving trade.
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The Missouri Compromise admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state, maintaining the balance of power in the Senate between free and slave states, and prohibited slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the 36°30′ parallel.
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Andrew Jackson's key successes as president include his leadership in the Nullification Crisis, which affirmed federal authority over states, and his destruction of the Second Bank of the United States, a move he believed protected the common man.
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The Trail of Tears was meant to commemorate the sufferings of the Native American tribes. it was made to show the forced displacement, the oppression and violence faced by Native Americans, the injustices faced by Native Americans, and the resilience and survival of Native American tribes.
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The Panic of 1837 began on March 17, 1837, when major cotton merchants faced bankruptcy, leading to widespread bank failures. The crisis peaked with a significant bank run on May 10, 1837, when banks in New York City ran out of gold and silver. The economic turmoil continued throughout 1837 and into the presidency of Zachary Taylor, with recovery not occurring until late 1842.
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The first functional Morse code telegraph was demonstrated in the United States in 1838, but the first message was sent on May 24, 1844, when Samuel Morse sent the message "What hath God wrought" between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
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The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States Army. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution.
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The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that temporarily defused tensions between slave and free states during the years leading up to the American Civil War. Designed by Whig senator Henry Clay and Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas, with the support of President Millard Fillmore, the compromise centered on how to handle slavery in recently acquired territories from the Mexican–American War.
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At 4:30 am on 12 April 1861, shots were fired over Fort Sumter, and though Anderson withheld his fire until 7 am, the fight was unavoidable. Among the occupants of the fort were a total of 80 Union soldiers, construction workers and musicians. The Confederate rebels, led by Beauregard, numbered 500.
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The Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the American Civil War, a conflict primarily centered around issues of slavery and states' rights. As the war progressed, President Lincoln recognized the need to redefine the purpose of the war and to weaken the Confederacy's ability to sustain its rebellion through the use of enslaved labor.
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As the fighting came to an end that morning of April 9, 1865, the village of Appomattox Court House lay between the two armies. General Robert E. Lee sent a final note to General Ulysses S. Grant asking for a meeting to discuss the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.
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On the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. John Wilkes Booth was free for 12 days until he was killed on April 26, 1865.
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13th Amendment (1865): Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. 14th Amendment (1868): Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and ensured equal protection under the law. 15th Amendment (1870): Prohibited the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
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The impeachment of Andrew Johnson for "high crimes and misdemeanors" was initiated by the United States House of Representatives on February 24, 1868. The alleged high crimes and misdemeanors were afterwards specified in eleven articles of impeachment adopted by the House on March 2 and 3, 1868. The primary charge against Johnson was that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act.
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The electric light bulb, telephone, and airplane are transformative inventions that revolutionized communication, transportation, and daily life, each attributed to visionary inventors like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright brothers.
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Standard Oil, U.S. company and corporate trust that from 1882 to 1892 was the industrial empire of John D. Rockefeller and associates, controlling almost all oil production, processing, marketing, and transportation in the United States. It originated in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Pullman Strike, (May 11, 1894–c. July 20, 1894), in U.S. history, widespread railroad strike and boycott that severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest of the United States in June–July 1894.
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The Spanish–American War was fought between Spain and the United States in 1898. It began with the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, and resulted in the U.S. acquiring sovereignty over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, and establishing a protectorate over Cuba. It represented U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence and Philippine Revolution, with the latter later leading to the Philippine–American War.
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Theodore Roosevelt's tenure as the 26th president of the United States began on September 14, 1901, and expired on March 4, 1909. Roosevelt, a Republican, took office upon the assassination of President William McKinley, under whom he had served as vice president, and secured a full term in the 1904 election. He was succeeded by his protégé and chosen successor, William Howard Taft.