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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
King John affixed his seal to Magna Carta. Confronted by 40 rebellious barons, he consented to their demands in order to avert civil war -
Jamestown Settles
Jamestown Settlement is a name used by the Commonwealth of Virginia's portion of the historical sites and museums at Jamestown. Jamestown was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America -
Mayflower Compact Written
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists, later together known to history as the Pilgrims, who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. -
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. -
English Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament. It lays down limits on the powers of sovereign and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament. -
Albany Plan of Union
The Albany Plan of Union was proposed by Benjamin Franklin. It was an early attempt at forming a union of the colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary for defense and other general important purposes" during the French and Indian War. -
The Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was a direct tax imposed by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was an incident in which British Army soldiers fired into a uprising crowd without orders and instantly killed three civilian men with two more dying later from wounds. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts are names used to describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve British North American colonies that met in Philadelphia. -
American Revolution Begins
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in Philadelphia. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. -
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising that took place in central and western Massachusetts. -
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. -
Constitutional Convention
Philadelphia Convention took place in Philadelphia to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain.
