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Period: Jan 1, 1200 to
start to end
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Sep 19, 1215
The Magna Charta
Magna Carta was the first document forced onto a King of England by a group of his subjects, the feudal barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. The charter was an important part of the extensive historical process that led to the rule of consitutional law in the English speaking World, Magna Carta was important in the colonization of America as England's legal system was used as a model for many of the colonies as they were developing their own legal system -
Jamestown Settlement
Jamestown Settlement is a name used by theCommonwealth 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. Named for King James I of England. Jamestown was founded in the Colony of Virginia on May 13, 1607. -
The Mayflower
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the Seperatists, also known as the "Saints", fleeing from religious persecution by King James of Great Britain.They traveled aboard the Mayflower in 1620 along with adventurers, tradesmen, and servants, most of whom were referred to as "Strangers".The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard ship on November 11, 1620 by most adult men (but not by most crew and adult male servants). -
The 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. 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. Following disputes between Parliament and King Charles I, over the execution of the Thirty Years War, Parliament refused to grant subsidies to support the wa -
The Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is an Act of the Parliament of England passed on 16 December 1689. It was a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parlament to William and Mary in March 1689 inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England. It lays down limits on the powers of the crown and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament, the requirement for regular elections to Parliament and the right to petition the monarch -
Stamp Act
A stamp act is any legislation that requires a tax to be paid on the transfer of certain documents. Those that pay the tax receive an official stamp on their documents, making them legal documents. The taxes raised under a stamp act are called stamp duty. This system of taxation was first devised in the Netherlands in 1624 after a public competition to find a new form of tax. A variety of products have been covered by stamp acts including playing cards, patent medicines, cheques, mortages,contra -
The Albany Plan of Union
The Albany Plan of Union was a proposal to create a unified government for the Thirteen colonies. More than twenty representatives of several northern and mid-Atlantic colonies had gathered to plan their defense related to the French Indian War. The front in North America of the Seven Years War, between Great Britain and France. The Plan represented an early attempt to form a union of the colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary for defense and other general important purposes -
The Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre, known as the Incident on King Street by the British, was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others. Amid ongoing tense relations between the population and the soldiers, a mob formed around a British sentry, who was subjected to verbal abuse and harassment. He was eventually supported by eight additional soldiers, who were subjected to verbal threats and thrown objects. They fired into the crowd, without orde -
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty, in Boston, a city in the British colony of Massacheusetts, against the tax policy of the British government, and the East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was not present) that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpeners' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts by the British Parliament.The Intolerable Acts had punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party. -
The Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable (Coercive) Acts was the Patriot name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Massachusetts after the Boston Tea party.The acts stripped Massachusetts of self-government and historic rights, triggering outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies. They were key developments in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress, was a convention of delegates from the thirteen colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, son after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun.The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independance on July 4, 1776. By raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties, the Congress -
The American Revolution Begins
The American Revolution was a political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which 13 colonies in North America joined together to break from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America.They first rejected the authority of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them from overseas without representation, and then expelled all royal officials. By 1775 each colony had established a Provincial Congress or an equivalent governmental institution to govern it -
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress, on July 4, 1776, which announced that the 13 American Colonies,then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed a union that would become a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was unanimously approved on July 2. A committe had already drafted the formal declarat -
Articles of Confederation
The 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.The Articles provided domestic and international legitimacy for the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War, that conduct diplomacy with Europe and deal with territorial issues and Native American relations. -
Shays Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising that took place in central and western Massachusettes in 1786 and 1787.The rebellion was named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and one of the rebel leaders.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 solv -
Philadelphia- Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention (also known as the Philadelphia Convention, the Federal Convention, or the Grand Convention at Philadelphia) took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain. Although the Convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many o -
The Connecticut Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman's 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. It retained the bicameral legislature as proposed by Roger Sherman, along with proportional representation in the lower house.
