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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
The Magna Carta was issued by King John. Magna Carta established for the first time the principle that everybody, including the king, was subject to the law. -
Jamestown settled
The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in 1607 in Virginia. Jamestown was named for King James I of England. It was destroyed later in the seventeenth century in an uprising of Virginians against the governor. -
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
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 creates separation of powers, limits the powers of the king and queen, enhances the democratic election and bolsters freedom of speech. -
Albany Plan of Union
The Albany Plan of Union was a proposal to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress. -
Stamp Act
The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred on March 5, 1770, between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers. Several colonists were killed and this led to a campaign by speech-writers to rouse the ire of the citizenry. -
Boston Tea Party
American colonists raided three ships in Boston harbor, destroying their cargo of tea to protest a tax on tea imposed unilaterally on the American colonies by the British Parliament. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts was the American Patriots' name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies that met on September 5 to October 26, 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. -
American Revolution Begins
a political upheaval that took place between 1765 and 1783 during which colonists in the Thirteen American Colonies rejected the British monarchy and aristocracy, overthrew the authority of Great Britain, and founded 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 the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. -
Declaration Of Indpendence
the formal statement written by Thomas Jefferson declaring the freedom of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain. An example of the Declaration of Independence was the document adopted at the Second Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776. -
Articles of Confederation
This was the United States' first constitution. It was the constitution for 8 years. The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continential Congress. -
Shay's Rebllion
Shays' Rebellion is the name given to a series of protests in 1786 and 1787 by American farmers against state and local enforcement of tax collections and judgments for debt. -
Philadelphia Convention
The convention, meeting in Philadelphia, designed a government with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. -
Constitution Convection
a gathering for the purpose of writing a new constitution or revising an existing constitution. A general constitutional convention is called to create the first constitution of a political unit or to entirely replace an existing constitution -
Connecticut Compromise
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
