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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
a charter of liberty and political rights obtained from king John of England by his rebellious barons of Runnymede -
Nov 13, 1295
Parliament Begins
A parliament is an assembly of representatives from various countriesand boroughs. All the counties returned two knights, two burgessess and two resident from every city. There primary role was to raise taxes so King Edward could raise the funds for his wars. King Edward's parliament was important because it was used by the king and was his own government with represenetives from all over the country. -
House of Burgesses
Definition: First representative government group in the American colonies. The House met for the first time at Jamestown. -
Mayflower Compact
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. -
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (VII of Scotland and II of Ireland) in 1688 by a union of Parliamentarians with an invading army led by the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau -
English Bill of Rights
An act passed by Parliament in 1689 which limited the power of the monarch. This document established Parliament as the most powerful branch of the English government. -
Common Law
A system of law that is derived from judges' decisions (which arise from the judicial branch of government), rather than statutes or constitutions (which are derived from the legislative branch of government). -
Stamp Act
An act of the British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the British Crown -
Intolerable Acts
a series of British measures passed in 1774 and designed to punish the Massachusetts colonists for the Boston Tea Party. For example, one of the laws closed the port of Boston until the colonists paid for the tea that they had destroyed. -
First Continental Congress
the meeting of representatives from the colonies in 1774 to plan a response to the Coercive/Intolerable Acts. The meeting was held in Philadelphia, and represents a key step in uniting the separate colonies to oppose British rule. -
Second Continental Congress
This body gathered in Philadelphia during May 1775 after the shooting war with Great Britain had started. The second Congress functioned as a coordinating government for the colonies and states in providing overall di rection for the patriot war effort. -
Articles of Confederation
a written agreement ratified in 1781 by the thirteen original states; it provided a legal symbol of their union by giving the central government no coercive power over the states or their citizens -
Shays Rbellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts (mainly Springfield) from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolution who led the rebels, known as "Shaysites" or "Regulators". -
Constitutional Convention
the convention of United States statesmen who drafted the United States Constitution in 1787 -
Great 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 James Madison, along with proportional representation in the lower house, but required the upper house to be weighted equally between the states. -
Constitution ratified by 2/3 of the states
Eventually twelve states were represented, 74 delegates were named, 55 attended, 36 signed. They arrived with backgrounds in local and state government and Congress. They were judges and merchants, war veterans and revolutionary patriots, native-born and immigrant, establishment easterners and westward-looking adventurers. The participating delegates are honored as the Constitution’s “Framers”.[12] the new Constitution was ratified by all thirteen states, ... was met when New Hampshire voted to -
Federalist Papers
A collection of essays written under the pseudonym “Publius” by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, addressed to “The People of the State of New York,” first published in New York City newspapers between October 1787 and August 1788. The purpose of The Federalist was to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution adopted in Philadelphia in September 1787 -
Bill of Rights
The first ten amendments to the US Constitution, ratified in 1791 and guaranteeing such rights as the freedoms of speech, assembly, and worship