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The Magna Carta (meaning Great Charter) was signed by King John. It was the first formal document stating that a King had to follow the laws of the land and it guaranteed the rights of individuals against the wishes of the King.
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Jamestown was America's first permanent English colony in Virginia in 1607; Jamestown served as the capital of the colony for 83 years, from 1616 until 1699.
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The Mayflower Compact was the first written framework of government established in what is now the United States; determined authority within the settlement; established that the colony was to be free of English Law; signed by 41 English colonists on the ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620
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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.
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The Eglish Bille of Rights guaranteed certain rights of the citizens of England from the power of the crown; signed in 1969 by William of Orange and Mary II in return for their being affirmed as co-rulers of England and Ireland by the English Parliament after the Glorious Revolution.
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- suggested by Benjamin Franklin; a proposal to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies.
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The Stamp Act was a law that required all colonial residents to pay a stamp tax on virtually every printed paper including legal documents, bills of sale, contracts, wills, advertising, pamphlets, almanacs, and even playing cards and dice.
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The Botston Massacre was a street fight that occurred between a "patriot" mob and a squad of British soldiers as an eventual result from Royal troops’ first appearance in Massachusetts in October 1768 to enforce the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts.
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The Boston Tea Party was led by Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty; they boarded three ships in the Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard in a protest again tax on tea
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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.
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The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies; governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule
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The American Revolution was a war of independence that was led by George Washington; began when Britain began raising taxes.
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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
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The Declaration of Independence announced that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire.
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The Articles of Confederation were the the original constitution of the United States; ratified in 1781; served as the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain.
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Shay's Rebellion was series of confrontations that took place in Massachusetts (mostly in and around Springfield) between desperate debtor-farmers and state government authorities during the years 1786 and 1787.
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The Philadelphia Convention was held by delegates from the 13 states that then comprised the United States. The original purpose of the convention was to address the problems the federal government was having ruling the states and staying fiscally sound under the provisions of the Articles of Confederation; what actually occurred was the formation of the U.S. Constitution.
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The Constitution Convention met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation.
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The Connecticut Compromise was an agreement that defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution.
