U.S. History a Timeline

  • Oct 12, 1492

    The Discovery of America by Columbus

  • Period: Oct 12, 1492 to

    U.S. History a timeline

  • The Settlement of Jamestown

  • French and Indian War

  • The Boston Tea Party

  • Battles of Lexington and Concord

  • The Declaration of Independence

  • The Battle of Yorktown

    Sep. 28th, 1781 To Oct 19, 1781
  • The Constitutional Convention

    May 25, 1787 – Sep 17, 1787
  • The invention of the cotton gin

    American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794
  • The Alien and Sedition Acts

  • The invention of the electric light

    In 1802, Humphry Davy invented the first electric light. He experimented with electricity and invented an electric battery. When he connected wires to his battery and a piece of carbon, the carbon glowed, producing light. His invention was known as the Electric Arc lamp
  • The Louisiana Purchase

  • The War of 1812

    The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815)
  • The Missouri Compromise

  • Andrew Jackson’s Election

  • The invention of the telegraph

    The first demonstration of the system by Morse was conducted for his friends at his workplace in 1837
  • The Panic of 1837

    Historians have traditionally attributed the Panic of 1837 to a real estate bubble and erratic American banking policy.
  • The Mexican-American War

    The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States Army from 1846 to 1848
  • The Trail of Tears

    The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government
  • The Compromise of 1850

    It admitted California as a free state, left Utah and New Mexico to decide for themselves whether to be a slave state or a free state, defined a new Texas-New Mexico boundary, and made it easier for slaveowners to recover runways under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
  • The Firing on Fort Sumter

    The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia. It ended with the surrender by the United States Army, beginning the American Civil War.
  • The Emancipation Proclamation

    The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War.
  • 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments

    Amendments 13-15 are called the Reconstruction Amendments both because they were the first enacted right after the Civil War and because all addressed questions related to the legal and political status of the African Americans. Passed by Congress January 31, 1865.
  • Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse

    The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought in Appomattox County, Virginia, on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War.
  • Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination

    On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
  • Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment

    The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was initiated on February 24, 1868, when the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, for "high crimes and misdemeanors"
  • The invention of the telephone

    Alexander Graham Bell is credited with being the inventor of the telephone since his patent and demonstrations for an apparatus designed for “transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically… causing electrical undulations” were successful. First Bell Telephone, June 1875
  • The Pullman and Homestead Strikes

    Within recent public memory lay two major events that led to this unease--the Homestead strike of 1892 and the Pullman Railroad strike of 1894. These two conflicts brought to the surface the deeper issues at work in an age of industrial progress
  • The Spanish-American War

    The Spanish–American War began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence
  • Theodore Roosevelt becomes president

    The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt started on September 14, 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president of the United States upon the assassination of President William McKinley, and ended on March 4, 1909. Roosevelt had been the vice president for only 194 days when he succeeded to the presidency.
  • The invention of the airplane

    Wilbur and Orville Wright spent four years of research and development to create the first successful powered airplane, the 1903 Wright Flyer. It first flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903, with Orville at the controls.
  • The Organization of Standard Oil Trust

    Standard Oil Company, Inc., was an American oil production, transportation, refining, and marketing company that operated from 1870 to 1911