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First lasting english settlement
In 1607, the first lasting English settlement was made at Jamestown, Virginia, by John Smith, John Rolfe and other Englishmen interested in gold and adventure. In its early years, many people in Virginia died of disease and starvation. The colony lasted because it made money by planting tobacco -
Pilgrims Settlement
In 1621, a group of Englishmen called the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts. A bigger colony was built at Massachusetts Bay by the Puritans in 1630. The Pilgrims and the Puritans were interested in making a better society, not looking for gold. They called this ideal society a "city on a hill". -
Navigation Acts
The Navigation Acts were a series of English laws that restricted colonial trade to England. They were first enacted in 1651 and throughout that time until 1663, and were repealed in 1849. They reflected the policy of mercantilism, which sought to keep all the benefits of trade inside the Empire and to minimize the loss of gold and silver to foreigners. They prohibited the colonies from trading directly with the Netherlands, Spain, France, and their colonies. -
Stamp Act
the Stamp Act of 1765 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that imposed a direct tax on the colonies of British America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. The Stamp Act was very unpopular among colonists. A consensus considered it a violation of their rights as Englishmen to be taxed without their consent, consent that only the colonial legislatures could grant. -
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American Revolution
The American Revolution was a colonial revolt that took place between 1765 and 1783. The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies won independence from Great Britain, becoming the United States of America. They defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War in alliance with France and others. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The demonstrators, some disguised as Native Americans, in defiance of the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, destroyed an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were the American Patriots' term 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 of throwing a large tea shipment into Boston Harbor in reaction to changes in taxation by the British to the detriment of Colonial goods. -
Articles of Confederation
The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States, on November 15, 1777. However, ratification of the Articles of Confederation by all thirteen states did not occur until March 1, 1781. -
Declaration of Independance
The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. These states would found a new nation, the United States of America. -
Constitution of the United States
The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America.The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles, delineates the national frame of government. Its first three articles separated powers. Articles Four, Five and Six create concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in relation to the federal government. Article Seven establishes the procedure subsequently used by the thirteen States to ratify it. -
Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Crafted to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically delegated to -
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American Civil War
The American Civil War was fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The result of a long-standing controversy over slavery. When Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, shortly after Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, war broke out. The nationalists of the Union proclaimed loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States of America, who advocated for states’ rights to perpetual slavery and its expansion in the Americas. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted following the American Civil War.