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1492
Columbian Exchange
The Columbian Exchange was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and ideas. It was between the Americas and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries, -
1492
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, and colonizer. Born in the Republic of Genoa, under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. -
Jul 7, 1494
Treaty of Tordesillas
This treaty was an agreement between Spain and Portugal aimed at settling conflicts over lands newly discovered or explored. Mainly by Christopher Columbus and other late 15th-century voyagers. -
1512
Encomienda System Established
The encomienda system was created by the Spanish to control and regulate American Indian labor and behavior during the colonization of the Americas. It was established in 1512. -
1525
Rise of Atlantic Slave Trade
The Atlantic slave trade or Alain known as the transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people. They were mainly from Africa to the Americas, and then their sale there. -
1540
Francisco Coronado’s Expedition
A Spanish soldier and commander; who was the first European to discover the Grand Canyon. In 1540, he led an expedition north from Mexico into Arizona; he was searching for the legendary Seven Cities of Gold, but only found Adobe pueblos. -
1555
Tobacco arrives in Europe
With tobacco, English settlers finally found a New World commodity that worked well in the mercantile system. Spanish explorers already had great success with gold and silver finds and the French created a vibrant market for furs in Europe. -
1565
St. Augustine is established
The name of the first permanent Spanish settlement in North America. It is established in 1565 in modern day Florida. -
Pequot War
The Pequot War was an armed conflict that took place between 1636 and 1638. It was in New England between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of the English colonists -
The Beaver Wars
This was an intermittent series of conflicts fought in the late 17th century in eastern North America. The Iroquois sought to expand their territory and take control of the role of middleman in the fur trade. -
Trans Atlantic Slave Trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people. They mainly came from Africa to the Americas, and then their sale there. -
Bacons Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. -
Pueblo Revolt
It was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonizers. It occured in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, present day New Mexico. -
The Chickasaw Wars
The Chickasaw Wars were fought in the 18th century. It was between the Chickasaw allied with the British against the French and their allies the Choctaws and Illinois Confederation. -
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War comprised the North American theater of the worldwide Seven Years' War of 1756–63. It pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America. It forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act is a name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the local governments of the American colonies. It provided the British soldiers with any needed accommodations and housing. -
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty. It occurred in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. -
Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. These 2 battles occured on April 19,1775. -
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston. It occured in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America. It served as its first constitution. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris was so gned in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783. It ended the American Revolutionary War. -
Shays Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts during 1786 and 1787. Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels in an uprising against perceived economic and civil rights injustices. -
New Jersey Plan
The New Jersey Plan (also known as the Small State Plan or the Paterson Plan) was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government. It was presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787. -
The Great Compromise
This was a plan proposed by Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, Connecticut's delegates to the Constitutional Convention. They established a two-house legislature. -
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 during the presidency of George Washington. The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. -
Marburg VS. Madison
A landmark case by the United States Supreme Court. It forms the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States under Article III of the Constitution. -
The Louisiana Purchase
The Americans thought that Napoleon might withdraw the offer at any time, preventing the United States from acquiring New Orleans, so they agreed and signed the Louisiana Purchase Treaty on April 30, 1803. On July 4, 1803, the treaty reached Washington, D.C.. -
Homestead Act of 1862
This act was passed on May 20, 1862. The Homestead Act accelerated the settlement of the western territory by granting adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee -
Pacific Railway Act of 1862
The Pacific Railway Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 1, 1862. This act provided Federal government support for the building of the first transcontinental railroad. -
Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862
An Act donating Public Lands to the several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges in U.S. states using the proceeds of federal land sales -
Wade Davis Bill
The Wade–Davis Bill of 1864 was a bill proposed for the Reconstruction of the South. It was written by two Radical Republicans, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and Representative Henry Winter Davis of Maryland. -
Freedman Bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau was created in 1865 during the Lincoln administration, by an act of Congress called the Freedman's Bureau Bill. It was passed on March 3, 1865, in order to aid former slaves through food and housing, oversight, education, health care, and employment contracts with private landowners. -
Election of 1876
The election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden of New York was one of the most hostile, controversial campaigns in American history. The vote was 8-7 along party lines to award the disputed electoral college votes to Hayes, making him the winner. -
Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the US. -
The Gilded Age
This period of the Gilded Age was glittering on the surface but corrupt underneath. The Gilded Age was as an era of corruption, conspicuous consumption, and unfettered capitalism. -
The Compromise of 1877
The Compromise of 1877 was a purported informal, unwritten deal that settled the intensely disputed 1876 U.S. presidential election. It resulted in the United States federal government pulling the last troops out of the South, and formally ended the Reconstruction Era. -
The Civil Service Act
The Civil Service Reform Act is a United States federal law, enacted in 1883. It established that positions within the federal government should be awarded on the basis of merit instead of political affiliation. -
Interstate Commerce Act
This act was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland on February 4, 1887. The act worked to keep rates and railroad revenue up on routes where competition existed. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
This act is a landmark federal statute in the history of United States antitrust law (or "competition law"). It was passed by Congress in 1890 under the presidency of Benjamin Harrison. -
Omaha Platform of 1892
The Omaha Platform was adopted by the founding convention of the party on July 4, 1892. It set out the basic tenets of the Populist movement. -
Panic of 1893
The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in that year. This panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures. -
Election of 1896
The United States presidential election of November 3, 1896, saw Republican William McKinley defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in a campaign considered by historians to be one of the most dramatic and complex in American history. He outspent Bryan by a factor of five. -
World War 1
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war. It originated in Europe and lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. -
The Great Migration
The Great Migration was the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West. This was from 1916 to 1970, and had a huge impact on urban life in the United States. -
Passage of 18th Amendment
The 18th Amendment did not prohibit the consumption of alcohol. It rather simplified the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. -
The Jazz Age
The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s, ending with the Great Depression, in which jazz music and dance styles became popular. They were mainly popular in the United States, but also in Britain, France and elsewhere. -
Prohibition Act
The Prohibition Act, known also as the Volstead Act, was enacted to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment. This established prohibition in the United States. -
Passage of 19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of gender. It was adopted on August 18, 1920. -
The first Levittown is constructed
The building firm, Levitt & Sons, headed by Abraham Levitt and his two sons, William and Alfred, built four planned communities called "Levittown." One in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico, as the the Levittown in New York was the first built. -
China falls to Communism
The fall of China to communism in 1949 led the United States to suspend diplomatic ties with the PRC for decades. The Chinese Communist Party, founded in 1921 in Shanghai, originally existed as a study group working within the confines of the First United Front with the Nationalist Party. -
Sputnik blasts in to space
The first Sputnik satellite blasts into space. A Russian satellite has been launched into space and was the first man made object ever to leave the Earth's atmosphere. -
The Berlin Wall was constructed
The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. It was a wall consisting of concrete elements and square blocks. -
Malcolm X was assassinated
Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965, in Washington Heights, New York City, NY. -
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated
A confirmed racist and small-time criminal, James Ray began plotting the assassination of revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in early 1968. He shot and killed King in Memphis on April 4, 1968, confessing to the crime the following March. -
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. It was signed on 17 September 1978, following twelve days of secret negotiations at Camp David. -
Tax Reform Act of 1986
The U.S. Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was enacted on October 22, 1986. It was used to simplify the income tax code, broaden the tax base and eliminate many tax shelters. -
The Persian Gulf War began
The Gulf War, codenamed Operation Desert Shield for operations led to the buildup of troops and defence of Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Storm in its combat phase. It was a war waged by coalition forces from 35 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait. -
Los Angeles Riot
The riots started when four white Los Angeles Police Department officers started beating the black motorist Rodney King in 1991. The riots over five days in the spring of 1992 left more than 50 people dead, and more than 2,000 injured. -
Operation Enduring Freedom was launched
Operation Enduring Freedom, which began on October 7, 2001, had allied air strikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda targets. The operation was launched to stop the Taliban from providing a safe haven to al Qaeda and to stop al Qaeda's use of Afghanistan as a base of operations for terrorist activities. -
The US invaded Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq lasted from 20 March to 1 May 2003 and signalled the start of the Iraq War. It was dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom by the United States. -
The Great Recession began
The Great Recession began with the bursting of an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble. The resulting loss of wealth led to sharp cutbacks in consumer spending. -
President Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare Act
The Affordable Healthcare Act or nicknamed Obamacare, is a United States federal statute that has helped many Americans with healthcare. It was enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010.
