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1492
Christopher Columbus expedition, 1492
Italian sailor, granted by the Spanish monarch, who originally wanted to travel around the world looking for a new trade route to Asia, only to discover an entirely new continent. -
Jamestown, 1607
First permanent settlement by the British on American soil. -
House of Burgesses, 1619
First elected assembly of representation in the British colonies in America, established in Jamestown, Virginia. -
Great Awakening begins, 1740
First time America has felt a religious surge; started two new denominations, increased church buildings and competitiveness, and undermined old clergy. -
Proclamation of 1763
British decree that Americans could not move west of the Appalichian mountains (mainly to smooth out some wrinkles with the Native Americans) -
Stamp Act, 1765
Colonists could only purchase stamped papers of the British, Was issued in order to raise revenues to support the new British military force. Mandated the use of stamped paper certifying the payment of taxes. Colonist were angrily aroused and felt that this act was jeopardizing the basic right of the colonists as Englishmen. -
Boston Tea Party, 1773
Sons of Liberty, dressed up as Native Americans and dumped all of the British tea into the Boston Harbor from the British East Indian Company ships as an act of rebellion against the Tea Act. -
George Washington inaugurated, 1789
First inaugural address of the first president of the U.S, ultimately paved the way for future presidents. -
First Bank of the United States (BUS), 1791
Hamilton's idea to stabilize the nation's economy by assuming state debts. -
invention of the cotton gin, 1793
Invented by Eli Whitney, the invention of the cotton gin lead to the boom of cotton production in the South and more demand for slaves. -
Alien and Sedition Acts, 1798
Act against European immigrants that made them wait longer to become a citizen of the U.S and prohibited immigrants to criticize against the government. -
Battle of Tippecanoe, 1811
Battle against Tecumseh and the Prophet against William Henry Harrison. Tecumseh and the Prophet only wanted to create a Confederation for Native Americans. -
Hartford Convention, 1814
Assembly of New England merchants who opposed the embargos imposed during the War of 1812. Escalated to secession. -
The American System, 1815
A proposal by Henry Clay to make the U.S a self-sufficient economy that included a Second BUS, protective tariffs, and internal improvements. -
Battle of New Orleans, 1815
British attempt to take over one of the most important ports of the U.S. This made Andrew Jackson a national hero, after defeating the British. -
Adams-Onis Treaty, 1819
Agreement in which Spain gave up the rest of Florida to the U.S, in exchange for the U.S to hand over claims in Texas. -
Missouri Compromise, 1820
Compromise that made Missouri a free state, in exchange of Maine becoming a slave state, thus balancing out the number of free states and the number of slave states in the U.S. -
Indian Removal Act, 1830
Act initiated by Andy Jackson who wanted the Native Americans west of the Mississippi River out. -
Maysville Road veto, 1830
Allowed the Federal government to purchase stock in Maysville, Washington, and Lexington Turnpike. -
Nat Turner leads a slave revolt, 1831
Slave rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia, in which Turner and a band of slaves went home to home, killing white families. -
Jackson withdraws BUS funds, 1833
Jackson withdrew BUS funds and placed them into pet banks, as a way to destroy the BUS. -
Trail of Tears, 1838
Migration of exiled Native Americans sent to Oklahoma, due to Jackson's belief that Native American land can be used for economic purpose and the Indian Removal Act. -
Independent Treasury System, 1840
System of retaining government funds in the Treasury independent of National baking and financial systems. -
Mexican-American War, 1846-48
War that broke out over Texan border. -
Seneca Falls Convention, 1848 Discussion of amending the Bill of Rights by adding women's rights. (mainly political rights)
Discussion of amending the Bill of Rights by adding women's rights. (mainly political rights) -
California gold rush, 1849
A migration of miners going to California in search of gold. -
Compromise of 1850
Allowed California to be a free state, as long as the Northern states enforce strict Fugitive Slave Law. -
Gadsden Purchase, 1853
$10 million purchase of the small big of Mexican territory in order for the U.S to finish the construction of the Continental Railroad. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Provisions for creating territorial governments in Kansas and Nebraska and repealed the Missouri Compromise by requiring that slavery should be decided by the popular sovereignty after the 36'30 line. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1857
Court case that declared that blacks were not citizens of the U.S, but property, and had no right to sue the federal court. -
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, 1858
A raid of federal arsenal on Harper's Ferry needed to start a slave revolt in the South. -
First Battle of Bull Run, 1861
Confederate victory over Union attempt to seize the best railroad junction in the Confederacy. The Confederate victory made the Union realize that the Confederacy weren't as weak as they come off of. -
Confederacy fires on Fort Sumter, 1861
First battle of the Civil War. Landmark that represented popular sovereignty to both the Union and the Confederacy. Since neither side were willing to surrender the fort, the Confederate soldiers opened fire at it and destroyed it. -
Emancipation Proclamatoin, 1862
Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln in which slaves in the Confederate states (except the states listen by Lincoln) were free, as long as they fought for the Union. -
Gettysburg Address, 1863
A speech by Abe Lincoln, in which Lincoln connected human equality to the sacrifices made in the Civil War, as a new birth of freedom and a way to preserve the Union and its ideal of self government. -
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Battle of Vicksburg, 1863
Confederate loss to Union general, Ulysses S. Grant. Ulysses wanted to siege Vicksburg; as a result, the Union had access to the Mississippi River. -
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Battle of Gettysburg
Confederacy and Union meet at Gettysburg; Confederacy went to Gettysburg in search of supplies, and the Union went to Gettysburg to control the roads. -
Andrew Johnson impeachment trial, 1868
Johnson's violation of the Tenure of Office Act when he tested the waters and tried replacing people into office, such as the Secretary of War. First president to be impeached. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
supreme court ruled that segregation public places facilities were legal as long as the facilities were equal -
Compromise of 1877
Hayes MIGHT be able to take office in exchange for the Republicans to withdraw all federal troops from the south. The results: FL, LA, and SC became democratic again, thus ending the Reconstruction era. -
NAWSA
win suffrage for women -
Panic of 1893
Serious economic depression beginning in 1893. Began due to rail road companies over-extending themselves, causing bank failures. Was the worst economic collapse in the history of the country until that point, and, some say, as bad as the Great Depression of the 1930s. -
National Reclamation Act
Backed by Roosevelt in 1902, it provided federal funds for the construction of damns, reservoirs, and canals in the West—projects that would open new lands for cultivation and provide cheap electric power later on. -
NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909 to abolish segregation and discrimination, to oppose racism and to gain civil rights for African Americans, got Supreme Court to declare grandfather clause unconstitutional -
Federal Reserve Act
a 1913 law that set up a system of federal banks and gave government the power to control the money supply -
Brown v. Board of Education
On May 17, 1954 the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Court’s unanimous decision overturned provisions of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which had allowed for “separate but equal” public facilities, including public schools in the United States. -
The first sit-ins that were hosted
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States -
Bay of Pigs
(April 1961) group of Cuban exiles organized and supported by the U.S. CIA landed on the southern coast of Cuba in an effort to overthrow Fidel Castro. When the invasion ended in disaster, President Kennedy took full responsibility for the failure. -
The March on Washington
On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. -
Gulf of Tonkin
An arm of the South China Sea, bounded by the coasts of southern China and northern Vietnam. Incident in 1964 led to increased U.S. military involvement in the area. President Lyndon B. Johnson incorrectly claimed that North Vietnamese forces had twice attacked American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. -
Selma Freedom March
In early 1965, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) made Selma, Alabama, the focus of its efforts to get black voters in the South. That March, protesters attempting to march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were met with violent resistance by state and local authorities. -
Malcolm X was assassinated
When Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, many Americans viewed his killing as simply the result of an ongoing feud between him and the Nation of Islam. After publicly leaving the Nation in 1964 Malcolm's camps and the Nation of Islam grew increasingly caustic. For investigators and commentators alike, then, his death was an open and shut case: Muslims did it. -
The NFW lead a Grape Strike
On September 8, 1965, Filipino farm workers organized as the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) decided to strike against grape growers in Delano, California, to protest years of poor pay and working conditions. The Delano Grape Strike grew from a long history of labor organizing and protest by Filipino workers in West Coast. AWOC leaders asked the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), a mostly Latino farm workers union led by Cesar Chavez. -
Martin Luther King Jr. assassination
James Earl Ray was born in Alton, Illinois, on March 10, 1928. Ray began plotting the assassination of the respected civil rights leader named 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. -
Robert F. Kennedy assassination
Senator Robert Kennedy is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary. Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its very irritable division, Kennedy was shot several times by the 22-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan. He died a day later. -
Kent State Massacre
On April 30, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon appeared on national television to announce the invasion of Cambodia by the United States and the need to draft 150,000 more soldiers for an expansion of the Vietnam War effort. This provoked massive protests on campuses throughout the country.During an altercation on May 4, twenty-eight guardsmen opened fire on a crowd, killing four students and wounding nine at Kent State. -
Roe v. Wade
The case involved a Texan model that prohibited abortion except when necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman. The Supreme Court, recognized a privacy interest in abortions. -
Camp David Accords
The Camp David Accords were the peace accords signed by Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to finally end the Israeli-Egyptian disputes. The achievement by Carter is considered his greatest achievement in office. -
Perestroika
Meaning "restructuring," a cornerstone along with Glasnost of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's reform movement in the USSR in the 1980s. These policies resulted in greater market liberalization, access to the West, and ultimately the end of communist rule.