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First successful English colony was founded
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Puritans found the second permanent British settlement
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Roger Williams left Massachusetts and found the colony of Rhode Island
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End of the Seven Years' War leaving England in control of Canada and all of North America east of the Mississippi
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A group of patriots disguised as Indians, boarded British merchant ships and dumped 342 crates of tea into Boston harbor
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Colonial leaders convened the First Continental Congress to discuss the colonies' opposition to British rule
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War broke out when British soldiers confronted colonial rebels in Lexington, Massachusetts
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Continental Congress adopted a Declaration of Independence
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The turning point in the Revolutionary War when American soldiers defeated the British Army at Saratoga, New York
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The last major battle of the American Revolution in Yorktown, Virginia
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When the war officially ended with the Treaty of Paris by which England recognized American independence
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Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States
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Thomas Jefferson purchased the vast Louisiana Territory from France, almost doubling the size of the United States
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Southern and northern politicians debated the question of whether slavery would be legal in the western territories
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Andrew Jackson became the first "outsider" elected president
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The outcome of the Mexican War brought more territory into American hands -- and with it the issue of whether to extend slavery
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A compromise admitting California as a free state, leaving the citizens of Utah and New Mexico being allowed to choose whether they wanted slavery within their borders or not.
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Assisination of Abraham Lincoln