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Columbus and his crew set sail from Spain in three ships: the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. On October 12, the ships made landfall—not in the East Indies, as Columbus assumed, but on one of the Bahamian islands, likely San Salvador. -
On May 14, 1607, a group of roughly 100 members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River. -
Also known as the Seven Years’ War, the French and Indian war marked another chapter in the long imperial struggle between Britain and France. When France’s expansion into the Ohio River valley brought repeated conflict with the claims of the British colonies, a series of battles led to the official British declaration of war in 1756.
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In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. -
In Lexington, about 77 colonial militia, known as minutemen, were confronted by the British soldiers. After a shot was fired, the British fired on the minutemen, resulting in 8 colonial deaths and 10 wounded The British troops then moved on to Concord, where they found that the majority of the supplies had been removed by the colonists. -
The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation’s people asserting their right to choose their own government. -
the final major battle of the American Revolutionary War, where American and French forces, led by George Washington and French General Rochambeau, besieged and forced the surrender of British General Charles Cornwallis's army on October 19, 1781, in Yorktown, Virginia.
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the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. By the mid-19th century, cotton had become America’s leading export. -
The Alien and Sedition Acts were a series of four laws the Sedition Act, Naturalization Act, Alien Enemies Act and the Alien Friends Act were passed by the U.S. Congress in 1798 during the administration of President John Adams.
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The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 brought into the United States about 828,000 square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic.
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The War of 1812 was a conflict between the United States and the United Kingdom
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The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was a law that tried to address growing sectional tensions over the issue of slavery. By passing the law, which President James Monroe signed, the U.S. Congress admitted Missouri to the Union as a state that allowed slavery, and Maine as a free state. -
The United States presidential election of 1828 was the 11th quadrennial presidential election -
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that began a major depression which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages dropped, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment rose, and pessimism abounded. -
The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of Native American nations from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to land west of the Mississippi River, known as Indian Territory. Thousands of Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation during the journey, resulting in a significant loss of life. -
Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. -
The Mexican-American War was a conflict between the United States and Mexico that lasted from April 1846 to February 1848. It was primarily triggered by the U.S. annexation of Texas in 1845 and a dispute over the southern border of Texas, with the U.S. claiming it was the Rio Grande and Mexico asserting it was the Nueces River. April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848
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The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that temporarily defused tensions between slave and free states during the years leading up to the American Civil War. -
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U.S. Major Robert Anderson occupied the fort in December 1860 following South Carolina’s secession from the Union, initiating a standoff with the state’s militia forces. When President Abraham Lincoln announced plans to resupply the fort, Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard bombarded Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, kicking off the Battle of Fort Sumter. After a 34-hour exchange of artillery fire, Anderson and 86 soldiers surrendered the fort on April 13.
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On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that as of January 1, 1863, Lincoln didn’t actually free all of the approximately 4 million men, women and children held in slavery in the United States when he signed the formal Emancipation Proclamation the following January. The document applied only to enslaved people in the Confederacy, and not to those in the border states that remained loyal to the Union. -
the engagement of Confederate General in Chief Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia before they surrendered to the Union Army under the Commanding General of the United States Army, Ulysses S. Grant. -
On the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. -
On February 24, 1868 the House of Representatives voted 126 to 47 in favor of a resolution to impeach the President for high crimes and misdemeanors. One week later, the House adopted eleven articles of impeachment against the President.
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The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Passed by the U.S. Senate on April 8, 1864. The 14th Amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law, responding to issues related to the treatment of formerly enslaved individuals. The 15th Amendment prohibits federal and state governments from denying voting rights based on race, color, or previous servitude.
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Thomas Edison invented the practical light bulb in 1879, extending daily life into the night. Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 telephone made instant voice communication possible. In 1903, the Wright brothers achieved the first powered flight, launching modern air travel. These inventions revolutionized how people live, communicate, and travel worldwide.
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The Standard Oil Trust, formed in 1882 by John D. Rockefeller and his associates, consolidated forty separate oil companies into a single powerful entity. Investors pooled their stock into a central organization managed by nine trustees, receiving trust certificates in return. This structure enabled Standard Oil to bypass state laws that limited cross-state corporate ownership. By the mid-1880s, the company controlled over 90% of the U.S. oil refining market and had expanded internationally.
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The Pullman Strike (1894) and the Homestead Strike (1892) were two major labor conflicts in late 19th-century America. Both are important examples of the struggle between workers and employers during the rise of industrial capitalism
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The Spanish-American War was a conflict fought between the United States and Spain in 1898. The war began after the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba, and was fueled by American support for Cuban independence from Spanish rule
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Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States after the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901. As president, Roosevelt was known for his energetic leadership and progressive reforms, earning him the nickname "Trust Buster." His presidency marked a new era in American politics, focusing on conservation, strengthening the Navy, and expanding the powers of the executive branch.