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Magna Carta
Is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. -
Articles of confederation
The original constitution of the US, ratified in 1781, which was replaced by the US Constitution in 1789. -
Louisiana purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (1803) was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. -
Missouri compromise
The Missouri Compromise was United States federal legislation that admitted Missouri as a slave state, in exchange for legislation which prohibited slavery north of the 36°30′ parallel except for Missouri. -
US-Mexican war
The Mexican-American War was a conflict between the United States and Mexico, fought from April 1846 to February 1848. ... It stemmed from the annexation of the Republic of Texas by the U.S. in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (the Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (the U.S. claim). -
Kansas-Nabraska act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty”–allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state's borders. -
The civil War
a civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865, fought between northern states loyal to the Union and southern states that had seceded to form the Confederate States of America. -
The transcontinental railroad
In 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act chartered the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies, tasking them with building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. -
Homestead act
The Homestead Act, enacted during the Civil War in 1862, provided that any adult citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Claimants were required to “improve” the plot by building a dwelling and cultivating the land. -
Emancipation proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
