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Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, marking the start of European exploration and colonization of the Americas, though he believed he had found a new route to Asia. Columbus's voyages were sponsored by Spain and resulted in the establishment of settlements in the Caribbean and a vast exchange of goods between Europe and the Americas, but also led to the displacement and suffering of Indigenous peoples through violence and disease.
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Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America, established in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London. Founded on the banks of the James River
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The French and Indian War (1754-1763) was the North American conflict within the larger global Seven Years' War, fought between Great Britain and France for control of territory in North America.
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The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by American colonists on December 16, 1773, in which they dumped 342 chests of tea from British East India Company ships into Boston Harbor
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The Battle of Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 1775, marked the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. British forces marched to seize colonial weapons, but were met by organized Massachusetts militias known as Minutemen. After confrontations in Lexington and Concord, the British suffered heavy casualties during their retreat to Boston, a day-long running battle that galvanized colonial resistance and led to a full-scale war for independence.
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The Declaration of Independence is the founding document of the United States, adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, that announced the Thirteen Colonies' separation from Great Britain.
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The Battle of Yorktown was the decisive Siege in the American Revolutionary War, where General George Washington's combined American and French forces trapped British General Charles Cornwallis's army in Yorktown, Virginia, in the fall of 1781.
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The Constitutional Convention was a gathering in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, where delegates from twelve states (all but Rhode Island) met to address the weaknesses of the nation's first government under the Articles of Confederation
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The cotton gin, invented by Eli Whitney in 1793, revolutionized cotton production by efficiently separating cotton seeds from the fibers. This invention dramatically increased the speed and scale of cotton processing, making cotton farming more profitable and contributing to the expansion of slavery in the American South
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The Alien and Sedition Acts were four controversial laws passed by the Federalist-controlled U.S. Congress in 1798, signed by President John Adams, to restrict immigration and suppress criticism of the government during a period of tension with France.
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The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 was a land deal between the United States and France where the U.S. acquired about 828,000 square miles of territory for $15 million, nearly doubling the size of the nation and setting it on a path of westward expansion.
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The War of 1812 (1812-1815) was a conflict between the United States and Great Britain, triggered by issues like the impressment of American sailors, interference with U.S. trade, and British support for Native Americans against American expansion
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The Missouri Compromise was a 1820 law that maintained the balance between slave and free states by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state simultaneously
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Andrew Jackson won the presidency in the 1828 election, after losing the controversial 1824 election to John Quincy Adams. The 1824 election was decided in the House of Representatives, as Jackson initially won a plurality of both the popular and electoral votes but not a majority, leading to charges of a "corrupt bargain" with Adams, who secured the presidency
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The electric telegraph was a revolutionary invention that allowed for the transmission of electrical signals over a wire to send messages quickly over long distances, and it is primarily associated with Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail in the 1830s and 1840s.
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The Trail of Tears refers to the brutal and forced removal of the Cherokee people from their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) during the 1830s, mandated by the Indian Removal Act. This tragic journey resulted in thousands of deaths from disease, starvation, and exposure, with the Cherokee people suffering immense losses.
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The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis and economic depression that lasted for several years, triggered by a decrease in foreign investment, a cotton price collapse, rampant land speculation, and Jacksonian era economic policies like the Specie Circular, which demanded hard currency for land purchases.
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The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) was fought between the United States and Mexico over the disputed territory of Texas and the U.S. desire for expansion. After American forces clashed with Mexican troops in disputed border territory, President Polk declared war.
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The Compromise of 1850 was a series of laws designed to defuse sectional tensions over slavery by admitting California as a free state, creating new territories where residents would decide on slavery (popular sovereignty), ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and enacting a new, stricter Fugitive Slave Act that compelled free states to return escaped enslaved people
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Confederate forces fired the first shots of the American Civil War on Fort Sumter at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861. The attack, ordered by General P.G.T. Beauregard, was a bombardment of the Union-held fort in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, lasting 34 hours. Facing dwindling supplies and no reinforcement, Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort on April 14, a surrender that officially began the four-year conflict.
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The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declaring that all enslaved people in the rebellious Confederate states were to be freed.
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Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth, a prominent actor. Booth shot President Lincoln in the back of the head during a performance of Our American Cousin and then leaped to the stage, shouting "Sic Semper Tyrannis" before escaping. Lincoln was moved to a house across the street, where he died the following morning, April 15, 1865.
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The Surrender at Appomattox Court House occurred on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, signaling the symbolic end of the American Civil War.
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Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives in February 1868, largely for violating the Tenure of Office Act by attempting to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton from his position without Senate approval. The House adopted eleven articles of impeachment, but Johnson was acquitted by the Senate in May 1868, as the necessary two-thirds majority was not reached for conviction.
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The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, also known as the Reconstruction Amendments, were adopted after the Civil War to guarantee freedom, citizenship, and voting rights for formerly enslaved people. The 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment (1868) granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and ensured equal protection under the law, and the 15th Amendment (1870) prohibited denying voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude
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The Standard Oil Trust was a corporate structure created by John D. Rockefeller in 1882 to control the American oil industry through a centralized management of various companies.
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The Pullman Strike was a widespread railroad strike and boycott in 1894, triggered by wage cuts and high rents in the company town of Pullman, Illinois. It became a significant event in American labor history due to its scale, involving a national shutdown of rail traffic, and its impact on labor law and public perception of worker rights.
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The Spanish-American War was a 1898 conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spain's colonial rule and established the U.S. as a global power. Fueled by calls for Cuban independence, sympathy for the rebels, and the explosion of the USS Maine, the U.S. declared war.
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Theodore Roosevelt became president on September 14, 1901, after the assassination of President William McKinley. Roosevelt, who was McKinley's Vice President, took the oath of office the same day McKinley died to serve as the 26th President of the United States.
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The electric light bulb was a significant 1879 invention by Thomas Edison, the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876, and the airplane was invented by the Wright brothers, who achieved the first sustained flight in 1903. These inventions revolutionized communication, transportation, and daily life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.