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When the London Company sent out its first expedition to begin colonizing Virginia on December 20, 1606, it was by no means the first European attempt to exploit North America.
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Would-be colonists arrived in Chesapeake Bay from England in April 1607. On board were 105 men, including 40 soldiers, 35 "gentlemen," and various artisans and laborers. -
Those living in the area where Jamestown was settled must have had mixed feelings about the arrival of the English in 1607. One of their first reactions was hostility based on their previous experience with Spanish explorers along their coastline. -
Almost from the start, investors in the Virginia Company in England were unhappy with the accomplishments of their Jamestown colonists. They therefore sought a new charter, which the king granted in May 1609. -
In the 1730s, England founded the last of its colonies in North America. The project was the brain child of James Oglethorpe, a former army officer.
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Until the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, few colonists in British North America objected to their place in the British Empire.
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When the French and Indian War finally ended in 1763, no British subject on either side of the Atlantic could have foreseen the coming conflicts between the parent country and its North American colonies.
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Even after the repeal of the Stamp Act, many colonists still had grievances with British colonial policies.
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After the Boston Massacre and the repeal of most of the Townshend Duties (the duty on tea remained in force), a period of relative quiet descended on the British North American colonies. Even so, the crises of the past decade had created incompatible mindsets on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
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For some months, people in the colonies had been gathering arms and powder and had been training to fight the British, if necessary, at a moment's notice. -
In the first eighteen months of armed conflict with the British (the conflict would not become a "war for independence" until July 4, 1776), Washington had begun to create an army and forced the British army in Boston to evacuate that city in March 1776.
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The Continental Congress appointed a committee to create a plan for a central government. The committee quickly wrote the Articles of Confederation, which created a loose alliance of the states. -
In 1777, the British were still in excellent position to quell the rebellion. Had it not been for a variety of mistakes, they probably could have won the war.
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The Continental victory at Saratoga in 1777 and the Treaty with the French in 1778 transformed the war, especially for the British.
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The year 1781 was momentous for the American Revolution.
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At the successful conclusion of the Revolutionary War with Great Britain in 1783, an American could look back and reflect on the truly revolutionary events that had occurred in the preceding three decades.
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55 men from twelve states met in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. -
African Americans had been enslaved in what became the United States since early in the 17th century. -
During this period, the small republic established by George Washington's generation became the largest democracy in the world.
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The reform efforts of the 1830s and 1840s are evidence of the belief held by many citizens that just as society is the creation of the people, so the improvement of society rests with the people.
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Americans living east of the Mississippi River began to hear about the Oregon country from missionaries. Beginning in 1843, wagon trains set out for Oregon each summer from settlements along the Missouri River.
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Most of the fighting during the American Civil War took place on Southern soil. -
The Civil War had fewer devastating effects on the North than the South simply because most of the combat of the Civil War occurred on Southern soil. -
In 1861, the United States faced its greatest crisis to that time.
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In 1862, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation opened the door for African Americans to enlist in the Union Army. Although many had wanted to join the war effort earlier, they were prohibited from enlisting by a federal law dating back to 1792.