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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
Magna Carta was the first document forced onto an English King by a group of his subjects. The 1215 Charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties. -
Jamestown Settlement
The Jamestown Settlement Colony was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America.Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was founded in the Colony of Virginia -
Mayflower Compact Written
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the Pilgrims, who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower. Almost half of the Pilgrams were part of a separatist group seeking the freedom to practice Christianity according to their own determination and not the will of the English Church. -
Petition of Right
Parliament passed the Petition of Right in response to a number of perceived violations of the law by Charles I in the first years of his reign. -
English Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It was a re-statement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689, inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England. -
Albany Plan of Union
It is proposed that humble application be made for an act of Parliament of Great Britain, by virtue of which one general government may be formed in America, including all the said colonies, within and under which government each colony may retain its present constitution, except in the particulars wherein a change may be directed by the said act, as hereafter follows. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act met great resistance in the colonies. The colonies sent no representatives to Parliament, and therefore had no influence over what taxes were raised, how they were levied, or how they would be spent. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre, also known as the Boston riot, was an incident that led to the deaths of five civilians at the hands of British redcoats on March 5, 1770, the legal aftermath of which helped spark the rebellion in some of the British American colonies, which culminated in the American Revolutionary War. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a key event in the growth of the American Revolution. The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The Congress met briefly to consider options, including an economic boycott of British trade; publishing a list of rights and grievances; and petitioning King George for redress of those grievances. -
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America. -
Second Continental Congress
The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. -
Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, formally the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, was the first constitution of the United States and specified how the Federal government was to operate. The Articles were created by the representatives of the states in the Second Continental Congress out of a perceived need to have "a plan of confederacy for securing the freedom, sovereignty, and independence of the United States." -
Philadelphia Convention
The United States Constitutional Convention (also known as the Philadelphia Convention, the Federal Convention, or the Grand Convention at Philadelphia) took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain
