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Jan 1, 1295
Marco Polo Returns to Europe
After nearly 20 years of exploring China, Italian adventurer, Marco Polo, returns home. His tales of rose-tinted pearls and golden padogas whetted the European appetite for expansion. -
Jan 1, 1440
Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which allowed for more rapid dissemination of information. -
Oct 12, 1492
Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue
After six weeks of sailing through the vast Atlantic Ocean, Columbus and his crew sighted an island in the Bahamas. They were the first Europeans to lay eyes on the New World. -
Roanoke
After Sir Humphrey Gilbert failed the first attempt at English colonization on Newfoundland, his brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, organized an expedition that landed on warmer North Carlinian Roanoke Island. After several falso starts, the hapless colony myseriously vanished, swallowed up by the wilderness. -
Jamestown
Joint-stock Virginia Company of London received a charter from King James I of England for a settlement in the New World. The main attraction was the promise of gold, combined with a strong desire to find a passage through America to the Indies. After setting sail in late 1606, the Virginia Company's three ships landed near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, The 100 colonists chose a location on the wooded and malarial banks of the James River. -
Pilgrims
After fleeing "Dutchification" in Holland, a group of Separatists negotiated with the Virginia Company to sercure rights to settle under its jurisdiction. The Pilgrims arrived off the stony coast of New England and finally selected Plymouth Rock as their final destination because it was outside the domain of the Virginia Company. -
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Mass English Importation of Slaves
The sugar lords had extended their dominion over the West Indies, and to work their sprawling plantations, they imported more than 250,000 African slaves. By the end of the forced migration, black slaves outnumbered white settlers in the English West Indies by nearly four to one. -
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Chinese Immigration
The 1848 discovery of golf in California attracted over 300,000 fortune-hungry Chinese who asiled into San Francisco, which Chinese immigrants named the "golden mountain." Most travelers, desperately poor, obtained their passage through Chinese middle-men, who advanced them ship fare in return for the emigrants' promise to work off their debts after they landed. -
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The New Immigration
More than 5 million European immigrants cascaded into the country. These so-called New Immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe published her heartrendin novel, which became wildly popular both at home and abroad. It was translated into many languages. In fact, it so incited emancipation among the working class of England that the English aristocrats were afraid to intervene on behalf of the slave-holding South during the Civil War. -
The Purchase of Alaska
Andrew Johnson's administration achieved its most enduring success in the field of foreign relations. Secretary of State William Sweard, an ardent expansionist, signed a treaty with Russia that transferred Alaska to the United States for the bargain price of $7.2 million. -
First Pan-American Conference
James G. Blained pushed his "Big Sister" policy, which aimed to rally teh Latin American nations bethind Uncle Sam's leadership and to open Latin American markets to Yankee traders. Blaine's efforts bore modest fruit when he presided over the first Pan-American Conference in D.C. It blazed the way for a long and increasingly important series fo inter-American assemblages. -
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783
Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan's book argued that control of the sea was key to world dominace. Read by the English, Germans, Japanese, and Americans, Mahan helped stimulate the naval race among the great powers that gained momentum around the turn of the century. Red-blooded Americans joined in the demands for a mightier navy and American-built isthmian canal between the Atlantic and Pacific. -
Valparaiso
American demands on Chile after teh deaths fo two American sailors in teh port of Valparaiso made hostilities seem inevitable. The threat of attack by Chile's modern navy spread alarm on the Pacific Coast, until American power finalyl forced the Chileans to pay an indemnity. The willingness fo Americans to risk war over distant and minor disputes such as this demonstrated the aggressive new national mood. -
Hawaii
Americans gradually came to regard the Hawaiian Islands as a virtual extention of their own coastline. THe State Department warned other powers to keep their grasping hands off. America's grip tightened with a treay with the native government guaranteeing priceless naval-base rights at spacious Pearl Harbor. -
Annexation of Hawaii
A joint resolution of annexation was rusehd through Congress and approved by McKinley. Th residents of Hawaii were granted U.S. citizenship wiht annexation and received full territorial status in 1900. These events were the culmination of nearly a century of Americanization by sailors, whalers, traders, and missionaries. -
Pact of Paris
Spanish and American negotiators met in Paris to begin heated discussions. The knottiest problem was over the Philippines, which covered an area larger than the British Isles but also contained an alien population of 7 million. McKinley could not honorably give back the islands. Americans finally agreed to pay Spain $20 million for teh Philippine Islands. -
Hinging the Oopen Door in China
The American public demanded that Washington do something about teh vivisection of China. Secretary os State dispatched to all the great powers a communication known as the the Open Door note. He urged them to announce that in their leaseholds or spheres of influence they would respect certain Chinese rights and the ideal of fair competition. -
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
Confonted with an unfriendly Europe and bogged down in the South African Boer War, Great Britain not only gave the United States a free hand to build a canal across the Central American isthmus but conceded rights to fortify it as well. -
Humans Develop Wings
Orville Wright took aloft a feebly engined plane that stayed airborne for 12 seconds and 120 feet. The first transcontinental airmail route was established from New York to San Francisco in 1920, and by the 1930s and 1940s, travel by air on regularly scheduled airlines was significantly safer than on many overcrowded highways. -
Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
Teddy devised a policy of "preventive intervention." He declared taht in the event of future financial malfeasance by the Latin American nations, teh United States would intervene, take over the customshouses, pay off the debts, and keep the troublesome powers on the other side of the Atlantic. -
Roosevelt on the World Stage
Teddy R was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for achieving the Japanese-Russian agreement and arranging the international conference at Algeciras, Spain. Teddy had charged into international affairs far beyond Latin America and was eager to perform as a global stateman. -
League of Nations
The League of Nations was founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI. Presdient Woodrw Wilson was intent upon establishing a collective security organization that would prevent another world war from happening ever again. -
International Chamber of Commerce
The ICC was founded in 1919 to serve world business by promoting trade and investment, open markets for goods and services, and the free flow of capital. -
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The Radio Revolution
By the late 1920s, technological improvements made long-distance broadcasting possible, and national commercial networks drowned out much local programming. Radio knitted the nation together and made both education and cultural contrinutions. It allowed Americans to keep in tune with global events. -
North American Free Trade Agreement
President Clinton created a free-trade zone encompassing Mexico, Canada, and the United States. -
The London Conference
Delegates to the London Economic Conference hoped to organize a coordinated international atack on teh global depression. They were particularly eager to stabilize the values of which teh various nations' currencies and teh rates at which they could be exchanged. -
The Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was formally accepted by Roosevelt and Churchill and endorsed by teh Soviet Union. It outlined the aspirations of the decomracies for a better world at war's end. -
Bretton Woods
The Western Allies established the International Monetary Fund to encourage world trade by regulating currency exchange rates. They also founded the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) to promote economic growth in war-ravaged and underdeveloped areas. The United States took the lead in creating these important international bodies and supplied most of their funding. -
United Nations Conference
Representatives from fifty nations fashioned teh United Nations charter. It featured the Security Council, dominated by the Big Five powers, each of whom had the right to veto, adn teh Assembly, which could be controlled by smaller countries. The United Nations brought benefits to peoples the world over through United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization; Food and Agricultural Organization, and World Health Organization. -
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
The Truman administration decided to join the European pact. The twelve orginal signatories pledged to regard an attack on one as an attack on all. It marked a giganitic boost for European unification. -
International Energy Agency
The United States took the lead in forming the IEA as a counterweight to OPEC, and various sectors of the economy began their adjustment to the dawning age of energy dependency. -
World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee debuted the web as a publicly accesible service available on the Internet. "The World-Wide Web was developed to be a pool of human knowledge, and human culture, which would allow collaborators in remote sites to share their ideas and all aspects of a common project." -
World Trade Organization
President Clinton took another step toward a global free-trade system when he vigorously promoted the creation of the WTO, the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
