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Feb 7, 1215
Magna Carta.
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215. The 1215 charter required King John of England to proclaim certain liberties, that no freeman could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is still in place today. -
Jun 5, 1215
Parliament was created
The Parliament was the legislative body in England. Their job was to collect the common peoples' taxes. In 1689 Parliamnet kicked out King James and asked his daughter Mary and her husband, William, to take over. -
Jamestown.
In 1607, before Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, a group of 104 men & boys began a colony on the banks of Virginia's James River. Jamestown was america's first permanent colony. -
House of Burgesses.
The House of Burgesses was the first elected representatives of English colonists. The House was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English to settle here. The first meeting was held in Jamestown, Virginia, on July 30, 1619. Its first order of business was to set a minimum price for the sale of tobacco. -
Mayflower Compact.
The Mayflower Compact was the first document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists, who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. Almost half of the colonists 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. It was signed on November 11, 1620 -
Mercantilism was Enacted
Mercantilism is a economic document in which government control of foreign trade of the state. Mercantilism took over Western European economic policy and discourse from the 16th to late-18th centuries. Mercantilism was a cause of frequent European wars in that time and caused colonial expansion. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an uprising in 1676 in the Virginia Colony in North America, led by a planter, Nathaniel Bacon. About a thousand Virginians rose because they resented Virginia Governor William Berkeley's friendly policies towards the Native Americans. When Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of Indian attacks on frontier settlements, they took matters into their own hands. They attacked Indians, chasing Berkeley from Jamestown, Virginia. The 1st American rebellion. -
Glorious Revolution.
The Glorious Revolution, also known as the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrowing of King James II of England by the English Parliament with the Dutch stadtholder William III. William's invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led him to the English throne as William III of England with his wife Mary II of England. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act is the name of 18th-century Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain. These Quartering Acts ordered the local governments of the American colonies to provide housing for British soldiers. They were amendments to the Mutiny Act, which had to be renewed annually by Parliament. Originally intended as a response to problems that occurred during Britain's victory in the Seven Years War they later became a source of tension between inhabitants of the 13 colonies and the government. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act 1765 was a direct tax by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies be printed on stamped paper made in London. These printed papers were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and other types of paper used with in the colonies. Like taxes before, the stamp tax had to be paid in British money, not in colony money.The purpose of the tax was to help pay for troops in North America. -
Declaratory Act.
The Declaratory Act 1766, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which helped the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal. The declaration stated that Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authority to pass laws that were binding on the American colonies. -
Townshend Act
In the beginning of 1767, Parliament proposed the Townshend Act. This act added taxes on imports of lead, paint, paper, glass, and tea from Great Britain to the colonies. -
Common Law.
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts, rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action. A common law system, is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law, on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions.The common law became the basic law of most states due to the Commentaries on the Laws of England, completed by Sir William Blackstone in 1769. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five civilian men. British troops had been stationed in Boston, Massachusetts, since 1768 in order to protect crown-appointed colonial officials trying to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. With the ongoing tense relations between the population and the soldiers, a mob formed around a British sentry, who was subjected to verbal abuse and harassment. -
Tea Act.
The Tea Act was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain. Its objective was to reduce the big amount of tea held by the British East India Company in its London warehouses. A related objective was to cut the price of tea smuggled into the North American colonies. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston against the British government and the East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. -
Intolerable Acts/ Coercive Acts
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to the colonies in North America. The acts triggered resistance in the colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the American Revolution. -
First Continental Congress.
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies that met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was held because the colonists were very upset about the Intolerable Acts and the taxes. -
Battle of Lexington & Concord.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first fights of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge, near Boston. The battles marked the conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its 13 colonies in North America. -
"Shot heard around the world"
The "Shot heard 'round the world" is a phrase that has come to represent several historical incidents. The line is originally referred to the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. This 1775 first shot was fired during an armed stand-off between British forces and local military in Lexington, escalating into the fight at the Old North Bridge in the battles of Lexington and Concord. -
Second Continental Congress.
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Second Congress made it through the colonial war effort, and moved towards independence, by making the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. -
Mecklenburg Resolves
The Mecklenburg Resolves was a list of statements introduced in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina to the Mecklenburg Committee of Safety on or after March 20, 1775 and adopted by the committee on May 31, 1775. The document may have said that all laws from the British King or Parliament are no longer in affect, and that the only legitimate government over the colonies was the Continental Congress. -
Common Sense
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the American Revolution. Common Sense, signed "Written by an Englishman", became a success. In relation to the population of the colonies at that time, it had the largest sale of any book in American history. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of independence was still a dream. -
NC gets its First Governor
Richard Caswell was the first and fifth governor of the U.S. State of North Carolina, serving from 1776 to 1780 and from 1784 to 1787. A lawyer, Caswell represented North Carolina in the Continental Congress of 1774 and 1775. As a Patriot officer in the American Revolutionary War, Caswell led North Carolina military men in the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. In 1780 he was also commissioned as a major general of North Carolina troops. -
The Halifax Resolves
The Halifax Resolves is the name later given to a resolution adopted by North Carolina on April 12, 1776, during the American Revolution. The resolution helped make the way for the United States Declaration of Independence. The Halifax Resolves were part of a movement in the colonies in which separation from Great Britain sought to mobilize support for a declaration of independence. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which said that the 13 colonies were at war with Great Britain, and was no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put a resolution earlier in the year which made a formal declaration. A committee was assembled to draft the formal declaration, to be ready when congress voted on independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote the final draft. -
Massachusetts Constitution
The Constitution of Massachusetts is the fundamental governing document of Massachusetts, one of the 50 state governments that make up the United States of America. It was drafted by John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin during the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention between September 1 and October 30, 1779. The Constitution was ratified on June 15, 1780, became effective on October 25, 1780, and remains the oldest written constitution in continuous effect in the world. -
Articles of Confederation.
Created: November 15, 1777
Authors: Continental Congress
The Article of Confederation was an agreement among the 13 states that legally established the United States of America as a confederation and served as its first constitution. -
The Treaty of Paris (1783)
The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the United States of America. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements. It is most famous for being exceedingly generous to the United States in terms of enlarged boundaries. -
Shays Rebllion.
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising that took place in Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787. -
Northwest Ordinance
The Northwest Ordinance was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States, passed July 13, 1787. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River.
