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East Jersey and West Jersey become crown colonies
The Dutch Republic reasserted control for a brief period in 1673–1674. After that it consisted of two political divisions, East Jersey and West Jersey, until they were united as a royal colony in 1702. -
Mobile, Alabama is founded
Mobile was founded in 1702 by the French as the first capital of Louisiana. Mobile became a part of the United States in 1813, with the annexation by President James Madison of West Florida from Spain. -
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Queen Anne's War
Queen Anne’s War was second in a series of wars fought between Great Britain and France in North America for control of the continent. -
William III dies
Succeeded by Queen Anne -
Kaskaskia, Illinois established as a small mission station for the French
As a major French colonial town of the Illinois Country, in the 18th century its peak population was about 7,000, when it was a regional center. -
The Province of Carolina allows the arming of slaves during time of war.
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Boston News-Letter
The first regular newspaper publishes its initial edition in Boston, the News-Letter and was begun by John Campbell. -
The House of Burgesses passes the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705
The Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 were a series of laws enacted by the Colony of Virginia's House of Burgesses regulating activities related to interactions between slaves and citizens of the crown colony of Virginia. The enactment of the Slave Codes is considered to be the consolidation of slavery in Virginia, and served as the foundation of Virginia's slave legislation. -
Albuquerque is founded
Founded in 1706 by Don Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, governor and captain general of New Mexico, it was named for the duke of Alburquerque, then viceroy of New Spain -
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Tuscarora War
The Tuscarora War was fought in North Carolina between the Tuscarora people and their allies on one side and European American settlers, the Yamassee, and other allies on the other. This was considered the bloodiest colonial war in North Carolina. -
The Treaty of Utrecht is signed
The Treaty of Utrecht that established the Peace of Utrecht comprised a series of individual peace treaties signed in the Dutch city of Utrecht in March and April 1713. Concluded between various European states, it helped end the War of the Spanish Succession. -
Natchitoches established by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis
Made it the oldest permanent European settlement in the modern state of Louisiana -
Queen Anne dies
Succeeded by George I -
Period: to
Yamassee War
The Yamassee War was a conflict fought in South Carolina between British settlers from the Province of Carolina and the Yamasee and a number of other allied Native American peoples. The Yamassee War was one of the most disruptive and transformational conflicts of colonial America. -
Mission San Antonio de Valero
Built as the first Spanish mission along the San Antonio River. San Antonio de Valero, one of five Spanish missions established by Franciscans in what is now San Antonio, is most commonly known as the site of the battle of the Alamo (1836). -
New Orleans founded by the French
Situated on a bend of the Mississippi River 100 miles from its mouth, New Orleans has been the chief city of Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s busiest northern port since the early 1700s. -
Period: to
Father Rale's War
A series of battles between New England and the Wabanaki Confederacy who were allied with New France. The root cause of the conflict on the Maine frontier concerned the border between Acadia and New England, which New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine. -
The French establish Fort Orleans
Fort Orleans was a French fort in colonial North America, the first fort built by any European forces on the Missouri River. It was built near the mouth of the Grand River near present-day Brunswick. -
British built Fort Oswego
The fort was established in 1727 on the orders of New York governor William Burnet, adjacent to a 1722 blockhouse that had originally been a way station for French traders. -
George I dies
Succeeded by George II -
City of Baltimore founded
Baltimore was established in 1729 and named for the Irish barony of Baltimore. It was created as a port for shipping tobacco and grain, and soon local waterways were being harnessed for flour milling. -
Period: to
The First Great Awakening
The First Great Awakening was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its Thirteen Colonies between the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. -
The Province of Georgia is founded
The colony's corporate charter was granted to General James Oglethorpe on April 21, 1732, by George II, for whom the colony was named. -
The Stono Rebellion in the Province of South Carolina is crushed
The Stono Rebellion was a slave rebellion in the colony of South Carolina. It was the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies, with 25 colonists and 35 to 50 Africans killed. -
South Carolina enacts the Negro Act of 1740
This made it illegal for slaves to move abroad, assemble in groups, raise food, earn money, and learn to write English. Additionally, owners were permitted to kill rebellious slaves if necessary. -
The Plantation Act is passed
The Plantation Act was enacted to systematize naturalization procedures in all localities as well as to encourage immigration to the American colonies. -
Battle of Cartagena de Indias
In the Spring of 1741, a massive British force led by Edward Vernon attempted to take Cartagena, Colombia. He hoped to deal a crucial blow to Spanish power and trade in the Caribbean. Outnumbered by as many as 4-1, the city’s defenders succeeded in repelling the English invaders in the largest and most famous battle in Cartagena’s colonial history. -
Period: to
King George's War
The third and inconclusive struggle between France and Great Britain for mastery of the North American continent. The war was characterized by bloody border raids by both sides with the aid of their Indian allies. The only important victory was the New Englanders’ capture of Louisbourg, Cape Breton Island, on June 15, 1745. -
Province of Georgia overturns its ban on slavery
Slavery was forbidden in the colony, but the ban was overturned in 1749. Slaves numbered 18,000 at the time of the American Revolution. -
Period: to
Father Le Loutre's War
On one side of the conflict, the British and New England colonists were led by British Officer Charles Lawrence and New England Ranger John Gorham. On the other side, Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre led the Mi'kmaq and the Acadia militia in guerrilla warfare against settlers and British forces. -
Columbia University founded as King's College
Founded by by George II Royal Charter. Columbia University is a private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, Columbia is the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. -
Albany Congress is proposed
The Albany Congress was a meeting of representatives sent by the legislatures of seven of the thirteen British colonies in British America. Representatives met daily at the City Hall in Albany from June 19 to July 11, 1754, to discuss better relations with the American Indian tribes and common defensive measures against the French threat from Canada in the opening stage of the French and Indian War. -
Period: to
The French and Indian War
The French and Indian War pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France, each side supported by military units from the parent country and by American Indian allies. -
Battle of Jumonville Glen
The Battle of Jumonville Glen was the opening battle of the French and Indian War. A company of colonial militia from Virginia under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, and a small number of Mingo warriors led by Tanacharison ambushed a force of 35 Canadiens under the command of Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville. -
Siege of Fort William Henry
The Siege of Fort William Henry was conducted in August 1757 by French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm against the British-held Fort William Henry. -
Siege of Louisbourg
The Siege of Louisbourg was a pivotal operation of the Seven Years' War in 1758 that ended the French colonial era in Atlantic Canada and led to the subsequent British campaign to capture Quebec in 1759 and the remainder of French North America the following year. -
Battle of Fort Frontenac
British Lieutenant Colonel John Bradstreet led an army of over 3,000 men. The army besieged the 110 people inside the fort and won their surrender two days later, cutting one of the two major communication and supply lines between the major eastern centers of Montreal and Quebec City and France's western territories. -
Battle of Fort Duquesne
The attack on Fort Duquesne was part of a large-scale British expedition with 6,000 troops led by General John Forbes to drive the French out of the contested Ohio Country and clear the way for an invasion of Canada. -
Battle of Quebec
The British under General James Wolfe achieved a dramatic victory when they scaled the cliffs over the city of Quebec to defeat French forces under Louis-Joseph de Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. -
Currency Act
The Acts sought to protect British merchants and creditors from being paid in depreciated colonial currency. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War between Great Britain and France. In the terms of the treaty, France gave up all its territories in mainland North America, effectively ending any foreign military threat to the British colonies there. -
Sugar Act
British legislation aimed at ending the smuggling trade in sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies and at providing increased revenues to fund enlarged British Empire responsibilities following the French and Indian War. -
Quartering Act
Required local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. -
Stamp Act of Congress
It was the first colonial action against a British measure and was formed to protest the Stamp Act issued by British Parliament on March 1765. The Stamp Act Congress was attended by 27 representatives of nine of the thirteen colonies -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British Parliament. The act imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies. -
Declaratory Act
Declaratory Act declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that the British Parliament’s taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. -
Townshend Revenue Act
Taxes on glass, paint, oil, lead, paper, and tea were applied with the design of raising £40,000 a year for the administration of the colonies. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a confrontation in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. -
The Intolerable Acts
The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British to the detriment of colonial goods. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the financially struggling company survive. -
First Continental Congress
It met from September 5 to October 26, 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after the British Navy instituted a blockade of Boston Harbor and Parliament passed the punitive Intolerable Acts in response to the December 1773 Boston Tea Party. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Congress functioned as a de facto national government at the outset of the Revolutionary War by raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and writing treatises. -
Battle at Trenton
The Battle of Trenton was a small but pivotal battle during the American Revolutionary War, which took place on the morning of December 26, 1776, in Trenton, New Jersey. After a brief battle, almost two-thirds of the Hessian force was captured, with negligible losses to the Americans. The battle significantly boosted the Continental Army's waning morale, and inspired re-enlistments. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. British General John Burgoyne led a large invasion army southward from Canada in the Champlain Valley. -
Articles of Confederation
Under these articles, the states remained sovereign and independent, with Congress serving as the last resort on appeal of disputes. Significantly, The Articles of Confederation named the new nation “The United States of America.” -
Battle of Guilford Court House
The Battle of Guilford Court House was fought during the American Revolutionary War. The battle was "the largest and most hotly contested action" in the American Revolution's southern theater, and led to the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. -
Treaty of Paris 1783
This treaty ended the American Revolutionary War. It set the boundaries between the British Empire in North America and the United States of America, on lines "exceedingly generous" to the latter. -
Land Ordinance
It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. Congress at the time did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation, so land sales provided an important revenue stream. -
Constitutional Convention
Although the Convention was intended to revise the league of states and first system of government under the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. -
Northwest Ordinance
This provided a method for admitting new states to the Union from the territory, and listed a bill of rights guaranteed in the territory. Following the principles outlined by Thomas Jefferson in the Ordinance of 1784, the authors of the Northwest Ordinance spelled out a plan that was subsequently used as the country expanded to the Pacific. -
Tariff Act
The Tariff Act was to protect manufacturing industries developing in the nation and was to raise revenue for the federal government. -
Period: to
Indian Negotiations
Washington allowed $20,000 for Indian negotiations regarding western land--not for humanitarian reasons, simply because it was cheaper. -
Washington inaugurated
Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States. Washington took office after the 1788–89 presidential election, the nation's first quadrennial presidential election, in which he was elected unanimously. -
Judiciary Act
The Judiciary Act of 1789 established the structure and jurisdiction of the federal court system and created the position of attorney general. -
Bill of Rights ratified
The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. -
Vindication of the Rights of Women
Written by the 18th-century British proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. -
Fugitive Slave Act
It guaranteed a right for a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave. The Act created the legal mechanism by which that could be accomplished. -
Invention of the Cotton Gin
Inventor Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. -
Treaty of Greenville
A treaty between the United States and Indians of the Northwest Territory including the Wyandot and Delaware, which redefined the boundary between Indian lands and Whiteman's lands in the Northwest Territory. -
Jay's Treaty
It was a 1795 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted war, resolved issues remaining since the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and facilitated ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain in the midst of the French Revolutionary Wars. -
XYZ Affair
The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident between French and United States diplomats that resulted in a limited, undeclared war known as the Quasi-War. -
John Adams becomes president of US
Inaugurated as the second President of the United States and was the only member of the Federalist Party to ever serve as president. -
Alien and Sedition Acts
These laws included new powers to deport foreigners as well as making it harder for new immigrants to vote.
