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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
It was written in England to establish that the king was subject to his rules. It also specified that people cannot be deprived of their lives, liberty, or property except by law or verdict of their peers. -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was the first document signed in the US. There were 41 male signers. This document recognized self-government for the colonies. -
King William's War begins
It was the first of six colonial wars fought among New France and New England along with their individual Native allies before Britain ultimately conquered France in North America in 1763. -
English Bill of Rights
The English Bill of Rights took even more authority away from the sovereign than the Magna Carta and protected the privileges of English Citizens. -
King William's War ends
The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 completed the war between the two colonial powers, returning the colonial boundaries to the status quo ante bellum. -
Queen Anne's War begins
Queen Anne's War was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought between France and England, later Great Britain, in North America for control of the continent. -
Queen Anne's War ends
Britain and France declared a ceasefire, and a final peace agreement was signed the following year. -
King George's War begins
King George's War (1744–1748) is the name given to the operations in North America and was the third of the four French and Indian Wars. -
King George's War ends
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the war, failed to resolve any unresolved territorial disputes. -
French-Indian War begins
The name refers to the two main enemies of the British colonists: the royal French forces and the various Native American forces allied with them, although Great Britain also had Native allies. -
French-Indian War ends
The Treaty of Paris ended the French Indian War. -
Declaration of Rights
The Virginia Declaration of Rights is a document drafted in 1776 to declare the integral rights of men, including the right to rebel against "insufficient” government. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre, also known as the Boston riot, was an event on March 5, 1770, in which British redcoats killed five civilian men. -
Tea Act
Its primary obvious objective was to decrease the massive surplus of tea held by the economically troubled British East India Company and to help the struggling company survive. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a direct deed by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the controlling East India Company that organized all the tea coming 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 entered the ships and demolished the tea by tossing it into Boston Harbor. -
Massachusetts Government Act
This act gave the British Governor complete control of the town meetings, and taking control out of the hands of the colonialists. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Acts ordered the local governments of the American colonies to provide lodging and necessities for British soldiers. -
Quebec Act
An Act for making more successful provision for the Government of the Province of Quebec in North America. -
American Revolution begins
The American Revolution was the political disturbance during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America merged together to break free from the British Empire, uniting to become the United States of America. -
Revolutionary War begins
The Revolutionary War in America, originated as a war among the Kingdom of Great Britain and the new United States of America, but steadily expanded to a global war between Britain on one side and the United States, France, Netherlands and Spain on the other. -
Declaration of Independence adopted
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which proclaimed that the thirteen American colonies, viewed themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
Revolutionary War ends
The Revolutionary War ended in the Treaty of Paris of 1783. -
Virginia Statute for Religous Freedom
A document written by Thomas Jefferson that the first amendment was created on. It guaranteed the separation of church and state of Virginia. It was acknowledged by Virginia in 1786. -
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts. It was named after Daniel Shays. A militia called the Shaysites had been created by Shay as a private army. They created qualms that the Revolution's democratic instincts had gotten out of hand. -
Signing of the Constitution
On September 17, 1787, forty-two of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention held their final meeting. Only one item of business occupied the agenda that day, to sign the Constitution of the United States of America. -
The Constitution goes into effect