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Jamestown
Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. I was established by the Virginia Company of London on May 4th, 1607. -
Virginia House of Burgesses
The Virginia House of Burgesses was the first legislative assembly of elected representatives in North America. The House was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America and to make conditions in the colony more agreeable for its current inhabitants. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. About a thousand Virginians of all classes rose up in arms against Berkeley, attacking Native Americans, chasing Berkeley from Jamestown, Virginia, and ultimately torching the capital. -
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, most of them women. -
John Peter Zenger
John Peter Zenger was a German immigrant who printed a publication called The New York Weekly Journal. This publication harshly pointed out the actions of the corrupt royal governor, William S. Cosby. -
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was the North American conflict that was part of a larger imperial conflict between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years’ War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, in which it forbade all settlers from settling past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. -
Quartering Act
Quartering Act is a name given to a minimum of two Acts of British Parliament in the 18th century. Parliament enacted them to order local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with any needed accommodations or housing. -
Declatory Act
The Declaratory Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765 and the changing and lessening of the sugar act. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal and save face. The declaration stated that the Parliament's authority was the same in America as in Britain and asserted Parliament's authorit -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre, known as the Incident on King Street by the British, was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which British Army soldiers killed five male civilians and injured six others. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act. The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, would launch the final spark to the revolutionary movement in Boston. The act was not intended to raise revenue in the American colonies, and in fact imposed no new taxes. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773. They were protesting unfair taxing by the British government. -
1st Continental Congress
The first Continental Congress met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, from September 5, to October 26, 1774. Carpenter's Hall was also the seat of the Pennsylvania Congress. All of the colonies except Georgia sent delegates. -
2nd Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was the document establishing the United States as a nation, adopted on July 4, 1776. The declaration was ordered and approved by the Continental Congress and written largely by Thomas Jefferson.
