-
1492
Columbian Exchange Begins
The Columbian exchange, also known as the Columbian interchange, named after Christopher Columbus, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries. -
Period: 1492 to
European Exploration Era
Age of Exploration was a period from the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century, during which European ships were traveled around the world to search for new trading routes. -
Aug 3, 1492
Christopher Columbus "Founds" New World
Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina. On October 12, the expedition reached land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas. -
1500
Spanish Encomienda System Begins
Spain began the encomienda system in the New World at the beginning of the 16th century. The Spanish colonists abused the encomienda system, essentially rendering it a system of slave labor. The Spanish crown, against the forced labor of indigenous people, passed the Laws of Burgos in an attempt to reform the system. -
1500
Spanish Casta System Begins
The Spanish Empire adopted a Casta System to classify all of the Americas' various races and racial combinations, as well as where Spaniards were born. Similar to medieval Spain's concept of limpieza de sangre, or blood purity, the Casta System linked one's race with his or her behavior, personality, and social status. -
Period: 1500 to
The Middle Passage
The Middle Passage refers to the part of the trade where Africans, densely packed onto ships, were transported across the Atlantic to the West Indies. -
Period: 1500 to
Triangular Trade
-
1520
Small Pox Begins Spreading to Native Americans
They had never experienced smallpox, measles or flu before, and the viruses tore through the continent, killing an estimated 90% of Native Americans. Smallpox is believed to have arrived in the Americas in 1520 on a Spanish ship sailing from Cuba, carried by an infected African slave. -
1521
Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez Conquers the Aztec Empire
By the time he arrived in Mexico, the Aztecs had come to rule over 500 small states and some 5 to 6 million people. He used deadly force to conquer Mexico, fighting Tlaxacan and Cholula warriors before turning his attention on the ultimate prize: taking over the Aztec Empire. -
1534
England Splits from the Catholic Church
-
London Company Gains Charter for Set Up English Colony
-
Jamestown, Virginia Colony Founded
-
Period: to
Colonial Era
Colonial America European nations came to the Americas to increase their wealth and broaden their influence over world affairs. Many of the people who settled in the New World came to escape religious persecution. -
French found Quebec on the St. Lawrence River and Engage in the Fur Trade
-
Tobacco introduced to Virginia Colony by John Rolfe
-
First African Slaves Arrive in Jamestown, Virginia Colony
-
Virginia House of Burgesses
The Virginia House of Burgesses was the first democratically-elected legislative body in British North America. This group of representatives met from 1619 until 1776. The members, or burgesses, were elected from each county in Virginia with each county sending two burgesses. -
Plymouth, Massachusetts Colony Founded
-
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was a set of rules for self-governance established by the English settlers who traveled to the New World on the Mayflower. When Pilgrims and other settlers set out on the ship for America in 1620, they intended to lay anchor in northern Virginia. -
New Hampshire Founded
-
Dutch New Amsterdam Becomes Capital of New Netherland
-
“City Upon a Hill” John Winthrop
-
The Great Migration to Massachusetts Bay Colony
-
Maryland Founded
-
Thomas Hooker Founds Connecticut
-
Roger Williams Founds Rhode Island
-
Harvard College Founded in Massachusetts
-
Delaware Founded
-
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
-
Maryland Toleration Act
The Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, was religious tolerance for Trinitarian Christians. -
North Carolina Founded
-
Iroquois Confederacy Formed
-
Navigation Acts and Mercantilism
-
South Carolina Founded
-
New York Funded
-
New Jersey Founded
-
King Phillips War
King Philip's War (also known as the First Indian War), the Great Narragansett War or Metacom's Rebellion took place in southern New England from 1675 to 1676. It was the Native Americans' last ditch effort to avoid recognizing English authority and stop English settlement on their native lands. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion by Virginia settlers that took place in 1676. It was led by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley. -
Pueblo Revolt
-
Quaker William Penn Founds Pennsylvania
-
Period: to
Enlightenment Era
Enlightenment, French siècle des Lumières (literally “century of the Enlightened”), German Aufklärung, a European intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries in which ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity were synthesized into a worldview that gained wide assent in the West and that instigated -
English Bill of Rights
The English Bill of Rights created a constitutional monarchy in England, meaning the king or queen acts as head of state but his or her powers are limited by law. -
John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government Published
-
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. More than two hundred people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men). -
Period: to
Salutary Neglect Policy
Salutary neglect, policy of the British government from the early to mid-18th century regarding its North American colonies under which trade regulations for the colonies were laxly enforced and imperial supervision of internal colonial affairs was loose as long as the colonies remained loyal to the British government. -
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. -
Georgia Founded as a Debtors Colony
-
Stono Rebellion
The Stono Rebellion (sometimes called Cato's Conspiracy or Cato's Rebellion) was a slave rebellion that began on 9 September 1739, 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. -
French and Indian War Begins
-
Period: to
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution, now also known as the First Industrial Revolution, was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United States, in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. -
French and Indian War Ends
-
Proclamation Line of 1763
-
Period: to
Republican Motherhood
Republican Motherhood was a concept derived from the notion that women should serve as educators of young men in order to teach them to become productive American citizens and embrace the Enlightenment ideas that fueled the concept of Republicanism following the end of the American Revolution. -
Period: to
Revolutionary Era
13 of Great Britain's North American colonies threw off British rule to establish the sovereign United States of America, founded with the Declaration of Independence in 1776. -
Sugar Act
Sugar Act, also called Plantation Act or Revenue Act, (1764), in U.S. colonial history, 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. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act imposed a direct tax on the colonists. Specifically, the act required that, starting in the fall of 1765, legal documents and printed materials must bear a tax stamp provided by commissioned distributors who would collect the tax in exchange for the stamp. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses and the houses of sellers of wine. -
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. But American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. -
Boston Massacre
-
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act 1773 (13 Geo 3 c 44) 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. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. 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 Government. -
First Continental Congress
On September 5, 1774, delegates from each of the 13 colonies except for Georgia (which was fighting a Native American uprising and was dependent on the British for military supplies) met in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress to organize colonial resistance to Parliament's Coercive Acts. -
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense Published
-
Continental Army Lead by General George Washington
-
Battle of Lexington and Concord
Strategic American victory British forces succeed in destroying cannon and supplies in Concord Militia successfully drive British back to Boston Start of the American Revolutionary War. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the 13 colonies that formed in Philadelphia in May 1775, soon after the launch of the American Revolutionary War. -
Declaration of Independence
-
Benjamin Franklin Becomes French Ambassador
-
Adam Smith Publishes “The Wealth of Nations”
On March 9, 1776, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" commonly referred to simply as "The Wealth of Nations" was first published. Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher by trade, wrote the book to describe the industrialized capitalist system that was upending the mercantilist system. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battle of Saratoga occurred in September and October, 1777, during the second year of the American Revolution. It included two crucial battles, fought eighteen days apart, and was a decisive victory for the Continental Army and a crucial turning point in the Revolutionary War. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles created a loose confederation of sovereign states and a weak central government, leaving most of the power with the state governments. -
Winter at Valley Forge
In December, 1777, General George Washington moved the Continental Army to their winter quarters at Valley Forge. By the time the army marched into Valley Forge on December 19, they were suffering not only from cold, hunger, and fatigue, but from low morale in the wake of the disastrous Philadelphia Campaign. -
Period: to
Abolition Movement
The abolitionist movement was the social and political effort to end slavery everywhere. Fueled in part by religious fervor, the movement was led by people like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and John Brown. -
Battle of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German Battle, ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de. -
Treaty of Paris of 1783
-
Shays’ Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades; the fight took place mostly in and around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. -
The Great Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman Compromise) was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States. -
Constitutional Convention/ Philadelphia Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The point of the event was decide how America was going to be governed. Although the Convention had been officially called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, many delegates had much bigger plans. -
The 3/5ths Compromise
Three-fifths compromise, compromise agreement between delegates from the Northern and the Southern states at the United States Constitutional Convention (1787) that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted for determining direct taxation and representation in the House of Representatives. -
U.S. Constitution
The Constitution of the United States established America's national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. -
Federalist Papers
A series of eighty-five essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay in the late 1780s to persuade the voters of New York to adopt the Constitution. The essays are considered a classic defense of the American system of government, as well as a classic practical application of political principles. -
Bill of Rights Added to U.S. Constitution
The Bill of Rights is the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. It spells out Americans' rights in relation to their government. It guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual like freedom of speech, press, and religion. -
Washington Elected 1st President
George Washington was unanimously elected for the first of his two terms as president, and John Adams became the first vice president. This was the only U.S. presidential election that spanned two calendar years (1788 and 1789). -
The French Revolution Begins
It began on July 14, 1789 when revolutionaries stormed a prison called the Bastille. The revolution came to an end 1799 when a general named Napoleon overthrew the revolutionary government and established the French Consulate (with Napoleon as leader). -
Washington Creates Presidential Cabinet
Washington held his first full cabinet meeting with Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph. One prominent individual who did not attend cabinet meetings was Vice President John Adams. -
Period: to
The Second Great Awakening
During this revival, meetings were held in small towns and large cities throughout the country, and the unique frontier institution known as the camp meeting began. -
Washington D.C. Becomes New US Capital
On July 16, 1790, the young American Congress declares that a swampy, humid, muddy and mosquito-infested site on the Potomac River between Maryland and Virginia will be the nation's permanent capital. -
Alexander Hamilton Gets Congress to Approve National Bank
The country had borrowed or promised a lot of money during the Revolutionary War. Hamilton proposed a national bank. Congress approved the idea in 1791. It could lend the government money and pay off state debts. -
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion was a uprising of farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania in protest of a whiskey tax enacted by the federal government. -
Cotton Gin and Interchangeable Parts Invented by Eli Whitney
The cotton gin, Whitney later secured a major contract to build muskets for the U.S. government. Through this project, he promoted the idea of interchangeable parts–standardized, identical parts that made for faster assembly and easier repair of various devices. -
Washington’s Farewell Address
In his farewell Presidential address, George Washington advised American citizens to view themselves as a cohesive unit and avoid political parties and issued a special warning to be wary of attachments and entanglements with other nations. -
John Adams (Federalist) Elected 2nd President
John Adams, a remarkable political philosopher, served as the second President of the United States (1797-1801), after serving as the first Vice President under President George Washington. -
First Two-Party System Created
It featured two national parties competing for control of the presidency, Congress, and the states: the Federalist Party, created largely by Alexander Hamilton, and the rival Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party, formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, usually called at the time the Republican Party. -
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. U.S. and French negotiators restored peace with the Convention of 1800, also known as the Treaty of Mortefontaine. -
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were a series of four laws passed by the U.S. Congress in 1798 amid widespread fear that war with France was imminent. The four laws which remain controversial to this day restricted the activities of foreign residents in the country and limited freedom of speech and of the press. -
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799 in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. -
Election of 1800 and the Start of the Jeffersonian Era
The election was a political realignment that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican leadership. The Jeffersonian Republicans nearly doubled the size of the country by purchasing Louisiana Territory from France; defeated powerful Indian confederations in the Northwest and South, opening the area north of the Ohio River as well as southern and western Alabama to white settlement. -
The Market Revolution Begins
The Market Revolution in the United States was a drastic change in the manual-labor system originating in the South (and soon moving to the North) and later spreading to the entire world. Traditional commerce was made obsolete by improvements in transportation, communication, and industry. -
Cult of Domesticity
The cult of domesticity, also known as the cult of true womanhood, is an opinion about women in the 1800s. They believed that women should stay at home and should not do any work outside of the home. -
Period: to
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is the idea that the United States is destined by God, its advocates believed to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent. -
Thomas Jefferson (Democratic Republican) Elected 3rd President
On February 17, 1801, Thomas Jefferson is elected the third president of the United States. The election constitutes the first peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another in the United States. -
Steam Locomotive Invented in Great Britain
Steam locomotives were first developed in the United Kingdom during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. Richard Trevithick built the first steam locomotive in 1802. -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (1803) was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. -
Marbury v. Madison
In Marbury v. Madison (1803) the Supreme Court announced for the first time the principle that a court may declare an act of Congress void if it is inconsistent with the Constitution. William Marbury had been appointed a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia in the final hours of the Adams administration. -
James Madison (Democratic Republican) Elected 4th President
The fourth U.S. president, James Madison believed in a robust yet balanced federal government and is known as the "Father of the Constitution." -
British Impressment of US Sailors
The British impressed more than 15,000 U.S. sailors to supplement their fleet during their Napoleonic Wars with France. By 1812 the United States Government had had enough. On 18 June, the United States declared war on Great Britain, citing, in part, impressment. -
War Hawks in Congress Support War Against British
The War Hawks were members of Congress who put pressure on President James Madison to declare war against Britain in 1812. The War Hawks tended to be younger congressmen from Southern and Western states. Their desire for war was prompted by expansionist tendencies. -
War of 1812
War of 1812, conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights. It ended with the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent. -
Francis Scott Key Writes the Star Spangled Banner
On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key pens a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes America's national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The poem, originally titled “The Defence of Fort M'Henry,” was written after Key witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812. -
Treaty of Ghent
On December 24, 1814,The Treaty of Ghent was signed by British and American representatives at Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812. By terms of the treaty, all conquered territory was to be returned, and commissions were planned to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada. -
Federalist Party Collapses
The Federalist Party was the first political party in the United States. It became a minority party while keeping its stronghold in New England and made a brief resurgence by opposing the War of 1812. It then collapsed with its last presidential candidate in 1816. -
Period: to
Era of Good Feelings
The Era of Good Feelings marked a period in the political history of the United States that reflected a sense of national purpose and a desire for unity among Americans in the aftermath of the War of 1812. -
Tariff of 1816
The Tariff of 1816, also known as the Dallas Tariff, is notable as the first tariff passed by Congress with an explicit function of protecting U.S. manufactured items from overseas competition. A tariff on manufactured goods, including war industry products, was deemed essential in the interests of national defense. -
James Monroe (Democratic Republican) Elected 5th President
James Monroe fought under George Washington and studied law with Thomas Jefferson. He was elected the fifth president of the United States in 1817. He is remembered for the Monroe Doctrine, as well as for expanding U.S territory via the acquisition of Florida from Spain. -
Adam- Onis Treaty/ Spain Ceded Florida to U.S.
Minister Onís and Secretary Adams reached an agreement whereby Spain ceded East Florida to the United States and renounced all claim to West Florida. Spain received no compensation, but the United States agreed to assume liability for $5 million in damage done by American citizens who rebelled against Spain. -
Universal Male Suffrage Begins to Rise
Universal manhood suffrage is a form of voting rights in which all adult male citizens within a political system are allowed to vote, regardless of income, property, religion, race, or any other qualification. It is sometimes summarized by the slogan, "one man, one vote". -
Compromise of 1820
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. -
Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine is the best known U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere. Buried in a routine annual message delivered to Congress by President James Monroe in December 1823, the doctrine warns European nations that the United States would not tolerate further colonization or puppet monarchs. -
Henry Clay’s “American System”
This "System" consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other "internal improvements" to develop profitable markets for agriculture. -
John Quincy Adams (Democratic Republican) Elected 6th President
In his prepresidential years he was one of America's greatest diplomats formulating, among other things, what came to be called the Monroe Doctrine and in his postpresidential years he fought against the expansion of slavery. -
Erie Canal Built
The original Erie Canal traversed 363 miles from Albany to Buffalo. It was the longest artificial waterway and the greatest public works project in North America. The canal put New York on the map as the Empire State—the leader in population, industry, and economic strength. -
Lowell, Massachusetts Textile Mill Employs Women
Incorporated as the Town of Lowell in 1826, by 1840, the textile mills employed almost 8,000 workers mostly women between the ages of 15 and 35. The "City of Spindles", as Lowell came to be known, quickly became the center of the Industrial Revolution in America. -
Andrew Jackson (Democrat) Elected 7th President
Andrew Jackson was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. -
Second Two-Party System Created
The Second Party System is a name for the political party system in the United States during the 1800s. One was the Democratic Party, led by Andrew Jackson. The other was the Whig Party, started by Henry Clay. The Whig party was made up of members of the National Republican Party and other people who opposed Jackson. -
Abolition Movement Begins
The abolitionist movement began as a more organized, radical and immediate effort to end slavery than earlier campaigns. It officially emerged around 1830. Abolitionism started in states like New York and Massachusetts and quickly spread to other Northern states. -
Congress Passes Preemption Acts
Congress passed a series of laws reforming U.S. policy on acquiring public lands. These laws established a federal land policy of preemption, under which squatters on public land obtained legal title to it in exchange for payment of a minimum (and low) price per acre. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. -
Trail of Tears Begins
The Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. -
William Lloyd Garrison Publishes Abolitionist Newspaper “The Liberator”
The Liberator, weekly newspaper of abolitionist crusader William Lloyd Garrison for 35 years (January 1, 1831–December 29, 1865). -
Nullification Crisis
The nullification crisis was a conflict between the U.S. state of South Carolina and the federal government of the United States in 1832–33. In November 1832 South Carolina adopted the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring the tariffs null, void, and nonbinding in the state. -
Andrew Jackson Vetos National Bank
This bill passed Congress, but Jackson vetoed it, declaring that the Bank was "unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive to the rights of States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people." -
Texas Revolution and Independence from Mexico
-
Horace Mann Advocates for Public Schools
Horace Mann, an American educator, the first great American advocate of public education, who believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal, nonsectarian, democratic in method. -
Increased Irish and German Immigration to the North
-
Federal Support Given to Samuel Morse to Construct Telegraph Lines
Telegraph was a new communications medium which offered a new speed of information transmission in 1842. USG funds Morse's first experimental telegraph line. But a combination of expense of constructing the service and the growing cables and finally the Federal Communications Commission. -
Dorothea Dix Advocates for Mentally Ill and Prison Reform
Dorothea Lynde Dix was an author, teacher and reformer. Her efforts on behalf of the mentally ill and prisoners helped create dozens of new institutions across the United States and in Europe and changed people's perceptions of these populations. -
James K. Polk Elected US President (Democrat)
-
Irish Potato Famine Begins
The Irish Potato Famine, also known as the Great Hunger, began in 1845 when a fungus-like organism called Phytophthora infestans spread rapidly throughout Ireland. The infestation ruined up to one-half of the potato crop that year, and about three-quarters of the crop over the next seven years. -
Frederick Douglass writes autobiography “Narrative of the Life of an American Slave”
Following the Civil War, Douglass remained an active campaigner against slavery and wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. -
Frederick Douglass Publishes Autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” (1845)
-
Texas Annexation by the United States
-
Mexican American War Begins
On April 25, 1846, Mexican cavalry attacked a group of U.S. soldiers in the disputed zone under the command of General Zachary Taylor, killing about a dozen. They then laid siege to an American fort along the Rio Grande. -
Oregon Territory Divided Between British and U.S.
-
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the major events leading to the American Civil War. -
Mexican Cession
The Mexican Cession is the region in the modern-day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 after the Mexican–American War. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Mexican American War Ends
-
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention in the United States. Held in July 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, the meeting launched the women's suffrage movement, which more than seven decades later ensured women the right to vote. -
Free Soil Movement Begins
The Free Soil Party was a short-lived coalition political party in the United States active from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party. The party was largely focused on the single issue of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States. -
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. -
Harriet Tubman Begins Using Underground Railroad
-
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 consists of five laws passed in September of 1850 that dealt with the issue of slavery and territorial expansion. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. -
Fugitive Slave Law Passed in Compromise of 1850
-
Harriet Beecher Stowe Publishes “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
-
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase, or Treaty, was an agreement between the United States and Mexico, in which the United States agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for a 29,670 square mile portion of Mexico that later became part of Arizona and New Mexico. -
Bleeding Kansas Begins
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, United States, between 1854 and 1859 which emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. -
Republican Party Created
The party supported classical liberalism, opposed the expansion of slavery, and supported economic reform. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president. Under the leadership of Lincoln and a Republican Congress, slavery was banned in the United States in 1865. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty” allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state's border. -
Caning of Senator Sumner
The Caning of Charles Sumner, or the Brooks–Sumner Affair, occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court ruled that Americans of African descent, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. The Court also ruled that Congress lacked power to ban slavery in the U.S. territories. -
John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia
-
Republican Abraham Lincoln Wins Presidential Election of 1860
-
Seven Southern States Secede from the Union, Forming the Confederate States of America
-
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army that started the American Civil War. -
Period: to
The Civil War
-
Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus between Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia to give military authorities the necessary power to silence dissenters and rebels. Under this order, commanders could arrest and detain individuals who were deemed threatening to military operations. -
Democrat Jefferson Davis Elected President of the Confederacy
-
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Homestead Act
Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on May 20, 1862, the Homestead Act encouraged Western migration by providing settlers 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were required to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land. -
Battle of Vicksburg
The Siege of Vicksburg was a great victory for the Union. It gave control of the Mississippi River to the Union. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was the largest battle of the American Civil War as well as the largest battle ever fought in North America, involving around 85,000 men in the Union's Army of the Potomac under Major General George Gordon Meade. -
Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln at the November 19, 1863, dedication of Soldier's National Cemetery, a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle Of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. -
“Scalawags and Carpetbaggers”
The word scalawag, originally referring to low-grade farm animals, was adopted by their opponents to refer to Southern whites who formed a Republican coalition with black freedmen and Northern newcomers (called carpetbaggers) to take control of their state and local governments. -
Radical Republicans Champion for Black Civil Rights in Congress
-
Sharecropping Begins in the South
-
Black Codes First Passed in the South
-
Gen. Lee Surrenders to Gen. Grant at Appomattox Court House
-
Period: to
Reconstruction Era (1865- 1877)
-
13th Amendment
The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States and provides that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States. -
Freedmen's Bureau Created
-
President Andrew Johnson Becomes President
-
President Abraham Lincoln Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
-
Johnson Pardons the South
In May 1865, President Andrew Johnson offered a pardon to all white Southerners except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters (although most of these later received individual pardons), and authorized them to create new governments. -
Ku Klux Klan Formed
Ku Klux Klan, either of two distinct U.S. hate organizations that employed terror in pursuit of their white supremacist agenda. One group was founded immediately after the Civil War and lasted until the 1870s. The other began in 1915 and has continued to the present. -
Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson
-
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws”. -
Transcontinental Railroad Completed
On May 10, 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads. -
15th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. -
Nativism Spreads
Nativism held sway in mid-nineteenth-century politics because of the large inflows of immigrants from cultures that were somewhat different from the existing American culture. -
Jim Crow Laws Begin in South
Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws which existed for about 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until 1968 were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education or other opportunities. -
Industrialization Begins to Boom
-
Social Darwinism Theory Gains Popularity
-
Standard Oil Company Founded by John D. Rockefeller
-
The “New South” wants Industrialization
-
Hiram Rhode Revels Becomes First African American in Congress (Senate)
-
Boss Tweed rise at Tammany Hall
It was the main local political machine of the Democratic Party, and played a major role in controlling New York City and New York State politics and helping immigrants, most notably the Irish, rise in American politics from the 1790s to the 1960s. -
Telephone Invented by Alexander Graham Bell
-
Reconstruction Ends
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal agreement between southern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to settle the result of the 1876 presidential election and marked the end of the Reconstruction era. -
Period: to
Gilded Age
The Gilded Age was an era that occurred during the late 19th century, from the 1870s to about 1900. The Gilded Age was an era of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern United States and the Western United States. -
Light Bulb Invented by Thomas Edison
-
3rd Wave of Immigration: “New Immigrants”
-
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. -
Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act provided for selection of some government employees by competitive exams rather than ties to politicians, and made it illegal to fire or demote some government officials for political reasons. -
Haymarket Massacre
The Haymarket Riot (also known as the “Haymarket Incident” and “Haymarket Affair”) occurred on May 4, 1886, when a labor protest rally near Chicago's Haymarket Square turned into a riot after someone threw a bomb at police. At least eight people died as a result of the violence that day. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act (sometimes called the Dawes Severalty Act or General Allotment Act), passed in 1887 under President Grover Cleveland, allowed the federal government to break up tribal lands. -
Interstate Commerce Act
The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 is a United States federal law that was designed to regulate the railroad industry, particularly its monopolistic practices. The Act required that railroad rates be "reasonable and just," but did not empower the government to fix specific rates. -
Andrew Carnegie’s Book “Gospel of Wealth”
"Wealth", more commonly known as "The Gospel of Wealth", is an article written by Andrew Carnegie in June of 1889 that describes the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts. President Benjamin Harrison signed the bill into law on July 2, 1890. -
Carnegie Steel Company Founded by Andrew Carnegie
-
Homestead Steel Labor Strike
The Homestead Strike was a violent labor dispute between the Carnegie Steel Company and many of its workers that occurred in 1892 in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The guards and workers exchanged gunfire, and at least three guards and seven workers were killed during the battle and its aftermath. -
Pullman Labor Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States that lasted from May 11 to July 20, 1894, and a turning point for US labor law. He wanted to hire African-Americans for certain jobs at the company. Pullman used ads and other campaigns to help bring workers into his company. -
Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court Case
