-
1492
Christopher Columbus "Found" New World
-
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 -
Period: 1492 to
European Exploration Era
-
1500
Spanish Encomienda System Begins
Encomienda, in colonial Spanish America, was a legal system by which the Spanish crown attempted to define the status of the Indian population in its American colonies -
1500
Spanish Casta System Begins
-
Period: 1500 to
Triangular Trade
-
Period: 1500 to
Middle Passage
The middle passage was were African slaves where brought to the new world. -
1520
Small Pox Begins Spreading to Native Americans
-
1521
Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez Conquers 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
-
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
-
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. -
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
Harvard was founded in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and named for its first donor, the Reverend John Harvard, -
Delaware Founded
-
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
The fundamental orders describe the government set up by the Connecticut River towns, setting its structure and powers -
Maryland Toleration Act
-
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 was an armed conflict in 1675–1678 between indigenous inhabitants of New England and New England colonists and their indigenous allies -
Bacon’s Rebellion
-
Pueblo Revolt
-
Quaker William Penn Founds Pennsylvania
-
Period: to
Enlightenment Era
-
John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government Published
-
English Bill of Rights
-
Salem Witch Trials
-
Period: to
Salutary Neglect Policy
-
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening refers to a number of periods of religious revival in American Christian history. -
Georgia Founded as a Debtors Colony
-
Stono Rebellion
-
French and Indian War Begins
The French and Indian War was the North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War -
Period: to
The Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution, was the transition to new manufacturing processes in 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
Revolutionary Era
-
Period: to
Republican Motherhood
-
Sugar Act
-
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. -
Stamp Act
an act of the British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the Crown. -
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. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a deadly riot that occurred on March 5, 1770, on King Street in Boston -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin's Wharf -
Tea Act
The Tea Act of 1773 was one of several measures imposed on the American colonists by the heavily indebted British government in the decade leading up to the American Revolutionary War -
Intolerable Acts
The Tea Act of 1773 was one of several measures imposed on the American colonists by the heavily indebted British government in the decade leading up to the American Revolutionary War -
First Continental Congress
-
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense Published
-
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War -
Second Continental Congress
t was agreed that a Continental Army would be created. The Congress commissioned George Washington of Virginia to be the supreme commander -
Continental Army Lead by General George Washington
The Continental Congress commissioned George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was the first formal statement by a nation's people asserting their right to choose their own government it was written by Thomas Jefferson -
Benjamin Franklin Becomes French Ambassador
-
Adam Smith Publishes "The Wealth of Nations"
-
Winter at Valley Forge
Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight winter encampments for the Continental Army's main body, commanded by General George Washington, during the American Revolutionary War -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battle of Saratoga occurred in September and October, 1777, during the second year of the American Revolution. -
Article of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation provided the colonies, and then the states, with a formal governmental structure -
Period: to
Abolition Movement
-
Battle of Yorktown
When British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and his army surrendered to General George Washington's American force and its French allies -
Treaty of Paris of 1783
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 formally ended the American Revolutionary War. -
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis -
Federalist Papers
The Federalist, commonly referred to as the Federalist Papers, is a series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison between October 1787 and May 1788. -
Constitutional Convention/ Philadelphia Convention
-
U.S. Constitution
-
The Great Compromise
-
The 3/5ths Compromise
A compromise made between Southern and Northern states during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 where three-fifths of the population of slaves would be counted for representation -
Bill of Rights Added to the U.S. Constitution
-
The French Revolution begins
-
Washington elected 1st President
George Washington, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office as the first President of the United States -
Washington creates Presidential Cabinet
-
Washington D.C becomes new U.S Captial
-
Period: to
The Second Great Awaking
The Second Great Awakening was unlike the first, in that many people were converted into different sects of Christianity through camp meetings and tent revivals. -
Alexander Hamilton gets Congress to approve National Bank
-
Whiskey Rebellion
-
Cotton Gin and Interchangeable Parts invented by Eli Whitney
-
Washington's Farewell Address
A document by George Washington in 1796, when he retired from office. It wasn't given orally, but printed in newspapers -
First Two- Party System created ( De-Rep vs Federalist )
-
John Adams (Federalist) elected 2nd President
an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president -
XYZ Affair
The XYZ Affair caused tensions to increase between the United States and France -
Alien and Sedition Acts
-
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
-
Election of 1800 and the start of the Jefferson Era
-
The Market Revolution begins
-
Cult of Domesticity Begins
-
Period: to
Manifest Destiny
-
Thomas Jefferson ( Democratic Republican ) elected 3rd President
American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father -
Steam Locomotive invented in Great Britain
-
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase. U.S. acquisition of the Louisiana territory from France in 1803 -
Marbury vs Madison
-
James Madison ( Democratic Republican ) elected 4th President
James Madison. The author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Madison was also the father of the Federalist party -
British Impressment of US Sailors
-
War Hawks in Congress Support War Against British
-
War of 1812 begins
War of 1812. A war between the U.S. and Great Britain caused by American outrage over the impressment of American sailors by the British -
Francis Scott Key writes the Star Spangled Banner
Key wrote the words to " The Star-Spangled Banner" while watching the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, Maryland, in the War of 1812. -
Treaty of Ghent
-
Federalist Party collapses
-
Period: to
Era of Good Feelings
"Era of Good Feelings" a period in the political history of the United States that reflected rising nationalism in America after between 1817-1825. -
Tariff of 1816
-
James Monroe (democratic republican) elected 5th President
He is the author of the Monroe Doctrine. -
Adam - Onis Treaty/ Spain Ceded to Florida to U.S.
-
Compromise of 1820
-
Universal Male Suffrage Begins to Rise
-
Monroe Doctrine
A statement of foreign policy which proclaimed that Europe should not interfere in affairs within the United States or in the development of other countries in the Western Hemisphere. -
Henry Clay's " American System"
-
Erie Canal Built
The Erie Canal is a 363-mile waterway that connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River in upstate New York -
John Quincy Adams ( Democratic Republican) elected 6th president
-
Lowell, Massachusetts Textile Mil employs women
The textile factory system of the early 19th century that employed mainly young women -
Second Two -Party System created (Democrats vs Whigs
-
Andrew Jackson (Democrat) elected 7th President
Andrew Jackson was the model common man. He had been orphaned, so he fought in the Revolutionary War at age thirteen. In the War of 1812, he became a hero and launched his political career soon after. -
Indian Removal Act
the Indian Removal Act was the forcible and violent dispossession of indigenous people's land in the southeastern United States. -
Abolition Movement begins
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 -
Congress Passes Preemption Acts
-
Trail of Tears begins
A forced relocation of Native Americans consisting of 5 nations of Indians from the Southeast who were forced westward. -
William Lloyd Garrison Publishes Abolishment Newspaper " The Liberator "
William Lloyd Garrison was an American journalistic crusader who helped lead the successful abolitionist campaign against slavery -
Andrew Jackson vetos National Bank
-
Nullification Crisis
-
Texas Revolution and Independence from Mexico
-
Horace Mann advocates for Public Schools
American educator, the first great American advocate of public education, who believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free. -
Increased Irish and German Immigration to the North
-
Federal Support given to Samuel Morse to Construct Telegraph Lines
-
Dorothea Dix advocates for the Mentally ill and Prison Reforms
Her efforts on behalf of the mentally ill and prisoners helped create dozens of new institutions across the United States -
James K. Polk elected US President (Democrat)
Often referred to as the first “dark horse,” James K. Polk was the 11th President of the United States from 1845 to 1849, the last strong President until the Civil War. -
Irish Potato Famine Begins
-
Frederick Douglass writes and autobiography " Narrative of the Life of an American Salve"
Frederick Douglass. The impassioned abolitionist and eloquent orator provides graphic descriptions of his childhood and horrifying experiences as a slave -
Texas Annexation by the Untied States
-
Frederick Douglass writes and autobiography " Narrative of the Life of an American Salve"
-
Oregon Territory divded between British and US
-
Mexican American War begin
-
Wilmot Proviso
-
Seneca Falls Convention
-
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo:Mexican American War ends
This treaty, signed on February 2, 1848, ended the war between the United States and Mexico. -
Mexican Cession
The “Mexican Cession” refers to lands surrendered, or ceded, to the United States by Mexico at the end of the Mexican War. -
Free Soil Movement begin
-
California Gold Rush
-
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. -
Fugitive Slave Law Passed in Compromise of 1850
Passed on September 18, 1850, by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning and trying escaped slaves. -
Harriet Tubman begins using the Underground Railroad
-
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes "Uncle Tom's Cabin "
Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S. and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War" -
Gadsden Purchase
-
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 borders -
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
In Ripon, Wisconsin, former members of the Whig Party meet to establish a new party to ... The Civil War firmly identified the Republican Party -
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, in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
A case in which the Court decided that slaves who were descendants of American slaves were not citizens of the United States -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry,Virgina
-
Republican Abraham Lincoln Presidential Election of 1860
Abraham Lincoln is famous for the Gettysburg Address, abolishing slavery and being one of the four presidents who have been assassinated. -
Seven Southern States Secede from the Union, Forming the Confederate States of America
-
Democrat Jefferson Davis elected President of the Confederacy
President of the Confederate States of America for the duration of the American Civil War (1861-1865). ... In February 1861 he was elected president of the Confederacy. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia (the Confederate Army did not yet exist), and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus
-
Period: to
The Civil War
-
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, 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." -
Gettysburg Address
-
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 fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863, is considered the most important engagement of the American Civil War. -
Gen. Lee Surrenders to Gen. Grant at Appomattox Court House
-
President Abraham Lincoln Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
-
President Andrew Johnson Becomes President
With the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson became the 17th President of the United State -
Johnson Pardons the South
-
Radical Republicans Champion for Black Civil Rights in Congress
-
13th Amendment
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, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. -
Freedmens Bureau Created
The Freedmen's Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. -
Sharecropping Begins in the South
-
Black Codes First Passed in the South
-
Ku Klux Klan Formed
In Pulaski, Tennessee, a group of Confederate veterans convenes to form a secret society that they christen the “Ku Klux Klan.” -
“Scalawags and Carpetbaggers”
-
Period: to
Reconstruction Era
-
Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson (
The primary charge against Johnson was that he had violated the Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress in March 1867, over his veto. ... Specifically, he had removed from office Edwin M. -
14th Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment, amendment (1868) to the Constitution of the United States that granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War, including them under the umbrella phrase “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” -
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. -
Hiram Rhode Revels Becomes First African American in Congress (Senate)
-
Chicago’s Hull House started by Jane Addams
-
How the other half lives
Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890) is an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s -
Boxer rebellion
The Boxer Uprising, was the popular peasant uprising in China (supported nationally), that blamed foreign people and institutions for the loss of Chinse traditional ways -
Influence of Sea Power Upon History
In 1890, he published The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 in which he argued that a nation's greatness and prosperity comes from maritime power. He believed that America's "destiny" was to control the Caribbean, build the Panama Canal, and spread Western civilization across the Pacific. -
Period: to
Progressive Era
-
Period: to
Imperialism
-
Annexation of Hawaii
-
Spanish American War
The Spanish American War of 1898 was a conflict between Spain and America over territory in Latin America and the Far East. -
Open Door policy
a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th -
Roosevelt's big stick diplomacy/Roosevelt corollary
Diplomatic policy developed by Roosevelt where the "big stick" symbolizes his power and readiness to use military force if necessary. -
Period: to
Theodore Roosevelt
-
Panama Canal U.S Construction Begins
-
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
The novel portrays the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
-
Ford Model T
-
• NAACP started by W.E.B Du Bois
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was a civil rights group founded in 1909. It is America's largest and most enduring civil rights organization -
Period: to
William Howard Taft
-
16th Amendment
-
Federal Reserve Act
-
Period: to
Woodrow Wilson
-
17th Amendment
-
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. -
Trench Warfare, Poison Gas, Machine Guns
-
Period: to
World War I
-
Sinking of the Lusitania
The disaster set off a chain of events that led to the U.S. entering World War I. A German U-boat torpedoed the British-owned steamship Lusitania, killing 1,195 people including 128 Americans, on May 7, 1915. The disaster set off a chain of events that led to the U.S. entering World War I. -
National Park Systems
-
Zimmerman Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany. -
Russian Revolution
-
U.S. entry into WWI
-
Battle of Argonne Forest
-
Germany Declares an Armistice
-
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
Most importantly, however, was Point 14, which called for a “general association of nations” that would offer “mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small nations alike.” -
Treaty of Versailles
Treaty of Versailles. was created to solve problems made by World War I. Germany was forced to accept the treaty. -
18th Amendment
A federal act enforcing the eighteenth amendment, which prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. -
19th Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920. It declares that “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 sex. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” -
Harlem Renaissance
This “renaissance” gave African American culture a national platform on an equal footing to other American cultural traditions and resulted in the emergence of racial pride which led to political movements to rectify racial discrimination. -
President Harding's Return to Normalcy
-
Red scare
Shortly after the end of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Red Scare took hold in the United States. A nationwide fear of communists, socialists, anarchists, and other dissidents suddenly grabbed the American psyche in 1919 following a series of anarchist bombings. The nation was gripped in fear. Innocent people were jailed for expressing their views, civil liberties were ignored, and many Americans feared that a Bolshevik-style revolution was at hand. -
Period: to
Roaring Twenties
-
Teapot Dome Scandal
The Tea Pot Dome Scandal was one of the most extreme examples of government corruption in United States history. -
Joseph Stalin Leads Soviet Union
-
Scopes "Monkey" Trail
-
Charles Lindbergh's Trans- Atlantic Flight
the custom airplane used by Charles Lindbergh to make the first solo, non-stop trans-Atlantic flight. -
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the 1929 murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang that occurred on Saint Valentine's -
Stock Market Crashes "Black Tuesday "
