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End of the French and Indian War
The Seven Years’ War, a global conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by France, Great Britain, and Spain.
(https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-french-and-indian-war-ends) -
Pontiac's Rebellion
Pontiac’s Rebellion begins when a confederacy of Native American warriors under Ottawa chief Pontiac attacks the British force at Detroit. After failing to take the fort in their initial assault, Pontiac’s forces, made up of Ottawas and reinforced by Wyandots, Ojibwas, and Potawatamis, initiated a siege that would stretch into months.
(https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pontiacs-rebellion-begins) -
Paxton boys attacked Pennsylvania Indians
On December 14, 1763, about 57 drunken settlers from Paxton, Pennsylvania, slaughtered 20 innocent and defenseless Susquehannock (Conestoga) Indians, near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, whom they suspected of connivance with other Native Americans who had been pillaging and scalping.
(https://www.britannica.com/event/Paxton-Boys-uprising) -
Proclamation of 1763
In 1763, at ethe end of the French and Indian War, the British issued a proclamation,mainly intended to conciliate the Indians by checking the encroachment of settlers on their lands.
(https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/1763-proclamation-of) -
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 War.
(https://www.britannica.com/event/Sugar-Act) -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British government. The act, which imposed a tax on all paper documents in the colonies, came at a time when the British Empire was deep in debt.
(https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/stamp-act) -
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.
(https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/townshend-acts) -
Boston Massacre
As more than 2,000 British soldiers occupied the city of 16,000 colonists and tried to enforce Britain’s tax laws, American colonists rebelled against the taxes they found repressive, rallying around the cry, “no taxation without representation.” (https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-massacre) -
Somerset Decision
Somerset v Stewart 98 ER 499 is a famous judgment of the Court of King's Bench in 1772, which held that chattel slavery was unsupported by the common law in England and Wales, although the position elsewhere in the British Empire was left ambiguous.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_v_Stewart) -
Boston Tea Party
Boston Tea Party, (December 16, 1773), incident in which 342 chests of tea belonging to the British East India Company were thrown from ships into Boston Harbor by American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians. The Americans were protesting both a tax on tea (taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company.
(https://www.britannica.com/event/Boston-Tea-Party) -
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 (1775-83).
(https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/tea-act) -
First Continental Congress
All of the colonies except Georgia sent delegates. These were elected by the people, by the colonial legislatures, or by the committees of correspondence of the respective colonies. The colonies presented there were united in a determination to show a combined authority to Great Britain, but their aims were not uniform at all. (http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/congress.html) -
Intolerable Acts
Intolerable Acts, also called Coercive Acts, (1774), in U.S. colonial history, four punitive measures enacted by the British Parliament in retaliation for acts of colonial defiance, together with the Quebec Act establishing a new administration for the territory ceded to Britain after the French and Indian War (1754–63).
(https://www.britannica.com/event/Intolerable-Acts) -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoat column. A confrontation on the Lexington town green started off the fighting, and soon the British were hastily retreating under intense fire.
(https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battles-of-lexington-and-concord) -
Common Sense
Common Sense (pamphlet) ... Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense_(pamphlet)) -
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775, just a few months after the start of the American Revolutionary War. Boston was being besieged by thousands of American militia. The British were trying to keep control of the city and control its valuable seaport. (https://www.ducksters.com/history/battle_of_bunker_hill.php) -
Second Continental Congress
When the Redcoats fired into the Boston crowd in 1775, the benefit of the doubt was granted. Now the professional imperial army was attempting to arrest patriot leaders, and minutemen had been killed in their defense. In May 1775, with Redcoats once again storming Boston, the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia.
(http://www.ushistory.org/us/10e.asp) -
Declaration of Independence
In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin was tasked with drafting a formal statement of the colonies’ intentions. The Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence–written largely by Jefferson–in Philadelphia on July 4, a date now celebrated as the birth of American independence.
(https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/declaration-of-independence) -
Battle of Trenton
In the Battle of Trenton (December 26), Washington defeated a formidable garrison of Hessian mercenaries before withdrawing. A week later he returned to Trenton to lure British forces south, then executed a daring night march to capture Princeton on January 3.
(https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battles-of-trenton-and-princeton) -
Battle of Saratoga
Fought eighteen days apart in the fall of 1777, the two Battles of Saratoga were a turning point in the American Revolution. On September 19th, British General John Burgoyne achieved a small, but costly victory over American forces led by Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold.
(https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/battle-of-saratoga) -
Treaty of Alliance
The Treaty of Alliance with France was signed on February 6, 1778, creating a military alliance between the United States and France against Great Britain.
(http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/alliance.html) -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation was the first written constitution of the United States. Stemming from wartime urgency, its progress was slowed by fears of central authority and extensive land claims by states before was it was ratified on March 1, 1781. Under these articles, the states remained sovereign and independent, with Congress serving as the last resort on appeal of disputes.
(https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/articles-of-confederation) -
Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington
On this day in 1781, British General Charles Cornwallis formally surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a French and American force at Yorktown, Virginia, bringing the American Revolution to a close.
(https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cornwallis-surrenders-at-yorktown) -
Treaty of Paris (American Revolution)
The Treaty of Paris of 1783 formally ended the American Revolutionary War. American statesmen Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay negotiated the peace treaty with Great Britain.
(https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/treaty-of-paris) -
Newburgh Conspiracy
The Newburgh Conspiracy was a plan by Continental Army officers to challenge the authority of the Confederation Congress, arising from their frustration with Congress's long-standing inability to meet its financial obligations to the military.
(https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/newburgh-conspiracy/) -
Treaty of Fort Stanwix
Fort Stanwix in present-day Rome, New York, the United States signed a treaty with the Iroquois Confederacy, a confederation of six Iroquoian-speaking American Indian tribes, whose homelands spanned western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, and New York. By signing the treaty, the Iroquois relinquished their claims to land in the Ohio Country.
(http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Treaty_of_Fort_Stanwix_(1784) -
Shay's Rebellion
Shays’ Rebellion was a series of violent attacks on courthouses and other government properties in Massachusetts, beginning in 1786, which led to a full-blown military confrontation in 1787. -
Annapolis Convention
Annapolis Convention. A meeting called by the state of Virginia held in Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1786 to which all 13 states were asked to send delegates. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the commercial problems besetting the United States under the Articles of Confederation. (http://shaysrebellion.stcc.edu/shaysapp/glossary.do?shortName=annapolis_convention) -
Constitutional Convention
Constitutional Convention and Ratification, 1787–1789. The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation.
(https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/convention-and-ratification) -
Northwest Ordinance
Second Continental Congress, chartered a government for the Northwest Territory, provided a method for admitting new states to the Union from the territory, and listed a bill of rights guaranteed in the territory.
(https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=8) -
The Federalist Papers published
The Federalist is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the United States Constitution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers -
Election (Inauguration) of George Washington
In 1789, the first presidential election, George Washington was unanimously elected president of the United States. With 69 electoral votes, Washington won the support of each participating elector. No other president since has come into office with a universal mandate to lead.
(https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/presidential-election-of-1789/) -
Beginning of the French Revolution
The French Revolution was a watershed event in modern European history that began in 1789 and ended in the late 1790s with the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte. During this period, French citizens razed and redesigned their country’s political landscape, uprooting centuries-old institutions such as absolute monarchy and the feudal system.
(https://www.history.com/topics/france/french-revolution) -
Washington DC chosen as the capital
Founded on July 16, 1790, Washington, DC is unique among American cities because it was established by the Constitution of the United States to serve as the nation's capital.
(https://washington.org/dc-information/washington-dc-history) -
Hamilton's First Report on Public Credit
Alexander Hamilton's First Report on the Public Credit, delivered to Congress on January 9, 1790, called for payment in full on all government debts as the foundation for establishing government credit.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Report_on_the_Public_Credit) -
First Bank of the United States Chartered
The President, Directors and Company, of the Bank of the United States, commonly known as the First Bank of the United States, was a national bank, chartered for a term of twenty years, by the United States Congress on February 25, 1791.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Bank_of_the_United_States) -
Bill of Rights ratified
Following ratification by the state of Virginia, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, become the law of the land.
(https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bill-of-rights-is-finally-ratified) -
Hamilton's Report on Manufacturers
During the summer and fall of 1791, while Madison and Jefferson were building up the Republican resistance, Hamilton was hard at work in Philadelphia on a number of projects, the most absorbing of which was his Report on Manufactures. Considered his most innovative report, it provides detailed insight into Hamilton's vision for the United States and its future.
(http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/biographies/alexander-hamilton/report-on-manufactures---submitted-to-congress-december-5-1791.php) -
Citizen Genet Affair
The Citizen Genêt affair began in 1793 when he was dispatched to the United States to promote American support for France's wars with Spain and Britain. Genêt arrived in Charleston, South Carolina on the French frigate Embuscade on April 8
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond-Charles_Gen%C3%AAt) -
Battle of Fallen Timbers
The Battle of Timbers was the last major conflict of the Northwest Territory Indian War between Native Americans and the United States. At the battle, near present-day Toledo, Ohio, General Anthony Wayne led U.S. troops to victory over a confederation of Indian warriors. The Treaty of Greenville, signed the following year, opened up much of present-day Ohio to white settlers.
(https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/battle-of-fallen-timbers) -
Jay's Treaty
On November 19, 1794 representatives of the United States and Great Britain signed Jay’s Treaty, which sought to settle outstanding issues between the two countries that had been left unresolved since American independence. The treaty proved unpopular with the American public but did accomplish the goal of maintaining peace between the two nations and preserving U.S. neutrality.
(https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/jay-treaty) -
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion was a 1794 uprising of farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania in protest of a whiskey tax enacted by the federal government.
(https://www.history.com/topics/early-us/whiskey-rebellion) -
Treaty of Greenville
A year after the Battle of Fallen Timbers, Native American leaders and Anthony Wayne met at Fort Greenville in Ohio to negotiate an end to the Northwest Territory Indian War. On August 3, 1795, both sides signed the Treaty of Greenville.
(https://study.com/academy/lesson/1795-treaty-of-greenville-definition-summary-quiz.html) -
Pinckney's Treaty
Pinckney's Treaty, also commonly known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on October 27, 1795 and established intentions of friendship between the United States and Spain.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinckney%27s_Treaty) -
Election of John Adams
The United States presidential election of 1796 was the third quadrennial presidential election. It was held from Friday, November 4 to Wednesday, December 7, 1796. ... Incumbent Vice President John Adams of the Federalist Party defeated former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1796) -
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.
(https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/xyz) -
Quasi-War with France
The Quasi-War was an undeclared war fought almost entirely at sea between the United States and France from 1798 to 1800.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-War) -
Alien and Sedition Acts
A series of laws known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by the Federalist Congress in 1798 and signed into law by President Adams. These laws included new powers to deport foreigners as well as making it harder for new immigrants to vote.
(http://www.ushistory.org/us/19e.asp) -
Judiciary Act of 1800
The Judiciary Act of 1801 was a partisan political attempt by Federalists in Congress and the John Adams administration to pack the federal courts with Federalists. ... In this spirit, they passed the Federal Judiciary Act of 1801. The Act reduced the number of Supreme Court Justices from the original six to five.
(https://study.com/academy/lesson/judiciary-act-of-1801-definition-summary-quiz.html) -
Election of Thomas Jefferson
In what is sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800", Vice President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party defeated incumbent President John Adams of the Federalist Party.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1800)
