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Jan 1, 1500
Columbian Exchange & Spanish Conquistadors
Asians come to the Americas over the Bering Straight and become known as Indians; Columbian Exchange: trading of diseases, goods, and food between the "Old World" and the "New World"; Conquistadors - Gold, God, Glory; lots of Natives die. -
Jan 1, 1558
Elizabeth becomes queen of England
Before Elizabeth, England was a hot mess; Elizabeth takes over and stabilizes the economy and social structure; she makes Protestantism the main religion and wants to start colonies overseas. -
Roanoke
Sir Walter Raleigh is sent by Elizabeth to set up a colony off the coast of Carolina; they get lost. -
Jamestown
Virginia; "Starving Time" because they sent businessmen who can't fish, hunt, build houses, etc.; John Smith comes and stabilizes them -
Tobacco!
John Rolfe!; the problem with tobacco is that it dries out soil, so they have to keep taking land from Indians; they finally have a colony that is making money; Serial Monogomy - the guys keep dying, so women keep marrying and making money -
Pilgrims!
Plymouth MA; Puritan dissenters (Separatists); Mayflower Compact agreeing to primitive self-government; rough first winter; Squanto helps them grow corn; first "corny" Thanksgiving, then they flourish. -
King Philip's War
Northeast war between colonists in NE and the Indians -
Bacon's Rebellion
Indentured Servants - men from Europe whose passage to America is paid for, and they earn it by working for 4-7 years unpaid; Bacon is a freed indentured servant who was mad that there was land or women for them when they were done their term. This makes we need a new system of labor in the South so we will start importing slaves. -
All Colonies Formed
NE: MA, CT, NH, RI
Midatlantic: NY, NJ, DE, MD, PA, VA
South: GA, NC, SC -
Zenger Trials
Freedom of speech/press -
French & Indian War starts
French and English are fighting over Ohio River Valley in America; 7 years; Indians sided with whoever thought would benefit them, but sided more heavily with French, hoping they would get land back if English leave; Washington gets military experience -
French & Indian War Ends
England and Americans win; get Canadian territory and the port of New Orleans; England also gets a huge amount of DEBT that they are going to charge to the colonists -
Proclamation of 1763
England puts boundary along Appalachain mountains saying colonists can't go west because they want conflict with Indians; colonists get mad and ignore it -
Sugar Act
Tax on sugar coming from non-english colonies in the West Indies -
Quartering & Stamp Acts
QA: Colonists have to provide housing and fuel for British soldiers
SA: Colonists have to get 'official g'vt stamp' on most paper products (newspapers, playing cards, licenses, etc.) -
Townshend Acts
Tax on glass, other paper goods, etc. -
British troops occupy Boston
Colonists get angry -
Boston Massacre
Drunk colonists provoke British soldiers with ice-balls; British soldiers get mad and someone fires into the crowd, inciting a riot in which multiple colonists, including African American Crispus Attucks, were shot. British soldiers are put on trial, defended by future president John Adams, and are found innocent. -
Committees of Correspondence form
Since the 13 colonies are all separate, Sam Adams starts this to ensure effective and timely communication for conversations about boycotting, meeting, and discussing the current events going on with the British. -
Boston Tea Party
They are mad the British East India Co. has the monopoly on tea; so colonists disguise themselves as Indians and throw the tea overboard from the ship in Boston Harbor -
Intolerable Acts; First Continental Congress; The Association
British pass 4 intolerable acts, including closing Boston Harbor until the colonists pay back the tea company; colonists meet at the First Continental Congress and decide to form The Association which will organize boycott of British goods -
Battles of Lexington & Concord
"Shot Heard 'Round the World"; first battle of the American Revolution; British threaten to arrest big Patriots and capture the weapons in the arsenals in those towns; British win first battle; Paul Revere etc. warns others of British attack; colonists win Concord -
Second Continental Congress; Ticonderoga; Battle of Bunker Hill
Second Continental Congress - send Olive Branch Petition to King George III but they also form the Continental Army and put GDubs in charge; Army gets cannons from Ticonderoga that they bring down to use at Bunker Hill; Colonists lose Bunker Hill but show they are scruffy and will fight -
Common Sense is published
T.Paine; document saying why we should fight, it is "common sense"; precursor for Declaration of Indepdence; big country should not be governed by little country! -
Declaration of Independence
Reps from each colony sign Declaration of Independence; it is read from the balcony of the Old State House -
Battle of Trenton
Washington crosses the Delaware and snuck up on drunky British and beat them and finally get the upper hand -
Articles of Confederation start
America's first attempt at g'vt; 13 reps, each state gets one vote; need 9/13 votes to make major changes; need 7/13 votes for minor changes; not have the power to tax, consolidate debt, make a national currency, make interstate regulations; only thing it does well is establish a process to populate NW Territory and make those into states -
British Surrender at Yorktown
General Cornwallis surrenders to GDubs -
Articles of Confederation put into effect
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Treaty of Paris signed
Britain acknowledges we are a country but they don't like or want to trade with us -
Shay's Rebellion
Shays was a Rev War Vet who never got paid; he was being taxed and threatened to be put in debtor's prison; he got other farmers together to storm an arsenal in Springfield MA; the state took a long time to get the militia there showing we needed a stronger central g'vt -
Constitutional Convention
Disscuss how to fix AOC but can't; propose VA Plan and NJ Plan - compromise with the Great Compromise which says Senate will have equal representation (2 from each state) and House will have proportional representation; also create the 3/5 Compromise to settle dispute between North and South -
Constitution ratified
Federalists like Constitution; anti-federalists don't like it because they say it gives too mcuh power to the federal government -
Bill of Rights Adopted
First 10 Amendments to the Constitution, guarenteeing rights taht are not explicitly listed in the Constitution (freedom of speech, religion, press, bear arms) -
Washington elected
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First two political parties are formed
Democratic-Republicans and Federalists -
Whiskey Rebellion
Excise tax is applied to whiskey; farmers get mad and rebel; this rebellion is crushed by the new federal milita and it shows the fed g'vt works -
Alien & Sedition Acts
Adams; limits freedom of speech; they are Unconstitutional but hey expire after a couple years -
"Revoltuion" of 1800
Jefferson is elected and beats Adams; first change of political party in the White House -
War of 1812 starts
Between US and Great Britain; we are mad that Engalnd is not taking us seriously, they are "impressing" our sailers, and they are encouraging Indians to fight us -
Treaty of Ghent
Ends War of 1812; Jacksonw as important; Battle of New Orleans; GB will take us seriously; starts the Era of Good Feelins (whcih may or may not be 'good') -
Missouri Compromise
Missouri joins the Union as a slave state and Maine joins the Union as a free state to keep the balance in the Senate; create a boundary for no slavery -
First Industrial Revolution starts
Textile mills using steam power; steamboats; cottin gin; trains; single women from the farms; -
Indian Removal Act
Jackson passes this moving the "Five Civilized Tribes" out of the South; Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole; Trail of Tears; go to Oklahoma -
Second Great Awakening & First Reform Era
Lyman Beecher starts preaching about going back to church and fixing the things wrong with society; want Suffrage and Temperance (Dorothea Dix, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony); Horacce Mann does school reform; Dorothea Dix does prison reform; Frederick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison does abolitionist stuff (newspapers, speeches, etc.) -
Manifest Destiny
Americans want to control all of North America from the Atlantic to the Pafici; it is our God given right -
Irish Potato Famine
People in Ireland start starving so they are coming to America in huge numbers; they are dsicriminated against because 1. they are Catholic; 2. they are poor so they take any job for little money and live in crappy houses in cities; 3. there are SOOOOOOO MANY OF THEM; discriminated against "No Irish Need Apply" -
Senecca Falls Convention
NY; women get together to talk about suffrage -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Mexican American War; fought over territory that belonged to Spain, including Texas; President Polk; John Tyler (future president) fights in this war); we gain a whole bunch of territory -
Gold Rush
People head to California and Alaska to mine for gold! Yukon territory; influx of immigrants from China on the west coast -
Compromise of 1850
CA enters as a free state; South gets a strengthened Fugitive Slave Act; Utah and NM Territory get Popular Sovereignty; this angers people because it undoes the boundary set for no slavery north in the Missouri Compromise -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe; makes everyone all upset and says 'what a disgusting country we have made'; people start pressuring g'vt to end slavery; Lincoln tells HBS "You are the little woman who started this great war." -
Kansas Nebraska Act
Popular Sovereignty in these states -
Dred Scott Decision
Black people are still not people; they are property and do not have the right to sue in the Supreme Court -
Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Lincoln runs against Stephen Douglas for the presidency; Lincoln makes famout "House Divided" speech and wins presidency in 1860; this is the beginning of the Civil War -
John Brown's Raid
black abolitionist who led slaves in rebellion to take over an arsenal; they get caught, John Brown is hung, and this makes souterners realllllllllllllyyyyyyyyy nervous -
Fort Sumter attacked
Fort Sumter is an arsenal in the Confederate States of America and is manned by Norhterners; the South tells them to leave, they don't, so the South fires on the fort forcing the soldiers to leave -
Bleeding Kansas
"Civil War" about voting for popular sovereignty; Brooks beats Sumner with a cane because Sumner made an impassioned speech about ending slavery and Brooks was a southerner and doesn't like him and beats him -
7 States Secede
Deep South; Confederate States of America; president Jefferson Davis; form Confederate Army; led by Robert E. Lee -
4 "Boarder States" secede
11 states total secede from the Union -
Battle of Antietam
Bloodiest battle of the Civil War -
Homestead Act
People can go west and they get 20 acres and a mule if they famr for 7 years; they want to populate the west -
Battle of Gettysburg
Turning point of the war; the Union is now winning -
Union starts drafting soldiers
Conscription; people can buy their way out for $200; only white "native" Americans can afford this; Irish immigrants comprise the Union army; draft riots in NYC -
Emacipation Proclamation
Frees in the slaves, technically only in the rebelling states but it is later expanded -
Sherman's March
General Sherman marches through Atlanta and pillages and burning all the way to the Atlantic ocean -
Lincoln Reelected
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Lee Surrenders
Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia to Ulysses Grant -
Lincoln Assassinated
Johnson takes over; John Wilkes Booth killed him -
13th Amendment
Bans slavery forever -
Johnson starts Reconstruction; Freedman's Bureau; Black Codes; Civil Rights Act of 1865
Divides the south into military zones and puts Unions soldiers there; white northerners who go South to educate and help blacks (they are really only successful with education); Black Codes are started by the Southerners to prevent the slaves from being productive citizens; Johnson tries to Veto most Civil Rigths Acts bieng passed, but Congress overrides the veto -
14th Amendment
All native born people are citizens, regardless of "race, gender, or previous condition of servitude" -
Johnson impeached & acquitted, then pardons Confederate leaders
Johnson is impeached because he is vetoing everything; he is acquitted by 1 vote; he returns to office and pardons all major Confederate leaders -
15th Amendment
All male citizens have the right to vote -
Reconsuctrion Ends
Compromise of 1877: President Hayes (R) can become president IF the North takes Union troops out of the South and officially ends Reconstruction -
Guilded Age
Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan; oil, steel, railroads; monopolies and trusts -
President Garfield is assassinated
Chester A. Arthur takes over -
Chinese Exclusion Act
We don't like Chinese people, so they put a quote on the immigrants that can come in -
Progressive Era
Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Jane Addams, yellow journalism, muckraking, Wison, Populist, Upton Sinclair,settlement houses, tenements, child labor, triangle shirtwaist factory fire, working hour reforms, child labor reforms, National Parks, FDA, McKinley, voting improvements, unions -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Separate but Equal is OKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK -
Spanish American War
USS Maine is blown up by Cuba; McKinley declares war and TR leads the "Rough Riders" in a short war in which we end up with control over Cuba and the Philippines -
McKinley Assasinated
TRoosvelt becomes president -
Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine
"Speak softly and carry a big stick" -
17 Amendment
Direct Election of Senators