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1464 BCE
Kingdom of Songhai
Songhai empire, also spelled Songhay, great trading state of West Africa, centred on the middle reaches of the Niger River. If a prisoner of war had already converted to Islam before being captured, they could not be sold as a slave. -
1390 BCE
Kingdom of Kongo
The Kingdom of Kongo was a kingdom located in west central Africa.the Kingdom of Kongo became a major source of slaves for Portuguese traders and other European powers -
1235 BCE
Kingdom of Mali
The Mali Empire was an empire in West Africa from c. 1235 to 1670. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Musa Keita. -
1055 BCE
Kingdom of Ghana
The Ghana Empire, properly known as Wagadou, was a West African empire.As trade routes were established, ancient Ghana became an important trading center and cultural crossroads between 400 and 1100 C.E -
1492
First voyage of Christopher Columbus
Columbus set sail from Spain to find an all-water route to Asia. On October 12, more than two months later, Columbus landed on an island in the Bahamas that he called San Salvador -
1494
Treaty of Tordesillas
Treaty of Tordesillas was an agreement between Spain and Portugal. That were aimed at settling conflicts over lands newly discovered or explored by Christopher Columbus. -
1504
Voyages of Christopher Columbus
The explorer Christopher Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia -
1519
Cortes conquered the Aztecs
Hernan Cortés invaded Mexico in 1519 and conquered the Aztec Empire. Hernán Cortés was a Spanish conqueror that was best remembered for conquering the Aztec empire in 1521, claiming Mexico for Spain. -
English settlement of Roanoke
The Roanoke Colony refers to two attempts by Sir Walter Raleigh to found the first permanent English settlement in North America.The settlers, who arrived in 1587, disappeared in 1590 -
Establishment of Jamestown
The first permanent English settlement in America was Jamestown, founded in 1607 as an economic venture.The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia's Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” -
Pilgrims land in Plymouth
The Mayflower arrived in Plymouth Harbor in 1620, after first stopping near today's Provincetown. According to oral tradition, Plymouth Rock was the site where William Bradford and other Pilgrims first set foot on land. -
Maryland granted to Lord Baltimore
After his death, George Calvert's son, Cecil Calvert, inherited the title of Lord Baltimore and carried on the work of settling Maryland. After a period of violence and persecution against Catholics, -
Navigation Acts
The Navigation Acts were a series of laws passed by the English Parliament to regulate shipping and maritime commerce. The Acts increased colonial revenue by taxing the goods going to and from British colonies. -
Bacon’s Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion that took place 1676-1677 by Virginia settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. -
King Philip’s War
The underlying cause of the war was the colonists unrelenting desire for more and more land, but the immediate cause for its outbreak was the trial and execution of three of Metacom's men by the colonists. -
Queen Anne’s War
Queen Anne's War was a second in a series of wars fought between Great Britain and France in North America for control of the continent. It was contemporaneous with the War of the Spanish Succession in Europe -
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. -
7 Years’ War
The Seven Years' War, also known as the French and Indian War, began in 1756 when the fighting between French and colonists merged into a European conflict involving France, Austria, and Russia against Prussia and Britain -
Sugar Act
When passed by Parliament, the new Sugar Act of 1764 halved the previous tax on molasses. In addition to promising stricter enforcement, the language of the bill made it clear that the purpose of the legislation was not to simply regulate trade but to actually raise revenue. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed. -
Tea Act
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies.The passing of the Tea Act imposed no new taxes on the American colonies. -
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. -
Declaration of Independence
It was an official act taken by all 13 American colonies in declaring independence from British rule. -
The Battle Of Saratoga
Surrender to American forces at the Battle of Saratoga marked a turning point in the Revolutionary War. The Battle of Saratoga was the turning point of the Revolutionary War. -
Ratification of the Articles of Confederation
Ratification of the Articles of Confederation was delayed for several reasons, of which one of the most perplexing was the differing claims to western lands held by the states. Only after Virginia had agreed to cede all its claims north of the Ohio River did Maryland ratify in March 1781. -
The Battle Of Yorktown
The significance of the conflict was that Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington as French and American forces trapped the British at Yorktown. The British surrender at the Battle of Yorktown ended the American Revolutionary War. -
Shay's Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts in opposition to a debt crisis among the citizenry and the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades; -
The Northwest Ordinance
the Northwest Ordinance established a government for the Northwest Territory, outlined the process for admitting a new state to the Union, and guaranteed that newly created states would be equal to the original thirteen states. -
The US Constitution
The document created during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It contains the framework, or fundamental laws, governing the United States of America. -
Whiskey Rebellion
Whiskey Rebellion. Whiskey Rebellion (1794) Revolt against the US government in w Pennsylvania. It was provoked by a tax on whisky, and was the first serious challenge to federal authority. Collection of the tax met violent resistance, but when President Washington called out the militia, the rebellion collapsed. -
Alien and Sedation 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. -
Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase summary: The United States bought 828,000 square miles of land from France in 1803. The French controlled this region from 1699 until 1762 when it became Spanish property because France gave it to Spain as a present, since they were allies. -
Embargo Act
The Embargo Act of 1807 was a law passed by the United State Congress and signed by President Thomas Jefferson on December 22, 1807. It prohibited American ships from trading in all foreign ports. -
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States and the United Kingdom, with their respective allies, from June 1812 to February 1815. Historians in Britain often see it as a minor theatre of the Napoleonic Wars; historians in the United States and Canada see it as a war in its own right. -
The Battle Of Horseshoe Bend
The forces of Andrew Jackson defeat the Creeks in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, on the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. This decisive victory ends the Creek War. -
Missouri Comprise
The Missouri Compromise was the legislation that provided for the admission of Maine to the United States as a free state along with Missouri as a slave state, thus maintaining the balance of power between North and South in the United States Senate. -
Mexican Independence
The revolutionary tract, so-named because it was publicly read by Hidalgo in the town of Dolores, called for the end of 300 years of Spanish rule in Mexico, redistribution of land and racial equality.Mar 3, 2010 -
Texas Declares Independence
Many American settlers and Tejanos, or Mexicans who lived in Texas, wanted to break away from Mexico. They did not like laws made by Santa Anna, Mexico's president. The Tejanos and Texans decided to fight for independence.After this, Texans declared independence and formed the Republic of Texas. -
Mexican American War
The Mexican-American War, waged between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848, helped to fulfill America's "manifest destiny" to expand its territory across the entire North American continent. -
Treaty Of Guadalupe-Hildago
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, ended the Mexican-American War in favor of the United States. The war had begun almost two years earlier, in May 1846, over a territorial dispute -
The compromise of 1850
The main importance of the Compromise of 1850 is that it put off the secession of the South for at least a little while.The Compromise of 1850 was necessary because the North and the South were badly split on the issue of the lands that had been taken from Mexico in the recent war. -
The Kansas- Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act failed to end the national conflict over slavery. Antislavery forces viewed the statute as a capitulation to the South, and many abandoned the Whig and Democratic parties to form the republican party. Kansas soon became a battleground over slavery. -
The Dred Scott Decision
Supreme Court issues a decision in the Dred Scott case, affirming the right of slave owners to take their slaves into the Western territories, therebynegating the doctrine of popular sovereignty and severely undermining the platform of the newly created Republican Party. -
The Secession Of South Carolina
South Carolina secedes from the Union. One of the founder members of the Confederacy seceded from the United States on 20 December 1860. Fort Sumter, 1861, flying the Confederate flagThe American Civil War was fought to preserve the Union. -
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American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people -
The Battle at Antietam
The Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War, fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate -
The Battle of Bull Run
The First Battle of Bull Run, also known as the First Battle of Manassas, was the first major battle of the American Civil War and was a Confederate victory -
The 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." -
The Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. -
Lincoln’s Assassination
Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government.