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Jamestown
Late in 1606, English entrepreneurs set sail with a charter from the Virginia Company of London to establish a colony in the New World. After a particularly long voyage of five months duration including a stop in Puerto Rico, they finally departed for the American mainland on April 10, 1607. The three ships, named Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed, under Captain Christopher Newport, made landfall on April 26, 1607 at a place they named Cape Henry. Under orders to select a more secure locat -
Virginia House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses /ˈbɜrdʒɪsɪz/ of Virginia was the first legislative assembly of elected representatives in North America.[1] The House was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America and to make conditions in the colony more agreeable for its current inhabitants.[2] Its first meeting was held in Jamestown, Virginia, on July 30, 1619.[3] -
Plymouth Rock
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It is an important symbol in American history. There are no contemporaneous references to the Pilgrims' landing on a rock at Plymouth, and it is not referred to in Edward Winslow's Mourt's Relation (1620–21) or in Bradford's journal Of Plymouth Plantation (1620–47). -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the Separatists, sometimes referred to as the "Saints", fleeing from religious persecution by King James of England. They traveled aboard the Mayflower in 1620 along with adventurers, tradesmen, and servants, most of whom were referred to, by the Separatists as "Strangers".
The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard the ship on November 11, 1620. -
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
Has features of a written Constitution and is considered by some the first Constitution written in the western tradition. The orders were transcribed into the official colony records by the colony's secretary Thomas Welles. It was a Constitution for the colonial government of Hartford and was similar to the government Massachusetts had set up. However, this Order gave men more voting rights and made more men eligible to run for elected positions. -
Bacon's Rebellion
This was an armed rebekllion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by young Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkely. -
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland and James II of Ireland) by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau (William of Orange). William's successful invasion of England with a Dutch fleet and army led to his ascending of the English throne as William III of England jointly with his wife Mary II of England. -
Toleration Act
Act allowed freedom of worship to Nonconformists who had pledged to the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and rejected transubstantiation, i.e., Protestants who dissented from the Church of England such as Baptists and Congregationalists but not to Catholics. Nonconformists were allowed their own places of worship and their own teachers, if they accepted certain oaths of allegiance. -
English Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is an Act of the Parliament of England passed on 16 December 1689. It was a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 (or 1688 by Old Style dating), inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England. It lays down limits on the powers of the crown and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament. -
Salem Witch Trials
Series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in Colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. -
John Peter Zenger
John Peter Zenger (October 26, 1697 – July 28, 1746) was a German American printer, publisher, editor and journalist in New York City. Zenger printed The New York Weekly Journal. He was a defendant in a landmark legal case in American jurisprudence, known as "The Zenger Trial", in which his lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, established that truth is a defense against charges of libel. -
French and Indian War
he French and Indian War (1754–1763) is the American name for the North American theater of the Seven Years War. The same war is referred to in Canadian history as the War of the Conquest. The war was fought primarily between the colonies of British America and New France, with both sides supported by military units from their parent countries of Great Britain and France, who declared war on each other in 1756. In the same year, the war escalated from a regional affair into a worldwide conflict. -
Treaty of Paris
The signing of the treaty formally ended the Seven Years' War, otherwise known as the French and Indian War in the North American theatre,[1] which marked the beginning of an era of British dominance outside Europe. -
Treaty of Paris
The signing of the treaty formally ended the Seven Years' War, otherwise known as the French and Indian War in the North American theatre,[1] which marked the beginning of an era of British dominance outside Europe. -
Proclamation 0f 1763
Issued in October 7, 1763 by King George III. The purpose of the proclamation was to organize Great Britain's new North American empire and to stabilize relations with Native North Americans through regulation of trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier. -
Stamp Act
Imposed a direct tax by British Parlament on the colonies of British America, required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. -
Declatory Act
Act of Parliament in Great Britain, which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act because boycotts were hurting British trade and used the declaration to justify the repeal and save face. -
Boston Massacre
Known as the Incident on King Street by the British was an incident on March 5, 1770. British Army soldiers killed five male civilians and injured six others. -
Tea Act
The Act granted the Company the right to directly ship its tea to North America and the right to the duty-free export of tea from Britain, although the tax imposed by the Townshend Acts and collected in the colonies remained in force. It received the royal assent on May 10, 1773. -
Boston Tea Party
Political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16, 1773. Disguised as American Indians, demonstrators destroyed the entire supply of tea sent by the East India Company in defiance of the American boycott of tea carrying a tax the Americans had not authorized. -
1st Continental Congress
Convention of delegates from twelve colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. It was called in response to the passage of the Coercive Acts by British Parlament. -
2nd Continental Congress
The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. By raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties, the Congress acted as the de facto national government of what became the United States. -
Declaration of Independace
tatement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed a union that would become a new nation, the United States of America.
