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Jamestown
On May 14, 1607, a group of roughly 100 members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River. Famine, disease and conflict with local Native American tribes in the first two years brought Jamestown to the brink of failure before the arrival of a new group of settlers and supplies in 1610. Tobacco became Virginia's first profitable export, and a period of peace followed the marriage of colonist John -
Virginia House of Burgesses
The first legislature anywhere in the English colonies in America was in Virginia. This was the House of Burgesses, and it first met on July 30, 1619, at a church in Jamestown. Its first order of business was to set a minimum price for the sale of tobacco. -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact, signed by 41 English colonists on the ship Mayflower on November 11, 1620, was the first written framework of government established in what is now the United States. The compact was drafted to prevent dissent amongst Puritans and non-separatist Pilgrims who had landed at Plymouth a few days earlier. -
Plymouth Rock
Plymouth Rock is the stone upon which the Pilgrims were said to have stepped when the Mayflower arrived in Plymouth harbor on 21 December 1620. Identified in 1741 by Thomas Faunce, who was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1650, the massive rock was moved to the Town Square in 1774. Geologists classify it as an erratic glacial boulder of Dedham granite. Placed under an ornate portico in 1880, it was moved for the Tercentenary celebration in 1921 under an elaborate granite canopy on the hill ov -
Toleration Act
The Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, was a law mandating religious tolerance for trinitarian Christians. Passed on April 21, 1649 by the assembly of the Maryland colony, it was the second law requiring religious tolerance in the British North American colonies and created the first legal limitations on hate speech in the world. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by young Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. The colony's disorganized frontier political structure combined with accumulating grievances (including leaving Bacon out of his inner circle, refusing to allow Bacon to be a part of his fur trade with the Indians, Doeg tribe Indian attacks) helped to motivate a popular uprising against Berkeley. He had failed to address the demands of the colonists re -
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also known as the Bloodless Revolution, took place in England in 1688. It led to the overthrow of King James II by his daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange, who was king of Holland. The conflict stemmed from James II's Catholicism and his desire for a strong monarchy, while Parliament, which was dominated by Protestants, wanted a stronger legislative branch. -
English Bill of Rights
The English Bill of Rights of 1689 was similar to the United States Constitution regarding the first eight amendments. The main purpose of this bill is to grant the people basic human rights for freedom of speech, right to bear arms for defense and be granted the right to a democratic process which would limit the Monarch rule. It made it possible for citizens to voice their opinions without fear of strict punishment for speaking out against the hierarchy. It was the first step in a long process -
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials occurred in colonial Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693. More than 200 people were accused of practicing witchcraft—the Devil's magic—and 20 were executed. Eventually, the colony admitted the trials were a mistake and compensated the families of those convicted. Since then, the story of the trials has become synonymous with paranoia and injustice, and it continues to beguile the popular imagination more than 300 years later -
John Peter Zenger
After John Peter Zenger had languished in jail for an entire year, his trial began on August 4, 1735 inside a small court room in the New York City Hall. The Attorney General opened the case, saying that the defendant had pleaded not guilty to printing and publishing a false, scandalous, and seditious libel against Governor Cosby. Chief Justice DeLancey then said to the jury, "The laws in my opinion are very clear; they cannot be admitted to justify a libel." He was pleaded not gulitly. -
French and Indian War
The Seven Years' War (called the French and Indian War in the colonies) lasted from 1756 to 1763, forming a chapter in the imperial struggle between Britain and France called the Second Hundred Years' War. In the early 1750s, France's expansion into the Ohio River valley repeatedly brought it into conflict with the claims of the British colonies, especially Virginia. -
Proclamation of 1763
proclamation declared by the British crown at the end of the French and Indian War in North America, mainly intended to conciliate the Indians by checking the encroachment of settlers on their lands. In the centuries since the proclamation, it has become one of the cornerstones of Native American law in the United States and Canada. -
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 from the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and looking to its North American colonies as a revenue source. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualling houses, and the houses of sellers of wine -
Declatory Act
Declaration by the British Parliament that accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act. It stated that the British Parliament’s taxing authority was the same in America as in Great Britain. Parliament had directly taxed the colonies for revenue in the Sugar Act (1764) and the Stamp Act (1765 -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. It was the culmination of tensions in the American colonies that had been growing since Royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768 to enforce the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts. -
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). The act's main purpose was not to raise revenue from the colonies but to bail out the floundering East India Company, a key actor in the British economy. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, took place when a group of Massachusetts Patriots, protesting the monopoly on American tea importation recently granted by Parliament to the East India Company, seized 342 chests of tea in a midnight raid on three tea ships and threw them into the harbor. -
1st Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress, which was comprised of delegates from the colonies, met in 1774 in reaction to the Coercive Acts, a series of measures imposed by the British government on the colonies in response to their resistance to new taxes. -
2nd Continental Congress
In 1775, the Second Continental Congress convened after the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) had already begun. In 1776, it took the momentous step of declaring America's independence from Britain. Five years later, the Congress ratified the first national constitution, the Articles of Confederation, under which the country would be governed until 1789, when it was replaced by the current U.S. Constitution. -
Declaration of Independence
By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists’ motivations for seeking their independence. By declaring themselves an independent nation, the American colonists were able to conclude an official alliance with the government of France and obtain French assistance in the war against Great Britain. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War between Great Britain and the United States, recognized American independence and established borders for the new nation.
