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Jamestown
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. William Kelso writes that Jamestown "is where the British Empire began" -
Virginia House of Burgesses
With its origin in the first meeting of the Virginia General Assembly at Jamestown. the House of Burgesses was the first democratically-elected legislative body in the British American colonies. -
Plymouth Rock
Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was the first agreement for self-government to be created and enforced in America. The Mayflower, a British ship, with 102 passengers, who called themselves Pilgrims, aboard sailed from Plymouth, England. -
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.
The Fundamental Orders were adopted by the Connecticut Colony council. It was a Constitution for the colonial government of Hartford and was similar to the government that Massachusetts had set up. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. -
Glorious Revolution
England that resulted in the ousting of James II and the establishment of William III and Mary II as joint monarchs. Also called: Bloodless Revolution. -
Toleration Act
Parliament granting freedom of worship to Nonconformists. . It was one of a series of measures that firmly established the Glorious Revolution in England. -
English Bill of Rights
The English Bill of Rights is an act that the Parliament of England passed on December 16, 1689. The Bill creates separation of powers, limits the powers of the king and queen, enhances the democratic election and bolsters freedom of speech. -
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 -
John Peter Zenger
US printer and journalist, b. Germany. Editor of the New York Weekly Journal (1733), he attacked Governor William Cosby and was jailed for libel in 1734. ... His case established truth as a defense for libel and made Zenger a symbol of the freedom of the press. -
French and Indian War
French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, 1754–63. The French and Indian War was the North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. -
Albany Plan of Union
The Albany Plan of Union was a plan to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin, then a senior leader (age 45) and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754 in Albany, New York. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, which forbade all settlement past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
Quartering Act
On this day in 1765, Parliament passes the Quartering Act, outlining the locations and conditions in which British soldiers are to find room and board in the American colonies. The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. -
Declaratory Act
Declaratory Act, (1766), 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). -
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. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre. The Meaning and Definition of the Boston Massacre: The Boston Massacre was a pre-revolutionary incident that occurred on March 5, 1770. British soldiers, who were quartered in the city, fired into a rioting mob killing five American civilians in the Boston Massacre. -
Tea Act
The Meaning and Definition of the Tea Act: The Tea Act of 1773 was a British Law, passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on May 10, 1773, that was designed to bail out the British East India Company and expand the company's monopoly on the tea trade to all British Colonies, selling excess tea at a reduced price. -
Boston Tea Party
Boston Tea Party. a raid on three British ships in Boston Harbor (December 16, 1773) in which Boston colonists, disguised as Indians, threw the contents of several hundred chests of tea into the harbor as a protest against British taxes on tea and against the monopoly granted the East India Company. -
1st continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies who met from September 5 to October 26, 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania early in the American Revolution. -
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. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris of 1783, negotiated between the United States and Great Britain, ended the revolutionary war and recognized American independence. The Continental Congress named a five-member commission to negotiate a treaty–John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Laurens.
