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800 BCE
Ancient Roman Empire
In historiography, ancient Rome refers to the Roman civilization from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, encompassing the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire. The term is sometimes used to just refer to the kingdom and republic periods, excluding the subsequent empire -
Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
-a document signed by King John in 1215 granting rights to the people of England. Meant to limit the power of the Crown. Rights included: trial by jury, due process of law, and protection of life, liberty, and property. -
John Locke
is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Two Treatises of Government, he defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch -
Petition of Rights
a document signed by Charles I in 1628 that further limited the Crown's power. It challenged the idea of Divine Right. Rights included: protection from unlawful imprisonment or punishment, protection from martial law during a time of peace, and protection from taxation without Parliament's consent. -
English bill of rights
drawn up in 1689 to prevent the abuse of power at the end of England's Glorious Revolution after William and Mary of Orange were offered the crown. The English Bill of Rights: prohibited a standing army during peacetime, declared that all English citizens had a right to petition the monarch, required that parliamentary elections be free, and included rights that were already present in the Magna Carta and the Petition of Right -
iroquois
The five Iroquois nations, characterizing themselves as “the people of the longhouse,” were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After the Tuscarora joined in 1722, the confederacy became known to the English as the Six Nations and was recognized as such at Albany, New York -
Montesquieu
First French lawyer (the spirit of law) -
Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine was part of the Declaration of Independence, you had the right to life liberty and pursuit happiness