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Christopher Colombus' voyages to America began.
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Settlers at this time were mostly Puritans. Puritans wanted to "purify" the Church of England.
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The first permanent colony was established in Jamestown.
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John Smith publishes The General History of Virginia.
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The first book issued in North America was called Bay Psalm Book. In this book, the Bible's psalms were rewritted to the rhythms of familiar Puritan hymns.
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The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, by Anne Bradstreet, was the first work published by a North American woman.
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The Puritans' victory in King Phillip's War ends Native American resistance in New Enlgand colonies.
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During the Great Awakening, people started to feel that a higher power was helping Americans have a new standard for an ethical life.
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There was a burst of intellectual activity in Europe, called the Enlightenment. Some writers that shaped the American Enlightenment were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson.
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The Boston Newsletter, the first American newspaper, is established.
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The colonial population reaches about a half million; Boston's population is about 12,000.
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English colonies stretched all along the Atlantic coast.
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Between 1763 adn 1783, almost two thousand pamphlets were published. These pamphlets became the start of the Revolution.
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The colonies declared themselves to be "free and independent".
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The pamphlet, Common Sense, by Thomas Paine, helped propel the colonists to revolution.
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The U.S. Constitution is approved.
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When the Constitution was approved, the United States of America was born.
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Isaac Newton publishes Philosophiar naturalis principia mathematica, considered to be the most important work of the Scientific Revolution.
