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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
Rebel nobles in England drafted the Magna Carta to reduce the power of their own tyrannical monarch–King John. While the Magna Carta, signed in 1215, primarily secured liberties for England’s elite classes, it has guided the fundamental principles of common law in constitutions around the world for the last 800 years. The Magna Carta brought an end to the absolute power of English sovereigns as they, too, were required to be held accountable by the law. -
Jamestown Settlment
In 1607, 104 English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. On May 13 they picked Jamestown, Virginia for their settlement, which was named after their King, James I. The settlement became the first permanent English settlement in North America. -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact was the first agreement for self-government to be created and enforced in America. On September 16, 1620 the Mayflower, a British ship, with 102 passengers, who called themselves Pilgrims, aboard sailed from Plymouth, England. They were bound for the New World. -
Petition of Right
The Petition of Right of 1628 is one of England's most famous Constitutional documents. It was written by Parliament as an objection to an overreach of authority by King Charles I. During his reign, English citizens saw this overreach of authority as a major infringement on their civil rights. -
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. -
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 48) and a delegate from Pennsylvania, at the Albany Congress on July 10, 1754 in Albany, New York. -
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 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. -
Boston Tea Party
The British Tea Party was a raid on three British ships in Boston Harbor 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. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts was the term used by American Patriots for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. -
First Continental Congress
On September 5, 1774, delegates from each of the 13 colonies except for Georgia (which was fighting a Native-American uprising and was dependent on the British for military supplies) met in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress to organize colonial resistance to Parliament's Coercive Acts. -
American Revolution
The American Revolution (1775-83) is also known as the American Revolutionary War and the U.S. War of Independence. The conflict arose from growing tensions between residents of Great Britain's 13 North American colonies and the colonial government, which represented the British crown. The Great Britain’s 13 North American colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the spring of 1775 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia between September 5, 1774 and October 26, 1774. -
Deceleration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The Declaration announced that the thirteen American colonies[2] at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain would now regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these states formed a new nation – the United States of America. -
Articles of Confederation
Articles of Confederation, 1777–1781. The Articles of Confederation served as the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. -
Shay's Rebellion
An uprising led by a former militia officer, Daniel Shays, which broke out in western Massachusetts in 1786. Shays's followers protested the foreclosures of farms for debt and briefly succeeded in shutting down the court system. -
Philadelphia Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The point of the event was decide how America was going to be governed. -
Connecticut Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman Compromise) was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution.
