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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
Also known as Great Charter. Is one of the most important documents in history. -
Jamestown Settled
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 Written
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. -
Petition of Right
Sent by the English Parliament to King Charles I, complaining of a series of breached laws. Sought recognition of four principles: No taxation without the consent of parliament, no imprisonment without cause, no quartering of soldiers on subjects, and no marital law in peacetime. -
English Bill of Rights
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
Was a plan to create a unified government for the thirteen colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was the first internal tax levied directly on American colonists by the British government. -
Boston Massacre
Known as the incident on King's Street by the British. The British army soldiers shot and killed people under attack by a mob. The Boston Massacre is reenacted every year on March 5th, on the actual site in front of the Old State House. -
Boston Tea Party
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston Harbor and threw 342 chest of tea overboard. -
Intolerable Act
Harsh laws passed by the British Parliament. Meant to punish the American colonists for the Boston Tea Party and other protest. -
First Continental Congress
Delegates from each of the 13 colonies except for Georgia. They met in Philadelphia to organize colonial resistance to Parliament's Coercive Act. -
American Revolution
In April 1775 British soldiers, called lobsterbacks because of their red coats, and minutemen—the colonists' militia—exchanged gunfire at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Described as "the shot heard round the world," it signaled the start of the American Revolution and led to the creation of a new nation. -
Second Contienital Congress
Met in Philadelphia. After the American Revolution had already begun. -
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 independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. -
Shays Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts during 1786 and 1787. Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels in an uprising against perceived economic and civil rights injustices. -
Connecticut compromise
The Connecticut 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. -
Phildalpehia Convention
Was to revise the Article of Confederation. the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one.
