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Aug 3, 1492
The Discovery of America by Columbus
Christopher Columbus led his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies) where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited. -
The Settlement of Jamestown
English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. 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. -
The French and Indian War
This New World conflict marked another chapter in the long imperial struggle between Britain and France. When France’s expansion into the Ohio River valley brought repeated conflict with the claims of the British colonies. -
The Boston Tea Party
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston harbor and threw 342 chests of tea overboard. This resulted in the passage of the punitive Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer to war. -
The Battle of Lexington and Concord
British troops are sent to confiscate colonial weapons, they run into an untrained and angry militia. This ragtag army defeats 700 British soldiers and the surprise victory bolsters their confidence for the war ahead. -
The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, collectively known as the Charters of Freedom, have guaranteed the rights and freedoms of Americans for over 200 years. -
The Battle of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the Surrender at Yorktown, German Battle or the Siege of Little York,ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, -
The Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It began with the proposal of James Madison’s Virginia Plan. -
The invention of the cotton gin
In 1794, U.S.-born inventor Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. -
The Alien and Sedition Acts
Signed into law by President John Adams in 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts consisted of four laws passed by the Federalist-controlled Congress as America prepared for war with France. An Act Respecting Alien Enemies. An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States (Sedition Act) -
The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the Louisiana territory by the United States from France in 1803. The U.S. paid fifty million francs and a cancellation of debts worth eighteen million francs for a total of sixty-eight million francs. -
The War of 1812
Conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights. It ended with the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent. -
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. -
Andrew Jackson’s Election
The United States presidential election of 1828 was the 11th quadrennial presidential election. It featured a re-match between incumbent President John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson, who won a plurality of the electoral college vote in the 1824 election. -
The invention of the telegraph
The first electrical telegraph was invented by Samuel Soemmering in 1809 using gold wires in water sending messages around two thousand feet away that could be read by determining how much gas was released. Although very crude, it was a vast improvement on earlier methods of telegraphy -
The Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down while unemployment went up. Pessimism abounded during the time. -
The Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was a series of forced removals of Native American nations from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to an area west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory. -
The Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. -
The Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions on January 29, 1850, in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. -
The Firing on Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army that started the American Civil War. -
Civil War
The Civil War started because of differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. War broke out when Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina -
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. -
13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, known collectively as the Civil War Amendments, were designed to ensure equality for recently emancipated slaves. The 13th Amendment banned slavery and all involuntary servitude, except in the case of punishment for a crime. -
Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and the city of Petersburg; his goal was to rally the remnants of his beleaguered troops, meet Confederate reinforcements in North Carolina and resume fighting. -
Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre . -
Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment
On February 24, 1868 three days after Johnson's dismissal of Stanton, the House of Representatives voted 126 to 47 in favor of a resolution to impeach the President for high crimes and misdemeanors. One week later, the House adopted eleven articles of impeachment against the President. -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust
Standard Oil Trust organized. John D. Rockefeller created Standard Oil Trust by trading stockholders' shares for trust certificates. The trust was designed to allow Rockefeller and other Standard Oil stockholders to get around state laws prohibiting one company from owning stock in another. -
The invention of the electric light, telephone, and airplane
By the end of 1880, Edison had produced a bulb that lasted 1500 hours. In 1874 Alexander Graham Bell developed the idea for the telephone and successfully created and patented one two years later. On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright flew the first powered, heavier-than-air airplane, propelling himself and his older brother Wilbur into world history. -
The Pullman and Homestead Strikes
homestead and pullman strikes homestead strike The dispute occurred at the Homestead Steel Works in the town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company. -
The Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict fought between Spain and the United States in 1898. -
Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt began on September 14, 1901.
