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Jun 15, 1215
Magna Carta
The Magna Carta is a charter agreed to by King John of England. The use of this document was to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons. -
Jamestown settlement
Jamestown was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America. -
Mayflower Compact written
An agreement reached by the Pilgrims on the ship the Mayflower in 1620, just before they landed at Plymouth Rock. The Mayflower Compact bound them to live in a civil society according to their own laws. -
Petition of Right
The Petition of Right is a major English document that sets out a specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. -
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 was created by Ben Franklin to start a new country. He came up with laws to create a more unified government for the 13 colonies -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of 5 colonist by British regulars. It happened ever since tensions got high in the American colonies when royal troops came over from Britain to put down the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was when the political protest by the Sons of Liberty. They threw the tea off the ship into the harbor because they did not like that they were being taxed on the tea. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from 12 of the 13 colonies that met at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. -
Intolerable Acts
The intolerable Acts were the American Patriots' term for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor. -
American Revolution Begins
In April 1775, the battle of Lexington occurred, closely followed by the battle of Concord. The shot at Lexington marked the first blood spilled in the war of the American independence -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence which would then adopt the United States Declaration of Independence. -
Stamp Act
an act of the British Parliament in 1756 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the British Crown. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is defined as the formal statement written by Thomas Jefferson declaring the freedom of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain. An example of the Declaration of Independence was the document adopted at the Second Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation was once the constitution in the US, it was ratified in 1781. It was replaced the by the US constitution in 1789. -
Shay's Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion is the name given to a series of protests in 1786 and 1787 by American farmers against state and local enforcement of tax collections and judgments for debt. -
Connecticut Compromise
The Connecticut Convention 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 . -
Philadelphia Convention
Is also known as the Constitutional Convention -
Constitution Convention
Delegates from five states called for a Constitutional Convention in order to discuss possible improvements to the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787.
