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1215
Magna Carta
England's King John had enforced years of unsuccessful foreign policies and heavy taxation demands, and was facing a a potential rebellion from the country's barons. He had agreed to the Magna Carta, which set him and all of England's future rulers under a set of laws to restrict their scope of power. -
Jamestown Settled
Jamestown was the original colony settled in 1607. Jamestown was named after King James I, and was first colonized by English men and boys. The settlement was the first permanent English settlement in North America. -
Mayflower Compact Written
The Mayflower Compact was signed by 41 colonists on the Mayflower, and was the first written framework of government established in what is now known as the United States. The compact was drafted to prevent disagreement between Puritans and non-separatist Pilgrims that had landed at Plymouth days before them. -
Petition of Right
The Petition of Right was a British document sent by the English Parliament to King Charles I that established that the king could not infringe on his peoples' basic rights. Four of these rights include no taxation without the consent of Parliament, no imprisonment without cause, no quartering of soldiers on subjects, and no martial law in peacetime. King Charles I was compelled to accepted the petition, and ignored the policies stated in it. -
English Bill of Rights
The English Bill of Rights' main purpose was to declare the practices of James II illegal. Among those practices were James II using his royal prerogative of manipulating the laws to his liking,suspending laws, and levying taxes and maintaining a standing army during peacetime, all without the permission of Parliament. Clauses written into the English Bill of Rights sought to eliminate royal interference in parliamentary matters. -
The Albany Plan of Union
Benjamin Franklin suggested a plan to create a unified government for the thirteen colonies. This idea was first brought to light as a result of Great Britain's ongoing war with France, and the french colonies in Canada. -
The Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was a tax on all paper documents in the colonies. This was the result of the British Empire being in immense debt from the Seven Years' War. The colonists argued that the act was unconstitutional (taxation without representation) and resorted to mob violence. Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, but also issued the Declaratory Act, which stated that Parliament could pass any legislation it wanted to. -
Boston Massacre
Eight British soldiers shot into a crowd of angry men who blamed the British for losing their jobs. One of the angry men from the crowd throw a club at a British soldier, who then fires into the crowd, and his soldiers quickly follow. The soldiers were present because they were there to help enforce the Townshend Acts, which were duties on glass, lead, paints, paper, and tea imported into the colonies. -
Boston Tea Party
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty dress up as Mohawk Indians to board tea ships. Once they boarded the tea ships, they threw 342 tea chests overboard into the Boston harbor to protest the Tea Act. -
Boston Tea Party
Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three tea ships and threw 342 tea chests into the Boston harbor. They did this in protest of the Tea Act, which was written into law by Parliament to try and stabilize the financially weakened East India Company to they could continue to benefit from India's resources by taxing the colonies' tea. -
The Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts, also known as the Coercive Acts, were measurements enacted by the British Parliament as punishment for the Boston Tea Party. They closed Boston's harbor until the tea was payed for (Boston Port Bill), annulled the colony's charter (Massachusetts Govenment Act), allowed British officials to hold trials to capital offenses in different colonies or England (Administration of Justice Act), and allowed housing of British troops in occupied American homes. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia from Sept 5 - Oct 26, 1774. All of the colonies, except Georgia, sent delegates. They met to organize colonial resistance to Parliament's Coercive Acts. As a result, the Declaration of Rights was issued. The document affirmed the colonies' loyalty to the King, but also disputed the British Parliament's right to tax them. -
American Revolution Begins
700 British troops were on a mission to capture Patriot leaders in Lexington, and gound 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker's lead. The "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and when the Battle of Lexington ended, 8 Americans were dead, 10 were wounded, and one British soldier was injured. The battle of Concord was the British's attempt to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Paul Revere & William Dawes rallied militia when British arrived. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was promised to reconvene because Parliament had failed to address the colonists' grievances. By the time of the second meeting, the American Revolution had already begun. The colonies had promised to stop exporting goods to Britain on September 10th, 1775. It had took many steps to declare America's independence from Great Britain, and five years later had ratified the first national constitution, which was the Articles of Confederation. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a document that was written to declare the colonies' independence from Great Britain during the Revolutionary War. It was mainly drafted by Thomas Jefferson, and was adopted by Congress on July 4th, 1776. -
Shay's Rebellion
American farmers protested in 1786 and 1787 because of state and local enforcement of tax collections. Farmers across all the colonies rioted, but those in Massachusetts were particularly angry and were the most serious because of bad harvests, economic depression, and high taxes that threatened them with the loss of their farms. The symbolic leader was Daniel Shays of Massachusetts, which the rebellion was named after. -
The Philadelphia Convention
The Philadelphia Convention, also known as the Constitutional Convention, was convened to address the problems in governing the United States, which had been following the Articles of Confederation as its legal document. The Convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation, but many of its chief proponents wanted to create a new form of government. The result of the Convention was the United States Constitution, which is the document that we govern under today. (05/25/-09/17/1787) -
Connecticut Compromise
Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth proposed a solution to the heated debate between larger and smaller states over representation in the newly proposed Senate. They proposed that the House of Representatives would be based on a state's population, while the Senate would be comprised of an equal number of seats from each state.
