-
Jun 2, 1215
Magna Carta
The Magna Carta was a charter of liberty and political rights. It was obtained from King John of England in 1215. -
Jamestown settled
The Jamestown Settlement Colony''' was the first successful English settlement on the mainland of North America. Named for King James I of England, Jamestown was founded in the Colony of Virginia on April 26, 1607. -
Mayflower Compact written
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists, later together known to history as the Pilgrims, who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. -
Petition of Right
The Petition of Right is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. The Petition of Right was produced by the English Parliament in the run-up to the English Civil War. -
English Bill of Rights
An act passed by Parliament in 1689 which limited the power of the monarch. This document established Parliament as the most powerful branch of the English government. -
Albany Plan of Union
The Albany Plan was proposed by Benjamin Franklin at the Albany Congress in 1754 in Albany, New York. It was an early attempt at forming a union of the colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary for defense and other general important purposes" during the French and Indian War. -
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. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was an incident that led to the deaths of five civilians at the hands of British troops on March 5, 1770, the legal aftermath of which helped spark the rebellion in some of the British American colonies, which culminated in the American Revolutionary War. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a violent demonstration in 1773 by American colonists before the American Revolution. Colonists boarded vessels in Boston harbor and threw the cargoes of tea into the water in protest at the imposition of a tax on tea by the British Parliament, in which the colonists had no representation. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American colonies that met on September 5, 1774, at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This meeting was early in the American Revolution. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of five laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain's colonies in North America. -
American Revolution begins
The war inwhich the American colonists won independence from British rule. It went on from 1775 to 1783. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that met beginning on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. -
Declaration of Independence
A document declaring the US to be independent of the British Crown, signed on July 4, 1776, by the congressional representatives of the Thirteen Colonies. These representatives included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation were the first constitution of the United States. It was ratified in 1781, and it was replaced by the U.S. constitution in 1789. -
Shay's Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts (mainly Springfield) from 1786 to 1787. The rebellion is named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolution who led the rebels, known as "Shaysites" or "Regulators". -
Philadelphia Convention
The Philadelphia Convention took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain. -
Constitution Convention
The Constitutional Convention was the convention of United States statesmen who drafted the United States Constitution. It occured in 1787. -
Connecticut Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. It in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution.
