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Treaty of Paris
It officially ended the Revolutionary War of 1783. Britain recognized U.S. as a independent nation. It also gave U.S. new borders including all land from the Great Lakes on the north to Florida on the south, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. -
Land Ordinance
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress on May 20, 1785. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation of the inhabitants of the United States. Therefore, the immediate goal of the ordinance was to raise money through the sale of land in the largely unmapped territory west of the original states acquired at the Treaty of Paris after the end of the Revolutionary War. -
Northwest Ordinance
The Northwest Ordinance was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States, passed July 13, 1787. The primary effect of the ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory as the first organized territory of the United States out of the region south of the Great Lakes, north and west of the Ohio -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition by the United States of America for all of France's claim to the territory of Louisiana in 1803. The U.S. paid 15 million dollars for the addition. -
Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific coast undertaken by the United States. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, it was led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. -
Mexico Opens to U.S. Settlers
Mexico encouraged settlers to create their own militias for protection against hostile Indian tribes. Texas was very sparsely populated and in the hope that an influx of settlers could control the Indian raids, the government liberalized immigration policies for the region. -
First Railroad Constructed
October 7, 1826, at Quincy, the first railroad in America was opened, and under the direction of a young engineer by the name of Gridley Bryant, the first cars drawn by horses passed over it, carrying huge blocks of granite from the Bunker Hill Quarry to a wharf on the Neponset River, a distance of two and three-quarters miles. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830. The act authorized him to negotiate with the Indians in the Southern United States for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their homelands -
Texas Wins Independence
With Santa Anna a prisoner, his captors forced him to sign the Treaties of Velasco on May 14. The treaty recognized Texas' independence and guaranteed Santa Anna's life. -
Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears is a name given to the forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The removal included many members of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations, among others in the United States, from their homelands to Indian Territory -
Polk Beats Clay in "Manifest Destiny" Election
In the United States presidential election of 1844, Democrat James K. Polk defeated Whig Henry Clay in a close contest that turned on foreign policy, with Polk favoring the annexation of Texas and Clay opposed. Democratic nominee James K. Polk ran on a platform that embraced American territorial expansionism, an idea soon to be referred to as Manifest Destiny. -
U.S. Annexes Texas
In 1845, the United States of America annexed the Republic of Texas and admitted it to the Union as the 28th state. The U.S. thus inherited Texas' border dispute with Mexico; this quickly led to the Mexican-American War, during which the U.S. captured additional territory, extending the nation's borders all the way to the Pacific Ocean. -
U.S. settles Oregon Dispute with Britain
The Oregon boundary dispute arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both the United Kingdom and the United States had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region as well as residual claims from treaties with Russia and Spain -
Mormons Migrates to Utah Territory
The Mormon pioneers were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who migrated across the United States from the Midwest to the Salt Lake Valley in what is today the U.S. state of Utah. At the time of the cease fire and planning of the exodus in 1846, the territory was owned by the Republic of Mexico, which soon after went to war with the United States over the annexation of Texas. Salt Lake Valley became American territory as a result. -
U.S. Fights Mexico Over Texas
The Mexican–American War was an armed conflict between the United States of America and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory despite the 1836 Texas Revolution. -
Fremont Conquers California
American army captain John C. Frémont with about 60 well-armed men had entered California in December 1845 and was making a slow march to Oregon when they received word that war between Mexico and the U.S. was imminent. After a series of battles, Frémont and his men were successful in defeating the Mexican army. -
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the Gold Rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to the state in late 1848. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in February, 1848, marked the end of the Mexican–American War. In that treaty, Mexico formally ceded Alta California along with its other northern territories east through Texas, receiving $15,000,000 in exchange. This largely unsettled territory constituted nearly half of its claimed territory. -
Gasden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase is a 29,670-square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United States in a treaty signed by James Gadsden, the American ambassador to Mexico at the time, on December 30, 1853. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing settlers in those territories to determine through Popular Sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory.
