-
Jamestown
Jamestown was the first English settlement in the Americas. Established by the Virginia company, it served as the capital of Virginia for 83 years (1616-1699). -
Mayflower Comact
The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the Separatists, sometimes referred to as the "Saints", fleeing from religious persecution by King James of England. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion in 1676 by Virginia settlers led by Nathaniel Bacon against the rule of Governor William Berkeley. The colony's disorganized frontier political structure helped motivate a popular uprising against Berkeley. -
The Great Awakening
Crash Course Great Awakening
The First Awakening (or The Great Awakening) was a Christian revitalization movement in the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. It resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of deep personal revelation of their need of salvation by Jesus Christ, pulling away from ritual and ceremony. -
Proclamation of 1763
The Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, in which it forbade settlers from settling past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. -
The American Revolution
Crash Course American Revolution
The American Revolution (1775-83) arose from growing tensions between the citizens of the 13 North American colonies and the colonial government, which represented the British crown. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
Land Ordinance of 1785
The Ordinance of 1785 provided the surveying of the territory's lands and for a systematic subdivision of them. Land was to be subdivided according to a rectangular grid system; the basic unit of land grant was the township, which was a square area measuring six miles on each side. A township could then be subdivided into a number of rectangular parcels of individually owned land. -
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 laid the basis for the government of the Northwest Territory and for the admission of states into the Union. Under this ordinance, each district was to be governed by a governor and judges appointed by Congress until it attained a population of 5,000 adult free males, at which time it would become a territory and could form its own representative legislature. -
The Constitution
Crash Course Constitution
The Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787, by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in eleven States. It went into effect on March 4, 1789 -
The Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution.The amendments were introduced by James Madison to the 1st Congress as a series of legislative articles. They were adopted by the House of Representatives on August 21, 1789, formally proposed by joint resolution of Congress on September 25, 1789, and came into effect as Constitutional Amendments on December 15, 1791, through the process of ratification by three-fourths of the states -
Washington's Neutrality Proclamation
The Proclamation of Neutrality was issued by George Washington April 22, 1793, declaring the nation neutral in the conflict between France and Great Britain. -
Alien and Sedition Acts
Alien and Sedition Acts, 1798, are four laws enacted by the Federalist-controlled U.S. Congress, in response to the hostile actions of the French Revolutionary government on the seas. -
Election of 1800
Referred to as the "Revolution of 1800, Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams. The election brought upon a generation of Democratic-Republican Party rule and the eventual demise of the Federalist Party in the First Party System. -
Marbury v. Madison
Supreme Court Stories: Marbury v. Madison
This case established the concept of Judicial Review or the ability of the courts to declare a law unconstitutional. This case brought the Judicial Branch of the government on a more even power basis with the Legislative and Executive Branches -
The Louisiana Purchase
Thomas Jefferson purchases the Louisiana territory from France for $15 million. This acquisition nearly doubles the size of the U.S. -
The War of 1812
War between the U.S. and Britain, caused by the imposition of trade restrictions, impressement of American ships, and support of natives trying to halt expansion. -
Hartford Convention
The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings from December 15, 1814–January 5, 1815 in Hartford, Connecticut, in which Federalists met to discuss their grievances concerning the ongoing War of 1812 and the political problems arising from the federal government's increasing power. -
Compromise of 1820/ Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Comromise prohibited slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. -
The Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. -
Tariff of Abominations/ Nullification Crisis
The Tariff of 1828 was a protective tariff passed by the Congress on May 19, 1828, designed to protect industry in the northern states.
The Nullification Crisis was a sectional crisis during the presidency of Andrew Jackson created by South Carolina's 1832 Ordinance of Nullification. This ordinance declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of South Carolina. -
Election of 1844
The election of 1844 was held from Friday, November 1, to Wednesday, December 4, 1844. Democrat James K. Polk defeated Whig Henry Clay on the controversial issue of slavery expansion through the annexation of the Republic of Texas. -
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ended the Mexican–American War (1846–48). It gave the United States the Rio Grande boundary for Texas, and gave the U.S. ownership of California, and a large area comprising New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. -
Seneca Falls Convention
Over 300 men and women attened the Seneca Falls Convention to protest the mistreatment of women in social, economic, political, and religious life. The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions issued by the Convention, detailed the "injuries and usurpations" that men had inflicted upon women and demanded that women be granted all of the rights and privileges that men possessed, including the right to vote. -
Compromise of 1850
The Comrpomise of 1850 consisted of the admission of Texas as a free state, Texas giving up its claim of New Mexico, the Fugitive Slave Act, and the banning of slave trade in Washington D.C. -
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 determining popular sovereignty, whether they would allow slavery within each territory. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott Case
Dred Scott, a slave who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. The Supreme Court held that African Americans, whether slave or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. -
Election of 1860
Crash Course Election and Disunion
The Election of 1860 was divided upon the topic of Slavery. When Lincoln is elected to the presidency, South Carolina secedes from the Union. -
The American Civil War
The war resolved two questions left unresolved by the revolution: whether the United States was to be a confederation of sovereign states or a nation with a sovereign national government; and whether this nation would continue to exist as a slaveholding country. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, as a war measure during the American Civil War. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion,
