-
Seven Years’ War
The Seven Years' War was a global war fought between 1756 and 1763. It involved all five European great powers of the time plus many of the middle powers and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. -
Proclamation 1763
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on October 7, 1763, following Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the Seven Years' War. It forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve. -
Salutary neglect
Salutary neglect was Britain's unofficial policy, initiated by prime minister Robert Walpole , to relax the enforcement of strict regulations, particularly trade laws, imposed on the American colonies late in the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth centuries. -
Pontiac’s Rebellion
Pontiac's Rebellion was a Native American uprising against the British just after the close of the French and Indian Wars, so called after one of its leaders, Pontiac. Causes. The French attitude toward the Native Americans had always been more conciliatory than that of the English. -
sugar act
The Sugar Act 1764, also known as the American Revenue Act 1764 or the American Duties Act, was a revenue-raising act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain on 5 April 1764. -
quartering act
The Quartering Acts were two or more Acts of British Parliament requiring local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny Act and required annual renewal by Parliament. -
stamp act
The Stamp Act of 1765 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which imposed a direct tax on the British colonies in America and required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp. -
Declaration of Rights and Grievances
In response to the Stamp and Tea Acts, the Declaration of Rights and Grievances was a document written by the Stamp Act Congress and passed on October 14, 1765. American colonists opposed the acts because they were passed without the consideration of the colonists’ opinion -
Stamp Act Congress
The Stamp Act Congress (October 7 – 25, 1765), also known as the Continental Congress of 1765, was a meeting held in New York, New York, consisting of representatives from some of the British colonies in North America. -
Sons & Daughters of Liberty
They were American patriots — northern and southern, young and old, male and female. They were the Sons and Daughters of Liberty. Like other secret clubs at the time, the Sons of Liberty had many rituals. They had secret code words, medals, and symbols. -
decalatory act
The American Colonies Act 1766, commonly known as the Declaratory Act, was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, which accompanied the repeal of the Stamp Act 1765 and the changing and lessening of the Sugar Act. -
townshend act
The Townshend Acts were a series of laws passed by the British government on the American colonies in 1767. They placed new taxes and took away some freedoms from the colonists including the following: New taxes on imports of paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea. -
tea act
The Tea Act 1773 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. The principal objective was to reduce the massive amount of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the financially struggling company survive. -
Committees of Correspondence
The committees of correspondence were shadow governments organized by the Patriot leaders of the Thirteen Colonies on the eve of the American Revolution. -
coercive act
The Coercive Acts describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774, relating to Britain's colonies in North America. Passed in response to the Boston Tea Party, the Coercive Acts sought to punish Massachusetts as a warning to other colonies. -
1st Continental Congresses
DescriptionThe First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from 12 of the 13 British colonies that became the United States. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest in reaction to changes in taxation by the British to the detriment of colonial goods. -
Lexington & Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775 in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge. -
Prohibitory Act
The Prohibitory Act was British legislation in late 1775 that cut off all trade between the American colonies and England, and removed the colonies from the King's protection -
Minutemen
Minutemen were civilian colonists who independently organized to form well-prepared militia companies self-trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War. -
2nd continental congress
The Second Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies in America which united in the American Revolutionary War -
Olive Branch Petition
The Olive Branch Petition was a final attempt by the colonists to avoid going to war with Britain during the American Revolution. It was a document in which the colonists pledged their loyalty to the crown and asserted their rights as British citizens. The Olive Branch Petition was adopted by Congress on July 5, 1775 -
Prohibitory Act
The Prohibitory Act was British legislation in late 1775 that cut off all trade between the American colonies and England, and removed the colonies from the King's protection. -
Dec of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. -
Common Sense
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the Saratoga campaign, giving a decisive victory to the Americans over the British in the American Revolutionary War. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first constitution. It was approved, after much debate, by the Second Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, and sent to the states for ratification. -
Battle of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, also known as the Battle of Yorktown, the surrender at Yorktown, or the German Battle, ending on October 19, 1781, at Yorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined -
Treaty of Paris 1783
The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War. -
Land Ordinance 1785
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress of the Confederation on May 20, 1785. It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. -
Shays' Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts in opposition to a debt crisis among the citizenry and the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades; the fight took place mostly in and around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. -
NW Ordinance 1787
The Northwest Ordinance enacted July 13, 1787, was an organic act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. -
Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the United States Constitution. -
NJ Plan
The New Jersey Plan (also known as the Small State Plan or the Paterson Plan) was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government presented by William Paterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787. -
Connecticut Plan/Great Compromise
The Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman Compromise) 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 -
3/5s Compromise
The Three-Fifths Compromise gave a disproportionate representation of slave states in the House of Representatives relative to the voters in free states until the American Civil War. -
Judiciary Act
The Judiciary Act of 1789, officially titled "An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States," was signed into law by President George Washington on September 24, 1789. Article III of the Constitution established a Supreme Court, but left to Congress the authority to create lower federal courts as needed. -
Federalist Era
The Federalist Era. The Federalist Era lasted roughly from 1789 to 1801, when the Federalist Party dominated and shaped American politics. This era saw the adoption of the U.S. Constitution and the growth of a strong centralized government. -
Democratic-Republican Era
The Democratic-Republican Party, better known at the time as the Republican Party and various other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s that championed republicanism, political equality, and expansionism. -
Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington, ultimately under the command of American Revolutionary war veteran Major James McFarlane. -
Proclamation of Neutrality
The Proclamation of Neutrality was a formal announcement issued by U.S. President George Washington on April 22, 1793 that declared the nation neutral in the conflict between France and Great Britain. It threatened legal proceedings against any American providing assistance to any country at war. -
“Citizen” Genet
Edmond-Charles Genêt, also known as Citizen Genêt, was the French envoy to the United States during the French Revolution. His actions on arriving in the United States led to a major political and international incident, which was termed the Citizen Genêt Affair. -
Jay Treaty 1794
The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, and also as Jay's Treaty, was a 1795 treaty between the -
Pinckney Treaty 1795
Pinckney's Treaty, also commonly known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on October 27, 1795 and established intentions of friendship between the United States and Spain. -
Revolution of 1800
In what is sometimes referred to as the "Revolution of 1800", Vice President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party defeated incumbent President John Adams of the Federalist Party. The election was a realigning election that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican rule. -
XYZ Affair
The XYZ Affair was a diplomatic incident between French and United States diplomats that resulted in a limited, undeclared war known as the Quasi-War. U.S. and French negotiators restored peace with the Convention of 1800, also known as the Treaty of Mortefontaine. -
Whigs
The Whig Party was a political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Alongside the Democratic Party, it was one of the two major parties in the United States during the late 1830s, the 1840s, and the early 1850s, part of the Second Party System. -
Unicameral legislature
In government, unicameralism is the practice of having one legislative or parliamentary chamber. Thus, a unicameral parliament or unicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of one chamber or house.