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Period: 1491 to
Period 1/2: 1491-1763
Native America, European exploration, colonization. -
Jamestown
Jamestown was the first successful English colony in the United States. It is located in East Virginia and now stands as a Historic site. -
Pocahontas
Tobacco farmer John Rolfe marries Pocahontas, daughter of Chief Powhatan. -
Plymouth
Plymouth is the site of the first Pilgrim settlement in the United States. It is located in Boston, Massachusetts and is still operating to this day. -
Massachusetts Bay
In 1629, Massachusetts Bay Colony Royal charter was issued by Parliament. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of America in the 17th century around the Massachusetts Bay. -
Boston Latin School
Boston Latin School is established in this year, making it the first public school in the United States. -
Slavery in New England
In 1641, Massachusetts passed its Body of Liberties which gave legal sanction to certain kinds of slavery. This ended in 1703. -
King Philip's War
King Philip's War was an armed conflict between the Native Americans and the colonists that inhabited New England. -
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an armed rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon to change the status of the Indian-frontier policy at the time. The attack was directed towards Governor William Berkeley. -
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. -
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War began when the English and the French were having territorial disputes over the land in the Ohio River Valley. -
Period: to
Period 3: 1763-1800
American Revolution, the Confederal Era, and the Early Federal Period. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris (1763) ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France. -
Sugar Act
This act was passed by British Parliament onto the colonies in order to raise the revenue on sugar. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was imposed by British Parliament to tax all printed materials in the colonies. -
Quartering Act
This Act was passed by British Parliament in order to provide British soldiers with housing and food that would be provided by the colonists. -
Townshend Act
The Townshend Acts were passed by British Parliament in order to restrict some of the colonists freedom's and impose new taxes on them. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a confrontation between British soldiers and colonists that occurred in the streets of Boston in which several unarmed colonists were shot down. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a protest staged by the Sons of Liberty where some men dressed as Indians dumped hundreds of crates of tea into Boston Harbor. -
Coercive Acts
The Coercive Acts were a series of laws passed by British Parliament in order to punish the colonies for their protesting. -
First Continental Congress
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from 12 of the 13 British colonies that eventually became the United States. -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies in America which united in the American Revolutionary War. -
Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"
"Common Sense" was a Pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in order to establish reasons why he thought the United States should be independent from Great Britain. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a letter to Great Britain from the colonies saying that they were succeeding from their mother country. -
Articles of Confederation
the original constitution of the US, ratified in 1781, which was replaced by the US Constitution in 1789. -
Battle of Yorktown
On October 19th, 1781, American General George Washington defeated British General Lord Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. -
Second Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris (1783) officially ended the American Revolution. -
Period: to
Period 4 Part 1: 1800-1824
Beginning of Westward Expansion and tensions between the North and South. -
Judiciary Act of 1801
This act was an attempt to fill up federal courts with federalists. -
Marbury Vs. Madison
Marbury v. Madison was a U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States. -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was when the United States acquired the territory of Louisiana from France in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States acquired a total of 828,000 square miles of land in total. -
Lewis and Clark
The Lewis and Clark Expedition from August 31, 1803 to September 25, 1806, was the first expedition to cross the western portion of the United States. -
Fletcher Vs. Peck
Fletcher Vs. Peck is a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Supreme Court first ruled a state law unconstitutional. The decision also hinted that Native Americans did not hold complete title to their own lands. -
Battle of Tippecanoe
The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought between the U.S. Army and Native Americans indigenous to the area. It resulted in an American victory and is thought of as one of the catalysts of the War of 1812. -
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States and the United Kingdom. It lasted from June 1812 to February 1815. -
"The Star-Spangled Banner"
"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the Defense of Fort McHenry. -
Treaty of Ghent
The Treaty of Ghent was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was United States federal legislation that admitted Maine to the United States as a free state, also making Missouri a slave state. This was seen as a compromise by some. -
Gibbons Vs. Ogden
Gibbons v. Ogden was a decision in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the power to regulate interstate commerce. This was granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. -
Period: to
Period 4 Part 2: 1824-1848
Westward expansion and regional conflict in the United States. -
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Construction is begun on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first public railroad in the United States. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed on May 28, 1830 by Andrew Jackson. The law authorized the president to remove Native Americans from their ancestral lands. -
Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of approximately 60,000 Native Americans in the United States. They were moved from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to areas west of the Mississippi River that had been dubbed as Indian Territory by the United States. -
Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion
Nat Turner's Rebellion was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner. -
Texas Revolution
The Texas Revolution was formed by a rebellion of colonists from the United States and Tejanos in putting up armed resistance to the centralist government of Mexico. -
Battle of the Alamo
The Battle of the Alamo was a very important battle that took place during the Texas Revolution. Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna reclaimed the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar, taking the fort and killing the Texan and immigrant occupiers. -
Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto, fought on April 21, 1836 was a very important battle that took place during the Texas Revolution. The Texan Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican army in a fight that lasted 18 minutes. -
Period: to
Period 5: 1844-1877
The Civil War and Reconstruction. -
Death of Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith, an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement is killed. -
Texas Annexation
The Texas Annexation was the 1845 annexation of the Republic of Texas into the United States. -
Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico that lasted from 1846 to 1848. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 consisted of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that settled an issue between slave states and free states on the status of territories conquered in the Mexican-American War. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
"Uncle Tom's Cabin", an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe is published in 1852. -
Republican Party
The Republican Party is formed in the United States. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was the act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. -
Dred Scott Vs. Sandford
Dred Scott Vs. Sandford was a decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court that the Constitution of the United States was not meant to include American citizenship for black people. -
South Carolina secedes
South Carolina secedes from the Union on December 20th, 1860. -
Abraham Lincoln (First Term)
Abraham Lincoln is elected President on March 4th, 1861 to serve what would be his first term. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the event that started the American Civil War. -
First Battle of Bull Run
The First Battle of Bull Run was the first major battle of the American Civil War and was a Confederate victory. -
Homestead Act
The Homestead Act passed in 1862 stated that any citizen who had never raised arms against the U.S. government could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. -
Battle of Antietam
The Battle of Antietam was the first field army-level engagement in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War to take place on Union soil. It was the bloodiest day in United States military history, with a combined tally of 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Wade-Davis Bill
The Wade-Davis Bill was a bill designed to guarantee a republican form of government to certain states whose governments have been overthrown. -
Period: to
Period 6: 1865-1898
The Gilded Age -
Abraham Lincoln (Second Term)
Abraham Lincoln is elected President on March 4th, 1865 to serve what would be his second term. This term would only last 42 days. -
Civil War Ends
The American Civil War ends on April 9th, 1865 when General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House. -
Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment
Passed by Congress on January 31st, 1865, and ratified on December 6th, 1865, the thirteenth amendment abolished slavery in the United States. -
Ku Klux Klan Founded
In Pulaski, Tennessee, a group of Confederate veterans form a secret society known as the Ku Klux Klan. -
Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States. -
Knights of Labor Founded
The Knights of Labor, founded in 1869, was the first major labor organization in the United States. -
Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified on February 3rd, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments. -
Tweed Scandal in New York
Tweed was convicted for stealing an estimated 25-45 million dollars from New York City taxpayers through political corruption, although some people speculate that number could've been as high as 200 million dollars. -
Woman's Christian Temperance Union Founded
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union is an active organization with the purpose of linking the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity. -
Whiskey Ring Scandal
The Whiskey Ring was an American scandal involving the diversion of tax revenues in a conspiracy among government agents, politicians, whiskey distillers, and distributors. -
Invention of the Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. -
Farmer's Alliance Founded
The Farmers Alliance was an organized agrarian economic movement among American farmers. -
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 occurred on July 14th in Martinsburg, West Virginia after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut wages for the third time in a year. -
Period: to
Period 7 Part 1: 1898-1918
American Imperialism and the Great War. -
Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War was an armed conflict between Spain and the United States that occurred in 1898. -
Annexation of Hawaii
The United States annexed Hawaii in 1898 at the urging of President William McKinley. Hawaii was made a territory in 1900, and Dole became its first governor. -
Treaty of Paris (1898)
The Treaty of Paris of 1898 was a treaty signed by Spain and the United States on December 10, 1898, that ended the Spanish-American War. -
William McKinley Re-elected
On November 6th, 1900, voters reelected Ohio’s William McKinley as the nation’s 25th president, in a rematch with his 1896 Democratic rival, William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska. -
Assassination of William Mckinley
William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, was shot on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901. -
Ford is Established
Ford is founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. -
Northern Securities Co. Vs. United States
Northern Securities Co. Vs. United States was a case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1903. The court ruled 5 to 4 against the stockholders of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroad companies, who had formed a monopoly. -
Teddy Roosevelt
On Tuesday, November 8th, 1904. Republican President Theodore Roosevelt defeated the Democratic nominee, Alton B. Parker. -
"The Jungle" is Published
The Jungle is a 1906 novel that was written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel to exploit the difficult lives of immigrants in the United States, particularly in Chicago. -
1906 San Francisco Earthquake
The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake struck the coast of Northern California on Wednesday, April 18th. -
William Taft
On Tuesday, November 3rd, 1908 Republican Party nominee William Howard Taft defeated Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire occurred in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on March 25th, 1911. It is know as one of the deadliest industrial disasters in U.S. history. -
Ludlow Massacre
The Ludlow Massacre was a massacre perpetrated by anti-striker militia during the Colorado Coalfield War. -
World War 1
World War 1 was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. -
Woodrow Wilson
Democratic President Woodrow Wilson defeated Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate on Tuesday, November 7th, 1916. -
Spanish flu
The Spanish flu was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic. It lasted from spring 1918 through spring or early summer 1919, it infected 500 million people which was about a third of the world's population at the time. -
Period: to
Period 7 Part 2: 1918-1945
World War 1, The Great Depression, and World War 2 -
World War 1 Ends
On the 4th of November, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to the Armistice of Villa Giusti. Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on the 9th of November and Germany signed an armistice on the 11th of November 1918, ending the war. -
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
League of Nations Founded
The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. -
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 was a major stock market crash that occurred in 1929. It started in September and ended late in October. -
The Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930's. It began in the United States. -
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise, preemptive military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. -
Battle of Midway
The Battle of Midway was a naval battle that took place in the Pacific Theater of World War II that occurred on in June 1942. -
Invasion of Normandy
The Western Allies of World War 2 launched the largest amphibious invasion in history when they attacked Normandy on the 6th of June, 1944. -
Yalta Conference
The Yalta Conference, held in February, 1945, was a meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. Its purpose was to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. -
Death of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Roosevelt won reelection in 1944, but he died in April, 1945. Less than three months into his fourth term. -
Victory in Europe Day
Victory in Europe Day is a day celebrating Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on the 8th of May, 1945. -
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Prince Wilhelm in Potsdam, Germany, from the 17th of July to the 2nd of August 1945. -
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The United States detonated two nuclear weapons over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945. -
Victory over Japan Day
Victory over Japan Day is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the World War 2 to an end.
