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Enlightenment
The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars and revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals and respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its decline. The Enlightenment ultimately gave way to 19th-century Romanticism. -
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French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was the North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years’ War.The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war’s expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American Revolution. -
Sons of Liberty
In Boston in early summer of 1765 a group of shopkeepers and artisans who called themselves The Loyal Nine, began preparing for agitation against the Stamp Act. As that group grew, it came to be known as the Sons of Liberty. https://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/sons.html -
Stamp Act of 1765
The British Parliament passed the “Stamp Act” to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years’ War. The act required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various forms of papers, documents, and playing cards. It was a direct tax imposed by the British government. Further, those accused of violating the Stamp Act could be prosecuted in Vice-Admiralty Courts, which had no juries and could be held anywhere in the British Empire. -
Twonshend Act of 1767
The Townshend Acts were a series of measures, passed by the British Parliament in 1767, that taxed goods imported to the American colonies. But American colonists, who had no representation in Parliament, saw the Acts as an abuse of power. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party took place on the night of December 16, 1773, a few years before the start of the American Revolution in 1775. It was an act of protest in which a group of 60 American colonists threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor to agitate against both a tax on tea and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were passed in spring 1774, and helped cause the American Revolution. 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 Government.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Intolerable-Acts -
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First Continental Congress Meets
The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from 12 of the 13 British colonies that became the United States. It met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after the British Navy instituted a blockade of Boston Harbor and Parliament passed the punitive Intolerable Acts in response to the December 1773 Boston Tea Party. -
Battle of Lexington & Concord
Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the 13 American colonies and the British authorities, particularly in Massachusetts. On the night of April 18, 1775, hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord in order to seize an arms cache. -
Declaration of Independence Adopted
The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence is primarily a formal declaration of "separation" issued by the United States against Great Britain, after Britain failed to meet the demands of the colonists regarding taxation. -
Treaty of Paris Signed
The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S. and British Representatives on September 3, 1783, ending the War of the American Revolution. Based on 1782 preliminary treaty, the agreement recognized U.S. independence and granted the U.S. significant western territory.
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Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The point of the event was decide how America was going to be governed. Although the Convention had been officially called to revise the existing Articles of Confederation, many delegates had much bigger plans.
https://www.constitutionfacts.com/us-constitution-amendments/the-constitutional-convention -
Great Compromise
The Connecticut 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 Constitution. -
Constitution is Ratified
The Constitution became the official framework of the government of the United States of America when New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify it.The featured document is an endorsed ratification of the federal Constitution by the Delaware convention. -
Bill of Rights Adopted
The House passed a joint resolution containing 17 amendments based on Madison’s proposal. The Senate changed the joint resolution to consist of 12 amendments. A joint House and Senate Conference Committee settled remaining disagreements in September. On October 2, 1789, President Washington sent copies of the 12 amendments adopted by Congress to the states. By December 15, 1791, three-fourths of the states had ratified 10 of these, now known as the “Bill of Rights.”
