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Oct 12, 1492
The Discovery of America by Columbus
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The Settlement of Jamestown
In 1607, 104 English men and boys arrived in North America to start a settlement. On May 13 they picked Jamestown, Virginia for their settlement, which was named after their King, James I. -
The French and Indian War
The French and Indian War pitted the colonies of British America against those of New France. -
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest that occurred on December 16, 1773, at Griffin's Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. American colonists, frustrated and angry at Britain for imposing “taxation without representation,” dumped 342 chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbor. -
The Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War (1775-83). -
The Declaration of Independence
It was signed on August 2, 1776. This one of the most important but least celebrated days in American history when 56 members of the Second Continental Congress started signing the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. -
The Battle of Yorktown
On September 28, 1781, General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War. -
The Constitutional Convention
This was the creation of the Constitution of the United States -
The invention of the cotton gin
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The Alien and Sedition Acts
Signed into law by President John Adams in 1798, the Alien and Sedition Acts consisted of four laws passed by the Federalist-controlled Congress as America prepared for war with France. -
The Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (1803) was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. -
The War of 1812
War of 1812, (June 18, 1812–February 17, 1815), conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights. It ended with the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent. -
The Missouri Compromise
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. -
Andrew Jackson’s Election
The 1828 United States presidential election was the 11th quadrennial presidential election. It was held from Friday, October 31 to Tuesday, December 2, 1828. -
The invention of the telegraph
Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse (1791-1872) and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. -
The Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of approximately 60,000 Native Americans in the United States from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States, to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory. -
The Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major depression, which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down; unemployment went up; and pessimism abounded. -
The Mexican-American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the Intervención Estadounidense en México, was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. -
The Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions on January 29, 1850, in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. -
The Firing on Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust
The Standard Oil Trust was formed in 1863 by John D. Rockefeller. He built up the company through 1868 to become the largest oil refinery firm in the world. -
The 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
The 13th (1865), 14th (1868), and 15th Amendments (1870) were the first amendments made to the U.S. constitution in 60 years. Known collectively as the Civil War Amendments, they were designed to ensure the equality for recently emancipated slaves. -
Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought in Appomattox County, Virginia, on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. -
Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination
Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 to 1865. Lincoln led the nation through its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis in the American Civil War. -
Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was initiated on February 24, 1868, when the United States House of Representatives resolved to impeach Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, for "high crimes and misdemeanors," which were detailed in 11 articles of impeachment. -
Invention of the Telegraph
Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. -
The invention of the electric light
In 1879 he created a successful incandescent light bulb. This was his hardest project – from 1877 to 1880, Edison and his assistants tried around 3000 experiments to perfect their light bulb design. -
The Pullman and Homestead Strikes
Within recent public memory lay two major events that led to this unease--the Homestead strike of 1892 and the Pullman Railroad strike of 1894. -
The Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was an armed conflict between Spain and the United States in 1898. -
Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt began on September 14, 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States upon the assassination and death of President William McKinley. -
Invention of Airplane
On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane.