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Oct 1, 1215
Magna Carta
A document that King John was forced to sign because it reduced his power in England and allowed them to form a powerful parliament. It is the basis of English citizen's rights. -
Jamestown Settled
13 years before the Pilgrams landed in Massachusetts a group of 104 English men began a settlement on the banks of Virginia's James River. They were sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, whose stockholders hoped to make a profit from the resources of the New World. -
Mayflower Compact written
It was written by the Pilgrams upon their arrival to America. Since they didn't land where the king said to they decided to make their own laws to live by. -
English Bill of Right
It's a statement of civil liberties sent by the English Parliament Charles I. Refusal by Parliament to finance the king's unpopular foreign policy had caused his government to exact forced loans and to quarter troops in subjects' houses as an economy measure. -
English Bill of Rights
It's an Act of the Parliament of England. It lays down limits on the powers of sovereign and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament, the requirement to regular elections to Parliament and the right to petition the monarch without fear of retribution. -
Albany Plan of Union
It is proposed that humble application be made for an act of Parliament of Great Britain, by virtue of which one general government may be formed in America, including all the said colonies, within and under which government each colony may retain its present constitution, except in the particulars wherein a change may be directed by the said act. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 22, 1765. The new tax was imposed on all American colonists and required them to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was the killing of five colonists by British regulars on March 5, 1770. It was the culmination of tensions in the American colonies that had been growing since Royal troops first appeared in Massachusetts in October 1768 to enforce the heavy tax burden imposed by the Townshend Acts. -
Boston Tea Party
It was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston against the tax policy of the British government and the East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies. -
Intolerable Acts
The government spent immense sums of money on troops and equipment in an attempt to subjugate Massachusetts. British merchants had lost huge sums of money on looted, spoiled, and destroyed goods shipped to the colonies. -
First Continental Congress
The first Continental Congress met in Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia, from September 5, 1774. The objectives of the body were not entirely clear but, with such leadership as was found there, a core set of tasks was carried out. It was agreeable to all that the King and Parliament must be made to understand the grievances of the colonies and that the body must do everything possible to communicate the same to the population of America, and to the rest of the world. -
American Revolution begins
It was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America. They first rejected the authority of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them from overseas without representation, and then expelled all royal officials. -
Second Continental Congress
It was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting on May 10, 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. They managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. -
Declaration of Independence
This 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. -
Articles of Confederation
It was an agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. Its drafting by the Continental Congress began in mid 1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification in late 1777. -
Shay's Rebellion
It was an armed uprising that took place in central and western Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787. The rebellion was named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and one of the rebel leaders. -
Philadelphia Convention
To to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain. Although the Convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, was to create a new government rather than fix the existing one. -
Constitutional Convention
The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the Convention. The result of the Convention was the United States Constitution, placing the Convention among the most significant events in the history of the United States. -
Connecticut Compromise
It 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.
