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Jamestown was founded
KIng james granted a group of people the virginia company a english company to settle in the chesapeake region of north america they were to find gold and to find water routes -
virginia house of Burgesses
the virgina house of Burgesses was set of by governer george yeardley immedietly gave notice that virginia colony would establish a legislative assembly -
Mayflower Compact
It was the first written framework of goverment established in what is now the united states is prevented dissent among the puritans and non-separatist pilgrims who had landed in plymouth -
Fundemental orders of connecticut
a civil covenant by the settlers establishing the system by which the river towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield agreed to govern themselves. The orders created an annual assembly of legislators and provided for the election of a governor. -
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was the North American conflict that was part of a larger imperial conflict between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years’ War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. -
French and indian war ends
The War ended with the treaty of paris -
proclamtion
, King George III issued a proclamation that forbade colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. In so doing, he hoped to placate Native Americans who had sided against him during the recently concluded Seven Years’ War. -
currency act
Currency Act of 1764, the which banned the use of paper money as legal tender in all colonies. -
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 -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act required that the soldiers from Great Britain be housed in American barracks and public houses. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre occurred on March 5, 1770. A squad of British soldiers, come to support a sentry who was being pressed by a heckling, snowballing crowd, let loose a volley of shots. Three persons were killed immediately and two died later of their wounds; among the victims was Crispus Attucks, a man of black or Indian parentage. The British officer in charge, Capt. Thomas Preston, was arrested for manslaughter, along with eight of his men. -
Tea act
On this day in 1773, the British Parliament passes the Tea Act, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company from bankruptcy by greatly lowering the tea tax it paid to the British government and, thus, granting it a de facto monopoly on the American tea trade. Because all legal tea entered the colonies through England, allowing the East India Company to pay lower taxes in Britain also allowed it to sell tea more cheaply in the colonies. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, on December 16,and dumped342 chest of tea into the boston harbor -
Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts)
Upset by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property by American colonists, the British Parliament enacts the Coercive Acts, to the outrage of American Patriots, on this day in 1774. The Coercive Acts were a series of four acts established by the British government. The aim of the legislation was to restore order in Massachusetts and punish Bostonians for their Tea Party, in which members of the revolutionary-minded Sons of Liberty boarded three British tea s -
1st Continental Congress
In response to the British Parliament's enactment of the Coercive Acts in the American colonies, the first session of the Continental Congress convenes at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates from all the colonies except Georgia drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Adams, and John Jay were among the delegates. -
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, kicked off the American Revolutionary War (1775-83). 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. Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, -
2nd Continental Congress
Times had taken a sharp turn for the worse. Lexington and Concord had changed everything. When the Redcoats fired into the Boston crowd in 1775, the benefit of the doubt was granted. Now the professional imperial army was attempting to arrest patriot leaders, and minutemen had been killed in their defense. In May 1775, with Redcoats once again storming Boston, the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. -
Townshed act
Taxes on glass, paint, oil, lead, paper, and tea were applied with the design of raising £40,000 a year for the administration of the colonies. -
Declaration of Independence
When armed conflict between bands of American colonists and British soldiers began in April 1775, the Americans were ostensibly fighting only for their rights as subjects of the British crown. By the following summer, with the Revolutionary War in full swing, the movement for independence from Britain had grown, and delegates of the Continental Congress were faced with a vote on the issue. In mid-June 1776, a five-man committee including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin was tas -
Battle of Saratoga
Fought eighteen days apart in the fall of 1777, the two Battles of Saratoga were a turning point in the American Revolution. -
Valley Forge
Hungry, cold, ragged, and cramped in December 1777 -
Articles of confederation written
The Articles of Confederation served as the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. It established a weak central government that mostly, but not entirely, prevented the individual states from conducting their own foreign diplomacy. -
Articles of confederation were in force
This first constitution was composed by a body that directed most of its attention to fighting and winning the War for Independence. It came into being at a time when Americans had a deep-seated fear of a central authority and long-standing loyalty to the state in which they lived and often called their "country." Ultimately, the Articles of Confederation proved unwieldy and inadequate to resolve the issues that faced the United States in its earliest years; but in granting any Federal powers to -
Battle of yorktwn
On this day in 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. -
Treaty of Paris
A signed document that ended the fench and indian war -
Treaty of paris 1783
This treaty, signed on September 3, 1783, between the American colonies and Great Britain, ended the American Revolution and formally recognized the United States as an independent nation. -
Constitutional Convention
By 1786, Americans recognized that the Articles of Confederation, the foundation document for the new United States adopted in 1777, had to be substantially modified. The Articles gave Congress virtually no power to regulate domestic affairs--no power to tax, no power to regulate commerce. Without coercive power, Congress had to depend on financial contributions from the states, and they often time turned down requests. Congress had neither the money to pay soldiers for their service in the R -
Constitution Written
On May 25, 1787, delegates representing every state except Rhode Island convened at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. The building, which is now known as Independence Hall, had earlier seen the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation. The assembly immediately discarded the idea of amending the Articles of Confederation and set about drawing up a new scheme of government. -
Great Compromise
Two plans were put forth during the Constitutional Convention to create the new branches of government. The Virginia Plan wanted a strong national government with three branches. The legislature would have two houses. One would be directly elected by the people and the second would selected by the first house from people nominated by the state legislatures. Further, the president and national judiciary would be chosen by the national legislature. On the other hand, the New Jersey Plan wanted a m -
3/5 Compromise
The Constitution was a document based upon compromise: between larger and smaller states, between proponents of a strong central government and those who favored strong state governments, and, above all, between northern and southern states. Of all the compromises on which the Constitution rested, perhaps the most controversial was the Three-Fifths Compromise, an agreement to count three-fifths of a state's slaves in apportioning Representatives, Presidential electors, and direct taxes. -
Washington takes office
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Bill of Rights
The first 10 amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. Written by James Madison in response to calls from several states for greater constitutional protection for individual liberties, the Bill of Rights lists specific prohibitions on governmental power. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason, strongly influenced Madison. -
Genet Affair
incident precipitated by the military adventurism of Citizen Edmond-Charles Genêt, a minister to the United States dispatched by the revolutionary Girondist regime of the new French Republic, which at the time was at war with Great Britain and Spain. His activities violated an American proclamation of neutrality in the European conflict and greatly embarrassed France’s supporters in the United States. -
Whiskey Rebellion
Nearly twenty years after the revolutionary War began, the United States government faced a small-scale revolution by some of its own citizens. As in the previous war, taxes were a central issue. And Alexander Hamilton understood that putting down this rebellion was critical to the life of the nation. -
Pinckney’s Treaty
PSpanish and U.S. negotiators concluded the Treaty of San Lorenzo, also known as Pinckney’s Treaty, on October 27, 1795. The treaty was an important diplomatic success for the United States. It resolved territorial disputes between the two countries and granted American ships the right to free navigation of the Mississippi River as well as duty-free transport through the port of New Orleans, then under Spanish control -
Jay’s Treaty
On November 19, 1794 representatives of the United States and Great Britain signed Jay’s Treaty, which sought to settle outstanding issues between the two countries that had been left unresolved since American independence. The treaty proved unpopular with the American public but did accomplish the goal of maintaining peace between the two nations and preserving U.S. neutrality. -
Adams Takes Office
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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. -
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. These acts increased the residency requirement for American citizenship from five to fourteen years, authorized the president to imprison or deport aliens considered "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States" and restricted speech critical of the government. These laws were designed to silence and w -
Quasi War Begins
An undeclared war between the United States and France, the Quasi-War was the result of disagreements over treaties and America's status as a neutral in the Wars of the French Revolution. Fought entirely at sea, the Quasi-War was largely a success for the fledgling US Navy as its vessels captured numerous French privateers and warships, while only losing one of its vessels. By late 1800, attitudes in France shifted and hostilities were concluded by the Treaty of Mortefontaine -
Jefferson Takes Office
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Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase refers to the 530,000,000 acres of territory in North America that the United States purchased from France in 1803 for US $15 million. -
Marbury v. Madison
On his last day in office, President John Adams named forty-two justices of the peace and sixteen new circuit court justices for the District of Columbia under the Organic Act. The Organic Act was an attempt by the Federalists to take control of the federal judiciary before Thomas Jefferson took office. The commissions were signed by President Adams and sealed by acting Secretary of State John Marshall (who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and author of this opinion), but they we -
Lewis & Clark Expedition
When Thomas Jefferson dispatched Lewis and Clark to find a water route across North America and explore the uncharted West, he expected they'd encounter woolly mammoths, erupting volcanoes, and a mountain of pure salt. -
Embargo Act of 1807
The neutrality of the United States was tested during the Napoleonic Wars. Both Britain and France imposed trade restrictions in order to weaken each others' economies. This also had the effect of disrupting American trade and testing the United States' neutrality. As time went on, harassment by the British of American ships increased. This included impressment and seizures of American men and goods. After the Chesapeake Affair, Thomas Jefferson was faced with a decision to make regarding the si -
McCulloch v. Maryland
In the landmark Supreme Court case McCulloch v. Maryland, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down one of his most important decisions regarding the expansion of Federal power. This case involved the power of Congress to charter a bank, which sparked the even broader issue of the division of powers between state and the Federal Government. -
Gibbons v. Ogden
A New York state law gave to individuals the exclusive right to operate steamboats on waters within state jurisdiction. Laws like this one were duplicated elsewhere which led to friction as some states would require foreign (out-of-state) boats to pay substantial fees for navigation privileges. In this case Thomas Gibbons -- a steamboat owner who did business between New York and New Jersey under a federal coastal license -- challenged the monopoly license granted by New York to Aaron Ogden. New
