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Aug 3, 1492
The Discovery of America by Columbus
Columbus took his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria - out of the Spanish port of Palos. His objective was to sail west until he reached Asia (the Indies) where the riches of gold, pearls and spice awaited. -
The Settlement of Jamestown
America’s first permanent English colony in Virginia. It was first chartered in 1606 by King James I. The English was seeking a northwest passage to the Orient, and converting the Virginia Indians to the Anglican religion. -
The French and Indian War
On May 28, 1754 was the first battle when Washington defeats the French in a surprise attack. His troops retreat to Great Meadows and build Fort Necessity. The war ended on October 31, 1763 when Pontiac capitulates at Detroit Indian power in the Ohio Valley is broken. This war is also part of the Seven Years' War. -
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party (initially referred to by John Adams as "the Destruction of the Tea in Boston") was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston. -
The Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. -
The Declaration of Independence
This is a doctument that is the statement adopted by the Continental Congress meeting at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. -
The Battle of Yorktown
This battle ended on October 19, 1781. It took place in Virginia. The Americans and the French won this battle. This battle is also apart of the American Revolutionary War. -
The Constitutional Convention
This was known as the Philadelphia Convention, the Federal Convention, or the Grand Convention at Philadelphia. This convention was held to address problems in governing the United States of America, -
The Invention of the Cotton Gin
The modern mechanical cotton gin was invented in the United States by Eli Whitney. -
The Alien and Sedition Acts
President John Adams passes the Naturalization Act, the first of four pieces of controversial legislation known together as the Alien and Sedition Acts. -
The Invention of the Electric Light
The first electric light was made in 1800 by Humphry Davy, an English scientist.
(Note*: There is no spefic date for this event.) -
The Louisiana Purchase
The United States purchased approximately 828,000,000 square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. -
The War of 1812
This was a military conflict, lasting for two and a half years, fought by the United States of America against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, its North American colonies, and its American Indian allies. -
The Missouri Compromise
This was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. -
Andrew Jackson’s Election
This was the 11th quadrennial presidential election, held from Friday, October 31, to Tuesday, December 2, 1828. President, Andrew Jackson winning with the electoral vote of 178 to 83 against John Q. Adams. -
The Trail of Tears
This was part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. Started in 1830 and ended in 1850.
On May 23, 1836 the Treaty of Echota was signed which granted American Indians two years to move off their land before forced removal. -
The Panic of 1837
This was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down while unemployment went up. Pessimism abounded during the time. -
The Invention of the Telegraph
An electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the Morse code signalling alphabet with Morse.
(Note* the actual date could not be found so I left it at this, but the year is correct.) -
The Mexican-American War
This was also known as the Mexican War, the U.S.–Mexican War or the Invasion of Mexico, was an armed conflict between the United States and the Centralist Republic of Mexico.
Ended on February 2, 1848 -
The Invention of the Telephone
Antonio Meucci, an Italian immigrant, began developing the design of a talking telegraph or telephone in 1849. Although, Alexander Graham Bell is the father of the telephone. After all it was his design that was first patented, however, he was not the first inventor to come up with the idea of a telephone.
(Note*: There is no spefic date for this event) -
The Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay was the one who introduced a series of resolutions in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. -
The Firing on Fort Sumter
This was was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. Following declarations of secession by seven Southern states, South Carolina demanded that the US Army abandon its facilities in Charleston Harbor. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
The Adoption of the 13th Amendments
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery to this day. -
Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
This was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. It was the final engagement of Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army under Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. Lee, having abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, after the ten-month Siege of Petersburg, retreated west, hoping to join his army with the Confederate forces in North Carolina. -
Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination
John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. -
Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment
For the first time in history, the United States House of Representatives impeached a sitting president, Democrat Andrew Johnson. -
The Adoption of the 14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are American citizens including African Americans. -
The Adoption of the 15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's race, color, or previous condition of servitude. -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust
This was an American oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company.
(Note*: There wasn't an actualy date for the founding of this company.) -
The Pullman and Homestead Strikes
This was a labor lockout and strike with a battle between the strikers and private security agents erupting on July 6, 1892. It is one of the most serious labor disputes in U.S. history. The dispute occurred in Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company. -
The Spanish-American War
The United States declared war on Spain following the sinking of the Battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. -
Theodore Roosevelt Becomes President
With the assassination of President William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th and youngest President in the Nation's history. -
The Invention of the Airplane
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. The Wrights used this stopwatch to time the Kitty Hawk flights.
