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1492
Christopher Columbus “Finds” New World
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1492
Colombian Exchange Begins
The Colombian exchange, also known as the Colombian Interchange, named after Christopher Columbus, was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the 15th and 16th centuries. -
Period: 1492 to
European Exploration Era
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1500
Spanish Encomienda System Begins
The encomienda was a Spanish labor system that forced Natives to be indentured servants. -
1500
Spanish Casta System Begins
A social system in which class status is determined at birth. The Spanish had mixed-race children in the Americas with enslaved Africans and Native Americans. Status was determined by how “Spanish” one was, so those with little to no Spanish blood were in the lowest class. -
Period: 1500 to
Middle Passage
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Period: 1500 to
Triangular Trade
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1520
Small Pox Begins Spreading to Native Americans
When the Europeans came to the "New World", they brought over the small pox disease, which almost wiped out the Native population. -
1521
Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortez Conquers the Aztec Empire
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1534
England Splits from the Catholic Church
In 1532, King Henry VII wanted to have his marriage to his wife, Catherine of Aragon, annulled.However, when Pope Clement VII refused to consent to the annulment, Henry VIII decided to separate the entire country of England from the Roman Catholic Church. -
London Company Gains Charter for Set Up English Colony
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Jamestown, Virginia Colony Founded
Jamestown was founded on the chance of finding gold,but there was none to be found. The settlement thrived for nearly 100 years as the capital of the Virginia colony, making the first successful permanent English settlement in what would become the United States. -
Period: to
Colonial Era
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French found Quebec on the St. Lawrence River and Engage in the Fur Trade
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Tobacco introduced to Virginia Colony by John Rolfe
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First African Slaves Arrive in Jamestown, Virginia Colony
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Virginia House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was the first elected general assembly in the colonies, paving the way for the democratic society formed during the Revolution. After a general assembly was established in Virginia, other English colonies demanded their own elected bodies of government. -
Plymouth, Massachusetts Colony Founded
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Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower Compact created laws for Mayflower Pilgrims and non-Pilgrims alike for the good of their new colony. It was a short document which established that: the colonists would remain loyal subjects to King James, despite their need for self-governance. -
New Hampshire Founded
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Dutch New Amsterdam Becomes Capital of New Netherlands
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“City Upon a Hill” John Winthrop
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The Great Migration to Massachusetts Bay Colony
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Maryland Founded
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Thomas Hooker Founds Connecticut
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Pequot War
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Roger Williams Founds Rhode Island
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Harvard College Founded in Massachusetts
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Delaware Founded
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Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
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Maryland Toleration Act
The assembly of the Province of Maryland passed “An Act Concerning Religion,” also called the Maryland Toleration Act of 1649. The act was meant to ensure freedom of religion for Christian settlers of diverse persuasions in the colony. -
North Carolina Founded
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Iroquois Confederacy Formed
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Navigation Acts and Mercantilism
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South Carolina Founded
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New Jersey Founded
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New York Founded
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King Phillips War
King Philip's War, also known as the First Indian War, the Great Narragansett War or Metacom's Rebellion, took place in southern New England from 1675 to 1676. It was the Native Americans' last-ditch effort to avoid recognizing English authority and stop English settlement on their native lands. -
Bacon’s Rebellion
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Pueblo Revolt
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Quaker William Penn Founds Pennsylvania
William Penn founded Rhode Island when he was no longer a resident in Massachusetts as sort of a safe haven,meaning he made the Middle Colonies a place that accepts everyone.(No matter race or religion) -
Period: to
Enlightenment Era
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John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government Published
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English Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights limited the power of the monarchy, elevating the status of Parliament and outlined specific rights of individuals. -
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than two hundred people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. -
Period: to
Salutary Neglect Policy
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The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. -
Georgia Founded as a Debtors Colony
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Stono Rebellion
The Stono Rebellion was a slave rebellion that began on 9 September 1739, in the colony of South Carolina. It was the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies, with 25 colonists and 35 to 50 Africans killed. -
French and Indian War Begins
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Period: to
The Industrial Revolution
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French and Indian War Ends
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Proclamation Line of 1763
It forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve. -
Period: to
Republican Motherhood
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Period: to
Revolutionary Era
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Sugar Act
Sugar Act, also called Plantation Act or Revenue Act, (1764), aimed at ending the smuggling trade in sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch West Indies. -
Stamp Act
The Stamp Act imposed a direct tax on the colonists. Specifically, the act required that, starting in the fall of 1765, legal documents and printed materials must bear a tax stamp provided by commissioned distributors who would collect the tax in exchange for the stamp. -
Quartering Act
The Quartering Act of 1765 required the colonies to house British soldiers in barracks provided by the colonies. If the barracks were too small to house all the soldiers, then localities were to accommodate the soldiers in local inns, livery stables, ale houses, victualing houses and the houses of sellers of wine. -
Townshend Acts
The Townshend Acts were a series of laws passed by the British government on the American colonies in 1767. They placed new taxes and took away some freedoms from the colonists including the following: New taxes on imports of paper, paint, lead, glass, and tea. -
Boston Massacre
The Boston Massacre was a confrontation on March 5, 1770 in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. -
Tea Act
In an effort to save the troubled enterprise, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act in 1773. The act granted the company the right to ship its tea directly to the colonies without first landing it in England, and to commission agents who would have the sole right to sell tea in the colonies. -
Boston Tea Party
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. -
Intolerable Acts
The Intolerable Acts were punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. 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. -
First Continental Congress
On September 5, 1774, delegates from each of the 13 colonies except for Georgia (which was fighting a Native American uprising and was dependent on the British for military supplies) met in Philadelphia as the First Continental Congress to organize colonial resistance to Parliament's Coercive Acts. -
Thomas Paine’s Common Sense Published
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine basically said it should be common sense to want independence from Great Britain. -
Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775,was the first battle of the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) -
Second Continental Congress
The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the 13 colonies that formed in Philadelphia in May 1775, soon after the launch of the American Revolutionary War. -
Continental Army Lead by General George Washington
The Continental Congress commissioned George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army on June 19, 1775. Washington was selected over other candidates such as John Hancock based on his previous military experience and the hope that a leader from Virginia could help unite the colonies. -
Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson, declaring the freedom of the thirteen American colonies from Great Britain. -
Benjamin Franklin Becomes French Ambassador
Admired by the French for his experiments with electricity, inventions and for his charming and humble personality, Franklin was a natural choice as ambassador. -
Adam Smith Publishes “The Wealth of Nations”
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Winter at Valley Forge
The particularly severe winter of 1777-1778 proved to be a great trial for the American army, and of the 11,000 soldiers stationed at Valley Forge, hundreds died from disease. However, the suffering troops were held together by loyalty to the Patriot cause and to General Washington, who stayed with his men. -
Battle of Saratoga
The Battles of Saratoga marked the climax of the American Revolution, giving a victory to the Americans over the British in a surrender. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation provided a legal symbol of the United States union by giving the central government no coercive power over the states or their citizens. -
Period: to
Abolition Movement
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Battle of Yorktown
The outcome in Yorktown, Virginia marked the conclusion of the last major battle of the American Revolution and the start of a new nation's independence. -
Treaty of Paris of 1783
The Treaty of Paris was signed by U.S. and British Representatives on September 3, 1783, ending the War of the American Revolution. -
Shays’ Rebellion
Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades. -
Constitutional Convention/ Philadelphia Convention
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Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay that promoted the ratification of the United States Constitution. -
U.S. Constitution
The U.S. Constitution is a stronger set of rules that guides how the United States' political organizations work. -
The Great Compromise
The Great Compromise, or 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. -
The 3/5ths Compromise
The Three-fifths Compromise was a compromise reached among state delegates, during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention, that states only 3 out of every 5 slaves will count amongst their states population. -
Washington Creates Presidential Cabinet
While Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution sets up the ability of the president to select the heads of the executive departments, it was President George Washington who established the “Cabinet” as his group of advisers who reported in private and solely to the U.S. chief executive officer. -
Bill of Rights Added to U.S. Constitution
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The French Revolution Begins
The upheaval was caused by widespread discontent with the French monarchy and the poor economic policies of King Louis XVI, who met his death by guillotine, as did his wife Marie Antoinette. -
Washington Elected 1st President
George Washington, the commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, was unanimously elected the first president of the United States by all 69 presidential electors who cast their votes. -
Washington D.C. Becomes New U.S. Capital
The Residence Act of July 16, 1790, put the nation's capital in current-day Washington as part of a plan to appease pro-slavery states who feared a northern capital as being too sympathetic to abolitionists. -
Period: to
The Second Great Awakening
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Alexander Hamilton Gets Congress to Approve National Bank
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Whiskey Rebellion
The Whiskey Rebellion was a 1794 uprising of farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania in protest of a whiskey tax enacted by the federal government. -
Cotton Gin and Interchangeable Parts Invented by Eli Whitney
Based in part on his reputation for creating the cotton gin, a machine that could quickly prepare cotton, Whitney later secured a major contract to build muskets for the U.S. government. Through this project, he promoted the idea of interchangeable parts–standardized, identical parts that made for faster assembly and easier repair of various devices. -
Washington’s Farewell Address
Washington's Farewell Address is a letter written by American President George Washington as a valedictory to "friends and the fellow-citizens". In his farewell Presidential address, George Washington advised American citizens to view themselves as a cohesive unit and avoid political parties and issued a special warning to be wary of attachments and entanglements with other nations -
John Adams (Federalist) Elected 2nd President
John Adams won the election by a narrow margin against Thomas Jefferson, becoming the second president of the United States. -
XYZ Affair
The XYZ Affair was a political and diplomatic episode in 1797 and 1798, early in the presidency of John Adams, involving a confrontation between the United States and Republican France that led to the Quasi-War. -
First Two-Party System Created (Dem-Rep vs Federalist)
Jefferson and his followers favored states' rights and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. They believed that a powerful central government posed a threat to individual liberties. Hamilton's group, however, favored a strong federal government. Hamilton's group became the Federalists, while Jefferson's faction adopted the name "Democratic Republicans." -
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were a series of four laws passed by the U.S. Congress in 1798 amid widespread fear that war with France was imminent. The four laws, which remain controversial to this day, restricted the activities of foreign residents in the country and limited freedom of speech and of the press. -
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799 in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional. -
Election of 1800 and the Start of the Jeffersonian Era
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Cult of Domesticity Begins
The Cult of Domesticity was also known as the Cult of True Womanhood. The Cult was an ideology that created a new idea about the role of women in society. It was founded on the theory of scientific sexism and the fact that 19th century women were considered to be both physically and mentally inferior to men. -
The Market Revolution Begins
The Market Revolution (1793–1909) in the United States was a drastic change in the manual-labor system originating in the South (and soon moving to the North) and later spreading to the entire world. Traditional commerce was made obsolete by improvements in transportation, communication, and industry. -
Period: to
Manifest Destiny
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Thomas Jefferson (Democratic Republican) Elected 3rd President
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Steam Locomotive Invented in Great Britain
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Marbury v. Madison
Marbury v. Madison was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and some government actions that they find to violate the Constitution of the United States. -
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from France in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi, doubling the size of the US. over night and strengthening the country. -
James Madison (Democratic Republican) Elected 4th President
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War of 1812 Begins
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British Impressment of U.S. Sailors
Impressment of sailors was the practice of Britain's Royal Navy by sending officers to board American ships, inspect the crew, and seize sailors of the U.S. who were accused of being deserters from British ships. -
War Hawks in Congress Support War Against British
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Treaty of Ghent
The Treaty of Ghent was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands. -
Francis Scott Key Writes the Star-Spangled Banner
On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key pens a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes America's national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The poem, originally titled “The Defence of Fort M'Henry,” was written after Key witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812. -
Federalist Party Collapses
Under Alexander Hamilton, it dominated the national government from 1789 to 1801. It became a minority party while keeping its stronghold in New England and made a brief resurgence by opposing the War of 1812. It then collapsed with its last presidential candidate in 1816. -
Period: to
Era of Good Feelings
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Tariff of 1816
The Tariff of 1816, also known as the Dallas Tariff, is notable as the first tariff passed by Congress with an explicit function of protecting U.S. manufactured items from overseas competition. Prior to the War of 1812, tariffs had primarily served to raise revenues to operate the national government. -
James Monroe (Democratic Republican) Elected 5th President
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Adam- Onis Treaty/ Spain Ceded Florida to U.S.
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Universal Male Suffrage Begins to Rise
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Compromise of 1820
The Missouri Compromise was United States federal legislation that admitted Maine to the United States as a free state, simultaneously with Missouri as a slave state, thus maintaining the balance of power between North and South in the US Senate. -
Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine was a United States policy that opposed European colonialism in the Americas. It began in 1823; however, the term "Monroe Doctrine" itself was not coined until 1850. -
Henry Clay’s “American System”
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Erie Canal Built
The Erie Canal opened on October 26, 1825. A fleet of boats, led by Governor Dewitt Clinton aboard the Seneca Chief sailed from Buffalo to New York City in record time, just ten days. -
John Quincy Adams (Democratic Republican) Elected 6th President
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Lowell, Massachusetts Textile Mill Employs Women
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Andrew Jackson (Democrat) Elected 7th President
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Second Two-Party System Created (Democrats vs Whigs)
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Indian Removal Act
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Congress Passes Preemption Acts
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Abolition Movement Begins
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Trail of Tears Begins
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William Lloyd Garrison Publishes Abolitionist Newspaper “The Liberator”
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Andrew Jackson Vetos National Bank
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Nullification Crisis
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Texas Revolution and Independence from Mexico
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Horace Mann Advocates for Public Schools
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Increased Irish and German Immigration to the North
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Federal Support Given to Samuel Morse to Construct Telegraph Lines
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Dorothea Dix Advocates for Mentally Ill and Prison Reform
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James K. Polk Elected U.S. President (Democrat)
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Irish Potato Famine Begins
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Frederick Douglass writes autobiography “Narrative of the Life of an American Slave”
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Texas Annexation by the United States
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Frederick Douglass Publishes Autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”
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Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican American War. -
Oregon Territory Divided Between British and U.S.
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Mexican American War Begins
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Seneca Falls Convention
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Mexican Cession
The “Mexican Cession” refers to lands surrendered, or ceded, to the United States by Mexico at the end of the Mexican War. -
Free Soil Movement Begins
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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Mexican American War Ends
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California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican American War. -
Fugitive Slave Law Passed in Compromise of 1850
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves. -
Harriet Tubman Begins Using Underground Railroad
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Harriet Beecher Stowe Publishes “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
Published in 1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe that displayed the truth and horror of slavery. -
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase was a piece of land bought from Mexico by the U.S. for $10 million in order to complete a railroad to California. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was an 1854 bill that mandated “popular sovereignty” allowing settlers of a territory to decide whether slavery would be allowed within a new state's borders. -
Republican Party Created
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Bleeding Kansas Begins
Bleeding Kansas or Bloody Kansas was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory between 1854 and 1859, which emerged from a political and debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. -
Caning of Senator Sumner
The Caning of Charles Sumner, or the Brooks–Sumner Affair, occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts, in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized slaveholders, including a relative of Brooks. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott v. Sandford, often referred to as the Dred Scott decision, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court when they ruled that the U.S. Constitution was not meant to apply to African Americans; in other words, African Americans were not considered citizens, so they had no rights. -
John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia
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Republican Abraham Lincoln Wins Presidential Election of 1860
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Seven Southern States Secede from the Union, Forming the Confederate States of America
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Democrat Jefferson Davis Elected President of the Confederacy (1861)
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Battle of Fort Sumter
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Lincoln Suspends Habeas Corpus
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Period: to
The Civil War
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Homestead Act
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Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, 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." -
Battle of Vicksburg
A victory at the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863 gave the Union control of the Mississippi River in the American Civil War. By having control of the river, Union forces would split the Confederacy in two and controlled an important route to move men and supplies. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought on July 1–3, 1863, was the turning point of the Civil War for one main reason: Robert E. Lee's plan to invade the North and force an immediate end to the war failed. -
Gettysburg Address
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Gen. Lee Surrenders to Gen. Grant at Appomattox Court House
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President Abraham Lincoln Assassinated by John Wilkes Booth
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, on April 14, 1865, while attending the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. -
President Andrew Johnson Becomes President
After Abraham Lincoln's sudden assassination, his vice president Andrew Johnson was squared into office. -
Johnson Pardons the South
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Radical Republicans Champion for Black Civil Rights in Congress
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13th Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
Freedmen's Bureau Created
On March 3, 1865, Congress passed “An Act to establish a Bureau for the Relief of Freedmen and Refugees” to provide food, shelter, clothing, medical services, and land to displaced Southerners, including newly freed African Americans. -
Sharecropping Begins in the South
Sharecropping is a type of farming in which families rent small plots of land from a landowner in return for a portion of their crop, to be given to the landowner at the end of each year. -
Black Codes First Passed in the South
The Black Codes, sometimes called Black Laws, were laws governing the conduct of African Americans. The best known of them were passed in 1865 and 1866 by Southern states, after the American Civil War, in order to restrict African Americans' freedom, and to compel them to work for low wages. -
“Scalawags and Carpetbaggers”
Scalawag, after the American Civil War, was a pejorative term for a white Southerner who supported the federal plan of Reconstruction or who joined with black freedmen, and the so-called carpetbaggers were in support of Republican Party policies. -
Ku Klux Klan Formed
Founded in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870 and became a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed at establishing political and economic equality for Black Americans. Its members waged an underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and Black Republican leaders. -
Period: to
Reconstruction Era
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Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson
Radical Republicans sought to impeach President Johnson because he insisted on trying to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States"; this included African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War. -
Transcontinental Railroad Completed
One hundred and fifty-one years ago on May 10, 1869, university founder Leland Stanford drove the last spike that marked the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the federal government and each state from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Hiram Rhode Revels Becomes First African American in Congress (Senate)
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Industrialization Begins to Boom
The Gilded Age was a period of economic growth as the United States jumped to the lead in industrialization ahead of Britain. The nation was rapidly expanding its economy into new areas, especially heavy industry like factories, railroads, and coal mining. -
Social Darwinism Theory Gains Popularity
Many Social Darwinists embraced laissez-faire capitalism and racism. They believed that government should not interfere in the “survival of the fittest” by helping the poor, and promoted the idea that some races are biologically superior to others. -
Nativism Spreads
The belief in Nativism was a prejudicial attitude towards immigrants based on their national origin, their ethnic background, their race or religion. Concerns about immigration during the historical period referred to as the Gilded Age (1865 - 1900), led to the rise in Nativism in America. -
Standard Oil Company Founded by John D. Rockefeller
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The “New South” wants Industrialization
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Jim Crow Laws Begin in South
Jim Crow laws were state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Enacted after the Civil War, the laws denied equal opportunity to African Americans. -
Boss Tweed Rise at Tammany Hall
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Telephone Invented by Alexander Graham Bell
On March 7, 1876, Bell was granted his telephone patent. A few days later, he made the first-ever telephone call to Watson, allegedly uttering the now-famous phrase, “Mr. Watson, come here." -
Reconstruction Ends
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Period: to
Gilded Age
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Light Bulb Invented by Thomas Edison
The first electric light bulb was invented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1879 and patented on January 27, 1880. -
3rd Wave of Immigration: “New Immigrants”
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Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. -
Pendleton Act
The Pendleton Act provided that Federal Government jobs be awarded on the basis of merit and that Government employees be selected through competitive exams. The act also made it unlawful to fire or demote for political reasons employees who were covered by the law. -
Haymarket Massacre
The Haymarket massacre was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day, the day after police killed one and injured several workers. -
Dawes Act
The Dawes Act, sometimes called the Dawes Severalty Act or General Allotment Act, passed in 1887 under President Grover Cleveland, allowed the federal government to break up tribal lands. -
Interstate Commerce Act
On February 4, 1887, both the Senate and House passed the Interstate Commerce Act, granting Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among several States, regulating railroad rates. -
Chicago’s Hull House started by Jane Addams
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Andrew Carnegie’s Book “Gospel of Wealth”
"Wealth", more commonly known as "The Gospel of Wealth", is an article written by Andrew Carnegie in June of 1889 that describes the responsibility of philanthropy by the new upper class of self-made rich. -
How the Other Half Lives
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Influence of Sea Power Upon History
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Sherman Anti-Trust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act, passed in 1890, outlawed trusts—groups of businesses that collude or merge to form a monopoly in order to dictate pricing in a particular market. The Act's purpose was to promote economic fairness and competitiveness and to regulate interstate commerce. -
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as Boxer Uprising or Yihetuan Movement, was an armed and violent xenophobic, anti-Christian, and anti-imperialist insurrection in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty. -
Period: to
Progressive Era
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Period: to
Imperialism
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Carnegie Steel Company Founded by Andrew Carnegie
In the early 1870s, Carnegie co-founded his first steel company, near Pittsburgh. Over the next few decades, he created a steel empire, maximizing profits and minimizing inefficiencies through ownership of factories, raw materials and transportation infrastructure involved in steel making. -
Homestead Steel Labor Strike
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Pullman Labor Strike
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Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court Case
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Annexation of Hawaii
The United States wanted Hawaii to acquire its islands and because it was a port way to China, East India and Asia. -
Spanish American War
The Spanish–American War was an armed conflict between Spain and the United States in 1898. Hostilities began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. -
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a term in foreign affairs initially used to refer to the policy established in the late 19th century and the early 20th century that would allow for a system of trade in China open to all countries equally. -
Roosevelt’s Big Stick Diplomacy/ Roosevelt Corollary
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Period: to
Theodore Roosevelt
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Panama Canal U.S. Construction Begins
The Panama Canal was built to lower the distance, cost, and time it took for ships to carry cargo between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and was a huge boost to world trade and the economy. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle to expose the appalling working conditions in the meat-packing industry. His description of diseased, rotten, and contaminated meat shocked the public and led to new federal food safety laws. -
Ford Model-T
The Model T is Ford's universal car that put the world on wheels and was one of the first mass production vehicles, allowing Ford to achieve his aim of manufacturing the universal car. The Model T was manufactured on the Ford Motor Company's moving assembly line at Ford's revolutionary Highland Park Plant. -
NAACP started by W.E.B. Du Bois
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Period: to
William Howard Taft
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16th Amendment
The 16th amendment established Congress's right to impose a Federal income tax. -
Federal Reserve Act
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Period: to
Woodrow Wilson
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17th Amendment
The 17th Amendment gave people the right to vote for their senators instead of the state legislature. -
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. -
Trench Warfare, Poison Gas, and Machine Guns
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World War I
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Sinking of the Lusitania
A German U-boat torpedoed the British-owned steamship Lusitania, killing 1,195 people including 128 Americans, on May 7, 1915. -
National Parks System
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U.S. entry into WWI
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Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution across the territory of the Russian Empire, commencing with the abolition of the monarchy in 1917 and concluding in 1922 with the Bolshevik establishment of the Soviet Union at the end of the Civil War. -
Zimmerman Telegram
The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany. In return, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. -
Battle of Argonne Forest
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Germany Declares an Armistice
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Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918, speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. -
Treaty of Versailles
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19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment guarantees American women the right to vote. -
President Harding’s Return to Normalcy
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Red Scare
A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism or anarchism by a society or state. -
18th Amendment
The 18th Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors. -
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater and politics centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. -
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Roaring Twenties
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Teapot Dome Scandal
The Tea Pot Dome Scandal was one of the most extreme examples of government corruption in United States history. The issue revolved around oil rich lands at Tea Pot Dome, Wyoming and Elk Hills California that had been set aside by the government for use by the U.S. Navy as emergency reserves. -
Joseph Stalin Leads Soviet Union
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Scopes “Monkey” Trial
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Charles Lindbergh’s Trans-Atlantic Flight
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St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the 1929 murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang that occurred on Saint Valentine's Day. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park garage on the morning of that feast day, February 14th. -
Stock Market Crashes “Black Tuesday”
