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1492
The discovery of America by Columbus
Columbus made four trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. He was determined to find a direct water route west from Europe to Asia, but he never did. Instead, he stumbled upon the Americas. -
Period: 1492 to
U.S History Time Line
through the years -
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 settlement became the first permanent English settlement in North America. -
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The war provided Great Britain enormous territorial gains in North America, but disputes over subsequent frontier policy and paying the war's expenses led to colonial discontent, and ultimately to the American Revolution. -
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). Tensions had been building for many years between residents of the 13 American colonies and the British authorities, particularly in Massachusetts. -
The Declaration of Independence
independence was formally declared on July 2, 1776, a date that John Adams believed would be “the most memorable epocha in the history of America.” On July 4, 1776, Congress approved the final text of the Declaration. It wasn't signed until August 2, 1776.1772 -
Battle of Yorktown
It is considered the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army, led by General George Washington, won a decisive victory against the British Army, led by General Lord Charles Cornwallis. ... The battle took place in Yorktown, Virginia, near the York River. -
The Constitutional Convention
The official purpose of the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia beginning on May 25, 1787 was to amend the Articles of Confederation. It had, by that time, become clear that the Articles of Confederation were not a good enough constitution for the new nation. -
The invention of the cotton gin
In 1794, U.S.-born inventor Eli Whitney (1765-1825) patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. -
The Alien and Sedition Acts
A series of laws known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by the Federalist Congress in 1798 and signed into law by President Adams. These laws included new powers to deport foreigners as well as making it harder for new immigrants to vote. -
The Louisiana Purchase
In exchange, the United States acquired the vast domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land. The treaty was dated April 30 and signed on May 2. In October, the U.S. Senate ratified the purchase, and in December 1803 France transferred authority over the region to the United States. -
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
Missouri Compromise, (1820), in U.S. history, measure worked out between the North and the South and passed by the U.S. Congress that allowed for admission of Missouri as the 24th state (1821). It marked the beginning of the prolonged sectional conflict over the extension of slavery that led to the American Civil War. -
Andrew Jackson’s Election
The 1828 United States presidential election was the 11th quadrennial presidential election, held from October 31 to December 2, 1828. It featured a re-match of the 1824 election, as President John Quincy Adams of the National Republican Party faced Andrew Jackson of the Democratic Party. -
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. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations.Nov -
The Trail of Tears
General Winfield Scott sped the removal along as well as put many Indians into stockades along the way. The Trail of Tears found its end in Oklahoma. Nearly a fourth of the Cherokee population died along the march. It ended around March of 1839. -
The Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was influenced by the economic policies of President Jackson. During his term, Jackson created the Specie Circular by executive order and refused to renew the charter of Second Bank of the United States, leading government funds to be withdrawn from the bank. -
The Mexican-American War
The primary causes of the Mexican-American War were mainfest destiny, westward expansion, economics, and slavery. -
1850 compromise
The Compromise of 1850 consists of five laws passed in September of 1850 that dealt with the issue of slavery and territorial expansion. In 1849 California requested permission to enter the Union as a free state, potentially upsetting the balance between the free and slave states in the U.S. Senate. -
firing on fort sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the Confederate States Army, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
The 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." -
Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination
braham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. -
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
On April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. -
Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment
On February 24, 1868, something extraordinary happened in the U.S. Congress. For the first time in history, the United States House of Representatives impeached a sitting president, Democrat Andrew Johnson. Now, Johnson faced trial before the U. S. Senate. If convicted, he would be removed from office. -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust year
Standard Oil. Standard Oil, in full Standard Oil Company and Trust, American company and corporate trust that from 1870 to 1911 was the industrial empire of John D. Rockefeller and associates, controlling almost all oil production, processing, marketing, and transportation in the United States. -
what year were The invention of the electric light, telephone and plane.
The electric light, one of the everyday conveniences that most affects our lives, was not “invented” in the traditional sense in 1879 by Thomas Alva Edison, although he could be said to have created the first commercially practical incandescent light. -
The Pullman and Homestead Strikes
As in the Homestead and Pullman strikes, government in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often sided with management and against unions. ... In the Great Depression, the federal government enacted provisions on behalf of workers and labor unions. -
The 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. -
Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was an American statesman, politician, conservationist, naturalist, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He served as the 25th vice president from March to September 1901 and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900
