U.S. History Timeline

  • 1492

    Christopher Columbus Lands

    Discovers North america and lands in the new world.
  • 1492

    Christopher Columbus

    Discovered the Americas and lead the journey.
  • Jamestown Founded

    One of the first places founded in north america.
  • Navigation Act of 1651

    required all trade between England and the colonies to be carried in English or colonial vessels, resulting in the Anglo-Dutch War in 1652.
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    Mercantilism

    Mercantilism was when England made all trade with the U.S. go through them and take what they wanted.
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    George Washington

    George Washington commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. He also became the first U.S. president.
  • Thomas Jefferson

    American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809.
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    French and Indian War

    A War between America and the French who had a lot of Indian Allies.
  • Proclamation of 1763

    Great Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War, which forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains.
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    Stamp Act

    British Parliament in 1765 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents. Colonial opposition led to the act's repeal in 1766 and helped encourage the revolutionary movement against the Crown.
  • Boston Massacre

    British Army soldiers shot and killed several people while under attack by a mob.
  • Boston Tea Party

    The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts
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    American Revolution

    The American Patriots in the Thirteen Colonies won independence from Great Britain, becoming the United States of America.
  • Declaration of Independence

    The Declaration of Independence, 1776. By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain. The Declaration summarized the colonists' motivations for seeking independence.
  • United States Constitution Signed

    It took 10 months for the first nine states to approve the Constitution. The first state to ratify was Delaware, on December 7, 1787, by a unanimous vote, 30 - 0. The featured document is an endorsed ratification of the federal Constitution by the Delaware convention.
  • Benjamin Franklin

    Founding Father and a polymath, inventor, scientist, printer, politician, freemason and diplomat. Franklin helped to draft the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and he negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War.
  • The Enlightenment

    The Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century
  • Louisiana Purchase

    The Louisiana Purchase (1803) was a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million.
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    Westward Expansion

    By 1840 almost 7 million Americans had migrated westward in hopes of securing land and being prosperous. The belief that settlers were destined to expand to the west is often referred to as Manifest Destiny.
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    Lewis and Clark Expedition

    The Lewis and Clark expedition was the first discovery of the newly acquired land. The goal was to explore the area and find a route to the ocean.
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    Lewis and Clark

    Explorers and leaders of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Explored the new land and found a path west to the ocean.
  • Jacksonian Democracy

    Jacksonian democracy was a 18th-century political philosophy in the United States that espoused greater democracy for the common man as that term was then defined. It was created by Andrew Jackson.
  • Andrew Jackson

    Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States in 1828.
  • Election of 1828

    This was a election where one candidate had a lot more votes from the popular votes but had less electoral votes so they lost and the other candidate won. That candidate being Andrew Jackson
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    Abolitionist Movement

    The movement to get rid of slavery and make a change. People wanted equal rights and they were against slavery in the country.
  • Indian Removal Act

    The Indian Removal Act was signed by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830. The law authorized the president to negotiate with southern Indian tribes for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their lands.
  • Manifest Destiny

    The idea that it was a god given right to move westward or to expand into the west and claim the land.
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    Mexican American War

    The primary causes of the Mexican-American War were mainfest destiny, westward expansion, economics, and slavery. ... Another cause of the war was slavery. American citizens in the south wished to gain more "slave states" in order to increase their political power.The treaty that ended the war was called the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Since the US won, they got to set the terms (conditions). Mexico agreed to the treaty, and the war was officially over on 2/2/1848.
  • Compromise of 1850

    As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. Furthermore, California entered the Union as a free state and a territorial government was created in Utah.
  • Dred Scott

    He was a slave that was moved up to a free state. He claimed that he should have freedom. The case went to the supreme court and he was decided that he is not free. he was then bought by his original owner and then set free.
  • Dred Scott Decision

    Sandford, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled (7–2) that a Dred Scott who had resided in a free state and territory was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States
  • Election of 1860

    Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. Through the election Lincoln had a big advantage because he was the only representative for the republicans.
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    Civil War

    The Civil War, also known as was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, a collection of eleven southern states that left the Union in 1860 and 1861 and formed their own country in order to protect the institution of slavery. The union won the war and this was during president Lincolns time.
  • Abraham Lincoln

    Was the 16th president. Started the civil war. freed the slaves. Was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
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    Era of Reform

    The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States that spanned from the 1890s to the 1920s. The main objectives of the Progressive movement were eliminating problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and corruption in government.
  • Fredrick Douglas

    An abolitionist, writer and orator Frederick Douglass was the most important black American leader of the nineteenth century. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey on Maryland's Eastern Shore, he was the son of a slave woman and, probably, her white master.