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Aug 3, 1492
Christopher Columbus Sets Sail for India
Christopher Columbus Discovers America, 1492. Columbus led his three ships - the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria - out of the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492. -
Settling of Jamestown
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French & Indian War
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Boston Tea Party
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The Battle of Lexington and Concord
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Declaration of Independence
In fact, 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. -
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The Battle of Yorktown
The Siege of Yorktown, Battle of Yorktown, Surrender at Yorktown or German Battle, ending on October 19, 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia, was a decisive victory by a combined force of American Continental Army troops led by General George Washington and French Army troops led by the Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by British lord and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis. -
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The Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention (also known as the Philadelphia Convention, the Federal Convention, or the Grand Convention at Philadelphia.) -
Cotton Gin Invented
WikipediaThe first modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794.It used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. Whitney's gin revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States, but also led to the growth of slavery in the American South as the demand for cotton workers rapidly increased. -
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Alien and Sedition Acts.
The Alien Enemies Act, which Adams signed on July 6, gave him the power to deport any alien living in the U.S. with ties to U.S. wartime enemies. Finally, the Sedition Act, passed on July 14, gave Adams tremendous power to define treasonable activity including any false, scandalous and malicious writing. -
Louisiana Purchase
Louisiana Purchase Treaty, April 30, 1803; General Records of the U.S. Government; Record Group 11; National Archives. In this transaction with France, signed on April 30, 1803, the United States purchased 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. -
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War of 1812
From June 18, 1812 to February 16, 1815, the United States was at war with Britain. -
Missouri Compromise
Congress passed a bill making Missouri a slave state. -
Andrew Jackson's Election
Andrew Jackson became the first president-elect to take the oath of office on March 4, 1829. -
Invention of the Telegraph.
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Panic of 1837
Van Buren was elected president in 1836, but he saw financial problems beginning even before he entered the White House. He inherited Andrew Jackson's financial policies, which contributed to what came to be known as the Panic of 1837. -
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Trail of Tears
In 1838 and 1839, as 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. -
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Mexican-American War
The Mexican–American War, 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 from 1846 to 1848 -
Compromise of 1850
Senator Henry Clay introduced a series of resolutions on January 29, 1850, in an attempt to seek a compromise and avert a crisis between North and South. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was abolished. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, near Charleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
United States President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. -
13th Amendment
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States and provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or ... -
Andrew Johnson's Impeachment
President Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives on February 24, 1868 and the Senate tried the case in a trial that lasted from March to May 1868. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. -
15th Amendment
Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
The first call on a telephone
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, he made the first call on March 10, 1876, to his assistant, Thomas Watson: "Mr. Watson--come here--I want to see you." -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust
Standard Oil Trust is a U.S. company and corporate trust that held a near monopoly over the U.S. oil industry from 1870 to 1911. The company originated in 1863, when John D. Rockefeller started a Cleveland, Ohio, refining firm, which, with other facilities, was incorporated as the Standard Oil Company in 1870. -
Invention of the Electric Light by Thomas Edison
Incandescent Bulbs Light the Way. Long before Thomas Edison patented -- first in 1879 and then a year later in 1880 -- and began commercializing his incandescent light bulb, British inventors were demonstrating that electric light was possible with the arc lamp. -
The Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike, also known as the Homestead Steel Strike, was an industrial lockout and strike which began on June 30, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. -
The Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States in the summer of 1894. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. -
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Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, the result of U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. -
Theodore Roosevelt became President
The rising young Republican politician Theodore Roosevelt unexpectedly became the 26th president of the United States in September 1901, after the assassination of William McKinley. -
Invention of Airplane
On December 17, 1903, 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.
