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The Settlement of Jamestown
On May 14, 1607, a group of roughly 100 members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded the first permanent English settlement in North America on the banks of the James River. Famine, disease and conflict with local Native American tribes in the first two years brought Jamestown to the brink of failure before the arrival of a new group of settlers and supplies in 1610. -
The French and Indian War
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The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party Was More Than That. It Was a Riot. We do not care for the revolutionary spirit to survive the revolution. The revolution, however, goes nowhere without it. -
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
The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. -
The Battle of Yorktown
On September 28, 1781, General George Washington, commanding a force of 17,000 French and Continental troops, begins the siege known as the Battle of Yorktown against British General Lord Charles Cornwallis and a contingent of 9,000 British troops at Yorktown, Virginia, in the most important battle of the Revolutionary War. -
The Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, resulting in the creation of the Constitution of the United States, placing the Convention among the most significant events in American history. -
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
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. -
The War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its own allies. -
The Missouri Compromise
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. -
Andrew Jackson’s Election
The 1828 United States presidential election was the 11th quadrennial presidential election. It was held from Friday, October 31 to Tuesday, 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 Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was a series of forced relocations of approximately 60,000 Native Americans in the United States from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States, to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory. -
The Panic of 1837
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major depression, which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down; unemployment went up, and pessimism abounded. The panic had both domestic and foreign origins. -
The invention of the telegraph
On May 24, 1844, Morse sent Vail the historic first message: “What hath God wrought!” The telegraph system subsequently spread across America and the world, aided by further innovations. Among these improvements was the invention of good insulation for telegraph wires. -
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. -
The Mexican-American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the Intervención Estadounidense en México, was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. -
The invention of the electric light, telephone, and airplane
His inventions included the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb and Edison had amassed a record 1,093 patents 389 for electric light and power 150 for the telegraph, 141 for storage batteries, and 34 for the telephone achieved the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight -
The 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. -
The Firing on Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia, and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American Civil War. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
DescriptionThe Emancipation Proclamation, or Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862, during the Civil War. -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust
The Standard Oil Trust was formed in 1863 by John D. Rockefeller. He built up the company through 1868 to become the largest oil refinery firm in the world. In 1870, the company was renamed Standard Oil Company, after which Rockefeller decided to buy up all the other competition and form them into one large company The company faced legal issues in 1890 following the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act -
13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, known collectively as the Civil War Amendments, were designed to ensure equality for recently emancipated slaves. ... The 15th Amendment prohibited governments from denying U.S. citizens the right to vote based on race, color, or past servitude. -
Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought in Appomattox County, Virginia, on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War. -
Abraham Lincoln's Assassination
On the evening of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor, and Confederate sympathizer assassinated President Abraham Lincoln 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 -
Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was initiated on February 24, 1868, when the United States House of Representatives resolved to impeach Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States, for "high crimes and misdemeanors," which were detailed in 11 articles of impeachment. -
The Pullman and Homestead Strikes
Homestead Strike happened in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The workers from Carnegie mills went on strike because Andrew Carnegie, the head of the Carnegie Steel Company, refused to increase the wages. ... The strike ended in defeat for the workers. The Pullman Strike was a disturbing event in Illinois history. -
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
The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt began on September 14, 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States upon the assassination and death of President William McKinley and ended on March 4, 1909. -
The Discovery of America by Columbus
The explorer Christopher 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. Though he did not really “discover” the New World—millions of people already lived there—his journeys marked the beginning of centuries of exploration and colonization of North and South America.