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1492
The Discovery of America by Columbus
Columbus set sail from Spain in 1492, with his fleet of three ships - the Niña, the Pinta, and the flagship, the Santa Maria. About five weeks later, Columbus and his crew arrived at an island in the Bahamas that he named San Salvador, believing he had reached the Indies, as the lands of China, Japan and India were then known in Europe.
Importance : Christopher Columbus was remembered for establishing a link between the modern European world & the " New World" which people didn't know was there. -
The Settlement of Jamestowm
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. Importance: There was Colony settlements and it was one of the many examples of P.O.C being mistreated. -
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The french and Indian War
Also known as the Seven Years’ War, this New World conflict marked another chapter in the long imperial struggle between Britain and France. When France’s expansion into the Ohio River valley brought repeated conflict with the claims of the British colonies, a series of battles led to the official British declaration of war in 1756. Importance: From this war came the peace conference where the British received Canada from France and Florida from Spain. Mississippi opened to westward expansion. -
The Boston Tea Party
On the night of December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty boarded three ships in the Boston harbor dressed up as Indians and threw 342 chests of tea overboard. This resulted in the passage of the punitive Coercive Acts in 1774 and pushed the two sides closer to war. Importance : The act of rebellion caused a wave of resistance in the colonies. It was also a protest against taxation. This act was supposed to help the East India Company get back on its feet. -
The Battle of Lexington and Concord
In April 1775, when British troops are sent to confiscate colonial weapons, they run into an untrained and angry militia. This ragtag army defeats 700 British soldiers and the surprise victory bolsters their confidence for the war ahead. Importance : The Battle was the start of the American Revolutionary War. This war also involves Paul Revere which is a big historical figure. -
The Declaration of Independence
The thirteen colonies in the America's had been at war with Britain for around a year when the Second Continental Congress decided it was time for the colonies to officially declare their independence. This meant that they were breaking away from British rule. They would no longer be a part of the British Empire and would fight for their freedom. Importance: This is how the United states got their independence from the British. -
The Battle of Yorktown
On this day in 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. Importance: It ended fighting in the American colonies, then the Treaty of Paris was signed which then recognized the US as a free nation after eight years of war. -
The Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 14 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The point of the event was decide how America was going to be governed. Importance: It was when the founding people decide how they were going to rule their new country. -
The invention of the cotton gin
Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. Also, his invention offered Southern planters a justification to maintain and expand slavery. Importance: The cotton gin made picking cotton easier which caused an increase in people wearing cotton and the number of clothes they had but it also increased the number of slaves brought over to pick cotton. -
The Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by Congress in 1798 in preparation for an anticipated war with France. Interpreting the prominent participation of immigrants in the Republican opposition party as evidence of a relationship between foreigners and disloyalty, Federalists championed tighter restrictions for foreigners and critics of their policies. Importance: These acts were important because they banned any publishing of negative opinions that were again the government. -
The Louisiana Purchase
The United States purchased approximately 828,000,000 square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. Part or all of 15 states were eventually created from the land deal. Importance: This purchase expanded the United States land and doubled the country in size. -
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The War of 1812
The United States took on the greatest naval power in the world, Great Britain, in a conflict that would have an immense impact on the young country’s future. Many in the United States celebrated the War of 1812 as a “second war of independence,” beginning an era of partisan agreement and national pride. Importance: Winning this showed the US couldn't be reconquered by the British and also introduced a kind of pride and national self confidence all through the US. -
The Missouri Compromise
Congress orchestrated a two-part compromise, granting Missouri’s request but also admitting Maine as a free state. It also passed an amendment that drew an imaginary line across the former Louisiana Territory, establishing a boundary between free and slave regions that remained the law of the land until it was negated by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Importance: This compromise allowed both sides ( the North and South) to get what they wanted with out upsetting the other side. -
The Trail of Tears
Nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. The federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. Importance :This is an example of the unfair treatment of P.O.C and showed how the government treated people when they wanted something. So it wasn't really the land of the free for everyone. -
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The Invention of the Telegraph
Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. Importance : The telegraph revolutionized the efficiency of communication and Morse code was a result of this. -
Andrew Jackson's Election
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer and rising young politician by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become America’s most influential–and polarizing–political figure during the 1820s and 1830s. Importance : During his presidency the importance of the common people in government increased. -
The Panic of 1837
A crisis in financial and economic conditions in the nation following changes in the banking system initiated by President Andrew Jackson and his Specie Circular that effectively dried up credit. Other causes of the Panic of 1837 included the failure of the wheat crop, a financial crisis and depression in Great Britain that led to restrictive lending policies. Importance: It was one of the worst financial crisis the young developing U.S. had seen. -
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The Mexican-American War
It marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the president, who believed the U.S. had a “manifest destiny” to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. When the dust cleared, Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Importance: The U.S. expanded its territory and gained 5 states from Mexico. -
The Compromise of 1850
Divisions over slavery in territory gained in the Mexican-American War were resolved in this Compromise. It consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah & New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington. Importance: This compromise would please the South & the North involving the slave & non slave states. -
The Firing on Fort Sumter
The fort had been the source of tension between the Union and Confederacy for several months. After South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860, the state demanded the fort be turned over but Union officials refused. A supply ship, the “Star of the West,” tried to reach Fort Sumter on January 9, but the shore batteries opened fire and drove it away. For both sides, Sumter was a symbol of sovereignty. Importance: This Is what started the American Civil War. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
On September 22, soon after the Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” While the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom. Importance : This proclamation changed the purpose of the War. -
13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
13th Amendment: Abolished Slavery
14th: Amendment: Granted freed slaves citizenship
15th Amendment: Gave everyone the right to vote Importance: This all played an important part in integrating slaves into society as equal beings. -
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. Days earlier, Lee had abandoned the Confederate capital of Richmond and the city of Petersburg; his goal was to rally the remnants of his beleaguered troops, meet Confederate reinforcements in North Carolina and resume fighting. Importance: This event brought the Civil War to an end. -
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, effectively ending the American Civil War. Importance: Although it was horrible this assassination in a way helped unite the North & South after all the arguing revolving slavery. -
Andrew Johnson Impeachment
The U.S. House of Representatives votes 11 articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson, nine of which cite Johnson’s removal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The House vote made President Johnson the first president to be impeached in U.S. history. Importance: This was a historical event and important to our history because he was the first president to be impeached. -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust
John D. Rockefeller organized Standard Oil in Cleveland in 1870. Through ruthless competition and superb organization, the Standard Oil Trust controlled 90 percent of oil refining in the United States by 1879. Importance: The Standard oil trust were companies that were bought then made into one big company and that company controlled almost all the oil production in the U.S. -
The invention of the Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell, the Scottish-born American scientist best known as the inventor of the telephone, worked at a school for the deaf while attempting to invent a machine that would transmit sound by electricity. Bell was granted the first official patent for his telephone in March 1876. Importance: This invention allowed you to communicate in a new way, allowing you to actually hear someones voice rather than just hearing a message. -
The invention of the Electric Light Bulb
Edison focused on inventing a safe, inexpensive electric light to replace the gaslight–a challenge that scientists had been grappling with for the last 50 years. He made a breakthrough in Oct. 1879 with a bulb that used a platinum filament, & in the summer of 1880 hit on carbonized bamboo as a viable alternative for the filament, which proved to be the key to a long-lasting & affordable light bulb. Importance: This invention brought light and electricity into peoples homes for the first time. -
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The Homestead Strike
The Homestead strike, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, pitted one of the most powerful new corporations, Carnegie Steel Company, against the nation’s strongest trade union, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. An 1889 strike had won the steelworkers a favorable three-year contract; but by 1892 Andrew Carnegie was determined to break the union. Importance: The result of this strike was that steelworkers would remain largely devoid of union protections. -
The Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was a disturbing event in Illinois history. It occurred because of the way George Mortimer Pullman, founder and president of the Pullman Palace Car Company, treated his workers. Organized in 1867, the company manufactured sleeping cars and operated them under contract to the railroads. Importance: It was the first time that a court order had to be used to break up a strike. -
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The Spanish-American War
The Spanish-American War (1898) was a conflict between the United States and Spain that ended Spanish colonial rule in the Americas and resulted in U.S. acquisition of territories in the western Pacific and Latin America. Importance: This war established that the U.S. had power to the rest of the world. -
Theodore Roosevelt becomes 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. Young and physically robust, he brought a new energy to the White House, and won a second term on his own merits in 1904. Importance: He changed the U.S. for the better and lead the country in a forward direction. He also fought along side soldiers in some wars showing he was an involved President. -
The invention of the Airplane
Wilbur and Orville Wright were American inventors and pioneers of aviation. In 1903 the Wright brothers achieved the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight; they surpassed their own milestone two years later when they built and flew the first fully practical airplane. Importance: This invention allowed people to fly from one place to another. It improved and made traveling a lot faster.
