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Oct 12, 1492
The Discovery of America (by Columbus)
Early in the morning of October 12, 1492, a sailor on board the Pinta sighted land, beginning a new era of European exploration and expansion. -
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. -
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The French and Indian War
The French and Indian War was the North American conflict in a larger imperial war between Great Britain and France known as the Seven Years' War. The French and Indian War began in 1754 and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1763. -
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party took place on the winter night of Thursday, December 16, 1773. According to eyewitness testimonies, the Boston Tea Party occurred between the hours of 7:00 and 10:00 PM and lasted for approximately three hours. -
The Battle of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775, the famous 'shot heard 'round the world', marked the start of the American War of Independence (1775-83). Politically disastrous for the British, it persuaded many Americans to take up arms and support the cause of independence. -
The Declaration of Independence
The final draft of the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, but the actual signing of the final document was on August 2, 1776. -
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The Battle of Yorktown
Sep 28 - Oct 19, 1781. The Battle of Yorktown proved to be the decisive engagement of the American Revolution. The British surrender forecast the end of British rule in the colonies and the birth of a new nation—the United States of America. -
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The Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation. -
The invention of the cotton gin
Invented in the United States by Eli Whitney in 1793, the cotton gin was designed to separate cotton fiber from seed. He received a patent on March 14, 1794, introduced a new, profitable technology to agricultural production in America. -
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The Alien and Sedition Acts
In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts with the support of the Adams Administration. The Alien Act granted the President unilateral authority to deport non-citizens who were subjects of foreign enemies. -
The invention of the electric light
Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light in 1802. After experimenting with electricity, he invented an electric battery which, when he connected wires to the battery and a piece of carbon, made the carbon glow and produce light. -
The Louisiana Purchase
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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The War of 1812
The War of 1812 began on June 18th, 1812 with the Unites States formally declaring war on the United Kingdom. The war lasted from June 1812-February 1815, a span of two years and eight months. -
The Missouri Compromise
This so-called Missouri Compromise drew a line from east to west along the 36th parallel, dividing the nation into competing halves—half free, half slave. The House passed the compromise bill on March 2, 1820. -
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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. -
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The Trail of Tears
Between 1830 and 1850, about 100,000 American Indians living between Michigan, Louisiana, and Florida moved west after the U.S. government coerced treaties or used the U.S. Army against those resisting. Many were treated brutally. An estimated 3,500 Creeks died in Alabama and on their westward journey. -
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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. -
The invention of the telegraph
On May 24, 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse dispatched the first telegraphic message over an experimental line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. -
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The Mexican-American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War, was an invasion of Mexico by the United States Army from 1846 to 1848. -
The invention of the telephone
While Italian innovator Antonio Meucci is credited with inventing the first basic phone in 1849, and Frenchman Charles Bourseul devised a phone in 1854, Alexander Graham Bell won the first U.S. patent for the device in 1876. -
The Compromise of 1850
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. -
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. -
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." -
13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
Amendments 13-15 are called the Reconstruction Amendments both because they were the first enacted right after the Civil War and because all addressed questions related to the legal and political status of the African Americans. -
Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
After the fall of Richmond, the Confederate capital, on April 2, 1865, officials in the Confederate government, including President Jefferson Davis, fled. The surrender took place on April 9. -
Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination
On the night of April 14, 1865, while watching a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. He died the following morning, April 15, 1865. -
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Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was initiated on February 24, 1868, when the House of Representatives passed a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United States. -
The Organization of Standard Oil Trust
The Standard Oil Company and affiliated companies that were engaged in the production, refining, and marketing of oil were combined in the Standard Oil Trust in 1882. -
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The Homestead Strike
The Homestead strike, was an industrial lockout and strike that began on July 1, 1892, culminating in a battle in which strikers defeated private security agents on July 6, 1892. -
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The Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike, in U.S. history, was a widespread railroad strike and boycott that severely disrupted rail traffic in the Midwest of the United States in June–July 1894. -
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The Spanish–American War
The Spanish–American War began in the aftermath of the internal explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba, leading to United States intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. -
Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt started on September 14, 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt became the 26th president of the United States upon the assassination of President William McKinley. -
The invention of the airplane
Wilbur and Orville Wright spent four years of research and development to create the first successful powered airplane, the 1903 Wright Flyer. It first flew at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, with Orville at the controls.