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Oct 12, 1492
The Discovery of America by Columbus
On October 8th, 1492, Christopher Columbus officially set foot on america and claimed the land for Spain. This marked and opened the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas. -
The Settlement of Jamestown
Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 14th, 1607. -
The French and Indian Wars
The French and Indian Wars were a series of conflicts that occurred in North America between 1688 and 1763, some of which were indirectly related to the European dynastic wars. One of largest causes for of the wars was the desire that each country had to take control of interior territories of America, as well as the area around Hudson bay; both were seen as essential to dominating the fur trade. -
The Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target of the protest was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773. American Patriots strongly opposed the taxes in the Townshend Acts as a violation of their rights. Protesters boarded the ships and threw the chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. This event eventually escalated into the American Revolution. -
The Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in America. -
The United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration explained why the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states , no longer under British rule. The Declaration was the 13 states collective first step toward forming the United States of America. -
The Battle of Yorktown
The Battle of Yorktown 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 peer and Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis.The battle proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War, for it prompted the British Government to negotiate an end to the conflict. -
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 invention of the cotton gin
In 1794, 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. By the mid-19th century, cotton had become America’s leading export. Also, his invention offered Southern planters a justification to maintain and expand slavery even as a growing number of Americans supported its abolition. -
The Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were a series of four laws passed by the U.S. Congress in 1798 amid widespread fear that war with France was imminent. The four laws–which remain controversial to this day–restricted the activities of foreign residents in the country and limited freedom of speech and of the press. -
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
In 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. Causes of the war included British attempts to restrict U.S. trade, the Royal Navy’s impressment of American seamen and America’s desire to expand its territory. -
The Missouri Compromise
In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820 admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Furthermore, with the exception of Missouri, this law prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude line. -
Andrew Jackson's Election
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837, seeking to act as the direct representative of the common man. As national politics polarized around Jackson and his opposition, two parties grew out of the old Republican Party–the Democratic Republicans, or Democrats, adhering to Jackson; and the National Republicans, or Whigs, opposing him. -
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 forced relocations were carried out by government authorities following the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. -
The invention of the telegraph
Developed in the 1830's and 1840's by Samuel Morse and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. In addition to helping invent the telegraph, Samuel Morse developed a code that assigned a set of dots and dashes to each letter of the English alphabet and allowed for the simple transmission of complex messages across telegraph lines. -
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 Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered Mexican territory since the government did not recognize the treaty signed by Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna when he was a prisoner of the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. -
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. A debate over slavery in the territories had erupted during the Mexican–American War, as many Southerners sought to expand slavery to the newly-acquired lands and many Northerners opposed any such expansion. -
The Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–13, 1861) was the bombardment of Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina by the South Carolina militia (the Confederate Army did not yet exist), and the return gunfire and subsequent surrender by the United States Army, that started the American 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 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
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, known collectively as the Civil War Amendments, were designed to ensure equality for recently emancipated slaves. -
The Battle and 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 (1861–1865). It was the final engagement of Confederate General in Chief, Robert E. Lee, and his Army of Northern Virginia before it surrendered to the Union Army of the Potomac under the Commanding General of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant. -
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 am, in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated, with his funeral and burial marking an extended period of national mourning. -
Andrew Johnson's 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. -
The invention of the electric light, telephone, and airplane
Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in 1879. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. The Wright Brothers Invented and flew the first powered airplane in 1903. -
The Pullman and Homestead Strikes
Two major labor strikes were the Homestead Strike and the Pullman Strike. Homestead Strike happened in Homestead, Pennsylvania. The strike ended in defeat for the workers. 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. -
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. The war led to the U.S. emerging as predominant in the Caribbean region, and resulted in U.S. acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions. -
Election of Theodore Roosevelt
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.
