- U.S. History Timeline, 1000 – 1810s
33,000 B.C.E or earlier – First humans cross into Americas. c. 5000 B.C.E – Corn cultivated as a staple crop in Mexico. c. 1200 B.C.E - Corn planting reaches present-day American Southwest.
1215 - The Magna Carta document is adopted in England, guaranteeing liberties to the English people, and proclaiming basic rights and procedures which later become the foundation stone of modern democracy.
1492 - Christopher Columbus makes the first of four voyages to the New World, funded by the Spanish Crown, seeking a western sea route to Asia. On October 12, sailing the Santa Maria, he lands in the Bahamas, thinking it is an outlying Japanese island.
1497 - Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, sights the coast of South America during a voyage of discovery for Spain.
1507 - The name "America" is first used in a geography book referring to the New World with Amerigo Vespucci getting credit for the discovery of the continent.
1513 - Ponce de León of Spain lands in Florida.
1517 - Martin Luther launches the Protestant Reformation in Europe, bringing an end to the sole authority of the Catholic Church, resulting in the growth of numerous Protestant religious sects.
1519 - Hernando Cortés conquers the Aztec empire.
1524 - Giovanni da Verrazano, sponsored by France, lands in the area around the Carolinas, then sails north and discovers the Hudson River, and continues northward into Narragansett Bay and Nova Scotia.
1432 – Pizzarro crushes the Inca.
1540-1542 – Coronado explores the present day Southwest U.S.A.
1541 - Hernando de Soto of Spain discovers the Mississippi River.
1588 - In Europe, the defeat of the Spanish Armada by the English results in Great Britain replacing Spain as the dominant world power and leads to a gradual decline of Spanish influence in the New World and the widening of English imperial interests.
Late 1500s – Iroquois Confederation is founded.
1606 - The London Company sponsors a colonizing expedition to Virginia.
1607 - Jamestown is founded in Virginia by the colonists of the London Company. By the end of the year, starvation and disease reduce the original 105 settlers to just 32 survivors. Capt. John Smith is captured by Native American Chief Powhatan and saved from death by the chief's daughter, Pocahontas.
1616 - Tobacco becomes an export staple for Virginia. - 1616 - A smallpox epidemic decimates the Native American population in New England.
1619 Twenty Africans are brought by a Dutch ship to Jamestown for sale as servants, marking the beginning of slavery in Colonial America.
1620 November 9, the Mayflower ship lands at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with 101 colonists. On November 11, the Mayflower Compact is signed by the 41 men, establishing a form of local government in which the colonists agree to abide by majority rule and to cooperate for the general good of the colony. The Compact sets the precedent for other colonies as they set up governments.
1626 The Dutch bought the island of Manhattan from Native Americans.
1630 In March, John Winthrop leads a Puritan migration of 900 colonists to Massachusetts Bay, where he will serve as the first governor. In September, Boston is officially established and serves as the site of Winthrop's government.
1634 First settlement in Maryland as 200 settlers, many of them Catholic, arrive in the lands granted to Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore by King Charles I.
1636 - In June, Roger Williams founds Providence and Rhode Island. Williams had been banished from Massachusetts for "new and dangerous opinions" calling for religious and political freedoms, including separation of church and state, not granted under the Puritan rules.
1636 - Harvard College founded.
1638 - Anne Hutchinson is banished from Massachusetts for nonconformist religious views that advocate personal revelation over the role of the clergy. She then travels with her family to Rhode Island.
1646 - In Massachusetts, the general court approves a law that makes religious heresy punishable by death.
1663 - King Charles II establishes the colony of Carolina and grants the territory to eight loyal supporters.
1663 - Navigation Act of 1663 requires that most imports to the colonies must be transported via England on English ships.
1672 - The Treaty of Westminster ends hostilities between the English and Dutch and returns Dutch colonies in America to the English. (New York is an English colony)
1675-1676 - King Philip's War erupts in New England between colonists and Native Americans as a result of tensions over colonist's expansionist activities. The bloody war rages up and down the Connecticut River valley in Massachusetts and in the Plymouth and Rhode Island colonies, eventually resulting in 600 English colonials being killed and 3,000 Native Americans, including women and children on both sides. King Philip (the colonist's nickname for Metacomet, chief of the Wampanoags) is hunted down and killed on August 12, 1676, in a swamp in Rhode Island, ending the war in southern New England and ending the independent power of Native Americans there. In New Hampshire and Maine, the Saco Indians continue to raid settlements for another year and a half. - 1681 Pennsylvania is founded as William Penn, a Quaker, receives a Royal charter with a large land grant from King Charles II.
1682 French explorer La Salle explores the lower Mississippi Valley region and claims it for France, naming the area Louisiana for King Louis XIV.
1689 In May, hysteria grips the village of Salem, Massachusetts, as witchcraft suspects are arrested and imprisoned. A special court is then set up by the governor of Massachusetts. Between June and September, 150 persons are accused, with 20 persons, including 14 women, being executed. By October, the hysteria subsides, remaining prisoners are released and the special court is dissolved.
1700 - The Anglo population in the English colonies in America reaches 275,000, with Boston (pop. 7000) as the largest city, followed by New York (pop. 5000).
1712 In May, the Carolina colony is officially divided into North Carolina and South Carolina.
1720 - The population of American colonists reaches 475,000. Boston (pop. 12,000) is the largest city, followed by Philadelphia (pop. 10,000) and New York (pop. 7000).
1725 The population of black slaves in the American colonies reaches 75,000.
1733 The Molasses Act, passed by the English Parliament, imposes heavy duties on molasses, rum and sugar imported from non-British islands in the Caribbean to protect the English planters there from French and Dutch competition.
1734 In November, New York newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger is arrested and accused of seditious libel by the Governor. In December, the Great Awakening religious revival movement begins in Massachusetts. The movement will last ten years and spread to all of the American colonies.
1739 Three separate violent uprisings by black slaves occur in South Carolina.
1740 Fifty black slaves are hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, after plans for another revolt are revealed.
1754 The French and Indian War erupts as a result of disputes over land in the Ohio River Valley. In May, George Washington leads a small group of American colonists to victory over the French, then builds Fort Necessity in the Ohio territory. In July, after being attacked by numerically superior French forces, Washington surrenders the fort and retreats.
1760 The population of colonists in America reaches 1,500,000. In March, much of Boston is destroyed by a raging fire.
1763 The French and Indian War, known in Europe as the Seven Year's War, ends with the Treaty of Paris. Under the treaty, France gives England all French territory east of the Mississippi River, except New Orleans. The Spanish give up east and west Florida to the English in return for Cuba.
- 1763
Proclamation of 1763 Wary of the cost of defending the colonies, George III prohibited all settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains without guarantees of security from local Native American nations. The intervention in colonial affairs offended the thirteen colonies' claim to the exclusive right to govern lands to their west.
1764
April: Sugar Act - The first attempt to finance the defense of the colonies by the British Government. In order to deter smuggling and to encourage the production of British rum, taxes on molasses were dropped; a levy was placed on foreign Madeira wine and colonial exports of iron, lumber and other goods had to pass first through Britain and British customs. The Act established a Vice-Admiralty Court in Halifax, Nova Scotia to hear smuggling cases without jury and with the presumption of guilt. These measures led to widespread protest.
1765
March: Stamp Act - Seeking to defray some of the costs of garrisoning the colonies, Parliament required all legal documents, newspapers and pamphlets required to use watermarked, or 'stamped' paper on which a levy was placed.
May: Quartering Act Colonial assemblies required to pay for supplies to British garrisons. The New York assembly argued that it could not be forced to comply.
May: Virginian Resolution - The Virginian assembly refused to comply with the Stamp Act.
October: Stamp Act Congress - Representatives from nine of the thirteen colonies declare the Stamp Act unconstitutional as it was a tax levied without their consent.
1766
March: Declaratory Act - English Parliament finalizes the repeal of the Stamp Act, but declares that it has the right to tax colonies
1767
June: Townshend Revenue Act (Townshend Duties) - Duties on tea, glass, lead, paper and paint to help pay for the administration of the colonies, named after Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. John Dickinson publishes Letter from a Philadelphian Farmer in protest. Colonial assemblies condemn taxation without representation.
1768
October: British troops arrive in Boston in response to political unrest
- 1770
March: Boston Massacre - Angered by the presence of troops and Britain's colonial policy, a crowd began harassing a group of soldiers guarding the customs house; a soldier was knocked down by a snowball and discharged his musket, sparking a volley into the crowd which kills five civilians.
April: Repeal of the Townshend Revenue Act
1773
May: Tea Act - In an effort to support the ailing East India Company, Parliament exempted its tea from import duties and allowed the Company to sell its tea directly to the colonies. Americans resented what they saw as an indirect tax subsidizing a British company.
December: Boston Tea Party - Angered by the Tea Acts, American patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians dump £9,000 of East India Company tea into the Boston harbor.
1774
May to June: Intolerable Acts - Four measures which stripped Massachusetts of self-government and judicial independence following the Boston Tea Party. The colonies responded with a general boycott of British goods.
September: Continental Congress - Colonial delegates meet to organize opposition to the Intolerable Acts.
1775
April: Battles of Lexington and Concord - First engagements of the Revolutionary War between British troops and the Minutemen, who had been warned of the attack by Paul Revere.
June: Continental Congress appoints George Washington commander-in-chief of Continental Army. It also Issued $2 million bills of credit to fund the army.
June: Battle of Bunker Hill - The first major battle of the War of Independence. Sir William Howe dislodged William Prescott's forces overlooking Boston at a cost of 1054 British casualties to the Americans' 367.
July: Olive-Brach Petition - Congress endorses a proposal asking for recognition of American rights, the ending of the Intolerable Acts in exchange for a cease fire. George III rejected the proposal and on 23 August 1775 declared the colonies to be in open rebellion.
1776
January: Thomas Paine's Common Sense published anonymously in Philadelphia
May: France provides covert aid to the Americans
July: Continental Congress issues the Declaration of Independence
August - December: Battles of Long Island and White Plains -- British forces occupy New York after American defeats. - December: Battle of Trenton, New Jersey, providing a boast to American morale.
1777
January: Battle of Princeton, New Jersey - General Washington broke camp at Trenton to avoid a British advance, attacking the British rearguard and train near Princeton and then withdrawing to Morristown.
October: British surrender of 5,700 troops at Saratoga - Lacking supplies, 5,700 British, German and loyalist forces under Major General John Burgoyne surrender to Major General Horatio Gates in a turning point in the Revolutionary War.
1778
February: France recognizes US Independence.
1781
March: Ratification of the Articles of Confederation
October: Surrender of British forces under Cornwallis at Yorktown.
1783
September: Treaty of Paris, formally ending the Revolutionary War
1786-1787
Shays’s Rebellion - Massachusetts rebellion led by the Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays against high taxes.
1787
May: Constitutional Convention
July 13, 1787 - The Northwest Ordinance, which determined a government for the Northwest Territory of the United States (north of the Ohio River and west of New York), is adopted by the Continental Congress. It guaranteed freedom of religion, school support, and no slavery, plus the opportunity for statehood.
September 17, 1787 - Delegates to the Constitutional Convention adopt the Constitution.
1788
June 21, 1788 - Ratification by New Hampshire of the United States Constitution, the 9th state to do so, indicates adoption of the document by the United States.
- 1789
February 4, 1789 - The 1st Congress meets in Federal Hall, New York City with regular sessions beginning two months later on April 6. George Washington is elected unanimously by the Electoral College as the 1st President of the United States.
April 30, 1789 - The 1st President, George Washington, is inaugurated in New York City. He had been chosen president by all voting electors (there was no direct presidential election) with John Adams elected Vice President.
July 16, 1790 - George Washington, as President, approves the Residence Bill, legislation that authorizes the buying of land along the Potomac River for federal buildings and parks, creating the District of Columbia.
September 24, 1789 - The Federal Judiciary Act is passed, creating the Supreme Court.
September 25, 1789 - The Bill of Rights is submitted to the states by Congress.
1791
March 14, 1791 - Vermont is added as the 14th State.
1792
February 20, 1792 - The United States Post Office Department is established, signed into law by President George Washington.
May 17, 1792 - The beginnings of the New York Stock Exchange is established with the signing of the Buttonwood agreement.
December 3, 1792 - George Washington, a Federalist, is reelected president of the United States with no opposition, with John Adams elected Vice President.
1793
February 12, 1793 – The Fugitive Slave Act - United States Congress passes a federal law requiring the return of slaves that escaped from slave states into free territory or states.
April 22, 1793 - George Washington signs the Proclamation of Neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars, where France has already declared war on England, the Netherlands, Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia.
1794
March 14, 1794 - Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin, which could do the work of fifty men when cleaning cotton by hand.
March 27, 1794 - The U.S. Government establishes a permanent navy and commissions six vessels to be built. They would be put into service three years later. - August 20, 1794 - General Anthony Wayne, commander of the Ohio-Indiana area, routs a confederacy of Indian tribes, including Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi, at Fallen Timbers on the Maumee River, causing a retreat in disarray.
September 1, 1794 - The Whiskey Rebellion occurs when western Pennsylvania farmers in the Monongahela Valley, upset over the liquor tax passed in 1791, are suppressed by 15,000 militia sent by Alexander Hamilton to establish the authority of the federal government to uphold its laws.
November 19, 1794 - Jay's Treaty is signed between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Great Britain. This treaty tried to settle some of the lingering troubles stemming from the American Revolution.
1795
February 7, 1795 - The United States passes the 11th amendment to the U.S. Constitution on the subject of each state's sovereign immunity.
August 3, 1795 - General Wayne signs a peace treaty with the Indians at Fort Greenville, Ohio, ending the hostilities in what was then known as the Northwest Territories after the Indian confederation's defeat (the treaty included the above mentioned tribes, as well as the Eel Rivers, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias) at Fallen Timbers the year before.
1796
June 1, 1796- Tennessee is admitted into the Union as the 16th state.
September 19, 1796 - Washington’s Farewell Address - President George Washington gives his final address as president, published in the American Daily Advertiser, urging strong warnings against permanent foreign alliances, large public debt, and a large military establishment.
November 4 to December 7, 1796 - The U.S. Electoral College meets to elect Federalist John Adams as president. John Adams defeated Thomas Jefferson, of the Democrat Republican party.
1798
July 7, 1798 - Congress voids all treaties with France due to French raids on U.S. ships and a rejection of its diplomats, and orders the Navy to capture French armed ships.
July 14, 1798 - The Alien and Sedition Acts making it a federal crime to publish malicious statements about the United States Government go into law.
1799
March 29, 1799 - A law is passed to abolish slavery in the state of New York, effective twenty-eight years later, in 1827.
1800
August 4, 1800 - The second census of the United States is conducted. The total population of the USA was 5,308,483. - November 1, 1800 - Slavery is ended in the Northwest Territory, stemming from the Ordinance of 1787 establishing the territory and written by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson had proposed that all slavery be prohibited by the year 1800, but that proposal had been defeated by one vote.
1801
January 20, 1801 - John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
February 17, 1801 - Thomas Jefferson is elected as the 3rd president of the United States in a vote of the House of Representatives after tying Aaron Burr, his Vice President, in the electoral college with 73 electors due to a flaw in the original vote for two system, which would be corrected in the 12th Amendment to the Constitution.
1803
February 24, 1803 - The United States Supreme Court overturns its first U.S. law in the case of Marbury versus Madison, establishing the context of judicial review as they declared a statute within the Constitution void.
March 1, 1803 - Ohio is admitted to the Union as the 17th U.S. state.
April 30, 1803 - President Thomas Jefferson doubles the size of the United States of America with his purchase of the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon's France, thus paving way for the western expansion that would mark the entire history of the 19th century from Missouri to the Pacific Coast. The price of the purchase included bonds of $11,250,000 and $3,750,000 in payments to United States citizens with claims against France.
1804
February 15, 1804 - New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery!!!!!!!!!
May 14, 1804 - Ordered by Thomas Jefferson to map the Northwest United States, Lewis and Clark begin their expedition from St. Louis and Camp Dubois. The journey begins with navigation of the Missouri River.
July 11, 1804 - The duel between Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr, longtime political rivals, occurs in Weehawken, New Jersey, culminating in the death of Hamilton.
November 4 to December 5, 1804 - Thomas Jefferson wins reelection over Charles Pinckney with 162 to 14 Electoral College votes.
1805
January 11, 1805 - The Michigan Territory is established.
December 8, 1805 - Members of the Lewis and Clark expedition upon sighting the Pacific Ocean on November 15, build Fort Clatsop, a log fort near the mouth of the Columbia River in present-day Oregon. They would spend the winter of 1805-1806 in the newly constructed fort.
- 1806
March 29, 1806 - The National Road, also known as the Great National Pike or the Cumberland Road, the first federally funded highway that ran between Cumberland, Maryland to Ohio, is approved by President Thomas Jefferson with the signing of legislation and appropriation of $30,000. The highway ran through three states; Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
1807
August 17, 1807 - The first practical steamboat journey was made by Robert Fulton in the steamboat Clermont, who navigated the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in thirty-two hours, a trip of 150 miles. This becomes the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
1808
January 1, 1808 - The importation of slaves is outlawed, although between 1808 and 1860, more than 250,000 slaves were illegally imported.
February 11, 1808 - Anthracite coal is first burned, in an experiment, as fuel.
November 4 to December 7, 1808 - James Madison is elected as the 4th President of the United States, defeating Charles C. Pinckney.
1810
During 1810, the causes of the War of 1812 began to emerge. Four thousand naturalized American sailors had been seized by British forces by this year (known as impressment), which forced trade between England and the United States to grind to a halt.
August 6, 1810 - The population of the United States is listed as 7,239,881 in the 1810 census.
1811
October 11, 1811 - The first steam-powered ferry service between New York City and Hoboken, New Jersey is started on John Steven's ship, the Juliana.
November 7, 1811 - At the battle of Tippecanoe, Indian warriors under the command of Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, known as the Prophet, are defeated by William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana.
1812
June 18, 1812 – President Madison signs declaration of war after Congress narrowly approves war with Great Britain. Western states generally favored the action while New England states disapproved. This included the state of Rhode Island, which would refuse to participate in the War of 1812. - October 30 to December 2, 1812 - President James Madison defeats De Witt Clinton in the U.S. presidential election, securing a second term as the United States engages in the War of 1812 by an Electoral College margin of 128 votes to 89.
1813
October 5, 1813 - A United States victory at the Battle of Thames, Ontario allows American forces to break the Indian allies of the English and secure the frontier of Detroit. Native Indian leader Tecumseh of the Shawnee tribe is killed during this battle.
1814
August 24, 1814 - The White House is burned by British forces upon the occupation of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812. This act, in retaliation for the destruction by U.S. troops of Canadian public buildings, causes President Madison to evacuate. The British advance would be halted by Maryland militia three weeks later on September 12. Another United States president, James Monroe, would have to wait three years before he could reoccupy the executive mansion.
September 13-14, 1814 - Francis Scott Key writes the words to the Star Spangled Banner during the twenty-five hour bombardment of Fort McHenry at the head of the river leading to the Baltimore harbor.
December 24, 1814 - A peace treaty is signed between the British and American government at Ghent, bringing to an end the War of 1812.
1815
January 8, 1815 - On the Chalmette plantation at New Orleans, five thousand three hundred British troops still unaware of the peace treaty signed two weeks earlier, but not ratified until February 17, attack American forces in the last battle of the War of 1812. Major General Andrew Jackson leads his American soldiers to victory over British troops under the command of Sir Edward Pakenham. British troops take over two thousand casualties; American forces seventy-one.
February 6, 1815 - The first American railroad charter is granted by the state of New Jersey to John Stephens.
1816
April 10, 1816 - Second Bank of the United States is chartered by President Madison, five years after the expiration of the 1st Bank of the United States.
December 11, 1816 - The territory of Indiana is admitted into the United States of America as the 19th state.
1817
March 4, 1817 - James Monroe is inaugurated as the President of the United States, succeeding James Madison. His vice president, Daniel D. Tompkins, who would serve alongside Monroe for his entire eight years, was also inaugurated.
December 10, 1817 - The United States of America admits its 20th state, Mississippi. - 1818
March 15, 1818 - Andrew Jackson and his American army invade Florida in the Seminole War, causing repercussions with Spain as negotiations to purchase the territory had just begun.
December 3, 1818 - The state of Illinois is admitted to the Union, making the U.S.A. a republic with twenty-one states.
1819
January 2, 1819 - The first financial crises in the United States, the Panic of 1819, occurs, leading to foreclosures, bank failures, and unemployment. Several causes have been identified, including the heavy amount of borrowing by the government to finance the War of 1812, as well as the tightening of credit by the Second Bank of the U.S. in response to risky lending practices by wildcat banks in the west.
February 15, 1819 - The Tallmadge Amendment is passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, stating that slaves would be barred in the new state of Missouri, which becomes the opening vote in the Missouri Compromise controversy.
February 22, 1819 - The territory of Florida is ceded to the United States by Spain in the Adams-Onis Treaty.