| 30,000 B.C. | Asians begin migrating to North America across the Bering Strait |
| 1000 A.D. | Norsemen set up temporary settlement in Newfoundland |
| 1492 | Columbus reaches san Salvador Island in the Caribbean |
| 1493 | Syphilis first recorded in Europe |
| 1494 | Treaty of Tordesillas divides New World between Spain and Portugal |
| 1497 | John Cabot establishes first English claim in North America |
| 1513 | Ponce de Leon arrives on Florida mainland |
| 1518 | Smallpox epidemic begins devastating Indian populatio |
| 1521 | Cortes conquers Aztecs in Mexico, Magellan circumnavigates the globe |
| 1524 | Verrazano explores North American coast |
| 1533 | Pizarro captures Inca capital in Peru |
| 1539 | de Soto explores southeast U.S. |
| 1540 | Coronado explores southwest U.S. |
| 1558 | Elizabeth I takes throne in England |
| 1585 | Roanoke Island colony established, then disappears |
| 1603 | James I takes throne in England |
| 1607 | Jamestown founded |
| 1608 | Champlain founds Quebec |
| 1609 | Henry Hudson explores Hudson River |
| 1611 | First Virginia tobacco crop harvested |
| 1619 | First Africans arrive in Virginia |
| 1620 | Plymouth Colony founded, House of Burgesses established in Virginia |
| 1622 | Powhatan Confederacy attacks Virginia settlers |
| 1630 | Massachusetts Bay Colony founded |
| 1635 | Roger Williams establishes Rhode Island colony |
| 1637 | Anne Hutchinson expelled from Massachusetts Bay |
| 1638 | Harvard College founded |
| 1647 | Massachusetts law requires a public school in every town |
| 1649 | Charles I executed |
| 1660 | Charles II becomes king |
| 1662 | Halfway Covenant established in New England |
| 1673 | Marquette and Jolliet explore Great Lakes and Mississippi River valley |
| 1676 | Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia |
| 1681 | Pennsylvania established |
| 1682 | La Salle reaches mouth of Mississippi River |
| 1688 | Glorious Revolution; William and Mary succeed James II |
| 1692 | Witchcraft trials begin in Salem |
| 1696 | Board of Trade established |
| 1714 | George I takes throne, beginning Hanover dynasty |
| 1734 | Great Awakening begins |
| 1755 | Franklin establishes College of Philadelphia |
| 1765 | Hudson River land riots |
| 1767 | Regulator movement in South Carolina |
| 1754 | Albany Plan of Union |
| 1759 | Quebec falls to British |
| 1760 | George III becomes king |
| 1763 | Peace of Paris |
| 1764 | Sugar Act |
| 1765 | Stamp Act |
| 1766 | Stamp Act repealed |
| 1767 | Townshend Duties |
| 1770 | Boston Massacre |
| 1772 | Gaspee incident in Rhode Island |
| 1773 | Tea Act |
| 1774 | Intolerable Acts |
| 1775 | Lexington & Concord, Battle of Bunker Hill |
| 1776 | Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”, Declaration of Independence |
| 1777 | Valley Forge, British surrender at Saratoga |
| 1778 | French-American Alliance |
| 1781 | Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown |
| 1783 | Treaty of Paris recognizes American independence |
| 1781 | Articles of Confederation adopted |
| 1784 | Spain closes Mississippi River to American navigation |
| 1785 | Land Ordinance |
| 1786 | Annapolis Convention, Shays’s Rebellion |
| 1787 | Northwest Ordinance, Constitutional Convention meets |
| 1788 | “The Federalist” published, Constitution ratified |
| 1789 | Washington becomes first president, Bill of Rights adopted by Congress |
| 1790 | Report on Public Credit |
| 1791 | 1st Bank of U.S. chartered, Bill of Rights ratified by states |
| 1792 | Washington re-elected president |
| 1793 | Washington issues Proclamation of Neutrality, Cotton gin invented |
| 1794 | Whiskey Rebellion |
| 1795 | Jay’s Treaty, Pinckney Treaty, Treaty of Greenville |
| 1796 | Adams defeats Jefferson in first contested presidential election |
| 1798 | XYZ Affair, Alien and Sedition Acts, Virginia and Kentucky resolutions |
| 1800 | Jefferson defeats Adams (and Burr) for President |
| 1801 | John Marshall becomes Chief Justice, War with Tripolitan pirates (through |
| 1803 | Marbury v. Madison establishes judicial review, Louisiana Purchase |
| 1804 | Lewis & Clark expedition (through 1806), Zebulon Pike explores southwest |
| 1806 | Burr conspiracy discovered |
| 1807 | Chesapeake affair, Embargo Act |
| 1808 | Madison elected president, Economy enters depression |
| 1809 | Embargo repealed, Non-intercourse Act passed |
| 1810 | U.S. annexes west Florida |
| 1811 | Battle of Tippecanoe |
| 1812 | Congress declares war on Britain |
| 1813 | British build naval blockade, Americans burn York (Toronto) |
| 1814 | British burn Washington, D.C., Treaty of Ghent, Hartford Convention |
| 1815 | Jackson wins Battle of New Orleans |
| 1817 | Rush-Bagot Treaty |
| 1818 | Jackson invades Florida |
| 1819 | Panic of 1819, Adams-Onis Treaty |
| 1790 | Samuel Slater opens his cotton mill in Providence, R.I. |
| 1793 | Eli Whitney manufactures cotton gins |
| 1807 | Robert Fulton builds Clermont |
| 1810 | Fletcher v. Peck expands contract clause |
| 1814 | Waltham (Lowell) system is born |
| 1817 | New York Stock Exchange founded, Erie Canal begins |
| 1819 | McCulloch v. Maryland enhances power of federal government |
| 1820 | Missouri Compromise |
| 1823 | Monroe Doctrine |
| 1824 | John Quincy Adams wins disputed election, Gibbons v. Ogden |
| 1825 | Erie Canal completed |
| 1830 | Baltimore & Ohio becomes first American railroad company |
| 1831 | McCormick invents mechanical reaper |
| 1834 | Women workers at Lowell mills stage first strike |
| 1837 | Financial panic |
| 1844 | Baltimore-Washington telegraph line |
| 1849 | California gold rush |
| 1817 | American Colonization Society founded |
| 1821 | New York constructs first penitentiary |
| 1828 | Jackson elected president, Tariff of Abominations |
| 1829 | Jackson inaugurated as “People’s President” |
| 1830 | Webster-Hayne debate, Jackson vetoes Maysville Road bill |
| 1831 | Cherokee Nation v. Georgia |
| 1832 | Jackson vetoes bill to recharter U.S. Bank |
| 1833 | Jackson removes federal deposits from Bank of U.S. |
| 1836 | Jackson issues specie circular |
| 1837 | Horace Mann becomes secretary of Massachusetts Board of Education |
| 1841 | Brook Farm commune founded in Massachusetts |
| 1844 | Joseph Smith killed by mob |
| 1845 | Frederick Douglass publishes autobiography |
| 1847 | Mormons found Salt Lake City |
| 1848 | Women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York |
| 1822 | Mexico wins independence from Spain |
| 1836 | Texas declares independence from Mexico |
| 1842 | Migration to Oregon begins |
| 1844 | Polk elected president, Anti-Catholic rioting in Philadelphia |
| 1845 | Texas annexed to U.S. as slave state |
| 1846 | Oregon Treaty, U.S. declares war on Mexico |
| 1847 | Refugees from Irish potato famine arrive in large numbers to U.S. |
| 1848 | Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo settles Mexican-American War |
| 1849 | Cholera epidemic erupts in Eastern cities |
| 1850 | Compromise of 1850 |
| 1852 | “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” published by Harriet Beecher Stowe |
| 1854 | Kansas-Nebraska Act, Republican Party formed |
| 1856 | Bleeding Kansas, Pottawatomie massacre |
| 1857 | Dred Scott v. Sanford, Lecomptom Constitution |
| 1858 | Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Freeport Doctrine |
| 1859 | John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry |
| 1860 | Lincoln elected president as Democrats split, Crittenden Compromise fails |
| 1861 | Confederacy formed, Ft. Sumter attacked, First Battle of Bull Run |
| 1864 | Grant assumes command of all Union armies, Battle of the Wilderness |
| 1865 | Hampton Roads Conference, Lincoln assassinated |
| 1864 | Wade-Davis Bill passed |
| 1865 | Freedmen’s Bureau established, Johnson permits passage of Black Codes |
| 1866 | Congress passes Civil Rights Act, 14th Amendment proposed |
| 1867 | Tenure of Office Act, Alaska purchased, Southern states establish |
| 1868 | Johnson impeached by House, acquitted by SenateGrant elected president |
| 1869 | 15th Amendment proposed |
| 1873 | Comstock lode discovered |
| 1874 | Gold rush begins in Black Hills of South Dakota |
| 1875 | Several Grant assistants indicted for corruption in Whiskey ring scandal |
| 1876 | U.S. v. Cruikshank, Custer defeated at Little Big Horn |
| 1877 | Compromise of 1877, Hayes awarded presidency |
| 1881 | Pres. Garfield assassinated, Helen Hunt Jackson, “A Century of Dishonor” |
| 1882 | Standard Oil Trust formed, Chinese Exclusion Act |
| 1883 | Pendleton Civil Service Act |
| 1892 | Sierra Club founded |
| 1895 | U.S. v. E.C. Knight |
| 1901 | McKinley assassinated |
| 1902 | Northern Securities Company dissolved, Platt Amendment passed |
| 1903 | Elkins Act passed |
| 1904 | Lincoln Steffens writes The Shame of the Cities, Roosevelt Corollary |
| 1905 | Treaty of Portsmouth settles Russo-Japanese War |
| 1906 | Upton Sinclair writes The Jungle, Pure Food and Drug Act passed |
| 1907 | Great White Fleet embarks on world tour |
| 1908 | Muller v. Oregon Taft elected president |
| 1909 | Payne-Aldrich Tariff |
| 1910 | Mann Act passed |
| 1911 | Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Mexican Revolution erupts |
| 1912 | Progressive Party nominates Teddy Roosevelt for presidency |
| 1914 | Clayton Antitrust Act passed, Federal Trade Commission created |
| 1915 | Lusitania torpedoed, Secretary of State Bryan resigns |
| 1916 | Sussex Pledge, Gen. Pershing pursues Pancho Villa in Mexico |
| 1917 | Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare, Zimmermann note intercepted |
| 1918 | Wilson’s 14 Points, Sedition Act, Armistice declared in World War I |
| 1919 | Treaty of Versailles, Senate rejects U.S. entry into League of Nations |
| 1920 | 19th Amendment ratified (giving women the franchise), Palmer raids, Red Scare |
| 1920 | First commercial radio broadcast, Warren Harding elected president |
| 1921 | Congress enacts immigration quotas, Washington Naval Conference |
| 1922 | Sinclair Lewis writes Babbitt |
| 1923 | Harding dies, succeeded by Coolidge, Teapot Dome scandal unfolds |
| 1925 | Scopes Tennessee Evolution trial |
| 1927 | Lindbergh’s solo flight across Atlantic, Sacco and Vanzetti executed |
| 1928 | Hoover elected president |
| 1929 | Stock Market Crash |
| 1930 | Hawley-Smoot Tariff |
| 1931 | Japan invades Manchuria |
| 1932 | Franklin Roosevelt defeats Hoover for president |
| 1933 | 100 Days legislation, Prohibition repealed |
| 1934 | Securities and Exchange Commission established |
| 1935 | Schecter Poultry v. U.S. invalidates National Recovery Administration |
| 1936 | United Auto Workers begin sit-down strikes |
| 1937 | Roosevelt announces court-packing plan, Roosevelt’s quarantine speech |
| 1938 | Appeasement at Munich by Chamberlin |
| 1939 | Fall of Czechoslovakia, Austria annexed by Germany, Germany invades Poland |
| 1931 | Japan invades Manchuria |
| 1933 | Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany |
| 1935 | Neutrality Act passed, Nye Committee hearings, Italy invades Ethiopia |
| 1936 | Spanish Civil War begins, Germany reoccupies Rhineland |
| 1937 | Japan launches invasion of China, Japan attacks U.S. gunboat Panay |
| 1939 | Munich Conference (appeasement), Nazi-Soviet non-agression pact |
| 1941 | Lend-Lease aid provided for Britain, Germany invades Soviet Union |
| 1942 | Japan captures Philippines as Bataan and Corregidor fall |
| 1943 | Americans take Guadalcanal, Soviets defeat Germans at Stalingrad |
| 1944 | Allies invade France at Normandy (D-Day), Roosevelt elected for fourth term |
| 1945 | Yalta Conference, Roosevelt dies, succeeded by Truman |
| 1945 | Atomic age begins, United Nations founded |
| 1946 | Crises in Iran and Greece, Atomic Energy Commission established |
| 1947 | Communists take over in Hungary, Truman Doctrine announced |
| 1948 | Communists take over in Czechoslovakia, Draft re-instated |
| 1949 | NATO established, Soviet Union explodes atomic bomb |
| 1950 | Korean War begins, U.S. troops invade North Korea |
| 1951 | MacArthur relieved of command by Truman, Peace negotiations begin in Korea |
| 1952 | U.S. ends Japanese occupation, Eisenhower elected president |
| 1953 | Korean War ends with truce, Stalin dies |
| 1954 | Army-McCarthy hearings |
| 1956 | Suez crisis |
| 1957 | Soviet Union launches Sputnik, Germany joins NATO |
| 1959 | Castro takes over in Cuba, Khrushchev visits U.S. |
| 1960 | Kennedy-Nixon Debates, John F. Kennedy elected president |
| 1961 | Freedom rides, Bay of Pigs invasion fails |
| 1962 | Cuban Missile Crisis |
| 1963 | Kennedy assassinated in Dallas |
| 1964 | President Johnson announces war on poverty |
| 1965 | Medicare funding begins, Race riots in Watts |
| 1968 | Race riots in Newark and Detroit, Viet Cong launch Tet Offensive |
| 1969 | Neil Armstrong walks on the moon, Woodstock Music Festival |
| 1970 | U.S. troops invade Cambodia, Killings at Kent State and Jackson State |
| 1971 | Pentagon Papers published |
| 1972 | Nixon goes to China , Detente with Soviet Union |
| 1973 | Roe v. Wade decision permits abortions , Israeli-Arab fight Yom Kippur War |
| 1974 | Impeachment proceedings begin against Pres. Nixon |
| 1975 | South Vietnam falls |
| 1978 | Supreme Court issues Bakke decision |
| 1979 | U.S. and China establish diplomatic relations, Iran deposes shah |
| 1980 | U.S. boycotts Moscow Olympics , Reagan elected president |
| 1981 | Hostages released in Iran , Reagan breaks air traffic controller strike |
| 1982 | Equal Rights Amendment fails to be ratified by states |
| 1983 | Reagan proposed Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) |
| 1985 | U.S. bombs Libya , U.S. begins secret Iran-arms negotiations |
| 1986 | Iran-Contra scandal breaks |
| 1989 | China crushes revolt in Tiananmen Square , Berlin Wall falls |
| 1990 | Iraq invades Kuwait |
| 1991 | Operation Desert Storm launched |
| 1993 | Clinton defeats Bush for presidency |
| 1998 | Clinton announces first balanced budget in 20 years |
Worksheet at:
List of Events in British History
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Dr. Hugh Fox III 