- Important People In Us History Us History Timeline
- Best People In Us History
- Important People In Us History Us History On This Day
- Important People In Us History Us History Timeline
The US is the land of freedom, hope and opportunities to which people from other countries have flocked to since centuries. Since gaining independence from the British colonial rule on the 4th of July 1776, Americans have contributed a lot to the world economy and the development of science and technology. People in History A - Z This is a collection of short biographies and history notes. All historical characters are indexed alphabetically and by group of interest, profession, and then some. Owens 2 1918 Worldwide influenza epidemic strikes; by 1920, nearly 20 million are dead. In U.S., 500,000 perish. 1919 League of Nations meets for the first time; U.S. Is not represented (Jan. Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor (Jan. It is later repealed. American History: US History: An Overview of the Most Important People & Events. The History of United States: From Indians, to 'Contemporary' History. Native Americans, Indians, New York Book 1) - Kindle edition by Willis, William D. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading. Meet the most famous American of his day. Why is it called the Liberty Bell? When we view the flag, we think of liberty, freedom, pride, and Betsy Ross. The house that served as the 'White House' from 1790 to 1800 while Philadelphia was the capital of the United States.
Important Dates In American History
The United States has had a lot of positive and negative events in its history. Even when the outcome was not good, these events are very important for everyone in the country. History shapes the way elected officials run our country, as some of these historic events were the reason new laws and regulations were made. Over the years, the United States has been part of several wars, overcome natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes, and traveled to space. Each of these events shapes the future and makes it possible to make new discoveries.
1607: British colonists founded the Jamestown Settlement on May 14, 1607. This colony was named for King James I of England.
1692: The Salem Witch Trials took place in 1692. Hundreds of people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Nineteen of them were hanged after being convicted of witchcraft.
1754: The French and Indian War took place between 1754 and 1763. This was a war between France and Great Britain. It started after a dispute about the land around the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers.
1773: In 1773, the British colonists got mad about all the new taxes imposed on them by Great Britain. A group of people threw three shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor. This was one of the major events that led to the Revolutionary War.
1775: The American Revolution started in 1775 as a response to the Stamp Act of 1765. The colonists felt that the Stamp Act was unconstitutional, but the British government said it had the right to tax the colonists. Although the British military succeeded in the early stages of the war, the colonists were victorious.
1776: In 1776, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston drafted the Declaration of Independence. This document asserted the colonists’ independence from the British monarchy.
1787: In 1787, the Constitution was written to establish the United States government. This document established the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the government. The Constitution also contains the Bill of Rights, which grants certain rights to U.S. citizens.
1803: In 1803, the United States acquired 828,000 square miles of land in the Louisiana territory. This land was originally owned by France, but Thomas Jefferson negotiated a deal to purchase it for just $11,250,000. The United States also agreed to forgive $3,750,000 worth of France’s debts.
1804: The northern states started making slavery illegal in 1776. In 1804, the last northern state finally abolished slavery.
1812: In 1812, the Americans declared war against the British Empire. They were upset about trade restrictions and the British support of American Indians. This war led to the fire that damaged the White House and United States Capitol.
1836: The Battle of the Alamo was a famous part of the Texas Revolution. In 1836, General Santa Anna and his troops attacked the Alamo Mission, which is near present-day San Antonio. All but two of the Texan troops were killed in this battle.
1846: The Mexican-American War lasted from 1846 to 1845. American troops occupied California, New Mexico, and parts of Mexico. The Mexican government would not agree to meet the demands of the Americans, so American troops invaded Mexico City.
1848: Someone found gold at Sutter’s Mill – a California sawmill – in 1848. This made a lot of people move to California with the hope of finding a fortune.
1861 to 1865: The Civil War broke out in 1861. The war occurred for several reasons, but one of the most important issues was slavery. There were also many economic differences between the North and South.
1863: In 1863, Abraham Lincoln freed more than three million slaves with the Emancipation Proclamation. He actually wrote the proclamation in 1862, but it did not take effect until January 1, 1863.
1865: On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre. His assassination was part of a plot to help the Confederacy. Lincoln’s shooter was John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor.
1898: The Spanish-American War was a war between the United States and Spain. This war started because the Americans interfered in the Cuban War of Independence.
1917: World War I started in 1914, but the United States did not join the war until 1917. This war involved the Allies (Russia, France, and the United Kingdom) and the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary). This war broke out due to the policies of several European empires.
1920: In 1920, women were granted the right to vote with the addition of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment was introduced in 1878, but it was not ratified until 1920.
1929: On October 24, 1929, a stock market crash occurred in the United States. This event was the beginning of the Great Depression, which lasted for ten years.
1941: On December 7, 1941, Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor, a Hawaiian naval base. This attack was an attempt to keep the U.S. Navy from interfering with Japanese military actions.
1944: D-Day occurred on June 6, 1944. This was a major victory for Allied troops in World War II, but more than 9,000 soldiers were wounded or killed.
1945: In 1945, scientists built the first atomic bomb as a part of the Manhattan Project. The total cost of this project was more than $2 billion.
1950: The Korean War started in 1950 and lasted until 1953. It was a war between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea. U.S. troops supported the Republic of Korea in this war.
1954: Up until 1954, white Americans and Americans of other races went to separate schools. This practice ended in 1954, after the Supreme Court made its decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case.
1955: The Vietnam War started in 1955 and lasted until 1975. The conflict was between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The United States supported South Vietnam in this war.
1962: In 1962, a spy plane discovered that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy placed a naval blockage around the island to prevent the Soviet Union from bringing in more supplies. After thirteen days, the Soviet Union agreed to take down the weapon sites if the United States would not invade Cuba.
1963: On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy. Oswald was arrested a short time later, but he was killed by Jack Ruby when being transferred to the county jail.
1968: Martin Luther King was a civil rights leader and activist. On April 14, 1968, King was shot and killed by James Earl Ray.
1969: Apollo 11 was the first manned spacecraft to land on the moon. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon on July 20, 1969.
1973: The Watergate political scandal occurred when members of the Nixon administration participated in a break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Nixon resigned in 1974 due to the scandal.
1986: Space shuttle Challenger launched on January 28, 1986. Christa McAuliffe, a teacher, was aboard the spacecraft. Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after takeoff, an accident that occurred due to several factors.
1990: The Persian Gulf War began in 1990 and lasted until early 1991. This war occurred as a response to Iraq invading Kuwait.
1995: The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995. This was a domestic terrorist attack that killed 168 people. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were responsible for the attack.
2000: In the 2000 election, George Bush won the presidency even though Al Gore won more popular votes. The election results were challenged, but Bush eventually took office. He was elected to a second term in 2004.
2001: On September 11, 2001, terrorists took control of four airplanes. They crashed two planes into the World Trade Center in New York and one plane into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. This was the deadliest attack ever to occur on American soil.
2005: Hurricane Katrina was a destructive hurricane that occurred in 2005. It was one of the five deadliest hurricanes in United States history, killing more than 1,800 people. It also caused more than $80 billion in property damage.
2008: Barack Obama was voted the president of the United States. He was the first African American person elected to this position.
2011: Osama bin Laden was the head of al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011. On May 2, 2011, U.S. forces invaded his compound in Pakistan. Bin Laden was killed in the raid.
American History 100 Facts
Mr. Ken Brown
Important dates:
1.
2.The Declaration of Independence was signed on
3.The Constitution of the
4.President Thomas Jefferson purchased the
5.The Civil War was fought from 1861-1865.
Important Places and Events:
6.The opening shots of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord,Massachusetts in April 1775.
7.Independence Hall in
8.The Battle of Saratoga was the turning point of the American Revolution.
9.The British defeat at
10.The first shots of the Civil War were fired at
11.The Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War for the North.Confederate troops were forced to retreat and never invaded the North again.
12.The capture of
13.Appomattox Court House is the small town in
Important Vocabulary:
14.Mercantilism is an economic theory that a country’s strength is measured by the amount of gold it has, that a country should sell more than it buys and that the colonies exist for the benefit of the Mother Country.
15.An abolitionist was a person who wanted to end slavery in the
16.A tariff is a tax on goods brought into a country.
17.A protective tariff is a tax placed on goods from another country to protect the home industry.
18.Sectionalism is a strong sense of loyalty to a state or section instead of to the whole country.
19.Manifest Destiny is the belief that the
20.The Temperance Movement was a campaign against the sale or drinking of alcohol.
21.Representative Government is a system of government in which voters elect representatives to make laws for them.
22.A Republic is a nation in which voters choose representatives to govern them.
23.The House of Burgesses was the first representative assembly in the new world.
24.The Three Branches of Government are the Legislative Branch, the Judicial Branch, and the Executive branch.
25.Checks and Balances is a system set up by the Constitution in which each branch of the federal government has the power to check, or control, the actions of the other branches.
26.Free Enterprise is the freedom of private businesses to operate competitively for profit with minimal government regulation.
27.Federalism is the sharing of power between the states and the national government.
28.Separation of Powers is a system in which each branch of government has its own powers.
29.Popular Sovereignty is the political theory that government is subject to the will of the people.Before the Civil War, the idea that people living in a territory had the right to decide by voting if slavery would be allowed there.
30.Amend means to change.
31.Unalienable rights are rights that cannot be given up, taken away or transferred.Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are some of those rights.
32.Tyranny is a cruel and unjust government.
33.A Democracy is a form of government that is run for and by the people, giving people the supreme power.
34.Ratify means to approve by vote.
35.Judicial Review is the right of the Supreme Court to judge laws passed by Congress and determines whether they are constitutional or not.
36.Civil Disobedience is the refusal to obey a government law or laws as a means of passive resistance because of one’s moral conviction or belief.
37.Federalists were supporters of the Constitution who favored a strong national government.
38.Antifederalists were people opposed to the Constitution, preferring more power be given to the state governments than to the national government.
39.Nullification is the idea of a state declaring a federal law illegal.
40.Primary Sources are the original records of an event.They include eyewitness reports, records created at the time of an event, speeches, and letters by people involved in the event, photographs and artifacts.
41.Secondary Sources are the later writings and interpretations of historians and writers.Often secondary sources, like textbooks and articles, provide summaries of information found in primary sources.
42.Republicanism was an attitude toward society in the late 1700s based on the belief that the good virtue and morality of the people was essential to sustain the republican form of government.
43.Industrial Revolution was the era in which a change from household industries to factory production using powered machinery took place.
Important Documents and Policies:
44.The Magna Carta, signed in 1215 by King John of
45.The English Bill of Rights protected the rights of English citizens and became the basis for the American Bill of Rights.
46.The Declaration of Independence was a document written by Thomas Jefferson, declaring the colonies independence from
47.The Articles of Confederation was the first American constitution.It was a very weak document that limited the power of the Congress by giving states the final authority over all decisions.
48.The Constitution of the United States sets out the laws and principles of the government of the
49.George Washington’s Farewell Address advised the
50.The Monroe Doctrine was a foreign policy statement delivered by President James Monroe stating that 1) the U.S. would not interfere in European affairs, and 2) that the western hemisphere was closed to colonization and/ or interference by European nations.
51.The Treaty of
52.The Treaty of
53.The Northwest Ordinance was a policy of establishing the principles and procedures for the orderly expansion of the
54.The Mayflower Compact was the agreement signed in 1620 by the Pilgrims in
55.The Federalist Papers were a series of essays written by James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton, defending the Constitution and the principles on which the government of the
56.Common Sense was a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine to convince colonists that it was time to become independent from
57.The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution and detail the protection of individual liberties.
58.The Gettysburg Address was a short speech given by Abraham Lincoln to dedicate a cemetery for soldiers who died at the Battle of Gettysburg.It is considered to be a profound statement of American ideals.
59.Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on
60.Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address stated that, “no state…can lawfully get out of the
61.Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address was meant to help heal and restore the country after four years of Civil War.
62.The Great Compromise created two houses of Congress.One based on population, the other gave equal representation to each state.
Important People:
63.Sam Adams was a member of the Sons of Liberty who started the Committee of Correspondence to stir public support for American independence.
64.Ben Franklin was an inventor, statesman, diplomat, signer of the Declaration of Independence and delegate to Constitutional Convention.
65.King George III was the King of England who disbanded the colonial legislatures, taxed the colonies, and refused the Olive Branch Petition leading to the final break with the colonies.
66.Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence; became the 3rd President of the
67.Thomas Paine wrote pamphlets like Common Sense and The Crisis to encourage American independence and resolve.
68.George Washington was the leader of the Continental Army who became the first President of the
69.Andrew Jackson was the leader of the original Democratic Party and a “President of the people”.He was also responsible for the Trail of Tears, which forced Native Americans west of the
70.John C. Calhoun was a
71.Henry Clay was a powerful
72.Daniel Webster was a
73.Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederacy during the Civil War.
74.Ulysses S. Grant was the General of the Union Army and was responsible for winning the Civil War for the North.
75.Robert E. Lee was the General of the Confederate Army.
76.Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the
77.Alexander Hamilton was a leader of the Federalists, first Treasurer of the
78.Patrick Henry was a passionate patriot who became famous for his fiery speeches in favor of American independence.His most famous quote included the words, “Give me liberty or give me death!”
79.James Madison is considered to be the “Father of the Constitution”.
80.Frederick Douglass was a former slave who became the best-known black abolitionist in the country.
81.James Monroe was the author of the Monroe Doctrine, which shut down the western hemisphere to European expansion or interference.
82.Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave who became a Conductor on the Underground Railroad and helped over 300 slaves to freedom in the North.
83.Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention creating the Women’s Rights Movement in the
Amendments to the Constitution:
84.The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law” restricting freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition.
85.The Second Amendment guarantees the right of states to organize militias, or armies, and the right of individuals to bear arms.
86.The Third Amendment forbids the government to order private citizens to allow soldiers to live in their homes.
87.The Fourth Amendment requires that warrants be issued if property is to be searched or seized (taken) by the government.
88.The Fifth Amendment protects an accused person from having to testify against him or herself (self-incrimination); bans double jeopardy, and guarantees that no person will suffer the loss of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
89.The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury; the right to a lawyer; the right to cross examine witnesses; and the right to force witnesses at a trial to testify.
90.The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in civil suits.
91.The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and excessive bail or fines.
92.The Ninth Amendment states that the people have rights other than those specifically mentioned in the Constitution.
93.The Tenth Amendment states that powers not given to the federal government belong to the states.
94.The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.
95.The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship and rights to all people born or naturalized in the
96.The Fifteenth Amendment guarantees the right to vote to all citizens regardless of race.
Important People In Us History Us History Timeline
Supreme Court Cases:
97.Marbury v. Madison was the 1803 Court decision that gave the Supreme Court the right to determine whether a law violates the Constitution.It set up the principle of judicial review.
98.Dred Scott v. Sanford was the Supreme Court decision that said slaves were property and not citizens and that Congress had no right to ban slavery in the territories.
Best People In Us History
Inventions:
Important People In Us History Us History On This Day
99.The Cotton Gin was an invention by Eli Whitney that speeded the cleaning of cotton fibers and in effect, increased the need for slaves.
100. The successful use of the steamboat by Robert Fulton revolutionized
Important People In Us History Us History Timeline
transportation and trade in the United States.