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Yale founded
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. -
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Queen Anne's War
Queen Anne's War was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought in North America involving the colonial empires of Great Britain, France, and Spain; it took place during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain. In Europe, it is generally viewed as the American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession; in the Americas, it is more commonly viewed as a standalone conflict. It is also known as the Third Indian War. In France it was known as the Second Intercolonial War. -
Treaty of Utrecht
The Treaty of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne of Spain, and involved much of Europe for over a decade. The main action saw France as the defender of Spain against a multinational coalition. The treaties allowed Philip V to keep the Spanish throne in return for permanently renouncing his claim to the French throne, thus having balance of power in Europe. -
Invention: Swim Fins
Invented by Benjamin Franklin. The first fins were made of wood and were worn on the hands. Shaped like lily pads, these fins were 10 inches long and six inches wide. -
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Mississippi Scheme
The Mississippi Company was a corporation holding a business monopoly in French colonies in North America and the West Indies. In 1717, the Mississippi Company received a royal grant with exclusive trading rights for 25 years. The rise and fall of the company is connected with the activities of the Scottish John Law who was then the Controller General of Finances of France. By September 1720 the price of shares in the company had fallen to 2,000 livres and to 1,000 by December. -
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The First Great Awakening
The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. The result was a renewed dedication toward religion. -
Providence of Georgia
The Providence of Georgia was founded. -
Invention: Franklin Stove
Invented by Benjamin Franklin. This was an iron stove that provided twice the heat, used a quarter of the wood and produced less smoke than a fireplace, allowing Americans to live more comfortably during long winters. -
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King George's War
King George's War was the third of the four French and Indian Wars. It took place primarily in the British provinces of New York, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, and Nova Scotia. Its most significant action was an expedition organized by Massachusetts Governor William Shirley that besieged and ultimately captured the French fortress of Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, in 1745. -
Slavery in Georgia begins
Georgia's powerful backers did not object to slavery as an institution, but their business model was to rely on labor from Britain. Despite agitation for slavery, it was not until a defeat of the Spanish by Georgia colonials in the 1740s that arguments for opening the colony to slavery intensified. To staff the rice plantations and settlements, Georgia's proprietors relented in 1751, and African slavery grew quickly. In the 1760s Georgia began importing slaves directly from Africa. -
Albany Congress
The Albany Congress was a meeting of representatives sent by the legislatures of seven of the thirteen British colonies in British America: Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Representatives met daily at the City Hall in Albany from June 19 to July 11, 1754, to discuss better relations with the Native American tribes and common defensive measures against the French threat from Canada in the opening stage of the French and Indian War. -
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Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War is widely considered to be the first global conflict in history, and was a struggle for world supremacy between Great Britain and France. Long-standing colonial rivalries pitting Britain against France and Spain in North America and the Caribbean islands were fought on a grand scale. In Europe, the war broke out over territorial disputes between Prussia and Austria. Britain, France and Spain fought both in Europe and overseas with land-based armies and naval forces. -
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Louisiana (New Spain)
Spanish Louisiana was a governorate and administrative district of the Viceroyalty of New Spain that consisted of a vast territory in the center of North America. The area had originally been claimed and controlled by France. Spain secretly acquired the territory from France near the end of the Seven Years' War. The actual transfer of authority was a slow process, and after Spain finally attempted to fully replace French authorities in New Orleans in 1767. -
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III of Great Britain and representatives of the United States of America on September 3, 1783, officially ended the American Revolutionary War. The treaty set the boundaries between the British Empire in North America and the United States of America, on lines "exceedingly generous" to the latter. -
Invention: Bifocals
Invented by Benjamin Franklin. Tired of constantly having to put on and remove his glasses, Franklin cut two pairs of glasses in half and put half of each lens in a single frame. -
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American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolutionary War, gaining independence from the British Crown, establishing the constitution that created the United States of America, the first modern constitutional liberal democracy. -
Mason-Dixon Line
The Mason-Dixon line is a demarcation line separating four U.S. states, forming part of the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia. Historically, it came to be seen as demarcating the North from the South in the U.S. The dispute had its origins almost a century earlier in the somewhat confusing proprietary grants by King Charles I to Lord Baltimore (Maryland) and by King Charles II to William Penn (Pennsylvania and Delaware). -
Invention: Submarine
Invented by David Bushnell. Named the “Turtle,” it submerged by taking water into its tanks and emerged by releasing it. This one man submarine was propelled by a hand crank propeller. The Turtle was used in an attempt to attach a mine to General Howe’s flagship “Eagle” but the attempt failed. -
Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. Enacted during the American Revolution, the Declaration explains why the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step in forming the United States of America. -
Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation was an agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first frame of government. It was approved and came into force on March 1, 1781, after ratification by all the states. Its goal was to preserve the independence and sovereignty of the states. The weak central government established by the Articles received only those powers which the former colonies had recognized as belonging to king and parliament. -
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Northwest Indian War
The Northwest Indian War was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. Following centuries of conflict, it was granted to the new United States by the Kingdom of Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War. The treaty used the Great Lakes as a border between British territory and that of the United States. -
Pennsylvania enters the Union
Pennsylvania enters the Union as the 2nd state. -
New Jersey enters the Union
New Jersey enters the Union as the 3rd state. -
Northwest Ordinance
The Northwest Ordinance, enacted July 13, 1787, was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. It created the Northwest Territory, the new nation's first organized incorporated territory, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British North America and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. The upper Mississippi River formed the territory's western boundary. Pennsylvania was the eastern boundary. -
Delaware enters the Union
Delaware becomes the first state to enter the Union. -
Georgia enters the Union
Georgia enters the Union as the 4th state. -
Connecticut enters the Union
Connecticut enters the Union as the 5th state. -
Massachusetts enters the Union
Massachusetts enters the Union as the 6th state. -
Maryland enters the Union
Maryland enters the Union as the 7th state. -
South Carolina enters the Union
South Carolina enters the Union as the 8th state. -
New Hampshire enters the Union
New Hampshire enters the Union as the 9th state. -
Virginia enters the Union
Virginia enters the Union as the 10th state. -
New York enters the Union
New York enters the Union as the 11th state. -
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Presidency of George Washington
George Washington was an American soldier, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Washington led the Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War, and presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which established the Constitution of the United States and a federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of the Nation" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the country. -
Judiciary Act of 1789
The Judiciary Act of 1789 was a United States federal statute during the first session of the First United States Congress. It established the federal judiciary of the United States. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution prescribed that the "judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and such inferior Courts" as Congress saw fit to establish. It made no provision for the composition or procedures of any of the courts, leaving this to Congress to decide. -
North Carolina enters the Union
North Carolina enters the Union as the 12th state. -
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The Second Great Awakening (until 1800)
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. -
Rhode Island enters the Union
Rhode Island enters the Union as the 13th state. -
Vermont enters the Union
Vermont enters the Union as the 14th state. -
Bill of Rights
The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. After the debate over the ratification of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government. -
Kentucky enters the Union
Kentucky enters the Union as the 15th state. -
Fugitive Act of 1793
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was an Act of the United States Congress to give effect to the Fugitive Slave Clause of the US Constitution, which was later superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment. The former guaranteed a right for a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave. The Act, "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters," created the legal mechanism by which that could be accomplished. -
Invention: Cotton Gin
Invented by Eli Whitney. This machine separates cotton fiber from the seeds revolutionizing the cotton industry and making cotton the major cash crop in the South. -
Tennessee enters the Union
Tennessee enters the Union as the 16th state. -
Invention: Interchangeable Parts
Invented by Eli Whitney. After receiving a contract to manufacture 10,000 muskets for the U.S. Army, Whitney divides the manufacturing into several steps with standardized parts to make them interchangeable. Prior to this an entire musket was made by a single person without standardized measurements. -
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Presidency of John Adams
John Adams was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who was the second president of the United States, serving from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain, and he served as the first vice president of the United States.
