-
The Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, were the first major military actions between the British Army and Patriot militias from British
-
The winter at Valley Forge (1777-1778) was a Continental Army encampment in Pennsylvania where George Washington's troops endured severe hardships, including starvation, exposure, and disease, due to lack of supplies and shelter after the British captured Philadelphia.
-
Benedict Arnold turned traitor to the American cause on September 21, 1780, when he met with British Major John André to arrange the surrender of the strategically important American fort at West Point to the British.
-
The Battle of Cowpens was a military engagement during the American Revolutionary War fought on January 17, 1781, near the town of Cowpens, South Carolina.
-
It took place on the 19th of August 1812, one month after the war's first engagement between British and American forces.
-
The Battle of Baltimore took place between British and American forces on September 12–14, 1814, during the War of 1812.
-
The Battle of New Orleans was the final, decisive battle of the War of 1812, occurring on January 8, 1815, where U.S. forces led by Andrew Jackson secured a resounding victory over a larger, professional British army.
-
President Andrew Jackson had become a national hero when he defeated the British at New Orleans in the War of 1812.
-
The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event and military engagement in the Texas Revolution.
-
Mexico lost California, New Mexico, and parts of Arizona to the United States through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War in 1848.
-
Charleston Mercury on November 3, 1860. South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election triggered cries for disunion across the slaveholding South.
-
Abraham Lincoln was first elected President of the United States on November 6, 1860, becoming the first Republican president and leading the nation through the American Civil War.
-
The First Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas, on July 21, 1861, was the first major land battle of the U.S. Civil War. Fought near Manassas, Virginia, the Confederate victory was achieved when reinforcements arrived by rail to break the Union lines.
-
The Battle of Gettysburg, a three-day, bloodiest battle with over 50,000 casualties, was a Union victory that ended Lee's invasion and dashed Confederate hopes.
-
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought in Appomattox County, Virginia, on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last, and ultimately one of the most consequential, battles of the American Civil War.
-
The USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, an event that fueled public outrage and became a rallying cry for the Spanish-American War, though the exact cause—whether an external mine or an internal accident like a coal bunker fire—remains debated to this day.
-
The "Battle of the Philippines" during the Spanish-American War refers to the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898, where Commodore George Dewey's U.S. Asiatic Squadron destroyed the Spanish Pacific fleet, a decisive victory that helped end Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines and marked the first major engagement of the war.
-
The Star-Spangled Banner" became the official national anthem of the United States on March 3, 1931, when President Herbert Hoover signed into law House Resolution 14.