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Christopher Columbus, a skilled Italian seafarer persuaded the spanish monarchs to outfit him with three tiny but seaworthy ships, manned by a motley crew. His inital intention was to find a water route to the fabeled Indies but stumbleled upon what would be the New World. For decades after explorers from all different European countries strove to find away through or around the unknown land mass and claim lands for their home countries.
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Spain secured its claim to Columbus's discovery in the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing with Portugal the "heathen lands" of the New World. The lions share went to Spain but Portugal received compensating terrority in Africa and Asia, as well as title to lands in present day Brazil.
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Vasco da Gamma sailed from Portugal in July of 1947, rounded the cape of good hope, and reached India in 1498. He was the first European to reach India via the Pacific Ocean.
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Cabot explores Northeastern coast of North America for England
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Ponce de Leon was seeking gold in Florida for the Spanish, which he thought was an island, and instead met death with an arrow.
*Not sure what month or date in 1513 -
Vasco Nunez Balboa, was the first European to see the Eastern part of the Pacific Ocean; he did so from a peak in Panama. He then claimed all lands that touched it for Spain.
*dont know actual date in September -
German Friar Martin Luther denounced the authoirty of the preiests and popes when he nailed his protests against Catholic doctrines to the door of Wittenberg's cathedral in 1517. He delcared that the Bible alone was the source of God's words. He started the "Protestant Reformation".
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In 1519 Hernan Cortes set sail from Cuba with sixteen fresh horses and several hundred men aboard elevn ships, bound for Mexico and for destiny. Striving for gold and riches, Cortes and his men invaded the Aztec Empire. While at first they were welcomed and praised, the Aztecs soon learned of their true nature, On August 13, they fought. With heavy battle, and a smallpox epidemic sweeping Mexico, the Aztec Empire gave way to 3 centuries of Spanish rule. Spanish rule and culture consumed Mexico.
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In 1519, with the support of King Charles V of Spain, Magellan set out to circumnavigate the globe. He assembled a fleet of ships and, despite huge setbacks, his own death included, proved that the world was round. He completetd the circumnavigation in 1522.
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Verrazono explores Eastern Seaborad of North America for France
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Ironfisted conqueror Fransisco Pizarro crushed the Incas of Peru and added a huge hoard of booty to Spanish coffers.
*dont know what month or day in 1532 -
Cartier sailed into the waters of the St Lawrence river in Eastern Canada. Although he couldn't travel up the river all the way to Asia, Cartier had in fact discovered an important waterway into the vast areas of Canada. Cartier was a French navigator whom the king ordered to sail to the New World to find gold, spices, and a water passage from France to Asia.
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Hernando de Soto assembled a fleet of 10 ships and a crew of 709 men and landed in Tampa Bay Florida in May 25 1539. For the next three years de Soto and his men explored the Southeastern United States, starting Florida, then Georgia, then Alabama, and finally discovering the Mississippi River.
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*Year is only accurate
From 1540-1542 Francisco Coronado, in quest of fabled golden cities that turned out to be adobe pueblos,wandered with a clanking cavalcade through Arizona and New Mexico, penetrating as far East as Kansas.He discovered the Grand Canyon and herds of Bison. -
Cabrillo explores present day SouthWest.
Cabrillo embarked from the Mexican portfolio Navidad in June 1542, explored most of the coast of what is now California, entered San Diego and Monterey bays, and landed on several islands near the California coast. -
She was the Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death.
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In 1565 the Spanish built a fortress at St. Augustine, Florida to protect the sea lanes to the Caribbean.
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The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare Couny, present day North Carolina, was a late 16th-century attempt by queen Elizabeth I to establish a permanent English settlement. After severly false starts, the hapless Roanoke colony vanished , swallowed up by the wilderness.
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n 1606, a joint-stock company, known as the Virginia Company of London, received a charter from King James I of England for a settlement in the New World. The company landed in Jamestown on May 24, 1607. In 1608, Captain John Smith took over the town and forced the settlers into line. By 1609, of the 400 settlers who came to Virginia, only 60 survived the "starving winter" of 1609-1610. Jamestown was the first permanent Enlgish settlement in the Americas.
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There were three wars fought between English settlers of the Virginia Colony, and Indians of the Powhatan Confederacy in the early 1600s. The First War started in 1610, and ended in a peace settlement in 1614. Another war between the two powers lasted from 1622 to 1632. The third War lasted from 1644-1646.That war resulted in a boundary being defined between the Indians and English lands that could only be passed on special business until a 1677 peace treaty was passed.
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A Smallpox epidemic decimates the Native Americans population in New England.
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Twenty African Americans are brought by a Dutch ship to Jamestown for sale as endentured servants, marking the beginning of slavery in Colonial America
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The first session of the legislative assembly in America occurs as the Virginia House of Burgesses convenes in Jamestown. It consists of 22 burgesses represeting 11 plantations. However, King James I didn't trust the House of Burgesses and so in 1624, he made Virginia a colony of England, directly under his control.
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November 9, the Mayflower ship lands at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with 101 colonists. On November 11, the Maylfower Compact is signed by the 41 men, establishing a form of local government in which the colonists agreee 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.
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First Thanksgiving Day in New England
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In 1623-1624, the Dutch West India Company established New Netherland in the Hudson River area. It was made for its quick-profit fur trade. The company also purchased Manhattan Island from the Indians for worthless trinkets. The island encompassed 22,000 acres. New Amsterdam, later New York City, was a company town. The Quakers were savagely abused.
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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 eastablished and serves as the site of Winthrop's government
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Maryland was formed in 1634 by Lord Baltimore.Maryland was made for a refuge for the Catholics to escape the wrath of the Protestant English government.The Act of Toleration, which was passed in 1649 by the local representative group in Maryland, granted toleration to all Christians.
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Hartford and Connecticut were founded in 1635. An energetic group of Boston Puritans poured into the Hartford area lead by Reverend Thomas Hooker. In 1639, the settlers of the new Connecticut River colony drafted a document known as the Fundamental Orders, basically a constitution. New Haven was established in 1638.
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In the New England colonies, towns with more than fifty families were required to provide elementary education, and many adults knew how to read and write, With just 8 years after the colony's founding, the Massachusetts Puritains established Harvard College to train local boys for the ministry.
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In June, Roger Williams founded Providence and Rhode Island. Williams had been banished from Massachusetts for "new and dangerous opinions" calling for religous and political freedoms, inlcuding seperation of church and state, not granted under the Puritan rules. Providence then becomes a haven for many other colonists fleeing religous intolerance.
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Anne Hutchinson was an intelligent woman who challenged the Puritan orthodoxy. She was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because of her challenges to the Church.
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In 1643, 4 colonies banded together to form the New England Confederation. It was made to defend against foes or potential foes. The confederation consisted of only Puritan colonies - two Massachusetts colonies (the Bay Colony and small Plymouth) and two Connecticut colonies (New Haven and the scattered valley settlements).Each colony had 2 votes, regardless of size.
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To support the massive sugar crops, millions of African slaves were imported. By 1700, the number of black slaves to white settlers in the English West Indies by nearly 4 to 1. In order to control the large number of slaves, the Barbados Slave Code of 1661 denied even the most fundamental rights to slaves.
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Troubeled ministers in 1662 announced a new formula for church membership, the Half-Way Covenant. This new arrangment modified the covenant, or the agreement between the church and its adherents, to admit to baptism-but not full communion-the unconverted children of existing members. This moved upped the churches memberships. This boost in memberships was just what the money-striken chruch needed.
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Th English crown approves a Navigation Act requiring the exclusive use of Englsh ships for trade in the english Colonies and limits exports of tobacco and sugar and other commodities to England or its colonies.
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Carolina, named for King Charles II, was formally created in 1670, after the King granted to eight of his court favorites, the Lord Propietors, an expanse of wilderness ribboning across the continent to the Pacific. These aristocratic founders hoped to grow foodstuffs to provision the sugar planatations in Barbados and to export non-English products like wine, silk, and olive-oil.Carolina established a vigorous slave trade, and their main export became rice.
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About 1,000 Virginians broke out of control-led by a 29 year old planter, Nathaniel Bacon. They fiercely resented Virginia's Governor william Berkeley for his friendly policies towards the Indians. When Berkeley refused to retaliate for a series of savage Indian attacks on frontier settlements, the crowd took matters into their own hands. The crowd murderously attacked Indians and chased Berkeley from Jamestown, Virginia. They torched the capitol.
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In 1680, after the Spanish captured an area known today as New Mexico in 1609, the natives launched a rebellion known as Popes Rebellion. The natives burned down churches and killed priests.
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A group of holy dissenters, commonly known as quakers, arose in England mid-1600s. Officially, they were known as the Religous Society of Friends. Quakers refused to support the Church of england with taxes. William Penn was attracted to the Quaker faith and in 1681, he managed to secure from King Charles II an imense grant of fertile land, in consideration of a monetary debt owed to his deceased father by the crown. The Kind called the are Pennslyvania.
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In 1686, the Dominion of New England was created by royal authority. Unlike the homegrown New England Confederation, it was imposed from London. It embraced all of New England until in 1688 when it was expanded to New York and East and West Jersey.The leader of the Dominion of New England was Sir Edmund Andros - an able English military man. He established headquarters in Puritanical Boston.
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In New York animosity between lordly landholders and aspiring merchants fueled Lisler's Rebellion, an ill-starred and bloody insurgence that rocked New York City from 1689-1691.
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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 governnor of Massachusetts. Between June and Septewmber, 150 persons are accused, with 20 persons, inlcuding 14 women, being executed. By October, the hysteria subsides, remaining prisoners are released and the special court is dissolved.
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86 years after the establishment of Jamestown, Virginia first college was founded in 1693, the College of William and Mary
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The Royal African Trade Company loses its slave trade monopoly, spurring colonists in New England to engage in slave trading for profit. In April, the Navigation Act of 1696 is passed by the English Parliament requiring colonial trade to be done exclusively via English built ships. The Act also expands the powers of colonial custom commissioners, inlcuding the rights of forceable entry, and requires postings of bonds on certain goods
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In between the Northern part of The Carolina Colony and the Southern part of the Virginia colony, lay a section of settlers that were outcasts and were regarded as riffraffs compared to their aristocratic neighbors. Following much friction between governors, North Carolina was officially seperated from South Carolina in 1712.
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Last of the colonies to be established, Georgia formed in 1733 as a safe haven for englishmen imprisoned in debt. However the English crown agreed to the establishment of Georgia for it to cheifly be a buffer colony. It would protect the more valuable Carolinas against vengeful Spaniards from Florida and hostile french from Louisiana. Georgia became a melting pot community. All Christain worshipers except Catholics enjoyed religious toleration.
