What Every American Should Know About American History

 

  1. Leif Ericson Explores Vinland
  2. Columbus Reaches the Shores of the New World
  3. Coronado Searches for the Seven Cities of Gold
  4. Roanoke Becomes the “Lost Colony”
  5. Jamestown is Founded
  6. Henry Hudson looks for the Northwest Passage
  7. The First African Slaves are Sold to Virginia Planters
  8. Pilgrims Settle at Plymouth
  9. Puritans Settle at Massachusetts Bay
  10. Roger Williams is Exiled to Rhode Island
  11. Marquette and Jolliet Explore the Mississippi
  12. Indian Chief King Philip goes to War
  13. Nathaniel Bacon launches his Rebellion
  14. William Penn is Granted a Charter for Pennsylvania
  15. Salem Puts Accused Witches on Trial
  16. James Oglethorpe Is Granted a Charter for Georgia
  17. Jonathan Edwards Sparks the Great Awakening
  18. John Peter Zenger is Acquitted
  19. The French and Indian War Begins
  20. Pontiac Launches His Rebellion
  21. King George III Declares a Proclamation Line
  22. Daniel Boone Breaches the Cumberland Gap
  23. The Jesuits are Expelled from New Spain
  24. The Sons of Liberty Throw a Boston Tea Party
  25. The First Continental Congress Meets
  26. The American Revolution Begins
  27. Thomas Paine Publishes Common Sense
  28. Congress Adopts the Declaration of Independence
  29. Congress Adopts the Articles of Confederation
  30. Congress Passes the Northwest Ordinance
  31. The Federalist Papers are published
  32. The U.S. Constitution is Adopted
  33. George Washington is Elected the First President
  34. Congress Frames the Bill of Rights
  35. Eli Whitney Invents the Cotton Gin
  36. The XYZ Affair Leads to the Alien and Sedition Acts
  37. The Supreme Court Rules on Marbury vs. Madison
  38. Thomas Jefferson Agrees to the Louisiana Purchase
  39. Lewis and Clark launch an Expedition
  40. Robert Fulton Launches the Clermont
  41. The War of 1812 begins
  42. Tecumseh is Slain at the Battle of the Thames
  43. Andrew Jackson Defeats the Creek at Horseshoe Bend
  44. Work Begins on the Erie Canal
  45. The Panic of 1819 Strikes
  46. The Supreme Court Rules on McCulloch vs. Maryland
  47. Henry Clay engineers the Missouri Compromise
  48. James Monroe Announces a New Doctrine
  49. Andrew Jackson is Elected President
  50. Abolitionists Establish the “Underground Railroad”
  51. Congress Passes the Indian Removal Act
  52. Nat Turner Rebels
  53. Black Hawk Goes to War
  54. The Nullification Crisis Occurs
  55. Cyrus McCormick Invents a Reaper;  John Deere Invents a Steel Plow
  56. Texans Defend the Alamo
  57. Ralph Waldo Emerson Delivers “The American Scholar” Speech
  58. Marcus Whitman Crosses the Continent on the Oregon Trail
  59. James Fenimore Cooper Publishes The Deerslayer
  60. Dan Emmett Stages a New Minstrel Show
  61. Samuel F.B. Morse Invents the Telegraph
  62. Frederick Douglass Publishes his Autobiography
  63. The United States Annexes Texas
  64. John O’Sullivan Writes about “Manifest Destiny”
  65. The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club Writes the Rules of the Game
  66. The United States Declares War on Mexico
  67. The Mormons Migrate to Utah
  68. Female Suffragists Hold a Conference at Seneca Falls
  69. The California Gold Rush Begins
  70. Congress Reaches the Compromise of 1850
  71. Harriet Beecher Stowe Publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin
  72. Congress Passes the Kansas Nebraska Act
  73. The Republican Party is Founded
  74. The Supreme Court Hands Down the Dred Scott Decision
  75. William Smith Strikes Oil Near Titusville, Pennsylvania
  76. John Brown Raids Harpers Ferry, Virginia
  77. The Pony Express Opens for Service
  78. The Civil War Breaks Out
  79. Congress Passes the Homestead Act
  80. Abraham Lincoln Issues the Emancipation Proclamation
  81. John Wilkes Booth Assassinates Abraham Lincoln
  82. The Fourteenth Amendment is Ratified
  83. The James Gang Robs its First Bank
  84. Charlie Goodnight Starts a Cattle Drive
  85. America Goes to War with the Indians of the West
  86. Congress Impeaches Andrew Johnson
  87. The Golden Spike Completes the Trans Continental Railroad
  88. Jay Gould Attempts to Corner the Gold Market
  89. John D. Rockefeller Forms Standard Oil
  90. Tammany Hall’s “Boss” William Tweed is Arrested
  91. Joseph Glidden Patents Barbed Wire
  92. Alexander Graham Bell Patents the Telephone
  93. George Armstrong Custer Makes His “last stand”
  94. The Great Strike of 1877 Occurs
  95. “Billy the Kid” Joins in the Lincoln County War
  96. Edison Invents the Incandescent Electric Lamp
  97. Booker T. Washington Founds the Tuskegee Institute
  98. Clara Barton Founds the American Red Cross
  99. The Brooklyn Bridge is Completed
  100. Mark Twain Publishes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  101. Geronimo Surrenders to General Nelson A. Miles
  102. Walter Camp Becomes Yale’s Football Coach
  103. The Oklahoma Land Rush Begins
  104. Jacob Riis Publishes How the Other Half Lives
  105. Louis Sullivan Pioneers the Development of the Skyscraper
  106. Congress Passes the Sherman Antitrust Act
  107.  The U.S. Army Massacres Indians at Wounded Knee
  108. James Naismith Invents Basketball
  109. Ellis Island Opens
  110. John Muir Founds the Sierra Club
  111. The Homestead Strike Erupts
  112. John L. Sullivan and Jim Corbett Fight a Heavyweight Championship Bout
  113. Professor Turner Announces the Closing of the Frontier
  114. William Jennings Bryan Delivers His “Cross of Gold” Speech
  115. America Declares War on Spain
  116. The Film The Great Train Robbery Is Released
  117. The Wright Brothers Fly Their First Plane
  118. The U.S. Senate Approves the Panama Canal Treaty
  119. “Big Bill” Haywood Founds the IWW
  120. Upton Sinclair Publishes The Jungle
  121. William James Publishes Pragmatism
  122. Henry Ford introduces the Model T
  123. The NAACP is founded
  124. Fire breaks out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company
  125. Robert M. La Follette founds the Progressive Party
  126. The Sixteenth Amendment is Ratified
  127. W.C. Handy writes The Saint Louis Blues
  128. Charlie Chaplain and Mary Pickford become world famous
  129. The United States Enters WWI
  130. The Eighteenth Amendment is ratified
  131. U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer launches the “Red Scare”
  132. The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified
  133. The U.S. Senate rejects the League of Nations
  134. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Introduces Planned Obsolescence
  135. Pittsburgh’s KDKA broadcasts election results
  136. George Washington Carver invents peanut butter
  137. Congress restricts immigration
  138. Thomas Watson founds I.B.M.
  139. The Scopes trial begins in Tennessee
  140. F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby
  141. Charles A. Lindbergh flies the Atlantic
  142. Sacco and Vanzetti are executed
  143. The Great Depression Begins
  144. The Scottsboro boys are convicted of rape
  145. Franklin Delano Roosevelt announces the New Deal
  146. Vladimir Zworykin demonstrates the “Iconoscope”
  147. John L. Lewis founds the CIO
  148. World War II begins with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor
  149. The U.S. Government Interns Japanese-American citizens
  150. Congress passes the GI Bill
  151. The United Nations is Chartered
  152. America drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
  153. George C. Marshall announces a plan for European Recovery
  154. Jackie Robinson gets a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers
  155. Levittown is developed
  156. Congress passes the National Security Act
  157. The United States launches the Berlin Airlift
  158. Joseph McCarthy claims to know of 205 card carrying communists
  159. Harry S Truman begins the “police action” against Korea
  160. William Faulkner wins the Nobel Prize
  161. Jackson Pollock establishes the “New York School”
  162. Estes Kefauver opens hearings on organized crime
  163. The Rosenbergs are executed for espionage
  164. The Supreme Court rules on “Brown vs. Board of Education”
  165. Jonas Salk’s vaccine for Polio receives government approval
  166. Rosa Parks initiates the Montgomery Bus Boycott
  167. Congress passes the Interstate Highway Act of 1956
  168. Elvis Presley Appears on the Ed Sullivan Show
  169. The United States Confronts the USSR over Missiles in Cuba
  170. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is Assassinated
  171. Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique
  172. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964
  173. Lyndon Johnson Launches the “Great Society”
  174. Congress Passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
  175. The Autobiography of Malcolm X is published.
  176. Riots break out in Watts.
  177. Cesar Chavez calls for a national boycott of table grapes
  178. The Supreme Court Rules on Miranda Vs. State of Arizona
  179. Martin Luther King is assassinated
  180. Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated
  181. The Chicago Police Riot at the Democratic National Convention
  182. The United States puts a man on the moon
  183. Four students are killed at Kent State University
  184. The New York Times publishes the Pentagon Papers
  185. J. Edgar Hoover dies
  186. Nixon’s “Plumbers” are caught burglarizing the Watergate Hotel
  187. The Supreme Court rules on Row Vs. Wade
  188. OPEC embargoes oil to the west
  189. An accident occurs at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Facility
  190. Iran takes ninety American hostages
  191. The Cold War Ends
  192. America unleashes Desert Storm
  193. The Birth of the internet launches a new American economy
  194. A Black Hawk goes down in Somalia
  195. Terror comes to the heartland, Oklahoma City bombing
  196. The Juice gets loose
  197. The President is impeached
  198. The Supreme Court elects a president
  199. War comes to America 9/11
  200. The Enron scandal sends a shock wave through the American business world
  201. First African American President is elected
  202. Deep Water Horizon Disaster in Gulf of Mexico