| 1780 | 1790 | 1800 | 1810 | 1820 | 1830 | 1840 | 1850 | 1860 | 1870 | 1880 | 1890 | 1900 | 1910 | 1920 | 1930 | 1940 | 1950 | 1960 | 1970 | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2010 |
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| War of 1812 | Mexican War | Civil War | Spanish-American | War | World War | One | World | War Two | Korean War |
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Vietam War | Gulf W | a | r | W | ar | on Terror |
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- 1783 - Peace Treaty ends Revolutionary War |
- 1788 - Constitution ratified |
- 1791 - Vermont admitted |
- 1792 - Kentucky admitted |
- 1796 - Tennessee admitted |
- 1803 - Ohio admitted |
- 1812 - Lousiana admitted |
- 1814 - Treaty of Ghent |
- 1816 - Indiana admitted |
- 1817 - Mississippi admitted |
- 1818 - Illinois admitted |
- 1819 - Alabama admitted |
- 1820 - Maine admitted |
- 1821 - Missouri admitted |
- 1836 - Arkansas admitted |
- 1837 - Michigan admitted |
- 1845 - Florida admitted |
- 1845 - Texas admitted |
- 1846 - Iowa admitted |
- 1848 - Wisconsin admitted |
- 1850 - California admitted |
- 1858 - Minnesota admitted |
- 1859 - Oregon admitted |
- 1861 - Kansas admitted |
- 1861 - 1865 - CONFEDERACY |
- 1863 - West Virginia admitted |
- 1864 - Nevada admitted |
- 1867 - Nebraska admitted |
- 1876 - Colorado admitted |
- 1889 - North Dakota admitted |
- 1889 - South Dakota admitted |
- 1889 - Montana admitted |
- 1889 - Washington admitted |
- 1890 - Idaho admitted |
- 1890 - Wyoming admitted |
- 1896 - Utah admitted |
- 1907 - Oklahoma admitted |
- 1912 - New Mexico admitted |
- 1912 - Arizona admitted |
- April 6, 1917 - U.S. declares war against Germany |
- December 8, 1941 - U.S. declares war against Japan |
- 1959 - Alaska admitted |
- 1959 - Hawaii admitted |
|
- 1783 - Britain cedes all lands west to Mississippi River |
- 1787 - Northwest Ordinance |
- 1790 - Seat of government moves from NYC to Philadelphia |
- 1800 - Seat of government moves from Philadelphia to Washington, DC |
- 1803 - Lousiana Purchase |
- 1804 - 1806 - Lewis and Clarke Expedition |
Louisiana Territory reorganized as Missouri Territory |
- 1818 - Treaty with Britain sets 49th parallel |
- 1819 - Treaty with Spain sets boundaries |
- 1820 - Missouri Compromise |
- 1822 - Florida Territory |
- 1822 - Stephen Austin founds colony in Texas |
- 1834 - Indian Territory founded |
- 1836 - Texas Revolution |
- 1838 - Iowa Territory organized |
- 1840 - 1860 - Oregon Trail |
- 1846 - Oregon boundary with Canada established at 49th parallel |
- 1848 - Mexican Cession |
- 1850 - Utah and New Mexico Territories |
- 1853 - Gadsden Purchase |
- 1854- Nebraska and Kansas Territories |
- 1857- Kansas ratifies anti-slavery constitution |
- 1861 - 1868- Western territories reorganized by Republican Congresses |
- 1867 - Alaska Purchased |
- 1867 - Midway annexed |
- 1878 - U.S.-Samoa treaty makes Pago Pago a navy coaling station |
- 1884 - Alaska Territory organized |
- 1890 - Oklahoma Territory organized |
- 1898 - Hawaii annexed |
- 1899 - Guam, Phillipines, Puerto Rico annexed |
- 1900 - American Samoa annexed |
- 1903 - U.S. behind "uprising" separating Panama from Colombia; Panama leases canal zone to U.S. |
- 1914 - Panama Canal completed |
- 1917 - Virgin Islands annexed |
- 1933 - TVA develops resources of Tennessee River |
- 1946- Phillipines given independence |
- 1947 - Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, captured from Japan, administered by U.S. |
- 1950- Guam Territory organized |
- 1999- Panama Canal transferred to Panama |
1789 - 1797George Washington Federalist from Virginia |
1797 - 1801John Adams Federalist from Massachusetts |
1801 - 1809Thomas Jefferson Republican from Virginia |
1809 - 1817James Madison Republican from Virginia |
1817 - 1825James Monroe Republican from Virginia |
1825 - 1829 John Quincy Adams Republican from Massachusetts |
1829 - 1837 Andrew Jackson Democrat from Tennessee |
1837 - 1841Martin Van Buren Democrat from New York |
1841Wm. Harrison Whig-IN 1841 - 1845 John Tyler Whig-VA |
1845 - 1849 James Polk Democrat from Tennessee |
1849 - 1850 Zachary Taylor Whig-LA 1850 - 1853 Millard Fillmore Whig |
1853 - 1857Franklin Pierce Democrat from New Hampshire |
1857 - 1861 James Buchanan Democrat from Pennsylvania |
1861 - 1865 Abraham Lincoln Republican from Illinois |
1865 Abrahan Lincoln Repub. 1865 - 1869 Andrew Johnson Democrat |
1869 - 1877 Ulysses S. Grant Republican from Ohio |
1877 - 1881 Rutherford Hayes Republican from Ohio |
1881 James Garfield Repub. 1881 - 1885 Chester Arthur Repub. |
1885 - 1889 Grover Cleveland Democrat from New York |
1889 - 1893 Benjamin Harrison Republican from Ohio |
1893 - 1897 Grover Cleveland Democrat from New York |
1897 - 1901 William McKinley Republican from Ohio |
1901 William McKinley Repub. 1901 - 1905 Theodore Roosevelt Repub. |
1905 - 1909 Theodore Roosevelt Republican from New York |
1909 - 1913 William H. Taft Republican from Ohio |
1913 - 1921 Woodrow Wilson Democrat from New Jersey |
1921 - 1923 Warren Harding Repub. 1923 - 1925 Calvin Coolidge Repub. |
1925 - 1929 Calvin Coolidge Republican from Massachusetts |
1929 - 1933 Herbert Hoover Republican from Iowa |
1933 - 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Democrat from New York |
1945 Franklin Roosevelt Democ. 1945 - 1949 Harry Truman Democ. |
1949 - 1953 Harry S. Truman Democrat from Missouri |
1953 - 1961 Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican from Kansas |
1961 - 1963 John Kennedy Democ.-MA 1963 - 1965 Lyndon Johnson Democ.-TX |
1965 - 1969 Lyndon Johnson Democrat from Texas |
1969 - 1973 Richard Nixon Republican from California |
1973 - 1974 Richard Nixon Repub.-CA 1974 - 1977 Gerald Ford Repub.-MI |
1977 - 1981 Jimmy Carter Democrat from Georgia |
1981 - 1989 Ronald Reagan Republican from California |
1989 - 1993 George Bush Republican from Texas |
1993 - 2001 William J. Clinton Democrat from Arkansas |
2001 - 2009 George W. Bush Republican from Texas |
2009 - 2013 Barack Obama Democrat from Illinois |
|
80,000 Loyalists emigrate north to Canada |
- 1787 - Constitutional Convention |
- 1789 - Bill of Rights adopted |
- 1792 - First U.S. Trade Union of shoemakers |
- 1793 - Fugitive Slave Act |
- 1798 - Alien and Sedition Act |
- 1800 - Jefferson's election begins Virginia Dynasty |
- 1808 - Congress prohibits importing of African slaves |
- 1820 - Fed offers land at $1.25 an acre |
- 1821 - Missouri Compromise |
- 1823 - Monroe Doctrine |
- 1829 - Jackson introduces spoils system |
- 1830 - Joseph Smith founds Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) |
- 1842 - 10-hour day for children under 12 in Massachusetts |
- 1846 - 1847 - Mormon trek from Navoo to Salt Lake City |
- 1848 - Gold discovered in California |
- 1854 - Republican Party formed for abolition of slavery |
- 1857 - Dred Scott decision |
- 1863 - Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves |
- 1865 - Lincoln assassinated |
- 1868 - 8-hour day for federal employees |
- 1865 - 1877 - Reconstruction in old South |
- 1876 - National League founded (baseball) |
- 1879 - Women lawyers permitted to argue cases before Supreme Court |
- 1883 - Civil Service established |
- 1886 - Haymarket Square labor riot in Chicago kills eleven people |
- 1890 - AFL founded by S Gompers |
- 1890 - Sherman Antitrust Act |
- 1892 - Strike at Carnegie Steel results in ten deaths |
- 1896 - Supreme Court rules "separate but equal" legal |
- 1901 - Pres. McKinley shot by anarchist |
- 1902 - Roosevelt begins conservation of forests |
- 1904 - Roosevelt asserts U.S. right to intervene in Latin America |
- 1909 - NAACP in NYC |
- 1910 - Fundamentalism begins with "Five Points" |
- 1917 - Selective Service Act creates draft |
- 1917 - Blacks migrate north and west |
- 1920 - 18th Amendment prohibits alcohol |
- 1920 - 19th Amendment gives women right to vote |
- 1927 - Lindbergh crosses Atlantic non-stop |
- 1929 - Stock Market crashes |
- 1933 - Roosevelt begins "New Deal" |
- 1935 - Social Security Act provides retirement insurance |
- December 7, 1941 - Japan surprise attack on Pearl Harbor |
- 1945 - U.S. A-bombs Japan |
- 1947 - Marshall Plan |
- 1948 - 1954 - Communism quashed in US |
- 1955 - Blacks boycott buses in Montgomery |
- 1955 - Supreme Court orders school desegregation |
- 1955 - AFL and CIO merge |
- 1961 - Peace Corps |
- 1960-65 - Civil Rights movement |
- 1963 - Kennedy assassinated |
- 1965-70 - Demonstrations against Vietnam War |
- 1966-69 - Hippie movement |
- 1973 - War Powers Act |
- 1973-74 - Nixon resigns over Watergate |
- 1970s - Sixties energy wins specific battles: feminism, ecology... |
- 1978 - Jerry Falwell founds the Moral Majority |
- 1983 - Reagan proposes Star Wars and increases military funding |
- 1980s - "War on Drugs" jails 1/5 of young black men |
- 1991 - Gulf War is first U.S. reduction of a regional power |
- 1996 - Welfare reform |
- 1997 - Robust economy creates longest prosperity in U.S. history |
- 1999 - Budget goes into surplus |
- 2001 - 9/11 terror attack alerts America |
- 2000s - US nuclear superiority, conventional inadequacy |
- 2008-2009 - Global financial crisis and recession |
- 2009-2010 - Healthcare reform births 'Tea Party' |
| - 1776 - 1783 - Many Native Americans side with British against American colonists |
- 1804 - 1806 - Lewis and Clark expedition encounters Native Americans |
- 1811 - Native Americans defeated in Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana Territory |
- 1814 - Andrew Jackson crushes Creek Resistance in South |
- 1817 - 1818 - First Seminole War |
- 1830 - Indian Removal Act moves eastern Indians west of Mississippi |
- 1835 - Second Seminole War in Florida |
- 1838 - Cherokee "Trail of Tears" |
- 1847 - Mormons and the Indians |
- 1850 - 1870 - Plains Indians cede land in exchange for reservations |
- 1854 - Upper half of Indian Territory becomes part of Kansas Territory |
- 1864 - Cheyenne and Arapaho families massacred at Sand Creek, Colorado |
- 1864 - 1868 - Navajo Long Walk |
- 1869 - 1876 - 200 pitched battles between Indians and U.S. Calvary |
- 1874 - 1875 - Red River War |
- 1876 - Sioux and Cheyenne defeat Custer at Little Big Horn, Montanna |
- 1877 - Nez Perce leave Idaho for Canada |
- 1878 - 1879 - Northern Cheyenne escape Indian Territory |
- 1886 - Geronimo (Apache) surrenders after 15 years |
- 1887 - Dawes Severality Act creates allotment system |
- 1889 - Ghost Dance |
- 1890 - Massacre at Wounded Knee, SD |
- 1892 - Cherokee Outlet in Indian Territory opened to settlement |
- 1901 - Five Civilized Tribes granted U.S. citizenship |
- 1907 - Indian Territory becomes eastern half of Oklahoma |
- 1924 - Citizenship Act makes Indians citizens without impairing status as tribal members |
- 1933 - Bureau of Indian Affairs reformed; sales of Indian lands halted |
- 1942 - 1945 - Navaho Windtalkers |
- 1954 - 1962 - Congress terminates more than 60 tribes as political units |
- 1964 - Civil Rights Act restores tribal law to reservations |
- 1973 - Members of AIM seize trading post at Wounded Knee, S. Dak. |
- 1978 - American Indian Religious Freedom Act makes native religious practices legal |
- 1988 - Indian Gaming Regulatory Act allows gambling on reservations |
- 1990s - American Indians attempt to collect trust fund revenues |
- 2004 - National Museum of the American Indian established on mall in Washington DC |
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- 1783 - William Pitt II becomes English Prime Minister at 24 |
- 1789 - French Revolution begins |
- 1793 - French King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette executed |
- 1795 - French Directory |
- 1799 - Napoleon becomes Consul |
- 1804 - Napoleon becomes Emperor |
- 1805 - Nelson wins at Trafalgar |
- 1808 - Napoleon occupys Spain |
- 1810 - Separatists movements in Latin America |
- 1812 - Napoleon defeated in Russia |
- 1815 - French Monarchy re-established |
- 1810 - 1824 - Revolutions in Latin America lead to independent nations |
- 1821 - Mexican Independence |
- 1828 - Greeks win War of Independence from Ottoman Empire |
- 1833 - Santa Anna elected President of Mexico |
- 1834 - Slavery abolished in British Empire |
- 1840- Upper and lower Canada united |
- 1848 - February Revolution by French workers makes Louis Napoleon III President of 2nd Republic |
-1853 - 1856 - Crimean War between Turkey, France & Britain against Russia |
- 1861 - Unification of Italy |
-1863 - French troops occupy Mexico City Maximilian of Austria proclaimed Emperor of Mexico |
- 1867 - Dominion of Canada formed |
- 1870 - 1871 - Franco-Prussian War unifies Germany |
- 1871 - Trade Unions legalized in Britain |
- 1875 - Charles Stewart Parnell begins movement for Irish independence |
- 1884 - 1885 - 15 European nations partition Africa for "spheres of influence" |
- 1893 - France adds Laos to "protectorate" of Indochina |
- 1894 - Dreyfus case splits France |
- 1898 - 1902 - Cuba occupied by U.S. and released |
- 1904-05 - Russia and Japan at war |
- 1905 - mini-revolution in Russia |
- 1910 - British Empire covers 1/5th of world land area |
- August 3, 1914 - World War One begins: Germany invades Belgium |
- 1917 - Russian revolutions: communist U.S.S.R. formed |
- 1919 - Versailles Peace Treaty |
- 1919 - League of Nations |
- 1923 - Italy becomes first fascist state |
- 1927 - Civil war in China |
- 1930 - Worldwide depression begins |
- 1934 - Adolf Hitler becomes Fueher of Germany |
- 1936-39 - Spanish Civil War |
- September 1, 1939 - World War Two begins: Germany invades Poland |
- 1944 - Normandy landings |
- 1945 - United Nations formed |
- 1947 - British India becomes Pakistan & India |
- 1948 - Israel created |
- 1948 - NATO formed; Cold War begins |
- 1947 - 1977 British & French Empires fracture into new 3rd world nations |
- 1947 - 1990 - U.S. contains spread of communism |
- 1962 - Cuban missile crisis |
- 1964 - Gulf of Tonkin Incident |
- 1967 - Israeli 6-day war |
- 1968 - May Days mini-revolution |
- 1970 - U.S. invades Cambodia |
- 1975 - South Vietnam surrenders to North Vietnam |
- 1979 - Revolution in Iran; Americans held hostage |
- 1980 - Solidarity in Poland |
- 1979 - 1988 - Soviets lose war in Afganistan |
- 1985 - 1989 - Gorbachev unravels Soviet system |
- 1989 - 1991- U.S.S.R dissolves into republics; Cold War over |
- 1990 - 1993 - South Africa accepts racial equality |
- 1992 - NAFTA formed |
- 1992 - 1999 - Yugoslavia breaks up; Serbia contained |
- 2001 - Taliban removed |
- 2003 - Iraq War |
- 2000s - China emerges as economic giant |
- 2011 - Web social networking facilitates revolution |
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- 1784 - Ben Franklin invents bifocal eyeglasses |
- 1786 - First ice cream made commercially in NYC |
- 1793- Eli Whitney invents cotton gin; revives dying slave economy of South |
- 1800 - Volta invents electric battery |
- 1803 - Dalton devises table of elements |
- 1807 - Sir Humphry Davy discovers the elements potassium and sodium |
- 1811 - First steamboat to sail down Mississippi reaches New Orleans |
- 1817 - Construction begins on Erie Canal in New York |
- 1821 - Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic rotation |
- 1827 - Audubon publishes Birds of America |
- 1832 - Samuel F.B. Morse designs improved electromagnetic telegraph |
- 1839 - Daguerre invents first form of photography |
- 1847 - Sir James Simpson uses chloroform for childbirth |
- 1851 - Singer patents sewing machine |
- 1854 - Smith & Wesson invent revolver |
- 1859 - Charles Darwin Origin of Species |
- 1862 - Foucault measures speed of light |
- 1867 - Alfred Nobel patents dynamite |
- 1869 - Union Pacific meets Central Pacific |
- 1869 - Suez Canal opens |
- 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone |
- 1879 - Thomas Edison invents incandescent light |
- 1883 - Maxim invents machine gun |
- 1885 - Louis Pasteur administers successful rabies vaccination |
- 1888 - Eastman's Kodak camera begins amateur photography |
- 1895 - Wilhelm Rontgen discovers x-rays |
- 1899 - Sigmund Freud Interpretation of Dreams |
- 1903 - Wright Bros. first airplane |
- 1905- Albert Einstein proposes Special Theory of Relativity |
- 1908 - GE patents electric toaster |
- 1911 - Robert A Millikan measures electron's charge |
- 1916- Albert Einstein proposes General Theory of Relativity |
- 1918 - Shapley determines sun is part of Milky Way galaxy |
- 1924 - Schrodinger proposes wave mechanics |
- 1928 - Heisenberg's uncertainty principle |
- 1931 - Lawrence invents cyclotron |
- 1934 - Fermi creates plutonium |
- 1937 - Dow Chemical develops plastics |
- 1940 - Radar wins Battle of Britian |
- 1941 - 1945 - Bletchley Park computers sabotage German Enigma |
- 1948 - Bell Labs invent transistor |
- 1949 - Kurchatov develops first Soviet A-bomb |
- 1951 - Teller tests H-bomb |
- 1953 - Watson & Crick DNA=double helix |
- 1954 - U.S. Nautilus first nuclear submarine |
- 1957 - Soviets launch Sputnik, first artificial satellite |
- 1960 - Maiman makes first laser |
-1961- First ICBM |
- 1961 - 1969 - Kennedy launches Apollo project; man lands on the moon |
- 1970 - EPA established to enforce Clean Air Act |
- 1971 - Soviet Salyut 1 space station |
- 1972- DDT is banned |
- 1973- Endangered Species Act |
- 1976- Viking 1 & 2 land on Mars |
- 1978- personal computer |
- 1980s- CD, VCR, & cable become common |
- 1987- Ozone "hole" found over Antartica |
- 1991- Japan is world's largest automaker |
- 1993- Internet expands with World Wide Web |
- 1997- NASA spacecraft lands on Mars |
- 1998- International Space Station begins construction |
- 2000s - Animals cloned |
- 2000s - Increasing development of solar energy sources |
- 2010 - CERN scientists trap anti-matter |
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- 1788 - The Federalist published |
- 1789 - Wm. Blake publishes Songs of Innocence |
- 1791 - Tom Paine The Rights of Man |
- 1793 - J.-L. David paints The Dead Marat |
- 1798 - Haydn composes The Creation |
- 1800 - Library of Congress founded |
- 1806 - Noah Webster publishes Compendious Dictionary of the English Language |
- 1808 - Beethoven composes Fifth Symphony |
- 1811 - Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility |
- 1818 - John Keats Endymion |
- 1820 - Percy Bysshe Shelly Prometheus Unbound |
- 1825 - Thomas Cole establishes Hudson River school of landscape painting |
- 1829 - Delacroix paints Death of Sardanapalus |
- 1831 - Victor Hugo Hunchback of Notre Dame |
- 1837 - Charles Dickens Oliver Twist |
- 1840 - Edgar Allen Poe: Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque |
- 1844 - Alexander Dumas The Three Muskateers |
- 1848 - Karl Marx and Friedrick Engels publish Communist Manifesto |
- 1850 - Nathanial Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter |
- 1851 - Melville Moby Dick |
- 1854 - Thoreau Walden |
- 1855 - Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass |
- 1863 - Edouard Manet paints Luncheon on the Grass |
- 1865 - Leo Tolstoy War and Peace |
- 1866- Fyodor Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment |
- 1872 - Lewis Carroll Through the Looking Glass |
- 1874 - First impressionist exhibit in Paris |
- 1876 - Richard Wagner Ring of the Nibelung |
- 1878 - Gilbert and Sullivan H.M.S Pinafore |
- 1883 - Fredrich Nietzche Thus Spake Zarathustra |
- 1889 - First U.S. film: Fred Ott's Sneeze |
- 1895 - H.G. Wells The Time Machine |
- 1896 - Anton Chekhov The Seagull |
- 1904 - Jack London The Sea Wolf |
- 1905 - Matisse begins Fauves with Woman With a Hat |
- 1907 - Picasso begins cubism with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon |
- 1909 - Ezra Pound Personae |
- 1915 - D.W. Griffith directs Birth of a Nation |
- 1913 - Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring |
- 1916 - T. Tzara DADA |
- 1922 - James Joyce Ulysses |
- 1922 - T.S. Eliot The Waste Land |
- 1923 - Arnold Schonberg atonal Piano Suite |
- 1925 - S. Eisenstein Potemkin |
- 1924 - 1940 - Int'l School of surrealisn |
- 1932 - William Faulkner Light in August |
- 1935 - Hitchcock The 39 Steps |
- 1940 - Ernest Hemingway For Whom the Bell Tolls |
- 1943 - Jean-Paul Sartre Being and Nothingness |
- 1945 - Jazz (Bebop) Charlie Parker |
- 1945 - Roberto Rosselini's neorealist Open City |
- 1949 - Abstract-Expressionism breaks out in NYC |
- 1954 - Television thrives; radio switches to music |
- 1957 - Jack Kerouac On the Road |
- 1959 - Jean-Luc Godard's New Wave Breathless |
- 1962 - Pop Art |
- 1965 - Bob Dylan Like a Rolling Stone |
- 1967 - The Beatles Sgt. Pepper |
- 1968 - Kubrick 2001 |
- 1973 - Billy Friedkin The Exorcist |
- 1973 - Solzhenitsyn Gulag Archipelago |
- 1974 - Reiner Werner Fassbinder Ali-- Fear Eats the Soul |
- 1977 - George Lucas Star Wars |
- 1978-84 - Punk Rock |
- 1980s - Hollywood remakes B-movies and comix |
- 1989-92 - World cable markets deregulated; Hollywood gains world film market |
- 1984-? - Rap music |
- 1993 - Steven Spielberg Schindler's List |
- 1990s - Book retail chains abound |
- 2003 - Mathew Barney finishes The Cremaster Cycle |
- 2000s - Internet and cellphones revolutionize communication |
- 2010 - David Fincher The Social Network |