A Timeline of United States History

1000 -- Leif Ericson discovers Vinland (New England)

1492 -- October 12. Columbus discovers the New World

1497 -- The Cabots discover the continent of North America

1507 -- New World named after Americus Vespucius.

1513 -- Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean and Ponce de Leon
discovers Florida.

1541 -- De Soto discovers the Mississippi River.

1607 -- May 12. Founding of Jamestown, Virginia.

1609 -- Hudson discovers the Hudson River.

1619 -- First assembly meets at Jamestown.
1619 -- Slaves first sold in Virginia.


1620 -- Coming of the Pilgrims in the Mayflower.
1623 -- Settlements at New Amsterdam. First settlements in New
Hampshire.

1634 -- Maryland first settled by Calvert.
1635 -- Connecticut settled by emigrants from Massachusetts.

1637 -- War with Pequot Indians. First negro slaves in New
England.
1639 -- First constitution in America adopted by Connecticut.

1662 -- Connecticut charter granted.
1663 -- Charter granted to Rhode Island.
1663 -- Charter for the Carolinas granted.

1673 -- Marquette explores the Mississippi.
1676 -- Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. King Philip's War in New
England.
1681 -- William Penn receives charter for Pennsylvania.
1682 -- Wiliam Penn founds Philadelphia and makes treaty with
the Indians.


1692 -- Salem witchcraft trials.

1733 -- Georgia settled by Oglethorpe.

1754 -- Colonial Congress at Albany;
1754 -- Benjamin Franklin's plan of union.

1756 -- French and Indian War formally begun.

1763 -- Treaty of Paris ends war.


1765 -- Stamp Act
1765 -- Colonial Congress in New York
1770 -- Boston Massacre
1773 -- Boston Tea Party
1774 -- Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia

1775 -- April 19, Fight at Lexington and Concord.
1775 -- Meeting of Second Continental Congress at Philadelphia
1775 -- June 17, Battle of Bunker Hill

1776 -- July 4, Declaration of Independence
1776 to 1782 -- Revolutionary War


1777 -- June 14, flag of stars and stripes adopted by Congress


1779 -- September 23, naval victory of John Paul Jones

1781 -- Adoption of the Articles of Confederation
1781 -- October 19, surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown

1783 -- September 3, final treaty of peace signed
1783 -- November 25, British army evacuates New York

1786 -- Shays's rebellion in Massachusetts

1787 -- U.S. Constitution

1787 -- May 14. Constitutional Convention meets at Philadelphia
1787 -- Sept 17, Constitution finished and signed by the
delegates.


1789 -- April 30, George Washington inaugurated first President

1797 -- John Adams inaugurated President

1798 -- Alien and sedition laws enacted
1798 -- Navy department established

1799 -- December 14, George Washington dies at Mt. Vernon

1800 -- Capital moved to Washington, D.C.

1801 -- Thomas Jefferson becomes President.

1801 to 1805 -- War with the Barbary States, North Africa

1803 -- Purchase of Louisiana

1805 to 1807 -- Lewis and Clarke expedition

1807 -- Fulton succeeds with the steamboat

1808 -- Prohibition of the foreign slave trade

1811 -- November 7, Battle of Tippecanoe

1812 -- June 18, War declared against England


1818 -- War with the Seminole Indians.

1819 -- Purchase of Florida from Spain
1819 -- First steamship, the Savannah, crosses the Atlantic

1820 -- The Missouri Compromise

1823 -- Monroe Doctrine

1825 -- Erie Canal opens


1828 -- Building of the first passenger railway begun at
Baltimore

1836 -- Wilkes explores Antarctica

1837 -- Patent of the telegraph by Morse

1841 -- Elias Howe invents the sewing machine

1844 -- First telegraph line in America, between Baltimore and
Washington

1846 -- Beginning of the Mexican War

1848 -- Discovery of gold in California

1858 -- First Atlantic cable laid.

1859 -- John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry



1860 -- December 20, Secession of South Carolina

1861 to 1865 -- Civil War

1863 -- Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation

1865 -- April 9. Surrender of Lee at Appomattox
1865 -- 13th Amendment Abolishes Slavery
1865 -- April 14, President Lincoln assassinated

1867 -- Purchase of Alaska

1871 -- Great Fire of Chicago

1876 -- Invention of the telephone

1877 -- General George Custer's army defeated by the Indians

1878 -- Thomas Edison perfects electric light bulb

1881 -- President James Garfield assassinated

1886 -- Statue of Liberty unvieled in New York

1898 -- April 25, Congress declares war against Spain
1898 -- Annexation of Hawaii


1901 -- September 06, President William McKinley assassinated


1903 -- first successful flight by the Wright Brothers
1903 -- first silent movie, "The Great Robbery"
1903 -- first World Series between Boston Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates

1904 -- construction of the Panama Canal begins

1905 -- Albert Einstein develops Theory of Relativity

1906 -- San Francisco earthquake
1906 -- Kellogg's sells first Corn Flakes breakfast cereal

1908 -- Henry Ford introduces first Model T

1909 -- Robert E. Peary becomes the first man to reach the
north pole

1912 -- Massachusetts becomes the first state to adopt a
minimum wage for working class individuals

1914 to 1918 -- World War I

1915 -- May 17, German submarines sink the Lusitania, killing
American passengers.

1917 -- June, U. S. enters World War I

1919 -- Chicago race riot


1920 -- 19th Amendment gives women right to vote
1920 -- League of Nations is established by Woodrow Wilson
1920 -- The first commercial radio broadcast is made. 

1921 -- July 21, A joint resolution to officially end World War
I in the U.S. finally passes.


1927 -- May, Charles Lindbergh becomes the first man to fly
solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1927 -- Babe Ruth hits 60 home runs in a single season

1928 -- Walt Disney makes first Mickey Mouse cartoon
1928 -- August 2, President Warren G. Harding dies 2 and a half
years into his presidential term and is succeeded by Calvin
Coolidge

1929 -- October, Stock Market crash


1930 -- first supermarket opens
1931 -- Empire State Building opens, tallest skyscraper in the
world

1932 -- Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo across
the Atlantic Ocean.

1935 -- Congress passes Social Security act

1938 -- Orson Wells' radio production of H.G. Wells's,
War of the Worlds causes national panic

1939 -- Hollywood releases The Wizard of Oz, one of the first
color films



1941 -- December 7, Japan launches a surprise attack on Pearl
Harbor destroying five battleships, three cruisers, several
smaller vessels, and almost 200 airplanes
1941 -- December 8, United States official declares war on
Japan. 


1941 to 1945 -- World War II

1945 -- June 26, The United Nations becomes established.
1945 -- July 16, In the desert at Alamogordo, New Mexico,
scientists detonated the world's first atomic bomb.
1945 -- August 6, United States drops the 1st atomic bomb on
Hiroshima
1945 -- August 9,United States drops the 2nd atomic bomb on
Nagasaki
1945 -- September 02, Japan surrenders to United States

1947 -- Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to
play baseball for the Major Leagues.

1949 -- The North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) is established

1950 -- June 25, The Korean War begins

1951 -- Color television is introduced in the U.S.

1953 -- An American company develops the first microwave oven

1954 -- Congress adds the words "under God" to the Pledge of
Allegiance and requires "In God We Trust" to appear on all
American currency the next year.

1955 -- Ray Kroc opens the first McDonald's

1956 -- first transatlantic telephone cable begins operation.

1957 -- President Eisenhower sends soldiers to integrate a
Little Rock, Arkansas high school

1958 -- first U.S. satellite to go into orbit, the Explore 1,
is launched.



1960 -- Kennedy and Nixon debate appears as the first
presidential debate on TV

1961 -- President John F. Kennedy establishes the U.S. Peace
Corps

1962 -- U.S. astronaut John Glenn orbits the earth in a spacecraft
1962 -- Cuban Missle crisis

1963 -- November 22, President John F. Kennedy assassinated
in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald

1964 to 1975 -- Vietnam War

1964 -- Congress ratifies the Civil Rights Act 

1968 -- Robert Kennedy Martin Luther King Jr. are assassinated

1969 -- July, The U.S. becomes the first nation to land
astronauts on the moon, with Neil Armstrong being the first
astronaut to step down onto its surface.


1970 -- Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix die of drug overdoses
1970 -- four Kent State students killed in Vietnam Protest

1972 -- Watergate scandal
1972 -- Equal Rights Amendment passed by Congress

1973 -- October 10, Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns
1973 -- The Vietnam War peace pacts were signed in Paris
1973 -- March 29, the last of the American forces leave Vietnam
1973 -- October 12, Gerald Ford becomes the first Vice
President appointed under the 25th Amendment

1974 -- August 9, President Richard Nixon resigns ....Vice
President Gerald Ford sworn in on the same day


1980 -- May 18 Mount St. Helens erupts

1981 -- IBM launches personal computer
1981 -- March 30, President Ronald Reagan shot
1981 -- April 12, space shuttle Columbia sent into space

1983 -- July 18, Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to
travel in space on the space shuttle Challenger
1983 -- U.S. troops invade in the caribbean island of Grenada

1984 -- Geraldine Ferraro becomes the first woman to run for
the vice presidency on a major party ticket.

1986 -- Jan. 28, space shuttle Challenger explodes killing six
astronauts and a New Hampshire teacher on board named Christa McAuliffie

1987 -- world stock market crash occurs

1991 -- Operation Desert Storm
1991 -- Cold War with Soviet Union officially ends

1992 -- World Wide Web for home use
1992 -- NAFTA Trade Pact

1994 -- U.S. troops seize the country of Haiti

1999 -- Congress turns Panama Canal control over to Panama








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