AMERICAN CIVILIZATION, 1587-1862
1587-1590 Raleigh's Roanoke Colony established, fails
1603 Elizabeth I dies;
James I to English throne
1607 Jamestown Colony founded
1609 William Bradford migrates to Leyden, Holland, with the group of Scrooby, England, Separatists
1619 First African slaves brought to Jamestown
1620 Plymouth Colony founded
1624 Dutch settlers establish colony on Manhattan Island
1625 Charles I crowned
1630 Massachusetts Bay Colony founded
1630-1647 William Bradford writes History Of Plimouth Plantation
1636 Connecticut colony founded
1637 Pequot War;
Anne Hutchinson expelled from Massachusetts
1640 The Bay Psalm Book published in first of many editions
1642-1646 English Civil War
1649 Charles I executed;
Cromwell and Roundheads to power
1650 Anne Bradstreet's The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up In America published in England
1660 Charles II restored to English throne
1662 Michael Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom published
1664 English conquer New Netherland, declare New York colony;
New Jersey chartered
1675-1676 King Philip's (Metacomet's) War;
Mary Rowlandson taken captive and ransomed
1678 Anne Bradstreet's Several Poems posthumously published
1681 Pennsylvania chartered
1682 Mary Rowlandson's Sovereignty and Goodness of God published
1692 Witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts
1708 Ebeneezer Cooke's The Sot-Weed Factor
1711-1715 Tuscorora and Yemasee Wars in North and South Carolina
1732 Georgia chartered
1730s + The Great Awakening;
German immigration to Pennsylvania
1739-1748 King George's War
1754-1760 French & Indian Wars
1757 Benjamin Franklin's The Way to Wealth
1760 George III crowned
1765 Stamp Act Controversy;
Sons of Liberty formed
1770 Boston Massacre
1771 Franklin writes first part of his Autobiography
1773 Boston Tea Party
1775 Battles at Lexington and Concord, April 19th
1776 Declaration of Independence;
Thomas Paine's Common Sense
1781 Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown;
Articles of Confederation
1783 Treaty of Paris;
Michel Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer
1786-1787 Shays' Rebellion
1788 Constitution ratified
1789 Washington inaugurated
1790 Official Census fixes U.S. population at 3.9 million;
Benjamin Franklin dies at age 84
1796 John Adams elected President
1798 Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland published
1800 Thomas Jefferson elected President;
U.S. population at 5.4 million
1803 Jefferson signs Louisiana Purchase agreements
1804-1806 Lewis & Clark Expedition to Astoria, Oregon
1808 James Madison elected President
1812-1815 War of 1812
1816 James Monroe elected President;
2nd Bank of U.S.
1819-1823 Financial crisis and depression
1820 Missouri Compromise;
U.S. population at 9.6 million;
Washington Irving's The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. published
1824 Monroe's "Indian Removal" plan;
John Quincy Adams elected President
1825 Erie Canal completed
1826 Temperance Society founded
1827 James Fenimore Cooper's The Prairie published
1828 Andrew Jackson elected President
1830 Baltimore & Ohio RR begins service
1836 Martin Van Buren elected President;
Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature published
1837 Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales published
1837-1843 Financial panic and depression
1840 Benjamin Harrison elected President;
U.S. population at 17 million;
Edgar Allen Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque published
1841 Brook Farm community established
1844 James K. Polk elected President
1845 Thoreau moves to Walden Pond, July 4th;
Frederick Douglass publishes his autobiographical Narrative
1846 Mexican War
1847 Ralph Waldo Emerson's Essays, First and Second Series, published
1848 Abortive revolution in Germany;
Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York;
Zachary Taylor elected President
1849 California Gold Rush and Statehood;
Poe dies at age 40
1850 Compromise of 1850 saves Union;
Fugitive Slave Act;
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter published
1851 Herman Melville's Moby Dick, or The Whale published
1852 Franklin Pierce elected President;
Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin published
1854 Republican Party formed, absorbing most former "Know Nothing" and Free-Soil party members;
Kansas-Nebraska Act;
Thoreau's Walden published
1855 Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass published on July 4th
1856 James Buchanon elected President
1857 Dred Scott case
1859 John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia
1860 Lincoln elected President;
U.S population at 31.4 million
1860-1861 Secession and Civil War
1844 Second defeat of Northern forces at Bull Run, in August;
The Union in crisis, dangerously close to defeat
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