Founding Influences Timeline

  • Jan 1, 1066

    England's Common Law

    England's Common Law
    The essence of England's common law
    judges sat around applying legal precedent and facts. The decision of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the highest civil appeal court and is binding on every other court,
  • Jun 15, 1215

    Magna Carta

    Magna Carta
    The Magna Carta was latin for "the Great Charter of the LIberties". This document protected nobles` privileges, it also granted rights to landowners that soon was applied to all English people.
  • Jun 15, 1215

    The English Parliament

    The English Parliament
    The English Parliament was a lawmaking body. The Parliament was stronger than the English monarch.
  • Virginia House of Burgesses

    Virginia House of Burgesses
    The Virginia House of Burgesses was the first democratically elected legislative body in the British American colonies.
  • Mayflower Compact

    Mayflower Compact
    The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of the Plymouth colony. It was written by Saints/Pilgrims and It was an agreement among a group of people.
  • Fundamental Orders of Connecticut

    Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
    The fundamental orders of Connecticut was the first written constitution and it was the structure for powers
  • Enlightenment

    Enlightenment
    The Enlightenment The enlightenment was the Age of Reasoning. Its also the cultural and intellectual forces in Western Europe that emphasized reason, analysis, and individualism rather than traditional lines of authority
  • Thomas Hobbes

    Thomas Hobbes
    Thomas Hobbes wrote the Leviathan in 1651. He also talks about the social contract theory. He also argue for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature ("the war of all against all") could only be avoided by strong undivided government.
  • Glorious Revolution

    Glorious Revolution
    The glorious revolution was the overthrow of King James II of England, VII of Scotland and II of Ireland by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III
  • John Locke

    John Locke
    John Locke made the two treaties of government and wrote the social contract. The First Treatie attacked patriarchalism in the form of sentence-by-sentence, while the Second Treatise outlined Locke's ideas for a more civilized society based on natural rights and contract theory.
  • English Bill of Rights

    English Bill of Rights
    The English Bill of Rights is an act of the Parliament that creates separation of powers, limits the powers of the king and queen, enhances the democratic election and gives people freedom of speech.
  • Voltaire

    Voltaire
    Voltaire was an outspoken supporter of social reform (including the defence of civil liberties, freedom of religion and free trade), despite the strict censorship laws and harsh penalties of his period, and made use of his satirical works to criticize Catholic dogma and the French institutions
  • Montesquieu

    Montesquieu
    Montesquieu wrote and made the seperation of powers, checks, and balances.
  • Rousseau

    Rousseau
    Rousseau wrote the discourse of inequality and in the book he talk about conception of a human state of nature. human perfectibility, an early idea of progress. He explains that people may have established civil society, which leads him to present private property as the original source and basis of all inequality.