Important Documents

  • Jun 15, 1215

    Magna Carta

    Magna Carta
    Magna Carta (Latin for "the Great Charter"), also called Magna Carta Libertatum (Latin for "the Great Charter of the Liberties"), is a charter agreed by King John of England limiting royal power.
  • Jamestown

    Jamestown
    The Jamestown settlement was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.
  • Mayflower Compact

    Mayflower Compact
    The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by separatist Congregationalists who called themselves "Saints". Later they were referred to as Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers. They were fleeing from religious persecution by King James of England.
  • Petiton of Right

    Petiton of Right
    The Petition of Right is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing.
  • English Bill of RIghts

    English Bill of RIghts
    The English Bill of RIghts creates separation of powers, limits the powers of the king and queen, enhances the democratic election and bolsters freedom of speech. December 16, 1689
  • Albany Plan of Union

    Albany Plan  of Union
    The Albany Plan of Union was a proposal to create a unified government for the Thirteen Colonies, suggested by Benjamin Franklin at the Albany Congress.
  • Stamp Act

    Stamp Act
    An act of the British Parliament in 1756 that exacted revenue from the American colonies by imposing a stamp duty on newspapers and legal and commercial documents.
  • Boston Massacre

    Boston Massacre
    The Boston Massacre was a street fight that occurred between a "patriot" mob, throwing snowballs, stones, and sticks, and a squad of British soldiers and several colonists were killed.
  • Boston tea party

    Boston tea party
    The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston where they dumped crates of tea into the harbor.
  • Intolerable Acts

    Intolerable Acts
    The Intolerable Acts was the American Patriots' name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea party. They were meant to punish the Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in throwing a large tea shipment into Boston harbor.
  • First Continental Congress

    First Continental Congress
    The First Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies that met on September 5 to October 26, 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution.
  • Second Continental Congress

    Second Continental Congress
    The Second Continental Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary. October 26, 1774
  • American Revelution begins

    American Revelution begins
    Revolutionists and Red Coats exchanged gunfire at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Described as "the shot heard round the world," it signaled the start of the American Revolution.
    pril 19, 1775.
  • Declaration of Independence

    Declaration of Independence
    The Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Continental Congress meeting at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer a part of the British Empire
  • Articles of Confederation

    Articles of Confederation
    This document served as the United States' first constitution, and was in force from March 1, 1781, until 1789 when the present day Constitution went into effect
  • Shay's Rebellion

    Shay's Rebellion
    Shays' Rebellion is the name given to a series of protests in 1786 and 1787 by American farmers against state and local enforcement of tax collections and judgments for debt.
    August 29, 1786
  • Philadelphia Convention

    Philadelphia Convention
    In September 1786, at the Annapolis Convention, delegates from five states called for a constitutional convention in order to discuss possible improvements to the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional convention took place in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787.
  • Constitution COnvention

    Constitution COnvention
    Was held to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain.
  • Connecticut Compromise

    Connecticut Compromise
    Was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have