Key Events in Early American History

1491

Last year of pre-Columbian Native Americans

1607

First permanent English settlement, Jamestown

1660s

Navigation Acts

1676

Bacon's Rebellion

1730s-1740s

Great Awakening

1754-1763

French and Indian War

1775-1783

American Revolution

1776

Declaration of Independence

1787

Constitution written

1799

Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

1790s-1840s

Second Great Awakening

1790s-1860s

Market Revolution

1800

Revolution of 1800

1803

Louisiana Purchase

1819

McCulloch v. Maryland

1828

Election of Andrew Jackson

1832

Nullification Crisis

1848

Seneca Falls Convention

1844

Election of President Polk (Manifest Destiny platform)

1846-1848

Mexican-American War

1850

Compromise of 1850

1854

Kansas-Nebraska Act

1861-1865

Civil War

1865-1877

Reconstruction

1877

Compromise of 1877

13th Amendment

abolition of slavery

14th Amendment

guarantees citizenship to those born in the U.S. and equality for all citizens

15th Amendment

all men can vote

1865-1890’s

Gilded Age

1882

Chinese Exclusion Act

1890

Battle of Wounded Knee

1890

End of the open frontier

1896

Plessy v. Ferguson

1870’s-1920’s

Second Industrial Revolution