APUSH Anchor Dates

1607

Founding of Jamestown colony

1619

Enslaved peoples first sold at Jamestown

1676

Metacom’s Uprising (also called King Phillip’s War by colonists)

1680

Pueblo Uprising

1730s to 1740s

First Great Awakening

1754 to 1763

Seven Years’ War (also called “French and Indian War” in North America)

1776

Declaration of Independence issued to King George III

1787

Constitution drafted

1789

Constitution ratified; Bill of Rights introduced (ratified in 1791)

1793

Development of cotton gin leads to renewed efforts to expand enslavement

1803

Jefferson administration completes Louisiana Purchase with Napoleon in France

1808

Prohibition on the forced importation of enslaved peoples to the United States

1820

Missouri Compromise

1823

Monroe Doctrine

1831

Uprising led by Nat Turner in Virginia

1848

Seneca Falls Convention

1854

Kansas Nebraska Act

1859

John Brown raids Harper’s Ferry, Virginia

1860

Abraham Lincoln elected as first president from the Republican Party

1861 to 1865

Civil War

1862

Homestead Act

1863

President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation

1869

Completion of the transcontinental railroad

1877

Hayes-Tilden Affair ends Reconstruction

1882

Congress issues the Chinese Exclusion Act

1894

Pullman railroad workers’ strike

1896

SCOTUS decision Plessy v Ferguson allows for racial segregation

1898

Spanish-American War; the United States annexes Hawai’i

1909

Founding of the NAACP by activists including Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. DuBois

1917

The United States enters WWI (1914 to 1918)

1920

Ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution

1929

Start of the Great Depression with the stock market crash

1933

President Franklin issues a bank holiday in response to the depression

1941

The United States enters WWII (1931 to 1945) after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor

1945

President Truman orders atomic bombs to be used against Japan

1950 to 1953

Korean War

1954

SCOTUS decision Brown v Board overturns Plessy decision

1962

Cuban Missile Crisis; Silent Spring published by Rachel Carson

1964

Congress issues the Civil Rights Act of 1964

1965

Congress issues the Voting Rights Act of 1965

1965 to 1973

The United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War

1969

Stonewall Uprising in New York City

1974

President Nixon resigns from office

1979

Iranian hostage crisis

1980

President Reagan elected; rise of conservatism

1991

The fall of the Soviet Union; First Gulf War

1994

President Clinton signs NAFTA

2001

Terrorist attacks carried out by Al Qaeda on September 11

2008

Barack Obama elected as the first Black president

2009

End of the Great Recession