United States History and Timeline Overview
- 1000 – The Mississippian culture develops along the Mississippi River and the Ohio River. These people are known for building large mounds which can still be seen today.
- 1400s – The United States is inhabited by various historic tribes across the land such as the Apache, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Navajo, and Sioux.
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus discovers the Americas.
- 1513 – Juan Ponce de Leon visits Florida.
- 1540 – Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto explores the Southeast.
- 1565 – St. Augustine is established as the first permanent settlement in the United States.
- 1607 – The Jamestown settlement is founded by John Smith.
- 1620 – The Mayflower lands with the pilgrims at Plymouth.
- 1629 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is founded.
- 1692 – The Salem witch trials take place in Massachusetts.
- 1754 – The French and Indian war begins between Great Britain and France. Both ally with different Native American tribes.
- 1763 – The British win the French and Indian War gaining most of France’s territory in North American.
- 1765 – The British government imposes the Stamp Act on the colonies. The colonies protest with the Stamp Act Congress.
- 1770 – The Boston Massacre occurs.
- 1773 – Bostonians protest the Tea Act with the Boston Tea Party dumping tea into the Boston Harbor.
- 1774 – The First Continental Congress is held. The British government imposes the Intolerable Acts on the colonies.
- 1775 – The Revolutionary War begins with the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The Second Continental Congress is held. The Battle of Bunker Hill occurs.
- 1776 – The American colonies declare their independence as the United States of America.
- 1777 – The Continental Army stays at Valley Forge for the winter.
- 1781 – The British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia. The Articles of the Confederation were ratified by the colonies.
- 1783 – The Revolutionary War officially ends with the Treaty of Paris.
- 1787 – The Constitution is adopted by the Constitutional Convention.
- 1789 – George Washington becomes the first President of the United States.
- 1791 – The Bill of Rights is added to the Constitution as the first ten amendments.
- 1793 – The cotton gin is invented by Eli Whitney.
- 1803 – The size of the United States is nearly doubled with the Louisiana Purchase from France.
- 1804 – Explorers Lewis and Clark set out on their journey to the Pacific Ocean.
- 1812 – The War of 1812 begins against Great Britain.
- 1815 – U.S. troops led by Andrew Jackson defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
- 1823 – The Monroe Doctrine is declared by President James Monroe.
- 1836 – The Battle of the Alamo takes place in Texas.
- 1838 – The Cherokee Nation is forced to march from the Southeast to Oklahoma in what is known as the Trail of Tears.
- 1846 – The Mexican-American War begins.
- 1849 – Prospectors travel to California in the California Gold Rush.
- 1859 – Abolitionist John Brown leads a raid on Harper’s Ferry.
- 1860 – Abraham Lincoln is elected president.
- 1861 – The American Civil War begins.
- 1863 – The Union Army wins the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves in the South.
- 1864 – Union General Sherman makes his famous “march to the sea.”
- 1865 – The American Civil War comes to an end with General Robert E. Lee surrendering at the Appomattox Court House. President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated.
- 1865 – Slavery is outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment.
- 1867 – Alaska is purchased from Russia.
- 1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad is completed.
- 1876 – The telephone is invented by Alexander Graham Bell.
- 1881 – The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.
- 1891 – Basketball is invented by James Naismith.
- 1903 – The airplane is invented by the Wright Brothers. They make their first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
- 1910 – The Boy Scouts of America is founded.
- 1917 – The United States joins World War I on the side of the Allies declaring war on Germany.
- 1918 – President Woodrow Wilson issues his Fourteen Points on World War I.
- 1920 – Women gain the right to vote through the Nineteenth Amendment.
- 1927 – The first trans-Atlantic flight is made by Charles Lindbergh.
- 1929 – Wall Street crashes and the Great Depression begins.
- 1934 – Severe drought in the Midwest causes the Dust Bowl.
- 1935 – The Social Security Act is signed into law.
- 1939 – Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is released as the first full length animated movie.
- 1939 – World War II begins. The U.S. is initially neutral.
- 1941 – The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. The U.S. joins World War II on the side of the Allies.
- 1944 – The U.S. takes part in the Invasion of Normandy.
- 1945 – Germany surrenders and the U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. World War II comes to an end.
- 1950 – The Korean War begins.
- 1955 – Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for not giving up her seat on the bus.
- 1961 – The Bay of Pigs Invasion takes place in Cuba.
- 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis occurs. The Soviet Union ends up removing its missiles from Cuba.
- 1963 – Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his “I have a dream” speech at the March on Washington.
- 1963 – President John F. Kennedy is assassinated.
- 1964 – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed.
- 1967 – The first Super Bowl is held.
- 1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated.
- 1969 – Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to walk on the Moon.
- 1974 – President Richard Nixon resigns over the Watergate Scandal.
- 1986 – The Space Shuttle Challenger explodes shortly after takeoff.
- 1990 – The Gulf War begins as Iraq invades Kuwait.
- 2001 – The 9-11 terrorist attacks occur when hijacked passenger planes crash into the World Trade Center towers and The Pentagon.
- 2003 – The Iraq War begins as the U.S. and other countries invade Iraq.
- 2009 – Barack Obama becomes the first African-American President of the United States.
The Mayflower
Signing the Declaration of
Independence
George Washington Crossing the Delaware
Lewis and Clark
Abraham Lincoln
Rosa Parks
