Mr. Walker is preparing this timeline of the history covered in fifth grade, from pre-Columbian times up to 1850. It is an ongoing project and will updated from time to time. At the end, you will also find a smaller, more-detailed timeline of the American Revolution.
40,000 - 11,000 B.C - Paleo-Indians cross from Siberia to Alaska and begin to move into North America
14,000 - 11,000 B.C. - Paleo-Indians use stone points attached to spears to hunt mammoths i northern parts of North America
11,000 B.C. - Mammoths disappear and Paleo-Indians begin to gather plants for food
8000 - 1000 B.C. - North American Indians begin using stone to grind food and hunt bison and smaller animals
1000 - B.C. - 500 A.D. - Woodland Indians, who lived east of the Mississippi River, bury people who have died under large burial mounds
c. 500 - Anasazi peoples in the Southwestern United States live in homes on cliffs
c. 700 - Mississippian Indian people in Southeastern United States develop farms and build burial mounds
700 - 1492 - Many different Indian cultures develop and flourish throughout North America
c. 1000 - Leif Ericcson lands in Newfoundland, which he names Vinland
1347 - Black Death begins in Europe
1492 - Christopher Columbus sails west from Spain in first of four voyages to the New World
1494 - Treaty of Tordesillas divides New World between Spain and Portugal
1497 - John Cabot establishes first English claim in North America
1502 - First African slaves arrive in Spanish colonies in the Americas
1513 - Juan Ponce de Léon explores Florida coast
1517 - Martin Luther begins Protestant Reformation
1521 - Hernando Cortés captures Tenochtitlán and conquers Aztecs in Mexico
1522 - Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completes voyage around world
1524 - Giovanni da Verrazano leads French expedition along coast from Carolinas north to Nova Scotia, and enters New York harbor
1533 - Francisco Pizarro captures Cuzco and conquers Incas in Peru
1539 - Hernando de Soto lands in Florida; reaches Mississippi River in 1541
1540 - Francisco Vásquez de Coronado explores southwest north of Rio Grande; Hernando de Alarcón reaches Colorado River; García López de Cárdenas reaches Grand Canyon
1558 - Elizabeth I becomes queen of England
1565 - Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founds St. Augustine in Florida, the first permanent European settlement in North America
1579 - Sir Francis Drake enters San Francisco Bay and claims region for England
1585 - First English colony, sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh, founded on Roanoke Island; colony fails
1587 - Second Roanoke colony founded; settlers discovered to be missing in 1590
1598 - Juan de Oñate establishes colony in what is now New Mexico
1603 - James I becomes king of England
1607 - John Smith and other English settlers funded by the London Company found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America
1608 - Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec
1609 - Henry Hudson sails into New York harbor and up Hudson River to Albany; Spanish colonists found Santa Fe; Pilgrims move to Holland from England
1612 - Tobacco production starts in Virginia
1619 - First Africans arrive in Virginia; House of Burgesses, the first representative assembly in America, meets for the first time
1620 - Pilgrims found Plymouth Colony, signing the Mayflower Compact, an agreement that forms the basis of the colony's government
1622 - Great Massacre of 1622 at Jamestown
1624 - Dutch establish New Netherlands
1626 - Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan and names it New Amsterdam
1629 - New Hampshire and Maine established
1630 - Puritans led by John Winthrop establish Massachusetts Bay colony at Boston; William Bradford, governor of Plymouth colony, begins writing History of Plymouth Plantation (1620-1647)
1634 - Maryland founded as Catholic colony under charter given to Lord Baltimore
1635 - Roger Williams founds settlement in Rhode Island, Providence; Boston Latin School, oldest public school in America, established
1636 - Connecticut colony founded; Harvard College founded
1637 - Anne Hutchinson expelled from Massachusetts Bay colony; Pequot War fought
1638 - Swedes and Finns establish New Sweden on the Delaware River
1640 - First book, Bay Psalm Book, printed in America
1647 - First law in America for free compulsory basic education passed in Massachusetts
1648 - End of English Civil War (1642-1648)
1649 - Charles I executed
1660 - English Restoration - Charles II becomes king; first Navigation Act passed, regulating colonial trade to suit English needs
1663 - Carolina colony chartered; second Navigation Act passed
1664 - English capture New Netherlands and rename it New York; New Jersey chartered
1673 - Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet travel down Mississippi River; Third Navigation Act passed
1676 - End of King Philip's War in New England
1676 - Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia
1681 - William Penn receives charter for Pennsylvania
1682 - Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, claims lower Mississippi River area for France and names it Louisiana
1683 - First German colonists, Mennonites, settle near Philadelphia
1685 - James II becomes king
1692 - Salem witch trials in Massachusetts
1699 - French settlements in Mississippi and Louisiana founded
1702 -
1732 - Georgia chartered; Benjamin Franklin begins publishing Poor Richard's Almanack
1754 - French and Indian War (1754-1763):
1770 - Boston Massacre: English troops fire on a group of colonists protesting English taxes
1773 - Boston Tea Party: English tea is thrown into the harbor to protest a tax on tea
1774 - First Continental Congress
1775 - Fighting at Lexington and Concord mark the beginning of the Revolutionary War
1776 - Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence
1777 - Continental Congress approves the first official flag of the United States; Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation, the first U.S. constitution
1781 - British General Cornwallis surrenders to the Americans at Yorktown, ending the fighting of the Revolutionary War
1783 - Great Britain formally acknowledges American independence in the Treaty of Paris
1786 - Shays' Rebellion: Farmers from New Hampshire to South Carolina take up arms to protest high state taxes and stiff penalties for failure to pay
1787 - Constitutional Convention meets to draft the U.S. Constitution
1789 - George Washington is unanimously elected president of the United States; Constitution is ratified and goes into effect; Congress meets for the first time at Federal Hall in New York City
1790 - Supreme Court meets for the first time at the Merchants Exchange Building in New York City
1791 - Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, are ratified
1793 - George Washington begins second term as president; Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, which greatly increases the demand for slave labor
1797 - John Adams is inaugurated as the second president
1800 - U.S. capital is moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
1801 - Thomas Jefferson is inaugurated as the third president
1803 - Jefferson arranges the Louisiana Purchase, which nearly doubles the size of the United States
1804 - Lewis and Clark set out from St. Louis to explore the west and find a route to the Pacific Ocean
1805 - Jefferson's second inauguration
1809 - James Madison is inaugurated as the fourth president
1812 - War of 1812 (1812-1814) with Great Britain: British forces capture Washington, D.C. and burn the Capitol and White House; Francis Scott Key writes the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner"
1813 - Madison's second inauguration
1817 - James Monroe is inaugurated as the fifth president
1819 - Spain agrees to give Florida to the United States
1820 - Missouri Compromise bans slavery west of the Mississippi River and north of 36˚ 30', except in Missouri, while Maine is admitted as a free state
1821 - Monroe's second inauguration
1823 - Monroe Doctrine warns European countries not to interfere in the Americas, including no further colonization
1825 - John Quincy Adams is inaugurated as the sixth president; Erie Canal, linking the Hudson River to Lake Erie, opens for traffic, connecting New York City with the Great Lakes
1828 - Construction is begun on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the first public railroad in the U.S.
1829 - Andrew Jackson is inaugurated as the seventh president
1830 - Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, which authorizes the forced removal of Native Americans living in the eastern part of the country to lands west of the Mississippi River
1831 - The Liberator, a newspaper opposing slavery, is published in Boston
1836 - Texans fighting for independence from Mexico are defeated at the Alamo
1838 - Cherokee Indians are forced to move to Oklahoma, along "The Trail of Tears"
1844 - The first telegraph line connects Washington, D.C. and Baltimore
1846 - Mexican War (1846-1848): Mexico is defeated and the U.S. takes control of the Republic of Texas and Mexican territories in the west
1848 - The discovery of gold in California leads to a "rush" of 80,000 people to the West in search of gold
Timeline of the American Revolution
o 1754 Albany Plan of Union
o 1763 Proclamation of 1763
o 1764 Sugar Act
o 1764 Currency Act
o 1765 Stamp Act
o 1765 Quartering Act
o 1765 Virginia Resolutions
o 1765 Sons of Liberty formed
o 1765 Stamp Act Congress
o 1766 Declaratory Act
o 1767 Townshend Acts
o 1770 Boston Massacre
o 1773 Tea Act
o 1773 Boston Tea Party
o 1774 The Intolerable Acts (Coercive Acts)
o 1774 Quebec Act
o 1774 First Continental Congress
o 1774 Galloway Plan of Union
o 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord
o 1775 Second Continental Congress
o 1775 Battle of Breed’s Hill (Bunker Hill)
o 1776 Common Sense
o 1776 Declaration of Independence
o 1777 Battle of Saratoga
o 1778 Wyoming Valley Massacre
o 1781 Surrender at Yorktown
o 1783 Treaty of Paris
