APUSH Timeline
Events
Colonial Period (1492-1763)
Approx. 1492 - 1763
1607 Jamestown colony founded
1607
James 1
1619 First Africans arrive in Virginia
16191620 Plymouth colony founded; House of Burgesses established in Virginia
1620
1630 Massachusetts Bay colony founded
1630
John Winthrop
1635 Roger Williams establishes Rhode Island colony
1635Roger Williams
1637 Anne Hutchinson expelled for Massachusetts Bay colony
1637
Anne Hutchinson
1642-48 English Civil War
Approx. 1642 - 1648
King Charles 1
1662 Halfway Covenant established in New England
16621676 Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia
1676
1688 Glorious Revolution in England; William and Mary succeeded James II
16881692 Witchcraft trials begin in Salem
16921734 Great Awakening begins
1734
1739 Stono rebellion in North Carolina; George Whitfield begins preaching in America
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1754 French and Indian war begins; Albany plan of union
1754
1763 Pontiac's Revolt; Treaty of Paris
1763The American Revolution (1763-1783)
Approx. 1763 - 1783
1763 Proclamation line of 1763
Approx. October 7, 1763
1764 Sugar Act
1764George Grenville
1765 Stamp Act; Sons of Liberty formed
1765
1767 Townshend Duties; Dickinson's ” Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer"
1767John Dickinson
1770 Boston massacre
1770
1773 Tea Act; Boston Tea Party
1773
Samuel Adams
1774 Intolerable Acts; First Continental Congress
17741775 Lexington and Concord; Battle of Bunker Hill
17751776 Common Sense published by Thomas Paine; Declaration of Independence
1776Thomas Paine
1777 British surrender at Saratoga
17771781 Articles of Confederation approved; General Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown
17811783 Treaty of Paris ends war, grants American independence; Newburgh conspiracy of American army officers
1783
King George 3
United States Constitution (1785-1789)
Approx. 1785 - 1789
1785 Land ordinance provides for early development of territories; Spain closes the Mississippi River to American shipping
Approx. May 20, 1785John Jay
1786 Annapolis convention; Virginia adopts Jefferson's “Statue of Religious Freedom” Shays’ rebellion
1786
Thomas Jefferson
Daniel Shay
1787 Northwest Ordinance prohibits slavery in new territories; Constitutional Convention meets in Philadelphia
1787
1788 Federalist Papers published; New Hampshire is ninth state to ratify Constitution, making it the law of the land
1788
Alexander Hamilton
1789 Washington elected and inaugurated as president; French Revolution begins
1789
George Washington
The New Nation (1789-1824)
Approx. 1789 - 1824
1789 Judiciary Act sets up federal court system
Approx. September 24, 17891791 Bill of Rights approved; First Bank of United States chartered
1791
1793 George Washington issues proclamation of neutrality; cotton gin patented by Eli Whitney
1793Eli Whitney
1794 Whiskey Rebellion
17941795 Jay Treaty; Pinckney Treaty; Treaty of Greenville
17951796 Adams defeats Jefferson for presidency
1796
John Adams
1798 XYZ affair; Alien and Sedition Acts; Virginia and Kentucky resolutions
17981800 Jefferson defeats Adams for presidency; Prosser's rebellion
1800
1801 John Marshall becomes Chief Justice; Midnight judges appointed by Adams
1801John Marshall
1803 Marbury vs. Madison decision; Louisiana Purchase
18031804 Lewis and Clark expedition
1804Lewis and Clark
1807 Chesapeake-Leopard incident; Embargo Act; Robert Fulton builds Clermont, first steamboat
18071811 Battle of Tippecanoe
18111812 Congress declares war on Britain
18121814 British burned Washington DC; Treaty of Ghent ends War of 1812; Hartford Convention
18141815 Jackson defeats British at New Orleans
18151819 Panic of 1819; McCollough v. Maryland decision
18191820 Missouri Compromise
18201823 Monroe Doctrine
1823
James Monroe
1824 Gibbons v. Ogden decision promotes interstate trade
1824Jacksonian Democracy and Westward Expansion (1824-1850)
Approx. 1824 - 1850
1825 John Quincy Adams wins Corrupt Bargain presidential election
1825
John Quincy Adams
1828 Tariff of Abominations; Jackson wins presidency
1828
1830 Jackson vetoes Maysville Road extension; Baltimore & Ohio becomes first railroad company; Joseph Smith publishes Book of Mormon
18301831 Cherokee Nation v. Georgia denies Indian claim of nationhood; Nat Turner's Rebellion
1831Nathaniel Turner
1832 Jackson vetoes US bank re-charter; Nullification crisis in South Carolina
1832Andrew Jackson
1836 Texas independence fight; Gag rule prevents discussion of slavery in Congress
18361837 Panic of 1837
18371838 Trail of Tears
18381845 Annexation of Texas
1845
Sam Houston
1846 US declares war on Mexico; Oregon Treaty
1846
1848 Gold discovered in Northern California; Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; Seneca Falls statement of women's rights
1848James W. Marshall
1849 California gold rush
1849
Sectional Conflict and the Causes of the Civil War (1850-1860)
Approx. 1850 - 1860
1850 Compromise 1850; Fugitive Slave Law passed
Approx. January 29, 1850
1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin published
1852Harriet Beecher Stowe
1854 Ostend Manifesto; Kansas-Nebraska Act; Republican Party formed
18541856 “Bleeding Kansas”
1856
1857 Dred Scott decision; Lecompton Constitution in Kansas
1857
Dred Scott
1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates
1858Abe Lincoln
Stephen Douglas
1859 John Brown's Raid
1859John Brown
1860 Lincoln elected president
1860
The Civil War and Reconstruction (1860-1877)
Approx. 1860 - 1877
1860 Crittenden Compromise proposed; South Carolina secedes
Approx. December 18, 18601861 Confederacy formed; firing on Ft. Sumter; First Battle of Bull Run
18611862 Shiloh; Antietam; Homestead Act; Emancipation Proclamation announced
1862
Abe Lincoln
1863 Vicksburg; Gettysburg; New York City draft riots
18631864 Grant takes command of all Union armies; Sherman captures Atlanta
1864Ulysses Grant
1865 Lee surrenders at Appomattox; Lincoln assassinated; 13th Amendment ends slavery; Freedman's Bureau established
1865Robert E Lee
1867 Alaska purchased from Russia; Grange founded
18671868 Pres. Johnson impeached; 14th Amendment passed; Grant elected president
1868
Andrew Johnson
1869 Transcontinental railroad completed; Knights of Labor formed
1869
1873 Slaughterhouse case; Panic of 1873
18731876 Custer defeated by Sioux at Little Big Horn
1876Lieutenant Colonel George Custer
1877 Compromise of 1877; Reconstruction ends
1877
Rutherford B Hayes
Industrialism, War, and the Progressive Era (1877-1912)
Approx. 1877 - 1912
1878 Bland-Allison Act
18781879 Edison invents the light bulb
1879
Thomas Edison
1881 Pres. Garfield assassinated; Helen Hunt Jackson writes A Century of Dishonor
1881James A Garfield
1882 Standard Oil Trust formed; Chinese Exclusion Act
18821883 Pendleton Civil Service Act
18831886 Haymarket Square bombing in Chicago; American Federation of Labor formed
1886
1887 Dawes Act
18871889 Jane Addams founds Hull House in Chicago
1889Jane Addams
1890 Sioux massacred at Wounded Knee; Sherman Antitrust Act; Sherman Silver Purchase Act; US Census declares frontier’s end; Alfred Mahan writes The Influence of Sea Power upon History
18901891 Populist Party formed
18911892 Homestead Steel Strike
18921893 Panic of 1893
18931894 Pullman strike; Coxey’s Army
18941896 Plessy v. Ferguson upholds separate but equal; McKinley defeats Bryan for pres.
1896Homer Plessy and John H Ferguson
1898 U.S.S Maine sinks in Havana Harbor; Spanish-American War, Dewey captures Philippine Islands; Hawaii annexed by U.S.
18981899 Aguinaldo leads Filipinos against Americans; Treaty of Paris ends Spanish-American War; Open Door Policy in China
1899
1900 Boxer Rebellion in China
19001901 Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
1901
Theodore Roosevelt
1902 Platt Amendment; President Roosevelt settles coal strike
19021903 U.S. recognizes Panama’s independence
19031904 Northern Securities Trust dissolved; Roosevelt Corollary declared
19041906 Upton Sinclair writes The Jungle; Pure Food and Drug Act; Hepburn Act; President Roosevelt wins Nobel Peace Prize
19061908 Taft elected president
19081909 NAACP formed
19091911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire; Mexican Revolution erupts
1911Wilson and World War I (1912-1920)
Approx. 1912 - 1920
Woodrow Wilson
1912 Roosevelt forms Progressive Party to Challenge Taft; Wilson elected President
1912Teddy Roosevelt
1912 Wilson elected president
Approx. November 7, 1912
Woodrow Wilson
1913 16th Amendment (income tax) ratified; 17th Amendment (direct senator election) ratified
1913Judge Jay Bybee
1914 Clayton Antitrust Act; Panama Canal opens; WWI begins
19141915 Germany sinks Lusitania
19151917 U.S. declares war on Germany; Espionage Act passed; Russian Revolution;
1917
Emperor Nicholas II
1918 Wilson proposes Fourteen Points; armistice ends war; U.S.
1918
1919 Treaty of Versailles; Red Scare and Palmer raids; Senate rejects U.S. role in League of Nations; 18th Amendment (Prohibition) ratified; Schenck v. United States.
1919Charles T. Schenck
1920 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage) ratified
1920
Susan B. Anthony
The Roaring Twenties and Economic Collapse (1920-1929)
Approx. 1920 - 1929
1920 Sacco and Vanzetti arrested; Harding elected president; First commercial radio broadcast
Approx. November 2, 19201923 Teapot Dome scandal
1923
Albert Bacon Fall
1924 National Origins Act sets 2 percent quotas for immigration
19241925 Scopes Tennessee evolution trial
1925
John Thomas Scopes
1927 Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic; Al Jolson stars in The Jazz Singer, the first talking film
1927Charles Augustus Lindbergh
1928 Hoover elected president; 52 nations sign Kellogg-Brian Pact renouncing war
1928
Herbert Hoover
1929 Stock Market crashes in October
1929
Clarence Hatry
The Great Depression and the New Deal (1929-1941)
Approx. 1929 - 1941
1930 Hawley-Smoot Tariff raises duties on farm products and manufactured goods
19301932 Bonus Expeditionary Force marches on Washington, D.C.; Franklin Roosevelt wins presidency
19321933 Prohibition repealed; Hundred Days of legislation follows FDR’s inauguration; FDIC established by Glass-Steagall Act; Agricultural Adjustment Act passed; National Industrial Recovery Act passed;
1933...Tennessee Valley Authority established; Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrolls 250,000 young men; Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany
Adolf Hitler
1934 Securities and Exchange Commission established; Huey Long begins Share Our Wealth clubs; Dr. Francis Thompson promotes Old Age Revolving Pension Plan; Nye committee probes WWI profit during by...
1934...American industrialists
Huey Long
1935 Schecter v. United States rules NIRA unconstitutional; Works Progress Administration established; National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act protects workers' rights; Social Security Act passed; ...
1935...Congress passes first of annual neutrality acts
1936 FDR defeats Republican Landon and third-party Union party for president; General Motors sit down strike; Germany occupies the Rhineland; Spanish Civil War begins; Ethiopia falls to Italy
1936
Franklin D Roosevelt
1937 FDR proposes court-packing plan, which fails; Japan invades China
19371938 Appeasement at Munich by England's Chamberlain is Germany takes Sudetenland
19381939 Czechoslovakia falls to Germany; Austria votes to be annexed by Germany; Germany invades Poland; Neutrality Act allows cash-and-carry for military purchases; Germany and Soviet Union sign of...
1939... nonaggression pact
Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier
1940 Germany conquers Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France; Congress approves first peacetime draft; US in Great Britain sign destroyers for bases deal; America First Committee...
1940... established, urging US neutrality; Italy, Germany, and Japan form the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis; FDR wins unprecedented third term for president
1941 Lend-Lease Act allows US to financially assist allied nations; FDR and Churchill sign Atlantic Charter, pledging self-determination for all nations; Germany invades Soviet Union; Japan attacked..
1941..Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, killing 2,323 US serviceman; US declares war and Japan on December 8
Admiral Yamamoto
World War II and the Postwar Era (1940-1960)
Approx. 1941 - 1960
1941 Axis powers declare war on the US three days after Pearl Harbor
December 11, 1941
1942 Japan captures Philippine Islands as Bataan and Corregidor fall; War production Board established; US begins interning Japanese American citizens; Germany sinks 400 American ships; Battle of ...
1942...Coral Sea; Battle of Midway; US attacks Vichy forces and Germans in North Africa; Manhattan Project begins
1943 Casablanca Conference; Americans seize Guadalcanal Island; Soviets defeat Germans at Stalingrad; Allies invade Italy; Teheran Conference
19431944 Allies invade France at Normandy (D-Day) June 6; Battle of Leyte Gulf; Roosevelt elected president for fourth term; Island-hopping campaign retakes Guam Island; Battle of the Bulge
1944
1945 Yalta Conference; Hitler commits suicide in Berlin Bunker; V-E Day; Potsdam Conference; Bomb dropped on Hiroshima; Soviets declare war on Japan; Bomb dropped on Nagasaki; V-J Day
1945
Adolf Hitler
1946 Churchill gives “Iron Curtain” speech; George Kennan proposes containment policy
1946Winston Churchill
1947 Truman Doctrine aids nations resisting Communism; Marshals Plan provides economic aid to Europe; House Un-American Activities Committee investigates Hollywood; Jackie Robinson breaks color line..
1947...in baseball; Taft-Hartley Act slows growth of labor unions
Harry S Truman
1948 Soviets block access to West Berlin in Berlin Airlift; Alger Hiss case begins; Truman signs armed forces desegregation order; Israel becomes a nation; Truman defeats Dewey
1948
1949 NATO formed; Soviet Union explodes atomic bomb; Mao leads communist takeover in China
1949Josef Stalin
1950 Korean War begins; U.S. troops invade North Korea; Chinese troops enter the war; Rosenberg spy trial begins; McCarthy begins anti-communist campaign; U.S. begins hydrogen bomb program
1950
1951 Gen. MacArthur relieved of command in Korea; Peace negotiations begin in Panmunjon, Korea
19511952 Eisenhower elected president
1952
1953 Korean War ends with truce and demilitarized zone
19531954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education; Army-McCarthy hearings; French surrender at Dienbienphu in Vietnam; Sen. McCarthy censured by Senate
19541955 Martin Luther King, Jr. begins Montgomery Bus Boycott
1955
Martin Luther King
1956 Suez Crisis; Soviets crush Hungarian Revolt
19561957 Soviets launch Sputnik; Eisenhower Doctrine commits economic aid to Middle East; Little Rock school desegregation crisis
19571959 Castro takes over in Cuba; Soviet Premier Khrushchev visits U.S.
1959
Fidel Castro
The New Frontier, Vietnam, and Social Upheaval (1960-1972)
Approx. 1960 - 1972
1960 Kennedy and Nixon participate in first televised presidential debates; Greensboro sit-in protests; Kennedy defeats Nixon
September 26, 1960John F Kennedy
Richard Nixon
1961 Bay of Pigs invasion fails; Freedom rides; Berlin Wall built;
1961
1962 Cuban Missile Crisis; Students for a Democratic Society formed
19621963 Rev. King begins Birmingham desegregation efforts; University of Alabama admits first black student; Civil Rights March on Washington; Premier Diem of S. Vietnam toppled by U.S.-approved coup; ..
1963... President Kennedy assassinated
MLK
1964 President Johnson announces war on poverty; Freedom summer vote registration campaign in Mississippi; Civil Rights Act passed; VISTA established; Berkeley Free Speech Movement; Gulf of Tonkin...
1964...Resolution passed; U.S. begins bombing of N. Vietnam; Johnson elected President
1965 Medicare funding begins; Race riots in Watts; Malcolm X assassinated; American combat troops sent to Vietnam
1965
Malcolm X
1966 National Organization for Women (NOW) formed
19661967 Race riots in Detroit and Newark; Massive antiwar protest in Washington, D.C.; Israel, Arab neighbors fight Six-Day War
19671968 Viet Cong launch Tet Offensive; Dr. MLK assassinated; Robert Kennedy assassinated; Protests at Chicago Democratic Convention; Nixon elected President
19681969 Woodstock festival; Apollo 11 crew lands on the moon
1969
Neil Armstrong
Buzz Aldrin
1970 U.S. invades Cambodia; Kent State Massacre
19701972 Nixon visits People’s Republic of China; Détente begins with Soviet Union; SALT I Treaty signed with Soviet Union
1972Richard Nixon
Watergate, Conservatism’s Rise, and Post-Cold War Challenges (1972-2005)
Approx. 1972 - 2005
1972 Watergate break-in occurs at Democratic Headquarters; Nixon defeats McGovern for presidency.
June 17, 19721973 U.S., N. Vietnam sign Paris Peace Accords; Roe v. Wade expands abortion rights; Yom Kippur War in Israel; Vice-President Agnew resigns in disgrace
19731974 Impeachment proceedings against Nixon; U.S. v. Richard Nixon - tapes must be turned over; Nixon resigns; V.P. Ford succeeds him; Ford pardons Nixon
1974
Richard Nixon
1975 U.S. abandons S. Vietnam as it falls to N. Vietnam
19751978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt
19781979 U.S. and China establish diplomatic relations; Iran deposes shah; Iran militants capture U.S. embassy and take hostages; Soviet Union invades Afghanistan; Three-Mile Island nuclear accident; ...
1979...Sandinistas overthrow Somoza in Nicaragua
1980 U.S. boycotts Moscow Olympics; Reagan elected president
1980
Ronald Reagan
1981 Iran releases hostages; Reagan breaks air traffic controller strike; Sandra Day O’Connor named first female Supreme Court justice; AIDS epidemic reaches U.S
19811982 241 Marines killed in Lebanon; U.S. invades Grenada
19821986 Iran-Contra affair; Challenger space shuttle explodes after takeoff
19861989 Exxon Valdez runs aground in Alaska; Students begin pro-democracy demonstrations in China; Berlin Wall falls
1989
1990 Saddam Hussein of Iraq invades Kuwait
1990Saddam Hussein
1991 Operation Desert Storm ends Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait; Soviet Union breaks up as Cold War ends
19911992 Los Angeles riots follow Rodney King verdict; Clinton elected president
1992
Rodney King
1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) approved
19931995 U.S., NATO forces enforce peace in Bosnia
19951999 Clinton acquitted following House impeachment
1999
Bill Clinton
2000 George W. Bush defeats Gore in disputed election
2000
George W Bush